d is a spirit" (John iv. 24).

To those who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian dictum that
the doctrine which has been held "always, everywhere, and by all" is to
be received as authoritative, the demonology must possess a higher
sanction than any other Christian dogma, except, perhaps, those of the
Resurrection and of the Messiahship of Jesus; for it would be difficult
to name any other points of doctrine on which the Nazarene does not
differ from the Christian, and the different historical stages and
contemporary subdivisions of Christianity from one another. And, if the
demonology is accepted, there can be no reason for rejecting all those
miracles in which demons play a part. The Gadarene story fits into the
general scheme of Christianity; and the evidence for "Legion" and their
doings is just as good as any other in the New Testament for the
doctrine which the story illustrates.

It was with the purpose of bringing this great fact into prominence; of
getting people to open both their eyes when they look at
Ecclesiasticism; that I devoted so much space to that miraculous story
which happens to be one of the best types of its class. And I could not
wish for a better justification of the course I have adopted, than the
fact that my heroically consistent adversary has declared his implicit
belief in the Gadarene story and (by necessary consequence) in the
Christian demonology as a whole. It must be obvious, by this time, that,
if the account of the spiritual world given in the New Testament,
professedly on the authority of Jesus, is true, then the demonological
half of that account must be just as true as the other half. And,
therefore, those who question the demonology, or try to explain it away,
deny the truth of what Jesus said, and are, in ecclesiastical
terminology, "Infidels" just as much as those who deny the spirituality
of God. This is as plain as anything can well be, and the dilemma for my
opponent was either to assert that the Gadarene pig-bedevilment actually
occurred, or to write himself down an "Infidel." As was to be expected,
he chose the former alternative; and I may express my great satisfaction
at finding that there is one spot of common ground on which both he and
I stand. So far as I can judge, we are agreed to state one of the broad
issues between the consequences of agnostic principles (as I draw them),
and the consequences of ecclesiastical dogmatism (as he accepts it), as
follows.