down from its present arrangements, and thrown into such fitful agitations, as that the whole of its existing framework shall fall to pieces; and with a heat so fervent as to melt its most solid elements, may it be utterly dissolved. And thus may the earth again become without form and void, but without one particle of its substance going into annihilation. Out of the ruins of this second chaos, may another heaven and another earth be made to arise; and a new materialism, with other aspects of magnificence and beauty, emerge from the wreck of this mighty transformation; and the world be peopled, as before, with the varieties of material loveliness, and space be again lighted up into a firmament of material splendour."

That this earth will be the future abode of the righteous we must regard as proved; but the moment this is determined certain results necessarily follow: we have, for instance, a terrestrial state, a physical condition, subject to physical law, as a necessary consequence. Earth would not be earth if this were not the case. We have no notion of matter except from its properties, and these are learned from the laws which govern it. Change these, and you change it. The matter of our globe cannot, moreover (so far as

we can now comprehend the subject), be subjected to other laws than those which now regulate it, without ceasing to be what it now is. The most mighty changes may be brought about by means of those laws, under the direction of their Almighty Author, but the laws themselves must remain as unchanged as they have done ever since matter was first created. The past history of the earth proves this;-and that history, be it remembered, reaches back to immeasureable ages; to periods commensurate, in point of time, with the illimitable distances of the heavenly bodies in point of space. It shows us the changes that have taken place in the condition of the earth, and we know that those changes have been very great, and have been constantly going on, gradually progressing, from the time when (as we have every reason to believe) neither animal nor vegetable life was to be found on the globe, up to the present, with its innumerable forms of organised life, and with intelligent man as the head of creation. But nothing can be more certain, than that the physical laws which govern matter, and therefore the causes which are now in operation, have remained unchanged while these progressive mutations in the condition of the earth itself

have been going on. All the reasonings of philosophers proceed on this principle. Indeed they could not take a step without it. Were it not true, Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, for example, could not have been written. His investigations into the proofs of design in the case of extinct animals and plants, are all made upon the assumption that those animals and plants were subject to the very same natural laws as are now in force. And the slightest reflection on

1 See particularly his chapter on The Eyes of Trilobites. After having explained their mechanism, and their adaptation to various ends, he remarks:---

"The results arising from these facts are not confined to animal physiology; they give information also regarding the condition of the ancient Sea and ancient Atmosphere, and the relations of both these media to Light, at that remote period when the earliest marine animals were furnished with instruments of vision, in which the minute optical adaptations were the same that impart the perception of light to Crustaceans now living at the bottom of the sea.

"With respect to the waters wherein the Trilobites maintained their existence throughout the entire period of the transition formation, we conclude that they could not have been that imaginary turbid and compound chaotic fluid, from the precipitates of which some geologists have supposed the materials of the surface of the earth to be derived; because the structure of the eyes of these animals is such, that any kind of fluid in which they could have been efficient at the bottom, must have been pure and transparent enough to allow the passage of light to organs of vision, the nature of which is so fully disclosed by the state of perfection in which they are preserved.

"With regard to the atmosphere also we infer, that had it differed materially from its actual condition, it might have so far affected the rays of Light, that a corresponding difference from the eyes of existing crustaceans would have been found in the organs on which the impressions of such rays were then received.

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Regarding Light itself also, we learn, from the resemblance of these most ancient organizations to existing eyes, that the mutual relations of light to the eye, and of the eye to light, were the same at

the structure of those creatures must satisfy every one that this must necessarily have been the case. The state or condition of the earth varied, but the properties of matter and the laws which regulate it remained unchanged; and so long as matter continues what it is, this must continue to be the case. Fresh results may be attained; fresh beings be called into existence; and new conditions of earth be formed to meet the necessities of those beings; but so long as materiality continues, those conditions must necessarily be of a physical character. There is no difficulty even now in understanding, that there may be the most signal change hereafter in the state and powers of the human body, while the physical condition under which it shall exist may continue, so far as its true physical character

the time when Crustaceans endowed with the faculty of vision were first placed at the bottom of the primeval seas, as at the present moment."-Geology and Mineralogy, i. pp. 401-2.

Again:-"As far as our planet is concerned, the first act of creation seems to have consisted in giving origin to the elements of the material world. These inorganic elements appear to have received no subsequent additions to their number, and to have undergone no alteration in their nature and qualities; but to have been submitted at their creation to the self-same laws that regulate their actual condition, and to have continued subject to these laws during every succeeding period of geological change. The same elements, also, which enter the composition of existing animals and plants, appear to have performed similar functions in the economy of many successive animal and vegetable creations."-Ibid. p. 35.

is concerned, precisely what it is at present. The human body in its normal condition is now subject to pain, but it can be rendered in an abnormal state perfectly insensible to pain; and yet the physical conditions of its existence remain the same in both cases. The physical laws which govern it remain the same. The resurrection body of the believer will be delivered from the principle of mortality, for it will be made like to the resurrection body of the Redeemer1 which is now so, for "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him;" but we readily see, that though this great and blessed change will have taken place in it, its materiality and its subjection to physical law may yet remain unaltered. And we have reason to believe that this will really be the case. The earth which it will inhabit will be as material as it is now; and materiality on the part of the abode, necessarily implies materiality on the part of the body which will inhabit it. There is a necessary connection between the two in this respect: the condition of the one determines the condition of the other. A spirit, "which

1 Phil. iii. 21.