on right, or blend the right and wrong. But the Scripture dæmoniacs reason rightly on right grounds. They utter propositions undeniably true. In their knowledge of Christ they excel even the Disciples, for these had not hitherto called him the Holy one of God.' They address our Lord in a consistent and rational, though in an appalling and mysterious manner. Our Lord answers them by commanding them as unclean spirits! They appeal to him as to their judge, Art thou come to torment us before our time? They entreat him not to command them to leave this world, and go into the invisible one; the Abyss. They believe and tremble.' There is evidently something preternatural in the distemper, for the dæmoniacs unanimously join in doing homage to Christ and the Apostles; they all know him, they all unite in confessing his Divinity. If they had been lunatics, some might have worshipped, but some would have reviled.

5. It is impossible to account for the possession of the herd of swine, but on the ancient and literal interpretation of Scripture.

"6. It cannot be supposed that our Lord humoured madmen by adopting their language. Hold thy peace, and come out of him. • What is thy name?' Thou unclean Spirit.'

In conclusion, Mr. Townsend makes the following probable conjectures and eloquent remarks.

"It is the part of reason to examine the Evidences of Revelation. When it is satisfied of their truth, its only duty is to fall prostrate before the God of reason and Scripture, and implicitly believe the contents of the Sacred Volume in their plain and literal meaning. This stage of our existence is but the preparation for another, and it therefore seems but rational and philosophical to conclude that some things should be recorded in Revelation, which should serve as links to connect the visible with the invisible world. Among those may be considered such facts as the Resurrection, the three Ascensions, the Visits of the Angels, the sudden appearances of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and the miraculous powers. Among those facts I should place the dæmoniaca! possessions. As at the Transfiguration, Moses and Elias appeared in glory to foreshow the future state of the blessed, so may the fearful spectacle of a human being possessed by evil spirits have been designed as a representation of future punishment. The dæmoniac knew Christ, yet avoided and hated him. An outcast from the intellectual and religious world, he grieved, yet he could not repent. In the deepest misery and distress, he heightened his agony by self-inflicted torments. The light of Heaven, which occasionally broke in upon his melancholy dwelling among the tombs, served only to render his darkness visible.' Although I have not met with the opinion elsewhere, I cannot but consider that we are here presented with a fearful and overwhelming description of the future misery of the wicked, by the visible power of the devil over the bodies and souls of men. The account of the dæmoniacal possession may be regarded as an awful warning addressed to mankind, how they also come into the same state of condemnation.

"It also appears to me, that the dæmoniacs powerfully represent the state to which all the sons of Adam would have been reduced for ever, if the Son of God had not descended from Heaven to accomplish the wonderful plan of redemption." · Vol. I. p. 160.

We may add to the probability of this last conception, by observing that it tends to explain the sudden degradation of the serpent in paradise. Adam the sinner is condemned to death, but his sentence is deferred through almost a thousand years. The tempter is stricken on the spot. Whatever might have been his habitual power of evil since his fall; and it may have extended to that complete controul which keeps the fallen angels in torment and open enmity against God; his power is now limited by a new degradation before the eye of the being whom he has ruined, and who, but for the interposition of God, might be for ever made like those whom he had already plunged into hopeless ruin. But it is declared, that he shall be placed in a more humiliating and limited condition of power from that time forth, through all ages of mankind until the period of the second death, that final punishment when he should be removed from all power of tempting or afflicting man through eternity. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.'

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This denunciation must have looked further than to the reptile, whose nature and habits we have no reason to suppose changed; while the declaration of the future conflict between the serpent and the seed of the woman is universally allowed to be directly allusive to Satan. The mystic degradation of the serpent is the real and declared limiting of the power of the ad

versary.

All this is of course theory; for, of the measure of invisible influences on the mind we can yet have no secure knowledge. Yet it is probable, and we think that its suggestion does credit to Mr. Townsend's ingenuity. But there is an opinion on the general subject of possession, whose ancient acceptance by the world and the Church, whose probability and whose accordance with the Scripture we think worthy of Mr. Townsend's future examination:-That those unclean spirits are not what we ordinarily understand by "devils," but are the "souls of evil men.'

Throughout the New Testament there is but one spirit called the devil, (in the original, the Aaßoλos) or Satan, or Beelzebub. The word is not used in the plural number.

"Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."Matt. xxv. 41.

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"That old serpent called the Devil and Satan."-Rev. xii. 9. "Paul says to Elymas, Thou child of the devil.'"-Acts xiii. 10. "Resist the devil, and he will fly from you."-James iv. 7. "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour."-1 Pet. v. 8. "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit, to be tempted of the devil."Matt. iv. 1.

"And he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan."

Thus there is one evil spirit distinctly marked by an appropriate name, which is never used in the plural. Where other evil agencies are spoken of they are either (and it appears, indifferently called in the original Πνεύματα πονηρα, οι Δαιμονια.

"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils," (in the Greek, demons."-Matt. x. 8.

"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, (demons) by whom do your children cast them out."-Matt. xii. 27.

"Now I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, (demons) not to God."-1 Cor. x. 20.

"But if I cast out devils, (demons) by the finger of God, then is the kingdom of God come unto you."-Matt. xii. 28.

"Thou believest that there is one God, the devils (demons) also be lieve and tremble."-James ii. 19.

