the first, and as we readily concede the most favoured of His followers, should have deemed it possible to perish with Jesus in the ship! Well then does He address them, as indeed He at the same time warns us all, "O ye of little faith!" It is one principal part of the Redeemer's plan to exercise and prove the faith of His disciples; and, therefore, does He permit them to have many trials, as they pass over the tempestuous sea of life. We ought to be satisfied that He is ever in the vessel with us. "Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm." It is often mentioned in Scripture as the peculiar property of God, "to still the noise of the seas." It is not then to be wondered at, that when they saw in an instant the wind allayed, and the surface of the water smooth and level, (notwithstanding that commonly after a storm the water of the sea continues for a time in motion,) the full force of such an exercise of miraculous power should have drawn from all who were in the ship with Him, the ready admission that there must be a Divine power in Him who could perform so great a miracle1. SECT. LII.-Christ sendeth Devils into the Swine.-Matt. viii. 28-34; Mark v. 1-28; Luke vii. 40-56. THE storm being thus appeased, they arrived in safety into the country of the Gergesenes, 1 Bishop Pearson and Dr. Whitby. as it is called by St. Matthew; but, according to St. Mark and St. Luke, it is called the country of the Gadarenes. Josephus informs us, that there was a very rich city of chief note on that side of the country, called Gadara, and also one of some importance, called Gergesa2. There met Him, according to St. Mark and St. Luke one, but according to St. Matthew two, persons, possessed with devils, in a state of the utmost distraction and fury. It is probable that one of them was more fierce, and, therefore, more an object of notice than the other, on which account the two Evangelists only speak of one, and wholly omit the other3. When our Lord beheld these pitiable objects, He commanded the demons to quit their hold, and "to come out of the man.' This they were unwilling to do, and yet they were constrained to acknowledge the supreme power of Jesus as "the Son of the Most High God"." This story, more fully than any other, acquaints us with the power of the world of evil spirits, which, though working in an extraordinary manner, were at that period more especially permitted to exert their malevolence on the earth. Scripture speaks not only of the great enemy of mankind, "the prince of darkness, 'the prince of this world," but likewise 2 Dr. Wells. Drs. Whitby and Robinson. of other evil spirits who are permitted to exercise power over men. Jesus had began His ministry by overcoming Satan; He proceeds now to show that He was also come to subdue these inferior spirits, who are always on the watch to injure and destroy; "they are many, and their name is Legion." But they knew, as it would appear, who was to break their dominion; for they cried out, saying, “Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time ?" This shows a fearful expectation of the wrath to come, and of the judgment awaiting them. Jesus commands them, as He had before commanded the winds and waters, and they obey Him. They are powerless before Him. Until He permitted, they could not prevail against the meanest animal; how much less can they prevail against those whom the Christ has made His children? They could not, if they would, have destroyed this man, as we see they afterwards destroyed the swine, into which they entered. Jesus seizes the occasion to show that He was Lord of all the evil spirits which are the enemies of mankind 5. Christ could not have encouraged the notion of real possession more than by His conduct on this occasion; and it is highly probable, that this extraordinary occurrence was permitted, chiefly to prove the reality of those possessions Archbishop Sumner. which Christianity has so happily driven out of the world". It has been supposed, that the power of devils was allowed to be more evidently exerted at the period of our Lord's ministry, than at any other time before or since; in order that His own superior power, His universal sovereignty, might appear. In the same way as temporal evils, and bodily disorders, and pestilences are permitted for some purpose which God brings about by means of them, which "we know not now, but may know hereafter '. 7 99 It may, perhaps, appear extraordinary to us, that Christ should condescend to permit the devils to commune with Him, or to have their will, by suffering them to go into a herd of swine that were feeding in the neighbourhood; but the transaction is recorded by three out of the four Evangelists in every detail, and, therefore, does not admit of a single word of cavil. "The whole herd, about two thousand in number, ran violently down a steep place, and were choked in the waters." This is the only miracle recorded to have been wrought by our Lord to the damage of any individual R. "The swine, because it divideth the hoof yet cheweth not the cud," was unclean to the Jews, but the same law, which forbad the use of them for food, does not seem to have been understood as prohibiting the rearing of these animals for sale, or any other purpose. It appears, in fact, that the Jews did rear pigs for sale to their heathen neighbours, till they were forbidden by a law about seventy years before the coming of our Saviour. One of the enforcements of this prohibitory act is curious, as showing for what purposes besides sale hogs had been reared by the Jews; it was forbidden to rear any hog, even though it should come by inheritance, in order to obtain profit from its skin, or from its fat, for anointing, or for lights. These prohibitions do not appear to have had complete effect; for regulations continued to be made, concerning towns in which hogs were kept, and the keepers of swine continued to be mentioned as contemptible and infamous, so that a hog-breeder or a swine-herd became a favourite term of abasement, as we see in the parable of the prodigal. It may have been that the herds of swine here mentioned were the property of the heathen, who certainly did live with the Jews in this neighbourhood; or they might have belonged to Jews, who kept them in despite of the prohibitions which had been issued. Therefore, those who kept them were not obedient unto the law, and this destruction of their herd may have been intended as a punishment. But the great purpose of the whole was, no doubt, to show the dominion of 9 Pictorial Bible. |