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Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
in the light of the
Old and New Testaments
_
BY
r -~-'
_IAMES M. §iRAY,
D.D.
Deon of the Moody Bib! Inxtitute of Chicago
Author of "Synthetic Bible Studies," "The Christian Worke/J
Commentary," "A
Text
Book
on Prophecy,"
"The
Antidote
to
Christian
Science,"
"Progress
in
the
Life
to
Come,"
"Bible
Problems
Explained,"
etc.
I..
bhw"hnx
Cnmmm
Fleming H. Revell Company
Lennon
Ann
Enxxnuncn
Q".
~
_
iw 1.3

-----

l.
Copyright, 192), by
FLEHING H. REVELL COMPANY
_
'in
.
;__
~
' umm  
PULLS LLERARY
 825926
K
'fl
L.
_
A°'1`O!'K
1.
|ox .mo
TILULN bu 'WU.'L`LON'
18;O
Printed in the United State: of America
New
York:
158
Fifth
Avenue
Chicago:
I7 North Wabash Ave.
London:
21
Paternoster
Square
Edinburgh:
75
'Princes
Street

-----

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX
X
XI
XII
CONTENTS
THE NEW ATTACK OI-' SPIRITUAL-
ISM AND HOW TO MEET IT
.
THE MODERN HISTORY OF SPIRIT-
ISM
......
SATAN,
OR
SPIRITISM
AT
ITS
SOURCE
....
ANGELS AND DEMONS, OR SPIRIT-
ISM,S PERSONNEL
.
.
.
SPIRITISM BEFORE THE FLOOD
..,
"SONS
OF
GOD"
MARRYING
THE
"DAUGHTERS
OF MEN"
.
ABOMINATIONS
OF
THE
CANAAN-
ITES
......
SPIRITISM IN ISRAEL AND JUDAH
.
EARLY
CHRISTIANITY
AND
THE
BLACK ART
....
TEACHING
OF
THE
APOSTOLIC
EPISTLES
.....
TEACHING
OI-'
THE
GENERAL
EPISTLES
.....
TEACHING OF THE APOCALYPSE
.
9
I6
27
39
46
57
66
80
90
IOz
II9
135

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-----

I.
THE NEW ATTACK OF SPIRITUALISM
AND HOW TO MEET IT
I
F writing books on`Spiritualism in these
days there is no end. But with a single ex-
ception, and that rather inadequate in its
treatment of the subject, we have found none to
put into the hands of
a Christian desirous of
learning how to meet and deal with this error
'from an all round Biblical point of view.
Some were too technical,
some too bulky and
expensive and some so mixed with other error as
to be impossible to recommend.
Not a few were written by those who were we1l~
informed on the scientific phases of Spiritualism,
the findings of the Society of Psychical Research
or the doings of mediums and seances, but whose
authors appeared either ignorant of or indifferent
to the Bible, which to the Christian, of course,
holds the first place and is of final authority.
Some of the writers were of the novelist type
like Sir A. Conan Doyle, Basil King or Booth
Tarkington, and antagonistic to Christianity con-
sidering it
a confirmed failure.
These referred
to the Bible to ridicule its teachings or to wrest
9

-----

10
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
their meaning into conformity with their
own
views, being convinced, as one of them said, that
Spiritualism is "not only a new religion but the
coming religion."
We intended to briclly analyze some of' these
books for the sake of the warning they contain,
but this has been
so well done by the Sunday
School Times in the
case of Basil King's
"The
dbolishing of Death," that we take the liberty to
quote.
The
reviewer
confesses
the
masterful
character of the work and the fact that it intelli-
gently recognizes the fundamentals of the Chris-
tian faith, but, as he adds, it just as intelligently
rejects them:
"The unique inspiration of the Bible is rejected.
The finality of the Bible's
message, as a complete revela-
tion from God for all men for this life, is rejected.
The unique deity of Christ is rejected.
The necessity for the blood atonement of Christ is rejected.
The existence and reality of sin are rejected.
God's
word that some men will be lost and some will be
saved is rejected.
The reality of death is rejected.
The need of faith in Christ as Saviour as a condition of
etemal life is rejected.
God's
word as to hell, or the second death, is rejected.
The lines between sin and holiness are obliterated.
And the divinity of all mea, which the Bible denies, is
declared."
I1
It is astonishing and saddening too,
to read
some of the arguments advanced in books and

-----

New Attack of Spiritualism
11
other writings on this subject, by Christian min-
isters, in their efforts to dissuade their flocks from
following these false shepherds.
One wams them to beware of the medieval sys-
tem of demonology, which on further investiga-
tion turns out to mean really Bible demonology.
He would have his ministerial brethren also deny
absolutely that
a medium
can receive communi-
cations from another world, because, he adds,
"this would make it inconsistent to suggest that
their communications were from evil spirits!"
It
seems almost impossible that such
a
man
ever
could have consulted his Bible except as he goes
to a book of familiar quotations to select a text.
That mediums can receive communications from
another world there is no doubt, nor°is there any
doubt that their' communications
are from evil
spirits, for the Bible confirms both propositions.
That is not to say, however, that all mediums re-
ceive such communications, nor that any medium
receives them in every case, there are frauds per-
petrated
as every one knows; but in principle it
is as. foolish to deny this as it is for an ostrich to
hide its head in the sand and suppose that it|can
not be seen.
Another expresses the opinion that it is per-
fectly natural to seek communion with those we
have loved and who have passed beyond, and that
there is no reason why we should not talk with
them if they are near to us; but advises against

-----

12
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
it because "the
means of communication and the
machinery of contact is as yet so imperfect l"
In
other words, as soon as scientists have perfected
the apparatus, communications between the living
and the
dead. may be popularized,
not merely
without harm to any but with positive benefit to
all.
It is like the aeroplane which will soon lose
its interest for sportsmen and scientists and be-
come a common carrier.
'Strange to say, this last opinion is from a writer
of the Evangelical type apparently, for he goes on
to say that while such intercourse with the dead
would be a great comfort and a renewed assurance
of the persistence of life after death, yet after
all that is not religion.
"Religion,"
he truly wit-
nesses, "is the consciousness of God, the sense of
redemption from sin through Jesus Christ, joy
and peace in the Holy Ghost, service of the world,
and love and tenderness for all mankind."
One
wonders that a man
so intelligent in the Gospel
could possibly be led into folly of this kind and
into such gross contradiction of the Bible.
It may
be natural enough for us to seek communion with
our departed, but the
reason
we should refrain
from it is because God has forbidden it.
What
further do we need?
Perhaps as confusing as anything we have seen
was
a review of four new books, in
an English
evangelical periodical, in which the
claim-s
and
teachings of Spiritualism were weighed in the bal~

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New Attack of Spiritualism
13
ance and found wanting, and as to which the re-
viewer said he heartily commended them all.
Two
of these books were thoroughly sound and Biblical
in their contention, but one of the others was that
referred to above
as containing the theory that
mediums could have no intercourse with demons,
and the fourth advocated, as an oliset to Spiritual-
ism, that Christians give more diligence in inter-
cession of the saints and prayers for the dead!
The reviewer would explain his inconsistency
doubtless, by the circumstance that all agreed in
teaching that between Spiritualism and Christian-
ity there was
no aiinity.
Nevertheless, if such
lack of discrimination were everywhere, we could
well appreciate the remark of another English-
man that "the word 'Christianity'
has undergone
such enlargement that I scarcely know what it
means when I see it."
_
III
Speaking further of the inability and lack of
Biblical knowledge in dealing with this subject on
the part of some who ought to be 'teachers
in
Israel',
it recalls the situation when Christian Sci-
ence first raised its head
as
an avowed rival of
the Church and when, as a result, the ministry was
thrown into a panic.
And by the way, the editor of Christian Work
on his
return from England not long since,
re-
ported that now
one seldom heard Christian Sci-

-----

14
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
ence referred to there.
The war, he said, had
dissipated all illusions
as to the non-existence of
evil, and to quote his words, "men who have been
buried under
a shower of legs, arms, heads and
mutilated trunks of human bodies falling all about
them do not make easy converts to that faith.
But
everybody is talking about Spiritualism,"
he went
on to say, "and spiritualistic meetings are being
held all over the country, and there are seances on
every street.
So alarmed have the churches be-
come that the preachers
are delivering
sermons
regarding it, and the religious press is printing
weekly editorials."
It was the
same in this country and especially
in and around Boston, Where the present writer
lived in the early eighties, which saw the rise and
development of Mrs. Eddy's
delusion.
Of course
it was the proper thing to deliver sermons and
write
editorials
against it if only they
aimed
straight and used the right ammunition; but pas-
tors and church committees, not a few, were ready
to capitulate or compromise after the first
cam-
paign, and to admit the validity of Christian Sci-
ence as a church and grant letters dimissory to it.
We remember that Dr. A.  Gordon was pro-
claimed a saviour when, in an issue of the Congre-
gationalist of April I 885, he contributed an article,
later circulated by the thousands in leaflet form,
entitled, "Christian
Science Tested by Scripture."
Everybody thought Scripture should be recognized

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New Attack of Spiritualism
15
in the premises and that its dictum would settle the
matter at least for believers, but until Dr. Gordon
rose up to say the word, no one else seemed able
or willing to go about it.
History is repeating itself, but while many like
the Hebrews with Saul at Gilgal, are going "over
jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead," not a few
are remaining true and with trumpets of no un-
certain
sound
proclaiming
a
"Thus
saith
the
Lord."
We are happy to join their number, and at the
request of our publisher, to do what we can in the
chapters of this book to aid Christians in under-
standing and meeting the error of Spiritualism from
the Bible point of view.

-----

II
THE MODERN HISTORY OF SPIRITISM
I
PIRITUALISM at its source is older than
man, but we have no intention of tracing it
to its source just now, that will come later.
At the moment we wish to deal with it only for
the period of time during which it has been known
by its present name.
And yet its present name is not the best because
it has too wide an application.
At one time "Spir-
itualism"
was used to designate the doctrines and
religious life of mystics like _Iacob Bohme and
Madame Guyon who tried to live consecrated lives
subject to the Holy Spirit, and in obedience to the
Word of God.
_
As a French investigator put it, "spiritualism is
the opposite of materialism.
Whoever believes he
has something within him distinguished from mat-
ter is a spiritualist," in which sense, of course, all
true Christians are spiritualists, though it does not
follow that they practice
communications with
spirits of an invisible world.
16

-----

Modern History of Spiritism
17
Therefore to designate this latter belief the word
"Spiritism"
has come to be used, which We shall
employ hereafter, meaning by it the idea of some
people, that the living can and do communicate
with the spirits of the departed, and also including
the various practices resorted to in that intercourse.
II
Spiritism, which is also necromancy or the evoca-
tion of the dead, was a feature of that Gnosticism
which assailed the Christian Church in the Apos-
tolic era, and against which Paul, by the Holy
Spirit, inveighs particularly in his epistle to the
Colossians.
And this, in tum, indicates that it was
not a new thing even then, but that it formed a
part of the earlier pagan religions.
Allusions to
it have been found in Homer, Strabo ascribes its
practice to the early Persians, Theodoret finds it
in Chaldea and Babylonia, and readers of the Old
Testament recall Moses speaking of it as among
the
abominations
of
the
Canaanites
(Deut.
XVIII) of which we speak in a later chapter.
The Delphic oracles (more than 600 B. C.)
are claimed by Spiritists and we believe with good
reason, and the same may be said of the lives of
seers and clairvoyants and the facts of witchcraft
in all ages.
"Never would that oracle at Delphi
have been so celebrated nor stored with so many
gifts from all kinds of peoples and kings, unless

-----

18
_Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
every age had experienced the truth of its utter-
ances" (Cicero, De Divinatione 19).
To
come
to the
Christian period,
the early
Church
fathers
assume
as
unquestionable
the
agency of evil spirits in the pagan oracles and rites,
showing
themselves by
divinations,
cures
and
dreams.
The
records of the
Roman
Catholic
Church also speak of phenomena which bear a close
resemblance to present-day Spiritism.
During the
Reformation Luther published
a treatise against
"The Celestial Prophets", so-called, of Germany,
whom he charged with exercising the imitative
powers of Satan.
There were
occurrences in the Wesley family
ascribed to Spiritism (1716), and it is commonly
believed to explain much in Swedenborg's
alleged
full and open communication with the spirit world.
In America, David Brainerd, in his work among
the Indians, declared that one of his greatest dii-
culties was the conviction they held that their di-
viners had supernatural power,
a conviction lie
himself shared.
In 1843, the Shakers at New Lebanon, N. Y.,
became the subjects of strange experiences, and in-
fluences purporting to be spirits who had lived in
the world in difierent ages, took possession of their
bodies and spoke through their vocal organs.
111
What is known
as the "spirit-rapping"
plie-

-----

Modern History of Spiritism
19
nomenon began in March, 1848, in the family of
John D. Fox in Hydeville, N. Y., whose daughters
a few years afterwards began to give public per-
formances.
The alleged spiritist manifestations of
these
young
women became the subject of
extensive
newspaper discussion with the result that "med-
iums", through whom they
were said to occur,
were multiplied in different parts of the country
by hundreds and thousands.
The séances of the Fox girls before the Civil
War were attended by some of the most prominent
men of the country, and when they visited Europe
they had the nobility and royalty for their audi-
tors.
Societies were organized, and disciples and
imitators came forward in great numbers.
IV
This brings us to the scientific epoch in Spirit-
ism, when such men as Sir William Crookes, the
English chemist and physicist, who died recently,
became actively interested in it.
In the London Quarterly Journal of January,
1874, he classified the phenomena under some ten
or a dozen heads, and also conducted exhibitions in
his own house, mostly in the light, when it is said
that the existence of
an unexplained force
was
accura-tely tested by
means of
an ingenious
ap-
paratus.

-----

20
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
In other words, with Sir William Crookes'
in-
vestigations it began to be felt that the phenomena
of Spiritism
were not all fraud, and while the
scientists
were unable
to explain the
source of
some of them, their ignorance in the premises
went so far to confirm the teaching of the Bible
that the
source
was to be found in the
super-
human realm.
Sir William testified that
it
was
a
common
thing for seven or eight of us in the laboratory to
see Miss Cook (the medium)
and 'Katie'
(the
spirit) at_the same time under the full blaze of the
electric light."
On
one occasion, the electrician
showed to the satisfaction of the spectators that
the medium was inside the cabinet while the sup-
posed spirit form was visible and moving outside.
Quoting Nelson's Encyclopedia, it was the or-
ganization of the Society of Psychical Research
(England,
1882; America,
1888)
that revived
recent interest in the doctrine.
Its work
has
tended to put limits to the claims which have been
made
for
communication
with
the
discarnate,
though it has at the same time strengthened the
belief in it by giving it better scientific credentials.
Reports
on the remarkable
case of Mrs. Piper
were published in five different volumes of the
Proceedings of this Society, and it is said that they
offer the best mass of scientific evidence extant in
support of possible spirit communication.
It was the evidence derived from this woman's
4111.

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Modern History of Spiritism
21
case when she crossed the Atlantic in 1889, that
finally convinced Sir Oliver Lodge that deceased
relatives spoke or sent messages through her or-
ganism informing him both of known
and
un-
known
facts
subsequently
verified.
In
other
words, to quote him exactly, it convinced him "that
the brain and organism of
a living person might
be utilized by deceased personalities whose
own
bodies had ceased to work."
To avoid an erroneous supposition in the light
of some things which we have already said, let it
be stated clearly at this point that the Bible is
against the conclusion of Sir Oliver.
It reveals, as
we shall subsequently discover, the possibility of
materializations, but not the actual talking with
the dead.
By materialization in this case we mean
the assumption of a material and bodily form by
evil angels or demons who wickedly personate the
dead and deceive the living, but nothing
more.
The proof of this will follow, but to avoid any pos~
sible misunderstanding at the outset, the fact it-
self is here stated.
V
The current revival of Spiritism, or "the Spirit-
ist intrusion",
as'Life
called it, dates from the
recent war, and was predicted by close and earnest
students of the Bible.
It is "due
to the bereave-
ments of the war and to the longing of broken

-----

22
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
hearts to find out something concerning the des-
tiny of those who have been taken from them."
Instead of turning "to
the law and to the testi-
mony"
as the inspired prophet exhorts, they have
taken up with spirits "that peep and that mutter"
(Isaiah VIII. 19, zo).
"There
is hardly a home in England,"
we are
told, "from which some boy has not gone forever
during these last two years.
Can they be reached?
Can one have communion with them?
Can they
break through the wall between their world and
ours?
"Then,
one by
one,
such
men
as Sir Oliver
Lodge and Sir A. Conan Doyle published books
saying, 'We
have had communications from our
boys, and have spoken with them and with their
comrades who perished on the field of battle."
"Thousands of parents responded, 'If they, why
not we ?'
And the result has been an almost over-
whelming rush to mediums, and long lists of sé-
ances are now advertised in the papers."
(Edi-
torial in The Christian Work).
In our opinion the campaign of the powers of
darkness gained its greatest headway up until that
date during the fighting from Mons to Ypres.
Readers will recall
a fantastic story of that
period published
at first in
a London evening
paper, and entitled, "The Bowman", which pur-
ported to tell how St. George and the old Agin-
court bowmen appeared during the retreat from
_._-;¢.i.

-----

p
Modern History of Spiritism
23
Mons and fought with the British against the foe.
The author frankly declared it was pure fiction,
but so heated was the British imagination at the
time and so psychologically ready for the recep-
tion of the occult, that he was not believed by
many who seriously entertained the opinion that
angels appeared to the soldiers.
Nor
were these in all
cases the intellectually
weak, but in
some instances intelligent and edu-
cated men and women, including a Christian scholar
whom
we personally know, and who is honored
throughout
Christendom.
Indeed
an
eminent
clergyman of London is reported to have said that
such
a
case of spiritual intervention
was "emi-
nently creditable.
_Ioan of Arc saved her country
owing to the vision of an angel, and why should
not the phenomenon be repeated in this case?"
Immediately people began to hold intercourse
with their beloved dead,
as was supposed.
The
Christian scholar, in a private letter to the writer,
said:
"My wife saw her boy in his spiritual body
permitted to come once to comfort her.
We know.
It is the same with many.
This war is given for
the convincing of many that the future life is a real
thing, and that God Himself speaks to man.
This
is the
one consolation that remains out of this
hideous and horrible time of trial.
My wife was
permitted to talk to her boy.
He was even more
radiant than in life, but otherwise the same.
He
told her of his death and the manner of it.
We

-----

24
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
learned after a month that this was true.
Some
people call it
a dream.
I know it was
a vision
granted
to soothe her sorrow and her longing.
This has nothing to do with magic.
The spiritual
eye saw the spiritual body."
VI
It would not be the part of wisdom for the
writer to delay warning the unwary until our con-
sideration of this subject approached its conclu-
sion.
Hence a pause is made here to say that the
experiences above recorded are very diiierent from
those of Bible saints.
Let a brief reference be made again to Isaiah's
words (VIII. I9~22).
He sees Israel in the lat-
ter days in great distress, doubtless far beyond
anything known in the late war.
They are "hardly
bestead and hungry", "behold trouble, darkness,
dimness of anguish".
They
are seeking "unto
them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards
that peep and that mutter", and he rebukes them,
saying, "Should not a people seek unto their God?
On behalf of the living should they seek unto the
dead?
To the law and to the testimony; if they
speak not according to this word, it is because there
is no light in them."
A
In other words, are not the Word and the Spirit
of God the source, and the suflicient source, of the
,Christian's
comfort in this age?
Does he need

-----

Modern History of Spiritism
25
such visions to convince him of the future life
and that God speaks to men?
The rich man in
our Lord's
story in Luke 16 thought well of that
kind of evidence, but we remember how fruitless
"father Abraham" thought it would be.
If such
things are the only, or the strongest, consolation
remaining for God's people in such a time of trial,
what of the millions of them to whom they do not
come?
Let the Christian ever keep in mind that there
are such beings as evil spirits, of whom we shall
leam considerable by and by, and let him
con-
sider further that fundamentally only these
are
in evidence in this modern outbreak of Spirit-
asm.
In proof of this it may be mentioned that in all
the accounts of the angels at Mons which
came
to our attention, not once was Jesus Christ so much
as named.
St. George was named, and _Ioan of
Arc, and Socrates, and Swedenborg, and the Virgin
Mary.
God was referred to a few times, but our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ never.
Even the
private correspondence mentioned above, and from
a Christian source, alludes to Him but once, and
then indirectly, and by His human and family
name, ]esus.
"What place do you give to Christ in Spiritual-
ism?" was asked of a votary by a London editor.
"Is He to you the Son of God, and do you wor-
ship Him as such?"

