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A VIEW 
 
 THE SCEIPTUEE EEYELATIONS 
 
 BBSPECTINa 
 
 GOOD AND EYIL ANGELS. 
 
 BY 
 
 EICHARD WHATELY, D.D., 
 
 AB.0HBISHOP OF DUBLIN, 
 
 ArTHOR OP A TIEV^ OP THE SCRIPTURE REVELATIONS RESPECTINO 
 A PUTURE STATE. 
 
 Scconl) 3Eirtton 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 LINDSAY & BLAKISTON. 
 
 1856. 
 
 3 
 
7 4 
 
 n 
 
 r^'^'%^ 
 
 I .. 
 
 '<p 
 
 P\lpiiii^d 
 
TO 
 
 THE PARISHIONERS OF HALESWORTH, 
 
 THESE LECTUEES, 
 
 THE CHIEF PA«T OF WHICH WERE ORIGINALLY 
 
 COMPOSED FOR THEIE USB, 
 
 JTITH FERYENT PRATERS FOR THEIR PRESENT AND 
 
 ETERNAL WELFARE, 
 
 BY THEIR SINCERE FRIEND, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 (iu) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The reasons which have led to the publication of 
 these Lectures, and to their publication in this form, 
 are the same which operated in reference to a former 
 Work, The Scripture-Revelations of a Future State ; 
 with the addition, that the favourable reception of 
 that "Work by the Public (far beyond what had 
 been anticipated) has, of course, supplied a farther 
 encouragement. 
 
 What has been said therefore in the Preface to 
 that little volume, and which is equally applicable 
 in reference to the present, there is no need here to 
 repeat. 
 
 1 * ( O 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Of the present Series of Lectures, a great part of 
 the matter of the first three was suggested by the 
 same friend (now elevated to a high and deserved 
 station in the Church) who furnished the chief part 
 of the substance of the Seventh Lecture in the for- 
 mer Series. 
 
 Li this volume, as in the other, care has been 
 taken (as was observed in the Preface to that) neither 
 to give offence unnecessarily to any, nor, through 
 fear of giving offence, to keep back what, on care- 
 ful consideration, have been judged to be important 
 truths : since we ought, on the one hand, to take 
 care that our "good be not evU spoken of," and on 
 the other hand, to be aware that no doctrine — 
 whether true or false — ^is hkely to be, at first sight, 
 acceptable to those who may be, either in theory 
 or in practice, opposed to it. 
 
 How different, and indeed opposite are the judg- 
 ments, hkely to be formed on the same points, by 
 different persons, was exemplified in a striking 
 manner on the first publication of the former volume. 
 T\/o worthy and intelHgent clergymen, friends of 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 the author, wrote to him to express their strong dis- 
 approbation of one particular Lecture ; which they 
 entreated him either to suppress or materially alter. 
 Just at the same time, another highly respectable 
 clergyman, personally a stranger to the author, 
 wrote to him to ask permission to publish, sepa- 
 rately, in a cheap form, for distribution, that very 
 Lecture ; which he considered as particularly valu- 
 able. 
 
 Just such a contrariety of judgment, doubtless, 
 often takes place with respect to many a book, with- 
 out so distinctly coming to the author's knowledge. 
 But no "Writer who has had this diversity of opinions 
 so strongly brought before him, ought either to cal- 
 culate on universal approbation, or again, to be dis- 
 heartened by meeting with occasional censure. 
 
 An Index has been added to the present edition, 
 and a very few short passages inserted. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LBCTUEE I. 
 Angels.. Page 11 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Reasons fok revealing to Man the Ministrations op 
 HOLT Angels 26 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 Cessation of sensible Angelic Visits 38 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 EriL Angels 57 
 
 Note A 77 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Reasons tor revealing to Man the existence of Evil- 
 spirits 78 
 
 (ix) 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 P»ge 
 
 Demoniacs. . ^ 99 
 
 Note B 118 
 
 Note C 121 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Temptations of our Saviour and his followers 125 
 
 Note D 142 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Prevailing Errors relative to Satanic Agency 148 
 
 Note E 164 
 
 / 
 
SCRIPTURE REVELATIONS 
 
 EESPEOTINO 
 
 GOOD AND EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Angeh. 
 
 Ant one who has heen accustomed to study the 
 Scriptures with attention and with interest, will be 
 likely to have been struck with the circumstance 
 that the notices there occurring, of Angels, are 
 few, and very brief and scanty. And it is probable 
 that you may have sometimes felt a degree of 
 disappointment at this, and a wish to know more, 
 on so curious and interesting a subject; and per- 
 haps even something of wonder also that more has 
 not been revealed to us upon it. 
 
 We learn that there are in the Creation, Beings 
 — Derhaps very numerous — both good and evil, 
 apparently much superior to Man in knowledge 
 and power, and having some connexion with 
 human transactions. The curiosity is natural and 
 excusable, to know some particulars respecting their 
 nature — the various Orders of them — their employ- 
 ments — and the whole condition of their life. But 
 
 (11) 
 
12 ANQELS. 
 
 on these, and other such particulars, the Sacred 
 "Writers afford us, as I have said, either very scanty 
 information or none at all. 
 
 Now it may not perhaps have occurred to you 
 that this very circumstance is a strong confirmation 
 of the divine origin of our Scriptures. Supposing 
 we could perceive no reason at all why God should 
 have withheld from us a fuller revelation of things 
 so interesting to our curiosity, this, at least, we 
 can plainly perceive, that if our Scriptures had been 
 the work of mere men — ^if they had been either the 
 dream of fanatical enthusiasts, or the " cunningly 
 devised fables" of impostors — ^we may be sure they 
 would have contained abundance of pretended 
 revelations concerning the nature, and the number, 
 and the different Orders, and the occupations, of 
 Angels. 
 
 A crafty impostor, seeking, by all means what- 
 ever, to gain converts, and to fill men with a reveren- 
 tial awe of himself, would certainly not have failed 
 to enlarge on subjects so alluring to human cu- 
 riosity. And an enthusiast, mistaking his day- 
 dreams for Inspiration, would not have failed to 
 dream largely about matters so exciting to a heated 
 imagination. Any one, then, who is well acquainted 
 with human nature, will not doubt, that if our 
 Scriptures had been a mere human composition, 
 they would have abounded with pretended revela- 
 tions giving ample accounts of good and evil An- 
 gels. And experience fully confirms this. For 
 there actually exist pretended revelations, and books 
 
ANGELS. Vd 
 
 composed from traditions or from conjectures, in 
 which are to be found very full accounts of these 
 and of several other things •which are but very 
 slightly touched on in the real Holy Scriptures. 
 "We see, therefore, in this a plain proof that our 
 Scriptures are not of Man's devising; since they 
 differ in so important a point from anything that 
 has come, or that would be likely to come from 
 men. And this proof is — as I have said — complete, 
 even though we should never be able to conjecture 
 the reasons for our sacred books giving such scanty 
 information as they do. For if we do but perceive 
 them to be such as we are convinced could not 
 have come from Man, we cannot doubt that they 
 are from Heaven. 
 
 Although, however, it is not for us to complain 
 of God's having imparted to us just such knowledge 
 as He has seen fit, and no more, — or to attempt to 
 add on to his revelations, legendary fables or hu- 
 mansspeculations and conjectures, we are allowed, 
 and indeed bound, to collect as much information 
 on these matters as the Scriptures do supply, and 
 to endeavour to understand rightly what God does 
 teach. 
 
 One point in particular, relative to the present 
 subject, it is important we should clearly under- 
 stand, and constantly keep in mind, because inat- 
 tention to it is likely to lead to much perplexity and . 
 to mischievous error. It is this : that whenever we 
 read — as we very often do — in the Old Testament 
 history, of an Angel (i. e., Messenger) of the Lord, 
 2 
 
14 ANSEL S. 
 
 appearing to any one, such an Angel seems to 
 have very seldom been (as in the New Testament 
 history) a "Ministering Spirit" — a person created 
 by the Lord and employed in his service. 
 
 You can easily understand that either any person 
 or any thing may be employed by the Lord to 
 intimate his will — to convey his messages to men, 
 — or to perform any other service to them. And 
 whoever — or whatever is so employed, becomes 
 God's Angel or Messenger. Whether it be a su- 
 pernatural flame, — or any other appearance — or a 
 voice from Heaven — or a man — or any other per- 
 sonal Agent of a different nature from Man — in all 
 cases, that person or thing by which the Lord holds 
 communication with mankind, is called his Angel 
 or Messenger. 
 
 And since the word "Angel" originally signifies 
 simply a messenger, hence, our Sacred "Writers 
 often found it necessary; in order to prevent mis- 
 takes, to use the expression "Angel of the Lord" to 
 distinguish such a Messenger as they are speaking 
 of from any ordinary messenger.* 
 
 JSTow in the Old-Testament History, when an 
 Angel is mentioned as appearing, it is generally 
 
 * It appears also that the earliest Bishops appointed by the 
 Apostles to take charge of the several churches were often 
 called " Angels," as being delegates or Ambassadors from those 
 Apostles. The Angels of the Churches, mentioned in the 
 beginning of the Book of Retelations, are believed by most 
 Divines to have been no other than the superintendents (or 
 Bishops) of those churches. 
 
ANGELS. 15 
 
 some visible object in which there was aa immediate 
 manifestation of the Lord himself: so that you will 
 frequently find the expressions "the Lord" and the 
 "Angel of the Lord" used indiscriminately to de- 
 note the same thing. Thus, where we read of 
 God's first manifestation of Himself to Moses in 
 the wilderness, in a flame of fire in a bush,* we are 
 told that the Lord spake to Moses out of the flame, 
 saying, " I am the Grod of Abraham," &c. And 
 Moses " fell on his face and worshipped." K"ow, if 
 you look to the speech of Stephen as recorded in the 
 Book of Acts (ch. vii. 80), you will find him speak- 
 ing of the Angel of the Lord appearing to Moses in 
 a flame of fire. And he again mentions (v. 38), the 
 
 * One of the commonest shrubs in that wilderness is the 
 dwarf palm: not the date palm, but a different species, which 
 does not, like that, rise to be a tree, but forms a low spreading 
 bush. And it is generally supposed that it was in one of these 
 that Moses saw the flame. It is remarkable that in the Eastern 
 countries (and more lately in Spain and Italy also) palm 
 branches have long been used on occasions of triumph or 
 rejoicing, being reckoned an emblem of yictory. Whether this 
 custom arose from some tradition of that appearance to Moses, 
 or whether it existed before, and was a reason for the selecting 
 of a palm-bush for the display of the flame, we cannot deter- 
 mine. 
 
 It is still more remarkable that the Greek name for a palm, 
 PnffiNii, was also a name given to an imaginary kind of bird, 
 which was fabled to live a thousand years, and then to take 
 •Jire, and burn to ashes, from which a new Phoenix arose. This 
 fable may have arisen from an obscure tradition of the palm- 
 hash, which " burned with fire" and yet was not destroyed. 
 
16 ANGELS. 
 
 " Angel which spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai." 
 Now we all know that what was spoken there, 
 began with " I am the Lord thy God who brought 
 thee out of the Land of Egypt." It was the Lord 
 Himself who held communication with his servants, 
 through the means of the appearance of a flame, 
 accompanied with "thunderings and voices," &c. 
 And the flame is thence called his Messenger, or 
 Angel. No created person was here employed. 
 And hence it is that we often find (as I observed 
 just above), the two expressions, "the Lord," and 
 " the Angel of the Lord," used indiscriminately 
 and with the same signification. 
 
 Por instance, in the Book of Exodus (chap, xxiii. 
 V. 20), " Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to 
 keep thee in the way, (viz. the fiery and cloudy 
 pillar which accompanied the Israelites in their 
 journeyings,) and to bring thee into the place 
 which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey 
 his voice : provoke him not ; for he will not pardon 
 your transgressions ; for my name is in him : (that 
 is, it is a manifestation of my especial presence and 
 agency; which in Scripture is often called "Name"), 
 but if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all 
 that I speak" (here you observe that "he" and "I" 
 are used indiscriminately), then I will be an enemy 
 unto thine enemies," &c. 
 
 "What has been said of the use of the word Angel 
 in these passages, will for the most part apply, as 
 to the essential points, to many others in the Old- 
 
ANGELS. 17 
 
 Testament history ; even in those places in which 
 the human form is assumed. 
 
 For instance, in the appearance of Angels to 
 Abraham and to Lot (Gen. xviii.), of an Angel to 
 Balaam (Numb, xxii.), and to Manoah and his wife 
 (Judges xiii.) ; and in several others, you will find, 
 on an attentive perusal, that the Angels there men- 
 tioned (at least in the last two places), were not 
 created persons, but manifestations of the Lord 
 Himself. And accordingly, in most of these pas- 
 sages, you read of divine worship being offered and 
 accepted. To the Angels on the contrary, mentioned 
 in the Ifew Testament — the ministering spirits 
 recorded as appearing — divine worship either is not 
 offered, or is carefully rejected. " See thou do it 
 not!" (says the Angel to John in the Book of 
 Revelation, ch. xxii.), "for I am thy fellow-ser- 
 vant."* 
 
 The existence indeed of created persons called 
 Angels, seems to have been believed, in early times, 
 by the greater part of the Jews ; though the sect of 
 the Sadducees denied it. And we find mention of 
 such Beings in several parts of the Old Testament. 
 But in the far greater number of the places (in the 
 historical Books) in which the appearance of an 
 Angel is recorded, it will be found to have been a 
 manifestation of the Lord Himself. 
 
 * It is important to observe, that by the Lord JeauB, on the 
 contrary, such worship was accepted. See John, ix. 35 — 38, 
 and Mat. xxviii. 9 and 17, &o. 
 
 2* 
 
18 ANGELB. 
 
 Such then being the different characters, gene- 
 rally, of the Angels noticed in the Old and in the 
 New-Testament histories, respectively, you cannot 
 but perceive the importance of constantly keeping 
 in mind the distinctions I have been pointing out ; 
 lest you should impute faUe worship to those persons 
 who in the Old Testament are mentioned as offer- 
 ing adoration to what is called " the Angel of the 
 Lord." 
 
 I have already remarked to you that the few, and 
 brief, and scanty notices of Angels, in Scripture, 
 are, from that very scantiness, a mark of the truth 
 of the Sacred Books, being quite unlike what we 
 should have naturally expected to find in "Woi'ks 
 devised by mere men ; and that this proof would be 
 complete even if we could not perceive, or at all 
 conjecture, why God did not think fit to supply us 
 with fuller revelations on the subject. But thus 
 much at least we plainly do perceive : that this is 
 conformable to the general character of all the reve- 
 lations made to us. It appears to have been the 
 design of the Most High to teach us what practically 
 concerns ourselves, and nothing for the gratification 
 of mere speculative curiosity. He has revealed to 
 us Himself in reference to what He has done and 
 designs to do, for us ; and He has taught us what 
 He requires us to do on our part. But he has left 
 us ignorant of much that relates to Himself, and to 
 heaven and to heavenly things. And so, also, con- 
 cerning Angels, we find in Scripture but slight and 
 
ANGELS. 19 
 
 scanty accounts as far as regards themselves, and 
 their connexion with their Maker : what we princi- 
 pally learn is what concerns their connexion with 
 man, and the services they perform for the human- 
 Eace : and even of this we are told but little. 
 Besides a very slight and obscure hint in one of our 
 Lord's discourses, which is supposed by some to 
 have reference to certain guardian-angels,* we are 
 told by Him expressly that the holy Angels have 
 some sympathy with Man, and that " there is joy 
 among them over a repentant sinner."t 
 
 It would, indeed, be rash to conclude from this, 
 that every thing that passes on earth is known to all 
 the holy Angels. But some knowledge, among some 
 of them, of some human events, and also a lively 
 interest in some of these events, we are plainly 
 taught there must be. And the apostle Peter ac- 
 cordingly speaks of Angels "desiring to look into" 
 (to "stoop down to see," as it is in the original) the 
 mysteries of God's dealing in the salvation of Man. f 
 Moreover, our Lord speaks of their being com- 
 missioned, at the end of the world, to separate God's 
 faithful servants from the impenitent sinners ;§ " the 
 reapers are the angels."* * * * * "The Son of man 
 shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather 
 out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them 
 which do iniquity." 
 
 And in some services to Man, we find them in the 
 
 * Mat. xviii. 10. + Luke xv. 10. 
 
 X 1 Pet. i. 12. 2 Mat. xxxix. 42. 
 
20 ANGELS. 
 
 New-Testament history recorded as occasionally 
 employed ; as, for instance, when an Angel was sent 
 to Zacharias, and afterwards to the Virgin Mary, 
 and again, to Cornelius, with messages from 
 Heaven.* 
 
 And here it may be worth while to remark, that , 
 in all the cases recorded, you will find that a sufli- 
 cient test was provided to secure the persons con- 
 cerned against being misled by any delusions of 
 imagination, and to assure them sufficiently of its 
 being a real communication from Heaven that they 
 had received. 
 
 In the case of the Centurion, Cornelius, for 
 instance, all that he was required to do, by the 
 Angel that appeared to him, was, to send to Joppa 
 and inquire for one Simon Peter, who would give 
 him further instructions. Now, supposing this 
 appearance of the Angel had been merely a delu- 
 sive dream, the only result would have been nothing 
 more than that his messengers would have had a 
 fruitless journey to Joppa. Cornelius was not 
 required on the strength of the angelic communi- 
 cation, to adopt a new religion, or to take any 
 other important step. But when the messengers 
 who were sent found Peter in the very house 
 pointed out, and found him prepared by a corre- 
 sponding vision to accompany them, this was a 
 decisive proof to both parties that there was no 
 delusion in the case. As Dr. Paley has justly 
 remarked, either Cornelius's vision, or Peter's — 
 
 * Luke i. and Acts x. 
 
ANGELS. 21 
 
 taking each separately — might, conceivably, have 
 been a delusion : taking the two conjointly and 
 connected, as they were, with each other, there 
 could be no doubt of the reality of either. 
 
 In the case of Zacharias, there appears to have 
 actually been, in his mind, a degree of distrust, 
 of some kind or other, ( we cannot tell what,) con- 
 cerning the vision presented to him. He may, 
 perhaps, have felt a doubt whether what he seemed 
 to see and hear was real, or whether he was de- 
 luded ( as men have certainly sometimes been when 
 in a morbid state ) by a kind of day-dream. Or 
 again, he may have felt a doubt whether the 
 Being who appeared before him were really a 
 holy Angel sent from God, or some other kind of 
 superhuman Being, who was deceiving him. This 
 at least seems sufficiently plain ; that the doubts 
 which Zacharias appears to have felt must have 
 been something of the kind just alluded to; 
 either doubts as to the reality of what appeared 
 before him, or, as to its good or evil character. 
 For we cannot suppose that, being fully convinced 
 of having really received, through a Divine Mes- 
 senger, an announcement actually from God, be 
 yet doubted the truth of that announcement. A 
 doubt as to the character of the Being who ap- 
 peared to him, seems what the angel alludes to 
 in his reply ; in which he begins by declaring 
 who he is, and by whom sent ; and immediately 
 adds a miraculous proof of the truth of what he 
 says: "I am Gabriel that stand in the presence 
 
22 ANGELS. 
 
 of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to 
 show thee these glad tidings : and behold thou 
 shalt be dumb," &c. 
 
 If any, or both, of the doubts I have been 
 speaking of (which were not, in themselves, blame- 
 able or unreasonable,) were in the mind of Zacba- 
 rias, the obvious and sure test of the reality of the 
 vision, and of its true character, was, evidently, to 
 wait the event. He was not called on to proclaim 
 at once what he had seen, but only to observe 
 whether the prophecy came to pass, or not. K 
 it failed, he would know that he had been de- 
 ceived ; but he would have lost nothing by the 
 deception. If it were fulfilled, this event would 
 have been a sufficient confirmation. Zacharias, 
 however, was not content to wait patiently the 
 event, but demanded an immediate confirmation; 
 saying, "Whereby shall I know this?" and a con- 
 firmation was accordingly granted him ; but granted 
 him in such a manner as to convey to him at the 
 same time a rebuke for that his impatience. The 
 sign which confirmed, immediately, the reality of 
 the vision was, his being struck dumb till the 
 time when the other confirmation — the fulfilment 
 of the prediction — should take place. "Behold 
 thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, till 
 the day when these things shall be performed ; be- 
 cause thou believest not my words, which shall be 
 fulfilled in their season;" as much as to say, the 
 fulfilment of my words in due time, would have 
 afibrded, then, sufficient proof that there is no 
 
ANGELS. 23 
 
 delusion : but since thou art not content to wait 
 for that time, but requirest an immediate proof, 
 thou shalt have it, in the shape of an infliction 
 of dumbness, as at once a confirmatory sign, and 
 a reproof for impatience. 
 
 The Virgin Mary, on the contrary, received 
 no immediate sign ; having been content humbly 
 to wait for the fulfilment of the prediction made" 
 to her; which fulfilment afforded, to her, a deci- 
 sive proof of the reality of the vision. 
 
 On several other occasions we read, in the "Sew 
 Testament history, of Angels being employed in 
 ministering to the Lord Jesus, and to others. 
 Some of them were commissioned to announce 
 his birth, and again, his resurrection. And an 
 Angel released the Apostles when imprisoned by 
 the Jewish Eulers; and afterwards Peter, when 
 imprisoned by Herod. 
 
 In all these cases you will observe that, as has been 
 said above, a sufficient test was provided to prove 
 that there was no delusion. The finding of a babe 
 lying in the manger at the Inn, as the Shepherds 
 had been told by the Angel, saying, " this shall be 
 the sign* unto you," proved clearly that they had 
 not been dreaming, or deluded by any fancy. 
 Again, the absence of the body of Jesus from the 
 sepulchre, and afterwards his own appearance to the 
 disciples, attested the truth of the announcement of 
 his resurrection. And again, the actual release of the 
 
24 ANGELS. 
 
 Apostles from prison, was of course a proof perfectly 
 decisive. 
 
 la all these cases, tte employment of Angels not 
 only took place, but also was made known to men. 
 There may have been, we should remember, for 
 aught we know, other cases in which the minis- 
 tration of angels was employed, but has been 
 concealed from us. 
 
 If any one should inquire — and such an inquiry 
 does not seem presumptuous or unreasonable — why, 
 in certain instances, the ministry of Angels to Man 
 was made known to us, thus much at least we may 
 clearly perceive ; that it was not in order that men 
 should invoke them when unseen, and pray to them 
 for aid. For we find none of the Apostles or other 
 disciples ever doing this. And it is important to re- 
 mark that in all the instances in which Angels are re- 
 corded as holding intercourse with Man, it appears to 
 have been always under a special commission from 
 God Himself, and not as acting of themselves. And 
 this looks as if no intercourse was allowed unless 
 specially authorised. 
 
 As for anything approaching to adoration of an 
 Angel, the Apostle John, in the passage cited just 
 now from the Book of the Eevelation, is earnestly 
 warned against it : " see thou do it not ! I am thy 
 feUow-servant : worship God." 
 
 Of course there could be no objection to any 
 one's addressing either an angel or a man, who 
 should be standing before Mm, and even asking them 
 to pray for him, as Simon the sorcerer asked of 
 
ANGELS. 25 
 
 Peter.* But to invoke either Angels or pious men 
 deceased, when unseen, and ask these to pray for us, 
 would be evidently to assign to them an attribute 
 of the ever-present God, and, in fact, to exalt them 
 into gods, so as to rob of his just due the Lord, 
 "whose name is jealous." 
 
 "We maybe certain, therefore, that whatever may 
 be the reasons for God's having revealed to us the 
 existence, and the employment by Him, of the holy 
 Angels, our "fellow-servants," it was not that we 
 should be induced or encouraged to adore or invoke 
 them. 
 
 But some of the reasons why He does think fit to 
 reveal to us something concerning them, may, I 
 think, be reasonably conjectured. And on this 
 point I shall lay before you some observations in the 
 next lecture. 
 
 * Acts viii. 24. 
 
26 MINISTKATIOHS OF ANGELS, 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 Reasons for revealing to Man the Ministrations of 
 holy Angels. 
 
 I POINTED out in the preceding Lecture, that 
 something — though not much — has been revealed 
 to us in Scripture, -of God's employment of the holy 
 Angels in ministering to Man : and that whatever 
 may have been his design in revealing to us what 
 He does reveal, on that subject, of this at least we 
 may be certain, that it was not that we should pray 
 to them, or in any way invoke their help; since 
 Scripture not only does not warra,nt, but expressly 
 forbids this. 
 
 We may be allowed, however, to inquire, with 
 due reverence, what may have been the purpose of 
 the Most High, in informing us, as He has done, in 
 some instances, of his employment of our " fellow- 
 servants" the holy Angels. It may have been, 
 partly, to indicate to us that it belongs to the general 
 system of his Providence to make use of the 
 services of his creatures for the accomplishment of 
 purposes which (we cannot doubt) He might have 
 effected by his own direct and immediate agency. 
 
 Men, we know, are continually thus employed. 
 As relates to the things of this world, we know that 
 
WHY REVEALED. 27 
 
 it is the appointmeut of Providence that men should 
 be dependent on their fellovy-men for various good 
 offices, and, in many instances, for Ufe itself. To 
 minister to the distressed and afflicted, a»d to 
 perform various other acts of kindness to our 
 brethren, is among the duties most earnestly 
 inculcated by our Lord and his Apostles ; not, cer- 
 tainly, that He has any mid of our services and 
 could not effectually relieve the sufl'erers, and min- 
 ister to the wants of all men without our assistance, 
 but because He sees fit to honour us by being thus 
 employed in fulfilling his will, and deems it best 
 for all the parties concerned that mutual benevo- 
 lence should thus be actively exercised. 
 
 And, in what relates to the spiritual wants of 
 Man also, divine Providence has adhered to the 
 same rule. The Gospel was preached to men by 
 their fellow-men commissioned so to do. Instead 
 of bestowing a direct revelation on each separate per- 
 son who was to be called to the knowledge of the 
 Gospel, the Lord Jesus sent forth Ms disciples to 
 " teach all nations, baptizing them into the christian 
 faith," only supplying these his Messengers with 
 such powers as were jndispensably necessary for 
 their success. They were furnished with the 
 armour of God ; but it was they that were to " fight 
 the good fight." And so it is, still, down to the 
 present day. The instruction of the ignorant in 
 the things pertaining to their eternal salvation, is 
 left to be effected not by a direct revelation to 
 
28 MINISTRATIONS OF ANGELS, 
 
 them, but by the care and diligence of their fellow- 
 men. 
 
 That the same rule extends beyond our race — 
 that creatures higher than Man are also employed 
 by their Maker in carrying out his designs — in 
 ministering to their fellow-servants — this he has 
 thought fit to make known to us, partly perhaps 
 for our encouragement in the duties called for from 
 us in this world, and partly as giving some intima- 
 tion of the future life prepared for us. 
 
 For we are certainly given to understand that 
 there is to be some kind of resemblance at least 
 between the condition of the blest hereafter "and 
 that of the holy Angels. 
 
 "Like the Angels"* is the expression of our 
 Lord Himself when speaking (Luke xx. 35) of those 
 who shall be accounted worthy "to obtain that 
 world and the resurrection from the dead." And 
 we find mention made also of " Angels and just men 
 made perfect," as if, in the next world, they were 
 to associate together 
 
 And on the other hand, we read of the wicked 
 being condemned, at the Day of Judgment, to the 
 "everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his 
 Angels." Now it seems but fitting that we should 
 have at least some little knowledge of the condition 
 and occupations of Beings whom we are hereafter 
 to resemble and also to associate with.f 
 
 t See Lectures VIII. and X. on a Future Stat«. 
 
■WHY REVEALED. 29 
 
 But this perhaps is not all. There is some roason 
 to think that both the good and evil Angels may 
 once have been in a state of trial, answering to ours 
 here on earth. For we read in Scripture (Jude 6) 
 of "Angels who kept not their first estate" (their 
 original condition), " but left their own habitation, 
 and are reserved in everlasting chains under dark- 
 ness unto the judgment of the great Bay," i. e., are 
 limited in their powers (like malefactors who labour 
 in chains) and afflicted with the gloom of divine 
 displeasure. 
 
 It is not unlikely, therefore, that the holy Angels 
 also may have formerly been subjected to trial, 
 through which they had passed triumphantly ; — 
 that both they, and those who fell, may have 
 originally been somewhat such Beings as we are 
 now ; and that men, according as they pass through 
 this their present state of trial, will be hereafter 
 such Beings respectively, as the good and the evil 
 Angels are now. 
 
