the vile character of the "spirits." Hence their devotees are striving to change the signification of the word. It is to be expected that every well-informed Christian will adopt the views concerning these spirits which were sanctioned by Christ and his disciples. They will abide by the decisions of an inspired Apostle. "I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons. Ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of demons.”*4 In view of the foregoing facts, we affirm that a departed Christian has never manifested himself among all of these. We are fully authorized to brand as impostor every one of these invisible personators who have pretended to be Christ, angels and saints. We should cry impostor to a spirit who would represent himself as our departed father, whatever might be his proofs of identity. The idea that the abodes of bliss can be reached by the arts of necromancers and "mediums," is not to be entertained for a moment. To assert that such is the case, is virtually to contend that Satan and his agents have not only "encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city," but that the battle of Armageddon has been already fought, and contrary to the Apocalyptic anticipation, victory has crowned the arms of the satanic host. 1 Cor. 10; 20. CHAPTER VII. SPIRITUALISM IS A REVIVAL OF SORCERY, "Neither repented they of their.. sorceries."-REV. ix: 12. It is so obvious and so generally believed that this intercourse is the same with the sorcery prohibited in the Bible, that no argument is necessary to prove it, in addition to what is presented in other parts of this work. We shall therefore only give a definition of terms, and the testimony of some of the most prominent spiritualists, in order to show that we do not misrepresent spiritualism. Sorcery, magic, with craft; or divination with the assistance of evil spirits-Webster. Witch, a woman who practices divination by the aid of evil spirits; one who is possessed with a divining spirit, or has one in her; one who exerts supernatural power by the assistance of a familiar spirit; a medium for test personations by which the actual presence of evil spirits can be realized; a developing medium." GOVERNOR TALMADGE says: "Now all the magic, the mysteries, the witchcraft, and necromancy of the ancient world, from the time of the Delphic Oracle, are explained by these modern investigations."-Spiritualism, by Edmonds, vol. 1, p. 422. Judge Edmonds says: "I found that both sacred and profane history was full of accounts of what we are now witnessing If we may credit the traditions and private histories of the Catholic Church, it was occasionally manifest. After the Reformation, and the minds of men began to be somewhat freed from restraints which the religious domination of centuries had imposed upon them, spiritual intercourse began again to display itself. But mankind in their ignorance knew not how to deal with it. Instead of meeting the intelligence rationally, as is now done, and asking whence and why it came, it was met with prayers and fumigations, and exorcisms in a dead language; nay, with the faggot and the scaffold, About two hundred years ago, under the administration of one of the wisest of the English Judges, hundreds were tried and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The act of 1 James I, ch. xii,, against witchcraft, was passed when Lord Bacon, one of the greatest minds that England has ever produced, was a member of the House of Commons, and Lord Coke, one of her most distinguished judges, was attorney general, and in the House of Lords, was referred to a committee which contained twelve bishops. And Barrington, in his observations on the statutes of 20, Hen. VI., says that 30,000 people were burned for witchcraft within 150 years. In our own country, too, where our sturdy ancestors planted amid savage wilds, the seeds of freedom which now so overshadows the world, it displayed itself; and the history of Salem witchcraft is but an account of spiritual manifestations, and of man's incapacity to understand them.”—Spiritualism, V. I., p. 43-44. ALLEN PUTNAM, Unitarian clergyman and spiritualist, of Roxbury, Mass., in the New Era of Oct. 7th, 1854, says: "The doctrine that the oracles, soothsaying, and witchcraft of past ages, were kindred to these manifestations of our day, I for one, most fully believe." A. J. DAVIS, the seer, and the spirits bear substantially the same testimony. He says: "I listened to Fenelon and William Ellery Channing. I was assured, also, that the time was now past when these new things would have been ignorantly termed demonism, enchantment, and witchcraft."-Philosophy of S. Intercourse, p. 77. CHARLES PARTRIDGE, publisher of the Spiritual Telegraph, said to the writer-speaking of the woman of Endor-" Call her witch or what you will, she was a medium for the spirits !” We asked Mr. Partridge what he deemed the strongest argument which had ever been urged against spiritualism. He replied, "Two or three texts in the Old Testament, such for instance as ' thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” REV. URIAH CLARK, in the course of a lecture in Williamsburg, remarked that "Saul on one occasion became very much annoyed by the mediums, and issued a decree that they should all be put to death; but subsequently, when in trouble, he started off under cover of night, to consult a medium !” It is written that "Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land.” According to Mr. Clark, who is himself a medium, witches, wizards, and those who had familiar spirits, were all mediums! MR. BRITTAN, Editor of the Telegraph, says : "If modern spiritualism is to be rejected because some of its illustrations are wanting in interest, dignity, and truth, or for the reason that they are imitated by cunning imposters, the ancient spiritualism must go with it. This is strictly legitimate, for the old Jewish phenomena were at least quite as disorderly as ours, and SIMON MAGUS was, of all men, PRINCE among the workers of spiritual miracles."-Review of Beecher, p.77. This is sufficient to show that spiritualists deem this movement identical with sorcery. If this conclusion is correct-which we do not doubt-we should reckon as the most prominent of the ancienț spiritualists, Jannes and Jambres, Egyptian sorcerers. |