to Satan the words addressed to the King of Tyrus: 'Thou 'sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 'Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set 'thee so. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, thou 'hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of 'fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou 'wast created till iniquity was found in thee' (Ezek. xxviii. 12-15).

Were it otherwise, how could the very nature and principle of moral evil, namely, separation from and independence of God, have been manifested? How could a creature, the offspring of God, and yet involving the moral contradiction of being in no way of God,' have separated himself from that to which he had never been united? The very principle of sin, which is moral, the wilful act of a free agent in departing from God, would no more have been manifested by a being created wholly morally evil, than by the lower animals. Both, in doing that which was in itself evil, would have obeyed the law of their being, and would not therefore have been guilty of sin, which is the transgression of the law.

There is another difficulty which may arise in the minds of many with regard to the possibilities of redemption. God spared not the angels who sinned,' and we are told that the fate of Satan himself is to be eternal. We must conclude, therefore, that this also is in some. way or other essential, and impossible to be otherwise; that is to say, that redemption is in the nature of things impossible to fallen spirits. But it is also taught that it is equally so to those men while yet in the flesh who sin wilfully; that is, with the full consent of their minds, unrestrained by conscience, after they have received the knowledge of the truth (Heb. x. 26, vi. 4-6); or as stated, 'it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.' In other words, repentance (metanoia), or change of mind, is impossible to those who, after having received the

truth, have rejected it, so that it has ceased to have any influence on the conscience, and they are therefore able to do those things which the truth condemns without any restraint from conscience.

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This is clearly the sin spoken of by Christ as the sin against the Holy Ghost, who is especially defined as 'the Spirit of truth' (John xvi. 13), and the particular form of the sin there referred to was speaking against the Holy Ghost,' or Spirit of truth, which would be the natural consequence of rejecting the truth after its power had been felt by the conscience; for, it has been often observed that none are such bitter opponents of the truth as those who, having once recognised its force, have rejected it. All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.' No conceivable sin can close the gates of heaven against the sinner who repents. Let a man only confess his sin to be sin, and God, says the Apostle, 'is faithful and just to forgive him his sin,' and the fact that some of the most virulent opposers of the truth have been granted repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, shows that it is not speaking against the truth of itself which constitutes this sin, but speaking against it after its force has been recognised.

Thousands, maybe, of the present sceptical opposers of Christianity oppose it, just as Paul did, from ignorance and in unbelief. They have never recognised its force, and what they oppose is, therefore, not the truth, but that which appears to them to be more or less untrue, and if the truth was fully and fairly placed before them no doubt thousands of them would accept it. But if, after the truth has been thus fully and fairly placed before their minds, they yet reject it, then, as implied, any subsequent change of mind is impossible in their

case.

This is evident. The mind of a person who holds false views upon any subject may be changed, and,

under ordinary circumstances, is changed, when the matter is placed in its true light before him; but if the truth plainly recognised by the mind fails to do this, what else can do it? It would seem strange indeed that the truth, when thus apprehended, should ever be rejected, but it must be remembered that, in questions concerning sin and righteousness, it is not scientific or material truth, but moral truth and moral arguments, which are under consideration, and this moral truth, or the perception of right and wrong, is the province of conscience, wanting which, man has nothing to radically distinguish him from the beasts. Without conscience man would merely be an intellectual animal, the law of whose nature, like that of other animals, would be that of self, or expediency.

Now, in moral questions there constantly comes into play the will and affections. The mind of a person may be strongly opposed to a certain moral truth through the influence of pride, passion, or self-interest, and when this is the case he is proportionately hard to convince. We speak of persons being blinded by passion, and although this is temporary in proportion to its violence, it is probably permanent in proportion to the calmness. and deliberation of the effect produced. Pride, egotism, the love of power, and the love of money, warp the mind, and habitually tend to deaden the conscience, and when people under the influence of these things come face to face with the truth which condemns them, they always fight against it, and in some instances are able to reject it. But in proportion to the force of the moral truth rejected, so is the violence done to conscience, which, it would appear in course of time, may by such means be entirely destroyed; so that to those with whom this has taken place, the intrinsic truth of moral right and wrong ceases to have any meaning, and moral arguments cease to have weight.

It may be that few come to this stage, because few come really face to face with the full truth, and truth and error are often so mixed as to be indistinguishable; but in proportion as the truth is known and rejected, so must the conscience be seared, and the very truth under such circumstance becomes, as stated by the Apostle, a savour of death unto death in them that perish' (2 Cor. ii. 15, 16).

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The imperfect knowledge and perception of the truth. is the great preservative to many against this result. Men instinctively turn away and will not listen to offensive truth; and the Scripture speaks of the particular truth conveyed by the teaching of the Cross of Christ as an offence to all men by nature, so that all would be liable to reject it unless their hearts were first prepared by suffering and affliction to bow to it. Hence it is better perhaps for many that the truth is not generally perceived; and it would appear that for this reason the teaching, even of true Christians by the Spirit of God, is gradual, according as they are able to bear it' (John xvi. 12; 1 Cor. iii. 2).

In the case of disembodied spirits or pure intelligences, there would be no veil of the flesh through which the truth when presented to them might be clouded or distorted, nor would there be that dual nature, as in the case of man, of flesh and spirit opposed to each other, and which renders obedience to the dictates of the spirit so difficult and painful. In their case, therefore, there would neither be the excuse of ignorance, or the excuse of temptation, and the rejection of the truth on their part would consequently be its rejection as the truth, and would thus be of the same nature as the rejection of the truth by man when it has been fully and fairly placed before him. If, then, there is no possibility of repentance in the latter case, neither would there be that possibility in the case of the rebellious angels.

It may be asked, Why did not God destroy at once the angels who had fallen, and so prevent them and their chief from accomplishing the terrible evils they have since been the cause of to the human race? Even had this been the case, however, would not the human race as free agents, ignorant of the nature of evil, still have been liable to temptation and sin; and if so, would not their sin and responsibility have been far greater? Would not their sin, indeed, have become more like that of the sin just mentioned, a wilful choice of evil and rejection of the dictates of conscience, not from physical infirmity or need, but a wilful act of the mind, preferring independence of God to dependence on Him? As it was, the fall of man was a sin through temptation and deception from without, acting through the ignorance and weakness of the flesh, and therefore free from the wilful rebellion of the mind against the truth.

But apart from the above consideration, would it have been possible for God, consistently with justice, to have punished Satan before the evil of his sin had been manifested? Satan's sin, we are told, was pride, or selfassertion, producing separation from and independence of God, but it was spiritual, and no immediate effects could follow; and if no evil or suffering could immediately result, what proof would there have been to other spiritual beings that he was evil, save the consciousness, similar to that of conscience in man, that independence of God was opposed to the law of their being as creatures who were not self-existent ? Even those angels, called 'the elect angels' by Scripture, restrained perhaps by the power of God from following his example until the gradually developing evil of his sin had been manifested, must have regarded the instantaneous punishment of Satan as arbitrary, and out of all proportion to his transgression; and, in fact, we might conceive the effect produced by such a punishment as similar to that which