viii. 19-22. _Seek unto them, &c._
As bearing upon the doctrine of necromancy, an exhaustive discussion
of these verses would involve the following points: 1. Under the
instigation of a prurient curiosity, or under the pressure of
affliction, godless men are wont to seek knowledge and help from the
spirits of the dead. 2. Hence, in every age of the world and in every
nation of universal history, there have been necromancers, wizards,
&c., known by various names, practising various arts of divination
and legerdemain; playing with the credulity of men and women, and
claiming access to supernatural knowledge and power. The spirits of
modern times are the latest species of this genus of necromancers.
3. This passage implies irresistibly that God frowns upon and
condemns necromancy in whatever form. 4. The expostulations, rebukes,
and threatenings of the Lord, through His prophet in this passage,
assumes it to be impossible for man to get knowledge or help for the
living from the dead. The power of _God_ to send back to earth the
spirits of the dead is quite another thing; yet as to this the
practical question is--Does He see fit to use it? 5. Hence, to
discard the light of God's revealed Word and to seek light and help
from the dead, is to hurl oneself against the impermeable and
impassable wall with which God has shut in the living of our world,
and involves both positive conflict against God and contemptuous
rejection of His Divine Word. 6. As Satan has a natural sympathy with
everything abhorrent to God and ruinous to man, we ought to look for
his hand in these agencies of necromancy, to whatever extent God may
give him scope and range for action. What these limits may be, who
can tell? It is man's wisdom to keep himself utterly aloof from the
sphere of Satan's agencies and temptations. 7. Necromancers and
spirits practically league themselves with Satan against God, and
should be aware that his lot must be theirs, and their end be as
their works, no dawn of day ever breaking forth on the midnight of
their gloom.--_Henry Cowles, D.D., Commentary on Isaiah,_ pp. 68, 69.