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of men.' He adds, the rife of Chrift's kingdom, and the fall of Satan's, being thus carried on together, it would be ftrange, could we find in this hiftory no marks of the rage of his expiring tyranny, amidst all the falutary bleffings of the rifing empire of Chrift. We fee them in abundance.-We fee this enemy of our falvation mad with despair, invoking all the powers of hell to his affiftance, * to blait that peace and good-will towards men, proclaimed by angels on the gracious birth night of the Son of God. For when he understood, from his baffled attempts upon his lord and master, that the fouls of men had escaped his wiles, he turned the exercise of his cruelty on their bodies, in the most humbling circumstances of pain and oppreffion that could difhonour and disgrace humanity: permitted, no doubt, to greater licence at this arduous jun&ture, than at any time before or fince, in order to manifeft the triumphs and glories of his conqueror."

It is allowed on all hands, that our Saviour had an abfolute power over natural evil. He evinced this power by curing all kinds of diseases, and rifing from death. But our author thinks, that his fovereignty over moral evil could not be fenfibly manifefted, as it was over natural evil, but by a vifible victory over Satan, through whofe temptation moral evil was brought into the world; and by whose wiles and malice it was fustained and increased. Hence it was, fays he, that, among the amazing works of fanity and falvation which our Saviour performed, the cafting out of devils is fo much infifted on by the hiftorians of his life and actions. For he had informed them that this was one of the effential operations in the erection of his spiritual kir gdom. If, faid he, I caft out devils by the spirit of God, THEN the kingdom of God is come unto you,'

His lordship proceeds to fhew, that Jesus and his disciples in their manner of working, and in their mode of recording what they wrought, did every thing which might beft display a victory over Satan.

It is clear, he fays, that the evil fpirit was neither abfent nor inactive when the evangelical miffion was first opened. Jefus was forty days tempted of the devil. When he com

manded the devils, whom he caft out, not to difcover him, the order, if there was no devil in the cafe, was only fuitable

* If all the powers of hell were employed in poffeffing the bodies of a fmall number of unhappy wretches in Judea, they must have been invoked for a moft infignificant purpose ! His lordship feems to intimate, that the fouls of men had escaped the wiles of the devil: but quite another doctrine is taught us by the generality of divines.

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to the character of an impoftor. When the tormentors of a demoniac had obtained leave to go into a herd of swine, what other reason, can be given, or what better can be conceived, of this extraordinary requeft, than that it was to afford a certain mark of diftinction between a real and an imaginary poffeffion.

He farther obferves, that in St. Matthew iv. 24. 'the diforder of those who were faid to be poffeffed with devils is precisely distinguished, not only from natural difcafes and torments in general, but likewife from lunacy in particular; that very diforder which the anti-demonianift is fo defirous of confounding with fupernatural agitations.' The remaining part of this difcourfe is employed in anfwering the arguments which Dr. Mead and others have alleged, in oppofition to the common opinion of real poffeffions.

Dr. Mead fays, Certum eft, opinionem iflam, quæ jam per multa fæcula invaluit, de potentiâ ad corpora mentefque humanas vexandas dæmonibus adhuc permiffâ, variis aftutorum hominum præstigiis, cum maximo rei Chriftianæ damno et OPPROBRIO anfam præbuiffe.

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His lordship replies: There is a real confequence of this anti-demoniac fyftem, more fatal to the truth of the Gospel than that pretended one. It is an unqueftioned fact, that the evangelic hiftory of the demoniacs hath given occafion to the most scandalous frauds, and fottish fuperftitions, throughout almost every age of the church; the whole trade of exorcifms, accompanied with all the mummery of frantic and fanatic agitations, having arifen from hence.

Now, were the Gofpel demoniacs really poffeffed, the honour of religion is fafe; and no more affected by these ingrafted frauds and follies of the church of Rome, than is the law of Mofes by their inquifitorial murders, committed under cover of God's penal statutes against Jewish idolators. If men 'will turn the truths of God to the fupport of their crimes and follies; the facred, oracles will receive no attaint from fuch malice and perversity.

But were the poffeffions recorded in the Gospel imaginary; and demoniacs only a name for the naturally diseased; and that yet Jefus and his apoftles, inftead of rectifying the people's follies and fuperftitions on this head, chofe rather to inflame them, by affuring certain of the diftempered that they were really poffeffed by evil spirits, over whom the name of Chrift had power and authority; if this, I fay, were the cafe, I fhould tremble for the confequence: for then, would Jefus and his difciples, who were fent to propagate the truth, appear to be anfwerable for all the mifchief, which the rivetting of this fuperftition in the minds of men, produced in after ages: for there

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there is not a clearer conclufion in moral science, than that he who commits a premeditated fraud, is anfwerable for the evil which neceffarily or naturally proceedeth from it. So little did the learned physician, with whom we have to do, see into the cafuiftry of this question, when he took it for granted, that our contending for the reality of demoniacal poffeffions, makes the Gospel, and us, who thus interpret it, anfwerable for all the tricks of the church of Rome, which rise upon the avowal of it.

On the contrary, from what hath been here faid, it evidently appears, that the opinion of the accommodators, (who fuppofe Jefus and his difciples took advantage of a favourable fuperftition) and not the opinion of thofe divines who hold gofpel-demonianifm to be real, is the very thing which brings this opprobrium on the first propagators of our holy faith.

Nor can that reafon which is fometimes given for permitting fuperftitious errors, (were this, which it is not, of the number of fuch as might be fuffered to hold their courfe) have any weight in this cafe; namely, the difficulty or danger in eradicating them.

