enter farther into the question here, would be foreign to my purpose. The reader of Dr. Farmer's performance, which is written very plausibly, will judge for himself.

11. I OBSERVE further that, though we cannot discover, with certainty, from all that is said in the Gospel concerning possession, whether the demons were conceived to be the ghosts of wicked men deceased, or lapsed angels, or (as was the opinion of some early Christian writers ") the mongrel breed of certain angels (whom they understood by the sons of God mentioned in Gensis 18), and of the daughters of men: it is plain they were conceived to be malignant spirits. They are exhibited as the causes of the most direful calamities to the unhappy persons whom they possess, dumbness, deafness, madness, palsy, epilepsy, and the like. The descriptive titles given them, always denote some ill quality or other. Most frequently they are called πνευματα ακαθαρτα, unclean spirits, sometimes пveνμаτа пovnρa, malign spirits. They are represented as conscious that they are doomed to misery and torments, though their punishment be for a while suspended. Art thou come hither, Baoavioai nuas, βασανισαι ημας, to torment us before the time "9 ?

19

"would have reviled Christ, according to the various humour and behaviour observable in such persons."

17 Just. M. Apol. i.

18 vi. 2.

19 Matth. viij. 29.

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40

§ 12. BUT, though this is the character of those demons who were dislodged by our Lord, out of the bodies of men and women possessed by them it does not follow, that the word demon always conveys this bad sense, even in the New Testament. This having been a word much in use among the heathen, from whom the Hellenist Jews first borrowed it, it is reasonable to expect, that, when it is used in speaking of pagans, their customs, wor ship and opinions; more especially when pagans are represented as employing the term, the sense should be that which is conformable, or nearly so, to classical use. Now, in classical use, the word signified a divine being, though not in the highest order of their divinities, and therefore supposed not equivalent to ɛos, but superior to human, and consequent. ly, by the maxims of their theology, a proper ob. ject of adoration. "All demons," says Plato," are 66 an intermediate order between God and mor"tals 20." But though they commonly used the term in a good sense, they did not so always. They had evil demons as well as good. Juxta usurpatam, says Calcidius, penes Græcos loquendi consuetudinem, tam sancti sunt dæmones quam profesti et infidi. But when no bad quality is ascribed to the demon or demons spoken of, and nothing affirmed that implies it, the acceptation of the term, in pagan writers, is generally favourable. Who has not heard of the demon of Socrates?

20 Παν το δαιμονιον μεταξύ εσι θε8 τε και θνητε. Sympos.

.

τασιν.

name.

13. In this way, the word is to be understood, in the only passage of the Acts where it occurs" : Οι δε, Ξένων δαιμονιων δοκει καταγγελεύς ειναι. Others said, he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods. So our translators render it. The reason of this verdict is added, because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection, τον Ιησεν και την Αναστ Tao. They supposed the former to be a male, and the latter a female divinity; for it was customary with them to deify abstract qualities, making them either gods or goddesses, as suited the gender of the This, if I remember right, is the only passage in the New Testament, in which dayuovia is not rendered devils, but gods. If our translators had adhered to their method of rendering this word in every other instance, and said, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange devils, they would have grossly perverted the sense of the passage. Now, this may suggest a suspicion of the impropriety of this version of the word any where, but especially where it relates to the objects of worship among the pagans, with whom the term, when unaccompanied with a bad epithet, or any thing in the context that fixes the application to evil spirits, was always employed in a good

sense.

14. THERE is a famous passage to this pur pose in the writings of the Apostle Paul 22, on which I shall lay before the reader a few observations.

21

Acts, xvii. 18.

22 1 Cor. x. 20, 21.

Α δυει τα έθνη, δαιμονιοις θυει, και ου Θεω ου θε λω δε μας κοινωνους των δαιμονιων γινεσθαι. Οι δυνασθε ποτηριον Κυρίου πίνειν και ποτηριον δαιμονιων ου δυνασθε τραπεζης Κυριου μετέχειν, και τραπεζης δαιμονίων. In the English Bible thus rendered, The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils. Passing the impropriety, so often observ. ed above, of representing a name as common to many, which Scripture has invariably appropriated to one; the sentiment itself expressed by our translators, that the Gentiles sacrifice to devils, is not just, whether we consider the thing abstractly, or in relation to the intention of the worshippers.

Considered abstractly, the pagan worship and sacrifices were not offered to God, whom they knew not, and to whose character and attributes there was nothing in the popular creed (I speak not of philosophers) that bore the least affinity. But, as little were they offered to that being, whom Christians and Jews call the devil or Satan, with whose character or history they were equally unacquainted. Nor is it enough to say, that the characters of their deities were so bad, that they partook more of the diabolical nature than of the divine. For this does not hold universally. Pagan nations sometimes deified men who had been their benefactors. Osiris is said to have invented the plough, and to have been the

first who taught the Egyptians husbandry. Though not, on that account, entitled to adoration, yet surely not deserving to be looked on as the devil or enemy of mankind. But admitting it to be true, as it doubtless is, that the characters of their gods were often such as to resemble the devilish nature more than the divine; evil spirits are not understood as excluded from the import of the term δαιμονια. As little, on the other hand, ought that term to be confined to such. The proper notion is, beings, in respect of power, (whatever be their other qualities) superior to human, but inferior to that which we Christians comprehend under the term divine. For this reason, even the higher orders of the heathen divinities, those whom they styled Dü majorum gentium, are included in the Apostle's declaration. For, though they, more rarely, applied to such the terms δαιμων and διαμονιον, the power ascribed to them, by their votaries, was infinitely short of omnipotence, as indeed all their other attributes were short of the divine perfections. Paul acknowledged no God but one, of whom the Gentiles were ignorant, and to whom, therefore, they could not offer sacrifice. All beings of a subordinate nature, however much they might be accounted superior to us, he classes under the same general name. 'But can Jupiter himself 'be included in this description, Jupiter to whom 'almighty power and supreme dominion are attributed, and who is styled by the poets, The father of gods and men, the greatest and best of beings?" The attributes sometimes given to Jupiter, must be