nhanced.
We often mar what we do for God by conspicuously claiming the credit;
he asks for no credit if only the result redounds to his power.

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II. _The Fact of his Personality_

The question of the personality of Satan is one that we must briefly
consider here. Do we believe in a personal devil? The answer to this
question will show what is our attitude towards the spiritual conflict.
We may go further, and say that it will show whether, in the last
analysis, we believe there is any spiritual conflict.[11]

In these days when man is made the measure of all things, both divine
and devilish, we often hear it said that every soul is its own tempter,
that what revelation calls temptation is but the working out of a
so-called "evil principle" that resides by nature in every human
spirit.[12]

Of course, there is a partial truth in this, for {32} when we yield
ourselves to Satan's power by consenting to sin, we then become his
servants, and just as one man often acts as Satan's agent in tempting
another, so, too, we can act as his agent in tempting ourselves. But
it is none the less his personal work though carried out through
another.

To deny the personality of Satan involves one in all manner of denials
of Scripture and Church teaching. Revelation declares that God made
our first parents and pronounced them "very good."[13] Whence then
arose the inherent "principle of evil" that wrought their temptation?
Did God create in them and pronounce "very good" that which asserted
itself so desperately against His will, or did it come from a
personally directed intelligence outside of them?

Again, in the second Adam, if He is indeed the God-man, the Incarnate
Jehovah, whence came His temptation? If it came from some principle
within Him, then just in so far as His temptation was greater than ours
must the evil principle dwelling in Him have been greater; and when we
consider the extent of His temptation we must then conclude that His
human nature had more inherent evil in it than that of any other who
has ever braved the perils of the spiritual conflict.

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Again, the verdict of the Christian experience of all ages has been
that the more nearly men attain to the likeness of Christ, the more
they are tempted. Does then the increase of the Christ-character give
added virulence and strength to the evil that is within?

These illustrations of temptation show that those who reject the
personality of Sat