THE ANTI-MATERIALIST; DENYING THE REALITY OF MATTER, AND VINDICATING THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRIT. BY JOHN DUDLEY, CLERK, AUTHOR OF NAOLOGY, &c. LONDON: GEORGE BELL, 186, FLEET STREET. LEICESTER: J. S. CROSSLEY. 1849. J. . CKOS8LET, PRINTER, LEICESTER. TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE BERKELEY, D. D. BISHOP OF CLOYNE, AUTHOR OF THE ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, TO WHOM THE HIGHEST AUTHORITIES OF HIS AGE ASCRIBED 8 "EVERY VIRTUE UNDER HEAVEN," THE FOLLOWING WORK IS DEDICATED BY HIS FAITHFUL DISCIPLE, THE AUTHOR. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue ii. v. 73. 4 f ? 4 ' ? r- JLoJ. VI i 'INTENTS. CHAPTER II. 8CBIPTUBAL EVIDENCES. The anti-material theory illustrates holy writ, which consequently must be true, 08 The Holy Trinity, 70 The Incarnation, 77 The humanity, 80 Of the spiritual world of angels, 82 Materiality not necessary to a state of probation, 85 Heaven and hell not material localities but spiritual conditions, 80 All the events are wrought by the agency 'of spiritual beings, 90 Good angels promote good, evil angels the ministers of evil in the present life, 92 How such agents may operate upon the human system, 100 Facts which prove that visible objects are not material, 102 That spiritual, not material substances, are cause of perception, proved from the language of holy writ, 109 The anti-material theory shows that all good is progressive, even in the Deity himself, 112 The doctrine of predestination explained on auti- material principles, 117 Of the necessity of a state of probation, 121 Of the freedom of the will, 124 Of divine grace, 131 Of intercession, 130 Of the spiritual state of departed spirits, 140 Of the vitality of creatures inferior to man, 143 Of brute animals, 145 The immortality of the vital spirit of animal-, 152 Proved by authorities from holy writ, 155 The transmigration of the vital spirit of animals, 159 Of the utility of these researches, 1G4. CHAPTER III. THE SPIRITUALITY OP MIRACLES. The truth of miracles denied or doubted, 100 Vindicated by the anti- material theory, 107 Of the Creation, 171 The miracle of the general deluge, 175 The miraculous plagues of Egypt, 182 The staying of the sun and n KM MI at the desire of Joshua was not a miracle, 191 Dreams are miracles, 194 Tlie miracle next to be wrought will be a resurrection of certain departed spirits, 2v, aion, 241 The abodes of the beatified spirits, 242 Their occupation, 245 The Saviour will be King and Mediator, 247 There will be a succession of ages or worlds, 249 Of the state of the]]damned, 251 Their punishment, 255 They are punished with a merciful intent, 262 Their punishment will be limited will have an end, 264 Part of future dura- tion will be divided into ages distinguished by peculiar modes of existence, 266 Perfection will ultimately be attained by all, 269 Even the damned spirits will attain to salvation, 270 Such result accords with the divine attributes, and is the great object of the creation, 273 Satan and his angels will be saved also, 274 may become angels of light, 275 The end of the last of the ages of ages, 277 The state of the world when " God is all in all," 279 Short revisal of the whole argument, 283 Remarks, 284 Conclusion, 285. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. IN a work entitled Naology, the Author of the present treatise undertook to answer the question, What was the origin of the practice of attaching towers and spires to Chris- tian Churches ? The enquiry necessary to this purpose directed the attention not only to the symbolical import of the whole fabric, but also of the several parts into which the fabric may be distinguished ; and farther, of all the ornaments usually introduced, and likewise the rites and ceremonies to which the several compartments were made subservient. The Christian Church was the substitute for the heathen temple, and often the temple was converted into a church. This made it necessary to survey not only the temples and sacred structures of all the most eminent heathen nations, but many of their rites also. The import of these rites was only to be discovered by a careful enquiry into those of earlier ages, extending even to such as were shown to have been practised by the first created man in the middle of the Garden of Eden, beneath the shade of the trees of life and of knowledge. These researches called into notice a great variety of forms, all alike subservient to the same effect and B 2 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. purpose. The largest trees, the highest mound or barrow, the altar, the pillar, the tower, and in later ages among, nations of advanced civilization the magnificent temple, and the Christian Church, these different structures all alike sug- gested to the contemplative worshipper important truths. The body of the structure signified the awful presence of the mighty God : the tower was significant of the eternal stability of the divine purposes and power ; the spire of the high pre- eminence of God in heaven above man on earth. The cross is a symbol which Christians very generally adopted as aptly significant of the redemption wrought by the death and sacrifice of the Saviour; the octangular font of baptism denotes the new world of the Redeemer, into which the baptized obtains admission on the performance of the sacra- mental rite. The same may be observed of the figures exhibited in churches. Paintings called portraits often give very different features to the same person, but are all equally efficient of the intended purpose: they suggest the same idea of the man and of his character. In truth the visible form is of so little importance, that it is a matter of the utmost indifference, be what it may : almost any form will suffice. The evil spirit, Satan, is differently represented and dif- ferently described in holy writ. He is a serpent ; a dragon, that is, a winged serpent ; and yet no one actually supposes, the author of the poem of Paradise Lost alone excepted, that Satan ever bore that form. Again, when exhibited either by the painter or the sculptor as a fallen angel, the features are distorted by malignity, and his person darkly hideous. Ignorance alone supposes that the person of this spirit bears such aspect. The idea of wicked malignity endowed with no contemptible portion of power is alone con- templated by the intelligent mind. The same must be said of the symbolical representations of Death and Time, so INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 3 common till of late years in all our churches. It were absurd to suppose that any portion of duration can possibly resemble the animal form of a bald old man, with a single lock of hair on his front and a scythe in hand ; or that death can be a skeleton, a system of bare bones. Again, representations of holy persons, the Saviour or his Apostles, whether by the statuary or the painter, though they be amply sufficient for the intended purpose, cannot be regarded as likenesses, so different are the forms under which they are often represented. The habits also in which they are clad are commonly altogether foreign to the habits actually worn by them when in life. Artists commonly represent both the Saviour and his Apostles clad in robes of consular dignity, such as were never worn by Jewish peasants and fishermen. The different forms may perhaps be all approved, for all equally serve to excite the feelings, of affec- tionate reverence which is due to the former, or of grateful respect due to the latter. If the figures produce such effect, the purpose of the exhibition is fully answered. It is a matter of the utmost indifference whether there be any likeness or not: if the proper sentiments be excited by the exhibition of the figure, all is accomplished that is desirable or desired. In truth, no form is absolutely required. The exhibition of even the name of the person or the subject intended is almost always sufficient for the intended purpose ; nay, indeed, the initial letters of the name of the personage, placed in situa- tions likely to produce the intended effect, suggest the idea of the name and thence of the person also, with a clearness and precision little if at all inferior to the most expressive signification of the intended object. These reflections on the form of the symbolical object led to the observation that the colour was likewise a matter of the utmost indifference, and the fancy of the painter was the only rale by which the use of that article is regulated. The material also of which the fonn might consist was 4 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. found, however various, to be alike efficient. Whether the image or statue were of clay, of wood, or metal, it mattered not ; the object was equally efficient of the intended purpose, and conveyed the same idea. All these facts led to the opinion that not only the visible object, but the material in which it might be wrought, was a matter of perfect indifference, for that the same effect might be pro- duced, the same ideas excited, by forms and substances widely different, and that it was absolutely independent on the form and figure of the thing exhibited. Enquiry showed that these doubts and these opinions were by no means new, however foreign to common notions; the same had been long entertained by persons of great ability and sound judgment. Bishop Berkeley gives in his Dialogues the following example illustrative of the little relation which the symbolical object often bears to the ideas it excites. a "In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters, but mediately or by means of these are suggested to my mind the notions of God, virtue, truth, or other tilings. That the letters are truly sensible things there is no doubt, but the things suggested to the mind by them bear no resemblance to the sign or figure used." The argument might be made stronger, if it were farther applied to the alphabets of different nations, or the words of different languages. Thus the Hebrew letters of Jehovah aptly designate the God supreme. The letters, though different in form, or the words, of different sound, all alike produce the same ideas. Again, it is usual in maps to signify the locality of a battle by the figure of a sword marked on the spot in the map where the battle was fought A battle and a sword are things bearing no resemblance to each other; but the figure seldom fails to convey the meaning, and excite the intended idea. Again, the figure of a pointed arrow is often used to Works of G. Berkeley, D.U. Bishop of Cloyne. Dial. i. 153. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 5 signify the direction of a stream of water, or of a current of wind. In these instances the figure used bears no resem- blance to the thing signified, but it conveys with certainty the intended idea. It is not denied that the same figure may excite different ideas, according to the knowledge of the subject; but with well-informed persons the ideas excited will seldom fail to be correct, whatever be the form of the symbolical object. The circumstance that just and correct ideas only will be produced, by the various figures or sym- bols, in minds well informed, is a matter of little importance. All that is contended for is this, that very different forms will all alike produce the same and right ideas in minds rightly prepared to receive them. The form and figure of the object by which ideas are excited or produced being thus unimportant, the substance or substratum must be unimportant likewise. It seems indifferent whether it be a substance called material, or whether it be a substance purely immaterial, a spiritual phasma or appearance. That there are such creatures is certain. God maketh his angels spirits, b and such beings are endowed with all the powers of vitality even more than man, though supposed not to be of a material body. Angels may become occasionally the objects of sense : whence it follows that matter is not necessary, but that phasmas purely immaterial and spiritual may be competent to the production of ideas of every kind. There being no apparent difference between ideas produced by spiritual phasmas or objects, and those said to be produced by material phasmas, suggested the suspicion that there are no material phasmas. The instances here adduced show most clearly and deci- dedly, that the figure or the character of the object which excites the idea is of little or rather of no importance as to the effect produced. These facts suggest the idea, that the impression made on the mind by external objects does not b Heb. i. 7. 6 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. depend upon form or substance : but if form or substance be not indispensably requisite to the effect, it became a question, What is the true means by which external objects produce ideas in the mind through the operation of the faculties of sense ? The answer usually given to this question by the man of science is this: Particles of matter are emitted from the sensible object, and these, acting upon the senses of the percipient, produce a consequent impression, and the in- tended effect. This scientific answer suggested the question, Whence comes it that the particles of matter are thus emitted from the substance thus made the object of sense? All metaphysicians concur in the opinion that matter is in itself utterly incapable of action, and is only then actively efficient when duly impelled by some external agent having the power of giving activity to the particles necessary to the proper action on the organs of sensation. Who is that ex- ternal agent, or what ? It cannot be a material agent ; for again, let it be observed, motion cannot be produced by, or commence in matter. The particles requisite to produce sensation are, according to the admission of scientists, so minute as to elude the senses of man, and are consequently utterly beyond his powers of control. Some other agent must be sought for. The distant objects capable of affect- ing the senses are those found within the boundary of the visible universe, the near are those extant in the point of microscopic exhibition. The means by which objects be- come perceived are of unceasing operation : but though thus widely and unceasingly operative, they are also uniform and regular, and always effective of the purpose. These con- ditions show that the power efficient of these effects must be ubiquitous, must be omnipotent, must be all-wise : there is but one Being in the universe endowed with these attri- butes sufficient to these effects : that Being is the Deity, the Almighty God himself. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 7 This review of the process of sensation plainly shows that matter, if there be such a thing, cannot be the primary agent in the impression of ideas on the mind ; and farther, that since the kind of the material being is, as the cases above cited prove, absolutely indifferent, it became a question whether material substance bears any part in the act of sen- sation, and then whether, being perfectly useless, it holds any place among things created ; whether, in short, there be any such substance as matter? The doubts in this question led to a reference to the works of the Bishop of Cloyne, who is known to have treated the question with great ability, and as some contend, with much force and truth. In his Prin- ciples of Human Knowledge he gives the following position, strongly expressive of his opinion on the subject. c "The philosophical notion of matter involves a contradiction. By matter we understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist ; but ex- tension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence it is plain that the very notion of matter or corporeal substance involves a contradiction in it." The existence of matter being thus denied, it becomes a question, What is the origin of ideas, and how are they produced in the mind? To this the episcopal metaphysician thus replies : d " We perceive a continual succession of ideas : some are anew excited, others are changed, or totally disappear. There is therefore some cause of those ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea, or combination of ideas, is clear ; for extension, figure, and motion cannot be the cause of our sensations (being the means only). It must therefore be a substance, not a corporeal or material c Princip. s. 9. d Sect. xxvi. 8 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. substance ; it remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an active, incorporeal substance, or spirit." The Bishop proceeds from hence to show that this spirit is the Divine Mind, the Almighty God. A course of reasoning which led to such conclusion, seemed to demand attention to the anti-material theory of an advocate so able, and to such arguments as might lead to and exhibit the truth. This was done, not so much from a predilection to his theory, as from a persuasion that the doctrine of the reality of matter goes near to suppress the proper lively sense of the immediate presence of the Deity in all our ways, and its influence over all our actions, which reason and duty bid us ever to entertain. This truth cannot be better expressed than in the words of a recent and zealous advocate for the Berkeleian theory, in his display of the principle premised by his master, in the following terms. e " If there be any truth in the proposition, that all the real objects of sense are results produced within the human mind by the immediate action of a superhuman spirit, without the aid or agency of any intervening substance of any kind, then not only does this principle furnish the directest and clearest evidence of which the thing is capable, that God is con- stantly present with us and constantly occupied about us, but also makes out that that presence and that occupation are more immediate, and in that respect more like those things in a fellow-creature, than men, even pious men, are in the habit of supposing them to be. Now, to say nothing of many other important particulars in which religion is affected by such a doctrine, what stronger motive to piety can there be than the intimate knowledge of this fact from demonstrations and common sense ? Or what greater source of resignation in our more trying hours, than to know upon this most unquestionable evidence of which truth is suscep- * Nature and Elements of the External World, or Universal Im- materialism, by.the Rev. Hart. Introcl. p. 8. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 9 tible, that every event independent of our own will not only comes to us from the hands of God, but comes moreover in the same direct and immediate manner from him, but with the same unremitted attention and intention on his part, throughout the minutest details of daily life, as are required for the maintaining the feels and colours of his sensible creation within such a substance as mind is? Who that understands it can say that this is unimportant knowledge ? Who that understands it can say that when he neglects such knowledge, he does not neglect one of the talents God has given him one, perhaps, of the most important points of science that are adapted to or intended for mankind ? To believe what cannot be known is often a virtue ; but to exact belief in spiritual matters where knowledge is attainable, is creating an unnecessary difficulty in religion, a difficulty which God has not left us to contend with, and which, in this case at least, it only requires a little attention to remove." To this exposition of one of the excellent consequences of the immaterial system, the following may be added, as the substance of statements made, not by a disciple, but originating with the episcopal metaphysician himself. The doctrine of immaterialism affords a ready refutation of the absurdities of heathenism, the folly of atheism, the cavils of the disciples of Socinus, the errors of Calvinism, the bold assumptions of Romanism, and the licentiousness of dissent. It may be proper to prove the truth of this position by argu- ments such as will be stated in subsequent chapters. At present it may be sufficient to observe, that positions such as these afford no slight inducement to the consideration of doctrines of such promise, and to test their truth by par- ticular application. It is generally admitted that metaphysical arguments, that is, arguments drawn from observations of the general affections of substances, are not likely either to prove or to disprove the existence of matter ; and therefore it must be 10 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. admitted that the evidence of the senses, being such as is derived from ideas impressed upon the mind by agencies imperfectly understood and wholly exempt from our control, that such evidence cannot be admitted to be infallible. Hence it follows, that the reality or non-reality of matter remains as undetermined as would have been the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, or the resurrection of the dead, had it not seemed good to the Deity to make those truths known by direct revelation. No evidence is to be found in Holy Writ of the creation and existence of matter : on the other hand, scriptural authorities do not positively deny the existence. The question remains in doubt. It will however be found, that if the events recorded and the doctrines taught in Holy Writ be contemplated with a refer- ence to the principles of immaterialism, they will appear to be not less the works of God and the ordinances of his Divine will, than if they were absolutely inseparable from and independent upon matter ; and they will even seem, or rather be found to be more assuredly his, and more plainly in- dicative of his immediate presence and agency. Impressions such as these cannot fail to be highly conducive to the interests of religious truth ; they will bid man to know that the same Almighty Spirit may and must act everywhere and be everywhere always, and bid all to know and understand the truth of the expressive precept of St. Paul : f " In him we live and move and have our being." Reasons such as these cannot fail to prove that the doctrine of immaterialism not only deserves, but even demands the attentive notice of every wise and every good man. The reference to scriptural tniths will, it is hoped, supply the defective influence of metaphysical argument. The Bishop did not think fit to rely much on the former ; perhaps l>ecause he regarded the latter as irresistibly de- cisive. Be this as it'may, he found occasion to meet objec- ' Acta xvii. 28. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 11 tions, some of which, like the following, might justly be pronounced frivolous and vexatious. But " the novelty," says Hylas, the cavilling materialist of the Dialogues,^ " the novelty ; there lies the danger. New notions should always be discountenanced, because they unsettle men's minds, and nobody knows where they will end." To this it is replied by the respondent Philonous, "Why the rejection of a notion that hath no foundation either in sense or in reason, or in divine authority, should be thought to unsettle the belief of such opinions as are grounded on all or any of these (reasons), I cannot imagine. That innovations in government and religion are dangerous, and ought to be discountenanced, I freely own. But is there the like reason why they should be discouraged in philo- sophy ? The making anything known which was unknown before is an innovation in knowledge; and if all such inno- vations had been forbidden, men would have made a notable progress in the arts and sciences." Thus pleads the Bishop ; and his words suggest the remark, that if innovation were forbidden, men must still have believed that the sun moved daily round the earth, the centre of his travels ; that the earth was supported by pillars ; that the equatorial latitudes were impassible from their heat ; and that the central cavity of the earth is the abode of departed spirits. To reject a doctrine because it is new, is to give permanency to error. The philosophers of Athens rejected the truths of the gospel because they were new, and they called St. Paul a babbler because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. h But it may with truth be affirmed, that the anti-material theory enjoins nothing new, at least as far as relates to every practical effect. It may indeed suggest some new views of the agency of the Deity and the probable manner in which he operates upon his creatures, at least those of this our s Dial. iii. p. 212. h Acts xvii. 12 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. world, but it does not impose any new rules or new prin- ciples of action, or new modes of faith. Man must love his neighbour as himself, whether there be or be not matter ; he must serve God by the observance of his laws, whatever be the substance of which he may consist. The same is true in regard to all the doctrines of the Gospel. The conditions of pardon granted through the merits of the Redeemer are the same, whether there be or be not matter. The rewards that await the righteous, or the punishment of the wicked, are not affected by opinions concerning matter or spirit ; so also of even the resurrection of the dead, men will rise with bodies susceptible of the affections of sense, whether they be material or immaterial. These reasons might render assent to the doctrine of immateriality a matter of choice, but other reasons demand our assent to its truth. The opinion of the reality of matter, forms a barrier of inter- vention that strongly obstructs the approach of the mind to God : the idea that all things are, like him, spiritual, impresses the mind with an awful sense of the Divine presence, and a motive for right action, which ignorance or insensibility alone can disregard. Such are the results that have ensued from the contem- plation of the import of symbolical figures adapted to religious subjects, and exhibited in our churches. The studies which the subject invited, were at first supposed to be exclusively metaphysical, and the evidences which that study supplied, were imagined to belong exclusively to that science. But, it being found that the doctrine of the pure spirituality of all things is highly illustrative of the general agency of the Deity, and that by showing the true character of his works, it brought all of them more near to the level of human comprehension, it seemed advisable to regard the doctrine of immaterialism as calculated to afford an illustra- tion, and in some respects an explanation of many of the miracles recorded, and of many of the doctrines taught, and INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 13 several of the revealed truths stated in Holy Writ. The result of this reference justifies the assertion, that the Holy Word, though it may not directly teach the doctrine of immaterialism, yet that, it so far perfectly accords with it, as to be almost unintelligible without it, and thus nearly to afford positive proof of its certainty and truth. This opinion suggested the propriety of the division of the present subject into four heads, discussed in four chap- ters, of which the first will contain the metaphysical argu- ments in proof of the truth of the anti-material theory. The second chapter will show in what manner the Divine Mind or Spirit, ubiquitous and omnipotent, may be sup- posed to influence or act upon the things created, whether they be animate or inanimate. The third chapter will contain instances of the applica- tion of the anti-material theory to the illustration of the manner in which an immaterial, omnipotent, and all-wise Spiritual Being, may be supposed to have operated in the acts recorded in sacred history. The fourth chapter will submit conjectures, founded upon scriptural authorities, of the Divine dispensations, in the government, not only of the present age and generation of this world, but of others that may succeed it in the course of future ages of ages. Such are the subjects that are submitted to the reader in the following pages. If they produce a conviction of the error of the notion of the reality of matter, it may with con- fidence be affirmed, that great service will be rendered to the cause of morality and religion. It will be shown, that all the errors, absurdities, and impieties, which have in different ages of the world marred the interests, disturbed the peace, and corrupted the piety of mankind, have been occasioned either more or less directly, by the opinion of the reality of matter. It rarely happens that error can arise from truth, whereas error almost ever springs from error; this, 14 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. therefore, may with justice be regarded as a proof of the error of the belief of the reality of matter. It may on the contrary be affirmed, that error rarely arises from the truth ; a fact which may with much reason be assumed in vindication of the theory of immaterialism. Be this as it may, the good effects which the theory is calculated to produce are manifold ; they are such as the episcopal anti- materialist recites in the following words. iu lt is downright impossible that a soul, pierced and enlightened with a thorough sense of the omnipresence, holiness, and justice of that Almighty Spirit, should persist in a remorseless violation of his laws. We ought, therefore, earnestly to meditate and dwell on these important points, that so we may obtain conviction without all scruple, that the eyes (the perception) of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good; that he is with us, and keepeth us in all places whither we go, and giveth us bread to eat and raiment to put on ; that he is present and conscious to our innermost thoughts, and that we have a most absolute and immediate dependence upon him. A clear view of which great truths, cannot choose but fill our hearts with an awful circumspection and holy fear, which is the strongest incentive to virtue and the best guard against vice. For, after all, what deserves the first place in our studies is the consideration of God and our duty, which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual, if by what I have said I cannot inspire my reader with a pious sense of the prescience of God, and having shown the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practise, is the highest perfection of human nature." 1 Berkeley, Princip. 8. 155, 156. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 15 Such are the sentiments which the study of the present subject naturally, or indeed necessarily, suggests to the candid and religious mind. The importance of the subject is undeni- able ; and therefore it is a matter of much regret that it should have remained unnoticed during the term of nearly a century, and the benefits which it is well calculated to produce so long withheld. Now at length it is likely to become the object of attention. The fluctuation of opinion on the subject of materialism by Professor Stewart and other learned men of our sister kingdom of Scotland, produced a new and cor- rected edition of the works of the Bishop, J and has led to the publication of a work on the subject of his theory, of great ability and animated eloquence. k The present work differs somewhat from some of the tenets maintained by them both, but to their general principle it fully accords. The application of the doctrine to subjects of Holy Writ may be new, but not on that account of little importance. It may perhaps be received with the ridicule of surprise or the scorn of prejudice, but it will invite the friend of truth to con- sider questions of no little interest, and opinions on many subjects that deserve attention, opinions which would have been little likely to have occurred to any mind that might have happened to be encumbered with the clog of materialism. It is perhaps to be wished that the statement of those opinions, and indeed this mode of the vindication of the principles of immaterialism, had been undertaken by some author of acknowledged celebrity, rather than have been left to one who has no other claim for attention to the subject, than that he offers the work as a collection of im- portant truths, well worthy of attention, and likely to lead to great advancement in righteousness and holiness of life. J The Works of G. Berkeley, D. D. London. 1843. k On the Nature and Elements of the External World, or Universal Immaterialism fully explained. CHAPTER I. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. "MATTER is the name given to everything which is not mind." So writes the author of an article on the subject, in that very useful composition, the Penny Cyclopedia ; a work which, though not exempt from certain partialities, contains neat summaries of the generality of other works bearing the title of Cyclopedia, and being little ponderous, it affords great facility to general research. These remarks are made, because they claim authority for the definition above given, and affirm, with great truth, that all things created may be divided into two classes or kinds, distinguished by the names matter and mind. These two objects, the means by which ideas are perceived, are commonly regarded as wholly different in constitution; but it is here contended that what is called matter and what is spirit are in real substance one and the same, notwithstanding the very different means by which they become subjects of perception. 1 " Spirit, mind, and soul, are terms significative of the same tiling ; they each signify that power in all sensible creatures ' Berkeley. Princip. Art. 138, 139, 141. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 17 which thinks, wills, and perceives. It is what I am myself. It is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended, and is con- sequently incorruptible. The motions, changes, and decays which hourly befal natural bodies cannot possibly affect mind ; it is indissoluble by the force of nature which causes the dissolution of natural bodies, the objects of sense. The soul of man is thus naturally immortal." Thus writes the episcopal anti-materialist : the Professor Stewart concurs with him to the fullest extent. m " With respect to mind, we are not immediately conscious of its existence, but we are conscious of sensation, thought and volition, operations which imply the existence of something which feels, thinks, and wills. Every man, too, is impressed with an irresistible conviction, that all those sensations, thoughts, and volitions belong to one and the same being, to that being which he calls himself, a being which he is led by the consti- tution of his nature to consider as something distinct from his body, and as not liable to be impaired by the loss or mutilation of any of his organs." Such is the opinion entertained by these eminent meta- physicians ; they concur in the position that the soul is per- fectly immaterial, although the one denied and the other asserted the reality of matter. The philosophers of ancient Greece and Italy held that the soul or spirit was material, but of the finest, or most rare and thin character : that it was merely a vapour, scarcely the object of sense. n The term spirit may seem to accord with this same notion, for it favours the supposition of a resemblance to wind, a current of air. The word has been adopted, not from the belief of the materiality of the spirit, but as indicative symbolically of the activity of the substance. A current of wind, to m Stewart. Philosophy of the Human Mind. Introd. chap. i. sect. 2. n The poet Virgil affords an instance in the ^-Eneis, lib. ii. v. 790. Stewart cites (Essay 5, chap. ii. p. 221) the following passage from Home Tooke, containing a statement of the names by which the spirit c 18 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. which the soul may be said to bear some resemblance, acts with great force upon the bodies exposed to its course; just so the spirit or mind influences the actions of living and intellectual beings, and is conscience, that inward monitor which suggests the distinction between right and wrong. Dr. Abercrombie, in his very popular treatise on the Intellectual Powers, speaks of the substance called matter as follows. P " Matter is a name which we apply to a certain combination of properties, or to certain substances which are solid, extended and divisible, and which are known only by these properties." Berkeley writes: 9" By matter we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which ex- tension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. These properties of matter are known only by our senses: the properties of mind only by our consciousness, that is, by the ideas that pass in, or are perceived by our own minds." It is contended in the present work, that matter and mind are actually nothing other than different modifications of the same thing ; or the same thing, namely, spirit, in different states or conditions. Such is the opinion of the anti- materialist. The materialist, or advocate for the reality of matter, contends that matter is absolutely and entirely different from mind, and that the evidence of our senses is undeniably decisive of the question in dispute ; and farther, that notliing but strange and perverse obstinacy can entertain any other notion. It might be very justifiable were this was distinguished : Animus, anima, irvcvpa and ^vxt are participles. Anima eat ab animus. Animus est a Graeco ovffiot, quod dici volunt quasi otpot ab ao> give atipoi, quod est Ttvtw, et Latinis a spirando spiri- tus. Immo ^vxi est a ^n>x u > quod Hesychius exponit irvtut. The doc- trine that spirit was breath symbolically was, as it is here seen, almost universal. P Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers, part i. p. 23. i Berkeley. Princip. sect. 9. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 19 charge retorted upon the confident accuser, to leave him to delight in what may be called his error. A better and more proper feeling will submit the question to the arbitra- tion of dispassionate judgment, and will enter into an ex- amination of the evidences that may be producible in the case. The being of a God is a truth, which, having been suggested to the first created man, was so plainly and forcibly confirmed by the voice of nature, that nothing but the extreme of barbarism can possibly erase the impression from the mind. The testimony of nature concurring with the revealed word, taught the belief that God must be the one Great Cause which had without intermission existed without beginning from past eternity, and will continue to exist for ever and for ever. At a certain period this Great Cause created this our world. His work affords ample proof that he is a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, and consequently that he is omnipresent, or ubiquitous; 1 " for were there a boundary to his presence, there would be a limit to his ubiquity. This attribute shows that this Great Being cannot be a material substance, or anything other than pure spirit, mind, or soul. Being ubiquitous, there would be, were he a material substance, what is termed a plenum ; that is, infinite space would have been filled with solid matter, a condition not possible, inconceivable, and denied by actual experience. It being impossible that this Great Cause should have created himself, he must have existed from past eternity. All evidences, and especially the modern discoveries of geologists, afford the assurance that this our world is far from ancient ; or rather, that it is of an age somewhat recent. 1 The word ubiquitous, although it be new, will be commonly used instead of omnipresent, which suggests the idea of a personalty in the Deity. 20 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. Creation being recent, and the Deity having existed during eternity past, he has held his existence during ages of ages, in which there was no being save himself. It were an im- peachment of his acknowledged attributes to suppose that such periods were passed in vain, in useless inaction. It is found to be a law of nature, a law by which all creation is ruled, that whatever is good is of progressive growth. This law is evidently the rule in the affairs of man ; it is indeed utterly indispensable, and of absolute necessity : being such, it must be the law by which God himself rules himself; hence it is with confidence presumed that the Deity himself has ever observed, as he still observes, the same. It may hence be presumed, that the ages antecedent to the creation were employed in maturing and perfecting his attributes, in acquiring that character which gives him exclusively a right to the pre-eminent title of the One alone Good. If it be enquired, how this progress can have been made, he alone having then existence, it may be thus answered. The act of intending and designing good is of itself a virtue. It was thus the Deity must have been occupied ; for, inde- pendent of scriptural authority, it is seen that all the multi- tudinous, the countless works of the creation, are perfect as to the purposes for which they have been made ; and such perfection implies profound and continued thought and con- trivance, and that the Deity must have been employed for ages in devising measures of benevolence and wisdom. It is thus that conjecture may perceive that the Deity never lived in vain before the creation of the world, and there is the fullest assurance that he never will hold a vain and useless existence. It is thus that we learn that there has been a past eternity of duration, in which there was nothing existent beside the Deity himself: that the substance called matter was not then in being : that there was not then any inevitable necessity for its existence: but if ages of ages then elapsed without its presence, when nothing but the METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 21 pure Spirit of God lived and acted, this truth suggests the following conclusion, that nothing but spirit is even now existent, and all the creatures of this our wonderful creation are constituted of substance purely spiritual, supplied from the immortal, because the immaterial Spirit of God himself. The reasons now given may well serve to show that God did not create matter at any time. A reason may be given why, omnipotent as he is, he cannot be supposed to have ever created such a substance. It would imply an absurdity to say that the mind of man can, by the act of thought, produce even an atom of any of the visible substances said to be material. It may be enquired whether the Deity, the Divine Mind itself, could be more efficacious. The idea implies an absurdity in general, and therefore renders the thing impossible even to the Deity himself. This impossi- bility, however, does not, according to the materialist, apply to or affect the Deity. Omnipotence, it is contended, can achieve impossibilities, even though they be absurdities. This is affirmed when it is said, and the assertion is by many received with sluggish satisfaction, that God created matter out of nothing. This is nothing else than to admit an effect without a cause, which is always held to be an absurdity. " From nothing nothing comes," is an adage as ancient as it is universal; and yet all these propositions must be admitted to be reasonable and true, if the reality of matter be true and certain. Some materialists endeavour to escape from these per- plexities by the assertion, that matter is an exception to the general rule ; that it has not been created, but has existed from all past eternity ; that it was coeval with God, and was found by him the material ready to be moulded by his plastic hand. It is almost needless to observe, that this accommodation somewhat degrades the office of creator by rendering him a mere artificer : but it does more ; it limits his power; it subjects him to the necessity of suiting his 22 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. plans to the material found; it compels him to make the best that he could, instead of the best he would. On this notion some nations, especially the Persian Magi, founded their theory of the origin of evil. Their Ahriman, the Greek Arimanes, a malignant being, was co-existent with Ormusd 8 or Oromazes. These gods were personifications, the former of matter, the latter of spirit ; and were symbolically signified by darkness and fire or light. According to this theory, there were two agents operating in the work of the creation, each of equal power and efficiency. The origin of evil may plainly be seen on these conditions, if acts done through the irresistible influence of the evil Ahriman be really wicked : but truth will teach that acts done from necessity, and not from free will, are neither good nor bad. The Calvinist may justify his doctrine of absolute predestination on the prin- ciple of an evil as well as a good God, and on no other. Such are the absurdities which attend the doctrines of materialism. It were well had their errors not been pro- ductive of many others. But it must be well known that the errors of idolatry and the concomitant abominations sprang from, and were nurtured by, the belief of the reality of matter. But the mischief has not been confined to these ab- surdities. The doctrine of the past eternity of matter has been taken to prove that the spirit, the soul, is a material sub- stance. If material, it is divisible, dissolvible, destructible, and consequently not immortal, but may, and perhaps must perish at the death and dissolution of the body. This doctrine denies the truth of the Gospel, suggests the belief of the inefficiency of religion, and leads to the persuasion that there is no real difference between virtue and vice, save such as convenience may suggest, or the prejudices of the unphilosophical herd of mankind may unfortunately imagine. The learned, accomplished, and pious Addison, in his work called the Spectator, offers some very interesting Hyde, De Rel. Vet. Pers. cap. 9- METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 23 remarks, which invite attention, for they suggest a just idea of the ubiquitous presence of the Deity. 4 " Several moralists have considered the creation as the temple of God, which he has built with his own hands, and which is filled with his presence. Others have considered infinite space as the receptacle, or rather, the habitation of the Almighty. But the noblest and most exalted way of considering this infinite space is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it the sensorium of the Godhead. Brutes and men have their sensoriola, or little sensoriums, by which they apprehend the presence and perceive the actions of a few objects that lie contiguous to them. Their knowledge and observation turns within a very narrow circle. But as God Almighty cannot but perceive and know everything in which he resides, infinite space gives infinite room to infinite know- ledge, and is as it were an organ of omniscience. Were the soul separate from the body, and with one glance of thought should start beyond the bounds of the creation, should it for millions of years continue its progress through infinite space with the same activity, it would still find itself within the embrace of its Creator, and encompassed round with the immensity of the Godhead." The author intends, in the passage here cited, to show that creation is the temple of God, or, that infinite space is filled or occupied by the intelligence of the Deity. The illustration falls somewhat short of the real truth. The notion that creation is the temple of God, seems to fix a boundary to the Almighty presence, for, regarded as his abode, it implies a limit to the Almighty form ; the figurative senso- rium implies that the Deity has a person of more than infinite extent, for the infinite sensorium is to be regarded as a part only of the Great Being. This view of the subject is noble, and somewhat apt ; but a view taken without any reference to any determinate boundary, will, perhaps, be t Spectator, vol. viii. No. 565. 24 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. more just, and more intelligencing to the limited faculties of the human mind. The visible substance called the body subsists, if the creature be intellectual, within the mind, for when the mind perceives an external object, it is present at that object, its vitality is extended to that object, it lives at that object, which may be termed the place of its existence, so long as the object continues to hold a place in the mind, or engage the attention. The distance of objects may be various ; it may be within the space of microscopic inspection, or it may be extended to the widest range of telescopic research. Such is the varying sphere of the vitality of the human mind. It cannot be presumptuous to imagine such may be the sphere of the vitality, or more properly, of the existence of that Great Mind, the Almighty God. Wherever there may be an object that receives his attention, there his Spirit lives, and there that object subsists in his presence. His creative Mind can produce such objects as his wisdom may advise and his other attributes suggest ; and since there can be no limitation to the device of such objects in respect to either number or location, and his notice of such objects is never intermitted and is eternal, his presence may be truly said to be ubiquitous, and his knowledge unbounded, for it has no other boundary than the locality of the objects to which he may give existence. The great God, having perfected his attributes, and formed designs to be carried into execution in the ages of future eternity, commenced the work of creation, and gave locality to the worlds of the universe within the sphere of the agency of his Divine Mind, and the places or abodes of the various multitudes of creatures to which his purpose had ordained existence. All these bodies, together with their inhabiters, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal, obtained their first existence in the Mind of the Creator, and after- wards became objects of sense through the continued METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 25 exercise of his Divine power. Whether, when made the objects of sense, they were embodied in matter, is the question at issue. It will most assuredly be admitted, that when their forms were first devised in the creative Mind, they must have been purely spiritual; whether, when they afterwards received a visible existence, it became necessary or not necessary to use the inert article called matter to render them visible, is the question at issue. It cannot be denied, that the same Omnipotence that devised, created, and continued to sustain the creature, might well endow them with the quality of visibility, without the useless task of moulding that anomalous and unaccountable article called matter. Setting aside all these doubts about the existence of matter, and admitting the improbable possibility of its ex- istence, yet, if the materialist be asked what matter is, he gives no clear and steady answer, or satisfactory even to himself. The Cyclopedia offers this remark. u " Ask the materialist what this matter is in itself, the answer is, he knows not. He knows only its capability of producing in him certain affections, the ordinary affections of the five senses, (sensations, as they are called) and those which give ideas of extension and resistance. Thus having already something without, he pronounces these to be qualities of that something, ignorant all the while what that something is, and knowing it only as the substratum of the qualities." The author of the treatise on the Intellectual Powers states something more near the truth in the following candid remarks. v " The term matter is a name which we apply to a certain combination of properties, or to certain substances which are solid, extended, and divisible, and which are known to us only by these properties. The term mind, in the same manner, is a name which we apply to a certain u Penny Cycloped. Art. Matter. v Abercrombie, part i. p. 23. 26 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. combination of functions, or to a certain power which we feel within, which thinks, and wills, and reasons, and which is known to us only by these functions. The former we know only by our senses, the latter only by our conscious- ness. In regard to their essence or occult qualities, we know quite as little about matter as we do about mind ; and in as far as our utmost conception of them extends, we have no ground for believing that they have anything in common." This extract from the work of an author a perfect neutral, may be admitted to be a fair statement of the question of the materiality or immateriality, or, as is here contended, of the spirituality of all things. The advocate for the spiritu- ality must however observe, that, according to the author now cited, the properties of mind are known to the mind by immediate experience of them, but the properties of matter are only known by experience derived from things or objects external to the percipient, and consequently more liable to mistake and error ; a fact which, it is presumed, may justly turn the scale in balancing doubts. These doubts are by no means novel ; they were made even in remote anti- quity the subjects of enquiry by the philosophers of antiquity, by the meditative though now lightly esteemed Brahmens of our dominions of Hindusthan, and by the ingenious but imaginative philosophers of ancient Greece. The most eminent of the former were pure spiritualists ; some of the latter were gross materialists. A few short notices of the tenets maintained by each will afford a full view of the two opposite theories. The voluminous works of the Sastra, commonly called Sinister, the scriptures deemed sacred by the disciples of the IJrahmens of Hindusthan, have been so disfigured and debased by the absurd corruptions of idolatry, that they disgust the British reader, who generally consigns them to contempt. Hut were there given a rational account of their doctrines, and of the symbols by which they arc expressed, METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 27 their doctrines would appeal' at least ingenious, and be admired as profound ; they would be found to rest exclusive- ly on the principle of the spirituality of all created things. The Institutes of Menu, which constitute a very intelli- gible digest of the Sastra, speak thus of the Deity and the creation : w " He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters." The first of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England states the same doctrine. Words cannot be imagined more accordant with truth and the majesty of God. In a sub- sequent verse the following statement is given : x " This universe is compacted from the minute portions of those seven divine and active principles, the great soul or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions ; a mutable universe from immutable ideas." The universe thus brought into existence by the Divine Mind, retains that existence till that Mind, after a day of ages, sinks into the repose of night; and then, thought being discontinued, embodied spirits depart from their respective acts; all creation vanishes "leaves not a rack behind." At the morn of a new day Brahma awakes, and institutes a new course of thought ; a new course of existence then begins, which is destined to end as the former. These alternations of day and night are repeated in succession, without number and without endJ Such is the theory which has been maintained in India from years at least as remote as the age of the Hebrew legislator Moses and the writing of his Pentateuch. Such is the first principle, the foundation of Hinduism, Institutes of Menu, translated by Sir William Jones, chap. i. v. 7, 8. x Ibid. v. 19. y Ibid. v. 5057- 28 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. the religion taught in the Sastra, which, though now de- formed and debased by a symbolism not understood, and perverted by the grossest interpretations of idolatry, was once such as rendered the nations of India, at least those that occupied the present Panjab at the time of the invasion of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, the object of admiration to their civilized victors. Such they were, that the present nations of the wide provinces of India can scarcely be recognized as their descendants. These live an example of the sad effects of war, conquest, and oppression, from which it is hoped they will be freed by the Christian influence of British dominion. But this is digression. Let the attention be again turned to the contemplation of the true spiritualism of the Sastra, and then let it be enquired whether philosophical Europe ever maintained principles so just and pure. The philosophers of Greece and the western world appear never to have had any conception of a theory so truly spiritual as that now stated. All of them were more or less materialists. Epicurus was of all others the most decided advocate for materialism, even to the total exclusion of spirit. All was matter. Matter was the creator, and also the thing created. The extravagance of his absurdities is incredible. A reference to the verse of his true disciple, the poet Lucretius, will prove the truth of this statement, and exhibit a strange instance of the absurdity to which materialism may proceed. The poet* shows that, according to the tenets of the philosopher, all matter consists of minute indivisible atoms, but of divers forms, round, square, pointed, and hooked, and the like, and these differently formed atoms were the means of producing the forms of different organized bodies, and also the several elements and other phenomena of nature. He farther ventured to a If inn, and in his age, the age of * Lucret. lib. i. ii. iii. v. