teousness for them, &c. But Man who came in, must have the first Qualification as well as the fécond, he could not have the fecond without the firft. As Man's Mind was alienated, it must be fet right, because till Man have just Sentiments of the Power of the Aleim, love them, and defire further Knowledge of them, and the Enjoyment, of their Prefence, notwithstanding the Promise, nay, Performance of Redemption, they cannot accept of it, much lefs can they be fit for that Enjoyment and that Society. The Promife of the Redemption of Man was to win their Minds to the Admiration of the Perfections, and of the Love and Wisdom of the Aleim, as well as the Performance was to atone for the Crime to Juftice; though his Debt were paid, if his lind were not fet right, that would not bring him in ; Man is not to be changed, but improved hereafter, and Punishment in a pretended Purgatory would be the Means directly oppofite to produce thofe Qualifications; and focial Duties have no Place nor Object hereafter. This Addition, nay, all the Steps and Completion of it, cannot at all alter the Employment, there can be no other Enjoyment in Heaven, but

in contemplating the Aleim in their Powers, Perfections, in their Works, Goodnefs, &c. nor can there be any other Subject of Entertainment or Converfation there.

From the Fall to the Flood we have the Genealogy of Christ, and what is neceffary; but the Hints about Sacrifice, Services, &c. though fufficient, are but fhort; because they were then expreffed hieroglyphically, (and have taken much Compass to explain them) and were afterwards to be fully expreffed by Writing with Letters and Words. When Men relapfed into Errors of this Kind and their Confequences; the Aleim, to demonftrate their Power, brought up the Waters of the Abyfs upon the Earth; drowned all, except those in the Ark, diffolv'd the Shell of the Earth, reform'd it with confiderable Difference, down the Waters, &c. as at first. Family kept the true Confeffion, till another Relapfe, till many of them began to build the Tower of Babel for an Altar to the Names; where they disagreed, divided into Sects, and difperfed to different Places. Among those who perfevered in the true Confeffion, were the Family of Abraham, &c.

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carried Noah's

I have fhewed that the antient Heathens knew, that the Effence of the Aleim created, and framed this System, and that all, from the Beginning, understood the Motions and Powers in the Names. Thence it was the chief Duty and a Virtue in all, nay, even in those who first fell into Heathenifm, before they fell, to acknowledge that there were mechanical Agents, and that the Aleim employed them for the Service of Man, and to be an Earneft and an Evidence of that Support, which the real Names will, by their immediate Power, afford to thofe who fhall be happy hereafter: But going one Step further, or the other Way, led them into all the Gradations of Evil. 'Tis afferted, that they at firft urged, for Excufe, that the Aleim were retired out of this System, and had left the Support of it and Men to the Names, and therefore they ought to pay Service to the Names, as the Minifters or Deputies of the Aleim. When they began to pay the Services, and others, who kept right, oppofed it, they would, as I have term'd it, naturally be forced to affert fomething which they thought would justify those Actions; and they muft, of Neceffity, re

nounce

nounce fome Points in the reveal'd Knowledge, and begin to imagine; the great Actions they were fenfible they perform d, with the Appearance of Wisdom, Order, &c. and the conftant Study of them helped them forward, made them affert there were fome other, fome incommunicable Powers in them, for which they paid thofe Services. They could never have been induced to pay Services to a fimple Machine for what was in itself, but as Minifters: But when they had paid Services to them, and found that not allowed by Revelation, they were forced to seek for Pretences, and found, as they pretended, from the irregular Motions of Winds, Clouds, Storms, Lightnings, Thunder, and the various Appearances of the Sky, &c. that there was fomething beyond Mechanism, and began to dream that the Names were Intelligences, had Wisdom in them, and that they performed thofe regular Actions voluntarily; that Thunder was their Voice, the Lights their Eyes, the Appearance of the Sky their Vifage, which exhibited their Pleasure or Displeasure, &c. and I think, I may fay, they never attributed any other incommunicable Powers, except that of Intelligence and its Confequences,

E 4

but

but allowed they performed all their other Operations mechanically, nor ever attributed any Powers to other Matter which had no mechanical Powers, till after the Confufion of Languages, that a few of the Authors our Philofophers cite, went further by mere Ignorance. As foon as they began to imagine there were Intelligences in the Fluid of the Names, but no other Powers, which Mechanism could not perform, as they knew, and the Jews allowed, that the Effence of the Aleim refided out of this System, they then firft fuggefted, as our Philofophers do now, that the Effence of the Aleim could not fee or act, but where they were prefent, and that their new Aleim conftituted Space in this Syftem, and were prefent in every Part of it, &c. By Degrees one Imagination forced on another, till they renounced the whole Revelation, and fo acted folely upon Imagination, which made them by the fame Degrees neglect, and at laft forget the Effence of the Aleim, and fo they became Atheists, and called the Names Aleim. But they fill retained a perfect Knowledge of all their mechanical Mo tions and Operations; and not only re tained the Services which had been paid

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to