 This, however, we are not authorised positively 
 to assert, as the Scriptures do not expressly teach 
 it : they only lead us to believe that it may be so, 
 and to conjecture that it is a thing not improbable. 
 But at any rate, the appearances of Angels served 
 to prepare men's minds, in some degree, for the 
 doctrine of a resurrection, and to aid their con- 
 ception of a new and exalted state of existence in 
 another world. 
 
 There were exhibited to the senses of men (in 
 a few instances) created Beings in many respects 
 3* 
 
30 MINISTRATIONS OF ANGELS, 
 
 like men, in others more refined and elevated; 
 having a human form and speech, and something 
 of human affections, but without the grosser attri- 
 butes of mortals. This served to form and to keep up 
 the idea, not only that Man is not the highest of 
 God's creatures, but moreover that there is a state 
 of existence, exalted indeed and glorified beyond 
 that in which we now are, yet not so utterly re- 
 mote from our present condition, but that we may 
 conceive something resembling it to be reserved for 
 us hereafter, and may be led to aspirations after 
 something higher and better than Man's life on 
 Earth, and which yet shall not be inconsistent with 
 our consciousness of personal identity — with our 
 being — and feeling ourselves to be — the same 
 individuals. 
 
 The Angels, in short, in their visits to this world 
 of ours, gave Man a glimpse of a higher and better 
 world. They were specimens, so to speak, of what 
 is to be found in the heavenly Canaan, our Land 
 of Promise, answering to those fruits which the 
 spies, sent by Moses into Canaan, brought to the 
 Israelites in the dreary and barren wilderness, in 
 order to convince them of the goodness of that 
 pleasant land, and to encourage them to enter 
 into it. 
 
 And it is worth remarking, as confirmatory of 
 what has been just said concerning the connexion 
 between the appearances of Angels and the doctrine 
 of a Resurrection, that the Sadducees who denied 
 
WHY EE VEAL ED. 31 
 
 the one, denied the other also.* "For the Saddu- 
 cees say there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor 
 spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." The re- 
 jection, therefore (as well as the admission), of both 
 the one and the other doctrine, seem to have been 
 somehow connected. 
 
 But whatever may be the likeness or the unlike- 
 ness, in some respects, between the present condi- 
 tion of the holy Angels, and that of the blest after 
 the resurrection, thus much at least I think we may 
 fairly infer, from what^we read in Scripture of God's 
 employment of Angels in carrying on his designs ; 
 that the condition of the blest in a better world is 
 not likely to be (as some seem to take for granted) 
 a state of mere repose, — of total inactivity, in which 
 they will be occupied in mere contemplation, with- 
 out having, properly speaking, anything to do ; as 
 if "peace" and "rest" necessarily implied utter 
 indolence. On the contrary, there seems every 
 reason to believe that, though exempted from pain- 
 ful toils and distressing anxieties, as well as from 
 every other kind of suffering — and though, in that 
 sense, they will " rest from their labours," yet they 
 will still be employed in doing good offices to the 
 children of their Heavenly Father. 
 
 Such, certainly, is the kind of occupation by 
 which Christians are directed to prepare themselves 
 for that better world. And it would be strange 
 indeed if all the habits of active benevolence which 
 
 Acts 
 
32 MINISTRATIONS OP ANQBLS, 
 
 the Christian has been assiduously forming through- 
 out his wliole life, while looking for, and preparing 
 for, a state of future bliss, were to be at once laid 
 aside, and, indeed, totally changed and reversed, as 
 soon as he enters on that state; and he were 
 immediately to become a totally different kind of 
 Being from what he has been labouring to become 
 here below, and were to exchange his character of 
 beneficent exertion for that of indolent and contented 
 apathy. As well might one suppose that a tree 
 which we had been carefully cultivating while a 
 sapling, and assiduously rearing to maturity, was 
 destined, immediately on attaining maturity, to 
 become another tree of a totally different kind — a 
 plant of some distinct species.* 
 
 "We might fairly infer then, I think, merely from 
 what we are taught of the true Christian's life on 
 earth, that the Christian-life in Heaven is not to be 
 a state of mere inactive repose. But this conclusion 
 is very much strengthened by our finding that those, 
 our already-blest fellow-servants are actively em- 
 ployed by their and our heavenly Master, in doing 
 service to mankind. 
 
 In this, and in the preceding Lecture, I have 
 endeavoured to set forth what is to be found in our 
 Sacred Books, which God's Providence has left us 
 for our instruction. The most brilliant display of 
 eloquence, however gratifying to the hearers and 
 
 * See Lectures IX. and X. on a Future State. 
 
WHYKEVEALED. 33 
 
 readers, I should, I trust, regard as of little worth 
 (even if I possessed more of it than any man ever 
 did possess), in comparison with the great object of 
 leading you to an intelligent and profitable study 
 of those Books. It has been my aim, therefore, 
 instead of entertaining you with any conjectures of 
 ingenious men concerning things which God has not 
 thought fit to make known to us in Scripture — 
 instead of this, I have endeavoured to lay before 
 you, as clearly as possible, what it is that He does 
 there teach us : — to aid your study, in short,- of 
 the Scripture-revelations concerning those superhu- 
 man Beings, good and evil, of whose agency the 
 Sacred Writers make mention. 
 
 The scantiness of the information they do afford 
 us on those points, is, as I have remarked above — 
 however unsatisfactory to our curiosity — a strong 
 confirmation of the truth of our Scriptures ; which 
 are, in this respect, quite the reverse of what we 
 should have been sure to find in the works either of 
 impostors or of enthusiasts. 
 
 I then took occasion to point out to you that this 
 scantiness of information on such a subject, is of a 
 piece with God's dealings with us throughout ; — with 
 the general character of his Kevelation. Of such 
 things as are not discoverable by unaided Reason, 
 He has made known to us what is practically 
 needful for our direction and encouragement, but 
 nothing for the gratification of mere speculative 
 curiosity. 
 
 Next, I pointed out to you the importance of 
 
84 MINISTRATIONS OF ANGELS, 
 
 keeping in mind the distinction between the Angels 
 whose appearances are recorded in the Old and in 
 the New Testament : those in the Old, being, for 
 the most part, sensible manifestations of Jehovah 
 Himself through the medium of some appearance, — 
 whether of a flame, or of a human figure, or some 
 other visible emblem, serving as his messenger (or 
 angel) ; while the Angels mentioned in the l^ew 
 Testament seem always to have been personal 
 agents. 
 
 And the appearances of these latter which we do 
 find recorded, are recorded — I ventured to suggest 
 — ^for the purpose, among others, of showing us that 
 though the Most High can have no need of the ser- 
 vice of any of his creatures, yet He does see fit to 
 employ in the accomplishment of his purposes, not 
 only men, but Beings superior to Man. As we are 
 taught to pray that God's will may be " done on 
 Earth as if is in Heaven," so we have — as a kind of 
 comment on that petition — something of a sample 
 afforded us of the fulfilment of His will in Heaven, 
 when we see instances recorded of the employment 
 of the holy Angels in active goodofiices. We have, 
 I may say — in addition to the precepts given us — 
 the example of those Angels set before us for our 
 instruction and encouragement. 
 
 And, lastly, I pointed out that we are also leli to 
 conclude that if we duly profit by their example^ 
 we shall hereafter be associated with those glorious 
 Beings in the Mansions of eternal bliss, where our 
 Divine Master is gone before "to prepare a place for 
 us." 
 
WHY KB VB A LED. 35 
 
 Now what would be your tiioughts and feelings 
 if it were announced to you — to any one of you, 
 even in the humblest condition of life — that you 
 had succeeded to the inheritance of a high title and 
 exalted rank and station, and to boundless riches, 
 and that you would shortly be invited to the court 
 of some great sovereign, and would spend your life 
 thenceforth among princes, and others of the 
 highest orders, and of the mqst refined and dignified 
 manners ? You would certainly not be without some 
 thought of preparing yourself for so great an eleva- 
 tion, by cultivating as much as possible all such 
 habits as might make you not an unsuitable com- 
 panion for the members of that exalted society into 
 which you were hoping to be enrolled. You would 
 not, certainly, occupy the intermediate time in 
 courting the society of the basest and most degraded 
 of the rabble, in imitating their manners, and adopt- 
 ing their habits. You would endeavor on the 
 contrary, to live as much as possible like a person 
 who expected shortly to be introduced into what is 
 called the best society. 
 
 Now how paltry and contemptible is the splendour 
 of an earthly court — how trifling is an inheritance 
 of earthly wealth and greatness, which can, at the 
 utmost, last but a few short years — how contemptible 
 is the elevation of nobles and princes (as far as 
 regards merely their earthly station and titles) — how 
 little worthy of regard, I say, are all these things, 
 in comparison with the mansions of heavenly bliss 
 — with the inheritance of a glorious immortality — 
 
36 MINISTRATIONS OF ANGELS, 
 
 with the society of " Angels and just men made 
 perfect !" 
 
 Do you believe that all this is placed before you ? 
 ^ — before all, even of the humblest in worldly 
 station ? Do you expect to be received at the Court 
 of Heaven, — ^to be introduced into the society of 
 God's holy Angels ? If so, are you preparing for 
 such a reception ? — for such companions ? Are you 
 striving through the promised aid of God's sancti- 
 fying Spirit, to become qualified for " dwelling for 
 ever with the Lord?" ""We know not," says the 
 apostle John, "what we shall be: but we know 
 that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him : 
 for we shall see Him as He is ; and every one that 
 hath this hope on* Him, purifieth himself even as 
 He is pure."t 
 
 Are you giving this proof of such a hope ? or are 
 you suifering yourself to be bound down to this 
 world by its pleasures and its cares? or are you 
 suffering the baser portion of your nature — ^the mere 
 animal — to prevail over the higher, the angelic 
 character — and to enslave you to sensual indul- 
 gences ? Or are you giving way to and cherishing 
 anger, envy, detraction, malice, falsehood, and all 
 those other evil propensities which are the charac- 
 
 * CTti. 
 
 t As much as to say, " even the very Tiope of hereafter being 
 with the Lord, leads believers to conform themselves to the 
 example of his purity ; and the actual enjoyment of his presence 
 ■will carry further and complete that resemblance to their divine 
 Master which they are now striving after." 
 
WilYREVEALED. 61 
 
 teristics not of the holy Angels — the Spirits of 
 Heaven — but of the unclean Spirits who are their 
 adversaries and ours ? 
 
 Ask yourself these questions, and ask them 
 habitually, and ask them practically, now, during 
 your time of trial and preparation here below; 
 because, "at the hour of death and in the Day of 
 Judgment," it will be too late to make such in- 
 quiries. May God grant us grace and strength to 
 prepare ourselves as we ought for those heavenly 
 mansions, whither our Saviour is gone to prepare a 
 place for his faithful servants ! 
 
38 CESSATION OF 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 Cessation of sensible Angelic Visits. 
 
 Some persons may perhaps be disposed to inquire 
 why it is that God does not now, as in eariier times, 
 send Angels to minister to mankind. It cannot be 
 that He has forsaken his People, or regards them 
 less than formerly. Is it then that He finds no 
 one now that is worthy of such favour and care as 
 certain holy men formerly enjoyed ; and that any 
 one who should but attain to pre-eminent piety and 
 faith, may expect, in these days angelic visits, and 
 other miraculous signs and revelations ? 
 
 And some again there are who give ear to mar- 
 vellous narratives not supported by any sujBBlcient 
 evidence, of appearances of Angels, in later times, 
 to persons of supposed superior holiness, beyond 
 what is required of Christians in general, and who 
 are thence designated as " Saints."* 
 
 Others on the contrary dislike the thought of 
 any Beings ia the creation superior to Man ; and if 
 they do not distinctly maintain (like the Sadducees 
 of old), that there are none such, yet are loth to 
 
 * The Apostles admitted no distinction of this kind, but 
 called all Christians " Saints," as being dedicated to the Lord 
 See Lessons on Religions Worship. L. IV. I 7 — 11. 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 39 
 
 contemplate the human Race as other than the 
 highest of God's creatures; and thence are led to 
 try to explain away everything that is said in 
 Scripture concei'ning the appearances of Angels. 
 
 It was a kind of feeling similar to this, that made 
 our ancestors take for granted that the Earth we 
 inhabit must be the centre of the universe; a notion 
 which many persons clung to even after the most 
 decisive proofs to the contrary had been given. 
 They seemed to feel it a kind of degradation that 
 our Earth should be merely one out of several 
 planets moving round the sun. 
 
 And some again, may be found, who are un- 
 willing to believe that anything can ever have 
 happened, anywhere, or at any time, different from 
 what they themselves have been accustomed to ; 
 and accordingly, declare, that so and so is " contrary 
 to the Laws of Nature," and consequently can 
 never have happened at all : as if their knowledge 
 extended to all the Laws of ITature, and their own 
 experience were to mark the limit of all possibility. 
 Such w^as the disposition of that king of Bantam, (a 
 very hot country in the East Indies,) who derided 
 European ambassadors when they told of water 
 becoming solid. He and all his people had never 
 experienced any such thing ; and therefore he sup- 
 posed himself to know by experience that it was 
 contrary to the laws of Nature : — as indeed it was, 
 to all the Laws of Nature that he was acquainted 
 with: — and hence he rejected the account as an 
 impossibility. 
 
40 CESSATION OF 
 
 But any one who believes that this Earth, and 
 all the species of plants and animals now existing 
 on it, did not exist from all eternity, but were once 
 created, must admit that something different from 
 the present ordinary course of nature did, once at 
 least, take place. For we have no experience of 
 creations of new species taking place around us now. 
 And, moreover, geologists find in ancient strata of 
 rock, fossil-remains, which plainly prove that the 
 Earth was formerly stocked with vast numbers of 
 plants and animals totally different from those which 
 are found on it at present, and which, it appears, did 
 not then exist. 
 
 And it may be added, that our first parents, or at 
 least some portion of mankind, must, at some time 
 or other, have learnt some of the arts of life, and 
 received the first rudiments of civilization, from 
 some superhuman Being holding communication 
 with them, such as does not take place now. Eor 
 else, since it does not appear that any savages ever 
 did, or can, civilize themselves, without external aid, 
 all mankind would have been savages to this day.* 
 
 The opponents of Christianity, however, with a 
 remarkable boldness of inconsistency, rush from one 
 extreme into another, just as suits their purpose. 
 At one time they insist on it that no evidence can 
 establish any occurrence, or the existence of any 
 state of things materially different from what we 
 see around us : and at another time, they consider it 
 
 * See Lessons <m Religioiis Worship, L. II. 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIO VISITS. 41 
 
 possible and highly probable, in the total absence of 
 all evidence, that a state of things may have formerly 
 existed perfectly unlike anything that exists, or that 
 is recorded in History. They deride any one who 
 believes, on whatever evidence, that a Creation, or 
 any other Miracle, can have ever taken place ; they 
 are quite certain that no Revelation, — no Prophecy, 
 or other Inspiration, — can ever have existed. All 
 these, they say, are contrary to the Course of Nature, 
 which is unchangeable ; and are against experience, 
 — that is, our own daily experience ; and no testi- 
 mony, accordingly, to such things is to be listened to. 
 But then, they will, perhaps in the next page, speak 
 of it as a thing very probable that ten thousand 
 years (or perhaps a thousand centuries) before the 
 data of the earliest historical records, oysters or 
 worms may have been gradually ripening into fish, 
 reptiles, beasts, and ultimately, — men : or, that there 
 may then have existed a race of men, our progeni- 
 tors, but differing as widely from us as we do from 
 Apes, and consequently capable (which Man is not, 
 in these latter days) of unaided self-civilization. 
 Where there is evidence for a different state of things 
 from what now exists, they reject such a conclusion 
 with scorn : where there is no evidence at all, they 
 readily admit it. This inconsistency is evidently the 
 result of a bias in their minds against Christianity. 
 I throw out these considerations, only for the pur- 
 pose of showing, that let a man go as far as he will 
 in explaining away, or in rgecting, the narratives 
 of Scripture, he cannot escape being compelled to 
 4* 
 
42 CESSATION OF 
 
 believe that all things have not always been in the 
 same state as now. But it is not my design to enter, 
 in these Lectures, into an examination of the evi- 
 dences of the truth of our sacred books.* I am ad- 
 dressing myself to those who are believers in them, 
 and who are willing to understand them in the sense 
 which the writers themselves must have intended 
 to convey. 
 
 But without presuming to decide that nothing 
 could have existed or occurred two or three thou- 
 sand years ago, different from what we see around 
 us, it may be permitted reverently to inquire into 
 the probable reasons for the change (in reference to 
 the point now more immediately before us), which 
 appears to have taken place in the scheme of divine 
 government. 
 
 The visible appearances of Angels in bodily shape, 
 speaking to men, and touching^ and literally leading 
 them, would seem to have been a mode of divine 
 government suited, partly (1) to an early and com- 
 paratively rude state of society, in which it was 
 requisite that men's bodily senses should be im- 
 mediately acted on ; and partly, again (2), to the 
 first introduction of a new religion ; as a portion of 
 those miraculous manifestations of Divine agency 
 which a new revelation requires. 
 
 For (1) a gross-minded, and unreflecting, and half- 
 barbarian people must be addressed more through 
 
 * See Lessons on Christian Evidences. See also JVote D, at the 
 end of this Volume. 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 43 
 
 th€ir senses, and less through their reason, than men 
 further advanced in civilization. And, again (2), 
 when men were called on — as at the first introduction 
 of the Gospel — to throw oft" all their early prejudices, 
 and abandon all the expectations they had been 
 brought up in, and to expose themselves, moreover, 
 to the bitterest hatred of most of their countrymen, 
 and to the scorn and derision of the most civilized 
 and enlightened of the Gentiles, and to fierce perse- 
 cutions from both, it was necessary that they should 
 be favored with sensible, and striking, and numer- 
 ous miraculous proofs, for their own conviction, and 
 that of those they addressed, as evident signs that 
 God was with them. 
 
 The miraculous occurrences recorded in the Bible, 
 are indeed extraordinary, and wonderful, and, in 
 themselves, improbable ; but all of them put together 
 are as nothing in point of strangeness compared 
 with the only alternative, — with what must be be- 
 lieved by any one who should thereupon resolve to 
 reject those miraculous narratives. That a handful 
 of Jewish peasants and fishermen should undertake 
 to abolish the religions of the whole civilized world, 
 and introduce a new one, in defiance of all the 
 prejudices, and all the power, of this world arrayed 
 against them ; — that they should think to efiect this 
 by pretending to miraculous powers which they did 
 not, and knew they did not, possess ; — and that they 
 should succeed in the attempt, — all this is surely 
 many times more incredible than anything and 
 everything recorded in our Scriptures. And no one 
 
44 CESSATION OF 
 
 should make a boast of his "■incredulity" in dis- 
 believing something that is very strange, while he 
 is believing — as the only alternative — something 
 incomparably more strange. 
 
 But many persons are apt to forget — though it is 
 self-evident on a moment's reflection — ^that <?isbeliev- 
 ing is believing ; since to disbelieve any assertion is 
 to believe its contradictory ; and whoever does this 
 on slight grox;nds, is both credulous and incre- 
 dulous ; these being, in fact, one and the same habit 
 of mind. 
 
 Thus, the Jews who rejected Jesus as a Magician 
 (as the unbelieving Jews do, at this day), accounting 
 for his miracles as performed through the aid of evil- 
 spirits, and who are accordingly reproached with 
 "want of faith," evidently showed the grossest 
 credulity in adopting such an explanation. For, 
 the only way to avoid credulity and incredulity, — 
 the two necessarily going together, — ^is, to listen to, 
 and yield to, the best evidence, and to believe and 
 disbelieve, on good grounds. 
 
 We may perceive then clearly, at least thus much 
 that at the first introduction of a new religion, 
 professing to be a diviwe revelation, it was indis- 
 pensably necessary that there should be some 
 miraculous manifestations of divine power ; without 
 which no one could have been fairly called on to 
 receive it; and without which the Gospel never 
 could have been received, unsupported as it was by 
 temporal power. 
 
 Some, perhaps, may have expected that miraculous 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 45 
 
 gifts would be continued to the Church ; or that at 
 least some occasional signs and wonders — among 
 others, angelic visits — would be from time to time 
 renewed, for the correction of the erroneous, the 
 reclaiming of sinners, and the conversion of Pagans. 
 But without undertaking to explain why things have 
 not been so ordered, we can at least understand that 
 there is not the same need of such miraculous dis- 
 plays, now, that there was at the first introduction 
 of Christianity. The first preachers could never have 
 expected — or, if they had, would have expected in 
 vain — to obtain a hearing as God's messengers, if 
 they had not been able to appeal, — as they did, — 
 to undeniable miraculous displays occurring at the 
 time ; and on the evidence of which the religion was 
 established. But to us, on the other hand, of the 
 present day, the very fact of its having been so estab- 
 lished — the very existence of such a religion, so 
 introduced — is a proof which we may appeal to of 
 its divine origin. 
 
 It is for us then — instead of wondering, and griev- 
 ing, and complaining that the divine dispensations 
 are not something different from what we find them, 
 — to accept thankfully whatever advantages actually 
 do lie within our reach, and to do our best to derive 
 the greatest benefit from them. 
 
 And let not the members of Christ's Church as 
 it now exists, suppose that they are less favoured 
 than God's People were formerly, on account of 
 their not having, like those, sensible communications 
 from Heaven by thunderings, and supernatural 
 
46 CBSSATIONOF 
 
 flames, and voices, and visits of Angels. "We, who 
 have a rehgion less addressed to the senses, and 
 more spiritual, than the earlier dispensations, have, 
 no less than God's people of old, a promise of divine 
 presence, and aid, and guidance. For aught we 
 know, even the holy Angels maybe now employed, 
 though unseen, in ministering to mankind. But 
 on this point, nothing is revealed to us. On another 
 point, something has been revealed : the presence 
 of Christ by his " Spirit which helpeth our infirmi- 
 ties." Our divine Master has promised to "come 
 unto them that love Him and keep his saying ;" and 
 to " manifest Himself to them." He speaks to them, 
 though not in a literally audible voice. He leads 
 them, not less really than of old, though not literally, 
 by the hand : for, " as many" (says the apostle Paul) 
 "as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons 
 of God ;" and "if any man have not the Spirit of 
 Christ, he is none of his." 
 
 He speaks to us, in the Scriptures written by his 
 inspired followers, and in all the useful instruction 
 and good advice we receive from any one. He visits 
 us in the thoughts that arise in our heaiis, — in the 
 events that befal us, — in the occurrences that take 
 place around us. He comes indeed in vain to those 
 who are not willing to seek, and to receive, and to 
 be led by Him : but if we look earnestly, we shall 
 see Him ; if we listen attentively, we shall hear his 
 voice. 
 
 ISTow let any one suppose the case of an Angelic 
 Vision presenting itself to his bodily senses this day. 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 47 
 
 There is indeed no reason to expect that any such 
 event will actually occur ; but it is easy to imagine 
 it. Nay it would be conceivable even to a Sadducee 
 who denied the existence of Angels altogether. He 
 could at least easily imagine such an occurrence, and 
 picture to Himself how he would feel and act if it did 
 take place. 
 
 Imagine yourself, then, visited by a Superhuman 
 Being, clad in celestial light, and announcing himself 
 as a messenger from Heaven. And suppose him to 
 remind you that the Saviour who died on the Cross 
 for your redemption, is risen from the dead, and is 
 gone to prepare a place for you in the Mansions of 
 eternal bliss ; hut that you will forfeit this rich in- 
 heritance, and lose all that He has done for you, 
 unless you give proof of your love to Him by keeping 
 his commandments ; — by striving to be led by his 
 Spirit into an imitation of Him. The Angel also 
 admonishes you perhaps respecting some known sin 
 you are indulging in, or some known duty you are 
 habitually neglecting. Perhaps he reminds you of 
 negligent attendance on divine Worship, or of habi- 
 tual absence from the holy Communion of the Lord's 
 Supper, which He, your great Master, and Redeemer, 
 enjoined you to celebrate in memory of his dying 
 for you. Or again, the heavenly messenger points 
 out to you, suppose, how little you pi'actice self- 
 examination, or how much you are devoted to the 
 cares and pleasures of this life, which is so soon to 
 come to an end, and how little in comparison your 
 thoughts dwell on the life beyond the grave, and the 
 
48 CESSATIONOF 
 
 account j^ou will have to render at the Last Day, of 
 all that you shall have done or left undone, — of all 
 the advantages you shall have used, or wasted : — 
 among the rest, of the very warnings the Angel is 
 addressing to you. 
 
 Now imagine to yourself what would be your 
 thoughts and feelings if such a resplendent Vision, 
 and such a Message, were actually brought before 
 your senses. You would surely be awe-struck ; — ^you 
 would be roused from carelessness ; — you would be 
 filled with earnest good resolutions to profit by the 
 heavenly warning, by devoting yourself henceforth 
 more than ever to the care of your eternal salva- 
 tion. 
 
 And now, consider next, how the ease actually 
 stands with you. Everything that I have been sup- 
 posing the Angel to have said to you, you already 
 know, as it is. For I have not been supposing him 
 to bring you any new revelation, but only to remind 
 you of articles of your own belief, and of things you 
 are yourself, now, conscious of. 
 
 Why not then act, at once, as if you had received 
 this angelic message ? 
 
 Oh, but such a striking and wonderful Vision, 
 (you will perhaps say,) presented to the bodily senses, 
 would impress the mind more forcibly. 
 
 Is it then because you onh/ believe all these things, 
 that you care little about them, and do not take 
 pains to act on your belief? You would not proceed 
 so with respect to your temporal concerns, and to 
 worldly goods, which are such trifles in comparison 
 
1 
 
 SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 49 
 
 with the salvation of your soul. If, for instance, you 
 had received notice that a great estate had heen be- 
 queathed to you, surely you would not sit still and 
 neglect to go and secure the possession of it, merely 
 because you did not see the land before your eyes, 
 or because the gold and silver were not actually 
 counted out in your presence. You would have 
 faith in the assurances of respectable men that the 
 Inheritance was legally yours, and that you had only 
 to take proper steps to obtain possession of it; and 
 you would act on your belief. 
 
 IsTow you have only to put equal faith in God's 
 promises, and take equal pains and care to secure 
 " an inheritance that fadeth not away, eternal in the 
 Heavens." It is thus and thus only that you can, 
 attain that blessing of your Saviour which is, for us, 
 the only one reserved. "Thomas," said He, "be- 
 cause thou hast seen me thou hast believed : blessed 
 are they that have not seen, and yet have be- 
 lieved." * 
 
 In truth, you are receiving, now, a message from 
 God. For, every person, and every thing, through 
 
 *Johnsx. 29. 
 
 The following beautiful stanzas on this text, I hope the author 
 ■will pardon me for printing : 
 
 " We saw Thee not, when thou didst tread, 
 Saviour, this our sinful earth ; 
 Nor heard thy voice restore the dead. 
 And waken them to second birth : 
 
 Yet we believe that Thou didst come, 
 And quit for us thy glorious home. 
 
 5 
 
50 CESSATION OP 
 
 which He brings before men bis commands, or bis 
 warnings, or his promises, becomes, so far, his Angel 
 or Messenger. I am not indeed commissioned to 
 bring before you any new information, or to teach 
 any new doctrine. But if all I have now brought 
 before you be nothing more than what you were 
 already well aware has been revealed to Man, long 
 since, by the Most High, then, the very words which 
 now meet your ears or eyes, should be regarded by 
 you as a message from Him — as Christ's own in- 
 structions and commands. And "the word " — says 
 He — "that I have spoken, the same shall judge a 
 man at the last Day." 
 
 " We were not with the faithful few 
 Who stood thy bitter cross around ; 
 Nor beard thy prayer for those who slew ; 
 Nor felt that earthquake rock the ground ; 
 We saw no spear-wound pierce thy side ; 
 But we 'believe that Thou Jiast died. 
 
 " No angel's message met our ear, 
 On that first glorious Easter-day : 
 The Lord is risen, He is not here ; 
 Come, see the place where Jesus lay : 
 But we believe that Thou didst quell 
 The banded powers of Death and Hell. 
 
 " We saw Thee not return on high : 
 And now, our longing sight to bless. 
 No ray of glory from the sky 
 
 Shines down upon our Wilderness : 
 But we believe that Thou art there. 
 And seek Thee, Lord, in praise and prayer." 
 
SENSIBLE ANSELIC VISITS. 51 
 
 For this message, therefore, according as you shall 
 act upon it or neglect it, you will have to render an 
 account, along with the rest of your life, before 
 Christ Himself at the great Day of Judgment. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, are we to know the 
 voice that we are to listen to ? How must we distin- 
 guish — now that there are no miraculous signs to 
 guide us — right thoughts, and sound instructors, 
 and good advisers, from such as are worthless or 
 wrong ? 
 
