eman in the fynagogue, with (or, unclean fpirit". Waving the argurawn from thefe expreffions above°; only obferve, that this perfon had ilepfy or falling fickness', as the dwriter himself allows ". His erefore hath, in effect, been conalready.

des thofe already mentioned, there pinftances appealed to by Dr. Lardwhich deferve a more particular eration: the dumb man, a demoniac, e dumb demoniac,) mentioned by athew', and the demoniac blind mb defcribed both by this evan

57.

reúμals a×atáplw, Mark i. 23, 26. Luke him as (ἔχων πνεῦμα δαιμονία ἀκαθάρτα) fpirit of an unclean demon, ch. iv. 33.

100.

is appears from his being thrown down, 35.) and torn and convulfed, Mark i, 26.

57.

ρωπον κωφὸν δαιμονιζόμενον, Mat. ix. 32.

notes in the New Teftament, as in all other ancient authors, a poffeffed madman, or rather a perfon afflicted with fuch kind and degree of madness as was originally afcribed to poffeffion. Such therefore each of these demoniacs must have been, under whatever other diforders they might labour. It is not pretended, that their other diforders were inconfiftent with what was called poffeffion; they were rather confidered as the effect of it. In the firft cafe, the demoniac or madman was dumb; and his dumbnefs probably arofe from the natural turn of his diforder, which was that fpecies of madness, called melancholy, of which, taciturnity or dumbnefs is a very common effect. This

fymptom, the ancients, who confidered melancholy as the effect of poffeffion, expreffed by faying, the patient had a

Ch. xii. 22.

* Ch. xỉ 14.

dumb

nefs from that which is owing to al causes, or to a defect in the orof fpeech. Agreeably hereto we ld, that when the demon was gone or the madness imputed to the dewas cured), the dumb man fpake*. the prophetefs Pythia was out of enfes, and oppreffed with too strong piration, fhe was faid to be filled with b.and evil Spirit'. The fecond likewas a cafe of melancholy, which in pinion of the ableft judges, Hippoand Galen', may produce either exies, or convulfions, or blindness, acng to the part on which the pituitous ur falls Thefe cafes, therefore,

ee above, p. 109, 110.

Lat: ix. 33

λάλα και κάκε πνεύματος. Plutarch, de Orac P. 438.

ippocrates in his Aphorifms, lib. vi. aph. Galen in his obfervations upon it. hefe obfervations may serve to explain the the epileptic youth, more fully than we did

to establish, which is that of a perfon under an alienation of mind, or diforder of understanding, proceeding, or originally thought to proceed, from the poffeffion of demons.

b

The learned writer farther appeals to paralytical cafes, in fupport of his hypothefis. But paralytics are never spoken of in the Gospel as demoniacs. Nay, the Gospel exprefly diftinguishes palfies from poffeffions. Dr. Lardner likewife preffes into the fervice two paffages

d

above, p. 107, 108, 109. He had a fpirit that was not only dumb, like the perfons whofe cafe we are confidering, but deaf alfo. circumstance, it may be

With regard to this last obferved, that if the pi

tuitous humour falling upon the optic nerves occahions blindness, as the most learned phyficians tell us it will; the fame humour falling upon the auditory nerves may occafion deafness.

b P. 98.

C

Mat. iv. 24, cited above, p. 64..~ • P. 58, 59.

have been already explained; that fpeaks of a woman whom Satan and that which defcribes all difperfons as oppressed by the devil. regard to both these paffages, it has newn, that a diftinction fhould be between disorders which the Jews red as inflicted by evil fpirits, and = they afcribed to evil fpirits poffeff nkind. Difeafed perfons in general hought to fuffer under the power 1 fpirits; but those only were at to be poffeffed, whom evil spirits and actuated, occupying the feat human foul, and performing its s functions. If poffeffion was comall the diseased, it could not have mployed, in the manner it is in the eftament, to diftinguish one sort of d perfons from another,

have now examined all Dr. Lardbjections to the account we have