All thefe difficulties might be removed, by receiving the doctrine of the pre-existence of fouls; for we fhould not then be under the neceffity to fuppofe, that the evil propenfities that prove fometimes too ftrong for the best education and example to overcome, which even refifts the Spirit of God and abuses his grace, originate from the forming hand of God, but from a depravity contracted in a former state. Neither would we be obliged to fuppofe that the depravity and confequent mifery that all the children of men are more or lefs involved in, before their own actions in this world could procure fuch a state, is owing wholly to an offence in which they had no hand; but that it is owing primarily and chiefly, to a misconduct of their own in a pre-existent state; and this, hypothefis might alfo account for all the different degrees of depravity that appear among the children of men, upon the first openings of their intelligent and active powers.

The doctrine of the pre-existence of fouls is *indeed faid to have been condemned by a general council, who were commanded by the Emperor Juftinian to do it, about the middle of the fixth century; and among the articles of faith that have been framed by the church, that of the continued creation of fouls is therefore one. But however firmly many may believe the doctrine of the continued creation of fouls, upon the pretended infallible decifion of the church of Rome; yet the express testimony of fcripture, as well as the general opinion of antiquity,

For befides what has

tiquity is against it. been taken notice of, the fcriptures affirm that all the fouls of Jacob's children and grand-children that went down to Egypt with him, came out of his loins; (Gen. xlvi. 26.) but this could not be true if their fouls exifted not till they were conceived by their mothers. It is alfo faid of Levi, that he was in the loins of Abraham when he was met by Melchifedec (Heb. vii. 10.) fo that he must have existed before he was conceived in his mother's womb. It is likewise affirmed, that in fix days the Lord made heaven and earth, the fea, and all that in them is, (Exod. xx. 11.) which would likewife be false, if all the souls of Adam's pofterity that are or have been on the earth have been created fince. Here we have the concurrence of three testimonies, in favour of the existence of the foul before the body is formed in the womb, any one of which is furely of more authority than the decifion of any general council of men endued with no extraordinary inspiration; how ftrange is it then, that the decifion of all the three, with a great deal of other concurring evidence, fhould be reverfed by any who acknowledge the divine authority of the fcriptures; and stranger still, that Proteftants, upon the authority of a church, which they maintain has corrupted the doctrines and ordinances of the gofpel, fhould reject a doctrine fo clearly held in fcripture; and by all antiquity. See more on this subject, in A Difcourfe on Religion addreffed by the author to all his children after

1

his death. Edinburgh printed 1762, page 85

-121.

It will perhaps be alledged that one of the above testimonies is as much against the existence of fouls before the formation of Adam, as their being created after the formation of their bodies; for fince the creation of all things is confined to the fix days, they could have no existence in any state before thefe days began.

In anfwer to this it may be obferved,

First, that Adam was not formed till the laft of the fix days; and if the creation of the heavens and the earth, mentioned Gen. i. 1. be included in the firft of thefe days, all intelligent beings might be created in the beginning of that day, after the creation of the heavens and the earth, and fome of them might fin on that, or fome of the fucceeding days, before the formation of Adam. It is certain that the angels who finned by not keeping their first estate, mentioned by Peter and Jude, must have finned after they were created; and it is more. than probable they finned before the ferpent beguiled Eve. If therefore they were created within the space of the fix days, they behove to have finned within that time alfo; and why might not human fpirits, through their feduction, or otherwise, fin in the fame time alfo, before Adam was formed of the duft of the ground? But,

Second, If the fix days only relate to the bringing of this earth, or the folar fyftem, from a chaos to a state of order, and conftituting the

forms

forms of all the animals and vegetables that were to live or grow upon the earth; then the beginning, in which God is faid to have created the heavens and the earth, may refer to a more diftant point of duration. This idea seems to be favoured by the different words ufed by Mofes, Gen. i. r. and Exod. xx. 11. In the first he ufes the word 2 which generally fignifies, to create, or bring into exiftence what did not exist before, though it fometimes fignifies to form anew of pre-exiftent matter; but in the laft he ufes the word, nwy which fignifies to caufe a thing to exist in a form or condition different from what it was in before.' When Mofes relates God's refting from all his work on the feventh day, Gen. ii. 3. he uses the fame word that he ufes for the works from which men are to reft, Exod. xx. 9, 10. from which it would alfo feem moft native to conclude, that the works which God was employed in during the fix days, and from which he refted on the feventh, was the arranging and conftituting all the various parts of this fyftem, for the production of whatever has been, or will be produced therein. Dr Priestley fays, (Difq. on Matter and Spirit, p. 200, 2d edition,) That excellent philofopher, Mr Bonnet, fuppofes (and advances a variety of arguments from new and curious experiments on the reproduction of the parts of animals to prove) that all the germs of future plants, organical bodies • of all kinds, and the reproducible parts of them, were really contained in the first germ;

.

and

and though the confideration confounds us "when we contemplate it, we are not more • confounded than in the contemplation of other views of the fyftem of which we make a part, and the thing is no more incompa tible with our idea of its author. Those who laugh at the mere mention of fuch a thing, have certainly a small share of natural science, which indeed generally accompanies conceit and dogmatifm.' With this the account that Mofes gives of the generation of the heavens and the earth feems perfectly to agree, for he informs us that the Lord God made not only the heavens and the earth, but also every plant before it was in the earth. Gen. ii.

Where then will be the impropriety of fuppofing, that when God first created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, all was regular and glorious in the material, and all was light and love in the moral fyftem, and that this ftate of glory and happiness continued through the whole creation, till a defection took place among fome of the intelligent creatures? What the particular circumftances of intelligent creatures were in this primitive ftate, or how long it continued, we are not informed by the fcriptures of truth; but as thefe fcriptures inform us that God is not the author of confufion, (1 Cor. xiv. 33.) that he is light, and in him is no dorkness at all, (1 John i. 5. we have every reafon to conclude that a confufed and dark chaos could not be the ftate of this world when it came first from the forming hand of that