solence that is naturally produced by success like that with which it has been favoured in the material departments of science. Indeed men are all too apt to undervalue each other's pursuits, and to pique themselves too much on their own. The material sciences have generally kept before the spiritual, but more especially of late: no wonder therefore, if they who excel in those sciences should conclude more hastily than becomes either the importance of the subject or their own weight and talents against the study of this. As for the scepticism of vicious and ignorant people, it is no more to be accounted of than their pretended belief: but it seems a pity that persons holding a higher degree in intellect should ever be so overseen as they are in this matter. Seeing it is a matter on which wise men differ, and ignorant as well,—may it not strike objectors, of the former sort, that the judgment of an ignorant man against established opinions flowing only from an ignorant heart, cannot be the sanction to his enlightened consentients, that the judgment of another equally ignorant flowing from an immemorial and almost universal tradition, would be for them to his! "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace" (Cor. I. xiv. 33); if they can think his authority of any weight, or the blessing of peace worth regarding.

And if we were to draw out the aforesaid authority at length, we should find an abundance of the same expressly delivered in the oldest record that we have, and confirmed in the most authentic; being the books of the Old and New Testament: but the most convincing part of it is that implicit kind which proves a fact without mention, and as it were unintentionally; because the appearance of a fraudulent purpose must be wanting where there is no appearance of any object. Thus immediately upon the fall of man his divine Creator is represented as addressing the heavenly host respecting that dismal occurrence : "And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us" (Gen. iii. 22). And not long after the divine Being is again implicitly represented as descending with an heavenly retinue

from the realms of bliss, to observe and restrain the overflowings of human ambition; which had soon resumed its wonted impetuosity after the check and punishment so lately received in the wreck of the earth, and previously also in the loss of paradise. "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said; Behold the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they have begun to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech" (Ib. xi. 5-7). And then follows as direct an implication, as can well be conceived of the divine Unity in multiplicity: "SO THE LORD (to wit by his heavenly angels or agents, like the guards that he placed on Paradise) scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the whole earth; and they left off to build the city" (Ib. 8).

The scene of the Lord descending from the realms of bliss as here represented is in perfect accordance with the manner of a royal progress or visitation, and its notice. For the suite of a monarch is not usually mentioned on such occasions, though he seldom goes, and never in progress unattended. Neither indeed does a monarch often proceed in person to the theatre of operation: the more usual mode being to dispatch his servants where they may be wanted, whether to examine and report the state of affairs, or to put his designs in execution after the royal determination made thereupon,-if it be always considered as his doing. And so much is likewise intimated in Scripture by the expression of God's hearing how matters may stand at any time here below, whether in the general relations of mankind, or in those between particular nations, or even in the relations of private families,-as for example, where he is said to have heard first of Leah's unmerited neglect (Gen. xxix. 33); which was a wonder for Jacob: and 2dly, where he is said to have heard in the sequel of the idolatry and in

gratitude of Jacob's posterity after they had become a prosperous nation through his kind providence. "For they grieved him with their hill altars: and provoked him to displeasure with their images. When God heard this, he was wroth: and took sore displeasure at Israel" (Ps. lxxviii. 59, 60). And examples enough there are of this kind, which it would be premature to mention.

But the authority of divine revelation being as much questioned in these unhappy times as the existence of angels itself, a reason or two for understanding such an existence may signify more with such a generation than an authority that is infinitely superior to the reason that men have. In the first place then; if we did not know, that there were such beings as angels, we should think, that there was occasion enough for them: not because the Creator could not dispense with their services, -for God knows perhaps, that they are as little help to him as we; but because his bounty would want objects, more likely, without them, and his work that amplitude in its highest quarter, which is observed in every part below. For whatever God does, he does by ways and means, beginning with his creative Word, even by means of Himself as aforesaid: and though other means cannot be required, yet we know that he employs them in endless variety, and almost in an endless succession; as in the course of nature, one individual to be parent to another, and one natural kingdom or species to be food to another: while in the order of his moral providence one class of men is ordained continually for the benefit and protection of another, from the monarch on his throne, to the shepherd in his flock. And as in the course of nature every inferior creature is exalted through its assimilation by a superior, and in the order of providence through its care and government; while the being of the superior is kept up and its perfection enhanced on the other hand by its good offices towards the inferior and its use of the same so far as we are able to observe, whether is it more reasonable to suppose, that

this reciprocity ends with the human race ascending, or that the climax is continued beyond it? Is man a fit subject to take on immediately after divinity? Without being of the number of those who delight in vilifying their own species, one might think that there was room for some degrees between that species and the author of the same.

This then may be mentioned as one reason for supposing the existence of angels or intermediate beings, namely the room there appears for them in the great universe: while another reason is found in the place they really seem to occupy in our "little world;" to judge from the irregularity and inequality of its spiritual and intellectual powers or constituents, which is so great that the same man does not always seem like the same person to himself, and still less so to others. For he is (as they say) one while as bright as an angel, another while as stupid as a beast; one while confident in himself and useful, another while as perplexed and perplexing: which is enough to make a man wonder at himself; and he cannot imagine, how or whence these vicissitudes may arise.

But this shall be done for him: his unlucky genius here steps in again and artfully suggests the lowest of the three internal chieftains, namely of the intellectual, spiritual and material before mentioned; the others being too refined for the age, and also likely enough to betray him in favour of the Grand Subjective. Hence a wasting, deficiency, or derangement in the material department is to account for any irregularity in the spiritual and intellectual: or if not these, then causes still more foreign to the subject; as the atmosphere, the moon, the man's dress and diet; or perhaps some more extraneous circumstance, as favour, fortune, example or the like operating on the man's spirits and intellects; but at any rate some cause or other within the control of the enemy, as being "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. ii. 2) and a great dispenser of worldly preferment (Matt. iv. 9): which is in fact like proposing himself. And that much depends on these things as instru

ments, is indubitable, but not enough to sanction the doctrine of materialism which he labours to establish: that while he, the arch-fiend, a spirit himself, a most effective and unfortunately triumphant spirit, bears down upon the inner man and like a raging storm, sweep all before him, his credulous victims may be led to believe that all is well,-no danger, no wreck, "no resurrection; neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts xxiii. 8): no good angel anywhere, to protect them against the machinations of the wicked; no wicked angel, to seduce them from the protection of the good.

It is therefore much to be regretted that either the old tainted spirit of Sadduceeism or any modern improvement thereon like the spirit of materialism, or else mere wantonness and ignorance which both are and are likely enough to continue ever far from improvement, should be allowed to indispose us towards a doctrine or subject so fully entitled to our serious consideration.

The more cool and calculating of those who object to the doctrine may do it from a persuasion, that our material structure and action is always and indispensably necessary to the spiritual and intellectual, so that it cannot be dispensed with under any circumstances. For being misled by a little knowledge which some, fortunately for them perhaps, have not, they consider it an absurdity, to talk of a spiritual and intellectual existence independent of the material. They are wise enough to know, that men hear with their ears, and see with their eyes; and thence have concluded, that it is not possible to see or hear without them: and, if not to see or hear, then, consequently, not to know any thing, since these two are the principal avenues of knowledge. But some of these vain philosophers do not perceive perhaps what would be the next inference in this line. For if there be no seeing without eyes, nor hearing without ears, nor understanding without either hearing or seeing, it must follow next, that either 1 there can be no Creator and Governor of the universe, or 2 he goes about with ears and eyes as we do, or 3 he is more deaf, blind