CONVERSE WITH ANGELS AND SPIRITS.
DR. RICHARD NEPIER was a person of great abstinence, innocence, and piety: he spent every day two hours in family prayer: when a patient or querent came to him, he presently went to his closet to pray: and told to admiration the recovery, or death of the patient. It appears by his papers, that he did converse with the angel Raphael, who gave him the responses.
Elias Ashmole, Esq. had all his papers, where is contained all his practice for about fifty years; which he, Mr. Ashmole, carefully bound up, according to the year of our Lord, in —- volumes in folio; which are now reposited in the library of the Musseum in Oxford. Before the responses stands this mark, viz. R. Ris. which Mr. Ashmole said was Responsum Raphaelis.
In these papers are many excellent medicines, or receipts for several diseases that his patients had; and before some of them is the aforesaid mark, Mr. Ashmole took the pains to transcribe fairly with his own hand all the receipts; they are about a quire and a half of paper in folio, which since his death were bought of his relict by E. W. Esq. E.S.S.
The angel told him if the patient were curable or incurable.
There are also several other queries to the angel, as to religion, transubstantiation, &c. which I have forgot. I remember one is, whether the good spirits or the bad be most in number ? R. Ris. The good.
It is to be found there, that he told John Prideaux, D.D. anno 1621, that twenty years hence (1641) he would be a bishop, and he was so, sc. bishop of Worcester. '
R. Ris. did resolve him, that Mr. Booth, of —- in Cheshire, should have a son that should inherit three years hence, [sc. Sir George Booth, the first Lord Delamere] viz. from 1619, Sir George Booth aforesaid was born, December 18, anno 1622.
This I extracted out of Dr. Nepier's Original Diary, then in possession of Mr. Ashmole.
When E. W. Esq. was about eight years old, he was troubled with the worms. His grand father carried him to Dr. Nepier at Lynford. Mr. E. W. peeped in at the closet at the end of the gallery, and saw him upon his knees at prayer. The Doctor told Sir Francis that at fourteen years old his grandson would be freed from that distemper; and he was so. The medicine he prescribed was, to drink a little draught of Muscadine in the morning. 'Twas about 1625.
It is impossible that the prediction of Sir George Booth's birth could be found any other way, but by angelical revelation.
This Dr. Richard Nepier was rector of Lynford in Bucks, and did practise physic; but gave most to the poor that he got by it. 'Tis certain he told his own death to a day and hour; he died praying upon his knees, being of a very great age, April 1, 1634. He was nearly related to the learned Lord Nepier, Baron of M— in Scotland: I have forgot whether his brother. His knees were horny with frequent praying. He left his estate to Sir Richard Nepier, M.D. of the college of physicians, London, from whom Mr. Ashmole had the Doctor's picture, now in the Musseum.
Dr. Richard Nepier, rector of Lynford, was a good astrologer, and so was Mr. Marsh of Dunstable; but Mr. Marsh did seriously confess to a friend of mine, that astrology was but the countenance; and that he did his business by the help of the blessed spirits; with whom only men of great piety, humility and charity, could be acquainted; and such a one he was. He was an hundred years old when my friend was with him; and yet did understand himself very well.
At Ashbridge in Buckinghamshire, near Berkhamsted, was a monastery, (now in the possession of the Earl of Bridgewater) where are excellent good old paintings still to be seen. In this monastery was found an old manuscript entitled Johannes de Rupescissa, since printed, (or part of it) a chymical book, wherein are many receipts; among others, to free a house haunted with evil spirits, by fumes: Mr. Marsh had it, and did cure houses so haunted by it. Ovid in his festivals hath something like it. See "Thesaurus Exorcismorum" writ by —- e Societate Jesu. Oct. Wherein are several high physical and medicinal things.
Good spirits are delighted and allured by sweet perfumes, as rich gums, frankincense, salts, &c. which was the reason that priests of the Gentiles, and also the Christians used them in their temples, and sacrifices: and on the contrary, evil spirits are pleased and allured and called up by suffumigations of Henbane, &c. stinking smells, &c. which the witches do use in their conjuration. Toads (saturnine animals) are killed by putting of salt upon them; I have seen the experiment. Magical writers say, that cedar-wood drives away evil spirits; it was, and is much used in magnificent temples.
Plinii Natural Hist. lib. 12, cap. 14. "Alexandra Magno in pueritia sine parsimonia thura ingerenti aris, paedagogus Leonides dixerat, ut illo modo, cum devicisset thuriferas gentes, supplicaret. At ille Arabia potitus; thure onustam navim misit ei, large exhortatus, ut Deos adoraret".
i. e. As Alexander the great, in the time of his minority, was heaping incense upon the altars, even to a degree of religious prodigality, his preceptor Leonidas told him, that he should prefer his supplications to the Gods after that free manner, when he had subdued the nations, whose produce was frankincense. And he, as soon as he had made himself master of Arabia, sent him accordingly a ship laden with incense, and with it ample exhortations to adore the Gods.
One says, why should one think the intellectual world less peopled than the material? Pliny, in his Natural History, lib. —- cap. - tells us that in Africa, do sometimes appear multitudes of aerial shapes, which suddenly vanish. Mr. Richard Baxter in his Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, (the last book he writ, not long before his death) hath a discourse of angels; and wonders they are so little taken notice of; he hath counted in Newman's Concordance of the Bible, the word angel, in above three hundred places.
Hugo Grotius in his Annotations on Jonah, speaking of Niniveh, says, that history has divers examples, that after a great and hearty humiliation, God delivered cities, &c. from their calamities. Some did observe in the late civil wars, that the Parliament, after a humiliation, did shortly obtain a victory. And as a three-fold chord is not easily broken, so when a whole nation shall conjoin in fervent prayer and supplication, it shall produce wonderful effects. William Laud, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in a sermon preached before the Parliament, about the beginning of the reign of King Charles I. affirms the power of prayer to be so great, that though there be a conjunction or opposition of Saturn or Mars, (as there was one of them then) it will overcome the malignity of it. In the life of Vavasor Powel, is a memorable account of the effect of fervent prayer, after an exceeding drought: and Mr. Baxter (in his book aforementioned) hath several instances of that kind, which see.
**St. Michael and all Angels.
The Collect.
0 everlasting God, who hast ordered and constituted the services of men and angels, after a wonderful manner: mercifully grant, that as thy holy angels always do thee service in Heaven: so by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.