forbid us to believe that the images so constructed by common artisans became the habitation or resting-place of demons, or possessed any manifestation of strength or power, whether through demoniacal influence or otherwise.  The whole system of doubt, delusion, and trick exhibited by the oracles, savours of the mean juggling of impostors, rather than the audacious intervention of demons.  Whatever degree of power the false gods of heathendom, or devils in their name, might be permitted occasionally to exert, was unquestionably under the general restraint and limitation of providence; and though, on the one hand, we cannot deny the possibility of such permission being granted in cases unknown to us, it is certain, on the other, that the Scriptures mention no one specific instance of such influence expressly recommended to our belief.

Thirdly, as the backsliders among the Jews repeatedly fell off to the worship of the idols of the neighbouring heathens, so they also resorted to the use of charms and enchantments, founded on a superstitious perversion of their own Levitical ritual, in which they endeavoured by sortilege, by Teraphim, by observation of augury, or the flight of birds, which they called Nahas, by the means of Urim and Thummim, to find as it were a byroad to the secrets of futurity.  But for the same reason that withholds us from delivering any opinion upon the degree to which the devil and his angels might be allowed to countenance the impositions of the heathen priesthood, it is impossible for us conclusively to pronounce what effect might be permitted by supreme Providence to the ministry of such evil spirits as presided over, and, so far as they had liberty, directed, these sinful enquiries among the Jews themselves.  We are indeed assured from the sacred writings, that the promise of the Deity to his chosen people, if they conducted themselves agreeably to the law which he had given, was, that the communication with the invisible world would be enlarged, so that in the fulness of his time he would pour out his spirit upon all flesh, when their sons and daughters should prophesy, their old men see visions, and their young men dream dreams.  Such were the promises delivered to the Israelites by Joel, Ezekiel, and other holy seers, of which St. Peter, in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, hails the fulfilment in the mission of our Saviour.  And on the other hand, it is no less evident that the Almighty, to punish the disobedience of the Jews, abandoned them to their own fallacious desires, and suffered them to be deceived by the lying oracles, to which, in flagrant violation of his commands, they had recourse.  Of this the punishment arising from the Deity abandoning Ahab to his own devices, and suffering him to be deceived by a lying spirit, forms a striking instance.