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the dead are raised up, the language of each of these wonderful works is, This is my inspired messenger; hear ye him! but in the present instance, God condescends to tell us the same thing in an audible voice from heaven.

Let us, therefore, attend to what Christ says: he speaks to us from the authority of God, and what he delivers has the same truth and certainty in it, as if it were taught by the Divine Being himself: God has sent him into the world, and commanded us to believe and obey him: if we neglect to do either, we commit no light offence: for he that despises him whom God hath sent, despises him who sent him, and incurs the guilt of treating with contempt the maker of the universe and the judge of the world. There have been warm disputes in the world about the person of Christ, to determine who he is: some assert that he is God, united to the person of a man; others, that he is a superangelic being, who existed before all worlds, but condescended to occupy a human body for the salvation of the world; others, that he is only a man, endowed with extraordinary communications of divine power and knowledge: but in the zeal with which mankind have prosecuted these inquiries, they have overlooked the principal part of their duty, which is not so much to determine who Christ is, as to observe what he says: if they believe him to be a divine messenger, teaching the will of God; if they receive his doctrines and observe his precepts; the main design of his mission is answered; they cannot be essentially mistaken; but without this attention to his precepts, the most exalted notions of his person can be of no avail.

Matthew xvii. 14. to the end.

14. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,

15. Master, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for oft-times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

The disorder with which this youth was afflicted was the falling sickness, or epilepsy. The circumstances related respecting him by the different evangelists, some of which only are mentioned by Matthew, exactly correspond with the symptoms of that discase: for they represent him as making grievous outcries, foaming at the mouth, gnashing with his teeth, being convulsed or torn, thrown violently on the ground, and often falling into the fire and into the water; circumstances which are well known to accompany the epilepsy. These effects the Jews attributed to the influence of the spirit of some wicked man that was now dead, taking possession of the epileptic person, depriving him of the use of his faculties, and exercising a malignant power over the organs of his body. On this account he was called a dæmoniac; nor need we be surprised that the heathens, and after them the Jews, should ascribe the epilepsy, as well as madness, to possession: for they are kindred disorders: in both, the mind is disordered, and it is no unusual thing for madmen to be subject to epileptic fits. The young man here mentioned is called a lunatic, because the fits, being periodical, and returning after nearly the same intervals, were supposed to be owing to the influence of the moon. Not that this planet had in reality any efficacy in producing or regulating this disorder, or indeed any other: it was then, and is now, a prevailing, but erroneous notion, that certain diseases observe lunar periods, returning with the full and change of the moon.

This story teaches us the ground of the distinction which is made in the New Testament between lunatics and dæmoniacs. Dæmoniacs were persons disordered in their understandings, and supposed to be possessed by an evil dæmon. Lunatics were epileptics, whose disorder was attributed to the same cause; with this difference only, that it was not permanent, but return

ed at intervals, which were supposed to be regulated by the moon.

16. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

17. Then Jesus answered, and said, O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to

me.

Christ had given his disciples a power over dæmons, and of healing other diseases; and had promised to be with them, wherever they went, to enable them to perform such things; but they now doubted of the fulfilment of these promises, and thought the object of them too difficult to be accomplished. Christ, therefore, justly calls them a perverse as well as faithless generation, because they doubted of promises upon which they ought to have relied. How long shall I be with you? i. e. how long will you have occasion for my presence and assistance? Jesus reproves his disciples, because they could not give relief to the afflicted, unless while he was present, and helping them.

How

long shall I endure you? how long shall I bear, with a patient mind, your perverse manners? This language is severe, and on that account some commentators have supposed it was intended for the Pharisees, or the father of the young man, and his friends. The narrative directs us to apply it to the disciples of Jesus: for in the twentieth verse, Christ tells them that they were unable to perform the cure on account of their unbelief. Those who enjoyed such advantages for acquiring a strong faith, as the disciples of Jesus, are deservedly reprehended with severity for the want of it.

18. And Jesus rebuked the dæmon, and he departed out of him; and the

child was cured from that very hour, "that moment.

It has been said that Christ's rebuking the dæmon evidently supposes that the being whom he addresses was capable of obeying him, and that he expected him to obey him, from a conviction and awe of his divine. authority. To this objection to the opinion that possessions are bodily distempers, two answers have been made. 1. That it was no unusual thing with our Saviour to address the elements, and other objects equally insensible, as agents, endowed with reason and liberty: to the dead Jesus said, Arise: he rebuked the winds and the seas, saying, Peace, be still; and lastly, he rebuked a fever, and it left the patient. Why then might he not rebuke a dæmon, even supposing "dæmon" to stand merely for the disorder imputed to his influence, and speak in the same tone of authority to it as to other things, equally incapable of a voluntary obedience? But, 2. to account for the language of Christ in regard to dæmoniacs, some have supposed that he was endowed with every degree of knowledge necessary to accomplish the important purposes of his divine mission; but that in regard to the causes of natural distempers, and other subjects of natural philosophy, which had no connection with his business as a religious instructor, God did not think proper to reveal to him more than to others, but that he was left to form the same opinions as the Jews among whom he lived; and that therefore, as they considered madness and epilepsy as arising from an evil being, occupying the body of the afflicted, Jesus thought and spake in the same manner; sometimes rebuking them, com manding them to go out and to depart.

19. Then came the disciples to Jesus, apart, and said, Why could we not cast him out?

20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say

unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Christ does not mean that their faith should be as small as a grain of mustard-seed; but as thriving and increasing: for it is said, in another place, from the smallest of all seeds to become the greatest among herbs, and even a tree.

This lan

"Ye shall say unto this mountain," &c. guage is to be understood figuratively, and not literally: the meaning of it is, that by a strong faith they should be enabled to work much greater miracles than those which they had hitherto performed; which was in fact the case. When Christ says that nothing should be impossible to his disciples, if they had a strong faith, his words must be limited to the subject of which he is speaking: there is nothing which you shall not be able to do, of those things which may confirm your doctrine, procure respect to your office.

and

21. Howbeit, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting*.

Christ had before shown how dæmoniacs might be cured; namely, by a strong faith; he now shows them that this faith is not easily obtained, but must be wrought in the mind by prayer and fasting, that is, by fervent devotion, such as men practise when they fast. The Divine Being did not choose to grant the power of working miracles to those who doubted his ability to perform them, because this would be granting a favour to one in the very act of dishonouring him; and the more difficult the miracles were, under which description the disciples would rank casting out dæmons, the more likely were such doubts to arise; but solemn

This whole verse is wanting in the Vatican and another MS. and in the Coptic, Ethiopic and one of the Syriac versions.

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