of followers, while the head of the party, who resisting the kingdom of God is striving to set up and extend his own. kingdom (Matt. xii. 26), is the most diligent of all in such efforts. As certainly as sin has its seat in the personal will, so surely is there no constraint in the temptations of the devil, which on the contrary consist in exciting a lust for what is forbidden, by means of doubts, lies and deceptions, often of a seemingly holy kind (2 Cor. xi. 14), which lust inciting and alluring both receives the seed of sin and also brings forth its fruit (Jas. i. 14). Thus the devil as the tempter is the father of human sin, but the soul which lets itself be tempted is its mother. The serpent's seed of selfishness which it has received remains and carries on its operations, producing thousands upon thousands of sins in every department of human life, without there being any need to accept the notion of a fresh direct interposition of Satan, whose agency as little excludes second causes as these do him. Thus the sin of the devil and the sin of Adam continue to operate in our sin, and temptation, uncaused by his own sin (John xiv. 20), assailed in renewed power and originality only the second Adam, and was triumphantly overcome by Him, the breaker of the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15). For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8), who, however, therefore opposed the work of Christ with all the power of his followers, with all the force of lies and malice, even of the most sanguinary malice (1 John iii. 12; 1 Pet. v. 8). All that is antigodly and antichristian diffused throughout the world by far-reaching radii, is concentrated in him as its principle, and inasmuch as he is the father of the sin which enslaves the whole world, so far as it is not redeemed therefrom, he is, as the spirit which worketh in the children of disobedience, called also the prince, nay, the god of this world (Eph. ii. 2; 2 Cor. iv. 4). Among these children of disobedience, antichristianity, as the climax of selfishness, will

proceed even to the utter denial of the Father and the Son, and to the most arrogant self-deification (1 John ii. 18, 22; 2 Thess. ii. 4), but will then be entirely destroyed by the Lord with the spirit of His mouth and by the brightness of His coming (2 Thess. ii. 8). The devil's system of hypocritical spiritual lying is chiefly seen in his efforts to set the word of God in contradiction with itself, to deny one part by means of another, the gospel by the law, grace by righteousness, and thus to perplex the conscience, on which account he is also called the accuser of the brethren, who after he has long accused them is himself cast down (Rev. xii. 10).

Controversy against the devil, which was formerly directed, with that strength of faith and of the Holy Ghost which destroyed his works, against his agency, i.e. against the spiritual power of evil, has recently been theoretically directed, with the sceptical strength of unbelief, against his existence and presence, and either denies or ignores him as a mere phantom of the imagination. Consequently the enemy being said to be no longer extant, the watchfulness, prayer and manful resistance which Scripture so emphatically recommends, are discontinued, which peaceful controversy is undoubtedly less offensive to him than the former warlike kind. No other doctrine of Holy Scripture has experienced such decided, general, and at the same time sarcastic disfavour from a frivolous illusionism as the doctrine of the devil, which certainly, since he rules in darkness, has dark depths (Rev. ii. 24). If the matter in question had been merely the existence of a person more or less in the realm of spirits, the dispute concerning it would have been of no ethical importance. But it cannot be mistaken, that with a denial of the existence of the devil is combined also a denial of the scriptural doctrine of sin, and that the endeavour to disclaim the latter in its full moral seriousness, and to filter it off in this negative manner, has greatly contributed to placing the mere negation of the devil in the place of his abnegation. The

more he has been denied, the more has it been affirmed that sin is only a consequence and property of sensuousness and corporeity, or a mere limitation of finite existence, or a weakness, or only the result of ignorance and a rude state of nature, which must yield to enlightenment, better instruction in schools and higher intellectuality, or that it forms a necessary stage of development in human nature, a necessary shadow to the light, a necessary foundation for more exalted merit, and other like delusions and rejections of the true notion of sin.1 The spiritual nature, the power, the selfish personality of evil are denied with the personality of the devil, and it is evident that when sin is thus misconceived the power and truth of redemption must be misconceived also, and a real conflict against evil relaxed.

