entation by
showing that there is strong reason to doubt the historical accuracy
of the attribution to Jesus of either the "Sermon on the Mount" or the
"Lord's Prayer"; and, therefore, that the conclusion in question is
not warranted, at any rate, on the grounds set forth.

But, whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about this and
other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain that from
them, taken together with the other books of the New Testament, we may
collect a pretty complete exposition of that theory of the spiritual
world which was held by both Nazarenes and Christians; and which was
undoubtedly supposed by them to be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though
it is just as clear that they did not imagine it contained any
revelation by him of something heretofore unknown. If the
pneumatological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament is
nowhere systematically stated, it is everywhere assumed. The writers
of the Gospels and of the Acts take it for granted, as a matter of
common knowledge; and it is easy to gather from these sources a series
of propositions, which only need arrangement to form a complete
system.

In this system, Man is considered to be a duality formed of a
spiritual element, the soul; and a corporeal[85] element, the body.
And this duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a
corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The
former consists of the earth, as its principal and central
constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the
earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. Whether the heaven,
which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the
subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not
clear. However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and the
abyss, are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in nature to the
spiritual element in man, and these spirits are of two kinds, good and
bad. The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the
others, and their creator, as well as the creator of the corporeal
world and of the bad spirits, is God. His residence is heaven, where
he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or
messengers, and the executors of his will throughout the universe.

On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan, _the_ devil
_par excellence_. He and his company of demons are free to roam
through a