divine government, as it is a matter of infinitely deeper interest, appears also as a still more profound and tremendous mystery. When we are asked how this can be, we reply in our ignorance that "an enemy hath done this." It is all the work of the DEVIL. And when our children ask us why God allows the Devil to continue doing all this mischief, we are compelled to confess that the whole subject is too deep and high for our thoughts. Proud philosophers have vainly attempted to explain these mysteries with their babbling "Theodicies,” prating

"Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;'

but the devout and God-fearing lay their fingers upon their lips and silently confess that they cannot answer, though their faith in God assures them that although SIN exists for the time being, and works its fearful ruin in our world, it is still within the grasp of the divine power, and that the decree has gone forth, "Thus far and no farther."

Perhaps some incidental advantages may have resulted from such futile attempts to solve these deep mysteries, and that, too, among the most favorable conditions. It seems, indeed, to have been the divinely ordered mission of the Greek philosophy, and before that those of Persia and India, to test to its utmost the mind's capability of finding out God and understanding his counsels. "The world by wisdom knew not God," and this was demonstrated and at last confessed; and the enforcement of this intellectual despair was among the processes by which the age of the advent became "the fullness of the time." The human mind demands something to be believed, and philosophy had conspicuously failed to respond to that demand; and men were, therefore, the more willing to listen to the voice of God speaking from heaven, and still more to attend to the words of Him who came in person to reveal to men the deep mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But these revelations are, however, only in part, and there still remains not a few "secret things" which God has reserved to himself, to inquire into which is neither wise nor reverent. Holy Scripture recognizes the existence of SIN in the world, tells how it became a fact in man's history and character, and, best of all, how its curse may be avoided. Beyond this it is silent; and we are

20-FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXVI.

left deeply interested spectators of the sublime drama of the overthrow of the great Adversary and the destruction of his kingdom.

The Scriptures in treating of SIN simply recognize it as a fact, without attempting to propound any theory respecting its origin, except that it is derived from an extra-mundane source, and brought into the world by a spiritual being, neither divine nor human, called variously the Devil, (Aιáßoλos,) the Adversary, and Satan. He is also called, on account of his occupations, the "Tempter," the "Accuser," and the "Destroyer." This person is a perpetually felt presence in the doctrinal teachings of Holy Scripture, and a factor in all of life's problems. As God himself is the one great object of theology, pure and simple, so in the theo-anthropology of the Bible is the ever-present and always effective "party of the other part," standing over against God-the Adversary.

The biblical account of the beginning of sin, as a fact in human life and history, presents the Devil as its promoter and procuring cause. Whatever theory may be adopted respecting the drapery of the story of the Fall, the diabolic presence and efficiency remains. Nor does it appear that without that influence the sad event which brought sin and death into our world could have occurred. So, too, the progress of the conflict which the incoming of SIN precipitated is every-where marked by the same presence and power; and the successful accomplishment of the work of the Messiah, as declared in prophecy -which by reason of "the work of the Devil" is a militant campaign-is to be signalized by the complete discomfiture and overthrow of the Adversary. Any system of theology, socalled, that fails to recognize and make prominent the personality and the active antagonism of the Devil, is not quo ad hoc -so far forth-the theology of the Bible, nor can it be brought into harmony with the chief features of that great body of re vealed truth. The scriptural idea of the Devil is that he is the personal embodiment of a great spiritual force, constantly acting in the divine realm-the mental cosmos—and which is, as to men's spiritual natures, a steady and terribly perilous impulse toward "the evil." On this pregnant truth St. Peter bases his godly admonition to believers, to which all would do well to take heed: "Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the

Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whoin resist steadfast in the faith."

To examine in order, however briefly, all of the many passages of Scripture in which the doctrine of the presence and spiritual influence of the Devil in human affairs is taught, would entirely transcend our limits; we therefore select a single one, the elucidation of which will largely illustrate nearly all that is given on the subject. That passage (John viii, 44) reads: "Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." These are Christ's own words spoken to the Jews, who were violently opposing him in the temple only a few days before his passion.

