soul being purely spiritual should reside as in its Throne in the principal part or faculty of it to wit in the imagination framed of a small portion of the animal spirits being most subtile and seated in the very middle or center of the brain 6. Another chief argument that he useth to prove these two souls in man is the strife and disagreements that are within man Because he saith the intellect and imagination are not wont to agree in so many things but that also the sensitive appetite doth dissent in more things From whose litigations moreover it shall be lawful to argue that the moodes of the aforesaid souls both in respect of subsisting and operating are distinct For as there is in man a double cognitive power to wit the intellect and imagination so there is a double appetite the Will proceeding from the Intellect which is the Page or servant of the rational soul and the sensitive Appetite which cohering to the imagination is said to be the hands or procuratrix of the corporeal soul. 7. To these we shall add that when the understanding is truly enlightened with the spirit of God and led by the true light of the Gospel in the ways of Christ then is man said to be spiritual because the carnal mind and the sensitive appetite are subdued and brought under to the obedience of Christ by his grace So also when the understanding is darkned as saith the Apostle Having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God thorow the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts Then man becomes wholly led with the carnal and sensual appetite and is therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural animal or soully man And in both these conditions the organical body is led and acted according to the ruling power either of the Spirit of God and so it is yielded up a living sacrifice to God or of the spirit of darkness corruption and the sensitive appetite and so is an instrument of all unrighteousness By all which it is most manifest that there are in man these three parts of Body Soul and Spirit which was the thing undertaken to be proved 8. Lastly as to this point it is a certain truth that two extreams cannot be joined or coupled together but by some middle thing that participateth or cometh near to the nature of both So the Soul which by the unanimous consent of all men is a spiritual and pure immaterial and incorporeal substance cannot be united to the body which is a most gross thick and corporeal substance without the intervention of some middle nature fit to conjoin and unite those extreams together which is this sensitive and corporeal Soul or Astral Spirit which is respect of the one extream is corporeal yet of the most pure sort of bodies that are in nature and that which approacheth most near to a spiritual and immaterial substance and therefore most fit to be the immediate receptacle of the incorporeal Soul And also it being truly body doth easily join with the gross body as indeed being congenerate with it and so becomes vinculum nexus of the immaterial Soul and the more gross body that without it could not be united Now having as we conceive sufficiently proved that there are in man these three distinct parts of Body Soul and Spirit in the next place we are to shew that these three may and do separately exist and that we shall endeavour by these reasons 1. It is manifest by Divine Authority that the spirit that is the rational immortal and incorporeal soul doth return to God that gave it That is not to be annihilated or to vanish into nothing but to abide and remain for ever or eviternally For the Apostle saith For we know that if our earthly tabernacle or house were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens By which it is manifest that the immaterial Soul doth exist eternally ex parte post as the Schools say and also the gross body being separated from the immortal Soul doth by it self exist until it be consumed in the grave or by corruption be changed into earth or some other things or that the Atomes be dispersed and joined unto or figurated into some other bodies So it is most highly rational that this sensitive Soul or Astral Spirit which is corporeal should also exist by it self for some time until it be dissipated and wasted in which time it may and doubtlesly doth make these apparitions motions and bleedings of the murthered bodies 2. Upon the supposition that the rational Soul be not ex traduce but be infused after the bodily organs be fitted and prepared which is the firm Tenent of all Divines Ancient middle and Modern and must upon the granting of it to be simply and absolutely immaterial and incorporeal which is indisputable of necessity be infused because no immaterial substance can be produced or generated by the motion of any agent that is meerly material or forth of any material substance whatsoever And therefore I say that the Soul being infused it must of necessity follow the organized body that could not exist except as a lump of flesh without the corporeal sensitive soul which must of necessity demonstrate that as they did separately exist before the union of the Soul and Body so they also do exist distinctly after their separation by death and so the Astral Spirit may effect the things we have asserted 3. And if the experiment be certainly true that is averred by Borellus Kircher Gaffarel and others who might be ashamed to affirm it as their own trial or as ocular witnesses if not true that the figures and colours of a plant may be perfectly represented and seen in glasses being by a little heat raised forth of the ashes Then if this be true it is not only possible but rational that animals as well as plants have their Ideas or Figures existing after the gross