NSTRATION are
things we must not, in these matters, pretend to. By the colour, figure,
taste, and smell, and other sensible qualities, we have as clear and
distinct ideas of sage and hemlock, as we have of a circle and a
triangle: but having no ideas of the particular primary qualities of the
minute parts of either of these plants, nor of other bodies which we
would apply them to, we cannot tell what effects they will produce; nor
when we see those effects can we so much as guess, much less know, their
manner of production. Thus, having no ideas of the particular mechanical
affections of the minute parts of bodies that are within our view and
reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and operations:
and of bodies more remote we are yet more ignorant, not knowing so much
as their very outward shapes, or the sensible and grosser parts of their
constitutions.

27. Much less a science of unembodied Spirits.

This at first will show us how disproportionate our knowledge is to
the whole extent even of material beings; to which if we add the
consideration of that infinite number of spirits that may be, and
probably are, which are yet more remote from our knowledge, whereof we
have no cognizance, nor can frame to ourselves any distinct ideas of
their several ranks and sorts, we shall find this cause of ignorance
conceal from us, in an impenetrable obscurity, almost the whole
intellectual world; a greater certainly, and more beautiful world than
the material. For, bating some very few, and those, if I may so call
them, superficial ideas of spirit, which by reflection we get of our
own, and from thence the best we can collect of the Father of all
spirits, the eternal independent Author of them, and us, and all things,
we have no certain information, so much as of the existence of other
spirits, but by revelation. Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our
discovery; and all those intelligences, whereof it is likely there are
more orders than of corporeal substances, are things whereof our natural
faculties give us no certain account at all. That there are minds and
thinking beings in other men as well as himself, every man has a reason,
from their words and actions, to be satisfied: and the knowledge of his
own mind cannot suffer a man that considers, to be ignorant that there
is a God. But that there are degrees of spiritual beings between us and
the great God, who is there, that, by his own search and ability,