Fourthly, if may deserve our search, Whether Spirits have any settled form or shape. Angels are commonly pictured like good plump cherry-cheek'd Lads, Which is no wonder, the boldness of the same Artists not sticking to picture God Almighty in the shape of an old man. In both it is as it pleases the Painter. But this story seems rather to favour their opinion that say that Angels and separate Souls have no settled form but what they please to give themselves upon occasion, by the power of their own Phansy. Ficinus, as I remember, somewhere calls them Aereal Stars. And the good Genii seem to me to be as the benign Eyes of God running to and fro in the world, with love and pity beholding the innocent endeavours of harmless and single-hearted men, ever ready to doe them good and to help them.
What I conceive of separate Souls and Spirits, I cannot better express then I have already in my Poem, of the Præxistency of the Soul; which therefore will not be altogether impertinent to repeat in this place.
Like to a light fast lock'd in lanthorn dark,
Whereby by Night our wary steps we guide
In slabby streets, and dirty Chanels mark;
Some weaker rayes from the black top doe glide,
And flusher streams perhaps through th' horny side:
But when we've past the peril of the way,
Arrivd at home, and laid that case aside.
The naked light how clearly doth it ray,
And spread its joyful beams as bright as Summers day!
Even so the Soul in this contracted state,
Confin'd to these streight Instruments of Sense,
More dull and narrowly doth operate;
At this hole hears, the Sight must ray from thence,
Here tasts, there smells: But when she's gone from hence,
Like naked lamp she is one shining sphear,
And round about has perfect cognoscence
Whate're in her Horizon doth appear;
She is one Orb of Sense, all Eye, all aiery Eare.
And what I speak there of the condition of the Soul out of the Body, I think is easily applicable to other Genii or Spirits.
5. The fifth Enquiry may be, How these good Genii become serviceable to men for either heightning their Devotions, or inabling them to Prophesy; whether it can be by any other way then by desending into their Bodies, and possessing the Heart and Brain. For the Euchites, who affected the gift of Prophecy by familiarity with evil Spirits, did utterly obliterate in their Souls the πατρικὰ σύμβολα, the Principles of Goodness and Honesty (as you may see in Psellus περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων) that the evil Spirits might come into their Bodies, whom those sparks of Vertue, as they said, would drive away, but those be-
