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of false gods, not of the Devil: of idols, which were without life; and, therefore, could not be the Devil. The same word occurs in Psalm cvi. 37, where our translators also read devils, but which the Septuagint has again rendered by dapo2015, dæmons; and this is clearly the meaning of the Psalmist; for, in connexion with these dæmons, (ver. 38,) he refers to them as the idols of Canaan; the vindictive and destructive dæmons, such as Moloch, Baalim, &c., to whom they sacrificed their sons and daughters.

"In Lev. xvii. 7, the Israelites are commanded, now that they had left Egypt, no more to offer their sacrifices to (y) sheirim, unto dæmons; i. e. says Dr. Taylor,* the hairy deities worshiped in Egypt; such as oxen, dogs, wolves, monkies, goats. Bochart. It is to these that Moses refers, and not, certainly, to any such being as the Devil, who cannot be a hairy animal, if he be, as it is said, a spirit. Consequently he could not be here intended by Moses, who had no kind of acquaintance with him, or with his serpentine ways;' nor did he know any thing at all about him.+ It appears, however, that the Israelites had been accustomed, when in Egypt, to join in the worship of cats, dogs and goats, and other such disgusting idols: hence it is that Moses so rigorously forbids them any more to slaughter their sacrifices to these hairy deities, after which he tells them they hankered; and on account of this debasing and abominable hankering, the severe punishment of death was to be inflicted on the offender. The same word is used in 2 Chron. xi. 15, and, of course, the same kind of goat-worship must be intended; and this you will find to be the case if you read the passage with

"Matt. iv. 10,
Mark i. 13,
Luke iv. 8.
Matt. xii. 26,
Mark iii. 23, 26,
Luke xi. 18.
Matt. xvi. 21.
Mark iv. 15.
Luke x. 17.
Luke xiii. 10.

Luke xxii. 31.

which the verse stands connected, even with common attention. It is said, that all the priests and Levites throughout Israel resorted to Rehoboam, king of Judah, because Jeroboam, king of Israel, and his sons, had rejected them from the performance of the priestly functions to the Lord, and constituted priests of hillworship, for the goats and the calves that he had made. You see, Jeroboam and his sons made these hairy idol deities; they could not therefore be the Devil, nor any of his angels, since these could not be manufactured either by the king of Israel or the princes, his sons."-Pp.

59-61.

The Lecturer then explains the terms and phrases Lucifer (Isa. xiv. 12), the great serpent and Leviathan (ib. xxvii. 1), Belial (Deut. xiii. 13, &c.), and some others that have been fancifully interpreted of the chief of the evil spirits; and concludes with stating that the whole evidence, from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, relating to the Claims of the Devil, has been investigated, and that in the entire volume no such being is to be discovered, if the Bible is allowed to be its own interpreter.

Mr. Scott begins in Lect. IV. his examination of the New Testament. This Lecture is confined to the application of the word Satan in the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and in the text (Matt. xii. 26) and the other places is explained to mean an adversary to the person spoken of, an enemy to Christ or his cause, as will be seen by the following table:

(1.) (Temptation) personal adversary.

(2.) Demoniacal or idolatrous worship.

(3.) Peter, a personal adversary.
(4.) Enemies to the gospel.

(5.) The same.

(6.) Applied to the woman afflicted with the rigidity of the

back-bone.

(7.) Enemies to Jesus and to Peter.

John xiii. 27, Applied by these evangelists, and not by Jesus, to Judas.

xxii. 3.

Acts xxvi. 16. Acts v. 3.

Idolatry; used by Jesus after his ascension.
Applied by Peter to the covetousness of Ananias."
P. 84, Note.

"Concord. R. 1994, III.

"The prohibition evidently alludes to the worship of Pan, under the form of a goat, or other wild hairy animal, such as the fawns and satyrs were represented

to be. The Egyptians of Mendès were, in particular, noted for this sort of idolatry, which was highly obscene and lascivious. See Bochart, Hieroz. L. xi. C. liii. p. 1; Geddes' Crit. Rem.

