IV.

SATANIC CUNNING.

BOLD as he is, and potent as he is, Satan rarely goes to work in a straightforward manner. He is still the old serpent, accomplishing by craft his insidious purposes, gliding stealthily on the path of his intended victim, and concealing himself beneath the innocent flowers with which the Creator has bountifully clad that path. In some parts of the world he does indeed enforce upon his bond-slaves the horrible service of worshipping him openly and by name, in order to deprecate the temporal mischief that they know he is able and willing to do them; but, generally, he veils himself, under fictitious titles and forms, so obtaining to himself and his angels the honour and service that are due to God alone. St. Paul tells us this: "What say I then? that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship

with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils." 1 Cor. x. 19, 20, 21. Satan persuades the poor heathen that some divine power resides in a beast, a reptile, a stone, or the stock of a tree; and having induced him to worship it, takes to himself and to his gang of devils the honours paid to the senseless idol. Well may he be termed the god of this world! To all its successive empires, crumbling into dust as they have done, he has been the object of supreme homage. The Babylonian might fall prostrate before his gigantic idol of gold; the Persian breathe his devout aspirations to the fiery orb of day; the Greek rejoice in his sculptured forms of exquisite beauty, and in the endless mysteries of an impure worship; the stern Roman might crowd his pantheon with the captured idols of every nation, and enlarge his unholy creed for the reception of each foreign fable ; but in all, and over all, Satan ruled. Wherever idolatry is found, there is Satan, the god of the worshippers. His voice was heard in the lowing of the Egyptian abomination, in the decree that prostrated the glory of the Chaldeans on the plain of Dura, and in every incentive to creature-worship, under whatsoever form observed, and by whatsoever sanctions confirmed. The voice that from the Minaret proclaims the true prophetic character of Mahomet, is his; the bell that tinkles forth a signal for the adoration of a wafer-god, is sounded by him: yea, the secret

whisper from within that withholds the hand about to extend the gift of charity, is the voice of his power too, for "covetousness is idolatry." Col. iii. 5. By fraudful cunning, under a thousand manifestations, he upholds his unseen, unacknowledged dominion; never to be overthrown till the Stone, cut out without hands, shall smite the huge image of universal idolatry, and, gathering to itself the little faithful band of protesters against this multifarious devil-worship, so fill the earth as to thrust out of it whatsoever resists the extension of that Stone's triumphant kingdom.

To adduce instances of all the devices of Satan's cunning recorded by, or to be clearly inferred from the holy Scriptures, would be little less than to transcribe the Bible itself: we may however mention some few, where diabolical interference is expressly spoken of. The Scriptures do not often explain the part that the tempter and his hosts took in the toils, the struggles, the sins of the Old Testament church: but under the Gospel dispensation, enough is revealed to enable us to trace his workings in former times, even where he was not specified by name. Who can fail to see this in the touching history of Joseph? When the youth declared his dream, the meaning was evident to his father, and his brothers were compelled to see it in the same light, galling as it was to their pride. Their envious, angry dispositions gave occasion for the tempter to assail them, and to suggest the cruel expedient by which, as they hoped, the

"dreamer" was finally put out of their way; and in the varied persecutions that followed the blameless young believer, the malice of an adversary, potent and crafty, like Satan, may be plainly discerned. When the children of Israel corrupted themselves and made a golden calf, and worshipped it in the name of the Lord, the artful adaptation to their circumstances of the idolatrous abominations that they had seen in Egypt no doubt originated in the same quarter; while the continual outbursts of discontent, disobedience, strife, and open rebellion against their leader, that marked the progress of the rescued tribes through the wilderness, all bear witness to his influence among them. Recollecting, as it has been already observed, that the Holy Ghost declares idol-worship to be devil-worship, we have positive proof that Satan and his legions presided over the heathen nations who surrounded the camp of Israel; and all the seductive arts practised by Balaam and others, to ensnare the Lord's people into forbidden paths, were certainly of his devising. Moses, when writing, as he is supposed to have done, the book of Job, must have received a very clear revelation concerning the power and activity of this fearful foe, although the record that he was commissioned to leave of his own people's history, makes no precise mention of the evil one, as personally interfering with them: but he says, in the Lord's name, of the Israelites, "They shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whor

ing," Lev. xvii. 7; and again, “They sacrificed unto devils, and not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not." Deut. xxxii. 17. While against the sin of witchcraft, the acquirement of power or knowledge by means of Satanic communications, the law was very strict. "A man, also, or woman, that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them." Lev. xx. 27. By this we see, that Satan had contrived to obtain a footing among God's peculiar people; that he had seduced them into holding intercourse with his subordinates for the purpose of sharing such supernatural gifts as he could impart ; and secretly, by fraud and cunning, maintained this ground in the bosom of the visible Church. Most earnestly were they warned against this, the great condemning sin of the nations of Canaan: "There shall not be found among you any one... that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." Deut. xviii. 10-12. That this peculiar mode of destroying God's people was persisted in by the crafty enemy to the very time of our Lord's appearance in the flesh, we have constant proof. When Abimelech, the