body or parts be destroyed and so these apparitions are but only those Astral shapes and figures But also there are shapes and apparitions of Men that must of necessity prove that these corporeal Souls or Astral Spirits do exist apart and attend upon or are near the blood or bodies of which Borellus Physician to the King of France gives us these two relations 1. N. de Richier a Soap-maker he saith and Beruardus Germanus from the relation of the Lord of Gerzan and others distilling mans blood at Paris which they thought to be the true matter of the Philosophers-stone they saw in the cucurbit or glass body the Phantasm or shape of a Man from whom bloody rayes did seem to proceed and the glass being broken they found the figure as though of a skull in the remaining faeces 2. There were three curious persons also at Paris that taking the Church earth-mould from S. Innocents Church
to observe our ordinary Gallus Turcicus vel Gallopavus how quiet and demisly sometimes he goes and then again upon the suddain by some emotion of spirit how will his train be advanced and extended his barbles swelled and puffed up and the appendicle that comes over the bill or rostrum be extended or contracted at the pleasure of the animal And much more to consider the quick and suddain change of the colours of both those parts as sometimes to a whitishness or an ash-colour sometimes purple sometimes blewish and sometimes pure red so quick a motion that creature can give to the spirits and blood that they can so quickly alter and change not only the colours but also the magnitude And much more may we rationally believe that Angels can alter and change the figure and colour of their bodies according to the ministrations they are imployed about 3. The Scripture informeth us that in or at the resurrection the bodies of men shall be as the Angels that are in heaven sicut Angeli Now this Analogy comparison or assimilation would be altogether false if Angels had no bodies at all but were meerly incorporeal then it would follow that the bodies after the resurrection were made meer Spirits and so ceased to be bodies which is false according to the doctrine of S. Paul who sheweth us plainly that after the resurrection they are changed in qualities into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual bodies for there is a natural Soul or Animal body and so likewise there is a spiritual body From whence we necessarily conclude that Angels have Bodies and that they are pure spiritual ones Now we shall come to the other point intended in this Chapter that is to shew that the opinion of Angels assuming bodies of the Elements here below is a meer figment as must of necessity follow if this be a truth that we have proved to wit that they have bodies for then assuming of other bodies must needs be in vain and to no purpose but we shall also shew the weakness and folly of that Tenent by these positive reasons following 1. Those that maintain the assumption of bodies dare not affirm that they are so invested with those bodies as are humane souls with their bodies for then there must be vital union which cannot be but by Divine Ordination But it doth not any where either by Scripture or sound rational consequence appear that either God appointed or gave power to Angels to assume to themselves bodies of what shape they pleased or that he ordained a vital union betwixt the Angels and those bodies they are supposed to assume either by Creation or Generation and therefore if they did assume any such bodies it must but be as we put on and off our Garments or as Players put on and off their Perukes Vizards and Garments according to the several things or persons they intend to represent ad personate 2. But the great question will be who are the Taylors that shape and frame them these vestments what must it be themselves that shape and figurate these bodies as snails are supposed to frame and make their shells and houses Surely not because if they be simply incorporeal then they can make no contact with corporeal matter and without a corporeal contact there can be no alteration nor organization of matter and consequently they cannot frame or shape themselves such vestments neither can any other actor or agent be assigned that can frame them and therefore the Tenent is a most ridiculous figment And again if they should have such solid bodies framed of the inferior Elements as the body of a Serpent as the Witchmongers do suppose the Devil assumed when he deceived Evah and such bodies as Demons are vainly supposed to assume to carry the heavy bodies of Men and Women in the air then those bodies must needs be of that solidity and compactness that they cannot suddainly be wasted and dissipated and then doubtlesly we should find them sometimes as we do the sloughs Exuvias or skins of Snakes for they could not be consumed in a moment And it were horrid to suppose that God should instantaneously create them and as suddainly dissipate and waste them So that in verity there is nothing of certitude but it may be looked at as a Chimera and a Poetical Fable 3. And if the Angels had not such bodily organs wherein they could move walk speak and perform other such actions withal before they assumed or crept into such vestments their being inclosed and invested with them and in them would no more fit and inable them to walk or speak in them than would an hollow Image inable a lame Man to walk or a dumb Man to speak that were inclosed in them Therefore suppose as the Witchmongers hold that the Devil should appear to a Witch in the assumed shape of a Cat Dog Foal or such like and walk and talk with him or her if before that assumption of such a shape the Devil could not walk and speak