tures assure us "that the Son was with the Father in the beginning," and spake the word by which "everything was made that was made," and that "God made the world by him, and that the world was framed by the word of God." John i. 2; Heb. i. 2; Heb. xi. 3. Another Scripture informs us that Christ was 66 the first-born of every creature or man," and that "he was before all things." Col. i.15, 16. Other testimonies affirm that " All things are of and through and to God, and in him all live and move, and have their being." Heb. i. 2; Rom. xi. 3; Acts xvii. 28.

The universe, therefore, is and was from eternity, of, and through, and in God. It was not made from nothing, nor produced from nonentity, as is popularly believed, neither can anything, much less a universe, come from nothing, or cause its own existence. Whereas, the matter and substance of the universe existing in God could be so extended as to give it visible form and glory, and all life and motion is a direct and perpetual out-going from God, and the universe so extended is still in God, inasmuch as his presence or sphere is infinite extension, as boundless as space.

The framing and formation of the worlds by God, and his spiritual Son, (who subsequently in due time became incarnate, as we shall show,) who willed and spoke into visible existence "the heavens and the earth and all the host of them in six days;" forming man of the dust of the ground, God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, and a living immortal soul. He (the man) being

God's earthly Son and whom he constituted the head of a species of earthly beings consisting of bodies of flesh and blood and of immortal soulsMale and Female created he them (the species) and called their names Adam in the day that they were created, and thus were both the spiritual and heavenly, the earthly and fleshly Sons of God each alike the head of a whole species, the former brought forth before, and the latter created on the sixth day after the world and time had begun.

By the Scriptures referred to, it is thus shown that a spiritual and heavenly humanity or species constituent of the nature and body of Christ, was in and with him God-born, anterior to the creation of the earthly and fleshly humanity, constituent of the nature and body of Adam. We have now to show that the species forming the spiritual and heavenly, and the earthly and fleshly humanities, existed in their respective heads, Christ and Adam, in the mass, in an inert and unconscious state, and in that state were united and made one, each with a member of the other species; the result of that union being one whole humanity whereof every member is a spirit, soul, and body.

Saint Paul refers to this union of the spiritual with the earthly humanity as the cause of Christ's tasting death for every man, saying that inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he (Christ) likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy death, and him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all

their lifetime subject to bondage. For he that sanctifieth and they who were sanctified are all of one; and the same truth is clearly set forth in perfect union and oneness of the spiritual Son of God with Jesus, at his baptism. It is in place here to refer to the whole book of nature to show, that it is the way of God to give existence to the many in one, that is, in the head of the species and by natural generation and growth, to institute procreation throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms; which generation and growth are but the extension of the species or kind from their mass and germinal existence in their heads to their constitutional maturity and size.

CHAPTER II.

WE now resume our remarks and illustrations on the union and oneness of the spiritual and heavenly with the earthly and fleshly humanity, existing both in Christ and in Adam, the earthly humanity being created male and female. "And God said it is not good for man to be alone, I will make an helpmeet for him, and God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her to the man."

Thus it is seen that the whole humanity, earthly and heavenly, male and female, existed in the first man and woman, being one perfectly, a unit, and it is seen also that the spiritual nature of the body having been born of God in and with their head, Christ, were joint-heirs with him, of God and of the universe. Now it was for the first parents of these children and heirs of God that he planted a garden, and every tree that was good for food, and pleasant to the sight. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, also in the midst of the garden. And he told them to eat

freely of the fruit of all the trees of the garden, except that of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of which they must not eat, because it would surely cause their death. He did not however tell them that they should thereby fall under his wrath and curse-they and their posterity, and suffer all the miseries of this life and the pains of hell forever -(as Christendom has taught for seventeen centuries)-not a word of it or like it.

Now these children loved their Father and feared death, and for a hundred years (the time of their residence in the garden as we shall show) dared not even to touch it, until a being called a serpent, whom God had endowed with greater subtlety and knowledge than he had given to any other creature, and with the faculty of speech, came to Eve, and informed her that the fruit which had hitherto been forbidden as fatal poison, had now become not only good for food, but medicinal also, and would open their eyes or develop their mental powers, and that they would not then die, as God had told them, as they would have done had they eaten it in early life. (And both the event and the word of God verified every word of the serpent.) Eve and her husband ate the fruit, they did not die—but survived for hundreds of years. Their eyes were opened, and God said, "Behold the man is become like one of us to know good and evil." What shall we say now?-we, an humble individual, at this late day-to the fathers of the Church, who have taught ever since the second century that the words of the serpent were all lies of the devil, and that