CONCLUSION.

Having thus completed what was originally intended, I might now bring the essay to a close, did not two or three points, intimately connected with the subject of which I have been treating, seem to demand a little passing notice.

It may be alleged, that "the scope and tendency of the preceding statements and reasonings is to do away with the existence of evil spirits altogether; and, indeed, with all such beings as are commonly denominated Angels." To this I reply, that, in nothing advanced or insisted on by me, has it been my intention to say a single word which could be so construed as to imply a limitation of the divine power and sovereignty. I firmly believe, taught by the scriptures themselves, that God may, whenever and in whatever way He pleases, create any intelligent being or order of intelligent beings, whether good or evil, and employ them in the execution of His purposes, whatever these may be. The man who after perusing the foregoing work has not perceived my belief in the doctrine of the existence of angels there expressed, as well as numerous hints of what I conceive these superior intelligences to be, has, I am sorry to say, read it to very little purpose.* At the same time,

* Do not believers of the truth, as possessed of immortal principle and as consequently surviving the stroke of natural death, constitute the glorious and ever-increasing company of the angelic hosts? Compare Matthew xxii. 30-32, and the parallel passage in Luke, with Hebrews xii. 22, 23.

I certainly deny, and that without the slightest vestige of doubt or hesitation, that it is possible for God to invest a wicked being as such, or the acts of a wicked being, with his own essential attributes and perfections; such as infinity, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence and this simply, because His so doing would be inconsistent with His revealed character.*

It may be alleged farther, that, "according to the views advanced and insisted on throughout the preceding part of the essay, the future life is not properly speaking a resurrection, but a new creation." This, so far from constituting a valid objection to my theory, is, in reality, one of its strongest recommendations. For the future state of existence is represented in scripture as both. To illustrate what I mean, be it observed, that the existence of intelligent beings hereafter may be viewed under two distinct aspects: first, as the resumption of their bodies by those who had previously laid them down; secondly, as the possession of the divine nature by that which had previously been possessed of human nature only. Viewed in the former light,

* Although it must be apparent to those who have studied the writings of Baron Swedenborg and his followers, that my sentiments are very far indeed from quadrating with theirs, I am nevertheless free to admit, that, in regard to the angelic intelligences and some kindred topics, I have derived many valuable views and suggestions from the perusal of Swedenborg's treatise De coelo et de inferno, and Hindmarsh's letters to Priestley, the only two leading works of the sect, excepting Noble's Appeal, and D. G. Goyder's two discourses, with which I am at present acquainted. One of the grand defects of the New Jerusalem scheme, -a defect which it shares in common with many others, is its investing sin, which is merely a negative or privative, with eternal existence and other qualities which can belong only to a positive.

those who enjoy eternal life have risen again; viewed in the latter, they have been created anew. The bodies with which they live hereafter, being bodies in which they had lived while here, they are said to have risen again; but the bodies with which they live hereafter having undergone a complete transformation, and being thereby possessed of qualities essentially different from those which distinguish them here, they are also said to have been created anew. Thus a system which represents intelligent beings as rising again, by means of being created anew, possesses the advantage of coinciding both with scripture and fact.-That the explanation just given is no fetch or quirk of my own, had recourse to merely for the purpose of getting rid of a difficulty, is obvious from this, that scripture, speaking of the minds of believers, represents them sometimes as risen with Christ, sometimes as created anew in him; and, speaking of their bodies, represents them, sometimes as rising again, and sometimes as being quickened, fashioned, or created, anew.-Besides, there is a very curious scriptural fact, connected with the present subject, which I cannot help adverting to. It is this: that a resurrection is much more frequently predicated concerning believers than unbelievers. In the fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians from verse 35th to the end, and in the 4th chapter of 1st Thessalonians from verse 13th to the end, the inspired writer treats of the resurrection of believers only, whom he divides into two classes: those who die previous to a certain event, and those who are preserved alive until it takes place. Now how is this exclusiveness

to be accounted for? Why, upon principles the most obvious. Believers here have the first fruits of the same divine nature which they are to enjoy thoroughly hereafter; whereas unbelievers have upon earth nothing but human nature. This being the case, a moment's consideration shews us that, although there is a sense in which both rise again and in which both are created anew, yet a resurrection is more properly the fate of him who lives hereafter with a nature possessed by him partially even here; and new creation is more fitly applied to him who becomes possessed of properties and qualities hereafter totally different from those which he possessed while upon earth.

It might be deemed an unwarrantable piece of neglect on my part, were I not to take some notice, in connection with the subject of which I have been treating, of the doctrine of the second coming of the Lord Jesus. The period when this event typically happened has been but rarely understood. Notwithstanding our Lord's oft-repeated warning, Behold I come quickly, and his numerous exhortations to his followers, to be prepared for his approach, they did not watch; the son of man came as a thief in the night, and his coming was not perceived. The professed disciples of Jesus, ignorant of these important facts, that the end of the world signifies, taken literally, the end of the Mosaic economy; Hebrews ix. 26; and that Christ's design was, at his literal second coming, to set aside that economy visibly and entirely, and thereby to take to himself his great power and reign; have feigned to themselves the notion,