The sermons of Master Henry Smith gathered into one volume. Printed according to his…The sermons of Maister Henrie Smith gathered into one volume. Printed according to his…

This deluded Herod: when he heard of Christ, he supposed that John Baptist was risen again, whom he had beheaded: and the better sort of the people, as we read in Mat. 16. 14. dreamed that Christ was Elijah, or John Baptist, or Jeremiah, or some of the Prophets risen again. But touching the soul once departed from the body, that it returns not nor can return into the world: many examples and testimonies, and reasons, & the order of our resurrection declareth.¹ The souls of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord, & no man or devil can take them out of his hands: the souls of the wicked are in the hands of ⟨p. 534⟩the devil, and God will not take them out of his hands: and therefore Abraham saith. He which is here,² cannot come from hence, and they which be there, cannot come from thence: for then the pains of hell were not everlasting pains, not the joys of heaven everlasting joys, but temporal, like the pains and joys of this world. Therefore it is no soul which walks about. How then? What is this which I see in the night like such a man, and such a man? The Devil (which changeth himself into an Angel of light to deceive) can change himself into the likeness of a man much more: that is it which thou seest, as Saul saw Samuel, 1. Sam. 28. 8. not Samuel himself. For could the Witch raise Samuel out of the grave, which could not keep her self out of the grave? or could the devil disturb the Prophet after death? Then he should never be quiet, if the devil could disturb him, because he disquieteth the godly so much while they live. If this apparition be called Samuel, how doth he call it Samuel, if it be not Samuel? As the Books of Calvin are called Calvin: as the picture of Beza is called Beza: as he which playeth the King upon a stage, is called a King: as the golden Mice and Hemerodes which the Philistines laid in the Ark, were called Mice and Hemerodes, although they were but mere shapes ⟨p. 535⟩and figures of them: so this likeness of Samuel, is called Samuel, though it was not Samuel in deed, but a counterfeit shape of Samuel. For GOD would not answer Saul before by Oracle, nor by Priest, nor by Prophet: and would he answer him by the dead, which doth forbid to ask counsel of the dead? No (saith Abraham) they have Moses and the Prophets,