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 29 conjecture, he safely might affirm, that mind and all the powers of perception were constituted of these primordial atoms, but of such only of these atoms as were of form, shape, rank and position suitable to the purposes to which they might properly serve. Even the gods were material beings, but the particles of which their bodies were composed were too fine to be perceptible to mortal sense, and being so fine, they are enabled to dwell in regions too pure to be habitable by mortal men. The reader of the work of the poet cited will see the most extraordinary influences assigned to these primordial particles, described in most impressive verse, which gives dignity to the most extravagant absurdities. The effects ascribed to these multiform particles are as wonderful as their forms are various. These curious particles form themselves into the different bodies which they are pleased to assume, and give to them life and motion, which, having been retained and exercised for a certain time, leave the body to which they had been consigned, and are trans- mitted to other bodies in a succession which will be continued in all time future, as it has been exercised in time eternal past. Such are the errors, such the absurdities of material- ism ; and these were approved by the polished subjects of Greece and Rome. The learned and able author of the Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of God a has often occasion to offer remarks in refutation of infidel opinions which were rife in his time ; all founded on the principle of materialism, all boldly maintained to overthrow the doctrine of the existence of a God, and to substitute in its stead the strange notion that the world is God, and that it was matter imcreate and self-existent from all past eternity. Doctrines strange as these call for notice, not so much perhaps for the purpose of refutation, as for proof of the truth; for, though right may possibly be perverted and a Clarke on the Attributes, Prop. 3. 30 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. turned to wrong, and truth to error, yet error can hardly by any possibility be the foundation of truth. For this reason some of the strange notions that have exuded from materialism are brought forward into notice. The learned and able author last cited makes mention of many writers, who in and about his time had been advocates of doctrines entitled to the epithet of insane, all founded upon the material principle. It may be proper just to name some of them. Spinoza, a Portuguese Jew, was cursed and driven from the synagogue, because his materialism led him to deny the immortality of the soul. The author of the treatise on the Attributes calls him "the most celebrated patron of atheism in our time." The Irishman Toland, ac- cording to the same author, says, that matter immortal and divine was endowed with motion essentially ; and the English atheist Hobbes was forced to have recourse to what the author justly calls that prodigiously absurd supposition, that all matter, as matter, is endowed not only with figure and a capacity of motion, but also with an actual sense or per- ception, and that it wants only the organs and memory of animals to express its sensation. Such were the strange doctrines of materialists, who greatly disturbed the Christian faith of their times. It were easy to refer to many of the heresies of the early ages of the Christian Church, occasioned by the perplexities which ensued from the doctrine of the reality of matter ; but the errors of modern ages, and even of our own times, are sufficiently indicative of the evil. The evidences of natural religion were so well studied and so well understood, especially during the latter part of the eighteenth century, that no one was found who dared to vindicate the absurdities of materialism, and the doctrines of infidelity founded upon them. There were, however, in the earlier years of that age, writers of no inconsiderable talent who still took their stand on the ground of materialism, and making the peqdexity which seemingly attends the doctrine METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 31 their stronghold or fastness, ventured to appear in the proud character of deists. Hartley, one of the most eminent of these metaphysicians, maintained the following theory, ex- pressed by a zealous disciple in the following terms : b " Man does not consist of two principles so essentially different from one another as matter and spirit, but that the whole man is of some uniform composition, and that either the material or the immaterial part of the universal system is superfluous." This doctrine is strangely neutral ; in fact, it affirms nothing : but it shows that the imaginative theorist was sensible that he could not openly maintain the doctrines of materialism, and was unwilling to admit the truth that all things are exclusively immaterial and purely spiritual. With respect to Dr. Hartley's great apostle Dr. Priestley, the essayist writes : " I am somewhat at a loss whether to class him with materialists or immaterialists ; as I find him an advocate at one period of his life for what he calls the immateriality of matter, and at another for the materiality of mind." Of the latter faith, the writings of the said Doctor afford the follow- ing extraordinary illustration. c " This scheme of the immateriality of matter, as it may be called, or rather the mutual penetration of matter, first occurred to my friend Mr. Mitchell, on reading Baxter on the Immortality of the Soul. He found this author's idea of matter was, that it consisted, as it were, of bricks cemented together by an immaterial mortar. These bricks, if he would be consistent to his own reasoning, were again composed of less bricks, cemented likewise by an immaterial mortar, and so on ad infinitum. This, putting Mr. Mitchell upon consideration of the several appearances of nature, he began to perceive, that the bricks were so covered with this immaterial mortar, that if they had any existence at all, it could not possibly be perceived, every effect being produced, b Dugald Stewart. Philos. Essay, iv. p. 189. c Ibid. p. 187. 32 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. at least in nine instances in ten certainly, and probably in the tenth also, by this immaterial, spiritual, and pene- trable mortar." This strange illustration evidently termi- nates in spiritualism. Such are the strange, the incoherent, not to say the absurd doctrines which the materialists are wont to build upon the presumption of the reality of matter. That they should be such, that they should say they know not what, and discuss they know not why, will not be a just cause of surprise, when in reality they did not know what matter was, and all their enquiries were about an object they did not understand, and about which they were by no means agreed. Of their tenets, or rather their conjectures, a just judgment may be formed from the following disquisitions. The celebrated John Locke signifies his opinion in the following terms. d " If any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find that he has no idea of it (matter) at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us, which qualities are called accidents. If any one should be asked what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say but the solid, extended parts : and if he were demanded what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better condition than the Indian, who saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on ; to which his answer was, a great tortoise : but being pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied, something he knew not what." These observations almost justify the assertion, that this great philosopher really doubted the existence of matter, and that he regarded all the objects of sense as none other than immaterial phasmas, or rather, d Locke, book ii. chap. 23. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 33 spiritual appearances calculated to produce invariably certain impressions on the senses, called ideas. Doubts, nearly the same as these of the author of the Essay on the Human Understanding, have found place with many other eminent metaphysicians. Mention has already been made of some who, torturing the question by strange conjectures, have enveloped their opinions in a halo of absurdity. Men of the soundest minds have been thrown into perplexity ; and some who withheld their assent to the anti-material theory have at the same time doubted in their denial. Dr. Reid, one of the most eminent professors of the Scottish schools, admits that he was at one time in his youth a disciple of the anti-materialists. In his later years he withdrew his assent, and, borne away by the popular current, he became a strong advocate for materialism. Professor Dugald Stewart, speaking of the opinions of Boscovich published at Vienna about the middle of the last century, states that they are the result of very rash and un- warranted inferences from the phenomena perceived. e " We are taught," writes the Professor, "that the ultimate elements of which matter is composed are unextended atoms, or, in other words, mathematical points endued with certain powers of attraction and repulsion, and it is from these powers that all the physical appearances of the universe arise." What those certain powers of attraction and repulsion may be the Austrian metaphysician does not say. Adopting the notion of mathematical points, he takes up the atoms, the primordia rerum, of Epicurus ; and, did he proceed to an explanation, he would doubtless distinguish his atoms into hooked, globular, and pointed, and other forms, which, since eye never beheld them, may be said to subsist only in a wild imagination. The theory of the Austrian elicits the fol- lowing comments from the learned Edinburgh Professor, e Stewart, Essay ii. chap. i. p. J 23. D 34 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. who being nearly a neutral as to the question, his remarks may be received as just and true. f " With regard to this theory I shall not presume to give any decided opinion. That it is attended with some very puzzling difficulties of a metaphysical nature, must, I think, be granted by its most zealous advocates ; but, on the other hand, it can scarcely be denied that the author or his com- mentators have been successful in establishing three pro- positions, 1. That the supposition of particles extended and perfectly hard is liable to strong, if not insurmountable ob- jections : 2. That there are no facts which afford any direct evidence in support of it : and 3. That there are some in- disputable facts which favour the opposite (the anti-material) hypothesis." It is proper to observe that these admissions are made by an adversary, for it is stated by the author of the Treatise on Universal Immaterialism,& that Dr. Reid and Mr. Dugald Stewart now cited, were the first who assailed the doctrine, and that their writings contain all that can be said against it. The able author of an Essay on Chemistry, published in a popular work entitled the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, after several statements made relative to the existence of matter, thus concludes: h "It is vain, however, to discuss such sub- jects. To the student who finds it impossible to adopt opinions revolting to the ordinary habits of thought, which found their chief claims to admission on the difficulty of disproof, it may be some satisfaction to observe that the evi- dence on the subject cannot be of a very convincing kind, when we have found Leibnitz asserting that the particles of matter have no extension ; Descartes maintaining that ex- tension is their only property ; Locke defining an atom to be a continued body under one superficies ; and Berkeley denying that matter exists at all." Statements such as ' Stewart, Essay ii. chap. i. * Hart on Univ. Immat. Introd. p. 4. h Lardner, Cyclop. P. i. c. v. p. 40. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 35 these do most strongly suggest doubts, at least, as to the reality of matter, and claim a candid consideration of the proposition that there is no such thing as matter, but that all created beings or existences are immaterial and spiritual beings, begotten and born in the Divine Mind ; that they owe their several properties, powers, or capacities to the creation of the Divine will ; that their exercise is such as that will may direct, and that it is continued for such time as the same may think fit to afford them support and continuance. Were there such a thing as matter, it might be expected that the pursuits which have long employed men of the greatest abilities, must have discovered it, and they must have been able to adduce such evidences of the reality as to render it impossible to entertain a doubt upon the question. No such result has been found ; on the contrary, uncertainty, contradiction, not to say absurdity, pervade the opinions that have been formed, and the doctrines that have been propounded. No such defects attend the doctrine of the spirituality of all things. Adopting the principle of the ubiquity of the Deity, which no materialist denies, the anti- materialist, not unwilling to be called a spiritualist, offers the following statement, which he calls the truth. The Divine Mind calls into existence such beings or creatures as to him seems fit. Being ubiquitous, they all exist in him, holding such relative places or localities in what may be called infinite space as he may be pleased to ordain. On each of these beings he confers such faculties, either active or passive, as may best accord with his pur- poses ; he sustains, restrains, or withdraws the power of their exercise, as may seem fit, whether the exercise may affect themselves or others. The exercise of this his power is not arbitrary or variable, but is determined by certain laws, which are for the most part invariable, and which may become known to all who may take the pains to observe and study 36 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. them. Experience and observation will show, that this view of the Divine agency in the affairs of this our world, is per- fectly consistent with truth, and the affirmation is equally consistent with truth which declares there can be no neces- sity for the use of matter to these effects, and consequently, that there is no such substance as matter in all created nature. It is a fact worthy of remark, that every part and every creature of the universe is in motion ; in incessant motion. The astronomer proves on Newtonian principles that all the heavenly bodies, the most remote of the fixed stars included, form one vast system connected together by the force of gravitation, tending to some common centre, round which they revolve in consequence of a certain force called the centrifugal force, impressed on each body. The solar system to which our earth belongs partakes of this universal motion, and in this system, the earth, the abode of man, revolves round its axis daily with a velocity of one thousand miles in the hour. Such are the effects of the agency of the Divine Mind, the Holy Spirit of God, the Great Cause of all things. The rule of universal and incessant motion prevails with all the creatures, both animal and vegetable, that dwell upon the surface of this our globe, and even to the mineral sub- stances also that form what is called by geologists the crust of the surface. The motions of animals, when awake, are incessant, nor does the circulation of the blood and other internal actions cease even during sleep. Vegetable action is alike incessant : in summer, the circulation of the plant is ever active ; in winter, the process of consolidation of the substances formed during summer months is continued, however slowly. Inaction may seem to belong to the mineral substances, especially to the rock, hard and almost indis- soluble : but even this quality of hardness may be regarded as action. The force of cohesion, and sundry other powers or qualities with which the rock is endowed, is an agent unceasingly efficient in an effectual resistance to whatever METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 37 might tend to destroy solidity. The gases, so well known to the chemist, are to be classed with the substances termed mineral, notwithstanding they are, from the levity and activity of their qualities, the direct reverse of the rock. This extreme disparity is by no means an objection to the position, that the aerial and invisible is in kind the same as the solid rock, for the same may be said of the lichen and oak, of the microscopic insect and the elephant. The creation of the one led to the creation of the other, which oliffered only from its precursor in the addition of new qua- lities and improved faculties. These facts invite attention, because the gases and other like chemical agents will be found to be, as far as human observation can extend, the primary causes, next to the Divine Mind itself, of all the motions which operate within the compass of our knowledge. An inquiry into the subject will afford a powerful argument in proof of the spirituality of all things, and thus a solution will be offered of the question, What is the cause of motion ? This proposition will be best answered by an inquiry into the manner in which motion is produced in animal bodies. It shall be made as briefly as the subject will allow. The German professor Liebig, whose authority must be admitted to be most decisive, states, in his treatise called Organic Chemistry applied to Physiology and Pathology, the following instance of the origin of animal motion and activity : * " In the animal ovum y as well as in the seed of a plant, \ve recognize a certain remarkable force, the source of growth and increase in the mass, or of reproduction, or of supply of the matter consumed ; a force in a state of rest. By the action of external air, by impregnation by the presence of air and moisture, the condition of static equi- librium of this force is disturbed; entering into a state of motion or activity, it exhibits itself in the production of a series of forms which, though occasionally bounded by right 1 Liebig. Organ. Chem. Part i. p. 1. 38 MKTAl'HYSICAL PROOFS. lines, are yet widely distinct from geometrical forms, such as we observe in crystallized minerals. This force, which is the immediate cause of action, is cabled the vital force, vis vil P. 12. r P. 7- METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 43 reasonably deny that every effect may be as producible without the aid of matter as with it, for if there be matter, the same divine energy must be exercised to render such substance efficient to the intended purpose, which might be equally well accomplished without it. Had the German Professor been aware of this truth, his theory of Animal Chemistry would have been complete. He would have taught, as does the anti-materialist, that the vital principle is none other than the Divine Mind acting in all creatures : and that these are as purely spiritual as the spiritual Cause in which and from which they first sprung, and in which and by which they exist and act. The means by which sensation is produced, has been the subject of frequent enquiry with the metaphysicians of all ages, but especially with the metaphysicians of the last cen- tury. All of them, while they admitted the immateriality of the soul, conducted their lucubrations under the impres- sion of the necessity, and consequently of the reality of matter, without which they held it certain that sensation could not be produced. Misled by this principle, they in- volved themselves in endless perplexities, and they never arrived at any satisfactory conclusion. The ignis fatuus, the phantom, led them ever astray. A few notices of some of their disquisitions and doubts will show that they began with error, and were lost in perplexities, all which they might have avoided had they adopted the theory of anti- materialism and truth. "Sensation," according to Professor Stewart, 8 "is the change in the state of mind which is produced by an im- pression on the organ of sense." To produce this effect, the object of sense, the thing perceived, must be endowed with the faculty of acting upon the percipient, and this latter must be endowed with the faculty of being duly influenced by the exciting object, by the thing perceived. This effect, s Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, sect. ii. art. 14. 44 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. although of constant and momentary occurrence with every sensible creature, is a miracle more wonderful than any hitherto recorded, and involved in a mystery which has never been explained. The opinions, therefore, entertained concerning it, are many and various. Some of them were of the following purport. 1 " It was the doctrine of Aristotle," says Dr. Reid, cited by Professor Stewart, "that as our senses cannot receive external material objects themselves, they receive their species, that is, their images of forms without the matter, as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the matter of it. These images or forms impressed upon the senses are called sensible species, and are the objects only of the sensitive part of the mind, but by various internal powers they are retained, refined, and spiritualized, so as to become objects of memory and imagination, and at last of pure intellection. When they are the objects of memory and imagination, they get the name of phantasmas. When by farther refinement, and being stripped of their particu- larities, they become objects of science, they are called in- telligible species, so that every immediate object, whether of sense, of memory, of imagination, or of reasoning, must be some phantasma or species of the mind itself." Of this theory of the great Stagyrite, it must be observed, that it is founded on an unintelligible conjecture, and is a fabric of mere assumptions. What proof is there of the existence of the images of fonns which are the assumed means of sen- sation ? and how can they be efficient, unless the mind, like the wax which receives the impression of the seal, be material, a supposition which, the immateriality of mind being admitted, is impossible. The foundation position being thus imaginary, the theory of sensible species, of phantasmas, and intelligible species dependent on matter, falls to the ground, and affords no information or illustration * Stewart on the Human Mind, part i. chap. iv. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 45 of the subject of external perception. This dark perplexity is illumed and cleared up by the light of the anti-material theory of spiritual existences, living in and actuated by the Divine Mind. It may be proper to illustrate this truth by a brief notice of other errors of the same kind. After a brief mention of the notion of Plato, who com- pares the process of the mind in perception to that of a person in a deep and dark cave, who sees not external objects themselves, but only their shadows, and after mention made of the similarly fanciful comparison of Locke, u that the understanding in receiving ideas is not much unlike the conception a man would form were he shut up in a dark room with only a little opening left for the admission of light, the Professor thus proceeds : v " All the philosophers, from Plato to Mr. Hume, agree in this, that we do not per- ceive external objects immediately, and that the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the mind." Upon these and similar statements, the Professor makes the following observations, " that all the philosophers who treat on this subject proceed on a supposition, that therre must of necessity exist some medium of communica- tion between the objects of perception and the percipient mind ; and they all indicate a secret conviction entertained by their authors of an essential distinction between mind and matter, a distinction which they are not able to explain, because, as the anti-materialist contends, there is no dis- tinction between them in kind, but only in degree, owing to the faculties and qualities with which they may be endowed. What is called mind is spirit capable of thought ; what is called matter, though really spirit, is not capable of thought. Such is exactly the relation between the animal and the vegetable. The learned Professor, having previously observed* that u Locke, book ii. chap. xi. s. 17. * Ibid. sect. 1. w Introd. chap. iii. sect. 2. 46 .METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. Dr. Reid (his magnus Apollo) has not by his laboured statements thrown any light on the mode of communication between the mind and the material world, observes very justly, that the various theories which have been formed to explain the operations of our senses have a more immediate reference to that of seeing, and that the greater part of the metaphysical language concerning perception in general, the ideas, species, forms, shadows, phasmas, images, appear evidently to have been suggested by the phenomena of vision; he then adds that, "when applied to this sense, indeed, it can at most amuse the fancy without conveying any precise knowledge; but when applied to the other senses, it is altogether absurd and unintelligible." Such are the perplexities attending the act of perception, on the sup- position of the reality of matter. It may with confidence be asserted, that if that error be adopted, similar perplexities will occur in the contemplation of every, even the most or- dinary question that may become the subject of enquiry. One or two instances may sufficiently establish the truth of this position. The natural philosopher commonly adopts without re- serve the opinion that material particles proceeding from the object perceived, strike upon the senses and produce sensa- tion. Vision, they teach, is produced by particles of light issuing from the luminous body, or reflected from the object if not luminous, which falling upon the semorium, or seat of sensation, produce the effect of vision. To judge rightly of this opinion, it must be observed that the far greater portion of these particles issue from the sun, which, if the theory be true, has been thus operative ever since the creation of the world. Such emission, however fine the particles be, must have been likely to abate the quantity of matter in the sun, and some scientists have entertained fears lest the sun by such a continued operation must have l>ecn diminished in si/e, and become insufficient in force to retain the planets in their orbits. But no such diminution of the solar substance METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 47 lias been discovered, or ever believed to have taken place : a fact which proves that no such emission of material lumi- nous particles takes place, and consequently that the sensa- tion of light is not the effect of material luminous particles meeting the eye ; and farther, that light is not a material substance. The odour of the rose, and the sound of any sonorous body, a trumpet for instance, are said to be perceived, the one by effluvia of particles issuing from the flower, the other by undulations of the air excited by the instrument. Both these positions are entirely gratuitous. If there be such effluvial particles, whence did they derive the power of the flight they take to meet the sense ? If there be undulations of the air, whence does it come that they affect the ear rather than any other organ ? Matter, inert and senseless, is little calculated, as the materialists must allow, to admit of such various and wonderful action. The cause is in- adequate to the effect: its supposed operation is incom- prehensible. Not so is it, if the effect be attributed to the agency of the Divine Mind, a cause amply adequate to the effect, without the creation of matter. These arguments, while they disprove the reality of the existence of matter, will not interfere with the principles on which the natural philosopher founds his conclusions or conducts his enquiries. The semblance of particles or other principles may be taken for the reality ; the scientist may treat of them as realities, but their apparent reality ought to lead his mind beyond the semblances that occur to his enquiries ; they ought to lead him to consider, that when he looks into the natural causes of sensible effects, he finds the God of nature present in all these processes ; that it is he conducts them, and that the same Almighty power gives them into action, and by conducting that action in accordance with certain rules called the laws of nature, enables him to arrive at those conclusions which he had made the objects of 48 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. research. These truths apply to causes and effects of near and common occurrence ; they are equally applicable to others of character more removed from ordinary notice. This may be instanced by the example of the communica- tion of motion to solid substances, an effect which may be truly denominated the most frequent in occurrence, and most intimately connected with vitality, whether vegetable or animal, wherever it may take place. Professor Stewart in- stances this general position by the following truths relative to a subject, which, the investigation given in some pre- ceding pages having rendered readily intelligible, may serve to shew the perplexities which must ever vitiate the lucu- brations of the philosopher who may think fit to adopt the opinion of the reality of matter. Justly remarking that we know nothing of physical events but the laws which regulate their succession, he writes, x " Motion, says one writer, is action, and a continued motion implies a continued action. The impulse is only the cause of the beginning of the motion ; its continuance must be the effect of some other cause, which acts so long as the body moves. Another writer could discover no necessary connection between impulse and motion, and concluded that the impulse was only the occasion of the beginning of the motion ; continu- ance he ascribed to the unceasing agency of the mind with which the body is animated. According to the former of these cases, the effects must arise from the agency of mind, for that power, force, energy, and causation, are all attri- butes of mind, and can exist in mind only." According to the latter observation, it seems that the substance moved must be endowed with a mind which qualifies it for motion under certain circumstances. Strange conclusion. A body while in motion has a soul ! If such difficulties attend the theory of the motion of bodies in contact or near, still greater await the case of bodies 1 Introd. chap. iii. sect. 2. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 49 mutually affecting each other at considerable or even great distances. This case seems to have afforded some per- plexity to the great Newton himself, ?In a letter to Dr. Bentley, he writes, " It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter with- out mutual contact, as it must do if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be essential and inherent in it. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to the other, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe that no man who has in philosophical matters competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it." " With this passage," writes the Pro- fessor, " I so far agree as to allow that it is impossible to conceive in what manner one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum. But I cannot admit that it removes the difficulty to suppose that the two bodies are in actual contact. That one body may be the efficient cause of motion in another body placed at a distance from it, I do by no means assert ; but only that we have as good reason to believe that this may be possible, as to believe that any one natural event is the efficient cause of another." Such are the difficulties and perplexities that attend the theory of the reality of matter. It is contended that the anti-material theory removes all these difficulties, and sup- plies a just and true solution of the means by which sub- stances called bodies act upon each other, whether near or distant. If there be such a thing as real space, for even infinite space may exist in idea only, it cannot be denied that the Deity, signified more intelligibly by the term the Divine Soul or Mind, must pervade all space, or rather be present y p. 42. E 50 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. wherever he may please. The mind exists wherever it ;nt<. The Divine Mind exists also in whatever part of infinite space he may think fit to design or create an object of his attention. There being no bound to this exercise of the will, he may be said to pervade space without bound, although he limit the distances of the things he may create within certain bounds. In this sense he may be said to be of unbounded existence, although the most remote of the things created be within a limited distance. Since all things exist in him, he is thus far everywhere always. Had the great scientist above named entertained this idea of the Deity, or in other terms, had he been an immaterialist, he would have perceived, that although, in most instances, the substances with which we deal on the surface of this our earth, are found to act upon each other when at small distances only, yet that the creative Spirit, in which they all alike hold ex- istence, may and does endow them all with the faculty of mutual influence called gravitation, whatever be their relative position, whatever their distance. Having thus discussed, somewhat largely, the means by which sensation is produced, and perception or knowledge obtained, of the visible creatures that partake with ourselves the occupation of this our earth, it may not be irrelevant to the present subject to ask the question, what are the means by which the beings of the invisible world obtain perception of the things that engage their notice, or afford them occupation ; for it were absurd to suppose that they have an unemployed existence, or are incapable of sensation ; a faculty indispensably necessary to that intercourse which must constitute the greater portion of their enjoyment, and even to the reality of their existence ? This question is applicable not only to such spiritual beings as never had abode on this earth since its creation, but also to the departed spirits, or souls that once inhabited human bodies, but became disem- bodied at death, or divested of that visible substance in METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 51 which they lived and in which they acted in this our present life. Locke writes, z " Give me leave to propose an extravagant conjecture of mine, viz. That since we have some reason (if there be any credit to be given to the report of things that our philosophy cannot account for,) to imagine that spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, figure, and conformation of parts, whether one great advantage some of them may have over us, may not lie in this, that they can so frame and shape to themselves organs of sensation or perception, as to suit them to their present design, and the circumstances of the object they would consider." It were foreign to the present subject to enquire what may be the pow y ers which these beings may possibly possess ; but this may be affirmed, that the visible substance of man being dissolved at death, the immortal surviving spirit must receive from the Divine Mind the power of perceiving and seeing spirit, soul, or mind. This power, let it be observed, is indispensably necessary to their existence, for without such power, they would be incapable of any per- ception: existence w T ould be suspended during such in- capacity, and the immortality of the soul would be an idle, a false tenet. This truth will justify the assurance, that disembodied souls or spirits can sensibly perceive and see wiiat mind is, and how it thinks and acts, how it forms opinions, and how opinion influences and directs the action and the conduct. The truth of this conclusion will justify the remark, that if sensation and perception can prevail in the world to us invisible, without the means of matter, the same may also take place with equal efficiency, in this our visible world, without the presence of such substance also. The weight of this argument alone, might secure assent to the doctrine of immaterialism, were no other offered in proof, but the z Locke, book ii. chap, xxiii. s. 13. 52 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. great many good consequences that must ensue from a con- viction of the errors of materialism, call for the use of every means that may tend to promote right opinions on such a subject, and therefore, the following facts are offered for consideration. The question of the spirituality or materiality of all created beings has been discussed somewhat largely in the preceding pages ; the properties of spirit, and the supposed qualities of matter, have been stated, it is presumed, with truth and fairness ; the perplexities in which the materialists are found to have been involved have been noticed; the simple and intelligible truths which await the spiritualist have been shown, and the objections made to his doctrine have been answered. The discussion, however long, has not been longer than may have been necessary to induce even the candid mind to forego the evidence of sense, and cause it to submit to the dictates of reason. It is presumed that the arguments submitted will have produced that eftrrt, and that the delusions to which the senses have been shown to be subject will have led the judgment to a right opinion respecting the spirituality of all existent beings. But if it be supposed that conviction has not been obtained by the statements adduced, it is presumed that the truths pro- pounded in the following pages of this chapter, will prove that there can be no reality in matter, for that the ex- istence of such a substance were useless, is improbable, and even impossible. 8 " The laws of nature are," according to Bishop Berkeley, " a set of rules or established methods, wherein the Divine Mind excites in us the ideas of sense. These we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas, are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary course of things." Thus the idea of a stone thrown in the air, is always accompanied with the idea of its immediate Berkeley. Principles, Art. 30, 31. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 53 fall to the ground. The idea of the rising sun, is accom- panied with the idea of light and warmth. Fire suggests the idea of heat and burning ; ice of cold. The sowing of corn suggests the ideas of the future crop and harvest. Men act on all occasions with a confident assurance of the regular and certain effects of natural causes; even the wildest theorist, having learned from experience that these laws are invariable and almost indeed inevitable, orders his actions by them. The episcopal author justly observes, that the knowledge of these laws is necessary for the conduct of worldly affairs, for otherwise we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man would no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life, than an infant just born. These facts, he justly observes, evidently display the goodness and wisdom of that governing Spirit, whose will ordains the laws of nature. When things created deviate from the course of nature, and outrage the laws of the Creator, then, but not till then, the spiritualist may confess his error and admit the reality of matter. But such outrages are unknown ; the infant man never becomes a vegetable plant or grows up an elephant ; the seedling flower root never takes the growth of a tree of the forest, nor does the tree of the forest ever become the flowering shrub ; the fruit tree never bears a fruitage of gold, silver, iron, or other mineral substance. These things were contrary to the law of nature and nature's God. That mind should produce matter were a result equally incon- sistent with the experience of the time past, or the imagin- able practicability of the future : it may therefore be truly said, there is not the slightest reason for the strange sup- position that the Divine Mind should ever violate his own laws, and that even omnipotence ever has or ever will create, that is, think into reality, that incomprehensible and delusive substance called matter. There has been often occasion to infer from arguments 54 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. submitted in the preceding pages, that these remarks are true, and that all the external objects which make impression on the senses, are, like the percipient objects themselves, substances wholly immaterial and purely spiritual. The prejudices which withhold assent to this truth, are as strong as they are inveterate; should, however, the evidences already adduced not have removed those prejudices, it may perhaps be presumed, that the visionary scenes that occur in dreams, in insanity, and in spectral visions, will be ad- mitted to be practical proof of the truth, that matter is not necessary to perception, and thus win assent to the salutary and important truth of the exclusive universality of spirit. Dreams, the perceptions of the sleeping man, are wholly unconnected with real objects, although the objects seen in them may be taken from impressions received in waking hours. The judicious author of the Essay on the Philosophy of the Human Mind affirms, b that the same laws of association which regulate the train of our thoughts while we are awake, continue to operate during sleep. This position the author of Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers illustrates thus : c " The ideas and images in the mind follow one another according to associations over which we have no control. We cannot, as in the waking state, vary the series or stop it at our will." Both these eminent authors concurring, state, that during sleep, except perhaps in som- nambulism, when the dreamer walks or accompanies his dream with some act, the bodily powers are altogether sus- pended, and the senses cease, or nearly cease, to receive fresh impressions, but yet, that they are able to use, almost without restraint, ideas previously entertained, and to form images and combine them into scenes bearing the most perfect semblance of reality. b Stewart on the Philosophy of the Mind. Introd. c Abercromhie on the Intellectual Powers, sect. 4. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 55 d The author last cited arranges dreams in four classes. First, dreams which are the result of recent events and recent mental emotions. Secondly, dreams which ensue from images brought up by association with bodily sensations. Thirdly, dreams consisting of the revival of old associations, respecting things which had entirely passed out of the mind, and which seemed to have been forgotten. Fourthly, a class of dreams which presents an interesting subject of observa- tion, and includes those in which a strong propensity of cha- racter or a strong mental emotion is fulfilled. Somnambulism appeai-s to differ from ordinary dreaming chiefly in the degree in which the bodily functions are affected. The mind is, under these circumstances, fixed as in dreaming upon its own impressions possessing a real or present ex- istence in external things, but the bodily organs are more under the control of the will, so that the individual acts under the influence of his erroneous conceptions, and often holds conversation in regard to them. He is also to a certain degree, susceptible of impressions from without, through the organs of his sense ; not, however, so as to correct his erroneous impressions, but rather to be mixed up with them. All these several cases the author last cited illustrates by a variety of instances of much interest, but the recital would be a digression too wide for admittance in these pages : suffice it, therefore, to observe, that the scenes of the dream are not less impressive than the scenes awake of the day ; the impressions with which they are accom- panied, whether of pain or pleasure, are the same. The mind wishes, reasons, wills, and acts the same as when awake, and holds seeming intercourse with others. In ordinary dreams the limbs rest in sleep, but with the som- nambulist or acting dreamer, the limbs obey the will, as if the person were awake. These acts are all most assuredly creatures of the mind, are scenes utterly devoid of matter. d Abercrombie. Ibid. 56 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. Being such, they prove that the scenes of the waking hours may be equally immaterial ; and if both be immaterial there can be no such thing as matter. The author of the treatise last cited exercises much in- genuity in conjectures concerning the causes of dreams, and ascribes them to impressions received during the waking hours. That the objects of the dream are of the same kind, however varied those impressions be, may not be denied, but the combinations are, for the most part, so different from those of the day, as hardly to bear any resemblance. The German philosopher Liebig would maintain, that they are impressions made on the nerves, by gaseous substances operating in various ways, but mostly by means of the stomach : it is to such agencies that he assigns the actions of the waking man. Such reasons may be true, but the effects are all alike attributable ultimately to what he calls the vital force, which is brought into action by the Great Cause of all action, the Divine Mind. This same power operates alike in the actions of the day and in the dreams of sleep. It were difficult to assign a reason why the effects produced in the day should be different from the same in the night. The cause of both being the same, the means may reasonably be presumed to be the same also, and that in both cases the Divine agent acts on the same substance, and that, whether the act be done by day or by night, awake or asleep, the substance acted on is immaterial. The reasons for the Divine agency may be believed to be the same in both cases. The actions of the day are con- fessedly designed for the probation of the spirit and the formation of a virtuous character. The dreams, the visionary actions of the night in sleep, are evidently calculated to produce the same effect. The impression made and the sentiments excited are near resemblances of the sentiments and actions of the waking character. The general tendency of the visions of sleep being the same as those of the man METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 57 awake, they must be equally the result of Divine agency, and intended to produce the like effect; moral improvement. The end being the same, it were strange to suppose that the means can be different, and that the vital operative force should be material during day and immaterial in the night. The supposition, if it could be entertained, were most strange. Such being the evident uses of dreams, it were idle to suppose that they are usually prophetic, or in- tended for other purposes than those now stated. One great truth, however, dreams clearly teach : they give us to under- stand, from distressing dreams or from pleasant dreams, that disembodied spirits, the souls of the departed, may subsist in a state of either extreme misery or the greatest joy and happiness, and that mind is, after death at least, utterly independent of matter. e The author of the Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers very justly observes, that there is a remarkable analogy between the mental phenomena in insanity and in dreaming ; and that the leading peculiarities of both these conditions are referable to two heads. First: The impres- sions which arise in the mind are believed to be real ex- istences, but that this belief is not corrected by comparing the conception with the actual state of things in the external world. Secondly : The chain of ideas and images which arise follow one another according to certain associations over which the individual has no control ; he cannot, as in a healthy state, vary the series or stop it at his will. Such is the general view which the ingenious and popular author of the work above cited takes of the sad malady of insanity. He illustrates his positions by a recital of cases which prove that, in truth, insanity is none other than a waking dream. The images occurring to the mind during the waking hours of insanity, may justly be regarded as the perceptions of the senses, nearly in the same state as those with which c Abercrombie. Art. 3. 58 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. persons not insane perceive. Both are awake, and although, as the author above cited justly observes, the sane person may have a more perfect choice of the objects of attention than the insane, yet it is by no means certain that one is more real than the other. The objects of the insane are generally regarded as unreal, because they are different from those usually entertained by the sane in similar circumstances, yet since both are alike submitted to the senses by the same omnipotent agent, the Divine Mind, there can be no reason why the one, being in accordance with the ordinary laws of nature, should be more material than those entertained by the insane mind, which rejects their guidance. To affirm that the ideas of the one are material realities and those of the other altogether imaginary is a bold assumption, unjus- tifiable by any authority, and little reconcileable with truth. In short, the sober images of the sane mind cannot make claim to a more absolute reality than the wild reveries of the insane, for both appear to the percipient equally im- pressive, both equally real, and both alike are most undeni- ably the effects of the same Divine agency, and consequently, that both are alike immaterial, and matter is not extant in the one more than in the other. f The appearances called spectral illusions, of which the same author cites many and various instances, belong to the same class as the dreams of the sleeper and the visions of the insane: occurring to the person while awake, and usually perfectly conscious of the passing circumstances, they bear the semblance of greater reality than either of the two species of appearances above mentioned. All the tales of ghosts and hobgoblins which had been, till of late, regarded as the foolish fancies of superstition or the fabrications of fraud, find the reality of truth in these spectres, and afford the assurance, that objects may be truly the objects of sense without the slightest claim to material reality. It seems ira- ' Ibid. Art. 4. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 59 possible to ascertain the causes of these visions, for they have occurred to persons both in sickness and in health, to persons of the soundest judgment as well as to those who may be supposed to have been liable to impressions merely imaginary. Spectral illusions may, in almost all instances of their occurrence, be said to be accidents totally uncon- nected with any other natural cause than the Divine Mind, which, when it gives at least a short existence utterly imma- terial to these forms, shows the true agency of its powers, giving every semblance of matter to a form confessedly exempt from matter, and showing that his power is com- petent to effect the same in all the objects that occur to sense. The arguments already offered may be presumed to be sufficient proofs of the truth of the doctrine of the univer- sality of spirit, and preclude the idea of the reality of matter. There is, however, no question so clearly evident as not to admit some doubt or denial, and more especially when, as in the present subject, opposition is offered to opinions long entertained, and apparently contradicting the evidence of the senses. What, and how many objections to these arguments ingenuity may devise, it were impossible to say ; but there are two or three which may possibly be offered, and which consequently invite notice. Of these, the fact may be cited that certain beings belonging to this our world are invisible and not objects of human sense, and that many are visible, or objects of sensible perception. Again, certain beings are mortal, and subject to decay and death, while others, heavenly angels and departed souls or spirits, are exempt from that change. These facts seem to imply a difference between these beings, and suggest the idea, that the one is visible and perishable because it is a material substance, the other is immortal and imperishable because it is not material. A third objection contends, that the anti- material theory has been overthrown by arguments long 60 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. since urged, and that the advocacy of the doctrine by Bishop Berkeley, by whom it was first propounded, has completely failed, and his opinions consigned to the oblivion of at least a whole century. To these objections the following replies are submitted. That there exist in the present state of the universe created beings, who, like the Deity, are not the objects of perception to mortal sense, is a truth which cannot be denied or doubted by any person of sane mind or influenced by sound reason. These beings are usually regarded as purely spiritual, that is, as objects of thought or mind only, and consequently, as creatures perfectly exempt from matter and purely immaterial. This opinion, although undeniably true, seems to have given occasion to the erroneous notion, that visible beings must be of a kind entirely different from invisible beings, and that the former become the objects of sense because their substance is widely different from spiri- tual substance, and that their substance must be that which is understood to be matter. This conjecture, for the idea is merely a conjecture, decides that it is matter that enables any substance which occupies a certain portion of space, to prevent all other substances from occupying the same space : that matter is the cause of hardness to the touch, of colour to the eye, odour to the nostril, and flavour to the taste. Misled by these opinions the materialist concludes that the converse of the proposition is true, and that as matter is the only means of perception, so, whatever is perceivable must be matter. The anti-materialist, disencumbered of the erroneous notion of the reality of matter, and entertaining right opinions concerning the Divine Mind, is well assured, that the Divine Mind gives to every creature born in and subsisting within himself, such qualities as he sees most suitable to his wise purposes, and therefore, to some he assigns a visible existence, to some an invisible existence. The true reason of this distinction may not be known, but METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 61 conjecture may not perhaps be charged with presumption if it ventures to affirm, that since the present is a state of probation, the distinction of things visible and invisible may be most conducive to such probation. Things visible may so engross attention, as to render it a matter requiring some effort to give attention to the voice of truth and wisdom, and give a proper attention to things future and invisible. How many are there who cannot endure this trial ! The doctrine, that since mind or spirit does not consist of parts or material substance, it is not perishable, apparently favours the opinion, that whatever is perishable does consist of parts, and that it is material. From hence it may be in- ferred, that the general tendency of all things ultimately to decay and death, is an argument proving their materiality. This possibility is, however, so slender, that it hardly offers any opposition to the arguments and authorities which vindicate the universality of spirit. This opposition is weakened by the strong probability that since the visibility of the things of our world have a tendency to alienate the mind and divert the attention of mankind from things future, so the process of decay has a tendency to lead the mind and thought from things present to things future. This, and the dispensation last cited, are alike well adapted to a state of trial ; they show that the Deity kindly and wisely balances motives, leaving the choice to the will, which, thus wrought upon by motives duly balanced, must be free. Such are the truths which natural religion teaches relative to the divine government of the world and the means employed for the accomplishment of the intended purpose. It seems a wea- risome, but not perhaps an unnecessary observation, that all these truths deny the reality of matter. In the year one thousand seven hundred and ten, George Berkeley, D. D. afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, published his Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge, and soon afterwards Three Dialogues, between Hylas, a materialist, 62 MKTAPHYSICAL PROOFS. and Philonous, an anti-materialist, in which by various argu- ments he stated his denial of the reality of matter, and vindicated the immateriality, or rather, the spirituality of all created beings whether animate or inanimate. The novelty, and especially the import of the subject, engaged deeply the attention of the metaphysicians of the age, among whom he gained many advocates or disciples; but the doctrine ap- peared to the generality so visionary and contrary to the evidence of the senses, that it was held to be unworthy of serious attention, and consequently it lost the notice of the public. Towards the end of the last century, the theory engaged the attention of the Scottish metaphysicians, some of whom, after having awhile admitted its truth, afterwards recanted, and became decided materialists. The spark of what is here vindicated, the spark of truth, was not extinguished ; witness the new edition of the Bishop's works lately published, and a recent and able vindication of his doctrine, called Uni- versal Immaterialism. That it seems at least to some to be worthy of notice, the present work may be said to prove. What the episcopal spiritualist taught shall forthwith be shown. In the first section of his Principles of Human Know- ledge, he writes, 8 "It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely repre- senting those originally perceived in the aforesaid wa\ i." These latter ideas, being nothing else than accidental or artificial combinations of the ideas imprinted on the senses, there is no occasion now to notice. Of the first he gives the following illustration : " A certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence, having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing signified by the name ; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and * Princip. sect. 1. