souls of departed persons, is the appearance of Moses and Elias with Jesus Christ on the Mount at his transfiguration; they not only were there, really and personally, in their habits, and so as to be known to the disciples, but they appeared talking with Christ; so that was a perfect and complete apparition, viz. the particular persons appearing, and known by the persons to whom they appeared, Matt. xvii. 3. And in another place the manner of the apparition is described, as also what they talked of, Luke ix. 31: Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

This is so plain and unquestionable an appearance of departed souls, that they who dispute it must not only doubt of the divinity of Scripture, but must dispute its being an authentic history, which its enemies will hardly deny.

We have yet another testimony, and this is as positive and express as the rest, Matt. xxvii. 52; And the graves were opened, and many of the bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

This is a remarkable place, and would admit of a long exposition; but I must not preach, and if I might, I am no annotator; as far as it is to my present purpose, the bodies arose, that was extraordinary, but that their souls were also with their bodies is not to be doubted, at least by me, for I have no notion of the body walking about without the soul, nor do we ever read of bodily apparitions.

An apparition is vulgarly called by us a ghost, by our northern people a ghest; now the ghost is a spirit, and the apparition of a spirit has some sense in it; the spirits also assuming a shape or body, whether real or in appearance only, has something in it to be talked about; but the apparitions of body,

moving, appearing, walking, or whatever we may call it, without soul or spirit, is what was never heard of, and scarce ever suggested.

It may be observed, that those apparitions quoted from the Scripture are not apparitions in vision, dreams in the night, or supposed appearances only, but plain, open, daylight visions; the former would not be to my purpose at all. These were apparitions that were spoken to and conversed with; and this is a proof of what I allege, viz., that spirits unembodied may appear, may reassume human shape, their own former likeness, or any other, and may show themselves to the world, or to as many persons as they please.

The difficulties which attend this are not a few, though none of them destroy the thing itself; as 1. Whether the souls of good or bad people unembodied are really in a state or condition for such an appearance? and whether it consists with the just notions we ought to have of the unalterable state? I mean such notions as conform to the Scripture, which, if the parable of the rich man and Lazarus be a just representation of it, seems impossible to be, except on such an extraordinary occasion as that of our Saviour's transfiguration and resurrection; that is, by miracle.

Lazarus, says the text, was, upon his death, carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man died, and in hell he lift up his eyes, That this is supposed to be immediately, is evident, because the rich man speaks of his brethren that were then alive; if he was not carried thither immediately, he would certainly not have been carried there at all till after the great audit, so that it was plain he was there presently after his death; and that Lazarus was carried immediately to heaven is evident also, because the rich man is brought in

seeing him there, and desiring he may be sent to him.

To say this is but a parable, is to say what may be granted without prejudice to the point in hand. For as it is a parable, it would not have been apposite if it had not represented things as they were really to be, it would have been a delusion, and brought to deceive; whereas it is a parable of our Lord's own bringing, and all those parables that Christ uttered were the most perfect representations and illustrations of the things which they were brought to set forth; nor is any one of them lame in their allusions, but instructive in every article; as the parable of the prodigal son, for example, and the parable of the king making a marriage for his son, and so of the rest. And why must this alone be lame, and unapt for the purpose?

If, then, this parable is suited to represent the state of the souls of the departed, those souls, then, can no way be concerned in the apparitions which we are speaking of, except as is before excepted, viz., on such extraordinary occasions as that of our Saviour above must be acknowledged to be.

If, then, neither the souls or spirits of the blessed or cursed, the happy or miserable, the saved or the condemned, are concerned in those appearances, who, then, are these inhabitants of the invisible world? What are they that constitute and possess this world of spirits, so much talked of? And if the immense spaces are taken up, if they are peopled by any spirituous creatures, if anything but stars and planets range through the empty place, as Job calls it, Job xxvi. 7, what are they, and what are the spirits that inhabit those worlds?

There must be certainly a world of spirits, or of spirit, from whence we receive the frequent visits in public, and the frequent notices in private, which

are so perceptible to us, and which we are so uneasy about; if they are neither good spirits nor bad, if they have neither power to do us good nor hurt, as I see a great deal of reason to believe, then we have not so much reason to be terrified about them as we generally are: but of that hereafter.

As to the locality of the Devil, and his appearance, that indeed is another article, and he may, as is said already, cover himself with what shapes, human or brutal, he pleases; but then this would bring all apparition to be by the appearance of the Devil, and all the empire of the air to be possessed by him, which I cannot grant; particularly, because, as I said, some of these apparitions come of good errands, to prevent mischief, to protect innocence and virtue, and to discover injury, injustice, and oppression, all which are things very much out of the Devil's way, remote from his practice, and much more remote from his design: the spirits I speak of must be of a higher original, they must be heavenborn, of the glorious original of angelic species; and as all things are known by their consequences, so they are known by their actings; they do heaven's work, are under his immediate government and direction, and are honoured with his special commission; they are employed in his immediate business, namely, the common good of his creature, man: they that do good, demonstrate, in the best manner, that they are good.

So that every way we should meet with some difficulty in this case, unless solved, as I said before, by the denominating another class of spirits neither immediately celestial, or at all infernal; neither embodied, or that have been embodied, or that shall ever be embodied.

It cannot be expected I should describe what these are, and in what condition; it is sufficient that I only say such may be there, and that they

may be such as he thinks good to place there who made that empty place; I may as well ask the inquirer what sort of inhabitants they are who possess the moon or any of the planets, and whether they dwell in a state of innocence, or have contracted guilt; and if the latter, whether there is a glorious establishment of redemption, and a covenant of life granted for them, as there is here, by the purchase and merit of a Saviour.

It is no fair question to ask me a demonstration for an hypothesis; or is it reasonable to tell me they will not believe it, because I cannot prove the affirmative of what I do not affirm. I advance the probability, and say, that it is the more probable, because (as they say of the new philosophy) by this we can solve several other phenomena, which we cannot otherwise account for; and I allege it is much more probable and more rational to suggest it, than it is that the planets should be inhabited, for which it is certain that God must have created a new species of creatures, or that none can dwell there.

The waste or the empty space, as Job calls it, is full of spirits; I believe that may be taken for granted: they are placed there, if they are there, by the powerful hand of the Creator: there is no philosophy can be pleaded against the place being habitable; whereas the objections against the planets being habitable are unanswerable, but by the absurdity of bringing Almighty power in to create several new species of creatures, some to live in fire, some in frost, some in all darkness and ice, some in boiling waters and scalding air.

The inhabitants which I suggest are created for the regions of the invisible world, are spirits, invisible substances, bodies without body, such as are proper for the expanse in which they live, and eligible for us to conceive of; and though we can