-----

26
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
"Oh, no," came the reply.
"He is to us simply
the Master Medium."
In the words of the editor, (The Life of Faith,
London), "that confession is fatal.
No creed, no
cult,
no religion that dethrones
our Lord and
places Him on a level with men and mediums has
any right to claim
a Christian connection.
And
men and women who profess to be followers of
Christ are putting Him to open shame when they
join hands with those who would, if they could,
rob Him of His deity and His matchless glory."

-----

III
SATAN-OR SPIRITISM AT ITS SOURCE
I
»
ATAN is the source of Spiritism, and since
the Bible is the only place in which we can
learn anything reliable about him, we now
open its pages for that purpose.
As we
are writing for Christians chiefly, it is
assumed that the Bible is the revelation of God
and not only credible as to its statements of fact
but an inspired record of them.
The evidence of
this is convincing and never more so than in the
twentieth century, as could easily be demonstrated
if circumstances permitted or required it.
Even the casual reader of the Bible will recall
the outstanding occasions when Satan appears on
its scenes.
First, as the "serpent"
in the Garden
of Eden tempting and overcoming our first parents,
for twice in the New Testament the serpent is
identified with the devil and Satan (Rev. XII. 9;
XX. 2).
Next, in the history of job (chapters
I and II) ; then, later, in vision, in the Old Testa-
27

-----

28
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
ment
as the
accuser of Israel after their rctum
from Babylon (Zech. III).
In the New Testament he first comes before us
as Christ's tempter in the wilderness (Matthew IV
and its parallels); he entered into Judas to be-
tray Christ (]ohn XIII. 27), and into Ananias
and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost (Acts V. 3).
He hindered Paul in his missionary work (I Thess.
II. 18) ; he is said to walk about as a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour (I Pet. V. 8), and
in the end of this age he will give his power to
the Lawless one to deceive, if possible, the very
elect (Matthew XXIV. 24; 2 Thess. II. 8-Io);
Rev. XIII. I, 2).
Satan has many
names in Scripture,
each of
which
reveals
some
feature
of
his
character.
"Satan"
itself
means
the Adversary;
"devil,"
(slanderer); "Apollyon," (destroyer); "Beelze-
bub," (prince of the demons) ; "Belial,"
(low, ab-
ject) ; "the wicked one"; "the god of this world";
"the
prince of darkness";
"the
dragon,"
"tor-
mentor,"
"accuser,"
"deceiver,"
"liar,"
"murder-
er,"
"he
that hath the power of death."
This
suiliciently reveals the kind of being he is and fur-
nishes a reason why we should beware of him.
II
As to the origin of Satan, those who class the
cherubim as angels, think he was one of them, and

-----

Spiritism at its Source
29
anointed probably for a position of great author-
ity.
This authority may have been over primitive
creation, i.e., heaven and earth as at first created,
and before the earth became without form and
void (Gen. I. 1).
He
fell through pride
(Isa.
XIV.
I2-14).
Some think he was then cast out of heaven accord-
ing to Christ's words in Luke X.
1 8, on which sup-
position, he then made the earth and the air the
scene of his activity (Eph. II. 2; I. Pet. V. 8).
A scriptural basis for this conjecture is in Ezek-
iel XXVIII. II-15.
The chapter is
a rebuke of
the King of Tyre, but at the verses named the lan-
guage goes beyond him to Satan described in his
unfallen state.
If this interpretation
is
correct,
the
chapter
teaches much about Satan, which is summed up by
Dr. R. A. Torrey in "What the Bible Teaches,"
thus:
1.
He was the sum of created perfection, v. 12.
2.
He was in the garden of God, v. 13.
This
does not mean the Eden of Adam, but an earlier
one.
The Eden of Adam was remarkable for
its vegetable glory, but this for its mineral glory.
Cf. Revelation XXI.
10-21.
3.
He was the anointed cherub that covereth,
v. 14.
First, he was a "cherub",
the highest rank
in the angelic world.
Second,
"the
anointed"
cherub, i.e., one who was set apart for
a formal
work. Third, the anointed cherub that_"co'vereth."

-----

30
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
The meaning of this word is not given, though it
suggests Exodus XXXVII. 9.
4.
He was upon the holy mountain of God,
v. 14, which may mean the place where God mani-
fested His personal glory.
1
5.
He walked up and down in the midst of the
stones of fire, v. 14.
This suggests Exodus XXIV.
Io, 17, R.V., and Ezekiel I. 15, 22, 25, 26, R.V.
In the former the seventy elders saw the Lord of
Israel, and "there was under His feet as it were a
paved walk of sapphire stone", and "the
appear-
ance of the glory of the Lord was like devouring
fire on the top of the mount."
This may afford an
idea of what the "stones of fire"
were, and indi-
cate how near Satan may have been to God.
6.
His heart
was lifted up because of his
beauty, v. 17.
Cf. I Timothy III. 6 R.V.
7.
He was cast out of the mountain of God,
and destroyed from the midst of the stones of
fire, v. 16.
8.
He shall be cast to the earth and be made
a spectacle, vv. 17, 18.
Cf. with 2 Thessalonians
II. 8; Revelation XII. 9, ro, and XIX. 20.
III
To go a. little further into the nature and char-
acter of Satan:
`
(1)
He is a person, i.e., he possesses self-con-
sciousness and free-will, because the facts stated in

-----

Spiritism at its Source
31
the preceding paragraphs could not be predicted
of an influence or a principle of evil.
(2)
He has great dignity, since he is styled
the "prince,"
"the god of this world," and "prince
of the power of the air," and it is said that Michael
the Archangel "durst not bring against him a rail-
ing judgment," (John XII. 31; 2 Cor. IV. 4; Eph.
II. 2; Jude 8, 9, R.V.).
(3)
He has great power, since he is able to
control the forces of nature, human property and
life, demons, the world-rulers of darkness,
and
the whole world of men out of Christ, (Job I.
Io-12; Luke XI. I4-I8; I John V. I9 R.V.; Acts
XXVI. 1.8; Eph. VI. II, 12).
(4)
He has great cunning and deceit, since he
transforms himself into
an angel of light,
uses
wiles and devices, signs and lying wonders (Mat-
thew XXIV. 24;
2 Cor. II.
11;
2 Cor. XI. 14;
Eph. VI. I 1, I2 R.V.; 2 Thess. II. 9, R.V.).
(5)
He has great malignity, being called the
evil one, a liar,
a murderer,-and
a sinner from
the beginning (Matthew V. 37; Luke VIII. 12;
John VIII. 44; 2 Cor. IV. 4; I John III. 8).
(6)
He has great fear, for if we resist him
he will flee from us (James IV. 7).
IV
As to Satan's present location and his work, he
is referred to as being in the heavenly places, and

-----

32
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
also as going to and fro in the earth.
As in the
age to come, Christ and His Church, though abid-
ing in the heavenly places, will rule
an earthly
people, so now Satan and his hosts abiding in the
heavenly places are ruling an earthly people. (Job
I. 6, 7; Eph. VI. 11, 12; I Peter V. 8; Rev. XII.
9)-
As to his work:
(1)
He is the author of sin and tempts to sin
(Gen. III. x-6; I Chron. XXI. 1; Matt. IV);
(2)
He produces sickness and has the power
of death (Luke XIII. 16; Acts X. 38; Heb. II.
14) :
(3)
He lays snares for men (I Tim. III. 7);
(4)
He takes the Word of God out of their
hearts (Matt. XIII. 19);
(5)
He puts wicked purposes into their hearts
(EPh- IV- 27):
 
(6)
He blinds "their
minds (2 Cor. IV. 4,
R.V.) ;
45°
 
.'
(7)
He harasses and
accuses them (2 Cor.
XII. 7; Rev. XIII. 9, IO);
(8)
He enters into them (John XIII. 27) ;
(9)
He does all this and more by means of
the angelic messengers' who carry on his work (2
Cor. XI. 14, 15; Rev. III. 9).
Happily however, there are certain limitations
of his work and power.
For example, being
a
finite and created being he can be only in one place
at
one time, though what is done by his agents

-----

Spiritism at its Source
33
being attributed to him, he is practically ubiqui-
tous.
In the second place, it is reassuring to know
that his influence over the bodies of
men is
en-
tirely subject to God's
control (Job II. 7; Luke
XIII. 16; Acts X. 38) , and that his influence over
the souls of men is simply moral.
That is to say,
he may offer suggestions and deceive or persuade
men, but he is absolutely unable to change their
hearts or coerce their wills.
"Every
man is tempt-
ed, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
enticed"
(Jas. I. 14).
Our responsibility in regard to Satan therefore,
is threefold:
We
are to watch against him (I
Peter V. 8); to give no place to him (Eph. IV.
27) ; and to resist him (Jas. IV. 7).
We watch against him
as the context of the
passage shows, by humbling ourselves under the
mighty hand of God and casting all our anxiety
upon Him.
We give no place to him by restrain-
ing wrath and eschewing falsehood; and we resist
him by the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word
of God.
V
It remains to say that there
are two ways in
which Satan is particularly manifesting himself
today in the lives and affairs of men.
The Sunday
School Times recently called it "the devills world-

-----

34
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
wide revival."
One is in the form of demonism
and the other spiritism, though the two are closely
allied.
I.
By demonism is meant just now the Wor-
ship of demons and human possession by demons.
We learn from the Bible that the apostate Israel-
ites sacrificed to demons, and that the gods of the
heathen were demons.
Paul charged the Athen-
ians with being too much addicted to demon wor-
ship, which is the real meaning of the word "super-
stitious" in Acts XVII.
22.
He also adds that
the things which the Gentiles sacrificed they sacri-
ficed to demons and not to God.
It is true that the Bible teaching about demonia-
cal possession has been denied by some, who ex-
plain the symptoms referred to as those of physical
disease simply.
They admit that Christ taught
the contrary, but meet this by saying that He con-
formed His language to the vulgar notions of the
times, the same argument as they use with refer-
ence to other subjects of His teaching, the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch, for example.
Nevertheless, the New Testament puts it beyond
question that demoniacs were possessed by demons.
For example:
(1)
They evinced superhuman strength and
Iinowledge, even recognizing Jesus
as the Son of
God, as well as His power and purpose to punish
the ungodly.
(2)
In addressing Him,
the demons distin-

-----

Spiritism at its Source
35
guished themselves from the
persons they
tor-
mented, saying in
the
case
of the Gadarenes,
"What have we to do with Thee, Jesus ?" and "If
Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the
deep" (Matt. VIII. 28-31).
(3)
In delivering those who were possessed,
Christ spoke not to the persons themselves, but to
their tormentors, saying to the latter, "Go"
or
"Come out".
In other instances also the demons
are expressly distinguished from the diseases they
created,
as when
we
read of Christ that they
brought unto Him all sick people, and those that
were possessed with demons, and those that were
lunatic.
`
Nor is demoniacal possession limited to the time
of Christ.
It existed before Christ came, because
the _Iews of His day professed to cast out demons,
showing that the phenomenon was not new to them;
and it existed after He departed, because He com-
missioned His disciples to cast out demons, a com-
mission upon which they acted.
Early church fathers testify to the casting out
of demons in their day,
and the Reformation
fathers do the same.
It exists now as seen in our
Missionary annals, especially that recent volume,
Demons and Demon Possession, by Dr. Nevius,
and in current discussions on Theosophy and Spirit-
ism and Speaking with Tongues.
Finally,
demoniacal possession will
constitute
one of the awful features of the tribulation at the

-----

36
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
end of this age, as is clearly indicated, in the book
of Revelation.
The battle of Armageddon for
example, is to be brought about by the spirits of
demons working miracles (Rev. XVI. 14).
VI
2.
The other way in which Satan is manifest-
ing himself and is likely to do so until the end of
the age is in Spiritism.
The dictionary defines it
as the belief that the spirits of the dead communi-
cate with and manifest their presence to men.
It
is supposed that they usually do this through the
agency of a human person called a medium.
As
was stated before, we deny that the spirits of the
dead do this, but we ailirm that there is a counter-
feit materialization of the dead by demons. That
is, demons assume a material and bodily form to
deceive the living into the belief that they are com-
municating with the dead.
In other words, we believe that certain facts of
Spiritism are true.
There are some things which
pass for facts that are not facts, for Satan has no
desire that his work should become too apparent,
but nevertheless there is a basis of fact underlying
the pretensions of Spiritism, which we must not
only admit but insist upon as a testimony against it.
The scientists bear witness that while there is
a large element of fraud in Spiritism, there is still
a residuum of facts demanding explanation.
They

-----

Spiritism at its Source
37
would refer some of these to the powers of the
human mind, the "subliminal consciousness," just
below the level of the normal waking life, but there
are still other manifestations for which that
ex-
planation will not suflice, and to which such men
testify
as
Alfred
Russell
Wallace,
Sir
Wm.
Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and the late Professor
William James
of
Harvard.
It
is
Sir Wm.
Crookes who, in his Evidences of Spiritualism, said
"that certain phenomena occur under circumstances
in which they can not be explained by any physical
law at present known, is a fact of which I am as
certain
as I
am of the most elementary fact in
chemistry."
Coming to the Bible however, and it is upon
that we stand, we find God legislating for Israel,
and saying, "A
man also, or woman, that hath a
familiar spirit, or one that is a wizard, shall surely
be put to death (Lev. XX. 27)."
This
means
those who are instructed in the art of intercourse
with demons, and the warning it expresses is
re-
peated in one form or another in the Old Testa-
ment very frequently as we shall see.
Moreover, take such illustrations as the story of
Saul and the Witch of Endor, or that of Paul and
the Philippian damsel.
The latter was what is now
called a medium, and according to the Greek was
possessed by the spirit of Pytho, the
same that
guided the Delphic oracle.
Her testimony to Paul
and his companions proves that the messengers of

-----

38
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Satan sometimes speak truth, when it is to their
advantage to do so, but more of this later.
Finally, 'the Bible
asserts the continuance of
such Satanic agency throughout this dispensation
(Gal. V. 20, 21 ; Rev. IX. 21 ; Rev. XVI. 14; Rev.
XVIII. 23; and Rev. XXI. 8).
Whether it will
continue in the form and under the name of Spirit-
ism or not, it is impossible to say, but neverthe-
less as the end of the age approaches Satan's emis-
saries will act more and more without disguise,
and "show great signs and wonders insomuch that
if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect"
(Matt. XXIV. 24),
'

-----

~
IV
ANGELS AND DEMONS, OR SPIRITISM'S
PERSONNEL
'
`
I
NE can not be very intelligent in Spiritism
without knowing something about angels
of which the Bible says so much.
The Old Testament or Hebrew word for angel
is "Malek",
and the New Testament or Greek
word, "angellus",
both of them meaning "mes-
senger"
or "agent".
The words are sometimes
used of men and even of God Himself, but in the
latter case always in the form of "The Angel of
the Lord",
an expression signifying the presence
of the Deity in angelic form.
The words are used
impersonally in some instances also, but for our
present purpose these need not be enumerated.
Angels are spirits, superior to men and inferior
to God (Ps. VIII. 4, 5; Heb. I. 7, 8)
_ They would
seem to have bodies of some kind (Luke XX. 36),
and they have appeared in human form (always
as men, not women), and have eaten food and
lodged in houses (Gen. XVIII. 8; XIX. 3).
39

-----

40
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
The number of angels is very great (Dan. VII.
IO; Ps. LXVIII. 17; Matt. XXVI. 53), and their
power likewise, whether exercised in the material
or spiritual world (Ps. CIII. 20;
2 Kings XIX.
35;
2 Thess. I. 7).
And yet their power and
knowledge are both limited (Dan. X. 13; Matt.
XXIV. 36; Eph. III. 9, 10).
Angels
are employed both in heaven and
on
earth.
In heaven they
are worshippers (Matt.
XVIII. ro; Rev. V. 11), but on earth they are
associated with the afiairs of providence, doing
good to God's people and executing judgment on
God's enemies, the latter ministry to be intensified
at the end of the age (Ps. XC. I0-12;
2 Kings
XIX. 35? I Thess. IV. 17).
_
There appear to be graded positions and author-
ity among them judging by the allusions to thrones,
dominions, principalities and powers (Eph. I. 21 ) ,
and by the mention of Michael as the Archangel
(Dan. X. 13), and Gabriel as one who stands "in
the presence of God" (Luke I. 19).
There is a tendency towards speculation in con-
sidering these beings against which we
are
earn-
estly wamed in Paul's
letter to the. Colossians;
speculation that in the case of the Roman Catholic
Church especially leads to superstition and their
voluntary worship.
On the other hand however,
Protestantism may have thought too little about
them, and have thereby greatly impoverished her
experience of Divine providence and her sense of

-----

Angels and Demons
41
succor and comfort in times of peril and sorrow,
that
succor and comfort which it is their oHice
under God to freely and graciously supply.
II
But up until this point we have been dealing
entirely with good
or holy angels, while
alasl
there is another class of them, evil as well as good.
And the evil angels are again divided into two
classes.
One consists of those that are in chains
of darkness reserved unto judgment (2 Peter II.
4)
and the other of those that are actively
en-
gaged in evil, with Satan at their head.
The latter
are those of which Paul speaks in Eph. VI.
1 1, 12,
where believers are exhorted to "put
on the whole
armor of God" that they "may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil," because they wrestle
"against principalities, against powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, and spiritual hosts
of wickedness in the heavenly places."
(See also
Matthew XXV. 41; Rev. XII. 9).
A
It is these that are in evidence, it is believed, in
the present "spiritist invasion."
Of their origin
we know nothing more than we do of the. good
angels, which is simply that they were created by
God (Col. I. 16).
It is assumed also that all were created good,
but that some fell
as did Satan himself, though
just when, or why they fell, God is not pleased to

-----

Q
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
reveal.
The following named Scriptures tell us
about all we can know of the matter, John VIII.
44; I Tim. III. 6, 7;
2 Peter II. 4; Jude 6, 7.
From these we surmise that they abode not in the
knowledge and worship of God, but fell into con..
demnation through pride.
They kept not their
first estate
or principality,
so to speak, but left
their proper habitation.
They
are described sometimes
as evil spirits
'(]udges IX. 23; Luke VII. 21), unclean spirits
Matt. X. I), and demons (Deut. XXXII.
17;
Matt. VII. 22).
This last word is erroneously
rendered "devils"
in the King James Version, as
there is but one devil, who is identical with Satan,
but there are many demons.
So many indeed as to
compose a kingdom with a leader, or prince (Luke
VIII. 30; Matt. XII. 24-26; Eph. VI. 12).
These demons are called Satan's agents in Matt.
XII. 26, 27 and XXV. 41, and as such they seem
able_ to inflict physical maladies
on men (Matt.
XII. 22; XVII. 15-18;Luke XIII. 16; and even
enter and control their bodies and those of beasts
also (Mark V. 13; Acts XVI. 16) ;while from the
moral point of view they are able to seduce men
'from the truth and lead them into all unclearmess
`(1 Kings XXII. 22;
1 Tim. IV.
1;
2 Peter II.
iI0-12).
It is especially important to note that tliese de-
mons maintain a conflict with Christian believers
(Eph. VI. 12), and that God Himself sometimes

-----

Angels and Demons
43
uses
them
in judgment
upon
unbelievers
and
wicked men (]udges IX. 23;
1 Sam. XVI. 14).
They are to be used in the awful judgments upon
the earth in the Tribulation period (Rev. IX.
I-II; XVI.
13, 14); but their own eternal fate,
like that of their mighty but unholy leader, is one
of torment (Matt. VIII. 29; Luke VIII. 31).
A deeply interesting question, and a very prac-
tical one also, is that of the present abode of these
evil spirits or demons.
Keep in mind in the reply
that there
are two-classes of them, the
one
re-
served in chains of darkness of which we shall
learn more by and by, and whose abode is hell or
"'I`artarus"
(Greek) ;
and the
other occupying
the air considered as one of the "heavenly places"
so frequently mentioned in the New Testament.
From this place however, they will be cast down to
earth prior to the Millenium, and then at length
go into the lake of fire and brimstone "prepared
for the devil and his angels"
(Rev. XII. 7-9;
Matt. XXV. 41).
f
III
In the preceding chapter we discussed the topic
of demon worship and demon possession sufiicient-
ly for our present purpose, and only allude to it
again
as leading up to
an eamest warning and
appeal.
-
-
Remember that which
was previously stated,

-----

44
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
(I), that demon possession is distinct from phys-
ical disease; (2), that it was and is not limited
to the time of Christ; and (3) that it is in evidence
today and is predicted as one of the awful features
of the Tribulation at the end of this age.
Quoting from the Rev. F. B. Meyer, D.D., of
London, in his booklet just from the press:
"They hate to be unclothed, and would rather
inhabit swine than have no covering (Matt. VIII.
31).
The nakedness of an evil spirit is torment
before the time (Matt. VIII. 29; Mark V. 7).
"Their
one object is to reduce the human race
and drag it to their own degraded condition. Just
as the Divine Spirit can only achieve His end by
and through our instrumentality-and therefore,
we are called to present our bodies to Him-so the
great adversary can only achieve his end by and
through human instruments, and therefore steals
gradually over the consciousness of his victims un-
til they are taken captive by the devil at his will
1(2 Tim. II. 26).
"Apparently the Almighty has locked and bolted
our human nature against the intrusion of the
demon-world, and it is at our peril that we open
the door from within or allow it to be broken in
from without.
The angels will not attempt to help
us unless at the express command of the Almighty;
but demon-spirits are disobedient and recalcitrant.
They defy the Divine prohibition; and°if they fail
to break in by force, they can at least induce the

-----

Angels and Demons
45
human soul to connive at their entrance by open-
ing the door from within; and when the door has
been opened once it can be opened repeatedly, and
each time more easily, until the power of resistance
is gone, and the demon can go and come at will,
or introduce
seven companions worse than him-
self.
"A
man of high repute told me recently that a
lady had come to him complaining that her life
was made a perfect torment by the suggestion of
unclean spirits, of which she could not rid herself.
She had been an habitue of séances, and now was
held by a kind of obsession.
He entreated her to
promise to tear herself from their fatal spell, and
she promised to go to but one more,
on the fol-
lowing day.
But that day she became raving mad,
rushed in an almost nude condition into the public
thoroughfare, and has been for the last two years
in an asylum.
"If
there
has been any tampering with the
demon-world, the urgency for immediate arrest is
imperative, lest the current become too swift to be
arrested by the oarsman, though he pull against
it with the
agony of despair."-The
Modem
Craze of Spiritualism, pp. Io,
11.

