ddle wall of partition between us, having abolished by
his flesh the cause of enmity."--Ephes. ii. 16. "You that were
formerly aliens, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet he
hath now reconciled by his fleshly body, through his death."--Col.
i. 20.

Though these notions are sufficiently strange, yet they are not so
very remarkable as the one I am about to consider. It is a singular,
and a demonstrable fact, that the fundamental scheme of
Christianity was derived from the religion of the ancient Persians,
The whole of the New Testament scheme is built upon the
hypothesis, that there is a powerful and malignant being, called the
Devil and Satan, the chief of unknown myriads of other evil spirits;
that he is, by the sufferance of God, the Prince of this world, and is
the Author of sin, woe and death; the Tempter, the Tormentor of
men, and the Tyrant of the Earth; that the Son of God, to deliver
mankind from the vassalage of this monster, descended from
heaven, and purchased their ransom of the Tyrant, at the price of
his blood; for observe, my reader, that the idea of the death of
Jesus being an atonement to God for the sins of men, is a modern
notion; for the Primitive Christians, all of them, considered the
death of Jesus as a ransom paid to the Devil, as may be proved
from Origen and other Fathers. That the New Testament represents
this character as the sovereign of this world, may be proved by the
following passages:--"All this power will I give thee, and the
glory of them, (said the Tempter to Jesus, when he showed him all
the kingdoms of the earth,) for it is delivered unto me, and to
whomsoever I will, I give it." Luke iv., Jesus calls him "the Prince
of this world;" John xii., and elsewhere. In his commission to Paul,
he calls embracing his religion, "turning from darkness unto light,
and from the power of Satan to God."--. Acts xxvi. 18.
Accordingly we find, that to become a Christian was considered as
being freed from the tyranny of Satan. "God hath given life to
you, (says Paul) who were dead in offences, and sins; in which ye
formerly walked, according to the course (or constitution) of this
world, according to the Prince of the Power of the air."--
Ephesians ii., 1. And again:--"If our gospel be covered, (or hid)
it is covered among those that are lost, among those unbelievers,
whose minds the God of this world hath blinded, to the end that the
glorious gospel of Christ should not enlighten them."--