explaining away (as is the mode) those fundamental Doctrines held out in almost every page, because our line of Reason may be too short to fathom them.

This is a short summary of the duties we owe, and which, Gratitude, on this occasion, calls upon us to pay, to our COUNTRY and our RELIGION, the two great sources of human felicity; and, on that account, so wonderfully guarded, as we have seen, by the wakeful eye of Providence.

This should stimulate us to Virtue with redoubled vigour, and give a double horror to the turpitude of Vice for woe to the unhappy man, who despiseth the riches of God's goodness; or knoweth not that this goodness leadeth him to repentance.

Happy, indeed, is the state of that favoured People, whose return of gratitude for national blessings is perseverance in their virtuous course.

This, it must be owned with sorrow, is far from being our case. But let us not despond. A return to forsaken Virtue is not without its Triumphs; and our holy Religion informs us (what Reason would not dare to intimate) that they are Triumphs of the noblest kind—I say unto you, that joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Amen.

SERMON XXVII.

THE FALL OF SATAN.

MATT. iv. 24.

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AND THEY BROUGHT UNTO HIM ALL SICK PEOPLE THAT WERE TAKEN WITH DIVERS DISEASES AND TORMENTS, AND THOSE WHICH WERE POSSESSED WITH DEVILS, AND THOSE WHICH WERE LUNATIC; AND HE HEALED THEM.

THIS is a clear and exact account of the nature

of those disorders which found relief from the

salutary hand of Jesus.

But we have been told of late, that what is here called, the being possessed with Devils, was indeed no other than an atrabilare Lunacy, or one of those occult distempers, for which Physicians could not find a remedy, or what was harder still, a name; and therefore, in complaisance to the imbecility of their Patients, agreed to deem it supernatural, or, if you please, the work of the Devil.

Of this superstitious fancy (they tell us) Jesus and his Disciples took advantage, in order to impress a religious horror on their followers.

This is boldly said; and were it as well proved, we should soon see how laudably these men had employed their pains.

In the mean time, as the agency of Satan, recorded in Scripture, is of high importance to illustrate the truth of the Gospel in general, the matter will be well worth a careful inquiry.

But here it may be proper to observe, that my business, at present, is only with Believers. The negative of the Proposition in question was first started by a true Believer; and has been ever since supported, when it has been supported with sobriety, by men professing the Faith of Jesus. These, as well as we, who adhere to the plain literal sense, go upon one common principle, that the Gospel History is true, and of divine inspiration. What is sought for by both of us, is the true meaning of Demoniacs. Nay, we not only go upon one common principle, but profess to pursue one common end, namely, the support of the credibility of GospelHistory. On which account, all that is here urged in favour of the literal sense stands upon the acknowledged truth of Scripture.-In proving the reality of the Gospel Demoniacs to Unbelievers, a different sort of argumentation is to be employed. But with professed Unbelievers we have, at present, nothing to do; unless it be to bespeak their attention to a theologic argument, alone sufficient (amongst a thousand others) to impress upon them a very striking sense of the beauty of this part of God's moral Dispensation.

Now, to form a right judgment of the matter in question,

question, Believers should first of all consider, what part the Devil bore in the Economy of Grace.

In the history of the Fall, to which the writers of the New Testament perpetually allude, Satan, or the Tempter, the Calumniator, or the Evil-one, (for by all these names he is designed in Sacred Scripture) is represented as instigating the first Man to disobedience; for which his punishment by the second Adam, who restored man to his lost inheritance, is, at the time of the fall, denounced in the terms of bruising his head by the seed of the woman.

When, therefore, this restoration was procured by the death of Christ, we may reasonably expect to find that punishment on the Tempter, which was predicted in the history of the Fall, recorded in the history of the restoration. And so, indeed, we do; and on many notable occasions. When the Disciples, whom Jesus had sent out, come back exulting in the success of their Ministry, the effect of those supernatural powers with which he had intrusted them, He receives them as Conquerors returning in triumph from their holy warfare.-I beheld Satan (says he) as lightning fall from Heaven*. strong and lively picture of the sudden precipitation of that Prince of the Air, where he had so long held his Empire, and hung like a pestilential meteor over the sons of men.

A

The rise of Christ's kingdom, therefore, and the fall of Satan's, being thus carried on together, it would be strange, indeed, could we find in this history no marks of the rage of his expiring Tyranny,

* Luke x. 18.

amidst all the salutary blessings of the rising Empire of Christ. But we see them in abundance.We see this enemy of our salvation mad with despair, invoking all the powers of Hell to his assistance, to blast that peace and good-will towards men, proclaimed by Angels on the gracious birthnight of the Son of God. For when he understood, from his baffled attempts upon his Lord and Master*, that the souls of men had escaped his dominion, he turned the exercise of his cruelty on their bodies, in the most humbling circumstances of pain and oppression that could dishonour and disgrace humanity permitted, no doubt, to range wider at this critical season, than at any time before or since, in order to manifest the Triumphs and Glories of his Conqueror.

Had the first Adam stood in the rectitude of his Creation, he had been immortal; and beyond the reach of natural and moral evil. His fall to mor

tality brought both into the World. The office of the second Adam was to restore us to that happy state. But as the Immortality purchased for us by the Son of God, was not, like that forfeited by Adam, to commence in this world; but is reserved for the reward of the next, both physical and moral evil were to endure for a season. Yet, to manifest that they were, indeed, to receive their final doom from the REDEEMER, it was but fit that, in the course of his Ministry, he should give a specimen of his power over them. One part, therefore, of his Godlike labours was taken up in curing all Luke, chap. iv.