or subjects self-will, but based upon force and fear, and upon their common opposition to God and his kingdom. And in this community the selfishness which fills all their souls, may, to a certain degree, find its advantage in being strengthened by the coöperation of numbers; and that, too, without any one of the body ceasing to make himself the centre of all his efforts, or to believe himself impeded and injured by every other one. Thus each member of the community will envy and hate every other one as a rival and a foe.

The devil is usually conceived of as a being who, before his fall, had a high rank, if not the highest, in the angelic orders; and who fell together with the whole body of angels that was under his authority; or, after his fall, enticed them to follow him." 1 But since this conception has no direct warrant from Scripture, one might be led to see in it a deduction from or an allusion to an opinion that was perhaps only dimly conceived, that an organized society of evil spirits had something in its very idea inconsistent with supreme evil and selfishness, and on this account was only to be derived from their earlier condition, was to be considered only as the remains or effect of their primitive relations. True, however, as it is, that no upright and enduring association can be conceived of among those that are only evil; because such a fellowship presupposes that the strife of individual interests is harmonized, either subjectively by love, or objectively by subordination to a higher law; yet an external and limited union, as experience teaches, may, to a degree, promote the interests of selfishness itself. But the general rule, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Matt. 12: 25, 26), must hold good in respect of the realm of evil spirits.

Everything in this world that is opposed to the divine holiness and goodness, all sin and death, evil and misery, is connected with this kingdom of darkness, and is referred to the agency of the devil. This agency reaches its highest grade in bodily and spiritual possessions (obsessio corporalis et spiritualis); the former manifests itself in those disturbed states of the mind and that perverted use of the bodily organs, which are well known from the

1 Comp. Thomas Aquinas, Summ. I. qu. 63. art. 7-" Since the sin of the angel must have proceeded from freedom of will, it is agreeable to reason, that the chief angel among the sinners should have been chief among all angels ;" and in art. 8" The sin of the first angel was, to the others, the cause of their sinning; not indeed compelling, but inducing, in the way of persuasion." Hollaz, De Angelis malis, qu. 26—“ It is probable that the evil angels fell under some leader or chief."

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In what sense Men are possessed by the Devil. biblical narratives; the latter shows itself in such a fearful predominance of evil, that all holiness and goodness are voluntarily renounced, and the man abandons himself wholly to the power of the devil, as did Judas when he betrayed his Master (John 13: 27). In reference to the kingdom of Christ, the agency of the devil is especially shown in Antichrist, (1 John 2: 18. 2 Thess. 2: 4 seq. Rev. xii. seq.) In many other ways are Christians exhorted to contend against him and his fatal influences, (1 Pet. 5: 8. Ephes. 5: 11 seq.) For although the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3: 8), and though he is actually said to have broken this power (John 12: 31); yet this can only be understood to mean, that through Him victory is certain to us, and that that wicked one cannot touch him that is begotten of God, (1 John 5: 18); but the position that all agency or influence of the devil has thus come to an end, is by no means the doctrine of the Scriptures.

But how are we to define this agency? How important this question is; and how necessary in answering it to rely only upon the express declarations of the Bible; and how dangerous it is, instead of holding fast to what can be strictly proved, to look upon what is only not impossible as being credible;1 of all this, the