 Our Lord Himself has given us, on this point, 
 both a warning, and a rule for our guidance. He 
 has warned us to " beware of false prophets which 
 come to us in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are 
 ravening wolves;" and has told us to "know them 
 by their fruits." And all thoughts, and suggestions, 
 and plans, and hopes, and reasonings, and judg- 
 ments, whether coming from without or from within, 
 — whether brought before us by others, or arising in 
 our own minds, are to be tried by this rule. It is 
 from God that " all holy desires, all good counsels, 
 and all just works do proceed;" and his Providence 
 has supplied us with records of the lives and teach- 
 ing of the Lord Jesus Himself, and of his Apostles. 
 Our own conscience, enlightened and guided by 
 these, will enable us to distinguish, if we examine 
 with care and with candid sincerity, and with atten- 
 tive consultation of Scripture, what suggestions of 
 our own thoughts, or of the persons around us, we 
 ought to listen to, and what to avoid. 
 
 And this kind of judgment men were required, 
 
52 CESSATION OF 
 
 in most instances, to exercise, even in the daj's 
 when angelic visits, and other miraculous Signs, 
 were not unknown. The persons who lived in 
 those times appear to have been furnished with 
 means of judging — as I remarked in a former Lec- 
 ture^^whether it was a real divine message that, on 
 each occasion, was sent, or whether they were 
 deluded by some morbid fancy, or by some evil 
 Being. 
 
 Paul warns his converts against giving heed to 
 any other Gospel than what he had delivered to 
 them, even though "preached by an Angel from 
 Heaven :" not, of course, that he supposed any real 
 messenger from Heaven ever could preach a differ- 
 ent Gospel; but, that fanatical enthusiasts might 
 imagine, or crafty impostors pretend, that they had 
 received some such Heaven-sent message : and the 
 Apostle warns them that-whatever should be at vari- 
 ance with the Gospel which they had once received 
 on undoubted evidence of its being from God, must 
 be at once rejected, on that ground. 
 
 So also, in more ancient times, we find the 
 Israelites warned, in the Book of Deuteronomy (ch. 
 xiii.), not to give heed to any prophet who should 
 seek to seduce them into the worship of strange 
 gods, even though he should appeal to some sup- 
 posed supernatural Sign. 
 
 There is not, I conceive, any reason for thinking 
 that any real miraculous powers were ever actually 
 displayed by any false prophet seeking to delude 
 the Israelites into idolatry. But we well know that, 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 53 
 
 at various times, juggling tricks and impostures 
 have been contrived, which have succeeded in 
 deluding the simple and ignorant : and again, that 
 they have sometimes been imposed upon by artful 
 men taking advantage of the occurrence of some 
 natural phenomenon — such as an eclipse* — which 
 superior knowledge may enable a man to foretell. 
 
 Now it would have been too much to expect of 
 ignorant and half-civilized, men, such as the greater 
 part of the Israelites, that they should be not only 
 willing but able so carefully to investigate every 
 pretension to superhuman powers, as to detect with 
 infallible certainty any attempted deception of this 
 kind. They were forewarned, therefore, once for 
 all, to reject at once every attempt to draw them 
 aside from the worship of the true God, who had 
 so clearly manifested Himself to them. 
 
 To us, the Christians of the present day, a more 
 spiritual religion is given than to the Israelites of 
 old ; and we are required to walk more " by faith 
 and less by sight," than they. But we have good 
 grounds for our belief in the Holy Scriptures 
 "which are able to make us wise unto salvation," 
 and for confidence that "every good and perfect 
 gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
 Father of Lights." 
 
 It is for us, instead of indulging in any vain 
 cravings after a more complete system of divine 
 guidance than we have any reason for expecting, — 
 
 * As Columbus imposed on the American Indians. 
 5* 
 
54 CESSATION OF 
 
 it is for us (as I have said above) to make the most 
 of the advantages we do possess, by listening to and 
 following, as a voice from Heaven — as an Angel of 
 the LoED — every suggestion that would lead us to 
 Him, — every warning that would keep us in his 
 paths. 
 
 Ask yourself, each one who sincerely desires 
 divine help and guidance, whether you may not, 
 like some holy men of old, have "received Angels 
 unawares;" — whether you may not have been 
 visited — though not by a. divine messenger in bodily 
 shape — yet by some thought or feeling which, in 
 some hour of trial, has led you — or would have led 
 you — out of evil company, or some other such 
 danger, even as the Angels led Lot out of the city 
 doomed to destruction, and would have saved his 
 sons-in-law, had they not refused the guidance. 
 May not some temporal loss, or mortification, or 
 alarm, have occurred opportunely to shake oif from 
 you the chain of over-devotedness to worldly ob- 
 jects, or to rouse you from indolent carelessness, 
 like the Angel who visited Peter in the prison, bid- 
 ding him arise and gird himself, and causing his 
 fetters to fall off, and the prison-gates to open ? Or 
 may not the ordinary course of events — that is, of 
 God's Providence which makes " all things work 
 together for good to them that love Him" — have 
 sometimes introduced you to some book, or some 
 teacher, fitted to supply to you just the instruction, 
 or the consolation you were most in need of; even 
 as the Angel brought Cornelius to the knowledge 
 
SENSIBLE ANGELIC VISITS. 55 
 
 of Peter, who should " tell him what he ought to 
 do?" 
 
 In these, and similar cases, you may have been 
 receiving angelic visits unawares ; since every per- 
 son or* thing through which God communicates 
 with us, is, so far, his Angel or Messenger. 
 
 Only, remember — as I have already said — not to 
 receive as a divine admonition anything that is not 
 conformable to the record of God's will as contained 
 in Scripture, and to a conscience carefully regulated 
 by Scripture. You must not at once conclude 
 anything that is strongly impressed on your mind, 
 to be, therefore, a direction sent from God, and 
 which must accordingly be good and right, as com- 
 ing from Him. On the contrary, you must judge it 
 to come from Him, only if you find it to be right 
 and good ; and for that reason. For even if you 
 believed yourself actually to see with your bodily 
 eyes a supernatural vision, you could not be sure 
 (as I have already said) whether it was of a good 
 or an evil origin, except by its tendency, — by its 
 being conformable, or the contrary, — to God's re- 
 vealed will. 
 
 As " Satan himself transforms himself," we are 
 told, " into an angel of light,' * so we are warned 
 that his ministers also do the like; and we are 
 cautioned against " false teachers coming in sheep's 
 clothing, while inwardly they are ravening wolves:" 
 
 * 2 Cor. xi. 13—15. 
 
56 CESSATION OF ANGELIC VISITS. 
 
 aud it is by their fruits we are directed to know 
 them. 
 
 Such is the care and vigilance required of us, — 
 such the difficulties and trials that beset our path, 
 — here below. A higher and better state is pre- 
 pared for us hereafter ; when we shall be associated, 
 if it be not our own fault, with those who have 
 passed through, — as we shall then have done, — 
 those earthly trials and difficulties ;^with Angels, 
 and just men made perfect : " and so shall we ever 
 be with the Lord." 
 
BVILANOELS. 67 
 
 LEGTUEE IV. 
 
 Hvil Angels. 
 
 Mention is made in Scripture (as I have before 
 remarked), not only of holy Angels, but also of evil 
 Angels, or, as they are often called, "unclean 
 Spirits," or "Demons."* No detailed accounts 
 indeed are given of either; but it is remarkable 
 that there are, in the New Testament, much more 
 frequent notices of evil than of good Angels. 
 
 The cause of this may probably have been that 
 vrhatever good offices men may receive from these 
 latter, are never to be sought from them. They are, 
 (as I formerly observed) never to be called on, and 
 their aid invoked. And it is likely, therefore, that 
 their existence and agency are the less frequently 
 mentioned, for fear men should be led into the 
 error of false worship. On the other hand, the 
 dangers to which any one may be exposed from 
 evil Spirits, it was right fo give warning of, and 
 
 * This is the word in the original, which our translators 
 have in several places (unfortunately) translated "devils:" not 
 recollecting that Devil is the proper name of an individual, and 
 accordingly is never employed by the Sacred Writers in the 
 plural number, as applied to evil spirits. < 
 
58 EVILANGELS. 
 
 frequently to remind men to be on their guard 
 against them. 
 
 And such dangers accordingly are, as I have said 
 very frequently alluded to in the New Testament. 
 In the Old Testament, on the contrary, and especially 
 in the earlier Books of it, there are much less fre- 
 quent allusions to such Beings. 
 
 One prohable reason for this difference, I shall 
 notice in a future Lecture. But in the meantime, 
 it is worth while to observe, that there is no such 
 entire omission of the subject in the Old Testament 
 as a hasty reader might be led to suppose. For the 
 gods worshipped by the ancient heathen, were be- 
 lieved, by the Jews, and indeed by the early 
 Christians also, to be really-existing Evil-demons.* 
 And, indeed, the very name "Demons" was applied 
 by the heathen themselves to the Beings they wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 It is true, we often find the Jews deriding the 
 heathen for what is strictly called "Idolatry" — for 
 worshipping images of silver, and gold, and wood, 
 and stone, " the work of men's hands ; which have 
 eyes and see not, ears and hear not," &c. But, like 
 all other idolaters — they believed the images they 
 venerated to be representations or emblems of 
 some really-existing persons: and, what is more, 
 the Jews — whether truly or erroneously — held 
 the same belief. For we find them speaking, for 
 instance, of "Beelzebub as the prince of the 
 
 * I have entered more fully on this subject in the next 
 Lecture. 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 59 
 
 Demons ;" and we know that Beelzebub was the 
 Philistine God worshipped at Ekron.* 
 
 In the New Testament, then, we find, as has been 
 just said, very frequent allusious to the existence and 
 to the agency of Evil-Spirits, both in our Lord's 
 own discourses, and in the Epistles. And con- 
 sidering in how many places, and how very dis- 
 tinctly and strongly our Lord and his Apostles speak 
 on the subject, it will probably be altogether startling 
 to some of my readers to learn that there are persons 
 professing belief in the Sacred Writings, who yet 
 deny the existence of any evil-spirits ; maintaining 
 that it is a thing utterly incredible that God should 
 permit any such Being to exist. And as for what 
 Christ and his Apostles have said on the subject, 
 their expressions, it is contended, are to be under- 
 stood figuratively, and as an " accommodation" (that 
 is the word these persons use) to the popular notions 
 of the day. When they speak of any temptation, 
 or any affliction, bodily or mental, as proceeding 
 from Satan or his angels, this, we are told, is only 
 a condescension to vulgar prejudices; and what is 
 meant is merely a "personification" of moral evil, 
 — a description of men's vicious propensities, or 
 natural diseases, in figurative language; the true 
 import of which,, however, was not understood at 
 the time, or for about fifteen centuries after ! 
 
 To some it may appear almost incredible that 
 persons not deficient in intelligence, and believing 
 
 * 2 Kings, i. 2. See also 2 Chron. xi. 15 ; Levit. xvii. 7, and 
 Psalm ovi. 37- 
 
60 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 (or at least professing to believe) in the divine origin 
 of Christianity, should attribute to its Founder and 
 first Preachers such an accommodation" — worthy 
 of a harsher name — to popular religious error. 
 
 But excessive eagerness to get over some per- 
 plexing difficulty often leads rash men to overlook 
 entirely the difficulties — perhaps much greater — 
 which may lie on the opposite side. They imagine 
 that there is something of philosophical acuteness 
 in ^■wcredulity, — in &sbelieving and rejecting what 
 appears, in itself, strange and improbable ; and they 
 forget that (as I observed in the preceding Lecture) 
 disbelieving is believing ; and that consequently he 
 who rejects something wonderful when the only 
 alternative is to believe something still more 
 wonderful, is at once weakly incredulous, and weakly 
 credulous. 
 
 "We should not admire the prudent caution of a 
 mariner who should steer far away from some 
 dangerous shoal, without inquiring or watching to 
 see whether there might not be a quicksand on the 
 opposite quarter. But such is the conduct of those 
 who attempt to explain away some difficulity, with- 
 out reflecting whether they may not be running into 
 a greater difficulty. In the present instance, how- 
 ever, the persons I am speaking of do not even go 
 one step towards removing or lessening the difficulty 
 in question. For, the permission of evil-spirits is 
 only one branch of that great and insuperabte diffi- 
 culty, the permission of evil in the Universe. And 
 if evil does exist, and we are (as in truth we are) 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 61 
 
 totally unable to explain how, or why, it would be 
 mere folly to maintain that such and such a parti- 
 cular form of it cannot possibly exist, on the ground 
 that we are at a loss to explain it in that particular 
 instance. 
 
 Now there is no greater difficulty — great though 
 it undoubtedly is — in the permission of evil-spirits, 
 than of evil men. For instance, that so many should 
 be sold, as slaves, and often to tyrannical masters, 
 is as hard to explain, as that any one should have 
 been exposed to any kind of atHiction from Demons. 
 
 In particular, it may be a matter of especial 
 wonder, why — besides all the other evils that cer- 
 tainly do exist — it should be permitted to bad men 
 to seduce others, — as they are usually most anxious 
 to do — to follow their evil examples. We need not 
 indeed feel any wonder that an evil Being — whether 
 man or demon — should endeavour to degrade others 
 into his own condition : but, that either should be 
 permitted to labour at this so often with success, is 
 a difficulty we cannot at all explain. The difficulty, 
 however, is no greater in the one case than in the 
 other. 
 
 And yet so blind are some persons to this most 
 obvious truth, that there is a Tale extant, by an 
 author of considerable repute, the object of which 
 is to disprove the agency, and the existence of evil 
 demons, by a kind of argument whose futility is 
 (of course, unintentionally) proved in the very Talc 
 itself. The principal personage in the Tale is repre- 
 sented as being at length convinced by the above 
 6 
 
62 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 argument; namely, ttat God would never permit 
 any evil Being to have power to molest mankind. 
 And this argument is represented as being urged — 
 and successfully urged — while a pirate-ship was 
 actually in sight, the crew of which had just been 
 ravaging the country, and committing all kinds of 
 atrocities ! The speaker and the hearer of the argu- 
 ment are represented as having this before their 
 very eyes, and yet without perceiving that it com- 
 pletely refuted what was urged ! 
 
 Whatever, therefore, any one may decide as to 
 the actaal existence of evil-spirits, it must be evi- 
 dent, on reflection, to any one of common sense, 
 this particular objection to it must completely fall 
 to the grotind ; since it is an objection which lies 
 equally against what every one knows to be true.* 
 
 If there be some "Worlds — one of the Planets, 
 suppose — ^far distant from our own, in which sin and 
 suffering have always been wholly unknown, one 
 can conceive the inhabitants of that happy World, 
 reasoning, not very absurdly, from their own condi- 
 tion, to that of others. If they were told, for in- 
 stance, of countries in our World laid waste by 
 destructive inundations, or overwhelmed with the 
 
 * I have seen a book in which the author reports of some ac- 
 quaintance of his, that, on being asked by some one whether he 
 did not believe in the DevU, he answered, "Oh no ! I believe in 
 God. Don't you ?" 
 
 This seems to be about as wise as if on being asked, " Do yon 
 not believe in the existence of sickness ?" he had replied, " Oh 
 no ! I believe in lieaUh. Don't you ?" 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 63 
 
 torrents of liquid fire from Volcanos, one can con- 
 ceive them disputing the possibility of this, as a 
 thing God would never have permitted. But if peo- 
 ple dwelling in Holland, for instance, were, on such 
 grounds, to deny the fiery eruptions of Mount Vesu- 
 vius, and if the Italians, again, who dwell near the 
 mountain, were, on like grounds, to deny the possi- 
 bility of destructive inundations in Holland, we 
 should wonder at the folly of such men. 
 
 And if, again, the inhabitants of such a happy 
 World as I have been supposing, were to doubt the 
 possible existence of either bad Spirits or bad men, 
 there would, in this, be nothing very absurd. But, 
 for those who have the experience of the various 
 evils produced by bad men, to deny the possibility 
 of any other evil Beings, as a thing which could 
 never have been permitted, is an absurdity which, 
 to be refuted, needs only to be plainly stated. 
 
 The difiiculty, then, which those bold interpreters 
 I have been alluding to set themselves to explain 
 away, is one which, after all, they do not, in reality, 
 get over, or at all diminish. 
 
 And now observe how great is the new difficulty 
 they raise up, in their rash and vain attempt. Him 
 whom they acknowledge as having " come into the 
 World to bear witness of the truth," — Him and his 
 Apostles, they represent as not merely conniving at, 
 but deliberately confirming and establishing a super- 
 stitious error. It cannot be said that this error was 
 one unconnected with Religion. The case is not at 
 all like that of the employment in Scripture of ex- 
 
64 EVILANGELS. 
 
 pressions conformable to popular belief on points 
 of astronomy. For, Revelation was not given for 
 the purpose of instructing men in what relates to 
 the Earth's motion, and other matters pertaining to 
 science. And accordingly, our Lord, and the Pro- 
 phets, and the Apostles, spoke in popular language 
 of the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon, 
 because such language sufficiently conveyed their 
 meaning, and any different expressions would have 
 been, in those days, wholly unintelligible. 
 
 But indeed one may even say that, relatively to 
 MS, the Sun does rise and set; since its position 
 relatively to us is all that we mean, or are thinking 
 of, when we speak of sunrise and sunset. And 
 accordingly men do speak thus, even at this day, 
 who are perfectly aware that it is the Earth's revo- 
 lution that causes the alternations of day and night. 
 
 " Suppose you bid any one proceed in a straight 
 line from one place to another, and to take care to 
 arrive before the sun goes down. He will rightly 
 and fully understand you, in reference to the prac- 
 tical object which alone you had in view. Now, 
 yoxi perhaps know very well that there cannot be a 
 straight line on the surface of the earth, which is a 
 sphere, [globe] ; and that the sun does not really 
 go down,, only, our portion of the earth is turned 
 away from it. But whether the other person 
 knows all this or not, matters nothing at all with 
 reference to your present object; which was, not 
 to teach him mathematics or astronomy, but to 
 make him conform to your directions, which are 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 65 
 
 equally intelligible to the learned and the un- 
 learned. 
 
 " N"ow the object of the Scripture-revelation is to 
 teach men, not Astronomy or Geology, or any 
 other Physical Science, but Religion. Its design 
 was to inform men, not in what manner the world 
 was made, but who made it ; and to lead them to 
 worship Him, the Creator of the heavens and the 
 earth, instead of worshipping his creatures, the 
 heavens and earth themselves, as gods." 
 
 But on the other hand, the error — supposing it 
 such — to which Christ and his Apostles are repre- 
 sented as "accommodating" themselves, was one 
 not relating to speculative points of natural Science, 
 but intimately connected with Religion; and it 
 was moreover a matter in which the contradiction 
 of the popular belief would have been easy and 
 perfectly intelligible ; being in fact the very doctrine 
 then held by the Sadducees. 
 
 ]Sror can it be said that Jesus and his Apostles 
 merely left men in their belief, not thinking it 
 worth while to undeceive them, and trusting that 
 in time they would of themselves discover their 
 mistake. On the contrary, our Lord and his fol- 
 lowers very decidedly and strongly confirm the 
 doctrine, by numerous express declarations. 
 
 l^or instance, our Lord, in his explanation of " the 
 Parable of the Tares and the Wheat," says ex- 
 pressly that the Enemy who sowed the Tares is the 
 Devil. And again, in explaining that portion of 
 the Parable of the Sower, in which it is said that 
 6* 
 
66 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 the birds devoured the seed that fell on the trodden 
 way-side, He says, "Then cometh the Devil and 
 taketh away the "Word out of their hearts," &c. 
 
 And there are very many other passages in 
 which our Lord and his Apostles do not merely 
 leave uncontradicted, or merely assent to, what is 
 said by others as to this point, or merely allude to 
 it incidentally, but go out of their way, as it were, 
 to assert the doctrine most distinctly, and earnestly 
 dwell on it.* 
 
 It^ therefore, the belief in evil-spirita is altogether 
 a vulgar error, it certainly is not an error which 
 Jesus and his Apostles merely neglected to correct, 
 or which they merely connived at, but which they 
 decidedly inculcated. 
 
 Ifow if such be the real character of our Sacred 
 Writers, — if they judged such a "pious fraud" as 
 this, justifiable and right, any man of common 
 sense and common honesty must distrust them 
 altogether. For, how can one be sure — he may 
 say — at what point their pious frauds are to stop P 
 Why may they not have thought it allowable, and 
 necessary, to invent all the accounts of miracles, in 
 accommodation to the popular belief, that the pro- 
 mised Messiah was to work miracles? And why 
 may they not have put into his mouth doctrines 
 which He never taught ? And why may they not, 
 throughout, have made any number of assertions, 
 
 * In order not to break too much the thread of the discourse, 
 I have brought together in a note at the end of this Lecture, 
 several passages which strongly illustrate what is here said. 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 67 
 
 on any point whatever, •which were true indeed in 
 a certain mystical, hidden sense, understood by 
 themselves, but utterly untrue in the sense in which 
 they knew that they would be understood by their 
 hearers and readers? How, in short, can one be 
 justified in giving any credit at all to those whom 
 we suppose to have been knowingly and wilfully 
 deceiving their hearers ? 
 
 'Now all this unbelief may riot really be in the 
 minds of those rash interpi-eters I have been al- 
 luding to. But they should remember that the 
 principle they have laid down is one which every 
 man will feel himself at liberty to apply as he may 
 think fit. " You believe," he may say, "the nar- 
 ratives of the christian miracles to be literally true, 
 while you regard all that the same persons say 
 about evil-spirits to be a mere accommodation to 
 vulgar prejudices, and to be utterly untrue in its 
 literal sense ; because that appears to you improba- 
 ble : I extend the same kind of interpretation to 
 the miraculous narratives also, because, to me, 
 these also appear improbable : and you cannot 
 blame me for using the same liberty that you use 
 yourselves." 
 
 It is worth while for these interpreters to consider 
 also what kind of impression they create respecting 
 themselves ; — what is the picture they are drawing 
 of their oVn moral character. There is no reason 
 why their own language should not be interpreted 
 according to the same rules which they apply to 
 
68 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 that of the New-Testament. For " with what mea- 
 sure ye m«te, it shall be measured to you again." 
 
 " Here is a man," it may be said, "professing to 
 believe in the divine origin of Christianity, and to 
 regard our Sacred Writers as the appointed teachers 
 of a true revelation from Heaven, who yet repre- 
 sents them as encouraging and propagating a su- 
 perstitious error, in compliance with popular 
 prejudices. He will not therefore be likely to have 
 any scruple of doing, himself, what he considers 
 allowable and right in these his religious guides. 
 Perhaps, therefore, his own profession of belief iu 
 the Gospel may be only a similar '^accommodation 
 to what he looks on as the prejudices of his own 
 time. And when he speaks of Jesus Christ as a 
 Heaven-sent messenger, it may be his own secret 
 meaning that Jesus was in reality no more than 
 a remarkably wise man, like the Athenian Socrates, 
 or the Chinese Confucius ; and that all the miracu- 
 lous narratives in our Scriptures are fabulous." 
 
 We have, indeed, no right to pronounce posi- 
 tively that such is the opinion of every one who 
 interprets Scripture in the way I have been speak- 
 ing of: but no one can be sure that it is not. And 
 such a person, accordingly, though he mai/ be, iu 
 fact, a believer in Christianity, ought not to com- 
 plain or to wonder if the contrary is suspected; 
 since he can offer no reasonable proof of his sin- 
 cerity. By his own showing, if he did look on the 
 Gospel as "a cunningly-devised fable," he would 
 yet have no scruple in strongly expressing his belief 
 
EVILANaELS. 09 
 
 in it, and in propagating it as a genuine revelation. 
 His own words, interpreted according to his own 
 rules, are quite consistent with his being an unbe- 
 liever. 
 
 And such suspicions not only are, in themselves, 
 nothing unfair or unreasonable, but are greatly 
 strengthened by experience of what actually does 
 take place. For in modern times persons have 
 been found who actually do interpret other parts of 
 the Gospel-narratives on a similar plan. They re- 
 present the Disciples (how they came to he disciples, 
 these persons do not tell us) as having been led by 
 zeal for their Master's honour, to exaggerate and 
 misrepresent some occurrences, and to invent others. 
 The sick persons, for instance, healed by Him, they 
 represent as having accidentally recovered just at 
 the time when they were brought to Him. His 
 walking on the water was, they tell us, merely a 
 mode of expressing that He waded along a shallow 
 portion of the Lake ! And the five thousand were 
 fed, not with the bread distributed to them by the 
 Disciples, but with what some of themselves had 
 brought with them: which, on that supposition, 
 must have amounted to about fifty hundred-weight ; 
 a quantity too conspicuous, certainly, to have ad- 
 mitted of any deception. 
 
 AH this would be simply ridiculous, from its 
 excessive absurdity, if it were not so profanely pre- 
 sumptuous. And yet men are to be found, professedly 
 at least, believing such things, and, all the while, 
 imagining themselves not credulous ! 
 
70 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 Then, again, come others who sweep away with 
 merited contempt all this tissue of extravagance, and 
 declare that all the miraculous accounts in the 
 Gospels were invented in the third or fourth century, 
 after the religion had been firmly established in 
 men's minds, and when it was received with such 
 reverential awe, that stories of miracles connected 
 with it were received with ready credence. 
 
 These theologians (for such they call themselves) 
 forget that they have substituted for those absurd 
 interpretations which they discard, another absurdity 
 quite equal to any of them. They tell us of what 
 they suppose happened in the Christian-world, when 
 the Gospel had been fully established; but they 
 forget to tell us how it came to be established. For 
 — as one of the ancient Fathers, Origen, has justly 
 observed — the introduction and prevalence of such 
 a religion, in spite of the vehement opposition of 
 Jew and Gentile, preached by a few poor and un- 
 learned fishermen and peasants, without supernatural 
 powers, would have been far more wonderful than 
 any of the miracles recorded. 
 
 But such theories as I have been alluding to, have 
 received in these days more attention than they 
 merit, from their having been maintained by men 
 of real learning, and of a certain kind of ingenuity. 
 For, many persons are not enough aware how much 
 of knowledge of books, and of acuteness in reference 
 to single points, may be sometimes found in men of 
 very weak judgment as to the whole evidence on any 
 question. And this, when combined with great self- 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 71 
 
 conceit, and strong prejudice, has led some learned 
 men into such absurdities as would, on any other 
 subject except Religion, expose a man to vinivergal 
 derision. 
 
 * For instance, suppose some Historian maintain- 
 ing that the vast armies which Napoleon Buonaparte 
 is described as bringing into the field, and his pro- 
 digious trains of artillery, and his wonderful victories, 
 are far beyond the bounds of credibility, and are to 
 be set down as legendary fables, or, what are in 
 modern times called Mytht ; and adding, that these 
 splendid Legends were gradually invented, and more 
 and more exaggerated, in order to do honour to this 
 ITapoleon, after- he had attained an Empire ; he 
 having raised himself from a very humble station 
 to that Empire, and subjugated the greater part of 
 Europe, at the head of a handful of unarmed fol- 
 lowers, and without fighting any battles at all. If 
 any one were supposed serious in maintaining such 
 a theory (which is, in fact, just parallel to those I 
 have been alluding to), he would be reckoned an 
 idiot or a madman. 
 
 An undue degree of deference is also obtained by 
 such persons as I have been speaking of, from their 
 professing to be believers in Christianity. Their 
 theories, and their objections, which are, in fact, 
 nothing new, are, in this way, enabled to assume a 
 new shape. Formerly, all persons who rejected, or 
 sought to invalidate, the statements of our Sacred 
 
 * See Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. 
 
72 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 "Writers, used to profess themselves opponents of 
 Christianity. But in these days, the same argu- 
 ments — such as they are — are brought forward by 
 persons professing themselves Christians, and pro- 
 claiming their high veneration for the Gospel. It 
 is as if the assailants of some Fortress should assume 
 the garb of its defenders, and thus obtain admission 
 within its walls, that they might batter them more 
 easily than from without. 
 
 And thus the unwary are liable to be deceived by 
 being told that " sundry eminent Divines hold so and 
 so," and that "several learned Theologians interpret 
 this or that passage in such and such a way," and 
 that "such is the opinion of nationalists," that is, 
 persons who give "rational" interpretations of all 
 things ; these professed Theologians being merely 
 revivers of what was advanced long ago by avowed 
 Infidels; and their pretended "rational" interpreta- 
 tions being most extravagantly irrational. 
 
 And what makes these attacks the more insidious 
 is, that they are made by several difl'erent persons, 
 of different views ; each preparing the way for the 
 next. One, perhaps, while professing — and very 
 likely with sincerity — to be a believer in the truth 
 of the Gpspel-narrative generally, yet imputes to 
 the "Writers a pious fraud in reference to such and 
 such a particular point. Another goes a step 
 further, and considers them to have falsified their 
 narratives in some other things vphich must have 
 come under their , own knowledge. And these 
 again are followed by another, who rejects or 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 73 
 
 explains away all the remainder, as a tissue of 
 fables. 
 
