red, than by a more explicit and circuitous mode of speaking. Every one understands what is meant ; no one ever supposes that the individual named as the representative of the whole body over which he presides, is really omnipresent, or himself personally the author of all that is done; not the smallest confusion arises from this practice of imputing the multifarious operations of thousands to one superior. Now, supposing the existence of such an evil spirit as Satan, where is the impropriety of ascribing to him, as the chief of infernal spirits, the great source and promoter of wickedness on earth, all the evil that is in fact executed by the multitudes that obey his influence and belong to his empire? Nor does any just objection arise against the Divine benignity, from the vast and baleful influence of Satan. How is it inconsistent with the benevolence of God, that He leaves Satan to pursue his own evil designs? The numerous and severe difficul ties that beset the path of religion in no degree impair our conviction either of the importance of religion, or of the Divine benevolence: those difficulties arise from our fallen and depraved nature, and they must remain until the cause is removed. Apply this principle to the mischief of Satan, as not inconsistent with the goodness of God: it would not be supposed to disparage the paternal tenderness of the prince of any country, that, notwithstanding the excellence and bless. ings of his government, there existed in his dominions a tract infested with robbers.

I proceed to notice the principal modes of misinterpreting the Scriptures on the subject before us, the most frequent sophistries by which it has been attempted to evade the doctrine of Satan's existence and personality. It is impossible here to advert to all the passages of Scripture, or all the glosses that have been invented: the examination of a few of each will serve as a key to unlock similar difficulties. The most general evasion employed to displace the existence of Satan is, that in most instances where he is mentioned, it is not a real existence, not a personal agent that is intended, but merely a personification of the principle of evil, according to a well-known figure of speech. A personification, or prosopopia (you need scarcely be reminded), is that figure of speech by which person, voice, agency, are ascribed to the conceptions and abstractions of the mind, for the purpose of greater animation and vividness. especially in the productions of eloquence and poetry. In the book of Job this figure is copiously employed: we meet with personifications there of death, the deep, the height, wisdom, and the like: "Where is the place of wisdom? the deep says, It is not in me; and the height says, It is not in me; death, and the plague, and famine say, We have heard the fame thereof." Here is abundance of personification, yet there is no obscurity here: who is there that does not understand that the language is merely designed for poetic animation and effect? Accordingly, this figure is always introduced in the most impassioned parts, and never with propriety when the discourse is evidently calm and temperate; it would be harsh and unnatural, unless the hearer were supposed to be wrought up to a degree of enthusiasm. But where

Satan is mentioned in the Scriptures, the style is usually of the gravest and most unimpassioned character yet, in the midst of such a style, this figure (as Unitarians suppose) is quite as frequent as in the poetical parts. For example, in 1 John, iii., 8, “He that committeth sin is of the devil;* for the devil sinneth from the beginning." Try he Unitarian hypothesis on this passage, and see what the result will prove; substituting the principle of evil for the devil, we obtain this proposition: "The principle of evil, that is, sin, sinneth from the beginning" what can be more strange, what more futile and trivial, than to assert that sin sins? and this rendered yet more inexplicable by the addition" from the beginning!" But take the words in their nat ural import, understand that "Satan sinneth from the beginning," and there is meaning in the passage: from the period of his first rebellion against God, or from that of his first temptation of man, he has been the author of all sin, and all sinners evince themselves his children. Again, in John, viii., our Saviour says to the Pharisees, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye do: when he speaketh of a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it:" where Jesus Christ himself (to speak it with reverence) must be supposed to trifle even more than his apostle, if we take the principle of evil for the father of lies who speaketh of his own in lying but in the natural meaning of the words, He gives us a most important piece of information; namely, that the devil corrupted mankind in their spring and fountain, and that falsehood is the essence of his character: this enlarges the sphere of our knowledge, opening to us an awful view of our great adversary, and utterly avoids the egregious trifling just referred to, so unworthy the dignified wisdom of God! Jesus Christ came that we might believe his communications : if the Unitarian interpretation of such a passage is to be believed, it remains no doubt equally certain that we must believe it, but the importance of the truth communicated is strangely reversed!

