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son of Gideon, by a cruel conspiracy with the men of Shechem, slew his brethren, and obtained the chief power, the Lord defeated and punished both the guilty parties by sending an evil spirit to embroil them to their mutual destruction-a business well suited to the malignant subtilty of a devil; to whose suggestions, no doubt, or to those of one like him, the young man owed his successful progress in treachery so far. When Saul greatly offended the Lord, his chastisement was heavy: "The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." 1 Sam. xvi. 14. Thus commissioned, the evil spirit gave that unhappy king no rest, during the period of his visitations; but alternately depressed with melancholy, cankered with envy, and inflamed with murderous rage the mind of his victim; impelling him even to hurl a javelin at the loving, dutiful son, whose generosity interposed between him and the ill-requited minstrel, from whose holy strains of music the tormenting devil had so often fled. When the same monarch, in the near prospect of his last fatal battle, consummated his offences by seeking to one who had a familiar spirit, and requiring of her the exercise of what he, as the Lord's vicegerent, was solemnly bound to suppress, and if detected, to punish with death, we find him answered according to his folly, and driven to utter despair by the seeming success of an accursed spell. 1 Sam. xxviii.

Much has been written to elucidate, and not a little

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to explain away that extraordinary scene at En-dor but when all has been said that man can say, there the brief, plain record stands, exactly as they found it, and all the wisdom of the wise fails to throw light on what God has left obscure. The word of God expressly declares, that it was Samuel. "And Samuel said to Saul" -verse 15. "Then said Samuel." 16. Saul " was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel"-20. The terror, too, of the woman, and her remarkable expression, "I saw gods ascending out of the earth” v. 13, would plainly imply, that her incantations had been followed by something wholly different from what she anticipated she had invoked devils, but " gods," probably bright angelic beings, made visible to her for some wise purpose, appeared, bearing with them the resuscitated body of the buried seer, commissioned to assure the king that he and his sons should, on the morrow, be numbered with Samuel and the rest of the dead. We have no reason to suppose that the inspired narrative is otherwise than simply true: indeed, there is a daring presumption in questioning it: "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Rom. iii. 4. Least of all may we listen to those who would, in this case, as in that of Pharaoh's enchanters, represent witchcraft as a mere juggling imposition on the senses of the credulous; and ascribe the woman's astonishment, not to the angelic character of those who came at the call, but to the appearance of any spiritual being whatever, when she

had only meant to play off a deception on the king. We ought rather to hail it as a glorious proof of the Lord's watchful care over the dust, yea, over the names of his own people, which he will not suffer devils to tamper with; and whatever difficulties remain to baffle our inquisitiveness, let them teach us humility, and remind us that “secret things belong unto the Lord our God," Deut. xxix. 29; and that it is not to believers the description ought to apply," Intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." Col. ii. 18.

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That devils continued to pollute the land of Canaan, and to exercise their wicked ingenuity in leading the Lord's people to transgress, we have sufficient testimony. Ezekiel sets before us an awful picture of the abominations committed in Jerusalem by those practices which the Lord had denounced as sacrificing unto devils. the eighth chapter of his prophecy, he relates what he saw in the "chambers of imagery;" followed by a description of the vengeance to be taken: and Zechariah, prophesying of mercy to be shown when the Lord should heal the breach of his people, has this promise, "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of idols out of the land, and they shall be no more remembered; and also, I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land." Zech. xiii. 2. By what artifices these evil creatures opposed the work of God, we are, however,

far more distinctly shown in the New Testament, where we find their nature, operations, and objects laid open in a wonderful manner, by Him who came upon the strong man, took away his armour wherein he trusted, and divided his spoils.

One specimen of deep cunning is given in the very first instance particularly related of a case of possession: it occurs in the eighth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel. "And when he was come to the other side of the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass that way. And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding: so the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine and behold the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." Here we see, first the deprecatory cry of the fiends; acknowledging the omnipotence of the Lord, but pleading that the set time for tormenting them in the fiery pit was not yet come. They are good calculators of prophetic periods, and perfectly knew that their time on earth had not expired. Next, they made a request, the drift of which we could not have seen but for

the effects that followed its success. They asked leave to enter the swine; blessed be God! Satan has no power even over unclean beasts, unless it be specially given of the Lord. Having permission, they instantly availed themselves of it by drowning every one of the herd in the sea; and by this manœuvre they so alarmed the neighbouring inhabitants, who could expect no less from such a beginning than that the unknown visitor would destroy all their property, as to prompt a general request that he would depart out of their coasts. Thus, for the time, was the dreaded gospel averted from a whole city, by the exceeding craft of these devils; and in permitting their vile contrivance to succeed, the Lord mercifully provided a rich warning lesson for his church, to the end of time. May we all have grace to use it effectually in our wrestling contest with the principalities and powers of darkness!

Another mode of undermining where they durst not openly attack, was practised against the teaching of the apostles. In Acts xvi. 16. we have the account. "And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying; the same followed Paul and us, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this she did many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out

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