the having crept into such a vestment would no more inable him to speak than a dead Cat in an empty hogshead or wind pent in an empty bladder CHAP. XI Of the Knowledge and Power of faln Angels THese evil Angels of which we treat did doubtless before they left their habitation and did not keep their first estate participate of the same knowledge and power that those Angels still retain that did not fall into that defection and rebellion so that our disquisition must be what knowledge and power they have lost and what they still do retain and this we may consider in these particulars 1. That there are many things of which they are totally ignorant and nescient 2. The knowledge that they have is dark and confused 1. Concerning the first this must of necessity be a certain rule that what the holy and elect Angels do not know the evil and faln Angels must much more ignore except the knowledge of evil and guilt from which the good Angels are free and these may be reduced to these few points 1. We here may consider that the knowledge of Angels is to be restrained into these three ranks first either their innate and congenerate knowledge or secondly their infused or revealed knowledge by God in his Son Jesus Christ or thirdly their experimental knowledge that they gain by observation and experience and it is of the first only that we speak in this Paragraph and the rest we shall handle anon 2. That our cogitations desires and affections are not known to the Angels unless they manifest themselves either by external signs or effects or be revealed from God Andtheseways they may be known but not otherwise for it is manifest that Satan had darted it or put it into the mind of Judas to betray Christ yet had he so cunningly carried himself that neither by any effect nor sign did the Disciples know it until our Saviour did reveal it unto them
beginning to be stagnant to motion and ebullition and may exert so much force upon the organs as for some small time to move the whole body the hands or the lips and nostrils So that all that is to be done is but to prove that the person murthered is not absolutely dead and that the Soul is not totally separated or departed forth of the Body and this we shall do by undeniable proofs as are these that follow in this order 1. Though we generally take death to be a perfect separation of the Soul from the Body which is most certainly a great truth yet when this is certainly brought to pass is a most difficult point to ascertain because that when the Soul ceases to operate in the Body so as to be perceived by our Senses it will not follow that therefore the Soul is absolutely departed and separated 2. It is manifest that many persons through this mistake have in the times of the Plague been buried quick and so have some Women been dealt withal that lay but in fits of the suffocation of the Womb and yet were taken to be dead So that from the judgment of our Senses no certain conclusion can be made that the Soul is totally departed because it goeth away invisibly for many that not only to the judgment of the vulgar but even in the opinion of learned Physicians have been accounted dead yet have revived as learned Schenckius hath furnished us with this story from Georgius Pictorius that a certain Woman lay in a fit of the Strangulation of the Womb for six continual days without sense or motion the arteries being grown hard ready to be buried and yet revived again and from Paraeus of some that have lain three days in Hysterical suffocations and yet have recovered and of divers others that may be seen in the place quoted in the Margent 3. So that though the organs of the Body may by divers means either natural or violent be rendered so unfit that the Soul cannot perform its accustomed functions in them or by them so as they may be perceptible to our senses or judgments yet will not that at all conclude that the Soul is separated and departed quite from the Body much less can we be able to define or set down the precise time of the Souls aboad in the Body nor the ultimate period when it must depart for the union may be and doubtless is more strong in some than in others and the Lamp of life far sooner and more easily to be quenched in some than in others And the Soul may have a far greater amorosity to stay in some Body that is lively sweet and young than in others that are already decaying and beginning to putrifie and it may in all probability both have power and desire to stay longer in that lovesome habitation from whence it is driven away by force especially that it may satisfie it self in discovering of the murderer the most cruel and inhumane disjoyner of that loving pair that God had divinely coupled together and to see it self before its final departure in a hopeful way to be revenged 4. If we physically consider the union of the Soul with the Body by the mediation of the Spirit then we cannot rationally conceive that the Soul doth utterly forsake that union untill by putrefaction tending to an absolute mutation it be forced to bid farewel to its beloved Tabernacle for it s not operating ad extra to our senses doth not necessarily inferr its total absence And it may be that there is more in that of Abels blood crying unto the Lord from the ground in a Physical sense than is commonly conceived and God may in his just judgment suffer the Soul to stay longer in the murthered Body that the cry of blood may make known the murtherer or may not so soon for the same reason call it totally away There is another kind of supposed Apparitions that are believed to be done in Beryls and clear Crystals and therefore called by Paracelsus Ars Beryllistica and which he also calls Nigromancy because it is practised in