be shown when the Lord shall heal the breach of his people, has this promise: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of idols out of the land, and they shall be no more remembered: and also, I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirits to pass out of the land." Zech. xiii. 2. By what artifices these evil creatures opposed the work of God, we are, however, far more distinctly shown in the New Testament, where we find their nature, operations, and objects laid open in a wonderful manner by Him who came upon the strong man, took away his armour wherein he trusted, and divided his spoils.

One specimen of deep cunning is given in the very first instance, particularly related of a case of possession: it occurs in the eighth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel. "And when he was come to the other side of the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass that way. And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding; so the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out they went into the herd of swine: and behold the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." Here we see, first, the deprecatory cry of the fiends; acknowledging the omnipotence of the Lord, but pleading that the set time for tormenting them in the fiery pit was not yet come. They are good calculators of prophetic periods, and perfectly knew that their time on earth had not expired. Next, they made a request, the drift of which we could not have seen but for the effects that followed its success. They asked leave to enter the swine; blessed be God! Satan has no power even over unclean beasts, unless it be especially given of the Lord. Having permission, they instantly availed themselves of it by drowning every one of the herd in the sea; and by this manœuvre

they so alarmed the neighbouring inhabitants, who could expect no less from such a beginning than that the unknown visiter would destroy all their property, as to prompt a general request that he would depart out of their coasts. Thus for the time, was the dreaded gospel averted from a whole city, by the exceeding craft of these devils; and in permitting their vile contrivance to succeed, the Lord mercifully provided a rich warning lesson for his church, to the end of time. May we all have grace to use it effectually in our wrestling contest with the principalities and powers of darkness!

Another mode of undermining where they durst not openly attack, was prac tised against the teaching of the Apostles. In Acts xvi. 16, we have the account. "And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying; the same followed Paul and us, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this she did many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour." In this, as in the preceding case, the devil's device is shown by its fruits. His object in thus following and publicly testifying to the divine origin of the Apostle's teaching was probably two-fold. While allowed to continue it, he might expect to cast a slur on the doctrine in which a devil could thus approvingly seem to acquiesce, while a professed witch appeared as a daily follower of those who taught it; and if he provoked them to expel him, he might justly calculate on the vengeance of her masters, which overtook them immediately, and before night they were scourged, imprisoned, and made fast in the stocks. Seeing that all this was through the cunning of a devil, it is peculiarly delightful to proceed in the story, and find the whole overruled of God to the conversion of the keeper of the prison, and all his household, the shame of the unjust magistrates who had beaten them, and the honourable acquittal and dismission of the Apostles from the place; where, no doubt, events so extraordinary

were blessed to the conviction of many; the church at Philippi being, as we find by his epistle to it, an especial cause of thankfulness and joy to Paul.

Another instance had previously occurred, where a sorcerer, one who avowedly held communion with evil spirits, and through their workings in him merited the severe rebuke, "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness," had endeavoured to turn away a Roman deputy from the faith; and here the Lord manifested himself by showing that all the sorceries of Elymas, and his pretended sanctity, could not avert from him the stroke of instant blindness, which, to mark it as a direct visitation from on high, was announced by Paul the moment before he overtook him; and this wonder confirmed the deputy in the faith. Acts xiii. 6-12. One more instance we have in Simon Magus, who was also a sorcerer, and who seemed to have been delivered from the dominion of evil spirits, by the preaching of the gospel, being able to make such a confession of faith as entitled him to baptism. In him the devil sought to bring a deadly disgrace on the Church of Christ, by obtaining the power of conferring the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost on whomsoever he would; or if the idea of being able to buy the gift of God with money appear too foolish to have been really entertained by a spiritual being, we may suppose that he calculated on making the very proposal, from a professed worshipper, redound to the disadvantage of that church. In either case he was baffled. Peter was enabled to "perceive" that this seeming convert was still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity, and rebuked him openly; while the record of the attempt serves to this day as an invaluable preservative against certain unscriptural views of baptism that have crept into the church.

By considering in how many instances under the Old Testament dispensation, characters appeared, and events occurred parallel to these which meet us under the clearer light of the New, we may trace such hindrances and stumblings among the saints of old to the deep-laid plots of the rulers of the darkness of this world; and by such an enlarged view of the ene

my's sphere of action, we may learn to be more earnest in praying that "all those evils which the craft and subtlety of the devil or man worketh against us may be brought to naught;" and may also become more watchfully alert in seeking to baffle his devices.

SECTION V.