-----

NT
SPIRITISM BEFORE THE FLOOD
I
HE tasli we have set ourselves would be
inadequately rendered if attention were not
called
to the mysterious sixth chapter of
Genesis, whose record of the marriages of "the
sons of God" with "the daughters of men"
and
the issue of the same is intended to account for
the catastrophe of the Hood.
The text follows:
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
"And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with
man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred
and twenty years.
"There
were giants in the earth in those days; and also after
that, when the
sons of God
came in unto the daughters of
men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty
men which were of old,
men of renown."
The question arises, Who were these "sons of
God" and these "daughters of men" whose union
produced the powerful and wicked race the iniquity
46

-----

Spiritism Before the Flood
47
of which resulted thus and necessitated this judg-
ment?
We who are familiar with the use of the first-
named phrase in the New Testament might at first
_interpret it to mean men of faith, true believers,
godly saints; while the second would logically ap-
ply to women of the opposite character.
But reflection would recall that Moses was un-
likely to be using New Testament terms, and that
such phraseology would be foreign to conditions
ante-dating the flood.
Also, it might be asked, would godly men con-
tract such marriages and in such a way, inasmuch
as a plurality of wives and force in obtaining them
seem to be implied?
And even if they did, what
would further explain the gigantic
stature
and
colossal
wickedness of their offspring bringing
about so terrible a penalty as the flood?
In searching for a diiierent explanation we find
that "sons of God"
is used everywhere else in
the Old Testament to designate angels, and why
should it not be
so used here?
Moreover if it
were so used, it would carry with it a confounding
of two distinct orders of creatures and the pro-
duction of
a mixed
race, partly human, partly
super-human, which would be just such a derange-
ment of the Divine plan as to warrant that which
occurred, namely, the almost total extermination
of all who were upon the the earth.
Indeed this was the prevailing view of the pas-

-----

48
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
sage in the ancient synagogue of the ]ews and
among Christian theologians for the first three or
four centuries of the Church.
And there is reason
to believe it would not have changed in the latter
case, had it not been for certain erroneous opin-
ions and practices of Christendom, to which ref-
erence will be made later, and with which it was
not in harmony.
But naturally there exists
a prejudice against
such a view.
How could such intercourse be pos-
sible between the visible and invisible worlds, such
an unnatural connection between beings so widely
dillerent from each other?
It is our purpose to deal with this question be-
fore we conclude, but a more important one pre-
cedes it.
It is not, as Nicodemus said, "How
can
these things be P" but rather, Is it true that they
are?
However inconceivable or inexplicable the
fact may be, it is first necessary to show that it is
a fact.
In doing this we now address ourselves to two
theories that have been
most persistently main-
tained in opposition to it.
The first,
a Jewish
interpretation which holds the "sons of God"
to
mean men of authority or rank who married wom-
en of inferior station; and the second, the Church
interpretation already mentioned, which holds that
godly men, the descendants of Seth for example,
chose for wives women of godless life belonging
to the line of Cain.
_l_

-----

Spiritism Before the Flood
49
II
The Jewish interpretation has been paraphrased
thus:
"When men began to multiply on the earth
the chief men took wives of all the handsome poor
women they chose.
They
were tyrants in the
earth of those days.
Also, after the antediluvian
days, powerful men had unlawful connexions with
the inferior women, and the children which sprang
from this illi_cit intercourse
were the renowned
heroes of antiquity, of whom the heathen made
their gods."
The ground
on which this interpretation
was
founded
is that
the
Hebrew
word
for
God,
Elohim, is sometimes used in the Old Testament
to denote judges or princes, hence "sons of God"
might
mean
sons of judges
or
sons of princes.
And the Hebrew word for man, Adam, is occas-
ionally used to denote
one whose station in the
world is lowly or poor, hence "daughters of men"
might mean daughters of the lowly or the poor.
It is admitted that Elohim (gods) is, in a few
instances, applied in the Old Testament to Israel-
itish magistrates acting representatively for _Ie-
hovah, but there is nothing in this passage of that
character.
Moreover this word is not Elohim
simply, but Bne-ha-Elohim,
a very dillerent
ex-
pression, which means "sons of God",
and which
in every other instance stands, not for men of any

-----

50
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
grade or distinction, but for angels.
Therefore,
the inference is fair that if in this place, Moses
had intended men however great, he would not
have used that word but some other, of which there
were several from which to choose.
_
It is admitted also that Adam is, in some places,
applied to human beings of low degree, but when
women of low degree are meant the word is al-
ways used in connection with the word Ish, which
is not the case here.
Otherwise the word simply
means a man, or mankind in general, without dis-
tinction of class or condition.
Moreover the par-
ticular word now under discussion is not Adam
simply, but Bnoth-ha-Adam, "daughters of Men,"
which occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament,
so that no argument can be founded upon its usage.
"In short,"
to quote another, "women of high
station
as well as low are Bnoth-ha-Adam,"
and
the title simply means Adam's
daughters, female
descendants, womankind without distinction.
Indeed it is diHicult to understand how such an
interpretation of the passage ever found accept-
ance considering its extreme improbability.
How
unlikely, to continue quoting, "that all the great
men of the day, or even a large proportion of them,
should, at the
same time and with
one consent,
contract such alliances?
And how unlikely that
female beauty should just then have appeared, and
only or chiefly, in women of the lower rank; and
that it should have possessed such strongly attrac-

-----

Spiritism Before the Flood
51
tive power in the case of all these "sons of God"?
And stranger still, how improbable the results
that followed?
Why should it have come about
that the marriage of the judges, or princes, of that
age with women of low degree but of great beauty,
should have issued in mighty men of renown,
a
heroic race of gigantic size, celebrated for their
exploits through succeeding time?
And strangest of all, the Hebrew word for
"giants"
in verse four is Nephilim, which means
"fallen ones,"
as to whom there can be little doubt
that they were more than human beings and de-
rived their origin in part from
a superhuman
source.
A word of explanation seems necessary before
leaving the Jewish interpretation, by which of
course is not meant that of the ancient Jewish
synagogue mentioned above, but that of _Iewish
teachers of a later time, say, the early centuries of
the Christian era.
The _Iewish synagogue, as was
said, held to the angel interpretation.
Just what prompted the change of interpetation
from that of angels to that of great men is not
known except that it could not have been on ex-
egetical grounds.
Fleming, from whose work on
The Fallen Angels and the Heroes of Mythology
we are quoting, thinks it may have been dogmatic
considerations concerning the nature of angels of
which we shall speak by and by; but sufhce for
the present to re-aflirm that the angelic interpeta-

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52
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
tion was the first which suggested itself, and that
it was very anciently received both by _Iews and
Christians.
III
A fair and clear statement of the later Christian,
or Church, interpretation is given by Dr. John
Gill in his Exposition of the Old Testament, pub-
lished in the middle of the 18th century.
He says:
"Those
sons of God
were
not angels,
because
angels are incorporeal beings, and can not be af-
fected with Heshly lusts, or marry and be given
in marriage, or generate and be generated.
Nor
were they the sons of judges, magistrates and great
personages; but rather is the phrase to be under-
stood of the posterity of Seth, who from the time
of Enos, when men began to be called by the Name
of the Lord (Gen. IV. 26), had the title of 'sons
of God'
in distinction from the children of men."
All this is pure assumption on Dr. Gill's
part,
and was to be expected, since no serious attempt
seems to have been made by him to ascertain the
real meaning of the words in their place whatever
the consequences might be.
For example, what
ground outside of his
own opinion, had he for
saying that angels
are incorporeal,
etc.?
And
similarly, what ground for saying all that he does
say about the posterity of Seth?
However, he has plenty of company among com-
l

-----

Spiritism Before the Flood
53
mentators and others, including some of the poets,
Milton as an illustration, in Paradise Lost.
And
yet, that great poet, in Paradise Regained Book
II, returns to the angel interpretation, where he
makes Satan, after the failure of his first tempta-
tion of Christ, in addressing the infemal council,
say to Belialz
"Before the flood, thou with thy lusty crew,
False titled sons of God, roaming the earth,
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,
And coupled with them, and begot a race."
What, however, explains the abandonment of
the earlier angel interpretation for this of the sons
of Seth?
The most likely answer is that of Iohn
Henry Kurtz, D.D., professor of theology at Dor-
pat, quoted at some length by Fleming, who at-
tributes it to the rise of certain superstitions and
unwarrantable practices in the church growing out
of false ideas as to the nature of angels.
In other words, it was the coming in of angel
worship that drove it out.
Angel worship raised
its head gradually, but its progress tended to re-
move everything that might shake confidence in
the holiness of angels,
or mar the gratification
which their worship afforded.
There was also a second cause which was almost
equally influential with the first, namely the spread
of celibacy, or monkery, as Kurtz calls it, and the
reverence with which it came to be regarded in

-----

54
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
the early centuries.
If Genesis VI.
I-4 taught
that although the angels in heaven marry not, yet
at
one time
a portion of them, seduced by the
beauty of women, came down to earth for the pur-
pose of gratifying amorous propensities, then
a
weakness of the like kind on the part of "earthly
angels"
might be
more readily excused.
As
a
matter of fact such an apology was pleaded for
monkish transgressions, at the time, and it there-
fore became a pretext for changing angelic "sons
of God" into human "sons of God."
It was not until the last century that the angel
interpretation began again
to
find
favor with
Christian theologians.
And for its revival by the
way, we are, in a sense, indebted to the destructive
critics.
Their attacks upon the Bible necessitated
a return to the old-fashioned way of studying it
with the aid of the grammar and lexicon.
Exegesis
thus has been restored to its rightful place, and
exegesis never attempts to explain away uncommon
or supernatural occurrences just because it does not
understand them.
g
We have spoken of Fleming's work on The Fal-
len Angels, but he, in turn, is indebted to Kurtz
above named, and to Maitland's
essays
on the
same subject and on False Worship, as well as to
Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations.
Following these
authorities he goes on to deal at length with collat-
eral aspects of the question for which we have not
the space or time except to mention them.
They

-----

Spiritism Before the Flood
55
include the suppositions and assumptions that are
involved in the Sethite interpretation, an examina-
tion of Genesis IV. 26, which speaks of Seth's
descendants,
a careful inquiry into the
use of a
phrase analogous to "the
sons of God" wherever
it occurs either in the Old or New Testament, and
the antithesis of the "sons of God" and "daughters
of men."
We have studied him with care, and feel con-
vinced that the improbabilities
involved in the
Sethite, or as we have called it, the Church inter-
pretation, are so serious as to put it out of court.
IV
In the next chapter we deal with the angel in-
terpretation and the objections to it growing out
of the supposed nature of angels.
But we
con-
clude this with some general observations in antici-
pation of it:
I. It has already been suggested that while
angels are immaterial beings, yet they appear to
possess, or at least are able to assume, some kind
of an ethereal, corporeal form.
At the same time
it is to be remembered that the human race is com-
posed of immaterial beings, clothed at present with
gross bodies akin to beasts, but hereafter, in the
case of the redeemed at least, to be clothed with
spiritual bodies
not unlike that of angels.
If,
therefore, there is in our nature
a capability of

-----

'ef
56
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
becoming like angels in some degree, is it so cer-
tain that they
are
as dissimilar to us in all
re-
spects
as many people believe?
2. We have
seen also that angels, both good
and bad, are interested in the aliairs of men, and
have communicated with men.
How much more
intimate that communication might have been had
not sin entered the human family, who can say?
And if there is a possibility of greater communica-
tion if God willed it so, is it unlikely that evil
angels, should it suit their propensities, would en-
deavor to make it so whether it was His will or
not?
"We
can not hold it to be an absurdproposi-
tion," writes Kurtz, quoted by Fleming, "that
an-
gels Who, in their state of holiness, desire to loolé
into the deepest mystery of grace
on earth (I
Peter I. 12), should, in their apostasy from holi-
ness, have desired to look into the deepest mystery
of nature on earth; and, transgressing the limits
of their own nature, participate in that mystery
themselves."
,

-----

YI
"SONS OF GOD" MARRYING THE
"DAUGHTERS OF MEN"
I
N the preceding chapter
we have
seen that
Spiritism in one of its forms was directly re-
sponsible for the Hood.
The "sons of God"
who took to themselves wives of "the daughters
of men"
(Genesis VI), were evil angels, who en-
tered upon that intercourse the oiispring of which
were
the "Nephilim,"
"the
fallen
ones,"
the
mighty heroes of antiquity.
These in their turn,
presumably, furnished the ground for the stories
of the loves of the gods and demigods of classic
lore.
The proof of this being presented,
as well
as
its corroboration by the ancient Jewish synagogue
and the early Christian writers, it remains to more
fully consider objections raised against it
on the
ground of the
nature of angels
as well
as the
teaching of our Lord in Matthew XXII. 30.
It is said for example, that
an angel is alto-
57

-----

58
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
gether spiritual and immaterial, and hence such
implied intercourse is impossible.
To this it might only be necessary to reply,
.(I)
Even if it were true, even if the angelic
nature
were such, it could not change the
fact
stated in the text, that "the
sons of God"
took
to themselves wives of "the daughters of men,"
the ofispring of which were
as described.
Nor
could it change the fact that "sons of God"
is
a
phrase everywhere in the Old Testament used of
angels, and not men.
That is to say, faith does not wait to leam the
possibility of
a thing before it believes it.
It
believes it on the evidence presented, assuming its
possibility until the opposite has been shown.
In this case, however, "impossibility
never can
be shown until
an exhaustive knowledge is pos-
sessed of all that is possible to angels in the line
of sinful degeneracy within the powers bestowed
upon them at creation." (Kurtz, quoted by Flem-
ins, P. 89~)
(2) This leads to the remark that no one is
qualified to say just what the angelic nature may
be, because
no one really knows.
On the other
hand, the implications are against the spiritual and
immaterial idea
as shown in
our former chap-
ters dealing with Satan, angels and demons.
An-
gels have appeared to men in human form, and
have been taken for men, and have partaken of
food like human beings.
_.nl

-----

"Sons of God"
59
It may be said that these were instances where
God wrought miracles to produce the phenomenon,
and hence that they fumish no standard for judg-
ing of what angels in rebellion might do.
But what right have we to suppose ia miracle?
The Bible being silent on the question of
a mir-
acle in such instances, why should we introduce it?
Especially, why should we do so when we know
that the working of miracles on God's part is re-
served for great emergencies?
Moreover, angels themselves may work mir-
acles, as we have already seen.
What about Sa-
tan's assumption of the body of a serpent in Eden?
What about the magicians withstanding Moses in
Egypt?
What about the beast with the two homs
in the book of Revelation (XIII,
1141 5),
and
"the spirits of demons working miracles which go
forth unto thekings of the whole world to gather
them to the battle of that great day of God A1-
mighty?"
(Rev. XVI, 13, 14.)
Angels do not possess power to create something
out of nothing, which is alone the prerogative of
God, but they may be able so to combine existing
elements as to form_ for themselves bodies similar
to the human.
(3) It may be questioned whether there is any
being in the universe who is simply spiritual and
immaterial, except the Infinite Himself, Who is
above and beyond all time and space.
Isaac Tay-
lor in his Physical Theory of Another Life, takes
L

-----

60
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
the position that the idea of an absolutely incor-
poreal being is irreconcilable with that of a, finite
creature, because anything created can subsist and
work only within the limits of time and space,
and corporeality
confines
the
creature
to
such
limits.
It is God only Who exists above and be-
yond these limits.
'
In other words,
an embodied
state of
some
kind is indispensable to a finite mind, whose fac-
ulties
can not otherwise
come into play or pro-
duce effects.
(4)
As Fleming reminds us, should all these
views still be unsatisfactory, there remains
the
fact that human bodies have been possessed by
evil spirits, which may have been the
case here.
Through the medium of such bodies thus
pos-
sessed, "the
sons of God"
may have had the in-
tercourse referred to.
_
Indeed this has been the opinion of
some of
the older commentators, and is suggested as early
as the Clementine Homilies (Hom. IX).
It is
a very simple, and yet suflicient, solution of the
difhculty, for we
are taught in the Gospels that
the powers and faculties of the human being thus
possessed were completely controlled, intensified
and directed by the demon, or else that the two na-
tures, in some incomprehensible manner were inter-
fused and the weaker overbome by the stronger#
The remarkable physical proportions, the super-
human strength and the evil disposition of the

-----

"Sons of God"
61
Nephilim would be the natural eliects of such
a
power imparted to human beings by fallen spirits.
Nor would such possession necessarily involve the
suffering of physical and mental evils
to which
demoniacs of
the
Gospels
were
subjected,
for
Satan can transform himself into an angel of light,
and no doubt his emissaries would conduct them-
selves in a way to accomplish the object they had
in view.
(The Fallen Angels, p. 95.)
(5)
One
more supposition is still to be
con-
sidered, namely, that "the
sons of God"
in their
spiritual natufe, or at the most in some kind of
subtle, ethereal body, or with the appearance of
a human body, might in
some incomprehensible
way ellect what the text in Genesis declares to
have been the fact.
Augustine
in
the City of
God, book 15, thinks this possible; and
so also
does Dr. Henry More,
an English divine
and
philosopher of the seventeenth century (Mystery
of Godliness, book III,
C. 18),
and the Rev.
Theo. Campbell in the Irish Ecclesiastical Ga-
zette, 1867, all quoted by Fleming.
Of course this involves diiliculties of its own,
and is not presented as a solution, but merely as
a supposition worthy of consideration. Those who
wish to consider it further will find a good deal
of information in a book easily accessible, known
as Earth's
Earliest Ages, by G. H. Pember, pp.
205-213, 375-391, edition of 1885, Armstrong,
New York.

