On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan, _the_ devil
_par excellence_. He and his company of demons are free to roam
through all parts of the universe, except the heaven. These bad
spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety; and their whole
energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils upon him,
and to thwarting, so far as his power goes, the benevolent intentions
of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and bodies of men form both
the theatre and the prize of an incessant warfare between the good and
the evil spirits--the powers of light and the powers of darkness. By
leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the
gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of
idolatry; as the "powers of the air" they afflict mankind with
pestilence and famine; as "unclean spirits" they cause disease of mind
and body.
The significance of the appearance of Jesus, in the capacity of the
Messiah, or Christ, is the reversal of the satanic work by putting an
end to both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at
hand, when the "Prince of this world" shall be finally "cast out"
(John xii. 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly career,
cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his devilry,
along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their destruction, be
hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire--there to endure continual
torture, without a hope of winning pardon from the merciful God, their
Father; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one more act of pitiful
intercession; or even of interrupting, by a momentary sympathy with
their wretchedness, the harmonious psalmody of their brother angels
and men, eternally lapped in bliss unspeakable.
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