the dark by the inspection of a Boy or a Maid that are Virgins and this he strongly affirmeth to be natural and lawful and only brought to pass by the Sydereal influence and not at all Diabolical nor stands in need of any Conjuration Invocations or Ceremonies but is performed by a strong faith or imagination And of this he saith thus Sed ante omnia ait notate proprietatem Beryllorum Hisunt in quibus spectantur praeterita praesentiae futura Quod nemini admirationi esse debet ideò quia sydus influentiae imaginem similitudinem in Crystallum imprimit similem ei de quo quaeritur And a little after he saith Praeterea syderibus nota sunt omnia quae in natura existunt Cumque Astra homini subjecta sint potest is utique illa in subjectum ita cogere ut voluntati ejus ipsa obsecundent What truth there may be in this his assertion I have yet met with no reasons or experiments that can give me satisfaction and therefore I leave it to every Man to censure as he pleaseth The only story that seems to carry any credit with it touching the truth of Apparitions in Crystals is that which is related of that great and learned Physician Joachimus Camerarius in his Preface before Plutarchs Book De Defectu Oraculorum from the mouth of Lassarus Spenglerus a person excellent both for Piety and Prudence and is in effect this Spengler said that there was one person of a chief family in Norimberge an honest and grave Man whom he thought not fit to name That one time he came unto him and brought wrapt in a piece of Silk a Crystalline Gemm of a round figure and said that it was given unto him of a certain stranger whom many years before having desired of him entertainment meeting him in the Market he took home and kept him three days with him And that this gift when he departed was left him as a sign of a grateful mind having taught such an use of the Crystal as this If he desired to be made more certain of any thing that he should draw forth the glass and will a male chast Boy to look in it and should ask of him what he did see For it should come to pass that all things that he required should be shewed to the Boy and seen in the Apparition And this Man did affirm that he was never deceived in any one thing and that he had understood wonderful things by the boys indication when none of all the rest did by looking into it see it to be any thing else but a neat and pure Gemm He tells a great deal more of it and that doubtful questions being asked an answer would appear to be read in the Crystal but the Man being weary of the use of it did give it to Spengler who being a
and that it was poured again into the Soul of the world either immediately or at the last mediately after its transmigration into other bodies The other suffrage he saith upon this matter is of the most learned Divine Dr. Hamond our Countryman who opening the Text Epist. Thessalo 1. c. 5. v. 23. to wit your whole spirit and soul and body c. He saith that Man is divided into three parts 1. To wit into the body by which is denoted the flesh and the members 2. Into the vital soul which in like manner being animal and sensitive is common to man with the bruits 3. Into the spirit by which the rational soul that was first created of God is signified which also being immortal doth return unto God Annot. in Nov. Testam lib. p. 711. This his exposition he confirmeth by Testimonies brought from Ethnick Authors and also from the ancient Fathers From all which the learned Dr. doth make this conclusion And from the things above he saith it is most evidently manifest that man being as it were an Amphibious animal or of a middle nature and order betwixt the Angels and bruits with these he doth communicate by a corporeal soul framed of the vital blood and the stock of animal spirit joyned likewise in one and with the other he communicates by an intelligent soul immaterial and immortal And thus much for arguments brought from humane authority which are prevalent if they be brought affirmatively as these are from learned men or Artificers and so we shall proceed to further kind of proofs 3. But an argument arising from Divine Authority is of the most force of all and therefore let us a little survey the Text it self which in our English Translation is thus And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly And I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle having given the believing Thessalonians all the spiritual counsel that could be necessary to bring them to the perfection of sanctification doth pray for them that the God of peace would sanctifie them wholly or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth as Arias Montanus hath rendered it omninò persectos altogether perfect And that the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the whole part portion or lot for so the word properly signifieth which he nameth by Spirit Soul and Body to be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore to this doth learned Beza add this note Tum demùm igitur ait homo integer sanctificatus fuerit quum nihil cogitabit spiritus nihil appetet anima nihil exequetur corpus quod cum Dei voluntate non consentiat And before he had said Therefore Paul by the appellation of spirit doth signifie the mind in which the principal stain lieth and by the Soul the rest of the inferior faculties and by the body the domicile of the Soul And in another place he saith The mind is become vain the cogitation obscured the appetite hardened And to the same purpose doth learned Rollock upon the place say thus much Sanctification or transformation is not of any one part but of all the parts and of the whole man For there is no part or particle in man which was not deformed in that first fall and made as it were monstrous Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or transformation ought to be of the whole man and of every singular part of him And further he saith For the whole man the Apostle hath here the enumeration of his principal parts And they are three in number Spirit Soul and Body By the spirit he saith I understand the mind which the Apostle Eph. 4. 