--

having been originally created in the image of his Creator, possessed an incorruptible soul, because infused by the Deity; EMPEDOCLES, who taught the being of a God, whom he denominated The One, as distinct from the material world; and that the order and system of the universe was not fortuitous, but the effect of wisdom, which assigned to every thing, not such a place as chance might have allotted, but such as best contributed to the well-being of the whole; -SOCRATES, who taught, that the Divinity is self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, invisible, infinite wisdom, benevolence, and power; that his providence is over all his works; that, as most exalted, he is the supreme object of adoration; and that, in the formation of the universe, the Deity reduced confusion into order, and gave existence to the inferior gods; that is, to the sun, the planets, and the stars; to whom he addressed himself when dying;-PLATO, who believed, that the universe was the work of a Creator, the one self-existent and eternal Being, who by his word reduced confusion into order, and from pre-existent matter, which was without form, and destitute of light, brought forth this beautiful system, conformable to eternal ideas subsisting in his mind; that the immediate agent of the Deity in this work was the universal Spirit, or soul of the universe, which existed before the body, that is, before its elementary principles of fire, water, earth, and air; that the universe is one great animal endued with intellect, and is a visible image of the invisible Creator, who, when he had surveyed his work, and saw that all was good, rejoiced exceedingly; that the earth was produced before the stars, and night preceded day; that man was formed from the earth, yet resembling the gods in mental qualities; and that, in order to regain this image, he must be holy, wise, and just; - ZENO, who was sometimes of opinion, that the law of nature is the only God, but, at others, ascribed divinity to the celestial ardour, which he supposed to be an expanse of fire, expanding beyond the limits of the air, and surrounding all things; that before the creation God was alone, and so continued till he had converted the fiery substance into water, from which he formed the world, with all the celestial bodies; -and OVID, whose "description, in its most essential points, is accurately just-a fair transcript of revelation, accommodated, however to the idolatry of the age and country in which he lived on the formation of man the poet doubts, and leaves the question, between truth and fiction, undecided:

"A creature of a more exalted kind

Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd :
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire,

Or earth, but new divided from the sky,

And pliant, still retain'd th' ætherial energy;

Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,

And, mix'd with living streams, the godlike image cast.
Thus while the mute creation downward bend

Their sight, and to their earthy mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.

From such rude principles our frame began;
And earth was metamorphosed into man !”

DRYDEN'S Ovid.

After having examined the state of knowledge, respecting the cosmogony, among those nations which, directly or indirectly, had communication with the Jews, and could derive information from their records, Mr. Townsend then turns to the examination of the opinions, which, on this subject, prevailed among more distant and less enlightened nations, whose whole dependence for information must have been on the vague traditions of their unlettered ancestors. It is impossible, however, to enter into the detail, however interesting and important, or to present any thing approaching to an analysis, in this stage

August. D. C. lib. 8. cap. 4.

of the work. The nations to which he adverts, are, the Scythians, Persians, Sclavonians, Hindoos, Arabs, Chinese, Americans, Mexicans, Peruvians, Chilians, Caraibes, Africans, Abyssinians, and Egyptians; from the whole of which he justly infers, "that such concurring evidence — the evidence of nations which from remote antiquity have had little communication and no connexion with each other, is sufficient to demonstrate, that their traditions have had one common origin, and no other can be imagined than that, which the advocates for revelation have discovered in the Mosaic account of the creation.

"Independently, however, of the argument deduced from universal tradition, the principal circumstances in the Mosaic account of the creation are confirmed by modern observations and discoveries."

These are stated to be the two following:

"In the first place, the earth must have acquired its oblate spheroidical form by revolving round its own axis whilst in a fluid state; and,

"In the second place, from the appearance of our rocks, we may venture to infer, that such of them as are crystallized were in a state of solution; not of fusion. It is allowed by chemists, that whatever has been fused is fusible; but neither granite, nor, more especially, quartz, which is a principal component part of granite, nor silex, in whatever situation or form it may appear, is fusible without the assistance of an alkali. And it is well known, not only that quartz crystals retain in their composition their water of crystallization, but that sometimes they inclose a drop of water, which must have been separated at the time of crystallizing. The other component part of granite, called field-spar, or feld spat by the Germans, loses from a quarter to nearly one-half its weight by evaporation in the fire. Besides, granite recently formed in the moist way has frequently been found, but no instance can be produced of its formation by fire.". - pp. 55, 56.

