For in the 31st verse of this chapter it is said, they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep, which in Rev. xx. 3. is called the bottomless pit, into which the old serpent was cast and bound, and for ever tormented, ver. 10; and in St. Jude it is said, that the fallen angels God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

When this great day should be, they know not, as neither do the angels of heaven ; but they supposed it must be some considerable time ere it could be, because many things that were to be accomplished first, in all probability could not be so yet a great while; and therefore, dreading lest the torments of the fiery abyss should upon this occasion become their portion so long before the general day of doom, they beg of Jesus not to antedate their misery, but give them leave still to continue in these upper regions, which in comparison with that dismal place were pleasant and refreshing.

Now from this passage we may observe, not only that mere spirits, as well as those that are joined to bodies, have torments adapted to their natures, such as arise immediately from their own thoughts, the horrid reflections of their own enraged, despairing, guilty minds, so that the soul of man, even in the state of separation, may be exquisitely miserable; but likewise that these torments may be very much increased by the condition of the place to which those evil spirits and wicked souls shall be confined, the sad circumstances of which may add new outward terrors to those that are within, that so their

misery may be as complete and full as they are capable of suffering.

For as here in this world, though the soul is a spirit and the body is matter, yet a diseased and tortured body imprisoned in a dismal dungeon would make the miseries of an awakened sinful soul still greater and more insupportable; so in the world of spirits, no doubt but God can so contrive a place of habitation for those that are wicked, as that it shall very much heighten their inward pains and agonies, and by an eternal succession of strange unknown horrors, aggravate the torments even of despair itself: for who can tell the power of his wrath !

And accordingly, all the descriptions we have of hell in scripture, as they are exceeding terrible, so they give us reason to believe that there shall be some particular place of torment, to which at the consummation of all things, all wicked spirits shall be driven, and there for ever weep, and wail, and gnash their teeth under the inexorable and most heavy wrath of God, and suffer the vengeance of eternal fire1.

So that though the souls of wicked men, even in their separate state, before the resurrection of their bodies, are no doubt very miserable, and like the devils in dreadful expectation of the wrath to come; yet it is the sad sentence, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting burnings, that will at the last day for ever seal up both their bodies and souls to that fulness of misery and sorrow which is prepared for the Devil and his angels, in the infernal pit.

And therefore, whatever objections may be made against the credibility of mere spirits being capable 1 Jude 7.

k Psalm xc. II.

of such tortures as are mentioned in scripture, and that in such a sort of place as is there described; we see there is nothing in the nature of the thing but what is very conceivable, and it is plainly asserted in the holy writings, and the devils themselves as plainly intimate it in the passage now before us.

However, as to us, our bodies at the day of judgment being to be again united to our souls, does make it past dispute that we shall be as sensible then as ever, if not more so, of bodily pain and torment, and of all the misery arising from the sharpest inflictions that an irreconcilably angry God can lay upon us, in the most dismal place, and most wretched society in the whole creation.

This no Christian can doubt of; and as for further curiosity, as to the when, and where, and how, it does not at all become a guilty sinner; whose main business and greatest wisdom is to fly from, not pry too close into these terrible secrets of the dark kingdom. And may our dearest Saviour shroud us under the wings of his mercy, and keep us from ever knowing more of those regions of despair and horror, than the account the scripture gives us to affright us from them!

Wherefore to proceed when upon our Lord's command to the evil spirit to come out of the man that was possessed, (and which was too powerful for all the force of hell to resist,) the Devil had besought him, as we have heard, not to send him immediately down into the deep, Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? Which question was not asked to gratify his own or others' curiosity, but for this good end, that the Gadarenes might see

what a miserable condition their countryman was in, and be the more sensible of the mercy of his cure, and their own great danger amidst such vast numbers of evil spirits as then swarmed among them; since so many had taken possession of that one unhappy man as to deserve the name of Legion, (above six thousand,) as one of them told our Lord, in the name of the rest, in answer to his question, My name is Legion: for we are many m

Lord, what hellish torments must be in that poor creature's breast! No wonder that we read so much of his desperate fury and dismal outcries as we do; but it is a greater wonder that he was not forced to make himself away, that so they might be secure of his body and soul for ever. But there is a supreme good Being above them, whose greater power curbs theirs in, and sets them their bounds which they cannot pass; who otherwise would fill the earth with mischief and terror, and innumerable dreadful occurrences, till they had turned it into a kind of hell.

And as God thus restrained their power even in such heathenish and wicked places, that they could not proceed to the utmost of their malice; so Jesus, his eternal Son, entirely triumphed over it made thousands of devils quit the prey they had full possession of at his bare word, and who could not enter into the foulest of brutes but by his permission. For when they found they must come out of the man, they begged leave to enter into a herd of swine that was feeding on a mountain hard by.

But how came so many swine to be bred up by the Jews, and kept in great herds, as there were m Mark v. 9.

about two thousand in this, when that creature was declared unclean by the law of Moses, and made an abomination to them? It is probable, this Gadara being a considerable Roman garrison, the swine that were brought up there were for the soldiers' use; to whom the Jews might venture to sell them, though they were not to eat of them themselves, and run the hazard of pollution for the sake of the great advantage they made by them.

Now so greedy were those evil spirits of mischief, (which is indeed the proper diet of hell,) that since their tyranny over the man was at an end, they were very earnest with Christ to suffer them to enter into the swine; but it is likely with this further cunning design, that by their destruction the country might be set against Jesus, and made more backward to believe in him and embrace his doctrine. This our Lord could not but see through, and knew what ruin they would immediately bring upon the herd, but yet he suffered them; and the whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.

And whoever had seen with what fury the swine rushed into the sea when acted by those very evil spirits, who but just before had possessed one of their countrymen, could not but be amazed at their destructive power, and, one would think, should have so much dreaded the further effects of it, as to beg of Jesus still more and more to restrain them; and have thought themselves extremely happy in having one amongst them who could command those infernal legions as he pleased, and without whose leave they could not hurt a swine.

n Mark v. 13