the part of God. But on the other idea, which supposes the Creator as willing, and desiring the fall of man, redemption dwindles in its glory down to a mere show and ostentatious parade of pity, which even in man could be nothing short of magnificently disgraceful; for if the fall of man was caused by the will of God, common generosity, nay, justice itself, would require that he should restore him again, if his fall into sin did not please him. But such was not the case; the fall of man was contrary to the eternal will of God; yet he could not prevent it, unless he would control, or take away their free agency, which would have been in part to have uncreated man, a thing impossible, as the Creator changeth not in mind, though the principalities and powers of rational existence which he has made, change in moral character ever so much.

Proofs of the Fall of the Angels, Refutation of several Propositions of Balfour respecting the Opinions of Zoroaster, as copied by the Orthodox Sects, according to this Author, with many other Curious Matters.

But to return again to the case of sinning angels, who kept not their first estate, as recorded by St. Jude and others, so as to ascertain the true origin of their sin, and reason of their apostacy, and of the being of Satan; as this subject is one of the chief objects of this work. But before we proceed to investigate this subject, we are necessitated to prove that some of the angels, whose existence and supernatural character we have made out already in this work, fell from heaven, their first habitation, and became enemies to God, and all his works, with him, now called Satan at their head. We undertake to prove this, because it is denied by those sects who do not believe that there is literally a personal conscious being called Satan, or beings called devils, demons, and evil spirits, beings of an invisible state; which, if we fail to perform, the chief design of this book is not made out, and the faith of those sects who deny their existence, stands unshaken in these respects.

In pursuit of such proof, we know not where to turn, except to the Scriptures; a book which is venerated by all, as the great text book of Christian theology, from whence all men draw authority in support of their religious faith, and is therefore an accredited source of information, on all subjects upon which it treats; and this subject, that of the fall of some of such angels, A book so sacred, and so high in authority, upon which, as upon a foundation of adamant, is built not only the hopes of this life, in moralizing and evangelizing the world; but that of

is one.

eternal existence and eternal happiness, should be allowed as a competent and sufficient arbiter on this subject; what, therefore, does it establish in relation to it? See St. Jude, who in relating several instances of God's severity toward the incorrigibly wicked, as in the case of the unbelieving and rebellious Jews, who died on that account, in the great desert, between the country of Canaan and Egypt, and of the cities of the vale of Sodom, as suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, speaks also of the "angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he (God) hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." But is this fact, the fall of the angels, as stated by St. Jude, any where corroborated in the New Testament? it most certainly is; see John, viii. 44, where it is said, that our Lord said to the blaspheming Jews, that they did the lusts of their father the devil; "who was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth."

Now who is this devil, who is said by even Jesus Christ to be the father of the Jewish lusts, which they did? Was it Zoroaster, the great leader of the Persian Magian religion, of fire worshippers, who having been a Jew, left that religion, according to Balfour, and seizing on many new dogmas, which he received from the heathen, among whom he went, grafted them upon the Jewish stock, and taught them to the Persians? if so, it must be shown that Zoroaster's apostacy from the Jewish religion, was the beginning of error in the world; and therefore, that Moses was miserably mistaken, when many hundred years before Zoroaster's time, he had written the account of the fall of Adam and Eve from the truth, and the wickedness of all the human race, till his own time.

Mr. Balfour has labored hard, see his " Enquiry," section first, to prove that the orthodox Christians have borrowed all their peculiar sentiments, such as the existence of devils, the idea of a hell, of a day of future and general judgment, &c., from this Zoroaster, and that Zoroaster got them from the heathen Greeks; as he thinks it impossible for him to have derived these opinions from the Old Testament, although as we understand them are found in many parts of it, as in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Judges, Samuel, Kings, the Prophets, Job, the Psalms, book of Solomon, and the Proverbs. Out of these books Zoroaster enriched his works-and especially from the book of Psalms, which he nearly transcribed into his Zendavesta. It is impossible that so correct a knowledge of the character of the true God, could have been obtained by this Zoroaster, except from the writings of Moses and others of the Old Testament-as is here given from Eusebius, who says he had read the following words verbatim, in a book of Zoroaster, which was extant in his time, and entitled "SACRED COLLECTION OF PERSIAN MONUMENTS." "God is the first of all incorruptible beings, eternal

and unbegotten. He is not compounded of parts. There is none like nor equal to him. He is the author of all good, and entirely disinterested, the most excellent of all beings, and the wisest of all intelligent natures; the father of equity, the parent of good laws, self instructed, and the first former of nature."

Saristhani, quoted by Doctor Hyde, says that the first Magi, or most ancient Persian ministers of their religion, did not look upon the good and evil principles as both of them co-eternal, but thought that light was indeed eternal, but that darkness was produced in time by the disloyalty of Ahriman, the chief of the Genii. Here it is plain that the Persians, before Zoroaster was born, had somehow received the belief of the fall of the angels, which came originally, after the flood, from Noah; but was more fully understood in Zoroaster's time, 600 years B. C., on account of his acquaintance with the Bible of the Jews. The writings of the Chinese abound with references and quotations from the writings of Soliman Ben Doud, or Solomon the son of David, and no doubt carried thither by their own travelling philosophers.

