CONTENTS.
The LORD JESUS healeth the Man possessed with a Legion: he cures the Woman with the Bloody Issue, and raiseth the Daughter of Jairus.
AND they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. (2) And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, (3) Who had his dwelling among the tombs: and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: (4) Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. (5) And always night and day he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
Notice hath been already taken of the country where this event took place. Matthew 8:28. It will be unnecessary on that part to enlarge, but rather hasten to the consideration of the interesting case here recorded. Our LORD himself by the Evangelist, hath caused the several distressing circumstances of this poor demoniac to be related so particularly, as they refer to the sufferings of his body, that after mediating on the awful consequences of the fall, on that ground it will be profitable to attend to the more calamitous effects wrought by it on the soul. And here the description falls far short, of what it really is. Every man by nature, while in an unconverted state, is under the full sway and influence of an unclean spirit, as far as relates to himself. And was it not for restraining grace, of which the sinner is wholly unconscious, what tremendous evils, in ten thousand times ten thousand instances, would take place. We are by nature, and by the conquest Satan hath made over our nature, in bondage to sin with all its dreadful consequences. The flesh with its lusts, the world with its deceits, Satan with his devices, all govern with absolute sway. And add to these, we are justly exposed to the law of GOD, which we have all broken; the justice of GOD which every moment threatens punishment, the accusations of our own con science, the fear of death, judgment, and eternity. This is the state and condition, of every son and daughter of Adam, by the fall.
Moreover, as it is said of this poor creature, he had his dwelling among the tombs; no fetters could bind him, nor any man tame him; but he was always, night and day, in solitary places, crying, and cutting himself with stones; so is it with the unawakened, unregenerate sinner. Dead sinners, dead in trespasses and sins, dwell only with sinners, dead like themselves. The law of GOD loseth all its authority upon them. They acknowledge not its power; and as the law, however strong, cannot bind them, so neither can persuasions of men, or threats of GOD, have any influence upon them; but they are night and day, hastening on their own. destruction, by a course of mad conduct, inevitably leading to it, except the grace of GOD interpose. Pause Reader! over the awful picture; and as you con template it, say, is it now your case; or was it once so? If you are now in grade, you will know that you was once unconscious of grace. And if you are, not in grace, no doubt but that you are equally un conscious, of the bondage of sin and Satan, you are now in.