 And all these equally professing themselves 
 Christians, it becomes difficult to determine where 
 Christianity ends and infidelity begins. 
 
 Now perhaps some persons may say, it is better 
 not to take any notice at all of these extravagant 
 conjectures and theories and objections, for fear of 
 alarming and unsettling the minds of plain, un- 
 learned people, who had probably never heard of 
 anything of the kind. Let them continue to read 
 their Bible without being disturbed by any doubts 
 or suspicions that might make them uneasy. 
 
 iN'ow, if in some sea-chart for the use of Mariners, 
 the various rocks and shoals which a vessel has to 
 pass in a certain voyage, were to be wholly omitted, 
 and no notice taken of them, no doubt many per- 
 sons might happen to make the voyage safely, and 
 with a comfortable feeling of security, from not 
 knowing at all of the existence of any such dangers. 
 But suppose some one did strike on one of these 
 rocks, from not knowing — .though the makers of 
 the chart did — of its existence, and consequently 
 perished in a shipwreck which he might have been 
 taught to avoid, on whose head would his blood lie? 
 
 And again, if several voyagers came to suspect, 
 from vague rumors, that rocks and shoals (perhaps 
 more formidable than the real ones) did lie in their 
 course, without any correct knowledge where they 
 lay, or how to keep clear of them, then, so far from 
 enjoying freedom from apprehension, they ^^■ould 
 7- 
 
74 EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 be exposed to increased alarm, and mucli of it 
 needless alarm, without being, after all, preserved 
 from danger. 
 
 And so it is in the present case. Vague hints 
 that learned men have objected to such and such 
 things, and have questioned this or that, often act 
 like an inward slow-corroding canker in the minds 
 of some who have never read or heard anything 
 distinct on the subject; and who, for that very 
 reason, are apt to imagine these objections, &c., to 
 be much more formidable than they really are. For 
 there are people of perverse mind, who, really 
 possessing both learning and ingenuity, will employ 
 these to dress up in a plausible form something 
 which is, in truth, perfectly silly: and the degree 
 to which this is sometimes done, is what no one 
 can easily conceive without actual experience and 
 examination. 
 
 I have thought myself bound therefore to take 
 some notice of the groundless and fanciful theories 
 and interpretations contained in books which prb- 
 bably most of you will never see, and which some 
 of you perhaps will never even hear of; because I 
 know that many persons are a good deal influenced 
 by reports and obscure rumours of the opinions of 
 some supposed learned and able man, without 
 knowing distinctly what they are ; and are likely to 
 be made uneasy and distrustful by being assured 
 that this or that has been disputed, and so and so 
 maintained by some person of superior knowledge 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 75 
 
 and talents, who has proceeded on "rational" 
 grounds ; when perhaps they themselves are quali- 
 fied, by their own plain sense, to perceive how ir- 
 rational these fanciful notions are, and to form a 
 right judgment on the matters m question. 
 
 For, these two things are what any man of 
 honesty, and candour, and common sense, is com- 
 petent clearly to perceive : 
 
 1st. That Jesus did not accommodate Himself to 
 the religious prejudices of his time and country; 
 else. He would not have been rejected and crucified 
 by his countrymen ; who would have received Him 
 gladly if he would have consented to fall in with 
 their notions, and to become such a King as their 
 expectations were fixed on. 
 
 And 2ndly, That his followers would never have 
 knowingly exposed themselves, as they did, to 
 scorn, and persecution, and violent death, but in 
 the cause of a religion which they believed true, 
 and in attestation of what they had plainly seen 
 and heard : and that consequently we must, if we 
 would be Christians indeed, and fellow-disciples 
 with them, — receive their words (in all that relates 
 to religion) as true, and true in the sense in which 
 they themselves knew that they were understood. 
 
 "What is revealed to us, therefore, in Scripture 
 on various points, — and, among the rest, concerning 
 Evil-spirits, — is to be received, (however different it 
 may be from what we might have conjectured,)with 
 humble faith and reverend docility. 
 
76 BVILANaELS. 
 
 But what it is that is thus revealed, and for what 
 reasons that revelation was bestowed — these are 
 points on which we may he allowed, with becoming 
 caution, to inquire. And on these points I shall make 
 some observations in the next Lecture. 
 
EVIL ANGELS. 77 
 
 Note eefeebed to at Page 66. 
 
 * [JoTin, viii. 44.] " 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.'' 
 
 [1 Tim. iii. 6.] " Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, 
 he fall into the combination of the Devil." 
 
 [2 Tim. ii. 26.] " And that they may recover themselves out 
 of the snare of the Devil, who are taken captive by him at his 
 will." 
 
 [1 1(p. Peter, v. 8.] " Be sober, be vigilant ; because your ad- 
 versary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking 
 whom he may devour." 
 
 [1 Up. John, iii. 8.] " He that committeth sin is of the Devil ; 
 for the Devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the 
 Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of 
 the Devil." 
 
 IHebr. ii. 14.] " Forasmuch then as the children are partakers 
 of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the 
 same ; that through death he might destroy him that had the 
 power of death, that is, the Devil." 
 
 [Mev. XX. 2.] " And he laid hold on the dragon, that old ser- 
 pent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
 years." 
 
 7 * 
 
78 EXISTENCE OF EVIL-SPIEITS, 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Reasons for revealing to Man the existence of Evil- 
 spirits. 
 
 It was pointed out in the preceding Lecture that 
 the existence and agency of Evil-spixits — ^impossible 
 as it may be to explain it — ^is what must be acknow- 
 ledged by any one who receives Jesus Christ and 
 his Apostles as God's messengers commissioned to 
 reveal to us a true religion. For they would not 
 have been such, if they had either been ignorant 
 of the truth in an important point connected with 
 religion, or if they had wilfully deceived men. 
 
 And it was remarked also, that any one who 
 imputes to them the most base and disingenuous 
 sacrifice of truth, in compliance with popular pre- 
 judices, and who resorts to the most extravagant 
 and forced interpretation of their words, for the sake 
 of avoiding the plain sense of them, gains nothing 
 after all ; since we know that evil does exist in the 
 world — that mankind are liable to afflictions and 
 temptations — and that they are often exposed to 
 these through the wickedness of their fellow- crea- 
 tures ; who are permitted — we cannot tell why — to 
 molest in various ways, and to seduce into sin, those 
 around them. 
 
 But though it would be most absurd to deny the 
 
WHY REVEALED. 79 
 
 existence of anything merely because we cannot, 
 explain it, and though the existence of evil is beyond 
 our power to explain, we may be permitted (as 1 
 have observed above), reverently to inquire what it 
 is that is revealed to us on such and such points, 
 and for what purposes that revelation was made. 
 
 For there is a wide difference between inquiring 
 why so and so exists, or has taken place, and inquir- 
 ing why it was made known to us in Scripture. -In 
 many cases where the former of these inquiries 
 would be fruitless and presumptuous, the latter may 
 be both allowable and profitable. 
 
 In the first place, then, you may observe, that (as 
 has been remarked above) the gods — so called, of the 
 heathen-nations — the Beings those people had been 
 accustomed to adore who were afterwards converted 
 to Christianity, and who then constituted the far 
 greatest part of the early Christians, — these Beings 
 were believed to be the evil-demons which the Jews 
 held in abhorrence. This was a point in which the 
 two parties — the Jews and the Gentiles — were fully 
 agreed. Though to the Jews these Beings were an 
 abomination, and the worship of them regarded aa 
 impious, while the Pagans built temples and offered 
 sacrifices and prayers to them, their real existence 
 was admitted by both. And it was therefore quite 
 necessary that this belief should be, in the Christian- 
 scriptures, not wholly passed over, but noticed in 
 some way or other. Supposing the truth to have 
 been that both parties were under a delusion, and 
 that no such Beings as these demons had any ex- 
 
80 EXISTENCE OF BVI L-SPIRITS, 
 
 istence except in a distempered imagination, then, 
 it would have been requisite distinctly to declare 
 this on divine authority, and to free men's minds 
 from all vain hopes and fears, and superstitious 
 ! fancies, in that quarter. On the other hand, sup- 
 posing some such Beings to have a real existence — 
 supposing some, even though a few out of many — 
 of the gods worshipped by the heathen, to have 
 agreed, even though only partially, with the real 
 description of actually-existing demons, — supposing 
 this, it was evidently needful that Jesus and his 
 Apostles should make some mention of such Beings, 
 for the purpose of putting men on their guard 
 against either being seduced into the worship of 
 them, or any other danger from them j and also for 
 the purpose of dispelling any false terrors, and of 
 giving assurance of Christ's effectual protection, and 
 final triumph over these adversaries. 
 
 But a circumstance which tends to confuse and 
 perplex many readers as to this point, is, that our 
 translators have employed the word " devils" instead 
 of — what the Original requires — "demons." The 
 word Diablos («. e. Slanderer or Defamer ; from 
 which our word " Devil" is formed) is employed by 
 our Sacred Writers as a title of a single individual, 
 Satan {i. e. the Adversary), a prince or leader of Evil- 
 spirits ; and accordingly is never used by them in 
 the plural number. The others are called by them 
 his " Angels," (z. e. Emissaries or Messengers) or 
 "Unclean-Spirits," or "Demons." Whenever, 
 therefore, you meet in Scripture with the word 
 
WHY REVEALED. 81 
 
 " devils," you should always substitute for it that 
 which is in the Original — ^Demons. 
 
 ITow this is the very title which the Pagans 
 themselves gave to the very objects of their wor- 
 ship. 
 
 By using this precaution, you will understand the 
 Sacred Writers much the more clearly, and will per- 
 ceive the truth of what has just been said, respecting 
 the necessity there was for making some mention 
 of Beings which were in fact the very gods the 
 Heathen intended to worship. 
 
 Thus we find the Apostle Paul saying (in 1 Cor, 
 X. 19 — 20) " The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, 
 they sacrifice to Demons, and not to God; and I 
 would not that ye should have fellowship with 
 Demons." It is strange that many persons should 
 have been so much mistaken as they have been, 
 respecting the "real character of the Pagan re- 
 ligions. They sometimes imagine that all men, in 
 every Age and Country, have always designed to 
 worship one Supreme God, the Maker of all things ; 
 and that the error of the Pagans consisted merely 
 in the false accounts they gave of Him, and in their 
 worshipping other inferior gods besides. 
 
 " But this is altogether a mistake. Few, if anj"-, 
 of the ancient Pagans ever thought of worshipping 
 a Supreme Creator at all. Those who believed, or 
 suspected, that the world had been created, never 
 pretended that it was the work of any of the gods 
 they worshipped. Many thought that the world 
 was not created, but eternal. And others thought, 
 
82 EXISTENCE OP EVIL SPIRITS, 
 
 that though it had a begining, it was the production 
 of what they called chance; that is, they fancied 
 that the matter of which the world consists, moved 
 about at random, and accidentally fell into the shape 
 it now bears. 
 
 " These persons were what we should call Atheists. 
 For, by the word GOD, we understand the Eternal 
 Being, who made and who governs all things. And 
 if any one should deny that there is any such Being, 
 we should say that he was an Atheist ; that is, one 
 who believes in no Grod. And even though he 
 might believe that there do exist Beings superior to 
 man, — such as the Eairies and Genii, which, in many 
 parts of the world, are believed in, — still he would 
 not be the less an Atheist. 
 
 " Accordingly the Apostle Paul (2 Eph. 12) ex- 
 pressly calls the ancient Pagans Atheists ;* though 
 he well knew that they worshipped certain supposed 
 superior Beings which they called gods. But he 
 says, in the Epistle to the Romans, that they ' wor- 
 shipped the creature more than the Creator.' And 
 at Ly8tra,t when the people were going to do sac- 
 rifice to him and Barnabas, mistaking them for two 
 of their gods, he told them to ' turn from these 
 vanities to serve the Living Q-od, who made heaven 
 and earth.' 
 
 " This is what is declared in the first sentence of 
 
 * " This word does not appear in our version : but the Apos- 
 tle uses the very word Atheoi, from which our word ' atheisf 
 is taken." 
 
 t Acts, iv. 
 
WHY REVEALED. 83 
 
 the Book of Genesis. And so far were the ancient 
 Pagans from believing that ' in the beginning God 
 made the heavens, and the earth,' that on the con- 
 trary, the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and 
 many other natural objects, were among the very 
 gods they adored. 
 
 " The heavens, — that is, the sky, — the atmosphere 
 around us, — they worshipped under the titles of 
 Zeus, or Dis — of Jupiter, or Jove — and (among the 
 Canaanites and Babylonians) of Baal, Bel, or Belus. 
 They worshipped the earth also under the title of 
 Demeter and Cybele; called by our Anglo-Saxon 
 ancestors Hertha, (whence our words ' earth,' and 
 ' hearth,') and by them most especially venerated. 
 The Pagans also worshipped the sea, under the title 
 of Neptune; the sun, under that of Phcebus, or 
 Apollo ; and the moon, under that of Diana. These 
 last they called the son and daughter of Jove; 
 meaning that the sun and moon were produced by 
 the heavens."* 
 
 "The ancient Pagans seem to have supposed 
 that certain living spirits resided in, and ruled over, 
 the air, the sun, moon, earth, and sea. And be- 
 sides these, they also worshipped a number of other 
 supposed Beings, who presided over the several 
 passions, and faculties, and actions of man. Thus 
 Minerva was the goddess of Wisdom : and Mars 
 the god of "War; and they often used the word 
 Minerva to signify intelligence, and Mars to signify 
 
 * This and some following passages are extracted from Les- 
 sons on Religious Worship. 
 
84 EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS, 
 
 valour. So Hermes [or Mercury] was a supposed 
 Being presiding over traffic, and also over eloquence. 
 And thence it was that the Lystrans ' called Paul 
 Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker,' (Acts, 
 ch. xiv. 12.) 
 
 "None of the ancient Pagans considered any of 
 their gods as eternal. They generally supposed 
 them immortal — that is, exempt from death; but 
 they generally had some tradition about the hirtJi 
 of each of them. Indeed, several of them were 
 confessedly dead men, whom they imagined to have 
 been raised to the ranks of the gods by their great 
 deeds on earth. Thus Romulus, the founder of 
 Rome, was worshipped by the Romans under the 
 title of Quirinus. And Hercules, and many others, 
 worshipped by the ancient Pagans, were deified 
 men, supposed to have gained immortaKty by their 
 eminent virtues, and especially by their feats of 
 war." 
 
 "The very best of these gods were represented 
 by them as capricious and profligate tyrants, whom 
 they worshipped more from fear than love. One 
 in particular, who was especially dreaded, was Pan, 
 who was accounted the god of Shepherds. In par- 
 ticular, they attributed to him all sudden and 
 unaccountable terrors, such as sometimes seize 
 armies or other large bodies of men, and which 
 have thence received the name of Panic. Their 
 images represent him as partly in the human form, 
 and partly in that of a goat, with horns and cloven 
 hoofs. And hence it is that, by a kind of tradition, 
 
WHY REVEALED. 85 
 
 we often see, even at this day, representations of 
 Satan in this form. Eor, the early Christians seem 
 to have thought it was he whom the Pagans adored 
 under the name of Pan. 
 
 ; " This is certain ; that several savage tribes at 
 this day profess to believe in a good god and an evil 
 one ; and address all their worship, and offer their 
 sacrifices to the evil one. They suppose that the 
 good Being will, of his own accord, without being 
 asked, do all the good in his power ; and all their 
 prayers and offerings are to the Evil One, — or to 
 several evil Beings, — whose malice they hope to 
 soften." 
 
 " As for the kind of worship which the Pagans 
 paid to their gods, it was very much what might 
 have been expected, considering what kind of 
 Beings these gods were, according to their own 
 accounts of them. "When Moses is cautioning the 
 Israelites against being led away by the example of 
 their idolatrous neighbours, he says, ' every abomi- 
 nation unto the Lord which He hatetb, have these 
 nations done unto their gods; for even their sons 
 and their daughters have they burned in the fire 
 unto their gods ! And the inhabitants of the South 
 Sea Islands, at this day, offer human victims to 
 their gods ; as did also the people of Mexico. The 
 grossest profligacy, and the most atrocious cruelties, 
 were not only not forbidden by the Pagan religions, 
 but were even a part of their religious worship • 
 especially at the festivals of their god Bacchus. 
 And even the beat of their gods were supposed to 
 
86 EXISTENCE OE EVIL-SPIRITS, 
 
 be more gratified by costly offerings and splendid 
 temples, than by a pure and virtuous life in their 
 worshippers. 
 
 This, indeed, was quite natural ; since these gods 
 were described as not only themselves committing 
 the most abominable actions, but as patrons of such 
 actions. Mercury, for instance, was reckoned the 
 god, not only of traffic, but of cheating; and the 
 Romans had a goddess of thieves, called Laverna, 
 who was regularly worshipped as well as the rest. 
 Mars and Bellona, the god and goddess of war, are 
 described as delighting in human carnage. 
 
 "And indeed there are, in modern languages, 
 words still in use, derived from the Pagan religions, 
 and generally signifying something evil. Thus the 
 word Martial, derived from the god Mars, signifies 
 ' pertaining to war,' — that scourge and disgrace of 
 mankind. Panic as applied to groundless terror, 
 has been already mentioned as derived from Pan. 
 And bacchanalian, signifying drunken revelling, is 
 so called from the Bacchanals, the worshippers who 
 took part in the festivals of Bacchus. Jovial, de- 
 rived in the same manner from Jove, has nearly the 
 same meaning : and other such instances might be 
 added." 
 
 "We are apt to read with great astonishment, 
 of the Israelites who so often fell into the idolatry 
 of their Pagan neighbours, after having had the 
 true God revealed to them. Although He had so 
 earnestly warned them not to worship any other 
 gods, we find them continually joining the worship 
 
WHY REVEALED. 87 
 
 of Baal and other heathen gods with that of Jeho- 
 vah. This appears to some persons so strange as 
 to be hardly credible ; and yet the very same thing 
 is going on, almost before our eyes, in Christian 
 countries at this vety day. For in all parts of 
 Europe the most uneducated portion of the people 
 in remote districts are found to believe in, and fear, 
 various superhuman Beings, which are in reality no 
 other than the gods of their Pagan forefathers. 
 And though they do not give them the title of gods, 
 they often pay them great reverence, and make 
 some kind of offerings to them. 
 
 " In some parts of Great Britain and of Ireland, 
 fairies are believed in and venerated. In Scotland, 
 besides these, we hear of bogles, brownies, and kelpies, 
 as names of certain superhuman Beings dreaded by 
 the superstitious. In Denmark and Iceland we 
 hear of trolls; in Germany of nixes, and many 
 other such Beings, who are supposed to have power 
 in human affairs. In !N"orway, the country people 
 are said to make an offering of a cake once a year 
 to a demon which they dread; and also, of the first 
 cheese that is made each spring. In some parts of 
 our own country, a cottier's wife will not venture 
 to bake bread or churn butter, without offering a 
 portion to the fairies. And several other such acts 
 of superstitious devotion are practised in various 
 parts of Europe. 
 
 Now, there is every reason to believe that all 
 these Beings who are thus reverenced, are — as we 
 liave already said — the very heathen gods which were 
 
88 EXISTENCE OP EVIL-SPIKITS, 
 
 formerjy worshipped in eacli coiantry. And the 
 persons who show them this reverence, and who 
 seek their help, and dread to displease them, and 
 aim at obtaining their good will, are doing exactly 
 the same as the Israelites of old when they wor- 
 shipped Baal and Astaroth, and other gods of the 
 heathen. 
 
 "But what misleads people in their notions on 
 this subject is, that the words we use are not the 
 same as the ancient Pagans used. What were for- 
 merly called by some name answering to 'gods,' 
 are now called 'fairies,' or 'kelpies,' or genii, &c., 
 and the reverence shown them is not called worship; 
 and the offerings made to them are no longer 
 called sacrifices. And thus it is that professed 
 Christians deceive themselves by means of words, 
 and fancy that they are not paying worship to any 
 gods besides the Lord, though they are doing the 
 same thing under other names." 
 
 " "With respect to the way in which false religions 
 were first introduced, there can be no doubt that 
 they must have crept in gradually. For men would 
 not all at once forsake the worship of the Great 
 Creator, and forget his very existence, and serve 
 other gods instead of Him. But it is likely that 
 when they had come to imagine certain inferior 
 spirits to reside in the sun and moon, the sea, 
 rivers, groves, &c., they would next be led to call 
 upon these Beings, in the hope that -perhaps such 
 prayers might be heard. And when once the 
 practice has arisen, of men's adding on to the wor- 
 
WHY REVEALED. 89 
 
 sLip of the Most High, some invocatioDS of other, 
 inferior, Beings, this latter kind of worship always 
 tends to prevail over and drive out the other. Men 
 seem to think that an inferior Being, who ap- 
 proaches nearer to their own nature, is more likely 
 to feel sympathy with them, and perhaps is also 
 more likely to be gratified by their adoration and 
 their offerings, than the Supreme God. And even 
 at this day there are some Pagan nations who are 
 said to acknowledge the existence of a Great Being, 
 who is the Supreme Ruler qf all things, but whom 
 thej' think it would be presumptuous for them to 
 address; so that all their worship is reserved for 
 some supposed gods of a lower order." 
 
 Such, then, being the religions of the Pagan 
 nations, who comprised the far greater portion of 
 mankind at the time of our Lord's coming, you will 
 plainly see how needful it was that He who came 
 into the World for the purpose of overthrowing 
 those religions, should make some revelations to 
 Men on the subject of their false-worship^ and the 
 objects of it. 
 
 The accounts,- however, that are given in Scrip- 
 ture both of good and of evil Angels, are, (as I 
 formerly remarked to you) far more scanty than we 
 should probably have found in any pretended reve- 
 lation coming from an enthusiast or an impostor, 
 seeking to gratify idle curiosity by detailed descrip- 
 tions of whatever is marvellous and exciting to the 
 imagination. 
 
 The Bible, on the contrary, acts the part of a 
 
90 EXISTENCE OF EVIL-SPIRITS, 
 
 judicious Phj'sician, who, instead of entertaining 
 his patients ■with a long and curious dissertation — 
 such as they could little comprehend — on the nature 
 and origin of their disease, employs himself in 
 actively administering remedies, and teaching them 
 how to avoid disease. 
 
 It appears, however, from slight hints thrown out 
 in various passages of Scripture, that the evil-spirits 
 are " Angels who kept not their first estate ;" that 
 is, who by disobedience and rebellion against God, 
 fell from the condition (perhaps, as I formerly 
 hinted, a state of trial, such as we are in now) in 
 which they had once existed, and becoming pre- 
 eminently depraved, and enemies to the Lord, 
 sought, and still seek, to corrupt mankind, and to 
 draw us into a like rebellion.* 
 
 It appears, moreover, fi-om the general tenor of 
 
 * Some have thought that the fallen angels alluded to in the 
 Epistle of Jade are not the same as Satan and his angels else- 
 where mentioned, because the former are spoken of as " chained," 
 while the Bevil is described as "going about seeking whom 
 he may devour." But the Apostle cannot be supposed to be 
 speaking of literal chains, or literal darkness. He is evidently 
 using a figure taken from the condition of condemned malefac- 
 tors, chained in a gloomy dungeon, awaiting their final doom. 
 And these may very well serve to illustrate the condition' of 
 Beings sunk into a degraded and wretched state, and not left 
 at full liberty, but restrained from the full exercise of their 
 powers. There does not seem, therefore, to be much force in 
 the above objection. 
 
 We have not, however, any such clear revelation on this 
 point as will enable to decide confidently, and to make this an 
 article of the Faith. 
 
W H Y R E V E A L E D . 91 
 
 Scripture, that these evil Beings have a Prince or 
 Leader of superior power, who drew away a great 
 multitude with him, and exercises authority over 
 them. 
 
 And hence it is that we sometimes find mention 
 made of "-The Devil" — "The Evil-One" — " The 
 Adversary" [or "Satan"] as a single Being, and as 
 the author, singly, of many mischiefs which are 
 going on in several different places at the same 
 time ; and sometimes, again, of these same mis- 
 chiefs attributed to "unclean Spirits," [or "De- 
 mons"] as to many distinct agents. But both these 
 kinds of expressions are such as we very commonly 
 employ in speaking of human affairs. We are 
 accustomed to speak of one King, or Commander of 
 a numerous host, as doing, himself, many things 
 which are actually performed by his servants, or 
 soldiers under his directions. 
 
 "When, therefore, we find Christians warned by 
 the Sacred Writers against the wiles of the Devil, 
 and exhorted to resist him who goeth about seeking 
 whom he may devour, we need not be at a loss to 
 understand this, from not being able to conceive his 
 being present to the minds of many men at the same 
 time ; since a leader and master may be said (and 
 commonly is said) to do that which is done by his 
 servants, agents, or messenger ; i. e., (in the language 
 of Scripture) by his "Angels." 
 
 And not only is this intelligible in itself, but 
 ra.oreover our Lord expressly speaks of such a host 
 of evil-spirits under the control of one Chief, where 
 
92 EXIS TENCE OF EVIL-SPIRITS, 
 
 He speaks of " everlasting fire prepared for the Devil 
 and his Angels." 
 
 For aught we know, there may be a host of evil- 
 spirits, more numerous, perhaps, than the whole 
 human Race ; some or other of whom may be (and 
 the Scriptures lead us to believe that they are) in 
 various places at the same time, watching to seduce 
 men to their ruin; " seeking," as the Apostle Peter 
 expresses it, " whom they may devour." 
 
 It is an awful — an appalling thought, — that we 
 may be, this moment, and at every moment, in the 
 presence of malignant Spirits, who are watching 
 occasions for our destruction. 
 
 And it is, perhaps, partly because the thought of 
 this is unpleasant, that some persons who proceed 
 on the principle of believing only just as much of 
 Scripture as suits their own views or tastes, and 
 explaining away the rest, have presumed (as I have 
 already said) to deny the agency of evil-spirits alto- 
 gether, and to explain the Scripture-language on this 
 subject as mere figures of speech — as a mere perso- 
 nification of moral-evil — which they say, is there 
 spoken of as an evil-spirit, in accommodation to the 
 popular notions of the time. 
 
 But I would wish such persons to consider whether 
 it would be at all more presumptuous, and whether 
 it would not be less immoral, even to reject the whole 
 of the Gospel at once, and to deny that Jesus was 
 really sent from God, than to acknowledge that Ho 
 was so sent, to preach the truth, and yet to charge 
 Him and his apostles with deliberately propagating 
 
WH TEE V BALED. 93 
 
 falsehood and superstition. For this they evidently 
 must have done, if their plain assertions respecting 
 Satan and his Angels, which they must have known 
 were literally understood, are not literally true. 
 
 And after all (as I have already observed) nothing 
 is gained by such a forced interpretation of Scripture. 
 It does not forward us a single step in the explana- 
 tion of the real difficulty (a very great one, certainly) 
 the permission of evil and of sin in the World. "We 
 know that these do exist. We see men yielding to 
 temptation and falling into sin. And it makes no 
 ditference as to the difficulty of accounting for this, 
 whether it is produced by the agency of evil-spirits, 
 or by the seductive examples and persuasions of 
 wicked men. If we cannot account for Satan being 
 permitted to labour for the ruin of Man's soul, as little 
 can we account for men's being so permitted : which 
 yet, we see, is the fact. There is, in short, as was 
 observed above, no greater difficulty in the permission 
 of wicked Spirits than of wicked men. 
 
 But, it may be said, why should this doctrine be 
 revealed to us in Scripture, if the belief of it makes 
 no practical difference? Why should we be warned 
 against Evil-Spirits, or why should they be men- 
 tioned at all, if the same caution might have been 
 taught by merely warning us against temptations to 
 sin ? 
 
 One of the reasons why some revelation on this 
 subject was judged necessary, may have been that 
 which was noticed in the beginning of this Lecture ; 
 — to warn men against being seduced into the wor- 
 
94 EXISTENCE OF EVIL-SPIRITS, 
 
 ship of those Beings which, at the first introductioii 
 of Christianity, most of the World had been accus- 
 tomed to worship. 
 
 And I think another practical purpose for wliicli 
 the doctrine in question was revealed, may, without 
 much difficulty, be perceived. "Whether anything 
 be made known, or not, concerning the existence of 
 Evil-Spirits, makes indeed no difference as to the 
 difficulty of explaining the existence of evil ; but it 
 may make a great difference as to the avoiding of 
 evil. And the great object of Scripture-revelations, 
 throughout, seems to be, to assist us, not, in ac- 
 counting for evil, but in escaping it ; not, to increase 
 our speculative knowledge, but our virtuous prac- 
 tice. 
 