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 63 the like sensible things." After this statement of admitted truths, he develops his peculiar notions in the following words: h " That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow, and to me it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas, that is, whatever objects they compose, cannot exist otherwise than in the mind perceiving them ; for, as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things, without any relation to their being per- ceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them." 'Again, "It is an opinion strangely prevailing among men, that houses, mountains, rivers, in a word all sensible objects, have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding ; but with how great an assu- rance and acquiescence soever this principle may be enter- tained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction, for what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations, and is it not plainly repugnant, that any one of these or any combination of them should exist unperceived ? " These arguments are intended to prove, that all sensible objects exist only when and while they are perceived, that they cease to exist when not perceived, but are called anew into existence when brought again into notice and made the objects of perception. According to this theory, all sensible objects rise into existence when they are perceived, but they cease to exist when they cease to be the objects of attention. Were this rule true, it would follow, that the astronomer creates the heavenly bodies while he makes them the objects of his observations, and that they cease to exist when they h Sect. 3. * Sect. 4. 64 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. are no longer contemplated. By a parity of reasoning, the artificer creates the substances which he makes the objects of his attention while at work, but that they lose their ex- istence when he ceases to operate upon them. To escape from this dilemma the author states the fol- lowing case. k The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it ; and if it were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby, that if I were in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. Thus the perception of some other person or creature preserves the object from annihilation, and keeps the table in readiness for the renewed perception and con- tinued use of the owner. What is thus predicable of a table must be equally true of everything created ; and this shows that some of the 1 disciples of Berkeley carried his theory beyond the doctrines taught by their master when they denied that there is an external world, or that it exists ex- ternal to the mind or the sense of percipient creatures. It being possible and even probable that all things created may not always happen to be kept in notice by sentient minds, and consequently that such objects as might thus happen to be overlooked must cease to exist, the Bishop bars such accident by the following provision : m All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, and their being (ease} is to be perceived or known, and that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all or else subsist in the mind of some eternal s/>irit, it being perfectly unintelligible k Sect. 3. 1 Clavis Universalis, a Demonstration of the Impossibility of an Ex- ternal World, by A. Collier, A.D. 1713. m Sect. 6. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 65 and involving an absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of spirit. Again, he says, n "The things perceived by sense may be said to be external with regard to their origin, in that they are not generated within by the mind itself, but imprinted by a spirit distinct from that which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be without, in another sense, when they exist in some other mind. Thus, when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in another mind." When, as it is here admitted, that things perceived by sense may be said to be external to it, with regard to their origin, in that they are not generated within the mind itself, that is, in the mind actually perceiving, but imprinted by a mind distinct from that which perceives them, the Bishop gives up the doctrine which maintains that there is no world external to the individual percipient mind, but that all things exist in that mind only, and are in fact created by it. If ideas, or things perceived, can have an origin external to, or distinct from, the percipient mind, they are inde- pendent, as to their existence, of that mind, which receives the means of perception from an external cause, which may be called the efficient cause of perception, and is in reality the creator of the things perceived. Again, when the episcopal anti-materialist writes, " Sensible objects may be said to be without (the mind of the percipient) in another sense, when they exist in some other mind," he admits again that things may exist even when not per- ceived by all minds, provided they be perceived by some one mind. These positions are all made rather with a reference to effect than to cause, and, however true in the abstract, can hardly be possible in reality. Things once called into existence, and endowed with a capability of exciting ideas in sensible mind, can never cease to exist so long as the primal n Sect. 90. 66 METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. exciting Cause shall continue to supply to the substance once endowed with the means of exciting ideas, a succession of those means. Such is the import of the argument of the episcopal advocate of the immateriality and spirituality of all things. The theory vindicated in the present work gives a direct attention to that exciting Cause the Divine Mind ; it main- tains that the means of exciting ideas and giving birth to sensation, or, in other terms, that actual existence arose in him, and that their continuance rests with his ever-per- cipient Spirit. The Divine Mind, eternal and ubiquitous, perceives all things, for all things subsist within its un- bounded essence, and all things created become through his agency the objects of perception, agreeably to those laws which he has been pleased to ordain, the laws of nature. Thus does it appear, that the episcopal anti-materialist arrives at the same goal with ourselves, though by a course somewhat different. He boldly denies the reality of matter, and shows that all things hold an immaterial spiritual ex- istence within the Divine Mind. Holding such existence in that mind, the things thus created become the objects of sense or not the objects of sense, according as that Al- mighty Cause may ordain. Such is the true purport of the Berkeleian theory which is here adopted. It is presumed that the Divine Mind occupies wholly all such space as affords locality or place to any sub- stance which it may be pleased to create. Admitting this, it yet cannot be denied, that since, according to Locke, time and space exist only as combinations or repetitions of the same ideas, time and space may be said to be ideal only, and that ages of ages may be comprised in an instant, and the im- mensity of space within the compass of an atom, Omni- potence could effect such created system merely by the ex- citation of ideas: but theories so widely remote from the Locke, Book ii. chap. 13, 14. METAPHYSICAL PROOFS. 67 common conceptions of the human mind may be regarded as incomprehensible and such as it were useless to propound. This will be a sufficient reason for adherence to the plain and comprehensible theory, that all creatures or things arise into existence in the Divine Mind ; that this creative power renders them distinct objects of perception by the exercise of his almighty power, everywhere present, ever operating. The authorities above cited, and the arguments adduced in the preceding pages, bear out most assuredly this great, this universal truth, that matter is not ; that it holds no place in created existences, or in any of the boundless regions of space ; that all things the objects of sense are pure spirit, called into being at the Divine Will, and existent within the ubiquitous substance of the Divine Mind. This same Almighty Power which gives them into existence, confers on each such faculties and capacities as to him seems fit, and sustains and continues their exercise in such manner and for such time as may best serve his purposes wise and good. Thus it is that all things are born, live, and die in his substance, which is pure spirit, and all these his creations are, like their Great Cause, wholly immaterial, or devoid of matter. Such is the conclusion which the anti-materialist submits to the consideration of the candid and intelligent reader ; confident that it is not only true, but that it deserves the attention of the wise and good, for it affords a right understanding of the agency of the Deity, and so exhibits truly our intimate, or rather our identical union with him, and consequently that we are ever in his presence and ever in his power. CHAPTER II. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. METAPHYSICAL evidences not being founded on authorities of undeniable validity, but on reason only, may not be expected to be of themselves sufficiently decisive of the question of the immateriality of created substances, es- pecially because the evidence of the senses suggests to the superficial observer a ready and seemingly an unanswer- able argument, actual experience, in contradiction to the arguments of reason and philosophy. This defect of authority renders it desirable that au- thorities more decisive than moral arguments, and even the evidence of the senses, should be adduced. The sacred scriptures recording the revealed word of God, are admitted by all men of learning and piety to be decisive and un- answerable, in all instances in which they are explicit and clear; but the scriptures are silent on the subject of matter, or rather all the passages that bear upon it may be regarded as neutral, and may be understood as admissive of either the materiality or immateriality of the things which are SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 69 the objects of sense : but though seemingly silent, they will be found on closer examination to be even indirectly decisive of the truth of universal spirituality. Subjects perplexing and even unintelligibly mysterious, the reality of matter admitted, change altogether their seeming import, when interpreted on the principle of the immateriality. A little attention paid to the facts recorded and the doctrines taught, leads to the discovery that the immaterial and spiritual prin- ciple is in reality implied in every subject of Holy Writ, and that all the truths involve the supposition. Under this assurance it has seemed to be right to show the certainty of this opinion, by an actual application of the theory to the illustration of many of the facts recorded and doctrines taught in Holy Writ, and thus to prove by inductive argument, the truth of the immateriality and spirituality of all things. A greater good, it is conceived, is likely to arise from this course, than even the solution of the question of the imma- teriality. The application of the theory will be found to illustrate and explain doctrinal questions and Divine dis- pensations ; and render their truth more impressive on the mind, and consequently more influential on the conduct: a result calculated greatly to promote, as the first vindicator of immaterialisrn affirms, true religion and piety. So strong is the conviction entertained of the certainty of such result, that it affords the fullest persuasion, that had the episcopal im- materialist adopted this way of showing the truth of his system, the authorities of Scripture would have afforded such proofs of the worth of his theory, as would have secured it from the neglect under which it hath lain for nearly a cen- tury, and the world would have long enjoyed all the advan- tages which he zealously announced, and which it is hoped it may henceforth derive, from the anti-material theory and the doctrine of the pure spirituality of all things. Actuated by this opinion, the subjects of this investigation will be arranged under three heads. First, Remarks on Scriptural 70 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. Doctrines. Secondly, Remarks on Miracles. Thirdly, Re- marks on some of the Divine Dispensations. Of the subjects capable of receiving illustration from the anti-material theory, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity may be justly regarded as being entitled first of all others to particular consideration. It is not intended to quote many of the texts which teach that doctrine, they being well known, but to notice such only as may admit illustration by a refer- ence to the anti-material theory. How far such reference may illustrate that doctrine, the enquiring and pious reader will with candour determine. The moral evidences adduced in the beginning of the first chapter of this treatise have taught, that the many scriptural texts, which, in accordance with the first of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, affirm the unity of the Godhead, must be true. Both these authorities, the moral and the scriptural, show, that the Deity is a spirit, soul, or mind, purely divine, and utterly exempt from all material substance ; that this Divine Being is omnipresent, or more properly ubiquitous. Every mind, whether it be human or divine, lives or exists in such locality as may en- gage the thoughts; and consequently, the Divine Mind lives or exists everywhere within such portions of infinite space as it may think fit to create any substance capable of being the object of his notice or regard. As a means of assisting our minds in forming some idea of this ubiquitous Being, it has been ventured to compare it to an atmosphere of mind, a comparison which, however inadequate, serves like a sen- sible spot in unbounded space, to afford a resting place to the mind when it attempts to contemplate infinity. Whatever may be the aptness of the simile, it may serve to afford some ground of assent to the statement of our Church,? that " there is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions." P Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, Art. I. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 71 The Article thus proceeds, " In unity of this Godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Such are the terms in which the Apostolical Church announces the doc- trine of the Trinity, a doctrine to which, being taught in the pages of Holy Writ, every faithful believer of the Gospel will, with all dutifulness, give assent, even while, in the language of the Athanasian Creed, it is declared that it is incomprehensible. Incomprehensible the Godhead must remain till, again let it be observed, man shall be en- dowed with some new sense which shall see mind, soul, or spirit. Such new faculty or sense would give to view the Divine Mind, the Godhead itself. The Holy Word affords the positive assurance, tljat in a future state the im- mortal mind of man, the soul, will be endowed with such power : St. John writes, 1 " Beloved, it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, (have like powers) for we shall see him as he is." Till that time shall come, and the soul receive such new sense, we shall be bound to give a dutiful assent to the evidences which Scripture may afford, while at the same time it cannot be otherwise than right to exercise our present faculties in such researches as it may have pleased the Divine Mind to enable us to make, by means of such assistance as the theory of the anti-materialist may possibly afford. Of the Son, the second Personage of the Trinity, the following notices are made in Holy Writ. God said, r "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." s "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." This truth is farther confirmed by the words spoken by the Saviour himself, * " I and my Father are one." . judgment: they will *then be sentenced to endure pains inflicted on a body of keen sensibility, with which they will then be endowed. If the punishment of wicked angels and wicked men be the same, the angels will also then be endowed with a sensible body, which will add torments to the mental sufferings which they at present endure. u Com- mentators bring in proof of this position the complaint of the evil spirits, which, when cast out by the command of the Saviour from the Gergesene maniacs,cried out, "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time ? Art thou come to annoy us now with the pains of sense, to which, by the divine law, we are not yet subject ?" According to the text above cited, the contest between the angels took place in heaven : the place to which the rebellious angels are consigned to punishment is called hell. It is commonly supposed that these places are perfectly distinct ; that they are even far remote from each other ; for that heaven is above high up in air, and that hell is far below the surface and deep within the bowels of the earth. Such is the popular opinion on this subject : but it is not confirmed or refuted by any authority of holy writ, or illustrated by the discoveries of science. The astronomer, when he sweeps the heavens with his instruments of high magnifying power, and is thus enabled to see clearly numbers of heavenly bodies situate in the regions of space infinitely remote, finds no sphere or spot that can claim the name of heaven, neither does he, when by the aid of profound science he ascertains the solidity and weight of the globe, find reason to infer that it is a hollow sphere afford- ing a place of abode to any sentient creature. The geologist also, when he examines the mineral strata of what is called the outer crust of the globe, or the miner when he sinks his deepest depths below the surface, comes to no other conclusion than that the interior of the globe, beneath 1 Matthew xxv. 41. Matthiw viii. 29. Whitliy on '2 Pet. ii. 4. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 87 the depth of perhaps about eighteen miles, is one mass of mineral incandescent fluid. Thus does the question of the locality of heaven or of hell baffle the researches of sense. The revealed word will suggest just opinions on this in- teresting subject, if it be interpreted upon the principle of the immateriality and spirituality of their existence. * The parable of the wise and foolish virgins recorded in the gospel according to St. Matthew, may be taken in illustration of this question. Some virgins desirous of doing honour to a bridegroom waited, bearing lamps, to join the festive procession. The wise virgins having kept their lamps duly supplied with oil, were thus duly prepared for the coming of the bridegroom, and they entered with him into the house of festivity, and the doors were shut. Others less provident, finding their oil exhausted, had left the station to procure oil : coming soon after with lamps duly supplied they sought admittance, but their attendance was then too late, and they were shut out. The chief import of the par- able need not here be noticed : but the locality of the trans- action affords this inference ; that as the virgins admitted to share the pleasures of the feast were separated from the ex- cluded by a door only, which did not prevent the intercourse of conversation, so that hell, the abode of the negligent wicked, cannot be far distant from heaven, the abode of the good. Though access be impossible, yet all kind of inter- course is not impossible. Certainly a certain degree of inter- course is even easy. The parable or figurative history of the rich man and Lazarus, recorded in the gospel of ySt. Luke, affords another instance of the near locality, if not the identity of the abode of happy and wretched spirits after death. Abraham's bosom, the abode of the soul or spirit of Lazarus, is the same as the paradise promised by the Saviour on the cross, to the penitent thief; and heaven x Matthew xxv. x Luke xvi. 88 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. the word more commonly used to signify the abode of the righteous departed. The conversation that passed between the patriarch and the man in torments implies a vicinity of abode. The flame in which the miserable man was tormented cannot have been other than feverish ex- citement: for it were absurd to suppose that Lazarus can have been expected to subject himself to the pain which that element must have produced had he approached the sufferer ; and yet all intercourse was impossible. " Between us and you," said the Patriarch, " a great gulf is fixed, so that they which would pass from here to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." It is plain from the circumstances, that the gulf cannot imply a great local distance. The conversation passing forbids that supposition ; of which the rich man, in his anxious desire of relief, was not aware. The great gulf figuratively signified the differ- ence between the faculties of beatified and of damned spirits: such prevents all intercourse as effectually as the difference in the faculties prevents all social intercourse between man and the most imperfect of the animals upon earth. The circumstances of this parable, like those of the last cited, justify the conclusion that the beatified and the condemned spirits of the departed do actually abide in the same regions of space, and that heaven and hell have the same locality, but that the happiness of the good and the torments of the wicked consist in the difference of the faculties assigned to each. The same must be inferred from the text in the Revelations, z " The wicked shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." This is the punish- ment inflicted after the day of judgment, but still even then the locality of the wicked and of the good may be the same. Tins local identity of heaven and hell becomes perfectly intelligible, if contemplated with a reference to the irn- 1 Rev. xiv. 10. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 89 material principle. The Divine Mind, ubiquitous, fills or occupies the wide regions of space, at least as far as they may be occupied by things created, the objects of the Divine notice: all things must of consequence subsist within the Divine Mind. The creative Mind which gives a spiritual existence to every creature, may and doubtless does assign to each, whether it be good or evil, its relative locality. Such creatures as are said to enjoy the presence of their Creator cannot be more near than those that are shut out from his presence, for all alike live in him : the difference must consist in the degrees of favour or disfavour of which each may be thought worthy. To assist our weak comprehension, the crea- tures may be supposed to have to each other a relative distance ; but happiness or misery will not depend on the locality of each, but on the divine favour and influence given or with- held according to the deserts, the good or bad actions, and the good or evil spirit of each individual. It is declared in holy writ, that such is the law by which good and evil, happiness or unhappiness, are dispensed to mortal man in the present life : no reason can be assigned why the same law may not apply to beings of every state of existence, whether past, present or future. Such is the view which the anti-material theory suggests of this subject; and the anti-materialist will contend that this view is in perfect ac- cordance with all the authorities of holy writ. The mention made in Scripture of the frequent inter- course of good and evil angels is a proof not only that heaven and earth are not places different and distant in the regions of space, but it suggests the true reasons of the intercourse, and of the character of the offices or actions of each of those beings. The presence of Satan in the Garden of Eden when he tempted Eve, and of the angel who met the patriarch Jacob on his journey from Padan-Aram to give him confi- dence in the danger of the approach of Esau, are instances in proof. The following well-known passage in the Book of 90 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. Job is especially illustrative of this subject. a " Now there was a day when the sons of God (holy angels) came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, aud from walking up and down in it" This text plainly shows, that not only the Deity and his angels were met on earth, but that the earth is also the place at least frequented by Satan, although fallen from his first estate and driven from the presence of God. Satan not only appeared assembled in the council of the Most High, but he was made the minister of the trial of the pious Patriarch. Many and many texts teach that spirits both good and evil become the instrumental agents of the purposes of God, and that they are so incessantly occupied in discharge of their several offices that they can never be absent from earth, the abode of man. Some few instances of this agency will show the truth of this statement. The law of Moses was b " ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator." These heavenly agents, acting under the direction of the Word, moved the Hebrew lawgiver to write the law. They also wrought the miracles and directed the events that secured its establishment This agency of angels in this work, together with many other instances of the em- ployment of angels in the execution of purposes which are reported as the work of the Deity himself, teach us to under- stand that all the acts ascribed to him are done by the immediate agency of these heavenly spirits. The c Rabbi Maimonides affirms that God never acts but by such ministers. These authorities afford the assurance that all the books of holy writ were, like the law of Moses, " ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator." The Holy Spirit, co-operating with the Father and the Son, directed the holy angels to Job i. 6, 7. b Galatians iii. 19- c Whitby on Heb. ii. 2. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 01 superintend the holy penmen, to guide their hands and keep them from errors and discrepancies in their writings. This vicarious and directing agency of the Deity is in like manner extended to men, to animals, and even the elements, as many texts most plainly declare. d The angel Gabriel, according to the prophet Daniel, was employed in the superintendance of the fortunes of the great empires of Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The e " angel of his presence" often saved the Israelites from destruction, and the prosperity of nations is ever secure by their agency. In this work evil angels are employed when the Deity sees cause for chastisement. In the book of Samuel it is written, f " The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." In the Chronicles it is wTitten, " And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." On this occasion the purpose originated with the Deity; but Satan was the agent which he thought proper to employ. Many and clear are the Scriptural texts which prove that these angels, both the good and the bad, bear a great part in the circumstances on which the salvation or perdition of the immortal soul of man depend. The evil spirit, the devil, according to Saint Peter, " as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour;" and all his agents, his angels, as they are termed in Scripture, are found, whenever mention is made of them, acting in the perversion of truth, exciting evil passions, and, in accordance with their practice before the creation of the present world, endeavouring to oppose the will of the Almighty by tempting men into dis- obedience and sin, even though they both know and foresee that their malignant wickedness leads inevitably to an increase of eternal misery and woe to themselves. The offices of good angels are of character the direct d Daniel x. 20. e Isaiah Ixiii. 9. f 2 Samuel xxiv. 1. I Chronicles xxi. 1. & 1 Peter v. 8. 9*2 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. reverse of those of the evil. h " They are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." This ministry is the same as that afforded when they ministered to the Saviour after he had overcome in the temptation in the wilderness : they excite in the mind that complacent satisfaction and strengthened purpose which the conscience feels on performance of a bounden duty. Of even the humblest Christians the Saviour speaks, * " Their angels always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven," are continually watchful over his spiritual interests, and ever ready to report their wrongs to the God Supreme. The interest these angels take in the affairs of every man is intense : J " There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." The same interest cannot but be productive of grief when it is seen by them that man falls into sin. Such are the occupations of the holy angels ; such also were their occupations when in the war which Michael fought with Satan and his angels they ad- hered to their true duty, and advocated obedience to their Creator and their God. The Saviour, speaking of the spirits of the departed righteous, says, k " In the resurrection they neither many nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." This text invites the question, Are the offices and duties of the spirits of the righteous after death the same, or like those of the heavenly angels ? It may be inferred that they are. It were inconsistent with the Divine attri- bute of perfect wisdom to suppose that any being should live in vain, useless and unemployed : if then the departed spirits be as the angels, they must share their feelings, and be interested as angels are interested; they must rejoice when one sinner repenteth, and be ever ready to promote repentance, and further righteousness and holiness. Such occupation were suitable to the disposition of the spirits of h Hebrews i. 14. ' Matthew xviii. 10. ' Luke xv. 10. k Matthew xxii. 30. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 93 the blessed. When the disembodied spirits of Moses and Elias were seen with the Saviour at the transfiguration, 1 " they spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." Their appearance most assuredly tended to promote the faith of the three disciples who were present. Whatever be the truth as to this question, it is most certain that a belief of the angelic agency of the spirits of departed friends and relatives must greatly aid the mind in rendering obedience to the precept, m u Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." It may be confidently affirmed, if indeed it be not an ad- mitted certainty founded on the authority of the Divine attributes, that the Deity is never on any occasion or under any circumstances the immediate cause or agent to evil, but on the contrary, that all designs formed by him and all acts done by him or his ministering spirits, tend to an increase of good and ultimately to perfect good; and on the contrary, that whatever may be evil is the result of a necessity by which the evil leads to greater good than would otherwise have been attainable. Such is the inference drawn from the history of the world of angels, which, from authorities cited in some preceding pages, held its place in the Divine designs in ages anterior to the creation of this our present world. Nothing can be either good or bad which is done from necessity. No act can be either good or bad unless it be the result of the free choice of the agent. On the authority of this maxim it may be affirmed, that it were absurd to imagine that the Deity could create a being either perfectly good or completely wicked. The design of the Creator must have been to promote good, and to give life to creatures that might become good. To all things therefore he gave the means of becoming good, by assigning to each the freedom of will, the choice of good or evil made by a mind or spirit able to judge and to decide upon action. Angels, spirits, 1 Luke ix. 31. m Colossians iii. 2. 94 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. were such : they were created and placed in a state of trial. Authorities stated in former pages show that some of the angel-persons of the first world deserted from the truth ; they became malignant, the enemies of right, the ministers of wrong. The laws of necessity rendered compulsory reform impossible, and thus evil entered and remains for the present in the world, in direct defiance of what is held to be the will of Omnipotence itself. The prescience of the Deity foresaw these consequences. His wisdom will most assuredly amend them, will improve even evil. To this effect speaks the Saviour, when, referring to the consequences of the fall of the first parents which rendered his atoning sacrifice neces- sary, he says, n "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Good and evil, pleasure and pain, however opposite, are not unfrequently the only means by which purposes most desirable can be accomplished : and consequently the Great Governor of the world dispenses sometimes the one, some- times the other. Authorities cited have shown that the Deity always accomplishes his purposes by the vicarious agency of created agents: ministering spirits. Of these the good and faithful joyfully obey the Divine behests in the perfor- mance of deeds good and acceptable to the creatures or persons for whom they are wrought : the evil and rebellious spirits are, on the contrary, ever eager to inflict evil, partly because evil is their delight, but partly because it is appa- rently inconsistent with the Divine will and goodness. It seems necessary to notice this fact, because it affords a strong confirmation of the truth of the present theory, which contends that all creatures alike, whether good or evil, live in and act in the regions of space filled and pervaded by the Divine Mind; and farther, that all alike receive their powers of action from him, and also the influences or means which give activity to those powers. That each of the heavenly n John x. 10. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 95 spirits, the good and the evil, should be employed in offices congenial with their respective dispositions, may very justly be regarded as a proof of the Divine goodness which for- bears to impose an unpleasant office even on an evil spirit. That the Deity is thus universally merciful, the following instances will show : they may serve, according to the lan- guage of the poet, To assert eternal Providence, And vindicate the ways of God to man. The several plagues that humbled the pride of the Egyptians, and at length compelled the king to "let Israel go," were all brought on by the agency of powers called by the Psalmist evil angels. The inspired author writes, P"He (God) cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them." To their agency the presence of offensive and noxious animals is ascribed: the storms that destroyed their crops : the diseases that carried off their cattle ; and finally the death of the first-born ; all these evils were wrought by evil angels. The agent in the last visitation was dis- tinguished by the name of the destroyer, but his power was limited, as in all other cases, by the Almighty, so that, how- ever malignant, he was obliged to forbear and spare the inmates of houses where the blood of the paschal lamb was seen on the lintel and posts of the doors. The sons of Israel, on the contrary, were the objects of special care to the angel of the Lord.^ In their passage through the Red Sea he stood behind them, and by thus protecting them, troubled the host of the Egyptians, and perplexed their pro- gress, till at length the sea returned to his strength, and the Lord, by an evil angel, which tempted the Egyptians to follow the pursuit, overthrew them in the midst of the sea. We have the authority of the Saviour to affirm that per- Paradise Lost, Book i. v. 25. P Psalm Ixxviii. 49. 1 Exod. xiv. 96 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. sonal infirmities are inflicted by the power of Satan. r "A woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself," was said to have been bound by Satan. 8 Power was given to the Apostles against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and thus to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of dis- ease. 'Hymeneus and Alexander, having put away faith and a good conscience, were delivered by St. Paul unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme. These dissenters from the true faith were given by apostolical authority into the power of Satan, that he might afflict them with diseases, and thus render them less bold and confident of their own opinions, and learn to submit to the rightful authorities of the Church, and concur with them in the true faith. u Many diseases, and especially madness, were ascribed by the Jews to evil spirits. Under this persuasion a certain man came to the Saviour, saying, x " Lord, have mercy on my ' Luke xiii. 11. Matthew x. 1. * 1 Timothy i. 19, 20. Blomfield on John vii. 20. Dr. Francis Buchanan relates, in his Journey through Mysore, the following circumstance, (chap. vii. p. 45.) " At night 1 was awaked by a prodigious noise in the village which was at some distance from my tent. On enquiry, I learned that one of the cattle-drivers had been possessed by a Pysacfii or evil spirit, and had been for some time senseless and foaming at the mouth. On this occasion the whole people, Mussulmans as well as Pagans, had assembled, and in hopes of frightening away the devil had made all the noise that they could, but he had continued to keep possession, till the arrival of a Brahman, who having thrown some consecrated ashes on the man, and offered some prayers proper for the occasion, at length procured a release." That such belief should prevail in the nineteenth century in distant India, and be exactly the same as the belief of the Jews at Jerusalem in the beginning of the first, can only be accounted for by the opinion that such was the belief entertained by all the patriarchs founded upon authorities now unknown, and that it had been received by the ancestors of the present race of Hindus, and by them preserved with a tenacity peculiar to that people. * Matthew xvii. 15, 13. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 97 son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed : for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed from him, and the child was cured from that very hour." The facts hitherto noticed relate exclusively to the tem- poral or personal affairs of man ; but the influence of these spiritual agents, whether good or evil, on the moral interests of man, is equally great. The office of the former is signified by the following texts : y " The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." The good are the objects of their special care. The Saviour teaches that all Christians, even those of the lowest rank, have their angels who superintend and promote their wel- fare, for that such guardians z " daily behold the face of the Father which is in heaven." This text implies an attention paid to both their spiritual and temporal interests. That which speaks of them as a ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation, may be rather referred to the former, in which, as agents of the Holy Spirit, they not only protect the righteous from over- powerful temptations, but excite in them satisfactory senti- ments when they have done their duty by the performance of righteous acts, or by the successful resistance of tempta- tions. The manner in which evil angels practise upon the mind of man cannot be better explained than in the account of the temptation of Eve, and the history of the fall of man. Satan, then, assailed Eve, desirous of knowing the future fortunes of herself and the son of whom she was in all probability then pregnant: a knowledge which she knew was obtainable by tasting the forbidden fruit. The tempter cannot be supposed to have appeared in a visible form ; but that he wrought upon her curiosity by the promise of mighty advantages unreasonably withheld, with the added sugges- y Psalm xxxiv. 7. z Matthew xviii. 10. R Hebrews i. 14. H 98 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. tion, that "ye shall not surely die," that the threatened punishment would not be inflicted, or might be escaped. The extent to which these trials may be carried will be truly estimated from the words spoken by the Saviour to the apostle Peter : b " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat :" that is, perplex him in sport, and by rendering unsteady in principle, sink him into perdition. Such is the power of evil spirits. It is a happy circumstance that such powerful malignity should be subjected to due restraint It may be hoped, trials such as that from which the disciple escaped are extreme cases: the following is of frequent occurrence, and highly illustrative of the ordinary agency of wicked angels : c " When the evil spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none." It is here supposed that the mind in which the evil spirit had found abode for a time, had rejected the wrong impulses which the evil spirit had excited, and which had been for a while indulged. The dry places whither the evil spirit retired were barren and desolate places, such as are not unfrequently sought by maniacs, and which on that account the Jews supposed such spirits did choose to frequent. The spirit cast out, finding his late abode, though cleansed, yet unoccupied, returned, taking with him " seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first." The mind, unless occupied by good sentiments or good spirits, ever lies open to the influence of evil spirits ; and even in cases in which the evil may have been ejected, yet unless proper sentiments be entertained, not only will the evil sentiments or propensities return, but will return accompanied by others even worse, the effects of the influence of spirits evil and unclean, spirits which, ac- cording to the revealed word, are permitted to act with b Luke irii. 30. c Matthew xii. 43. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 99 increased power, and perhaps render the salvation of the individual utterly hopeless. In these, and indeed in all other instances in which mention is made in Holy Writ of these spirits, these invisible agents, they are all represented as persons differing only from human beings in that they hold an existence invisible to human sense. They speak, they act, and are influenced by affections the same in kind, and not unfrequently the same in degree, as in visible men. In truth, the anti- materialist contends that men differ only from the beings called spirits by the quality of visibility, that he is always the object of sense, but that they only become visible on extraordinary occasions, or by miracle. The powerful influence of these beings on the human mind will not perhaps be denied ; but that the same should be extended to the visible body, especially if the body be a material substance, will perhaps be regarded as a position new and doubtful. If, however, the doctrine of materialism be re- jected, then there can be no room for doubt. If visible beings be pure spirits as well as the invisible, it becomes easy of belief that the invisible spirit may readily act upon the visible, there being no other difference between them than a simple quality, visibility, which it must be admitted that the Deity can give or withhold at pleasure. These reasons lead to the confident assurance that the spirits mentioned in Holy Writ were real personages, and that disease is the result of the influence of malignant spirits, and that all the cures of diseases mentioned in the Gospels were effected by the casting out of devils by the divine power of the Saviour, when he commanded the malignant inmate spirits to depart from their victim, and give way to the good spirits of restored health. This belief will, it is presumed, be regarded as at least highly probable, if the origin of disease, now not altogether known, be duly considered. Professor Liebig, whose experimental knowledge on every 100 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. question relating to the pathology of the human person is universally acknowledged, writes as follows ; d " Every sub- stance or matter, every chemical or mechanical agency which changes or disturbs the restoration of the equilibrium be- tween the manifestations of the causes of waste or supply in such a way as to add by its action to the causes of waste, is called a cause of disease. Disease occurs when the sum of vital force which tends to neutralize all causes of dis- turbance is weaker than the acting causes of disturbance." An enquiry into the cause of animal action or motion, given in a former page, 6 led to a reference to the authority of the skilful and ingenious scientist above cited ; and he taught that action was the result of nervous influences operating upon the muscular system, and thus producing mechanical effect. The Professor being a stranger to the doctrine of immaterialism, regards the human body as a material machine, but he assigns all action ultimately to the influence of a spirit, which he terms vital force, vis vita, or vitality. This spirit can be no other than the Divine Mind, which, whether considered upon metaphysical proofs or scriptural evidences, is most undeniably a power fully adequate to all the effects on which the ingenious scientist so ably treats. It will not be denied that that Power omnipotent and wise, acts according to certain rules which he has thought fit to establish ; and therefore when it becomes expedient, a ques- tion which he alone can determine, he dispenses either health or disease by introducing that action into the system described in the extract above cited, which the learned Professor may be admitted to have shown to be well ascertained. Vitality, the cause of the action, is itself an effect of the Great Cause, the Divine Mind, which operates in all things. Authorities cited give the knowledge that spiritual beings, Hiigrls good or evil, are employed in the accomplishment of the Divino designs. This is a dispensation which accords d Liebig, part iii. p. 254. e Chap. i. p. 38. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 101 perfectly with the Divine attributes: it becomes a test of faithful obedience in good angels, improving their virtues, and entitling them to reward ; in evil angels it determines their vices, and justifies the infliction of the punishment which awaits them. When the Deity may think fit to confer good of any kind, as, for instance, health and happy animal powers, whether of body or mind, on any individual, he employs good angels, the ministers to confer or dispense it ; when he may think fit to inflict pain or infirmity of any kind, then he employs evil angels. Both are alike under his immediate control, for both alike derive from him their power of action, and both alike live and act in him. The credibility of this position is established by the revealed word, which declares that the number of these agents, both good and evil, is almost infinitely great, great also is their active efficiency. When therefore the Gospel affirms that devils were cast out by the miracle-working hand of the Saviour when on earth, it must be understood that evil spirits, which were the cause of disease, were actually cast out, leaving room for the admission of good angels, the ministers of health and joy. According to this statement it is to be admitted that spirits both good and evil enter into and each produce the effects peculiarly suited to the disposition of the agent. The doctrine of the German professor absolutely points out the organ on which the spirit operates. The nerves branching throughout the animal frame are the organs on which the spirit, whether good or evil, operates. The agent gives its influence to the vis vita, the vital force or vitality, and the intended result ensues. The effect becomes such as the Divine Mind may intend, and health or disease, strength or weakness, mental ability or mental debility, ensues, accord- ing to the character of the spirit whom the Deity may think proper to employ. All personal endowments are, according to scriptural authorities, the gifts of God ; and this doctrine 102 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. of the agency of spirits accords fully with revealed truth. That it is such as the immaterial theory entertains it were needless to affirm. All the evil spirits cast out were invisible beings ; they were not seen on their departure, because they were spirits. To this the materialist readily assents ; and contends, that had they not been spirits, they would have been the objects of sense, and therefore visible. This position he vindicates by another, that visibility is the quality of material objects, and invisibility of spiritual. The subject of visibility and invisibility has been already noticed, and it has been observed and it is presumed proved, that the Deity has been pleased to ordain that some creatures should be the objects of our present senses, some not, because the difference might be supposed to be conducive to the purposes of a state of trial or probation, but that in reality things visible and invisible were both alike immaterial and spiritual substances. The truth of this position will receive confirmation from Holy Writ, which shows angels, although properly invisible beings, become visible whenever occasion may require and the Deity approve. The recital of a few instances will amply suffice for the purpose of proof. When the angel delivered the apostle Peter from the power of I lerod, as related in the twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the heavenly minister touched the side of the sleep- ing prisoner and he awoke : the chains fell off from his hands as if by instinct: the prisoner at the word of the deliverer cast his garment about him, and followed his conductor. They passed without obstruction through the wards or yards of the prison ; the outer iron gate opened of its own accord ; and the apostle having awhile followed his conductor, found himself alone in a street in which was the place of his abode. This narrative is very properly received as a true record of the transaction, and is received as a miracle wrought for the important and necessary vindication of the truth of the SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 103 Gospel. To regard the transaction as a miracle is indeed a duty, the testimonies proving the certainty of the event being considered ; but these testimonies become more decisive evidences when the events are found to accord with known principles. That they accord with the principles of an anti- materialist a few remarks will plainly show. That the angel should find no impediment to an access to the prisoner will not excite surprize, for it is commonly believed, though it were difficult to assign a reason, that spirit can pass through matter ; but how an immaterial spirit could act upon the side of the apostle it is impossible to conceive, or how an act of thought could ever effect a prac- tical purpose on an independent object. Let it but be recollected that the Divine Mind pervades all things, and that things exist and act only by his influence and accord- ing to his will, and it will be seen that in reality the same Great Power wrought in the angel and the apostle, and in all the objects connected with this transaction. He willed the entrance of the angel into the prison, a fabric not of material substance but of spiritual substance, which opposed no resistance, and the angel entered into the dungeon where the apostle was kept. The chains with which the prisoner w r as bound, not being material substances, but immaterial objects made subject to sensible perception by the Divine will, received a new form when that power so decided, and they were shattered into fragments. In like manner bolts and bars, doors and gates, assumed new apparent forms, and taking the appearance of bolts withdrawn, of bars removed and gates open, afforded a passage to the apostle and his conductor. All the circumstances attending this transaction were ideal objects produced by and in the Divine Mind. The process becomes credible from the simplicity and facility of the performance, but it was simple and easy to Omni- potence alone, Omnipotence that in this instance operated in a deviation from the laws of nature for the accomplishment 10-1 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. of a purpose in all respects accordant with the Divine attri- butes, the furtherance and establishment of truth. On the morning of the day of the resurrection of the Saviour, f " there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door (of the sepulchre), and sat upon it." The act which especially invites attention, because it is highly illustrative of the present subject, is the rolling of the stone from the door of the sepulchre by the angel. That this stone was massive and heavy is plainly indicated by the question made by the woman who brought sweet spices to anoint the body : t " Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ?" On their arrival they found " that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great." This weighty mass had been removed by a being purely spiritual. Could such an agent have removed a large substance, had it been a material substance ? The thing is so improbable, that it may be pronounced to be impossible. But all difficulty and ground of doubt will be removed if the stone be supposed to be an immaterial substance, and that the Divine Mind itself moved the apparent substance by an act of his will carried into effect by the vicarious agency of the angel. The patriarch Abraham, sitting in the door of his tent pitched in the plains of Mamre, suddenly beheld three men standing by him. Perceiving, probably by the shechinah or glorious light by which one of them at least was distin- guished, that they were superhuman beings, he besought them to partake of such accommodation as his simple hospitality might afford. h " He took," as the sacred history records, " butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set before them, and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat." The persons of whom these facts are recorded were most assuredly superhuman beings. One of them, whom the patri- ' Matthew xxviii. 