On the other hand, it has been asserted that the doctrine of the devil is prejudicial to moral earnestness, because it induces men to remove the guilt of evil from themselves to the devil, and to lay the blame of sin in general upon him and his temptations only, and thus, as it were, to transfer it from themselves, and to release themselves from its imputation. This reproach is, on closer inspection, entirely reversed, and its whole weight falls upon the modern notions of evil, as is unquestionably proved even by the circumstance that the more unaccustomed the age has become to the thought of the devil, the laxer has it grown in the imputation and punishment of sin. The former age, which did not deny the temptations and assaults of the devil, was yet so little inclined to excuse men on that account, that it on the contrary considered an intermission of resistance to the evil spirit, or any meddling with him, as the most flagrant of offences, and exercised against it, together with the strictest imputation, a harshness of criminal punishment at which we are horrified. The opposite extreme to this severity is the laxity of modern

1 Compare, on the contrary, Neander, Leben Jesu, Div. iii. pp. 113 and 286 sqq., also Twesten's apt remarks in Part II. of his Dogmatik, p. 368 sq.

penal justice, in the administration of which judges and physicians are but too inclined either to acquit criminals, or as much as possible to extenuate their crimes, on physical or psychical grounds, while the moral judgment of general public opinion has become excessively lax and indulgent. It cannot be denied that in every sin there is not merely an evil will, but also the enticement of some temptation; where, then, this is not referred to the devil, man by no means therefore ascribes the sin to his own corrupt will, but appeals to other kinds of temptations, which, however, he does not derive from sin, but from nature, though this is only seductive under the influence of sin. Undoubtedly the world and the flesh are powers of objective and subjective temptation, but they are such not through their natural substance, but through the influence of the evil with which they are affected. But when, as at present, the temptation to evil is referred only to sensuousness, to temperament, to natural lusts and passions, or to circumstances or to fixed ideas, monomania and the like, the blame is pre-eminently laid upon something ethically indifferent, or merely natural. This is done with the less hesitation because less repugnance is felt to such really innocent temptations; and an intermission of resistance may be easily justified by appeals to their more physical than ethical character. Thus, since the doctrine of the devil has been lost sight of, the lax excusing and non-imputation of sin have been very specially and excessively prevalent. Matters are on the other hand very different when temptation, though always using the natural as a means, is perceived to have originally proceeded from an evil spiritual power, in personal opposition to whom man must feel as much called upon to abhor as to resist, because submission and admission seem as dangerous as they are pernicious, and guilt not lessened but rather increased thereby. Then man, equipped with spiritual weapons of offence and defence, enters upon that conflict against the power of the evil one, to which St. Paul summons (Eph.

v. 10-17), though unobeyed by the weaklings of this generation. Not from their denials, but from the moral resistance of the believing Christian, does the devil flee (Jas. iv. 7). The accuser of our brethren is cast down, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

CHAPTER III.

OF NATURAL AND REVEALED LAW, ITS PRINCIPLE AND EXTENT, AND OF THE IMPUTATION OF SIN THROUGH THE LAW.

The notion of the Divine law has its roots in that of the Divine image. Man was made to be an image of God; this expressed the Divine purpose, the Divine law of his being. The law is that Divine archetype of human nature, that ideal of man, after which he was created. Let us make man an image, which may be like us-this counsel of the creation of man is the primal law of his being; the will of God, that man should be an image of God, called him into existence, and is continually calling him to likeness to God; for such a law is immanent in human nature as its norm and type. It is an extremely inadequate notion, and one derived from human maxims, to think of the law of God as a series of moral precepts according to which man must act, or a summary of abstract propositions by which he must regulate his doing and leaving undone. God lays down no such abstract moral law, nor sets it over man apart from Himself; but His law is His living will itself, which, willing men to resemble God, gives the Divine likeness as their norm, and that not as an externally added precept, but as an internal, an innate canon. This will, the loving will of God, did not merely will that man was to be like Him in love, but what it willed it also effected, and made man not merely to be an image, but also