I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind
about the devil as it was about the being of a God. Nature
assisted all my arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of
a great First Cause, an overruling, governing Power, a secret
directing Providence, and of the equity and justice of paying
homage to Him that made us, and the like; but there appeared
nothing of this kind in the notion of an evil spirit, of his
origin, his being, his nature, and above all, of his inclination to
do evil, and to draw us in to do so too; and the poor creature
puzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural and
innocent, that I scarce knew what to say to him. I had been
talking a great deal to him of the power of God, His omnipotence,
His aversion to sin, His being a consuming fire to the workers of
iniquity; how, as He had made us all, He could destroy us and all
the world in a moment; and he listened with great seriousness to me
all the while. After this I had been telling him how the devil was
God's enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill
to defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdom
of Christ in the world, and the like.
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