order of God's Providence, which, though no confirmation of a religious system, seem to have been personal rewards to strong personal faith, they were ready to apply the same principle to many of the miracles of the Gospel; when they had altogether ceased to see in any derangement of the faculties, a power permitted to evil spirits, they were prepared and did, as soon as it was suggested, deny it in the dæmoniacs of the New Testament". And so, again, one may see the evil of a class

A controversy on this subject, which led to the disbelief of the actual "possessions" in the New Testament, was confessedly the commencement of German rationalism. It is not meant, by the above, to assert positively that all insanity is the effort of dæmoniacal agency; (Scripture distinguishes sometimes σεληνιαζόμενοι from δαιμονιζόμενοι ;) but only to protest against the arbitrary limitation of that agency to the Gospel period. Church history directly proves its continuance beyond that period; thoughtful and reverent observation will leave no doubt, that much termed insanity (as in the case of many suicides, but also in others) is in fact Satanic re-possession of the house which had been " swept and garnished." Our popular and poetic language, in its use of the word " possest," "what possesses him ?" bears testimony to the former belief, and even, in our present use, shews that we acknowledge a phænomenon higher than we can explain. We speak thus of persons (to say the least) as not being under their own control, being driven about by some agency within them, impelled to acts, which, if they were their own masters, they would not do. Other languages express this even more plainly; and it is expressed more or less forcibly in all modern languages, e. g. Fr. possédé; Ital. ossesso, invasato; Span. Port. possesso; Germ. besitzen, besitzung, besessener; and so in others. Popular language is more philosophical and truer than scientific.

of illustration, derived from the Arminian school, whereby all sorts of heathen sayings are brought into parallel with Gospel teaching; so soon as they ceased to be regarded as the seeds of truth which the Divine Word had scattered among the Heathen, (as way-marks and finger-posts, looking on to something to come, and requiring correction and developement,) and were viewed as something independent and substantial, they were used as interpreters, or critics, or rivals, of Gospel truth. The words of inspiration again are glowing language, such as in human compositions is poetry; but whoso looked upon the Hebrew prophets as poets, forgot that they were the awful messengers of the Most High; as they who measured by earthly principles the actions of God's instruments, lost sight Whose they were, and Whom they served; he who illustrated the law given by Moses, upon the principles of ordinary legislation, undermined in his Church and people the belief that it was divine. Apologists, accordingly, in every department, have substituted a human counterfeit for the divine reality, by illustrations, by defending, (as they deemed,) divine truths on human principles, by explaining "hard sayings" through the commonplaces of ordi

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J. D. Michaelis on the Laws of Moses; a book which uniformly exhibits things on the lowest and most commonplace side, setting out on the assumption, that Moses was an ordinary legislator.

nary morality, the justice of God by the expediency of men and on this ground, there has (as a fact) been no more fruitful source of heresy or unbelief, than defences of the faith.

In history, morals, poetry, legislation, philosophy, language, physics, religion,-Heaven and Earth, a body of clay and a spirit breathed into its nostrils by the life-giving Spirit, stand over against each other, and whoso lifteth not up the earthly to the heavenly, will bring down the heavenly to the earthly. "Homer," says even a heathen ", "transferred human things to the gods; would he had rather things divine to man!" If the body be not spiritualized, the soul will be carnalized.

The light then of all history is God's guidance, dim indeed often, and overlaid by the intricacy of human policy and craftiness, yet still visible to those who in the detail of the workmanship forget not the Maker, nor allow themselves by the study of the visible creature to be held down from beholding the Invisible. Even in Heathen empires He declares by His prophets, that "He changeth the times and seasons: He removeth kings, and setteth up kings"." Even there among those who seem to rule, He is the One Ruler. "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men," (an unseen power within man's visible kingdom, per

d Cicero, Tusc. i. c. 26. Fingebat hæc Homerus, et humana ad Deos transferebat; divina mallem ad nos.

e Dan. ii. 21.

mitting or withholding, uniting or dissolving, giving strength or bringing age upon them, and directing man's free-agency, like the wild uproar of the sea, to His own ends, unseen by man His work, "the but ever present with and within His work,) Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." Pharaoh, Cyrus, the Assyrian, the rod of His anger," but " who meant not so, neither did his heart think sob," Nebuchadnezzar, of whom God saith by Jeremiah, "I who made the earth, the man and beast upon the ground,and have given it unto whom it seemed good unto me, and now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant,—and all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come, and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him',"- these are but so many specimens and instances of His universal empire, doing all that is good, and ordering what is evil, so "that the wrath of man doth but praise Him."

And this should be understood not simply of certain fixed laws, whereby the rise and decay of states are regulated, as that an enduring self-denying state should prosper, a luxurious self-indulgent people should decay, an upright state should acquire might, a crafty (like Carthage) should be taken in its own craftiness, and the like,-as if God were h Ver. 7. Jer. xxvii. 5—7.

f Dan. iv. 25. * Ps. lxxvi. 10.

Isaiah x. 5.

separate from His Providence and His laws, and His law were an abstraction to which He had committed the government of things, and not rather that His laws were His own continued action, dispensing in one uniform way His sovereign will, because" in Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," but still Himself, personally present and personally measuring out to every nation its portion according to its works, in His will, whose will is the law of things created. For so personally doth Scripture speak, speaking universally; "with Him," it is written in Job', "is strength and wisdom, the deceived and the deceiver are His: He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools: He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle: He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty: He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged: He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty :-He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way." Nay it seems one object of the relations of the Old Testament to correct man's Atheistic way of contemplating things, whereby he would substitute for the Living God some abstraction; as law or nature, or general Providence, or order of things, for the Giver and Maintainer of laws and nature, Chap. xii. 16 ad fin.