-----

62
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
We quote a paragraph or two from this work:
"Spiritualists
teach that all will marry in the
next world, if they do not in this; and that true
marriage lasts through etemity.
The natural in-
ference is that the true spouses of some are already
in the spirit-land.
And to such an extent is this
inference followed out that many are reported to
be receiving visits and communications from those
spiritual beings with whom they are to be united
forever.
The ceremonious marriage of a woman
to a demon is a thing not unknown in the United
States."
He mentions a book called "An Angel's
Mes-
sage," claiming to be communications from a spirit
to an English lady, his destined bride for eternity.
The demon-lover describes himself
as the spirit
of a man of deep religious feeling, who, during
his sojourn in the flesh was accustomed to visit
the house of the lady's
father, though
at that
time he found no attraction in her.
In the course
of years he died,
as did also the mother of the
lady.
Soon after the decease of the latter her
daughter began to receive communications under-
stood to come from the mother, in the course of
fivhich the demon-lover is introduced, and there-
after inspires the medium, (i.e., the lady in the
case) himself.
It is she who, under his inspira-
tion and control now pens the following:
"She who writes these lines is my wife more
than may be thought possible by those who have

-----

'
"Sons of God
"
63
not had a similar state opened in themselves.
She
is not so as to her natural body, but she is soas to
her spiritual body.
For 'there
is a natural body,
and there is a spiritual body.'
The one is within
the other as a kernel within a shell.
"But this state can come to the outward percep-
tion of those only who
are open to spirit-inter-
course.
No others can perceive, during their life
in the world of nature, that which belongs to the
spirit alone.
This state constitutes mediumship;
for she who is mine is not only a writing medium,
but she is also susceptible of very palpable im-
pressions of my presence with her.
We are one;
and she has received the assurance of that truth
by other means than the merely being told so in
these writings."
There is much more to the
same eiiect; but
that which we have quoted is suflicient to unveil
the danger which may be threatening many.
ll
It remains to speak of
our Lord's
words in
Matthew XXII, 30, and the parallels, where in
rebuking the Sadducees, He says:
"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of
God.
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are the angels of God in heaven."
Two ways of meeting this objection in harmony

-----

64
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
with the foregoing have been suggested.
One is,
to say that Christ is speaking of the holy angels
only, from which no inference is to be drawn as to
that of which the same beings might be capable if
fallen from their original state.
,
The other is, that He is stressing the word
"heaven",
meaning that they do
not marry
in
heaven, but saying nothing as to what they might
do under other circumstances or in a dillerent en-
vironment.
The first is the view of Kurtz the
theologian,
and the second that of Nagelsbach,
the commentator, in the Lange series.
But is either hypothesis a necessity?
It is true
that angels always appear in the Bible
as mascu-
line, never feminine, the former being the gender
used of beings in whom 'sexual distinctions do not
exist; but is it inconceivable that the
germ of
such distinction may be latent in their nature?
Man, for example, was not created to sin, and
yet he had in his constitution the capability of
sinning, a capability which came into operation in
his departing from the ordinance of the Creator.
In like manner it is thought, the germ spoken of
as
a possibility in the angelic nature might be
unfolded as a result of wilful departure from the
original condition of existence,
and the sinking
to
a lower and unnatural state in apostasy from
God.
Our author quotes Paradise Lost, Book I, where
Milton names the chiefs of the fallen angels after

-----

"Sons of God"
65
the idols of the Canaanites and others, and of
some he says, they bore the names
"Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,
These feminine, for spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure."
Finally, following Kurtz again, there is an an-
alogy
seen in the resurrection life of
man.
In
this world he has the distinction of sex, but in
that which is beyond, i.e., in heaven, he will neither
marry nor be given in marriage, but in that re-
spect be equal to the angels.
"Therefore, is it unlawful to infer that, in the
event of the angels falling, by their own wilful act,
from the higher to the lower sphere of existence,
a degradation of their nature, analogous to the ele-
vation in the other case, may take place, and that
thus might be developed that power which be-
longed to the lower grade, but of which the prin-
ciple always existed in the upper?"

-----

VII
ABOMINATIONS OF THE CANAANITES
I
N introducing the theme of this chapter we
return for the moment to Genesis VI, 4, which
was under consideration in the two immediate-
ly preceding.
That verse read,
'
"There
were giants in the earth in those days; and also
after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters
of men, and they bare children to them, -the _same became
mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
We have seen that "giants"
is in the Hebrew,
"Nephilim," which
means the "fallen
ones,"
or
the "fallen angels," identifying them, as we think
correctly, with the "sons" of God."
Others indeed
would identify them with the "mighty men," the
"men of renown"
also mentioned in the verse as
the offspring of the marriages of the "sons
of~
God" with the "daughters of men."
But for our
present purpose it is not essential which applica-
66

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
67
tion is made
as we
are chiefly interested in the
phrase, "and also, after that."
Some would limit this phrase to the antediluv-
ian age, and interpret it
as meaning that after
the first irruption of the fallen angels and the
warning of God concerning it, others also occur-
red with like results during the
120 years of re-
spite, until it repented the Lord that He had
made 'man on the earth and He determined to
destroy him.
Others, however, would say that it had a post-
diluvian application, and that the word and the
fact for which it stands come to light again in the
history of the Canaanities whom Israel dispos-
sessed,
as illustrated in Numbers XIII, 33.
At
that chapter and verse some of the spies whom
Moses dispatched to bring a report of the land
returned with the story that all the people were
men of great stature; "and there we saw the giants
(Nephilim)
the
sons of Anak, which
come of
the giants (Nephilim); and we were in our own
sight
as grasshoppers, and
so we were in their
sight."
.
In this instance the same word seems to be used
for the "fallen ones"
and their offspring both of
which were "giants"
or "nephilim";
and the cir-
cumstance of their presence in that land seems to
account for God's
command to extirpate the Ca-
naanites much as the greater judgment had fallen
upon the whole race at the flood.

-----

68
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
II
The above, however, is merely introductory to
a consideration of the general teaching of 'the
Old Testament on the subject of Spiritism and its
related phenomena following the flood.
To quote the author of The Vital Choice: En-
dor or Calvary, "the existence of mediumséindi-
viduals who, having discovered that they had cer-
tain gifts, made a practice of communicating with
the spirit world-is taken for granted in the Bible,
where they
are referred to
as wizards, witches,
necromancers, etc.
The details of their methods
are not given to any extent, but what we do know
about them leads us to suppose that, with the pos-
sible exception of automatic writing, there is no
material difference in their methods from those
now in vogue."
'
Indeed, even this excepton may be unnecessary.
For example, a certain class of the magicians both
in Egypt and Babylon
were known
as "sacred
scribes"
(Genesis XLI, 8, margin), the root He-
brew word meaning a "style"
or pen, and signify-
ing those members of the priestly
caste whose
magic was somewhat concerned with writing.
Pember thinks they may have been identical with
the writing mediums of our day, whom he speaks
of as divided into five classes:
_( I)
Those whose passive hand is moved by the

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
69
spirit
without
any
mental
volition
of
their
own;
-
(2)
Those into whose mind each word is sep-
arately insinuated at the moment of its inscrip-
tion;
(3)
Those who write from the dictation of
spirit-voices ;
(4)
Those who copy words and sentences pro-
jected before them in letters of light; and
(5) Those in whose presence spirit-hands, visi-
ble, or invisible, take up the pen and write the
words.
Of course the attitude of the Bible, or rather
the attitude of God, for the Bible is the revelation
of His mind and will, is that of absolute and un-
sparing condemnation of all these things, not only
because the glory of His Name is involved, but
also the highest and eternal welfare of the race
which He has created and redeemed.
A few illustrations of this attitude are given:
Take for example, the command at Sinai, "Thou
shalt not suffer
a witch to live"
(Exodus XXII.
18).
This can not be concerned with mere super-
stition or deception, there must be reality behind
it, real and wilful fellowship with the powers of
evil, or such a penalty would not follow.
And this suggestion is strengthened by the repe-
tition of the command in Leviticus (XX. 27) "A
man also, or a woman, that hath a familar spirit,
or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death;

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70
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall
be upon them."
'
The Hebrew word for "familiar spirit" is pro-
nounced "ob"
or "ohv",
and means the same
as
"necromancer",
one who professes to talk with the
dead or with Satan.
This shows conclusively that
the inhabitation of any one with
an "ohv"
must
have been the result of voluntary acquiescence,
since God would not thus punish that which was
involuntary.
"Wizard"
is a different word, but its significance
is not essentially dissimilar, viz., a knowing person,
one instructed in the art of holding intercourse
with demons.
It may be of interest to explain that the word
"ohv" originally signified a skin bottle, i.e., a skin
filled with wine, and hence inflated and tumid.
This tumidity being a characteristic of those in
whom a demon or an "ohv"
dwelt, the word came
to be applied both to the person thus afiected and
to the spirit that caused it.
Parkhurst, in his He-
brew and Chaldee Lexicon, quotes
a passage in
Virgil which
describes the swollen and altered
form of the Pythoness or demon~possessed woman,
and adds, "this shows what the heathen meant in
speaking of their diviners being pleni deo, full of
the god."
III
We now come to the remarkable passage in the

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
71
eighteenth of Deuteronomy which gives the title to
this chapter.
It is part of Moses'
farewell to
Israel before his departure out of this life, and
just prior to their entrance upon Canaan, under
Joshua:
"VVhen thou art
come into the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee, thou shalt not leam to do after the abom-
inations of those nations.
There shall not be found among
you any
one that maketh his
son
or his daughter to
pass
through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of
times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
Or charmer, or a consulter
with familiar spirits or a wizard, or a necromancer."
I. Let us study the meaning 'of these terms:
Passing "through
the fire" has been taken by
some to mean the worship of Moloch referred to
in Leviticus XVIII.
21.
Moloch was
a god of
the Phenicians, whose worship embraced human
sacrifice of the most terrible nature, for example,
the passing of live infants through the folded arms
of the image heated to a white heat.
But that application in the present case is now
considered incorrect, and it is thought that the
words really mean "a sort of purification by fire,
or, a fire baptism, by which the worshippers were
consecrated to the god, and supposed to be freed
from the fear of
a violent death."
It
was
a
kind of chami or spell, and hence classed here with
sorcery or witchcraft.
Occasion has been taken in the earlier chap-
ters to warn readers against playing with the sem-
;

-----

72
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
blance of these wicked things because of their
subtle and alluring power, and another occasion
oliers itself at this point.
It is suggested in
a.
'footnote of Pember's,
Earth's
Earliest Ages (p.
258), where he afiirms that this practice is still
kept up in parts of Christendom by the midsum-
mer fires of St. ]ohn's
eve.
He quotes a Wesleyan
minister as saying that, at Midsummer, on many
of the hills of Herefordshire, England, fires were
burning, while the peasantry danced around them;
and the ceremony was not completed until some of
the
young
people
had
passed
"through
the
fire."
A second command is against using "divination",
which the Revised Version renders "practising aug-
ury."
This, however, does not clear up the mean-
ing of the word very much, since "augury"
is de-
fined as the art of foretelling by signs or omens,
a species of modern fortune-telling in which alas!
not a few professing Christians are guilty of in-
dulging.
"An observer of times."
The English render-
ing of this would indicate a diviner by the clouds,
but the Hebrew simply suggests such observation
as requires the use of the eye in minute inspection,
and might apply to the entrails of victims.
Pem-
ber however finds in it the meaning of a fascinator
with the eyes, or in modern language, a mesmerist,
one who throws another into a magnetic sleep and
obtains oracular sayings from him.

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
73
"Enchanter"
is
not regarded
as
an
accurate
translation of the Hebrew, which simply seems to
denote quick observation of some kind, either of
the eye or ear, and then of divining.
The ob-
servation may be that of the singing or the flight of
birds or other aerial phenomena.
"Witch"
or "wizard"
is translated elsewhere
"sorcerer",
and means "to pray", but its applica-
tion shows that the prayer is directed to false gods
or demons.
"Charmer",
"consulter
with 'familiar spirits",
"wizard", "necromancer",
are the words used in
verse 11, on which Benjamin Wills Newton, an-
other
English
author,
remarks:
"Comparing
verse II with verse Io, the last-named treats of
those kinds of divination in which demons
are
not immediately addressed, but consulted by the
intervention of signs or enchantments, while verse
II implies a more direct appeal to evil spirits."
Thus the first word "charmer", literally means
to bind or join together, and applies to one who
by incantations and invocations seeks to bring de-
mons into association with himself.
Some séances
are opened with the chanting or singing of hymns
for this object, which leads Mr. Newton to say,
very properly, "let
no
one who sings hymns
_in
spiritualistic seances and thus invokes demons ever
dare to sing unto God, for he is not a worshipper
of God, but of Satan."
The remainder of the words in this verse
so
'I

-----

74
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
approximate the others in meaning as to make it
unnecessary to enlarge upon them.
IV
II. Let us give attention to the command and
the warning that follow the terms used:
"For all that do these things are an abomination unto the
Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God
doth drive them out from before thee.
"Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.
"For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto
observers of times, and unto ldiviners; but
as for thee, the
Lord thy God hath not suEered thee so to do."
An "abomination"
is that which God detests,
and which He must cast away or separate from
Himself.
just what this meant in the mundane
sphere, to the nation of the Canaanites, is revealed
in the book of Ioshua.
But what it meant to
them as individuals in the life to come, if unre-
pentant, who can appreciate or describe?
But if these things
were
an abomination
in
God's sight then, must they not be an abomination
still?
Has there been any change in His nature or
in their nature?
If He detested and cast them
away from Himself then, must He not detest and
cast them away from Himself now?
In other words, how can the Spiritist, and his
kind, expect God's
favor either in this world or
that which is to come?
Insanity multiplying as
f
/

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
75
one of the results of this unholy intercourse is
only symptomatic after all.
A casting away from
God goes deeper and farther than that.
"Thou
shalt
be perfect with
the Lord thy
God."
Perfect"
in the margin reads, "upright
or sincere."
God is addressing only His chosen
people,
those
whom
He
had
redeemed
from
Egypt, and who, amid the thunders and lightnings
of Sinai had avowed, "All
that the Lord hath
spoken we will do" (Exodus XIX. 8).
To be "upright
or sincere"
meant that they
should keep that vow, and to keep it was incom-
patible with the worship and service of demons.
Worship and service is something more than
a
ceremonial or a prayer.
It implies trust, submis-
sion, obedience.
They who seek unto wizards, and
necromancers and diviners, do so for counsel and
advice, and for information concerning the
un-
known which iniluences both character and
con-
duct.
In other words, it begets trust and confi-
dence in, and commands submission and obedience
to the false gods represented by those unhappy
beings.
No wonder it should be written, "As for thee,
the Lord thy God hath not suliered thee so to do."
Israel might so do, but they must suffer for it.
If
not in all respects as the Canaanites suffered who
were not His chosen, yet so as to lead them to "see
it to be an evil thing and
a bitter that thou hast
forsaken the Lord thy God"
(Jeremiah II. 19).

-----

76
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
v
III. The command and the warning is followed
by a promise:
"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from
the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye
shall hearken;
"According
to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God
in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear
again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this
great fire any more, that I die not.
"And
the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that
which they have spoken.
I will raise them up a Prophet from
among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words
in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall
command him.
"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require
it of him."
When the law was given Israel at Horeb, by
an audible voice,
so terrible
was the sight that
even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake,"
and the people "entreated that the word should
not be spoken to them any more" (Heb. XII. 19).
"Go thou near,"
said they to Moses, "and
hear
all that the Lord our God shall say; and speak
thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak
unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it"
(Deu-
teronomy V. 27).
God took them at their word, and graciously ap-
pointed Moses to be their mediator;
And now

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
77
that he was about to be taken from them ere they
crossed the Jordan, a successor had already been
announced.
Joshua
was the prophet from the
midst of them like unto Moses whom God had
raised
up,
and
unto
whom
they
were
to
hearken.
They need not fear to follow Joshua just
as
they had followed Moses, and the secret of their
continued
blessing,
victory
and prosperity
de-
pended on their obeying the one
as they had the
other.
Whoso would not hearken unto Joshua's
words
as
unto Moses,
words which would
be
put "in his mouth" by God, and which he would
speak
in His Name,
it would
be required of
him.
Manifestly, Joshua was but the type of all the
other prophets and commanders of the people who
should follow him, and whom God sent to Israel
in the later days, "rising
up early and sending
them,"
as is so often repeated in the language of
Jeremiah,
and
to whom, alas! they would
not
listen.
But very especially is Joshua the type of Christ
as the New Testament so definitely declares (John
I. 17; Acts III. 19-26).
And it is this last-men-
tioned fact that brings the command and the warn-
ing, as well as the promise, up to date.
Here God
brings us face to face with His Son in whose mouth
His words are, and concerning whom it comes to
us with cumulative force that God will require it

-----

78
Spiritism and the Fallen 'Angels
of any one who fails to listen to and obey what He
says.
But it must not be supposed that Christ's words
are limited to the few He spake while present with
us in the flesh.
Christ is God.
The _Iesus of the
New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testa-
ment.
The Incamate Word is the inspirer of the
written word.
Peter tells
us distinctly that the
prophets who spake of the grace that should come
unto us, searched "what,
or what manner of time,
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify
when He testified beforehand"
(1
Peter I.
10,
11).
'
Christ's words are the words of the whole Bible,
and it is to them we must hearken, and them that
we must obey.
How clear, and rich and comfortable they are,
satisfying every human need, every yeaming and
every aspiration!
Is it a question of guidance in
our daily walk?
Is it the supply of our common
needs, what we shall eat and drink, and our body,
"what
we shall put on"?
Are
we longing for
solace and fellowship in sorrow?
Are we peering
into the darkness for some trace of departed foot-
steps, straining our ears for some echo of voices
that seem forever lost?
This is the answer to our need:
"In nothing
be anxious; but in everything by prayer and sup-
plication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known unto God.
And the peace of God,

-----

Abominations of the Canaanites
79
which passeth all understanding, shall guard your
hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."
(Phil-
ippians IV. 6, 7.
R.V.)

-----

VIII
SPIRITISM IN ISRAEL AND IUDAH
'
1
N previous chapters it has been said that the
spiritistic medium
does
not bring back the
dead, but that the "familiar spirit" who con:
trols the medium appears able to personate the
dead.
Satan knows very much,
some would say
he knows all, about the life of every human being,
for he ever goes "about seeking whom he may
devour."
At least information could be procured
with lightning speed from the demons which had
watched the life of the person invoked, and then
communicated to the "control"
in any given case.
But while we say that the dead do not
come
back, it is known to readers of the Bible that some
apparent exceptions must be made.
Take the case
of the transfiguration of Christ, when "Behold,
two men talked with him, which were Moses and
Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his de-
cease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem"
'(Luke IX. 30, 31).
Take the crucifixion, when "the
graves were
So
`

-----

Spiritism in Israel and Judah
81
opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept
arose, and came out of the graves after his resur-
rection, and went into the holy city and appeared
unto many" (Matt. XXVII. 52, 53).
And then there were Lazarus and the
son of
the widow of Nain, but these are instances of the
raising of the dead where there was a second oc-
currence of death.
In the others the dead saints
appeared only for a little while and then immedi-
ately vanished, not appearing again.
With the exception of Samuel of whose
case
this chapter treats, there is no similar record of
the dead returning to this world.
And in no case
except his, did the dead speak to or in any other
way communicate with the living.
Moses and Elijah spake with Christ but did not
speak to the disciples.
The saints rising at His
resurrection was a special testimony to that fact.
As another expresses it, "When Christ died, the
graves were opened to show that there was power
in His death to open the graves of believers; and
when three days later, He arose, they arose with
Him to show that there was power in His resur-
rection to bring them forth."
They appeared unto many, but
so far
as we
know they did not speak to a single person.
II
Samuel's
case is unique.
Saul, the king of Is-

-----

82
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
rael at the time, had professedly put the necro-
mancers out of Israel at the Divine command, be-
ing urgedto do it doubtless, by Samuel himself.
But now the glittering helms and spears of an
invading army surrounded him,
and his heart
trembled with gloomy forebodings.
The Spirit
of the Lord no longer came upon him, and the
phantoms of past sins floated continually before his
eyes taking away rest and all steadfastness of pur-
pose.
Samuel who had so long bome with and
entreated for him was dead.
He tried to pray, but
iniquity was in his heart and the Lord would not
hear him.
He was answered no more neither by
dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the prophets.
No
voice answered to his despairing cry.
Then he yielded to the evil thought, and per~
haps stifling his conscience with the plea that it was
a prophet of the Lord with whom he would con-
verse, he appeals to the powers of darkness.
'He asks his companions "if they knew of any
surviving dealer with demons."
Yes, they know
of one, proof doubtless, that they had been in
the habit of consulting her themselves, and in the
shelter of the night Saul goes forth with
two
of them to a slope of Mount Hermon.
Entering into the cavern, dimly lighted by
a
fire of wood, and addressing the medium, he says:
"I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit,
and bring me him up whom I shall name unto
thee."

