PART I

OF EVIL SPIRITS.

SECTION 1.-THEIR EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER.

THE eternal power and godhead of the Most High, are, as St. Paul tells us, invisible things, yet clearly seen and to be understood even of the heathen, by those things which he hath made. Rom. i. 20. The order and harmony of creation, the wonderful manner in which all things are upheld, preserved, perpetuated, or reproduced, appeal to the natural reason and conscience of man, bespeaking some mighty, creative, over-ruling hand, directed by a wisdom and knowledge to which no mortal may attain. And this recognition is all but universal. However false, however distorted, however debased by the most wretched folly, superstition and crime, we find the principle of Deism in some form established throughout the world.

But beyond this, man cannot go; he sees that God is powerful, and if the desperate wickedness of his own

heart did not blind it, he must also perceive that God is good; giving us rain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, clothing the earth with refreshing verdure; decking it with myriads of glowing flowers; bestowing on the birds their soft and graceful plumage, bright in lovely dyes, and teaching them to breathe forth music from their cheerful throats: causing the moon to walk in brightness, the stars to spangle heaven, and peopling even the little brooks that run among the hills with unnumbered forms of beauty that sport in the pure element. So far, man may recognise God, may love, fear, and praise him.

But beyond this we have no means of penetrating; our bodily organs appear to be the sole medium of com munication with what exists. What we can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, is matter of observance, affording evidence on which the mind may rely, and from it we may reason or conjecture to any extent, but can know nothing to bring us acquainted with what lies beyond the range of our senses, we need a special revelation from Him who governs all, and this revelation we possess. Between the two covers of a book that a child may grasp, we find all that is needful or profitable for us to know of the nature, attribute, and works of the *Almighty, of his power in creation, his love in redemption, his past dealings with the world, and his future purposes respecting it. By the comparatively dim twilight of his works we may feel after, and haply find him, as the all-presiding governor of the world which he has made in the bright blaze of his word we behold him distinctly; and not only Him, but a race of

intermediate beings, different from ourselves in that they are not burdened with flesh, possessed of faculties and powers that give them a vast advantage over us, and deeply interested, busily employed about us who are naturally wholly regardless, even when not wholly ignorant concerning them.

Of these mysterious beings we know the number is immensely great; and that they are divided into two classes: the "elect angels," "holy angels," who are God's obedient ministers and do his pleasure; and "the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," (Jude 6,) who are rebels against God, and implacable enemies to man. These last are marshalled under one superior chief, who directs their operations, and maintains, with their assistance, a kingdom upon earth, directly opposed to the government of Christ the rightful King. To support by every possible means, to extend and to strengthen this usurped dominion, to seduce all whom he can, to terrify others, and to thwart, harass, and distress every child of God while sojourning here, is the object of the adversary. His very name, Satan, expresses it; and the superior power which as a spirit he possesses, becomes effectual in carrying out his most malevolent designs, whenever the omnipotence of God does not interpose to restrain it.

But assertion, on a subject of such tremendous moment to every individual of the human race, will not suffice: we must have proof-such proof as God alone can afford us means of obtaining; and which where it exists he must also enable us to perceive, for the policy

of Satan is wholly opposed to the inquiry. There is nothing he dreads so much as our being “not ignorant of his devices," because he knows that where it is revealed to us, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places." Eph. vi. 12. In the preceding verse we are also told of a sure defence, and exhorted "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil." And despite the express declarations of God's word, despite its reiterated warnings, despite even our own sore personal experience of his craft and subtlety, we are prone to overlook not only such testimony to his continual activity and abundant means of warning against us, but the very fact of his existence, so far as it concerns the daily experience, collectively and individually, of the Church of Christ.

Strange as this may sound, it is undeniable: we cannot marvel that where Satan, "the god of this world, hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them," (2 Cor. iv. 4,) he should have taken care also to blind them to his own devices; that he should have stealthily thrown the bandage across their eyes from behind, so that they know not the hand which performed the operation, not even that such operation is performed; but it is wonderful that he can prevail upon Christian people to banish his name, as they generally do, from their daily converse, and Christian pastors to make only, now and

then, a slight incidental reference to it in the pulpit ; and in these days, too, while in every department of our households, in every street of our cities, in Church and State, in cottage and palace, at home and abroad, he is incessantly manifesting his hateful presence, perplexing, seducing, embroiling, dismaying, uprooting, and disorganizing, till the whole framework of society is loosened, and ready upon the first shock to crumble about us.

It cannot be unseasonable, at any period, far less at this juncture, to draw the attention of Christians to a point which God has seen fit to represent as of the most stirring, vital importance to them. The warning needs to be often sounded, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." 1 Peter v. 8. But in treating of a matter so exceedingly solemn and awful, care must be taken not to run into the opposite danger of saying too much. We must "not go beyond the word of the Lord to speak more nor less." Great mischief has been done, and by great men too, by indulging imagination and building unreal fabrics on the solid foundation of the revealed fact. Scripture alone must speak, in declaring the existence, personality, characters, offices, and positive actings of those spiritual creatures, which constantly surround us, beginning with Satan and his angels. May HE, who by death destroyed him that had the power of death; He, the seed of the woman, who came to bruise the serpent's head; He, who led captivity captive, and who will bruise Satan under our feet shortly: may He, even the