In the progress of this war, the Devil and his angels, the Prince of the power of the air, with the principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world under him, has, from policy if not from necessity, kept concealed behind his instruments. But the heads and leaders of his visible partisans among men, whether in the abominations of heathenism, the enormities of idolatry, the wars and butcheries of nations, the tyrannies of government, the horrors of anarchy, the immolation of human victims, the persecution and slaughter of prophets and martyrs, or in the no less fatal systems of heresy, false theology, and false philosophy, have never scrupled or been backward to do the utmost he could wish in furtherance of his object. Many of them, like the Cerinthians, Marcionites, Valentinians, and other prevalent sects in the first ages of Christianity, ascribed to him the works of creation and providence; and there were not wanting such as worshipped him by name, and others under the designation of the Serpent; and still others who paid the highest honors to Cain, Judas, and similar characters, as his most conspicuous representatives. The popular notion of idolatry, under the name of polytheism, as if it involved the supposition of a plurality of supreme deities, owes its influence, at least among those who read the English version of the Scriptures, to the fact that the translators rendered the designations of the god of the idolatrous system as plural, though in the Hebrew they are written in the singular number. Knowing that there was but one true God, they uniformly rendered Elohim as well as Elohe, when employed with reference to that Being, in the singular number; but when employed with reference to the rival usurper, the false god, their rendering is plural, _gods_; as if the molten images and numberless idols in other forms, instead of being all representative of one supposed deity, or being regarded as mediators, or representatives of mediators between them and him, were themselves so many independent deities. Thus, in Laban's remonstrance with Jacob: "Wherefore hast thou stolen my _Elohe_?" rendered _gods_, and in Jacob's answer: "With whomsoever thou findest _thy Elohe_," rendered _gods_, the meaning plainly is, (though there seems to have been more than one image, teraphim-images, v. 34,) that which represents my Elohe. Gen. xxxi. 30-32. Again, Exod. xx. 1-23: "And Elohim spake all these words: I am Jehovah thy Elohe; thou shall have no other Elohim before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Ye shall not make with me Elohe of silver;" an Elohe, a god, rendered _gods_. "Neither shall ye make unto you Elohe of gold;" an Elohe, a molten image representative of me, rendered _gods._ "Against the _Elohe_ of Egypt I will execute judgment." Exod. xii. 12, rendered, "against all the _gods_ of Egypt," &c. "Thou shalt not bow down to their Elohe," (_Eng. gods._) "Ye shall serve Jehovah your _Elohe_," (_Eng. God._) Exod.