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Demoniacal Influence-in what sense Natural.

119

the other hand, as an effect of that evil principle which has brought even into nature the seeds of disorder and destruction, in consequence of which we see the very powers of physical life conflicting with and grating against one another? This view would be most readily suggested wherever, and in proportion as, the natural causes are hidden from us; or where nature seems to be under the dominion of an overwhelming power which drives it, as it were, out of its regular course; and where the soul seems to be violently hurried away to words, deeds and thoughts, that correspond with another (be it real or fancied), and not with its own personality. It is now chiefly such cases as these, that are referred to demoniacal influences, and in healing them Christ is recognized as the Conqueror of the devil and his works. But this does not prevent us from also considering them as natural occurrences, in the same sense as sickness, although unnatural, can be and is called natural.

The Scriptures appear to confirm this view.. It has been justly remarked that not only does the expression, "to have a devil," mean the same as to rave, to be crazy (Matt. 11: 18. John 7: 20. 10: 20); but that it is also said of one from whom the devils have departed, that he had become rational, was in his right mind (Mark 5: 15. Luke 8: 35); that, as the demoniacs are included among the sick, and their deliverance from the demon is described as a healing (Matt. 6: 24. Acts 10: 38); so, likewise, a spirit of infirmity is ascribed to a woman who was merely bowed down, and the word of the Lord, Be loosed from thine infirmity! is exhibited as a loosing of the bonds with which Satan had bound her (Luke 13: 11-16). It was not an error to conclude from this that demoniacs were sick people; only, on the other hand, it should not have been forgotten, that according to Scripture, there must have existed a connection of the disease, or at least of certain kinds of disease, with the realm of darkness to which the demons belong.

And this is true not merely in respect to possessions, but wherever any impediment or disturbance, any evil or suffering, is derived from the agency of the devil, this could no more annul the action of natural causes, than would the consciousness of connection of such evils with natural causes, which in many cases must have been very clear, exclude a reference to satanic agency. When Paul writes to the Thessalonian Christians (1 Thes. 2: 18), that he had twice wished to come to them, but had been hindered by Satan, we can hardly think of anything different

from what is meant by the entirely corresponding words in the epistle to the Romans (15: 22), where he does not allude to Satan; that is, natural hindrances in which he recognizes the agency of a power opposed to the kingdom of God. The messenger of Satan who buffeted Paul (2 Cor. 12: 7), is manifestly the same with the thorn in the flesh, whatever this may have been; and when the prince of this world is said to come against Jesus (John 14: 30), this must be the same with the assault made by the priests and pharisees, which Jesus, in order to manifest his love and obedience to the Father, will not avoid. The same likewise holds good of the agency of the devil in moral matters. John lets us very clearly know (John 12: 6), whence came the thought which the devil put into the mind of Judas; and even after the devil had entered into him, it was he himself who did what he did (John 13: 27). When Satan filled the heart of Ananias (Acts 5: 3), it was only by means of his own evil lust that the entrance was effected (James 1: 14); and hence the apostle warns the married people in Corinth (1 Cor. 7: 5), to prevent the beginnings of incontinent desires, for only through these desires could the devil tempt them. And although he reminds us that we have to wrestle not merely against flesh and blood (Eph. 6: 12), yet the spiritual weapons which he recommends to us against the arts and wiles of Satan, are only such as are needed to withstand those enticements to lust, fear, doubt and unbelief which proceed from flesh and blood. And it is such a contest as this to which James refers when he exhorts us (James 4: 7), to resist the devil and he will flee from you! The temptations of the devil are not to be distinguished from the natural internal and external incitements and occasions to sin; the fellowship of Satan is none other than that which arises from the desire to do his lusts, and like him to give one's self up to hatred and a lie (John 8: 44); the power of the devil over our will is that which we concede to him when we make ourselves his ministers; the evil which Satan effects through us is our own voluntary transgression. In short, the agency of the devil and of the evil spirits should never be represented in such a way as would annul the physical and moral laws, in accordance with which we must consider sin and evil as the workings of nature and of freedom. Satanic influences are manifested in and through the same physical and moral evils which we recognize as resulting from the sin of man and its consequences, or from those operations of nature which with all their anomalies still reveal the highest conformity to law; and these again point us to

1845.] Diabolic agency not in the visible Series of Causes. 121

a deeper and more general ruin into which a part of the world of spirits was plunged, previous to the fall of man. The devil is the enemy who while men sleep, in darkness sows the tares (Matt. 13: 25 seq.); no one is witness of his perverse work; when we wonder to see tares growing among the wheat, it is the Lord that tells us who has sowed the seed; the tares germinate, grow, bear fruit like any other seed; if we did not find that they impeded the growth of the grain or mingled noxious elements with it, we could scarcely imagine that they had a different origin; and then, too, the Lord must at the harvest send his angels to separate the tares from the wheat, since it might easily happen that we should root out the one with the other, or should let the noxious weeds grow rank that we might spare the good seed. Without figure: the devil's agency in the world exists under the condition, that he (directly or indirectly) enters into the series of the causes here at work, so that he acts by means of these causes or in the same mode with them; and when we state, that he has been any-where at work, this proposition refers rather to the prime source of the action, than to its specific mode and characteristics. For example, that blinding of the mind, by which the unbelieving are hindered from seeing the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ (2 Cor. 4: 4), is, morally and psychologically considered, just the same thing, whether it be referred to the god of this world or not; only, by being thus referred, it is brought into connection with a wider realm of ruin and corruption.

