fince cafed, they have appeared to feveral learned men fo incredible, that they have been led to deny that they ever exifted, and to maintain that they were only diseases of a violent and terrifying nature, attended with convulfive or epileptic fits; that this fort of disease was ascribed by the Jews to the operation of evil spirits; and that our Saviour, in compliance with their prejudices, treated them as cafes of real poffeffion, and pretended to caft out devils, when in fact, he only cured the disorder with which the patient was afflicted.

This opinion is fupported by great names; but howev er great and refpectable they may be it appears to me utterly indefenfible.

Every expreffion that our Lord makes ufe of with refpect to these demoniacs plainly supposes them to be really poffeffed; and it is not eafy to affign any admiffible reason why he should treat them as fuch, if they were not so, and why he should not correct inftead of countenancing fo grofs an error; as fuch a conduct could answer no one good purpose, and feems hard to reconcile with his own. uniform fairness and fincerity of mind. To have done it to magnify his own power in cafting out the evil spirits, would have been, to all appearance, a very needless expedient; because the immediate removal of a natural difease (if it was one) would have been an equal proof of his divine power. But befides this, there is every where a plain distinction made between common diseases and demoniacal poffeffions; which fhews that they were totally different things. In the fourth chapter of this Gospel, where the very first mention is made of thefe poffeffions, it is faid, that our Lord's fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all fick people that were taken with divers difeafes and torments, and those which were poffeffed with devils, and he healed them. Here you fee thofe that were taken with divers difeafes and torments, and those poffeffed with devils, are mentioned as distinct and separate perfons; a plain proof that the demoniacal poffeffions were not natural diseases; and the very fame diftinction is made in feveral other paffages of holy writ.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the demoniacs were perfons really poffeffed with evil spirits ; and although it may feem strange to us, yet we find from Jofephus, and other hiftorians, that it was in thofe times no uncommon cafe. In fact, it appears that about the time of our Lord's miniftry, that tremendous fpirit, Satan, or, as he is fometimes called in fcripture, the Prince of this world, had obtained an extraordinary degree of power over the human race, inflicting upon them the cruelleft pains and torments, depriving them of their fenfes, rendering them wretched in themselves, and terrible to all around them. To fubdue this formidable and wicked being, and to deftroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, was one great object of our Saviour's divine miffion; and it feems to have been indifpenfably neceffary for accom. plishing the redemption of mankind, that the kingdom of Satan fhould in the firft place be destroyed, and that the fons of men fhould be rescued from that horrible and difgraceful state of flavery in which he had long held them enthralled. One of the first steps, therefore, that our Lord took before he entered on his miniftry was, to estab lifh his fuperiority over this great enemy of mankind: which he did in that memorable fcene of the temptation in the wilderness; and among the earliest of his miracles recorded, is that of cafting out devils from those who were poffed by them. And perhaps one reason why thefe poffeffions were permitted, might be to afford our Lord an opportunity of giving the Jews a vifible and ocular demonftration of his decided fuperiority and fovereignty over the prince of the devils, and all his agents, and of his power to fubdue this great adverfary of the human fpecies. He appears indeed to have been in a state of conftant hoftility and warfare with this wicked fpirit; and in this very paffage Satan is defcribed by our Saviour under the image of a firong man, whom it was neceffary to bind before you could fpoil his houfe, and exterminate him and his coadjutors, as Jefus was then doing. Yet fo little were the Jews fenfible of this enmity between Christ and Beelzebub, that on the contrary they charged them with being friends and confederates. They faid, "This fellow doth not caft out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the

devils." The anfwer of our Lord to this was decifive and fatisfactory to every reasonable mind. "Every kingdom divided against itfelf is brought to defolation; and every city or house devided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan caft out Satan, he is divided against himself, how shall then his kingdom ftand ?" His argument is this: How abfurd and prepofterous is it to fuppofe that Satan will act against himself, by expelling his own ministers and agents whom he has fent to take poffeffion of the minds and bodies of men, and by affisting me to establish my religion, and thereby diffufe virtue and happiness throughout the world, which it is his great object to destroy, and to introduce vice and misery in their room. This must clearly end in his ruin, and the overthrow of his empire over mankind. It is evident then that it is not by his affiftance, but by the power of God, that I caft out devils; and if fo, it is clear to demonftration that I am commiffioned by heaven to teach true religion to mankind.