 Now I would appeal to the feelings of any right- 
 minded man, whether the greater dread and detesta- 
 tion of sin is not likely to be produced by our being 
 plainly informed tbat there are Evil-Spirits striving 
 to seduce and deceive — or, to urge and drive us — into 
 rebellion against God. Supposing the temptation to 
 be, in all other respects, equally strong, is not a 
 Christian the more likely to withstand it, from 
 knowing that it arises not from things only, but from 
 persons — even the malignant Spirits who have our 
 final destruction in view ? 
 
 It is true, the thought of being given up to the 
 base and brutish propensities of the meaner portion 
 of Man's nature — of losing the proper dignity of a 
 rational Being — of forgetting God and living as 
 strangers and aliens before Him, — and of forfeiting 
 
WHY REVEALED. 95 
 
 immortal happiness, — all this is indeed very shocking 
 to a well-disposed mind, but j'et not so horrible and 
 appalling as the thought of being ruled over and 
 directed by an Evil-Spirit — of cherishing in our 
 bosom the great Enen}y of mankind, or agents of 
 his, who hate both God and us, and who are busied 
 in preparing men to share in their final ruin. 
 
 And even the final doom of those who shall' 
 have been seduced by these tempters, is rendered — 
 as our Lord seems plainly to imply — the more terrific 
 from its being shared with them ; since He forewarns 
 us of impenitent sinners being sentenced to the "fire 
 prepared for the Devil and his angels." 
 
 Now since there is (however unable we may be to 
 explain why) such a thing as sin, and as a punish- 
 ment for it in the next World, the more detestable 
 and frightful the thoughts of these can be made to 
 our mind, — the more distinctly we view them in all 
 their proper horrors, — the more likely we are to 
 escape them. God would not indeed have taught us 
 the existence of Satan and his angels, merely to 
 alarm us, if it had not been true : but, it being true, 
 it is in his mercy He has set before us all the horrible 
 reality, that we may be the more active and resolute 
 in seeking to escape and to guard against such an 
 Enemy. 
 
 You should observe, therefore, that the very 
 unpleasantness of these thoughts, — which is what 
 has led some men to deny or to explain away the 
 doctrine, and others, to keep it out of their thoughts 
 — is the reason why God has revealed it. He knows 
 
96 EXISTENCE OF EVIL-SPIRITS, 
 
 that there is a kind of ardour and energy infused 
 into the human breast by the thought of a contest 
 with an enemy ; — not with a mere thing, but ^person ; 
 — an active Being who hates us, and who seeks our 
 destruction, but whom God has given us power to 
 resist if we contend firmly ; and over whom we shall 
 finally triumph, under the banner of our great 
 Leader, Christ, if we are not wanting in our own 
 defence. 
 
 If you will reflect attentively on the subject, you 
 will not fail, I think, to perceive the truth of what 
 I have been saying. You will find — judging even 
 from your own feelings — that the human mind is so 
 formed as to be more watchfully careful against being 
 over-reached and deceived by a personal enemy, than 
 against any other kind of temptation; — more 
 zealously active in resisting the attacks of a living 
 Being who seeks our destruction, than in coun- 
 teracting our own inclinations. 
 
 There may perhaps have been another reason — as 
 I hinted in a former Lecture — for revealing to us 
 the existence of good and of evil angels ; namely, 
 to give us the benefit of their example. 
 
 An attentive reader of what is said concerning 
 them in Scripture, cannot but feel it at least not 
 improbable, that the one fell into their present state 
 by transgression, and that the other may have risen 
 into theirs by faithfully undergoing trials. 
 
 This thought — even though it should amount to 
 no more than a probable conjecture — may put us 
 upon considering how to make a right use of this 
 
WHY REVEALED. 97 
 
 our present state of trial, and also, what will be the 
 end of that trial to each : — that the faithful will he 
 perfected, and made securely happy, and will be 
 exalted to be " equal unto the Angels," and that 
 rebellious and impenitent sinners will be incurably 
 hardened and degraded, and will be finally joined in 
 condemnation with the evil angels, for whom our 
 Lord has expressly assured us a terrible doom is 
 prepared, (Matt. xxv. 41.) Wherefore " let him that 
 thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 
 
 Some of the principal of the deceits of Satan, by 
 which he wars against the souls of men, I shall 
 touch upon — following closely the guidance of Scrip- 
 ture — in a future Lecture. 
 
 It is not only warnings of danger, however, that 
 we find in Scripture, but also assurances of divine 
 help and support against it. And though by your 
 own unassisted powers you are far too weak to 
 wrestle against such foes as you are there warned of, 
 you will be far too strong, when strengthened with 
 the might of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to be 
 subdued by them. 
 
 Consider therefore, and examine yourself, whether 
 you are in the habit of seeking this divine aid 
 by habitual and earnest prayer ; — whether you labour 
 to be continually and practically sensible of the pre- 
 sence of a spiritual enemy and a spiritual friend ; — 
 to be watchful against the devices of that enemy, 
 and full of pious confidence in your divine Protector ; 
 assiduous in calling on him, and anxiously striving 
 to listen to, and be led by Him. 
 
 9 
 
98 EXISTENCE OP EVIL-SPIRITS. 
 
 Recollect that if you were beset by murderous 
 robbers, or by fierce wild beasts, or if you were in 
 a bouse that had caught fire, or were struggling in 
 the waves of a stormy sea, you would call vehemently 
 for help, to any one who might have even a chance 
 of saving you. And then reflect, whether amid so 
 much greater danger, from a host of malignant 
 Spirits who seek your eternal destruction, you are 
 equally earnest in calling on Him who has promised 
 to hear, and if surely able to save you ; — ^who is ready 
 to "strengthen such a stand, and to comfort and 
 help the weak-hearted, and to raise up them that 
 fall, and finally to beat down Satan under our feet. 
 
DEMONIACS. 99 
 
 LECTURE VI, 
 Demoniacs. 
 
 Before I proceed to enter more fully on the 
 subject of that agency of evil-spirits which, we have 
 reason to beheve, has not ceased in the present day, 
 it ■^ill be necessary to take some notice of what is 
 generally thought (and with good reason) not to have 
 any existence in these times — the case of persons 
 possessed by an Evil-spirit (or demon), whence the 
 word "Demoniac" came to be applied to a person 
 so afflicted. 
 
 You are aware that there is very frequent mention 
 of, or allusion to, such cases in the 'S&w Testament ; 
 a large portion of the miraculous cures recorded as 
 performed by our Lord Himself and by his Disciples, 
 consisting in the casting out of "unclean spirits." 
 And these cures are, in some passages, prominently 
 put forward as among the most striking of the 
 miracles performed. For instance, when Jesus sent 
 forth the Seventy Disciples, to proclaim the "King- 
 dom of God as at hand," evidently endowing them 
 with miraculous powers, we are told that "The 
 Seventy returned from their mission with joy, saying. 
 Lord, even the Demons* are subject to us through 
 
 * My reason for retaining this word as it is in the original, 
 instead of using the word " devils" as in our Version, has been 
 explained in a former Lecture. 
 
100 DEMONIACS. 
 
 thy name;" to whicli He replies, saying, "I beheld 
 Satan as lightning fall from heaven. 
 
 The passages in the If ew Testament which record 
 these cures, or which in any way relate to the 
 subject, present to the minds of some persons a 
 great and peculiar difficulty, from the circumstance 
 that, as I have said, there is no reason to believe in 
 the existence of any such affliction in the present 
 day, or for many Ages past. 
 
 The belief has indeed prevailed, in times long 
 after those of the Apostles, of the occasional occur- 
 rence of demoniacal possessions, and of the evil- 
 spirits being cast out, or, as the expression was, 
 " exorcised." But no proof has ever been given of 
 this that could satisfy any but the weakly-credulous. 
 And on the other hand, there have been several 
 instances in which it has been fully proved that 
 cases of pretended possessions and cure, have been 
 tricks contrived by crafty impostors taking ad- 
 vantage of the superstition of the ignorant vulgar. 
 
 And since it has always been in the most unen- 
 lightened Ages and Countries that the readiest 
 belief has been affiarded to accounts of this kind, 
 hence some persons have inferred that all such 
 accounts have their origin in credulous ignorance, 
 and that nothing of the kind ever did occur at all. 
 There are persons also who, on the same principle, 
 have rejected as fabulous all accounts of Miracles, 
 because the ignorant and weak-minded are usually 
 the most ready to give credence to them, and 
 because marvellous Legends of miracles have 
 
DEMONIACS. 101 
 
 always abounded most in the least enlightened 
 Times and Regions. 
 
 These persons, while giving themselves much 
 credit for philosophical sagacity, do not perceive 
 what such a principle would lead to, if fairly fol- 
 lowed out. For instance, ignorant or thoughtless 
 people are often deceived by forged ifTotes, and by 
 Coins and other articles, of base metal passed off 
 on them for gold or silver. And there are in- 
 stances of great quantities of certain glittering 
 stones having been quarried and brought home in 
 ships from distant Countries, under the mistaken 
 idea of these being gold-ore. Now, would it not 
 be most absurd to infer from this that there never 
 was such a thing as a genuine bank-note, or good 
 coin, and that gold is not a really existing metal, 
 but imaginary ? 
 
 In fact, it is the existence of genuine notes and 
 coins, and real gold, that has given rise to forgeries 
 and to mistakes. And in like manner the real 
 occurrence of well-authenticated miracles is just 
 what would naturally lead men to feign or to fancy 
 them when unreal. 
 
 And so it is also with demoniacal possession. 
 
 We cannot indeed conclude positively that if no 
 
 such thing had ever occurred, nothing of the kind 
 
 would ever have been pretended or imagined ; but 
 
 of this we may be quite certain; that, supposing 
 
 such cases did at one time occur, and occur not 
 
 unfrequently, and were cured by Jesus and his 
 
 Apostles, — one might fully expect that there would 
 9 * 
 
102 DEMONIACS. 
 
 be pretended or fancied cures of the kind after- 
 wards. Whether from the mere mistake of the 
 credulous, or from artful contrivances of designing 
 men, false accounts, in imitation of the true, would 
 not fail to arise, as we see take place in all other 
 matters also. 
 
 There are, however, some persons who not only 
 are believers in the Christian miracles, but also 
 acknowledge the real existence of evil-spirits, but 
 who yet deny the reality of demoniacal possession, 
 and explain away the passages of Scripture relating 
 to it. 
 
 That there are great difficulties in the subject is 
 undeniable ; but these persons see more difficulties 
 in it than really exist ; and, on the other hand, they 
 overlook (as, I formerly observed, many are apt to 
 do) the far greater difficulties which lie on the 
 opposite side. 
 
 One of their difficulties is entirely of their own 
 creating. They imagine that this kind of affliction, 
 if real, must have been peculiar to the one nation 
 of the Jews, and that among tJiem alone did the 
 belief prevail. 
 
 Now this is utterly contrary to the fact ; and yet 
 it is far from uncommon to find this notion enter- 
 tained even by educated persons, not unacquainted 
 with the Works of Greek and Roman Writers. 
 
 But they are misled by names. The word 
 "devils," which is (unfortunately, as I have above 
 remarked) employed in our Translation of the 
 Bible, instead of " Demons," is never found in any 
 
DEMONIACS, 103 
 
 translations of the Classical Writers, where the 
 very same word (of the original) occurs: so that 
 inattentive readers are thus led to suppose that 
 different things are meant, though the Greek word 
 used by the New-Testament Writers, and by the 
 Pagan Writers, is the same. The heathen Authors 
 allude to possession by a demon (or by a god; for 
 they used the two words with little or no distinction), 
 as a thing of no uncommon occurrence.* We read 
 also in the book of Acts (Chap, xvi.), of a damsel — 
 not in Judsea, but at Philippi of Macedonia, a 
 Roman Colony — possessed by " a Spirit of divina- 
 tion." 
 
 And the heathen Writers represented the Priests 
 and Priestesses of their celebrated Oracles as pos- 
 sessed by a like " Spirit of divination." 
 
 Whether any cases of real demoniacal possession 
 did, or did not, ever exist in connexion with those 
 Oracles, is a question we need not now discuss. It 
 is enough for our present purpose that we should be 
 fully aware, and keep steadily in mind, that such 
 was the belief among those Pagans no less than 
 among the Jews. The only difference was (and this 
 also has aided in misleading many as to the fact) 
 that, as I formerly observed to you, the Heathen 
 worshipped, as their gods, the Beings, or supposed 
 Beings, which the Jews held in detestation as 
 "unclean spirits." 
 
 Proceeding, then, on the supposition (which is 
 
 * The word "enthusiast" is talien from a Greek word, signi- 
 fying, originally, a person thus possessed. 
 
104 DEMONIACS. 
 
 quite aD erroneous one) that the belief in demon- 
 iacal possession was peculiar to the Jews, certain 
 interpreters have ventured to maintain that all the 
 supposed " demoniacs " were no other than madmen, 
 whose insane fancies led them to believe themselves 
 possessed by evil-spirits ; and that Jesus chose to 
 " accommodate" Himself to the prevailing super- 
 stition by calling the cure of these patients the 
 " casting out of the unclean spirits." 
 
 Now, it is certainly not an improbable thing in 
 itself, that some madmen should entertain a ground- 
 less fancy of being thus possessed. But that the 
 Jews did not attribute madness, generally, to evil- 
 spirits, and that they distinguished it from cases of 
 "possession," is quite certain. Eor we read for in- 
 stance, (in Matt, x.) " that they brought unto Him 
 all sick people that were taken with divers diseases 
 and torments, and those that were possessed with 
 Demons, and those who were Lunatics, and those 
 that had the palsy, and He healed them." 
 
 And what is more, we find, on the other hand, 
 that the cases recorded are far from being exclusively 
 those of madness : for we read (in Luke, xiii. 11) of 
 "a spirit of infirmity," and (in Matt, xii.) of a case 
 of blindness and dumbness. The belief of the Jews, 
 therefore, — be it, in any case, correct or erroneous, 
 — as to this agency of evil-spirits, could not have 
 been founded on what was said by insane patients 
 concerning their own condition. Some marks there 
 must have been — ^we cannot at all tell what — which 
 influenced the people of that Age and Country in 
 
DEMONIACS. 105 
 
 deciding, whether rightly or wrongly — what afflic- 
 tions were, and were not, caused by the direct agency 
 of demons. 
 
 What these distinguishing marks were, we cannot, 
 as I have said, at all judge ; since there is nothing 
 recorded respecting any of the patients to distin- 
 guish their afflictions from such as arise every 
 day from bodily causes. That madness, and in- 
 firmity, and blindness, and dumbness, may be caused 
 by bodily diseases, not only is well-known by ms, but, 
 what is much more, was equally well-known by the 
 Jews also. And they were led by some indications 
 or other — we know not what — to decide that some 
 of these patients were, and that others were not, 
 afflicted by the direct agency of evil-spirits. 
 
 Another most important circumstance to be ob- 
 served, is, that in many cases the Demoniacs are 
 described as "knowing Jesus" and crying out that 
 He was "the Holy One of God." The commenta- 
 tors alluded to are therefore left in this dilemma : 
 either they must suppose that madmen obtained a 
 knowledge of the truth, far surpassing that of the 
 greater part of their sane countrymen ; or else they 
 must attribute to the Evangelists a most audacious 
 and deliberate fabrication. "Which of these two 
 suppositions is the more improbable, it would be 
 hard to determine. 
 
 Assuming, then, (Istly,) that the Jews, alone, of 
 all nations, had this belief in demoniacal possession 
 (which is contrary to the fact) and (2ndly) that all 
 the recorded cases of the casting out of demons 
 
106 DEMONIACS. 
 
 were cures of insane patients (which is utterly at 
 variance with the History) — assunaing all this, those 
 interpreters I have been speaking of, represent our 
 Lord and his Disciples as " accommodating them- 
 selves, while performing miraculous cures, to the 
 vulgar superstition. 
 
 And this they are represented as doing, not in 
 some instances merely, but in all. This is a circum- 
 stance which makes a most important difference. 
 For, if any one believes that there was such a thing 
 as demoniacal possession, but that in this or that 
 particular instance it was supposed to exist when it 
 did not (just as, among us, one disease is sometimes 
 mistaken for another) — such a person may think 
 that there was no need to give the patient's friends 
 any explanation of the case, since it would be a 
 matter of little or no consequence in a religious 
 point of viewj as making no difference as to the 
 belief, generally, of the doctrine in question. But 
 the case is quite different with one who believes that 
 there was no such thing as demoniacal possession at 
 all. For he must represent Christ and his Disciples 
 as lending themselves to a prevailing error, — as sanc- 
 tioning and confirming a doctrine which they knew 
 to be false. 
 
 And if such a connivance at religious errror can 
 be in any case justifiable, in this at least it would 
 have been most completely inexcusable. It would 
 not have had even " the tyrant's plea — necessity" in 
 its favour. For supposing the Jews ever so much 
 wedded to their belief in demoniacal possession, and 
 
DEMONIACS. 107 
 
 to have been disposed to reject with scorn any one 
 who should have merely told them that those patients 
 whom they supposed to be possessed were not so, 
 and that the popular opinion was all a delusion, — 
 supposing this, still, if any one who gave them such 
 an assurance did, at the same time, cure those very 
 patients, every one would have readily believed him. 
 
 To take a parallel case : there are districts in 
 Europe — and even in our own Country — where the 
 vulgar sometimes believe that children, or others, 
 afflicted with some unusual kind of disease, are 
 bewitched by some malicious neighbour ; and they 
 would be highly displeased with any one who should) 
 simply, tell them that this is a groundless fancy. 
 But if you could go among these' superstitious 
 people, and give them this assurance, at the same 
 time instantly and completely restoring the sufferers 
 to health by a word or a touch, — and this not merely 
 in one instance, but in all the cases, and those very 
 numerous ones, that were brought before you, — no 
 one can doubt that you would readily be believed. 
 
 The connivance, therefore, at superstitious error 
 — the confirmation and propagation of religious 
 delusion — ^which these interpreters impute to Jesus 
 and his Followers, would have been one of the most 
 gratuitous and most inexcusable of all the "pious 
 frauds" that ever were committed. And if there are 
 any persons who, on careful examination and 
 deliberate reflection, feel convinced that Jesus did 
 thus lend Himself to popular superstition, without 
 even any apparent necessity, and who yet regard 
 
108 DEMONIAC'S. 
 
 his conduct as justifiable, and profess to venerate 
 Him as "A Teacher sent from God," what can we 
 think of their moral principles ? And what assur- 
 ance can we have of the sincerity of their own 
 belief on any point ? 
 
 "The language of the Jews," says one of these 
 expounders, " had been in our Lord's days so tinc- 
 tured with this superstitious phraseology, that He 
 and his Apostles were obliged to carry on what had 
 become, and, in the opinion of some persons, still 
 is, a necessary illusion." N"ow who can feel sure 
 that a man who thinks this procedure allowable and 
 right, may not in his heart believe nothing of the 
 divine origin of Christianity, but may think himself 
 " obliged," in compliance with the prevailing belief, 
 to " carry on the illusion," by professing it ? 
 
 I would fain hope, however, that many who 
 have adopted such interpretations, have done so 
 inconsiderately, and for want of careful inquiry and 
 reflection. As they have overlooked those parts of 
 the Scripture-history which are plainly at variance 
 with their theory, so, it is likely they have also 
 overlooked the consequences it would lead to ; — the 
 difficulties, far greater than those they are seeking 
 to escape, in which that theory involves them. 
 
 In particular they should remember, that besides 
 the - baseness, in itself, of a religious teacher's fos- 
 tering and confirming religious error, and the addi- 
 tional baseness of doing so when — as I observed 
 above — it might easily have been avoided, — besides 
 this, whoever fosters any kind of superstitious error 
 
DEMONIACS. 109 
 
 is answerable for all tlie consequences whicli natu- 
 rally flow from it. 
 
 l^Tow it is notorious that a vast deal of fraud, and 
 mischievous superstition, have arisen in corrupt and 
 dark Ages of the Church, in reference to persons 
 supposed to be possessed by evil-spirits (some, pro- 
 bably, impostors, and others, deranged enthusiasts) 
 whom Priests or others calling themselves exorcists, 
 pretended to cure, by muttering strange words, or 
 sprinkling and fumigating, and other superstitious 
 ceremonies, by which the ignorant multitude were 
 deluded. Now all this, though chiefly or wholly 
 founded on the accounts in Scripture of the casting 
 out of demons by Jesus and his Disciples, is no 
 imputation whatever on them (any more than the 
 pretensions which were set up some years ago to a 
 miraculous gift of tongues ; evidently founded on 
 the real gifts bestowed on the Apostles)* supposing 
 the things recorded in Scripture to be literally true. 
 For, the abuse, and perversion, and spurious imita- 
 tion, of truth, is no fault of the truth itself, but of 
 Man's weakness or wickedness. But if what the 
 Evangelists have recorded is not true — if Jesus and 
 his Apostles confirmed a prevailing superstition, 
 instead of curing it, the shocking consequence must 
 
 * Most of my readers will remember that some years ago a 
 set of crazy enthusiasts, mixed, probably, with impostors, used 
 to gabble strange sounds which they called a language, though 
 it, confessedly, conveyed no meaning!, either to any one else, or 
 even to themselves ; and which they profanely compared to 
 the miraculous gifts bestowed on the early Christians. 
 10 
 
110 DEMONIACS. 
 
 follow, that they are answerable for all the mischiefs 
 that have arisen from an error which they fostered 
 instead of removing it. 
 
 Great therefore as the difficulties certainly are 
 connected with the Scripture-accounts of the cure 
 of Demoniacs, it is a far greater difficulty, to a man 
 of probity and of good sense, to believe that Teach- 
 ers really sent from God could be wilful deceivers 
 on a point of religious belief: not only lending 
 themselves to a vulgar error relative to madmen, 
 but falsely stating these madmen to have been (what 
 could not have been the case with real madmen) 
 more enlightened than most of their countrymen 
 in recognizing Jesus as " the Holy One of God." 
 
 And this difficulty becomes the greater to each 
 man in proportion to his intellecual and moral ad- 
 vancement ; — in proportion as he is of a thoughtful, 
 and of an ingenuous character. And again, one 
 who should resolve — cost what it may — to get rid 
 of loth these difficulties, must involve himself in a 
 third, which is the greatest of all. For he vriU have 
 to believe that these were not really heaven-sent 
 Teachers at all, but enthusiasts or impostors, who 
 knowingly exposed themselves to hatred, derision, 
 and persecution, and passed their lives in toils, dan- 
 gers, and sufferings, for the sake of propagating 
 miraculous stories invented by themselves.* 
 
 Lastly, it should be remembered that there are 
 two cases of the agency of evil-spirits recorded, as 
 
 * See Note B, at the end of this Lecture. 
 
DEMONIACS. Ill 
 
 it should seem, on purpose to guard against such 
 theories as I have been speaking of, and to prove, 
 to all vrho do sincerely admit the truth of our Scrip- 
 tures, that the powers, and the agency, attributed to 
 Demons v?as not a mere fanciful description, in figu- 
 rative language, of natural diseases, but literally and 
 undoubtedly a fact. The one is, our Lord's tempt- 
 ation by Satan in the wilderness; and the other, the 
 case in which Jesus is recorded by three of the Evan- 
 gelists to have relieved a demoniac, and permitted 
 the demons to enter into a herd of swine. This last 
 seems to have taken place, and to have been re- 
 corded, with the express design to show the differ- 
 ence between a real and an imaginary possession ; — 
 to prove that the case was not one of mere natural 
 madness, but a real agency of evil spirits. For, 
 whatever wild and superstitious fancies men are 
 liable to — though the human imagination may raise 
 up ideal demons that have no real existence, — ^brutes 
 at least, we cannot doubt, are exempt from all such 
 delusions. When, therefore, we find vast multitudes 
 of these at once seized with a sudden and extraor- 
 dinary frenzy, attributed by the Sacred Writers to 
 evil-spirits, we must needs conclude, if we believe 
 them at all, that there was some real and powerful 
 agent operating on these animals. 
 
 It is remarkable that in this instance, our Lord, 
 contrary to his usual practice, charges the man who 
 was cured to go and proclaim throughout his own 
 country "how great things God had done for him." 
 In districts which Jesushimselffrec[uented,and where 
 
112 DEMONIACS. 
 
 He uas dai]3' performing miraculous cures, He chose 
 to leave men to be convinced by what they saw 
 themselves ; and even forbad several of those He had 
 relieved to publish the miracles ; perhaps, lest their 
 doing so, as commissioned, or permitted, hy Sim, 
 might so exasperate the Jewish Rulers as to bring 
 on, before the time, those proceedings of theirs 
 against Him which terminated in his death. But 
 the country of the Gadarenes was one which He 
 was quitting after a very short visit, and a single 
 miracle. And there, accordingly, He commissioned 
 the man to proclaim what had been done. This man 
 therefore was expressly charged by Jesus to go about 
 reporting what would have been, — supposing there 
 were no such thing as demoniacal possession, — a 
 fakehood, known to be such by the Person who so 
 commissioned him.* 
 
 The two instances above alluded to, are, as I have 
 said, recorded on purpose to show the existence and 
 the power of evil-spirits, and that the accounts of 
 them are not to be explained away as merely the 
 offspring of a superstitious and enthusiastic fancy. 
 In the temptation of the Son of G-od, and in the 
 possession of hrute-animals, the influence of imagi- 
 nation could have no place. In the first, the divine 
 patient was above its delusions; in the other, the 
 brute was as much below them. 
 
 Difficult as are many of the questions relative to 
 the prevalence of this particular kind of affliction, 
 
 * See Note C, at the end of this Lecture. 
 
DEMONIACS. 113 
 
 especially, as it should seem, at the time of our 
 Lord's coming, we can perceive, I think, some 
 reason why an extraordinary display of the power 
 and malice of Satan, and of the Saviour's power 
 over him, should be made, just at that time. 
 
 Satan had led to Man's fall, and had brought sin 
 and death into the "World, by seducing our first 
 Parents. And Jesus Christ, who came to redeem 
 mankind from that fallen state, and to restore the 
 hope of the immortal life they had forfeited, was, of 
 course, in so doing, to encounter and overthrow 
 that Tempter who had led to Man's ruin. Accord- 
 ingly, at the very time when our first Parents were 
 expelled from Paradise, it was promised that "the 
 Seed of the "Woman should bruise the. Serpent's 
 head." ITow that victory over Death and over 
 Satan, " who had the power of death,"* which our 
 Lord thus gained, by Himself submitting to death, 
 was a victory which was to be fully completed and 
 fully displayed only, in another "World ; even as the 
 immortality to which he restored Man, was not, like 
 that offered to Adam, to begin in this world, but to 
 be reserved for the next. And as evil was still, for 
 a season, to remain, — Man continuing liable to pain 
 and natural disease, and death, and exposed to 
 temptation to sin, — so, it was fitting that Jesus 
 should give, in the course of his ministry, some 
 proof, by way of specimen, of his power over these 
 enemies ; to show that He was indeed the Redeemer, 
 
 * Heb. ii. 14. 
 10* 
 
114 DEMONIACS. 
 
 who would finally manifest his complete triumph 
 over them. 
 
 One part, therefore, of his divine office consisted 
 in the curing of natural diseases, and in raising up 
 a few persons from natural death ; ' as a specimen — 
 together with his own resurrection — of his control 
 over disease and death, and as a confirmation of his 
 promise* to raise up all his faithful disciples at the 
 Last Day. 
 
 But it was necessary to display the same supe- 
 riority over moral evil as over physical, by a sensible 
 and perceptible victory not only over disease and 
 death, but also, directly over Satan himself, and 
 the host of evil-spirits under him, by whose malice 
 and wiles- moral evil had been brought into the 
 world; in short, by exhibiting the seed of the 
 "Woman " bruising the Serpent's head." 
 
 In the Books of Moses accordingly, it is remark- 
 able that there is no express mention of Satan : 
 who, indeed, is but seldom named in the Old- 
 Testament, and only in the later Books of it, in 
 proportion as the prophecies concerning his Con- 
 queror, the promised Redeemer, became more 
 numerous and more distinct. 
 
 And it was about the time of that Redeemer's 
 coming, that men were most familiar with the fact 
 of the agency of Satan and his Angels. He was to 
 be made manifest, on purpose, it should seem, that 
 Christ's triumph over him might be openly dis- 
 
 * John, vi. 39. 
 
DEMONIACS. 115 
 
 played. Hence, we may suppose, it was, that this 
 great Enemy was permitted, about that time more 
 especially, to exercise a direct, perceptible, and 
 acknowledged agency on men, in order to render 
 his defeat the more conspicuous; that we might, as 
 it were, " behold him, like lightning, fall from 
 Heaven." 
 