Danger there could be none, from the nature of things. To expose the falfe terrors concerning this enemy of mankind, could never indifpofe men to embrace their Saviour and Re

deemer.

• As little difficult had it been to remove fo uncomfortable an error, how deeply foever rooted in the popular fuperftition. For when they faw Jefus cure all diseases with a word, and the pretended demoniac as eafily as the reft, nothing could withftand the authority which informed them of their mistake; and affured them that this demonianifm, like the reft, was altogether a natural diftemper. On the contrary, many favourable prejudices would foon arife on the fide of fo authentic an inftructor.'

The subject of the eleventh discourse is, The rife of Antichrist. His lordship takes his text from the Second Epiftle of St. Peter, chap. i. 16—21. We have not followed cunningly devised fables, &c.

There are few places in the New Teftament, says this learned writer, containing only matter of admonition and instruction, which are plainer than this: and yet none which have occafioned more conteft, or greater variety of interpretation.

• This hath been chiefly owing to a common mistake of the apofile's subject; which fuppofes that he is here speaking of the perfonal character of Jefus; and confequently, that the more Jure word of prophecy, with which he ftrengthens his argument, is the prophecies of the Old Teftament, eftablishing that cha 7 racter:

rafter: whereas the subject, he is upon, is very different, viz. the general truth of the Gospel; and, confequently, the more fure word of prophecy is the prophecies of the New Teftament.

Such a mistake was neceffarily productive of another; for if the perfonal character of Jefus were the fubject of the difcourse, it would follow, that the power and coming of our Lordis to be understood of his first coming; and that the word of prophecy refers to a prophecy already fulfilled. But if here he be fpeaking of the fecond coming of Jesus, and that, confequently, the word of prophecy refers to a long feries of predictions to be fulfilled in order, this puts a fair end to the controversy, and to all the abfurd and embaraffed reasonings of the controverfialists.'

The author proceeds to explain the words of the text.-The nineteenth verfe, he tells us, alludes to the predictions of St. Paul and St. John, concerning Antichrift: to be found in the Epiftles of the one, and the Apocalypfe of the other; and he fays, This word of prophecy is with the greatest truth and ftrength of colouring, called a light shining in a dark place. Just so much was feen of the commencing event, as was fufficient to fix men's attention; though the fplendor of the light was furrounded with thick darkness.

However, the apostle adds, for the encouragement of thofe whom he exhorts to give early attention to this ray of light, that a time would come when the darknefs fhould be difperfed, and day pour in upen the present obfcurities in this word of prophecy on which, in the mean time, they were patiently to wait, -until the day dawn, and the day-ftar fhould arife. This long wifh'd for day at length appeared, with reformation on its wings: a bleffing, which redeemed reason and religion from the harpyclaws of monkih ignorance and fuperftition.-The restoration of science, which accompanied it, is well defcribed by the day dawning; and the defecation of religion, by the day-star rifing in their hearts.

• At this important æra, the great mystery of iniquity was revealed; Antichrift was fully laid open and expofed; and fuck evidence given by prophecy to the truth of the Chriftian faith, as muft, while reafon remains amongst men, ftrike conviction on the hearts of the unprejudiced. For what but the spirit of God was fufficient to foretel the ufurpation of an antichriftian tyranny which was to arife many ages after, within the church of Chrift itself; a species of blafphemous domination, which the world had never feen before, and of which, not the least conception could be formed either from example or fimilitude. But the apostle foreseeing that when this flood of light should break

in upon the palpable obfcure, the imagination, when dazzled by excess of splendour, would be as apt to extravagate, as when bewildered amidft furrounding darknefs, he thought proper to add this important caution,-Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation; i. e. "When you fit down to study the Apocalypfe, let it ever be under the guidance of this previous truth, That it is not in the department of man to interpret unfulfilled prophecies, by pretending to fix the natures and seasons of events, clearly indeed predicted but obfcurely described. For the interpreter of prophecy is not man but God; the full completion being its only true interpretation."

That this is the meaning of the apoftle's words, fo long wrested to abfurd and licentious purposes, is evident from the reafon he gives of his caution,-for the prophecy came not in the old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost: i. e. "For prophecy, under the old law, was not the effect of human conceit, but of divine inAuence. Therefore both the prediction and the interpretation (which is the accomplishment of the prediction) are equally the work of God, and in the hands of Providence. Nor did the prophets themselves always understand the true import of what they delivered, being only the organs of God's holy spirit. Much less then can we fuppofe the common minifters of the word to be qualified for the office of interpreters of unfulfilled prophecies." How neceffary it was to give this caution, appears from what he himself obferves in this very Epistle, of certain unlearned and unstable men who wrefted thofe hard places in St. Paul, where the man of fin is mentioned, to their own destruction.'

In the fubfequent part of this difcourfe the author endeavours, to prove, that Antichrift and the fearlet whore are no other than the pope and church of Rome..

In the twelfth fermon he treats of miracles; particularly that of the refurrection. There are three cafes, he fays, in which a miracle demands the credit of every reasonable man.

I. When it is worked as the credential of a meffenger coming from God, with fome general revelation to man.

II. When it is worked, to fecure the veracity of God's revealed word, againft an impious power employing its authority, with a declared or profeffed purpose to convict the divine declaration of falfhood.

III. When the subject of the miracle makes fo essential a part in the economy of the revealed difpenfation, as that without rnis miracle, the whole muft fall to the ground.