1 Even a Buddeus, (Institt. L. II. cp. II. § 39) could defend the vulgar belief in witches in such wise as the following! "Since spirit is an immaterial substance, endowed with intellect and will, and also with the power of moving bodies and performing various operations, there is nothing at all to prevent us from supposing, that spirits of this kind can manifest themselves to men in some way, can appear to them in a bodily form, speak with them, make compacts, promise, and out of favor to them perform what were otherwise beyond human powers. I do not indeed assert that all magicians enter into an explicit compact with a malign spirit, but yet I do not see what hinders, two spiritual substances, of whom the one that is invisible may manifest himself to the other in some way, of being somehow able to declare mutual consent, and to make mutual promises. It is indeed foolish and absurd to enter into compacts with spirits of this sort, with whom men can have no righteous fellowship; it is foolish to trust to their agreements and promises; yea, it is impious to desire the aid of malign spirits; but all these things do not prevent the possibility of men's making compacts with spirits manifesting themselves in a certain way, and using their assistance." He does indeed find it necessary to go on and show that what is not impossible has sometimes occurred, and for that purpose he appeals to the Egyptian sorcerers (Exod. 7: 12), to the prohibition in Deut. 18: 10, to the familiar spirit of the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28: 7), to the slave at Philippi (Acts 16: 16), to the signs of the false prophets (Deut. 13: 1. Matt. 24: 24), and to the accusations of the Pharisees (Matt. 9: 34. 12:24). But he does not seem to have remembered, that it is nowhere taught that such arts were obtained by means of a compact concluded with the devil, or how this was done; but that,

church has had most sad experience, in the frightful consequences of the superstitious belief, that men could personally come into contact and compact with the devil, and thus become possessed of his supernatural powers. It excites horror to reckon up

the number of sacrifices that have fallen in the seventeenth century alone, to a theory like that contained in Debrio's Disquisitiones Magicae. All honor, therefore, to a Friederich Spee, who among the Catholics opposed that terrible superficiality with which the accusations of witchcraft were conducted; and to a Balthasar Becker and a Thomasius, among the Protestants, who fought against the superstition on which the trials were based! And although the argument against this superstition, especially in Becker's work,2 was not always conducted on the most tenable grounds, nor with a careful limitation to what was decidedly false and exceptionable, yet should we never forget the thankfulness due to those who have dissipated so hurtful, and we may say, so disgraceful an error. But after the old demonological notions were undermined, and room made for a more unprejudiced judgment of these subjects, a judgment that should not, without necessity, undervalue the principles of an intelligible philosophy of physical causes, it could not long fail, but that the doubts raised against the continuance of satanic agency, and especially of diabolic possessions, should likewise be applied to the narratives of Holy Scripture. Among the German theologians, it was espe

on the contrary, a veil is thrown over these manifestations, which the Bible has not lifted up, and probably would not have us remove; and that it is better to acknowledge our ignorance, than to fill out the gaps with the possibilities of an arbitrary fancy, or of mere prejudice.

Extracts from this, as well as from Friedrich Spee's Cautio Criminalis, s. de processibus contra sages ab magistratus Germaniae, are given by Semler, in the third volume of his instructive Extracts from Church History, p. 417 seq.

2 Becker, in his "Enchanted World," denied to the devil all operations upon the world of sense. For this position he relied in part upon the Cartesian notion of spirit, as a substantia cogitans, which, according to the system of Occa sionalism, could only act upon bodies through God's intervention, which in this case unquestionably could not be assumed. He likewise, from the passages in 2 Pet. 2: 4, and Jude 6 (referred to above, Bib. Sacra, Vol. I. p. 793) made the inference, that the evil spirits incarcerated in Tartarus could not possibly act upon the world. But he allowed himself to make a most violent interpretation of all the passages of Scripture that appeared to attribute to them such an agency. Comp. Brucker's Histor. crit. Philosophiae, tom. IV. P. II. p. 712 seq. Walch's Religionsstreit ausserhalb der Luth. Kirche, Th. III. p. 930