 ISTothing accordingly is more dwelt on (as I for- 
 merly observed) in the accounts of the miracles 
 wrought by Jesus and his Disciples than the casting 
 out of demons. On the occasion of one of these 
 cures, (recorded in Mat. xii. 22,) that of a man 
 "blind and dumb,"* we find the people exclaiming, 
 " Is not this the Son of David ?" that is, the Messiah 
 (or Christ) whom they rightly expected to be a 
 descendant of David; and of whose character they, 
 so far, rightly judged, in conceiving a triumph over 
 evil-spirits to be a distinguishing mark of Him. 
 And our Lord Himself, and his Disciples dwell no 
 less earnestly (as I remarked above) on this particu- 
 lar class of miracles as characteristic of the Messiah, 
 the Founder of the Kingdom of Heaven. "If I," 
 said He, "in the spirit of God cast out Demons, 
 then is the Kingdom of God come upon you."t 
 
 Such, then, were probably the reasons for per- 
 mitting this extraordinary and evident display of 
 Satan's power at that particular time; his over- 
 
 * Not, you ■will observe, insane, and uttering ravings about 
 being possessed by a demon, which might conceivably have 
 been imaginary. 
 
 t Matt. xii. 28. See also Luke, vii. 20—21. 
 
116 DEMONIACS. 
 
 throw, by Him who, as Paul says, " through death 
 overcame him that hath the power of death, that is, 
 the Devil," being thus rendered the more conspicu- 
 ous. Such at least seem to be the reasons for 
 making known to Man that particular agency of 
 evil-spirits which we have now been speaking of. 
 For we must be careful (as I formerly observed to 
 you) to guard against confounding together what 
 are in reality two very different kinds of inquiry. 
 Why this or that exists, or took place, is an inquiry 
 which we must enter upon with trembling caution, 
 and which will very often lead to nothing satisfac- 
 tory. But why so and so is revealed to us in Scrip- 
 ture, is a very different inquiry, and in which we 
 may hope often to be successful, and thus to derive 
 the more benefit from what Scripture teaches. 
 
 And here I would take occasion to remind you, 
 in reference to what has been said above, that the 
 overthrow of Satan by the Lord Jesus, is npt yet 
 completed : nor was designed to be so, till the end 
 of this World. Christ expects his followers to be 
 tried like Himself, in proportion to their strength, 
 by waging the same war that He did, against the 
 same enemy. His open victory over Satan, on his 
 first coming, was only a specimen and proof of his 
 power. He only delivered men from forcible and 
 involuntary possession by evil spirits, leaving us still 
 liable to their temptations and deceits, if we choose 
 to yield to them, or are not watchful against them. 
 
 Every one is, in a certain sense (and that, in the 
 u/orst way), possessed by the Devil, when he rebels 
 
DEMONIACS. 117 
 
 against God by breaking his commandments ; and, 
 most especially, when be falls into tbose particular 
 sins which characterize the very Tempter himself; 
 such as " envy, hatred, and malice, and all unchari- 
 tableness," — lying, of which Satan is described as 
 being emphatically "the father"* — and slander, 
 from which the very title given him in Scripture is 
 derived. For the English word "Devil," is merely 
 a slight alteration of the original word " Diabolos," 
 which signifies "False-accuser," or "Defamer." 
 
 And yet how many even of those who profess 
 extraordinary Christian piety, seem even to have a 
 delight in detraction, and allow themselves in the 
 habit of framing or circulating false charges against 
 their neighbours ; sometimes with deliberate m^alice, 
 and sometimes with rash and wanton carelessness 
 about truth ! 
 
 We, of the present day, have not the miraculous 
 gifts bestowed on the early Christians ; nor have 
 we any reason to believe that their power of casting 
 o\it evil-spirits from demoniacs is one for which 
 there could even be any occasion, now. But we 
 have, through God's promised help, the more 
 important power of casting out the evil-spirit froiii 
 our own breasts, and throwing off from ourselves 
 his dominion, and refusing to be "led captive by 
 him, at his will."f " Resist, therefore, the Devil, 
 and he will flee from you: draw nigh unto God, 
 and He will draw nigh unto you. "J 
 
 * John, viii. 44. 
 
 t 2 Tim. ii. 26. J James, iv. 7. 
 
118 DEMONIACS. 
 
 Note B, referred to at Page 110. 
 " Conceive then the Apostles of Jesus Christ, the tentmaker 
 or the fisherman, entering, as strangers, into one of the splendid 
 cities of Syria, Asia Minor, or Greece. Conceive them, I mean, 
 as unendowed with miracnlous powers, having adopted their 
 itinerant system of teaching, from human motives, and for 
 human purposes alone. As they pass along to the remote and 
 obscure quarter, where they expect to meet with precarious 
 hospitality among their countrymen, they survey the strength 
 of the established religion, which it is their avowed purpose to 
 overthrow. Everywhere they behold temples on which the 
 utmost extravagance of expenditure has been lavished by suc- 
 ceeding generations ; idols of the most exquisite workmanship, 
 to which, even if the religious feeling of adoration is enfeebled, 
 the people are strongly attached by national or local vanity. 
 They meet processions, in which the idle find perpetual occu- 
 pation, the young excitement, the voluptuous a continual stimu- 
 lant to their passions. They behold a priesthood, numerous, 
 sometimes wealthy ; nor are these alone wedded by interest to 
 the established faith ; many of the trades, like those of the 
 makers of the silver shrines in Ephesus, are pledged to the 
 support of that to which they owe their maintenance. They 
 pass a magnificent theatre, on the splendour and success of 
 which the popularity of the existing authorities mainly de- 
 pends ; and in which the serious exhibitions are essentially 
 religious, the lighter as intimately connected with the indul- 
 gence of the baser passions. They behold another public 
 building, where even worse feelings, the cruel and the san- 
 guinary, are pampered by the animating contests of wild beasts 
 and of gladiators, in which they themselves may shortly play a 
 dreadful part. 
 
 Butchered to make a Boman holyday ! 
 
 Show and spectacle are the characteristic enjoyments of the 
 whole people, and every show and spectacle is either sacred to 
 the religious feelings, or incentive to the lusts of the flesh ; those 
 
DEMONIACS. 119 
 
 feelings which must be entirely eradicated, those lusts which 
 must be brought into total subjection to the law of Christ. They 
 encounter likewise itinerant jugglers, diviners, magicians, who 
 impose upon the credulous, and excite the contempt of the en- 
 lightened : in the first case dangerous rivals to those who should 
 attempt to propagate a new faith by imposture and deception ; 
 in the latter, naturally tending to prejudice the mind against all 
 miraculous pretensions whatever: here, like Elymas, endea- 
 vouring to outdo the signs and wonders of the Apostles ; there 
 throwing suspicion on all asserted supernatural agency, by the 
 frequency and clumsiness of their delusions. They meet phi- 
 losophers, frequently itinerant like themselves ; or teachers of 
 new religions, priests of Isis and Serapis, who have brought into 
 equal discredit what might otherwise have appeared a proof of 
 philanthropy, and performing laborious journeys at the sacrifice 
 of personal ease and comfort for the moral and religious improve- 
 ment of mankind ; or at least have so accustomed the public mind 
 to similar pretensions, as to take away every attraction from 
 their boldness or novelty. There are also the teachers of the 
 difierent mysteries, which would engross all the anxiety of the 
 inquisitive, perhaps excite, even if they did not satisfy, the hopes 
 of the more pure and lofty minded. 
 
 " Such must have been among the obstacles which would force 
 themselves on the calmer moments of the most ardent; such the 
 overpowering difSculties, of which it would be impossible to 
 overlook the Importance, or elude the force ; which required no 
 sober calculation to estimate, no laborious inquiry to discover ; 
 which met and confronted them wherever they went, and which, 
 either in desperate presumption, or deliberate reliance on their 
 own preternatural powers, they must have contemned and defied. 
 
 " The commencement of their labours was usually dishearten- 
 ing, and ill-calculated to keep alive the flame of ungrounded 
 enthusiasm. They begin their operations in the narrow and 
 secluded Synagogue of their own countrymen. The novelty 
 of their doctrine, and curiosity, secure them at first a patient 
 attention ; but as the more offensive tenets are developed, the 
 most fierce and violent passions are awakened. Scorn and hatred 
 
120 DEMONIACS. 
 
 are seen working in the clouded brows and agitated oonntenances 
 of the leaders : if here and there one is pricked to the heart, it 
 requires considerable moral courage to acknowledge his con- 
 viction ; and the new teachers are either cast forth from the 
 indignant assembly of their own people, liable to all the punish- 
 ments which they are permitted to inflict, scourged and beaten ; 
 or, if they succeed in forming a party, they give rise to a furious 
 schism ; and thus appear before the heathen with the dangerous 
 notoriety of having caused a violent tumult, and broken the 
 public peace by their turbulent and contentious harangues : at 
 all events, disclaimed by that very people on whose traditions 
 they profess to build their doctrines, and to whose Scriptures 
 they appeal in justification of their pretensions. They endure, 
 they persevere, they continue to sustain the contest against 
 Judaism and paganism. It is still their deliberate, ostensible, 
 and avowed object to overthrow all this vast system of idolatry ; 
 to tear up by the roots all ancient prejudices ; to silence shrines, 
 sanctified by the veneration of ages as oracular; to consign all 
 those gorgeous temples to decay, and all those images to con- 
 tempt ; to wean the people from every barbarous and dissolute 
 amusement." * * * 
 
 " But in one respect it is impossible now to conceive the extent 
 to which the apostles of the crucified Jesus shocked all the feel- 
 ings of mankind. The public establishment of Christianity, the 
 adoration of Ages, the reverence of nations, has thrown around 
 the cross of Christ an indelible and inalienable sanctity. No 
 effort of the imagination can dissipate the illusion of dignity 
 which has gathered round it ; it has been so long dissevered from 
 all its coarse and humiliating associations, that it cannot be cast 
 back and desecrated into its state of opprobrium and contempt. 
 To the most daring unbeliever among ourselves, it is the symbol, 
 the absurd, and irrational, he may conceive, but still the ancient 
 and venerable symbol of a powerful and influential religion ; 
 what was it to the Jew and to the heathen ? the basest, the most 
 degrading punishment of the lowest criminal ! the proverbial 
 terror of the wretched slave! it was to them, what the most 
 despicable and revolting instrument of public execution is to 
 
DEMONIACS. 121 
 
 U3. Yet to the cross of Christ, men turned from deities in which 
 ■were embodied every attribute of strength, powei', and dignity. 
 In an incredibly short space of time multitudes gave up the 
 splendour, the pride and the power of paganism, to adore a 
 Being who was thus humiliated beneath the meanest of mankind, 
 who had become, according to the literal interpretation of the 
 prophecy, a very scorn of men, and an outcast of thepe(^le." — 
 Milman's Bampton Lectures, Lect. vi. p. 279. 
 
 Note C, repereed to at Page 112. 
 
 " The narrative which is found in three of the Evangelists, 
 of the transaction in the Country of the Gadarenes, is as I have 
 said, perfectly decisive. It fully answers the purpose for which 
 I have been supposing it designed, of proving, to those who 
 believe the Sacred Books, and understand the narratives in the 
 sense in which the Writers evidently meant, and expected, to be 
 understood, the reality of demoniacal possession. And hence it 
 is that those who are resolved to maintain, at all hazards, a 
 contrary theory, are driven to seek some mode of explaining 
 away this narrative ; in doing which, their ingenuity, and, I 
 may add, their credulity, are not a little taxed. 
 
 As for the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness, that, they 
 say — as there were no witnesses of it, so that it could be known 
 only from his own account — we are to understand as having been 
 described by Him to his Disciples in figurative language," which 
 they (as well as nearly all other Christians for eighteen centuries 
 at least) understood — as Se must have known they would — lite- 
 rally. He — the heaven-sent Teacher of the truth, led his dis- 
 ciples (according to this theory) to believe that He was tempted 
 by a personal agent, even Satan, although there was no such 
 Being concerned ? 
 
 But the other narrative — that of the transaction among the 
 Gadarenes — requires, if possible, still greater violence to be done 
 to the words of the Sacred Writers, in order to explain it away. 
 And I have thought it right to notice here one of these attempted 
 interpretations — offensive as the very mention of it may be, to 
 some of my readers — because it may be usefully instructive to 
 11 
 
122 DEMONIACS. 
 
 perceive, and to reflect on, the sad fact, that there is no extrava- 
 gance too wild for men not deficient in learning or intelligence, 
 and not destitute of religious and moral notions, if determined 
 to maintain, somehow or other, a certain preconceived theory. 
 They vrill support it by sound and fair arguments, if such are 
 to be found : if not, by weaker ones : and, if these fail, by any- 
 thing, however absurd ; rather than abandon an untenable 
 position. 
 
 The interpreters then to whom I am now alluding, (certain 
 German writers, whose notions have, I believe, been adopted by 
 some English,) explain the transaction by saying that it was the 
 Maniac himself — the man who imagined himself possessed by a 
 legion of demons, who, in a paroxysm of frenzy, (of course, 6e- 
 fore his cure,) drove the herd of swine over a precipice into the 
 lake, and who, immediately afterwards, was cured of his 
 malady by Jesus! 
 
 Now this is completely at variance with the narratives of all 
 three of the Evangelists. For they all agree in describing the 
 herd as driven over the precipice after the demons had gone out 
 of the man ; that is, after his cure was completed. And the 
 whole transaction must have passed before the eyes of the Apos- 
 tles and other Disciples, who were in attendance on Jesus, as 
 well as of the keepers of the swine : so that we must, if this 
 theory is received, suppose all of these to have combined to 
 falsify the narrative in a most important point.* 
 
 * Matthew's Gospel mentions two demoniacs, and the other Eyangclists 
 only one : but this is an inaccuracy — on whichever side — of no moment 
 as to the essential points of the transaction. 
 
 I confess, however, that I know not how to account for Matthew's men- 
 tion, in several places, of two, where the others Evangelists plainly speak 
 of one : as, where two blind men are mentioned, instead of one, as being 
 cared, at Jericho. 
 
 Perhaps, if Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Syrilao-Hebrew, 
 (as is generally supposed by the learned,) there may have be^ something 
 in his expressions that misled the translator into Greek, as to the number. 
 Certain it is that there is at least one passage in which Matthew could not 
 possibly have meant two things : where itis said that "they brought the 
 ass and the colt, and set Jesus on them :'' ciraro) avrwr. 
 
DEMONIACS. 123 
 
 No one, — even a retired student, more conversant vrith books 
 than with the habits of different kinds of animals — can doubt 
 that it must have been at least a very strange and striking spec- 
 tacle to see a man driving — not such animals as sheep, but a 
 herd of two thousand swine, — not from one field to another, but, 
 over a cliff into a lake ! One can hardly pronounce perhaps 
 what is or is not possible to be effected by a furious maniac, with 
 terrific cries and frantic gestures. But certainly, if such a thing 
 had taken place, it must have been what none of the spectators 
 could be deceived in, and must have made a strong impression 
 on them. Yet all the Evangelists agree that no such thing 
 did take place ; all giving a totally different account of the 
 transaction. 
 
 Moreover they all agree in saying that the Gadarenes came 
 and " besought Jesus to depart from their country ;" consider- 
 ing that it was He who had caused the destruction of the herd. 
 But if the keepers of the swine had seen that it was the maniac 
 himself who had done them this damage, they could never have 
 felt this displeasure and dread, towards the very person who had 
 cured that maniac. One might as well suppose they would have 
 been displeased with a man for quenching a destructive fire, or 
 stopping a raging pestilence. 
 
 We must suppose, therefore — according to the above theory — 
 this portion also of the narrative to have been a fabrication. 
 
 Now one may fairly ask any one who believes the Evangelists 
 to have falsified their history in such material points, whether 
 he can trust them at all, for anything ? and whether such wit- 
 nesses would be received at all in any Court, or rejected with 
 indignant soora? 
 
 To take a parallel case : suppose some witnesses to declare 
 that a certain individual had been seized and carried off as a 
 slave, by a band of murderous robbers, who compelled him to 
 aid them in their outrages ; that at length he escaped out of their 
 hands ; and that after this escape, they went, without him, and 
 committed some remarkable burglary, or other such crime ; and 
 then, suppose it to come out afterwards, that it was he himself 
 who committed that very crime, and that those witnesses had 
 
124 DEMONIACS. 
 
 actually seen him with his own hands breaking open the house, 
 and robbing and murdering the inmates ; would not any man of 
 common sense and common honesty decide that they were utterly 
 unworthy of credit, and deserved to be branded with infamy ? 
 
 Any one then who adopts the theory I have been alluding to, 
 may aa well go on to maintain that the tempest which — just be- 
 fore — our Lord is said to have quelled with a word, had abated 
 at length, aa all storms do ; and that his Disciples represented 
 it as having suddenly ceased, on his speaking ; and that the sick 
 persons He was said to have cured, some of them had recovered 
 long before, ai)d some, long afterwards, and some, not at all : 
 and in short, that the Disciples originally joined Jesus for no 
 reason at all, and afterwards] fabricated the accounts of his 
 mighty works. 
 
 I have dwelt at greater length on this theory than in itself it 
 deserves, to show how decisively this narrative proves the reality 
 of demoniacal a,gency, if understood in the plain sense of the 
 words, and as the Writers knew ihey would be understood ; since 
 those who are resolved at all hazards to reject the doctrine, are 
 obliged to explain away the narrative by resorting, to the most 
 extravagantly forced interpretations, and the most revolting 
 conjectures. 
 
TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR. 125 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 Temptations of our Saviour and his followers. 
 
 The great "Author and Finisher of our faith" is 
 set forth in Scripture as "our example, that we 
 should follow his steps." iN'ot only is He described 
 as a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling 
 of our infirmities," so that we may " come boldly 
 to seek help in time of need,"* but we are also ex- 
 pected to "learn of Him," — to "let the same mind 
 be in us which was also in Him." And we have to 
 learn, among other things, how to withstand those 
 trial, and resist those enemies, to which He — as well 
 as ourselves — was exposed. For He was, we are 
 told, " in all points tempted like as we are, yet with- 
 out sin." 
 
 Now, to this end, it is plainly necessary that we 
 should be acquainted with, and reflect on, and 
 rightly understand, his temptations ; since otherwise, 
 we cannot imitate Him, as we are directed to do. 
 The benefit of his example, which is one of the great 
 objects for which He came into the World, is lost to 
 men, in proportion as they either neglect to contem- 
 plate the trials He was exposed to, or take an erro- 
 neous view of them. 
 
 One of these trials, and doubtless, one that is 
 
 * Ileb. iv. 15, 16. 
 
 11 * 
 
126 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 especially alluded to when He is described as " in 
 all points tempted like as we are," was that which 
 we find recorded in three of the Evangelists as taking 
 place in the wilderness, where He was exposed, 
 previously to the opening of his Ministry, to the 
 direct assaults of Satan.* 
 
 This is not one of those transactions which are 
 mentioned incidentally, in the course of the narrative 
 of other matters. The history of his Ministry itself 
 would have been complete without it. And again, 
 it is not a transaction which the Sacred "Writers had 
 witnessed, and which they might be supposed to have 
 mentioned merely because they had witnessed it; 
 but it must have been brought to their knowledge 
 by Jesus Himself, either relating it orally to his 
 disciples while He remained on Earth, or else com- 
 municating it by the inspiration of his Spirit, after- 
 wards. 
 
 It must have been recorded therefore for some 
 special and important purposes. And among these 
 purposes must have been, no doubt, those which I 
 have just alluded to ; namely, to show us that our 
 great Master was tempted, like us ; and to afford us 
 the benefit of his example, inasmuch as we also are 
 to be, in proportion to our strength, tried, as He was, 
 and have a promise of the aid of his Spirit " which 
 helpeth our infirmities." 
 
 I have remarked above, that unless we would re- 
 present Jesus and his Apostles as deceivers, we must 
 
 * Matt. iv. ; Mark, i. ; .Luke, iv. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWEKS. 127 
 
 understand the narrative of the Temptation as a true 
 one, and not as a poetical figure of speech, or a 
 parable, representing Satan as a real personal agent 
 while in reality no such Being had any part in the 
 transaction, or ever existed at all. For, even suppos- 
 ing the language employed to be such as might, 
 conceivably, bear such an interpretation, still Jesus 
 and his Disciples knew that their hearers would not 
 so interpret it, but would understand them in the 
 obvious sense. And he who speaks that which is 
 false in the sense in which he is aware he will be 
 understood, is manifestly a deceiver; not the less, 
 though he may have some hidden meaning which is 
 true. I added also that he whose moral'notions are 
 so lax as to attribute this deception to those he pro- 
 fesses to reverence as God's messengers, is not likely 
 to scruple practising the like himself; so that, for 
 aught we know, his own professed belief in the 
 Gospel may be merely a figure of speech, and may 
 signify, according to his own secret interpretation, 
 that he looks on it as an "illusion." 
 
 But taking the narrative in question as a true 
 account of a real transaction, it furnishes, among 
 other things, a proof (as was remarked in the last 
 Lecture) that the agency of evil-spirits cannot be 
 explained, — in all cases at least — as the fancy of a 
 diseased imagination. The possession of the herd 
 _ of swine by the demons, and the temptation of the 
 Son of God, are the two cases which, — I observed 
 — preclude all such explanation, and which were 
 doubtless recorded, partly, for that very purpose. 
 
128 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 "Whatever effects may be produced in men by a 
 diseased imagination, the brute-animals, in the one 
 case, ■were as much helow that influence, as, in the 
 other case, the Son of God was above it. 
 I But when I speak of understanding the narratives 
 of the Evangelists as literally true, I do not mean 
 that we are to interpret them according to the 
 traditions or fanciful conjectures of the Vulgar 
 Some absurd notions which are afloat respecting 
 the agency of evil-spirits, and which have tended to 
 throw ridicule on the subject, and to encourage a 
 total disbelief of the doctrine, — these are so far 
 from being derived from Scripture, that they are, in 
 some points, even opposite to what Scripture teaches. 
 And yet, on this, and on several other subjects,* 
 one may find persons entertaining such and such 
 notions which they themselves believe to have been 
 taught in Scripture, though on examination it will 
 appear that they are founded on groundless traditions 
 and fanciful conjectures, mixed up with Scripture. 
 
 For instance, one may see popular works illus- 
 trated with plates, in which Satan is represented as 
 appearing (both to our Lord in the wilderness, and 
 on other occasions) in a frightful and revolting 
 form, as if on purpose to proclaim his real character, 
 and to warn every one against listening to him. 
 The Son of God is thus represented as tried by a 
 temptation which would have been no trial at all 
 
 * Some instances are noticed in Lectures V. and X., on a 
 Future State. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWBBS. 129 
 
 even to the weakest of mankind: and a Spirit of 
 great subtlety — who, according to Scripture, is 
 accustomed to "transform himself into an Angel 
 of Light" — is represented as more foolishly simple 
 than the silliest of mortals. 
 
 But the Gospel-narrative does not inform us even 
 whether Satan appeared at all to our Lord, in bodily 
 form, or merely suggested thoughts to his mind. 
 And if he did appear at all, in person, doubtless it 
 was not in his own person, or in any alarming or 
 disgusting shape, but disguised, as Scripture teaches 
 us, " as an Angel of Light." 
 
 When it is said that the Sacred Narrative is to be 
 understood as a statement of real facts, and not as 
 a figure of speech or parable, (because it could 
 not but be understood as real, by those it was 
 written for,) this does not mean that men are 
 not required to exercise their common-sense, and 
 to use attentive care and diligence, in the interpre- 
 tation of this, or of any other part of Scripture. It 
 was not indeed merely to men of superior learning 
 and ingenuity that these writings are addressed; 
 but they are addressed to rational Beings, who are 
 expected to use their reason, and not to interpret 
 one portion of Scripture so as to be at variance with 
 the rest, or so as to be palpably absurd. 
 
 Now if evil-spirits be — as Scripture represents — 
 intelligent and crafty tempters, and if Jesus were 
 — as we are assured — " tempted like as we are," it 
 is impossible that Satan could, in his own person, 
 have openly proposed to Him temptations such as 
 
130 TKMPTATIONS 0¥ 0UR SAVIOUR 
 
 could never have deceived even the weakest of 
 ordinary mortals. It is impossible, for instance, 
 that Satan could have thought to prevail over — I 
 do not say the Son of God, but — even the silliest of 
 mankind, by openly proposing to him to fall down 
 and worship Mm — Satan, as Satan ; — as the great 
 enemy of God and Man. We may be sure there- 
 fore that in this, and in the other temptations, he 
 " transformed himself into an Angel of Light," by 
 representing his suggestions as of quite a different 
 character from what they really were. 
 
 Doubtless, the true state of the case is this : that, 
 in the very brief and compressed narrative of the 
 Evangelists, the temptations are described not, as 
 originally presented by the Tempter, but, as detected, 
 exposed, and rejected, by Jesus; stripped of the 
 disguise under which they had been offered. And 
 Satan himself is spoken of, not under the form of a 
 holy Angel, as he would naturally present himself, 
 but as made manifest, and exposed in his real 
 character. 
 
 And how was he thus exposed and detected? 
 Evidently in each case, hy the character of the 
 temptation itself: even as our Lord Himself after- 
 wards taught his disciples to detect false prophets, 
 who came " in sheep's clothing, but inwardly were 
 ravening wolves:" "by their fruits," said He, "ye 
 shall know them." 
 
 But the whole benefit of Christ's example is 
 Utterly lost to us, if we misapprehend the character 
 of the temptations He underwent, and of those to 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 131 
 
 which we ourselves'are liable. If an evil-spirit were, 
 avowedly in his own proper person, to appear to 
 any one of you, and to suggest to you to enrich or 
 otherwise benefit yourself by doing something — 
 suppose, something, apparently quite harmless — 
 which it was completely in your power to do, 
 doubtless there is no one who would not, when 
 thus solicited, shrink from the act with abhorrence 
 and dread. You would recognize the temptation, hy 
 the tempter. But the temptations which actually 
 occur, in our case, (and doubtless, in that of our 
 Lord) are the reverse of this. If you are tempted 
 to enrich or to gratify yourself by some unlawful or 
 dishonourable act, — by fraud, or by appropriating 
 in any way what is another's, — you are to recognize 
 the tempter, hy the temptation ; — you are to know, 
 not (as in the former case) the fruit by the tree, but 
 the tree hy its fruits. And so, no doubt, it was 
 with the Lord Jesus. 
 
 Thus, in the first instance, Jesus, when suffering 
 from hiinger, receives the suggestion, to employ for 
 his own convenience the miraculous power which 
 had been designed for the furtherance of his min- 
 istry ; — for the establishment of his claim of having 
 come from God, and for the relief of the afflicted. 
 It was suggested to Him to convert the stones of 
 the desert into bread. But He resisted the sugges- 
 tion, as knowing that He was not in danger of really 
 pei'ishing through famine, and that it was not for 
 his own relief and comfort that his miraculous 
 powers were to be exerted. 
 
132 TEMPTATIONS OP OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 Again, when He was placed — or imagined Him- 
 self placed — (it comes to the same : since He could 
 in a moment transport Himself thither) on a pinna- 
 cle of the Temple, and it was suggested to Him to 
 cast -Himself down unhurt into the midst of the 
 crowd of worshippers below, the real temptation 
 consisted, no doubt, in this; that they would all 
 have been ready to receive Him as the Christ ; since 
 the universal expectation of the Jewish people was 
 (and indeed is still) that when the long-looked-for 
 Messiah should come, he would appear descending 
 from Heaven.* And this accordingly was the " sign 
 from heaven" which we find the scribes continually 
 demanding of Jesus, though they had witnessed so 
 many of his mighty works. 
 
 But it was not by confoi-ming to the expectations 
 of the Jewish People that divine wisdom had de- 
 creed the kingdom of Heaven should be established. 
 It was not in this way that the superhuman powers 
 of Jesus were to be exercised. And to call on God 
 for a display of his power in some different way 
 from what He has appointed, — to save us from 
 dangers or difficulties in which we have needlessly 
 placed ourselves — this is what is called in Scripture 
 " tempting the Lord ;"t that is, making trial of Him. 
 
 * They grounded their expectation, no doubt, on a prophecy 
 in Daniel, vii. 13. 
 