We have no experience of an immediate, direct, or, if we may so say, original entering of the devil into the series of causes that. are visibly at work around us. There are only three cases in which the Scripture refers to such a direct agency; the temptation of our first parents, the temptation of our Saviour, and the last conflict of the kingdom of God with the realm of darkness (Rev. 12: 9-17. 20: 1-3, 7-10). The second and third of these as is well known, are of doubtful interpretation, whether we take them literally, symbolically,or as parables. The first case, although in its details not without some obscurity, has left behind it moral and physical effects which are a matter of daily experience. These effects do not consist in powers or beings in their very na

1 See the canons 3-5 laid down above-Bibl. Sacra, Vol. I. pp. 774, 5.

2

According to my view, in the sense of the New Testament, it can hardly be doubted (Rev. 12: 9), who is meant by the Serpent that tempted Eve (1. Tim. 2: 14).

ture evil and corrupt, which the devil has produced as by a creative act; but in the corruption of rational beings whom God created good and for good, and who were therefore free, and hence had the possibility of sinning; and in consequence of their fall, since the ethical and the physical are necessarily connected, there is also a partial corruption of the powers of nature. After this corruption had once forced itself into the world, it must pursue in its propagation and development, in coming to a crisis and in being expelled from the system, a regular course, in accordance with the natural and moral laws by which the world is governed. Yet we refer it back as a whole and in the details of its manifestation, to the agency of Satan; not only because his first and direct action is propagated in it, but also because the devil incontestably continues to look upon it as his work, and sees in it the bond or snare by which we are held captive to his will (2 Tim. 2: 26), and which would have made us the subjects of his kingdom had not a stronger hand broken them. Whether these bonds in some cases, as, for example, where evil absorbs the whole man which many think to have been the case with Judas, might not draw the captive into an immediate proximity with Satan as is expressed by the definition of spiritual possession which De Wette gives (propinquior substantiae diaboli ad animam impii adessentia et efficax ad quaevis flagitia propellens iránya), is a question which we dare not decide. The conception is so horrible, that we cannot accede to it without more decisive declarations than the Scripture contains; and it would not change any of the principles which we have above developed.

The definition of bodily possessions which the same author gives is one with which we can still less agree-ipsius satanae non tantum κατ' ἐνέργειαν sed et κατ' οὐσίαν in corpore humano inhabitatio. The demons (duória) that dwell in the possessed are not Satan himself; and as to the position, that the former really, in their very substance, dwell in the human body, even if we were inclined to give a literal interpretation to the passages of Scripture that refer to it, yet the mode in which we are to conceive of such a possession would ever remain very problematical in consequence of the difficulty in defining the relations of spiritual beings to space; of showing how their not being restricted by space (illocalitas), is consistent with attributing to them an existence in some particular place, (some nov).2

1

Dogmatik der Luther. Kirche, § 48.

2 Vide Bibl. S. Vol. 1. p. 770.

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Objections to the Existence of Angels.

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In the investigation of these topics we shall be satisfied if we have in any degree succeeded in reconciling the assurance of Scripture, that evil spirits are at work in bringing about the ruin and corruption of man, with our convictions of the permanency and regularity of the laws of nature, both physical and moral, and with our duty so to present the doctrine that it shall not run the hazard of superstitious perversion. Other questions, which might arise, can only be fully considered in connection with the doctrine of the fall and depravity of the human race.

§ 5. Objections to the Existence of Angels considered. According to our proposed plan, we have occupied ourselves with definitions and statements respecting the nature, the states and the employment of good and evil spirits, as these were developed, on the basis of Holy Scripture and under the influence of certain leading ideas, in our older doctrinal systems; and we have also made some modifications in these statements in reference to points which in the present state of scientific culture, demand a more careful attention than our forefathers bestowed upon them. But we have reserved for discussion the important questions,-what general worth and authority are to be attributed to the views thus defined? In what relation do they stand to religious experience, to what has been called the Christian consciousness, to our faith as Christians? Are we to assume that angels and devils in the assigned sense actually exist? In proceeding to discuss this point, we would premise, that the question does not involve every single statement that has been made, so much as the conception that lies at the foundation of all of them. In respect of individual statements, our systems of theology have always shown themselves to be flexible. For example, although the angels are, strictly speaking, generally regarded as purely spiritual and bodiless beings, yet some of our divines have not hesitated to depart from this view, in the interest of certain philosophical systems (as that of Leibnitz), which maintained that the existence of a finite spirit was inconceivable without a body, be it very fine or etherial, attached to it. Hence objections raised against single positions cannot be held as decisive in respect to the whole doctrine. And it is neither necessary nor advisable to decide beforehand either what features may be abandoned with

1 Bibl. Sacra, Vol. 1. p. 769.