One hundred points of the things that he says, may contain ninety and nine that no man can prove; but the one point, that it is he that speaks, is a thing which must be proved, or we can have no confidence in what is said.

I earnestly entreat a blessing from God on your meditations on this simple principle. Simple as it is, I am persuaded it has escaped notice, and that the want of attention to it has been the means of ensnaring multitudes, with the best intentions in the world, with the most pious intentions, with the most earnest anxiety to serve God, and the most trembling apprehension lest they be guilty of criminal rejection of spiritual things. They have trembled at the audacity of. rejecting, when they ought to have received, when they should have demanded a proof: they have trembled at what seemed the criminal policy of waiting for a proof. They have been falsely accused as criminal reasoners, instead of simple believers who have stood out for a proof. We, who have asked for proof, have been told that our reason has rendered us incapable of receiving the things of the Spirit of God. I know that the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. "The things of the Spirit of God"-those are the contents: but the natural man can receive a proof that it is the Spirit of God that says the things; but the things themselves cannot be received. The simple fact, that it is the Spirit that says them, is capable of proof; and we must have it, before we can, after a christian manner, submit to the things that are said.

Now mark, practically, the consequences of overlooking this, and see how some that we love and value are involved in one contradiction after another; because, admitting the first step, that it is God that speaks, they are obliged to admit what is said; and those sayings involve them in such contradictions, that we know not what the reality is likely to be. The common principles of reasoning among men are outraged by the consequences that follow, by admitting that it is God who speaks, without having proof that it is God who speaks.

Brethren, I have done. May the blessing of God be amongst you, in meditating on this great question and these general principles, which are true and valuable, not only in this question, but in all others connected with revelation. The distinction between the inspiration and the contents of Scripture; the distinction between the proofs of the Lord's resurrection, and faith in the Lord's doctrines; and the distinction between the proof we want of the standing that a man occupies who says that God speaks by him, and the submission we yield to all that is spoken, when once it is proved that God is the speaker. Bear in mind, also, that you are already, by faith, in possession of the "greater things," the life; that the signs are lower things to lead to faith, and faith the higher thing to lead to life And while we are said to have no life amongst us- -while it is asserted that the church is dead—that there is no Holy Ghost in it, because there are no wonderful signs and manifestations in it—while this is alleged, I beseech you to contradict it by the enjoyment of God in the Spirit, rather than in the mere speaking of words. Let all see that there is indeed a Holy Ghost amongst us; that we live with God by the Holy Ghost; that we are brought to God, sustained by the power of the Holy Ghost within us; that we have faith in us, wrought by the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in us; and that, by faith, we have life, and enjoy life, and walk with God, and deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, and righteously, and godly, in the present world. Let all see that, while there is a due and calm and well-regulated attention to all the duties of life in God's providence, there is at the same time a warm, and tender, and affectionate, and holy enjoyment of God himself in the Holy Spirit; and that, while

we are evil entreated and evil spoken of on every side, we can, being defamed, entreat; and that we can, being injured, return good for evil; and that we can warn one another, and exhort one another, without speaking evil of others---in love, warning against evil principles, while we live in peace, and pray for each other's salvation.

My dear brethren, God in infinite mercy enable us to show, by the best of proofs, infallible proofs presented to the eyes and ears and understanding of all who know us, that the Holy Ghost is in us, dwelling in us, and ruling in us; that he is our God, and that we are his people. May we be enabled to show those higher works of spiritual enjoyment to a world of souls, that they may take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus.

Before we separate, let me put you on your guard with reference to the season which awaits you within the next two months: it is a season of privilege, but it is a season of danger; hurrying from one meeting to another, and from one sermon to another, without time to digest what you hear. It is a season when you will be tempted to live like so many Marthas, busied about the less services, but not sitting at the Lord's feet. Oh, beware! I would not wish to abridge the privilege of Christian hearers: it is a blessing to hear, but it is possible so to hear, as not to retain it is possible so to run, as not to win the prize: it is possible so to eat as not to digest-and then eating will lead to disease. Take care, therefore, how you hear, and let your capacity for benefitting by it be the measure of your wise hearing. If you find, that by all your hearing you cannot benefit, but rather that you are disturbed, I would suggest whether you would not, upon the whole, love God better, and profit in yourselves better, by hearing a little less, and meditating and praying a great deal more.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION.

