men, and tears off their clothes, is the same that left Adam naked in paradise; who delights still to repeat the same act, or even to see the shadow of it in nakedness and wretchedness: therefore the poor demoniac, who resided among the tombs, ware no clothes *.

When the evil spirits went into the herd of swine, the whole herd ran headlong into the sea and perished. After the same form doth the devil drive men headlong into the gulph of perdition, when he gets the direction of them. He was permitted to possess this unclean herd, that we may thence learn how an unclean life will prepare us to be driven into hell itself by the destroyer. Temperance, sobriety, and devotion prepare our bodies to be the temples of the Holy Ghost; but impure manners prepare the heart for unclean spirits, and give them the opportunity they desire. We have heard of certain arts to call up the devil: but a man need only live like a swine, and he will be sure to have his company.

A woman who was bowed together for eighteen years, and could in no wise lift up herself, is said to have had a spirit of infirmity, and to have been bound of Satan: whence it appears, that he is the instrument for inflicting unaccountable

Luke viii. 27.

unaccountable diseases. It is his will that none should be able to lift up their minds to heavenly things; and as a sign of it he bows their bodies towards the earth.

Those extreme cases, in which men raged and were thrown about, and torn, and tormented of the devil, were permitted, to shew us what his inclinations are toward the souls of all men living that he would deprive them of all reason; disturb their imaginations with fancies of horror and despair; inspire them with cruelty toward themselves; and drive them from the living God into the regions of the dead. Such are the works of Satan; contrary in every respect to the works of Jesus Christ; and men, as their nature now is, being subject to his power, exorcism, or the casting out of the evil spirit, was admitted as a part of the office of baptism in the primitive church.

I would desire you to observe farther, in regard to our present subject, that the very same images are used in the 107th Psalm as in the miracles of Christ, to express the redemption of men's souls from the effects of sin by the goodness of God. The redeemed of the Lord are there called upon to praise him for gathering them out of a wilderness, and satisfying their souls when hungry and thirsty: For break

ing

ing their bonds asunder, and delivering them out of prison, where they were bound in affliction and iron, and sat in darkness and the shadow of death: for healing them by his word when afflicted with sickness: for delivering them from the perils of the sea, and making the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. All this scenery is well drawn out, and finely applied, by a devout and elegant commentator of our own church *, who has made the book of Psalms more useful to pious Christians, than it ever was made since the reformation; and, I may add, before it. From that Psalm, as from the miracles of Christ, we learn the weakness and wretchedness of man, and the goodness of God with the power of his. We see the necessity of prayer for the help of God; after the example of those, who cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and were delivered out of their distress.

No forms of prayer can be more significant than those which are built upon the miraculous works of Christ. These shew us what our wants are, and thence teach us what we are to pray for and when we have respect unto them, and the author of them, we mix an act of

The Reverend Dr. Horne, Dean of Canterbury, and President of Magdalen college in Oxford.

of faith with our petitions, which will never fail to render them more acceptable; for we read, that the power of Christ took effect on those only who had faith to be healed. There is not a want of man, nor any occasion in life, on which the miracles of Christ will not supply us with the finest matter of devotion, and in some such form as the following with which I shall conclude.

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"O Son of David, thou great physician of

souls, who didst once exercise thy power in "the land of Judæa, and wentest about doing "good; thou art still with us; and hast pro"mised so to be unto the end of the world. "Have mercy upon us under all the weak

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nesses of our nature, and succour us under "all oppression from evil men or evil spirits: "deliver us from the bonds of our sins, and

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give light to us when we sit in darkness: open our eyes, that we may see the things which belong to our peace: give us an ear to hear " and understand thy word; and a tongue to praise and confess thee before men: give

strength to our feeble hands, that they may be "lifted up to thy name, and let our knees be "flexible and ready at their devotions: cleanse ❝us from our secret faults, as well as our out"ward offences; feed our souls with the bread

"of life, and let us hunger and thirst, that thou

mayst satisfy us. Be mindful of us, O Lord, “ in our distresses, when we are tossed about 66 upon the waves of this troublesome world: "and in all our dangers of soul and body, "stretch out, to save and defend us, that right "hand which raised up thy disciple sinking in "the mighty waters. In all things let our "faith be toward thee, and then shall thy power and mercy be toward us for deliver"ance and salvation." AMEN.

LECT.