Necromancy

Chapter 8 of Demonology and Theology (1650) by Nathanael Homes (1599–1678), edited and modernized.

Of Necromancy, or the Black Art.

There shall not be found among you … a necromancer.

Deuteronomy 18:10-11

The next way of unlawful divination is necromancy, or (as it is commonly called) the black art, which is a divining by consultation with the Devil appearing unto the diviners in the shape of one formerly dead. So the witch of Endor raised up to Saul some shape of Samuel. This is forbidden (Deut. 18:11). The Hebrew word for necromancer means one that seeks the dead, which in Isaiah 8:19 is prohibited under this notion of explanation: should not a people seek unto their God? Should they seek, instead of the living, the dead (here that Hebrew word is repeated)?

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Isaiah 8:20

Necromancy is hereby justly called the black art, for there is no true light in those who use it.

God is pleased to raise some from the dead extraordinarily, for that extraordinary purpose of confirming the call of those whom he appoints the great reformers of the Church, and of causing men to believe their doctrine. As one by Elijah, who was wonderfully to reclaim the Jews from idolatry (1Ki. 17-18). Another by Elisha, who was Elijah's second to confirm them in that reformation (2Ki. 4). Others were raised by Christ and his disciples, when by them the Christian Church was to be founded and established, and Jewish ceremonies to be abrogated. And lastly, all the saints shall be raised when the Church is to be restored from all misery, to a kind of happiness on earth.

But for any to raise men in order to answer private men about private fantasies and inquiries is but a dreaming mistake. It is nothing else but the Devil himself presenting the shape of some dead people to the diviner. For, as that apparition to the witch at Endor foretold such things, and so certainly to Saul, as argued, it was not a man raised from the dead (for Abraham and Jacob, or Israel, are ignorant of us, Isa. 63:16). So sure enough, it was the Devil himself in that shape, not Samuel (or any other saint):

• First, departed saints rest from their labors in blessedness (Rev. 14:13). Therefore they are not raised or made to walk (as some fantasize) after their death.
• Secondly, God had before denied answering Saul in any way (1Sa. 28:6).
• Thirdly, this shape allowed Saul to adore him with his face to the ground (1Sa. 28:14), which the angel would not allow John to do (Rev. 19:10), much less would departed saints allow it.
• Fourthly, that shape, if it had been Samuel, would have as well reproved Saul of that greatest sin of going to witches (contrary to the known Word of God) as of other lesser faults (1Sa. 28:16-17).

Indeed the Devil made him seem like Samuel, and made the woman and Saul to think and call him Samuel. Ecclesiasticus 46:20 (a piece of the Apocrypha, as appears by the preface, craving pardon) says Samuel prophesied after his death. But the Scripture and reason say the contrary, and forbid any such way of knowledge, as we have heard.

For in this art, there appears these five great evils:

1. First, the Devil's power (God permitting) to form and represent the shape of any deceased person.
2. Secondly, the Devil's will to be at the beck and command of the necromancer, when he will act any such wicked delusion.
3. Thirdly, the Devil's wit, that he can gather out of circumstances, when God has forsaken a man and left him to Satan; and what is the temper of men, what they will do, and what will probably follow. And if God hinder not, he will foretell the ruin of men, or cause wicked men to do as he foretells, to come to their ruin.
4. Fourthly, the Devil's wickedness, that though he be an unspeakably proud spirit (witness the cause and manner of his fall, and his malice still against God), yet notwithstanding his mighty pride, he will stoop to the lowest man or woman to be at their command, whereby he may cheat them and their clients of salvation. This obedience of the Devil to necromancers is emphatically noted in the text of 1 Samuel 28:7 by calling the witch of Endor twice in that one verse the mistress of the spirit.
5. Fifthly, the diabolical ground of all that has been said is the compact between the Devil and the necromancer; why or how else could this be peculiar to such silly creatures as the witch at Endor? Saul as a king had in his dominion all sorts of artists and learned men, yet neither he nor they could thus raise up the Devil, except only the masters and mistresses of spirits, in covenant one with another.

Conclusion

From all that has been said, let us infer first that we beware of departings between God and us, that we do not depart from him, to cause him to depart from us; for from us begins the woe of departing. So in Saul, he went on in rebellion against God, and therefore God departed from him.

• Beware of departing in principles, namely, to depart from the Word of God, for this is the origin of our departing from God (2Ch. 36:15-16; Pro. 29:1). Nowhere else is it said, there is no remedy, because to leave the Word is to leave the remedy. And this departing from the Word is the introduction to use diabolical arts, as the prophet Isaiah intimates in putting those two together, men seeking to the dead instead of the living, and not going to the law and to the testimony, and so thereby to have no light in them (Isa. 8:19-20). Mark it well.
• Beware of departing from God in point of obedience; beware of disobedience to God contrary to the principle of the Word. In disobeying God, Saul's sin is charged to be like the sin of witchcraft, for disobedience to God is a service of the Devil, and is the introduction to encourage Satan to tempt one to his diabolical arts.

Secondly, consider that if we depart from God, and so cause him to depart from us, Satan will find it out, and take the opportunity to tempt, as we see he did in the story of Saul.

Thirdly, if Satan proceeds to suggest, tempt, etc., let us resist, as James says (Jas. 4:7), that is firstly and fully; have no discourse at all with him, which was Eve's sin and fall, and therefore the apostle warns the Corinthians of it (2Co. 11:3).