tion, as defrauding the worship of the true God, and they accounted all the objects of the worship evil.

It was the conception of the oldest Greek philosophy, that the air was peopled by the spirits of the dead, και τότες δαίμονας τε καὶ ερωας νομίζεσθαι, and that those were the givers of dreams and of signs of health and sickness. (Diogen. Laert. in vit. Pythag.)

The Platonic theory had the same impression, "Plerique ex Platonis magisterio, dæmones putant animas corporeo munere liberatas; laudabilium quoque virorum æthereos dæmones, improborum vero nocentes. (Chalcid. in Plat. Timæ.)

The name was given originally from the supposed superior knowledge of beings beyond the grave, whether gods or men. In heathen writings it sometimes denotes the Supreme Being, sometimes subordinate deities, sometimes a species of guardian spirits, and sometimes, no doubt, evil ones. The demon of Socrates, the adviser of Numa, the inspiring spirits of the oracles, are all vestiges of this ancient belief of the active influence of invisible existences.

In the New Testament the word Demon is always used in an evil sense, except, perhaps, in the single instance where St. Paul, at Athens, is charged with being a setter forth of new objects of worship, εvwv Saonav, foreign demons.

In the Old Testament the heathen deities are often spoken of as dead men or demons, though our translation erroneously names them "devils."

They shall no more offer their sacrifices to devils," (demons in the Septuagint, the known version in the time of our Saviour.) Levit. xvii. 7.

They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils," (demons in the Septuagint.) Ps. cvi. 37.

It is obvious that these demons were the souls of the dead, for it is said, in the 28th verse of the same psalm, "They joined themselves to Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead."

When the Jews turned to worship idols, Isaiah, viii. 19., reprobates their seeking wisdom not from God, but from the objects of the idol worship; the living seeking knowledge “from the dead."

And this was the very oldest acceptation of idol worship, as we find from Deut. xxxii. 15. "But Jeshurun waxed fat, and provoked the Lord to anger, they sacrificed to demons, not to God."

It is to be observed that this opinion does not affect the doctrine of "actual possession." We know nothing of the nature of spirit, of its mode of action, nor of its mode of connection

with matter. Being thus ignorant, we necessarily can show no reason why a disembodied spirit, or any number of them, should not take possession of a body, already inhabited by the human soul, and torment that body. In such matters we must look to authority, and that authority we have of the highest competence in the New Testament. When our Lord commands, "Come forth, thou unclean spirit." Can we doubt that there is an unclean spirit within! when he gives the Apostles power to "cast out demons ;" and they return to him with the declaration, that they have cast them out ;" and when, in addition, we recollect that in no one instance is the casting out of demons said to be any thing else, nor pronounced a popular error, nor declared an operation in which there was a reserve for popular prejudice, we can have no more allowance for disbelief, than we have for denying the existence and the truth of God.

The doctrine that demon worship, the idolatry of heathenism, was the worship of the souls of dead men, adds one more to the host of evidences that the Church of Rome, the avowed worshipper of the souls of the dead, is an idolatrous Church; it has accordingly been resisted with all the violence of conscious criminality.

that

From Mr. Townsend's work it would be easy to multiply quotations, both learned and vigorously expressed. But for those we must now send the reader to the volumes themselves. The author has a natural, free, and forcible style, and he easily warms into eloquence. But we should be reluctant to rest the merits of a work of this order on grace of diction, or richness of fancy. In treating of the immortal concerns of man, and the might and glory of God's revelation, the noblest eloquence is simplicity. He who would worthily do homage in the Sanctuary of the Presence, must, like the Jewish high-priest, throw off the pomps dazzle the world's eye, the jewels and the purple; and come with only the simple covering and the purified hand. The expositor of Scripture is a "worker together with God," and he will have a righteous fear how he introduces the littleness of earthly powers among the magnificent mysteries of the Word; how he attempts to roll his feeble chariot wheels in the majestic and overwhelming triumph of His truth, to whom earth and heaven are alike the dust of the balance, who layeth the beams of his chariot in the waters, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.

Of this species of error, common as it is in the popular Scriptural authorship of our day, Mr. Townsend is clear. His first and unremitted purpose is, the illustration of his text by the most copious and diligent collection of the general lights

that can be found in English and continental literature. Yet there are topics on which this learned severity may be allowed to give way for a while. The following are taken nearly at chance, as brief specimens of the fluency and animation of his less restricted manner. He is speaking of the early trials of Christianity.

"Churches had been founded in Rome, Corinth, Crete, the cities of Asia Minor, in Britain, Spain, &c. The nations of the world had been brought under the Roman yoke, that a free communication might be maintained between all parts of the civilized world.

"The usurpations of the Papacy had not begun; neither had the people proceeded to the opposite extreme of rejecting all government, as an infringement of their civil liberty. Every separate church was a society complete in itself, governed through all its gradations of laity, and through the minor offices of the priesthood, the deacons, and the presbyters, by an Episcopal head, who was liable to be deposed by the sentence of his own order, if he violated the faith of Christ. Every ruler was controuled by his brethren, while every independent hierarchy preserved its freedom under the empire of known law. The world has not since beheld more union in the belief, nor more perfection in the conduct of Christians. This was the plan which preserved the purity of the Christian creed against the first impugners of the majesty of the Son of God. This was the polity which stamped the reprobation of the general body of Christians, at Nice, upon the Arians, who denied the godhead of Christ, and at Constantinople upon the Apollinarian heresy, which denied his humanity. It was this which, at Ephesus, condemned Nestorius, who asserted that Christ was two persons; and at Chalcedon, the error of Eutyches, which confounded his twofold nature. that time the Ghost of imperial Rome was not seated upon the seven hills, to terrify the nations with the spiritual thunders of the Vatican; neither was every absurdity of doctrine, and every irregularity in discipline defended as a proof of liberty, and freedom from prejudice." Vol. II. p. 729.

