habit the visible heavens. For when it is said Job xxxviii. 7. that they shouted for joy before God at the creation, it proves rather that they were then already in existence, than that they were then first created. Many at least of the Greek, and some of the Latin Fathers, are of opinion that angels, as being spirits, must have existed long before the material world;* and it seems even probable, that the apostasy which caused the expulsion of so many thousands from heaven, took place before the foundations of this world were laid. Certainly there is no sufficient foundation for the common opinion, that motion and time (which is the measure of motion) could not, according to the ratio of priority and subsequence, have existed before this world was made; since Aristotle, who teaches that no ideas of motion and time can be formed except in reference to this world, nevertheless pronounces the world itself to be eternal.5 Angels are spirits, Matt. viii. 16. and xii. 45. inasmuch as a legion of devils is represented as having taken possession of one man, Luke viii. 30. Heb. i. 14. " ministering spirits." They are of ethereal nature, 1 Kings xxii. 21. Psal. civ. 4. Plures e patribus Christianis angelos extitisse ante terram, vel ante mundum Mosaicum, per ignota nobis sæcula, statuerunt; aliqui etiam cœlos supremos, vel cœlum empyreum. Sed de angelis constantior est et a pluribus celebrata sententia. Ut mittam Origenem, hoc Sanctus Basilius in Hexaemero, Chrysostomus πρὸς τοὺς σκανδαλισθέντας, c. 7. πολλῳ Taurηs Tйs KTίoews πрeoßúтeрot, &c. Gregorius Nazianzemus Orat. 38. et alibi, Johannes Damascenus 1. ii. Orth. Fid. c. 3. Joh. Philoponus De Creatione Mundi, 1. i. c. 10. Olympiodorus in Job xxxviii. aliique e Græcis docuere. E Latinis etiam non pauci eidem sententiæ adhæserunt. Hilarius, 1. xii. De Trinitate; Hieronymus, Ambrosius in Hexaëmero, l. i. c. 5. Isidorus Hispalensis, Beda, aliique.' T. Burnet. Archæol. Philos. 1. ii. c. 8. It is observable that Milton had indirectly declared himself to have believed in the pre-existence of angels in the Paradise Lost, where he represents Uriel to have been present at the creation of the visible world, and puts into his mouth the beautiful description quoted in a preceding page,' I saw when at his word the formless mass,' &c. 5 See Aristot. Natural Auscult. lib. viii. cap. 1. In reference to this, Milton says elsewhere: .Time, though in eternity, applied Paradise Lost, V. 580. 6 Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, 499. compared with Matt. viii. 31. Heb. i. 7. “as lightning," Ezek. i. 6. Rev. v. 11. 12. In number Created in John viii. perfect holiness and righteousness; Luke ix. 26. 999 Rev. xii. 7. And when Satan receives his wound from Michael, Not long divisible. Paradise Lost, VI. 330. 1. 752. 7 Meanwhile the winged heralds, by command Of sovran pow'r-. 8 I came among the sons of God, when he Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job. Paradise Regained, I. 368. 9 Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, Yet dazzle heav'n, that brightest Seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. Paradise Lost, III. 380. 1 'Yea the angels themselves, in whom no disorder is feared, as the the apostle's reprehension, Col. ii. 18. "intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." THE VISIBLE CREATION comprises the material universe, and all that is contained therein; and more especially the human race. The creation of the world in general, and of its individual parts, is related Gen. i. It is also described Job xxvi. 7, &c. and xxxviii. and in various passages of the Psalms and Prophets. Psal. xxxiii. 6—9. civ. cxlviii. 5. Prov. viii. 26, &c. Amos iv. 13. 2 Pet. iii. 5. Previously, however, to the creation of man, as if to intimate the superior importance of the work, the Deity speaks like to a man deliberating: Gen. i. 26. "God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness." So that it was not the body alone that was then made, but the soul of man also (in which our likeness to God principally consists); which precludes us from attributing pre-existence to the soul which was then formed,-a groundless notion sometimes entertained, but refuted by Gen. ii. 7. "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; thus man became a living soul." Job xxxii. 8. "there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Nor did God merely breathe that spirit into man, but moulded it in each individual, and infused it throughout, enduing and embellishing it with its proper faculties. Zech. xii. 1. "he formeth the spirit of man within him.” 3 We may understand from other passages of Scripture, that when God infused the breath of life into man, what man thereby received was not a portion of God's essence, or a participation of the divine nature, but that measure of the divine virtue or influence, which was commensurate to the capabilities of the recipient. For it appears from Psal. civ. 29, 30. that 2 'It is not good. God here presents himself like to a man deliberating; both to show us that the matter is of high consequence,' &c. Tetrachordon. Prose Works, III. 329. 4 3 Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man Which God inspir'd-. Paradise Lost, X. 784. ♦ ‘Unde a quibusdam dicitur, particula auræ divinæ, Horat. II. Sat. ij. quod non reprehendo, modo bene intelligatur non quasi a Dei essentia, tanquam ejus pars, avulsa fuisset; sed quod ineffabili quodam modo pro. fluere eam ex se fecerit.' Curcellæi Institutio, III. 7. he infused the breath of life into other living beings also ;- Man having been created after this manner, it is said, as a 5 He form'd thee, Adam, thee, O man. Express, and thou becam'st a living soul. 6 See Beza's version in loc. vivens.' Paradise Lost, VII. 523. Factus est prior homo Adamus animal when God said, VII. 450. Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind. assigned in common to the soul: the touch, Lev. v. 2, &c. "if a soul touch any unclean thing," the act of eating, vii. 18. "the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity;" v. 20. "the soul that eateth of the flesh," and in other places:hunger, Prov. xiii. 25. xxvii. 7.-thirst, xxv. 25. “ waters to a thirsty soul." Isai. xxix. 8.-capture, 1 Sam. xxiv. 11. "thou huntest my soul to take it." Psal. vii, 5. "let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it." as cold Where, however, we speak of the body as of a mere senseless stock, there the soul must be understood as signifying either the spirit, or its secondary faculties, the vital or sensitive faculty for instance. Thus it is as often distinguished from the spirit, as from the body itself. Luke i. 46, 47. 1 Thess. v. 23. " your whole spirit and soul and body." Heb. iv. 12. "to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." But that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the doctrine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason, as will be shewn more fully hereafter. For the word soul is also applied to every kind of living being; Gen. i. 30. "to every beast of the earth," &c. "wherein there is life (anima vivens, Tremell.) vii. 22. "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died;" yet it is never inferred from these expressions that the soul exists separate from the body in any of the brute creation. On the seventh day, God ceased from his work, and ended the whole business of creation: Gen. ii. 2, 3. It would seem, therefore, that the human soul is not created daily by the immediate act of God, but propagated from father to son in a natural order; which was considered as the more speak, he keeps closely to Scripture. Now what we render living creature (Gen. i. 24.) is living soul in the Hebrew, which Milton usually follows rather than our translation.' 7 The question which Milton now begins to discuss, is thus stated by Fiddes in his Body of Divinity, Book iii. Part I. Whether they were all created at once, in order to be united to certain bodies which should be prepared afterwards in convenient time for their reception; or whether they are created at the instant when the bodies they are to inform are fit to receive them,are questions which have been much controverted But the arguments which have been produced for the pre-existence of souls appear to be more specious, and in the opinion of some of the |