his life what in similar language he had condemned others for disbelieving.
An examination of the references to witchcraft shows that only the existence and criminality of the attempt to practise it are to be concluded from the words of the Scriptures. The conclusion is not well founded that if there was no reality in witchcraft the prophets and apostles must necessarily have known it; for the Scriptures show that the prophets were limited in knowledge upon a variety of points, many of them closely allied to the religious truths which they taught. They drew illustrations from supposed facts of science, medicine, and natural history, which served their purpose for the time; and in such particulars wrote exactly as authors of to-day, who find their illustrations in the state of knowledge in the age in which they live. Moses declares that "the man or the woman who hath a familiar spirit, or is a wizard, shall be put to death"; and "thou shalt not suffer a witch [Rev. Ver. a sorceress] to live." It is clear that the same law would be needed and the same language would be employed if the pretense of having a familiar spirit, or the attempt to practise witchcraft, were in question. In Deuteronomy xviii., Moses attempts to enumerate all possible forms of occult practices, when he warns the Israelites against the practices of the nations whose land the Lord had given them, condemning "divination," one that practiseth augury, or an "enchanter," or a "sorcerer," or a "charmer," or a "consulter with a familiar spirit," or a "wizard," or a "necromancer."
In the forty-seventh chapter of Isaiah, the Israelites are taunted with the multitude of their enchantments and sorceries, and they are told to call upon "the astrologers, and the star-gazers, and monthly prognosticators" to save them if they can. The as-
