man," and of saying with "the ancient Sadducee that there is neither angel nor spirit."

Whether Mr. Hatfield knew no better, or whether he deliberately uttered this unblushing falsehood, we shall leave those who have read his book, to decide. In either case, he can not screen himself from high culpability. That Universalists believe in holy spiritual beings, called angels, we had supposed as widely known as their preaching had been heard or their writings read. At least we had never heard or suspected that the existence of such intelligent beings was doubted by any Universalist on earth, till Mr. Hatfield's "text book" appeared in the spring of the present year! The faith of American Universalists in the existence of "fallen angels," so called, is confessed to be very slender. Such beings are not mentioned at all in the Old Testament, nor inthe New except by Peter and Jude, and their account of them is easily explained by the popular tradition preserved in the apochryphal book of Enoch; and we may add, is capable of being explained satisfactorily in no other way.

The whole system of demonology, exhibited incidentally in the New Testament, is capable of being proved to be the growth, so far as the Jews are concerned, of two or three centuries immediately preceding the time of Christ. Not a trace of it is to be found in the Old Testament.

Parts of it appear in the apochryphal writings composed subsequently to the close of the Old Testament canon, and it seems to have attained its full developement previous to the public ministry of our Savior. If it is a portion of revelation, then, who revealed it? Not Moses or the prophets of the Old Testament, for they make no mention of it; not Jesus or his apostles, for it already existed before they began to preach. We think it is no where required in the Scriptures that a man must believe in the personality of " the devil or fallen angels."

But how, our readers will ask, does Mr. Hatfield prove that Universalists do not believe in holy angels? We answer, he found a remark of Mr. Ballou-" the arch-messenger"-for our author can perpetrate as villainous puns as any sinner on earth-he found a remark of Mr. Ballou, that by angels, Heb. i. 6. are meant human messengers. Mr. Whittemore also had suggested, that by the angels, Matt. xiii. 41, is meant the Roman armies. From these and a few similar passages our sapient author really inferred, or at least affected to infer, that Universalists believe in no other angels than human beings. It would be truly amusing to see a principle like this carried out universally. Dr. Adam Clarke calls Christ's angels, whom he was to send forth, Matt. xxiv. 31, "his messengers, the apostles and their successors-the christian min

istry." Dr. Doddridge calls these messengers the preachers of the gospel. Dr. Lightfoot calls them "ministers, christians." Dr. Whitby approves this, and is wicked enough to add, "that God's prophets, messengers and ministers, both in the Old and New Testament are styled his angels." Would Mr. Hatfield charge these good orthodox divines with Sadduceeism? The truth is, and Mr. Hatfield probably knows it, we can hardly open a respectable commentator who does not in many passages interpret the word angel to mean a human messenger. But does this prove that they disbelieve the existence of angels, i. e. intelligent, celestial, and holy beings? Stupidity itself would not draw such an inference. And yet this is the ground and the whole ground on which Universalists are condemned by Mr. Hatfield.

Were it necessary, we could exhibit from the very authors to whom Mr. Hatfield has referred, the most conclusive proofs that they did not entertain even a doubt of the existence of holy angels. They speak of them as beings of unquestionable existence. What then shall we think of our author's reading, and the "minute acquaintance" with Universalism of which he * boasts? Or what shall we think of his candor and honesty?

After such an instance of godliness as our author has given us in the preceding chapter,

we are fully prepared to hear him laud "the ordinances." There have in every age been men who tithed "mint and anise and cummin, but omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and fidelity."

66

"Christian institutions," says Mr. Hatfield, are seldom savory to an unregenerate heart. And such have Universalists, undoubtedly, in our sense of the word, inasmuch as they utterly deny the common doctrine of, and so can not have experienced, the New Birth." The present chapter treats upon the Sabbath, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. "To the heart of the true christian," says our author, "the Sabbath day is the day of all the week the best.' It is the Lord's day-sacred to his service, never to be devoted in whole or in part to secular labors. The Christian remembers the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . . But the Universalist has no such feelings. . He affirms that THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH IS A MEre human devICE."

Now we object decidedly to this statement and particularly to the word device, which our author has here used for no good purpose. A "human device" generally implies something artful and evil, a stratagem designed to subserve some bad or merely selfish purpose. But Universalists never affirmed nor believed that the Lord's day possessed this character. They regard it as a day, set apart by christian usage

from the time of our Lord's resurrection, as commemorative of that great event, and as the most suitable time for public religious worship. But that it is the Jewish Sabbath transferred from the last to the first day of the week by divine command, and that it is to be kept holy in the same manner that that was required to be kept, Mr. Hatfield knows to be a proposition incapable of the slightest Scripture proof. The Jewish Sabbath was fixed on the last day of the week in commemoration of God's finishing his creative work and resting on the seventh day. The manner, too, of its observance was specifically described. Neither, therefore, could be changed without the same authority by which they were ordained. But Mr. Hatfield knows that the New Testament contains no expression of divine authority on the subject. There is no positive command to observe the Lord's day, nor any prescription with respect to the manner of keeping it. We have the example of the apostles and primitive christians, and the propriety and usefulness of the thing itself to command our respect and secure our observance. This is the ground maintained by Dr. Paley. Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, says, "it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day. In Calmet's Dictionary, edited by Prof. Robinson, of the Presbyterian "Union Theological Sem