I cannot quit this fubject of miracles without obferving, what a remarkable difference there is between the fentiments of modern infidels and those of the firft enemies of the Gospel refpecting the miracles of Chrift. The former affert, that our Saviour wrought no real miracles: that miracles are in their own nature incredible and impoffible; and that no human testimony whatever can give credit to events fo contrary to experience, and fo repugnant to the ordinary course of nature. But go to thofe unbelievers who lived in the earliest ages of the Gospel, and even to those who were eye-witnesses to our Lord's miracles, and they will tell you a very different ftory. They assert, that Jefus did work miracles; they acknowledge that he did expel evil fpirits out of those that were poffeffed. They afcribed the miracle indeed to the power of Beelzebub, not of God. But this we know to be abfurdity and nonfenfe. The fact of the miraculous cure they did not difpute; and this at once establishes the divine miffion of our Lord. To which then of these two defcriptions of infidels fhall we give moft credit, to thofe who lived near eighteen hundred years after the miracles were perform

ed, or to those who faw them wrought with their own eyes and though they detested the author of them, admitted the reality of his wonderful works?

Our Lord then, continuing his converfation with the Pharifees, addreffes to them, in the 31st verse, these remarkable words:

"Wherefore I fay unto you, all manner of fin and blafphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blafphemy against the Holy Ghoft fhall not be forgiven unto men. And whofoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it fhall be forgiven him; but whofoever fpeaketh against the Holy Ghoft, it fhall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."

Our Lord's meaning in this obfcure and alarming paffage feems to be this; there is no other fin or blafphemy which argues such a total depravation of mind, but that it may be repented of and forgiven. Even he that speaks against me, the Son of God, and is not convinced by my preaching, my yet be afterwards converted by the power of the Holy Ghoft, by the miracles which he enables me and my difciples to work, and may obtain remiffion of his

But he that fhall obftinately refift this laft method of conviction (that of miracles wrought before his eyes) and fhall maliciously revile these moft evident operations of the fpirit of God, contrary to the reason of his own mind and the dictates of his own confcience, fuch an one has no further means left by which he may be convinced and brought to repentance, and therefore can never be forgiven,

From this interpretation, which is, I believe, generally admitted to be the true one, it appears that there is no juft ground for the apprehenfions fometimes entertained by pious and fcrupulous minds, that they may themfelves be guilty of the fin here declared to be unpardonable, the fin against the Holy Ghoft; for we fee that it is confined folely and exclufively to the cafe before us, that is to the crime of which the Pharifees had just been guilty, the crime of attributing thofe miracles to the agency of evil fpirits, which were plainly wrought by the fpirit of God, and which they faw with their own eyes.

What confirms this interpretation is, that this crime is here called, not as is generally fuppofed, the fin against Holy Ghoft, but blafphemy against the Holy Ghost, which evidently refers not to actions but to words; not to any thing done but to something said against the Holy Ghost. This being the cafe, it is clear that as miracles have long fince ceased, and this blafphemy against the Holy Ghost relates folely to those who faw miracles performed with their own eyes, it is impoffible for any one in these times to be literally guilty of this impious and unpardonable kind of blafphemy in its full extent.

Our Lord then addreffes himself more directly to the authors of this spiteful calumny: "Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit:" that is, be uniform and confiftent with yourselves. If you pretend to holiness and fincerity of heart, fuffer not your mouths to utter thefe blafphemies; or if you perfift in fuch behavior, lay afide all claim to religion, with which this obftinate malice is as inconfiftent, as it is for a tree not to discover its nature by the quality of the fruit it produces. He then adds, "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, fpeak good things; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth fpeaketh. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth evil things." The import of which words is this: But it is impoffible that you should speak otherwise than evil. You are a perverfe and malicious generation, and the thoughts of men's hearts will of course fhew themfelves by their words. They arise immediately from the fund within, and will neceffarily discover whether it be good or bad.

Then follows another very remarkable declaration of our Lord's in the 36th verfe: "I fay unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." From hence fome have imagined, that at the day of judgment we fhall be called to an account, and punifhed for every idle and unprofita

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