SERM Vi. 12. or, (or as it is better rendered in XII. the Margin of our Bibles) against wicked Spirits in heavenly Places *. And *Not that the Air is the only Place which thefe Spi many Intimations in the holy other Elements also, either For as in the Revelation rits infeft; for have And thus far I think, we have proceed- s ER M. ed with pretty fure Footing; I have had XI. the Bible before me, in almost every par ticular; Devils for a long Time. Baruc. iv. 35. And the Angel in the Revelation, rejoicing over new Babylon destroyed, triumphs in the like Terms, Babylon the great is fallen is fallen, and is become the Habitation of Devils, and the Hold of every foul Spirit, Rev. xviii. 2. The Waters then, and the Earth, the Defarts, and the lands, as well as the lower Heavens and Air, are haunted and poffeffed with the apoftate Angels, each of them chiefly keep. ing their Abode in the Elements in which they are either confined, or themselves delight in. A Doctrine which by the Way, helps us to understand several Paffages in the Gofpel of our Lord, as where, for Inftance, he speaks of an unclean Spirit, who, when he goes out of a Man, walks through dry Places, feeking Reft, Matt. xii. 43. i. e. Thro defart Places, without Water, and uninhabited except by Devils: When again we are told, that Jefus himself, was led up into the Wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil, Matt. And when laftly, we have an Account of evil Spirits hurrying the Perfons, unhappily poffeffed by them, into Fire and Water, into the Wilderness, and among Tombs, and when entring, by the Sufferance of our Lord, into Swine. forcing about two thousand of them at once into the Sea, Mar. v. 1-13. compared with Luk. viii. 26-33. Mar. ix. 22. The cafting of one and the fame Perfon poffeffed, into oppofite Elements, may eafily be accounted for, by fup. pofing the fame Perfon, to have had feveral different Devils in him: As is exprefsly faid to have been the Cafe of one of them, into whom we are told many Devils had entered, Luke viii. 30. So that in Reality, these Paffages in the New Teftament, not only are illuftrated by the Doctrine, that may be deduced from others in the Old; but they alfo in fome Measure, confirm the Truth of the Obfervations, which I have made upon the Old. iv. I. VOL. III. U SERM, ticular; and if I have not mistaken the Sense, XII. the Authorities I have produced for what I have advanced, are good and folid. But now Curiofity, which is boundless, and does not love to have it's Enquiries confined, is ready to prompt me to ask a further Question ftill, viz. Why the Angels that finned, must be imprisoned and confined about our Earth, why they that forfook their own Habitation must dwell with us; or why, when we have supposed so many other Worlds in Being, ours in particular should be allotted for their Manfion from amongst them all. This is a Question, I say, my Curiofity would ask ; but I don't know where to look in the Bible for a direct Answer. And yet methinks, I could guess at fome, which fhall not contradict nor interfere with any fingle Text whatever, though it is fuch a one as, could I be fure it was true, would help to explain and illustrate several. But to lay a Foundation for it, you must allow me to return to my former Hypothefis; and to fuppofe that the fallen Angels once inhabited a World or Orb, somewhere higher in the Heavens than we are in: Grant me this, and that their Sin confifted in disliking that World, or the Situation of it at least, as not being near enough enough to the Shechinah, or Glory, or Throne SER M. of God, in the highest Heavens, as I have XI. already fuppofed; and then I would fuppofe further, that God, for their Punishment, might caft them and their World, to a further or remoter Distance from him, might deftroy the Orb, or reduce it to a Chaos or Heap of Confufion, and then repair it into this very Planet which we inhabit, as new Creatures defigned by God, to repair the Breach which their Fall has made in 'Heaven, at a Time when this Earth fhall again become a bright fixed Star, and be placed perhaps in that very individual Point in the Heavens, which it poffeffed before the Angels fell. If this fhould be the Cafe, we then may easily account why the fallen Angels are allotted to wander in this World particularly, fince it is the very World, which they occafioned to be reduced from a Star. to a Planet, and which for their Punishment they are condemned to wander in, whilft it is a Planet, and in which perhaps they may be fixed in everlasting Torments, when it fhall become à Star again. This is my Hypothefis: But where, you will ask me, is my Scripture for it? And I must fairly acknowledge, that I have none direct: But U a taking SERM. taking it as an Hypothefis, there are some few XII. Texts which I think of, and more perhaps, that don't come into my Mind, which in fome Measure countenance it, as being (if it be true) illuftrated by it. But first, let me guard against the Objections which may be raised from the first Chapter of Genefis, where because it is faid, that in the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, fome may urge, that the Heavenly Bodies, and this Planet of the Earth, in it's present Form, were created together. But, there is no Neceffity to expound the Words fo: The Text is fafe if we read it thus: In the Beginning God created the Heavens, and that Orb which is now the Earth, and that Orb, which is now the Earth, was (or became in Process of Time) without Form and void, i. e. became a Chaos, out of which God formed, or created the prefent Earth for the Ufe of Man, as Mofes defcribes. So that notwithstanding what Mofes fays, there might have been a happy State of this Orb, before the Chaos: Neither is it easy to conceive, that a good God could produce any Thing even at first, in Confufion and Disorder: He fure, that spoke them into Order at last, might, and very probably did, create them fo at first. The |