not, that the Supreme Being calls his creatures to an account. The angels were as free to fall, as to stand, being in no way necessiated or misled, as there was no darkness or doubt at the time, on the subject of law by which they were tried, as the evidence of the fact, which they had disputed, was then abundant, even to their own understandings. It was, therefore, their own act, abstractedly so, or it was not theirs at all. But at that instant, every good quality forsook them, of necessity; as much so as a golden vessel filled with the pure waters of a pure fountain, is changed, every particle and atom thereof; if but a grain of coloring substance, or of poison, be cast therein, it is destroyed of its first purity. So with those pure spirits; love became hatred, humility became pride, good will became malice, eternal life became eternal death, joy and happiness became anguish and misery, free agency and free will became fate; so that they are necessitated to remain, unwilling to will anything but enmity to God. Anticipation of a perpetuity of happiness, became a fearful looking for, of fiery indignation and judgment to come, to be poured out upon them. Confidence in their own uprightness became dastardly fear; and knowledge, with every high ability of their intellectual natures, was prostituted and perverted to the ways and wiles of devils, taking in all things, the exact opposite of order, peace, and happiness.

There is a line of demarkation, which pervades all first principles, whether of morals, politics, or physics, beyond which, if a man proceed he cannot return. If in physics, a man place himself, by design or accident, within the suck of the falls of Niagara, who can redeem him. If in politics, a man forfeit all the rights of human society, he is cast forth as an outlaw or a victim; who can redeem him? Why not, therefore, much more so in morals, as the higher we ascend, the more and the greater the responsibility? The line of demarkation once passed over here, as in the other cases, cannot be retraced; beyond which, even mercy itself cannot go, except at the expense of justice. How then was Adam and Eve redeemed, it may be inquired, who had passed, as supposed, the line of demarkation? but this we do not admit, was the final line of demarkation with them; as we see merey was extended to them, in the promised seed, as in the atonement; which was not contrary to, nor inconsistent with divine justice, or it could never have taken place. Yet in man's case there is such a line of demarkation, and it is arrived at and passed, when a redeemed human being has despised or neglected his last and only hope, the opportunity of grace in this life. As it is said in Heb. ii. 2, 3, "For if the word spoken by angels (in the giving of the law) was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation." The account which is given of the fall of the angels in the New Testament, is that

"they kept not their first estate;" which, if true, proves that they left it, which also proves that with or by the same power they left it, they could have also kept it till this time, and forever.

What became of the Angels after their Fall; is there a Hell or not in another World? and is there yet to be a Day of particular and general Judgment? with further Proofs of the existence of a Devil.

Thus far we have pursued the above subject, and think we have shown how a part of the first angels became evil spirits, or devils, and on what principle sin had its beginning; by which procedure we have cleared the Divine Being from the charge of being the cause of sin; and more than this, that he could not even have prevented it, unless he would have destroyed free agency and free will out of their natures; which had he done, would have been inconsistent. Our next inquiry, therefore, will be to ascertain what became of those fallen angels after their apostacy and loss of heaven. Concerning this, it is said 2d Peter, ii. 4, that "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment," or to the judgment of the great day.

Now were we to believe on this subject as do Universalists, namely, that there never were any such angels or beings, who fell from a first condition of happiness; who God would not spare, but cast down to hell, we should save ourselves the trouble of this enquiry; as there could be no hell to cast them into; for if such angels do not exist, a hell for them cannot be found of course. But the passage states that those angels were not only cast down to hell, but that they are under chains of darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. See St. Jude, vi. "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitations, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." The orthodox sects believe that Satan, who tempted Eve in the garden, and Christ in the wilderness, was the same evil being whom Christ calls the prince of this world-see John, xiv. 30-who came to him, and found nothing in him, just before his death on the cross. But Balfour believes, that this prince was the civil and ecclesiastical powers, consisting of the Romans as the civil power, and of the Jewish doctors of their law, as the ecclesiastical power But we would ask, in the name of logic, how two powers opposite in nature, object, aim, and origin, as were the imp heathen Romans, the conquerors of the Jews, and they

of the Jewish religion, which was of God, can be considered as consolidated, so as to be spoken of as one prince, and as coming to Christ, and finding nothing in him to suit his purpose. The Romans, in the crucifiction of Christ, acted somewhat passively, as they did it in compliance with the wishes of the wicked Jews, and the mob which had come together on that occasion, and not of their own wish and prosecution; therefore, the whole affair is to be resolved into the act of the Sanhedrim, or court of Jewish Elders. If so, how are the Jews to be reckoned as the prince of this world; even allowing Judea to have been solely meant by the word world, seeing they were not then the ruling power, as even the privilege to keep up their religion, was by the clemency of the Roman Emperor, and could not therefore have any claim to the word prince. But if it be insisted, that this prince who came to our Lord, and found nothing in him, was the Roman authorities, urged on by the Jews, how is it said of him as in John, xii. 31, "Now is the judgment of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out;" as the Romans were not cast out of their dominion of Judea, nor of their other provinces, till many ages thereafter; which should have been done at that very time, if that prince was the Roman power. That the Jews were cast out some forty years after that time, by these very Romans, has nothing to do with the case; because it cannot be shown that the terms prince of this world, is applicable to their then situation, having been for more than thirty years from that very time back, despoiled of their civil power by the Romans, and had been and then were, governed by the emperor's substitutes, the Herods. It follows, therefore, that this prince, who came to Christ, and found nothing in him which was corrupt, was the devil, that fallen angel: who with his associate angels, were then bound under chains of moral darkness, and reserved unto the judgment of the great day, as said by St. Jude, when they are to be cast into hell, which it is said was prepared for the devil and his angels. But if it be said that this devil and his angels were the evil principle of sin, and the superstition of the ancient heathen; how is it that they have been cast out, and what is the hell into which they have been cast? seeing that even to this day, those nations remain the same, and have so remained, with the exception of here and there a Christian society, which appeared for a little time and then vanished away. If it be said that the whole Roman empire, in the days of Constantine, became Christianized, and that thus those angels of evil were cast down, or out of their places of power; yet we do not allow that true religion gained anything in the world by that occurrence, as from that foundation, and from that period, the Roman Catholic heresy sprang up, which has tormented the human race ever since.

