Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, 330-335—“Some persons have the power of intentionally calling up hallucinations; but it often happens to them as to Goethe's Zauberlehrling, or apprentice-magician, that the phantoms gain power over them and will not be again dispersed. Goethe's Fischer—‘Half she drew him down and half he sank’—repeats the duality in the second term; for to sink is to let one's self sink.” Manton, the Puritan: “A stranger cannot call off a dog from the flock, but the Shepherd can do so with a word; so the Lord can easily rebuke Satan when he finds him most violent.”Spurgeon, the modern Puritan, remarks on the above: “O Lord, when I am worried by my great enemy, call him off, I pray thee! Let me hear a voice saying: ‘Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; even Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee!’ (Zech. 3:2). By thine election of me, rebuke him, I pray thee, and deliver me from ‘the power of the dog’! (Ps. 22:20).”
Secondly,—their power is limited, both in time and in extent, by the permissive will of God. Evil spirits are neither omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. We are to attribute disease and natural calamity to their agency, only when this is matter of special revelation. Opposed to God as evil spirits are, God compels them to serve his purposes. Their power for harm lasts but for a season, and ultimate judgment and punishment will vindicate God's permission of their evil agency.
1 Cor. 10:13—“God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it”; Jude 6—“angels which kept not their own beginning, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
Luther saw Satan nearer to man than his coat, or his shirt, or even his skin. In all misfortune he saw the devil's work. Was there a conflagration in the town? By looking closely you might see a demon blowing upon the flame. Pestilence and storm he [pg 459] attributed to Satan. All this was a relic of the mediæval exaggerations of Satan's power. It was then supposed that men might make covenants with the evil one, in which supernatural power was purchased at the price of final perdition (see Goethe's Faust).
Scripture furnishes no warrant for such representations. There seems to have been permitted a special activity of Satan in temptation and possession during our Savior's ministry, in order that Christ's power might be demonstrated. By his death Jesus brought “to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and “having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,” i. e., in the Cross (Col. 2:15). 1 John 3:8—“To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” Evil spirits now exist and act only upon sufferance. McLeod, Temptation of our Lord, 24—“Satan's power is limited, (1) by the fact that he is a creature; (2) by the fact of God's providence; (3) by the fact of his own wickedness.”
Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 136—“Having neither fixed principle in himself nor connection with the source of order outside, Satan has not prophetic ability. He can appeal to chance, but he cannot foresee. So Goethe's Mephistopheles insolently boasts that he can lead Faust astray: ‘What will you bet? There's still a chance to gain him, If unto me full leave you give Gently upon my road to train him!’ And in Job 1:11; 2:5, Satan wagers: ‘He will renounce thee to thy face.’ ” William Ashmore: “Is Satan omnipresent? No, but he is very spry. Is he bound? Yes, but with a rather loose rope.” In the Persian story, God scattered seed. The devil buried it, and sent the rain to rot it. But soon it sprang up, and the wilderness blossomed as the rose.