amount of intellectual variety among the angels of God, as at first created; notwithstanding, many, if not all Universalists, deny angelic existences, as mentioned in the Scriptures, the same as did the Saducees, in the time of Christ; the Deists of that age; and the most opposed to the introduction of true Christianity: the same as all Universalists, in every age, have been guilty of, like their true brethren above named; and will ever be, till they renounce their opinions as a people. We cannot however, condemn every one of this opinion, as Deists; because there are some of that order, who appear to be in reality converted persons, and talk about religion, and the Saviour, the same as the other sects; but such talk, and such conversion, never arose out of the true Universalist opinions; as those opinions deny spiritual conversion, the Deity of Christ, his expiatory death, the real fall of Adam, the existence of absolute sin, or moral evil; which to deny, is to deny the whole essence of Christianity, the new birth and all. The Subject of Spiritual and Angelic Existence, further examined: to ascertain whether the Accounts of such Beings, as found in the Bible, signify Men or Spirits. This we think proper to do, before we come to the main point; the cause of the being of Satan-as an evil being. Many Universalists, as we before have noticed, deny that the Scriptures, by the word angel, means any thing more or less than men; as prophets, apostles, evangelists, and ministers of religion, or messengers of good or ill. But why do they deny this? Because, if they admit the existence of good angels, they, of necessity, must admit the existence of evil angels, such as St. Jude speaks of. who kept not their first estate, but were cast down to hell; and this would be to admit at once that there is a Satan, and devils, and also a hell-as is believed by other sects of Christians; therefore, their existence must be denied totally,-and accordingly is, by all who are thorough in. that creed. Angels are almost everywhere spoken of, in both the Old and New Tes tament: commencing as early in time as Abraham, and ending but with St. John, the Revelator: under such circumstances as precludes the possibility of their having been men, in any view of the subject. Let such as deny the being of spirits, called angels, examine the quotations we have already made in proof of a variety of orders among the angels, and those we are now about to make; but especially the whole of chapters 17, 18, and 19, of Gercsis, the story of which is as follows. When Abraham was ninety nine years old, the Lord appeared to him in the form of a man, had said "I am the Almighty God;" when he instructed Abraanm relative to circumcision, and of the coming of the Messiah. And when he left off talking with him, God went ascending from his sight, up toward heaven, maintaining to the last glimpse, the form of a man. Gen. xvii. 22. But at another time-which, however, was soon after this first appearance-the Almighty appeared to Abraham again, and in the form of a man: with two of his angels with him, having also the same form. Gen. xviii. 1, 2: "And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent-door in the heat of the day: And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him." It would seem that these three men had not been discovered in their approach, but had suddenly made themselves visible from a previous invisible state; or it could not well have been stated by Moses, that those three men stood by Abraham, without also mentioning that their approach had been noticed by him, if they were nothing more than ordinary men. But notwithstanding this sudden appearance, Abraham, it seems, did not know that his guests were from heaven, for he made haste, from the goodness of his heart, to prepare them food, and after they had seemed to eat, he arose and went on a while with them, toward the vale of Sodom-whither they were going; but ere he parted from them-by some means, not recorded he found out that the Lord of Hosts, with two of his holy angels, had been his visitors, and that they were come forth to destroy by fire, the five cities of the vale of Sodom. At this time the noted plea for mercy, made by Abraham to the Lord, for these devoted cities, took place; after which, it is said, the Lord went his way. Now if Abraham had been a Universalist-as that people claim he was, as also all the prophets-where was the propriety of his plea of mercy, for the mere lives of the Sodomites-seeing they were so exceedingly wicked, as to have become a nuisance on the face of the earth-when he must have known that their death would be their eternal reformation and happiness in another world. In the 19th chapter of Genesis, is found an account of two angels rescuing Lot and his two daughters from ruin. But the proof that those two strangers whom it appears Lot-from the hospitableness of his disposition, rescued from being lodgers in the street, were angels, or supernatural beings, is: that as the wicked men of Sodom beset the house of righteous Lot, they, the angels, struck them with blindness; such power, we believe, is not conferred on mortals, so as to inflict blindness, or any other disorder, by invisible means. After this, some twenty five years had rolled away, when Isaac the son of Abraham, had grown to man's estate; the Lord, it appears, required the sacrifice of this son to try the fealty of |