The conflict in which our Lord was then engaged, which appeared outwardly to be simply between himself and the Jewish rulers, had broader relations, and was of more than any merely incidental significance. It was a conflict of truth against falsehood-of God in Christ against the Devil—and its crisis was even then at hand. Our Lord, too, appears to have been intent on placing the parties to that conflict each in his proper position, himself doing the work committed to him by the Father, and those to whom he spake arrayed against him. doing the work of their father-the Devil. And, that all might clearly understand the case in all its bearings, he in remarkably clear and comprehensive terms not only designates the Devil as the active antagonist of the work of Christ, acting through those directly addressed, but he also describes his character and his ever-enduring relations of antagonism against God-alike in character and action.

Looking carefully into these words of Christ, we find in them not only a clear recognition of the Devil as a person, but also a strongly marked expression of his character, with, perhaps, (and perhaps not,) some reference to his history. They also, and especially, indicate his relations to wicked men, and to sin as it is found in men. Respecting this last particular, which may be noticed first, it is shown that the wickedness of men, as displayed in their conduct, is, as to its source and procuring cause, of the Devil, and that he holds to evil men the relations

of a father, by some kind of ethical genesis. By some process which from its nature is hidden from human scrutiny, the spiritual and moral characteristics of the Devil have passed over to, and become abiding qualities in, men's spiritual natures; and as the characteristics of the father are reproduced in his children, by the laws of heredity, so the ethical character of the Devil re-appears in wicked men, and therefore he is properly called their "father." And it should be further observed that this form of expression indicates more than simple likeness in kind or similarity of character; it embodies the notion of causation of generation. Men are what they are, in their native depravity, because the Devil has made them so; and their badness, though really their own, is, at the same time, of the Devil. Their evil propensities-ovuía-are therefore called "the lusts of your father," as coming from him, though developed in themselves. These lusts are, however, none the less their own because of their derivation, as is well remarked by Meyer, (H. A. W.,) "The conscious will of the child of the Devil is to accomplish that after which its father, whose organ it is, lusts." All this, indeed, differs but very little from the catholic doctrine of "Original Sin" as it has been taught and held in the Church: that it consists not primarily in the action, but in the depraved condition of the soul, derived by inheritance from a corrupted stock, which itself became such at first through diabolical agency.

The presentation by our Lord of such an awful and profound mystery as that of the relations subsisting between sinful men and the Devil made it proper that some fuller statements should at the same time be made by him respecting that unique and formidable personage. Following the words of our Lord a little farther, we find a clear and explicit recognition of the Devil as a rational and intelligent person, with a fully determined ethical character. These words of Christ, uttered among such circumstances, can be understood only in their most obvious signification. It must not be said that he was speaking according to the prevailing notions of his times, for he was directly antagonizing those notions. He was also speaking as the divine Logos-the true Light-and was enunciating original revelations of the things which he had seen with the Father. Whatever, therefore, as is either expressly

declared or naturally implied in these words, must be accepted as the truth; and the things thus clearly and authoritatively ascertained may also be used in order to determine the sense of related passages in other parts of the Scriptures.

First of all we have here to notice how clearly and distinctly the personality of the Devil is recognized. The whole form and conditions of the discourse forbid the supposition that there can be any thing like a figurative personification, as though he was playing with some rabbinical legend or personifying the "abstract principle of evil"-itself an empty figment. There is also running through this whole discourse a coupling together, though with widest contrast, of God and the Devil -each the father of his own-so implying personality in the latter as really and fully as in the former; and to both alike personal attributes are constantly ascribed. We can form no conceptions of the attributes of truth and falsehood except as predicates of persons. Even logical and mathematical truth can become any thing more than barren abstractions only by becoming lodged in individualized minds, that is, by appearing as personal attributes. When, therefore, the Devil is characterized as essentially false-" a liar and the father of falsehood,” as “abiding not in the truth," and "speaking falsehood from his own nature"-there is all along direct implications of his proper personality, which is quite too clear and manifest to permit them to be set aside as simply figurative expressions for which there are no real objects.

The Devil is also here brought into notice as a moral force capable of acting upon other moral beings. His spiritual proclivities" lusts"-evil desires, because of his own essentially evil nature are reproduced in his children, that is, depraved men, in whom they become laws of action. It is by virtue of this transmissible moral force which inheres in the Devil, and is able to reproduce its kind in other spiritual natures, that he acts as the "Tempter," and becomes the father of sinful men. By the reproduction of his own impulses to evil in other minds through the mysterious impact of one spiritual nature upon another, a fact of universal experience, and as such steadily recognized in Scripture-the Devil acts as an evil infinence among men, and all who receive him and yield to his enticements are changed into his own moral likeness, that is,