First, the power of evil spirits over men is not independent of the human will. This power cannot be exercised without at least the original consent of the human will, and may be resisted and shaken off through prayer and faith in God.

Luke 22 31, 40-"Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat... Pray that ye enter not into temptation"; Eph. 6: 11-"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil"; 16-"the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one"; James 4 : 7— "resist the devil, and he will flee from you"; 1 Pet. 5: 9-"whom withstand steadfast in your faith." The coals are already in the human heart, in the shape of corrupt inclinations; Satan only blows them into flame.

Secondly, their power is limited, both in time and in extent, by the permissive will of God. Evil spirits are neither omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. We are to attribute disease and natural calamity to their agency, only when this is matter of special revelation. Opposed to God as evil spirits are, God compels them to serve his purposes. Their power for harm lasts but for a season, and ultimate judgment and punishment will vindicate God's permission of their evil agency.

1 Cor. 10: 13-"God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it"; Jude 6—"angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."

Luther saw Satan nearer to man than his coat, or his shirt, or even his skin. In all misfortune he saw the devil's work. Was there a conflagration in the town? By looking closely you might see a demon blowing upon the flame. Pestilence and storm he attributed to Satan. All this was a relic of the medieval exaggerations of Satan's power. It was then supposed that men might make covenants with the evil one, in which supernatural power was purchased at the price of final perdition (see Goethe's Faust).

Scripture furnishes no warrant for such representations. There seems to have been permitted a special activity of Satan in temptation and possession during our Savior's ministry, in order that Christ's power might be demonstrated. By his death Jesus brought "to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2: 14) and "having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it," i. e. in the cross (Col. 2: 15-Am. Revisers). 1 John 3: 8-" To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." Evil spirits now exist and act only upon sufferance. McLeod, Temptation of our Lord, 24-“ Satan's power is limited, (1) by the fact that he is a creature; (2) by the fact of God's providence; (3) by the fact of his own wickedness."

II. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF Angels.

1.

To the doctrine of angels in general. It is objected :

(a) That it is opposed to the modern scientific view of the world, as a system of definite forces and laws.-We reply that whatever truth there may be in this modern view, it does not exclude the play of divine or human free agency. It does not therefore exclude the possibility of angelic agency.

(b) That it is opposed to the modern doctrine of infinite space above and beneath us-a space peopled with worlds. With the surrender of the old conception of the firmament, as a boundary separating this world from the regions beyond, it is claimed that we must give up all belief in a heaven of the angels. -We reply that the notions of an infinite universe, of heaven as a definite place, and of spirits as confined to fixed locality are without certain warrant either in reason or in Scripture. We know nothing of the modes of existence of pure spirits.

What we know of the universe is certainly finite. Angels are apparently incorporeal beings, and as such are free from all laws of matter and space. Heaven and hell are essentially conditions, corresponding to character-conditions in which the body and the surroundings of the soul express and reflect its inward state. The main thing to be insisted on is therefore the state; place is merely incidental. The fact that Christ ascended to heaven with a human body, and that the saints are to possess glorified bodies, would seem to imply that heaven is a place. Christ's declaration with regard to him who is "able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mat. 10:28) affords some reason for believing that hell is also a place.

Where heaven and hell are, is not revealed to us. But it is not necessary to suppose that they are in some remote part of the universe; for aught we know, they may be right about us, so that if our eyes were opened, like those of the prophet's servant (2 Kings 6:17), we ourselves should behold them. Upon ground of Eph. 2: 2-"prince of the powers of the air "-and 3: 10-"the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places "--some have assigned the atmosphere of the earth as the abode of angelic spirits, both good and evil. But the expressions "air" and "heavenly places" may be merely metaphorical designations of their spiritual method of existence.

We prefer therefore to leave the question of place undecided, and to accept the existence and working of angels both good and evil as a matter of faith, without professing to understand their relations to space. For the rationalistic view, see Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1: 670-675. Per contra, see Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 1:308-317; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 127–136.

2. To the doctrine of evil angels in particular. It is objected that: (a) The idea of the fall of angels is self-contradictory, since a fall determined by pride presupposes pride—that is, a fall before the fall.-We reply that the objection confounds the occasion of sin with the sin itself. The outward motive to disobedience is not disobedience. The fall took place only when that outward motive was chosen by free will. When the motive of independence was selfishly adopted, only then did the innocent desire for knowledge and power become pride and sin. How an evil volition could originate in spirits created pure is an insoluble problem. Our faith in God's holiness, however, compels us to attribute the origin of this evil volition, not to the Creator, but to the creature.

