sequence, 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.* 6 Angels are spirits, Matt. viii. 16. and xii. 45. inasmuch as the 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. 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 denoted by the attribute of wings ;‡ Ezek. i. 6. In number almost infinite; Deut. xxxiii. 2. Job xxv. 3. Dan. vii. 10. Matt. xxvi. 53. Heb. xii. 22. Rev. v. 11, 12. Created in perfect holiness and righteousness; Luke ix. 26. John viii. 44. 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15. angels 6 *See Aristot. Natural. Auscult. lib. viii. cap. 1. In reference to this Milton elsewhere: says ... Time, though in eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future. Paradise Lost, V. 589. Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, And when Satan receives his wound from Michael, th' ethereal substance clos'd, Not long divisible. VI. 330. Meanwhile the winged heralds, by command of light....ministers of 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 They are distin two wings he covered his face.'t guished one from another by offices and degrees ;‡ 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. 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 the apostle's reprehension, Col. ii. 18. intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.' * I came among the sons of God, when he Paradise Regained, I. 368. + Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, Yea the angels themselves, in whom no disorder is feared, as the apostle that saw them in his rapture describes, are distinguished and quaternioned 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, I. 81. 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 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 preexistence 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 Zech. faculties. xii. 1. he formeth the spirit of man within him.' We may understand from other passages of Scripture, that when God infused the breath of life into *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. Tetra 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 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;'t 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 6 * Unde a quibusdam dicitur, particula auræ divinæ, Horat. II. Sat. ii. quod non reprehendo, modo bene intelligatur non quasi a Dei essentia, tanquam ejus pars, avulsa fuisset; sed quod ineffabili quodam modo profluere cam ex se fecerit.' Curcellæi Institutio, III. 7. † . . . . . . He form'd thee, Adam, thee, O man, Paradise Lost, VII. 523, 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 individual, 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 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. as cold 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.' 6 Where however we speak of the body as of a mere senseless stock, there the soul must be understood as * See Beza's version in loc. Factus est prior homo Adamus animal vivens.' when God said, Let th' earth bring forth soul living in her kind. VII. 450. 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 observed before, that when Milton makes the Divine Person speak, he keeps closely to Scripture. Now what we render living crea ture (Gen. i. 24.) is living soul in the Hebrew, which Milton usually follows rather than our translation.' |