to rebuke and punish the king of Israel, for seeking the aid of this god of Ekron, instead of that of Jehovah. And yet the angel and the prophet both knew that there was no such god, and no such being in existence as Baalzebub, notwithstanding they spoke of him as if he were as much an actual personality as Jehovah himself. They adopted the language of those they addressed, without adopting the errors which the language covered. And it would be just as proper to argue that the prophet and the angel believed in the god of Ekron, because they speak of him as a real being, as to argue that Christ and his disciples believed in the devil, or Satan, as a real being, because they speak of him in the same way.3 And it would be equally fair to contend that the angel and the prophet sanctioned the error of the king and his messengers, by using their language without qualifying it, or pointing out the falsity of their belief, as to say that Christ, if he used the same language as the Jews did, in speaking of the devil, knowing they believed in him, sanctioned their belief, and acknowledged his agreement with them. The simple fact is, that the Saviour, in his controversies with the Jews, repeatedly meets them on their own ground, and without disputing their premises, pursues a course of reasoning which shows the absurdity of their conclusions and premises together. This was particularly the case in his reply to the charge that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, "the prince of devils; or, in other words, that he was in league with the devil. He says, "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore shall they be your judges." (Luke xi.) Here the Saviour uses their language, and speaks of their sons or children as casting out devils, as well as himself. Now let us ask those who 3 This is the favorite argument of the Rev. H. M. Dexter, in his Sermon on the Reasonableness of the Doctrine of Future Eternal Punishment. He insists constantly, that Christ and his disciples, knowing that the Jews believed in endless punishment, by adopting the language in which they expressed this belief, not only encouraged and confirmed them in the doctrine, but showed that they themselves believed it also. If the argument is sound, it certainly opens the way to a few doctrinal difficulties; to say nothing of the stumbling blocks it throws in the way of Scriptural interpretation generally. believe in possession with devils, Did the Jewish impostors and exorcists cast them out, as well as Christ? Of course not. They deceived the people; and Jesus, in this case, did not undeceive them. The multitude believed these pretenders actually cast out the demons; and our Lord, instead of denying it, virtually admits their claims. He adopts the language of the people in regard to it, and therefor endorses their error; nay, according to the argument in review, he must have believed it himself! So with respect to other false doctrines. The dogmas of pre-existence, and of bodily diseases and infirmities being the punishment of sins committed in a former state of being, were believed, in the time of the Saviour, even by his disciples. "And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (John, ix. 1-3.) Now this gross error of his disciples, that we are punished with bodily disease in this world, for sins. committed in a prior world, the Saviour did not expose by any argument or denial. He denied its application to the case before them-to "this man" who was born blind; but the doctrine itself, the principle involved, he passes without rebuke. So also he does the associate error, that we are punished for the sins of our parents; for they believed that the man was born blind, either on account of his own sins or those of his parents. Lightfoot shows that "it was a received doctrine in the Jewish schools, that children, for some wickedness of their parents, were born crooked or lame, maimed or defective in some of their parts;" and that it was the common opinion that infirmity and disease were the effects of sin, and that even infants might sin before they were born! Shall we now affirm that Christ believed these false doctrines, because he did not seize this occasion to repudiate and disprove them? Of course not. Why then affirm that he believed the errors of the people respecting the devil, because he did not elaborately controvert them, whenever they came before him in his conversations with them? Again, we have the following record: "At that time, Herod, the Tetrarch, heard of the fame of Jesus, and said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead." (Matt. xiv. 1, 2.) And again, "Jesus asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." (xvi. 13, 16.) Now here we have an error of precisely the same class with that respecting possession with devils. The bodies of the demoniacs were supposed to be possessed by the spirits of wicked men, who had died; and Herod and the people believed that the body of Jesus was possessed by the spirit of some good man, as John Baptist, Elias, Jeremiah, or some one of the old prophets, who had died centuries before. This doctrine is also found in the apochryphal Book of Wisdom, chap. viii.: "I was a witty child, and had a good spirit; yea, rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled." 4 This was a gross superstition, and wholly contrary to the word of God, to believe that the souls of the dead return to the earth, and enter into new and living bodies; yet the Saviour passes it by without entering into any argument of refutation; nay, without one word of rebuke or censure. Did he, therefore, believe the doctrine himself? or is he to be held responsible for sanctioning the error of the people? Certainly not. Mr. Balfour has remarked with great good sense, that "to have corrected all the false opinions of the age, would have been an arduous and vain work. Had not Jesus and his apostles spoken of things in the common language of other people, they could not have been understood, and would have subjected themselves to the charge of vanity and affectation," and, it may be added, would have involved themselves in a thousand profitless controversies, and been drawn away from the legitimate work of their ministry, which was to put the leaven in the meal, and leave it to leaven the whole lump. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus furnishes an 4 It is a fact worth noting, that some of the tribes of Southern India, also believe that "bad men when they die become devils; and good men when they die are born again into human bodies." The distance in location and the coincidence of opinion are remarkable. - Library of Entertaining Knowledge. "The Hindoos," chap. v. See also much curious matter respecting the devil-worship of these tribes, and their belief in demons. The Siamese, who are Budhists, believe that some of the wicked, after ages of torment in hell, again visit the earth, and walk abroad as evil demons or unclean spirits, and as hideous and ferocious animals. Translations of Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii. 89. illustration of this freedom in the use of popular terms and phrases. The rich man is represented as lifting up his eyes, and seeing Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. This language is formed upon the common Jewish notions respecting heaven and hell. As Beausobre and L'Enfant say, "the Jews had borrowed from the Greeks their phraseology for describing the future life, and represented the abode of the blessed as being separated from that of the wicked by a great river, across which they could see and converse." Now, because the Saviour adopts this language of the people, does he sanction their opinions? Did he believe that the inhabitants of heaven and hell converse together; that they are so situated that they can look from either abode into the other? that they are really separated by "a great gulph" or river? These heathen superstitions the Jews had adopted, and Christ, in talking with them, uses their terms descriptive of their opinions. But who supposes that because he adopted their phraseology he adopted their opinions; that he believed the absurd dogmas of the Greeks or the Jews, in regard to the geography of heaven and hell? Who imagines that he gave his approval to the popular ideas that the saved and the damned hold conversations together; that the latter are tormented in literal fire and flame, and would be eased by a drop, or an ocean, of water? The orthodox Dr. Macknight has written very good sense on this point. In his Paraphrase on the parable he says: "It must be acknowledged that our Lord's descriptions of these things are not drawn from the Old Testament, but have a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given of them. They, as well as our Lord, represent the abodes of the blessed as lying contiguous to the region of the damned, separated only by a great impassable river, or deep gulph. The parable says the souls of wicked men are tormented in flames; the Grecian mythologists tell us they lie in Periphlegethon, which is a river of fire, where they suffer torments. If from these resemblances it is thought the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, it will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the common people thought or spake concerning these matters, agreeably to the notions of the Greeks. In parabolical discourses, provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the ears of the vulgar, and the images made use of such as they are best acquainted with." Another Orthodox writer remarks on the subject in hand: "The Jews stigmatized Beelzebub as the prince of devils, to which notion our Saviour accommodated himself in his intercourse with them, without, it is presumed, necessarily endorsing it as true." 5 And Michaelis, whose opinion is always respected, says, in regard to Jude's quotation of the story of Michael and Satan disputing about the body of Moses, from an apochryphal book called the Assumption of Moses, that he (St. Jude) doubtless "considered the whole story, not as a real fact which either he himself believed, or which he required his readers to believe; but merely an instructive fable, which served to illustrate the doctrine which he himself inculcated, viz., that we ought not to speak evil of dignities. With this view he might quote from the "Assumption of Moses" the conversation of Michael, as an example of diffidence worthy of imitation, without intending to assert that the story was true, or that the book from which he quoted was of divine authority." " The same remarks would apply equally to the quotation from the "Book of Enoch," respecting the angels which kept not their first estate. He illustrates his argument by reference to a popular tradition, but of such a gross and absurd nature as to show at once he could not possibly mean to be understood as endorsing its truth." One more example: "And it came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divi nation, met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this she did many days. But Paul being aggrieved, turned and said 5 The Heathen Religion, in its Popular and Symbolical Development. By Rev. J. B. Gross, p. 321. This volume deserves more attention than his Orthodox brethren have given it. 6 Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iv. 378-393. 7 Book of Enoch, Lawrence's Translation, chap. vii., &c., of Sec. ii. |