and peopled by the omnipotent Maker, in a manner suited to his own glory, and with such inhabitants as are spirituous, invisible, and therefore perfectly proper to the place?

I must needs say, it is much more rational to suggest this to be, than to bring out a species of human bodies to live in the intense heat of Mercury, or the acute cold of Jupiter and Saturn. The latter is agreeable to the general understanding we all have of spirituous beings: we are well assured there are some always there, and that they can very well subsist there; that the place is suitable to them, and that there are spirits of some kind or other; and why not such as we suggest?

It remains then only to examine what communication these spirits have with us, whether they are or are not able to hold conversation with us, and whether they really do converse familiarly with us, yea or no?

If it should be granted that there are such spirits in being, and that they pass and repass, exist, and have egress and regress there; that they inhabit, as a certain bombastic author has it,

Through all the liquid mazes of the sky;

I say, if this should be granted, then it remains that here is a fourth species that may assume shapes; for spirits may do that, and may appear among us, may converse with our embodied spirits, and from those we may receive abundance of additional intelligence from the world of spirits, whether by dream, vision, appearance, or any superior way, such as to them in their great knowledge of things shall seem meet. To speak as distinctly of this nice part as I can, admit me to explain myself a little.

If we grant that spirit, though in visible in

itself, may assume shape, may vest itself so with flesh and blood, that is seemingly, so as to form an appearance, then all spirit may do it; since we have no rule given us by which we may distinguish spirits one from another, I mean as to their actings in the capacity of spirits: we may indeed, as I have said already, distinguish them by the effect, that is to say, by the errand they come on, and by the manner of their operations, as whether they are good or evil spirits; but not by their nature as spirit. The Devil is as really a spirit, though a degenerated, fallen, and evil spirit, I say, he is as much a spirit to all the intents and purposes of a spirit that we are capable to judge of, as an angel; and he is called the evil spirit; he has invisibility and multipresence, as a spirit has; he can appear though the doors be shut; and go out, though bolted and barred in; no prison can hold him, but his last eternal dungeon; no chain can bind him, but the chains fastened on him by Heaven, and the angel of the bottomless pit; no engine or human art can wound him; in short, he is neither to be seen, felt, heard, or understood, unless he pleases; and he can make himself be both seen and heard too if he pleases; for he can assume the shape and appearance of man or beast, and in these shapes and appearances can make himself visible to us, terrify and affright us, converse in a friendly or in a frightful manner with us, as he thinks fit; he can be a companion and fellow-traveller in the day, an apparition and a horrible monster in the night: in a word, he can be among us, and act upon, and with us, visibly or invisibly, as he pleases, and as he finds for his purpose.

Now if he does, and can do thus, merely as he is a spirit, and by his spiritual nature, we have a great deal of reason to believe that all spirit may

do the same; or at least, I may ask, Why may not all spirit do the same? and if there are any kinds of spirit, as is not improbable, besides those we have hitherto conceived of, they may be reasonably supposed to be vested with the same powers, and may exert those powers in the same or a like

manner.

If any man asks me how I make out the probability of these differing species of spirits, I answer as above, by this, that it appears there are invisible operations and a secret converse carried on among men from the world of spirits, wherever that is, which cannot, at least to our understandings, be supposed to be the work either of those particular or proper angels which reside in heaven, or the infernal angels either; that these spirits, or if you please to call them, angels, appear and converse for good, and therefore may not be supposed to be the Devil or from the Devil. It is said, indeed, that they act by a visible kind of restraint, in doing good with a sort of an imperfection and manifest debility; so as sometimes to act, as it were, to no purpose, being not able to make the good they aim at effectual, and therefore cannot be from heaven, the fountain of good; who, as he is good, so he is infinitely able to do all the good that he appears willing to do: but this, I think, confirms rather than confutes my opinion; for, it proves them to be sent, and under particular commission; it only suggests that it is probable there are spirits who may be more confined and restrained in their power of acting, some than others, and this is not at all inconsistent with the nature of the thing.

The great, and perhaps the strongest argument which our learned men produce for the credit of their new philosophy is, that by this they can the better solve the difficulties of several other pheno

mena, which before were hardly intelligible, or at least which they could not account for any other way.

In like manner, though the certainty of my suggestion cannot be arrived to, or supposing it cannot, and that at best it is but a speculation, scarcely can be called an hypothesis, and that no evidence can be given for it, yet this must be said of it, that by this notion we may solve several other difficulties which we cannot understand any other way: such

as,

First, How it is, and from whence, or by whose agency we frequently receive such kind notions of good or evil as it is certain we do, and yet without receiving any further assistance, which, perhaps, it is not in the power of the kind informer to give us, either for the avoiding or embracing the evil or the good which they give us notice of?

What can it be that communicates these approaching distant things, and which it is so much our interest and concern to know? If it were an evil spirit, I mean a devil, as I have said above, he would never concern himself so much for our benefit, seeing he is known to will our ruin to the utmost of his endeavour, and to wish us to fall into all possible mischief and disaster.

On the other hand, it cannot be from heaven or from the angels; for the works of God are all, like himself, perfect, and he would not so far dishonour his messengers, as to allow them, nay, to send them (for they could never come unsent) to give us notice of evil, and yet take it out of our power to avoid it; or to foretell good things at hand, and then give us no power to embrace them, or to lay hold of them; and it would neither consist with the infinite goodness, or with the infinite justice, to do thus by his creatures.

Besides, it is a kind of incongruous acting, un

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worthy of the supreme power, unworthy an angel's appearing; it rather shows that it is the product of some intelligent being, who, though it means good, and has a beneficent nature that would contribute to our safety and prosperity if it could, yet is under some limitations of its actings, is not able to proceed in the good it has attempted, that can just do us so much service as to give us notice of what may await us behind the dark curtain of futurity; but has no power to go any further, or to give any assistance to us in pursuing proper methods for our deliverance; no, not so much as to give directions, much less powers to act; as a child discovering a fire begun in a house, may cry out and alarm the family, but is able to do no more, no, not so much as to tell them whereabout it is, or which way they shall go about to escape from it, much less to quench or prevent it.

These imperfect notices, I say, seem to proceed from some good and kind being, which is near us, existing, though out of our knowledge, yet not so remote but that it is in a condition to see and know things good or evil, which, though approaching, is yet out of our view, and which, if we could take the silent hint, it might be infinitely for our advantage; but is able to do no more.

Now, if such notices, whether to the mind by dreams when asleep, or by waking impulse, or by voice, or apparition; if they were from heaven, they would never be so imperfect and unassisting; we cannot suppose Heaven would concern itself to give us notices of danger impending, of enemies lying in wait, of mischiefs approaching, and would then leave us to fall into the snare by an unavoidable necessity.

As to what these spirits therefore are, where they reside, what circumstances they are in, and how they have access to our understandings, I ac