In this Lecture occur the following judicious observations on the case of Judas:

"In Luke xxii. 3, we are informed, that at the approach of the Passover at which Jesus suffered, Satanas entered into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. This is mentioned by John xiii. 27, to which the following observations will equally apply. John also reports another expression of our Lord's which will serve to illustrate these two passages. In chap. vi. 70, Jesus, in addressing his disciples, said, • Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' diabolos. No one of you ever supposed that Judas was that evil, malignant spirit called the Devil: if he were not, what was he? An accuser, a traitor, an adversary. We have already seen that such is the meaning of Shatan in the Old Testament, and we shall, in its proper place, have occasion to shew you that our translators themselves have so rendered the word Diabolos, in the New Testament. Satanas and Diabolos are, therefore, in these passages used as synonymous terms. What then are we to understand by Satanas entering into Judas, if it were not the Devil personating him, or getting possession of him? If we look at the next verse, we shall find that Judas, under the influence of his covetous disposition, went and communed with the chief priests and captains of the Temple, how he might deliver Jesus unto them. That this was his own voluntary, base act, appears from ver. 5; And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. This was exactly what he wished, and what he seems to have him self proposed. He then engaged to seek a convenient opportunity to deliver Jesus up to them, apart from the multitude, not doubting but that Jesus, in consequence of the great power which he had so often seen him display, would easily be able to rescue himself from any force they might bring in order to apprehend

him. Covetousness was the Satanas which entered Judas, and taking the full possession of his mind, became his bane, Devil obtaining the use of his body, and his enemy, his adversary, and not the carrying him to the Jewish rulers: he had, on several occasions, manifested the his mind. We must either admit this great influence of this base passion on cor.truction of the word, or that Judas was considered by our Lord as the Devil himself, or one of his angels: Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' In that case how are we to account for his choosing him as one of his immediate and select disciples, and even making him his purse-bearer? But it was this office which brought the principle of covetousness into action. When he saw that Jesus was completely in the power of the Jewish rulers, he was evidently astonished and disappointed. When he found that he had irrecoverably betrayed innocence, even his covetousness forsook him; he went to the council, confessed his guilt, and returned the money. Would the Devil, whose enmity to Christ is said to be always running, as it

done this? The conduct of Judas, as were, in a stream against him, have soon as he discovered that he had surrendered his Master into the power of his enemies beyond deliverance, is a sufficient proof of the Devil's having nothing to do with it, but that he was solely actuated by his avaricious disposition. The shocking catastrophe of his death, whether it were suffocation by the cord, or anguish of mind, tends also to shew that it was the love of money which induced him to think of delivering his Friend and Master into the possession of his inveterate and malignant enemies.”—Pp. 77-79.

The Vth Lecture, (from 2 Cor. xii. 7,) contains an inquiry into the meaning of the term Satan in the thirteen acknowledged Epistles of Paul, the result of which is thus stated:

"In the thirteen epistles which are generally ascribed to the Apostle Paul, he has used the term Satanas in only five of them; and, in these five letters, ten times. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has not made use of it.

"(1.) Rom. xvi. 20, it designates, the persecutors of the Roman converts.

(2.) 1 Cor. v. 5,

(3.) 1 Cor. vii. 7,

(4.) 2 Cor. ii. 11, (5.) 2 Cor. xi. 14, (6.) 2 Cor. xii. 7,

(7.) 1 Thess. ii. 18,

(8.) 2 Thess. ii. 9,

(9.) 1 Tim. i. 20,

(10.) 1 Tim. v. 15,

excommunication for a time.

the violation of marriage vows.

personal opponent to Paul.
false apostles.

corporeal infirmity.

Jews, persecuting Paul and Silas.

the same persons still persecuting Paul.
excommunication.

idolatrous indulgencies."-P. 104, Note.

In the same manner are explained, in the conclusion of the Lecture, the three or four examples of the use of the term Satan in the book of the Revelation.

Lectures VI. and VII. are upon the meaning of the word Diabolos or Devil, in the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The author's view of it may be seen in the following summary :

"This term is used five times by our Lord, as follows:

" (1.) Matt. xiii. 29, where it refers to human enemies of the gospel.

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On the difficult passage, Matt. xxv. 41, Mr. Scott says,

the Roman civil power.

human enemies of the gospel, as in Matt.

xiii. 29.

Judas Iscariot

the Jewish Sanhedrim.

to the avarice of Judas.

to every species of sickness and disease. the opposition of Bar-Jesus to the gospel." P. 152, Note.

such a limitation of this highly figurative discourse, and who consider the whole of it as relating to the general day of retribution: there are others, perhaps, who, like Bishop Pearce and some other learned men, think it probable that ch. xxiv. and xxv. to ver. 30, refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and its consequences to Jews and Christians; but that the next sixteen verses must be descriptive of the day of judgment, emphatically so called. Allow me to ask you, whether it be common justice to inflict the same punishment on those human beings, who are here represented under the metaphor of goats, and whose sphere of action was necessarily limited, as on those who possessed the power and the inclination of being so much more extensively wicked, and who are supposed to have been so from before the foundation of this our world, since there is no account of so important a fact as a rebellion among the inhabitants of heaven on record, except in the fictions of Heathen and Christian poets? If Diabolos and his angels were such beings as they are generally believed to be, who had been engaged in the intellectual and moral pursuits of a heavenly state, and had rebelled and fallen from that state of purity, dignity and glory, in which they were created and had moved, the punishment prepared for such high and elevated creatures could not be at all suited to those human beings, here represented under the term goats, whose specified crimes were but few, and which were confined in their operation. The natures of the goats and of Diabolos and his angels have no one point of coincidence or correspondence. The punishment, therefore, of these heavenly rebels could not be calculated for human beings. The duties incumbent on these spirits, who are represented as having been hurled from heaven, like Vulcan in the Heathen mythology, were so far superior, and so widely different from those of the goats, that it is impossible for the punishment attending the respective violation of them to be the same. If they were created 4 P

