The antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary, which, in the Scriptures, is conspicuous in all that relates to idolatry and other principal forms of impiety, and the means employed to counteract and punish them, strongly implies and confirms the reality and visibility of the local personal appearances and acts recorded of the delegated Person. The scene of that antagonism was on the earth. It involved an abiding enmity and active hostility between the followers of the respective leaders, separated the descendants of Adam into two hostile parties, and was carried on by means of their visible agency in all the forms in which they could express their inward sentiments, and in all the relations they sustained to the Divine Lawgiver, to the Arch-apostate, and to one another. In so far, then, as their acts and doings were visible in carrying on this warfare, it was requisite that the means of opposing, counteracting and condemning them should be visibly exhibited, that they might be observed, rightly judged of, and productive of appropriate moral effects. But granting this to be apparent from the nature of the case, so far as concerns the agency of righteous men on one side, and that of wicked men on the other; it may at first be thought not to require any visible manifestations or acts of the Divine leader of the righteous, any more than of the apostate leader of the wicked. The sequel may show that such visibility in respect to both was exhibited; by the one, to whom it occasioned no difficulty in any respect, in whatever mode, and to whatever extent he pleased; by the other, in whatever ways it was possible for him to render himself visible, by subjecting the bodies of men or of inferior animals to his possession and control, and through their physical organs acting and speaking, and thereby giving visibility to his acts and audible utterance to his words; or by counterfeit apparitions, and by such arts and jugglery as his followers, the magicians of Egypt and elsewhere, practised with such success as to render their apparent acts undistinguishable from real ones. That he had the power of occupying and actuating the bodies of men and of inferior animals, is shown by what is recorded of him and of the demons under him, in the New Testament; and it is very evident from what was said by the Jews on various occasions, that such possessions were no matter of surprise or doubt; and that they well understood that it was Satan, Baal-Zebub, the prince of the demons, that was cast out by the power of Christ, is evident from his question when answering them on one occasion, "How can Satan cast out Satan?"