There can be no sinful propensity before there is sin. The reason of the first sin can not be sin itself. This would be to make sin a necessary development; to deny the holiness of God the Creator; to leave the ground of theism for pantheism.

(b) It is irrational to suppose that Satan should have been able to change his whole nature by a single act, so that he thenceforth willed only evil. -But we reply that the circumstances of that decision are unknown to us; while the power of single acts permanently to change character is matter of observation among men.

Instance the effect, upon character and life, of a single act of falsehood or embezzle

ment.

(c) It is impossible that so wise a being should enter upon a hopeless rebellion. We answer that no amount of mere knowledge ensures right moral action. If men gratify present passion, in spite of their knowledge that the sin involves present misery and future perdition, it is not impossible that Satan may have done the same.

Understanding is the servant of will, and is darkened by will. Many clever men fail to see what belongs to their peace. It is the very madness of sin, that it persists in iniquity, even when it sees and fears the approaching judgment of God.

(d) It is inconsistent with the benevolence of God to create and uphold spirits, whom he knows will be and do evil.-We reply that this is no more

inconsistent with God's benevolence than the creation and preservation of men, whose action God overrules for the furtherance of his purposes, and whose iniquity he finally brings to light and punishes.

Seduction of the pure by the impure, piracy, slavery, and war, have all been permitted among men. It is no more inconsistent with God's benevolence to permit them among angelic spirits.

(e) The notion of organization among evil spirits is self-contradictory, since the nature of evil is to sunder and divide. We reply that such organization of evil spirits is no more impossible than the organization of wicked men, for the purpose of furthering their selfish ends. Common hatred to God may constitute a principle of union among them, as among

men.

Wicked men succeed in their plans only by adhering in some way to the good. Even a robber-horde must have laws, and there is a sort of "honor among thieves." Else the world would be a Pandemonium, and society would be what Hobbes called it: "bellum omnium contra omnes."

(f) The doctrine is morally pernicious, as transferring the blame of human sin to the being or beings who tempt men thereto.-We reply that neither conscience nor Scripture allow temptation to be an excuse for sin, or regard Satan as having power to compel the human will. The objection, moreover, contradicts our observation,-for only where the personal existence of Satan is recognized, do we find sin recognized in its true nature.

The diabolic character of sin makes it more guilty and abhorred. The immorality lies, not in the maintenance, but in the denial, of the doctrine. Giving up the doctrine of Satan is connected with laxity in the administration of criminal justice. Penalty comes to be regarded as only deterrent or reformatory.

(g) The doctrine degrades man, by representing him as the tool and slave of Satan.—We reply that it does indeed show his actual state to be degraded, but only with the result of exalting our idea of his original dignity, and of his possible glory in Christ. The fact that man's sin was suggested from without, and not from within, may be the one mitigating circumstance which renders possible his redemption.

It is not worth while to attribute to man a dignity he does not possess, if thereby we deprive him of the dignity that may be his. Satan's sin was, in its essence, sin against the Holy Ghost, for which there can be no "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34), since it was choosing evil with the mala gaudia mentis, or the clearest intuition that it was evil. If there be no devil, then man himself is devil. It has been said of Voltaire, that without believing in a devil, he saw him everywhere-even where he was not. Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, takes comfort when he finds that the blasphemous suggestions which came to him in the dark valley were suggestions from the fiend that pursued him. If all temptation is from within, our case would seem hopeless. But if "an enemy hath done this" (Mat. 13: 28), then there is hope. And so we may accept the maxim: Nullus diabolus, nullus Redemptor. See Trench, Studies in the Gospels, 17; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 78-100; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1 : 291–293. Many of the objections and answers mentioned above have been taken from Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3: 251-284, where a fuller statement of them may be found.

III. PRACTICAL USES OF THE DOCTRINE OF ANGELS.

(a) It gives us a new sense of the greatness of the divine resources, and of God's grace in our creation, to think of the multitude of unfallen intelligences who executed the divine purposes before man appeared.

(b) It strengthens our faith in God's providential care, to know that spirits of so high rank are deputed to minister to creatures who are environed with temptations and are conscious of sin.

