An inquiry into the existence of a personal devil / [By John Epps.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the existence of a personal devil / [By John Epps. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/104 (page 86)
    88 These laws, discovered, constitute, in relation to man, truth, and become to man, when used, the source of all physical comfort, and of all intellectual} and of much moral and religious progress. God’s laws, whether in the world of creation, or in the world of revelation* are for the production of good ; and as nothing can operate in opposition to the laws of God, all the operations of the universe must be for good. The devil, supposing him, (for the sake of showing the absurdity of his existence, to exist,) must, in acting, act through, and by means of the laws of God: and as he acts, all his advocates so allow, for the production of evil* he must actually, so to do, make God’s laws, appointed by Him for good} turn to a quite different purpose, namely, the production of evil* which is an absurdity, which is the first step to the dread ground-work of atheism. It recognizes the devil as more powerful than God; because* before a person can make a machine serve a purpose directly opposite to that for which it was made, he must have vanquished the original contriver, to be able so to turn that machine to a different purpose. The devil has the power, according to the common view, of setting aside the laws of God. He can work miracles ; for a miracle is a subversion of a law of the Creator ; and if so, then what becomes of miracles, as a demon- stration of a divine revelation ? In fact almost all the ideas, connected with the devil, are such as to make him equal with God. Thus to the devil is ascribed omnipotence ; if not quite, almost. He is said to have power over the whole of mankind, except a certain few, who are freed from his control: he is said to have thousands of angels, who minister to his royal will and pleasure: he is engaged, it is said, in convulsing king- doms : he can act on people through the air: he can afflict them with diseases: he can turn the laws of God to purposes for which God did not make them. He has the character of omniscience : he knows every man’s, woman’s and child’s thoughts : he knows the exact moment, when to whisper into the ear the seducing error, and he knows also the exact amount to introduce at a time. What is this but omniscience P He has the character of omnipresen ce : He is said to be here, there, and everywhere: he is seducing a human spirit here, and another at the antipodes at the same moment: he enters the heart of the Laplander and of the African at the same precise time: he is constantly watching in every street, lane, alley, glen, not of this great kingdom, but of all the kingdoms of the world, and at the same moment: for, be it observed, we are told that he acts upon men, when asleep as well as when awake. There then is a being, who, possessing the attributes which those who believe in his existence give to him, has omnipotence, omniscience, omni- presence, and yet these very people, so advocating his existence, proclaim themselves as the only Christians, and denounce all those who disbelieve in the devils as infidels. These devil-iiolders are practical atheists, and they who disbelieve in the devil, are farther off from atheism than they who believe in such a being. But it is said, the devil is not one but many. The Saviour speaks of the devil and his angels, but this has been already explained at page 13; and though the plurality of the devil and his ministers be allowed, the difficulties connected with the notions of a devil in relation to his ubiquity and universal reign, as identified with a personal being, are not at all thereby met.