use of actual poison, so that the
epithet of sorceress and poisoner were almost synonymous. This is known
to have been the case in many of those darker iniquities which bear as
their characteristic something connected with hidden and prohibited
arts. Such was the statement in the indictment of those concerned in the
famous murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, when the arts of Forman and other
sorcerers having been found insufficient to touch the victim's life,
practice by poison was at length successfully resorted to; and numerous
similar instances might be quoted. But supposing that the Hebrew witch
proceeded only by charms, invocations, or such means as might be
innoxious, save for the assistance of demons or familiars, the connexion
between the conjurer and the demon must have been of a very different
character under the law of Moses, from that which was conceived in
latter days to constitute witchcraft. There was no contract of
subjection to a diabolic power, no infernal stamp or sign of such a
fatal league, no revellings of Satan and his hags, and no infliction of
disease or misfortune upon good men. At least there is not a word in
Scripture authorizing us to believe that such a system existed. On the
contrary, we are told (how far literally, how far metaphorically, it is
not for us to determine) that, when the Enemy of mankind desired to
probe the virtue of Job to the bottom, he applied for permission to the
Supreme Governor of the world, who granted him liberty to try his
faithful servant with a storm of disasters, for the more brilliant
exhibition of the faith which he reposed in his Maker. In all this, had
the scene occurred after the manner of the like events in latter days,
witchcraft, sorceries, and charms would have been introduced, and the
Devil, instead of his own permitted agency, would have employed his
servant the witch as the necessary instrument of the Man of Uzz's
afflictions. In like manner, Satan desired to have Peter, that he might
sift him like wheat. But neither is there here the agency of any
sorcerer or witch. Luke xxii. 31.

Supposing the powers of the witch to be limited, in the time of Moses,
to enquiries at some pretended deity or real evil spirit concerning
future events, in what respect, may it be said, did such a crime deserve
the severe punishment of death? To answer this question, we must reflect
that the object of the Mosaic dispensation being to preserve the
knowledge of the True Deity w