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A Personal Devil

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 19, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 29, No. 11.

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A Personal Devil.

“THE next chief point in the doctrine of John, is his belief in an evil being, the personality of wickedness, and the relation between him and bad men. There have been, from the early centuries, keen disputes on the question whether this apostle uses the terms Devil and evil one with literal belief or with figurative accommodation. We have not a doubt that the former is the true view. The popular denial of the existence of evil spirits, with an arch-demon over them, is the birth of a philosophy much later than the apostolic age. The use of the term ‘Devil’ merely as the poetic or ethical personification of the seductive influences of the world is the fruit of theological speculation, neither originated nor adopted by the Jewish prophets or by the Christian apostles.”—Alger.