As when the labouring Sun hath wrought his track The icy ocean cracks, the frozen pole To reach that place whence first it took its fire. Whose earthly fumes choke my devout aspires! SECT. XXXIII.-Therefore, for spirits, I am so far from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole countries, but particular persons, have their tutelary and guardian angels. It is not a new opinion of the church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato :9 there is no heresy in it: and if not manifestly defined in Scripture, yet it is an opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a man's life; and would serve as an hypothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common philosophy affordeth no solution. Now, if you demand my opinion and metaphysicks of their natures, I confess them very shallow; most of them in a negative way, like that of God; or in a comparative, between ourselves and fellow-creatures : for there is in this universe a stair, or manifest scale, of creatures, rising not disorderly, or in confusion, but with a comely method and proportion. Between creatures of mere existence and things of life there is a large dispro 6.... December.] Insert, from Edts. 1642 and MSS. W. & R., these lines: Keep still in my Horizon, for, to me, 'T is not the Sun, that makes the day, but thee!-Ed. 7. ... humble] Edts. 1642 and MSS. W. & R. read, heavenly.-Ed. 8 but an old one] These words .... are omitted in MSS. W. & R.-Ed. 9 It is not a new opinion of the church of Rome, &c.] This appears by Apuleius, a Platonist, in his book De Deo Socratis, and elsewhere. See Mede's Apos tasie of the Latter Times; where, out of this and other authors, you shall see collected all the learning de Geniis.—K. : portion of nature: between plants and animals,' or creatures of sense, a wider difference: between them and man, a far greater and if the proportion hold on, between man and angels there should be yet a greater. We do not comprehend their natures, who retain the first definition of Porphyry ;* and distinguish them from ourselves by immortality: for, before his fall, man also was immortal: yet must we needs affirm that he had a different essence from the angels. Having, therefore, no certain knowledge of their nature, 't is no bad method of the schools, whatsoever perfection we find obscurely in ourselves, in a more complete and absolute way to ascribe unto them. I believe they have an extemporary knowledge, and, upon the first motion of their reason, do what we cannot without study or deliberation: that they know things by their forms, and define, by specifical difference, what we describe by accidents and properties: and therefore probabilities to us may be demonstrations unto them that they have knowledge not only of the specifical, but numerical,2 forms of individuals, and understand by what reserved difference each single hypostatis (besides the relation to its species) becomes its numerical self: that, as the soul hath a power to move the body it informs, so there's a faculty to move any, though inform none: ours upon restraint of time, place, and distance: but that invisible hand that conveyed Habakkuk to the lion's den, or Philip to Azotus, infringeth this rule, and hath a secret conveyance, wherewith mortality is not acquainted. If they have that intuitive knowledge, whereby, as in reflection, they behold the thoughts of one another, I cannot peremptorily deny but they know a great part of ours. They that, to refute the invocation of saints, have denied that they have any knowledge of our affairs below, have proceeded too far, and must pardon my opinion, till I can thoroughly answer that piece of Scripture, "At the conversion of a sinner, the angels in heaven rejoice." I cannot, with those in that great father,' securely interpret the work of the first day, fiat lux, to the creation of angels; though I confess there is not any creature that hath so near a glimpse of their nature as light in the sun and elements: we style it a bare accident; but, where it subsists alone, 't is a spiritual substance, and may be an angel:6 in brief, conceive light invisible, and that is a spirit. SECT. XXXIV. These are certainly the magisterial and masterpieces of the Creator; the flower, or, as we may say, the best part of nothing; actually existing, what we are but in hopes, and probability. We are only that amphibious piece, between a corporeal and a spiritual essence; that middle form, that links those two together, and makes good the method of God and nature, that jumps not from extremes, but unites the incompatible distances by some middle and participating natures. That we are the breath and similitude of God, it is indisputable, and upon record of Holy Scripture: but to call ourselves a microcosm, or little world, I thought it only a pleasant trope of rhetorick, till my near judgement and second thoughts told me there was a real truth therein. For, first we are a rude mass, and in the rank of creatures which only are, and have a dull kind of being, not yet privileged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits: running on, in one mysterious nature, those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures, not only of the world, but of the universe. Thus is man that9 great and true amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live, not only like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds; for though there be but one [world]1 to sense, there 4 I cannot, with those, &c.] Alluding probably to St. Augustine; De Civit. Dei, lib, xi, cap. 9, 19, 32. Keck, however, as well as the French translator, considers the allusion to refer rather to St. Chrysostom, in his Homily on Genesis. All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, "with that great Father."