(c) It teaches us humility, that beings of so much greater knowledge and power than ours should gladly perform these unnoticed services, in behalf of those whose only claim upon them is that they are children of the same common Father.

(d) It helps us in the struggle against sin, to learn that these messengers of God are near, to mark our wrong doing if we fall, and to sustain us if we resist temptation.

(e) It enlarges our conceptions of the dignity of our own being, and of the boundless possibilities of our future existence, to remember these forms of typical innocence and love, that praise and serve God unceasingly in heaven.

Instance the appearance of angels in Jacob's life at Bethel (Gen. 28: 12-Jacob's conversion?) and at Mahanaim (Gen. 32: 1, 2-two camps, of angels, on the right hand and on the left; cf. Ps. 34: 7-" The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, And delivereth them "); so too the Angel at Penuel that struggled with Jacob at his entering the promised land (Gen. 32: 24; cf. Hos. 12: 3, 4-"in his manhood he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed"), and "the angel which hath redeemed me from all evil" (Gen. 48: 16) to whom Jacob refers on his dying bed. "And is there care in heaven? and is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base That may compassion of their evils move? There is; else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts. But O, th' exceeding grace Of highest God that loves his creatures so, And all his works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed angels he sends to and fro To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!"

(a) It illustrates the real nature of sin, and the depth of the ruin to which it may bring the soul, to reflect upon the present moral condition and eternal wretchedness to which these spirits, so highly endowed, have brought themselves by their rebellion against God.

(b) It inspires a salutary fear and hatred of the first subtle approaches of evil from within or from without, to remember that these may be the covert advances of a personal and malignant being, who seeks to overcome our virtue and to involve us in his own apostasy and destruction.

(c) It shuts us up to Christ, as the only Being who is able to deliver us or others from the enemy of all good.

(d) It teaches us that our salvation is wholly of grace, since for such multitudes of rebellious spirits no atonement and no renewal were provided -simple justice having its way, with no mercy to interpose or save.

Philippi, in his Glaubenslehre, 3: 251-284, suggests the following relations of the doctrine of Satan to the doctrine of sin: 1. Since Satan is a fallen angel, who once was pure, evil is not self-existent or necessary. Sin does not belong to the substance which God created, but is a later addition. 2. Since Satan is a purely spiritual creature, sin cannot have its origin in mere sensuousness, or in the mere possession of a physical nature. 3. Since Satan is not a weak and poorly endowed creature, sin is not a necessary result of weakness and limitation. 4. Since Satan is confirmed in evil, sin is not necessarily a transient or remediable act of will. 5. Since in Satan sin does not come to an end, sin is not a step of creaturely development, or a stage of progress to something higher and better. On the uses of the doctrine, see also Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 1: 316; Robert Hall, Works, 3:35-51; Brooks, Satan and his Devices.

PART V.

ANTHROPOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF MAN.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY.

I. MAN A CREATION OF GOD AND A CHILD OF GOD.

The fact of man's creation is declared in Gen. 1 : 27-" And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him "; 2: 7-"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." A consideration of these passages, in the light of modern science, as well as of other Scriptures, enables us to draw the following conclusions:

(a) The Scriptures, on the one hand, negative the idea that man is the mere product of unreasoning natural forces. They refer his existence to a cause outside of nature, namely, to the creative act of God.

(b) But, on the other hand, the Scriptures do not disclose the method of man's creation. Whether man's physical system is or is not derived, by natural descent, from the lower animals, the record of creation does not inform us. As the command "Let the earth bring forth the living creature" (Gen. 1 : 24) does not exclude the idea of mediate creation, through natural generation, so the forming of man "of the dust of the ground" (Gen. 2:7) does not in itself determine whether the creation of man's body was mediate or immediate.

(c) Psychology, however, comes in to help our interpretation of Scripture. The radical differences between man's soul and the principle of intelligence in the lower animals, especially man's possession of self-consciousness, general ideas, the moral sense, and the power of self-determination, show that that which chiefly constitutes him man could not have been derived, by any natural process of development, from the inferior creatures. We are compelled, then, to believe that God's "breathing into man's nostrils the breath of life" (Gen. 2: 7) was an act of immediate creation, like the first introduction of life upon the planet.

Fichte called that the birthday of his child, when the child awoke to self-consciousness and said "I." No brute ever yet said, or thought, "I." With this, then, we may begin a series of simple distinctions between man and the brute, so far as the immaterial prin