The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 352

Ver. 6.-Credulity and faith. This, also, is an injunction which Moses had given before, and which he was instructed to repeat (see eh. x.ix. 31). Our thought may be directed to- L THE PREVALENCE OF D[p()STUBE. There has never been a time nor a land without its "familiar spirits," its "wizards,'' or impostors of some kind and name. Men have claimed the power of gaining extraordinary access to the spiritual world, or super- human knowledge of the future, and they have imposed on the ungoverned curiosity of their simple neighbours. The presence of such workers in magic is almost universal The love of power and the love of money will account for it. So must it be while there is- Il. THE CORRESPONDING PREVALENCE OF CREDULITY, The number of" the simple" is very large everywhere. Meu and women are always to be found, in pitiful abundance, who will respond to any cl.aim ma.de upon their belief. There is hardly an absurdity too glaring, a falsehood too palpable to be discredited by all. Let the impostor only be confident and pretentious enough, and h,e will find a number who will listen with eagerness and believe without question or proof. III. !Te UTTEB DELUBIVENEBS. The [entire system is false and rotten throughout; it is a mass of trickery, delusion, and disappointment. 1. Those who practise it soon impose upon themselves; they come to believe that they are really admitted to the secrets of the other world, and they are the victims of their own roguery. Sin tests no one so hard as the sinner himself; its rebound is terrible and deadly. He who, with guilty selfishness, would deceive his fellows, will soon entangle his foot in his own net aud perish in his own snare (Ps. vii. 15; ix. 15). 2. They also grossly deceive their neighbours. They who listen to their voice believe that they are holding intercourse with heaven, or are gaining instruction from those supernaturally endowed, when the truth is they are only dealing with men who are unusually wicked, and who should only be heard to be disregarded or denounced. IV. lTs SINFULNESS IN THE BIGHT Oll' Goo. Resort to imposture is positively wrong. In this book God uttered and repeated his Divine prohibition, and he strengthened his law by attaching the heaviest penalties to disobedience: "I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off," etc. '!'he heinousness of the practice probably lay in the fa.et that it was a deliberate departure from the Lord himself. There was his house, and there were his prophets to resort unto; to pass these by in order to consult i>retendeI11 and impostors was to forsake God and to go "a whoring" after other being11 and other things, And thus our thought is directed to- err. xx. 1-27.J THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 317