bitter, weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth: a full appreciation of what has been rejected, and an agonizing consciousness of what is incurred-the total absence of hope, the blackness of darkness, to be known and felt forever and ever-these are a part of what we are told will be the portion of those who believe not: the doom of such as will not obey. Let this awful glimpse of unspeakable and everlasting wo suffice; and may the blood of Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot for sins, be so applied to the soul of her who writes, and of every individual who reads these pages, that they may never know, by experience, the terrific reality of what, by faith, they are assured, is reserved for the enemies of the Gospel of Christ.

I.

THEIR EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER.

In the great conflicts that man has to wage with the terrible enemy to whom he has sold himself, and who labours to keep, or to regain possession of every individual soul, so long as it inhabits the body, man has but one effectual help. Unaided and alone, God, manifest in the flesh, fought the battle of redemption: he alone paid the ransom, and from him alone is all strength, all succour to be derived. There is not in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, any created thing, capable of supplying a fraction towards the mighty price of man's deliverance, nor of contributing an iota of the power by which alone he can successfully fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life. It is highly important to bear this in mind, because of the fearful abuses by which the adversary has prevailed to pervert the delightful truths that we are now about to investigate. The Papal apostasy, one of whose characteristics it is to "blaspheme them that dwell in heaven," (Rev. xiii. 6,) has established a system of angel-worship, interwoven with

every part of its unholy fabric, and carried to such an excess that it has prevailed to drive the Church of Christ into an opposite extreme; teaching them to shrink from, or to overlook the encouraging truths that tend to the glory of God; and which are therefore changed into a lie by Satan, that in our anxiety to shun that lie, we may lose the consolations provided for us.

Of what subsisted previously to the creation of this globe, we have but very dim intimations; yet we know that angelic hosts looked on and rejoiced in the beauteous work. This is conveyed in magnificent language in the book of Job, where the Lord enters into controversy with the doubting and complaining, but self-justifying sufferer. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ?" Job xxxviii. 4-7. It is certain from this passage, that beings, bright and holy, existed, with faculties to comprehend, and minds to rejoice in the manifestation of God's power and goodness in creating this globe on which we dwell. They are called "the angels of God," Gen. xxviii. 12, "Holy angels," Matt.

xxv. 31.

Michael seems, indeed, to be among the holy angels, what Satan is among the fallen spirits, a leader invested with great power; and we find them personally