difcourfes, faid, He hath a and is mad; why hear ye him? understand thefe words in the fenfe, the Jews intended to h Chrift both with poffeffion and« s. For thefe two, when thus together, are not neceffarily to be ood as fynonymous terms; poffefay be put for the apprehended nd madness for the fuppofed effect. from the latter that men inferred mer; or in other words, madness evidence of poffeffion. On the and, as poffeffion fometimes demere madnefs, from whatever cause x. 20. Δαιμόνιον ἔχει καὶ μαίνεται. In like focrates, (Orat. Areopagit. vol. i. p. 348. e,) makes mention of xaxodamovnσávlav · ἀνθρώπων. us in Philoftratus, (Vit. Apollon. Tyan. ap. 38. p. 128.) when the mother was hy fhe thought her fon poffeffed by a he replied, the demon Evyweî avlw non fana illum mente patitur effe. language is grounded on the connexion there was originally fuppofed to be between poffeffion and infanity. Thofe who thought favourably of Chrift, replied to the calumny of his enemies, Thefe are not the words of him who hath a demon; that is, "We cannot difcover any thing in his difcourfes, that looks "like the ravings of a demoniac, or "from whence it can be justly inferred, "that he is difordered in his underftanding". At another time, the Jews being unable to bear the fevere reproofs of this divine prophet, broke out again into rage and revilings: Say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan, (one that bearest us the moft implacable hatred,) and haft a demon', tha is, art quite befide thyfelf?" Or they e John x. 21. f Ch. viii. 48. n. Jefus replied, I have not a de- er. 49. er. 51. er. 52. thus "der you? If your understanding were "not disturbed (by a demon,) you would "not have advanced fuch a groundless 66 charge1." * Ch. vii. 20. 1 The foregoing paffages may, perhaps, enable us to understand, Mark iii. 22. The scribes which came down from Jerufalem, faid, He hath Beelzebub. A learned and ingenious writer conjectures, that the meaning is, He hath Beelzebub at hand, as his affociate and minifter. But to have a demon, doth on other occafions import, being poffeffed by him. Nor is this meaning of the phrafe, unfuitable to the occafion on which it is ufed here. Such multitudes thronged after Chrift, at this time, to be healed and inftructed, that he had no leifure to take the neceffary refreshments of nature; and it was even faid, or isn, that he is fainting away; Mark iii. 20, 21. (See Gen. xlv. 26. Josh. ii. 11. If. vii, 2. and Enthufiafm, p. 63.) friends to lay hold on him, compare Cafaubon on This occafioned his (upalnoas autov,) to press him to take fome refreshment; juft as it is faid in the cafe of Elifha, the woman laid hold on him, (ingáτnow avròv,) to eat bread, 2 Kings iv. Nor is afcribed to demons, but that of madness also called melancholy. ohn came neither eating nor drinkfay, He hath a demon". From ading himself from the chearful. e of men in the wilderness, and g great abstinence and mortificaey inferred, that John was under er of melancholy, and therefore effed. From the foregoing paff Scripture, it appears in what faubon obferves, p. 65.) Now fuch malignity of the fcribes from Jerufalem r Lord, that they took occafion from nftance, (viz. his fuffering his zeal to fuch great lengths,) to reproach him ; poffeffed by the prince of demons, or ighest degree of absurdity and infanity. xviii... Luke vii. 33. Le feveral paffages cited above, I have the phrafe, having a demon, in such a. to include in it the idea of poffeffion as t of infanity; because both these were cluded in it. Nevertheless, it ought to , that words often lofe a part of their H light |