Let us mark, finally, the wonderful change which Christ can work in Satan's slaves. We are told that the Gada- renes "found the man out of whom the devil was departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind." That sight must indeed have been strange and astonishing I The man's past history and condition, no doubt, were well known. He had probably been a nuisance and a terror to aU the neighbourhood. Yet here, in one moment, a complete change had come over him. Old things had passed away, and all things had become new. The power by which such a cure was wrought must indeed have been almighty. When Christ is the physician nothing is impossible.
One thing, however, must never be forgotten. Striking and miraculous as this cure was, it is not really more wonderful than every case of decided conversion to Qt)d. Marvellous as the change was which appeared in this demoniac's condition when healed, it is not one whit more marvellous than the change which passes over every one who is bom again, and turned from the power of Satan to God. Never is a man in his right mind till he is converted, or in his right place till he sits by faith at the feet of Jesus, or rightly clothed till he has put on the Lord Jesus Christ. — ^Have we ever considered what real conversion to God is P It is nothing else but the mira- culous release of a captive, the miraculous restoration of a man to his right mind, the miraculous deliverance of a soul from the devil.
What are we ourselves P This, after all, is the grand question which concerns us. Are we bondsmen of Satan or servants of Gk)d P Has Christ made us free, or does
LUKE, CHAP. Till. VEI^. 26 — 36. 271
the devil yet reign in our hearts ? Do we sit at the feet of Jesus daily ? Are we in our right minds ? May the Lord help us to answer these questions aright !
Notes. Luke VIII. 26—36.
27. — [A certain man, which had devils long time.] There is much in this case, like all the cases of demoniacal possession in Scrip- ture, which is deeply mysterious. It must needs he so from the fact that such possession appears to have heen far more com- mon, and much more distinctiy marked in its symptoms, when our Lord was upon earth, than it ever has heen since.
Let it sufl&ce us to helieve implicitly, that diaholical posses- sion of the entire man, hoth hody, mind, and soul, was an un- deniahle fact during the time of our Lord's earthly ministry, and that all attempts to explain away the cases descrihed in the Gospels, hy calling them epilepsy, lunacy, and the like, are utterly unsatisfactory. For the rest, what we cannot thoroughly understand, we must he content to helieve.
That there is such a thing as Satanic possession now, though comparatively a rare thing, is an opinion held hy many ahle physicians, who have given special attention to this suhject. Disease of the mind, or madness, is at all times a deeply myste- rious suhject. It is highly prohahle that Satan has far more to do with it than we think.
[In the tomhs.'] Trench quotes -a remarkahle circumstance, mentioned hy the traveller Warhurton, in "The Crescent and the Cross," which throws some light on this .expres- sion. " On descending from the height of Lehanon, I found myself in a cemetery, where sculptured turhans showed us, that the neighbouring village was Moslem. The silence of the night was now broken hy fierce yells and howlings, which I discovered proceeded from a naked maniac, who was fighting with some wild dogs for a bone. The moment he perceived us, he left his canine companions, and bounding along with rapid strides, seized my horse's bridle and almost forced him backwards over the clifiP."
The determined propensity to wear no clothes and go naked, which is a striking symptom of some kinds of mania, is another curious illustration of the case described in this verse.
28. — [What have I to do with thee.] The Greek expression so rendered, let it be noted, is the same which our Lord uses when He addresses His mother at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. (John ii. 4.)
The words here used are the words of the devil by whom the man was possessed, rather than the man himself. This fact