IV. Satan's Po2ver and Action. — Both these points, being intimateh' connected with our own life and sal- vation, are treated with a distinctness and fulness re- markabl}^ contrasted with the obscurity of the previous subjects.
The agency of Satan extends to all that he does or causes to be done. To this agency the following re- strictions have generally been supposed to exist: It is limited, first, by the direct power of (iod; he cannot transcend the power on which he is dependent for ex- istence; secondly, by the finiteness of his own created faculties; thirdly, by the established connection of cause and effect, or the laws of nature. The miracles, which he has been supposed to have the power of working, are denominated lying signs and wonders (2 Thess. ii, 9). With these restrictions, the devil goes about like a roar- ing lion.
SATAN
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SATAN"
His agency is moral and physical. First, moral. He beguiled our first parents, and tlius brought sin and death upon thetn and their posterity (Gen. iii). He moved David to number the people (1 Chron. xxi, 1). He re- sisted Joshua the high-priest (Zech. iii, 1). He tempted Jesus (Matt, iv) ; entered into Judas, to induce him to betray his master (Luke xxii, 3); instigated Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost (Acts v, 3) ; and hindered Paul anil Barnabas on their waj' to the Thes- salonians (1 Thess. ii, 18). He is the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. ii, 2) ; and he deceiveth the wliole world (Kev. xii, 9).
The means which he uses are variously called wiles, darts, depths, snares, all deceivableness of unrighteous- ness. He darkens the understandings of men, to keep them in ignorance. He perverts their judgments, that he may lead them into error. He insinuates evil thoughts, and thereby awakens in them unlioly de- sires. He excites them to pride, anger, and revenge; to discontent, repinings, and rebellion. He labors to prop up false systems of religion, and to corrupt and overturn the true one. He came into most direct and determined conflict with the Saviour in the temptation, ho|)ing to draw him from his allegiance to God, and procure homage for himself; but he failed in his pur- pose. Next, he instigated the Jews to put him to death, thinking thus to thwart his designs and frustrate his plans. Here, too, he failed, and was made to subserve the very ends which he most wished to prevent. Into a similar conflict does he come with all the saints, and with like ultimate ill success. God uses his tempta- tions as the means of trial to his people, and of strength by trial; and |)oints them out as a motive to watchful- ness anil prayer. Such are the nature and mode of his moral influence and agency.
But his efforts are directed against the bodies of men, as well as against their souls. That the agency of Satan was concerned in producing physical diseases the Script- ures plainly teach (Job ii, 7 ; Luke xiii, 16). Peter says of Christ that he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil (Acts x, 38). Hyme- najus and Alexander were delivered to Satan, that the)' might learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim. i, 20), where physical suffering by the agency of Satan, as a divine chastisement, is manifestly intended.
1'he power of Satan over the soul is represented as exercised either directly or by his instruments. His direct influence over the soul is simply that of a power- ful and evil nature on tliose in whom lurks the germ of the same evil, dilTering from the influence exercised by a wicked man in degree rather than in kind ; but it has the power of acting by suggestion of thoughts, without the medium of actions or words — a power which is only in a very slight degree exercised by men upon each other. This influence is spoken of in Scripture in the strongest terms as a real external influence, correlative to, but not to be confounded with, the existence of evil within. In the parable of the sower (^latt. xiii, 19), it is repre- sented as a negative influence, taking away the action of the Word of (iod for good ; in that of the wheat and the tares (ver. 39), as a positive influence for evil, intro- ducing wickedness into the world. Paul does not hesi- tate to represent it as a power permitted to dispute the world with the power of God; for he declares to Agrip- pa that his mission wai^"to turn men from darkness to light, and from the power ( t^ovrriag ) of Satan unto God," and represents the excommunication, which cuts men off from the grace of Christ in his Church, as a "de- liverance of them unto Satan" (1 Cor. v, b ; 1 Tim. i, 20). The same truth is conveyed, though in a bolder and more startling form, in the epistles to the cliurchcs of the Apocalypse, where the body of the unbelieving Jews is called a "synagogue of Satan" (Kev. ii, 9; iii, 9), where the secrets of false doctrine are called "the depths of Satan" (ii, 24), and the " throne" and " habitation" of Satan are said to be set np in opposition to the Church of Christ. Another and even more remarkable expres-