eftored to their right mind; or, in words, the demons had left the men they took poffeffion of the fwine. en, therefore, if the words of the lifts are to be our guide, neither nor attempted to drive, the herd e fea. Had the fpectators feen them ed in fuch a mad and mifchievous t, they would not have thought the s had left them, but confidered them poffeffed madmen. The history rtain, doth exprefly afcribe the deon of the fwine, not to their being by the demoniacs, but to the entrance s into them, or to their being feized he fame diforder from which the ere relieved, and which was thought aufed by demons. The evangelifts, appofing them to have adopted the on hypothefis, would not have faid,. Le demons had entered the fwine, if

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ter had only been purfued by the

iacs.

Nor

For, whatever their opinion was with refpect to the cause of thefe men's diforder, which was fecret and invifible; all must allow, that they were capable judges of the diforder itself, of its outward symptoms and effects, which fell under the notice of their fenfes. They, and all who were prefent, though they could not fee the demons paffing from the men into the swine, yet could not but fee whether the men were cured of their madness, and the swine infected with the fame diforder: they could not but fee at what time thefe different events happened; whether the madmen, while they were ftill under the power of their disorder in the highest degree, fell upon the fwine with great violence, and fo caufed them to precipitate themselves into the fea; or whether, after their cure, (evinced by the composure of their behaviour) and while they were at fome diftance from the herd, the swine

grew

ufhed with fury into the water. refore, if we believe them to be historians, we must give them hen they declare the following and sensible fact, that just after the ame composed, (or, in their own , juft after the demons left them) e became outrageous, (or the detered them), and, to the astonishthe spectators, rushed upon their truction. Behold! the whole herd confifting of two thoufand, ran down a steep place into the fea. ineherds were of the fame opinion e evangelifts, with regard to the question; for the abfent Gadarenes, eived their information from the erds, had no apprehenfion that the n were the caufe of the destruction wine, but confidered it as a divine nt: for they were feized with great d prayed Jefus to depart out of their coafts;

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power. Nor did our Saviour contradict this opinion; though he might, without oppofing their prejudices concerning de

* Mark v. 16, 17. Extraordinary manifestations of the divine power and prefence being awful and affecting, (Exod. xx. 19. xxxiii, 20. xxxiv. 30. Judg. vi. 22. ch. xiii, 22. Luke ii.8—15. v.8—10. Mark iv. 41. Luke viii. 25. Mat. xvii. 6, 7.) Dr. Lardner afcribes the fear of the Gadarenes to the cure of the demoniacs, as the effects of a divine power but he is forced to allow, that they were apprehenfive of fuffering in their worldly interefts, which the miraculous lofs of the fwine alone could occafion. See his Remarks on Ward, p. 19—22. Befides, a miracle, whatever awe and dread it may impress upon the perfons prefent, is never said to produce this effect upon the abfent to whom it is related, unless when it was punitive and alarming in its very nature. The dread felt upon the fight of a beneficent miracle, arifes from its being a sensible token of a peculiar exertion of the power of God at the inftant of its performance; and therefore the great fear with which the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about were seized, cannot be accounted for by a bare relation of the cure of the demoniac,

mons,

e real truth, that the fwine were into the fea by the demoniacs, eby have removed their prejudices imfelf. For these reasons, I cande to the opinion of those learned who afcribe the deftruction of the the madmen.

er can I fee any juft ground for it to the agency of demons. We pre fhewn how groundless, and how is, to attribute to human fpirits ower as poffeffions imply. The ts urged above against the fuppofitheir entering the bodies of men, alating them to madnefs, conclude al (or nearly equal) force against ing the like power over the brute Reafon and experience, our only n the ftudy of nature, loudly reainst this doctrine. If we suppose, fhall, in the next fection, endeaprove that it is not a groundless. on) that the evangelifts, in reciting

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