REV. R. W. HAMILTON.

LAMBETH CHAPEL, APRIL 28, 1833.

"The evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?"Acts xix. 15.

THAT effects existed which strictly correspond with our ideas of diabolical possession, or, in other words, that evil spirits were permitted to haunt and to tyrannize over the minds of certain persons, we must believe, unless we convert narrative into fable and transform miracle into imposture. We concede, that considerable difficulty attends every view of the case and every construction of the mystery. We concede, that the external indications were sometimes scarcely, if at all, distinctive from other morbid symptoms. We concede, that the loss of voluntary power over the bodily instrumentality and the mental exercise, was the ordinary sign and effect of this visitation.

But, whatever were the difficulties the first Christians felt to entangle their admission of the fact, it was universally credited by them; and whatever embarrassments we may feel to lie on the side of the affirmative, a thousand more, and a thousand far more perplexing, would attend the refutation. Many objections, of course, may be suggested which we cannot solve, and many inquiries to which we cannot reply. It stands related to a department in the empire of being with which we are most dimly acquainted. It involves effects and operations of the human mind which we are very far from being able to explain and adjust. It combines mixed agencies which seem to have little affinity for each other, and each of which is inscrutible in its separate and integral state. It comprehends general principles and analogies of the divine government, requiring us to project a scale of thought beyond the reach of our conception, and to take a grasp of observation which our dull and narrow faculties are unable to seize. But we know this, that there was such a power, and that such a power was dispelled. Until moral causes are better understood, and the moral relation which binds different systems together be better apprehended, we shall be at a loss to show the manner in which evil spirits obtained their lodgment in the human soul, or, perhaps, to exhibit all the reasons why this form of evil and of penal infliction was allowed under a government of justice, purity, and love.

But even were we to allow, that only bodily distempers and mental ailments were included—such as palsy and insanity-we should be warranted in ascribing these to the same source. The patriarch of Uz is afflicted: Satan has put forth his hand upon him. One daughter of Abraham has suffered eighteen years, and Satan's hand bound her. Different personages under the christian dispensation had disobeyed and violated the divine commands: they were

delivered to Satan-bodily indisposition and ailments-that they might learn not to blaspheme. Paul is afflicted with a thorn in his flesh-a messenger from Satan to buffet him. Can language be more precise? Can statement be more uniform? Or, is this a poetic turn of expression, caught to explain some machinery of a drama-caught to explain some particular circumstances of long conflict-caught to give emphasis to some ecclesiastical anathema-caught to give effect to a mournful narrative?

We must recollect, if we would bring our minds to a right state of judgment, that this was the miracle which was commonly deemed the most stupendous o. all those which were performed by Christ. If it be an adaptation of language to popular prejudice, an accommodation to vulgar ignorance, let us weigh well the alternative. Jesus addressed fiends, and fiends replied. Such is, with all allowances, the surface of the fact as represented to us. The Apostles reported, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us by thy name:" he partakes of that rapture" I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Was this the deception of the oracle? Was this the illusion of the tripod? Was it on the Apostle's part an empty boast? And, on the part of the response, was it all artifice and pretence? Did gesture, did look, did tone, did manner, in professing to cast out evil spirits, merely appertain to that which was unreal and untrue—that which did not, and could not, exist and operate? What is this but to transform Him, in whose "mouth was no guile," and who could always say, " If it were not so, I would have told you," into the juggler practising upon the senses of by-standers, and sending forth his apostles to carry on the same powerless, though the same deceptive incantations. However, we may "declare the Saviour's generation;" and whatever we may think of the contradiction of sinners which he endured against himself, we know that even the fiercest adversaries admitted the fact that he rebuked the malice, that he menaced the downfall, and that he resisted the inroads of those spirits, those fallen agencies and existences, who thus expressed the depth and the extent of their malignity. Yet, by the wildest of all perversions, and the strangest of all infatuations, they attributed these acknowledged effects to the concert and energy of devils themselves.

