are part of a guilty superstition, springing out of a baleful
CO ON CIirvTSTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK II.
more eagerly inquisitive, and involve themselves further and further in a labyrinth of most pernicious error. And to our advantage, the AVord of God is not silent about this species of fornication of the soul; and it does not warn the soul against following such practices on the ground that those who profess them speak lies, but it says, " Even if what they tell you should come to pass, hearken not unto them." ^ For though the ghost of the dead Samuel foretold the truth to King Saul,' that does not make such sacrilegious observances as those by wliich his ghost was brought up the less detestable ; and though the ventriloquist woman ^ in the Acts of the Apostles bore true testimony to the apostles of the Lord, the Apostle
Paul did not spare the evil spirit on that account, but rebuked and cast it out, and so made the woman clean.*
36. All arts of this sort, therefore, are either nullities, or are part of a guilty superstition, springing out of a baleful fellowship between men and devils, and are to be utterly repudiated and avoided by the Christian as the covenants of a false and treacherous friendship. " Not as if the idol were anything," says the apostle ; " but because the things which they sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God ; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils."
Now, what the apostle has said about idols and the sacrifices offered in their honour, that we ought to feel in regard to all fancied signs which lead either to the worship of idols, or to worshipping creation or its parts instead of God, or which are connected with attention to medicinal charms and other observances; for these are not appointed by God as the public means of promoting love towards God and our neighbour, but they waste the hearts of wretched men in private and selfisli strivings after temporal things. Accordingly, in regard to all these branches of knowledge, we must fear and shun the fellowship of demons, wlio, with the Devil their prince, strive only to shut and bur the door against our return. As, then,
Comp. Dout. xiii. 1-3. '1 Sam. xxviii,, romp. Eoclus. xlvi. 20.
5 Ventrilofjua femina. The woman witli a familiar spirit to whom Saul resorted in his pxtremity is called iu the Soptuagint translation iyyavrfiuvPot.
See 1 Sam. xxviii. 7.
Acts xvi. 16-18. » 1 Cor. x. 19, 20.