not err if we say it is the hand of God.



ON ANGELS


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: there is
no heresy in it, and if not manifestly defined in Scripture, yet 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 solve many doubts, whereof
common philosophy affordeth no solution. Now, if you demand my opinion
and metaphysics 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 disproportion of nature; between
plants and animals and 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, it is thought
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
natures, it is no bad method of the schools, whatsoever perfection we
find obscurely in ourselves, in a more complete and absolute way to