"We have three distinct parties referred to in this parabolical representation: men, under the emblem of sheep; men, under the emblem of goats; and those who are included under the em blem of Diabolos and his angels, who must be men also, since men are to be associated with them, as having been guilty of similar crimes. If they were not intended to be men, the unity of the parable is destroyed. The sheep represent the mildness and innocency of those who befriended the followers of Christ, and who practised towards them the duties of hospitality, kindness and humanity. The goats are emblematic of those Jews who were violent and infuriated in their treatment of those, among their own nation, who embraced Christianity, and who were inhospitable, unkind and inhuman to them, particularly when sick, or in distress, or in prison. The sheep were to be rewarded by an admission into the Messiah's kingdom. The goats were to be consigned to the same kind of punishment which had been prepared for Diabolos, their common Heathen enemy; for the Roman civil power was as inimical to the Jews as to the Christians, making no discrimination between them during the interval referred to. The angels or messengers of Diabolos were those persons who were active in accusing, betraying and persecuting the Christians. All the characters, then, which are employed in the parabolical representation, are necessarily human; and, particularly, as the scene of the parable is limited to actions performed during the period between the resurrection of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence none of them can have any reference whatever to an all-powerful, malignant, or superhuman being, at the head of an army of spirits as malicious as himself.

"There are some among you, no doubt, who feel a reluctance to admit VOL. XVIII,

capable of a more elevated range in intellectual and moral attainments than human beings, they must of course be proportionably more culpable in the neglect and abandonment of them than human beings can be. For these superhuman beings, and such beings as are included under the term goats, to be consigned to the same degree or kind of punishment would, therefore, be manifest injustice. And God, we know, cannot be unjust. The punishment, too, is said to consist of fire; can spirits be acted upon by fire? Does fire appear to be a punishment equally congenial to such heaven-born spirits and to mortals?

"There is another consideration which

strongly militates against the opinion of our Lord's referring in this passage to the day of general judgment or retribution. It is not the general conduct of the whole lives of the sheep, which is the object of reward in the parable. The reward is confined to the exercise of those virtues only, which led them to succour, to relieve, and to protect, such disciples of Christ as they knew to be in sickness or distress, or persecuted. It was, the exercise of particular virtues towards a particular class of men, and in a particular situation. It was not the general tenor of their conduct, in all the relations and duties of life, which was then to be the subject of investigation; it cannot, therefore, include the future general day of judgment or retribution, but refers to a reward for the discharge of certain specified and peculiar virtues, arising out of peculiar circumstances. The punishment awarded is considered only as that of certain specified parts of their conduct who were to be punished. They had neglected to practise certain virtues, which they ought to have practised towards those of their own uation; they had wilfully omitted certain duties which, as men and as fellow-worshipers of the same God, they ought to have exercised towards their country-men; and for this part of their conduct and no other was their punishment assigned to them. This punishment was to be the same as had been prepared for Diabolos and his angels: this Diabolos and his messengers, therefore, must have been guilty of similar crimes, or else their pu nishment would not have been similar. Diabolos, the common adversary of the Jews and Christians, had greatly persecuted and oppressed the latter, through the instrumentality of his angels, who were continually seeking them as objects of their fury and hatred. The conduct of the goats towards the Christians, for this is the specified point of offence, is so similar to that of Diabolos and his

angels, that their punishment is the same: indeed, many of the goats were themselves the angels of Diabolos, or the Roman civil power. But, it being the punishment of human beings and for a part of their conduct only, both the reward and the punishment must be of a temporary nature. The sheep would be protected and preserved amidst the dreadful havoc, devastation and unparalleled barbarities of these times, while the other two parties, Diabolos and his angels, would miserably suffer during these horrible conflicts."-Pp. 125–129.

The Lecturer seems to be fully aware that his explanation of the appellation Devil, in John viii. 41, (the text of the VIIth Lect.,) as referring to the Sanhedrim, will appear harsh to his hearers, and therefore he takes great pains in its vindication. How far he has been successful, we will not undertake to say; but we acknowledge that there is great weight in some of his critical remarks: e. g.

