And I must confess I know not why it should be thought unlawful to celebrate the memorial of the life or martyrdom of any extraordinary servant of God, by an anniversary solemnity, on a set appropriate day: it is but to keep the thankful remembrance of God's mercy to the church; and sure the life and death of such is not the smallest of the church's mercies here on earth. If it be lawful on November the fifth to celebrate the memorial of our deliverance from the powder-plot, I know not why it should be thought unlawful to do the like in this case also: provided, 1. That it be not terminated in the honour of a saint, but of the God of saints, for giving so great a mercy to his church. 2. That it be not to honour a saint merely as a saint, but to some extraordinary eminent saints: otherwise all that go to heaven must have festivals kept in remembrance of them; and so we might have a million for a day. 3. That it be not made equal with the Lord's day, but kept in such a subordination to that day, as the life or death of saints is of inferior and subordinate respect to the work of Christ in man's redemption. 4. And if it be kept in a spiritual manner, to invite men to imitate the holiness of the saints, and the constancy of the martyrs, and not to encourage sensuality and sloth.
[185] I have said more of this since, in my "Life of Faith."
[186] Heb. xi. 1.
[187] Concil. Later. sub Innoc. III. Can. 3.
[188] Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. i. 2; xiv. 33; Eph. i. 8; ii. 19; iv. 12; v. 3; Rom. xv. 25, 26.
[189] 1 Cor. iv. 12, 13: Lam. iii. 45.
CHAPTER XI.
DIRECTIONS ABOUT OUR COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY ANGELS.
Direct. I. Be satisfied in knowing so much of angels as God in nature and Scripture hath revealed; but presume not to inquire further, much less to determine of unrevealed things. That there are angels, and that they are holy spirits, is past dispute; but what number they are, and of how many worlds, and of what orders and different dignities and degrees, and when they were created, and what locality belongeth to them, and how far they excel or differ from the souls of men, these and many other such unnecessary questions, neither nature nor Scripture will teach us how infallibly to resolve. Almost all the heretics in the first ages of the church, did make their doctrines of angels the first and chief part of their heresies; arrogantly intruding into unrevealed things, and boasting of their acquaintance with the orders and inhabitants of the higher world. These being risen in the apostles' days, occasioned Paul to say, Col. ii. 18, "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."
Direct. II. Understand so much of the ministry of angels as God hath revealed, and so far take notice of your communion with them; but affect not any other sort of communion.[190]