24. calleth the spirit of the mind and this is no other thing than the faculty of the rational mind which is discerned in invention and in judging of things found out By the name of soul he saith I understand all those inferior faculties of the mind as are the animal which are also called natural The body doth follow these parts to wit that gross part which is the instrument by which the spirit and soul do exert their functions and operations By all which it is most clear that though they call them faculties yet they are distinct essential parts of the whole man which is most manifest in that the body though one of these three cannot be a faculty but a meer instrument and yet is one of the essential parts that doth integrate the whole man But whosoever shall seriously consider how little satisfaction the definition of a faculty given by either Philosophers or Physicians will bring to a clear understanding may easily perceive that distinct parts are commonly taken to be faculties 4. The first argument that this learned Physician urgeth to prove that there are two Souls in man the one sensitive and corporeal the other rational immortal and incorporeal is in this order But he saith whereas it is said that the rational soul doth by it self exercise every of the animal faculties it is most of all improbable because the actions and passions of all the animal senses and motions are corporeal divided and extended to various parts to perform which immediately the incorporeal and indivisible soul if so be it be finite seemeth unfit or unable Further he saith what belongeth unto that vulgar opinion that the sensitive soul is subordinate to the rational and as it were swallowed up of it that that which is the soul in brutes in man becomes a meer power these are the trifles of the Schools For how should the sensitive soul of man which before hath been in act a subsistent material and extended substance losing its essence at the advent of the rational soul degenerate into a meer qualitie But if it be asserted that the rational soul by its advent also doth introduce life and sensation then man doth not generate an animated man but only a formless body or a rude heap of flesh 5. Another argument he useth to prove these two souls in man is this Therefore he saith it being supposed that the rational soul doth come to the body before animated of the other corporeal soul we may inquire by what band or tye seeing it is a pure spirit can it be united to this seeing it hath not parts by which it might be tied or adhere to the whole or any of the parts And therefore he thinketh that concerning this point it is to be said with most learned Gassendus That the corporeal soul is the immediate subject of the rational soul of which seeing it is the act perfection complement and form also by it the rational soul is made or becometh the form and act of the humane body But seeing that it doth scarce seem like or necessary that the whole corporeal soul should be possessed of the whole rational soul Therefore it is lawful to determine that this rational
Nature no not of those whereby the propagation of the Gospel might have been much advanced viz. the Mystery of Printing and the Magnet and yet no one useth his silence in these instances as an argument against the being of things which are evident objects of sense To which we answer 1. He falleth into a common mistake in making the Proposition universal and dolus versatur in universalibus when it ought but to be particular so for him to say that no silence of Scripture is argumentative is too universal for its silence in point of Geography as in describing America and the people thereof nor in discovering the Magnalia Naturae Artis is not argumentative and we do not say that all silence of Scripture is argumentative but yet we affirm that some silence of Scripture is argumentative So we cannot universally say that nothing hath a being but what is mentioned in Scripture but we may very well affirm that some things have no being of truth of existence because not declared in Scripture 2. The Scriptures were not written to teach Naural Philosophy Arts or Sciences humane Policy or the like but were given that the man of God might be perfect furnished for every good work and it is by them that we have the doctrine of eternal Salvation revealed unto us and we positively affirm the sufficiency of the Scriptures unto Salvation which thing no Orthodox Divine we suppose will deny and Bellarmine himself did confess in these words Prophetici Apostolici libri sunt verum verbum Dei ac stabilis regula fidei And if it be a certain Rule of Faith and the true Word of God then whatsoever it is silent of we ought not to believe and so its silence is argumentative in that point The Scriptures are utterly silent concerning Purgatory and therefore it is a good argument to affirm there is no such place as Purgatory because the Word of God is silent as concerning it but if it had been necessary to have been believed then there would have been mention made of it 3. And as the Scriptures are sufficient in matters of Faith and circa credenda and what they are silent in are not to be received as Articles of our Faith but to be rejected as having no truth of Existence So likewise what Worship God requireth of his people is fully revealed in his Word and therefore I am to