SPIRITUALISM A SATANIC DELUSION.
SPIRITUALISTS DENY GOD, AND BLASPHEME.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Ps. 53:1. W. F. Jamieson in debate with Burgess, said, "I do not believe in a personal God, no great first cause, no CREATOR. Space, and the worlds, or the matter composing them, never were created, never needed a First Cause."—Banner of Light, April 12, 1871. In the Banner of Light of Aug. 8, 1868, we have the following:— "It is just as sensible to pray to the ocean, or the sun, as to the Jewish 'unknown Jehovah,' or the Christian's God. Nature justifies faith in no such ABORTION! . . . People of shallow brains are so apt to get mad when they hear a free-thinker speak irreverently of the GREAT OVERGROWN BOSS of the universe!" Mr. Jamieson, in the Crucible, Moses Hull's paper, of April 22, 1871, says:— "A personal God would be a monstrosity." "All prayer addressed to a supposed Supreme Intelligence is idolatry. There is not and cannot be a Supreme Spirit even." Speaking of the God of the Jews, he describes him as "an unmitigated tyrant, a despicable murderer, worse and meaner than a common cut-throat. If a Yankee should ever have the ill-luck to get into his kingdom, he would kick his 'alabaster throne' to pieces!!" &c. A speaker at the Spiritualist camp-meeting at Havre de Grace, Md., in August, 1871, ranted as follows:— "It is an insult to our psychological development to admit such an absurdity as a creature like this God. We look beyond such mummery; ours is a vast hierarchy of spirits endowed with all the power these fools allot to their so-called omnipotent God. Ruler of what is he? Not of this world, for he don't rule me. I do as I please, so do you. Why, even Satan can overmatch him, according to Christian doctrine." Joel Tiffany, a Spiritualist lecturer and publisher, in his monthly of June, 1858, said:— "My experience has been, go among Spiritualists where you will, and, as a general thing, they have no faith in a living, conscious, intelligent Deity, possessed of love, volition, affection, etc., as an object of religious aspiration and worship." THE DEVIL IS THEIR GOD AND FATHER.
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." John 8:44. Man is so constituted that he will worship some being or power which he regards as superior to himself. And as Spiritualists refuse allegiance to the God of the Bible, it will not be surprising if they choose Satan as their god and father. History shows that such has always been the case with men in past ages. Concerning demon worship in early times, Gibbon says:— "It was the universal sentiment, both of the church and of heretics, that the demons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of idolatry. Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from the rank of angels and cast down into the infernal pit, were still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies and to seduce the minds of sinful men. The demons soon discovered and abused the natural propensities of the human heart toward devotion, and, artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the only comfort of which they were yet susceptible—the hope of involving the human species in the participation of their guilt and misery."—Vol. i. p. 533. In the Banner of Light, Nov. 4, 1865, are the following question and answer; the answer by the "controlling spirit," through Mrs. Conant:— "Q. Do you know of any such spirit as a person we call the devil? "A. We certainly do. And yet THIS SAME DEVIL IS OUR GOD, OUR FATHER." Dr. A. B. Child says, "What is called the devil is the Spirit of God in nature."—Christ and the People, p. 167. The same author in another work says:— "It is the mission of the devil, yet unthought of by men, to carry them through the hell of earth, and prepare them for the heaven of the spiritual world."—Better Views of Living, p. 41. As they acknowledge Satan to be their god and father, we should naturally expect that when they pray at all, they would pray to him. Miss Lizzie Doten, a celebrated trance lecturer, opened a prayer as follows:— "O Lucifer, thou son of the morning, who fell from thy high estate, and whom mortals are prone to call the embodiment of evil, WE LIFT UP OUR VOICES TO THEE." A Spiritualist prayer, called an "Invocation," found in Banner of Light, April 18, 1871, opens thus: "Thou spirit of the air," etc. And this, of course, means no other than Satan, who is called the "prince of the power of the air." Eph. 2:2. No doubt Satan inspired that prayer to himself as the spirit or prince of the air. The apostle Peter says: "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Gr. TARTARUS], and delivered them into chains of darkness," etc. 2 Pet. 2:4. The word "tartarus" means the regions of our atmosphere. Dr. Wm. Ramsey, an able and learned writer, says:— "The word tartarus means, according to Greek writers in a physical sense, the bounds or verge of this material system. . . . That place is probably, at present, within the atmosphere of our earth." We think, rather, that it is the region beyond our atmosphere, the inter-planetary spaces, which are dark and cold beyond our comprehension. The learned Ralph Cudworth, D. D., in his "Intellectual System," vol. iii. p. 363, while speaking of Peter's remark says:— "And by tartarus here, in all probability, is meant this lower caliginous (i. e., dark) air or atmosphere of our earth, according to that of St Austin concerning these angels, 'that after their sin, they were thrust down into the misty darkness of this lower air.'" De. Gen. ad Lit. lib. 3, cap. 10. Apuleius, de Deo Socratis, says:— "There are certain divine powers of a middle nature, situate in this interval of the air, between the highest ether and the earth below. . . . Through the same demons, as Plato says in his Symposium, all revelations, the various miracles of magicians, and all kinds of presages are carried on." It must please Satan to see that men are willing to worship him directly by name; but when that is too bold, he is satisfied to receive homage through personification, as in the Egyptian hero-worship, and in that of Romans, Brahmins, and Hindoos. The following extract is from a prayer offered by E. S. Wheeler, in Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, March 5, 1871; and published in the Banner of Light, July 15, 1871:— "Most holy angels, O ye great and good and beautiful souls, who have made earth the Heaven it is fast becoming, hear our prayers. Unable to comprehend an Infinite Mind, we offer our supplications to you. Great souls that have blessed the world, condescend to bless us. Martyrs, heroes, patriots—ye who have inspired in all times the hearts of men, give us your sympathy, your love, your wisdom, in this hour. Mighty ones of years gone by—Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha—come to us. Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Mahomet, Ann Lee, Washington, Channing, Elizabeth Browning Theodore Parker, hear us as we ask for strength and wisdom, and give, in answer to our practical prayer for help, that assistance which you well know is our necessity. Amen." Farmer, in "Demonology," says:— "To some persons it may appear strange that possessions should be ascribed by many of the fathers after the time of Justin Martyr, to fallen angels. "Several philosophers taught that the heathen demons were evil spirits of a rank superior to mankind, and that these demons personated the souls of the dead, gods, and genii, and procured themselves to be worshiped under their names." In this devil-worship, Spiritualists have "progressed" backward into heathenism, so that now they can number their brethren by hundreds of millions! Rev. B. Clough, speaking of the heathen of Ceylon says:— "I now state, and I wish to be heard in every corner of the Christian world, that the devil is regularly, systematically, and ceremoniously worshiped by a large majority of the inhabitants of the island of Ceylon!" "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." 1 John 4:3. "Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." Jude 4. "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." 1 John 2:22. The following is from the Spiritual Telegraph, No 37:— "What is the meaning of the word Christ? 'Tis not, as generally supposed, the Son of the Creator of all things. Any just and perfect being is Christ. The crucifixion of Christ is nothing more than the crucifixion of the spirit, which all have to contend with before becoming perfect and righteous. The miraculous conception of Christ is merely a fabulous tale."