But if it be insisted that this was the fall of the angels, we ask what then was the hell into which they were cast, and what

were the chains of darkness under which they were confined, and what is the judgment of the great day to which they were refert ed? Surely, it will not be said that the Romans being compelled -o favor Christianity, and her doctrines being taught at first pure in the ancient temples of their gods, was the hell into which they were cast; nor was this circumstance, those chains of darkness, nor the judgment of the great day, for which they had been so long reserved-as spoken of by St. Peter and St. Jude. This national conversion, though it is likely but few in heart, and in truth, were individually converted, must have been the hell spoken of, by those writers in the New Testament; as there is no other way of interpretation, but that of the orthodox sects, remaining, for our belief.

If the fact, stated in that saying of our Lord, namely John xii. 31-"Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out," is believed to have meant the devil, that fallen angel, then the matter stands thus by way of interpretation:-Christ was about to permit the sacrifice of his own soul and body, for the sin of the world; and by that means to fulfil all promises, all covenants, and prophecies, respecting himself, and to open a way by which the ruined souls of the hu man race might be restored, and fitted for the enjoyment of God; and thus counteract the machinations of the devil, by laying the foundation of that train of things which is to result in the casting out of the prince of this world-the devil-and total destruction of his power in the earth. With this view, it might well be said, that "now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out."

But as to the idea of a hell, Universalists have found out that there is no other hell than the grave, temporal sorrows, and the guilty or troubled consciences of bad men, in this life; yet much is said in the Scriptures of such a place, and that the wicked shall go thither; which if it were in the conscience only, the distance were but short; and as all the world being guilty before God, are even now, and ever have been in hell, and hell in them: on which account there is no distance at all, as every man has it ever with him; as all are wicked according to those people's views, and always will be in this life, and were even made in hell at first, as Adam and Eve had their lusts, and lust is sin, and sin is guilt, and guilt is in the conscience, and a guilty conscience is a Universalist's hell; Adam and Eve, of course, were made in it, and all their children were born in it, out of which they never can get, only by dying and descending to the grave. Sin, therefore, is all the Saviour there is; for if sin had not come into the world, men would not die, as death of all kinds came by sin; and if men had not died, and were not still to die, they never could get out of this hell, as they never could die,-so glory to sin, and death for salvation, from the lusts of Adam and Eve,

before they fell; a most wonderful philosophy this, a cause destroyed by its own effect.

No man will contend that those sinning angels, whatever they were, were cast down, or into the grave, as that is but the common receptacle of all the human race, both the good, as well as the bad, and therefore, can never be thought of as a place of punishment, or a hell for the wicked; neither is it very philosophical to contend that they were cast down to a guilty conscience, as they must have had this within them, before they started. But St. Peter is very explicit in stating that those angels who sinned, were cast down to hell, and are reserved unto the judgment; and St. Jude says, unto the judgment of the great day,—which we have shown, could not have been the subversion of the Roman heathen powers to Christianity: a guilty conscience: the grave: nor yet the destruction of the Jews by the Romans:-there remains, therefore, but one other idea of solution,-and this is, there is a hell in eternity, prepared for fallen angels, and finally wicked and impenitent men.

But before we proceed further in this subject, we deem it proper to clear up a seeming difficulty, with respect to the place to which those fallen angels were sent, by the power that expelled them from heaven.

This difficulty is found in Revelations xii. 7, 8, 9—as follows : "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out-that old serpent, called the devil-and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: He was cast out into the earth; and his angels were cast out with him."

This statement is exceedingly clear, respecting the existence of such a being as the devil, and his angels, and of their being expelled from a happy condition called heaven; yet it does not state that they were cast down to hell; as does St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. Matthew, but "into the earth." Is the earth hell therefore? No, and we explain it as follows: At the time when the angels first sinned, God cast them off, by withholding his favor, which shut them out from all happiness; and in addition to this, it appears, as we shall show, in the course of our remarks, that he created somewhere in boundless space, a place, or location of fire, and called it hell; designed for the final state, and place of punishment for those angels, and all who assimilate themselves to their characters; but as yet, are not confined there, having the liberty-for reasons known to God-to dwell on and in the earth, and in the air,--though to mortals invisible, and doubtless in other worlds also.

But how is it that it is said, they were cast down to hell, if they are found in the earth? Surely this globe is not that hell spoken of, as it is not a world of fire: it is because they were