-----

Spiritism in Israel and Judah
83
The medium, suspicious at first, is re-assured by
an oath that no harm would befall her, and being
requested to call up Samuel commenced her prepar-
ations.
'
But the usual procedure is cut short by a sudden
interference, and the medium`is affrighted by her
discovery,
communicated
through
the
familiar
spirit no doubt, that her inquirer is the king; and
still more alirighted by the apparition of a being
with whom she had neither part nor lot.
The ex-
planation of this last remark is that the real Samuel
had appeared instead of the personation which the
medium had expected, the real Samuel, whom God,
in wrath, had sent up
as the bearer of a fearful
message of doomto the wicked king (1 Samuel
XXVIII).*
The rest of the story we need not follow.
The
words of Samuel, the despair of Saul, his return
to camp, his suicidal death the next day, and very
especially the declaration in
1 Chron. X. 13, that
he "died for his transgression which he committed
against the Lord,
*
*
*
and for asking coun-
sel of one that had a familiar spirit to inquire
of it."
The view of Pember, thus quoted, that it was
indeed the real Samuel who came up, and not a
personated Samuel, is that of the present writer
*Pember's,
Earth's Earliest Ages.
°

-----

84
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
also, (Synthetic Studies page, 43, Christian Work-
er's Commentary, page 166).
But it is necessary to emphasize the point that
it was not the witch of Endor who brought up
Samuel.
Matters got out of her hands apparently,
as indicated in her
screams.
God brought
up
Samuel, and the fact that Saul saw and spoke di-
rectly to him is another feature which is uncom-
mon in Spiritistic lore.
The incident, therefore, is a special one, and af-
'fords no evidence as to the genuineness of other
communications purporting
to
come from indi-
viduals who have left this world.
It is no proof
whatever that the spirit of any particular indi-
vidual can be summoned by a medium or 'control',
or that the spirits which respond are those of the
individuals they purport to be. (The Vital Choice:
Endor or Calvary.)
And yet it is only right to say that there is an-
other view to be taken of this transaction.
It is
one that gives no more comfort, perhaps not even
as much, to the votaries of Spiritism, and would
not be mentioned here at all, except as
a matter
of additional interest.
-
The Rev. William H. Clagett in his brochure,
"Modern Spiritualism Exposed,"
presents it cog-
ently in speaking of the
occurrence
as the lirst
séance of which the world has any record.
That record plainly shows, he says, that this
spirit was not Samuel's.
He thinks it came from

-----

Spiritism in Israel and Judah
85
the wrong direction, "up"
not down.
Again the
spirit says, "Why hast thou disquieted me P"
He
does not think that any of God's
servants could
be disquieted by a witch.
Still further, the spirit
says, "'I`omorrow, thou shalt be with me."
Samuel
was a saved man, Saul a lost man, and between
the two a great impassable gulf was fixed.
How
could Saul be with Samuel?
Furthermore, Dr. Clagett believes that if this
spirit had been Samuel he would have told Saul to
repent and call upon God, instead of which he
makes an argument to drive Saul to despair, de-
claring that God had departed from him and be-
come his enemy, and that he would be defeated
and slain, etc.
Notwithstanding what Dr. Clagett says how.
ever, and though there are others who agree with
him, the simple reading of the record impresses
one that the real Samuel is before us.
An answer to one of Dr. Clagett's objections,
and the most serious one, is ready.
The jews re-
garded the place of the dead as composed of two
realms,
one for the righteous and
one for the
unrighteous.
Tomorrow Saul might have been
with Samuel in that he was in the realm of the
dead, and yet not with him in the sense that he
was in the company of the righteous dead.
_
Yet omitting this particular factor, we have here
indeed, as Dr. Clagett says, a picture of modem
Spiritism
drawn by
the
finger of
God
three

-----

86
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
thousand years ago.
The whole thing is laid bare
before us, the medium and her character, the sup-
posed "control", the circle, Saul and two men with
him, the time, night, the claim, "whom
shall I
bring up ?", the supposed materialization, and the
same arrangement of things in the house, and the
same vagueness and uncanniness about the whole
proceeding.
After the period of Saul little is said of Spirit-
ism in Israel until we reach the defection of Baal-
worship in the time of King Ahab and the prophet
Elijah
(1
Kings XVII-XIX) ; where
the
sup-
position is a reasonable one that the false prophets
were mediums inspired by the agents of Satan.
For this cause, let the reader be duly impressed
with the awful story in I Kings XXII, especially
verses zo-23, where a lying spirit is permitted, in
Divine judgment, to seduce the king so that he is
led away to a disgraceful death.
Later comes the story of Naaman the leper (2
Kings V), who was indignant because God's
serv-
ant Elisha did not "wave his hand over the place
and recover the leper."
Was he thinking of the
mesmeric healing of the pagan priests?
If so, it
enables us to appreciate why Elisha bade him in-
stead, to go "wash in Jordan seven times and thy
flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be
clean."

-----

Spiritism in Israel and Judah
87
These are instances of the coupling of sorcery
and idolatry in the history of the ten tribes, but
the same is found in Judah too.
Was it in Jotham
or
Ahaz'
day,
that
Israel
cried
to
Jehovah:
"Therefore Thou hast forsaken Thy people, the
house of Jacob, because they be replenished from
the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines"
(II. 6) ?
When
a century afterwards, Manasseh is
on
the throne, "he did that which was evil in the sight
of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen
whom the Lord cast out before the children of
Israel.
*
*
*
And he made his son to pass
through the fire, and observed times, and used
enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and
wizards" (2 Kings XXI).
In consequence of these practices there follows
a fearful prophecy of woe.
Such evil would be
brought on Jerusalem and Judah as would cause
the ears of him that heard of it to tingle.
The
city would be wiped "as
a man wipeth a dish, wip-
ing it and turning it upside down."
Moreover
Manasseh himself
was permitted of God to be
taken in chains by the king of Assyria and carried
to Babylon.
Happily however, Manasseh offers
an
answer
to the question
as to whether it is ever possible
for a soul entangled in Spiritism to be delivered
and restored, for we read in 2 Chronicles XXIII.
12, 13, that when he was in allliction he besought
¢

-----

88
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly
before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto
Him.
As
a result he was heard of Him Who
brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom.
"Then
Manasseh knew that the Lord He
was
&d
if
Manasseh's
godly successor, Josiah, put away
the abominations and removed the mediums from
Judah, but they
soon
were permitted to _return
alasl
as we judge by ]eremiah's
denunciation of
them up to the very moment almost of the Baby-
Ionian captivity.
"Hearken not ye to your prophets," he exclaims,
"nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor
to your mesmerizers, nor to your enchanters, which
speak unto you, saying, ye shall not serve the king
of Babylon.
For they prophesy
a lie unto you,
to
remove you far from your land, and that I
should
drive
you
out,
and
ye
should perish"
(XXVII. 9, xo).
The _Iews leamed many things as the result of
their Babylonian captivity, but one thing they did
not learn, and that was to put the false prophets
and the diviners away from them forever.
We
are assured of this because of the warnings they
receive in the post-captivity prophets.
It is clear also from the same source, that Spirit-
ism will prevail among them when they return in
unbelief to their own land in the day that is yet
ahead.
But when their King comes a second time

-----

Spiritism in Israel and Judah
89
to Zion then will He turn ungodliness away from
Jacob, and they shall be freed forever from its
curse.
"It
shall come to pass in that day, saith
the Lord of hosts, that I will cut oil the name of
the idols out of the land, and they shall no more
be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets
and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land"
(Zechariah XIII. 2).
'

-----

IX
EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE_
'
BLACK ART
I
.
O far as the Gospels are concerned, perhaps
as much has been said already as our pres-
ent treatment of the subject will permit.
See
the preceding chapters
on "Satan-His
Origin,
History and Doom," and "Angels and Demons."
But there is much in the Acts and the Epistles, and
especially in the book of Revelation, that calls for
particular attention.
Conybeare and Howson, and more recently, Sir
William Ramsay* are good authority for saying
that a marked fact in the society of paganism dur-
ing the period covered by the Acts was the in-
lluence of magicians and soothsayers.
They were extraordinarily numerous the latter
tells us, there being but few cities in the Greeco-
*The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness
of the New Testament.
90
,

-----

Early Christianity
91
Roman world that did not possess several of them
who catered to a large part of ordinary society.
The more educated and thoughtful of the people
believed them to be disreputable and maleficent
and they warned young people against them, but
this only went to prove their belief in the power
they could exert.
And just as today, the people in those days re-
sorted to magicians in the hope of procuring what
they were unwilling to seek, or what they could not
obtain, through prayer and acts of
a purely re-
ligious character.
Religion was open and fair, but they preferred
darkness and secrecy.
Lovers sought charms or
the means of enslaving the minds and possessing
the persons of those they desired.
Others sought
the recovery of lost property, the cure of disease,
business success or any of the thousand and one
things that humanity covets.
"There
was a wide-
spread and deep-seated feeling in the pagan mind,
that the divine power was always ready and even
desirous to communicate its will to men," and that
the signs revealing that intention were visible all
about for those who had eyes to see, i.e., through
divination; or would be revealed to men through
prophecy, i.e.,
oracles located
at certain places
which were ever ready to serve in that capacity for
a given fee.
There was no class of opponents, Sir William
assures us, with whom the earliest Christian apos-
Q

-----

92
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
tles and missionaries were brought into collision
so frequently, and whose antagonism was
so ob-
stinate and determined as the magicians.
At Samaria,
at Paphos,
at Philippi,
and
re-
peatedly at Ephesus, wizards of various kinds meet
and are overcome by Peter and Paul.
They had
power, but the apostles are exhibited as always pos-
sessing more power.
C
A
Not that this is the only explanation of the at-
tention given to such matters by the inspired his-
torian, but rather is it for the purpose of refuting
an
accusation
commonly
brought
against
the
Christians.
The accusation
was that they also,
like the wizards and magicians,
were maleficent
and haters of the human race, practising secret
rites and abominable hidden crimes (I Peter II.
12) . "There is no presbyter of the Christians that
is not an astrologer,
a diviner and a professional
carer for people's
physical condition,"
is the tes-
timony of the supposed letter of Emperor Had-
rian to a Roman Consul, A.D. I 34.
We thus have a point of similarity with the way
in which spiritists of today compare their doings
and their beliefs with Christ and the Christians of
the first and second centuries.
As we have pre-
viously pointed out, they commit the blasphemy
of speaking of Christ as a Master Medium, and
allirm that the phenomena of the séances are not
different in origin, in character and in their objec-
tive from the marvels which Christians know to
L

-----

Early Christianity
93
have been wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit
at the hands of the first disciples.
Whereas the authorities of that day sought to
dishonor those marvels by reducing them to the
level of unlawful arts, so the practitioners of those
arts today are seeking to elevate them to the plane
of the holy and divine religion of _Iesus Christ.
II
As we come to consider the record of the Acts,
let the reader refresh his recollection by a perusal
of the text.
Take the story of Simon Magus for example,
VIII. 5-24.
Still following Ramsay who has an
original way of looking at the matter, it is to be
home in mind that Simon was not an impostor or
a quack, just as we have seen that some,
a very
few perhaps, of the modern mediums are not to
be so designated.
He possessed real power,
as
do some of these, though it may be of a diiierent
kind from that which he possessed.
The Samaritans said, "This
man is that power
of God, which is called Great" (R.V.).
"Power"
(Greek, dunamis)
was what the pagan devotees
worshipped as divine.
"Great"
also had a strong
religious
characteristic.
Hence
in
Simon they
thought they had "an epiphany of that Supreme
power of which even the rods themselves are only
partial embodiments."

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94
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
But Simon saw in Philip greater and dillerent
power from any that he possessed.
The powers of
this world always recognize the trllc power of
God (James II. 19).
Struck with astonishment
at the position and inlluence acquired by Philip, he
joined his company to leam more about it; and
on discovering through Peter and John that it was
to be procured and even passed on to others by
the laying on of hands, he would pay for it if it
could be bought.
As Ramsay carefully notes, in this first recorded
collision with a practiser of magic arts, the stress
is laid on his incapacity to understand the nature
and character of the Christian truth.
There is an
essential antagonism between him and it, just as
there is today between the exponents and the vot-
aries of revived Spiritism and they who are truly
witnessing for Jesus Christ.
We class Simon with
Spiritists, because "in such phenomena
as that of
Spiritism lay the powers of such magicians."
As a matter of fact not only is Simon's proposal
rejected by the Apostles, and with indignation and
contempt, but Simon himself is rejected.
And it was necessary thus to give strong expres-
sion to this antagonism on the first occasion, be-
cause of the analogy between certain phenomena
of the magician and those of Christianity on some
occasions.
Take the descent of the Holy Spirit
on the waiting and praying disciples, already men-
tioned, which took place on the day of Pentecost.

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Early Christianity
95
The Spiritists of today do not hesitate to class
that sacred scene with a modern spiritist séance-
the disciples together with one accord, the sound
of the rushing mighty wind filling the house, the
appearance of cloven tongues!
It is characteristic of Luke's method of correct-
ing this erroneous idea in the book of Acts, that
he does not do
so by obtruding any opinion_ or
judgment of his own, but simply by setting forth
the
acts and words of the heaven-endued
and
heaven-guided apostles, which speak for them-
selves.
Happy are we if, learned in the contents
of Holy Writ, we are able to do the same against
the spiritists of today, and thus, if it please God,
deliver
some who, without knowing it,
are like
Simon, "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond
of iniquity."
Ill
From the eighth chapter of the Acts, let the
reader pass if he will to the thirteenth and to the
story of "Elymas the Sorcerer."
Following further the author we have named,
here is the only
case in the New Testament in
which the natural antagonism between the Chris-
tian teacher and the magician is carried to a direct
conliict and trial of strength.
Bar-Jesus (Arabic,
Elymas) pits himself against Paul and forthwith
his strength is withered.
"The power of the Holy

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96
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Spirit, looking through the eyes of Paul, pierces
him to the soul and temporarily paralyses the ner-
vous system so far as vision is concerned";
or to
quote the inspired and less round-about language
of the Bible itself, "Immediately there fell on him
a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking
some one to lead him by the hand."
It is pertinent to observe that Sergius Paulus,
the Roman deputy
or pro-consul in this case, is
described as "a prudent man," i.e., a man of under-
standing.
His prudence and understanding were
exhibited surely, in calling for Barnabas and Saul
that he might_hear the Word of God; and after-
wards in judging that the results in the case of the
false prophet who withstood them, were suiiicient
to accredit the truth of their testimony.
"When
he saw what was done, he believed, being aston-
ished at the doctrine of the Lord."
Would to God that some of those now coming
under the power of the false teaching of mod-
ern Spiritism were governed by
a like prudence,
especially when we reilect that Paul, under the im-
pulse of the Spirit of God, rebuked this sorcerer
as one who was "full of all subtility and mischief,"
a "child of the devil," and an "enemy of all right-
eousness" who was perverting "the right way of
the Lord."
It intensifies the realism of this transaction to
know that Sir William Ramsay has been able to
identify this deputy by the
monuments of Asia

-----

Early Christianity
97
Minor, and also to corroborate in
a most fascin-
ating way the allusion to his conversion to the
Christian religion.
'
IV
Leaving the story of Bar~]esus we come to that
of the "damsel possessed with a spirit of divina-
tion" in Acts XVI.
A maid having "a spirit, a Python"
is the way
we find it in the margin of the Revised Version.
The King Iames'
Version is more of a comment
than
a translation,
and destroys the instruction
which the passage was intended to give.
That in-
struction is important as proving the supernatural
character of the influences that formed and guided
Paganism.
As Benjamin Wills Newton says in "Reflections
on the Character and Spread of Spiritualism," this
"damsel"
was what men now call
a medium,
an
intermediary between themselves and the powers
of darkness-a link connecting with hell whose
fires shall never be quenched (Mark IX. 43-48).
She had the spirit of "Pytho"
that guided the Del-
phic oracle, and that oracle was not human, but
superhuman and Satanic.
"This
authoritative connection of Spiritualism
with the ancient gods,"
says Pember, "is
of pe-
culiar importance at a time when Apollo, the god
of Delphi, is re-appearing as a mighty angelic ex-

-----

98
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
istence in poems which claim to be demoniacally
inspired."
It is thus in part, that A. T. Schofield, M.D.,
the London neurologist and author, describes this
scene:
"Look
at the setting of the story.
This was
the first entry of Christianity into Europe, the most
momentous event in its historyl
"Who
could discern the mighty importance of
the landing of these three obscure travellers? Only
two-God and the Prince of Darkness!
Mere
men were busy with weightier affairs-the gossip
of the
court
at Rome, the rising influence
of
Greece, and the like; and yet through the power
of the message of these three men both Empires
were soon to fall beneath th sway of the crucified
Nazarene!
The Prince of Darkness was an un-
seen witness of the whole occurrence, and his plans
were soon made.
"Probably the very next day, on their way to
the river, his emissary, suitably disguised
as
an
'angel of light'
met them, and gave the apostle a
most hearty and unexpected welcome.
She evi-
dently knew all about their arrival and their gos-
pel, and the part in the drama she had to play.
"Ancient Spiritism was too wise to seek to dis-
credit the Christian gospel, after the fashion of
the modern variety.
On the contrary, she lauded
it to the skies for days, declaring it to be 'the way
of salvation,'
and thus posed
as another and a

-----

Early Christianity
99
greater 'Lydia'-the
true and the false were side
by side.
And yet the apostle was not taken inl
(for the spiritual man 'discerneth
all things'
(1
Cor. II. 15).
"How diiierent in these timesl
Nowadays, if
the
name of God is but
so much
as heard at a
séance, even Christians feel it is all right. While,
if one of the 'soothsayers'
lauded the tenets of the
Christian faith after the fashion of this maid,
London would ring with the news the next day as
proof of the godliness of Modern Spiritisml
"It
is
written
that
the
apostle
was
'sore
troubled,'
and
no wonder, with this perplexing
masterpiece of the enemy, masquerading before
him and undeniably preaching day after day the
truth of Godl
"But 'in vain is the net spread in the sight of
any bird,'
and Paul, instructed by the Holy Spirit
and 'discerning
all things,'
like his Master before
him (Mark I. 25, 34), refused praise from the
unclean source.
He saw clearly the devil that 'pos-
sessed'
this pseudo-evangelist, and said to it, 'I
charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come
out of her.'
He never addressed one word to the
poor victim, but spoke to the real power within
her.
"Are
not these things written for our instruc-
tion?
And is there
one single soul who reads
these lines so blind as not to see the parallel, or so
deaf as not to hear the warning?"
,
gwssras,

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100
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Y
One more incident from the Acts will suice,
the story of the Diana worshippers at Ephesus,
recorded in the nineteenth chapter.
Ephesus
was renowned throughout the world
for the worship of Diana
and the practice of
magic.
Mysterious symbols engraved on the im-
age of the goddess were regarded as a charm when
pronounced, and their study was an elaborate sci-
ence taught in books numerous and costly.
This circumstance throws light on the peculiar
character of the miracles wrought by Paul in that
city, though we are not to suppose that the apostles
were always able to work miracles at will,
any
more than we know that their miracles were not
always the same.
Here he was in the face of magicians like Moses
and Aaron in Egypt, and it is expressly said that
his miracles were "special"
or extraordinary (Acts
XIX. II ).
A profound eliect was produced on those who
practised curious arts in the city, and especially
certain travelling exorcists who, influenced by what
they had seen and heard in Paul's work, and judg-
ing also by precedent in the
case of the Diana
worship, supposed that the Name of Jesus acted
as a charm, and attempted by such means to cast
out evil spirits as the Apostle had done.
"But He

-----

Early Christianity
101
to whom demons were subject and Who had given
to His servants power and authority over them
(Luke IX. 1) had shame and terror in store for
those who thus presumed to take His holy Name
in vain."
Among those who thus presumed, "were
seven
sons of one Sceva, a Jew," "and the man in whom
the evil spirit was, leaped on them
so that they
lled out of the house naked and wounded."
The news spread, and fear fell on the people
"and the Name of the Lord Iesus was magnified,"
by their confession of sin and the forsaking of
their evil ways, even to the extent in many cases
of the burning of their costly books whose loss
amounted to as much as ten thousand dollars of
our money.
"So mightily grew the Word of God and pre-
vailed" _(XIX. 20).

