both to abrogate the Jewish law--a law which they conceived to have been promulgated by the Architect or Founder of the world himself, or by the chief of his agents--and also to overthrow those gods of the nations whom they regarded as genii, placed over mankind by the same evil spirit; hearing him, moreover, invite the whole world to join in the worship of the one Omnipotent and only true God, and profess that he came down from heaven for the purpose of redeeming the souls of men, and restoring them to liberty, were induced to believe that he was that very Messenger for whom they looked, the Person ordained by the Everlasting Father, to destroy the dominion of the founder of this world as well as of the genii who presided over it; to separate light from darkness, and to deliver the souls of men from that bondage to which they were subjected, in consequence of their connection with material bodies. To various articles propounded in the Christian code as essential points of belief, they utterly refused their assent: such, for instance, as that which attributes the creation of the world to the Supreme Being, and those respecting the divine origin of the Mosaic law, the authority of the Old Testament, the character of human nature, and the like: for it would have amounted to nothing short of an absolute surrender of the leading maxims of the system to which they were devoted, had they not persisted in maintaining that the creator of this world was a being of a nature vastly inferior to the Supreme Deity, the Father of our Lord, and that the law of Moses was not dictated by the Almighty, but by this same inferior being, by whom also the bodies of men were formed and united to souls of ethereal mould, and under whose influence the various penmen of the Old Testament composed whatever they have left us on record." Again, "according to the Gnostic scheme, an absolute and entire dominion over the human race, and the globe we inhabit, is exercised by the founder of the material world, a being of unbounded pride and ambition, who makes use of every means in his power to prevent mankind from attaining to any knowledge of the true God." It is too plain to require a comment, that the fallen creature to whom, in this religious system, the creation of the world is ascribed, and to whom the nations universally paid their homage, was Satan; and that the genii, his subordinates, were the angels who fell with him. On the other hand, the Divine Messenger expected as the antagonist and conqueror of Satan, could be no other than the Messenger Jehovah, appointed and sent by the Everlasting Father.