The Holy Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a Multitude of Systems and as much inhabited, as he pleases. 'Tis true; there is no mention in Moses's Narrative of the Creation, of any People in other Planets. But it plainly ap∣pears, that the Sacred Historian doth only treat of the Origins of Terrestrial Animals: he hath given us no account of God's creating the Angels; and yet the same Author, in the ensuing parts of the Pen∣tateuch, makes not unfrequent mention of the Angels of God. Neither need we be sollicitous about the condition of those Planetary People, nor raise fri∣volous Disputes, how far they may participate in the Miseries of Adam's Fall, or in the benefits of Christ's Incarnation. As if, because they are supposed to be Rational, they must needs be concluded to be Men? For what is Man? not a Reasonable Animal merely, for that is not an adequate and distinguishing Defi∣nition; but a Rational Mind of such particular Fa∣culties, united to an Organical Body of such a cer∣tain Structure and Form, in such peculiar Laws of Connexion between the Operations and Affecti∣ons of the Mind and the Motions of the Body. Now God Almighty by the inexhausted fecundity of his creative Power may have made innumerable Or∣ders and Classes of Rational Minds; some in their natural perfections higher than Humane Souls, others
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