2. I Mark xvi. 3, 4. h Genesis xviii. 1, 8. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 105 arch distinguished by the title of Lord, was most probably the Word, the Son of God, who is regarded as the immediate or efficient agent in the government of the world. The reverence shown by the patriarch renders it certain that they were heavenly and spiritual, and not material beings. They did, notwithstanding, partake of common food. The patriarch " took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set before them, and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat." It were absurd to suppose that mind could eat matter, or that material food could be eaten by mind ; but there is no absurdity in admitting that the food prepared for the guests might be eaten by them, if it were, like them, spiritual. They did eat, and therefore the food prepared must have been spiritual and immaterial like them- selves. This inference, which shows that the food eaten by the heavenly guests must have been immaterial and spiritual, leads necessarily to the following. The flesh and milk taken in the meal being doubtless the same in quality as all other substances known by those names, it must be admitted that all flesh and milk must be spiritual, not material substances : whence by an inevitable induction it must be decided that all sensible objects must also be spiritual, or that, in plain terms, there is no such thing as matter. The commentators, in their expositions on this visit to Abraham, observe, that of the three visitors the one dis- tinguished by the title of Lord must have been none other than the Divine Logos, the Word, best known to the Christian world as Christ the Son of God. The reasons given for this opinion are strong and satisfactory, and they justify the position that, as the Saviour appeared on his visit to Abraham in a person wholly immaterial and purely spiritual, that he was a spiritual body on all other occasions when he made himself visible, as when he held daily intercourse with Adam in Eden, teaching and instructing him in divine truths : it may indeed be admitted that he never took upon him a material 106 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. body, but was on all occasions a spiritual body made visible, like all the creatures of the world. The following are the reasons which suggest and vindicate this belief. i " The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Were it certain that flesh is a material substance, this text from the Gospel of St. John might decide the question, and be taken as correctly expressive of the truth. The visible Son exhibited the glory of the Father, whom the Saviour declares to be pure spirit. J " God is a spirit." If then the Saviour was beheld while on earth, he must have been a spirit, visible, as when he partook of the food prepared for him by Abraham under the tree by the tent in the plain of Mamre. On that occasion he announced the very important fact that the Messiah should be born of a family the descendants of Abraham and Sarah; and he then, though undeniably a spirit, discoursed with the patriarch with the same familiarity as in after times he discoursed with his disciples. The following texts record- ing words spoken by him accord with this belief. k " I and my Father are one." Again making declaration of the same truth in terms more explicit, he speaks, 1 " Before Abraham was, / am." Being the Spirit of God on earth, it may be held to be nearly a blasphemy to affirm that he could be a material substance. Several events of the life of the Saviour confirm the belief that he was not a material substance, even during his life on earth. When the Jews attempted to stone him, he rendered himself in an instant invisible, m and passed through the midst of them. Had he been amaterial body he must have annihilated the matter of that body in an instant, otherwise he could not have escaped ; the pressure of the substance in the crowd would have subjected him to discovery, and he would have 1 John i. 14. J Ibid. iv. 24. k Ibid. x. 30. 1 Ibid. viii. 58. m John viii. 59. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 107 been detained. If again he bore a material body, he must have created matter to form his body, a supposition strange and hard to be imagined. n The act of walking on a tempestuous sea was rather the faculty of an immaterial than a material body, and the same faculty was communicated in part to the disciple Peter, and became inefficient from a defect of mental energy, the want of sufficient faith. The transfiguration can hardly be con- sidered as of possible occurrence to a material substance. The sudden and extreme change in the person and appear- ance, and the sudden resumption of the common personalty and appearance, accord but ill with the stubborn mutability of matter. That the Saviour when he became flesh did not become a material body will perhaps be best proved by the following interview had with his disciples after his resurrection, but before his ascension into heaven. P " Then the same day (of the resurrection), when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had shewed them his hands and his side, then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." ^ " And after eight days, again his disciples were within and Thomas with them, then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing." That the Saviour should have entered the room w r here the disciples were assembled with doors shut and even barred for fear of the Jews, is a circumstance that affords much perplexity to the commentators. Hammond gives up ex- planation altogether. Whitby decides that the Saviour opened the doors by his power of working miracles notwith- n Luke xiv. 25. Ib. xvii. 2. P John xx. 19. 1 v. 26. 108 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. standing the bars by which all entrance was defended. r The greater number, especially those of the earlier times of the Reformation, content themselves with the conclusion that either he opened the door as the angel opened the doors of the prison in which Peter was lodged, or that by the exercise of his miraculous power he entered at the door in defiance of all obstruction. It appears, however, from the text that he did not enter by the door at all. The history records that he " came and stood in the midst," that is, he appeared suddenly in the company without any entry or approach. The Saviour appeared in a manner the same as when the Creator renders all creatures the objects of sense. The Divine Mind is that which becomes the substance of the sensible object, and which sustains their action in such manner as may suit the intended purpose. In the present instance the interests of the Christian faith required that the Saviour should appear with all the circumstances of personal identity. His well- known figure met the eye ; the wounds were seen and felt ; and that there might be no suspicion that the object might be a phantom, a delusive vision, the Saviour said, 8 " Behold my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see ; a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Be assured that my body is really and actually raised from the dead ; I have a sensible substance. My body is not that of the dead who live only in the spirit, but is real flesh and bones. Such was he to the senses of the disciples, and yet for reasons given above he could not be a material body. The inference drawn from this event is plainly inevitable. That such is the proper purport of the circumstances attend- ing tliis appearance of the Saviour among his disciples: the truth of this position will be proved by the following remarks. Were it supposed that the body thus raised were a material body, it seems impossible to imagine how even the omnipotence of the Deity could have effected the entrance as described by r Blomfield. Notes. s Luke xxiv. 39. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 109 the evangelist. It is certain, according to the materialists, that two particles of what is called matter cannot occupy the same place ; and it is an undeniable axiom that God cannot effect that which implies an impossibility : he cannot cause two particles to occupy the same place. Were the body of the Saviour a material body, as it appeared to be from the invited examination, there must have been some disruption of the fabric of the room into which entrance was made. But none was made : the body therefore of the Saviour was not a material body, but a semblance only, made the object of sense as described above. The act, it will be said, was a miracle. Admitted : but it was no more a miracle than those acts of the Divine Mind which give to all bodies the sem- blance of a material substance, although they be nothing other than spiritual phasmas. That the Saviour was such, was a person, although it be said, that he " became flesh," the following authorities will clearly show. " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath ap- pointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Such is the sublime language with which the Apostle opens the subject of the Epistle to the Hebrews, announcing the relation between the Father and the Son. The words which term the Saviour the express image of his (God's) person, affirm the entire spirituality of the Saviour, both before and after his resurrection from the dead. The word person is adopted by the translators as the true rendering of the word inroa-raa^, hypostasis, of the original Greek text. This word is compounded of the preposition VTTO, Itypo, under, and a-Taats, stasis., expressive of, among 110 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. other significations, the act of standing under. One there- fore of the various senses in which the Greek word may be taken is the energetic power by which support is afforded to anything. The word hypostasis, taken in this sense, and this the sense most apt and proper in the text above cited, shows that the Son, the Saviour, is the character, the exhibition of the Father, who is the hypostasis or agent that supports the existence or sensible presence of the Son. The text declares that the Son is the express image of the person of the Father. The Greek word rendered the express image is %apaKTr)p, character, signifying strictly the impression made by a seal, which cannot but be an exact resemblance of the seal ; the Son therefore is to be regarded as an exact resemblance of the Father, that is, a visible resemblance of an invisible Being. Hence the Apostle terms the Son the eucwv, eikon, the * image of the invisible God. u The Greek word, used in the common acceptation, signifies a visible resemblance of anything the object of sense ; but it is also used metaphorically to signify subjects that are not the objects of sense, but are ideal only. The Saviour, the express image of the invisible God, became himself a visible being, an object of sense. v " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." The word vrpoa-fOTrov, prosopon, signifies properly that which is presented to the eye, but is used to express generally whatever is the object of sense : hence it is taken occasionally to signify the person of man, as in the text, w "Thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither regardest the prosopon, the person of any." The same word is used to signify any visible object, as the face (^prowpon) of the whole earth. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians Colossians i. 15. n Scapulae Lexicon. * John i. 24. w Luke xx. 21. * xxi. 35. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. Ill the Apostle writes, y " In the prosopon, the person or presence of Christ." The authorities now cited show most decisively and clearly the manner by which the Saviour was made manifest to the world, that is, became personally visible, the object of sense. The Son, the prosopon, appeared in and was the effect of the hypostasis of the Father, the God Supreme. This hypostasis was the creature of the Divine Mind, formed of that Mind and in that Mind, and consequently identified with it. z " I and my Father are one," are the words of the Saviour; they teach that the Father was the basis of the exhibition, the means of the visibility of the Son. Thus the Word was himself the true God ; for it were impossible that the prosopon, or visible object, should vary from the sub- stance, the hypostasis, that excited in the percipient the idea of the sensible object. Such was the exactness of the resemblance of the prosopon, or object, to the hypostasis or substance, that the visible and sensible Son is called in many texts the ei/coav, eikon, the image, the exact resem- blance of the Father. Such were the means by which the Son, the Saviour of the world, was made manifest to the world : thus was he the Son of God. In the process thus described, no intervention or use of matter is to be found. The effect of the hypostasis was wrought without the presence of any other substance than the Divine Mind. The same mean, the prosopon existing in and caused by the hypostasis, the creature of the Great Cause of all things, gave, according to our theory, the means of existence to all created beings, whether visible or invisible. When the prosopon, the thing, is made the object of sense, the hypostasis is endowed with faculties proper for the purpose. When the prosopon is invisible, it may be termed a spirit sensible to or perceived by mind only. In man the number and variety of these prosdpom, both visible and invisible, are most T 2 Cor. ii. 10. z John x. 30. 112 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. various and numerous. They exist in or are given to the lower orders of animal life, the same in kind as to the higher and to man, but differing much in degree. In the vegetable and mineral world the invisible hypostasis or substance is not found. These exist only in visible hyposiases, or sub- stances bearing various relations to the animal world, their fellow-creatures in created existence. Such is the spiritual theory, which may be said to rest its claim to truth on the Word of God. The result of these authorities is plain and clear. The immateriality and spirituality of all created existences, whether visible or invisible, and the truth of the system of Bishop Berkeley, is plainly seen in and firmly established by the revealed word of God. The preceding enquiries relative to beings confessedly superhuman, will not fail to be highly interesting to every person who may be inclined to act in obedience to the exhortation of the Apostle, a " Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." All such enquiries render these superhuman beings more familiar to our thoughts; which, when conducted under the guidance of anti-material doctrines, bring them home to our individual bosoms and concerns, and thus produce a connexion with them which cannot fail to afford an easy intercourse between the visible and the invisible world. The evidences already adduced have clearly proved that great is the influence which invisible beings hold over our affections, thoughts, and actions. This admitted influence will be well understood, if examined and considered upon anti-material principles. Some instances of the manner in which that influence may be exercised shall now be shewn, in which will be seen the truth of the doctrines of the Church of England, and how those doctrines perfectly accord with the Word of God. That the Deity could have existed in a state of utter inactivity during the ages of ages called eternity that pre- * Colossians iii. 2. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 113 ceded the first foundation of the world, is a thought so utterly improbable, that it has been pronounced to be impossible. It has been suggested that those ages of ages had been occupied in preparing and perfecting the divine attributes. All virtues are progressive, and consist, first, in the design or intention of good acts, to be carried into execution when opportunity may serve. b "Be not weary in well doing," writes one apostle ; and another, c " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue" other good qualities leading ultimately to cha- rity, that is, affectionate benevolence, which is the perfection of all virtues ; "for," adds the Apostle, " if these things be in you and abound, they shall make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Such is the course which God prescribes for the improvement of man. It may, with good reason, be supposed, that he himself must ever have acted in accordance with a law so good and approved by himself. This opinion may with confidence be adopted : for since man has been created in the image of his God, it may be presumed that the goodness of the Deity himself, of whom man is an im- perfect image, may have been matured and perfected by the same means. That he is still continually improved in his present perfections, may be inferred from various acts re- corded in Holy Writ. When the heavenly host sang on the birth of the Redeemer, d " Glory to God in the highest," they saw new reason for admiration in his goodness, and he became further exalted in their sight, and still more worthy than before of seraphic praise. It is thus that the present acts of the Deity exalt his name ; his past acts, being the exercise of goodness, have wrought to the same effect ; and these truths afford the assurance he will continually be entitled to further praise and glorious eminence by the acts of the future. The position that all things were only devised by the b Galatians vi. 9. c 2 Peter i. 58. d Luke ii. 14. I 114 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. Divine Mind, or existed only in idea previously to the beginning, when the Creator began to carry the design into execution, involves the following truths. The design of the whole universe existed during the ages of past eternity in the Mind of the Creator, and long before the commencement of the period called the first day of the creation. The design included the existence of things visible and invisible, sensible and insensible, great and small, even of the smallest and most insignificant description, including the mighty bodies which hold their places in what are termed the unbounded regions of space ; among these, this our compara- tively atom of a world, together with all the creatures that either have in time past existed, or that now do exist, or hereafter shall exist upon its surface. All events that may at any time occur were with equal clearness and precision devised and ordained ; even the birth of a gnat, or a gleam of sunshine. This position may, and, indeed, must be admitted as a truth, for no bounds can be prescribed to Omniscience. If the Deity be believed to have devised great things before the work of creation actually began, he must also have devised small. Such is the inference that must be drawn from the evidences found in Holy Writ, of which some shall be submitted to the consideration of the reader. The Apostle Peter assures the Christians to whom his First Epistle was addressed, that e "they were redeemed not by corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times." The glory which the Saviour should receive as the reward of that great act of his sacrifice, is thus noticed by him, in terms of import similar to the words of the Apostle: f " Father, I will that they (my disciples) also which thou hast given me be with me I Peter i. 18, 19, 20. ' John xvii. 24. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 115 where I am: that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me ; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." This text, and there are many others of similar import, shows not only that the sacrifice of the Saviour, first announced in the obscure promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, was not a design the result of the fall, but was a part of a system which will extend to the state that follows the general resurrection of the dead. That the dispensation was ordained in mercy, or with that beneficent spirit which must have pervaded the Deity while he devised all future existences, the following fact will clearly show. The Saviour, speaking of the benefits that should ensue from his Gospel, says, S"I am come that they (his disciples) might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Commentators generally regard this text as implying a pro- mise of a greater share or extension of mercy than would have been allowed had not the atonement been wrought by the Saviour in a human form. Such interpretation does not accord either with the meaning of the words, or the im- portance of the subject. The words, " I am come that they may have life more abundantly than they would have had it had I not come," do not refer to the pardon or the remission of sin : in fact, the words do not relate to the remission ; for had not the Saviour come, there could have been no remission. The words signify more exalted life, or condition of greater spiritual eminence, higher rank among heavenly beings, than otherwise could have been conceded to them. It were some- what foreign to the present question to offer conjectures showing why the presence of the Saviour may have been conducive to this effect: the observations offered sufficiently show, not only that the Deity ordains that all his dispensa- tions shall lead to good, but that he wisely ordains that even evil shall ever be promotive of good. This and many s John \iv. 10. 116 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. other authorities that might be cited, concur with the declara- tion of the apostles assembled at the first council at Jerusalem, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." All his works had been devised before they were carried into execution. Such was the occupation of the Deity before the creation; since the commencement of the creation he ever has been, ever is, and ever will be occu- pied in carrying good designs into effect. It were an unjustifiable imputation to imagine that the Deity could act without rule or law. The attribute of perfect wisdom necessarily prescribes the observance of some rule or law, and of one law only. The reason for this necessity may be clearly understood. In every case and circumstance there is one course which is the best; that best course perfect wisdom will always discover, and that course perfect good- ness must of choice always adopt. Hence, according to the text of St. James, h " There is with the Father of lights no variableness, neither shadow of turning." These truths afford the assurance that when the Deity designed the world, he designed also the rules or laws by which it would be proper to regulate the administration of the affairs of the world, whether that administration related to the government by the Creator, or the requisite obedience of the created. These laws must be not only the best, but must, as being the best, be unalterable and eternal. As far as they were applicable, they became the law of the world of angels, and will be the laws by which not only the present world must be ruled, but the same will be the laws by which all future worlds shall be ruled. The following scriptural authorities will prove the truth of this position. " The Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father with the holy angels, and then shall he reward every man according to his works." The justice of this law is as perfect as is the Deity himself, and must be as unalterable ; it will remain a law throughout all the ages of eternity. h James i. 17. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 117 The sentences which will on the day of judgment be passed on both the righteous and the wicked, will be deter- mined by the same laws as those taught in Holy Writ. ' " Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; for I was an hungred and ye gave me meat, I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink, naked and ye clothed me, I was sick and ye visited me, I was in prison and ye came unto me." The offices here enumerated imply the exercise of affectionate benevolence or love. Love is the fulfilling of the law: it implies perfect obedience, founded on a warm sense of gratitude towards God. These premises afford the most ample assurance, not only that the course of events that should take place in the created world had been determined before the beginning, but the laws or rules by which the Deity might think fit to govern were then determined also, and were, like the events which they were intended to rule, invariable. This their invariable administration will lead to that final consummation which must have ever been intended by the Deity to promote good, and shall continue so to operate, until at length all evil shall be reduced to annihilation. " Predestination to life is," according to the seventeenth Article of the Church of England, " the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the World were laid, he hath constantly decreed, by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation, those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." The Article proceeds to observe, that as this doctrine " of predestination and election is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable, comfort to godly persons," so " for curious and carnal persons lacking the spirit of Christ, it is a most 1 Matthew xxv. 34 36. 118 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. deadly and dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, (a proud scorn of the sad consequences of vice) no less perilous than desperation." Nothing can be more certain than the truth of the positions stated in this Article. During the ages of eternity anterior to creation, the Deity existed within himself; that is, cannot be supposed to have occupied space ; but when he proceeded to the work of creation, the Divine Mind or Thought expanded itself into the regions of space, where it located creatures the objects of continual care and attention, objects in which his mind lived and wrought continually, in the manner that had been previously determined in the ages of ante-mundane eternity. In this expansion of the Divine Mind, no substance such as is called matter can have been used, because such substance cannot have been necessary. Thought expanded into action, in which it became the hyporttuiSj the substance, which gave perceptibility to the proaopon or object created, whether perceptible to sense or perceptible to mind only. Such was from the first the true state of everything created, and such all subsequent creations are, such all things of future creation will ever be. Their substance is that of the Divine Mind ; is, in reality, a form devised in and receiving existence from the same, and being such, must be immaterial ; being merely the effect of a cause purely spiritual. Creatures thus produced, as they owe their existence to the spiritual act of the Great Cause, must also owe whatever properties they may possess to that same Cause. The acknowledged attributes of that Cause afford a full assurance that the properties, whether active or passive, with which the things brought thus into existence may be endowed, must be such as the Creator may think fit to confer, and farther, they must be such as may be most conducive to purposes which had been previously designed in die ages of anterior eternity. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 119 That the Deity acted thus must be inferred from the words of the Apostle, who vindicates the right when he asks, k " Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another to dis- honour ? " that is, may he not create at will persons endowed with faculties of the highest eminence and excellence, and others of faculties comparatively low and even mean. Such different dispensations are signified in the following texts : l " There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit (the same Giver). But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man (the intent of each endowment is) to profit withal. But all these worketh that one and the self- same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." This diversity of gifts the Apostle affirms to be as necessary in the spiritual world as is the variety of limb in the animal body, which could not act were the whole body a head or the whole a foot. Thus does it plainly appear that all the works, all the dispensations of the Deity, are directed by wisdom for the accomplishment of good. Not only the end, the intended purpose, is good, but so are the means also. The intended purpose may, from the absolute immutability of the Divine designs, be properly termed the predestinated purpose of the Deity. The arguments and authorities that afford this assurance concur in proof of the position that all the acts of the Divine Mind which have taken place since the first act of creation, and also all the events which are now in process, and all which shall hereafter occur in all the ages of future eternity, were all designed and determined before creation, before the Divine Mind began to act: that the whole process is absolutely unalterable, and the Great Actor is, and ever will be, exclusively employed in carrying the whole design into execution. Such is, in truth, the doctrine of predestination. k Romans ix. 21. l 1 Cor. xii. 120 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. This doctrine of predestination has been the occasion of much perplexity to the Christian world. Divisions in the Churches have been the unhappy result, which in some instances have been productive of unchristian animosities. The disputants may be classed under the two denominations of Calvinists and Lutherans, the disciples of the two first or great Reformers. Of the sects who adopt the doctrines of Calvin, some, under the name of m Supralapsarians, main- tain the doctrine that God, before the foundation of the world, purposely and absolutely ordained the inevitable perdition or damnation of certain persons intended to be created, and on the contrary, that certain other persons should be destined inevitably to salvation. The Lutherans, or more properly the n Arminians, contended that salvation was attainable by all men through the merits of the Redeemer, and by the aids of divine grace or beneficence ; but that no individual born in the world can have been born to inevitable perdition, for that such result can only ensue from the wilful wickedness and perverseness of the individual. That both the Calvinist and Arminian are on some points mistaken, the Articles of the Church of England clearly show ; and how they became involved in error, the truths submitted by the anti-material theory will, it is presumed, explain. When the Deity first entertained the design of creating worlds of living and intellectual beings, it is certain, judging from the Divine attributes, that his object-was the promotion of whatever is good, and the perfection and happiness of every individual which it might seem expedient to call or give into existence. It must be admitted as an axiom, a self-evident truth, that good cannot possibly exist in any circumstances unless it stand in opposition to the possibility of evil ; or, that virtue cannot belong to any one unless it arise from the rejection of possible vice. From this axiom it follows of absolute necessity, that all beings capable of trial, m Mosheim. Eccles. Hist. Cent. XVII. chap. ii. n Chap. iii. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 121 that is, all beings endowed with intellect, must be subjected to trial ; otherwise they were incapable of goodness. This doctrine cannot but have been true from all eternity ; whence it may with all reverence be inferred, that the perfection of goodness in the Deity himself may have been the result of a continual preference not only of good to evil, but to the preference of the greatest good to the lesser. Such pre- ference, seen in all the works of the creation, will excuse the boldness of the position, for they all are found to be of a goodness the greatest imaginable. This truth may be evinced by the undeniable principle, that everything created is created with a possibility of improvement or advance in goodness and virtue by continual practice. In this practice the Divine Mind co-operates continually, and thus by every act of such co-operation he himself also improves in good- ness, whence it comes that every good work that is done in the world redounds, as the Scriptures declare, to the praise and glory of God. The knowledge of the laws which the Deity ordained to mark the distinction between good and evil, is necessary to the purposes of trial; it has, therefore, been given to man from the time when a course of trial or probation was first assigned him. That first time may be presumed to have arrived when Adam, after having advanced from the infancy of body and of intellect, had arrived at years of discretion, and was placed in a state of trial in the Garden of Eden. It must be presumed that the knowledge of the whole law, being not less necessary to him than to any of his descend- ants, must have been communicated when God held daily intercourse with him, and was as familiar with him as were in after times the disciples, when he appeared in the person of Jesus the son of Joseph. It was in these conferences in Eden, that the law known to the patriarchs, and afterwards illus- trated by the prophets, was made known to man. This same 122 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. law, then completely taught, was again fulfilled, that is, was sanctioned and again confirmed by the Saviour, when he instituted the doctrines of the gospel, with only one addition, which may be called the eleventh commandment, P " that ye love one another." This teaching of these laws would have been vain, had not man been endowed with an intelligent mind, the faculty of conscience, which enables him to under- stand and apply them to practice ; such faculty being indispensably necessary to a state of trial. It has been imagined, although most erroneously, that because the Deity foreknew the fate of every man, or the result of every trial, that he determined or rendered the result inevitable, because it was thus foreknown. But this foreknowledge cannot have had any influence on the result of any trial : being ignorant of his destiny, the foreknowledge of the Deity could not exempt the probationer from the influence of motives, or in any way affect the proper process of trial. Being himself ignorant of the result of his trial, he would act on all occasions as though the result depended wholly on his own actions; and his responsibility would be the same, whatever might be the foreknowledge of the Deity ; the purposes of trial would be fully answered ; good would be promoted if the result were good, for it would ascertain the amount of reward ; good would be promoted also if the result were evil, it would ascertain the measure of punish- ment by suffering the means of correction and reform. The notion entertained by the Supralapsarian Calvinist, that God, in the exercise of his almighty power, did give existence to men destined to inevitable torment for ever and ever, cannot possibly be true : it were utterly incompatible with the Divine attributes : it declares that God can be the author of evil ; that he approves of, and even delights in the misery of a certain portion of his creatures, who, acting under an irresistible necessity, must in justice be exempt Matthew v. 17. P John xiii. 34. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 123 from responsibility, and therefore suffer unjustly. Such dispensation cannot be possible ; it would be horribly unmerciful, it would be an act befitting a demon. Leaving these errors, not to say blasphemies, and turning the attention to truth, plain common sense affords the assurance that the trial which all persons must of necessity undergo, will be conducted with a due regard to the fair and just influence of motives, and that in all cases the process will be such as accords with the word or law of God, which has been made known, not only to direct aright the actions of man, but also to afford the assurance of the justice of God. From that law we learn, that those persons whose destined fate may have been foreseen to be of reward and happiness will be v " conformed to the image of his Son." The course by which they will be thus conformed is explained in these words of the Saviour, r " If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." Love, that is, affec- tionate gratitude, to the Saviour, arising from a just esti- mation of the inestimable benefits obtainable by his death and sacrifice. This gratitude, warmed into an affection which may be called love, is shown in this text to be the proper and just ground of moral obedience. Obedience thus founded will, according to the text, be rewarded by the highest spiritual influences, which will not fail to accomplish that happy result of a life of trial which was foreseen before the creation, and being thus foreseen may be said to have been predestinated. Affectionate gratitude to the beneficent Redeemer is the rock, the firm principle, on which every Christian ought to build his religion. Religion, the result of such principle, cannot fail to be sound and sincere. The dread of punishment may with reason be admitted as a powerful motive to obedience, but it is a principle mean and servile, and its influence will be liable to abatement in a g. 138 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. pensed, but to that protection which the Deity ever affords against unmerited and unnecessary trials. In the instances here given may be seen the rules of intercession. When the object sought is in accordance with a sentiment already tending to good, the intercession for spiritual influences promotive of farther advancement in goodness may be generally of avail, for then the gift accords with the will ; but not so when the mind or spirit has already refused good, for in such cases the intercession opposes the freedom of the will, and thereby counteracts the great pur- poses of a state of trial. This moral truth accords with the revealed word. St. John vindicates this rule when he writes, 8 " If a man see his brother (a person with whom he may happen to be in frequent intercourse) sin a sin which is not unto death (not decidedly excluding the expectation or hope of salvation), he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death ; I do not say that he shall pray for it." St. Paul makes distinct mention of many sins which he calls the works of the flesh, of which he says, * " they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." The sins named are sins that imply a wanton dereliction of truth, and a perverse determination to resist all pure and proper spiritual influences, and to adopt perseveringly the direct reverse. To pray for spiritual interferences on behalf of such sinners were an idle, even though it might be a benevolent act ; it can only be excusable on the plea of ignorance. Perhaps such prayer might be sinful, for it implored the Deity to reverse his own laws, when asked to obstruct unjustly the freedom of the will by means of overwhelming influences, and thus to defeat the great purposes of a state of trial, indeed of the great object of the creation. These notices of the process of the trial to which all men are subjected, invite the con- sideration of the question, when the trial terminates. The 1 John v. 16. t Gal. v. 21. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 139 question is of no little importance ; perhaps it may be said, that it demands a solution. u " It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgement." This text recites the awful truth that the trial ends at the hour of death, and that then the fate of every man is finally determined. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise, if a state of trial has been instituted for any useful purpose. If the trial be of any avail, it follows that the instant the immortal spirit quits its terrestrial abode, it stands in judgement before x "God the judge of all." In this trial, as in all the transactions of the life past, there is y " one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," who is figuratively termed z " the great high priest," because he offered himself an atonement for the sins of the whole world. Incapable of being influenced by human prejudices or passions, and having been "in all points tempted as we are," the Saviour is a judge perfectly compe- tent to make all due allowances for the infirmities, the imper- fections of human nature : and consequently the trial will most assuredly be conducted in mercy and justice. When on such trial it shall have been decided whether the departed spirit shall be borne by angels into Abraham's bosom, into the intimate and affectionate intimacy with beatified spirits, or whether it shall be cast " into outer darkness," and be consigned to misery and woe, the sentence then given will be unalterable. It will be recorded : for we learn from the Book of the Revelation, that at the great day of final judgement a " the books will be opened, and another book will be opened, which is the book of life ; and the dead were judged out of the things written in those books, according to their works ; and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the fire." u Heb. ix. 2?. x Heb. xii. 13. y 1 Tim. ii. 5. z Heb. iv. 14, 15. a Rev. xx. 12. 140 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. The fate of every individual being thus detennined at his death, all intercession in favour of the deceased must be vain, and indeed improper. Such intercession may be an act of benevolence on the part of the intercessor, but cannot possibly benefit the object ; for the purport of such intercession would be to ask the Great Judge to revise the reasons of hjs decision, to recall his word, and to amend his error, an act that would be incompatible with the attributes of divine wisdom and justice. There are other reasons which obviate such intercession. The acts, the deeds done, supply the rule and measure of the dispensa- tion of justice ; these the prayer of the intercessor cannot alter; his prayer cannot affect the sentiments of the man departed, cannot improve, cannot alter his propensities or abate either his merits or demerits: it cannot therefore afford the slightest reason for a change, or even mitigation of the sentence. Such is the doctrine of holy writ on this subject. The anti-material theory of mind acting upon mind shews unanswerably the truth of this doctrine, and by illustrating gives new force to the position that prayers for the dead cannot avail, are indeed an outrage of that awe with which man weak and fallible ought to regard his Creator and his God. These arguments, duly considered, will suggest the question, whence the notion of the possibility of prayers for the dead can have arisen ? It certainly is of great antiquity ; and it might be shown that it was of general acceptance in some form with all heathen nations, but with them only. The verses of both Homer and Virgil, the cele- brated poets of Greece and Rome, record the doctrine in most positive terms. When the hero of the .Eneis visited, as the poet Virgil writes, the regions of the dead, Anchises the father relates, among many other, the following particulars relative to the fat<- of every soul or spirit after death : SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 141 b But when the latest ray of life is lost, Even then all evil is not shuffled off, Nor is the hapless soul infection free ; Necessity requires that all the taints Of habit should be cured by wondrous means; Hence all are tried by pains, and sadly suffer The consequence of evil deeds long past : Some meet the chilling cold of viewless \inds ; Some lave in whirlpools vast ; some burn in fire : We all our lot endure ; which done, some few Are passed into Elysian fields of joy. The strange idea of mental purification by exposure to elementary influences is the result of the belief of the reality of matter, and can only be maintained by the rejection of all spiritual influences. The materialists have somehow caught the idea that vice and wickedness consists in the corruption of matter, not in the corrupted sentiments of mind. It is impossible to contemplate this subject without making the remark, that this doctrine of improve- ment by the endurance of bodily pain has been adopted by the Church of Rome, which teaches that the sins of the soul may be atoned by bodily suffering in the state after death; and it further teaches that the amount of punishment justly due may be commuted for a number of their religious rites called masses, or prayers for the dead. This doctrine is an amplification of the doctrine of purifica- tion which the heathens of old never attempted to make : it is however utterly inconsistent with the principles of the state of trial given in the preceding pages, where it is shown that atonement for sin is made only by the merits of the Redeemer, rendered effectual by repentance during the present life, and that all other doctrine is utterly false, and an impeachment of the attributes of the Deity. It is upon authorities such as these that the twenty-second Article of the Church of England decides that " the Romish doctrine b J^neis, lib. vi. v. 735. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. of Purgatory is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded on no authority of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God." The necessity of a state of trial, proved to be indispensable according to the anti-material theory, shows that the doctrine of purgatory is utterly incompatible with the laws of God, and, therefore, it cannot possibly be true. This conclusion cannot but be highly acceptable to every person who thinks and reflects. Horribly must the thoughts of purgatory aggravate the evils that usually attend the hour of death, when it bids the dying man to be assured, that whatever may be his merits and demerits, he must undergo the cruel purifying process of purgatory before there can be any possibility of his admission into the joys of heaven. How great the comfort to know the necessity of the sufferings of purgatory is a mere fiction, and that true repentance is all that God requires ! The questions which have been the subjects of discussion in this chapter are such as relate exclusively to the course of the dispensations of God to man. These subjects, when tested by a reference to the principles of the anti-material theory, have been found to be more clearly intelligible than when encumbered with the doubts and difficulties attendant on the assumed reality of matter. To attain these results, and to show the truth of the theory, it has been found necessary to state some of the doctrines relative to those dispensations somewhat fully. These statements therefore are not to be regarded as irrelevant or unnecessary, for unless the subject were held fully to the view, it were impossible to illumine it with the light of truth. No one of the subjects hitherto discussed is new, but that now about to be held up to notice is truly so. It will be found to be well worthy of attention. Among other proofs of the truth of the present theory, the aptness of its application to all theological subjects may with great reason be regarded as one of the most decisive. A few remarks will afford sufficient proof. The Divine Mind SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 143 is ubiquitous, and consequently all things exist within him. There is no other cause of action than this same Great Agent, therefore the existence of all things begins in him, and is the work of his sole agency. Not only the origin of all existence is to be traced to his agency, but all the active powers and passive capacities of all things, whatever they may be, proceed from him. This position is truly applicable to the qualities found in the mineral world, to the organiza- tion and mechanical process of the vegetable world, and to the sensation and action of the animal world. In all these the Divine Mind operates not less than in man. In the latter, he is not only the cause of action, but he has given to all the faculty of being influenced by motives and affections, what- ever they may be ; he has rendered them free agents, differing only from man as to the number and variety of the motives by which they may be influenced, and the combination of motives, the causes or rules of action. These positions may be strange and new in the opinion of some, but they are not on that account less true ; they justify the assertion that the whole creation, however multifarious the parts, forms one vast system, in which every part is conducive to one and the same end, the production, the increase, and the improve- ment of good. It might be found tedious, as perhaps it may be un- necessary, to exemplify this truth by an application of the theory to each of the three forms of existences above mentioned ; but a few notices of the animal world, made with a reference to the anti-material theory, will serve, not only to prove the truth of that theory, but will also show the obligation to the observance of many duties in the treatment of animals, that cannot fail to cherish kind feelings in the human heart, and prevent much suffering too often wantonly inflicted on the creatures of the animal world over which the Deity has given a sovereign power to man. The relation that subsists between all creatures of this 144 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. visible world may be proved from the progressive process, which, according to the revealed word, began at the creation. The Deity having perfected the design, the Divine Mind, the active spirit of the Deity, became the Itypostasits or substance which rendered the chaos, or earth without form and void, a prosdpon or object of sense. Such was the first act of creation. All the creatures thus created, or brought into existence, were each existent in a divine hypostasis, a form purely spiritual, like the spiritual medium in which it arose. Light, the product of the Divine Agent next to chaos, was an hypostasis or substance which supplies the means of vision : it was chaos brought into a new kypuUitfai a new form endowed with a new quality ; but, like chaos, it was and is pure spirit. Air was next created. Like the former, it is a fluid, but endowed with an additional quality, a quality which rendered it perceptible under certain circum- stances to the sense of feeling. Water, the next product, was a fluid like the former, endowed with divers other qualities, which, being well known, it is not necessary to enumerate. These instances clearly demonstrate the truth stated above, that the works of the creation form a series of results, in which each successive term or article of the series contains the essential qualities of the preceding term, and only differs from it by the addition of some new property. This fact accords with statements made in some former pages, that creation is the result of design formed by a mind employed in thought, passing onward from one effect to another, in which each subsequent design generally includes all the properties of the one immediately preceding, together with some other property new and superadded. This progressive character prevailed throughout all the works, or days of creation. Vegetable substances, of organised forms, were created after the mineral strata had been duly arranged, though not organised. Vegetables were succeeded by the animated forms of fishes and of birds, SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 145 and these by the animated forms of the brute beasts, and these by the creation of man, most accomplished of all. The things of each successive creative act, all included the lower properties of the preceding, together with the addition of some new and more excellent property: each successive creation was endowed with all the properties of the preced- ing, and therefore was in substance the same as the preceding, differing only in the new property conferred. The property in which man, the last work, surpasses other creatures, is that which is called the breath of life, a life or spirit that is immortal. The vital spirit of brute creatures is mortal ; it loses under certain circumstances the continuance of ex- istence : but in other respects the animality of the brute is the same as that of man ; has senses, sometimes less in number, but the same in kind, however different in degree ; but all the creatures are endowed, like man, with a will influenced by external causes. This identity of origin and of properties in all creatures, at least in all endowed with life, justifies the claim which all have to the title of fellow- creatures to man, and with him, fellow-inhabiters of the earth. This is an important truth, and it invites attention. The near relation which the identity of creation creates between man and the brute animals of the earth, imposes obligations and duties, which, though little understood, are of great importance. A due discharge of those duties will much promote the mighty purposes for which the world was created, the increase of good. This truth the arguments now offered will clearly demonstrate. The active powers and passive capacities with which the living creatures of this our earth are endowed, however they may differ in degree, are all of the same kind as those assigned to man. The degrees of difference are indeed various, and the degrees of powers and capacities are various also, but still in kind they are the same. Man has five senses, or means of perception. Many creatures of the L 146 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. higher orders of brute animals have five also, many have four, some three, some two, and some of the lowest orders of the animal tribes have only one. Of the powers conferred some are superior, some inferior to those given to man. The hound surpasses man in the sagacity of scent, the eagle in the acuteness of sight, but the nostril and the eye are the organs to each. The faculty of strength and activity in some animals, as the lion, the deer, the horse, surpasses that of man, but in all these the strength is situate in the muscle, and its operation is wrought by the vis vitte, the vital force, which, alike in all, owes its efficiency to the Divine Spirit or Mind. In many animals, as the oyster and others of the testaceous tribe, only one sense, that of feeling alone, is found, and the power of locomotion is almost nothing, but such as it is, the efficacy of that power operates in the oyster as in other creatures, from means received from the Divine Mind. The faculty of volition is given in degree widely different, but exists in all, and in all cases is influenced by motives. The oyster opens or closes his shell at will. Man proudly and insolently affirms that such acts are in many, if not every case, the result of instinct, that is, of desire of or aversion to acting, without the intervention of reason ; that is, without a discursive act, without ratiocination. This is evidently a mistake. The oyster opens or closes its shell because it knows from experience that certain circumstances with which it has become familiar are productive of pleasure and others of pain, and therefore he opens the doors of his abode to partake of the one or encloses them to escape the other. Hunger perhaps first induced the infant oyster to open his shell, but its opening was a muscular act, the effect of the vital force acting in obedience to the will. The desire of food gave action to the muscular power derived from the Great general Cause of action, the Divine Mind. The human infant acts in the same way exactly, and the motives SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 147 are the same as in the infant oyster: both alike are in- fluenced by motives. It were difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain what acts are acts of instinct in animals. It is an unjustifiable pre- sumption to ascribe all acts to instinct, for no other reason than because the influential motives are unknown. Affec- tions of which man can form no conception may be implanted in animals, which may be the motives of action, and give the character of an act of choice and the result of reason to the acts and habits of many animals, with at least as much truth as are the acts of at least some men. The young animal hatched by a hen from the egg of a duck seeks the water and swims upon it, greatly to the alarm of the foster mother. This act is ascribed to instinct : it were more con- sistent with the attributes of the Deity to suppose that a peculiar taste or pleasure affordable by the vapour of the element determined the young creature to the act, rather than that it should be led to the water by no motive what- ever. The nests constructed by birds of different kinds, and even of different species of the same kind, are different with each kind and species, and yet are uniform with each particular kind and species. This is said to be instinct ; it were more consistent with the laws of nature to ascribe these peculiarities to some unknown motive, rather than to mechanical causes such as produce the descent of falling bodies or the mechanism of a watch. The art and ingenuity of many animals is often the subject of admiration. c The labour of the bee in the c The perpendicularity of the structure of the honeycomb is indis- pensably necessary to the purpose for which it is constructed. The author has seen a string or line of bees suspended from side to side in the nearly empty hive of a new swarm, beneath a comb which was about to be formed from above. This line of bees showed the proper plane in which the wax of the comb ought to be wrought by the bees working by the eye from above. The ingenuity and efficiency of the device was surely owing to something more than blind mechanical instinct. 