Our author describes (vol. i. page 47) what he supposes orthodox Christianity includes; and among other strange assertions he says that man was tempted into sin by Satan, "an all-powerful and persistent enemy of God," thus making the fallen angel an _Almighty_ being. This matter has an important bearing on the proper exhibition of religious truth, for the more superstition is intermingled with it, the more will unbelief be likely to be prevalent. On the one hand, infidelity engenders superstition, and on the other, superstition creates aversion to religion. I cannot but think that there is something wrong in the way in which Christian men, in the pulpit and elsewhere, often allude to the spirit of evil. He is represented in Scripture as the "god of this world," but surely that is not to be understood literally. Jesus told the Jews that the devil was their father, as their deeds being evil indicated, who was "a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."[8] As, therefore, the devil is the father of lies, so are we to understand he is the God of this world. Not in any other sense. He is potent, but not omnipotent; knowing, but not omniscient; has his representatives distributed among the scenes of sin and death in our world, and himself goeth "to and fro in the earth,"[9] but he is not omnipresent. It is Oriental demonology which teaches that two equal principles--good and evil--are alike dominant, not "the truth as it is in Jesus;" Persian superstition, Gnostical heresy, not Divine revelation. [8] John viii. 44. [9] Job i. 7. The frivolous use of words and matters connected with the spiritual world and our eternal interests is greatly to be disapproved and condemned; but surely the mention of Satan is not to be designated as profane, as if God's holy name were taken in vain. To comment on what are called profane oaths in such a way is not to enlighten the minds of the vulgar, but to mystify and conceal the truth of Christianity. It is one thing to believe that there is in existence the spiritual being whose evil doings our Saviour's coming into our world frustrates, whose power is great, whose emissaries are innumerable, and whose baneful suggestions and influence the Holy Spirit alone can withstand, and quite another thing to believe that Satan could give miraculous attestation to a lie, as God did to the truth. If there are some passages of Scripture that seem to favour this false view, it behoves us to suspect, having regard to the whole tenour of Scripture affecting the doctrine, that the correct interpretation has not been arrived at.