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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
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future.

Paradise Lost, V. 580.

6 Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend
Ethereal as we.

499.

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compared with Matt. viii. 31. Heb. i. 7. “as lightning,"
Luke x. 18. whence also they are called Seraphim. Immortal,
Luke xx. 36. "neither can they die any more. Excellent
in wisdom; 2 Sam. xiv. 20. Most powerful in strength;
Psal. ciii. 20. 2 Pet. ii. 11. 2 Kings xix. 35. 2 Thess. i. 7.
Endued with the greatest swiftness, which is figuratively de-
noted by the attribute of wings;
almost infinite; Deut. xxxiii. 2.
Matt. xxvi. 53. Heb. xii. 22.

Ezek. i. 6.
Job xxv. 3.

Rev. v. 11. 12.

In number
Dan. vii. 10.

Created in

John viii.
ministers of

perfect holiness and righteousness; Luke ix. 26.
44. 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15. "angels of light..
righteousness." Matt. vi. 10. "thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven." xxv. 31. "holy angels." Hence they are
also called sons of God," Job i. 6. and xxxviii. 7. Dan. iii. 25.
compared with v. 28. and even Gods, Psal. viii. 5. xcvii. 7.
But they are not to be compared with God; Job iv. 18. “his
angels he charged with folly." xv. 15. "the heavens are not
clean in his sight." xxv. 5. “ yea, the stars are not pure in
his sight.'
Isai. vi. 2. "with two wings he covered his face."
They are distinguished one from another by offices and de-
grees; Matt. xxv. 41. Rom. viii. 38. Col. i. 16. Eph. i.
21. and iii. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 22. Rev. xii. 7. Cherubim, Gen.
iii. 24. Seraphim, Isai. vi. 2. and by proper names; Dan.
viii. 16. ix. 21. x. 13. Luke i. 19. Michael, Jude 9.

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Rev.

xii. 7.
1 Thess. iv. 16. "with the voice of the Archangel."
Josh. v. 14. See more on this subject in the ninth chapter.
To push our speculations further on this subject, is to incur

And when Satan receives his wound from Michael,
th' ethereal substance clos'd,

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
apostle that saw them in his rapture describes, are distinguished and qua-
ternioned into their celestial princedoms and satrapies, according as God
himself has writ his imperial decrees through the great provinces of heaven.'
Reason of Church Government, &c. Prose Works, II. 442.

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.”

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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.

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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 ;-
"thou takest away their breath, they die.... thou sendest
forth thy spirit, they are created;" whence we learn that
every living thing receives animation from one and the same
source of life and breath; inasmuch as when God takes back
to himself that spirit or breath of life, they cease to exist.
Eccles. iii. 19. "they have all one breath." Nor has the
word spirit any other meaning in the sacred writings, but that
breath of life which we inspire, or the vital, or sensitive, or
rational faculty, or some action or affection belonging to those
faculties.

Man having been created after this manner, it is said, as a
consequence, that man became a living soul, whence it may
be inferred (unless we had rather take the heathen writers for
our teachers respecting the nature of the soul) that man is a
living being, intrinsically and properly one and individual,
not compound or separable, not, according to the common
opinion, made up and framed of two distinct and different
natures, as of soul and body,—but that the whole man is soul,
and the soul man, that is to say, a body, or substance indi-
vidual, animated, sensitive, and rational; and that the breath
of life was neither a part of the divine essence, nor the soul
itself, but as it were an inspiration of some divine virtue fitted
for the exercise of life and reason, and infused into the organic
body; for man himself, the whole man, when finally created,
is called in express terms a living soul. Hence the word used
in Genesis to signify soul, is interpreted by the apostle, 1 Cor.
XV. 45.
"animal." Again, all the attributes of the body are

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He form'd thee, Adam, thee, O man.
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd
The breath of life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God

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.
in which passage the original reading, even in the copies corrected by
Milton, was fowl instead of soul. Dr. Newton agrees with Bentley,
Pearce, and Richardson, in preferring soul, and gives the following reason:
We have observed before, that when Milton makes the Divine Person

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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.'

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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

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