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
and angels there should be yet a greater. We do not
comprehend their natures, who retain the first definition
of Porphyry;<48> and distinguish them from ourselves by
immortality: for, before his fall, man also was im-
mortal: yet must we needs affirm that he had a different
essence from the angels. Having, therefore, no certain
knowledge of their nature, 'tis no bad method of the
schools, whatsoever perfection we find obscurely in our-
selves, in a more complete and absolute way to ascribe
unto them. I believe they have an extemporary know-
ledge, 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 speci-
fical difference what we describe by accidents and pro-
perties: and therefore probabilities to us may be
demonstrations unto them: that they have knowledge
not only of the specifical, but numerical, forms of in-
dividuals, 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 convey-
ance, wherewith mortality is not acquainted.
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