preserved. It is from this fact that He said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."[1] "Why will ye die—return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good."[2] "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."[3] To arrest man in the process of his downward career, God mercifully interposed a thousand providences; He could not see His people straying from His fold without putting forth His hand to stop them. The ingratitude of men cannot diminish the love of God; that is an everlasting activity of the Divine nature; and therefore it is written that, "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them."[4]
But from what did He redeem them? Doubtless it was from the extraordinary influences of those wicked spirits who at that time had gained great power in the afiairs of men, and brought about so terrible an issue. The ascendency they had obtained is clearly proved by those numerous cases in which devils and unclean spirits are stated to have taken possession, not merely of the minds, but even of the very bodies of mankind. We do not before read of such revolting facts; and they may be taken as additional evidence of that extremity to which man had fallen. Those spirits had been accumulating, since the period of the flood, in that department of the spiritual world which is the first common receptacle for all who die. Some, indeed, had been removed therefrom at various times by particular judgments, but the mass remained. Peter speaks of some disobedient spirits who had been detained there from the days of Noe to the coming of the Lord; for he said that
