Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/21

Rh science of all things conducive to their well-being and happiness, whether natural or spiritual. The whole theatre of nature was to them only a picture of heaven. Every object that met their eye, from the sun in the firmament to the smallest particle of dust on the earth, furnished them with an opportunity of contemplating it's true and proper archetype in that eternal world, of which they were in a manner already inhabitants, even while dwelling in the body. They had no external respiration, no sonorous, articulate language, such as took place afterwards; but communicated their ideas one to another by numberless changes of the countenance, especially by the varied motions of the lips, and by the lively expressions of the eye. Moreover there was no deceit, no such thing as hypocrisy; but the countenance was the ready and faithful index of the mind: the consequence of which was, that, enjoying a mutual perception of each other's states, they both communicated and received more certain, distinct, and rapid successions of thought and affection, than any sonorous and articulate language can now possibly convey.

How long man remained in this his primeval state of integrity and perfection, into which he was successively introduced after his birth as a natural man; or how many generations of men continued to enjoy the heavenly life above-described; cannot at present be known. But it is probable, that symptoms of a tendency to decline might have appeared soon after this primitive church had arrived at it's fulness of maturity, and long before any gross corruptions had entered among them, so as to cause their entire expulsion from the garden of Eden, and at length their total destruction by a flood, or inundation of lusts and false persuasions.