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than wicked angels, by so much more passive must they be to their power, and consequently be so much more liable to be vexed and tormented by them and since in all probability the disproportion which nature hath made between the power of angels and souls is far greater than that which sin hath made between the power of one angel and another, we may reasonably conclude, that wicked souls are far more impressible by the power of wicked angels, than wicked angels are by the power of good angels; and therefore, since the good angels can make such violent impressions upon the wicked ones as they are not able to endure, but are still forced to fly before them, as oft as they encounter them, what intolerable impressions can wicked angels make upon wicked souls, when they are abandoned by God to their malice and fury! for though our souls are no more impressible by corporeal action than the beams of the sun are by the blows of a hammer, yet that they can feel the force of spiritual action we find by every day's experience: for so a thought, which is a spiritual action, if it be very horrible or dismal, doth as sensibly pain and aggrieve our souls as the most exquisite corporeal torment can our bodies. Now there is no doubt but evil spirits can suggest preternatural horrors to our minds, and repeat and urge them with such importunity and vehemence, as to render them most exquisitely painful and dolorous: of the truth of which we have a woful example in that miserable wretch Francis Spira, who, upon that woful breach he made in his conscience by renouncing his religion, notwithstanding he had received several kind admonitions from heaven to the contrary, was forsaken of God,

and delivered up alive into the hands of those dire tormentors of souls; whereupon, though he had not the least symptom of bodily melancholy, he was immediately seized with such an inexpressible agony of mind, as amazed his physicians, astonished his friends, and struck terror into all that beheld him; for he was so near to the condition of a damned spirit, that he verily believed hell itself was more tolerable than those invisible lashes that his soul endured without any intermission; and therefore he often wished that he were in hell, and as often attempted to despatch himself thither, in hope to find sanctuary there from those direful thoughts which continually preyed upon his soul. Now that these horrors were inflicted on him by a diabolical suggestion is evident, both by the impenetrable hardness and obstinacy of his mind against all the motives of repentance that accompanied them, and by the horrible blasphemies they frequently extorted from him. And if now in this life they have so much power to torment our minds, whenever God thinks it meet to let them loose upon us, what will they have hereafter, when our wretched spirits shall be utterly abandoned to their mercy, and they shall have a free scope to exert their fury on us, and glut their hungry malice with our torment and vexation! And since it is evident they do not want power, we may certainly conclude, even from that natural malignity that is in the temper of a devil, they do not want will, to plague and torture us in the other world. And this will and power of theirs our Saviour makes use of as the common executioner of his vengeance upon incorrigible sinners in the other life: for as soon as ever a wicked soul departs from its body, it is imme

diately consigned into the hands of those diabolical furies, who, like so many hungry hounds, seize it with infinite greediness, and fall a tearing and worrying it with horrible suggestions without any pause or intermission; and by continually recording its sins to it, and reproaching it with the folly of them, and putting it in mind of that dismal eternal futurity it must suffer for them, do incessantly sting and vex it with swarms of dire reflections and tormenting thoughts, which are the only instruments of torment that can fasten upon a soul. And hence, in Matth. xviii. 34. the devils, to whom the wicked servant was delivered up by his master for his cruelty toward his fellow-servant, are called tormentors, as being the ministers of our Saviour's just vengeance upon wicked and incorrigible offenders.

And thus having shewn at large, that the good and bad angels are the ministers of Christ, and wherein their ministry to him consists, I proceed to

the

III. Third sort of the ministers of Christ's kingdom, viz. the kings and governors of the world: for though there are many infidel kings in the world that know not Christ, and that never submitted themselves to his empire, but instead of that do openly defy and persecute his holy religion, yet these of right are subject to him, though in fact they are enslaved to the Devil, and he hath the disposal of their crowns and the command of their power, and doth actually employ and use it, even as he doth the power of the devils, in the prosecution of the righteous ends of his government. And though too many of those kings who, by their visible profession of Christianity, have actually submit

ted themselves to the sceptre of Christ, have yet, together with Christianity, espoused the interest of sundry antichristian principles, in pursuance of which they have been as inveterate enemies and persecutors of the truth as it is in Jesus, as any of the heathen kings or emperors; yet these also, notwithstanding their maleadministration, are the subjects and ministers of our Saviour; and it is by his authority and commission that they reign, and by his omnipotent providence that all their wicked de-signs and actions are overruled to gracious ends and purposes; so that all the sovereign powers of the earth are subjected by God to the dominion of our Saviour; and in their respective kingdoms and empires are only his substitutes and vicegerents: for so we are told, not only that all judgment is committed to him, and that all power is committed to him in heaven and earth; and that he is heir of all things, and hath power over all flesh; but also that he is King of kings, and Lord of lords, the only Potentate, the Head of all principality and power, and the Prince of all the kings of the earth; and so the fathers of the council of Ari-. minum tell Constantius the Arian emperor, that it was by Christ's donation that he held his empire, δι ̓ οὗ [Χριστοῦ] σοι καὶ τὸ βασιλεύειν οὕτως ὑπῆρξεν, ὡς καὶ τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς οἰκουμένης κρατεῖν: By him, i. e. Christ, thou art appointed to reign over all the world. Upon which account Liberius advises him, Mỳ μáxov πρὸς τὸν δεδωκότα σοι τὴν ἀρχὴν ταύτην, μὴ ἀντ ̓ εὐχαριστίας ảσeßýons eis avtov, Do not fight against Christ, who hath bestowed his empire upon thee; do not render him impiety instead of gratitude. And to the same purpose Athanasius tells us, Λαμβάνων οὖν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸν

θρόνον, μετέστησεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἔδωκε τοῖς ἁγίοις χριστιανῶν βασιλεῦσιν ἐπαναστρέψαι τούτους ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Ἰακώβ: i. e. That Christ having received the throne, hath translated it from heathen to holy Christian kings, to return them back to the house of Jacob. So that both from scripture and the current doctrine of the primitive church, it is evident that all the sovereign powers upon earth are subjected to our Saviour, and are only the ministers and viceroys of his universal kingdom.

But for the farther prosecution of this argument, I shall shew, in the first place, that by this their subjection to Christ they are not deprived of any natural right of their sovereignty; and secondly, that they are obliged by it to certain ministries in the kingdom of Christ.

First, That by their subjection they are not deprived of any natural right of their sovereignty; for when our Saviour pronounced the sentence, Give unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, he thereby renewed the patent of sovereign powers, and reinvested them in all the natural rights of their sovereignty, which doubtless are included in the things that are Cæsar's: for upon the Pharisees asking him that captious question, Is it lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar? he doth not answer, Yes, it is lawful; which yet had been a sufficient reply to their question; but calls for a tribute penny, and having asked them whose image and superscription that was upon it, and being answered, Cæsar's; he returns them an answer much larger than their question, Give unto Cæsar the things that are Caesar's: i. e. It is certain that you are obliged, not only to pay tribute to Cæsar, but also to render him whatever

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