are they gard unto their fellow natures on
not allearth; and therefore believe that
of those many prodigies and ominous
As
al sharognofticks, which fore-run the
luhur the ruins of ftates, princes, and
salvaprivate perfons, are the charitable
premonitions of good angels, which
more carelefs enquiries term but
the effects of chance and nature.

abstract " worship paid to

iocable)

SECT. XXXII.

Now, befides thefe particular and divided fpirits, there may be (for Sought I know) an univerfal and common fpirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the hermetical philofophers; if there be a common nature that unites and ties the fcattered and divided individuals into one fpecies, why may there not be one that unites them all? However, I am sure there is a common fpirit that plays within us, yet makes no part of us; and that is

the

234 2.45.

the fpirit of God, the fire and seintillation of that noble and mighty effence, which is the life aud radical heat of fpirits, and thofe effences that know not the virtue of the fun; a fire quite contrary to the fire of hell: This is that gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and in fix days hatched the world; this is that irradiation that difpels the mifts of hell, the clouds of horror, fear, forrow, defpair; and preferves the region of the mind in ferenity: whofoever feels. not the warm gale and gentle ventilation of this fpirit, (though I feel his pulfe) I dare not fay he lives; for truly without this, to me there is no heat under the tropick; nor any light, though I dwelt in the body of the fun.

would run

as glitter in the Amuser

may

" Yet oft before his infant eyes
Such forme
with orient beams unborrowed of the
Graysode on the Progress of

As when the labouring Sun hath wrought his track,
Up to the top of lofty Cancer's back,

The icie ocean cracks, the frozen pole
Thaws with the heat of the celestial coal ;
So when thy abfent beams begin t' impart,
Again a folftice on my frozen heart,
My winter's o'er, my drooping Spirits fing,
And every part revives into a spring.
But if thy quickning beams a while decline,
And with their light blefs not this orb of mine,
A chilly froft furpriseth every member,,
And in the midft of June I feel December,
O how this earthly Temper doth debafe
The noble foul, in this her humble place!
Whofe winged nature ever doth aspire,
To reach that place whence firft it took its fire.
Thefe flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell,
Are not thy beams, but take their fire from Hell:
Q quench them all, and let thy light divine
Be as the Sun to this poor orb of mine.
And to thy facred Sprit convert thofe fires,
Whofe earthly fumes choak my devout afpires,

SECT,

SECT. XXXIII. Therefore, for fpirits I am fo far from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole countries, but particular perfons, 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; there is no herefy in it, and if not manifeftly defined in fcripture; yet it is an opinion of a good and wholesome ufe in the courfe and actions of a man's life, and would ferve as an hypothefis to folve many doubts, whereof common philofophy affordeth no folution: Now if you demand my opinion and metaphyficks of their natures, I confefs them very fhallow, 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

crea

creatures, rifing not diforderly, or in confufion, but with a comely method and proportion: Between creatures of meer existence, and things of life, there is a large difproportion of nature; between plants and animals, or creatures of fenfe, a wider difference; between them and man, a far greater and if the proportion hold on, between man and angels there fhould be yet a greater. Those do not comprehend their natures, who retain the first definition of Porphyry, and diftinguish them from ourfelves by immortality for before the fall man alfo was immortal; yet must we needs affirm, that he had a different effence from the angels: having therefore no certain knowledge of their natures, 'tis no bad method of the fchools, whatsoever perfection we find obfcurely in ourfelves, in a more compleat and abfolute way to afcribe unto them.