In this article it has been our purpose to confine ourselves to the varied of this elaborate sub ject. It would have exceeded both our object and our space to have entered on the inquiry with which its treatment has been so largely encum bered—as to the reality of profane divination. If we reject, indeed, ninety-nine-hundredths of .re corded cases from the category of credible things, we should not, by allowing the possibility that the small residue of instances were true and real (such as the achievements of Jannes and Jambres before Pharaoh, and the apparition of Saul by the agency of the witch of Endor), impeach one attribute of the Almighty. In no instance do we suppose His previous permission was refused ; and in no instance do we find his subsequent approbation was ac corded (in I Sam. xv. 23, the sin of divination, nop-nN•n, is denounced as the climax of rebellion against God) ; while in all instances we believe that His power and wisdom were vindicated (see the crowning example, Exod. viii. 18, i9). In considering the events of Scripture history, we dismiss it priori conceptions, and form our judg ment on the ground and testimony of holy writ alone. In coming to a conclusion on the broad
question of the literal truth of the phenomena of profane divination which are recorded in the Bible, we cannot but derive much assistance from such passages as i Kings xx. 20-22 ; Job ii. 3-7 ; Rev. xii. 12, and xx. 3 ; for they clear the way, by re vealing to us the mystery that God is pleased to permit, under his own limitation, the agency of the power of evil. To what extent and in what man ner this agency was at any time exerted, we learn from the sacred narrative itself. (For an interesting disquisition on the theology of the subject, see Andr. Riveti, Explicatio Decalogi, in sectt. De magicis artibus ; De divinaijoijum varlis generibus ; De Astral. judiciarid ; An Damon interrogari possit de ifs puce facultatem ejus non excedunt? [Opp. Roterodami, 1651, tom. i. pp. 1244, Sqq. ; for details of the several branches of this extensive subject, the reader is referred to the numerous works mentioned passim in the article.)—P. H.