There is, I say, a latent notion in such minds, that as all things are at his disposal, and as upon his mere will it depends, whether the destiny of the soul shall be endless happiness or endless woe, that God, to whom no obstacles or impediments can occur, will, in the plenitude of his omnipotence and sovereignty, decide for mercy. But what if the salvation of the finally impenitent be impossible! What if, in the treasures of the Divine wisdom, and in the depths of the Divine resources, there be no remedy for lost souls; if there be no balm in Gilead; no physician there! What if the constitution of the soul, like the constitution of the body, be, when radically undermined, irrecoverable! But should no intrinsic impediments exist, it is all the same, if extrinsic causes operate, so as to render such a restoration incompatible with the fundamental principles of the Divine government. If God cannot pardon in consistency with his truth, his justice-with the maintenance of all his attributes in their full integrity and perfection-and with those principles on which the good and harmony of the universe are built; in such a case pardon cannot be extended. There is an insurmountable obstacle in the way. He who came from heaven to save us, cannot bring down salvation lower than

he did. Into those depths, where the despisers of his gospel have fallen by their own weight, he cannot descend with tidings of deliverance. All that could be done, was done for them. They have been their own destroyers, and their blood is upon their own head.

ESSAY XVI.

ON 1 PETER, iii. 18-22.

18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20. Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

21. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

22. Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers being made. subject unto him.

THIS remarkable passage, it is well known, has been taken by the Romanists in a sense which favours their doctrine of purgatory; containing, as they pretend, a message of deliverance to departed souls, in a state of durance and of suffering. On the other hand, Protestant writers have, in order to avoid this apparent sanction to so funda

mental an error, offered such interpretations as, in my opinion, are unsatisfactory and forced. The passage, in a word, appears to me to be as yet unexplained. I therefore proceed to submit, for consideration, a view of its meaning, which has forcibly struck my own mind.

The conjecture, then, which I propose, without further preface, is, that the imprisoned spirits spoken of in the 19th verse, are fallen angels. But before I enter on the examination, I would just say, that I can nowhere find in Scripture that human beings are called "spirits;" whereas this term is applied to angels in a variety of instances. Amongst the rest, in Heb. i. 7; "Who maketh his angels spirits:" and Heb. i. 14; "Are they not all ministering spirits?"

In Gen. vi. 2, we read, that when " the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, they took them wives of all which they chose." It was an ancient opinion that these "sons of God" were angels-(and that this high title was applied to angels, appears in two remarkable passages of Job, viz., chap. i. 6, and xxxviii. 7.) These higher natures, clothed, for the purposes of their ministry, in corporeal vehicles, were drawn down to the level of human passions, and commingled with the race of man. Hence arose a spurious generation called giants:

and it is remarkable, that in immediate connexion with the appearance of this dubious progeny, we are told that God resolved to bring a deluge upon the earth. The reason, moreover, which

the Lord assigns, for no longer striving to redeem the world from its iniquities, be it observed, is this—“That he also" (as if alluding to some order of beings heretofore distinct from man,)" that he also is flesh." To clear the earth of that confusion, which the unlawful union of these two races had occasioned, seems, in this view, to have been the procuring cause of the general destruction. Out of this union, however, a remnant of the pure, unmingled seed of man, traced up, by a distinctly preserved genealogy, to Adam, was saved.

In proof that the spirits to whom our Lord preached, in the invisible world, were these degenerate angels, I shall consider three particulars. 1st. The condition in which they are described as being, namely, "in prison." 2nd. The time during which their disobedience was displayed. 3rd. The nature of their offence. I shall then notice the precise point of the Redeemer's history at which he is said to have visited them.

1. On the first particular, I shall merely point out the striking coincidence between the state of "the spirits in prison," and the description given