SUPERNATURAL MANIFESTATIONS

CONSIDERED.

ENDOWED with the godlike faculty of free-will and understanding, man is in a condition to recover his Maker's image, through sanctification of His Spirit and belief of His Truth. The holy language, rich in thought, conveys, in two distinct terms, the sense of this higher condition of man, which we are invited to become, and that lower state of animal or intellectual existence, with which we are daily conversant in, "the children of the world" and "the seed of the serpent."

Man, in the exercise of those characteristics of a rational, accountable, and immortal being, whose chief aim is to glorify God, as his end is to enjoy His presence for ever, was called *, and from man, in this high and illustrious state of existence, as the son of God, the heir of immortality, the woman was derived. It was in this view of his condition that God called her †, an "help-meet," a companion, and friend.

The poverty of our translation applies the common term man to that lower state of existence which is very differently designated by a wisdom and knowledge which signified the disposition, of which the name was to be the index; DTM, a term given to designate that order of the species who think, feel, and act with reference to self in its manifold and continuous volume of aspects "who are of the earth earthy."

God breathed into man the breath of life, that he might have dominion over, not only his material frame, but keep his will in subjection to his Supreme Head, the source from which his better life flows.

It is the good pleasure of God to hold communion with

his regenerated children through their enlightened understanding. God reveals himself to, and acts by those powers which constitute not the animal but the man. He acts not in the flesh, for no flesh shall see him and live; but through the heart, and soul, and mind, which have been transformed into His moral image.

On the other hand, familiar spirits act through the physical organization and nervous system, as we find in every instance upon record; the understanding of the mediums are neither consulted nor recognized.

When Jesus cast out the evil spirits by the Word, they acknowledged that the Man and the Word in him were in glorious union. They recognized the Manhood and the Divinity which dwelt in the veil of flesh. But as they abode not in the truth to which He bare witness; as they never knew Him in the way of doing His Father's Will, He permitted them not to testify of Him.

They were not with Him in subjection to the Word, therefore they were against Him, however clear their conviction and declaration of His character and mission. The case of the Gergesenes, who were possessed by many evil spirits, is a remarkable illustration of this fact. They saw in the Holy One of God the vanquisher of their chief and his hosts. They well knew that the time would come when He should consign them to the deep; but they also knew that He must achieve this through obedience unto death, and, bursting the barriers of the grave, receive that power which comes through lawful striving for true honour and glory. They cried; "what have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God, art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" They were to be reserved under chains of darkness for the judgment of the Great Day; therefore He permitted them to enter into many swine who were

feeding afar off, who, thus possessed, hurried in their headlong career, until they reached the utmost limit, when they precipitated themselves into the sea, and perished.

Doubtless this was a figure of the future, written for an ensample to us, upon whom the ends of the world are come. And the more shall we be persuaded that it was given by our Lord, in the character of a prophet, for our admonition and warning, when we consider the bearings of the subject; for He spake in parables, and did many things in figure and in hieroglyphic representation.

66

Let us revert first to the same symbol used by our Lord, and mark in what connection it occurs, and with what reference it was given. "Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again to rend you." He spake to His disciples, to whom the Law and the Teştimony was holy and precious." The apostle Peter throws further light on this hieroglyphic, in that awful picture which he draws of false prophets and teachers, who should arise, concocting mortal heresies, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of which the way of Truth shall be evil spoken of.

66

Their characteristics are, that they "despise" (Divine) "government," are "presumptuous," self-willed," and speak evil of (divinely ordained) dignities,” “and those things which they understand not." They are to receive the reward of unrighteousness, which is, to perish in their own corruption. They are compared to Balaam, who went, by a spirit of covetousness, to transfer the blessings of Israel to the Moabites, by divination and sorcery, but was reproved by a dumb ass, speaking with man's voice. They are moreover compared to wells without water; a

semblance without the reality of that principle which purifies. They are admonished that it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteouness, than after they had known the holy commandment, delivered unto them, to turn from it. It is the commandments, therefore, which our Lord esteems that holy and precious thing which ought not to be given to such as would turn to their own left-off abominations, or those who would fall into the slough of their own lusts.

Let us not in the licentious spirit of these times, speak evil of those dignities to whom we are to be subject, viz. the prophets and apostles, or dream that they were tinctured with Jewish feeling and prejudices, and that the ministration of the Spirit is in these days, to be manifested by saints and prophets of the Gentiles. The Spirit of God is undivisible. It moved holy men of God to speak to edification, in turning transgressors into the path of obedience; and in shewing things to come. Let us study the history of those whom God called saints and prophets, and we shall find that they witnessed for Truth, as revealed in the Scriptures, and therefore were they persecuted for righteousness sake.

Let us come to "Scripture" examples, and O that they may be "for our instruction in righteousness."

Sergius Paulus, noted for prudence, desired to hear of Paul" the Word" of God. A person possessed of supernatural endowment, conscious of its exercise as a thing distinct from, and independent of, and above the written Word, "withstood Paul, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith." Then it was, that full of that holy indignation which of old glowed in Elijah towards the idolators, and afterwards in Christ, when cleansing the Temple from the thieves who filled it with their own traffic,

H

he exclaimed, "O full of all subtlety and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, how long wilt thou not cease to pervert the right way of the LORD!" His sin was in acting on the principle of moral darkness, and in rejecting the Light of Truth, therefore as a sign of his moral blindness he was unable for a time, to behold the light of the sun. Then the deputy seeing what was done, believed the doctrine which the LORD thus authorized and attested.

It is possible for evil spirits to declare certain things in themselves true. It is proverbial "the Devil never told a whole lie." A damsel in a Macedonian city, who was gifted with a spirit of divination and sooth-saying, cried, "these men are the servants of the Most High God, who shew unto us the way of salvation." Paul hearing this, many days, and being grieved, said to the spirit, " I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and he came out the same hour." It is very curious to observe, that the evil spirit spake of salvation by Christ, not that he believed that there was salvation to evil spirits, but to beguile the people into the idea that the Spirit of God was manifested in uttering a truth to which the apostles bare testimony.

The language of those who made divination a source of gain, and who lost it on the exorcism of the evil spirit, is in strange contrast to that of the spirit. "These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city, teaching customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans." The custom here referred to was, that every seventh day Paul called together as many as would attend, for prayer and exhortation by the river's side.

Again, a spirit seeing Jesus cried out, "I know thee,