148 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. structure of die honeycomb may be cited as an instance of active labour employed in a manner which an eminent mathematician (Maclaurin) has proved by demonstration to include the greatest possible strength and capacity within the least possible dimensions. It is not contended that a bee must be a mathematician, but it is contended that the creature is guided hi the work by careful thought, aided by experience; faculties with which the admired policy of bee-hive government shows that the insect is most certainly endowed. d lt were easy to adduce many more instances of the sagacity or rather the active ingenuity of brute animals, but every person having any acquaintance with the history of animal life will recollect many particular instances of the same kind, which supersedes the necessity of the recital of more proofs of the ingenuity of animals. Some general remarks on what may be called the moral propensities of brute animals may serve to gain assent to the principles here vindicated. Observation duly directed will discover many actions in animals indicative of what may be called the morality of brute animals. The attachment of the dog to his master has often been the subject of admiration. The sendees performed by the animal being plainly referable to a sense of gratitude for food and protection ; this may with justice be called a moral virtue. The obedience of the horse to his master, and the quiet submission of the cow to the milker, show that they are faithful servants, and almost entitled to the character of a friend. This character is especially due to the elephant, and perhaps to the hawk when properly trained for the purposes of the aerial chase. Many extra- ordinary instances of warm gratitude and benevolent affection are recorded of the lion ; and the surprising obedience shown by him and other creatures of the same description to the * Animal Biography, by Bingley, will afford many examples illustra- tive of the positions here made. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 149 somewhat whimsical commands of their keeper and attend ants, instances of which are to be seen in almost every menagerie of public exhibition, may with reason be attri- buted to a sense of duty. The same animals thus capable of many virtues, are found to be equally capable of the opposite vices. In the wild state, in which man is only known as an enemy, they are savage and hostile. Even in a state of reclaimed wildness they often resume their savage feelings, and become ma- lignant and dangerous. In reclaimed animals these acts are most commonly found to be acts of revenge for past wrongs, and, as such, may be regarded as acts of retributive justice. It has been observed, by military officers sen-ing in India, that when the elephant is required to make extraordinary exertion, some favourite food is shown as the reward of the desired effort. If when the task is done the promise be not faithfully performed, the wronged animal is sure to play the defrauder some ugly trick as a just punishment for the wrong done. Similar facts might be recited of various other animals which imply a sense of distinction between right and wrong. This sense, which may be found in all animals, is doubtless more or less accurate in proportion to the extent of the faculties given to each ; but this must be certain, that even the most astute animals have no idea of any abstract or general principles of action, but that their ideas of right and wrong chiefly proceed from a comparison of their present treatment and the treatment which they have usually been accustomed to receive. This, however, is quite sufficient to prove that they are not utterly incapable of right judgment. It has been observed of the wild elephant, that he is the most simple of all animals and most easily deluded, and that the astuteness which, after capture, he invariably acquires, is the result of his intercourse with man. The same observation is equally applicable, it should seem, to 150 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. every animal. In their wild state their habits are rude and often savage towards each other, and always desperately so towards man. The wild ox and the tame might from their manners be said to be of different kinds. This difference is the result of kindness and protection afforded. Kindness and protection, properly continued, produce almost without exception these effects. This difference between the wild and tame animal is a moral difference, for it is a difference in the manners of each ; the one is commonly wildly vicious, the other tame and good. When the work of the creation was ended, God said to man, e " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over everything that moveth upon the face of the earth." Such were the words, such is the will, the design of God. What was thus in- tended must come to pass; and therefore the time will come when the earth shall be even densely peopled, a condition which is at the present far from being accom- plished; whence it is inferred that the world is as yet in its infancy only. But man is commanded not only to replenish the earth but to subdue it, that is, not only to cultivate completely the whole face of the globe, but also to subdue and bring into subjection all the brute animals that live on it. "The fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air" will perhaps be subdued when, the human population being dense, many kinds of animals will become extinct : such is the usual effect of increase. Many kinds having become extinct, the consequence will be that neither birds or fishes will be found except such as are under the im- mediate control of man. The things living on the face of the earth will be subdued when they shall be either destroyed or reclaimed from a state of wild and savage habits, and become tame and serviceable to man. ' Gen. i. 28. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 151 Such is the dominion given to man. The proper exercise of this rule involves the discharge of many duties. What those duties may be will be seen by a reference to the duties of any reigning monarch. A monarch is a tyrant when he rules with cruelty and oppression. The man who ill-treats the animals subjected to his power is a tyrant abusing the authority with which he is invested. Wanton harshness promotes in the animal evil passions, obstructs the growth of kindly affections, and thus prevents the moral improve- ment of the creatures of the earth, and thus it retards the accomplishment of the design of the Great Creator, the general welfare and happiness of the things of the earth. The ill-treatment of animals being of such tendency, all such acts must be sinful ; they are also odious, being a tyrannical exercise of entrusted power, as also a wicked indulgence of evil feelings. When, therefore, the inevitable day of trial shall come, and every man must give account of even f every idle word that may have been spoken, the question will be asked as it was of Balaam, s" Why hast thou smitten thine ass these three times ?" A good monarch is the father of his people. He adopts such means as may enable them to obtain a supply of food: he encourages their good habits, he restrains their evil courses. The duty of man to animals is the same. A proper supply of food is an indispensable obligation. Service, if severe, is oppression, but proper employment is a service which the master has a right to require, which the creature ought to render, and is, in reality, salutary. Correction justly due should be inflicted ; but kindness ought to be the rule, chastisement the exception, but both ought to be ad- ministered with due discretion. Such is the proper exercise of the dominion over animals which God has given to man. Whoever transgresses against these rules, prevents the formation of proper habits, and consequently, the moral f Matt. xii. 36. s Numbers xxii. 28. 152 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. improvement of the animal ; he counteracts the intention of the Deity, and stands a sinner in his sight Such are the duties which man is required to perform, and such the reasons for which they are required. The due performance of them accords most evidently with all the designs of the Creator ; it tends to good. In what manner it produces good shall be shown. An animal tame and docile, and therefore useful in its generation, is an animal in a state of moral improvement : being such, it is justly entitled, according to the general law of the Divine dispensations, to a reward bearing a due pro- portion to the improvement made. In man, moral improve- ment is religious improvement, because it can hardly be made from any other principle than obedience to the will of God. This principle cannot be supposed to have any influence on the conduct of brute animals, for there seems to be no reason to suppose that they have any idea of the being of a God. And yet the law of the Divine dispensation must surely be as applicable to the brute creation as to their associate, man. The reward of good men cannot be justly ascertained till their destined course of trial is ended at death ; neither can the reward that ought to be awarded to the merits, the useful and obedient services of the tractable, docile animal, be properly determined till the discharge of the required duties shall have been finished. It would be a great impeachment of the Divine justice were merit to be deprived of its just reward, but it must be so deprived if the existence of the meritorious creature end at death. This dilemma suggests the question, Does the existence of all creatures, inferior to man in the scale of creation, terminate at death, the dissolution of the visible body ? This question may be thus answered. It were an impeachment of the wisdom of the Deity to suppose that he ever formed an imperfect design, or ever altered or revoked a design when once formed. To destroy SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 153 life would be an act inconsistent with that attribute, and, consequently, not only improbable, but impossible. Ac- cording to the anti-material and spiritual theory, the whole creation constitutes one entire system, in which every individual creature is so variously connected with other creatures, that the destruction or annihilation of any one creature must be an arbitrary resumption of gifts conferred, and must also leave a blank or breach in the system, and reduce the whole to a state of imperfection. Hence it follows that the total destruction, the annihilation of any creature, even the most minute and insignificant insect, is impossible. Metaphysicians maintain that mind, spirit, or soul, being confessedly incorporeal substances, do not consist of parts, and, therefore, cannot be divided into parts, cannot be dis- solved, cannot die. The vital spirit, the life of animals also, has never been imagined to be a material substance; it there- fore is, like the life of man, indissoluble, and each individual spirit of brute creatures must, like the spirit of man, be im- mortal, can never be extinguished ; must, when once it has received an existence in the Divine Mind, it must live for ever. These positions are confirmed by the fact in which the ma- terialist and the anti-materialist agree, that the substance of which the animal body is composed, whether material or whether spiritual, does not perish at death. The materialist observes that the bodily substance is dissolved at death, that the greater portion of it is composed of gases and fluids of divers qualities which are not annihilated at death, but are dissolved into parts, the greater portion of which pass unseen into the atmosphere. The bones, the only parts that remain the objects of sense bearing the semblance of materiality, even these are not destroyed, but are returned to the earth from whence they derived their substance, without the loss or annihilation of even a single particle. Thus imperishable is the visible portion of animal bodies. The anti-materialist adopts with the materialist the tenet, 154 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. that every living creature is composed of the vital principle, which is invisible, and a body which is visible, the object of sense. The former contends, that the death of the body is only the privation of those spiritual invisible influences, but that those influences which give the life and motion to visible substance, though purely spiritual, still retain ex- istence in this altered state, but are still indestructible. This tenet accords with the doctrine that God never destroys; but if the visible spirit or immaterial substance be not destroyed at death, it were an opinion strange indeed and utterly untenable to suppose that the invisible substance, the mind or spirit, should be destroyed at death, and not, like the visible spirit, retain an existence and continue to be available to some wise and useful purpose such as may accord with the beneficent designs of the Deity. Such are the arguments which the voice of nature offers in proof of the truth that animal life never dies, but retains its existence in some manner or state after separation from the body. Arguments thus strong, are sufficient proof of the position of the immortality of every kind and species of animal life. But the question being mysterious, it is very possible that inferences drawn from outward experiences might be delusive, and that moral evidences may not afford ground for any conclusion more certain than what may be called opinion or strong belief. Although in countless instances such authorities as these are held to be sufficient ground of action, it may be well to appeal to other evidences, the evidences of Holy Writ, of the revealed and authentic Word of God, the word that teaches truth in respect of other superhuman questions, the word that will teach the truth of the immortality of the viial spirit in brute animals as well as in the human, and thus afford the opportunity of the dispensation of Divine justice to brute animals as well as to man. In all the frequent occasions on which reference has been SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 155 made to the works of the creation, they have ever been found to be acts of the Divine Mind by which an hypostasis or substance is produced or raised within that ubiquitous spirit, which substance so produced becomes a prosopon or object of sense; a creature either animate or inanimate. It is thus by the exhibition of an hypostasis that all things are and have been created, it is by the exhibition of such hypos- tasis that all things are born or brought into animate or inanimate existence, and it is by the same hypostasis that all things live and move and have their being. The immu- tability and consequently the eternity of the purposes of the Deity has been already inferred from the Divine attributes, the same truth has been revealed and announced by scrip- tural texts, as the following: h " Whatsoever God doeth," writes the royal author of the book of Ecclesiastes, "it shall be for ever : nothing can be put to it, nothing taken from it." The prophet Malachi : J " I am the Lord, I change not: therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." So also St, Paul : k " The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Whatever prosopon or thing has once received existence in the ubiquitous Spirit, it exists for ever, never becomes annihilated, for such annihilation would imply a change of purpose in the Divine Mind which the texts declare to be impossible ; the annihilation would prove that this creative act was useless, was a defect in the design, was an impossibility. The eternity of the existence of the creature bars such inferences, and affords, on reference to the Divine attributes, a full assurance that the existence thus eternal must be conducive to some wise and beneficent purpose. The immortality of animal life which is inferred or rather ascertained by the texts above cited, is, it must be confessed, a doctrine somewhat novel, and perhaps opposite to opinions commonly entertained. Such opinions are supposed to be h Eccles. iii. 14. ; Malachi iii. 6. k Rom. xi. 29. 156 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. proved to be true by texts of Holy Writ, such as the follow- ing : l " Man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish." St. Peter writes to the same effect : m " These (persons of rebellious spirit) as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruption." These texts are commonly under- stood to signify that the word perish, applied to brute beasts, implies utter destruction, complete annihilation of existence, extinction of being. If such be the sense of the word perish when applied to brute animals, it is a sense widely different from the sense in which it is taken when applied to man. This a few short remarks will clearly show. The text of St. Peter cited above affords a right view of the import of the word perish, for it applies equally to the fate of brute animals and of wicked men : " The wicked shall be taken and destroyed like brute beasts, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption," that is, they shall perish in consequence of their vices and sins. Many texts of Holy Writ describe the state of the wicked, first, of their spirits immediately after death, and also, after their spirits shall become embodied in a spiritual substance capable of sensation at the resurrection of the dead. It were foreign to the present question to offer a minute exposition of the state of departed spirits, farther than may serve to show, that as the spirits of wicked men survive the death or dissolution of the visible portion of the soul, the spirit, the mind of the man, so that the vital spirits of brute animals survive the like dissolution also. Although the text above cited might amply suffice, yet it may be well to adduce others. The Saviour said to some Jews, when speaking of an inter- esting event then recent, n " Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans ? I tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." The follow- ing text of the prophet Ezekiel will show that the word 1 Psalm xlix. 12. 2 Peter ii. 12. n Luke xiii. 2, 3. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 157 perish does not signify annihilation, but only the altered state of the sinner after death : " I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth (perisheth), saith the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves and live ye." In these several texts, the words perish and die signify a certain degree of degradation of condition after death, accompanied with sorrow and distress ; the word live signifies a continuance of the living principle after death in a state of happiness, with increased powers and capacities of enjoyment. It being thus proved that the word perish does not signify the extinction of existence, and, therefore, when applied to brute animals, does not forbid the assertion, that their vital spirit may, like that of men, survive the dissolution of the visible form, it will with good reason be asked, What is that vital spirit? The answer will be found in the answer to another question, Wherein consists the identity of brute animals ? The identity neither of man nor brute animals consists in the identity of the particles, the spiritual but visible particles that compose the body, for these are ever changing, and in the course of time the whole substance of the body is entirely changed, and yet the identity is the same as before the change. P The philosophic Locke affirms, that the identity of animals consists in the identity of the cause of motion to the same though changeable machine called the body, and that this cause of motion abides within the animal. Such is the theory of the philosopher, but it is imperfect ; he does not account for the origin or cause of motion subsisting within the animal to which he assigns the identity. Professor Liebig shows, that animal motion proceeds from the vital spirit subsisting in the animal ; the anti-materialist shows, that this vital spirit is the act of the Divine Mind operating in the spiritual system called the animal. It will be admitted from statements already made, Ezek. xviii. 32. I* Locke, B. ii. chap. 27, s. 5. 158 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. that every animal hath some degree of freedom of the will, by which the acts of the vital force are directed. It is the same with man : his acts are the result of the operation of an internal power of motion directed by the will. Hence it appears that the acts of man and of brute animals are the same in kind, however they may differ in the intelligence by which they may be guided. The Divine Mind when he created man, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, a spirit of life, that is, a mind that never loses the power of thinking. This power being thus eternally efficient, constitutes the immortality of the soul. Locke decides that personal identity consists in con- sciousness, or the mental assurance of the sameness of the individual afforded by the memory, which affords the con- viction that the person, the mind, which entertained certain thoughts at certain periods in time past, is the same mind which thinks in the time present The identity of man and brute animals, therefore, rests in the identity of mind. This fact accords entirely with the anti-material theory. The identity of brute animals during life is exactly the same, it is determined by the recollection (often of greater length than is commonly supposed) of continued existence. Memory, like all the other acts of mind, is the effect of the immediate agency of the Divine Mind, an agency which may be suspended or withdrawn at any instant, and the powers of memory be paralysed and even utterly extin- guished, and thus destroy the consciousness of existence. Consciousness thus destroyed, existence itself may be truly said to be interrupted or suspended, and yet the vital spirit, although memory be extinct, may still subsist, retaining its previous propensities or characteristic acquirements. The immortal spirit of man retains these properties after death, together with consciousness, which constitutes his immor- tality : the spirit of brute animals survives the death, but being deprived of consciousness, may be truly said to perish, SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 159 although, in other respects, it remains unchanged, and still available to all the wise and beneficent purposes which the Deity may intend. It is thus, and thus only, that brute animals perish, although they remain still available to all the purposes of the Deity, and still await his just judgment How these purposes may be carried into effect the following authorities will show. 1 " Who knoweth the spirit of man, that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ?" Thus writes the royal author of the book of Ecclesiastes. Again, r " Then shall the dust (the visible spirit, the phasma of the man) return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." That the beatified spirit of man passes into the presence of God at death is clearly shown by the w r ords of the Saviour addressed to the penitent thief on the cross : s " To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." What may be the state of the vital spirit of the brute animal that after death remains upon earth, and what, while it remains in that state, may be its uses, is a question of interesting enquiry. That the vital spirit, when divested of the visible spiritual substance called body, still subsists within the compass of the Divine Mind, is a certainty evidently undeniable : it consequently continues to be equally within the same con- trol as when it subsisted in what is called an embodied state. While in that state, it lived in a course of trial, and had, like the spirit of man, become of more or less merit in the esti- mation of the Deity, according as the temper and propensities of the animal had become more or less such as the Creator may have approved. The state of the soul of man after death is determined according to the deeds of the past life of trial, and is either exalted or degraded accordingly. The Deity, incapable of change in the administration of his dispensa- tions, never destroys, and therefore the vital spirit of every i Eccles. iii. 2 1 . r xii. 7. s Luke xxiii. 43. SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. animal must survive the dissolution of the visible spirit, the body. The Deity assigns to every human being at death such state of existence as suits the deservings of the past life. His acts cannot be inconsistent, and, therefore, as with man, a state such as in justice ought to be given, must be assigned to every animal at its death, although the spirit, the vital principal of the animal, still, according to the au- thorities, remains in a locality or state called the earth. The Deity cannot permit any existent creature to remain in a state of uselessness; the animal spirit must therefore be made available to some useful purpose, and be endowed with means promotive of good. It is not easy to imagine that this purpose can be accomplished in any other way than by again consigning the disembodied spirit to a new body or visible spiritual substance, in which it may pass through a new state of trial, and thus have the means of regaining that rank in the scale of creation from which, in the preceding state, it perhaps had fallen, or of advancing itself into a higher state, by the continued exercise of such good affec- tions as had been exercised in the preceding state of trial. Such dispensation were perfectly consistent with the divine attributes, and unless such dispensation be made it were difficult to reconcile the fate of brute creatures with the divine goodness or justice. An author of great celebrity, treating of the goodness of the Deity, writes, t " The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view." The author proceeds to remark on the delight, the enjoyment, of which the insects in air, the birds in groves, the cattle in the fields, and the fishes in the waters, all alike partake. This is a view of the bright side of the question. The dark side would show that in the space of an hour or two only the happy insects would perhaps be cramped with cold, the 1 Paley, Nat. Theol. chap. 26. SCRIPTURAL EVIDETS'CES. 161 birds annoyed by the fowler, the cattle driven by brutal drivers, or exhausted by excessive labour, and also half famished from an insufficiency or badness of food, and the fishes, some tortured by the hook of the angler, or caught in hundreds in the net of the fisher. Add to all these evils, the habit, the necessity of the mutual slaughter made by animals upon each other, or by their master, often their cruel lord, man. In truth, good and evil are blended to- gether in the life of animals, as in the life of man, doubtless for the same wise purposes ; a truth which leads to the inference, that the present life of animals is, as with man, a life of trial, and that in both due justice cannot be dis- pensed to them in the life present, but that due justice will be dispensed in some future state and mode of existence. u " Not a sparrow falls without the Father," are the words of the Saviour, and consequently they must be words of truth. They are commonly understood as significant of the general and exact attention with which the Deity regards the interest of every created object. Other texts show that the like is given to even creatures of the vegetable world. It were somewhat foreign to the present question to enquire into the reason why such attention is given to the state and fate of vegetables ; but that which is given to the falling, dying sparrow cannot be given for any purpose more im- portant than the determination of the new creature to which the vital principle, the spirit of the bird, shall be consigned for the purpose of a new course of trial. Attention given on such occasion cannot be deemed unworthy of the Deity, it well accords with his attribute of justice and the general design of promoting good. According to the present theory, every event passes within the medium of the Divine Mind, to whom of course all things are known, and being known, due attention will most assuredly be given to the state about to be assigned, even though it be that of a falling sparrow. u Matthew xxix. 30. M lt>2 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. The number of these translations of the animal spirit will be as great as circumstances may require. The spirit may be transferred successively from animal to animal during the course of an indefinite period, and the trials continued till after successive states of probation the Divine Mind may not deem it necessary to continue the process. It may be assumed that this stage of the process will arrive when the migrating spirit shall have attained to such degree of im- provement as to render the repetition of trial in state of a brute animal no longer necessary, and such cases must hap- pen, if a state of trial be conducive to any purpose. It may then be enquired what may be the fate of the spirit of the brute animal. The revealed word declares that the spirit or soul of man is not subjected to a probationary trial after the death of the body, but that it ascends unto the Giver of its first existence, and abides there his judgment ; the course of trial then terminates, and the condition of the spirit or the man is then fixed for ever ; hence it follows, that when the spirit of the brute animal shall have been subjected to trial in the state of a man, it will then have attained to a final state. It must be expected that the doctrine which thus main- tains that the soul of man is matured from the soul of brute animals will be received with surprise, and perhaps with scorn and indignation ; for alas ! proud man is apt to scorn the idea that he has any relationship to the brute animals, his fellow-tenants of the earth, and yet too many of these scorners do, by their vices and crimes, render themselves beastly and savage, and thus sink themselves below the level of brutes. But passing by these considerations, let it be observed, that the creation of man, a new spiritual substance incapable of dissolution, and fitted for eternity, is a work well worthy of the designs of the Deity, and a glorious result of the creative process which had been con- tinued during the course of thousands of years, which under SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 163 the figurative designation of days, denote the periods of the creation. It may possibly be imagined that this idea of the proba- tionary states of the vital spirit has been borrowed from the theory of metempsychosis of Pythagoras, a theory which has long been rejected as whimsically imaginative : such opinion is a mistake, the idea has not been borrowed ; the doctrine may be nearly the same indeed, yet it differs from the Pythagorean in this respect, it denies the trans- migration of the soul of man, altogether and especially transmigration into the form of a brute animal, as taught by that philosopher. The revealed Word bars such trans- migration, but the authorities cited in preceding pages clearly indicate the metempsychosis of the spirits of animals lower than man. Reasons have been given which sustain the conjecture that even the attributes of the Deity himself have been of progressive growth ; were the results of a long course of probation, and that they did not attain their present perfection till after a course of trial during the ages of eternity anterior to the creation. The works of creation were also all progressive from good to better, and of these the better were all compounded of former good with some new good, some new qualities superadded. According to the rules of analogy, these facts prove the case. To these arguments must be added the undeniable truth, proved by the agency of the Divine Mind as illustrated by the anti- material and spiritual theory, that the Deity does not, and indeed cannot create good or excellence, but that of ne- cessity it must be the result of a freewill giving preference of good to evil. According to this doctrine, the Deity was restrained by his own laws from creating an immortal spirit, that is, a spirit which had not attained to eminence by a due course of trial. This theory of the transmigration of the vital spirits, the souls of animals, affords a reason why man, the most eminent in perfection above all the creatures of this 104 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. earth, was the last work of the creation. He is the most complete as to form, the most eminent in his faculties ; and the breath of life, a spirit of eternal consciousness, is given him, because the Divine designs as to the form and to the faculties had been completed by progressive practice, and a spirit, a soul, advanced by successive trials to such degree of perfection as enabled it to know good from evil, and regulate his actions by the decisions of a freewill. The anti-material and spiritual theory, tested by a con- tinued reference to Holy Writ, and confirmed by its complete accordance with the doctrines of the Church of England as in the pages of this chapter, affords ample confirmation of the truth of the anti-material principles, vindicated by the moral and metaphysical arguments stated in the first chapter. Such was the intended purpose of the disquisitions of this, but these disquisitions have also served to afford some new ideas concerning the nature of the Godhead, and also of the truth of various tenets and doctrines entertained by our Church of England. The character and causes of what our Church regards as the errors of those who differ from her have been in some few instances pointed out, and submitted respectfully to their consideration. It is trusted these dis- quisitions have not been more prolix than the occasion required, and that they will not be altogether unworthy of attention. Be what they may, they will not fail to render the knowledge of the Deity more familiar to the under- standing, and produce in every person a more lively sense of the divine agency, and also of his ubiquitous and immediate presence. Such was the promise made by the learned, the ingenious, the virtuous Bishop Berkeley, when about a century ago he introduced the doctrines of the present theory to the notice of the British public. To these promises he also added the remark, that while the anti-material doc- trines afforded the benefits above mentioned, they made no alterations in the moral and religious duties of man ; he SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 165 signified his sincere conviction that the anti-materialist will be ready to discharge those duties with a more lively sense of the obligation than will generally be found in those who, encumbering their thoughts with the unintelligible, the inex- plicable notion of the reality of matter, are so far misled as to suppose that even Omnipotence cannot act without the use of the inert material, but that the plastic hand of pure spirit must, by an inexplicable process, mould the cumbrous substance into the designed form before it can produce the designed effect. CHAPTER III. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. " A MIRACLE (in theology, that is, those recorded in Holy Writ) is an effect above human nature and power performed in attestation of some truth." Such is the definition of the word given by the great lexicographer Johnson ; it may, therefore, be received as correct and accurate. When it is considered that the agent by which all miracles are wrought is the Almighty God, it might have been presumed that any reasonable evidence of the truth of such an event would have been ever regarded as above doubt or suspicion, and have stood absolutely exempt from even cavil : but what might seem impossible has occurred ; persons, some of great learning and ingenuity, have questioned the credibility of miracles. To answer the arguments, perhaps it might be said the cavils, of persons little disposed to believe even the evidence of their own senses, were a vain attempt. Un- believers will never believe. Learned divines and able advocates have not been wanting in the vindication of the belief of miracles, and their advocacy has been so powerful that the question might be said to have been set at rest. It is admitted that all has been done that could be done THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 167 while the reality of matter was held to be an undeniable fact ; but, unfortunately, the belief in such reality continues to suggest doubts which even the plea of the divine omni- potence could but imperfectly remove. It was, for instance, difficult to conceive how the matter of a distorted limb could in an instant be moulded into a proper form, or how the delicate organization of a deficient eye could be given to its proper place and endowed with its due powers almost in an instant by the application of moistened clay. Per- plexities such as these are done away by the present theory. All things being spiritual, the immaterial creatures of the Divine Mind or Spirit, created by thought, guided by the will, may readily be imagined to be of form and substance changeable with the quickness of thought, be the intended change what it may. The anti-material theory affords such new and satisfactory evidence relative to the subject of miracles as exempts them from the possibility of doubt ; it has, therefore, been thought advisable to apply that theory to the illustration of the manner in which all miracles have been wrought. To this end it has been found necessary to state the principal circumstances of some of the most remarkable miracles recorded in the books of the Old and also of the New Testament, much after the manner adopted in the second chapter in the application of the theory to principles relating to opinion and faith. In the present chapter the subjects taken into consideration will be such as relate to matters of practice, to pJiasmas, or substances which are the objects of sense. The celebrated Archdeacon of Carlisle, in his treatise called a View of the Evidences of Christianity, thus writes, v " It is said, that when we advance accounts of miracles, we assign effects without causes, or we attribute effects to causes inadequate to the purpose, or to causes of the operation of which \ve have no experience." The effects which are v Paley. Evidences. Prelim. Observations, vol. i. 168 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. alluded to are instanced in the cure of the palsy by the touch ; of blindness to the anointing of the eyes with clay ; or the raising of the dead to a word. The doubt of the objector was most certainly suggested by the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of conceiving how matter inert and cumbrous could by any possibility be affected in the manner described: how the muscles and sinews could be in an instant endowed with new animation; the eye organized anew, and a putrefying corpse recalled to life and health. No known treatment of matter could produce such effects; such are never seen, they must, therefore, be impossible ; the miracles were never performed, they cannot be true, and, however attested, they must be impudent falsehoods. The author now cited meets these objections by saying, " The effect we ascribe simply to the volition of the Deity, of whose existence and power, not to say of whose prescience and agency, we have previous and independent proof. We have, therefore, all we seek for in the works of rational agents, a sufficient power, an adequate motive. In a word, once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not incredible." This pleading must be admitted to be a very sufficient vindication of faith founded on evidence verified by miracles. Why miracles, performed by a human individual, should be held to be a proof that he is entitled to assent, the anti- material theory shows: it teaches that the Divine Mind and he alone, gives effects to causes, whether the effects be or be not miraculous, and gives them by an act of mind or thought. The co-operation of that Great Power whenever a miracle is wrought, is a clear proof that the Deity approves of the purposes of the person who works the miracle, and then-fore miracles are just grounds of faith, they are the works of God. When the Divine Mind proceeds to any act, it gives, by an act of thought, form to the spiritual li ypostaxis or sub- I THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 169 stance suitable to the occasion, \vhether it be visible or in- visible. When the object is visible, it may be designated by the word phasma, signifying a certain spiritual substance ready to produce certain effects. The phasmas thus created, receive from the same Great Cause such active powers and passive capacities as may be suitable to the purpose for which they may be caused to exist. The efficacy of those powers or capacities is the result of influences continually supplied by the same creative Almighty Cause, and are the results of the volition of that Cause to whose agency no rule can be prescribed, no limit imagined. It has been shown in the second chapter, that all the acts of animated beings, whether of body or mind, are the immediate effects of the spiritual influences of the Divine Agent infused into the individual creature, which the Divine Mind, being ubiquitous, holds its existence within, what has been figuratively termed the medium or atmosphere of the Divine Mind. The sensible form or phasma of every created being is the creature of that Great Agent, is formed in and of his spiritual substance, and consequently must be variable according to the decisions of the Divine Will. The form, the faculties, the actions, the thoughts, of every phasma being thus wholly dependent on the Divine Mind or Will, all the accidents or circumstances accompanying every phasma may be as permanent as thought steadily operating according to the will of the Divine Mind, or they may, any or all of them, be varied in an instant, however extreme the change may be. Such being the power of the Great Agent, the Divine Mind or Spirit, it follows that any miracle, be the deed great or trivial, may be the work either of an instant or an age. Among these, the miraculous cure of the paralytic patient, of the blind, and even of the resuscitation of the dead, the effect produced needed only the determination of the Divine will or thought, and the effect must ensue with as much certainty in an instant as in any other period of time what- soever. 170 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. According to this theory, all things are, as the Archdeacon affirms, the effects of the volition of the Deity, operating in the agency of the Divine Mind; the manner in which miracles are wrought may be plainly understood. From this exposition it will be seen that the acts called miracles differ in no respect from acts of hourly occurrence, done in con- formity with the laws of nature, except in the circumstance that they are acts done in deviation from those laws. It cannot but be of much importance that this truth should be fully ascertained, for, while it must silence cavils and solve doubts, it affords an idea of the Divine Agency most clear, satisfactory, and influential, for the assurance that all things are in their nascent state, and, indeed, in every state the immediate products of his will, cannot fail to produce a proper sense of dependence on the Deity, lead to a firm faith in and reliance upon him, and be productive of fruits of a right spirit; it will teach grateful humility to the learned, to the wise, to the most eminent in rank or personal accom- plishment ; it will offer peace and content to all. In those who abuse the faculties conferred on them by the Divine Mind, this knowledge ought to produce a keen sense of ingratitude and shame for having misused the gifts conferred by perverting them to purposes the reverse of the design of the Giver. Such is the importance of right ideas of the agency of the Divine Mind on all animated and intelligent creatures. Such ideas may be gathered from the precepts of Holy Writ ; how they may be applicable to the acts of the invisible mind has been suggested by the authorities stated in the preceding chapter; how the same Great Agent operates in dispensations which relate to things visible or objects of sense may be learned by a reference to some of the miracles recorded in Holy Writ. A brief examination of which may afford by induction such a mass of evidence as may afford a full and firm belief that the Divine agency, in acts com- THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 171 monly regarded as miraculous, is such as above described ; that matter is not necessary or in any way employed in miracles, but that every phasma or sensible object or appearance is in miracles, as in other things, as purely spiritual as is the Divine Universal Cause, the Divine Mind itself, in which each received existence, and in which each continued to act so long as that existence was sustained. The greatest of all the miracles recorded in Holy Writ is the creation : it was, according to the Johnsonian definition, " an effect above human power demonstrative of the being of God." Such is the view which may be justly taken of the act by which the universe obtained its present state ; the means were miraculous. This, it is presumed, will be readily admitted. But the habit of regarding the common course of events as the necessaiy result of an established system of causes and effects renders the mind blind to the truth that the birth of every animal, the growth of every plant, and the chemical operation of every mineral is not less miraculous, though it be of common occurrence, than was the first creation of the first creatures of each of their kinds. Leaving the act of creation, an act that lies beyond our experience, and leaving the acts of daily occurrence accord- ing to the laws of nature, which are acts of Divine agency, not regarded as miraculous, only because they are of daily occurrence,' leaving these, the attention will be directed to such acts as are unanimously regarded as miracles, chiefly, or rather for no other reason than because they are of rare occurrence. It is contended that in all these the phasmas or visible effects produced were altogether devoid of any material substance, the supposed existence of which has been the only obstacle to the belief of miracles. The idea of the reality of matter being once rejected, all those extra- ordinary or uncommon events called miracles become, if authenticated by proper testimony, as credible as the common events of daily occurrence. The events of the 172 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. general deluge were, next to the miracle of creation, the earliest, and also greater perhaps in their causes and con- sequences than any other recorded in the sacred history : they therefore are entitled to first attention : they will how- ever be better understood from a few observations on the motives which may be supposed to have induced the Deity to destroy the earth by water. After the deluge Noah returned to the ante-diluvial world, he planted a vineyard and drank of the fruits of his labour, he drank wine and was overpowered, he was drunken. The post-diluvial appearance of the rainbow indicates most decidedly an altered state of the atmosphere, which may be supposed to have given an effect to the use of wine which had been unknown before, and consequently was not appre- hended by the patriarch. Being drunken he was found by his son Ham " uncovered in his tent," w who " told it to his brethren without." Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him ; and he said, " Cursed be Canaan, a sen-ant of sen-ants shall he be to his brethren." The act of Ham implies a propensity to Priapic worship, the act of Shem and Japheth indicates an abhorrence of it, and the curse of Noah signifies his indignation at any act of approval of that worship. From this transaction and from others that might be adduced, it is inferred that the Priapic worship was the besetting sin of the ante-diluvians, and that it was accompanied with cruelty in every form and degree, which constituted the character of many men, called giants, not from the stature and strength of the body, but from their *cruelty, violence, and oppression, their apostacy, impiety, w Genesis a. 21. * Mant. Bible. Comm. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 173 and iniquity. yThe Priapic limb was, as appears from the act of Ham, made an object of religious worship, as the symbol of vitality ; the abuse of this symbol of vitality led to idolatry, to the worship of the elements and of animals with barbarous rites, such, perhaps, as devouring flesh cut or torn from the bodies of living creatures, as at the brinde feasts of the Abyssinians. The most effectual means of proving the error of such worship and restore the worship due to the Great God only, was the destruction of man and animals, of the worshippers and the worshipped, by means of one of the elements that had been worshipped then, as it was in aftertimes. Water was used as being an element most efficient of the purpose. These short remarks seem sufficient to the present occasion. The Deity having resolved that the earth and all flesh should be destroyed, signified his purpose to Noah one hundred and twenty years before the accomplishment, and commanded the patriarch to undertake the structure of a vessel in which pairs of every species of terrestrial animals should be saved from the approaching destruction. During the progress of the work, Noah, whom the apostle Peter calls a z preacher of righteousness, may be presumed to have given all possible publicity to the Divine purpose. The warning was vain. The result proves that not one of the millions which peopled the earth repented of their wicked errors, and so far from aiding in the structure of the ark, all seem to have regarded the work as a silly undertaking, and perhaps made Noah an object of popular scorn and even of annoyance, as is usual when measures are under- taken that do not accord with the prejudices of the vulgar. y The same, called linga, is still an idol highly reverenced in India. A mutilated object becomes desecrated with idolaters. The rite of cir- cumcision was adopted as a desecration of the Priapic idol. See Naology, chap. 7. z 2 Peter ii. 5. 174 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. It being thus likely that the patriarch did not receive any assistance in the work, it may be supposed that the structure consisted of slender materials, such as could be wielded by one person only, and was slight and weak; a circumstance which perhaps would have been a known certainty, were the material, gopher wood, now known. The form and structure of the ark is of such importance in the history of the miracle as to demand a particular con- sideration. a Taking the length of the cubit at eighteen inches, the ark was four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy- five broad, and forty-five high. Dimensions double those of a modern first-rate man-of-war. The tonnage was some- what exceeding 42,413 tons. The door or entrance was on the side and most probably on the lowest floor, and consequently below the water-level when the vessel was afloat ; a circumstance which rendered it necessary, as the text says, b that the Lord shut him (Noah) in, by a spiritual act operating on a spiritual phasma, the substance of the ark. The vessel had three galleries on the sides, each divided into cells. It had one window only, which was on the top or covering of the ark, serving to give light to all the galleries, all open towards the middle of the ark. This window being, as it should seem, not very large, the inmates must have abided in nearly perfect darkness. Of the vessel it is to be observed, first, that, as learned calcu- lations have shown, it was of capacity sufficient for the intended purpose, but that, while it was sufficient to float in safety during the heaviest rains, yet it was, as the sailor speaks, unfit to ride out a storm, a state of the elements which, it may be presumed, did not occur, it being the declared purpose to drown the world quietly by water. No mention is made of a disruption of the strata of the globe or other terrible and violent catastrophe, which makes it certain that no such did take place. a Mant. Bible. Comment, on the text. b Gen. vii. 16. