In that which, from the events in Eden to the day of Pentecost, was remarkable as a dispensation of visible agencies and results, visible teachings, rites, ordinances, institutions, mercies and judgments, manifestations and events, the Adversary carried on his system of hostility and rivalry by visible agents and instruments, as will be illustrated with reference to the all but universal system of idolatry of which he was the head under the name of Baal, and in which he was represented by visible images without number, and had innumerable priests and counterfeits of all the visible accompaniments of the system prescribed for the worship of Jehovah. In the progress of that dispensation it is observable, not only that the Divine Messenger appeared in the visible likeness, and, at its close, in the nature of man, but also that created spiritual beings, angels, appeared visibly from time to time, and at the advent, resurrection and ascension of Christ. The power of rendering themselves visible, if it resided in the unfallen angels, and was a condition of their nature, is likely to have been retained and exercised by the fallen. And if--as hypocrites, by their outward and visible acts, make themselves appear to be honest and true--Satan can deceive by assuming the appearance of an angel of light, he is likely to have exercised that power in every way possible to him and conducive to his ends. Possessing capacities little conceived of or comprehended by mortals; capacities indicated by the attitude of opposition and rivalship which he assumed towards his Creator and rightful Sovereign, the omnipotent and omniscient One; by the boldness and perseverance of his rebellion, the vastness of the results which he accomplished in the seduction of his celestial followers, and the ruin of this world, the indescribable audacity of his personal encounter in the wilderness with the incarnate Word, and the still more amazing desperateness of the conflicts predicted in the Apocalypse; who can doubt but that he had at all times ways and means of rendering his agency visible, directly and by instruments at his command? It is plain, from the narrative of the temptation in the wilderness, that he was locally present, and in a way implying relations to physical things analogous to those of men; to the atmosphere, as the medium of sound and of vision; to the earth, as a basis of locomotion; that he uttered words and exerted physical power. So in the narrative of Job, and that of the scene in Paradise, to specify no others, such physical and visible acts are ascribed to him as plainly as acts visibly of a similar nature are affirmed of the two angels who, with Jehovah, came to Abraham in the form of men, partook as men of his repast, and at parting from Jehovah and Abraham, "turned their faces and went towards Sodom."