the sacred writer was the more intent to represent them as two different disorders, because they had many symptoms in common: a circumstance which makes our critics as ready to confound them with one another, as the Evangelists were careful to distinguish them. In a word, they who, after all these precautions taken by the sacred Penmen, can think that Devils and Demoniacs were used in Scripture only as terms of accommodation to Jewish prejudices, may well believe (as some of them tell us, they do) that the terms, Redemption, Sacrifice, and Satisfaction, come of no better a house than one of the common figures of Speech. My serious Readers will be now ready to ask, What learned discoveries they are, which have encouraged these men to innovate from the commonly received opinion concerning the Gospel-Demoniacs? Hath any thing been found, in the Scripture-history of them, either absurd in morals, or false in physics? Nothing of either; as may be seen by what hath been just hinted, in the entrance on this discourse. And yet, whatever the Discoveries are, these men are none of the Discoverers. An excellent Divine of the last age had in his extensive searches into antiquity collected, that both Jews and Gentiles, at and before the time of Christ, were overrun with one common superstition, that Demons, and the Souls of wicked men deceased, frequently seized upon the bodies of the living, and tormented them in various ways. Hence he too hastily, though with his usual modesty, insinuated, that the Possessions recorded in the Gospel, might be of that imaginary sort; and no other than occult diseases; which, being unmanageable by the Physician, were concluded to be supernatural: as if a good Physician could deal with any thing but the Devil: that to these unhappy wretches Jesus applied his salutary hands; and gave to their disorder the fashionablę name by which it was at that time distinguished. Without doubt, this truly learned Divine went the more easily into this bold opinion, as he had observed it to be God's gracious method, in the course of his revealed Dispensations, to take advantage of men's habitual prejudices, to support his truth, and keep his People attached to his Ordi nances. But here, the excellent person should have distinguished (as his followers* were not likely to do it for him) between Rites and Doctrines. They were the Rites only of which God availed himself, for the benefit of his servants, in order to combat or to elude their fondness for Pagan usages. In matters of Doctrine, the like compliance could not be indulged to them without violating material Truths; and therefore Scripture affords us no example of such a condescension. In things only pertaining to Rites, we have indeed, numerous instances. Thus, the use of linen garments, lighted lamps, lustrations, and a multitude of other things in themselves indifferent, were brought from false Religions into the true and with high propriety and wisdom, where * Dr. Sykes, Dr. Lardner, &c. their new designation sanctified their use, and their use contributed to the better establishment of the Dispensation. On the other hand, to assert and support a false and superstitious opinion (if such it were) concerning diabolic possessions, was infecting and contaminating the purity of the Christian Faith. But if the admirable Author of this groundless novelty did himself miss of so just and obvious a distinction, we have the less reason to wonder that those of his followers, who aimed only at a name by a faint reflection from the other's learning, should not hit upon what their master had overlooked. A late eminent Physician, who hath espoused this system, acted a more decent and becoming part. He might pretend by virtue of his profession, and still more by his skill in it, to a profounder insight into Nature and Theology being in another department, he was the less censurable if he did not see all that this divine science opposed to his opinion; an opinion which might be said to descend to him by inheritance from his great namesake*, and Relation: Whose conciseness, strength, and modesty of reasoning, he has so well followed, that to confute his objections will be to overthrow the whole system of the anti-demoniac party. *—Ut redeam autem ad dæmoniacos; non mea est profecto, sed aliorum ante me pietate et doctrina præstantium virorum sententia, quam hic propono. Et proximo quidem sæculo inter nostrates etiam JoSEPHUS MEADUS, theologus rerum sacrarum cognitione, nulli secundus, luculenta Dissertatione eam propugnavit. Cum ex eadem ig tur ac ille familia sim oriundus, &c. Præf. in Med. Sacı p. ix. Authore Richardo Mead. In his Medica Sacra, he hath a chapter de dæmomiacis; in which, he hath treated the Evangelic history with all that reverence which becomes a serious Believer and a true Scholar. The first observation I shall make, on my entrance on his Argument, is general, and will suit all who have written on this side the question. It is thisThey reason upon the case of Demoniacs, not as it is recorded by the Evangelists, but as if described only in a treatise of Medicine by Aretæus, Fernelius, or any other of the Faculty; where it stands unconnected with all moral as well as religious ideas. Whereas I have shewn at large that these demoniacal possessions have an intimate relation to the doctrine of Redemption; and were therefore reasonably to be expected at the promulgation of the Gospel. This sets the matter on quite another footing; and that plausibility which the learned person's representation gives to his arguments entirely disappears, when we put the case as it really was. 1. This necessary caution, against so defective and foreign a representation, being premised, I now proceed to the reasoning itself which the learned Physician employs to discredit the common opinion of real possessions. His first argument rises from the extent of the superstition concerning imaginary ones. "It had not only infected the Mosaic Religion in particular, but had overrun Paganism in general*. "And *-At non Judæis tantum, sed et aliis etiam gentibus in usu fuit insanos pro dæmoniacis habere. p. 76.A Chal L 4 "And as to the Jews, who were wont to ascribe whatever there was of prodigious in nature to the ministry of ANGELS, they were easily brought to believe, that those dire diseases which infected the mind and body equally, and whose causes were unknown, could be no other than the work of the Devil *." Allow all this. Allow that the Jews, at the time of Christ, were very superstitious, yet the learned Doctor, in his turn, must allow that the inspired Teachers of the Gospel were free from an error which so fatally affected the Religion they were intrusted to propagate, as Demonianism did, if it were an error. They, therefore, knowingly, gave it countenance and support. But how that will agree with their character and office, we shall see, as we go along. Our learned writer tells us further, "that the Jews not only gave credit to the works of the Devil, but believed in the ministry of ANGELS likewise." This seems to be one of those slips of the pen to which Truth sometimes exposes those who write most cautiously against her. For, the Old A Chaldæis quidem ad Phoenices, postea ad Egyptios propagata, ad Græcos deinde, hinc ad Romanos, aliasque demum gentes temporis progressu Dæmoniaca ista Religio pervenit. P. 74. * P. 74. Judæi autem, siquid miri faceret natura, ad ANGELORUM supremi Dei ministrorum operam referre soliti, facile in animum sibi inducere poterant, ut diras quasdam crederent ægritudines, quæ mentem simul et corpus læderent, et quarum causas cognoscere nequirent, ab angelorum malorum ἐνεργείαις exoriri, |