entrenched themselves there, by appropriating them, so far as deception, delusion, and falsehood can do, to their own ruinious purposes, out of malice to God; glorying in producing wretchedness and misery among his works in that way, as there is no other in which they are permitted to operate. And as a climax of the appropriation of the passions to the purposes of sin and confusion, images of the passions were invented, by which they became visible, and therefore the more seducing, infatuating the minds of both male and female, to that degree that the most extravagant and obscene behaviour, in the temples of their gods, was esteemed as acts of devotion and religious virtues, putting moral darkness for light, and moral bitter for sweet, in the most glaring sense. This is the very reason why idolatry, the most foolish thing ever invented or practised among men, was in the ancient ages, and is even now, in many heathen countries, so intoxicating to the imagination, and so fixes itself in the corrupted and misled minds of image-worshippers. This was the very reason why the Jews, during their early history, were so frequently misled by their pagan neighbors, and induced to forsake the chaste and refined worship of the Creator, as instituted among them by Moses, for that which gave immediate animal happiness. To these passion-gods, images, in process of time, were consecrated, temples of great magnificence were built, orders of priests were created, and sacrifices ordained to be made to them, and celebrated with lascivious rites, addressed to the invisible powers, who were supposed to preside over the passions. And these invisible powers and beings thus propitiated and worshiped, were the very devils to which St. Paul alludes when he says, they sacrificed to devils or evil spirits. We might here relate many strange things respecting the modes of evoking evil spirits as practised by nations who practice necromancy, and of the effects of such evocations; but we desist, as we do not aim in this work at the publication of such abominations, but only to show the Scripture allusion to such practices and such beings.

Now by the coming of Christ into the world, and by his overcoming Satan, in his trial with him in the wilderness, and by the introduction of a system of holiness among men, Satan began to lose his hold of the worship and veneration of men, through the avenues of the passions; on which account, when the seventy disciples had returned, and were relating to the Saviour how that evil spirits were subject to them, through his name, he replied, that he saw Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven-the elevation he had hitherto possessed in the worship and veneration of men, no more to rise to the same universal height, and should continue to fall till the worship of the true God, the Creator, should be established in all the world. But did the Saviour see him fall visibly? The text, (see Luke x. 18,) says he did:

"And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Now as it is said of Satan that he is the power and the prince of the air, Christ might, in the most visible manner, have seen him fall from the heights of the atmosphere to the earth as a token to himself, that ere long he must be cast down to hell in a manner equally apparent and visible to spiritual beings. What were they which the seventy disciples said were subject to his name, which they called the devils, and which the Saviour in reply said were spirits? Were these the mere passions of the soul of man, or the diseases of his body, or both? We think not: as a spirit cannot be called a passion. In Acts v. 3, is a remarkable case, which goes to prove the being of Satan, found in the words of Peter to a member of the church at that time, as follows: "Annanias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ?" On this text we have the following from the pen of Adam Clarke: "It was a common belief, as well among the heathen as among the Jews and Christians, that when a man did evil, that he was excited thereto by the influence and malice of an evil spirit. The words of St. Peter here prove that such an agency is not a fiction. If there had been no Satan, as some wish, and perhaps feel it their interest to believe, or if this Satan or devil, had no influence on the souls of men, Peter, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, would not have expressed himself in such a way; for if the thing were not so, it was the most direct way to have led the disciples to a false opinion on this subject, and to confirm them in an old and absurd prejudice.”

But so was not the fact, as it was not an old and absurd prejudice, but an old and well established truth; as old as from the fall of Adam; or the mission of the Son of God among men was without object, aim or consequence; as his professed and chief object was to destroy the devil and his works in the earth-see John, iii. 8: "For this purpose the Son of God was manifest, that he might destroy the works of the devil." And Heb. ii. 14: "That through death he (Christ) might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil," which, however, is entirely false, except there is a devil. If there is no personal devil, how is it that St. Paul speaks of him in the singular number, him that hath the power of death? This is very strrnge, if the Apostle only meant to say Christ came into the world to destroy the bad passions of men, and in a few, to cure the diseases of the body. But the Apostle is still more singular, when he says this devil or Satan, had the power of death, if we are to understand by it. nothing but the bad passions of fallen nature, especially if we believe as Universalists do, which is, that all the passions of the soul were produced by the Creator; as this idea would ascertain God as the author of this very devil which he has sent his Son into the world to destroy; so that God is found operating against his own work, namely, human nature, in which is situ

ated the carnal mind. But this being is equally brought to view in the following, as in the above Scripture-see 2d Cor. ii. 11— "Lest Satan should get an advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his devices."

Are we to believe that St. Paul's remarks, as above noticed, were for the purpose of putting the disciples in all the churches among the Jews and Gentiles, upon their guard against catching some kind of disease of body or mind, then prevalent among the people? Certainly, we are thus to understand him, if he had no allusion to any other devil than those diseases, the lusts and passions of human nature-with the wiles and devices of whom the Christians were well acquainted at that time. The carnal mind, its diseases, and the diseases of the body, however, we should think could not be spoken of by so highly an educated man as was St. Paul, under the idea of a person, as he has, by saying, we are not ignorant of HIS devices, without violence to the language in which he wrote, as pluralities are not represented in any language by the singular.

