Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
- Walter Scott
- Date:
- 1831
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![and was utterly restrained. It is evident, that after the lapse of the period during- which it pleased the Almighty to establish his own Church by miracu- lous displays of powei’, it could not consist with his kindness and wisdom, to leave the Enemy in the possession of the jjrivilege of deluding men by imaginary miracles calcidated for the perversion of that faith, which real miracles were no longer pre- sent to support. There woidd, we presume to say, he a shocking inconsistency in supposing, that false and deceitful projjhecies and portents should be freely circulated by any demoniacal influence, deceiving men’s bodily organs, abusing their minds, and per- verting their faith, while the tnie rehgion was left by its great Author devoid of every supernatural sign and token, which, in the time of its Founder and his immediate chsciples, attested and celebrated their inappreciable mission. Such a peiTnission on the part of the Supreme Being, would be (to speak under the deepest reverence) an abandonment of his chosen peojfle, ransomed at such a price, to the snares of an enemy, from whom the worst evils were to be apprehended. Nor would it consist with the remarkable promise in holy writ, that “ God will not suffer his people to he tempted above what they are able to hear.” (1 Cor. x. 13.) The Fathers of the Faith are not stnctly agreed at what ]3eriod the miraculous jjower was withdrawn from the Church ; hut few Protestants are disposed to bring it down beneath the accession of Constantine, when the Christian religion was fully established in supre- macy. The Roman Catholics, indeed, boldly affinn, that the jiower of miracidous interference with the course of nature is still in being; but the enhght-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22029667_0098.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