When our Saviour and his Apostles spoke, they of course used their words in the customary meaning. But the meaning of the word Demon among the Jews, in the time of the Apostles, was, we learn from Josephus," the soul of a wicked man,' which was supposed to have the power of entering into the forms of the living, and destroying them, unless relief was speeddy administered; Τα γαρ καλεμενα δαιμόνια, ταύτα δε πονηρών εστιν ανθρώπων πνευματα. (De Bell. Jud. l. vii.)

Justin Martyr, (a Samaritan, and the son of Greek parents,) in the second century, speaks of " those tormented by the souls of the dead, whom all call demoniacs, and madmen." If these testimonies be allowed, our Lord, when he commands, "Come forth, thou demon," used words which, to his hearers, were, come forth, thou evil soul of a dead man."

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In the New Testament, this conception is sustained: "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God." 1 Cor. x. 20. Now it is notorious that the Greek and Roman sacrifices were declaredly to deities and demigods, who were, for the most part, once men; and not to good or bad angels, of whom they do not appear to have had any public knowledge. They deified heroes and kings down to a late period. To the Jews this heathen worship was an abomina

tion, as defrauding the worship of the true God, and they accounted all the objects of the worship evil.

It was the conception of the oldest Greek philosophy, that the air was peopled by the spirits of the dead ; και τότες δαίμονας τε καὶ ερωας νομίζεσθαι, and that those were the givers of dreams and of signs of health and sickness. (Diogen. Laert. in vit. Pythag.)

The Platonic theory had the same impression," Plerique ex Platonis magisterio, dæmones putant animas corporeo munere liberatas; laudabilium quoque virorum æthereos dæmones, improborum vero nocentes. (Chalcid. in Plat. Timæ.)

The name was given originally from the supposed superior knowledge of beings beyond the grave, whether gods or men. In heathen writings it sometimes denotes the Supreme Being, sometimes subordinate deities, sometimes a species of guardian spirits, and sometimes, no doubt, evil ones. The demon of Socrates, the adviser of Numa, the inspiring spirits of the oracles, are all vestiges of this ancient belief of the active influence of invisible existences.

In the New Testament the word Demon is always used in an evil sense, except, perhaps, in the single instance where St. Paul, at Athens, is charged with being a setter forth of new objects of worship, vv Samov, foreign demons.

In the Old Testament the heathen deities are often spoken of as dead men or demons, though our translation erroneously names them “devils.”

They shall no more offer their sacrifices to devils," (demons in the Septuagint, the known version in the time of our Saviour.) Levit. xvii. 7.

"They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils," (demons in the Septuagint.) Ps. cvi. 37.

It is obvious that these demons were the souls of the dead, for it is said, in the 28th verse of the same psalm, " They joined themselves to Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead."

When the Jews turned to worship idols, Isaiah, viii. 19., reprobates their seeking wisdom not from God, but from the objects of the idol worship; the living seeking knowledge "from

the dead."

And this was the very oldest acceptation of idol worship, as we find from Deut. xxxii. 15. "But Jeshurun waxed fat, and provoked the Lord to anger, they sacrificed to demons, not to God."

It is to be observed that this opinion does not affect the doctrine of " actual possession." We know nothing of the nature of spirit, of its mode of action, nor of its mode of connection

with matter. Being thus ignorant, we necessarily can show no reason why a disembodied spirit, or any number of them, should not take possession of a body, already inhabited by the human soul, and torment that body. In such matters we must look to authority, and that authority we have of the highest competence in the New Testament. When our Lord commands, "Come forth, thou unclean spirit." Can we doubt that there is an unclean spirit within! when he gives the Apostles power to "cast out demons ;" and they return to him with the declaration, that they have cast them out;" and when, in addition, we recollect that in no one instance is the casting out of demons said to be any thing else, nor pronounced a popular error, nor declared an operation in which there was a reserve for popular prejudice, we can have no more allowance for disbelief, than we have for denying the existence and the truth of God.

The doctrine that demon worship, the idolatry of heathenism, was the worship of the souls of dead men, adds one more to the host of evidences that the Church of Rome, the avowed worshipper of the souls of the dead, is an idolatrous Church; it has accordingly been resisted with all the violence of conscious criminality.

From Mr. Townsend's work it would be easy to multiply quotations, both learned and vigorously expressed. But for those we must now send the reader to the volumes themselves. The author has a natural, free, and forcible style, and he easily warms into eloquence. But we should be reluctant to rest the merits of a work of this order on grace of diction, or richness of fancy. In treating of the immortal concerns of man, and the might and glory of God's revelation, the noblest eloquence is simplicity. He who would worthily do homage in the Sanctuary of the Presence, must, like the Jewish high-priest, throw off the pomps that dazzle the world's eye, the jewels and the purple; and come with only the simple covering and the purified hand. The expositor of Scripture is a "worker together with God," and he will have a righteous fear how he introduces the littleness of earthly powers among the magnificent mysteries of the Word; how he attempts to roll his feeble chariot wheels in the majestic and overwhelming triumph of His truth, to whom earth and heaven are alike the dust of the balance, who layeth the beams of his chariot in the waters, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.

Of this species of error, common as it is in the popular Scriptural authorship of our day, Mr. Townsend is clear. His first and unremitted purpose is, the illustration of his text by the most copious and diligent collection of the general lights