rmed in Scripture, are almost
universally exploded in a country which professes to admit the authority
of the sacred volume. Some other Doctrines of Revelation, the force and
real meaning of which are commonly in a great degree explained away, are
yet conceded in general terms. But this seems almost by universal
consent to have been abandoned, as a post no longer tenable. It is
regarded as an evanescent prejudice, which it would now be a discredit
to any man of understanding to believe. Like ghosts and witches and
other phantoms, which haunted the night of superstition, it cannot in
these more enlightened times stand the test of our severer scrutiny. To
be suffered to pass away quietly, is as much as it can hope for; and it
might rather expect to be laughed off the stage as a just object of
contempt and derision.

But although the Scripture doctrine concerning the Evil Spirit is thus
generally exploded, yet were we to consider the matter seriously and
fairly, we should probably find ground for believing that there is no
better reason for its being abandoned, than that many absurd stories,
concerning spirits and apparitions, have been used to be believed and
propagated amongst weak and credulous people; and that the Evil Spirit
not being the object of our bodily eyes, it would be an instance of the
same weakness to give credit to the doctrine of its existence and
agency. But to be consistent with ourselves, we might almost as well, on
the same principle, deny the reality of all other incorporeal beings.
What is there, in truth, in the doctrine, which is in itself improbable,
or which is not confirmed by analogy? We see, in fact, that there are
wicked men, enemies to God, and malignant towards their fellow
creatures, who take pleasure, and often succeed, in drawing in others to
the commission of evil. Why then should it be deemed incredible, that
there may be one or more spiritual intelligences of similar natures and
propensities, who may in like manner be permitted to tempt men to the
practice of sin? Surely we may retort upon our opponents the charge of
absurdity, and justly accuse them of gross inconsistency, in admitting,
without difficulty, the existence and operation of these qualities in a
material being, and yet denying them in an immaterial one (in direct
contradiction to the authority of Scripture, which they allow to be
conclusive) when they cannot, and will not pretend for a moment, that
there is any thing bel