to match, the
prophets of the God of Israel. The matter must remain uncertain whether
it was by sorcery or legerdemain that the wizards of Pharaoh, King of
Egypt, contended with Moses, in the face of the prince and people,
changed their rods into serpents, and imitated several of the plagues
denounced against the devoted kingdom. Those powers of the Magi,
however, whether obtained by supernatural communications, or arising
from knowledge of legerdemain and its kindred accomplishments, were
openly exhibited; and who can doubt that--though we may be left in some
darkness both respecting the extent of their skill and the source from
which it was drawn--we are told all which it can be important for us to
know? We arrive here at the period when the Almighty chose to take upon
himself directly to legislate for his chosen people, without having
obtained any accurate knowledge whether the crime of witchcraft, or the
intercourse between the spiritual world and embodied beings, for evil
purposes, either existed after the Flood, or was visited with any open
marks of Divine displeasure.

But in the law of Moses, dictated by the Divinity himself, was announced
a text, which, as interpreted literally, having been inserted into the
criminal code of all Christian nations, has occasioned much cruelty and
bloodshed, either from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, being
exclusively calculated for the Israelites, it made part of the judicial
Mosaic dispensation, and was abrogated, like the greater part of that
law, by the more benign and clement dispensation of the Gospel.

The text alluded to is that verse of the twenty-second chapter of Exodus
bearing, "men shall not suffer a witch to live." Many learned men have
affirmed that in this remarkable passage the Hebrew word CHASAPH means
nothing more than poisoner, although, like the word _veneficus_, by
which it is rendered in the Latin version of the Septuagint, other
learned men contend that it hath the meaning of a witch also, and may be
understood as denoting a person who pretended to hurt his or her
neighbours in life, limb, or goods, either by noxious potions, by
charms, or similar mystical means. In this particular the witches of
Scripture had probably some resemblance to those of ancient Europe, who,
although their skill and power might be safely despised, as long as they
confined themselves to their charms and spells, were very apt to eke out
their capacity of mischief by the