In the same epistle, 2d Cor. xii. 7, the same Apostle speaks of the same being, and calls him Satan; who, it appears, was permitted to afflict St. Paul with some grievous disease, of which he says, "and lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me." But some have imagined, that this thorn in Paul's flesh, was the preaching of a certain minister, who opposed him at Corinth, by adulterating the gospel with heresies and untenable dogmas, on which account he is supposed to have been grievously afflicted. But if this were so, he could not have been a thorn in his flesh, but in his mind only; and more than this, he could not have called it his infirmity, nor have gloried in it, unless we can suppose he would glory in a wicked opposition to himself and the gospel. It could not have been any false accuser or slanderer, as in such a case he could not have said it was an infirmity of his own flesh and that he gloried in it, as he could not have gloried in being falsely accused. It could not have been a slanderer and a traducer of the gospel, as that would have been a heinous sin, committed against God; on which account the Apostle could never have said that he gloried in it, nor could he have called it his own infirmity, or sin.

That this thorn in his flesh was a disease in his own body, appears from the statement which he made respecting his prayer to God about it, which was, that " for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me." Now could he have called an accuser, a slanderer, or an opposer of the gospel a thing, as a thing is not a person? Neither could he have spoken of a person of that description, nor of any other description, by the monosyllable it, as it is not a person in any case

But if we allow this thorn in his flesh to have been a disease of some kind, then the words it and thing are properly used in relation to it, and not otherwise. Now if the Divine Being did not see fit to remove this thorn, against which he had prayed of set purpose most earnestly, no less than thrice, with what propriety he could say," most gladly, therefore, will I glory in mine infirmities" of body, or bodily weakness, as thereby the power of Christ might rest upon him, or be the more manifest. If it be said that this infirmity, this thorn, the messenger of Satan, was the depraved nature of St. Paul, in common with all other men, who are not regenerated, then it follows that God would not sanctify him from all sin, which he has promised to do to all who ask him, and makes the Apostle to say, that most gladly he gloried in his depravity and evil dispositions of mind, so that the power of Christ might be manifest in him; which would be a contradiction, as the power of Christ consists in the sanctification of the mind, and not in compelling the soul to remain in its sins and pollutions.

There is therefore but one way to solve the problem, and that is, to allow that there is a Satan, the same who misled Eve, accused Job, tempted or tried the Saviour in the wilderness, entered into Judas Iscariot, desired to have Peter that he might sift him as wheat, deceives the whole world, and was permitted to buffet St. Paul, with the infliction of some grievous sore in his body, called a thorn in his flesh, or the messenger of Satan, and would have killed the Apostle, as he would have killed Job, had he not been restrained.

That there is such a being is still further shown, 2d Thess. ii. 2, 4, 9, where St. Paul is showing beforehand the rise and coming of a character which he denominates the man of sin, which should exalt himself above all earthly power, and even above God himself, so that he as God would sit in the temple of God, the Christian church, showing himself that he is God on earth. But the peculiar method by which he should rise to such power in and over the church, as to claim the worship, obedience and veneration of its members, should be by signs and lying wonders, after the working of Satan, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. But if there is no Satan, or devil, who is the father of lies, whose intellectual powers are greater than those of men, how is it that the Apostle has not stated the case according to truth, which he has not, if Universalists are right? He should have said that this man of sin, whatever it was or is, should rise into power, by and after the working of human nature, or the carnal mind, instead of Satan; which name, in no language, is put for human nature, and therefore cannot be descriptive of human nature, nor of its passions, however bad they are.

The Apostle states, that the coming of this man of sin, should be after, or like the working of Satan: by which we perceive

he cannot mean human nature, as it would be foolishness to say that human nature was like itself, as this method could afford no data of comparison; as we see there is between this man of sin and Satan. The result is, therefore, that there is such a being as Satan, distinct from human nature and human passion and exists after a different manner or mode.

In the book of Revelations we find this being spoken of in such a manner as is impossible to be interpreted of a disease, either of body or mind-of any human being, or of the bad passions of human beings, which existed in the days of Paul, or in any age or nation of the earth. We will give the quotations, and leave the reader to judge. (See Rev. xx., 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10.) "And I saw (prospectively) an angel come down from heaven, having the key (knowledge how to bind such a being) of the bottomless pit, (hell) and a great chain (power) in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, (which time will be the milleneum.) And cast him into the bottomless pit, (endless in duration) and shut him up, and set a seal upon him that he should deceive (deception can be practised only by an intellectual being) the nations no more till the thousand years (the milleneum) should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed for a little season, (a few years to try such as shall be born during the time of the milleneum, as there will be no sin in the earth during that period.) And when the thousand years are (shall have) expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are (or shall be) in the four quarters of the earth. And the devil that deceived them was (is to be) cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, (hell) where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever."

But if the foregoing is not to be literally fulfilled, how extraordinary is all this. Can it be that the divine inspiration should indite in the heart of his Apostle, a matter so calculated to establish beyond all doubt so dreadful an error?-a fiction so magnificently foolish, as of the existence of a being which does not exist at all. Can it be that God would interest himself to establish this fiction in the world, and then, on the ground of this very fiction to get a great name among men, by pretending to overcome this non-existence?-which, however, he has done, if there is no such being as Satan, who is of a nature and mode of being different from that of man. If indeed it were true, that this Satan, of which the Revelator has here given such a circumstantial account, was some slanderer, accuser or adversary, or enemy of Christianity, in the time of St. John, to whom he has here alluded, there is then a mighty difficulty to get over, as it is impossible to point out the man, person or character, and to show when and where he was put, when put into the place