THE JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE. EDITED BY JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. VOLUME IV. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH; AND J. ROBERTSON, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN. 1849. THE JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE. No. VII.-JULY, 1849. THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. By WILLIAM ELFE TAYLER. THE influence exercised over mankind by evil spirits is undoubtedly one of the most deeply interesting and practically important questions that can occupy the mind of the believer in divine revelation. Reasoning à priori, we should certainly have supposed that the blessed Jehovah would never have given those malignant beings any opportunity of introducing and perpetuating sin and its long train of evils in this lower world. Possessed, as we know Him to be, of infinite knowledge, wisdom, and power, it is natural to infer that the Creator would have taken effectual means to cut off all communication between such powerful adversaries and the human race. Here, however, we have one of the most striking instances of the truth of the divine declaration :'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.' From the inspired record we find that to this world, at least, the devil and his angels' have, from its first creation, enjoyed constant and unlimited access; and so successfully have they used their infernal powers, that they have converted what was once a paradise of God into what too often appears a pandemonium of wickedness and woe. One of the most terrible forms in which Satanic agency has been witnessed in this lower world is, unquestionably, that of Demoniacal VOL. IV.-NO. VII, B |