-----

X
TEACHING OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES
HE previous chapter showed us something
of the obstinate and determined antagonism
of the spiritists, the sorcerers and the ma-
gicians toward the Christian apostles.
But the
latter met it- by their inspired writings, as well as
by their spoken words and the wonders and signs
they wrought in the power of the Holy Spirit.
One of the first in the order of the books of the
New Testament and one of the best known of the
written words of Paul, is that in the tenth chapter
of his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he
says:
"The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to
demons and not to God; and I would not that ye should have
fellowship with demons.
p
~
"Ye
can not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of
demons; ye can not be partakers of the Lord's
table, and the
table of demons.
"Do
we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
Are we stronger
than He?"
I02

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
103
The actual existence of demons is here implied
if not positively stated, as well as their actual wor-
ship by the benighted pagans.
But what is more
to the point so far as Christian believers are con-
cerned,
is the temptation to aiiliate with such
worshippers,
an afhliation cutting off from
com-
munication with the true God.
And more than that, it not only
severs
com-
munion, but exposes believers to the divine chas-
tisement as implied in the words, "Do
we provoke
the Lord to jealousy?
Are we stronger than He ?"
That is, will we attempt to resist His will and
openly bring His honor into contempt?
The words denote the strong displeasure in con-
sequence of adulterous love.
The fiercest of all
human passions is used to illustrate the hatred of
God towards idolatry, and spiritist séances come
dangerously near idolatry.
There is a curious passage in the eleventh chap-
ter of the
same epistle which has puzzled
com-
mentators.
It is where Paul is instructing women
how to behave themselves in the assemblies of
worship:
"Neither
was the
man
created
for the woman; but the
woman for the man._
"For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head
bemuse of the angels."
One of the
commentators
consulted
in
the
preparation of this chapter, added, "for
some re-

-----

104
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
markable Oriental illustrations of the interpre».a~
tion that evil angels
are here meant,
see Dean
Stanley on this verse.'_'
An examination of Dean Stanley, with whose
commentary the present writer had not previously
been particularly
acquainted,
revealed
that
he
favored the view of Kurtz, Maitland, Fleming
and others as to the Angel interpretation of Gen-
esis VI. referred to in previous chapters; and that
he connected this admonition of Paul with the ex-
traordinary event there named.
His words, in part, follow, and are given some-
w-hat at length because of their bearing on what
has gone before:
"The apostle had dwelt on the necessity of this subordina-
-tion,
as shown in all the passages in the early chapters of
Genesis, where the relation of the sexes is described, viz. Gen.
1.26, ii. 18, 23, iii. 16.
"The mention of these passages may have carried
on his
thoughts to the next and only kindred passage in Gen. vi. 2, 4,
in which those relations
are described
as subverted by the
union of the daughters of men with the sons of God,-in the
version of the LXX. the angels.
"In this
case the
sense would be 'In
this subordination of
the woman to man, we find the reason of the custom, which,
in consequence of the sin of the angels, enjoins that the woman
ought not to part with the sign that she is subject, not to them,
but to her husband.
The authority of the husband is,
as it
were, enthroned visibly upon her head, in token that she belongs
to him alone, and that she' owes
no allegiance to
any
one
besides, not even to the angels who stand before the throne
of God.'
"The 'fall
of the angels'
thus spoken of is the same as that
indicated in Jude 6, 2 Pet. ii. 4, where the context shows that

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
105
the fall there intended is supposed to be at the time not of
the creation, but of the Deluge, not from pride but lust.
"It
is possible that, if the words 'on
account of the angels'
be so taken, the word 'power'
might be understood, not as the
sign of the husband's
power
over the woman, but
(in the
sense most agreeable to the usage of the word itself)
as the
sign of the power or dignity of the woman over herself, pro-
tecting her from the intrusion of spirits, whether good or evil.
In that case compare its use in vii. 37.
"Finally, we must ask why a train of argument, otherwise
simple, should be thus abruptly interrupted by allusions diiii-
cult in themselves, and rendered still more so by their
oon~
ciseness?
"The most natural explanation seems to be that he was led
by a train of association familiar to his readers, but lost to us.
Such is the allusion in 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6, 'Remember
ye not,
that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
And
now ye know what withholdeth,'
etc.
"An argument in their letter,
a conversation,
a custom to
which he had before alluded, would account not only for the
introduction of the passage, but for allusions which,
as ad~
dressed merely to a local or transitory occasion, might well
be couched in terms so obscure as to forbid in eEect, if not
in design, any certain or permanent inference from them for
future ages.
"The diiliculty of the text is, in fact, the safeguard against
its misuse."
This church to which it was necessary to say
so much about evil spirits, was one which, perhaps
more than any other, had abused the spiritual
gifts bestowed upon it by the Holy Spirit for the
propagation of the Gospel.
Hence the large place
given to spiritual gifts in this epistle, covering chp-
ters XII-XIV.
These chapters challenge the
most prayerful

-----

106
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
consideration in connection with our theme, touch-
ing as they do, the source of such gifts (XII. 4-6) ;
their nature (7-I I) ; their object and use (12-31) ;
the cause of their abuse (XIII. I-13) § the prefer-
ence among them, and why (XIV. I-25 ) S the man-
ner in which they
are
to be publicly exercised
(26-35) ; and indeed everything else required for
their wise and holy employment in the blessing
of men and the extension of the knowledge of the
true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
II
Galatians comes next in order after Corinthians
with its warning against idolatry and sorcery (V.
20) placing them alongside of adultery, fornica-
tion and all uncleanness in the catalogue of the
works of the ilesh.
"ldolatry is the open recog-
nition of false gods,"
says Lightfoot, "and
sor-
cery the secret tampering with the powers of evil."
They are like the two halves of one whole.
"They
which do (practice R.V.) such things," the apostle
admonishes, "shall
not inherit the Kingdom of
God" (zx 
It is not said, "they that do such things daily,"
'for even though one docs any such thing even only
once, voluntarily, he forfeits the the kingdom of
God as long as he remains under the dominion of
that work of the flesh.-Starke.

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
1l)7
A plainer and more fearful notice of danger to
the necromancers of the present day it would be
impossible to put into words.
_
III
Paul's
letter to the Ephesians follows with
a
revelation of the conllict in which Christian believ-
ers
are engaged in this matter, together with
a
description of the protection to be taken and the
weapon to be used for victory and the assurance
of its attainment if the command be obeyed.
Beginning with the tenth verse of the sixth chap-
ter, he says:
"Finally, my-brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the
power of His might.
"Put
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to
stand against the wiles of the devil.
"For
we wrestle not against iiesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the dark-
ness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
"Wrestle" indicates a personal encounter, a con-
test of life and death.
But it is not
one with
"flesh
and blood";
it is
not against humanity
viewed
in
its palpable
characteristics
that
we
wrestle, but with spirits high~in rank and position.
As Dr. Eadie says, "it is no vulgar herd of fiends
we encounter, but such of them as are darkly emi-
nent in place and dignity."
Moreover they are "the rulers of the darkness

-----

108
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
of this world," those which in some way, and for
some reason, "have acquired a special domination
on earth, out of which they are loath to be dis-
lodged."
This "darkness,"
to quote him further,
is that "spiritual obscurity which so painfully en-
virons the church--that zone which surrounds an
unbelieving world with an ominous and lowering
shadow."
No wonder
we should take unto
us
"the whole armour of God,"
not a part, but the
whole.
Dropping the figures which Paul
uses in the
subsequent verses, the protection and the weapon
that he names and which we all need, are truth,
righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Word of
God and prayer.
"Truth"
here is subjective, it is "the
assured
conviction that we believe and that it is God's
truth that we believe."
The intimate dealing of
truth with the soul, "the aiiections and judgment
braced up to Christ and the things of Christ."
The "righteousness"
also is subjective.
It is not
the imputed righteousness of Christ, and which is
presupposed as the possession of the believer, but
the practical every day righteousness growing out
of it, the "good conscience" which Peter repeatedly
urges upon those to whom he writes.
The same is true of "peace".
It is peace as an
experience, the efiect of maintaining
a good con-
science.
The Christian warrior moves as the bat-
tle shifts, and his continued preparedness for ac-
lu

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
109
tion, his feet shod, depends
on that serenity of
heart which nothing perplexes or disconcerts.
"Faith"
in God and His grace is needed also
to "guard the mind from aberration and despond-
ency, and ward off the
assaults that
are
made
upon it."
"Salvation"
in this instance means the conscious
possession, the knowledge of safety, the conviction
of pardon and sanctification.
He who thus knows
that he has passed from death unto life is
one
whose "head is covered in the day of battle."
As "the helmet of salvation"
crowns the various
parts of the armor,
so there
comes after it
no
reference to any further means of defence, which
is quite complete, but a revelation of the instru-
ment of offensive energy against the adversary,
"the sword of the Spirit whichis the Word of
God."
And then the hidden spring of power without
which nothing avails, "praying always."
But al-
ways in the Spirit, i.e. the Holy Spirit, in His ex-
citing and assisting influence (Romans VIII. 26,
Jude zo).
"And watching thereunto," watching
for these very things thus specified to be realized
in us, and in "all the saints."
'
rv
We pause in Colossians to point out its teach-
ing conceming evil spirits in their relation to the

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110
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Person and work of Christ in
our redemption
(chapter II. I3-15).
We who were "dead in trespasses and sins" have
been quickened together with Him Who blotted
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His
Cross;
"And having spoiled principalities and powers He made a
show of them openly, triumphing over them in it",
i.e. in His cross.
Nicholson (Oneness With Christ)
renders it:
"Stripping oil and away from Himself the prin-
cipalities and powers, He made
a show of them
boldly, leading them in triumph in it."
The evil principalities
and powers
are
here
meant of course, the same.as in Ephesians VI. 12.
They seized
on
Christ's
human
nature, which,
though without sin, had infirmities, as we saw il-
lustrated in the wilderness temptation, and the
agony of Gethsemane
as well
as Calvary.
But
His victory was complete, for the powers of evil
which had thus clung to Him were tumed off and
Cast away forever by His death and resurrection.
And yet there is
a higher or, if you please,
as
deeper view to be taken of this truth.
The ¢vi1
principalities and powers attacked
our Lord
on
His spiritual side as well.
Satan did this in the wildemess, in seeking to
keep Him from the
cross by offering Him "the

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
111
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" if
he would fall down and worship him (Matthew
IV).
And the same temptation came to Him from
the same source at other times and in other ways.
When Peter sought to dissuade Him from going
up to Jerusalem to be killed was such a time (Mat-
thew XVI. 21), and when the Greeks desired to
see Him at the feast, and learning of it, He ex-
claimed, "Now is My soul troubled, and what shall
I say?
Father, save me from this hour."
John
XII. 27.)
But He was not rebellious, neither tumed He
away backward.
He set His face like a flint and
He knew that He should not be ashamed (Isa. L).
He died, but He arose again.
So pleasing to His
Father was the substitution of Himself for sin-
ners and so absolute and glorious His defeat of
the dire purposes of Satan, sin, death and all the
powers of darkness, that the
cross itself became
the victor's
car.
To quote Bishop Wilson in his Lectures
on
Colossians,
"At the very moment when Satan and the ]ews
conceived that they had accomplished their hellish
purpose; when Christ and His new religion seemed
crushed at a blow; when the eEorts of the evil one
which had succeeded against the first Adam ap-
peared to succeed against the Second Adam; when
the
sun veiled in darkness might be thought to
symbolize the destruction of man's
expectations

-----

112
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
of redemption excited during 4,000 years-at that
very instant, behold the triumph!
"The
law fulfilled;
God's
moral government
vindicated; death robbed of its prey; Satan de-
throned from his usurped position; principalities
and powers led in procession
as captives, and
a
show openly
made of them
before
a
rescued
world!"
Where, then, are the inventions and follies of
men?
Where the worship of principalities and
powers?
Do not spiritists
see the peril of the
company they keep, and do not Christians rejoice
in the comfort and protection of that Mighty One
on Whom help
has
been laid,
and under the
shadow of Whose wings they have come to trust?
In his first epistle to the Thessalonians i(II.
1 8 )`,
Paul charges the devil by name as the opposer of
his work, in a passage parallel to that of the in-
spired Chronicler "and
Satan stood up against
Israel" (I Chron. XXI. I).
The Apostle had endeavored to go back from
Athens to visit the aiilicted brethren at Thessa-
lonica, "but Satan hindered us."
The hindrance
exhibits itself to the reader of Acts I7 as the per-
secuting ]ews, but the spiritually illumined Apostle
sees not "Hesh and blood," but "the rulers of the
darkness of this world," Satan and the evil angels

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
113
whom he directs.
He also was the tempter of
the Thessalonian Christians themselves, in whom,
because of their tribulation, there was danger that
Pau1's labor might be in vain.
This leads up to the larger consideration of the
occult powers in the second epistle, where at the
second chapter, the writer is dealing with the apos-
tasy already at work in the Church, and the de-
velopment of that wicked
or lawless
one
(the
Antichrist).
This being is identified as one
"Whose coming is after the working of
Satan with all
power, and signs and lying wonders, and with all deeeivable-
ness of unrighteousness in them that are perishing because
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved."
These "lying
wonders"
are
so called, not be-
cause they are not real wonders which Satan and
his emissaries are able to do, but because they are
done in the interest of and to bolster up
a lie.
Their seriousness lies in the fact that they
are
wrought "with all deceit of unrighteousness."
But
note that it is only "them
that
are perishing"
(R.V.) on whom the deceit works, them that have
"not
the love of the truth that they might be
saved."
The "truth"
means of course, the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and
as the present writer has sought to
show in his Antidote to Christian Science, there
;

-----

114
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
is
a difference between receiving the truth and
receiving the love of it.
A man who marries a
woman without loving her is soon seeking
a di-
vorce, and he who knows the truth in his head,
but has never given it lodgment in his heart, is not
diicult to lead into error.
But the momentous feature of this is that,
as
the subsequent verses in the chapter show, because
men receive not the love of the truth God sends
upon them as a judgment,
a "working of error,"
a, "strong delusion that they should believe a lie."
It is not merely that 'God permits such a delusion
to come upon them, but that He sends it as the
mighty act of a Judge punishing evil by evil.
Not to believe the truth of the gospel is sin, and
not to receive the love of it after knowing it is
still deeper sin; but to be obliged to believe a lie
in consequence of it is retribution unspeakable.
The Greek in this case might be translated "THE
lie,"
as the idea is not merely a single lie, but the
entire force of lies, the entire element of the devil-
ish perversion of all truth (Auberlen in loco).
YI
The last of the Pauline utterances on the sub-
ject of which we shall now treat is in I Timothy
IV., and is distinguished from all the preceding
as a prediction of the increase of demoniacal influ-
ence in the latter days, upon which many students

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
115
of the Bible consider that we
are now entering.
The passage is part of that which concludes the
preceding chapter, and we quote it with that con-
text:
"And, without controversy, great is the mystery of godli-
ness; God (or 'He,
Who',
R.V.)
was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gen-
tiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
"Now
(or 'But',
R.V.) the Spirit speaketh expressly that
in the latter times
some shall depart from the faith, giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons;
"Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared
with a hot iron;
"Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from
meats, which God hath created to be received with thanks-
giving of them which believe and know the truth."
The key to the interpretation of this remark-
able passage is the words, "depart from the faith."
The object, or more properly, the essence of the
faith is that great Mystery of the Lord Jesus
Christ spoken of in the first verse quoted, and
which is at once the source and the support of all
real godliness.
The departure from the faith, the apostasy as
it is described in II. Thessalonians 2, is to com-
mence with a waning faith in Christ, His Person
and His work, as set forth in the Scriptures.
As
Pember says, "it is not necessarily a total denial
of Him, but it begins with incredulity
as to the
miraculous circumstances of His past advent, and
so gradually obscures the only source and centre of
A:

-----

116
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
every godly aspiration."
In other words, it is pre-
cisely what we
are witnessing today throughout
Christendom, and which furnishes
a
reason, in
part,
for believing that
these
are
the
"latter
times."
The "latter times" do not mean the end of the
world by any means, but the end of the present
age, or dispensation, when God has been dealing
in grace with sinners, and oiiering them a free sal-
vation through His Son.
"The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter
times
some shall depart from the faith."
The
Holy Spirit is meant in this case, Who spoke ex-
pressly, or plainly, in the Old Testament prophets,
through Jesus Christ Himself, and also by Paul
§(Daniel VII. 25; VIII. 23; Matthew XXIV. II-
24; z Thess. II. 3).
What the Spirit says is that in the latter times
some will "depart from the faith giving heed to
seducing spirits and doctrines of demons."
These
"spirits"
would be working in and through the
heretical teachers, and their doctrine, or teaching,
would be that of demons, Satan's ministers.
They would speak "lies in hypocrisy" or through
the hypocrisy of lying teachers, the feigned sanc-
tity of the seducers or deceivers, "having their own
conscience seared."
That is to
say, "austerity
would gain for them
a show of sanctity while
preaching false doctrine," they would professedly
be leading others to holiness while their own con-

-----

The Apostolic Epistles
117
science was defiled.
It would be seared as witli
a hot iron, cauterized, the effect of which is to
produce insensibility.
In the words of Canon Faussett, "sensuality
leads to false spiritualism," hence these hypocrit-
ical teachers would make moral perfection
con-
sist in abstinence from outward things, chiefly two,
"forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain
from meats.
"From
these last particulars,"
says Pember,
"many
have endeavored to fasten this prophecy
upon the Church of Rome, because she forbids her
priests to marry, and has set apart days for fast-
ing.
But Paul teaches that those of whom he
speaks would receive their doctrines from wander-
ing spirits, for the word "seducing"
is capable of
that rendering (compare Job I. 7; II. 2; Matthew
XII. 43)."
Moreover the prohibition of marriage in this
case is general, not limited to "priests"
or Chris-
tian ministers, apparently an entire repudiation of
God's
ordinance; while the command to abstain
from meats, likewise means
a total, not an occa-
sional or periodical, abstinence from certain kinds
of food, of which more later on.
Meanwhile,
a further remark of Canon Faus-
sett is pertinent, viz., that "Rome's
Judaizing ele-
ments will ultimately be combined with -the open,
worldly~wise anti-Christianity of the false prophet
or beast"
(VI. 20, 21; Rev. XIII. I2-15).
In

