conversation we condemn the world, though the reproof be tacit, and rather intimated than expressed, the world will be filled with wrath against us ; and, if suffered by God, will persecute us unto death. Let us then know what we are to expect, and stand at all times prepared for the worst.]
2. What a ground of thankfulness should we esteem it, if we are in any measure divested of carnal prejudice!
[All of us, if not restrained by God, should, like the Nazarenes, be ready to vent our indignation even against Christ himself, if he uttered any truths offensive to our ears. What a mercy then is it if we can hear our sins condemned, and have our indignation turned against them, rather than against our faithful monitor ! Let us cultivate this disposition, whether it respects the public preaching of the word, or private admonition. Against our sins we cannot manifest too much displeasure. Happy would it be for us, if by one act of zeal we could despatch them utterly. Let us at least set ourselves against them without delay, and prosecute them from hence- forth without intermission, and without mercy.]
Luke iv. 33, 34. And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have ive to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ?
IF any doubt the existence and agency of devils, the history before us is well calculated to satisfy them upon that head. It is evident that though Satan spake by the mouth of the man whom he possessed, he spake in his own person, and in the name of those other spirits that were leagued with him. To repre- sent this man as disordered with an epilepsy or falling sickness is to confound things which the evangelist was most careful to distinguish a. Besides, we can- not conceive that a physician (for such was St. Luke) should mention it as a remarkable circum- stance that a disorder " did not hurt" a man by leaving himb; whereas, if we suppose this to have been a demoniacal possession, the observation is just
a ver. 40, 41. b ver. 35.