 But they did not observe that the Prophet speaks of his 
 coming to, not from, the Most High. The prophecy appears to 
 have-been fulfilled in the Ascension. See Acts i. 9. 
 
 t Matt. iv. 7. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 133 
 
 Again, wlien from a mountain-top Jesus could 
 view with his bodily eyes, vast and wealthy and 
 populous regions, and his imagination in a moment 
 extended to those beyond, many times greater, it 
 was then suggested to his mind that He had it in 
 his power to establish, without resistance, a splendid 
 empire extending over the whole world ; and that 
 He would thus be received by his own People — 
 his brethren after the flesh — with rapturous grati- 
 tude, and fervent affection, and devoted veneration. 
 On the opposite side was — rejection by the great 
 mass of his own nation, contempt, hatred, persecu- 
 tion, torture, and a most degrading and ignominious 
 death ; and all this, not only to Himself, but to the 
 most eminent of his followers also. 
 
 It was not merely personal ambition therefore, 
 and the natural wish for personal ease and safety, 
 but some of the most amiable tendencies of human 
 nature, that constituted this temptation ; — patriot- 
 ism, and compassion, and friendship, and the wish 
 to be well-thought of by those one loves. But Je- 
 sus knew that the scheme of divine Providence was 
 quite at variance with all this ; — that the Gospel 
 was designed for those only who should voluntarily 
 and freely embrace it ; and who should hold them- 
 selves ready, moreover, to forsake all temporal 
 goods "for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake," and 
 to " take up the Cross," if needful, to follow a lowly, 
 despised, and persecuted Master. At once there- 
 fore He recognized the Tempter by the temptation. 
 "Thou invitest me" — He seems to say — "to aban- 
 12 
 
134 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 don, for the sake of this world's goods, the great 
 plan of Man's salvation for which I came into the 
 world, and to attempt to frustrate what I know to 
 be the divine will, at the suggestions of temporal 
 ambition and worldly policy; thou art in fact invit- 
 ing me to 'fall down and worship' thee, the 'Prince 
 of this World.' Get thee hence, Satan !" 
 
 It was on this occasion that the Tempter seems 
 to have been the most completely unveiled, and that 
 he was rejected and defied by name. And accord- 
 ingly he is described as now desisting, for the pre- 
 sent, from his attacks, and " departing for a season." 
 These last words, — which may be rendered either 
 "for a season," or "till a fitting occasion"* — are 
 remarkable as implying that the Tempter would 
 afterwards make fresh attempts. And it is a strik- 
 ing circumstance that we find this very temptation 
 — the one last noticed — apparently, again, in sub- 
 stance, repeated, towards the close of our Lord's 
 Ministry, and again rejected as before. Did Satan, 
 on that other occasion, malce his approaches avow- 
 edly in his own person, and under some revolting 
 form ? Oh no ! He employed as his agent one of 
 the Disciples of Jesus ; — one of his Apostles ; — 
 one of the most distinguished of the Apostles; 
 even Peter, who had just before been pronounced 
 " blessed"! when he had confessed his Master to be 
 "the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Shortly 
 after this confession, when Jesus informed his fol- 
 
 * Luke iv. 13. t Matt. vi. 17. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 135 
 
 lowers that He was about to be betrayed into the 
 hands of his enemies, who would scourge Him and 
 put Him to death, Peter, we are told, " took Him 
 and began to rebuke Him, saying. Be it far from 
 Thee, Lord ! there shall no such thing happen unto 
 Thee." "Rebuke" is rather too strong a word to 
 represent the exact sense of the original. The 
 meaning is, that he remonstrated with Him, — as 
 one does with a friend who is giving way to low- 
 spirited despondency ; — assuring him that there is 
 no ground for such gloomy apprehensions. Peter 
 was looking forward, like the rest of the Jews, in- 
 cluding the Disciples, not to a suiffering Messiah — 
 not to the reproach of the Cross, and the ignominy 
 of a crucified Master, — but to a Christ who should 
 establish a splendid temporal kingdom, and triumph 
 over all enemies. These were, — as our Lord ex- 
 presses it, — "the things that be of men" and not 
 the "things that be of God." They were conform- 
 able to men's expectations, and acceptable to human 
 inclinations; but quite at variance with the designs 
 of divine Providence, and with the pure, and spirit- 
 ual, and truly divine character of the kingdom of 
 Heaven. The temptation to shrink from the scorn, 
 and hatred, and ignominious death, which awaited 
 Him, and to accept the popularity, and worldly 
 glory, and dominion, that were within his reach, 
 Jesus recognized as the very same temptation that 
 had been formerly presented to Him, and hy this, 
 recognizes the same Tempter — him whom he desig- 
 ' nates as "the Prince of this world;" who had sc 
 
136 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUK 
 
 far darkened the mind, and excited the worldly de- 
 sires, of Peter, as to make him even venture to 
 expostulate with his Lord, and question the truth 
 of his declarations. 
 
 Jesus accordingly rehukes him with more severity 
 than was his usual practice, as being "an offence 
 unto Him;" that is, — according to the Scriptural 
 use of that word, — as putting a stumbling-block or 
 impediment in his way, to prevent his treading the 
 path marked out for Him. And it is remarkable 
 that He rebukes Satan in the person of Peter, to 
 denote that He' regarded the Apostle as, at that 
 moment, made Satan's instrument ; saying (almost 
 in the very words in which He had before rebuked 
 the Tempter in the wilderness), "Get thee behind 
 me, Satan ! thou art an offence unto me ; for thou 
 savourest not the things that be of God, but the 
 things that be of men :" as much as to saj-, " thou 
 art again suggesting to me to depart from my obe- 
 dience to the divine vrill, for the sake of the worldly 
 greatness thou offerest : thou art again inviting me 
 to fall down and worship thee." 
 
 It was probably the struggle against this same 
 kind of temptation once more repeated, that con- 
 stituted our Saviour's " agony" {i. e. struggle*) in 
 the garden,! at the time when He had been warn- 
 ing his Disciples to "watch and pray, that they 
 might not enter into temptation." For we may be 
 
 * This was the original meaoiog of the word " agony," which 
 is so used by our translators, 
 t Luke xxii. 44. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 137 
 
 sure that the "cup" which He prayed might "pass 
 from Him," could not have been merely the bodily 
 pain, and death, which so many men have endured 
 with unshrinking fortitude.* 
 
 Very striking, and very interesting to a right- 
 minded Christian, would be all the incidents of our 
 Saviour's life on earth, even if we were only so far 
 concerned in them, inasmuch as all He did and 
 suffered was for our sake. But on another account 
 also (as I observed above), the narrative of his life 
 is most interesting and important to us, inasmuch as 
 we are — like Him — to be also tried, in proportion 
 to our strength, and are to profit by and copy his 
 example. 
 
 But the benefit of that example is lost to those 
 who do not carefully and intelligently study it, and 
 who form such absurd misco'nceptions as I have 
 above alluded to, respecting the character of the 
 trials He underwent. 
 
 Any Christian, again, who studies the New Tes- 
 tament with an earnest application of his mind to 
 it, in order that he may profit by what he reads, 
 will find, in this, and in the other parts of it, the 
 instruction he seeks for. That " Satan transforms 
 Himself into au Angel of Light,"t he will learn not 
 only from the express declaration of the Apostle 
 
 * We read moreover (Heb. v. 7) that on this occasion his 
 prayer " was heard ;" and we know that from death he was not 
 delivered. 
 
 •(• 2 001". si. 14. 
 12* 
 
138 TEMPTATIONS OF OUK SAVIOUK 
 
 Paul, but from the very history of our Lord's own 
 life. And it is thus that we are to be prepared to 
 see through his disguises, and, by divine help, to 
 gain the victory over him. We shall be prepared 
 to distrust specious first-appearances, — ^to detect evil 
 dressed up into a specious resemblance of good, — 
 to discover the wolf when concealed under sheep's 
 clothing. Our Lord Himself has taught us, by 
 example as well as by precept, to know false doc- 
 trines and "deceitful workers" by "their fruits," — 
 to detect the Tempter by the very character of the 
 temptation. 
 
 For instance, one of the earliest corruptions which 
 the wiles of the great Enemy introduced into the 
 Christian Church, was the doctrine of the G-nostics 
 ["or Knowers"], as they called themselves, of 
 whom those Mcolaitans mentioned in the Book of 
 the Revelation,* were a branch. Satan and the 
 false teachers whom he made his instruments in 
 propagating this heresy, did not, of course, come 
 forward avowedly as enemies of Christ, or without 
 specious pretensions to pre-eminent holiness. They 
 allured incautious hearers, by setting forth the effi- 
 cacy of faith — by talking of justification through 
 Christ only, — by boasting of their "knowledge of 
 the Gospel." They declaimed against the folly of 
 seeking to justify ourselves before God by our own 
 good works. All this true doctrine was the out- 
 ward show, — ^the whitening of the Sepulchre, — the 
 
 * Rev. ii. 6 and 15. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 139 
 
 sheep's clothing that disguised the wolf within, — the 
 semblance of an Angel of Light into which Satan 
 transforms himself. For, falsehood, and, indeed, 
 evil of any kind, will be, like poison, loathed, when 
 presenited unmixed and undisguised. When poison 
 is administered (whether designedly or by accident) 
 it is disguised by a mixture of wholesome food or 
 salutary medicine, or by a resemblance to these. 
 And even so is falsehood received only when mixed 
 up with much that is true, and made to resemble 
 truth. 
 
 How then were those false prophets to be detected ? 
 By applying our Lord's own rule, " Ye shall know 
 them by their fruits." When these men taught 
 their followers to take no pains, and to feel no 
 anxiety, about their moral conduct, — to put away 
 all self-distrust, — all watchfulness against sin, and 
 assured them that, being God's elect, nothing they 
 could do could ever deprive them of his favour, — 
 and that when indulging unrestrained in a vicious 
 life, they "had no sin,"* — ^that is, that, in them, 
 nothing would be accounted sin, — when such was 
 their teaching, any plain single-hearted Christian 
 was enabled to judge of the tree by its fruits, and 
 at once to exclaim, " get thee hence, Satan !" He 
 had only to recollect, and to compare with such 
 doctrine, our Lord's own words and those of the 
 beloved Disciple : " if ye love me, keep my com- 
 mandments:" "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and 
 
 * Eph. i. ; John i. 8. See Cautions for the Times, No. XXI. 
 
140 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 do not the things which I say ?" "Little children, 
 let no man deceive you ; he that doeth righteousness 
 is righteous, even as He is righteous : he that com- 
 mitteth sin is of the Devil :" and "Every one that 
 hath this hope on Christ, purifieth himself even as 
 He is pure." 
 
 Wo sect indeed under the name of Mcolaitans or 
 Gnostics exists at this day.* But our spiritual foe 
 is every ready, — as soon as one disguise has heen 
 exposed, — to come forward anew, in another, un- 
 der some fresh transformation " into an Angel of 
 Light." 
 
 Let not therefore any mere change of names lull 
 the Christian of the present day into a false security 
 against such an error as misled many of the early 
 Christians, revived under some altered shape. 
 
 Again, what can be a more specious form to 
 assume than that of zeal for God's honour, and for 
 Gospel-truth, and anxiety to propagate that truth, 
 and detestation of all false religion? It is under 
 
 * In my own memory however, and to my own knowledge, 
 Christian Ministers have taught from the pulpit that it is not 
 only foolish hut impious, as arguing a distrust of God, for a 
 man to examine his ovm life and to feel any dread of falling, into 
 sin ; any such anxiety and care and alarm being a delusion of 
 Satan ! and again, that God's people ought to feel much grief at 
 the sinfulness of the ungodly, but none at all, at any sins of 
 their own, because God suffers his own People to fall into griev 
 ous sins, on purpose to make them humble ! 
 
 Incredible as it may (I hope) seem to some of my readers, 
 what I state is a fact. See Cautions for the Times, No. XXVI. 
 p. 458. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 141 
 
 this disguise that the great enemy of God and Man 
 has introduced persecution and intolerance. 
 
 It is said to have been formerly the practice in 
 Christian places of worship, for all the males of the 
 congregation, on the recital of the Apostles' Creed, 
 to stand up and draw their swords, in token of their 
 zeal for the true Faith, and of their readiness to 
 iight in its defence. These were professedly the 
 servants of Ilim who bade his erring Disciples " put 
 up his sword into its sheath ;" who declared that his 
 "Kingdom was not of this world;" who, "when 
 He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suffered, 
 threatened not;" and who sent forth his followers, 
 not to subjugate, but to "teach all nations;" "in 
 meekness instructing them that oppose them- 
 selves." Such was the Master whom these men 
 professed to serve : but to judge of them " by their 
 fruits," one would rather have taken them for wor- 
 shippers of the heathen god Mars. 
 
 Precisely such a custom as I have just alluded to, 
 does not now, I believe, exist anywhere ; but if any 
 one should thence infer that there is now no risk of 
 his being betrayed into intolerance under the shape 
 of zeal for God's glory, his confidence of being safe 
 from any such danger exposes such a man to the 
 greatest danger. Even at the present day, and in 
 this very Country, you may hear people talk of its 
 being the duty of the Civil-Government " to provide 
 for the good, — the greatest good — of its subjects," 
 by putting down all false religion, and enforcing the 
 profession of the true Faith. And as every Euler, 
 
142 TEMPTATIONS OF OUK SAVIOUE 
 
 whether Pagan, Mahometan, or Christian, whether 
 Protestant or Pomanist, &c., will of course assume 
 that Mb own is the true Faith, and those opposed to 
 it erroneous, hence, this principle goes to estahlish 
 universal intolerance. 
 
 There can be no doubt that there have been, and 
 are, persons who maintain this principle on sincere 
 conviction. And any one who does so, — who con- 
 siders the civil governor bound in this way "to* 
 provide a true religion for the subjects," — must be 
 doubly tempted by an offer of empire : tempted not 
 merely by personal ambition, but by patriotism and 
 public-spirit, and zeal for what he regards as God's 
 glory. Such a one therefore must, one would think, 
 wonder that the Lord Jesus did not establish a 
 powerful temporal kingdom, and compel all men to 
 acknowledge the true God. And no doubt the 
 temptation actually presented to our Lord came in 
 that shape ; — in the shape not of mere personal 
 aggrandizement, but of the suppression of all false 
 religions. He however perceived that his accept- 
 ance of this temporal power, to be so employed, 
 would have made his a false religion, and would 
 have amounted to a felling down before Satan. 
 
 And in the world as it actually is, not only is the 
 tendency of secular coercion in religious matters, to 
 produce insincere profession, instead of sincere con- 
 viction, but moreover, its operation is in all cases 
 unfevourable to the cause of the pxire Gospel. For 
 
 * See note D, at the end of this Lecture. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 143 
 
 in many Countries — probably the far greater num- 
 ber — that very Religion would be oppressed or dis- 
 countenanced. And in other Countries again, wliere 
 the religion attempted to be enforced by Law was, 
 in many points, nearer to the truth, still it would, 
 in one most essential point, be completely opposed 
 to the precepts and to the practice of Christ and his 
 Apostles. For they evidently designed that their 
 Religion should be embraced voluntarily and sin- 
 cerely, and not forced (that is, the outward profes- 
 sion of it) on any one. 
 
 But again, you may meet with persons who will 
 exclaim, " What ! should we tolerate those who 
 would extend no toleration to us ? Such and such 
 a Church or sect would treat us, if they had it in 
 their power, with even more severity than we pro- 
 pose to exercise on them." 
 
 A stranger might almost suspect that such per- 
 sons — boasting, as they often do, of their own lib- 
 erty to read the Scriptures, and of their deep vene- 
 ration for them — had a different Wew-Testament 
 from ours ; and that, in their edition, Jesus Christ 
 is represented as sanctioning the maxim of " thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy," 
 and "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;" 
 and as teaching, not " whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you — but, whatsoever ye thinlc that 
 men would do unto you — even so do unto them." 
 
 Another evil which has crept in under the dis- 
 guise of religious zeal, is the practice of fious frauds ; 
 — of teaching men, for their supposed good, what 
 
144 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 we do not ourselves believe, or only such parts of 
 what we believe to be revealed in the Gospel as we 
 conceive the people to be worthy of. Such practices 
 one may find even distinctly defended and recom- 
 mended in the present day, under the titles of "Re- 
 serve," "Economy," and "Double-doctrine." The 
 father of lies has induced men to fancy that they 
 can serve the cause of the God of Truth by disin- 
 genuous artifice, trickery, and deception \* 
 
 To enumerate and describe all the devices by 
 which the great enemy of Man seeks to delude the 
 unwary, transformed into an Angel of Light — ^that 
 is, presenting evil under the semblance of good — 
 would be to go through almost every branch of duty 
 and every kind of practical error. Those which I 
 have now mentioned I have brought forward merely 
 as specimens, in order to illustrate the principle on 
 which we are in all cases to judge and act. 
 
 I will only advert, in conclusion, to one circum- 
 stance which very strongly indicates the degree and 
 the manner in which the Tempter seeks — and too 
 often with success — to blind men's judgment in all 
 that especially appertains to MniBelf. I mean, that 
 the words " immorality" and " vice," are not com- 
 monly applied to those particular vices which are 
 the most emphatically diabolical; such as slander 
 and lying, pride, unchristian bitterness and unfair- 
 ness towards opponents, bigoted party-spirit, and 
 
 * See Errors of Romanism. Essay iii., on Pious Frauds. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 145 
 
 sucli like. Even those who decidedly dieapprove 
 and censure such conduct, and even those who are 
 not themselves tainted with these sins, will yet not 
 usually apply to them the terms " vicious" or " im- 
 moral." They will speak of some men "of pure 
 moral character, and free from vice," as being charge- 
 able with such sins. The words " vicious" and " im- 
 moral" are commonly limited to sensual excess, or 
 to some other such sins as — though destructive of 
 the soul's health, and such as we may well conceive 
 the Tempter ready to seduce men into, — are yet not 
 so truly parts of his own character — not so em- 
 phatically Satanic — as those others to which, as I 
 have said, the term vice is not commonly applied. 
 
 But beware of being, in this, or in any other 
 point, misled by words and names. And beware 
 of being deluded by specious descriptions or by out- 
 ward appearances. Judge of each principle and 
 each disposition of mind, by the fruits it naturally 
 tends to produce, and compare each act, and thought, 
 and feeling, with the teaching and the example of 
 our Lord and his Apostles. The Scriptures in which 
 these are recorded must be studied, not for the pur- 
 pose of discovering some plea to justify the conduct 
 you are, on each occasion, most inclined to, but in 
 order to guide your conduct, and to improve and 
 elevate your character. And seek by prayer the 
 promised aid of God's Holy Spirit to aid you in 
 that study, and to guard you against the snares that 
 beset your path. 
 
 But we must watch also, — as our great Master 
 13 
 
146 TEMPTATIONS OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 has Himself warned us — we must watch as well as 
 pray, that we enter not into temptation.* And if 
 we thus strive to comply with his directions and to 
 follow his steps, we need not fear that He, our all- 
 powerful Friend, will ever fail to send us, according 
 to his promise, divine support and deliverance. He 
 who, for our sake, encountered and endured so 
 much while on Earth in bodily person, is now ready 
 and " able to save to the uttermost those who come 
 unto God by Him." And "we have not an High 
 Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like 
 as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come 
 boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain 
 mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.f 
 
 Note D. — The following passages are extracted from a work 
 which received the sanction of a large and influential body of 
 Protestants within the present century. " Man is a compounded 
 Being, not more impelled to seek his temporal advantage, than 
 hound to pursue his et«mal interests. Must not the State look 
 to him in both conditions ; and as far as possible assist its in- 
 dividual members in the attainment of both ? Is not the Sove- 
 reign to rule for the greatest good of the whole ? And can he 
 leave out any part of that which constitutes their greatest good? 
 Is he not again bound by the duty which he owes to God, so to 
 govern his people as to enable them best to obey the will of the 
 great common Sovereign of all ? Must he not then secure for 
 his subjects the best aids of Keligion 1" (On this principle I 
 cannot conceive how the Sovereign can be justified in affording 
 
 * We must pray, as if nothing depended on ourselves ; and 
 watch, as if even/thing depended on ourselves, 
 t Heb. iv. 15, 16. 
 
AND HIS FOLLOWBKS. 147 
 
 toleration to any, that he thinks, religious errors, or in abstain- 
 ing from suppressing them by the sword, if milder means fail ; 
 even as he would theft or murder.) " In truth, every separation 
 of divine and human things is a rejection of Providence." (The 
 precept of " Render unto Csesar the things that be CiEsar's, and 
 unto God the things that be God's," seems rather at variance 
 with this.) " I should not have dwelt so long upon so plain a 
 proposition as that which affirms it to be the duty of the Sove- 
 reign to provide a true religion for his people," (this must im- 
 ply, conformably with the foregoing principles, the prohibition 
 of all false ones,) " but that, strange as it may appear, it is a 
 maxim which hangs but loosely on the minds of many in the 
 present day." 
 
148 ERBOBS EELATIVE TO 
 
 LEOTUEE VIII. 
 Prevailing Errors relative to Satanic Agency. 
 
 The dangers to which the Christian's course is ex- 
 posed existed even in the life-time of the Apostles 
 themselves. Even in the primitive Churches false 
 teachers arose, against whom Paul and the other 
 Apostle frequently take occasion to warn their 
 People. It may seem very strange to us that this 
 should have been the case; considering that the 
 first generation of Christians had among them those 
 inspired men who had been companions of the Lord 
 Jesus, and whom He had endued with miraculous 
 powers. But so it was. And it is recorded, doubt- 
 less, in part for our encouragement, to show that as 
 we are called on to " take heed to ourselves,"* to 
 avoid being misled, so also were the earliest Chris- 
 tians exposed to a like trial, and required to exercise 
 equal vigilance. "For I know," says Paul, in the 
 passage I have just referred to, "that after my de- 
 parting shall grievous wolves enter in among you, 
 not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall 
 men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away 
 disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remem- 
 ber, that by the space of three years I ceased not to 
 
 * 2 Acts, XX. 28. * 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 149 
 
 warn every one night and day with tears." And 
 again, he warns the Corinthians,* that they must 
 expect to meet with " false apostles, deceitful workers, 
 transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ. And 
 no marvel ; for Satan himself also is transformed into 
 an Angel of Light : therefore it is no great thing if 
 his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of 
 righteousness." It is to be expected, he says, that 
 these deceitful teachers should put forth false pre- 
 tensions to impose on the unwary, since even " Satan 
 himself transforms himself," (that is the exact render- 
 ing of the original) into an Angel of light. 
 
 I have said that the precise sense of the Apostle's 
 words, is not, as in our version, " is transformed," 
 but, " transforms himself," — assumes the disguise of 
 an Angel of Light. And our translators accordingly 
 do so render the same word, just above, in this very 
 passage. The Apostle is manifestly speaking not of 
 a transformation produced by some other agent, but 
 of Satan's own artifices in putting on a specious 
 form ; and of his ministers feigning to be true Apostles. 
 
 In this, and in several other places, Paul (as well 
 as other Apostles) alludes to the existence and to the 
 artifices of the Tempter, as something well known 
 to his hearers, who, he tells them,t " are not ignorant 
 of his devices." And it is plain (as I have already 
 remarked) that his hearers, and those of our Lord, 
 must have understood them (as indeed the great 
 mass of Christians always have) to be speaking liter- 
 ally of a real personal agent, and not giving a mere 
 
 * 2 Cor. xi. 13. t 2 Cor. ii. 11. 
 
 13* 
 
150 ERR OK S RELATIVE TO 
 
 figurative description of evil in the abstract. Christ 
 therefore and his Apostles could have been no other 
 than deceivers, if they were conscious that vphat they 
 taught was, in the sense in which they knew that 
 their hear-ers must understand them, not true. And 
 what must be the moral principles of those who can 
 attribute such deception to God's messengers, Heave 
 any honest man to judge. 
 
 But you will not fail, I think, to perceive, on re- 
 flection, that it is just what one would naturally 
 expect, that an insidious and crafty adversary, such 
 as Satan is represented in Scripture, should endea- 
 vour to throw men off their guard, first, by inducing 
 them, if possible, to disbelieve his existence alto- 
 gether, — to explain away as mere figures of speech 
 all the declarations of Scripture on the subject, — 
 and to flatter themselves that they have no such 
 enemy to guard against : and, in the next place, by 
 leading those who do believe in his existence, to mis- 
 take the character of their danger, — to be alarmed 
 in the wrong place, — and to feel least apprehension 
 precisely where there is the most occasion for it; 
 when he " transforms himself into an Angel of 
 Light ;" that is, when he conceals his real approaches, 
 and disguises the character of the temptations offered. 
 
 And it is worth observing, that, whether a man 
 believes or disbelieves the Scripture-accounts of evil- 
 spirits, — indeed whether he receives or rejects en- 
 tirely the Christian Scriptures — still he cannot but 
 acknowledge the truth of what I have now been 
 saying. I mean, he cannot but perceive and admit 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 151 
 
 that an intelligent and malignant Spirit, supposing 
 such a Being to exist, would be likely to proceed in 
 the way I have described. Such a Being, it is evi- 
 dent, would endeavor to seduce, and not to alarm 
 men ; and would seek to throw them off their guard, 
 by inducing them either to disbelieve his existence, 
 or else to expect his attacks, at the times, and in the 
 manner, in which those attacks are not made, and to 
 remain in careless and groundless security precisely 
 when their danger is the greatest. And it is wonder- 
 ful to what a degree many men are, in this way, 
 misled ; — what absurd notions they often entertain 
 on this subject ; such as, in any other case, they 
 would themselves reject with scorn. 
 
 The absurd notions respecting the agency of 
 Satan which are afloat, tend, in two ways, to throw 
 men off their guard against him: first, by mislead- 
 ing such as hold those notions; and secondly, by 
 inducing others to disbelieve altogether the very 
 existence of a Being of whom they hear such 
 groundless and incredible tales. Por, rash and 
 hasty reasoners seldom trouble themselves to draw 
 distinctions between what is and is not credible, 
 in the accounts they hear, and to winnow the wheat 
 from the chaff, but believe or disbelieve in the lump ; 
 either admitting the false along with the true, or 
 rejecting both together. 
 
 I have said that some popular notions which are 
 afloat on this subject, are such as would, on any 
 pther, be derided as undeserving a moment's 
 attention. For instance, we know that dishonest 
 
152 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 men often seek to entrap the unwary by selling 
 articles made of base metal disguised so as to re- 
 semble pure gold or silver: and in various other 
 ways obtaining a high price for something that is in 
 reality worthless, but which they represent as of 
 great value: or, again, by inducing men, under 
 false pretences, to enter into ruinous engagements, 
 of which the true character is concealed from them. 
 But if we were told of any one proclaiming himself 
 to be a fraudulent dealer, — or going about professing 
 his design of ruining those who transacted business 
 with him, and openly proposing to them to part 
 with their most valuable property for the merest 
 trifles, — we should at once conclude such a person 
 to be insane, and should feel confident that no one 
 would listen to him. 
 
 And yet there have been men so silly as to believe 
 that Evil-spirits, — Beings which they suppose to 
 possess superhuman sagacity — have the folly to 
 come forward in their own persons, and to propose 
 openly to a man such an absurd bargain : — to ofl:er 
 him wealth or some other worldly advantage, 
 avowedly in exchange for his soul, and with a 
 distinct agreement for the formal surrender of his 
 eternal salvation as the price to be paid ! 
 
 Too often, I fear, is such a wretched bargain, in 
 reality, made : but never, we may be sure, was it 
 openly proposed. Cheaply indeed, for the vile 
 dross of present gain or gratification, does Man 
 sometimes barter his eternal jewel, — his soul, in 
 exchange for which it would not (says our Lord) 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 153 
 
 "profit him if he should gain the whole World." 
 But no one, I conceive, would be so mad as to 
 agree to such a purchase if it were distinctly pro- 
 posed to him, and the real character of the transac- 
 tion explained. And still less can we suppose that a 
 subtle Tempter — a Being of superhuman intelli- 
 gence — would, with more than childish silliness, 
 openly avow his designs, and plainly lay before 
 men the ruin into which he designs to draw them. 
 And yet, on this point men have been so deluded — 
 deluded, we may suppose, by himself, the very 
 father of lies — as to attribute to Mrh those very 
 warnings — that very exposure of the naked truth, — 
 which the Scriptures represent as proceeding from 
 the God of mercy. It is that God who, by his 
 inspired messengers, sets before men, plainly, the 
 fatal consequences of transgi'ession, and shows them 
 what they are really doing when they violate his 
 laws. The tempter, on the contrary, is occupied in 
 doing the very reverse of what vulgar superstitions 
 attribute to him. He labours, as might have been 
 expected, to conceal, — to deny — to extenuate the 
 danger of sin, and to delude his victims into false 
 notions as to what it is they are doing. " Ye shall 
 not surely die," was his language to our first Pa- 
 rents. It was not Satan, but God, who had set 
 before them the real consequences of transgression. 
 And yet popular legends, and the belief of the 
 superstitious Vulgar, attribute to an Evil-spirit those 
 distinct warnings, and those plain declarations o.t 
 
154 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 tlie truth, which in reality proceed froip God Him- 
 self. 
 