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cially Semler, not uninfluenced by new abuses,1 who effected the introduction of the view, which since his time has been widely diffused, that the demoniacs of the New Testament were only persons suffering under peculiar maladies, as frenzy, convulsions, and epilepsy; and that such disordered states in ancient times, and especially by the superstition of the contemporaries of Jesus, were explained by the supposition of demoniacal possessions. And indeed when we perceive that all the symptoms manifested in these demoniacs, as well as the names usually given to them in the New Testament, are not essentially different from those which we unhesitatingly attribute to disordered states of the body or the soul, when occurring in other authors or in our own experience; we might find it difficult, when they are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, to determine to assume wholly different causes to account for the same effects. But the question would still remain, whether we are not restrained from doing this by the way in which not only the people and the demoniacs, and not only the Evangelists, but also our Saviour himself speaks respecting them. We might perhaps assume that this was only a way of speaking about them, of which one might make use without intending to allude to or participate in the notions from which the phrases were originally derived, if the name demoniacs (dauorisoμeroi) occurred in as isolated a manner as, for example, the name lunatics (oelratóuevo); but this is inconsistent with the repeated and emphatic way in which the demons themselves (dauorio), and their connection with the sufferers, with Christ and with their own chief (Luke 11: 15), are spoken of in the New Testament. And we might perhaps adopt the theory that Jesus only accommodated his language to the prevalent views of the people, although aware of their utter groundlessness, in order perhaps to heal the diseases more certainly, without giving any offence to the people, or in order not to expend the time and powers, which should be dedicated to their religious instruction, in the correction of mere physiological errors, which had no strict connection with

1 By the experiences of one Lohman, said to be possessed, published by G. Maller, which gave occasion to Semler to write his "Abfertigung der neuen Geister und alten Irrthümer in der Lohmannischen Begeisterung zu Kemberg," 1760. After this followed his famous dissertation, De daemoniaeis quorum in erangg. sit mentio, 1760, and the defence of it in his " Umstädliche Untersuchung der dämonischen Leute,” 1762. By Semler, too, the work of the Englishman, Farmer, on the Demoniacs of the New Testament (translated by v. Cölln), was introduced to the German public, as also a new translation of Becker's "Enchanted World."

his appointed work, if the question were about a very harmless opinion in physics, wholly foreign to religious considerations, and liable to no perverted application. But this view cannot be maintained in respect to a superstition which, as all admit, is anything but harmless, and which our Saviour would, on prudential grounds, have had less reason to spare, since he was certain of the applause of the school of the Sadducees, if he attacked it. In other matters, through mere fear of giving offence, even where the interests of true religion might seem to be threatened, (for example, in respect to the observance of the Sabbath!), we do not find him so forbearing towards errors and prejudices; but of the demons he discourses to his disciples as he does to the people (Matt. 17: 21), and expressly connects the power which he and they exercise over them, with his Messianic functions, (Matt. 12:28, 29. Luke 10:17-19). Accordingly, we cannot believe that those views were absolutely false and opposed to the true religion; for then we should be compelled to ascribe to Jesus an error in religious matters. The times, and the people in the midst of whom Jesus lived and discoursed, may have had a determining influence upon the form and drapery of expression; but some essential truths must have lain at the foundation. Are we then, it may be objected, compelled to give up all the results of that more free and unembarrassed observation of nature and of physical effects and changes, which the scientific spirit and culture of our times are said to have produced, and which are to be considered as on the whole a real gain, although some of its fruits seem to many to be objectionable? But why this? Do, then, these two propositions logically exclude one another, viz., that such phenomena were diseases-and that in them was also manifested a satanic influence, as Göthe says, "a part of that power which is ever willing evil, yet ever creating good?" Is it irrational to regard disease in general, or certain species of it, although on the one hand to be considered as something natural and proceeding according to well known physical laws, yet, on

1 Mephistopheles in Göthe's Faust-Whether what is here in an abstract way called a part of a certain power, be not, perhaps, in the notion of demons personified in a popular way, and whether the mode in which our Saviour spoke of them be not an example of that merely formal accommodation, which we may attribute to Jesus, and which was occasioned by his speaking to men in such a stage of culture that the abstract expression was strange and unintelligible, while the personification was natural;-this is a question worthy of discussion, and it may serve as an example of the difference we have alluded to between the drapery of the expression, and the truth lying at the foundation.