SATANIC CRUELTY.

It seems almost superfluous to devote a section to this subject, seeing that everything we can name respecting Satan and his angels, comes under the head of cruelty. From the first attempt of the devil to seduce Eve from her allegiance, his object has always been to plunge the whole human race into the bottomless pit, which he knows to be his own portion, "the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Rev. xxi. 8. But though he generally tempts men with the promise, or possession of present enjoyment, alluring them to sell their souls for worldly profit, still, whenever he can have his own way, he produces present calamities, and heaps upon his wretched victims tribulation and anguish as well in possession as in prospect.

On many occasions noted in the scripture, God, by his own arm, or by his holy angels, has punished the transgressor; but we find him in the majority of instances, giving offenders into the hand of Satan, or of wicked men who act under his influence, for punishment. It is mentioned by the Psalmist, though not by Moses, that among the inflictions dealt forth to the tyrannic Egyptians, this was the greatest; and the force of the expres sion is very remarkable: after detailing the plagues of blood, of flies, of frogs, of caterpillars, of locusts, of hail, frost, and thunderbolts, the inspired writer goes on:

'He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them." Psalm lxxviii. 49. When Satan sends an evil angel, he will sorely afflict the object of his mission; but when God looses the restraints of these malignant

however, that on giving proof of very deep sorrow, and unfeigned repentance, the transgressor was received again, after experiencing, no doubt, for a time, what it was to be under the temporal power of the evil one. Another case of this sort is also mentioned by the same apostle. "Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck; of whom is Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." 1 Tim. i. 19, 20. It would appear from this, that a temporary endurance of the devil's power is sometimes seen needful for the perverse children of God, in order to terrify them by the foretaste of what an eternal subjection to so cruel a master must be: and Satan knows the length of his chain, he is probably quite aware when correction, not destruction, is all that he is licensed to inflict. Accordingly he makes the most of his time, not lulling and soothing them in their guilt, as with those who are wholly his own, but striving, as he did with Job, to render them desperate under the rod, that they may either run into despairing sin, curse God, and die," or else, as was near being the case with the Corinthian offender, may utterly faint and perish, being "swallowed up of overmuch sorrow." The Bible does not specify the particular cruelties practised under various forms of idolatry; but from what is perpetrated in the dark places of the earth at this day, we may judge of Satan's habitual proceedings among his worshippers. Human sacrifices, accompanied with circumstances of most horrible barbarity, are common in many parts of the world: mothers are required to butcher their tender infants, children their aged parents, and vast numbers of all ages are frequently put to death, as an offering to the spirit of a deceased ruler, or to be attendants on his soul in another world. Self-immolation is enforced as a sacred duty; and if not willingly performed, the reluctant victim is murdered. On harmless animals most cruel tortures, are inflicted, as an acceptable service to the devils whom the heathen seek to propitiate; and in that nominally Christian system, of which the "coming is after the working of Satan," (2 Thess. ii. 9,)

and its distinguishing requirements "doctrines of devils," (1 Tim. iv. 1,) we find the Satanic feature of wanton cruelty developed in full deformity. The rack is its main instrument of conversion to an idolatrous faith; and the flames its award to such as will not venture to encounter everlasting burnings. Massacre on a scale only bounded by the number of its defenceless victims, and the limits of its physical power, persecution, to the utmost stretch of human endurance, these are the lot of its opponents; while for the members of its own system it has the discipline of the scourge, of famishing hunger, of bodily austerity in every imaginable shape; and a merciless rending apart of every tie that God has formed to sweeten the cup of human life. In all this we should recognise the cruel hand of him who was a murderer from the beginning, even had not the word of God so distinctly set him forth as the framer and upholder of Popery, as to warrant our numbering among Scripture evidences, what the prophetic page describes in the passages already quoted from St. Paul; and in those of John, when describing the Beast which he saw rising out of the sea. He says, "The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority." Rev. xiii. 2. In the preceding chapter we are told (ver. 9) that the dragon is "that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:" and again, of the Beast to whom he gave his power, it is written, "It was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them," xiii. 7. The predictions of the Bible are no less certain than its historical relations; and if we desire an instance of the sustained cruelty of Satan, manifested through a space of twelve hundred years and upwards, not among barbarous people who never heard of the true God, but in the heart, and throughout the extent of Christendom, we must look at Poperythe Babylon of prophecy, concerning whom it is said, "Babylon the great . . . is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Rev. xviii. 2.

The cases of those possessed with devils is represented as being nearly always one