UNIVERSITY

CALIFORNIA

UNITY.

CHAPTER I.

UNITY OF THE UNFALLEN CREATION.

TIME was when the intelligent creation formed one sacred brotherhood. This fact is plainly involved in the scripture doctrine respecting angels. A perfect moral union reigned among those sinless spirits; and all bore the image of the Universal Father. They were, each in his own order, so many depositaries of Divine love, to the whole extent and limit of their being. Thus the date of Time, marked by the existence of these first-born sons of God, was the epoch which had been destined for the formation of objects whom His love might render blessed.

The unfallen creation was a universe of benevolence. This was the principle which bound the

whole together; and God himself was the mighty source of light and life and love. As the planetary bodies obey the sun, and revolve in the flood of glory which he pours forth;-so, all the myriads of happy beings acknowledged the Creator as the author and centre of their blessedness, and each one reflected a portion of his moral beauty.

There were, doubtless, among them, diversities of rank and station. Where all were mighty, some were the mightiest; and, in these heavenly hosts, one star differed from another star in glory. Some were as suns amidst inferior orbs. There were those who approached nearer than others to the Creator, in the amount and grandeur of their being-say rather, were more remote from nothingness. One beatified spirit might take a view immeasurably more comprehensive than another, of the perfections of the Incomprehensible; and penetrate to a vaster depth, into the wisdom of the Unfathomable. All, it may be, were perpetually advancing in capacity,—in glory,— in bliss. But amidst all varieties of dignity and intellect and power, there was no difference of aim and purpose-nothing which could produce a jar in sentiment, or a discord in the anthem of praise. Pride, envy, jealousy, suspicion, (too often the bane of intercourse on earth,) had no place in that world; and whatever diversities might exist, all were one in sacred love.

Happy universe! where the beatific vision of the Eternal, beheld by the myriads of the unfallen, awakened in them a love like his own: where the hallelujahs of adoring seraphim, and the chorus of all heaven, were but the ebb of one mighty tide-the many waters of divine love, rushing back from unnumbered streams to the fathomless ocean from which all had been derived: where the Spirit of God filled every breast; and every created spirit was deeply conscious of being held in a sacred and mysterious tie to every other-a tie which seemed part of the tenure of existence, coeval with spiritual being, and inseparable from all thought and intelligence:-where pure and perfect love united angel to angel, and all to God! While this union was entire, there was no place for sin heaven was the universe, and the universe was heaven; and, in the exercise of unmingled benevolence, all were perfect in holiness and bliss.*

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For proofs that the doctrine of angels, as usually received, is that of scripture, see Doddridge's Lectures,

CCX.

Vida

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CHAPTER II.

THE APOSTASY FROM UNIVERSAL LOVE.

As far as human experience testifies, it is not a poetic fiction, but a solemn verity-that 'mind is its own place; can make a 'heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' We learn from revelation the awful fact, that the celestial world was the original scene of moral evil. Angels sinned,' and ' kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation.* Now, the law of universal love was broken; and selfishness, before unknown, took possession of intelligent minds, and produced a fatal alienation of heart from the blessed God, and from all who held fast their allegiance to Him. The grand principle which, since time began, had kept all heaven in high and holy fellowship with the glorious Source of being, was violated; and every apostate spirit became, henceforth, his own centre, and his own god.

* 2 Pet. ii. 4. Jude 6.