Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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(2.) Secondly, He hath also an advantage for the executing of his designs, from that order, which from the fore-mentioned grounds we must be forced to conceive to be among devils. I know the bold determination of the order of angels by Dionysius is justly rejected, not only by Irenæus and Augustine,83 but also by the generality of protestants, who upon that and other grounds of like presumption do reject that author as not being the true Dionysius the Areopagite. Neither do some of our protestant authors, as Chamier and others, admit the government of angels to be monarchical, which supposition the papists would gladly make use of, as a foundation whereon to establish the universal headship of the pope, being a thing which Dionysius himself, as Chamier affirms, never dreamt of.84 Yet do none of these authors deny an order among the angels, but willingly grant it, as clearly implied from the term archangel used by Paul, 1 Thes. iv. 16,85 and from their being called God’s host or army, where order is necessary for the right management of their strength, and confusion the way to the ruin of their designs. The thing they dislike is, the bold and peremptory determination of the particular orders among them, and the assignment of the several charges, employments, and stations to each; which whosoever shall do, must needs be guilty of ‘intruding into things which he hath not seen.’86 It would upon the same score be a presumptuous folly to make such a determination of the several ranks and particular employments of devils. Yet this hindereth not, but with a warrantable sobriety we may believe in the general that there is an order among the devils. Not only do these expressions, ‘Beelzebub the prince of devils,’ ‘the devil and his angels,’ and in that they are called ‘principalities and powers,’ warrant us so to think, but the fore-mentioned considerations about the multitude of devils will force our reason to an assent: for if they must be many, because all mankind is sensible of their assaults, they must have also an order in the management of their temptations—without which their designs of cruelty and malice must, at least in great part, fall to the ground.87 Neither do I know well how those authors may be justly blamed, who proceed a little further in their suppositions, to tell us, as most probable,88 that these infernal spirits do share the world among them, and are allotted to several countries and places, as their own proper charge and jurisdiction; for what other interpretation those passages in Dan. x. 13 can receive I cannot see: the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstanding the angel one and twenty days; and his help in that opposition from Michael, cannot, if things be well weighed, be properly understood of Cambyses the son of Cyrus, or a contest with any man. However, if we let this go as a thing uncertain, because this interpretation is denied by some,89 yet that which is spoken of their order in the general, and the advantage these spirits have against us upon that consideration, seems to be past denial.