He it was who taught the awful secret of murder to the fratricide, Cain, baiting the hook of infamous temptation with the lie, that, by slaying his brother, Cain would come into possession of Abel's flocks, and have much gain beside. (See Pearl of Great Price, pp. 22 and 23).
He it was who deceived Israel, by inducing them to revolt against the theo-democracy under which they had prospered, and to clamor for a king. Under kingly rule the nation was brought into vassalage and obscurity.
Primordially he and his angels were "cast out into the earth", and here they have since been, going up and down in the world, seeking whom they may deceive.
He is the author of sophistry and degrading skepticism, and of the whole foul mass of the philosophy and science "falsely so called", by which mankind are led to doubt the word of God, to becloud the Scriptures with vain imaginings and private interpretations, and to narcotize the mind with the poison of human invention as a substitute for revealed truth.
He is an adept at compounding mixtures of truth and falsehood, with just enough of the one to inspire a dangerous confidence, and of the other a toxic portion.
Beware of his prescriptions, his tonics and medicaments. Remember that water may be crystal clear, and yet hold in solution the deadliest of poisons.
He it is who has deceived peoples, tribes, and races, into servile submission to self-constituted rulers, and made of the masses slaves of autocrats, rather than to assert and maintain their rights as free men, whatever the effort and sacrifice be.
He it is who seeks to lead men captive at his will, to destroy their power of agency and choice, to dupe them into bartering their birthright of freedom for the nauseating pottage of present expediency.
He it is who has cajoled men into the unscriptural conception that there are ways, many and variable, by which salvation is attainable, other than the one and only way provided by the Savior of souls.
He is the arch-deceiver, the master sophist, the prime dissembler, the prince of hypocrites.