at we have not been anxious to decide upon the
limits of probability on this question. It is not necessary for us to
ascertain in what degree the power of Satan was at liberty to display
itself during the Jewish dispensation, or down to what precise period in
the history of the Christian Church cures of demoniacal possession or
similar displays of miraculous power may have occurred. We have avoided
controversy on that head, because it comprehends questions not more
doubtful than unedifying. Little benefit could arise from attaining the
exact knowledge of the manner in which the apostate Jews practised
unlawful charms or auguries. After their conquest and dispersion they
were remarked among the Romans for such superstitious practices; and the
like, for What we know, may continue to linger among the benighted
wanderers of their race at the present day. But all these things are
extraneous to our enquiry, the purpose of which was to discover whether
any real evidence could be derived from sacred history to prove the
early existence of that branch of demonology which has been the object,
in comparatively modern times, of criminal prosecution and capital
punishment. We have already alluded to this as the contract of
witchcraft, in which, as the term was understood in the Middle Ages, the
demon and the witch or wizard combined their various powers of doing
harm to inflict calamities upon the person and property, the fortune and
the fame, of innocent human beings, imposing the most horrible diseases,
and death itself, as marks of their slightest ill-will; transforming
their own persons and those of others at their pleasure; raising
tempests to ravage the crops of their enemies, or carrying them home to
their own garners; annihilating or transferring to their own dairies the
produce of herds; spreading pestilence among cattle, infecting and
blighting children; and, in a word, doing more evil than the heart of
man might be supposed capable of conceiving, by means far beyond mere
human power to accomplish. If it could be supposed that such unnatural
leagues existed, and that there were wretches wicked enough, merely for
the gratification of malignant spite or the enjoyment of some beastly
revelry, to become the wretched slaves of infernal spirits, most just
and equitable would be those laws which cut them off from the midst of
every Christian commonwealth. But it is still more just and equitable,
before punishment be inflicted for a