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BOOK IV.

Science.

(Continued.)

CHAPTER I.

PNEUMATOLOGY,

THE subject of the present book will lead us to the consideration of METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE in its infancy; we shall trace it through much refined and much vulgar superstition, according as the age was coarse or polished, and through much rational and much irrational scepticism, according as the philosophy of the day tended towards materialism or its opposite.

Pneumatology may be defined to be that science which treats of spiritual essences - their powers, natures, and histories—and it differs from metaphysics, inasmuch as the latter term is chiefly applied to a philosophical investigation of the human intellect, its nature, and capacities. That matter is not necessary to existence, but that there are beings entirely independent of it, has been the opinion of the philosophical student from time immemorial, and though it might be possible to prove this by arguments drawn from natural sources, it was evidently in the first

The

place communicated to man by revelation. indestructibility of matter, and the continual changes which it undergoes, point out to us, with a force that cannot be evaded, that even if we suppose it to be essentially eternal, still that Being who formed at first, and still continues to govern the world, cannot be of a similar nature: he, and he alone, must be self-existent, eternal, and without beginning, subject to no change, and unlimited in all his attributes. Such a condition is inconsistent with materiality. And the immateriality of the Divine Being has, therefore, with all the wise, been admitted without question. Hence, then, a state, or mode of existence, is believed, of which, in consequence of our finite condition, we can form no distinct idea; we only perceive that if we attempt to bring Deity within the grasp of our comprehension, it must be by clothing it with such attributes as to make it no longer Deity. We may easily suppose some great and glorious being, invested with all power and all goodness; but when we take, one by one, from the complex idea, those simple ones which belong only to the finite, the whole gradually disappears. We imagine this mighty Intelligence, first, independent of duration; next, independent of space; so that his existence could continue, and has continued, without either one or the other; we next abstract all passion or emotion, which we know to be only attributed in a figurative sense to God; we take away visibility and palpability, which are properties of matter; and the personality, with which our idea was clothed at first, entirely disappears. All that remains is an abstract idea of power and

goodness. But, as power is the will of God, and goodness merely accordance with the scheme upon which he has built this universe, we are reduced to acknowledge that we cannot form any distinct idea of God, so far as regards his mode of existence. The relation subsisting between this awful and incomprehensible Being and man is entirely another matter, and this is made known to us by revelation, which, by types adapted to our capacity, has shadowed forth enough of this mystery to us to point out our duties in consequence.

Now all power being in the hands of God, and he having been pleased for his glory to create the universe, it was clearly in his power to create beings in so far like himself as that they could exist independent of matter, and that he did so has likewise, in all ages, been an article of belief. Man was formed of the dust of the earth; that is, the body of man was so formed; but it was not till the breath of life was infused into him by another and a separate act of the Divine power, that Adam took his stand in the scale of created beings. Creation consisted in calling into existence that which before was not. God made all things out of nothing by the word of his power, so "that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."1 Now the formation of Adam's body cannot, therefore, be esteemed an act of creating energy; the substance of which it was made previously existed; whereas the creation of the soul resulted from an immediate emanation from the spirit of God, "And God breathed into his nostrils the

1 Heb. xi. 3.

breath of life; and man became a living soul." Here, then, is a creation of spirit distinct from the creation of matter; and though the soul was instantly united to the body, Adam was, without doubt, well aware of the compound character of his existence. This distinction, thus marked in the earliest of extant writings, has never been lost sight of; and the religion of mankind, however far removed from the truth in other respects, has always proceeded upon the supposition that the soul is immaterial, and, consequently, immortal; and that there were other orders of spiritual beings, whose operations were not clogged by a material body. Pneumatology, then, will be the name given to the science which treats of such beings, and will, of course, be derived from πveυμa and λογος; but πνευμα signifies not exactly spirit, but breath; and St. Paul, when he speaks of To σшμа πνευματικον 2 (which, by a strange contradiction in terms, we have rendered "spiritual body," instead of "ethereal body "), refers to that body, glorified indeed and purified, but still material, which the spirit shall assume at the resurrection. Hence the term πveνμa is applied, for want of a more correct one, to God himself.

Pneumatology can have no reference to the being or attributes of the Great Supreme. It investigates the nature of spirit only as so invested with matter as to become sensible to our material organs. The appearance of an angel, whether good or evil; of a human being departed, or at a distance; of a being, of an order distinct from men or angels, the kind of

sounds by which such beings have been supposed to intimate their coming, the sensations which have been attributed to their presence, all are matters of pneumatological investigation. Of these we shall treat briefly.

No less universal than the tenets which have been already mentioned was that of the difference which obtained among spiritual intelligences, that they were of various ranks and orders in power and dignity, that some were benevolent and others malicious, that some maintained their allegiance to the Great Ruler of all, and that others were in a state of revolt against him. This notion exhibited itself in various forms; but it prevailed in the mythology of all nations, and furnishes, like the universality of serpent worship, a proof of the common origin of every system. It displayed itself among the Persians in the contest between Oromasdes and Arimanes; in the Egyptian system, by the quarrel and battle between Osiris and Typhon; in that of the Greeks, by the wars of the Giants and Titans against the gods; in the north by Loke and his offspring, Fenris, Midgard, and Hela; and by the warfare maintained against the gods by Surtur and his fury spirits, by Utgarda Loke and his gigantic hosts. But there were other kinds of spirits, which were in some respects like the souls of men, not sufficiently wicked to be in avowed revolt against God, nor yet holy enough to be living in conformity to his will. A belief in these, though by no means universal, was yet very widely spread. The existence of the former is revealed by Scripture, that of the latter is a