In Eph., vi., the apostle exhorts his brethren to "put on the whole armour of God, that they might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; for we wrestle not (says he) against flesh and blood, but against principalities," &c.; in which passage he denies something, and he affirms something; he first sets aside "flesh and blood" as the chief enemy of our salvation; where none will deny that he means by "flesh and blood," human beings: as when our Saviour says to Peter, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father in heaven" the apostle, then, declares that men were not the most prominent enemies of our salvation; but that these were to be found in beings of a higher order, in "principalities, powers, the rulers of darkness, spirits of wickedness." How are we to apply the principle of evil here? It is not to be applied here, we are told, as, indeed, it cannot be, since the principalities spoken of are in the plural number, but the principle of evil is one. The answer, therefore, in this case is, that by these principalities we are to understand the Jewish and

That is (as the context implies), born of the devil

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66

the pagan magistrates, as opposed to the rising Church of Christ. But these are either " flesh and blood," or they are nothing: they are either a part of the human race, or they have no existence at all. Thus the apostle sets aside men, that he may place men in their stead! thus the principalities in question are evidently "not flesh and blood," according to the apostle, and they as evidently are "flesh and blood," according to common sense!*

Lastly, with regard to the text itself; in adverting to which, it is far from my intention to detain you by a discussion of the circumstances of the temptation which it records. Waving all remark of that kind, I would merely observe, that, in the temptation, Christ and the devil are the only two persons concerned; they are left alone together; there is no room for the hypothesis of Jewish or pagan magistrates here; we must resort once more to the principle of evil; either the devil was a real person, or the principle of evil. But evil is an abstract quality, an attribute, a property, not to be conceived existing apart from some being to whom it may adhere; it is necessarily a modification of character and mind: in the present instance, this character must be that of Jesus Christ himself, since we have no choice of any other. Satan vanishes away in the principle of evil, and Jesus Christ is left alone. But the principle of evil is always and essentially evil; and, therefore, Jesus Christ must be the same! The principle of evil is the fountain of all evils; and, therefore, such is Jesus Christ! whatever is said in other passages of Scripture concerning the principle of evil, must be applied equally to Jesus Christ! But are any who profess themselves followers of the spotless Lamb of God, prepared for such a doctrine as this? prepared to identify universal, invariable, essential evil with Him who did no sin, Him in whom Satan could find nothing, Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners!" yet He, on the Unitarian ground, must be viewed as the principle of evil! No wonder those who take that ground have not hesitated to insinuate that, however blameless our Lord's public deportment, we know nothing of his private and secret character.

Let me notice, before I conclude, one remaining objection to this fallacious and injurious hypothesis: namely, that whenever the figure of personification is used, the word employed to personify the object is the same word which denotes the object personified. Suppose the personification to be that of philanthropy, no one would ever think of employing any other word than philanthropy itself. It is not an enigmatical mode of speech: it is expressly designed to iHuminate and enforce the idea conveyed; but to substitute another word would tend only to darken the sense and destroy the impression. Why, then, should an ambiguous alteration of the term be employed in the case before us? Why should we suppose sin to be personified by Satan? Critical disquisitions without number have been written upon various other peculiarities of language; but was there ever a question raised

A felicitous example of reductio ad absurdum. That which succeeds in the next paragraph is yet more admirable.-GRINFIELD.

'concerning a prosopopoeia, whether a personification was or was not one, since the world began? Can it be conceived, that after ages in which never was a suspicion of such a figure being so used as it is now pretended by some, the mystery was reserved to be detected at last by a class of persons, certainly not superior in learning or intellect to all besides themselves, and, with regard to their paucity of numbers, perfectly insignificant? and this, when we know that the figure is one that requires always to discover itself in the clearest, broadest light, so that he that runs may read it?" No grosser violation can well be invented of the most established laws of human thought and composition; nothing more decidedly at war with language; from the first age of the Christian Church to the end of time.

