With what contempt and ridicule has the ghost been treated on account of the marriage! Therefore “I am not to be trifled with,” was pertinent. What violent contentions, occasioned by her messages, appropriate the terms “Peace, peace,” or “there must be peace,” as she more plainly said to another person about the same time.
[37] Here we see that the direct answer was entirely avoided. It was no design of her mission. We have the Bible by which even the angels must be tried. To the law and the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because they have no light in them, from whatever world they may profess to come. She accordingly took this ground, and reasoned with the people out of the Scriptures as the standard of truth by which she would be tried.
[38] It was matter of trial to some christians among us, that the Spirit should thus associate with one who never gave the least evidence of piety: But the Spirit informed them, out of her hearing, that Mrs. Butler was one of the elect, and would repent before she left the world.
[39] She had several times fainted before.
[40] “Don’t you believe a word of all that I have told you,” say some who heard it.
[41] She now talked without appearing. It was the next night after this, that the attempt was made to handle her while she appeared.
[42] The last member of this sentence is matter of dispute.
[43] This shews that this witness was not in the cellar, when the preceding sentence was uttered. They who were there, say that it was the Spectre who said, they must come down, and Mr. Blaisdel who added that they should be satisfied. Others tell us that the sentence was, “Come down in order, and you shall be satisfied.”
Make the worst of it; it was but innocent inaccuracy, like what is recorded of angels in the scriptures. Possibly the ghost did not foresee this confusion. Certain it is, that she constantly and strictly insisted upon order and solemnity, as indispensably requisite to her manifestations. After all, if the ghost has ever uttered one falsehood, or one false accusation, with the manifest design of injurious deception; or, if she has ever committed or ordered the commission of one crime; we must, without hesitation, condemn her as an evil angel. But then we must remember that her criminality should first be proved, not by our surmises or conjectures, but by substantial, plenary, and indubitable evidence.
[44] Here is a little mistake. It was not her mother, but Mr. Blaisdel who proposed this question, by her mother’s desire expressed to him.