the world as the great antagonist of the prince of darkness, should give a sensible and public specimen and proof of his power over him and his confederates by dispossessing them; and hereby raise our hopes of his perfect triumph over them at the end of the world? In a word, the more carefully we examine the miracles of Jesus relating to the possessed, the more clearly shall we perceive their strict connexion with the great end of the whole Christian dispensation, the redemption of mankind. Scarce, therefore, can we injure Christianity more than by denying the reality of diabolical possessions ↑. In answer to this reasoning, I observe,

1. That it is not supported by the testimony of Scripture. Neither our Saviour nor his apostles did ever assert or intimate that the devil enjoyed an extraordinary liberty at the time of Christ's coming into the world; much less did they attempt to account for his having

such

* See Dr. Warburton's Serm. vol. iii. p. 218. and Dr. Doddridge's Fam. Expos. vol. i. p. 211. 2d ed.

+ I take no notice here of what is sometimes urged in favour of the common hypothesis, viz. "That the dispossession of devils by Christ, and the compulsive testimony they bore him, served to clear him from all suspicion of a confederacy with these infernal spirits." For we have already had occasion to observe, that though our Saviour speaks of the ejection of demons as an act of hostility against them, such as it was not natural to refer to the prince of the demons; yet this hath no relation to the devil (see above, p. 10.), and was spoken to his adversaries, merely upon their own principles, the only principles upon which he could argue with them. Dissertation on Miracles, p. 388, 8vo, and p. 245–8, 12m6. With regard to the testimony which, it is said, the demons were compelled to bear to Christ, it hath

been

such liberty the nallowed him, or show that it was fit that it should be granted. Not one of the reasons assigned for the devil's giving some unusual proofs of his power at this period, are taken notice of in the New Testament. The more weighty and important those reasons are supposed to be, so much the more difficult is it to account for this silence. If it was even necessary that Christ should exhibit a specimen of his triumph over the devil, by dispossessing him from the bodies of men, how comes it to pass that dispossessions are never spoken of in this view, by those who certainly best understood their intention? Whenever God commissions his messengers to perform miracles for the conviction of mankind, he instructs them to explain to the world the great ends proposed by them. This was the case with regard to all the prophets both of the Old and New Testament. They never left it, nor could they fitly leave it, to human conjecture to determine for what purposes

been shown, that it is not only groundless, but highly unreasonable to suppose that God should compel the devil to bear testimony to Christ, and then direct Christ to reject it, and even to work a miracle upon that lying spirit, that he might not discredit the truth he had published. See above, p. 154. The abettors of the common hypothesis would do well to consider, whether it be a good way of clearing Christ from all suspicion of acting in concert with devils, to affirm that these wicked spirits were by him, or on his account, introduced into Judea, and that they were the first who proclaimed his divine character, though afterwards he enjoined them silence. On the other hand, understand the ejection of demons as, I apprehend, it ought to be understood, concerning the miraculous cure of a disease, and there will at once appear no more ground for ascribing to the devil this than any other miracle of the Gospel.

4

their miracles were wrought. Nor can we learn what those purposes were in any other method than by the declarations of a prophet, or by the nature of the works themselves; and the latter will give us very little assistance without the former. The silence of Scripture, therefore, concerning what is supposed to have been the grand and peculiar design of the cure of demoniacs, is a sufficient reason for rejecting it; unless it can be clearly and certainly inferred from the nature of the work itself, which no one will affirm that understands it aright.

2. The entire reasoning we are now examining is built upon this false hypothesis, viz. that the spirits who were thought to take possession of mankind were devils or fallen angels. But we have shown that possessions were always referred to such human spirits as were supposed to be converted into demons; that there is only one devil, and that he is never mentioned in Scripture in any connexion with the subject before us. All the arguments therefore urged to prove the propriety and necessity of his extraordinary agency in the age of the Gospel, and of Christ's public triumph over him, by expelling him from human bodies, militate against the Christian dispensation; and, if they proved any thing, would prove that God ought to have allowed the devil a power, and afforded Christ a triumph, which were not granted.

3. The reasoning stated above proceeds upon another false supposition, viz. that possessions were more frequent in the age of the Gospel than at any other time; a supposition contradicted by all the monuments of

antiquity.

antiquity. So that, had it been true that the Scripture had referred possessions to the devil, it would not have followed, even from hence, that the devil gave any unusual proofs of his power at the commencement of the Christian æra.

4. Were it true, not only that the devil was the spirit who possessed men's bodies, and that possessions were more frequent in the age of the Gospel than any other; yet the cases of reputed possessións described in the Gospel do not contain any convincing proof of the power and interposition either of the devil or any evil spirit. The agency of demons (whatever spirits you understand hereby) is not an object of sight; their entrance into the human body falls not under the notice of any of our senses. There is not, therefore, the same evidence to be had of it as there is of a person's being diseased or dead. Accordingly the writers on demonology find it necessary to lay down rules for distinguishing true from pretended possessions, and to appeal to certain outward supernatural symptoms (such as the gifts of tongues and prophecy†), as proofs of an immediate inspiration thus making one miracle necessary to attest

* See above, p. 87.

+ Several ill attested instances of persons inspired by demons with these gifts, are recited by the learned Dr. Macknight, in his Essay on the Demoniacs, p. 179, 180. The Christian revelation, however, in agreement with right reason, ever supposes the gifts of tongues and prophecy to be the effects of a divine agency. Why then do the advocates of that revelation assign them an infernal origin? A zeal for demonism hath led Christians, in many other instances, to obscure the brightest evidences of the Gospel.

the

the reality of another. It seems then to be the general sense of mankind, what is indeed self-evident, that we cannot yield a rational assent to the reality of possessions, without some proof of it distinct from the fact itself, because it is not subject to the notice of our senses.

Apply these observations to the Gospel demoniacs. What evidence is there of their being really possessed? We have seen that their outward symptoms are so far from necessarily arguing the presence and operation of demons in the human body, that they are apparently the same with those in natural disorders; and that there is not a single circumstance attending their case, which furnishes an instance or proof of any supernatural agency. Nor hath the Gospel laid down any such rules as those just now mentioned, in order to enable us to distinguish true from pretended possessions, or offered any proof at all of the reality of possessions, though some such proof was apparently necessary, and even universally allowed to be so in all other cases. Nay, the most strenuous asserters of Gospel demonianism are forced at last to build their faith in it upon the supposed testimony of Christ*; which is giving up the very point they undertook to establish, viz. that the demons themselves gave evident proof of their power in the demoniacs spoken of in the New Testament.

If the foregoing observations are just, the very foundation of the reasoning stated at the beginning of this chapter is not solid. It is built upon this principle, that the

* We Protestants urge the testimony of the Gospel, to prove the truth of demoniacal possessions, Warburton's Serm. vol. iii, p. 236 et passim.

devil