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punishment before the time. Then dropping the thought of the day of judgment, he expects fome marks of displeasure immediately; what he could not tell, whether being banished from that country, or drowned in the fea, or fent to the abyss. Our Saviour, to give the spectators a ftill farther

Cælius Aurelian. Morb, Chron. i. 5. de Mania: Furens alius fe pafferem exiftimavit, alius gallum gallinaceum, alius fictile, alius laterem, alius deum. And P. Ægineta, iii. 14, de melancholia et infania, et his qui numine afflati putantur: Putant aliqui fe animalia bruta effe, et illorum voces imitantur aliqui vero vafa teftacea fe effe putant, et ne frangantur timent.-Quidam vero etiam putant, se ab aliquibus majoribus poteftatibus impeti. ›

Now, a madman, who conceived himfelf to be a demon, or who represented one, being accommodated, as he thought, with a suitable habitation, and believing that Jesus was that extraordinary prophet who caft out demons, might be (as the demoniacs of the Gospel were) greatly terrified at Jefus's approach, left he fhould be expelled by him, and perhaps fubjected to fome additional or premature punishment. See above, p. 262, 263.

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inity of oblerving the height of his on, as well as for the other reason v mentioned, continued the conn, and asked him, What is thy

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He answered, like a madman,

ught himself possessed with a mulf demons, or that he was one of ber, My name is legion; for we are ore than fix thoufand. He could w that he was possessed by a fingle much lefs that he was poffeffed by ultitude of demons; but he spoke s diforder fuggefted; and either himself to be a legion of demons, actuated by a legion. He conhimself with those spirits under nfluence he fuppofed himself to dact.

queftion, in any other view than that here t, feems liable to many other objections ofe mentioned by Rouffeau in the introWould Chrift afk the devil his name? anguage did he expect an answer? For ormation could that anfwer be defigned ? P. 260.

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fwine; and, agreeably to the falfe apprehenfions he had of himself, faid, If thou caft us out, fuffer us to go away into the herd of fwine. A ftrange request for an immaterial being, a pure fpirit, and one of celeftial origin, to make! but not at all unfuitable to the character of a madman, that fancied himself to be, or that spoke in the name of, an unclean spirit, who, next to tombs defiled by the bodies of dead men, could find out no habitation more unclean, or more conformable to his ideas of himfelf, than the body of a fwine.

Were it poffible to find out a rational meaning for every thing faid by the demoniac, even this would not prove that he spoke by the fuggeftion of the devil; for madmen fometimes fay things furpriz

Cum putarent, fe immundos effe fpiritus, non potuerunt aptius domicilium bi eligere poft fepulchra quam porcos. Jalkut Rubeni f. 10. 2. Anima idolatrarum quæ venit a fpiritu immundo, vocatur porcus. Wetstein on Mat, viii. 31.

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is demoniac, whofe whole conduct to me to correspond precifely to a mere madman, under thofe imas which he had received from edu and the information he gained in ervals of his fanity. But the truth interpreters, to fupport a favourite efis, afcribe to him sense and fuga ore than human, though the hiftowill warrant us to pronounce him -ed in his understanding; and they ational conftruction upon the very

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tances, which feem to have been hed by the evangelifts with no ew than to illuftrate his infanity. hath been alledged, that demoniacs red more than human frength. legation is chiefly fupported by of the demoniac under the fore

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confining fuch unhappy perfons; and who is ignorant that mere madmen difcover very amazing ftrength, from an extraordinary flow of animal fpirits, or from fome other caufe, efpecially in the most violent paroxyfms of their disorder? But fo great is the force of prejudice, as to make the plaineft symptoms of a natural disease, proofs of the interpofition of fuperior beings.

I cannot conclude this fection without taking notice of the cafe of the demoniac at Ephesus, who is thought to have given proofs both of power and knowledge more than human. To the Jewish exorcifts, who took upon them to call over those that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jefus, the evil spirit (that is, the man who was

Caffii Problem. 61. Cur phrenetici et furiofi in paroxyfmis robuftiores funt, virefque habent auctas? Wetteln on Mat, viii. p. 355. See alfo p. 354, (b).

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