-----

118
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Spiritism instructing demons are sometimes intro-
duced with flaming crosses in their hands, and its
doctrine of the
seven spheres closely approaches
the Romish teaching about Purgatory.
Indeed Spiritism is nothing but a revival of the
influence which originated Paganism, while
Ro-
manism as a system though it contains much truth,
is only Paganism under a veil, so that the ultimate
amalgamation of the two presents no insuperable
difliculty.
It remains to mention that Spiritism meets the
two-fold prediction, "forbidding
to
marry
and
commanding to abstain from meats."
It propa-
gates the first by the prohibition of marriage alto-
gether, and also by "strange doctrines of elective
adinities and spiritual alliances, which tend to an
utter rejection of marriage as ordained by God."
As to the second, it has always been recognized
that abstinence from a flesh diet is indispensable to
great mediumistic power, to say nothing of the
doctrine of transmigration of souls which, from
being a tenet of Theosophy, is now finding favor
with the Spiritistic school.
The limits of our present task forbid
an en-
largement on these points, but the interested reader
is directed
to
Pember's
Earth's
Earliest Ages,
Spiritualism, Part III., and to the Bibliography
on the subject which he names.
l

-----

y
XI
TEACHING OF THE GENERAL EP1sTLEs
I
HERE is an added attraction to the study
of our subject in the General Epistles be-
cause they bring before us again, and from
a different point of view, the mystery of the fallen
angels dealt with earlier.
This is done in I Peter III. 19, which speaks of
Christ preaching to "the spirits in prison."
At
that point the inspired writer is using the
ex-
ample of Christ to encourage and comfort Christ-
ian believers in their suffering for righteousness'
sake, saying:
"For Christ also hath once suEered for sins, the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death as to
the flesh, but quickened as to the spirit:
"By
which also he went and preached unto the spirits in
prison."
,
The words "spirits in prison" have sometimes
been employed to teach the false doctrine of the
"second chance"
or a probation after death.
In
such cases the theory is advanced that Christ went
I I9
-
_.__>

-----

120
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
into the place of the wicked dead and preached
the gospel to them giving them another opportunity
to believe and be saved.
If this were indeed the teaching of the passage,
every true Christian preacher surely, would wish to
proclaim it; but aside from the fact that it is taught
in no other place in the Bible it certainly is not
taught here.
For example, the Greek word for "preached"
in this instance is not that which the New Testa-
ment commonly employs for the preaching of the
Gospel, but a dilierent word.
It means to pro-
claim after the manner of a herald.
Grimm, the
philologist, quoted by E. W. Bullinger, says that
the word is always used with a suggestion of for-
mality and an authority which must be listened to
and obeyed.
~
Moreover, if the subject of the proclamation is
not clearly implied in the context of this word
when it`is used, then it must be distinctly stated if
we are to know what it is.
That is to say, if it is
the proclamation of the Gospel that is intended,
then the word "Gospel"
must be used to insure
that application, which is not the case here.
In the next place, the word "spirits"
does not
apply to men.
It is never so applied in the Bible
when it stands alone and without any qualifying
words,
as it does here.
A possible exception is
Hebrews XII. 23, but there it is expressly said
that "the
spirits of just men"
are meant, "the

-----

The General Epistles
121
spirits of just men made perfect."
As Bullinger
says, "man
was made, and up to the time of his
death he continues to be, a 'living
soul'."
It is so
also after death (Revelation VI. 9; XX. 4) and
until the resurrection, when the word "spirit"
is
used
as
a brief term for man's spiritual body (1
Cor. XV. 45) .
But the word "spirits" by itself and without any
qualifying description is used always of supernat-
ural beings, higher than man and lower than God.
When there is any doubt as to the kind of spirit
referred to, some defining word is employed like
"unclean spirits," "evil spirits," etc.
The defining
words in this case are "spirits in prison," very evi-
dently therefore, evil spirits.
But do
we inquire just what evil spirits
are
meant, the nature of their offence and the time
of its perpetration?
The information is furnished
in the next verse, where
we
are told that they
were those
"Which aforetirne
were disobedient, when
once the long-
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark
was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved
by water."
Very clearly this points back to the record in the
sixth chapter of Genesis, and recalls what was con-
sidered previously as to the fallen angels and the
"sons
of
God"
marrying
the
"daughters
of
men."
L.

-----

122
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
There remains therefore only the inquiry as to
what it was that Christ went thus and proclaimed
to them in prison?
The answer to which is found
in the particular purpose of this epistle, which is
to comfort Christian believers under persecution
for righteousness'
sake,
and to encourage
and
strengthen them in their witness bearing for Christ.
In other words, Peter is here using the example
of Christ in that connection.
He suliered and died
as to His Hesh, but He was quickened as to His
spirit, that is to say, He had a glorious resurrec-
tion in a spiri-tual body.
And He had more than
this, He had a glorious triumph also!
God raised
Him from the dead and gave Him glory (I. 21 ) .
So complete was this triumph, and so far-reach-
ing the proclamation of it, that it extended even
to the spirits in prison.
He "spoiled principalities
and powers and made
a show of them openly"
i(Col. II. 15)
_
"And He is now gone into heaven,
and is on the right hand of God, angels and prin-
cipalities
and powers being made subject
unto
Him" (III. 22).
_
II
The thought is carried forward in Peter's second
epistle at chapter two.
False prophets are there being warned against
"whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not
and their damnation (or destruction) slumbereth
not."

-----

The General Epistles
123
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned but east them
down to hell, and delivered them in-to chains of darkness, to
be reserved unto judgment;
"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth
person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the Hood upon
the world of the ungodly;
"And tuming the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes
condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample
unto those that after should live ungodly ;
"And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked.
4
4
4:
4
1-
*
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of tempta-
tion, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be
punished:
"But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uu-
cleanness, and despise government."
What angels are here referred to?
Are they
those who fell with Satan anterior to the creation
of man, or those spoken of, as we before showed,
in Genesis VI, just prior to the Hood?
If the former, why is not Satan mentioned with
them?
As Kurtz remarks, "whenever else allusion
is made to the tempter and those who were asso-
ciated with him in his fall, mention is expressly
made of Satan, and for the most part, of him
only."
That it should be otherwise in this place is the
more remarkable because it is Peter's
aim to show
that God punishes not only men who sin, like these
ffalse prophets, but beings who are the most em-
inent in rank.
If therefore he had in mind
a
reference to the angels who fell at the first with

-----

124
Spiritism and the Fallen Hngels
Satan, would he not have named the latter, the
chiefest and the leader of the apostates?
But to quote Fleming once more, a still stronger
argument that the angels before
the
Hood
are
meant, is found in the fact that they have been
"cast down to hell (Tartarus) and delivered into
chains
of
darkness
to
be
reserved unto judg-
ment."
This is not the state of Satan and his angels
since the fall, for they are still permitted to move
through the world, and to tempt and
overcome
those men who are not arrayed in the armor of
God (Job I. 7; Eph. V. 12; I Pet. V. 8).
More-
over, as if to preclude all doubt upon the subject,
it is declared in Rev. XX. that Satan shall here-
after be chained, evidently therefore, he is not
chained now.
The argument might be pressed further; for
if the angels who sinned before the Hood are not
meant, why the allusion to the Hood and the sal-
vation of Noah in the next verse, the same as in
1 Pet. III. 19?
Nor should it escape the reader that there is
significance in the reference to Sodom and Gom-
orrah in verse 6, and "chieHy them that walk after
the Hesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise
govemment,"
in
verse
Io.
The correspondence
between these illustrations or examples and the
conduct of the angels before the Hood is too strik-
ing to be overlooked.

-----

The General Epistles
125
III
The subject is continued in Jude
verses 4-8,
which closely resemble
those just quoted
from
Peter, so closely indeed as to preclude "all idea of
entire independence."
Some
commentators
sup-
pose that Jude wrote the earlier of the two, and
that Peter copied from him, omitting or adding
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as suited his
purpose.
However this may be, it is evident that both
writers refer to the same apostasy of angels, and
that it is the one identified as taking place just be-
fore the Hood.
To the arguments above stated in proof of this,
might be added one founded on the use by New
Testament writers of the term "angels,"
which
word, when used by itself, is never employed to de-
note the spirits who fell at the beginning with
Satan.
These are spoken of as "demons," just as
their head is spoken of as "the devil"
or "Satan".
Kurtz, who
uses this argument,
admits that
there are some places which seem to contradict it,
but their critical examination
proves
otherwise.
It is his conclusion that "as the apostles have em-
ployed the naked term, neither they themselves in-
tended,
nor would their first readers have bieen
likely to perceive, an allusion to the fall of Satan
and his angels."
A close exegesis of ]ude confirms this opinion.

-----

126
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
His design was to guard believers against the cor-
rupt principles and the licentious practices of cer-
tain men whom he describes as "turning the grace
of God into lasciviousness," and, as one of the old
divines expresses it, "his whole discourse is point-
edly and especially directed against that particular
sin."
He therefore reminds them of the earlier in-
stances in which that sin had brought down divine
judgment.
In the case of Israel for example, the
angels, inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and
those of the cities round about them.
"In
like
manner,"
or "in like manner to these"
had they
given "themselves
over to fornication going after
strange flesh."
The phrase "in like manner," or "in like manner
to these" does not refer to the ungodly men nor
to Sodom and Gomorrah, as some have supposed,
but to the angels, for which we have the strong
authority of Dean Alford, who says the manner of
the sin of these cities
was similar, "because
the
angels committed fornication with another
race
than themselves,
thus
also going after strange
flesh."
He
names several other Greek scholars
and Bible exegetes as holding the same view.
IV
We conclude this chapter with
a reference to
1 John IV. I-3,2

-----

The General Epistles
127
"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether
they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out
into the world.
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:
Every spirit that con-
fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
"And
every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
even now already is it in the world."
It may be doubted whether the word "spirits"
in verse
I has the objective application we have
heretofore given to it.
That is, we are not sure
that John is now speaking of evil spirits, or de-
mons, with an independent existence from the ex-
perience or thought of the prophets, but rather of
the mental state,
or the nature of the prophets
themselves.
Or to express it in another way, it is
not a "familiar spirit" who controls the "medium"
that is here in mind, but the medium's
own spirit.
And yet there is
a close relation between the
two, and what the inspired apostle has to teach us
about the spirits of the "false prophets" is to the
point.
In Neander's expository lectures on this book,
he observes that the point of transition at chapter
four lies in what John had just said about the in-
fluence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christian
believers, an influence which is the pledge of con-
tinued fellowship with Christ.
In ]ohn's day much
was falsely claimed to be from the Holy Spirit, just
as is the case today in the teaching of Spiritism,

-----

128
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
and hence the apostle directs attention to the dif-
ference between His operations and the deceptive
imitation of them.
Every spirit
was not to be believed, but the
spirits were to be tried as to whether they were
of God.
And the touchstone of the matter, the
criterion by which they were to be tried was the
Person and work of our Lord _Iesus Christ.
Did these false spirits confess Him, i.e., did
they openly acknowledge and proclaim Him? Did
they confess Him
as Jesus, the Christ?
Not
a
Christ, not one out of many, but the promised one
and the only one?
Did they confess Him as hav-
ing come in the flesh?
Was He to them "the
Eternal Logos in His humanization?
The Divine
Life-fountain letting itself down into human
na-
ture and revealing itself in visible human form-
the Divine and the human in harmonious union?"
Note particularly the words, "is come" in verse
20.
It is the Greek perfect, which implies not a
mere past historical fact,
as would be the
case
if another tense were used, but a present continu-
ance of the fact and its blessed eilects.
"Is
come in the flesh,"
or "clothed with flesh."
Christ's
was not a mere seeming humanity, as some
have erroneously taught, but a real humanity. And
it is necessary to believe and confess this, in order
to express the truth of the
atonement for sin.
Only by assuming our flesh could Christ die "the
just for the unjust," to bring us to God.
"To deny
ll

-----

The 'General Epistles
129
the reality of His flesh is to deny His love, and so
cast away the root which produces all true love on
the believer's part"
(see verses 9-11 of this same
chapter).
Now every spirit that does not so confess Jesus
_Christ is not of God, or as some authorities ren-
der verse 3, every spirit that "annulleth"
Jesus
Christ is not of God.
And that is just what Spirit-
ism does.
It "annu1leth"
Jesus Christ, the Jesus
.Christ of the Bible is Whom we mean.
Spiritism
may speak of Jesus and of Christ, but it is not
"Him of whom Moses in the law, and the pro-
phets, did write" (John I. 45).
In proof of this, we referred in our first chap-
ter to Basil King's book, and now we would add
something from Sir A. Conan Doyle's,
"The New
Revelation" :
"Let
us look at the light we get from the spirit guides on
this question of Christianity," he says.
"Opinion is not abso-
lutely uniform yonder any more than it is here, but reading a.
number of messages upon this subject. they amount to this:
"That there
are
many higher spirits with
our departed.
They vary in degree.
Call them 'ange1s',
and you are in touch
with the old religious thought.
"High
above all these is the greatest spirit of whom they
have cognizance-not God, since God is so infinite that He is
not within their ken-but one who is nearer God and to that
extent represents God.
'I`his is the Christ-spirit.
"His special care is the earth.
He came down upon it at
a time of great earthly depravity in order to give people the
lesson of
an ideal life.
Then he returned to his own high
station, having left
an example which is still occasionally
followed.

-----

130
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
"That is the story of Christ as the spirits have described
it.
'l`here is nothing here of Atonement or Redemption.
But
there is a perfectly feasible and reasonable scheme, which I
for one could readily believe."
(Pp. 74, 75).
Observe that according to this teaching Christ
is not God, but only represents Him
as being
nearer to Him than other spirits-the very error
with which Paul deals in his epistle to the Colos-
sians.
Observe also that Christ
came down
to the
earth not as a sacrifice for sin, in Spiritism there
is "nothing
of
atonement
or redemption,"
but
simply as an example "to give people the lesson
of an ideal life."
"People
can see no justice in a vicarious sacri-
fice, nor in a God Who could be placated by such
means,"
says Sir Arthur.
"Never
was there any
evidence for a fall.
But if there were no fall, then
what became of the
atonement, of redemption
from original sin, and of a large part of the Chris-
tian mystical philosophy?
"It is no uncommon thing to die for an idea,"
he goes on to say.
"Men die continually for their
convictions. Therefore the death of Christ, beauti-
ful
as it is in the Gospel narrative, has assumed
an undue importance."
As to the life of Christ, Sir Nrthur tells us it
was lived simply in order to afford men an ideal.
"Christ,"
he says, was "full of easy tolerance for
others."
He occasionally lost His temper indeed,

-----

The General Epistles
131
but He was ever ready to sweep aside texts and
forms and "get at the spirit of religion" (p. 72).
What blasphemy!
To the
same purport, the transfiguration of
Christ, according to this same apostle of Spiritism,
was
a "story
of the materialization of the two
prophets upon the mountain"; and the three taber-
nacles suggested by Peter were three "cabinets,"
in other words,
"the
ideal way of condensing
power and producing materializations"l
Such is the attitude of the New Revelation
towards Christ, and the apostle John says that
"this
is the spirit of Anti-Christ."
The Anti-
Christ when he comes will be
a person in human
flesh, a despot, political, ecclesiastical or both, who
will arise in Christendom, and whom
men will
worship instead of God.
But his spirit, the teach-
ing that prepares the way for his full development,
is already in the world, and Spiritism is an integral
part of it.
It is comforting indeed to hear John say further,
addressing true believers in the Lord:
"Ye
are of God, little children, and have overcome them:
because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the
world.
"They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world,
and the world heareth them.
"We
are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that
is not of God heareth not us.
Hereby know we the spirit of
truth, and the spirit of error."

-----

132
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
They that are of God are those who have con-
fessed ]esus Christ in the manner John has indi-
cated; and they have overcome the false prophets,
or the lying spirits, in that they have not been
brought into spiritual bondage by them.
These
spirits are of the world, in harmony with its feel-
ings and opinions, therefore "the world heareth
them,"
runs after them, and fills the air with its
din.
But they that are of God heareth us; and here-
by, i.e., by their confessing
or
not confessing
Jesus Christ, know we the Spirit that comes from
God and teaches truth, and the spirit that comes
from Satan and is error.

-----

XII
TEACHING OF THE APOCALYPSE
I
N another place the present writer has
men-
tioned twenty-five
reasons why "the
man of
God," the true believer on Jesus Christ, should
read and study the Apocalypse, or the book of
Revelation, with avidity.
Among the reasons are these:
(1), It describes
the judgments that shall be visited upon the earth
after the Church is translated; (2) it witnesses to
the deliverance of certain classes of people out
of those judgments; (3)
it mentions particular
wonders which the Church and the world shall be-
hold in those days; (4) it traces the rise and de-
velopment of the anti-christ; (5) it predicts and
describes the battle of Armageddon; (6) it dem-
onstrates the overthrow of the present world sys-
tems;
(7)
it portrays the
Second Coming of
Christ; (8) it reveals Satan's doom; (9) it gives
details of the last judgment; (Io) it opens the
vista of the eternal age.
133

-----

134
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
The reader needs to make a distinction between
the end of the world and the end of the age.
The
end of the world, which synchronizes with the last
judgment, is doubtless
a long ways ofi.
If the
writer's conception of the teaching of the prophets
is correct, a whole Millennium of peace and bless-
ing on the earth shall intervene before it takes
place.
On the other hand, the end of the present age
or dispensation may be very near.
The Scofield
Reference Bible defines age or "dispensation"
as "a
period of time during which man is tested in re-
spect to obedience to some specific revelation of
the will of God,"
and states that seven such dis-
pensations are distinguished in Scripture.
The present age or dispensation closes with the
Second Coming of Christ.
(See the
author's
Prophecy and the Lord's
Return.)
This event,
as we understand it, takes place in two stages, or
which may be represented by two scenes of a single
act.
In the first, our Lord comes for His Church,
which is His mystical body (Ephesians I. 22, 23),
and which is translated to meet Him in the air
(1 Thess. IV. I6-18) .
In the second, He descends
out of the air into the earth, or to quote the pre-
cise words of Scripture, "He
shall be revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels, in Haming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not God,
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (2 Thess. I. 7, 8).
_
l..

-----

Teaching of the Apocalypse
135
The culmination of wickedness at the end of this
age, it is predicted, will be marked by an outburst
of demonism or spiritism just as at the culmination
of the ante-diluvian age.
To such predictions the
attention of the reader has been called from time
to time and they approach a climax as we enter
on the study of the Apocalypse.
Prior to entering on that study however, it is
important°to be persuaded that,
as Pember puts
it, the great aim of°Satan in all the ages has not
been the spread of absolute skepticism, but the
subjugation of the world to demoniacal power.
His empire, in other'words,
can not be completely
organized till men are
as obedient to demons as
the latter are to the rebel principalities and pow-
ers, and these last again to their great prince.
"And
so the denizens of darkness are not merely
stirring up
an aimless revolt against God; but
would fain annex the whole of our world to their
orderly dominions."
Philip Mauro, in "The World and Its God,"
puts it in another way, when he says that Satan's
plan is not the destruction or injury of the race,
but its well-being rather, that is, its well-being to
be achieved by the best possible results attainable
apart from God.
He is doing his best, in other
words, not to drag men down, but to lift them up,
but according to his own standards and ideals, and
for the advancement of his own interests
as op-
posed to God.