 Again, what would a robber or an assassin give, 
 think you, for the power of making himself invisi- 
 ble ? As it is, they resort to the most secret hiding- 
 places, — they skulk in darkness, — they assume dis- 
 guises, — they use all contrivances (when about to 
 attack those they cannot overpower by open force) 
 to make their approaches unseen, unheard, and un- 
 suspected. But no one can doubt that if such men 
 had the power of becoming invisible, they would 
 not fail to use it for the perpetration of their crimes. 
 Never, certainly, would they, or do they, show them- 
 selves, voluntarily, so as to alarm into flight or re- 
 sistance those whom they wish to take by surprise. 
 And yet many popular tales are afloat among the 
 superstitious Vulgar, of Evil-spirits assuming a 
 bodily form, and openly appearing before men ; 
 sometimes, when presenting temptations to them, 
 sometimes in frightful shapes, as if on purpose to 
 alarm them.* They are popularly supposed to 
 dwell amid the fires of burning mountains, or to 
 haunt burying-grounds in the night-time, or to ap- 
 pear beside the death-beds, or the graves, of wicked 
 men, and to show themselves when invoked at mid- 
 night by fantastic conjurations and magical cere- 
 monies. And they are believed to confer on those 
 who thus apply to them, superhuman powers of 
 
 * The legend of the temptations of St. Antony (often taken 
 as a subject for painters) is one specimen out of many that 
 might be referred to. 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. lOO 
 
 witchcraft, in return for a formal renunciation of 
 their baptism, and surrender of their souls.* And 
 accordingly, in the darker Ages of the "World, (I 
 fear the superstition is not quite out of date, even 
 now, among some of the gross-minded and illiter- 
 ate,) many a harmless wretch was persecuted on 
 suspicion of thus "dealing with the Devil:" and 
 many a pretended fortune-teller or " cunning-man" 
 for his own profit, kept his foolish neighbours in 
 awe by countenancing this belief respecting his 
 own intercourse with "familiar-spirits." 
 
 In the darkest ages (and remnants of that dark- 
 ness may even now be met with) any great superi- 
 ority attained by any one, in Science or in Art, was 
 commonly attributed to a compact with the Evil- 
 One : any discovery, through the bounty of Provi- 
 dence, of a new Law of Nature, and of the beneficial 
 application of it in Medicine, or in any other art, 
 was ascribed to demoniacal agency. And men 
 have been found (even in the nineteenth century) 
 so weakly superstitious as to dread to avail them- 
 selves of such discoveries, and to employ the gifts 
 of Providence, lest they should unconsciously be 
 indebted to Satan. They are so ignorant of the 
 very first principles of morality as not to perceive 
 that the good or bad character of any act depends 
 on the intention of the agent. He who intends and 
 attempts to invoke the aid of evil demons, incurs 
 
 * There was in New England, not long after its settlement, a 
 sort of epidemic infatuation on this subject ; of which accounts 
 may be found in histories of that country. 
 
156 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 the same guilt, however absurd, and however fruit- 
 less, his incantations may he. And, on the other 
 hand, if we are intending to avail ourselves of God's 
 gifts, for good purposes, we should not he the less 
 his faithful servants, even supposing it true that He 
 sometimes compels evil Beings to further his bene- 
 ficent purposes. 
 
 But, according to those vulgar superstitions which 
 I have been alluding to, Beings supposed to possess 
 superhuman knowledge and cunning, are repre- 
 sented as taking the very way to defeat their own 
 object, by acting with such open simplicity and 
 childish folly, as we should at once perceive to be 
 utterly incredible if we were told it respecting any 
 evil-doer of our own feeble Race ! 
 
 Does it not then seem likely that these absurd 
 superstitions are contrivances of the great Enemy 
 himself, to draw off men's attention from real dan- 
 gers, by fixing it on imaginaiy ones? For, next 
 to the belief that there is no enemy at all to be 
 dreaded, the most likely way to put men off their 
 guard, is, to raise a false alarm, and occupy them 
 with empty and imaginary fears. Such, we well 
 know, is in war the procedure of any skilful gene- 
 ral; who always endeavours, by what is called a 
 feint, or false-attack, to draw off his enemy's forces 
 from the point really assailed. And such, we must 
 suppose, would be the natural and obvious proce- 
 dure of any kind of adversary, possessing intelligence 
 even only equal to that of an ordinary man. 
 
 In truth, it is not easy to account for the fact, that 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 157 
 
 men not destitute of common-sense in other matters, 
 should have been brought to believe anything so 
 silly and contradictory as many things which have 
 been believed, on this subject, unless we suppose 
 their minds deluded and bewildered by the devices 
 of the father of lies ; who will of course strive more 
 especially to mislead men in all that relates to him- 
 self. It certainly is not strange that he should 
 attempt — though it is truly wonderful he should 
 ever succeed in the attempt — to bring rational Be- 
 ings to such a pitch of superstitious credulity, as to 
 believe that Spirits of superior intelligence and 
 subtlety are foolish enough to avow their designs, 
 and to warn a man distinctly of the consequences 
 of what he is urged to do : and that they appear to 
 men in bodily form, and terrify them with horrid 
 shapes. If men can but be br'ought to entertain 
 such absurd notions as these, Satan will be least 
 dreaded, and least guarded against, when closest at 
 hand and most actively employed, unseen. 
 
 But common-sense will teach any one who will 
 but listen to it, when, and where, and how, Evil- 
 spirits are most actively employed. They are not 
 occupied with the dead corpses of bad men : with 
 these, Satan's work is already done. It is not with 
 the carcase of the dead sinner, but with the mind of 
 the living one that they are engaged. ISTor can a 
 man be secured from being made a prey by com- 
 mitting his mouldering clay to consecrated ground 
 after his death ; but by having, during his life-time, 
 a consecrated soul; — a "clean heart, and a right 
 14 
 
158 BRKORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 spirit within him :" not, by sheltering his lifeless 
 body, after his time of trial is past, within a Place 
 of Worship, which he respects as the Temple of 
 God; but by "offering himself a living sacrifice, 
 , holy, and acceptable to God," and making his body 
 while alive, a "living stone" of the "Temple of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 Let no one either hope, or fear, that the Devil is 
 to be raised in bodily shape, in the loneUness and 
 darkness of midnight, by fantastical conjurations 
 designed for that purpose. He can, indeed, be easily 
 raised; but not in that wa^. He and his agents 
 are indeed at hand when called on ; and they con- 
 tinually are called on, by those who are least think- 
 ing of them. But they do not assume a revolting 
 and alarming form. Satan himself "transforms 
 himself into an Angel of Light." He is ready un- 
 der any specious and alluring disguise ; and as soon 
 as one is seen through, or suspected, will resort to 
 another. It is not in darkness, and solitude, and 
 silence, that he is oftener at work than in the bustle 
 and business of cheerful day; — in the crowded 
 Market, and the revelling Fair, not less than in the 
 secret resorts of the thief, the adulterer, or the as- 
 sassin. The incantations which invoke him the 
 most effectually, are the songs and light talk of 
 drunkards, — the oaths and curses, and revilings of 
 the quarrelsome, — the insidious slanders of the 
 malicious, — the flattering and corrupting talk of 
 the seducer, — the lies and false professions of the 
 crafty and fraudulent. These, and such as these, 
 
SATANICAGBNCT. 159 
 
 corao out of tlie "evil treasure of an evil heart" 
 already corrupted through the devices of Satan; 
 and they give proof to him that his wiles are, thus 
 far, successful, and that he may advance to still 
 bolder and further attacks, till he has gained com- 
 plete dominion over the miserable heart which ad- 
 mits him, and which will become more and more 
 enslaved to the "unclean Spirit" within it, the 
 longer that dominion continues. 
 
 I have alluded to the superstitious notion that 
 men may be in some degree protected against the 
 power of the Evil-One by having their lifeless 
 corpses placed in some supposed holy spot. But 
 this is only one of a whole class of superstitions 
 tending the same M-ay. Of all superstitions, there 
 are none — as I have already remarked — more likely 
 to be devised and encouraged by the great Deceiver 
 than those that relate to himself; whether in the 
 way, just mentioned, of raising false alarms, or 
 again, of suggesting false means of protection 
 against him. Thus, besides the superstitious notion 
 now alluded to, we find, in the darkest Ages of the 
 Church, and in the most unenlightened districts, 
 various imaginaiy safeguards against the power of 
 evil-spirits, resorted to, and trusted to with absurd 
 credulity. Such are the sprinklings with holy 
 water, — the frequent crossings, — the muttering of 
 mystical forms of words, — charms written on slips 
 of parchment or paper, — relics of saints, — and the 
 like, which you must have heard of. 
 
 At one time men were led (as I pointed out in a 
 
160 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 former Lecture) to pay direct adoration to evil 
 demons as their gods. When this branch of super- 
 stition was overthrown by the Gospel, the next at- 
 tempt of the Enemy (and but too successful a one) 
 was to corrupt the Christian worship. The Founder 
 of our Faith, and his Apostles, taught men to " wor- 
 ship God in spirit and in truth," and thus to seek 
 aid against "the crafts and assaults of the Devil." 
 But he taught them to mutter exorcisms and pray- 
 ers in an unknown tongue. The Lord Jesus Him- 
 self, and the most eminent of his Disciples* are pro- 
 posed as examples for Christians to follow. "Was it 
 then by seeking to imitate the goodness of their 
 lives that their superstitious admirers in after Ages 
 sought (and alas ! still seek) protection from evil ? 
 1^0 ; but by carrying with them locks of their hair, 
 or shreds of their garments ! — not by seeking to 
 " crucify the Old Adam, which is corrupt according 
 to the deceitful lusts," but by bending in adoration 
 before chips of the supposed "true Cross;" as if 
 these things could have a spiritual efficacy ! 
 
 "Was it by studying the Holy Scriptures, " which 
 are able to make us wise unto salvation," that men 
 thought to be fortified against the power of the 
 "Wicked One ? 'So ; but by hanging round their 
 necks what are called " Gospels," i. e., slips of parch- 
 ment with passages of Scripture inscribed on them, 
 carefully folded up, and never meant to be read. 
 
 iN^ow if any one should be found, who thought to 
 
 * 1 Cor. iv. 16. 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 161 
 
 make a voyage in safety, by having on board the 
 ship a Chart of the coasts he was to pass, shut up 
 in a chest, and nevei* consulted;* or who should 
 think to support life without food, by carrying about 
 with him the figure of a loaf of bread carved in 
 stone ; or to recover his health by wearing round 
 his neck the prescription of a skilful physician, in- 
 stead of taking the medicine prescribed, we should 
 at once conclude him to be a madman or an idiot. 
 And yet he would be doing nothing more absurd 
 than those childish superstitions I have been allud- 
 ing to. 
 
 May we not reasonably conclude that it is by the 
 father of lies himself, that rational Beings have been 
 led into such surpassing folly ? 
 
 And now I would ask of you, in conclusion, one 
 question respecting all the remarks and reasons I 
 have laid before you, in this, and in some of the 
 foregoing Lectures, — not, certainly, for the sake of 
 inspiring vain terrors, or of gratifying idle curiosity, 
 
 * And let it be remembered that the Chart would be of no 
 more use to the Mariner than when shut up in a chest, if he 
 merely cast his eyes over it, without seeking to understand it, 
 or without steering his course by it. I mention this, because 
 there are some who think it a duty, and a pious act, to read, at 
 certain stated times, a Chapter of the Bible, without endeavour- 
 ing to learn anything from what they read, — without studying 
 to understand it, or to apply it to their own improvement. To 
 them the words of Scripture, whether in a strange language, or 
 in their own, are no more than empty sounds, or mere black 
 marks on white paper. 
 
 14* 
 
162 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 but with a view to your own safety, — to your eter- 
 nal welfare; I would ask you whether all that I 
 have been saying appears to you a matter of merri- 
 ment ? — something calculated to form a good joke, 
 and nothing more ? or whether it is a matter of 
 serious and of great importance ? 
 
 How common it is, you must well know, to find 
 Satan and his angels, and everything connected 
 with them, — including the " everlasting fire pre- 
 pared" for them and for those who are seduced by 
 them, considered as something ludicrous, — as some- 
 thing that can hardly be mentioned or ahuded to 
 with gravity, — as something that not only excites 
 mirth when incidentally referred to, but is even fre- 
 quently forced in, for the joke's sake, and made to 
 furnish a subject for pleasantry. 
 
 'Now surely this is a remarkable, and a strange 
 thing; for, generally speaking, right-minded per- 
 sons — all who have any pure sentiments and deli- 
 cacy of taste — are accustomed to regard wicked- 
 ness and misery as most unfit subjects for jesting. 
 They would be shocked at any one who should find 
 amusement in the ravage and slaughter perpetrated 
 by a licentious soldiery in a, conquered Country; or 
 in the lingering tortures inflicted by wild Indians 
 on their prisoners ; or in the burning of Heretics 
 under the Inquisition. Nay, the veiy Inquisitors 
 themselves, who have thought it their duty to prac- 
 tise such cruelties, would have been ashamed to be 
 thought so brutal as to regard the sufferings of their 
 victims as a subject of mirth. And any one who 
 
SATANIC AGENCY. 163 
 
 stould treat as a jest the crimes and cruelties of the 
 French Eevolutions, would generally be deemed 
 more depraved than even the perpetrators themselves. 
 
 Yet so it is — as you all probably know but too 
 well — that the wickedness, and the misery, past 
 and future, of evil-spirits, and of such of your fel- 
 low-creatures as are seduced by them, are commonly 
 treated as a jest ! 
 
 Now suppose a rational Being — an inhabitant 
 of some other Planet — could visit this our earth, 
 and witness the gaiety of heart with which Satan, 
 and his agents, and his victims, and the dreadful 
 doom reserved for them, and everything relating to 
 the subject, are, by many persons,- talked of, and 
 laughed at, and resorted to as a source of amuse- 
 ment, what inference would he be likely to draw ? 
 
 Doubtless, he would, at first, conclude that no 
 one believed anything of all this, but that we re- 
 garded the whole as a string of fables, like the hea- 
 then mythology, or the nursery-tales of fairies and 
 enchanters, which are told to amuse children. But 
 when he came to learn that these things are not 
 only true, but are actually believed by the far greater 
 part of those who nevertheless treat them as a sub- 
 ject of mirth, what would he think of us then ? He 
 would surely regard this as a most astounding proof 
 of the great art, and of the great influence of that 
 Evil Being who can have so far blinded men's un- 
 derstandings, and so depraved their moral senti- 
 ments, and so hardened their hearts, as to lead them, 
 not merel}' to regard with careless apathy their spi- 
 
164 ERRORS RELATIVE TO 
 
 ritual Enemy, and the dangers they are exposed to 
 from him, and the final ruin of his victims, but 
 even to find amusement in a subject of such surpass- 
 ing horror, and to introduce allusions to it by way 
 of a jest! 
 
 May God's Holy Spirit implant in you a more 
 Christian temper of mind, and more sober and ra- 
 tional thoughts, and more humane and purer senti- 
 ments ! May He deliver you from all those super- 
 stitious delusions with which the great Enemy of 
 Man seeks to mislead us, and to turn our attention 
 from real dangers, to false and imaginary alarms ! 
 And may you have grace to "watch and pray" as 
 you have need to do, " that you enter not into temp- 
 tation :" to watch in the right place, and to pray to 
 that all-powerful spiritual Friend who alone is able 
 to deliver and to guard us in every spiritual danger, 
 and who has promised to be at hand to all who earn- 
 estly seek Him ! 
 
 Note B. — I have thooght it necessary to subjoin a, few re- 
 marks (more than could have been inserted conveniently in the 
 Lecture) on the importance of endeavouring, and leading others 
 to endeavour, to comply with the apostolic precept to "be always 
 ready to give to every one that asketh us a reason of the hope 
 that is in us." ' For, besides the tendency in many persons to 
 save themselves the trouble of thought and study, on the plea 
 that " I am a believer, and I could be no more, by studying evi- 
 dences : I leave that to any one who may be in doubt," — besides 
 this, there are, in these days, an unusual number of persons 
 professing faith in the Gospel, and zeal for the reception of it, 
 who dread and deprecate nothing so much as an appeal to evi- 
 
 ' 1 Pet. iii. 15. 
 
NOTE E. 165 
 
 denoes in its support. They assail with the bitterest scorn any 
 one -who calls attention to this study ; they insinuate plainly 
 that the sacred Writers never appealed to evidence, but de- 
 mnnded assent, without any reason for it, to what they asserted. 
 And they assure us that inquiries of this kind are likely to lead 
 to infidelity ! 
 
 It seems never to have occurred to them that such an admis- 
 sion, coming from a professed friend to Christianity, tends more 
 to shake men's faith in it than all the attacks of all the avowed 
 infidels in the world put together. For, what would such a 
 writer say of some professed friend coming forward as his advo- 
 cate, and saying " my friend here is a veracious and worthy 
 man, and there is no foundation for any of the charges brought 
 against him ; and his integrity is fully believed in by persons 
 who thoroughly trust him, and who have never thought of rea- 
 soning or inquiring about his character at all : but, of all things, 
 do not make any investigation into his character ; for, the more 
 you inquire and examine, the less likely most people will be to 
 believe in his integrity !" 
 
 That such is the tone of some modern writers, not wanting in 
 ability and knowledge, may seem to some of my readers incre- 
 dible. I will therefore subjoin a specimen from a well-written 
 article in the Edinburgh Review, which will serve to give an idea 
 of the tone of such Writers as I allude to : 
 
 " The sacred writers have none of the timidity of their modern 
 apologists. They never sue for an assent to their doctrines, but 
 authoritatively command the acceptance of them. They de- 
 nounce unbelief as guilt, and insist on faith as a virtue of the 
 highest order. In their catholic invitations, the intellectual not 
 less than the social distinctions of mankind, are unheeded. Every 
 student of their writings is aware of these facts, &o. ***** 
 They presuppose that vigour of understanding may consist with 
 feebleness of reason ; and that the power of discriminating be- 
 tween religious truth and error does not depend chiefly on the 
 culture or on the exercise of the mere argumentative faculty. 
 The especial patrimony of the poor and illiterate — the Gospel — 
 has been the stay of countless millions who never framed a 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
168 NOTE E. 
 
 shelter in the woods, while the British troops stood firm under a 
 heavy fire, and repulsed the assailants. It was expected that 
 their Indian friends would have been full of admiration at this 
 display of superior valour ; but, on the contrary, their interpre- 
 tation of it was, that the British soldiers were such cowards 
 that they were too much frightened to run away. They despised 
 them as having lost all presence of mind, being utterly paralysed 
 with terror ! 
 
 But though shrinking from evidence and deprecating inquiry 
 do show timidity, the attempt is certainly a daring one, to re- 
 present the sacred Writers — whose Works are in every one's 
 hands — as offering no reasons for the faith they demanded. For 
 instance : - 
 
 " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
 and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed on Him." 
 
 " We know that thou art a teacher sent from God ; for no 
 man can do these miracles that thou doest escept God be with 
 him." 
 
 " If I had not done among them the works that none other 
 man did, they had not had sin." 
 
 " The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness 
 of me." 
 
 " Him God raised up and showed Him openly ; not to all the 
 people, but to witnesses chosen afore God, even to us," &o. 
 
 " To him bear all the Prophets witness." 
 
 " Be always ready to give to every one that asketh you, a rea- 
 son of the hope that is in you,'' &o. 
 
 And one might add many more passages to the same effect. 
 Yet all of these put together would give but a very inadequate 
 view of the constant appeal to evidence which is implied through- 
 out almost every narrative, or discourse, in the Sacred Books. 
 Whole nations, Jews and Gentiles, were invited to change their 
 religion (a step which the Writers I have been alluding to must 
 think always very censurable) at the bidding of one who passed 
 for " the carpenter's son" and of his followers, a few poor fisher- 
 men and peasants. That some reason mv^t have been offered 
 them for doing so, is self-evident. And when the Sacred Histo- 
 
NOTE E. 169 
 
 rians have plainly given us to understand that the appeal waa 
 made not \ti metaphysical speculations, but to miracles performed, 
 and prophecies fulfilled, there was no need to repeat continually 
 that such was the evidence offered. The whole narrative, and 
 all the discourses and epistles, manifestly proceed on that sup- 
 position. It is only incidentally, therefore, and occasionally, 
 that allusions are made to the evidences adduced, " concerning 
 Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing good, and Jiealing all 
 that were oppressed of the Devil," and to whom " all the Fro- 
 pheis bear witness." 
 
 Some of my readers may perhaps think that I have bestowed 
 on the passage alluded to, more time and attention than were 
 needed. But I must remind them that it is only taken as a 
 specimen of much that is said, in these days, in a lively and 
 specious style, and by persons professing zeal for Christianity. 
 Now, to be told by an avowed infidel that the more you inquire 
 into the grounds of your religion, the less likely you are to be- 
 lieve it, — is nothijig. But to have this strongly urged by 
 Writers (and those of no mean ability) who are apparently 
 anxious that the Gospel should be believed, is surely not un- 
 likely to mislead the unwary : especially when we recollect that 
 this Writer at least has, to all appearance, misled himself. For 
 he seems strongly convinced — if not of the truth of Christianity 
 — at least, of its utility to mankind. And yet he could not — as 
 I have said above — have done anything more calculated to shake 
 the faith of the generality of men. And if — as I there observed 
 — any persons had come forward to defend his character in such 
 a style, he would not have failed to exclaim " deliver me from 
 my friends, and I fear not my enemies !" 
 
 And moreover, the plan distinctly recommended by such 
 Writers as I have alluded to, is one which has been acted on, 
 and which has, in many instances, produced its deplorable 
 fruits, of various kinds. Men have been trained to adhere to 
 whatever religion they were brought up in, without having, or 
 seeking, any grounds for it, but that so they have been told ; 
 and all inquiry — all exercise of thought on religious subjects — 
 
 15 
 
170 NOTE E. 
 
 lias been discouraged. They have been exhorted to " hide under 
 a bushel !" the lamp of Reason which a kind ProvWence has 
 bestowed on Man. And what have been the results ? 
 
 Some — not a few — have listened to the idle tales of crazy en- 
 thusiasts, or crafty impostors, who gabbled unmeaning sounds, 
 which they profanely called " the gift of tongues ;" or who pre- 
 tended to have discovered in a cave a new Book of Scripture, 
 called the Book of Mormon, and which they assured their de- 
 luded followers contains a divine revelation. And they are 
 believed (why not ?) by those who have not only never heard 
 of any reason why our Scriptures should be received as contain- 
 ing a divine revelation, but have been taught that it is presump- 
 tuous to seek for any, and that they ought to believe whatever 
 is told them. 
 
 Others, again, have been strongly assured that the Traditions 
 of those who call themselves " the Catholic Church" are of equal 
 authority with Scripture. And this they believe because they 
 are earnestly assured of it ; which is the only ground they ever 
 had, or conceive themselves permitted to have, for believing 
 anything. 
 
 Others, again, when exposed to the seduction of infidels, find- 
 ing that tliese do urge something in the shape of arguments, and 
 that they have nothing to urge on the opposite side, conclude at 
 once that the religion they have been taught is a fable. For 
 they not only have been supplied by their religious instructors 
 with no " reason for their hope," but have even been assured by 
 them that all inquiry, and all exercise of their rational faculties 
 on the subject, will be likely to lead to infidelity ; which is, ap- 
 parently, an admission that the Christian System will not stand 
 examination. 
 
 I would earnestly entreat therefore any such teacher as those 
 I have alluded to, to imagine himself confronted, at the Day of 
 Judgment, with some of these misled people, and to consider 
 what answer he would make if these should reproach him with 
 the errors into which they have fallen. Let him conceive them 
 saying, " you have, through false and self-devised views of ex- 
 pediency, — in professed imitation of the Sacred Writers, but in 
 
NOTE E. 171 
 
 real contradiction of their practice, — sent forth us your weak 
 brethren, — made weal^er by yourself — as ' sheep among wolves,' 
 provided with the ' harmlessness of the dove,' but not, with ' the 
 wisdom of the serpent,' — unfurnished with the arms which 
 God's gifts, of Scripture and of Reason, would have supplied to 
 us, and purposely left naked to the assaults of various enemies. 
 Our blood is on your head ! You must be accountable for our 
 fall." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Angel, a person or iJiing, employed to make communications, 
 
 L. i. p. 15 ; Bishops formerly so called, ibid. Fallen, L. ii. p. 
 
 28 ; L. V. p. 90. 
 Bacchanalian, term derived from the name of a heathen god, 
 
 L. V. p. 86. 
 Beelzebub, a Philistine god, L. iv. p. 58. 
 Brutes could not imagine possession, L. vi. p. 111. 
 Buonaparte, History of, capable of being represented as a Myth, 
 
 L. iv. p. 71. 
 Cornelius instructed by an Angel, L. i. p. 20. 
 Credulity, what, L. iii. p. 44. 
 Demoniacal possession, L. vi. p. 103. 
 Demons, what, L. iv. p. 57 ; L. v. p. 80. 
 Devices, Satanic, mistakes respecting, L. viii. p. 149. 
 Devils, a mistranslation, L. iv. p. 57 ; L. v. p. 80. 
 Divines, supposed, learned, L. iv. p. 72. 
 Evidences, Christian, supposed danger from study of, L. viii 
 
 p. 164 (Note). 
 Evil, existence of, inexplicable, L. iv. p. 60 ; L. v. p. 93. 
 Example of Christ, L. vii. p. 125. 
 Fairies, heathen gods, L. v. p. 87. 
 Gods, pagan, what, L. v. p. 79. 
 Gnostics, what, L. vii. pp. 138, 140. 
 Heaven, preparation for, L. ii. p. 34. 
 Interpreters, their pretended explanations of miracles, L. iv. 
 
 p. 70. 
 Invocation, of Evil-spirits, what, L. viii. p. 158. 
 Jesus, temptation of, L. vii. p. 126. 
 Joking, in relation to diabolical agency, L. viii. p. 162. 
 Jovial, a term derived from the name of a heathen god, L. v. 
 
 p. 86. 
 Kelpies, heathen gods, L. v. p. 87. 
 Maniac, Gadarene, L. vi. p. 121. 
 
 15* (ITS) 
 
174 INDEX. 
 
 Martial, term derived from the name of a heathen god, L. v. 
 
 p. 86. 
 Message, Divine, what, L. iii. p. 50. 
 
 Miracles, explained away by some interpreters, L. iv. p. 70. 
 Mormon, tools; of, L. viii. p. 170. 
 Myth, history of Buonaparte capable of being so represented, 
 
 L. iv. p. 71. 
 Name, peculiar sense of, in Scripture, L. i. p. 16. 
 Nature, supposed Laws of, L. iii. p. 39. 
 Nicolaitaxs, what, L. vii. pp. 138, 140. 
 Nixes, heathen gods, L. v. p. 87. 
 Oracles, of the ancient Heathen, L. vi. p. 103. 
 Pagan, gods, what, L. v. p. 79 ; Worship, what, L. v. p. 85. 
 Pan, representations of Satan taken from, L. v. p. 84. 
 Persecution, principle of, L. vii. p. 141. 
 Person, a, more dreaded than a thing, L. v. p. 96. 
 Peter, when made an agent of Satan, L. vii. p. 184. 
 Philippi, soothsaying damsel at, L. vi. p. 103. 
 Pious-fraud, attributed to Jesus and the Apostles, L. vi. p. 107. 
 Pirates, Tale concerning, L. iv. 61. 
 Possession by Demons, believed in by the ancient Heathen, L. 
 
 vi. p. 103. 
 Revelation, object of, L. iv. p. 65. 
 Sadducees, disbelief in Angels, L. ii. p. 30. 
 Satan, distinctly declared to exist, L. iv. 77 ; Christ's victory 
 
 over, L. vi. p. 114; transformed, L. vii. p. 130 ; L. viii. p. 150. 
 Shepherds, announcement to, L. i. p. 23. 
 Signs, Israelites warned concerning, L. iii. 52. 
 Swine, miracle wrought on, L. vi. p, 111. 
 Temptation, of Jesus, L. vi. p. 121. 
 Theologians, pretended, L. iv. p. 70. 
 TiMiDiTT, alleged, in appealing to evidence, L. viii. p. 166. 
 Tongues, pretended gift of, L. vi. p. 110. 
 Vulgar-Errors, not encouraged by Jesus and his AposOes, L. 
 
 iv. pp. 66, 75. 
 Witchcraft, L. viii. p. 155. 
 
 Worship of created Beings, forbidden, L. i. pp. 17, 24. 
 Zacharias, his vision, L. i. p. 21. 
 
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