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 175 The structure of the ark being finished, c God signified to Noah the approach of the threatened catastrophe, and com- manded him to receive into the ark two of every species of living things male and female, which he should cause to enter into the ark. God also said, " Take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food both to thee and for them." The commands of the Deity were obeyed : the patriarch took in stores of provision, and the creatures came, and all received, to use the nautical term, their respective berths in the ark, their place of refuge. It were impossible that the ark could afford room for the storing a sufficient quantity of the various kinds of food necessary for the sustenance of the multifarious d creatures abiding in it during the space of a whole year ; and consequently the stores taken in must have been kept from being exhausted by miracle, as were the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil of the widow of e Zarephath when she received the prophet Elijah. All things on this occasion were miraculous. That living creatures should assemble at the door of the ark and seek admittance, and, when admitted, should abide each in the appointed cell, from which it could not wander during the time of con- tinuance in the ark ; all these acts were truly miraculous. This the materialist will perhaps admit; being unable to offer any explanation, he will in a summary way ascribe the events to the will and power of the Deity. He can say no more. The anti-materialist will do more ; he will show by what means these things were accomplished ; the provisions c Gen. vi. 17. d It has been calculated that the number of animal species received into the ark amounted to about fifty thousand ; of which, there being pairs of each, the total number was consequently one hundred thousand individuals. Many of these, being insects, would occupy but little space. This circumstance will meet the cavilling remarks concerning the in- sufficiency of the ark to the recorded purpose. e 1 Kings xvii. 14. 176 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. failed not. The Divine Mind, by the sole act of his will, sustained the spiritual phasmatic substance of the different kinds of stores at first laid in. The spiritual but visible substance always seemed equal to the demand, and thus sufficed to the vast numbers and variety of creatures that were during the year of the deluge dependent on this supply. The propensity which induced the animals to enter into the ark was the effect of an exercise of the Divine influence, which, although ever operating in common events, will be admitted to have been miraculous in that of the deluge. The Divine Mind certainly can, and without doubt does, operate in brute animals in the same manner as in man, in whom he { " worketh both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The wills of all the creatures were swayed, they knew not why, to enter into the ark, and to adopt there habits such as the circumstances required. The Divine Mind, pervading their minds, wrought in them the necessary effect. Such is the explanation which the present theory gives of the miracle. The credibility of this explanation is much increased by the fact, that the manner in which the Divine influence wrought upon the animals of the ark, although on this occasion altogether extraordinary, was in no respect different, except in the purpose, from the same influence exercised on ordinary occasions. This may seem strange to the mind accustomed to regard all animal bodies as material substances, acting in the course of a series of established causes and effects proceeding without the im- mediate and continued superintendence of the Deity. The anti-materialist affirms that such opinion is not true : there is no series of causes and effects mechanically operative, but that every act is done by the Divine Spirit or Mind, and all living creatures are obedient to influences operating specially and immediately on the occasion, and in the manner most conducive to the end proposed. This view of the Divine 'Phil. ii. 13. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 177 agency clearly shows whence it came that the animals went, as if instinctively, into the ark, and there abode, each in its place, during the process of the deluge. The Divine agency exercised on this occasion was the same as operates in all the miraculous deeds which are wont to perplex the Christian materialist, and to afford an idle triumph to the liberal and the infidel. All due arrangements having thus been made and the door of entrance closed, Noah and the other inmates of the ark remained seven days in hourly expectation of the coming rain. It may be supposed that this delay was intended to try the steadiness of the faith of the patriarch, and his obedience to the commands of his God. It may also be imagined that many of his neighbours, whom he had often warned in vain of the coming destruction, might during this delay taunt him with what they had been wont to call his idle warnings, a title which the delay of the predicted rain seemed to justify : but "Sit came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth." The rain began to fall in the evening of the seventh day, or sabbath, and before morning the ark, which it may be pre- sumed was constructed in a low situation, was completely afloat, and inaccessible to those without who might have been disposed to force an entrance when they had become sensible of the danger. When the fall of rain had been continued several days, appearances had become alarming, and many, perhaps, had perished on the places where they had taken refuge ; some persons, it should seem, had become convinced of the truths which Noah had announced, and repented of their sins before they perished. It is presumed that these were the persons to whom the Saviour went during the time when his body was in the sepulchre, h " and preached unto the spirits in prison, which were sometime disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in e Genesis vii. 10. h 1 Peter iii. 19. N 178 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. the days of Noah while the ark was preparing." It may be inferred from this text that repentance was not in all cases fully efficacious to salvation till after the death of the Redeemer. The rain of the deluge was of such abundance that >the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth, that is, was continued forty days and forty nights ; and the waters prevailed upon the earth, and all the high hills were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered. The latter of these statements is the only fact plainly stated ; the windows of heaven and the fountains of the great deep are merely figurative expressions signifying the immense profusion of waters which the patriarch, looking out occasionally from the window on the top of the ark, saw falling on all sides. There are no windows in heaven, but the abundant rain seemed to be a stream such as might be supposed to rush from many an opening made in the heaven above to afford a passage from lakes in the imagined fields of heaven. Such also was the spread of waters all around, that it seemed as if all the sources which were supposed to supply the waters of the ocean were discharging all their streams at once. The terms are evidently figurative only, for the waters that fill the beds of oceans never came from springs, but found their place by subsidence when the earth at the creation was raised above them. It is a strange error to suppose that, had there been any subterranean reservoirs of water within the earth, they could contribute a drop to the deluge. The waters obtained by digging wells, some few artesian wells excepted, never rise to the surface ; neither were the strata of the earth in any the slightest degree disturbed. The learned Professor of Geology at Oxford did once entertain such opinion, but it is now relinquished by 1 Genesis vii. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 179 him and all the geologists of the present day. Again, let it be observed, that any disturbance of the earth's surface must have been destruction to the ark, weak and unwieldy. Good reasons might be given to prove that no tempests or even rough gales of wind could have arisen during the prevalence of the flood, not even such as might greatly disturb the waters, or even mix the salt waters with the fresh. It is well known that the fishes of the sea cannot live in fresh water, nor can the fishes of fresh water, some few excepted, live in the salt. The survival of each after the flood affords the assurance that such was the tranquil state of the waters, that the salt and fresh waters were but little mixed ; the fresh water being specifically lighter than the salt, would float uppermost, unless disturbed and blended by storms on the surface or catastrophes at the bottom of the waters. All these facts render it most certain that the ark floated like a log on the surface of the waters, affected by no accident other than the rise and fall of the tides, which can hardly have been sufficient to cause a change of place. Whatever may have been the means by which the waters of the deluge were produced, it is most certain that the quantity was almost inconceivably great. The sacred history states that k "The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits (about twenty-two feet and a half) upward did the waters prevail, and the moun- tains were covered." The highest mountains of the world are the Himalaya mountains on the north of Hindosthan. These are six and twenty thousand feet above the level of the sea ; but these, according to the sacred text, must have been covered. The deluge was of course universal, and all animals living on the face of the earth must have been destroyed. Whence the supply of such a vast body of water may have been derived is a question that does not appear * Genesis vii. 19, 20. 180 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. to have engaged much attention. That the waters were of miraculous production may be inferred from the word of the sacred text, l " I, even I, (the God) do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life under heaven." The waters were a creation of the fluid ; how they were created the present theory will clearly show : the greatness of the work will be seen from the following calculations made on the authority of a cele- brated meteorologist. m The height to which any sensible quantity of vapour ascends in the atmosphere is held by meteorologists to be thirty thousand feet. It appears from calculations duly made, that if all the vapour which envelopes this our earth was condensed into water on the surface, it would not stand at a greater depth than between two and three inches. It is found, indeed, by the rain-guage, that the rains in many places in England fall, at different times in the year, in quantities which if collected together would stand at depths of twenty, thirty, or sometimes forty inches, but these waters do not exist at one time, they are the sums of different successive and repeated evaporations and condensations of the same circumterrestrial vapour, which, were it all to fall at once, would not exceed the depth above stated. n This 1 Patrick on Genesis vi. 1 7. m Daniel. Meteorological Observations. n The following calculation of the quantity of water that might be obtained by the condensation of the vapour in a column of the tempera- ture of 77 of Fahrenheit's thermometer may serve as an example for the calculation of the quantity in a column of any temperature on any part of the earth's surface. The requisite numbers may be found in the work last cited. The height at which the vapour in such a column would Htand if condensed into water may be found by the following problem. Call the density of vapour at the earth's surface, D. The average D. in a column of air 30,000 feet high, d. D : d : : 1 : 0,297, say, three- tenths of an inch in a foot. Vid. Daniel. Met. The quantity of water in a cubic foot at the surface of the earth at 77 is 9 grains. The quantity THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 181 fact shows that the deluge was not caused by a condensation of the vapours of the terrestrial atmosphere. The rain had, according to the sacred history, fallen during forty days. " After the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged. In the second month and on the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth was dried," and the inmates of the ark came forth from what was in fact their prison, after a confinement of one year and ten days. The means by which the flood was dried up were not less miraculous than that by which the waters were brought on. It is evident from the calculation given, that as the water held in air in a state of solution or vapour could have afforded by condensation but a very small portion of the diluvial waters, so neither could the atmosphere- receive them by evaporation ; consequently, that the removal of the waters was an act not less miraculous than that by which they were brought on. The following statement, made on the principles of the present theory, will afford what, it is presumed, will be a just account of the process by which the waters were brought on and afterwards withdrawn from the face of the earth. at the surface : q on the average : : 1 : ,3 : : 9 : 9 X ,3 =: 2,7 : : 1 : 2,7 grains. feet grs. grs. Q in a column of 30,000 X 3 = 90,000 But 437 grains one ounce. gr. oz. -'- = 206 No. of ounces of water on a foot square at the surface 437 of the earth, or at the bottom of the column, if all the vapour in the column of 30,000 were condensed. Let H be the height at which 1000 ounces of water stand in a cubic foot, and h ditto at which 206 ounces would stand in a cubic foot : H : h : : 1000 : 206 : : 10 : 2,06 : : 12 : 2,47 or somewhat less than two inches and one half. Genesis viii. 182 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. That great and universal agent, the Divine Mind, creates and gives form to all things, renders their phasmas or im- material substances the objects of sense and the means of such effects as the Divine purposes may require. In the instance of the general deluge the Deity willed the presence of waters, the Divine Mind, by an act of thought, gave them into a sensible though spiritual existence, and the destruction of all living creatures ensued. This having been accomplished, the phasmatic water, no longer sustained by the Great Agent, lost by a simple process its existence, it passed from off the surface of the earth and vanished away, taking the semblance of a wind or current of air, thus leaving the earth again habitable to animal life. Such is the explanation which the anti-material theory offers concerning that great event, that terrible miracle, the universal deluge. The history of it has been stated somewhat at length, but not more so than seemed to be necessary to give a just idea of the Divine agency. The facts stated clearly demonstrate that, in truth, a miracle differs in nothing from events that take place in the ordinary course of nature, except in being such as the Deity does not think fit com- monly to perform. Although such truth may be learned from the miracles of the general deluge, yet it may be expedient to confirm that proof by a reference to other miraculous acts also. With this view some of the miracles wrought under the ministra- tion of the Hebrew legislator, Moses, will be made the subjects of some brief remarks. The purposes for which those miracles were wrought were two, the one was the liberation of the children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt, the other was to impress on their minds the important doctrine, that the God worshipped by the founders of their race, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was the only One and True God. These designs of the Deity were accomplished, the THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 183 first by grievous visitations on the Egyptian people and their country, visitations justly merited by the oppression to which they had unjustly subjected the Israelites, the second by the character of the several evils, each productive of grievous annoyances, from which they thought themselves securely defended by the power of their gods, but which, when brought upon them by the miraculous power of the God of Israel, forced on them the conviction that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, that he only is entitled to religious worship, for that the whole creation is subject to his control. Moses, for the accomplishment of these purposes, accom- panied by Aaron his brother, went into the presence of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and demanded the liberation of the sons of Israel in the name of the P God of their forefathers and their nation. The king gave no regard to the authority of which Moses spoke, and, to show his contempt of the application, he increased the burdens of the Israelites, sub- jecting them to new hardships, added to others already grievous and intolerable. After some interval, a second application was made, and since a plain but reasonable request had been treated with insolent contempt, the request was now accompanied by a miracle. 1 1n proof of the divine authority on which the advocates founded their demand, the rod or wand borne by Aaron, when cast on the ground, became miraculously a serpent. The king, in surprise, called for the magicians of P God said unto Moses (when he first spake unto him), I AM THAT t AM. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. Exod. iii. 14. Bryant shows by a learned disquisition, (see Plagues of Egypt, p. 214) that the words I AM ought to be rendered The Life, that is, the animating principle that lives and acts in all created beings, the source and only origin of every form of existence, and of every act done and of every effect produced by created beings. He is, in plain terms, the only source of vitality, of the vis vitas, of thought and action. i Exodus vii. 10. 184 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. Egypt, and they also cast down their rods before Pharaoh, and these also became serpents, but the serpent-rod of Aaron swallowed up all these serpents, after which it was restored to the same form as before. This miracle was peculiarly significant. r The serpent, supposed to have been the basilisk, was regarded by the Egyptians as the symbol of immortality, and its form adorned the heads of their monarchs, as significant of the deadly activity, as also of the permanence, of their power. The change of Aaron's rod into a serpent, indicated that the request was made on an authority as high and firmly established as that of the king himself; but when his rod swallowed the serpent-rods of the magicians, the superi- ority of the authority of the Israelite messengers above that of the king himself was plainly shown. This superiority the king did not acknowledge ; it therefore became necessary to have recourse to stronger measures, and visitations annoying, distressing, ruinous, and deadly were wrought miraculously, first on the country, and lastly upon every family, till at length the intended purposes were accomplished, and the Israelites were not only permitted but even urged to depart, bearing away wealth lent, and as it may seem, from a super- stitious terror of a people whose cause a great God espoused, and from a hope that in the worship which it was well known the Israelites went forth to perform, they would ask of their God the future exemption from such dreadful evils which had destroyed Egypt, and seemed to threaten the lives of all the inhabitants. The manner in which these mira- culous visitations, commonly called the plagues of Egypt, were wrought, becomes plainly intelligible, if considered with reference to the present theory. The Divine Mind changed by an act of thought the hypostases or substances of the rods into the Jtypostases of serpents, and all the pliannias or appearances ensued of course. T Horapoll. Hieroglyph, cap. i. Belzoni's Travels, plates. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 185 The miracle of the rods was an exhibition of the power of the God of Israel, intended to influence the king only ; it may consequently be regarded as a private transaction. The miracles that followed were public, and calculated to be of effect on both the Israelites and the Egyptians. Of the turning the waters of the river into blood the mythologist Bryant thus observes, citing the authority of Plutarch, 8 " The Egyptians worship no object so much as the Nile. The Nile they regard as the father and preserver of the country. The legislator of the Hebrews smote the waters with his potent rod, and instantly they became blood." The fishes that were in them died, and the land stank. The first principle of the idolatrous worship, the god whom they honoured and adored, had become an object of abhorrence, it quailed before the God of the Hebrews, for that God had by an act of thought rendered the adored god of Egypt an abhorrence, and proved his own pre-eminence, and the futility of the claim of the waters of the river to the honours and worship they had been wont to receive. Such must have been the impression on the minds of the Israelites. It seems from the sacred history that this plague was con- tinued for seven days, and was then withdrawn, but the king still refusing to comply with the demand of Moses, * " Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and frogs came up and covered the land. They entered into every house, and every room of every house, and into the ovens and knead- ing-troughs." At the intreaty of Pharaoh this evil was abated, and the frogs were to be found in the river only, but the land stank with the putrefying bodies of the dead creatures. The 8 Exodus vii. Bryant on the Plagues of Egypt. Art. 1. The state- ments of this learned author are justly held to be decisive on all the subjects of which he treats : for although his etymologies may be rejected as fanciful, yet his mythological theories are always judicious, and are well vindicated by the authorities which his learning and wide researches enabled him to adduce. t Exodus viii. Bryant. Art. 2. 186 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. learned author, in treating of this plague, seems not to have been aware that u the frog was a symbol of the earth raised above the waters at the creation, and must therefore have been a sacred symbol, and held of course in high reverence. The destruction of these creatures, and the abhorrence that attended the nuisance, must have been an occasion of great grievance to the feelings of the Egyptians, and a humiliating proof of the supremacy of the God of the Hebrews: a proof which could not fail to make much impression on the Israelites. It is recorded that v " the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs in the land of Egypt," greatly to their own surprise, it may be pre- sumed, but effected doubtless by the agency of the Divine Mind, for the purpose of giving countenance to the idea that there were Egyptian gods, but that they were of power far less than that of the God of Israel. These distressing annoyances were followed by others still more grievously offensive: by w lice, which seemed to be animated particles of the clouds of dust which in warm climates are commonly most abundant. In this, as in the former miracles, the magicians did the same by their en- chantments ; that is, after magical rites practised, not perhaps unaccompanied by fraud, but calculated to sustain their character with the king. In all the subsequent miracles their attempts were utterly inefficient. This distressing grievance was followed by another not less annoying ; by swarms of flies : creatures which, in warm climates, are ever grievous nuisances. Of the lice, the first of these, the learned expositor observes, that the creature was abhorred by the Egyptians, a people attending to clean- liness of the person to such an excess that they forbore the use of any but linen garments, which were washed even before they were soiled, and the priests when they officiated in the u This subject is discussed in Naology, Introd. p. 34. v Exod. viii. 7. w Bryant. Art. 3. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 187 temples, approached the idol gods in entire nudity, and with the person shaven in every part lest the offensive insect of the plague should be couching concealed on any part of the body. Such being the tenets of the Egyptians, the insects of this plague fixing themselves in horrid numbers on the person of every one, rendered all impure, and unfit for the performance of religious rites. The flies cannot have been of less annoyance to the person, but they were more humiliating to the opinion entertained of the power of the gods. x The expositor shows that one of the most important and desirable benefits that it was supposed the gods could confer on the votary, was an escape from this pest. The name of Baal-zebul, at Accaron, the great god of the Philistines, signifies the great expeller of Jlies, as though such was his most important office. In various places of Greece, Jupiter was worshipped as the hunter and pursuer of Jlies, and it was the boast of the votaries of Venus, at Paphos, and of Hercules, at Rome, that their altars were free from the annoyance of flies. These particulars are entitled to notice, as showing that the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians were intended not only to bend them to submission to the demands of the Hebrews, but also to convince both the Egyptians and the Israelites of the supremacy of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The miraculous visitations which had hitherto been brought upon Egypt had affected their comforts only, but had not touched their property. The next, the fifth plague, proved ruinous, y A disease called the murrain was upon all the cattle of Egypt, " and all the cattle of Egypt died." This affliction was ruinous to the wealth of the Egyptians. It was an extinguisher of hope from their gods. The expositor x Zevs Mviaypos. Mvioxopos. ATTO/JLVIOS. Bryant, p. 64. y Exodus ix. Bryant, Art. 5. All here must signify some of all kinds of cattle. All the horses did not die; many were employed to draw the chariots of Pharaoh and his army to perish in the Red Sea. 188 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. properly remarks that the sacred animals kept as gods in the temples died also, 2 showing by the infliction of a deadly disease not only on ordinary animals, but also on sacred animals, even those worshipped as gods, that their rites were futile and their gods nothing. The loss of property was followed by the privation of bodily comfort and health. The expositor conjectures that the sprinkling of ashes from the furnace was done in allusion to the human sacrifices which, as he affirms, were publicly performed in some cities. In such sacrifices foreigners, and commonly Israelites, being of a foreign race, were made the victims. This infliction was followed by a storm of hail that destroyed all the products of the fields, and this, after some interval, by a swarm of locusts greater than had been ever before experienced. By these successive visitations, " the land of Egypt," as signified by a remonstrance made to the king, "was destroyed," the cattle had died, the produce of the fields had been destroyed, and the ninth plague, darkness, that confined every person to his own abode for three days, had rendered it for the time, and they feared lest such time might return and again render the country unfit for habitation. The infidel sceptic will deny the truth of these miraculous visitations, for how, he will say, is it possible that material substances can have been thus wrought upon? The acts described are so incompatible with all experience, that the performance must be said to surpass the power of Omni- potence. The anti-materialist will reply, The will of the Divine Mind, which gives existence to waters by an act of thought, can, when the same will shall so determine, give them all the qualities of blood. The creatures, the frogs, lice, flies, and locusts, were created at first in pairs by the net of the Divine will. The attribute of omnipotence compels the admission that the same will could create z Art. 6. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 189 millions as easily as pairs. It may indeed be conjectured that the animals might have been produced in the natural way for the express purpose, and might be brought into the country at the times required. The prescience of the Deity admits the supposition, but the instantaneous production of the pestiferous creatures would be certainly more available to the intended purposes, and being instantaneous, would be more strangely miraculous and more efficacious by the senti- ments produced than would any natural effect traceable to any natural cause. The spiritualist will therefore affirm that the Divine Will gave existence to the creatures, they being purely spiritual, by an act of thought, and destroyed them also by another act of thought when they had duly served the intended purpose. The powers or faculties of all creatures are given by the same omnipotent ubiquitous agent; he gives health or disease by an act of thought, he may suspend or withdraw the powers of animal life and sense. According to the anti- material theory, boils and blains would break out upon the afflicted body whenever the Divine Mind might determine that the process of health shall be suspended, and the powers of life made by that disturbance the means of sick- ness or death. The observations submitted in a former chapter on the animal chemistry of professor Liebig, clearly show this. Commentators have formed a variety of conjectures on the means by which this Egyptian darkness was produced. A thick elementary fog, the suspension of the power of the sun, one of the great gods of Egypt, to supply them with light, have been the imagined causes of this miraculous and astonishing darkness. A more probable and efficient cause is suggested by the present theory. The Divind Mind suspended the support of the faculty of vision by the with- drawal of the supply of that spiritual influence which enables the eye to perform its office. The effect was so astonishing 190 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. during this affliction that the sufferers were paralyzed with fear, a " they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days ; but the children of Israel had light in their dwellings," their eyes were not deprived of the power of vision, light was therefore useful to them, though useless to the Egyptians. In the evils described as above, the Divine Mind, although the primary agent, may be supposed to have employed ministering spirits. The Psalmist writes, in reference to these events, " he sent evil angels among them." The last visitation, the death of all the first-born of Egypt, was wrought by the agency of a malignant spirit. This were in accordance with a position vindicated in the second chapter of this treatise, that acts of beneficence are performed by good spirits or holy angels, but acts of pain and punishment are the permitted or enjoined works of evil angels. In either case the act is the act of the Divine Mind, for he confers or infuses from himself into both the good and the evil angel the power and inclination requisite to performance. The first-born of Egypt fell by the hand of the destroyer, the malignant spirit, whose fury was stayed from the abode of the sons of Israel, when he saw the blood of the passover sprinkled upon the lintel and door-posts of their houses. It may scarcely be necessary to speak of the journey of the Israelites to the Red Sea, and their passage across the bed or valley of the waters. The present theory will teach that the columnar dark cloud, that afforded shelter from the heat of the sun by day, and the pillar of fire that gave them light by night, were both spiritual objects created either by the immediate agency of the Divine Mind, or by power com- mitted to or infused spiritually into the ministering spirit that ruled their course. The waters of the sea, being, like all things, spiritual substances or phasmas, cannot but have been completely under the control of the Great Mind, and Exodus x. 23. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 191 his power might, with the utmost ease, give them, existent as they were in his Mind, a divided form, so that they were a wall on the right hand and on the left. The east wind might be the apparent means of the division of the waters, but of itself it must have been inefficient. These, and all other miracles whatsoever, if considered with reference to the present principles, seem to lose the character of miracles : they were merely acts of the Divine Mind which, though of new occurrence, differed only by their novelty from effects produced in the ordinary way or according to the laws of nature ; they were wrought by the same power, exercised in the same way, as things of natural occurrence. Such is the con- clusion to which a view of the miraculous plagues of Egypt, taken according to the present theory, necessarily leads. The same principle, applied to the following transaction, will show that, however miraculous it may seem, it was not miraculous at all. It is written in the book of Joshua, that six kings of the Amorites united their armies to attack the city of Gibeon, because the men of that place had made peace with, and had submitted themselves to Israel on certain conditions, by which they obtained security for their lives and property. The Gibeonites, utterly unable to resist such a powerful confederacy, sought aid of Joshua, who, by a forced march made in the night, fell suddenly before daybreak on the besiegers, put them to the rout, and pursued them, with a determination of utterly destroying such formidable enemies, and thus extirpate idolaters, in obedience to the divine command. While engaged in the pursuit, the victorious general exclaimed, in the hearing of the people, b " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." The words commonly regarded as a command uttered by Joshua, are more properly the conclusion of a prayer in b Joshua x. 12, 13. 192 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. which he prayed for a length of day to enable him to com- plete his victory, by the utter destruction of the enemy ; for it is written, "Then spake Joshua to the Lord, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still." It is understood by the commentators that the sun and moon did actually obey the command of the general, and that they did stand still. This effect could not have been produced in reality without a total suspension of the diurnal rotation of the earth round its axis. The commentators all justly ob- serve, in the vindication of their opinions, that the power of Omnipotence must have been fully adequate to the effect, and that the rotation was actually suspended for the time mentioned. The advocates of religious liberty deny the fact, for it were strange to suppose that the Deity would stop the course of nature on an occasion interesting only to a single nation, a nation by no means the most numerous or eminent of the human race. By such arguments they vindi- cate their disbelief of the fact, and their disbelief amounts to the assertion that the Holy Scriptures give false evidence, which amounts to a denial of their credibility in any respect whatsoever. The anti-material theory will reconcile these discordances, and vindicate the truth of the sacred text. That the victorious leader of the Israelite armies used the words above cited cannot be doubted, but it is evident that they were the language of a prayer, not the words of command, for if they were addressed to the sun and moon they were utterly absurd. Can it be possible to suppose that any sane person could thus address any of the heavenly bodies ? The people in whose hearing the words recorded were tittered, might perhaps consider them as a command, although the general did not use them as such. The haste and quick succession of events of that day was likely to favour the mistake, and also to give an apparent length to the time in which the exploits of the warriors were wrought. Duration, according to the philosophic Locke, is measured THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 193 only by the succession of ideas ; the succession on this occasion must have been rapid, and the ideas in the minds of the victors must have been many. If, as the commen- tators very reasonably observe, it were the design of the Deity to impress the Israelites with the idea that the sun and moon, the gods of their enemies, were compelled by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to become subservient to his worshippers and servants, it were easy to imagine that, according to the present theory, the Divine Mind, that ever-efficient Spirit, did act upon the minds of the Israelites, and by a ready, even by an ordinary influence, produce the idea that the day had been miraculously lengthened. Such misconceptions are of daily occurrence. The words of the text suggest the following comment upon the subject in question. " The sun stood still and hasted not to go down a whole day ;" did not hasten to go down, seemed to move slowly. Again, " The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves on their enemies," until the victory was complete ; then, but not till then, both the sun and the moon set in the natural way. In plain terms, the people rendered the victory so complete, that they destroyed the whole of the armies of the Amorites ; and thus they accomplished in a single day a great achievement, which, in the opinion of the victors, seemed to be more than could be practicable in one day. The history of the events of this battle proves that the people were induced to conceive that the day was of a miraculous length, while, in reality, there was no other miracle wrought than what frequently occurs, when acci- dental circumstances lead to a misconception of the length of some portion of time. In reality, no interruption took place in the laws of nature. The earth continued on that day to revolve round its axis in the same manner it has ever done since the creation of the heaven and the earth. The triumphant leader might very possibly partake of the 194 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. common delusion, which the passing events must have powerfully promoted. Such are the truths of the war of the Amorites with the people of Israel. The freethinkers, the liberal religionists, deny the truth of miracles, because, they say, miracles are contrary to ex- perience, for that no person is to be found who will dare to affirm that he has been present at any time or any place when a miracle has been performed. This is not strictly true, there has been repeatedly occasion in this treatise to observe that all existing things are miracles, that all the effects wrought according to the laws of nature are miracles, that every act, however easy or common, is a miracle, for all these result from a divine power exercised in the same manner as in miracles. This truth will be rejected perhaps by the liberals, who adopt or reject tenets at will, regardless of any authority except their own passions and prejudices. These persons will perhaps vindicate their own notions by a refer- ence to the perplexities of the materialist, who adopts the notion that God must mould a mass of matter whenever he may intend to work a miracle or produce any sensible effect. They, however, will perhaps hear with surprize that there are events of frequent or rather constant occurrence, and experienced by and familiar to all, events totally different from such as take place according to the laws of nature, and may therefore be said to be even unnatural, that, like miracles, they are wrought and can be wrought by the agency of the Deity only, and consequently that these, although of constant occurrence, are miracles, and may be taken as practical proofs not only of the possibility, but even the entire credibility, of every miracle upon record. Dreams are such events. They are miracles, as the following facts clearly show. Dreams, according to the great English lexicographer, are the phantasmas of sleep ; or visions of the sleeping man. A miracle he thus defines, "Something above human power, THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 195 or, if theologically considered, a miracle is an effect above human power; performed in attestation of some truth." Dreams have all the properties comprised in the definitions, and therefore dreams are miracles. This position, however novel, and perhaps surprising, will, it is presumed, be found to be true when the following facts shall ^have been duly considered. A very popular and intelligent author, in his Essay on the Intellectual Powers, writes of the state of the mind during dreams as follows. c " The mind is in a state in which the visions or impressions of the mind itself are believed to have a real and present existence in the external world, and in which reason fails to correct this belief by the actual relation of external things. In dreaming, this power (of correction) is entirely suspended, and the mind is left entirely under the influence of the chain of thoughts which happens to be present, without being able either to vary or dismiss it. The particular chain or series seems in general, perhaps always, to depend upon associations previously formed, the various elements of which bring up one another in a variety of singular combinations, and in a manner which we often cannot trace or in any degree account for." Thus writes this able author. Of his positions it may be observed, that the ideas of which dreams are compounded must of necessity be such as the mind has previously enter- tained, it cannot contemplate ideas which it never knew. But although the scenes or visionary objects of the dream may consist of ideas previously entertained, yet the com- bination of those ideas is usually such as bears little or no resemblance to past scenes, except perhaps that the scene present in the dream may seem to be a consequence of some past event. Such being the true character of dreams, it must be affirmed that they are not the acts of the dreamer either as to their causes or consequences, they must be c Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers, Part ii. Section 2. 196 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. regarded as events that do not occur according to the common laws of nature, for they are, almost without ex- ception, such as never had, and often never could have, a real existence. In defiance of these admissions, and the inferences drawn from thejn, the ingenious moralist thus proceeds, attempting to ascertain the causes of dreams: "One of the most curious objects of investigation is to trace the manner in which the particular visions or series of images arise. Recent events and recent mental emotions mingled up into one continuous series with each other or with old events" are the supposed causes of a "great variety of dreams." The events instanced are "a distressing accident; news from a friend ; the sight of a person whom we had not seen for many years ; or a situation similar to one in which the dreamer had been placed at some former time: all these circumstances give rise to a similar kind of emotion. Causes very different from these are assumed to give occasion to a vast variety of dreams." The train is probably excited by some bodily feeling of uneasiness, perhaps an oppression of the stomach, at the time when the dream occurred. Without this the dream might not have occurred at all. Of these causes it must be observed that they are merely conjectures. It may indeed happen that dreams do occur when there is some uneasy bodily feeling, from an oppression of the stomach after a late and heavy supper, or that recent events, and mental emotions, and the sight of persons under interesting circumstances, may be followed by dreams ; but are those sensations and those emotions the causes of the dream ? How many are the instances in which dreams do not ensue from these assigned causes, and how often are these effects produced without the agency of these or any discoverable causes. The instances both ways are so very numerous, that the causes above mentioned cannot be justly regarded as causes. A cause is that and that only, which, THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 197 whenever it operates, the consequence which ensues is uni- form and regular ; or, if discrepancies should occur, some reason highly probable should be given : this rule, however, is not found to be applicable to any of the causes assigned to dreams. Other instances of dreams are reported by the same author, from which he endeavours to infer that dreams are owing to natural causes. A gentleman, a zealous volunteer during the last war with France, dreamed that he was called put upon duty, that the enemy was approaching, cannons were fired, and all the circumstances of actual military service were in progress. It is singular that his wife dreamed a dream of the same purport at the same time. These dreams are supposed to have been occasioned by the fall of a fire poker in an adjoining room. It seems almost impossible to imagine that the noise of the poker could have been the cause of the dreams, for it must be admitted, that such accidents have often happened without a dream en- suing. Old associations of ideas may not unfrequently lead to an extension of those associations and to new ideas ; but it may still be asked what may have been the cause of the revival of those old associations. Deep thought cannot be received as an adequate cause. How many profound thinkers never dream in sleep of the subjects of their waking meditations ! Some of the cases instanced by the author are such as he admits to arise from causes which are utterly unaccount- able. The following may be cited as such. A gentleman residing in Cornwall dreamed that he saw Mr. Percival, at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer, murdered by a shot from a pistol fired by a man named Bellingham. The appearance of the parties, even the dress of the assassin, was exhibited, as the dreamer afterwards learned, with the greatest accuracy. The dream was experienced eight days before the event ; and the dreamer was only prevented from 198 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. communicating it to Mr. Percival by the belief that it was a mere delusion, and not entitled to serious notice. This dream the author admits to be one of those " which do not admit of explanation on any principle which we are able to trace." The same may be said of the following case cited by our author: it is an anecdote published by the author of the Waverley Novels, and considered by him authentic. A gentleman of landed property was sued for a considerable sum, which he had reason to be assured had been paid by his father many years ago. The proper papers necessary to prove the payment he was w r ell assured were producible, could they be found ; but search among the papers of his father had been of no avail, and with much regret he felt that he must be compelled to pay the money the next day. These circumstances floating in his mind, he dreamed at night that his father appeared to him in the night, and after learning the cause of his distress, told him that the documents required were in the possession of a solicitor who had retired from business. He, being a person, continued the vision, whom I employed on that occasion only, may have forgotten the circumstances of the transaction ; but bid him recollect that when the payment was made we had some difficulty in the changing a Portugal piece of money, and we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern. The mention of this circumstance recalled the transaction clearly to the recollection of the solicitor, and directed his search among other papers relating to the payment, and the document sought for was found to have been by mistake wrapped up among them. The author observes on this dream, that in all probability the gentleman had heard the circumstances attending the payment from his father, but had entirely forgotten them, until at length frequent and intense application of mind gave rise to a train of association which recalled them in his THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 199 dream. This ingenious explanation of the cause of the dream partakes scarcely of a shadow of probability. That the mind in sleep, and consequently not subject to the guidance of the will and judgment, should be more able to recollect a fact long forgotten, is a supposition which will with difficulty obtain assent. Such suppositions are, how- ever, all that a person who maintains that dreams are produced by ordinary causes can offer in vindication of causes thus arbitrarily assumed: they have all so little relation to probability that they cannot fairly be entitled to be named as causes of dreams. But granting the assumption of the materialist, or of the author above cited, that there must be a material cause of every material effect, yet even this material cause is found to owe its efficiency ultimately to a cause purely spiritual. It has been shown by observations made in a former chapter, on the theory of motion taught by Professor Liebig, that matter cannot, as the materialist admits, be put in motion without the prior agency of spirit. In the case of all dreams, spirit must be the primal cause, whatever be the conse- quences. The anti-materialist more intelligibly and with perfect consistency maintains that all things, whether visible or invisible, are all alike purely spiritual ; that both kinds hold their existence in the medium of the Divine Mind, are continually sustained by its omnipotent and ubiquitous influence, dispensed either immediately from that Great Cause, or mediately through the agency of ministering spirits ; and therefore every thought, whether the mind be awake or asleep, is an effect wrought by the Great Agent. Such is in reality the true origin or cause of dreams. Whether the cause of every dream be referable to ordinary accident, like some of those briefly stated above, or whether the cause be so extraordinary that it cannot be discovered by the utmost effort of the imagination, the cause of every dream must find an origin in the Divine Mind, and being produced 200 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. in a manner not accordant with the ordinary la\vs of nature, but without any regularity or certainty whatsoever, but in a manner confessedly independent of the will of the dreamer, dreams may be termed miracles with a propriety not less just than that which gives the name to the most extraordi- nary and wonderful miracles recorded in holy writ. Such is the inference drawn from the arguments above stated: it is fully confirmed by the word of God: d "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." If we have not the power of thinking when awake, when we certainly claim the power of exercising great control over our thoughts, if even then our thoughts are the result of the divine influence, much more must the thoughts and the visionary scenes of the sleeping mind be ascribable to supernatural influences, and to them exclusively. Being such, they cannot be called natural, but supernatural ; and since they cannot be ascribed to any natural cause, but are the immediate effects of the divine special agency, they are miracles: the frequency of their occurrence does not alter their character. This opinion, that dreams are miraculous occurrences, seems to have been coeval with the creation of man. The visions of Jacob, the son of the patriarch Isaac, of which several are recorded that happened in the eighteenth century anterior to the Christian era, prove that dreams were then regarded as miraculously significant of the will of God. That dreams were the means of promoting many of the divine dispensations is certain, by the history of many instances recorded in holy writ, between the time when Joseph the son of Israel was sold to slavery and taken down into Egypt, and the time when Joseph the husband of the Virgin Mary was taught in a dream to take her to wife, and afterwards to take the child and his mother into Egypt, to save him from the murderous designs of the jealous tyrant Herod. d 2 Corinthians iii. 5. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 201 All these dreams are regarded as miracles. There is no reason to suppose that they were accompanied with any circumstances differing from dreams of ordinary occurrence, and they are always attributed to the immediate influence of the Divine Mind. It should seem, from the interpretation readily and unanimously assigned by the family of Israel to the first dreams of Joseph, that the import of the generality of dreams was ascertained by common assent. This assent may be presumed to have been guided by rules devised and settled for the regular interpretation of dreams, and these rules were well known. Such rules were likely to be of a very complex character, and by restraining the interpretation of dreams within certain bounds, they may be supposed greatly to have increased the difficulty of interpretation, to have perplexed the magicians and wise men of Egypt, and obliged the king to re- ceive the Hebrew slave Joseph for the interpreter of his dreams. The same reason may show why the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers of Babylon were unable to interpret the dream of king Nebuchadnezzar, and caused him to hear with wonder and reward with high honours the interpreter of his dreams, the Jew Daniel. This opinion, that there were regular rules for the interpretation of dreams, is countenanced by the following fact. It is stated by the great Roman naturalist, that e Amphictyon, the sou of Deucalion, the Grecian Noah, gave general rules for the interpretation of dreams. All these circumstances concur in proof of the ancient belief of the importance of dreams ; but such belief can only have been owing to an opinion that they were of supernatural origin, and that they were brought into the mind cither by the Deity himself, or some spiritual agent acting by his authority. Whatever may have been the opinion of antiquity con- cerning the importance of dreams, such opinion may be c Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. c. 56. 202 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. said to have passed away, and in the present age they are generally regarded as events of little importance, seldom worthy of attention, and mentioned only with some degree of merriment, because of the strangeness of the combinations of ideas presented by them. Dreams are, however, far from being useless ; they not unfrequently become the means of suggesting important truths to the mind, and of the exhibi- tion of facts under circumstances novel and instructive. The instances cited in these pages are sufficient to prove this position. Others recited in the work from which these are taken, would, if duly considered, afford ample confirmation of it also. It has also been shown that dreams afford decisive proof of the truth of the scriptural doctrine, that the faculty of thought is the exclusive gift or effect of Divine influences. There is another truth, and that of the highest interest to every human being, which may be learned from dreams. Dreams prove beyond the possibility of doubt that the mind may be in a state of either happiness or misery, even under circumstances which imply an entire independence on the visible body. This well known fact justifies the position that the mind or soul may be in like manner either happy or miserable, may be in a state of either exquisite delight or exquisite torment, when it exists in a disembodied state after death. The degree of such happiness or misery may be greatly enhanced both by the endowment of new faculties or by the improvement of such as are given in this present life. This opinion derives much importance from the present view of the subject of dreams : a few notices of the powers which may be conferred on the mind or soul after death may not be uselessly digressive. St. Paul thus instructs the Christians to whom he ad- dresses his epistle to the Hebrews, f "Ye are come unto mount Sion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly f Hebrews xii. 22, 23. