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When the evil fpirits went into the herd LECT• of fwine, the whole herd ran headlong into the fea and perished. After the fame form doth the devil drive men headlong into the gulph of perdition, when he gets the direction of them. He was permitted to poffefs this unclean herd, that we may thence learn how an unclean life will prepare us to be driven into hell itself by the deftroyer. Temperance, fobriety, and devotion prepare our bodies to be the temples of the Holy Ghoft; but impure manners prepare the heart for unclean spirits, and give them the opportunity they defire. We have heard of certain arts to call up the devil: but a man need only live like a fwine, and he will be fure to have his company.

A woman who was bowed together for eighteen years, and could in no wife lift up herself, is faid to have had a Spirit of infirmity, and to have been bound of Satan: whence it appears, that he is the inftrument for inflicting unaccountable diseases. It is his will that none fhould be able to

LECT. lift up their minds to heavenly things; and

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as a fign of it he bows their bodies towards the earth.

Those extreme cases, in which men raged and were thrown about, and torn, and tormented of the devil, were permitted, to fhew us what his inclinations are toward the fouls of all men living: that he would deprive them of all reason; disturb their imaginations with fancies of horror and despair; inspire them with cruelty toward themselves; and drive them from the living God into the regions of the dead. Such are the works of Satan; contrary in every respect to the works of Jefus Chrift; and men, as their nature now is, being fubject to his power, exorcifm, or the cafting out of the evil fpirit, was admitted as a part of the office of baptism in the primitive church.

I would defire you to observe farther, in regard to our present subject, that the very fame images are used in the 107th Pfalm as in the miracles of Chrift, to express the redemption

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redemption of mens fouls from the effects LECT of fin by the goodness of God. The redeemed of the Lord are there called upon to praise him for gathering them out of a wilderness, and fatisfying their fouls when hungry and thirfty: For breaking their bonds afunder, and delivering them out of prifon, where they were bound in affliction and iron, and fat in darkness and the fhadow of death for healing them by his word when afflicted with fickness: for delivering them from the perils of the sea, and making the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. All this scenery is well drawn out, and finely applied, by a devout and elegant commentator of our own. church*, who has made the book of Pfalms more useful to pious Chriftians, than it ever was made fince the reformation; and, I may add, before it. From that Pfalm, as from the miracles of Chrift, we learn the weakness and wretchedness of man, and the goodness of God with the power of his grace. We fee the neceffity

*The Reverend Dr. Horne, Dean of Canterbury, and

Prefident of Magdalen college in Oxford.

LECT. of prayer for the help of God; after the

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example of thofe, who cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and were delivered out of their diftrefs.

No forms of prayer can be more fignificant than those which are built upon the miraculous works of Chrift. These fhew us what our wants are, and thence teach us what we are to pray for: and when we have respect unto them, and the author of them, we mix an act of faith with our petitions, which will never fail to render them more acceptable; for we read, that the power of Chrift took effect on those only who had faith to be healed. There is not a want of man, nor any occafion in life, on which the miracles of Chrift will not fupply us with the fineft matter of devotion, and in fome fuch form as the following with which I fhall conclude.

"O Son of David, thou great physician "of fouls, who didft once exercise thy power in the land of Judæa, and wentest "about doing good; thou art ftill with

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us; and haft promised so to be unto the LECT. "end of the world. Have mercy upon

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.us under all the weakneffes of our na"ture, and fuccour us under all oppref"fion from evil men or evil fpirits: de"liver us from the bonds of our fins, "and give light to us when we fit in "darkness open our eyes, that we may "fee the things which belong to our

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peace give us an ear to hear and un"derstand thy word; and a tongue to praife and confefs thee before men: "give ftrength to our feeble hands, that they may be lifted up to thy name, "and let our knees be

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flexible and ready "at their devotions: cleanfe us from "our fecret faults, as well as our out"ward offences: feed our fouls with the "bread of life, and let us hunger and thirst, that thou mayft fatisfy us. Be "mindful of us, O Lord, in our dif

treffes, when we are toffed about upon "the waves of this troublesome world: "and in all our dangers of foul and body, ftretch out, to fave and defend us, that

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