-----

136
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
Such being true, it may appear strange to read
of some things for which evil spirits are scheduled
in the history of mankind at the close of this age,
and in which Satan himself is to be engaged when
he learns that his time is short.
But the reason is that his time is short, and be-
cause he is tasting the bittemess of defeat.
It is
because also of his malignity and his lack of scruple
in subjugating the victims of his will.
Nor are
we to forget the plan and purpose of our right-
eous God, in using, or permitting the use, of these
wicked beings in retribution upon those who be-
ing reprobate, have "trodden under foot the Son
of God and done despite unto the Spirit of grace"
(Heb. X. 29).
II
Approaching the bool( of Revelation, we have
in the ninth chapter, beginning at the 13th verse,
an account of the sounding of the sixth trumpet
when the four angels are loosed "which
are bound
at the great river Euphrates."
These angels had
been "prepared for the hour, and day, and month
and year that they should kill the third part of
man," which seems to mean that they had been re-
served for a particularly appointed moment.
In other words, following Bullinger in The
Apocalypse,
or The Day of
the Lord,
these
periods do not imply the duration of the judg-

-----

Teaching of the Apocalypse
137
ments; but point to the time when they shall take
place.
There is but one article and
one prepo-
sition between the four times named, which unites
them, whereas had they been repeated it would
have separated them and made
a period of thir-
teen months.
The very hour, of the very day, of
the very month, of the very year is thus appointed
by the Iudge.
Bullinger also thinks that there can be no doubt
that these angels are of those described by Peter
and Jude
as "delivered into chains of darkness,
to be reserved unto (or for) judgment."
And
the judgment for which they have been reserved
he regards
as that which takes place at the end
of this age.
Not only are they themselves to be
judged, but they are to be the executors of God's
judgments
upon
wicked
and unbelieving
men.
These are the "spirits in prison,"
he believes, to
whom the Saviour proclaimed His triumph after
the resurrection (1 Peter III. 19).
Why they were bound at the river Euphrates
we do not know, except that there may be some
connection between the abyss whence they arise
and wicked old Babylon, the mother of harlots
and abominations of the earth (Rev. XVII. 5).
Satan began his earlier activities in the earth in
that region, and there may be a reason for bring-
ing them to a climax in the same locality.
(Com-
pare Jeremiah XLVI. 4-10 R.V.)
Suddenly there appear upon the scene armies of

-----

138
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
horsemen,
zoo,ooo,0oo, from which it may be in-
ferred that they are not human beings but spirits,
for spirits are legion.
In Isaiah XXXI. we have
a warning that the horses of Egypt in which Is-
rael would trust were "flesh and not spirit," which
leads to the supposition that there may be horses
that are spirit and not Hesh.
More than this con-
cerning them one is unable to say, but "when God
thus describes them nothing ought to be easier than
to believe what He says."
I
The Revelation goes
on to say that by these
three plagues, "lire,
smoke and brimstone"
was
the third part of men killed, but that the rest of
the men who were not killed, "repented
not of
the works of their hands, that they should not
worship demons, nor idols
*
*
*
which can
neither see, nor hear nor walk.
"Neither repented they of their murders,
nor
of their sorceries, nor of their fornication,
nor
of their thefts."
It is the final and full development of what is
called Spiritism which is here referred to,
con-
tinues Bullinger, and which calls for the plague
of the Sixth Trumpet.
"Sorceries of which men
did not repent," are the dealings of men with spirit
agencies.
No wonder that God has
so solemnly
warned us against them, and no wonder that such
awful judgments
are to be visited upon them.
It is anticipating somewhat, bu-t it may be well
to mention at this point that sorcerers shall have

-----

Teaching of the Apocalypse
139
their part in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone, and they shall never walk in the streets
of the golden city.
(Rev. XXI. 8; XXII. 15.)_
III
The twelfth chapter of Revelation furnishes
our next illustration, which tells us at verse 7 that
"there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought
and his angels."
There is more than
one place spoken of
as
heaven in Scripture.
Perhaps
as on earth there
are many countries and states,
so,
some think,
heaven may have its different spheres; and in
one of these mighty spiritual forces are here
re-
vealed as set in battle array.
Michael, described elsewhere
as "one
of the
chief princes"
and "the archangel,"
is also said
to be the prince which standeth for the Jewish
people, Israel among the nations (Dan. X. 13, 21;
XII. I; Jude 9).
In this action he takes the in-
itiative against the dragon,
another
name for
Satan, whose dominion covers all the powers and
governments of the world.
The time has now come in the Divine counsels
for the great historical
event of the
ages, and
Satan, who hitherto has had some kind of access
to the heavens (Job I. and II.), is about to be
cast out, and "the kingdoms of the world' become

-----

140
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and
He shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation XI.
1 5).
But when Satan is thus cast down to the earth,
his angels are cast down with him, and they soon
cause men to feel the meaning of the awful utter-
ance that follows in the prophetic waming, "Woe
to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for
the devil is
come down unto you, having great
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time."
Then not merely the demons, but the great an-
gels of darkness, the principalities, the powers,
and the spiritual rulers of the world maddened by
the thought that they have lost their fair realms
forever, and that the Lord is at hand to complete
their destruction, will in their rage break through
every restraint, and recklessly gratify their own
evil desires (Earth's
Earliest Ages, p. 391).
IV
A single illustration further will suffice, and we
find it in the prediction of the battle of Armaged-
don in chapter XVI. beginning at verse
12.
"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon
the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof
was dried up, that the way of the kings of the
cast might be prepared."
This gathering of the kings of the east is in
41;

-----

Teaching of the Apocalypse
141
order to the great battle in which the heavenly
and the Satanic and earthly forcesarc about to be
engaged, an infernal crusade against the Lord and
His Anointed (Psalm II).
At the sounding of
the sixth trumpet we saw a vast supematural army
let loose to slay a third part of men; but here a
vast human army is gathered together, the whole
of which, as the context shows, will be destroyed
by God.
East and West are to be reckoned from the
standpoint of the prophecy and not that of the
reader, which standpoint is Palestine and Jeru-
salem.
"And I saw," says the revelator, "three unclean
spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the
dragon
(Satan), and
out of the mouth of the
beast (Antichrist), and out of the mouth of the
false prophet."
('For the further description and
identity of the false prophet,
see chapter XIII.
11-18.)
"For they are the spirits of demons, working
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the
earth and of the whole world, to gather them to
the battle of that great day of God Almighty."
(Compare I Kings XXII. 19-38; Joel III. 9-17.)
"And they gather them together to a place in
the Hebrew tongue Armageddon (or Har-Ma#
gadon)."
The name means a Mount of Megiddo,
an eminence which rises up out of the plain Es-
draelon in northem Palestine, a natural battlefield,

-----

142
Spiritism and the Fallen Angels
where many a contest was fought in the history of
Israel; a chosen place of encampment in every con-
test, from Nebuchadnezzar to the recent march of
Allenby into Syria.
Slaughter and lamentation
are associated with Megiddo (Zachariah XII.
11).
In Isaiah X. 28, which describes the in-
vasion of Palestine by the Antichrist, the Septua-
gint version reads "Megiddo."
Having gathered the hosts of the enemy thither,
the sixth vial ends, but the description of the events
to take place there will be found in connection
with the pouring out of the 7th vial as found in
Chapter XIX. II-18.
We conclude with the interjectional clause in
this vision, which
comes in as
a parenthesis.
It
is the voice of Christ Himself, who, while the
demon spirits are gathering the kings and their
armies for the last great crisis of the age, exclaims:
"Behold I come as a thief.
Blessed is he that watcheth,
and keepeth his garments, lest he wall: naked, and they see
his shame."
The words
are addressed not to the Church,
not to the true believers of this age, for, if our
interpretation of prophecy be correct, they will
ere this have been caught up to meet the Lord in
the air.
They are addressed to those then dwell-
ing on the earth and passing through its tribula-
tion, but who
have
not worhsipped the
beast
(Anti-christ)
nor his image, and who have not
received his mark in the foreheads.

-----

Teaching of the Apocalypse
143
Christ does not come upon His Churdi as
a
thief. (I Thess. V. 4; compare also Matt. XXIV.
38-44; Luke XII. 35-40).
To His Church He
comes as a welcome and expected guest (I Cor. I.
7; Col. IV. 4;
1 Thess. I. 9, ro; 2 Tim. IV. 8;
Titus II. 13; Jas. V. 8;
1 Pet. V. 4;
1 Jno. III.
z, 3; Rev. XXII. zo).
"And now, little children, abide in Hirn-; that,
when He shall appear we may have confidence,
and not be ashamed before Him at His coming"
(1 John II. 28).

-----

INDEX
A
"Anousmwc or Dum," 10.
Acts, Book of, 90-101.
Alford, Dean, 126.
An els, good, 39-41; evil, 41-
45; called sons of God, 47-
52;
corporeal
form,
55;
communication
with
men,
56; objections to inter;>ret-
ing
Genesis VI of,
S -65;
104, 105; fallen, called de-
mons
in
New
Testament,
125.
A
1
, 133-143.
11% 33321, 111, 140, 141.
Auberlen, 114.
'
ine 61
August
_,
._
_
Automatic writing, 68, 69.
B
Bur.-wonsmr, 86.
Bohme, ]acob,_16._
_
Books
on
Spmtxsm,
made-
quacy of, 9-13.
"Bowman, The," 22.
Brainerd, David, 18.
Bullinger, Dr. E. W., 120, 136,
137, 138.
C
Canrm-zu., Tnnonou, 61.
Canaanites,
abominations
of
the, 66-79.
"Celestial
Prophets,"
18.
Christ,
the
Master Medium,
26, 92.
Christian Science, 13-15.
"Christian Work, The," 14, 22.
Cicero, 18.
Clgbgett,
Rev. William H., 84-
'
144
Colossians, Epistle to, 109-112.
Conibeare
and Howson, 90.
Coo
, Miss, 20.
Corinthians, Epistle to,
102-
106.
Crscéokes,
Sir William, 19, 20,
D
Dwcmus of men, 46-52.
Dead, return of the, 80-86.
Delphic oracle, 17, 18, 97.
Demonism, in Bible times, 34,
35, 42, 43; in recent times,
35, 36; Dr. F. B. Meyer on,
44, 45.
Deuteronomy XVIII., 71-79.
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 9, 22,
129, 130.
E
Emu, Dn., 107.
"Earth's
Earliest Ages," 61,
83, 118, 140.
Elymas the sorcerer, 95-97.
End of the age, 134-136.
Endor, witch of
81-86.
Ephesians, Epistfe to, 107, 109.
Ephesus, 100, 101.
F
"FAu.zN
Axcns
Arm
'ral
Hznoms or MYTHMMIY," 51,
54, 61.
Familiar spirit, 70, H).
giusim' Iga"°"'11i1i§1
ss 54
em
,
ev.
o
,
,
,
56,u5§, 60, 164, 124.
Fox family, 19.
Fraud, 20, 21, 36.

-----

Index
145
G
Gziré/;mNs,
Epistle
to,
106,
General Epistles, 119-132.
Genesis VI, 46, 54, 57, 66, 104,
121, 123.
Gill, Dr. John, 52.
Gnosticism, 17.
Gordon, Dr. A. J., 14, 15.
Guyon, Madame, 16.
H
Horan, 17.
J
].;;zs,
Pnonzsson Wlumu,
Joni of Arc, 23, zs.
K
KING, B/tsn., 9, 10, 129.
"King, Katie," 20.
Kitto, 54.
Kurtz,
Dr. john Henzig,
53,
56, 58, 64, 65, 104, 1
, 125.
L
LAzAaUs, 81.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 106.
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 21, 22, 37.
Loves of the gods, S7.
Luther, 18.
Lying wonders, 113.
M
MMTLAND, 54, 104.
Manasseh, 87.
Materialization, 20, 21, 36, 86.
Melyer,
Dr. F. B., 44.
Mi ton, 53, 64.
"Modem
Craze of Spiritual-
ism," 45.
Mons, 22, 25.
More, Dr. Henry, 61.
Moses and Elijah, 81.
N
NA.uum, 86.
Nagelsbach, 64.
Nam, son of widow of, 81.
Neander, 127.
Nephilim, 51, 57, 66, 67.
Nevins, Dr., 35.
Newton, Benjamin Wills, 97.
Nicholson, Bishop, 110.
O
Os on Onv, 70.
P
Pnxnunsr, 70.
Pember, 61, 68, 83, 117, 118,
135.
Personation, 80.
Philippian damsel, 37, 97-99.
"Physical Theory of Another
Life," 59.
Piper, Mrs., 20.
Piychical
Research,
Society
or, 9, 20.
Pythoness, 37, 70, 97.
R
RAusAv,
Sm Wru.uu¢,
90,
91, 94, 96.
Revelation, 133-143.
S
Snwn., 81-86.
Satan, 27-38 ; names, 28; ori-
gin, 28-30; nature and char-
acter, 30, 31; present loca-
tion and work, 31-33;
spe-
cial
manifestations
today,
33-38; aim, 135.
Schofield, Dr. A. T., 98.
Shakers, 18.
Simon Magus, 93-95.
Society
for
Psychical
Re-
search, 9, 20.
Sons of God, 46-55; éewish
interpretation, 49-52 ;
hurch
interprleltagon, h52-55 ;f
mar-
e
aug terso
men,
§i'2§,
122.
Spiritism, books on, 9-13; bet-
ter term than spiritualism,
16, 17; from apostolic times

-----

146
to Fox sister?
17-19° scien-
zine epoch °, 19-21;
eur-
rent revival of 21-24; warn-
ing against, 24126; Satan the
source of, 27, 36-38; certain
phenomena
genuine, 36; be-
ore
the
Flood,
46-56;
among the Canaanites, 66-
75;
in
Israel
and Judah,
80-89°
'
st lic
times
»
In
390
0
»
90-101; in the Pauline epis-
tles, 102-118; prohibition of
marriage, 118; in the Gen-
eral
Epistles,
119-132;
in
the Apocalypse, 133-143.
Spirit marriages, 62 63.
Spirit rapping, 18, 19.
Spirits in prison, 119-122.
Stanley, Dean, 104
Starke, 106.
Strabo, 17.
"Sunday
School Times,"
10,
33.
Swedenborg, 18, 25.
Index
T
Tnxnrcrou, Boom, 9.
Taylor, Isaac, 59.
Theodoret, 17.
Theossgmiphy,
35, 118.
Thes
onians, Epistle to, 112-
114.
¥imothy, Epistles to,_t1l145g18.
058993, $P¢3kll\8Wl
»
-
Torrey, Dr. R. A., 29.
Transtiguratiosr,
80.
"Vmu.
Quotes:
Eunoa
on
Cu.v.mv,".68.
W
WAu.ac¢,
Annan
Russzu.,
37.
War and spiritism, 14, 21, 22.
Wesley family, 18.
Wilson, Bishop, 11.
Witch of Endor, 37.
Writing mediums, 68, 69.

-----

INDEX OF TEXTS
(The figure; in fannthesu refer to pages)
Genesis 1:1 (29) ; 1:26 (104) ;
2:18, 23 (104) ; 3:1-6 (32) ;
3:16 (l04); 4:26 (52, SS);
6:1-4 (46, 54, 57, 104, 123);
6:4 (66); 18:8 (39); 19:3
(39); 41:8 (68).
Exodus
19:8
(7S);
22:18
(69); 24:10, 17 (30); 37:9
(30)-
Leviticus 20:27 (37, 69).
Numbers 13:33 (67).
Deuteronomy 5:27
(76);
18
(17); 18:9-11 (71); 18:12-
14
(74);
18:15-19
(76);
32:17 (42).
Judges 23 (42, 43).
I Samuel 16:14 (43) ;28 (83).
I Kings 17-19 (86) ; 22 (86):
22:19-38 (141) ; 22:22 (42).
II Kings 5 (86) ; 19:35 (40);
21
(87).
I Chronicles 21:1 (32, 112).
II Chronicles 2229, 10 (88);
23:12, 13 (87).
Job
1,
2
(27,
139);
1:6,
7
(32); 1:7 (117, 124); 1:10-
12
(31);
2:2
(117);
2:7
(33).
Psalm 2 (141): 8:4, 5 (39);
68:17 (40) ; 90:10-12 (4o);
103:20 (40).
Isaiah 8:19,
20 (22);
10:28
(142);
14:12-14 (29);
19-
22
(24);
31
(138);
so
(111).
Jeremiah 2:19 (7S); 46:4-10
(137).
Ezekiel 1:15, 22, 25, 26 (30);
28:11-18 (29, 30).
Daniel 7:10 (40) ;7:25 (116) ;
8:23 (116); 10:13 (40, 139)
10:21 (139): 12:1 (139).
Joel 3 :9-17 (141).
Zechariah
3
(28);
12:11
(142); 13:2 (89).
Matthew
4
(28,
32,
111);
5:37 (31) ; 7:22 (42) ; 8:28-
31
(3S);
8:29
(43,
44);
8:31 (44); 10:1 (42) ; 12:22
(42): 12 :24-26 (42) ; 121%
27 (42) ; 12:43 (117); 13:1
(32);
16:21 (1l1); 17:15-
18 (42) ; 18:10 (40) ; 22:30
(57, 632;
24:11-24 (116):
24:24
28,
31, 38);
24:36
(40)
; 24:38-44 (143) ;25 :41
41, 42
43); 26=sa
(4o>;
28:52,
(81).
Mark
1:25,
34
(99);
5:7
 
5:13
(42);
9:43-48
Luke 1:19 (40); 7:21 (42);
8:12 (31) ; 8:30 (42): 8:31
(43); 9:1 (101); 9:30, 31
(80); 10:18 (29): 11:14-18
(31) ; 12:35-40 (143) ; 13:16
232,
33, 42) ; 16 (25) ; 20:36
39).
John 1:17 (72); 1:45 (129);
8:44 (31, 42) ; 12:27 (111);
12:31 (31); 13:27 (28, 32).
Acts 3:19-26 (77); 5:3 (28);
8 §95);
8:5-24 (93); 10:38
(3
, 33);
16 (97);
16:16
147

-----

148
Index of Texts
(42) ; 17 (112) ;17:22 (34) ;
19:11
(1111); 19:20 (101);
26:18 (31).
Romans 8:26 (109).
I Corinthians 1:7 (143) ; 2:15
(99); 7:37 (105); 10 :20-22
(102); 11:9, 10 (103); 12-
14
(l05);
12:4-6
(106);
12:7-11
(1%);
12:12-31
(106); 13:1-13 (106) ; 14:1-
25 (106):
14:26-35 (106):
15:45 (122).
II Corinthians 2:11 (31) ; 4:4
(31, 32) ; 11:14 (31) ; 11:14,
15 (32); 12:7 (32).
Galatians
4:20,
21
(l(b);
5:20, 21 (38).
Ephesians
1:21
(40);
1:22,
23
(134);
2:2
(29, 31;;
3:9, 10 210)
; 4:27 (32, 33
;
5:12 (1
);6:10-12 (107)
°
6:11, 12 (31, 32, 41); 6:12
(42, 110).
Philippians 4:6, 7 (78).
Colossians 1:16 (4132;
2:13-15
(110);
2:15
(1
);
3:2
(122); 4:4 (143).
I Thessalonians 1:9,10 (143) ;
2:18
(28,
112);
4:16-18
(134;;
4:17
(40);
5:4
(143
.
II
Thessalonians
1:7
(40);
1:7, 8 (134); 2 (115); 2:3
(116);
225, 6
(105);
2:8
230);
2:8-10
(B):
2:9
31); 2:9, 10 (113).
I Timothy 3:6 (30) ; 3:6, 7
(42);
3:7
(32): 3:164:3
 
4:1 (42); 6:20, 21
II Timothy 2:% (44); 4:8
(143).
Titus 2:13 (143).
Hebrews
1:7,
8
(39); 2:14
SSZ);
10:29
(136);
12:19
76); 12:23 (121).
James 1:14 (33); 2:19 (94);
4:7
(31, 33); 5:8 (143).
I Peter 1:10,
11
(78);
1:12
(56); 2:12 §92);
3:6,
10,
19 (124); 3: 9 (119, 137);
3:20 (121); 5:4 (143); 5:8
(28, 29, 32, 33, 124).
II
Peter 2:4
(41, 42, 104);
2:4-7, 9, 10 (123); 2:10-12
(42).
I
ohn
2:28
(143):
3:2,
3
143
;
3:8
(31):
4:1-3
126
;
4:3
(129);
4:4-6
(131
; 4:9-11 (129); 5:19
(31).
Jude
(4-8
(12S);
6
(104);
6,
7
(
(139),
Revelation
3:9
(32) ;
5:11
(40;;
6:9
(121);
9:1-11
(43
;
9:13
(136);
9:21
(38):
11:15
(140);
12:7
(139);
12:7-9
(43);
12:9
(27, 32, 41); 12 :9, 10 (30) ;
1321, 2 (28); 13:9, 10 (32):
13:11-15
(59);
13:11-18
(141) ;
13:12-15
(117);
16:12 (140); 16:13, 14 (43,
59, 141);
16:14
(36, 38);
16:15 (l42); 16:16 (141);
17:5
(137);
18:23
(38):
19:11-18 (142) ; 19 :20 (30) ;
20 (124); 20:2 (27); 20:4
2121);
21:8 (38) ; 21 :10-21
29); 22:20 (143).
42);
8,
9
(31):
9
e
lb
-