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 203 Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." Such is the society, such the church of Christ, of which the Christian during the present life is an inferior and as yet an imperfect member. The holy word affords the means of forming a very probable opinion of the perfection that awaits him after death. St. John writes, S " It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall see him as he is." God is a spirit, and therefore one of the improve- ments \vill consist in an endowment of a new sense, such as will enable the Christian made perfect to see mind. This is a faculty which, as observed in the first chapter, must be necessary to the intercourse of disembodied spirits, and will give a right understanding of the words of St. Paul, who declares, that the time will come when h " tongues shall cease." When mind and thought shall thus be an object of sense, language must be unnecessary, the meaning of one person becomes perceivable to another by intuition, without the aid of sounds. Such facility of communication may well be supposed to add greatly to the facility of acquiring knowledge. The words of the Apostle imply the same. He writes, * " Whether there be prophecies they shall fail, whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away." By prophecies may be understood our theories of the doctrines of religion ; by knowledge may be understood scientific knowledge acquired by pursuits of the present life. These shall become so insignificant and trifling when compared with future attainments, that knowledge acquired in this life shall vanish away. " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." By these phrases the e 1 John iii. 2. h 1 Corinthians xiii. 8. ' Ibid. 204 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. Apostle signifies, that the spirit when made perfect will be able to know the Godhead with a clearness equal to that with which the Deity knows the nature of man, and with a perfection of knowledge so far surpassing the present state of knowledge, that our opinions on religious subjects and our knowledge of other subjects shall, after the new endowment, be so improved and extended, that our present acquirements shall become comparatively insignificant, they shall be as nothing. The discovery of our attainments shall be received with surprise, the contemplation of them shall excite astonishment, the exercise of them shall be with glorying delight. It shall be the direct reverse with the wicked. k " Bind him (the sinner) hand and foot," said the king to his servants, "take him away and cast him into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Being bound hand and foot, the sinner is deprived of the exercise of his former faculties ; he becomes an inert mass; by taking him away he is deprived of any consolation that the Divine presence might afford : cast into darkness, he exists overwhelmed with the dark gloom of despair: by weeping and gnashing of teeth he grieves for past follies, and is mad with indignation towards himself for having wilfully submitted himself to the services of sin. Where is the man who has not experienced feelings such as these in distressing dreams, who is there who ought not to be admonished by them ? l k Matthew xxii. 13. 1 Thi<* idea concerning posthumous dreams is well signified by Shak- spcare, who, as the historian Hume observes, often writes as if by inspiration. His Hamlet thus speaks: To dieto sleep ; To sleep, perchance to dream ay, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. Hamlet, Act 111, Scene 1. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 205 Such are the lessons which dreams are well calculated to teach. Wise are they who may be effectually admonished by them. Were dreams available to no other pui^pose than this, their use might be pronounced to be indispensable. That they are seldom regarded as of such use is no objection to the truth of this their utility. It is evident that they can supply ideas just and true of liabilities of the soul after death. Awful is the truth which dreams thus teach ; they confirm and are intended to confirm and to illustrate the will and the word of God. The authorities above stated prove most assuredly that dreams are miracles. Whether ordinary or extraordinary, they are the effects of the immediate agency of the Divine Mind, for they cannot be referred to any known cause. Dreams accord perfectly with all other miraculous acts of the Deity, in their utility ; they are the means of a proper exercise of the affections; they often lead to useful thoughts, and pursuits, sometimes greatly to the benefit of the dreamer. But, what is of far greater importance, the ideas which occur in dreams being utterly independent of external circumstances and of the will or act of the dreamer also, are practical proofs of the Divine influence on the human mind, and show that the Deity must be the immediate cause of thought, even to the waking mind. The suggestions which they offer on the state in which the mind subsists after death until the day of resur- rection, are of still more interest, and vindicate the assertion that dreams are truly miracles, miracles which being of frequent occurrence and experienced by every one, remove all doubts of the credibility of all other miracles which history may have faithfully recorded. The same reasons which may have induced the Deity to work miracles in time past and time present, also will, it is presumed, induce him to \vork miracles in times to come. The word of holy writ bids man to understand that those miracles will be more wonderful than any hitherto known. 206 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. One of these future miracles shall be briefly considered; partly because it will prove the goodness of the Deity, but chiefly because the illustration of it which the present theory affords will add to the credibility of the testimony, and show its accordance with the circumstances of the present times. Such miracle is announced in the Book of Revelation. m " I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them : and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." The prophetic Evangelist writes, n ," I John saw these tilings and heard them." He regards them as visionary, for he says, u I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." It were foreign to the present purpose to speak of the visions in the preceding chapters of the same book, further than to observe tliiit the commentators have shown that most of them have been already fulfilled by events of much interest in the Christian history: this fact affords the assurance that the vision recorded as above will in like manner be accomplished m Revelation xx. 1, &c. n xxii. 8. i. 10. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. 207 in the course of time, and the events thus exhibited will actually take place. The means by which these communi- cations were made become perfectly intelligible by reference to the present theory, of which it may be expedient to give here a short recital. The Divine Mind, within what has been called a medium, or atmosphere of mind, acts upon all created existences in such manner as may to him seem fit. This Divine Agent exhibited or caused to appear to the prophetic Evangelist the several hypostases or substances which became the metopa, the objects of sense. These formed the scenes that met his eye, scenes certainly miraculous, being appearances only, but declared by the angelic instructor to be prophetic, and rendered intelligible from the expositions given by him. Of the accuracy of the report there can be no reasonable doubt; but of the proper import of the vision various opinions have been entertained. That this vision, like others recorded in the chapters of this book, relates to the general history of the church of Christ, or religion of the gospel, there can be no doubt ; such having been the purport of several visions previous to the one under present contempla- tion. The vision above cited describes events so widely differing from those of the present state of the world, that belief staggers at the recital, and it excites in some persons a wish to annex a meaning to the prophecy which may be applicable to occurrences recorded in modern history. Others understand the prophecy as indicative of a state of the world in which the Saviour will be visibly present to the whole human race ; and farther, that a partial resurrection shall take place of such persons as may have been martyrs to the Christian faith or most dutifully observant of its doctrines : the prophecy farther declares that these shall live and reign or rule together with the Saviour for a period of a thousand years, during which the power of temptation at present exercised by the evil spirit, Satan, shall be with- 208 THE SPIRITUALITY OF MIRACLES. drawn, the pure principles of the gospel prevail, and all the happy effects which they are ever calculated to produce shall ensue. The theory of the anti-materialist will dispose him to understand this prophecy as being literally and prac- tically true, for he knows that the Deity can with ease ordain a partial as well as a general resurrection ; and that he has only to will the act and it is done. The condition and powers of the persons thus raised from the dead, that is, from the condition, the purely spiritual state, of the dead, will be similar to that of the Saviour, who is termed P"the first-fruits of them that slept." After the resurrection, when the disciples 1 " gave him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, he took it, and did eat before them." When eating his last passover, he said, r " I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." From these and other texts of like import, it is understood that the present state of the earth and the course of nature will not be affected by this first resurrection, and that the souls or spirits of the persons then raised from the dead shall be endowed anew with animal faculties and all the present powers of sense. The immediate consequences of this resurrection and the visible presence of the Saviour are thus stated by the prophets. Isaiah writes, 8 "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." So also St. Paul, * " Then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy with the breath of his coming." The wicked being either subdued or destroyed, and gospel truths thus vindicated, the visible presence of the Saviour cannot but be productive of the most decisive effects. " With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth." The priestly P 1 Corinthians xv. 20. t>, sceculum, age, are words signifying duration, or time of in- definite hut limited length, v. <4Cneis. v. 314. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 227 original word strictly rendered, implies a long or indefinite course of ages. Of these events the liberal and the infidel will say ; they are impossible : the narratives cannot be true. Where is the power that can give in an instant or even in an age "this sure and firm-set earth" to this pretended, this inconceivable annihilation ? The world w r ill be as eternal in time to come as it has been eternal in time past. Who can create, who can destroy matter? Let the scientific experimentalist dissolve it in one form, it appears in another. Matter baffles every effort to destroy ; it defies the attempt. The pious materialist rejects the arrogance of infidelity, and replies, the Creator is omnipotent, and can accomplish things passing man's understanding: he created matter, and formed the world ; he can uncreate matter, and remove it from the scenes of existence. Where is the proof? replies the liberal. Your doctrine, says the liberal, is a mere assumption ; it is impossible. It is neither, says the anti-materialist. The Deity is a spirit that lives wherever he may be pleased to think or give birth to ideas. To this act of thought there is with him no limit, and consequently, he lives wherever he may be pleased to think. The limited powers of the human mind, which enable man to think on finite or bounded subjects only, render it impossible to form any conception of ubiquitous thought, and thus the Deity becomes incom- prehensible. The Deity existing thus in thought, having formed the idea, he makes it the object of thought till it becomes matured into purpose in the Divine Mind, and then the idea passes into form, his own mind being the hypostasis, the substance : this form becomes the object to other forms : and thus he gives existence to all creatures, thus he con- stitutes the universe. It is thus that everything has been created. So long as he thinks fit to sustain each form, so long each form or creature exists : when he no longer sees occasion to sustain that form, the creature no longer exists, 228 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. it vanishes from sense in an instant, it is no more. Let this theory be applied to the present subject, and the doctrine of the dissolution of the world becomes clearly intelligible. The Deity wills, designs, determines. e " The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night." Suddenly and unex- pectedly the heavens pass away with a great noise ; a noise signifying, perhaps, the alarm of multitudes. Heaven and earth are no more; no place is found for them. And now the trumpet, figurative of an irresistible impression made by the Divine Mind on the minds of all who had ever lived, the trumpet sounds, and immediately all obey, all assemble and meet the Lord in the air, that is, in the empty space once occupied by the earth. The good having been separated from the wicked, according to the recorded word of the Saviour, the summary sentence is pronounced on each division, and every individual of the multitudinous assembly passes into his assigned place or state of reward or punish- ment. Awful the process. To the liberal and the infidel it seems impossible, and therefore is denied : to the materialist it is incomprehensible, and its truth is admitted only on the ground of faith : to the anti-materialist the impossibility is easy, the comprehensibleness plain. The Divine Mind gives existence to the idea, the hypostaxis or substance starts into form, and all is done. The materialist contends that the bodies thus raised up at the last day of the present world are material bodies, composed of the very same particles of matter of which they consisted at the hour of death ; and he will perhaps appeal to the texts above cited in proof of the truth of his tenets. If the dead be raised, and if the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and further, if death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, the body raised or given up must be the body lodged at death in those depositories. Perhaps he will contend that the act of being 1 Thess. v. 2. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 229 raised from the dead implies a change of the fallen posture into which the body necessarily sinks when the powers of action cease : and from the second of these texts, " death and hell delivered up the dead," that every particle belonging to each body at the time of death, however it may have been scattered about the earth's surface, even during a long succession of years, shall be collected and form again the body that died, and it shall then stand in the presence of the Mighty Judge. Upon these opinions it is to be observed, that the raising of the person cannot imply a change of posture, but a change of condition. " The dead shall be raised incorruptible," a condition of improved capacities. The delivery of the dead which were in the sea implies, that however inaccessible the locality in which each body may have been lodged, even though it were the depths of the sea, that still it should attend the presence. To signify more fully the universality of the assemblage, it is stated, that whether the soul might abide in death, the abode or state of the wicked, or in hell, the abode or state of the happy spirits, all the bodies belonging to every soul that ever lived shall assemble and appear before the Almighty Judge. That the spirit should appear in material bodies were impossible. All matter had been annihilated, if matter had ever been, for " the heavens and the earth had fled away." Let it, however, in compliance with the opinion of the materialist, be supposed that all the matter which had sometime composed the body of a man had survived the annihilation of the world, and remained ready to become again the body to which it once belonged, and that at the sound of the trumpet each particle hastened with due obedience to the powerful command to form again the body to which it once belonged. Strange must be the confused tumult of material particles, rushing perhaps from distant and widely different ITU ions of the earth to reconstitute the 230 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. bodies of deceased multitudes. Great also must have been the perplexity, when, as in the course of ages it must have happened that some of the particles which had composed the body of an individual of one age, had, during the course of ages, become portions of the bodies of thousands at the hour of their several deaths. Such cases must, according to the doctrine of materialism, be frequent. How the perplexity would be remedied, it is impossible to imagine. The in- superable difficulty implies the impossibility of such occur- rence, and of the rush of particles altogether. According to the present theory, such difficulties, not to say absui'dities, can never occur. Let but the Divine Mind will the presence of the whole human race, and each individual, whether living or dead, still holding its existence within the ubiquitous Divine Mind, and still, whatever be its condition, sustained by the same influence, each of necessity obeys. The Deity wills it, and the assemblage is complete in an instant ; the consciousness of past existence ascertains in each indivi- dual the identity of the person; and each awaits with trembling hope or horrifying fear the sentences about to be announced. All the human beings who shall have formed this vast assembly, although identically the same, will have undergone a great change in the constitution of the person. " The dead (thus) raised shall be raised incorruptible; for this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality." f The Greek word of the ori- ginal text implies the act of creeping or passing into, so that the spiritual fonn which had been disembodied or separated from the visible spiritual form at death, shall again at the resurrection become the abode of the visible substance called the body, which during the life on earth had been the organ of sense. This process invites the following observations. ' Aft tvbv(ra40 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. and precepts, in the following words, r " For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." On this text the following comment is given. According to the Syriac, " Thou art, or existest, for ever, O Jehovah, thy word is established in the heavens." The word of God is as unchangeable and ever- lasting as his own existence : it is established in the heavens beyond the reach and revolutions of this lower world, and its accomplishment is as certain as the motions of the heavenly bodies, which are not and cannot be affected by the convulsions and vicissitudes of the earth and its inhabitants. The prophet Isaiah recites and illustrates the same truth, the eternity of the divine laws and designs, in the following text, s " The flower withereth, the grass faileth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever." The Apostle Peter confirms the same by the recital of the words of Isaiah, with the added remark, * " And this is the word, which by the gospel is preached unto you." Such is the word of the gospel, whether of the patriarchal or the gospel ages. It is fully confirmed by these words of the Saviour, u " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away :" a text thus explained and illustrated by St. Paul, * " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." That is, the doctrine and precepts taught in the gospel are founded on the same principles which have been established from all past ages, principles which are taught in the present age, or state of the world of created beings, and which will remain for ages still to come. The position contained in this text cannot be properly understood, unless a just idea be entertained of the meaning of the Greek word aiwv, aidn, which though generally expressed in the phrase for erer, and understood to signify an eternity or inter- minable period of time, signifies any period of duration, limited, but not always ascertained. r Psalm cxix. 89. Mant. Comment. Isaiah xl. 8. 1 1 Peter i. 25. Matt. xxiv. 35. * Heh. xiii. 8. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 241 The word aiwv, aion, is properly rendered by the English word age, which signifies a period of any, but generally of considerable, yet limited time. Such was the meaning given by the poets of classical antiquity ; they speak of the golden age, the silver age, the brazen and the iron ages, of times of old; periods evidently limited, because they signified different periods of duration. Tt is common to speak now of the middle ages of Europe, times that have passed, and con- sequently of limited duration, but yet not actually ascer- tained. Such is the correct meaning of the Greek word, but it is rendered in the authorised English translation of the Scriptures, by the words ever and for ever, understood to signify duration unlimited and unlimitable. A few examples of this use of the Greek word in holy writ will show the truth of this position, and will lead to some important conclusions. In the Epistle to the Colossians is this text, y " The mystery (the redemption by the Saviour) which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest." The word aicoz/e?, here properly rendered ages, signifies most assuredly periods of limited duration, for they had expired when the Apostle wrote. So also in the following text, z " That in ages to come he (God) might show the exceeding riches of his grace." In these texts the word age signifies not only a limited period but a short period ; the common age or length of the life of man. St. Paul makes mention of a " the ends of the ages," TCOV atcavwv, which are rendered somewhat loosely, "the ends of the world." The phrase here used plainly shows that the word age is intended to signify a limited period. Again, the phrase et9 rof? aicovas Tv aicovwv, rendered b " for ever and ever," signifies a dura- tion of " ages of ages," that is, a period of time consisting of a vast but limited number of ages. If the word ever, used by the translators, mean an eternity or interminable dura- tion, the term ever and crer signifies an eternity of eter- y Col. i. 2G. z Ephes. ii. 7. a 1 Cor. x. 11. b R e v. xxii. 5. R 242 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. nities, which is absurd. The word age, signifying a period of finite length, being taken as a proper rendering of the Greek word aiav, aion, many texts of Scripture will become plainly intelligible which are as yet greatly perplexing, and some are interpreted in a manner scarcely consistent with truth. These premises being thus determined, show that the precepts of the Gospel will be the rule of life and conduct in the next world or age, and that it will be the means of happiness to beatified spirits. The Saviour has said that " in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage," consequently there will be no distinction of sex, and no births to add to the number of beatified spirits. The modes, therefore, of society will consequently be, in this respect, greatly different from the present. In all other respects they will be the same ; as may be gathered from the following facts. The Saviour partook of ordinary food after his resurrection, and at the last Supper he promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with his disciples, after the first resurrection, in the kingdom of heaven, in the age of the millennium ; whence it is inferred that the persons admitted into the kingdom of heaven and living under the immediate governance of the Son of God will, after the general resurrection, partake with him of all the pure and justifiable delights which a due in- dulgence of the quality of sense may properly afford. If after the resurrection the beatified spirits partake as the Saviour did of food ; if also they are to partake of the fruit of the vine, it must be inferred that the occupation of the creatures of the next generation will bear some resem- blance to those of this present. The authorities of holy writ justify this opinion. In the book of the Revelation the Lord says, c " Behold, I make all things new." This declara- tion teaches that the present form of all things will be re- newed in the next generation of the world, as also will be c Rev. xxi. 5. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 243 the manner or form of the immortal man. A new thing resembles some preceding. The scenes of the future abodes of the beatified will be such likewise as are now best accommodated to and most pleasing to sense. The poets of the ancient nations entertained such opinions of the con- dition of good men after death. d The poet of the JSneis, describing Elysium, the abode of the good, speaks of the Fields of joy, and verdure ever grateful ; Unharmed groves, the safe abodes of bliss. Here ether wide invests with richest light The spacious fields, and here they ever know A sun and stars that shine to them alone. To these may be added the opinions of the Asiatic nations on this subject, and particularly the doctrines of the e Brah- menical Sastra : these all agree so closely that they may be supposed to have been taken from the doctrines of the patriarchal ages. When the Saviour said to the penitent thief on the cross, f " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," he certainly made reference to scenes such as the heathen poets describe. The paradise then named was indeed the abode of the mind or soul as yet unembodied, but it must be that abode into which the spirit enters after death ; a scene which, according to the present theory, the Deity could create at will, by a single act of mind ; a scene which he could renew or sustain with as much ease, within the regions of space, as when he gives the dream to the dreamer. Such, it may be presumed, will be the abodes of beatified spirits. Whatever may be the abodes of those spirits, it is certain that their habits will be such as, according to the conditions stated by Paley, are most conducive to personal happiness. Health will be theirs, in the most perfect state; h "God d ..'Eneis vi. 638. Horn. Odyss. Pindar. Olymp. ii. 4. e Upham on Budhism, chap. 5. f Luke xxiii. 43. Paradise is called in the Sastra, Para desa, the pure country. h Rev. xxi. 4. 244 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, there shall be no death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." Troubles, once the means of proper trial, are now no longer necessary. The trials have been endured, and have been endured well ; they are passed away, and now the mind, freed from the gloomy cares and distressing anxieties of the life past, revels in all that buoyancy of spirit which health can give. This state of health will ever be accompanied by the practice of the benevolent affections, called Christian charity ; a virtue which the Apostle Paul declares to be indispensably requisite to admission into the kingdom of heaven. It is the wedding garment, which one of the guests not having, he was * " cast out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnash- ing of teeth." Without such garment society cannot be pleasant. It constitutes real politeness, and nothing can prove the necessity of such practice more than the fact, that even those persons of this world who are unhappily malig- nant, feel the necessity of assuming the appearance of benevolence, by the observance of those rules which polite- ness prescribes. The Saviour was pre-eminently endowed with the benevolent affections, which rendered him a person unequalled in the accomplished politeness of his manner and behaviour toward all persons, whatever may have been their character or condition in life. A prudent constitution of the habits will have been rendered habitual to the beatified spirits by the observance of the laws of God and the precepts of the Gospel during the life past, and will be farther insured by the same precepts, which will still retain their authority in the world of the resurrection. Thus does it appear that the laws of God are dictated by wisdom and goodness, for the continued observance of them is indispensably necessary to the eternal happiness of salvation. 1 Matt, xxiii. 11. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 245 This remark is equally applicable to the fourth requisite to happiness, as stated by the philosophic Paley. All the beatified spirits will have occasion to employ their faculties both of body and mind in some engaging end. k It is seen from the parable of the talents, that the good and faithful servants are to be rewarded by authority conferred ; are to be made rulers of cities. The duties of rule will call for the continual exercise of all the faculties of body and of mind. Even in the days of the millennium, which will precede the general resurrection, the Apostles 1 " shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," that is, of different portions of the Christian world, for all Christians are the sons of m Abraham, and are the persons intended by the name of Israel. In the Revelation it is declared, that n " the kings of the nations which are saved shall bring their glory and honour into the new Jerusalem, the place of the throne of God and the Lamb." This shows that every region or nation will be subject to monarchical government, by far the best of all when kings are good. This text implies another truth of prime importance to the happiness of society. It was prescribed by the Mosaic law that the Israelite should not offer his offerings in any other place than that " the Lord his God should choose." This law was made to secure uniformity of religion with the sons of Abraham. The same is intended by the law which shall bring the kings of the earth, the Christian sons of Abraham, to the new Jerusalem, and there to worship, at least to offer the most solemn rites of worship to God and the Lamb. It is needless to observe that this uniformity of religious worship must be indispensably necessary to a state of happiness. The effects of dissent on religious subjects ofttimes produce the most serious evils; in the present state of the world, even when it takes the most gentle form, k Matt. xix. 18. l Matt. xix. 28. m Romans iv. 13. n Rev. xxi. 24. Dent. xii. 246 TE AGES OF THE WORLD. dissent always tends to produce some disturbance to Christian charity or benevolence, and destroys that perfect concord, that unruffled harmony, which is necessary to peace and happiness; and being ever the result of passions somewhat wrong, it ever tends to the injury of the Christian character. It is to religious dissension that the Saviour alludes where he says, P " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, but a sword." Hence it is shown that dissent in religion cannot be permitted in the kingdom of heaven. The great difference in rank which, from the different degrees of merit, must be found among beatified spirits, cannot but be productive of a vast difference also in the offices of individuals, and afford abundant means of occu- pation to every one. Whatever these may be, the duties will be discharged with that cheerful alacrity with which minds rightly constituted ever act, and will ever act, when they delight in rendering a grateful obedience to a powerful and approving Benefactor. Much happiness will accrue to beatified spirits from these means. But other pursuits will most assuredly not be precluded. As the virtues of the present life are preparatory to the practice of the same in that which follows, so likewise will the pleasurable pursuits in the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and even the pleasurable amusements of the present life, prepare the mind for the continuance of the same in the next. Increased faculties and improved opportunities will accomplish the effect signified by St. Paul in his text, "Now I know in part, and 1 prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then lhat which is in part shall be done away." Habits and occupations such as these, called into action by the Divine presence and approval, will excite in the minds of all the enthusiasm of gratitude, and render the beatified spirits ever ready to exclaim with seraphic joy, "Glory be to Ciod in the highest in this heaven, for his good will P Matt. x. 34. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 247 towards men." Such is the view which the authorities of Holy Writ exhibit to the enquiring and contemplative mind. Over the vast population, composed of the angelic spirits of the ante-mundane world, and the numbers of the genera- tions of the present world that may have attained to sal- vation, over all these the Saviour, God the Son, will reign supreme, 1 " King of kings and Lord of lords, and he shall reign for ever and for ever," or, for ages of ages, that is, for an indefinite number of periods indefinite but determined by the will and the designs of the Deity. During this his reign, or throughout all these ages, r "his servants shall serve him," ever ready to obey and perform his commands, living also in the steady observance of all his precepts as set forth in his Gospel. Even beatified spirits will be still imperfect beings. s " There is none good but one, that is God." Those persons will consequently be liable to transgressions; chiefly, it must be presumed, of negligences or defects in the per- formance, than of sins or ignorances. These, it is presumed, will not be great ; but be they what they may, they will easily obtain pardon ; " the leaves of the tree of life will be for the healing of the nations." In this state of the relation between God and beatified man, the rule and influence of the Saviour will be the same as in the present. Beatified spirits will not only act from the same motives as in the present life, but will receive the same spiritual aids, which will be dispensed according to the same principles and rules. That the Saviour will still be the Mediator and Advocate, may be inferred, first, from the fact that the Gospel law will still be the law of beatified spirits, and secondly, because the imperfection of the beatified spirits will still require it. That the Redeemer will exercise such influence in the next world or generation may be proved from the following text in the Epistle to the 1 Rev. xix. 1C. xi. 15. See observations on aio>v. T Rev. xxii. 3. s Matt. xix. 17. 248 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. Hebrews, which, if accurately translated, would be expressed in the following words. The Apostle Paul, after remarking on the yearly entry of the priest into the holy of holies, the most sacred apartment in the temple at Jerusalem, speaks of the efficiency of the atonement wrought by the death of the Saviour in the following terms, *"But he, (the Saviour) because he remains the same (retains the office of a mediator) until the age (the age appointed by the Deity in which the mediatorial authority shall cease), holds a priesthood not transferable, consequently he is able to save even to the end of the (last) age those who through him approach God ; he living at all times ready to intercede for them." This performance of the power of the Redeemer is affirmed in many texts, as in the following, u "The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and for ever." The patriarchs entertained the same doctrine. The prophet Daniel writes, 1 " His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." The authorities now submitted, disclose the interesting and important truth that beatified spirits will, even after the day of judgment at least, and possibly during the interval between that day and the day of their death, be in a state of trial. The doctrine accords with the general purpose of the Creator, that all things should lead to greater good. Reasons such as these afford the assurance that means of advance- ment in righteousness will ever remain to all intelligent beings, whatever be the condition or age in which they shall live: and that many, who were at the day of resurrection the humblest of the beatified spirits, may, during their beatified state, advance themselves to the rank of the highest, and thus become fitted for a state of higher eminence than that awarded them at the day of judgment, when they were admitted into the state of beatification. 1 Heb. vii. 24. u Rev. xi. 15. Dan. vii. 14. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 240 Such being the reasons for the belief that beatified spirits will make advance in goodness in their state of beatification, and thus become entitled to farther and greater rewards, it should seem that some new state or world will be created, which may be specially suitable to such rewards. The constant mention of ages, occurring in holy writ, suggests the belief that there will be a succession of ages and worlds in times of future duration ; each, perhaps, as different from each other as the next in futurity will be from this, the present. In such ages, it may be presumed that beatified spirits will become more beatified, be endowed with new faculties, and more excellent excellence, than such as awaited them at the day of resurrection. This view of the Divine dispensations is so strongly probable that it may be held to be true and certain. This idea of successive generations of worlds, inhabited by men or persons of different character and powers, will perhaps be received as a novelty so strange and surprising, that it seems to demand some few remarks to rescue it from the imputation of an extravagance unworthy of notice. These prejudices would not have been entertained if the sense of the word aicov, aion, aye, had been properly understood. It signifies, in Holy Writ, a division of time into distinct periods. When the word is used to express ages of ages, it signifies an indefinite number of such periods continued in succession, and extending far into the futurity of unbounded duration. It cannot be supposed that these ages are nothing else than mere divisions of time undistinguished by events : that they should be distinguished by being the periods of increased happiness would accord with the attributes of omnipotence, animated by beneficence and directed by wisdom. This doctrine is taught by the Word of God ; it offers to the contemplative mind an extensive and just view of futurity, with assurances that the existence of all created beings will be ever accompanied by improved 250 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. virtues, approaching continually to perfection. This doc- trine of continued probation, followed by increased rewards, supplies an answer to the cavil of the liberal and infidel, that it were unjust to reward the virtues, be what they may, but practised only during the short period of the life of man, with an eternity of happiness, or to punish the vices of such short period with an eternity of punishment dreadfully and horribly severe. The doctrine of successive probations teaches that the rewards given for the obedience of this present life will terminate with that period in which the reward will be received, but that periods of reward will be followed by a new age, a new generation of immortal beings, of faculties improved beyond those before enjoyed, faculties given in reward of new obedience to the will and laws of God. Such is the view which the revealed word exhibits of the state of immortal man when the present age of the world shall have passed away, a new world called into existence, and man exist in a new fonn ; the earthy having become heavenly, the corruptible having put on incorruption, the mortal, immortality. This view of a future state, in which all human beings will be placed, has been taken because it affords an argument most decisive of the truth of the anti- material theory and the spirituality of all things. It shows that when human beings shall have been transferred into the paradise of a future state, they will continue the exercise of the same faculties, partake of the same enjoyments, and follow pursuits similar to those of the present life, that they will be actuated by the same motives, ruled by the same laws, governed by the same God, advocated by the same Saviour, and animated by the same Divine Mind, as in the present life. All this will be wrought by man in a state exempt from matter, a state in which all things are confessedly im- material, and as wholly spiritual as is the Deity himself: but if the same acts can be wrought in such future state, without the aid or use of matter, can there be occasion or THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 25] necessity for matter in this present world, a substance unin- telligible and inexplicable ? Cannot the Deity give sensible forms to all things, with equal ease and certainty, in this our present state, without the use of matter, as it is admitted that he will in the next ? Till this question shall have been fully answered, the inference must be true that matter is not in this our present world, that it never has had existence in time past, neither will it have existence in time future ; that, in truth, all is God, and all is, like God, pure spirit, soul, or mind. This universality of spirit is the proposition which it is presumed that the present treatise proves to be most true. The facts stated, the arguments used, and the application of the theory, applied to almost every subject of which the mind takes cognizance, all concur in the proof of the truth propounded, that all things, past, present, and to come, are creations of the Divine Mind, operating mutually upon each other through the agency of the Deity himself, who is pure spirit, omnipotent and ubiquitous. The notices taken of the future state of beatified beings or spirit will have afforded a clear idea of the manner in which spiritual creatures may exist in a state of happiness. The consideration of the state of the miserable beings condemned to torment will serve only to confirm the same theory. This being the only subject that has not been noticed, it may be expedient to examine this also : more especially as it will lead the attention to the most remote periods of future eternity to which the revealed word of God alludes. Enquiries and remarks relative to the condition or fate of spirits damned will not fail to be of great interest when it is understood that they will comprise the far greater portion of the human race, that either has been, is, or will be born in this world. This sad and awful fact is announced in the following text, the recorded words of the Saviour, ? " Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, y Mutt. vii. 13, 14. 252 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. and many there be that go in thereat : because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." St. Paul, in accordance with and in exposition of this sad announcement, says that, z " Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." The Apostle, in this text, makes a nominal reference to the sons of Israel, but Christians are the people intended, for they are the children, the de- scendants of Abraham, a as walking in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham. Of these, let it be observed, the Apostle says, " a remnant, but a remnant only, shall be saved." This sorrowful truth is, however, evidently inconsistent w ith the wish and will of the Deity. b " Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die ? saith the Lord God : and not that he should return from his ways, and live ?" Again, " I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." St. Peter affirms the same, c " The Lord is long- suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." The Saviour himself says, d "God so loved the world, that he gave his only -begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This fact, which is seldom duly appreciated, is a most decisive proof that the pains which will be inflicted on the condemned sinner are regarded with regret by the God of all goodness. It may at first seem surprising that God omnipotent ' should not be able to prevent evils which take place not only in opposition to his will, but which even cause to him regret and even sorrow ;' but it is easy to perceive that there are reasons for this dis- pensation, which render it necessary, and which also show that while it becomes to him the cause of sorrow, yet that it originates primarily in his attribute of goodness. z Korn. xi. 5. a Rom. iv. 12. b Ezek. xviii. 23, 32. c 2 Peter iii. 9. a John iii. 16. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 253 The great, or rather the only sole purpose of the Deity in the work of creation, was the production of beings possessing virtues the same as his own, and capable of the enjoyment of like happiness. This his design is subjected to his own laws, which, from their invariable operation, may be called the laws of necessity, and these render it im- possible to him to create a creature good like himself, or one that should of necessity partake of any portion of his attri- butes. The reason for this is plain. All action must of necessity originate in him the great sole Cause of all action. Let, it be supposed that he did create a being or person who could do good only ; those acts, he being the sole acting Cause, would be his acts, would be ascribable to him only : all acts would be his, and his all the merit. Under such circumstances creation would not be the means of an in- crease of good : the Great Cause being himself good and perfect, good would only be added to perfection, the work of creation would be futile, and the Deity might, with great propriety, have continued content with his own perfection, as he did long continue during the ages of past eternity which preceded the first creation, the creation of angels. The extension of good beyond or beside himself being the sole object of creation, that effect could only be pro- duced by the creation of beings capable of attaining to certain portions of his own attributes, and even approxi- mating infinitely near to them, for such must be the desire and intent of the Deity. This could only be effected by the creation of beings endowed with such faculties as should render them free agents, so that their acts might be properly their own, and for which they should be responsible. An agent becomes responsible when he has power either of acting or forbearing to act, that is, when he has the power of choice, or, in other terms, when he has a will, and that will is free. These reasons afford the fullest assurance that freedom of will is a faculty indispensably necessary to the whole and 254 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. sole purpose of creation, and consequently that it must be given to every intelligent being, whereby it may be capable of acting in imitation of the perfections of the Creator, and of thereby obtaining a higher rank in the scale of created beings. How this faculty may operate, when it is most certain that all the powers of action are continually supplied by the Great Cause, either mediately or immediately by the agency of the Divine Mind, has been sufficiently shown when in a fonner page this faculty, the freewill, became the parti- cular subject for consideration; on the present occasion it will be sufficient again to observe that it is the freedom of the will that renders the act done the act of the actor, subjects him to the responsibility for his actions, whether they do or do not accord with the will of the Deity, and consequently whether they entitle him to reward Or punishment. The freedom of the will, or the power of being influenced by motives, has been given by the Creator, in different degrees, to all animated creatures, but given in the greatest perfection to man. Thus endowed, he was next taught to know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil ; motives were also added to excite him to action. To this end rewards and punishments, future good or future evil, pleasure and pain, were propounded as motives inciting to action. How the rewards will be administered has been already stated, and also in what manner they may be enjoyed by happy spirits holding an immortal existence within the medium of the Divine Mind, has been already shown. The punishment which shall be inflicted on the wicked now comes into notice, and it will be shown that they will receive it, as far as locality may be considered, in the same element, the Divine Mind, as the good receives reward; whence it is again to be affirmed, that hell, the scene of punishment, is not a place distinct from heaven, but a state or condition assigned to the miserable beings that shall be consigned to it. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 255 Punishment is the reverse of reward, and misery the opposite to happiness ; so also are the means by which either may be occasioned. In some former pages the means conducive to happiness were stated according to principles approved by the ingenious and interesting Paley. The requisites prescribed by him as the means indispensably necessary to that state, will ascertain the means which must ever be productive of misery and torment. Health ; a prudent constitution of the habits ; the exer- cise of the social and benevolent affections ; and the employ- ment of our faculties either of body or mind in the pursuit of some engaging end, are the requisites to happiness : to be destitute of any one of these qualifications must be attended with an abatement of happiness ; to be destitute of all must be complete misery. That the souls or spirits of the wicked, immediately after death, are subjected to the privations of all the requisites to happiness, the following authorities most clearly show. The spirit, soul, or mind, which constitutes the identity of the man, will subsist in two states after death : first, that in which the spirit will be divested of a body the object of sense, during the time that shall elapse between the hour of death and the day of the general resurrection and of judgment, the other a state altogether new, in which the same spirit shall live from the time of that event throughout the ages of ages or eternity that will ensue. If the disembodied spirit be subjected at death to condemnation, it is said, in the figurative language of holy writ, to be cast out from the feast of the bridegroom, to be deprived of all the delights which attend the spirits or ininds of the good, to be subjected to the privation of all its powers of action, and left a prey to remorse and horrible apprehensions. The entry into this state is usually designated the first death. This is signified by the Saviour, when he says, e " If thy right eye offend thce, pluck it out; e Matt. v. 29, 30. 256 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell ;" or, rendering the text more strictly, into gehennah, the fiery furnace into which parents who sacrificed their children to Moloch cast them, where they were totally con- sumed. This suspension of the faculties will be occasioned, according to the present theory, by the withdrawal of the agency of the Divine Mind, which is the cause of all action ; and though the condemned spirit still exists in that ubi- quitous spirit, the Divine Mind, it lives as if it were dead and utterly incapable of any enjoyment ; it wants that requisite to happiness, the agreeable exercise of the faculties in any pursuit that might afford pleasure. Instead of such occupa- tion, the unprofitable servant shall be f " cast into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," grief aggravated to the madness of despair: the effect of &"a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, that shall destroy the adversaries." The allusion made to fire in this and other texts descriptive of the sufferings of dis- embodied spirits cannot signify the real element, such spirits can only be touched by mental affections : the mention of fire is only intended to signify the intensity of vexation and the keenness of remorse. How painfully the mind may be affected independently of the body has been already shown in the observations on the subject of dreams. The state, indeed, of condemned spirits during the interval between death and the day of resurrection and judgment, will be that of one horrible dream, in which the Divine Mind having withdrawn its benignant influences, leaves the condemned spirit to miser}- and woe. This description becomes plainly intelligible by reference to the principles of anti-materialism, which show that all beings hold their existence within the Divine Mind, and live and act only as that great and uni- versal agent may think fit to operate. ' Matt. xxv. 30. Heb. x. 27. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 257 At the day of resurrection of the dead, the condemned spirit, after suffering the miseries above described, will have his deadly griefs aggravated by an union with a spiritual sensible substance called a body. To the miseries of the mind will now be added the torments of sense. Previously to the great day, the devil had been cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, to be tormented for ages of ages. The condemned spirits will be consigned to the same. The sentence pronounced by the Great Judge on that day will be, h " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This punishment is figuratively described in the following text : * " The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out into the cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever (for ages of ages), and they have no rest day nor night." This figurative punishment of the damned was well known to the patriarchs, and of course to Adam, from whom the prophet Isaiah received it, for he does not signify that he had learned it from personal revelation. He, personifying the Deity, writes, the faithful k " shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me : for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." It is a remarkable circumstance that the figures mentioned by the prophet are all used in the New Testament, and the Saviour uses the words of the prophet on many other occasions. Figurative description may well suffice to bring into notice things that, although absent, are well known; and under such circumstances it is highly efficient and useful. In some cases, especially such as are of future occurrence, and of circumstances wholly novel, it is often little understood, h Matt. xxv. 30. l Rev. xiv. 10, 11. k Isaiah Ixvi. 24. 258 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. partly from inattention and partly from the imperfection of the forms used. This position is most true in regard to the future punishment of the wicked. The terms used in holy writ to convey an idea of the sufferings of the damned, being wholly figurative, and consequently of ideal import, convey a general notion only of the subject. From this circumstance the figures rarely produce any impression on the mind sufficient to influence the conduct. These reasons render it expedient to offer some conjectures which may afford a more lively and clear understanding of the figurative import of the scriptural terms used to signify the awful instruments of the Divine will. The ingenious Paley justly observes, Uhat "had the Deity wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or by placing us among objects so ill-suited to our percep- tions as to have continually offended us instead of adminis- tering to our amusement and delight. He might have made, for example, everything we tasted bitter ; everything we saw loathsome ; everything we touched a sting ; every smell a stench, and every sound a discord." Nothing can be more probable than that the Deity will, when he intends to punish, adopt these means ; hence it may be believed that the torments of fire and brimstone truly signify that the bodies given to the wicked at the day of resurrection will have such senses as will serve only to produce disgust ; forms in which every motion will be attended with agony, and all food taken be followed by disease. Annoyances such as these being of continual operation, no rest will be found by the punished either by night or by day. Such, it seems, will be the miseries that will await the body. Other annoyances from without will be equally tormenting. The worm shall not die. Whether this be keen remorse, or 1 Moral Philo8. b. ii. c. 5. