demonism. Scarce was there a single oracle delivered but by a person said to be possessed.

With regard to the Jews, Josephus tells us, that the method of exorcism prescribed by Solomon prevailed or succeeded greatly among them down to his own time *. Indeed, the very existence of exorcists†, both before and after the time of Christ, and the general prevalence of magic arts amongst this people, as well as amongst the Gentiles, are a full proof that a belief of frequent possessions was common to both. The same conclusion may be drawn from the manner in which such of them as were strangers to the doctrines of Christianity addressed our Saviour: Have mercy on me, said the woman of Canaan, my daughter

* Και άυτη μέχρι νυν παρ' ἡμῖν ἡ θεραπεια πλειστον ίσχυει, Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2. § 5. In speaking of Saul, (Antiq. lib. vi. cap. 8. § 2.) he says, demons came upon him, περιήρχετο παθη τινα και δαιμόνια, and that when the demons came upon him, and disturbed him, (όποτ' αν αυτω προσιος τα Saiμovia naι TapaTTo,)—David was his only physician against the disturbance he suffered from them, and brought him to his right mind again, προς την από των δαιμόνων ταραχην,μονος ιατρος η και ποιαν ἑαυτου γίνετα Das rov Zauhov. In cap. 11. § 2, he makes Jonathan say to his father, that when an evil spirit and demons seized him, David cast them out, (1.Caλev.) In his Jewish War, lib. vii. cap. 6. § 3, he says, the plant baaras drives away (ežɛλavvɛi) demons. Elsewhere (Ant. lib. viii. cap. 2. $5.) he speaks of a demon's going out (§iovr) of the possessed person, and being adjured to return no more. This phraseology is very conformable to that of the Gospel.

Matt. xii. 27. Acts xix. 13. Joseph. Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2. § 5. Justin. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 311. Iren. lib. ii. cap. 6. § 2. Origen. cont. Cels. lib. i. p. 17. lib. iv. p. 183, 184.

See Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 175. Beza, Whitby, Grotius on Acts xix. 13. 19, and Biscoe's History of the Acts, p. 290.

In the same

is grievously vexed with a demon*. style, a Jew implores his compassion on behalf of his son: Look on my son; he hath a spirit, and is sore vexedt. It was not those who received, but those who rejected, the doctrines of Christ, that reproached him and his forerunner with having a demont. So that the Scripture itself furnishes abundant evidence that the doctrine of possessions was prior to the Christian æra. Hence it comes to pass, that possessions are never mentioned in the Gospel history with any degree of surprise, as a thing new or extraordinary, but altogether as a matter to which they had been accustomed. Nor did the enemies of Christ ever reproach him with introducing demons into Judea, merely for the sake of displaying his power over them; nor on this account accuse him of acting in concert with them; which nevertheless it would have been natural for them to do, had possessions never been heard of till the time of Christ, and then only in Judea.

That the same notions concerning them, which prevailed in Judea in the age of the Gospel, were current in the succeeding as well as in the preceding ages, and in other countries, is evident not only from the authorities already cited, but also from the writings of the Christian fathers (to say nothing of those of the latter Platonists). It would be endless to produce all the passages from the fathers, in which possessions

* Matt. xv. 21, 22. Mark vii. 24. See also Acts xvi 16. 18. xix. 19.

↑ Matt. xvii. 15. Mark ix. 17. Luke ix. 39.

Matt. xi. 19. John vii. 48. 52.

E6

are

are either asserted or referred to. There is no subject so familiar to them as this; there is nothing they boast of so much as the power of the meanest Christian to eject demons from the bodies of men*. In the history of the church there is more frequent mention made of possessions than in any other annals †. So little truth is there in the assertion, that we never hear of them but in the time of Christ.

Surely, no men forget themselves more than those do, who sometimes would persuade us, that the devil's tyranny expired (as well as revived) at the coming of Christ; and, at other times, maintain the credit of those writers, who, in every succeeding age, represent the devil as being every day dispossessed by Christians.

SECTION VIII.

Prop. VII. The demoniacs of the New Testament are not different from those mentioned in other antient authors; and a like judgment is to be formed of both.

THAT the demoniacs of the Gospel are the same sort of persons with those mentioned by other antient writers, appears from the symptoms of their disorders,

See Whitby's General Preface, p. 26-32. and Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacr. p. 166. Ode de Angelis, p. 649–656, and p. 867, 868.

Mede, p. 30, observes, that the energumeni are often mentioned in the church liturgies, in he antient canons, and in other ecclesiastical writings, many ages after our Saviour's being on earth; and that not as any rare and unaccustomed thing, but as ordinary and usual. This is a fact so well known, that none, I presume, will controvert it. which

Some of the New

which are in both the same *. Testament demoniacs are melancholy, and frequent solitary places; others are outrageous, and not to be kept within bounds. Their understandings are disturbed; and yet, in some cases, they speak and act as if they were in their senses. Some of them are subject to fits (during which their reason is lost) and to convulsive agitations; and they act altogether as persons who have no command over themselves. Their imagination being disordered, they believe themselves to be possessed, (agreeably to the opinions concerning demons then entertained) and their speech and behaviour correspond to these apprehensions. In a word, all their symptoms agree with those of epileptics and maniacs, who fancied they had evil spirits within them. Now such as these are the demoniacs we meet with amongst the antient Greeks and Romans.

The language, likewise, in which demoniacs in the New Testament are described, is the very same with that used in describing those in other writings. When they are first seized with the fore-mentioned symptoms, a demon or demens are said to enter them. During the continuance of those symptoms, they are considered as actually possessed by demons. When they were cured, the demon or demons were said to leave them, or to be expelled from them. Now, if the demoniacs of the Gospel, and those in other

The circumstances usually alleged to prove, that there was something preternatural in the case of the New Testament demoniacs, will be explained in the second chapter.

antient

antient authors, are described in the same terms, and have the same symptoms, why should not a like judgment be formed of both?

Some, however, make a great distinction between the demoniacs of the New Testament and all other demoniacs, calling the former real demoniacs, and the latter only reputed ones. "The antients," says the bishop of Gloucester *, " often mistook natural disorders for demoniacal." He contends, that," in order to form a right judgment of the Gospel demoniacs, believers should first of all consider what part the devil bore in the oeconomy of gracet. He requires us to take into the account the history of the fall, Christ's temptations in the wilderness, and the great end of his mission, the redemption of mankind‡.” He blames those who reason " upon the case of the demoniacs, not as it is recorded by the evangelists, but as if described only in a treatise of medicine,and as much unconnected with our holy religion, as it was with the various systems of paganism. Whereas demoniacal possessions," he adds, “have an intimate relation to the doctrine of redemption, and were therefore reasonably to be expected at the promulgation of the Gospel. This sets the matter," he thinks, on quite a different footing §."

* P. 222.

↑ His lordship's very words are, Now, to form a right judgment of the matter in question, believers should first of all consider, WHAT PART THE DEVIL BORE IN THE ECONOMY OF GRACE. Serm. vol. iii. p. 215.

See p. 215, 216, 217. 219, 220.

$ P. 229.