[To be continued.]

Biblical Poetry.

WHO IS THe King of GLORY.

Psalm xxiv. ver. 8 and 10.

Far hence, th' ungracious task, for man, frail man,
With prying eye, and vaunting tongue t' explore
God's attributes profound! - rather let him
Rear his head in silent adoration,

And deeply muse on wisdom infinite,

On power exhaustless, and on boundless space ;—
On works the source of wonder and delight-
Inscrutable their plan, immutable their order.

To know, to truly know the pow'r supreme,
Or what He is,- His form and essence!
Frail man must patiently await the hour
Of nature's wreck, and universal doom,
When freed from death its iron chain dissolv'd,
The soul shall rise in Immortality,
And blest with heav'nly radiance hail his God!

Then will he learn the secret of the skies,
Then the past scenes of varied nature trace,
And mark with view expanded all the parts
Which hold the Globe in perfect unison-
Then shall he scan creation-read its plan
In the bare bosom of the Deity! —
Then, and then only, will he truly know
"Who is the King of Glory!

"

Biblical Investigations.

DÆMONIACAL POSSESSIONS.1

III. It may be said of dæmoniacs, and of insane persons in general, that most of them have lucid intervals; and that then they must speak, like other men, on every subject, agreeably to their acquired knowledge, and preconceived opinions. The people had been taught to expect the Messiah about the very time of his appearance, and they had been prepared for that glorious event by the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist. Besides, it should be recollected, that, before any of the dæmoniacs are said to have worshipped Christ, and acknowledged him to be the Son of God, "his fame had gone out through all Syria and the region round about." It is not therefore more wonderful that the Gadarene maniac, in his lucid intervals, should acknowledge Jesus, than that the woman should who came from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, the man full of leprosy (Luke v. 12), Nathanael (John i. 49), or the blind man, who sat by the way-side near Jericho begging (Mark x. 47); for Jericho was at a great distance from Galilee, but Gadara was very near. Besides, those who dwell much on the testimonies of the dæmoniacs on two occasions only, forget that these wretched persons entertained also some very erroneous notions respecting Christ, which they expressed at the same time; such as the groundless dread of his sending them out of the country, and his coming to torment, or destroy them, before their time.

IV. It is not correct to say, that the Evangelists generally use different terms in giving an account of the ejection of dæmons, from those which are employed, when our blessed Lord cured natural disorders. Sometimes, indeed, we find the expression "he cast him out" used; but the common word, on minute examination, will be found to be the medical term ɛ0ɛρаTɛvσɛ, "he healed," or "cured." Compare Matt. iv. 24, Mark v. 23, Luke viii. 2, ix. 42, Acts v. 16, x. 38. But if this were not the case, the observation would prove nothing; because, by a very common figure of speech, personal action is ascribed to the leprosy and to fever.2 It is quite sufficient to

1 Concluded from p. 103.

? See Mark i. 42, where it is said, "the leprosy departed from him," and John iv. 52, where it is said, "the fever left him."

remark, with respect to the latter part of this argument, that dæmo niacal possessions seem to be mentioned in the Holy Gospel, as comprising a class of disorders, very distinct indeed from others; but not more so than insanity is from delirium and fever, or than epilepsy is from hysteric affections and other fits.

