tears, 'Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief.' When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, 'Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.' And the spirit cried and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, 'He is dead.' But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up; and he arose."[1]
Is not this God mantfest? who, less than God, can thus master the Infernal Powers? who else can thus bid them, and they must obey? It is true, indeed, that in some instances, the disciples cast out unclean spirits (though it appears that in this present case, for want of faith they were unable); but then they always did it in the name and by the power of Jesus. But Jesus did it by His own power: He appeals to none: He calmly utters His command, and even devils must obey: the spiritual and the material elements are equally subject to Him. Who else then could He be, but God visible,—"God manifest in the flesh?"
Our present point, however, is not so much to show that Jesus Christ was plainly God, (for that has been already dwelt upon), but rather to show, the nature and the extent of the Divine power, as exhibited in the person of the Saviour. First, as to the extent of that power; we see here that He is ruler of hell, as well as of earth and heaven: that as He commands the stormy winds and waves, and calms them at His will, so also He has under subjection the still fiercer powers of the infernal world. Thus that He is truly omnipotent. Secondly, as to the nature of that power, we see that it
- ↑ ix. 17―27.