If the word of God is really to be received as such, do not hesitate, my dear brethren, to yield yourselves to the fullest assent here! This is no doctrine obscurely or scantily intimated: it pervades the whole mass of Scripture, floats upon the surface of revelation; it is impossible to escape it, mixed up as it is with all the exhortations and cau. tions of Christ and the apostles-the doctrine that there is a great evil being, who has acquired a vast and a fatal ascendency over this lapsed world of mankind! But if this is a true, a certain doctrine, it places the doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ in a most affecting light. Can you remain unconcerned, or but faintly interested, in that salvaFor while you, tion, which moves at once earth, heaven, and hell? as sinners here on earth, are the peculiar subjects of human redemption, we know of no other concern that finds place in heaven or hell. All are divided by God as subjects either of Christ or of Satan.

Satan has his empire in darkness; there he reigns and revels; there he meditates his deadly devices, and casts his fiery darts against the souls of men; while he triumphs in the fatal security of those unhappy multitudes who, engrossed with vanity and sin, yield themselves an easy prey to his temptations! like the strong man whose goods were in safety, while he remained unmolested by one stronger than himself. But Jesus Christ has come to disarm and destroy Satan; He is come as a new King, a new Master; He has brought in new And light, and established a new dominion over the hearts of men. will you for a moment hesitate whose you are, and whom you serve? undetermined whether you will enlist under the banner of Christ or of Satan? whether you will take part with the great author of apostacy and misery, or walk with the blessed Jesus? Open your eyes, my dear brethren, to see the infatuation of mind, the hardness of heart, the pollution, the despair, the tyranny of overbearing passions and guilty terrors," the carnal mind, enmity against God," under which the captives of Satan labour! Open your eyes, to see Jesus Christ come to pass an act of complete oblivion for all your offences, come to offer a perfect refuge from the wrath of God, a perfect armour against the assaults or artifices of the devil! Embrace Him, and you are rescued from Satan; He will bruise Satan under your feet shortly! He will restore you to your lost inheritance; and cause an eternal paradise, in the place of that which you have lost, to spring up within your

heart! His gospel comes, that you may be washed, sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God! Consider the worth of your soul, when it is the prize at stake between heaven and hell! Angels are looking down with anxiety and agitation (if these can be known in heaven) on the issue of this awful contest! Satan and the powers of darkness are perpetually on the watch, and struggling to retain you as their wretched victims! Whenever you are tempted to sin, view it as marked with all the characters of diabolic malice! In every instance in which you yield to sin, remember that you are only riveting your fetters! rejoicing your grand enemy! and sinking with him into the abyss of hopeless ruin! hold, now is the accepted time!" Let it be yours to give yourself to Christ, the Good Shepherd, who stands with outstretched arms ready to receive every returning wanderer! As there is joy in hell over every sinner deluded to his ruin, so is there joy in heaven, a reflection of the joy of the Saviour, and the love of God, over every sinner that repents! Make haste to occasion this celestial joy! Make haste to escape from that kingdom of darkness and horror! It is a lost kingdom! it is a blasted kingdom! and those who die within its confines must have their portion forever with the devil and his angels'

"Be

LXXII.

THE DIVINE PROMISES.*

2 CORINTHIANS, i., 20: All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us.

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Thursday evening, February 11, 1830, preparatory to the Lord's Supper.]

IN connexion with these words, the apostle is vindicating himself from the charge of inconstancy, in reference to his having formed a purpose which he had not fulfilled, of paying a second visit to the Corinthians. Such, however, was the spirituality of his mind, that he quickly turns from himself to the constancy of God in that gospel which contains the surest of all promises. As he had to do with a religion "full of truth, as well as of grace," so he desired to be sincere in his own conduct. He represents the Divine promises as all centring in Christ. In considering his words, selected as the text, we may notice, first, some of the chief of these promises; secondly, their certainty; and, thirdly, the end to which they are directed, "the glory of God."

I. The promises of God are very various. In general, they respect either this world or the next.

1. The great promise, as to the next world, is that of eternal

From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.