that, than into any other form of evil. We adhere to the delineation of the parable: we tell every one of you, in whom, through the operations of grace, the love of God has become the ruling principle, that the unclean spirit, which went out from dominion, when the Holy Ghost entered and claimed sovereignty for God, is watching night and day to gain entrance into the mansion from which he was expelled-ay, and that if you yield to the unclean spirit, the old master-passion, it will be far worse for you than if you had been overcome by any other form of evil: it will be like taking back a habit, or moving back into a plague-stricken dwelling; and with so awful a despotism will the re-admitted spirit seize on every power of the mind, and every member of the body, that the appearance shall be as though he had ransacked the hosts of fallen angels, and selected seven of the mightiest from that terrible company, to aid him in retaining dominion, and annihilating immortality.

But we now turn to other and more complete illustrations of the parable. We may premise that "the seven spirits," which the unclean spirit is said to have associated with himself, may be considered as denoting only one very powerful spirit, or as figuring the mightier energy with which this one unclean spirit comes back equipped. You all know that the number "seven" is not used in Scripture as five may be, or six, to mark precisely an amount. It is rather a mystical number, applied whenever perfection or completeness is to be considered as existing. In the Book of Revelation, the Holy Ghost is undoubtedly described as "the seven spirits of God." "Grace be unto you, and peace from Him which is, and which was, and which is to

come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ." Hence we are not required, in expounding the parable before us, to produce a catalogue of seven evil spirits, associated with the cast-out one when restored: seven spirits is but a scriptural expression for one spirit of the very mightiest order; and may only denote that the master evil-passion, if allowed to return, will return with all its energies awfully strengthened by absence. This having been premised, we will now endeavour to show you the meaning of the parable as applied to the Jews; for, as we have before said, the words of our Lord, "Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation," fasten it especially on that disobedient people.

Now Judæa had long been a well-watered land, whilst the phrase "dry places" described accurately every other district of the globe, considered in respect of its spiritual advantages. Though God had never left Himself without witness, even in the darkest times, and among the most barbarous tribes, the Gentile world was one vast moral desert, the refreshing showers of Revelation having been confined to one solitary people. But Judæa, thus favoured and fertilized, yielded no fruit in return for its privileges: a barrenness, general as that which marked the unwatered fields, deformed those which had the dew and the rain. Such was the condition of the human race, when the fulness of time came, and the long-promised Redeemer was born of a woman. The watered places, which were the Jewish people, yielded no harvest to the great proprietor of the soil; whilst the "dry places," which were the Gentile world, sent not up even that scanty produce, for which traditional religion, and the constant manifestations of

Godhead which occupy the universe, threw into the ground. sufficiency of moisture. The whole world, in fact, if we may vary the image, was lying under the dominion of Satan; and this apostate leader, as the predicted season drew nigh, when the seed of the woman should bruise his head, touched the top point of sovereignty, and held the globe, with all its millions, in the foulest of vassalage.

And when Christ with his disciples moved through Judæa, proclaiming truths which had long been hidden from mankind, and ejecting the spirits which had seized on men's bodies, there was an assault, such as had never before been witnessed, on the empire of darkness; and the likelihood must have appeared great, even to evil angels themselves, that, so far at least as Judæa was concerned, there would be an overthrow the most complete of the long-endured despotism. And here comes in the representation of our parable. Disturbed by the preaching and the miracles of Jesus, the unclean spirits, who had tyrannized over the souls and bodies of the Jews, abandoned partially Judæa, and sought to establish themselves in the dry places of the Gentiles. We are, of course, profoundly ignorant of machinations and movements in the world of spirits, and cannot therefore pretend to ascertain, except from the simple statement of the parable, this departure of the powers of evil from amongst the Jews, and their attempted domestication in the dry places of the Gentiles. But we know that, over and above the discomfiture of Satan in the ejectment of evil spirits from men's bodies, there was made for the time a mighty impression on a great body of the Jews, so that there were moments when Jesus stood within a hair-breadth of being acknowledged as Christ. There

fore, morally as well as physically, there was a wide shaking of the empire of Satan; and we can quite understand, from the known condition of the Jews, that the effect of the ministrations of Christ and his Apostles had been the partial expulsion of unclean spirits from the land, and the consequent affording of a kind of breathing-time to the nation, that they might be free to receive or reject their deliverer.

And we learn, on the authority of the parable, that the spirits, thus disturbed and cast out, craved a new home, like those who asked leave to enter into the swine, and sought that rest amongst the Gentiles which they had had amongst the Jews. They walked through "dry places," seeking rest, but found it not. They were quickly pursued into the plains of heathenism by the emissaries of Christianity. There elapsed but a little time after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, before the first preachers of Christianity went forth to the assault of the idolatry and ignorance of a long-benighted world. They gave no quarter to the spirits of evil. Denouncing fearlessly every abomination, though all that was ancestral sanctioned and hallowed its mysteries, and prejudice and interest conspired to uphold them, these champions of truth would be content with nothing but the casting down of temples at whose altars unclean spirits presided, and the rooting up of groves, from whose recesses they breathed out their oracles. And though there was not an immediate demolition of the huge fabric of superstition, a success so marked attended this bold crusade against error, that multitudes in every land threw away their idols, and a contempt for false gods became visible even amongst those who still refused to ac

knowledge the true. And thus there was no rest in the dry places for the unclean spirits. There was a general unsettlement in men's minds. Thousand renounced the falsehoods of heathenism, whilst those who adhered to them were dissatisfied with the system. So that the demons felt that they had no longer a firm hold on the Pagan population. There were clear indications of a far-spreading revolution, which, though it might be delayed for a time, would finally substitute Christianity for heathenism. And therefore the unclean spirits, whom the preaching and miracles of Jesus had driven from Judæa, were now driven from the dry places of the Gentiles by the preaching and miracles of the Apostles. Whither then shall they resort? The parable represents them as determining to return to their houses whence they came out. They calculated that, possibly, they might again find that rest amongst the Jews, which they had sought in vain amongst the Gentiles. They hurried back, therefore, to examine their former dwelling; and they found it "empty, swept, and garnished."

The Jews had indeed crucified their Lord: but nevertheless the door of mercy was not yet closed: the proclamations of pardon were circulating through their land; and He, whom they had slain, "exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour," still offered, if they would acknowledge their wickedness, to shelter them from destruction. There had been, however, no general acceptance of the proffer; and the body of the people, who had been "swept," as it were, by awful warning and pathetic entreaty, and "garnished" with mercies which proved eloquently the long-suffering of God, refused to admit the Redeemer into their hearts, and thus stood "empty," unoccupied, and ready to receive back