solid advantage and enjoyment, will seem to be derived or continued down together in the way of descent before mentioned, from a former paradisiacal state of existence. These are the better part of our present life; which it is our wisdom to cultivate by all means. Then comes a middle state, coming in with evil angels by the will of God; as it is written, " He sent evil angels among them " (Ps. lxxviii. 50); the old serpent, for one; when our modes became infected before they were applied to essentials; and men were evil before they were born, being shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin (Ib. li. 5), by evil modes spread all over the earth, to be subsequently embodied in evil men; both of which, v.g., evil modes and evil men, it is still our wisdom as well as duty to avoid.

For it is as possible for human as it is for vegetable productions to be infected in their principles: or disadvantages of station, local disadvantages, may hinder the development of a man's highest properties in life; as the spicy myrtles, the citrons, and the ROSES may be hindered in maturing their fine aroma and exhaling delicious perfumes by an unfavourable climate; or as the sacred breath by which man was originally ushered into life might pass over him again without producing any more response than a sandy desert will yield to the sweethunting zephyr: and other causes might still be suggested to account for the great disparity that certainly seems to exist among men in the present state, without recurring to a particular, perfect, distinct, or what for that class of beings would be called a personal pre-existence.

If, moreover, a personal pre-existence, as well as a preexistence of principles must be supposed; why not a pre-existence of things too, which are of natural production and of principles equally pre-existent; such as our rocks and fishes, trees, shrubs, and birds-why should not they also have a material pre-existence? As far as we can trace the pre-existence of those, it is, on the hypothesis

just advanced, through successive modes admirably developed by the special powers or spirits assigned them in creation for that purpose; the same modes and spirits being strictly allied through all nature in different degrees, and originally produced by one mode and one spirit. And what should hinder us from including man, also a natural production, in the germing chaos and general order of progressive increase? Why should man, of all creatures, be thought so very precocious as to exist in maturity for ages before he is born, or even become an embryo? It seems very unphilosophical, does the doctrine of such a perfect pre-existence; and certainly none can be more unscriptural: it does not accord with the first of Genesis and of St. John, to mention no farther authorities.

Knowing so little as we do of possibilities, it would not become us to deny the possibility of any thing; and particularly of the same personal modes which were assembled in chaos and developed in Paradise, having been identically developed before now with all their Paradisiacal and subsequent circumstances; ores for implements, and birds for food, and trees for shade: but this certainly cannot be esteemed so probable as, that after they shall have been disembodied, they may be reorganized with all their old essentials, and likewise with all or most of their present incidentals in a future state. For, as the power or spirit by which we live and consist is known to continue after dissolution, so may the word or mode originally appointed to it also be presumed to continue. But a posthumous existence and continual reappearance is a very different case from an eternal beginning; except by the One Word and Spirit, the beginning of which cannot be conceived: when, there being only one, of course the others could not be.

For even after a man has been born, and lived out his time in the world, and been "gathered to his fathers," he is not a person. If there be any intermediate state, like

Elysium or Tartarus, as poets feign, for the deceased, we should not call them Persons in such a state, but manes or remains, and ghosts or shades. It is only in a future state, when the dead shall rise again, "every man in his own order," that we can again call them Persons. And "Christ, the First fruits," if he had not risen in person, that is corporeally and entirely, would have been no more a person in his future than in his pre-existing state.

We should also be governed by what we read as well as by what may be reasoned or inferred, on this head. What is clearly revealed to us we may confidently believe; what, ambiguously, we may think of accordingly. The eternity of one Word and of one Spirit in unity, is clearly revealed, therefore we may confidently believe it: the several preexistence of other modes and spirits, such as are combined somehow in the present state, is also revealed, but ambiguously; ambiguously therefore, let us also receive it. But if there must needs be such a state as that of a full and perfect personal pre-existence, and nothing less will go down, judging from the analogy of faith, it would be much more reasonable to suppose likewise some constant recollection than a total or temporary oblivion of the same. Indeed it would be contrary even to nature, contrary to our experience of the present, as well as contrary to what we believe of the future, to think otherwise. For a future state will place the present in exactly the same position as that has placed the past in: what is present to the past will be past to the future when it shall be present; and if, as the apostle says, "when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" (Cor. I. xiii. 10), if we shall then have a full and distinct recollection of the present that now is, some partial recollection suited to its general incompetency at least might be expected in the present of a former state, supposing such a state to have been. On the other hand, assuming such a personal pre-existence to be for the main a needless and unwarrantable hypothesis, and even a several pre-existence of either element, that is, of

either matter or mode, soul or body, to be at least ambiguous; a pretended consciousness of either cannot certainly be entitled for the main to any higher credence; but must be reputed also ambiguous at least. The authority of revelation in not warranting either foundation forbids the superstructure of consciousness thereon. And as for the pretensions of some both to a personal pre-existence and a perfect consciousness of the same, and Who they were, and what befel them in that state; we must receive these as we should other unusual pretensions, with a mingled regard to the strangeness of the fact and of the evidence adduced in its support. The consciousness of such a state being certainly as unprecedented as the most unnatural occurrence that can be imagined, however it may happen by the state itself, would require the same quantum or proportion of evidence in order to belief. We ought not to believe such a pretension from any one who was not entitled to implicit credence for any assertion. At least it does not appear how a pre-existing person, whether of the natal, antenatal, or supramundane period or sphere, can be acknowledged on any other ground than that of implicit belief. For if he should tell us of events within the compass of human experience or invention, his consciousness of the same need not be supposed; and what more could he tell us, but unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (Cor. II. xii. 4), as being contrary to the order of nature? The pretensions of a wandering Jew would be as credible in this instance as the pretensions of the patriarch Zerib, or those of such a philosopher as Pythagoras.

2. Considering in a general way the relations of the present state, and understanding by life itself something more than a latent principle; v. g. the whole matter and mode or description of the subject whether latent or apparent, together with its affections and accidents; it may be observed, that different persons have had very different ideas of this combination as it appears at present, or of its present state or appearance; some accounting it a state of en

joyment; some a state of probation; some more rationally, a state of preparation; but others more truly and infallibly, following the light of Scripture, and looking also at the primitive order of life, a state of degradation and reparation-a state below that which was, and to be higher than that which is. To unassisted reason a state of preparation seems more probable than a state of reparation: and some may also think to deduce the same from Scripture; as particularly from that where St. Paul says, "Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, &c." (Cor. I. xv. 46). But the apostle evidently means, first in this life, and not in the whole being of the subject-in its combination and development, not in its principles or elements. For supposing the natural or material first in creation, neither St. Paul nor any one else could ever mean to deny that which is spiritual to have been in fact long before; considering what the divine nature is from which all things proceed. But whether we understand a state of preparation or of reparation in the present, it ought in either case to be a state of improvement.

When the repairing of a subject or a state of reparation for the same is mentioned, it must needs be with reference to a more perfect state existing at some particular period; as here, e. g. the period proceeding from creation, the first from its combined or corporeal existence, and generally designated as the state of Paradise. And if one should go to draw a general comparison between the present life and that, such comparison must necessarily fail for want of data. The panegyrists of the present order of things do not detract, by their eulogiums on this, from the beauty of the original order, which is past, but rather exalt the same. For if so much beauty and decorum be still discernible in the world, both natural and moral, notwithstanding its complete overthrow and consequent decline, what must the same have been before in its perfection. If the stones and disorderly rubbish of this sublime structure be worth regarding,