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were destined to struggle with hardships, and to overcome evil by good. And it also entirely coincides with our conjecture respecting the nature of those difficulties with which he was ordained to cope, by expressly declaring his fall to have been occasioned through want of maintaining a successful combat with undue affections; and that he, instead of persevering in that love, gratitude, and obedience to his adorable Creator, which his great and elevated station in the scale of existence demanded from him, was, by cherishing a too high estimation of his own excellences and advantages, led to rebel against the donor of them for pride was the condemnation of the devil. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! (Isa. xiv. 12.)

Should our readers be equally convinced with ourselves of the indispensable necessity of those permitted evils that serve to constitute probationary states, and of the absolute requisition of such states as parents of extreme felicity, they will with us adore the wisdom and goodness that has appointed them. Because there are persons, and it is to be feared many, on our small globe, who prefer vice to virtue, fitting (as the margin expresses it) themselves for destruction, by continually opposing that law which God has written in their hearts; because there are other beings in the universe, who have revolted from virtue and obedience to their great Benefactor, and embraced a positive misery;-are its unnumbered inhabitants to be consigned to a negative happiness, and the ecstatic bliss of millions to be

curtailed? That would be inconsistent with the goodness of our beneficent Creator, who kindly ordains the perfection of our virtue, as well as of our happiness, to consist in making virtue our choice; and the perfection of our wisdom to consist in discerning betwixt good and evil. Therefore,

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CHAPTER III.

HAVING now offered these very brief observations on the fall of those once glorious beings, whose distinguished rank in the universe has been already appreciated by a former quotation:* which, at the same time, elucidates (if our suppositions were just as to the extraordinary endowments with which the highest orders of created beings were probably gifted) how the leader of these infernal hierarchies became possessed of those wonderful faculties, without which he could not have been capacitated for his evil enterprizes; we must request our readers to recollect that our independent supposition on this subject resulted from contemplating the endless variety (though general analogy) pervading the appearance and character-the moral and intellectual gifts which are exhibited on the theatre of our small globe. And we shall now, by pursuing our former argument, endeavour more fully to demonstrate its justness; for if, among its occupiers, the great Proprietor evinces so wonderful a distinction, as we find by perusing those pages

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, &c. (Eph. vi. 12.)

wherein a Locke, a Newton, and a Johnson, have compressed the result of their surpassing intellects, and comparing their highly illuminated minds with those faint glimmerings of reason which do but just advance the sense of some from out our mortal race above the instinctive knowledge possessed by the animal creation; thereby beholding the grand all-wise distributor of talents dealing them on our earth in the widely different proportion of that of one to ten-delineating, through the intermediate chain which joins these varied gifts, and raises man o'er man, an infinite diversity of mental shades, capacities, and powers, as well as of degrees in station and in rank;-observing, likewise, the gradual steps which mark the progress of the vegetable tribes, uniting some of their higher classes, the catch-fly and sensitive plants, unto the scarcely animated shell-fish that cleaveth to the rocks; and from the dawn of instinct in these lowest creatures trace its ascent through fishes, birds, and beasts, till it assumes those faculties which nearly resemble reason, and form the link with man -then lift our eyes unto the volume of magnificence which night unfolds to view; the glorious hosts of heaven, shining in solemn, silent splendour, more for the illumination of our minds than the lightening of our paths;-and we again perceive the operations of that same unvarying hand, displaying like regular succession, from orbs of least dimension to those of fullest magnitude; ordaining that one star should differ from another star in glory. (1 Cor. xv. 44.) Are we not, there

fore, led most justly to conclude, that throughout the countless myriads of their inhabitants, the unerring mind distributeth his various gifts, capacities, and powers, in like regular succession, and that the noblest ranks of these in moral excellence do form a further link with the superior beings who dwell in higher heavens? And, as man's reason, in its weakest state, but joins the chain with instinct, it has, we think, with fairness been inferred, that the endowments with which the highest orders of intelligents have severally been gifted, do, when advanced to their most exalted pitch, as far transcend the strongest intellect with which man is endued, as does this intellect surpass in power the feeblest instinct of the meanest creature.

It has been already remarked that the manner in which we discover the moral perfections of God, is from observation on the nature of those amiable qualities which we most esteem in ourselves or fellow-creatures; and that we do hereby rationally conclude, that in the Deity must be concentrated every virtue in full perfection, (all virtue being an emanation from that God whom Scripture asserts to be perfect,) which, in an imperfect degree, we so much estimate in created beings. By the same deductions, therefore, which enable us to attain a just knowledge of his moral perfections, we may, with equal certainty, form our judgment respecting his other attributes; (He being the fountain from whence all wisdom flows;) and, consequently, as to the nature of those qualifications which are bestowed on subor

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