To reach that place whence first it took its fire.
These flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell,
Are not thy beams, but take their fire from hell.
Oh quench them all! and let thy Light divine
Be as the sun to this poor orb of mine!
And to thy sacred Spirit convert those fires,
Whose earthly fumes choke my devout aspires!"


Sect. 33.--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 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 meta-
physicks 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-
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