Mr. Balfour thinks it impossible for the orthodox sects to have taken their belief from the New Testament, but wholly from Zoroaster. But how this can be we know not, and we believe is equally unknown to Mr. Balfour, as the writings of Zoroaster have never been known to the Christian church, otherwise than to a very few learned men, but never made common. If the orthodox sects are guilty of Zoroasterism, then was Christ, his disciples, and their immediate followers Zoroasterans, as those peculiar sentiments of the orthodox sects are certainly found in the New Testament, and there learned, as not one man among a hundred million Christians, ever saw the writings of that philosopher, or ever even heard of him. In accusing the orthodox sects of having taken their peculiar opinions from Zoroaster, Mr. Balfour accuses even the inspired writers of the New Testament with this plagiarism, as that book is all the authority the Christian churches ever had or ever heard of, for its peculiar opinions, which Universalists oppose. It is to the Old and to the New Testament these doctrines are to be traced, even though misconceived of, as Universalists seem to suppose; yet from those books we know we derive our authority, knowing of no other. This ridicule therefore of Balfour is of no importance, as we rely wholly upon the New Testament, as it reads, for those peculiar senti ments that of the being of Satan, the existence of devils or evil spirits, a hell and future day of Judgment at the end of the world, &c. &c.

If then the beginning, of which St. John (viii. 44,) speaks, when he says the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, has nothing to do with Zoroaster the great Persian theological law-giver, to what period does he relate? What truth did this devil forsake, if it was not his fall from hea

ven, or first estate? That any angel ever fell from heaven is abhorrent to the ideas of Mr. Balfour, the great divine of the Universalists; for if this can be proved their whole opposition to the orthodox belief on these subjects vanishes away; on which account the texts most in point, by which it is proven, are avoided, or assumed not to mean this thing, whatever else they may

mean.

But St. Jude is corroborated in his statement by St. Peter as well as St. John, to all intents and purposes; for this apostle having the same subject in view, that of God's severity toward the incorrigibly and perseveringly wicked, mentions false prophets then among the people, who brought in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them, whose damnation slumbered not; and urges the certainty of their doom from the fact 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." 2 Peter, ii. 4.

How is it that Universalists have become so much wiser on this subject than all former ages, for "the traditions of their fall, says Adam Clarke, is in all countries, and in all religions; and why? because the sense of all mankind so understood this account of the Scriptures, who have had them to read, except a few, we will add, of recent origin and fast spreading notoriety. It was the belief of the Jews that Satan, a fallen angel, slew Adam, and in him slew all his descendants." Their opinion on this matter we think should have some weight, as we do not find it corrected by the Messiah, nor by his disciples who have given us his doctrine on this point, as on all the other peculiar opinions of the orthodox sects. It is no marvel that among the gentiles, or heathen nations of remotest antiquity, a belief of the fall of the angels should have been extant; for we are not to suppose that Noah was ignorant of the account of their fall-as given by Moses, in the book of Genesis, nor any of his immediate descendants, even for five hundred years after the subsiding of the flood; for Shem, his oldest son, lived that length of time after the flood, and no doubt inculcated this account among all the descendants of Noah as much as was in his power. We believe this the more as it relates to Shem in particular, as there is much evidence that this same Shem was Melchisedek who was cotemporary with Abraham two thousand years before Christ. All the other branches of Noah's family must have carried this account with them every where, and in this way have filled the world with the tradition; so that even if Zoroaster had never seen a copy of that part of the Old Testament, so far as written in the time of Isaiah, he would have had, as a well informed religious teacher of his time, a knowledge of such a doctrine as that of the fall of the angels. It was a fact that the doctrine 1 to each other, of a good god and an evil god, who were oppos

was a belief of the most ancient Persians. But from whom this idea was derived, Balfour, who admits this fact, does not relate, but seems to imagine it of their own invention. This however is a resort for its origin not called for, as it was an antedeluvian tenet of the Patriarchs descending from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to the time of Moses.

But how is this proven? It is proven from the statement in Genesis 3d, where the account of Eve's having been deceived by the serpent is given. We know very well that no brute animal of the creation could ever talk or reason, and therefore if one of - them did do so, as in the case of Eve, that it must have been inspired by a superior and supernatural being, as no one of a natural or earthly condition could do it. This supernatural being was, therefore, that fallen angel, who had by his fall become the enemy of God and all his works, or it was nothing; and thus we believe Moses understood it.

To go on the ground which Balfour and all Universalists do in the illustration of that subject, is to our understanding amazingly out of joint.

His and their opinions are, that Eve's lusts were the serpent which out-reasoned her understanding. Is it to be conceived as having been possible that the soul of Eve, the creature of God, new from his hand, was endowed with lusts which were to produce her ruin as certainly as that God should place her under law, as that law would as certainly draw out those lusts into action against such law, as flint and steel when driven against each other produce fire. However pure and good all the other parts of creation may have been, and however loudly the Divine Arbiter may have pronounced them so, yet could he not do this in relation to man? as it is impossible for the unutterably Holy Creator to approve of that which is radically evil in its very nature, or tending to evil. Yet he has done this, if Universalists are correct; as it is said that man was made in his own image and likeness. Has God any lusts? if not, then a being having lust is not his image, and of course, according to Balfour, neither Adam nor Eve were made in his image, nor in any sense morally upright, as the Scriptures assert they were. Lust is the offspring of her fall, not the cause, and could not have existed in her moral nature before that event.

Balfour, in order to support this opinion of the lusts of Eve before she fell, quotes St. James i. 15, who says "Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." But this is arguing with the cart before the horse; as lust, which bringeth death, is now in man's nature, but was not originally; for if it was, then man is not fallen, has not sinned-nay cannot sin; as the legitimate action of all first principles implanted in man's nature cannot act against God nor his law, as Balfour says Eve's did; unless we suppose