The proof that this explanation is possible, as the dative is used, is not brought out; and the assertion that the 'help' by its context can only point to the suffering before us, is arbitrary. At any rate, the usual view of the situation suits much better, and harmonizes thoroughly with the voice of the anxious, depressed, longing heart. From our standpoint we may experience a pleasure in this acknowledgment; but it is more than doubtful whether it would have appeared satisfactory to our Lord. This forcible raising of the feelings, this artistic excitement, explains and shows, by the conditions given, how much it lay below the 'great faith' of the Canaanitish woman, and the so great faith of the centurion.' But a germ of faith was really present, and He who breaks not the bruised reed does not despise it.

Perhaps under other circumstances He would still further have continued the discourse. However, there was no place for it here. The saying, 'Jesus saw that the people came running together,' allows that there were reasons for 'rebuking the foul spirit,' on the ground that our Lord immediately proceeded, without suffering any further delay, to cure, because it became necessary, from the people collecting about Him, to desist from any further pastoral exhortations.

6

The manner in which He completed the exorcism is peculiar and remarkable. We have not so much in view the circumstance that He addresses the spirit according to the manner in which it manifested itself: thou dumb and deaf spirit.' Though, even in this, our Lord's conduct differs in the case before us from the general one, and it was necessarily different. In fact, previously the spirit which had taken possession of a man, in coming out was accustomed to speak; but here our eyes meet with mere appearances: the boy gnasheth, foameth, walloweth,

The pos

without uttering an accompanying word. sessed one is silent, the one possessing is silent, the father of the former alone opens his mouth in words of complaint and request. If this is explained by the childish age of the person attacked, who has neither a clear consciousness of his condition, nor is even fitted for an immediate relation with Jesus, we can understand by it the direct address on the part of our Lord. To the spirit which is concealed behind the manifestations, and which seems not to observe our Lord approaching, and not to fear His threatening presence,to him does Jesus direct His 'come out.' 'To you, this dumb and deaf spirit, is my command.' And, by means of the expressly prefaced éyú, He makes Himself recognised. 'I am He, whom thou knowest, to whom thou must yield; to me thou wilt not refuse obedience, as thou didst before to my disciples.'

An increased attention is demanded for the express order addressed to the spirit by our Lord which occurs in no similar narrative: 'and enter no more into him.' In other cases He had always simply used the 'come out.' If the cures of Jesus are radical, just because they come from Him, why then was there a special preparation to prevent a return? It has been shown from Mark ix. 18 and Luke ix. 30, that the possession of the spirit in this case was no fixed one, but only a periodical one; it was therefore right when our Lord says, 'Not only go out, but remain for ever away.' But the rationalistic view of the demoniacal condition can alone be set at rest by this solution. The representation, that the spirit at times entered into the child, and then went out of him to return at will, cannot be justified by the 'wheresoever he taketh him' of Mark, and the 'hardly departeth' of Luke. These features show nothing else but that the demon, permanently dwelling in the child, makes at certain

times his presence felt in an exciting, heartrending manner; but otherwise he rested in him. The correct exposition refers us to a passage already explained on a former occasion, Luke xi. 24-26. Here our Lord puts the case, that a devil really driven out, after he had wandered through dry places, and sought in vain for rest, returns into the house which he had formerly used. The question, why He did not take this care in the cases previously considered, while here He admits a danger of that kind, but which He at once prevents, is explained by the fact that this person possessed was a boy. In a child, who would not be on his guard, and who could not be warned, the return of the devil was certainly possible. It is certainly possible in even a person of riper years; but in their case it could only occur through their own fault. He who does not watch with fasting and prayer, may become afresh the prey of the devil, and then it will be worse with him than before. But to prevent the guilt of a man in another way than by warning, lay beyond the power of Jesus, because it was beyond ethical possibility. On the other hand, He Himself must protect and preserve the child; and His work was only then a work of pure love in this, when to the 'go out of him' He added the security of a lasting freedom.1

Lastly, even the end is of interest. The devil obeys; but while yielding, he excites a paroxysm more powerful than ever; the boy was as one

1 It is certainly conceivable, that even such expositors, who otherwise believe firmly the reality of demoniacal possession, are here inclined to regard the present case as natural epilepsy. Olshausen does not conceal that this time he agrees with Dr. Paulus. And yet the narrative before us opposes such a view still more decidedly than any similar report in the New Testament. The address of our Lord to the deaf and dumb spirit, and His command to it never to enter again into the boy, gives us the unmistakeable alternative, either to acknowledge a real possession on the part of a devil, or to adopt views which mar the clearness of the face of Jesus.

dead,' and many standing around said, 'He is dead.' We have already spoken of this; the severity of this last attack is the consequence of our Lord's command, 'Do not enter into him again.' The 'as one dead' was no deceiving appearance, as in Matt. xxviii. 4, but really a condition resembling death, out of which the child would not have awoke without the uplifting hand of our Lord. 'He lifted him up' (Mark ix. 27). Certainly the eyeípew cannot here signify a simple uplifting, as this expression does in the curing of the mother-in-law of Peter. But as the 'as one dead' goes first, He proceeds to a peculiar giving of life to him who was otherwise falling into death. Bengel's remark, ‘Nova miraculi pars,' is therefore by no means to be completely rejected. There now began for the child a new life, which he had received from the Son of God. And the 'he arose' shows a rising to walk, not only in the world of appearance, but in the kingdom which had been glorified in him ev μeyaλeιóτηTI. Let us keep this firmly in view, now, when we leave the consideration of the healing of demoniacs. We have sought to conceive their probability, and to prove them as real witnesses of the power of the kingdom of heaven which was at hand. The Spirit of God, by which Jesus effected this, overpowered the unclean spirits, and broke the bonds of the prisoners.

The gospel narrative tells us yet of another manner in which the same witness has come forward equally real, and as openly manifested. Our Lord says, "The hour cometh, and now is, that all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live.' And to John the Baptist was the word sent, 'The dead are raised up.'

THE RAISING FROM THE DEAD.

We have already explained why we have added these works of our Lord to the third group, and not arranged them among the symbolical miracles. We will glance over the several cases. The fourth Gospel reports the raising of Lazarus, the third that of the young man at Nain; and lastly, the first three Gospels relate an occurrence which we will at present leave undecided, whether it is to be recognised as a real raising from the dead or not, for it is generally known that views differ largely on this point,-—namely, the history of the daughter of Jairus.

There are, therefore, at least three narratives belonging to this class. It will surprise no one that Jesus was so sparing and so reserved in these manifestations of His power. He must have experienced the strongest motives before He determined on such a work, as is witnessed by His prayer at the grave of Lazarus. If sickness was something contrary to nature, dying was a divine arrangement, which would remain until the Parousia. One ought not to be overawed by the objection, that sickness is the foreboding of death, a warning of death, and the usual gate through which it enters. For, as far as our experience goes, it does not need to be on that account the divine arrangement: 'Abraham our father is dead,' so said the Jews to Jesus. And he is dead; for Adam's curse rested on him, as on all who are from Adam. But that Abraham, the Patriarchs, and still earlier Noah and the antediluvian race, suffered illness, sacred history at least does not tell us. It is first in Exodus, at the promulgation of the Law, that sickness occurs; then we hear of leprosy and other troubles. There is, in fact, a dying without sickness; this results after the