Excerpt from Heaven and Hell: Also, the Intermediate State, or World of Spirits; A Relation of Things Heard and Seen To trace the Christian religion in the various revolutions of its progress, from its first civil establishment down to the present times, would be the province of an historian; we shall therefore pass over all the intervening periods of it, to consider the sub ject before us in the way both of scriptural and rational enquiries in relation to ourselves. And here it must be owned, that the belief of all extraordinary or supernatural dispensations is at a very low ebb with us, and that from several assignable causes, two or three of which shall here be noticed. And first, from an undue exaltation of man's natural rational faculties and powers, as the sufficient test of revealed truths; and this gross error has prevailed more among men of human learning for this past century, than perhaps ever before; to which it is owing, that almost every thing in religion has been run into question and controversy, and that a general disbelief of all things supernatural has in a great measure banished faith, and introduced Sadducism amongst us, to the denying of all spiritual visions and apparition of angels as things incredible. Secondly, This doubting and unbelief in things of a spiritual nature has spread to a greater extent among all classes, from an excessive attachment to worldly interest, and the love of money in the trading nations of Christendom, through the vast increase of commerce and navigation in the last two centuries; whereby the affections and pursuits of such great numbers have been so engaged on the side of filthy lucre, as to turn an em ployment, in itself innocent and useful, into the occasion of sin. Hence a sordid avarice, and making haste to be rich by frauds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.