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 259 whether phantasmas of serpents will be exhibited to the disordered, the insane imagination, may be uncertain, but this is plain, these influences shall continually assail the wretched sufferer. If remorse urge him to mad action, or if escape from the supposed external assailants be attempted, the pains attendant on motion will be aggravated, and will drive the sufferer to despair. The severe intensity of these torments may be inferred from the following texts. The Saviour says, m " Whoso shall offend (or lead into wrong) one of these little ones (the meanest Christians) which believe in me, it were better for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." The sin of the traitor Judas may be regarded as of the greatest enormity. The Saviour alluding to the punishment that awaited it, observes, n " It had been good for that man if he had not been born." These miseries will doubtless be aggravated by the effects which a vicious constitution of the habits invariably produces. As the prudent constitution of the habits has been supposed to contribute materially to the happiness of beatified spirits, so the reverse of those habits, the irregular passions, the vices, and the malignity of the condemned spirits, will operate powerfully in aggravation of their miseries, disturb- ing all repose and embittering recollections of the past by mutual censures and mutual indignities. Being condemned to the same punishment as the " devil and his angels," these evil spirits will not fail to insult the miserables by trium- phant ridicule of that folly, which led them to transgression through compliance with delusions artfully but malignantly practised on the silly deluded victims of sin, and rebels to the laws and admonitions of a beneficent Creator. Such will be the state, such will be the torments of the sensitive body received at the resurrection ; the mind also will still suffer as it did before the resurrection, with this difference, Matt, xviii. G. n Matt. xxvi. 24. 20'0 THE AtiES OF THE WORLD. that it sees no prospect of deliverance, for the Great Judge has solemnly decided that the torment is to last for ages of ages, and therefore the unhappy wretch is not cheered by a ray of hope for deliverance ; he sees no end to his torments. To these torments will be added the general abhorrence in which the sufferer will be regarded in his disgusting state " by all flesh," by all the happy beings that live around ; " he will be tormented in the sight of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb ;" for heaven and hell are not places but conditions, held by all creatures within the ubi- quity of the Divine Mind. Beatified spirits will most probably avert the eye froni the wretched sufferers, partly perhaps because they will be offensive and disgusting objects, and partly because some among them may in the life past have been near relatives and dear objects of affection. The present theory renders this intercourse of beatified and condemned beings perfectly intelligible. All creatures exist alike, according to the theory, in the spiritual medium, the atmosphere of the Divine Mind. The beatified spirits are continually wrought upon by such spiritual influences supplied by the Divine Mind in which they live, with such faculties as enable them to pursue such courses as are con- ducive to happiness : the condemned spirits, although sub- sisting in the same Divine Mind, are deprived of all such faculties, and misery and despair ensue. Such are the torments that await the wicked in the atwi/, fiifin, age or world which shall follow the present. That these evils could not have taken place had not the world been created and these miserable beings given to existence, is most certain. Their lot is most terrible, and if they were created to such ultimate misery, their creation must impugn the wisdom of the Deity and his goodness also : his wisdom, because they imply a defect in the design ; for a state of trial, Rev. xiv. 10. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 261 in which these miserables fell, is certainly the first, if not the sole purpose of creation. They impugn his goodness also, because he has created beings which his foreknowledge must have known would become the victims of the dangerous dispensation of a life of trial. Again it may be asked, How can the miseries of condemned spirits accord with the words of holy writ, which state that at the termination of the last, the sixth day of the creation, P " God saw (contemplated) everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." How can everything be very good, when, whatever may be the happiness of the blessed, they are few in number com- pared with the many miserables who tread the broad (the convenient) way and enter the wide gate (of easy entrance) that leadeth to destruction, that is, to punishment which shall never terminate, and is inflicted in anger ? The punish- ment far exceeds the amount of offence, say the anti- christian Christians of the present day, and consequently the Deity is neither merciful nor just. Such are the positions which the infidel and the advocates for religious liberty are ever ready to advance ; the anti- materialist will render the following reply to such blasphemous allegations, 1" Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." The English word vengeance certainly implies an act done in bitter anger, or with a purpose of revenge, a state of mind utterly incompatible with the Divine Majesty. The word of the original text does not imply such feeling : it signifies not vengeance, but strict or rigid justice. This the Deity will doubtless render: the necessity of punishment threatened, as a motive for the exercise of the will, has been shown, and therefore punishment is, in the purpose, a benevolent dispen- sation, and this renders the infliction of punishment abso- lutely necessary. God, perfectly just, cannot, like man, make laws and withhold the execution at will. He had once offered repentance dining life as the mejins of escape from punish- i' Gen. i. 31. ( i Rom. xii. 19. EK^i/o^ns, coinp. , intens. 8iKrj, 262 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. ment, and earnestly pressed the adoption; those means were rejected, and the threatened consequences inevitably ensued. Many other texts occur, which are apt to suggest the erroneous idea that the Deity punishes not in kindness but anger : such is the following, r " Indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish" is denounced unto the wicked. The indignation and wrath mentioned in this text are not passions entertained by the Deity, but they are feelings entertained by the wicked in punishment. Racked by pain and mad with despair, they condemn with scorn their past folly, and are angry even to bitterness against themselves, because they pursued courses during their past lives which subject them to torments prescribed by a sentence which they know to be irrevocable. The first of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England teaches that God is without passions, he knows no vindictive feeling. When he awards punishment, it is with regret, and it is inflicted for the purpose of good; inflicted on creatures which, he being ubiquitous, exist within him ; and yet all being capable of sin, must be different from him, and distinct from him, but yet intended to become like him, to the great increase of the sum, the amount of the happiness, of things created. Whether the condemned spirits may by any possibility become subservient in any way to such result, is a question of the deepest interest. That their punishment is not inflicted in anger is an important truth. Many texts might be brought to prove that when it pleases the Deity to inflict pain and trouble the act is done \\h\\ a benevolent purpose, or, more properly, when reference is made to the Deity, in mercy. The author of the book of Job writes, 8 " Happy is the man whom God correcteth, therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. I' or he makcth sore and bindeth up: he woundeth and he niiikelh whole." Hence it seems that the troubles and afllie- ' Rom. ii. 8. s Job v. 17, 18. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 263 tions inflicted by the Deity were in the earliest ages of the world regarded as proofs of the Divine favour. The same sentiment is inculcated in the gospel. St. Paul writes, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The apostle proceeds to observe, that if the Deity does not chastise he forbears to take due interest in the party spared, but that when he chasteneth us he does it " for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness," for although " no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby." Many authorities might be quoted which teach that afflictions have a natural tendency to alter and improve the heart or affections. The following may be added to these now cited : * " It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes:" u " It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." The sufferings of the Saviour on the cross may be taken in proof of the same thing. He was x "for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour ; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." How he could suffer for every man, or how in him all men should suffer, the anti-material theoiy explains. In him was life ; that is, he was and is the source of life to all creatures. In him, in his spirit, the principle of life in all creatures, all creatures suffered, and by this suffering all nature suffered, and man obtained the boon of pardon on repentance, having, in the spirit of the Saviour which pervades the Divine Mind, suffered for sin. Such is the mystery of godliness. ? If pain and suffering can thus lead to reward when it 1 Psalm cxix. 71. " Eccles. vii. 2, 3. x Heb. ii. 9. >' 1 Tim. iii. 16. 264 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. promotes good, the same may be conducive also to the abate- ment of evil : but if it abate, the same means may be con- tinued till they annihilate evil, and thus lead to good. Such dispensation suggests the idea that even the most wicked beings may be rendered, by suffering, obedient servants and sons of God. This opinion is vindicated by its accordance with the Divine attributes and the great object of creation, the promotion of good. Whether this position be more than mere conjecture may be ascertained by reference to the revealed word of God, which is the only sure guide in this as in all other enquiries concerning the divine dispensations. In that assemblage of the precepts which the Saviour was wont to deliver, as circumstances might invite, called the sermon on the mount, the following occurs : z " Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison ; verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." The commentators confine their remarks to that sense of this precept which urges repentance without delay, they over- look the concluding words which refer to the termination of the punishment. The offender, it appears, will be liberated when he shall have paid the debt, but that payment will be rigorously enforced. This conclusion of the precept bids the unrepentant sinner to understand that the punishment inflicted will be rigidly severe, but that it will terminate when endurance has been undergone, bearing a due proportion to the debt due, that is, to the offence or oflVnces committed. The same doctrine is taught in the sentence inflicted on the servant who having been forgiven the great debt due to his lord, was afterwards cruel towards his fellow, R "The lord delivered him to the tormentors till ho should pay the debt." It were strange to assume that the z Matt. v. 25. Matt, xviii. 34. Blomfield, Comment. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 265 punishment must be eternal, must never terminate, because it does not appear that the servant had the means of payment; the words "till he should pay" evidently imply some limit to the exercise of the office of the tormentors, or the correctors, as some render the original word, terms which imply that punishment will consist in the infliction of pain probably by restraint and privation of comforts as well as in the length of imprisonment. Whether the creditor might or might not be benefitted in some measure by the labour of the prisoner, or whether the restraint be only intended for example; this certain, the debt being necessarily of a limited amount, the punishment must in time, however long, become adequate to the default, and the debtor would be entitled to a discharge from prison and punishment. These parables are evidently intended to signify the rule which the Deity will observe in punishing the wicked : the imprisonment will be of duration limited, but proportioned to the amount of transgression. That the rule will be of universal operation is seen from the declaration of the Saviour : when b " the Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father with his angels, then shall he reward every man according to his works." This rule, as far as it affects the length of punishment, calls for some observations on the periods both of reward and punishment as signified by the revealed word. Wherever there is mind there will be thought: thought will give birth to a succession of ideas ; the succession of ideas is the measure of duration which, divided into portions, an act to which mind is ever to a certain degree competent, constitute what is commonly called time. The Deity is a spirit or mind which has existed for a duration to which no thinking being can assign a limit, and this is called eternity past. Eternity future is imagined by a similar process. The Deity is a being self-existent, a mind that can never cease to think ; and, consequently, there will be no limit to future l > Matt. xvi. 27. 266 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. duration. The epithet cucovios, aionios, is, therefore, some- times applied to the Deity not implying a limited existence, but an existence that will endure throughout every age, throughout all ages, or eternity. No finite mind can com- prehend infinite duration. The human mind is finite because, as the present theory clearly shows, it subsists a distinct individual within the Divine Mind, and is compre- hended within it ; being thus finite, man can have no idea of infinite duration, eternity is to him unknown, is by him incomprehensible. " Hence it is," as the philosophic Locke writes, c " that in disputes and reasonings concerning eternity, or any other infinite, we are apt to blunder, and involve ourselves in manifest absurdities," of which it were easy to adduce many instances. Hence it becomes necessary that all duration should be divided or distinguished into limited periods; and therefore the revealed word, when mention is made of future duration, speaks always of limited periods or ages, and by combinations of ages enables the human mind to form some idea, although imperfect, of a future eternity. The portion of duration that will be comprised between the beginning of the first day of the creation and the hour when the d present earth and heaven shall pass away, and no place be found for them, is tenned in the original Greek this aiwv, age, often rendered in our author- ised translation, this world. The several combinations of the Greek word, such as an age of ages, or ages of ages, would, if rendered duly, signify a world of ages, or worlds of ages, expressions which evidently imply a vast succession of ages or of worlds, that is, of different states or modes of ex- istence, in which created immortal beings will live, in states or conditions as different as the present state of man maybe Ironi that of the angels of a past state, or as man will be in the future, the state that shall immediately follow the r Locke, b. ii. c. 29. s. 15. d Matt. xiii. 40. Rev. xx. 11. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 267 present. The duration or length of this age, and of each of the ages of futurity also, will, it seems, be indeterminate. The Saviour speaks thus of the end of the present age or world, e " Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but my Father." God the Father, who thus determines the length of these ages, will be guided by expediency in these decisions. According to the present theory, all these changes will be wrought by a change of thought in the Divine Mind supreme. God the Father, who does that which he sees to be most expedient, of which he alone can be the competent judge, will, it may be presumed, order the manner and dura- tion also, as it seems according to true expediency, and that these numerous ages or worlds that shall be called into existence by the Divine Mind will be variable, will depend upon the progress of good in each of the many ages that will exist in succession. This good will be measured by the progress of improvement made by the intelligent beings in each successive age or state of existence, in which, with increased powers and altered opportunities, they may add increase to good or lead to abatement of evil. The Saviour coming to a barren fig-tree said, f "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," literally rendered, during this age, aiwv, evidently meaning during the con- tinuance of the present age or world : one of the many ages which are to follow the present. The phrase, for ever, used in the translation of the text, may be right. It properly signifies a period of limited duration. & The English word e Mark xiii. 32. f Matt. xxi. 19- The learned and indefatigable editor of the Greek Testament with English Notes, is apprehensive lest the words aicov and aiavios, (1 Tim. i. 17, Rom. xvi. 26,) used in several texts as epithets of the Deity, should, if admitted to imply limited portions of duration, be perverted to prove that God himself is of limited existence. The positions found in these pages show that such conclusion is impossible, and that the terms as here interpreted will not justify such inference more than that the word ld applied to persons of advanced years would impugn their immortality. 208 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. ever, is derived from the Latin aevum, which is the Greek word auov in an altered form, but bearing exactly the same signification. In this instance the Saviour uses the word in the sense here taken. In the Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul concludes a doxology in the following words of the authorised text, h " Glory throughout all ages, world without end." Literally rendered it would stand thus: Glory throughout all the generations of the age of ages, that is, throughout all the several generations of men or intelligent beings that shall live successively in the age of ages, that is, in the many ages in which intelligent beings of divers faculties and powers by which each generation will be distinguished, shall subsist. The last chapter of the Revela- tion declares that ' the beatified spirits shall reign for ages of ages, that is, during a long succession of periods, each distinguished by its peculiar generation of intellectual beings passing through modes of existence in which they become endowed with faculties and powers of improved excellence, progressive continually in whatever is good, and thus ap- proximating continually to perfection. The arguments which thus serve to show that in the periods of future duration there will be worlds or states in which the beings now extant will subsist in different modes of life, are fully confirmed by scriptural evidences. The Saviour says, k " Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men," of the present world or genera- tion. Such perverseness will preclude repentance, and the sinner will die in the sin. The record by St. Mark is more explicit, l " Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." The text, more strictly rendered, says, that the sin shall not be forgiven during the present age, that is, during the continuance of this present world ; but that it subjects the blasphemer to punishment enduring for h Kpht>. ni. 21. ' Rev. xxii. 5. k Matt. xii. 31, 32. ' Mark iii. 29, 29. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 269 ages, that is, for more ages or worlds than the present or that ensuing. The text fully accords with the doctrine of a long succession of ages or worlds, in each of which the generations will perhaps greatly differ. The Pharisees to whom these words were addressed had committed the sin of blasphemy : they had from malicious motives ascribed to the evil spirit acts which they must have been convinced were the result of a holy spirit or motive. This is a sin readily coimnittable, and it is feared often committed. Wanton, frivolous, and perverse cavils on scriptural authorities, will, it is feared, subject the unhappy sinner to ages of punishment. That any created being should hold an existence not available to some beneficial purpose is a supposition utterly inconsistent with the Divine attributes of goodness and wisdom, and must be false ; that all beings, on the contrary, are and ever will be placed in a state affording opportunity of improvement in all moral good, must be regarded as an undoubted truth. According to these principles, the beatified spirits of the resurrection must be supposed to be ever making further progress in virtue and goodness ; continually approximating to the perfections of God himself. That such progress is not only possible, but is a duty, is most certain from the following texts, m " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." These words of the Saviour must be regarded as a command. That such duty has ever been enjoined, and been obligatory to man from the foundation of the world, may be known from the following text : n " The Lord appeared unto Abraham and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect." This same precept is repeatedly enjoined in the Law of Moses. So also is it again in the writings of the apostles. St. Peter cites the same : " It is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy." St. Paul writes, P " Let us cleanse our- selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting m Matt. v. 48. n Gen. xvii. 1. 1 Peter i. 16. P2 Cor. vii. 1. 270 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. holiness in the fear of God." These texts prove that the obligation to progressive improvement is coeval with creation, and will be continued throughout the ages of ages of created existence. According to this doctrine all the beatified spirits admitted into the joys of heaven at the day of resurrection and judge- ment, will still have occasion to perform the duties enjoined in holy writ, and cultivate the virtues called the " fruits of the Spirit," not only in the age or state of existence into which they shall then have been admitted, but in all subsequent ages also. In these, endowed as they will be with improved faculties and powers, the rewards of past obedience duly rendered, they will be able to make continual advances in righteous- ness and holiness. To the advantages resulting from improved powers, the benefits of spiritual aids graciously and liberally given, will doubtless be added ; aids given with increased liberality, because merited by continued obedience. These the Divine Mediator, King of kings and Lord of lords, will advocate for them, according to the conditions propounded in the Gospel, the rule of the actions of men in every age, and will obtain pardon. He will also claim for them new spiritual aids and advantages, will lead them on by continual effusions of the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mind, in which, according to the present theory, they still subsist, until at length, after ages of ages of continual progress, they become perfect, become divine. If such spiritual aids be granted to beatified spirits, it may well be expected that under suitable circumstances the like will be given to the spirits damned. That created spirits should be utterly incapable of any good seems scarcely possible, but that under favourable circumstances they may admit of reform may reasonably be believed. It is written in the Revelations, that ^ " They (the condemned spirits) shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels and of the i Rev. xiv. 10. THE AGES OF THE \VORLD. 27] Lamb." It were strange to suppose that such inspection should not be available to some good purpose ; it were more reasonable to suppose that as in this life the holy angels are ever the ready ministers of good, so that in all future ages of existence also, they will be ever ready to act agree- ably to their benevolent propensities, and to cherish any good sentiment and inclination that may be found in any intelligent being, whatsoever its state may be. The same may, without doubt, be affirmed of the Saviour himself, and that throughout all the ages of ages in which he shall exer- cise dominion, he will employ his powerful influence for the purposes of salvation, not only for the benefit of beatified spirits, but of the condemned also. That such capabilities await condemned spirits will appear most probable and even certain from the anti-material theory, which maintains that all things subsist in what is figuratively termed the atmosphere or medium of the Divine Mind. This Great Agent through all ages supplies to all existents, whether good or evil, the means of life and action ; all act in him. It were most assuredly an useless exercise of the Divine power, if it be employed in any instance wholly, and throughout all the ages of ages, in sustaining misery without the possibility of any good issue. Such must be the case, if the condemned spirits are never to obtain release from their torments, but are to continue in the same miserable plight without the possibility of relief. The supposition may be regarded as impossible ; it assumes the incredible fact that the Deity can act throughout all ages without end or aim ; and that in opposition to, and violation of all his acknowledged attributes, he continues to promote evil when it can be abated. Pain and suffering tend to reformation ; pain and trouble may reform even Satan and his angels. If pain reform Satan, whom may it not reform ? it may reform all : if all be reformed, all be penitent, the merits of the Saviour will obtain for all forgive- 272 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. ness and remission of sin, will effect universal salvation. This belief will be established by the following authorities. When it is considered that the Saviour bears such relation to the Deity as to be called the Son of God, it cannot with reason be supposed that the sacrifice on the cross should accomplish that result only in part which Divine benevolence wished might be complete. Texts cited in former pages show that in the present generation a portion, and that com- paratively a small one, will obtain the benefits of redemption ; and yet many texts afford the assurance that the death of the Saviour did accomplish the salvation of the world, a result which the Creator not only desired, but in truth designed when he began the work of creation. That such will be the result of the sacrifice on the cross the revealed Word plainly teaches. Among many texts of the same import, the following words of the Saviour imply the salvation of all mankind, r " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me," words which include all the human race, and promise the salvation of all men. 8 " John (the Baptist) saw Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." St. John writes, * " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only (the true Christians), but also for the sins of the whole world." It is impossible to imagine words more explicit and decisive than these now quoted, or point out any limitation which they can imply or exception which they can suggest. This promised consequence cannot however take place, unless salvation be ultimately extended even to those miserable sinners who will be consigned to punishment at the great day of judgment : if all men be drawn, even they shall be drawn to the Saviour; the Lamb shall take away even their sins, for they form a portion of the whole r John xii. 32. 8 John i. 29. * 1 John ii. 1. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 273 world for whom the Saviour is the propitiation. Such is the doctrine which the texts cited clearly teach. This doctrine of universal salvation, notwithstanding it must be the wish of benevolence and of the Deity, is apt to excite alarm in the minds of some good people who u fear lest it should encourage sin ; and also, lest the termination of the punishment of the wicked should by a parity of inference imply and prove that the rewards of the righteous must also have a limit: for both reward and punish- ment will be awarded according to the works of both. To escape from this alarming possibility, it is argued, that the conditions implied in the texts cited, are fully answered by the opportunity of salvation offered to all, and that oppor- tunity thus offered is a proper accomplishment of the purport of the texts. This is most assuredly an unjustifiable evasion of the plain meaning of plain words. The Saviour cannot be said to have died for the benefit of all, when a few only can be benefited by his death, but the great majority consigned to eternal perdition. The dreaded con- sequence of the doctrine of universal salvation will, however, be completely obviated by the position that the obedience rendered by the beatified spirits after the resurrection, will entitle them to new rewards and new and greater happiness in the ages that will follow. In each of these they will by continued obedience win new rewards, the recompense of improvements continually made, leading the individual con- tinually nearer to the perfections of God himself. A result such as this would accord perfectly with the great and general purpose of creation ; all would become good, and creation would in the end be productive of good only. Reasons such as these have induced divines of almost every age of the Christian era, to adopt this view of the redemption of mankind. Of these, x Origen, a Christian Tillotson, Serm. 92. * Origen. contra Celsum, lib. v. Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. T 274 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. father or divine of the third century, may be said to have been the earliest. Very strange opinions have been enter- tained by several persons and sects who have adopted this doctrine. The abuse of truth does not change its worth : the only position here vindicated is the final salvation of even wicked men, and ultimately the perfection of all. If the spirits of wicked men consigned to punishment at the general resurrection find a termination to their torments at different periods in the ages of ages of futurity, a question perfectly obvious and reasonable occurs, why should not Satan and his angels be in like manner delivered from the ylake of fire and brimstone into which they were cast, a short time before the day of the general resurrection of man ? These evil spirits had rebelled in heaven ; but for that sinful crime they had been punished by expulsion from heaven : and are now z " reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the last day." Then still farther punishment awaits these evil spirits for their malignant and delusive arts practised on man in his present state. This truth is signified by the reason for their punishment given in these words, " the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake," as announced in the text cited above. Thus the offences of these spirits accord thus far with the sins of men ; they were offences committed in the same age ; and being the promoters of the evil acts, they must justly be regarded as participating in the offence, and consequently, properly meriting a participation of the punishment. The Saviour has made mention of an instance in which one a " evil spirit taketh unto himself seven other spirits, more wicked than himself;" from which it is to be understood that the wickedness of these spirits is not less of different degrees than are those of men themselves, and consequently, their punishment will also differ in degree, and be strictly propor- tioned to their respective demerits. From these facts it will r Rev. xx. 10. z Jude 6. Matthew xii. 45. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 275 be inferred that the greatest similitude prevails between the sins of Satan and his angels and the sins of men. They are contemporaneous in the committing; are, as with men, of different degrees of offence ; and therefore the punishment will be contemporaneous as to time, will be the same in kind, and will be inflicted in the same place, or rather, by placing the offenders in similar circumstances and conditions. Whatever be the enormity of the sin of these spirits, it must be bounded within certain limits, and consequently the punishment of each will be limited both in the intensity and duration. Such adjudication of punishment justice, and especially divine justice, will award. Expediency will so decide likewise. According to our anti-material and spiritual theory, all things, whether good or bad, even Satan and his angels, subsist within the Divine Mind, and that omnipotent Agent supplies the means of life and action, and of all sensation also, whether pleasurable or painful, even to them, and consequently its immediate agency gives the means of suffering to condemned spirits ; to Satan and his angels. The Deity never acts in vain ; whence it is impossible to believe that the Divine Mind should act time without end, inflicting pains that can afford no good, and continued without termination and without some effect. These are reasons which it is presumed will ensure the conviction, that the punishment of Satan and his wicked ministers must terminate when, after ages of ages of suffering, the debt due shall have been discharged, and the wicked spirit, having been duly chastised and reformed by the sufferings figured by fire and brimstone, shall be left in peace. The evil spirits thus liberated from punishment, and the debt of sin being thus duly paid, live each a being purified from the stain of sin, but unadorned by any virtue. It is impossible to suppose that the Deity should retain any creature in a state of such neutrality and utter uselessness. It must be presumed therefore that each spirit retains his 276 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. faculties known to have once been of great eminence, and consequently that he is capable of improvement. The rebel to his God has become the penitent disciple of the Redeemer ; is sensible that obedience to the gospel is wisdom ; and thus he is prepared to bring forth the fruits of repentance. The Saviour advocates his repentance, the Deity forgives, and the Divine Mind duly aids the reformed spirit, and he enters upon a course of righteousness and holiness ; he becomes the faithful servant of his God. Examples not a few have shown that such change is possible to man ; can it be denied that the same may, or rather must be, possible even to Satan himself ? A course of obedience through a succession of ages renders him the faithful servant of his Creator and God, and perhaps one also of those persons of whom the Saviour speaks, saying, b " Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first." It is possible that such may be the future history of the at present great enemy of mankind. Where is the mind that will not contemplate such a result with delight, and where the mind that can think of the ages of ages of torment necessary to such happy result without horror ? St. Paul, after mention made of the first resurrection discussed in preceding pages, thus proceeds to speak of events which will occur at the conclusion of the ages of ages which comprise the whole of the portion of duration men- tioned in holy writ: c "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death ; for he hath put all things under his feet. When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." In this portion of this most interesting >> Matt. zix. 30. c 1 Cor. xv. 24. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 277 chapter the Apostle reveals truths of the utmost importance, and announces a mode or state of existence that shall be in- stituted when, at the termination of ages of ages, the great objectfor which creation was undertaken, that object which the Creator contemplated with satisfaction, when he had finished the work of creation, shall have been fully accomplished, namely, universal good, the perfection and happiness of all created beings. A few short remarks on the text above cited will sufficiently exhibit these important truths. d " Then cometh the end ;" the end, as the able Expositor explains the text, "the end of the Christian dispensation, or the world of redemption, the economical or mediatorial kingdom of Christ." Christ had reigned King of kings and Lord of lords for ever and for ever; that is, during the destined number of all the ages of ages. In the exercise of his mediatorial power he had presided over, had, ruled the trials, the temptations of all men, subjecting them to restraint or permitting them to proceed in such manner as would be most promotive of ultimate good. Thus shall the Saviour reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet ; that is, as the Expositor explains the text, till "he shall have gained a complete victory over sin and death, wicked men and wicked angels," and thus have put down all rule, authority, and power, all false reasons that may persuade, all powerful motives that may urge, all delusions that may blindly lead the will to reject, to disobey, to scorn the principles and precepts of the gospel. " The last enemy that shall be destroyed is e death, a term significative of Satan and his angels or ministers. To destroy is to put an end to, to bring to nought, or, as the original word of the text, /carapyetrai, speaks, to nullify, to reduce to nothing the evil dispositions which these wretched beings had in- dulged, and by which all their actions had formerly been influenced. These spirits, being the most malignant and d Bloomfield on the Text. e Rev. xx. 14. 278 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. perverse at any time existent, may justly be supposed to be most difficult to subdue, and the last to yield and obey ; but corrective punishment will reform even these enemies to the gospel and gospel virtues, and after ages of progressive improvement the Son shall have bended their passions and their prejudices to a perfect obedience to his will and accordance with his wishes, exhausting even the shadow of opposition to his holy word. It is thus that all things will be " put under his feet." The following text of the Epistle to the Hebrews affords ample confirmation of the interpretation given of the texts cited as above. The apostle thus writes, f " But this man, (the Saviour) because he continueth for ever, (et9 TOV atava, to the age, the last of the ages of ages) hath an unchangeable (an aTrapaftarov, not transferable) priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost (et9 TO TrarreXe?, to the whole, the utmost perfection) that come to God by him, seeing he ever (Train-ore, at all times) liveth to make intercession for them." This text teaches that when the wicked shall have been rewarded according to their works, shall have paid by sufferings the debt due to an offended God, and are, according to the text, ready " to come unto God by him, (the Saviour, that is, by repentance rendered effectual by the death and sacrifice of the Saviour) then they shall receive full pardon and forgiveness," their sins shall be blotted out, and had no more in remembrance, they are perfectly pure in the sight of their God. The word Trai/reXe?, pan telex, of the text, somewhat perplexes the learned com- mentator, but all difficulty is removed if it be taken to signify not only the salvation but the final perfection of all created beings. It is thus that the apostle interprets him- self : 8" When all things (the whole created world) shall be subdued unto him, (the Saviour and his gospel) then shall the Son be subject unto him that put all things under him, f Ilcb. vii. 24, 25. Blootnfielcl. Cora. s 1 Cor. xv. 28. THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 279 that God may be all in all," literally, all things in all beings. Every creature having become perfect, there no longer remains any necessity, any occasion for the mediation or intercession of the Redeemer: the mediatorial power given him at his resurrection from the dead becomes useless, un- necessary, and is no longer exercised : there is no sin for which he can have occasion to plead in arrest of strict justice. The thoughts, words, and actions of every living being have become perfectly pure, are entirely free from blame : and therefore everything is done as the Father, the primal, the paternal Mind intends. So also are the offices of the Divine Mind superseded. The Holy Spirit has now no occasion to administer to the man, as in a state of trial, the power of acting in accordance with the inclination to wrong, for imperfect action, wrong or imperfect action is no more. The Divine Mind, that great universal and unceasing Agent, dispenses to each individual without exception, such powers and purposes, such only as God approves, such as are given unchanged from him, the Great Primal Cause. Thus it is that God is all in all. God the Soul, the Spirit that exists every- where always, now pervades in perfect purity and without interruption every being that exists within himself, figuratively signified in the anti-material theory by the atmosphere, the medium of the Divine Mind. Thus it is that " God is all in all." The truth of the view now taken of what may be called the end and aim of all the divine dispensations will be most assuredly highly acceptable to fallible man ; it will be such also as benevolence must regard with feelings of the wannest gratitude toward the Great Cause. The ultimate perfection and beatitude of all created beings is a doctrine so perfectly accordant with the divine attributes, that it must win not only assent but the most confident conviction of its truth, for such result must have been the great object of design when the Deity contemplated the work of creation. A state of torment during ages of ages must indeed be regarded as 280 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. a great evil. The Saviour said of the traitor Judas, " It were good for that man had he not been born;" a text conveying a most terrible idea of the punishments of the wicked. But if the torments, although of ages of ages, lead ultimately to perfect and unbounded happiness or good, and it appears that the tendency of evil is always good, in such case even torment, though evil be inflicted in the greatest conceivable degree of intensity during ages of ages, yet the dispensation is good, is wise, and is in accordance with all the attributes of the Almighty God. The state of perfection and final beatification now described may justly be regarded as a termination of the enquiry into the supposed reality of matter, an enquiry which, it is contended, has clearly proved that no such substance exists, and that all objects of sense are not produced by the use of matter, however the senses may seem to suggest such means, but that all objects, like the Divine Mind or Spirit who gives them, are in form and substance purely spiritual, like their Great Cause. To prove the truth of this doctrine there has been occasion to give attention to all the several states or modes of existence of which the revealed word either plainly speaks, or to which it more or less openly alludes. These modes of existence, or, to use the scriptural term, these " generations," include the world of angels both good and evil, this our present world also, the world of the resurrection which will succeed it, together with other worlds noticed by allusions only, and obscurely, but yet certainly implied in the scriptural phrase, itf/pf: of ftf/es. In the age or world of angels, beings purely spiritual, there can have been no material substance; in the world that will succeed the present, the earthy is expressly excluded ; in all the ages that shall succeed, it were strange to suppose that the earthy should be created in them. Hence it is contended that since the world anterior to the present was, and the worlds that shall follow will be, purely THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 281 spiritual, that there can be no reason to suppose, indeed it were almost an absurdity to maintain, that there can be, in exception to the general rule, such substance as matter in this our present world. The reality of matter being thus dis- proved, the following conclusion must be just. All things extant either in time past, present, or future, have been, now are, and ever will be, substances, like their Great Cause, wholly devoid of matter ; that such substance never held a place in any part of the creation, nor will ever be found in it ; but that, on the contrary, all things ever have been, now are, and ever will be, like the Great Cause himself, substances purely spiritual, given into form by that Great Cause at will, sustained and changed also, but never destroyed to annihila- tion, but always made available to some good and perfect purpose by the great, the incomprehensible Being, the Divine Mind, Soul, or Spirit, the God of the world of worlds. The variety of argument by which this truth has been vindicated, is such as seems to require at least a hasty revisal : such revisal may not be useless, even if it serve only to confirm conviction previously formed. Authorities adduced in the first chapter of this work have shown that the origin of matter is utterly unknown; that such persons as have attempted to describe its form have never been able to give any intelligible idea respecting it. Some have wandered in bewildering absurdities, when they undertook to describe its qualities, form, capabilities, and influence on the most ordinary operations of nature. Per- plexities arising from such attempts have been the cause of all the errors of idolatry, and all the whimsical causes of religious division, and the reveries of superstition. The supposed reality of matter has led to errors most strangely confused and perplexing. The anti-material theory, far from being the cause of perplexity, has been shown to be able to liberate truth from perplexity : this it accomplishes by stating the simple truth that the Deity is a mind, soul, 28'2 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. or spirit, diffused throughout unbounded space ; thinking, that is, living everywhere always. This Great Cause gives into existence such creatures as he may deem expedient, endows them with such faculties as may be conducive to universal good, and supports them by a continual supply of spiritual influences, so long as such supply may serve to promote the wise and merciful purposes of his great designs. In the second chapter, entitled Scriptural Evidences, this theory of the agency of the Divine Mind proceeding from the Great Cause has been applied to the exposition and explanation of texts relating to subjects usually regarded as the most difficult and perplexing in theology. The theory has afforded great, perhaps it may be said a satisfactory, or rather, a clear illustration of the scriptural doctrine of the Freedom of the Will, Predestination, Election, and Divine Grace. Whether it may have been in any way illustrative of the doctrine of the Trinity may be presumptuous to say : when the spiritual theory represents the Persons of the Trinity as different modifications of the Universal Mind, it shows, whatever be the aptness of the idea, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a mere delusion, however deep may be the mystery in which it is involved. A theory thus illustrative of truth, must be something different from error, must itself be truth. Again, the theory that all visible substances are objects extant in the Divine Mind, has been applied in illustration of the Divine agency in the events usually termed miracles. The theory affirms that acts called miracles are most assuredly wrought by the same agent, exercising the same power as is employed in the most ordinary processes of what is called Nature. The same power that produces a shower of rain, is shown to have produced a deluge that destroyed all living creatures : the same power that gives form to the perfect limb, gives by a miracle a perfect fonn to the limb which was lame and halt. The Divine Mind in all cases alike THE AGES OF THE WOULD. 283 raises by an act of thought the intended ideal substance ; gives it the faculty of operating on other substances, them- selves also ideal ; and the effect, whether ordinary or extra- ordinary, natural or miraculous, ensues. Thus does the anti-material theory teach that a miracle is a natural act, differing only from the most ordinary process of nature by being unusual. Such is the credibility the theory gives to miracles. Having just closed that part of the Treatise which relates to the ages of ages, periods which are to arise in succession before the final consummation of all things, when " God shall be all in all," there does not appear to be any occasion for fresh remark. It may however be observed, that whatever be the change that shall take place in the modes of existence during those ages, those changes will, it may be presumed, be effected in a manner similar to that which will take place at the day of our general resurrection. Such change will be as sudden and complete as circum- stances may require. The Deity wills, the Divine Mind forms new substances exciting new ideas, and the change, according to our theory, is at once complete. This present theory has this advantage, which may serve not a little to gain approbation and assent. It makes no difference in the relation between God and man. Whether the Divine Spirit of the Saviour, while upon earth, inhabited a material body or a spiritual, the obligation to faith in him is exactly the same. Man, whether he be as to body a material substance, or a substance purely spiritual, but the object of sense, and ever liable during life to the separation of the visible substance at death into atoms, yet the hope for pardon and forgiveness for all sins, negligences, and igno- rances, still rests on repentance rendered effectual by the merits, the death and sacrifice, of the Redeemer on the cross, is still the same. The same gospel is the rule of action during life, the same gospel suggests the same hopes 284 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. and fears as to the future state. The anti-material theory is a matter of indifference as to these things, and may be adopted or rejected without any danger of the guilt of heresy, if such a sin can be feared in these times of ultra- liberalism, or any awe be entertained of any violation .of any law of either God or man. While the anti-materialist admits this freedom of choice, he presses the adoption of his theory, as a system affording many advantages to its disciples. It affords a just concep- tion of the Divine agency in the works of the creation, and even of the manner of creation also. It affords a clear and lively sense of the immediate presence of the Deity, and full assurance that he must know all things, for whatever is done, whatever is spoken, whatever is thought, all is done in him, in his all-perceptive mind, and also by powers received immediately from him. The certainty of these things thus made manifest, while it impresses the mind with awe and with fear, cheers the mind by the feelings of gratitude which a sense of benefits received and benefits promised naturally inspires. The wisdom of obedience, and the folly, the in- sanity of disobedience to God's will is rendered most mani- fest, for reasons which no other teaching can explain, and for reasons which no other theory can supply. Doing this, the anti-material theory may be justly termed the best teacher, the best advocate of true religion. This position, it is hoped, will have been rendered sufficiently certain, from the disquisitions given in these chapters : the anti-material theory is the best, indeed the only intelligible illustration of the text of St. Paul, " In him (the Deity) we live, and move, and have our being." It may be expected that a doctrine so new as is the present, or rather, which has few disciples only, and which seems moreover to be refuted by the evidence of the senses, will be regarded by many with surprize, and treated as a visionary, an idle delusion. This will be more probable, THE AGES OF THE WORLD. 285 when it is found to be advocated, as at present, by few that are eminent in the literary world ; and more especially when even the amiable, the learned, able, and highly lauded Bishop of Cloyne could not win the assent of many to his doctrine. Under such circumstances, all that can be ex- pected by this work will be that, while many amuse them- selves by thinking about the opinions stated in the discussion of the subjects adduced in illustration of the main question, some of the few who are not influenced by prejudice will give the question a little attention, and say at least that the doctrine is certainly probable, and may possibly be true. That idle wit will attempt to distort it by ridicule may perhaps be expected, because the wantonness of wit is not usually restrained by any sense of propriety or regard to truth. Others will perhaps be found who shall regard the various statements with the proud sneer of scorn, because these things have not been thought of by their wisdom ; and others, because these things have not as yet been patronized by the learned, or recommended by the dignitaries of the Church. Such is the world to which the present work is submitted. But whatever may be the manner in which the subject may be received, this perhaps even prejudice will admit, that all its positions hold a perfect accordance with the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and show that both are true, whether matter be held to be a reality, or whether its supposed reality be wholly a delusion. Whatever may be the manner in which the doctrine here vindicated may be received, it is with confidence affirmed, that the principle is true, and the assent to its truth would be followed by a proper reverence of the Deity, and a due sense of every religious obligation. All the favours con- ferred will be received with a lively gratitude, a dutiful submission rendered to his chastening hand. Entertaining an intelligent sense of his ubiquitous existence, the pious anti-materialist will work out his salvation with fear and .- 286 THE AGES OF THE WORLD. trembling, for the doctrine of immateriality affords a lively and comprehensible idea of the manner in which God, the Divine Mind, worketh in him " both to will and to do of his good pleasure." That same doctrine will serve much to counteract that illusion which attaches the mind fondly to the present mode of existence. The theory shows that every one does and always will hold what may be termed a local existence in the Divine Spirit or Mind, and that the change which takes place at death is not a change in the locality, but rather of the manner of existence only. The visible but spiritual substance is dissolved, but the mind remains the same, and still holds its place in the Divine Mind, where it continues to subsist amid its wonted relatives, but with new and improved powers. A new power or sense will be given by which soul, spirit, or mind will become the object of perception, and then, as the apostle writes, h " We shall be like him (God), we shall see him as he is," and seeing him, have an unbounded view of all created being. Such is the change which, according to the revealed Word, and con- templated according to the principles advocated by this Treatise, awaits the man in the present life. Happy is the man, as this Treatise shows, who shall be received unto mercy ; but miserable indeed is the man, as this Treatise also shows, from whom in justice mercy is withheld. b 1 John iii. 2. FINIS. J. S. CROSSLEY, PRINTER. LEICESTER. ERRATA. Page 59, line 18; for " contradicting," read " contradicted by." 68, 9, for " defect of authority," read " defect of metaphysical authority.' 180, 9 of note n, " the average density (not D) in a column," &c. 219, 29, for " think and," read " think fit and." ,,228, 21, for "impossibility," read "possibility." I X UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 101 606 2