-Ed. 5 we style it a bare accident;] MSS. W. & W. 2 read, "while we style it, &c." Edts. 1642 read, "while we style a bare accident."-Ed. 6 where it subsists alone, 't is, &c.] VOL. II. Epicurus was of this opinion; also St. Au- Vide Rob. Flud. in Historia Microcos- 7 Creator;] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, creature.-Ed. 8 that] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, the.-Ed. 9 Thus is man that] Edts. 1642 read, "this is man the...."-Ed. 1 [world] So in all the MSS.-Ed. E angel 2 are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible; whereof Moses seems to have left description, and of the other so obscurely, that some parts thereof are yet in controversy. And truly, for the first chapters of Genesis, I must confess a great deal of obscurity; though divines have, to the power of human reason, endeavoured to make all go in a literal meaning, yet those allegorical interpretations are also probable, and perhaps the mystical method of Moses, bred up in the hieroglyphical schools of the Egyptians.3 SECT. XXXV. Now for that immaterial world, methinks we need not wander so far as the first moveable; for, even in this material fabrick, the spirits walk as freely exempt from the affections of time, place, and motion, as beyond the extremest circumference. Do but extract from the corpulency of bodies, or resolve things beyond their first matter, and you discover the habitation of angels; which if I call the ubiquitary and omnipresent essence of God, I hope I shall not offend divinity: for, before the creation of the world, God was really all things. For the angels he created no new world, or determinate mansion, and therefore they are every where where is his essence, and do live, at a distance even, in himself. That God made all things for man, is in some sense true; yet, not so far as to subordinate the creation of those purer creatures unto ours; though, as ministering spirits, they do, and are willing to fulfil, the will of God in these lower and sublunary affairs of man. God made all things for himself; and it is impossible he should make them for any other end than his own 8 It was a rule among the Jewish preceptors that their disciples should not read the first chapter of Genesis, the Canticles of Solomon, nor the latter part of Ezekiel, till they were thirty years old.-Ed. 1736. 4 first moveable;] primum mobile.-M. 5 exempt from the affection of, &c.] In the sense of not affected by -Ed. 6 extract] abstract, in MS. W.-Ed. 7 the habitation of angels;] De illorum loco, aut habitatione. Vid. Maldonat. De Angelis, c. 16.—M. 8 That God made, &c.] Sunt qui ad probandum eos (spiritus) simul cum orbe condito creatos esse, statuunt hominum causa creatos. V Maldonati in Tract. de Angel. c. 3.-M. glory it is all he can receive, and all that is without himself. For, honour being an external adjunct, and in the honourer rather than in the person honoured, it was necessary to make a creature, from whom he might receive this homage: and that is, in the other world, angels, in this, man; which when we neglect, we forget the very end of our creation, and may justly provoke God, not only to repent that he hath made the world, but that he hath sworn he would not destroy it. That there is but one world, is a conclusion of faith; Aristotle with all his philosophy hath not been able to prove it:9 and as weakly that the world was eternal; that dispute much troubled the pen of the ancient philosophers, but Moses decided that question, and all is salved with the new term of a creation,that is, a production of something out of nothing. And what is that?-whatsoever1 is opposite to something; or, more exactly, that which is truly contrary unto God: for he only is; all others have an existence with dependency, and are something but by a distinction.3 And herein is divinity conformant unto philosophy, and not only generation founded on contrarieties, but also creation. God, being all things, is contrary unto nothing; out of which were made all things, and so nothing became something, and omneity informed⭑* nullity into an essence.5 SECT. XXXVI. The whole creation is a mystery, and par 9 Aristotle, &c.] Docet tamen ille, plures haud esse mundos. Vid. lib. i, De Cælo, c. 8, 9.-M. 1 and what is that ?-Whatsoever, &c.] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, " and that is whatsoever, &c."-Ed. ... 2 dependency,] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, depending.—Ed. 3 by a distinction.] MSS. W. & R. and Edts. 1642 read," by distinction." The rest of the section is omitted, in these and in MS. W. 2.-Ed. 4 informed] In the sense of animated. -Ed. 5 God, being all things, &c.] The following remarks on this passage have been pointed out to me, by my obliging friend, E. H. Barker, Esq. of Thetford. "That celebrated philosopher, shall I call him, or atheist? who said that the assemblage of all existence constituted the divine essence, who would have us to consider all corporeal beings as the body of the divinity, published a great extravagance, if he meant that the divine essence consisted of this assemblage. But there is a very just sense, in which it may be said that the whole universe is the body of the Deity. As I call this portion of matter my body, which I move, act, and direct as I please, so God actuates by his will every part of the universe-he obscures the sun-he calms the winds-he commands the sea. But this very notion excludes all corporeity from God, and proves that God is a spirit. If God sometimes represents himself with feet, with hands, with eyes, he means in the portraits rather to give to us emblems of his attributes, than images (properly speaking) of any parts, which he possesseth: therefore when he attributes these to himself, he gives to them so vast an extent, that we easily perceive that they are not to be grossly understood. Hath he hands? They are hands, which 'weigh |