V. The last argument appears to be of more consequence, and to be attended with more difficulty, than all the rest. It is said, that if the doctrine of dæmoniacal possession be false, our blessed Lord, in countenancing it, gave reason for the suspicion of such ignorance, artifice, and collusion, with respect to himself, and his own conduct, as are wholly unworthy of a divine agent commissioned by God to teach men their duty, and lead them into the paths of truth. But, as Dr. Paley observes, "The doctrine was not what Christ brought into the world. It appears in the Christian records, incidentally and accidentally, as being the subsisting opinion of the age and country in which his ministry was exercised. It was no part of the object of his revelation, to regulate men's opinions concerning the action of spiritual substances upon animal bodies. At any rate, it is unconnected with testimony. If a dumb person was, by a word, restored to the use of his speech, it signifies little to what cause the dumbness was ascribed; and the like of every other cure wrought upon those who are said to have been possessed. The malady was real, the cure was real, whether the popular explication of the cause was well-founded or not. The matter of fact, the change, so far as it was an object of sense, or of testimony, was in either case the same." But, in order to meet the question fully and impartially, it will be proper to consider whether our blessed Lord thought proper, on other occasions, to correct the erroneous opinions of the Jews on subjects that were intimately connected with the kingdom of God, or whether he conformed to their modes of expression. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where our blessed Lord gives a view of the future and invisible world, it was certainly necessary to use sensible images, and figurative expressions; but then they are such as were familiar to the Jewish rabbis, and not without an admixture of some mythological notions, which they certainly derived from their intercourse with heathens. "The emblematical images expressing heaven and hell," says Bishop Lowth, "derived from the notion of being in Abraham's bosom, and from Gehenna, or the vale of Hinnom, were in use among the Jews before our Saviour's time, and, in using them, he COMPLIED with THEIR NOTIONS." When, therefore, the Jew said to him (Luke xiv. 15), "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," he made no attempt to correct this form of expression, as erroneous and improper; but afterwards, on another occasion, speaks himself of "drinking the fruit of the vine new with his disciples in the kingdom of God." So likewise, Luke

1 Evidences, vol. ii. p. 302.

2 Isa. Ivi. 24.

xxii. 29, 30. the appointment of a spiritual kingdom to his disciples is said to be, that they may eat and drink at his table in his kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The disciples undoubtedly entertained an erroneous notion with respect to the end of the world, and the near approach of the day of judgment; and our Saviour, says Bishop Sherlock, PERMITTED them for a long time to remain in this MISTAKE. From his saying to Peter, also, of John, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" a report we find went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die; and this erroneous opinion, we may suppose, was not corrected but by the event of his death. Farther, when the Apostles asked our Lord (John ix. 2), "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" shewing that they had imbibed the rabbinical notion of the pre-existence of souls, and that they thought it possible for human beings to sin before they were born; he made no attempt to correct their mistake, but simply said, in answer to their question, "Neither." 2

But it will be of more importance, because more intimately connected with the present subject, to shew that the Evangelists sometimes speak of Satan himself, the prince of dæmons, in a figurative sense, adapted to the conceptions of the Jews. It is said (John xiii. 27), "That after the sop, Satan entered into Judas Iscariot." On this text, says Calvin, after his harsh manner, They are stupid dreamers, who imagine that the devil really, or essentially as they say, entered into Judas." So, also the devil is called "the prince of this world" (John xvi. 11), and "the god of this world" (2 Cor. iv. 4). 3 And who can understand the remarkable passage respecting the unclean spirit going out of a man, and returning with seven others, or account for the admiration of the adoring woman 6, but by considering it as a parable perfectly adapted to the conception of the Jews, and replete with moral and divine truth? In the same metaphorical sense, St. Paul speaks of his "thorn in the flesh, as the messenger of Satan sent to buffet him." We still continue the same language, when, in the Litany, we use the expression of "treading down Satan under our feet," 7 and when in our indictments we say, that a criminal is "moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil." Other passages and forms of expression of similar import will occur to the attentive reader, but these may be sufficient for the purpose proposed. It seems going too far to assert, with Bishop Horsley, that there is in the Holy Gospel, "an artful ac

1 John xxi. 23.

2 See the Abridgment of Arnald's learned note on Wisd. viii. 20, and Dr. Willan on this text. The reader may also see this notion traced with much learning by Beausobre and L'Enfant, in their excellent Introduction to the New Testament.

See Hewlett on the metaphorical expression, Luke x. 18, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven."

4 Matt. xii. 43. 45. 7 See Rom. xvi. 20.

5 Luke xi. 27.

62 Cor. xii. 7. Sermons, vol. i. p. 30.