(6) Agency. The agency of Satan is moral and physical. First, moral. He beguiled our first parents, and thus brought sin and death upon them and their posterity (Gen. iii). He moved David to number the people (1 Chron. xxi :I). He resisted Joshua the high-priest (Zech. iii :I). 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) ; hindered Paul and Bar nabas on their way to the Thessalonians (I Thess. ii :18). He is the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. :2) ; and he de ceiveth the whole world (Rev. xii :g).
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 Scriptures plainly teach (Job ii :7 ; Luke xiii :t6). Peter says of Christ, that he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil (Acts x :38). Hyme meus and Alexander were delivered to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme (I Tim. i :2o) ; where physical suffering by the agency of Satan, as a divine chastisement, is manifestly intended.
It is true, no doubt, that there are difficulties connected with the agency ascribed to Satan. Ob jections are of little weight when brought against well-authenticated facts. Any objections raised
against the agency of Satan are equally valid against his existence. If he exists, he must act ; and if lie is evil, his agency must be evil. The fact of such an agency being revealed, as it is, is every way as consonant with reason and re ligious consciousness as are the existence and agency of good angels. Neither reason nor con sciousness could by themselves establish such a fact ; but all the testimony they are capable of adducing is in agreement with the Scripture rep resentation on the subject. If God communicates with good men without their consciousness, there is no apparent reason why Satan may not, with out their consciousness, communicate with bad men. And if good men become better by the influence of good beings, it is equally easy to suppose that bad men may become worse by the influence of evil beings. Such an influence no more militates against the benevolence of God than does the agency of wicked men, or the ex istence of moral evil in any form. Evil agents are as really under the divine control as are good agents. And out of evil, God will cause good to come. He will make the wrath of devils as well as of men to praise him, and the remainder he will restrain. E. A. L.