Of the fortitude of the Church.

At

"It was not only the menace and the torture, the rack and the scourge, the stake and the sword, that raised themselves against the Churches of God. The ridicule of the satirist, the world's dread laugh,' the scorn of the philosophical leaders of the public opinion, the reasoning of the learned; contempt, and wonder, and pity; all that could move the affections, or break the resolution, the fear of infamy, which shrinks from slander; the love of approbation, which excites to virtuous and useful actions, and leads men to honourable eminence'; all of those, and more than those, powerful motives of action, appealed in vain to the hearts of the primitive Christians. The more their spiritual enemies within, and the turbulent heathen without, opposed the Churches of Christ, the more they multiplied and grew,' till the ma

jority of the empire professed the faith of Christ, and the Emperor of Rome became the convert and protector." Vol. II. p. 730.

Of the Epistles.

"It is in these Epistles that we are enabled, in a greater degree, to penetrate beyond the sealing of our own destiny.

The distant throne, the sapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble, while they gaze.'

In them we are confirmed in the belief of our own resurrection, in the assurance that this corruptible shall put on incorruption-they corroborate the events of the Gospels, and are the most decisive evidences of the rapid increase of Christianity. In them we hear, as it were, the angel of God declare that, Time shall be no more.' We see the Saviour of the world resign his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all, the harvest of the Church gathered in,—the eternity that is past, united to the eternity that is to come, and man made partaker of a heavenly and glorious immortality." Vol. II. p. 211.

The following allusions to the state of the Jews,-that miracle of eighteen hundred years, are generous and animated; and, with some little abatement of their enthusiasm, true,

"In selecting notes from those sources (the Talmuds) an additional interest was unavoidably excited for the wonderful people, to whom so much of our Scriptures was addressed. Though various circumstances persuade me that the mass of the Jewish people is altogether indifferent to the exertions which many benevolent and good men are daily making on their behalf: though they at present despise, for the most part, the idea of a spiritual Messiah ;-we, who are Christians, well know that Palestine is the land of the Immanuel. We know that the most High so continues to govern the nations of the world, that their power, and wealth, and greatness, whether they arise from polity, or from war, or from commerce, shall all tend to the accomplishment of his prophecies.

"Of the unfulfilled prophecies of God, the most splendid, the most numerous, and apparently the most easy of execution, are those which relate to the Jews. They will again plant the vine and the olive on their native hills, and reap their harvests in the villages of their fathers. The history of the future age must develope the means by which this great event will be effected.

"We know not whether they will be borne back to Palestine in triumph, in the ships of a powerful maritime nation;-or whether in their behalf the age of miracles will return, and a great simultaneous effort be made in their favour, on the part of the sovereigns of Europe: or whether by the exertions of pious individuals the mass of the community will be so leavened, that all people shall unite to restore them to the Holy Land. We know not whether they shall obtain their political re-establishment, from the confederated rulers of the great re

public of Europe-or by the easier devotion of that wealth, which is daily making them the principal agents of the commerce of nations, purchase the right of the soil from its present feeble and divided possessors; or whether the future agitations and contentions of sovereigns, may render it desirable that an important boundary power should be reestablished in Palestine, and a formal surrender of their territory bẹ made to their nation, as in times past the policy of Persia restored their ancestors to Jerusalem, in consequence of its defeat by the Greeks, and of that treaty which forbade the Persians to come within a certain distance of the coast; or whether they will be restored to their own now unoccupied, uncultivated, unregarded land, the central spot on earth, where the metropolitical Church of God may be most suitably established, and which seems to be waiting till the heir shall resume his claims; by some other way, which is known only to the God of their fathers. All this must be left to history, which is the only right interpreter of our faith-preserving prophecy. The experience of the past ages may teach us the manner in which the pride and ambition of man pursue their own plans, and are successful or are defeated, as the God of Christianity may please to appoint, for the accomplishment of his own designs."

Yet on this general view we are to remark, that, without some caution, it may tend to obscure the fact that the Jews, in their present state, are altogether a rejected nation, lying eminently under a divine malediction, and held up to the world as an evidence of the fulfilment of God's just indignation against a people stained with the darkest crime that it is possible to conceive, the bloodshedding of the Messiah! We are further to remember, that to the Jews, as such, no promises whatever are made, but of the continued rejection and wrath of Heaven.

It is declared that a remnant of them shall become Christians at some future period, possibly a rapidly approaching period, and that those converted shall, if we may interpret the prophecies literally, return to Palestine, and be reinstated in the possessions of the exiled people. But, as Jews, they never shall return; their whole community shall go on in the same degraded and miserable state into which they have been cast by the judgment of God, until it shall perish, perhaps be suddenly and terribly extinguished, in that great predicted convulsion of empires, which is to be followed by the general conversion of mankind to the Gospel. Then shall such as remain of the Jews, perhaps but a small remnant, find the bandage fall from their eyes, be awakened to the fatal obstinacy and frenzied prejudice that made them through so many ages resist the evidences of Christianity; and adjuring all their old guilty repugnance to divine truth, kneel at the foot of the cross of Christ!

It is essential to caution the holders of our pulpits against the