Agenzy.—The agency of Satan extends to that he does or causes to be done : Qui facit pet alium facit per se.' To this agency the following restrictions have been generally supposed to exist : It is limited, first, by the direct power of God ; he cannot transcend the power on which he is de pendent for existence ;—secondly, by the finiteness of his own created faculties ;—thirdly, by the esta blished connection of cause and effect, or the laws of nature. The miracles, which he has been sup posed to have the power of working, are deno minated lying signs and wonders, ovvlocs repao-c ifreaous (2 Thess. 9). With these re strictions, the Devil goes about like a roaring lion.
His agency 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 (I Chron. xxi. 1). He resisted 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); hindered Paul and Bamabas on their way to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 18). He is the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. ii. 2) ; and he deceiveth the whole world (Rev. xii. 9).
The means which he uses are variously called wiles, darts, depths, snares, all deceivableness of unrighteousness. 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 theieby awakens in them unholy desires. He excites them to pride, anger, and revenge ; to discontent, repinings, and rebellion. He labours 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, hoping to draw him from his allegiance to God, and procure homage for himself ; but he failed in his purpose. 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 subsenre the very ends which he most wished to prevent. Into a similar conflict does he lome with all the saints, and with like ultimate ill suc cess. God uses his temptations as the means of trial to his people, and of strength by trial, and points them out as a motive to watchfulness and 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 phy sical diseases, the Scriptures plainly teach (Job ii. 7 ; Luke xiii. 16). Peter says of Christ, that he went about doing good and healing (ithyevos) all that were oppressed of the Devil (rot') Scal36Xou) (Acts x. 38). Hymeneus 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.
Farmer seems to have been among the first in modem times who adopted the rationalistic or ac commodation principle of interpretation upon the subject of demoniacal possessions. Semler intro duced his work on Demoniac: into Germany, and the German neologists adopted substantially his view. For a refutation of this system of inter pretation, see Twesten's Doginatik, Olshausen's ammo:tar, Storr and Flatt's Biblical Theol., and Appleton's Lectures ; and for a general statement cf the arguments on both sides, see the articles nEMON ; DEMONIACS.
Whatever the demons may have been, they were considered by the N. T. writers as belonging to the kingdom of Satan. They are called unclean spirits, evil demons. They are conscious of being under condemnation (Matt. viii. 29). Christ came to destroy the works of Satan ; and he refers to his casting out demons by the finger of God as proof that lie was executing that work. And when charged with casting them out by the prince of demons, he meets the charge by the assertion that this would be dividing the kingdom of Satan —Satan casting out Satan, i.e. casting out his own subjects : the irresistible inference from which is, that Satan and the demons are one house, per tain to one and the sante kinga'on.
It is of no avail that there are difficulties con nected with the agency ascribed to Satan. Objec tions are of little weight when brought against well-authenticated facts. Any objections raised ag,ainst the agency of Satan are equally valid against his existence. If he exists, he must act ; and if he 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 religious consciousness as are the existence and agency of good angels. Neither reason nor consciousness could by themselves establish such a fact ; but all the testimony they are capable of adducing is id agreement with the Scripture representation on the subject. If God communicates with good men without their consciousness, there is no apparent reason why Satan may not, without their conscious ness, 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 existence 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 restraim—E. A. L.