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Rev.

heaven, Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

12. 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.

13. 6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name,

and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

16. 8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun.

19. 17. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice,

saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come unto the sup

per of the Great God.

20. 11. And I saw a great white throne, and

him that sat on it, from whose face

the earth and the heaven fled away;

and there was found no place for them.

21. 1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the

first earth were passed away; and

there was no more sea.

22. 5. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light

of the sun; for the Lord God giveth

them light and they shall reign for

ever and ever.

Rev. 22. 16. I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning

star.

Let me entreat you, Theophila, not to pass to the second question, before you have, in a manner, prepared yourself to it, by reflecting seriously on all the verses which I have quoted; and before you have tried to find out what may be the earth, the world, and the heaven alluded to in them. Should my opinion respecting them seem to you to accord with yours, it might be a kind of satisfaction for you. If, on the contrary, we should disagree totally, it might prevent you from being misled by me. For you know that I wish that you should not be brought into any error that might hurt you.

ON THE SECOND QUESTION.

Admitting that in some places the Sacred History speaks of another Earth than this, what is that unknown Earth?

Permit me, Theophila, to suppose that you have me. ditated on the verses which I have quoted respecting the first question, to show you the possibility and the probability that in some places the Holy Writ alludes to an earth different from this; and let me hope that you have endeavoured to find out what it can be. In case you should like to know what I myself understand by the word earth in the Scriptures, I am going to lay it before you: regretting that I am not able to satisfy you as much as I wish, and requesting of you not to consider what I shall say as a true explanation; but to take it, until you have inquired into it, only as a notion of mine, likely enough to be erroneous; as it may be doubted whether I have understood correctly the high information with which I have been favoured on the subject, and on which rest my present ideas.

This is the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Zechariah :

1

"The burden of the Word of the Lord for Israel, "which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the "foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man " within him."

Were I to understand the heavens in that verse, as places created in the immensity of space, having in their substance some similarity with that of this earth, and the earth as the one we walk upon, I should not conceive how the Word of the Lord could form the spirit of man with the matter of such heavens and of this earth: not that I deny that the Almighty may give mental and moral faculties to the substance of such heavens and of this earth, but because, as far as I have heard of the properties and qualities which He has given to the visible matter, they seem to me quite of a different nature from those of the invisible spirit: I mean invisible to our external eyes. Should you be of opinion that the heavens and the earth that are mentioned in that verse have no reference to the formation of the spirit, I should beg leave to dissent with you; as it cannot enter into my mind that in any verse the Scripture speaks of two things unconnected together. Since it has been given by the inspiration of God, I think myself bounden to believe that in every part of it there is an admirable link and consistency, from one end to the other. I find then myself in the necessity of forgetting this earth, and of searching what can be the Scriptural one, out of which the spirit of man is partly formed within him, and on which I am going to give you my opinion, before speaking of the heavens that correspond with it.

In Zechariah, 6. 5. I see the words spirits of the

heavens, and in 1 Corinthians, 2. 12. I read the spirit of the world. From those words I apprehend that it is in stretching forth in man the spirits of the heavens, and by laying in his heart the foundation of the spirit of the world, (which, as I have said, I take for the same thing as the earth, in the language of the Bible,) that the Word of the Lord formeth the spirit within him: which spirit appears then to me to be composed of two distinct parts, or spirits, or minds, a heavenly one, and a worldly one; as it were a double spirit, which I understood to be the man, male and female, in Genesis, 1. 27, the inner man, or the soul, which I consider as being formed and partaking of both the spiritual mind and the human mind, more or less united together; of both the heavenly and the earthly systems; as to say, a double mind, double system, double knowledge, double power.

I have been told that some writers have spoken of the soul as being immaterial. It has not been explained to me what they have meant by that word; which, I confess, does not convey any satisfactory idea to my mind, and is totally unintelligible to me. If they have understood that the soul is not material like our body, or that she is not formed of the same coarse matter or substance as the things that are visible to us, I agree with them. I leave you to judge from the following verses, whether the soul is not capable of the same functions, and is not subject to the same accidents, as other beings, only in a different and a superior way to that of our body; and to decide whether it is not likely that she is a being or thing, made up of whatsoever substance or matter, as I believe all things are.

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