We have before us a case in point. Paul, by the miraculous endowments entrusted to him, has cast out an evil spirit. This was in reply to an abortive attempt made on the part of others to imitate that stupendous miracle. Whence proceeded the indignant rebuke of the text? Was it a mimic voice? Was it a curious deception? He addressed a spirit; that spirit replied. Who were the parties in this well-managed collusion? Who were the actors in this well-plotted scene? We must remember, that the fame of this was known to all those who dwelt (Jews and Greeks) at that time in Ephesus; and the occurrence is related by history, and by history in its simplest and least ostentatious manner. Well, then, this is an attestation from hell, and proves that there are certain things transpiring on earth connected with our religious principles and our evangelical institutes, which are understood and recognized by beings which we must necessarily loath and abhor. Belying all truth, and opposing all goodness, they are the natural and the wilful enemies of human happiness and of human improvements.

What is the precise feeling we should entertain towards these agents and existences, it may be difficult for us to determine. It can never become a question of practical application; but, surely, we must harbour a deep abhorrence

of their impurity, for they are "unclean," and of their treachery, for they are ❝ seducing spirits." The enemies of God—we must cast them out; our enemies, and intent upon our destruction, we must watch their approaches and guard against their machinations. Their eyes are keenly bent upon this earth as a theatre of operations deeply affecting their own condition and destiny. Their passions of enmity, and of jealousy, and of rage, flash from them upon our ears ; for their kingdom is diminished, their agony is embittered, their malice is provoked by every accession of influence obtained by Christianity over the understandings and affections of mankind.

A review of this passage, this oracle of hell, may not be altogether inapposite to the present occasion. It is the language of taunt and of disdain: it is the language of one who has kept his palace and preserved his goods in peace. “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?" We found upon these words the three following remarks:-That there are powers of demon evil widely diffused and ceaselessly active in our world: that there are expedients formed to counteract their influence, and to depose their ascendency, which only provoke their contempt: that, nevertheless, means of resisting and overcoming them exist, which these malignants comprehend and dread.

First, we observe, THAT THERE ARE POWERS of demon evil widely difPUSED AND CEASELESSLY active in our world.

We know that a host of spirits, numerous and glorious, under a chief of consummate stratagem and impious daring, fell from their original estate, and left their first habitation. We learn that a restless principle of hostility pervades their very temperament, instigating them to oppose all that is holy in God, and all that is good in man; on every spot to erect a standard of revolt; into every creature to infuse the venom of disaffection; and to seize upon every opportunity and occasion to oppose the divine will, to impugn the divine authority, and to mar the divine image. Hurled from their original sphere, they seem to have selected our earth as a favourable scene to perpetrate their cruel intentions, to make it a hold for their prey and a den for their ravenings. It was a favourable field for annoyance and for rallying; it was a suitable magazine for storing the elements of their infernal warfare; it was a vantage ground on which to plant the engines of their attack; and he who was filled with a love of murder from the beginning, still goeth about seeking whom he may devour. And I must declare my conviction, that these spirits possess a far more potent and enlarged influence than is commonly ascribed to them. Subtle, they cover their purpose that we may fall the more unsuspectingly into their snare. Vindictive, they love to drag us into their condemnation. Watchful, they never cease to observe the season when they may bring us into captivity at their will.

This is not, indeed, a popular theory; and we are fully aware, that he who would establish a fame for liberality and sobriety above his fellows, must make a very considerable deduction from the statement we now exhibit. We know that this is the earliest concession demanded and exacted by a modern theology. We know that there are those who would have it to refer to a distant date; who would compel us to affix it to a very rare and infrequent occasion; and whe would demand of us to shadow it away into personification and allegory. But though it may not be the doctrine of the day, it is for us to inquire whether it be not founded on scriptural evidence, and be related to scriptural truth. It is, perhaps, replied, that the evil is in ourselves. It is; or else there would be no