ose who, believing that, in the elder
time, fiends and demons were permitted an enlarged degree of power in
uttering predictions, may also give credit to the proposition, that at
the Divine Advent that power was restrained, the oracles silenced, and
those demons who had aped the Divinity of the place were driven from
their abode on earth, honoured as it was by a guest so awful.

It must be noticed, however, that this great event had not the same
effect on that peculiar class of fiends who were permitted to vex
mortals by the alienation of their minds, and the abuse of their
persons, in the case of what is called Demoniacal possession. In what
exact sense we should understand this word _possession_ it is impossible
to discover; but we feel it impossible to doubt (notwithstanding learned
authorities to the contrary) that it was a dreadful disorder, of a kind
not merely natural; and may be pretty well assured that it was suffered
to continue after the Incarnation, because the miracles effected by our
Saviour and his apostles, in curing those tormented in this way,
afforded the most direct proofs of his divine mission, even out of the
very mouths of those ejected fiends, the most malignant enemies of a
power to which they dared not refuse homage and obedience. And here is
an additional proof that witchcraft, in its ordinary and popular sense,
was unknown at that period; although cases of possession are repeatedly
mentioned in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, yet in no one
instance do the devils ejected mention a witch or sorcerer, or plead the
commands of such a person, as the cause of occupying or tormenting the
victim;--whereas, in a great proportion of those melancholy cases of
witchcraft with which the records of later times abound, the stress of
the evidence is rested on the declaration of the possessed, or the demon
within him, that some old man or woman in the neighbourhood had
compelled the fiend to be the instrument of evil.

It must also be admitted that in another most remarkable respect, the
power of the Enemy of mankind was rather enlarged than bridled or
restrained, in consequence of the Saviour coming upon earth. It is
indisputable that, in order that Jesus might have his share in every
species of delusion and persecution which the fallen race of Adam is
heir to, he personally suffered the temptation in the wilderness at the
hand of Satan, whom, without resorting to his divine power, he drove,
confuted,