"When Jesus, therefore, tells the Pharisees in the text, that Diabolos was their father, who had been a murderer from the beginning, he repeats what he had said before, that they were seeking some plausible pretext for taking his life. In doing this, they were the active and faithful spies of their employers, the Jew, ish rulers: Ye are the willing perpetrators of their machinations, whose intention has been murder from the be ginning of my ministry among you.' Con. sidering all the malicious lies which these Pharisees propagated concerning him, as originating with the Jewish rulers, as a body, he here calls them liars, and bes tates not to declare his belief that they were the father of them, agreeably to the sense in which the term father is frequently used in the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus Jabal, who projected the plan of having moveable dwellings, for the greater convenience of attending their flocks, is called the father of such as live in tents. (Gen. iv. 20.) His brother Jubal, who was the inventor of string and wind masical instruments, is called the father of the harp and the organ (ver. 21). Joseph, (chap. xlv. 8,) who by his judicious administration of the government of Egypt, had raised it to great prosperity, tells his brothers that God had made him a father to Pharaoh. Job, who knew the value and blessing of rain and dew, speaks of God as the father of them. (Chap. Xxxviii. 28.) And Huram is called the father of Hiram, king of Tyre, (2 Chron. ii. 13,) because he was the best workman, in his dominions, in brass and copper.

This same person is also called the father of Solomon, (chap. iv. 16,) because the king of Tyre sent him to Solomon, to fabricate for him, in those branches, the vessels and ornamental parts of the Tem ple. Thus, the Sanhedrim was the father the fabricator of all the malicious falsehoods circulated concerning Jesus; the father-the source of all the opposition which had been made to the truth. When any of the Pharisees uttered these lies, Jesus tells them, they only spoke in character, as closely connected with the rulers, the father and origin of all: When any one speaketh a lie, he speaketh according to his own kindred; for

his father also is a liar.'* The Pharisees in conjunction with their rulers, were the determined opposers, from the beginning," of Christ and his doctrine; and they would not believe him, although he so repeatedly declared that he told them the truth, and the truth from God, appealing to the testimony which God bore to him by the miracles which he enabled him to perform."-Pp. 145-147.

The VIIIth Lect. is upon the use of the word Devil in the Epistles; the following is the scheme of interpreta tion here adopted:

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1 John iii. 8, 10, where it is used synonymously with sin. Jude 9, an opponent to an archangel."-P. 178. Note.

We think our author peculiarly unhappy in his exposition of Heb. ii. 14." Heathenism" might by a personification be styled the Devil, the Accuser or Tempter; but in what sense could Heathenism be said to have "the power of death"? A writer to the Hebrews was not likely to expatiate upon the deliverance of the Gentiles from their bondage and fear, and verse 16th of the chapter expressly confines his reasoning to "the seed of Abraham." There is evidence in the passage itself that the Devil, as he is commonly conceived, is not and cannot be intended; this Mr. Scott satisfactorily shews: but the whole and true sense does not appear to us to have been yet discovered. Can the writer mean by the Accuser, who had the power of death, the Law, agreeably to John v. 45, and Rom. vi. 13 and 20? or does he refer to some Jewish hypothesis or fable which is not pre

served?

Lect. IX. embraces the explanation of other expressions in the New Testament besides the Devil and Satan which are supposed to refer to a mighty evil Spirit. "The Prince of this world," in John xii. 3), (the text of this Lecture,) is explained of

the Jewish Sanhedrim acting under the sanction of the Roman Government. Paul is said to refer, in Ephes. ii. 2, under the phrase "Prince of the power of the air," to some fanci ful being in the theory of the Gnostics, against whom he is writing; and in 2 Cor. iv. 4, under the phrase "God of this world," or age, to the idolatry of the Heathens. We quote at length the remarks upon some other supposed appellatives of the Evil Spirit in the Apocalypse:

"The eleventh verse of the ninth

6

chapter of the book of the Revelations," (Revelation) is said to be prolific in its supply of names for the Devil, having no less than three; the Angel of the bottomless pit,'' Abaddon,' and Apollyon.' John does not say the pit is bottomless; he calls it the pit of deepness,' as Wickliff translates the word aburos. The pit is on the earth, since the star, or messenger of heaven, came to the earth, and had the key given him to open this pit. It could not be hell, as its inhabitants are said to be confined there in ada

mantine chains, whereas these were let

out for five months. The inhabitants of

this visionary pit were the enemies of the gospel, and are represented under the

• Wakefield's translation.

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