Acts xix. 18 — 20. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before alt men : and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
IT seems that, in former ages, Satan had a greater power over the persons and concerns of men than we at this time imagine him to possess. That, in the days of Moses, there were persons who professed to have connexion with Satan, and to cause, through his influence, effects surpassing the power of man to pro- duce, we cannot doubt : because he says to all the people of Israel, " There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a ne- cromancer3." And it can scarcely be doubted but that powers superhuman were occasionally exercised by them. The magicians of Pharaoh, I think, gave a satisfactory evidence of this. Persons so influenced, were confederates with Satan. But there have been others, especially in the apostolic age, possessed by him against their will ; and it should seem that he was permitted to infest men in a more than ordinary degree at that time, in order to give an opportunity for the Lord Jesus Christ to manifest, in a more abundant measure, how entirely the whole creation was under his controul. A remarkable occasion had just offered itself to the notice of the people at Ephe- sus. Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish priest, pro- fessing themselves exorcists, undertook to expel a demon from a person that was possessed ; and, for that end, adjured the spirit, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to depart from him. But the spirit acknow- ledging his inability to withstand the command of Jesus, when uttered by one who was duly authorized to issue it in his name, stirred up the man to fall upon them with irresistible fury ; and " they all fled out of the house naked and wounded," happy to escape even with their lives. This was so strong a testimony to the Lord Jesus, that it carried conviction to the minds of multitudes ; and determined them instantly to renounce their confederacy with Satan, and to approve themselves, in the face of the whole
a Deut. xviii. 10, 11.