reject the worshipping of Mahomet with the Turks or Images and praying to Saints with the Papists because I have neither precept nor president in the Word but it is silent in such matters nay tells us That he is the Lord our God and him only we ought to serve 4. Though Mr. Glanvil say that God hath given no account of the state of the other World but only that general one of the happiness of some and the misery of others yet Am I to believe as Mr. Glanvil somewhere in his Book affirmeth that Samuels Soul was raised up by the Woman at Endor and that those that he feigneth to make Leagues and Contracts with Witches are the Souls of such as had been Witches when they lived and asketh Who saith that happy Souls were never imployed in any ministeries here below Or am I to believe that both the Souls of the godly and wicked do rove up and down here upon earth and make Apparitions because the Popish Teachers do hold it to be so I hope not and therefore I shall in part give an answer here to some of these and handle that of the Woman of Endor in another place 1. The Word of God doth particularly teach us the state and condition of the Souls after death that they shall be like the Angels in Heaven and all other things necessary to move and draw us to believe the immortal Existence of Souls as that most able and learned Divine Dr. Stillingfleet hath asserted in these words The Scriptures give the most faithful representation of the state and condition of the Soul of Man The World he saith was almost lost in Disputes concerning the Nature Condition and Immortality of the Soul before divine Revelation was made known to Mankind by the Gospel of Christ but life and immortality was brought to light by the Gospel and the future state of the soul of man not discovered in an uncertain Platonical way but with the greatest light and evidence from that God who hath the supreme disposal of souls and therefore best knows and understands them A Sentence truly pious and orthodoxal 2. Hath not God in the holy Scriptures amply and plainly taught us the state of the other World in describing unto us such a numerous company of Sâ—raphims and Cherubims Angels and Archangels with their several Orders Offices Ministeries and Imployments and this is more than a general account as may be seen at full in that learned and godly Piece of Bishop Halls called The invisible World And hath he not given us a particular account of the very Kingdom of Darkness telling us of the Devil and his Angels and precisely in this enumeration For we wrestle not with flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiâ—al wickedness in high places And this is more than a general account and we must needs fay that what he holds is very derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of God and the sufficiency and truth of the Scriptures 3. Must I believe him that the souls of the Saints do rove and wander here below when as Bishop Hall saith where he is speaking against the opinion of those that hold that Souls do sleep until the Day of Judgment Indeed who can but wonder that any Christian can possibly give entertainment to so absurd a thought whilst he hears his Saviour say Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with â—e where I am and that not in a safe sleep they may behold my glory which thou hast given me Sure if the Souls departed be with Christ where he is and do behold his glory then it is a Popish Fable of Mr. Glanvil to feign their coming upon Messages hither The saying of St. Bernard is remarkable in this case Advertisâ—is 〈◊〉 esse sanctarum status animarum primum videlicet in coâ—pore 〈◊〉 â—cundum sinâ— corpore tertium in corpore jam glorificatoâ— Primum in militiâ— secundum in requie tertium in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if the second state of holy Souls bâ— without 〈◊〉 body and be at peace and rest then it must necessarily be a truth that they do not wander here nor run upon Errands For the souls of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord and there shall no torment touch theâ— And our Saviour told the Thief upon the Cross This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise that is as Dr. Hammond giveth the Paraphrase Immediately after thy death thou shalt go to a
Adulteries and Incests Thou shalt not lye with mankind as with womankind it is abomination Neither shalt thou lye with any beast to defile thy self therewith neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lye down thereto it is confusion Defile not your selves in any of these things for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you Now it cannot be rationally imagined that Moses having named and prohibited the less sins of bestial Copulation and Sodomy would have left out that which is the most horrid and execrable of all others to wit carnal Copulation with Devils if there had been any such thing either in possibility or act And therefore we may conclude according to the rules of sound reason that there is no such matter and that the Scriptures are the most fit Medium to decide these Controversies 5. The Scriptures and sound reason are the most fit Mediums to determine these things by because there is nothing that any hath written upon this Subject though the Authors be superfluously numerous but if it agree not with the principles of right reason and the rules of the Scriptures they ought to be rejected For what is not consonant to right reason ought not to be received by any that truly are rational Creatures and what agrees not with the Word of God ought not to be entertained by any that are or would be accounted good or true Christians And if all the gross fables lyes impossibilities and nonsensical stories that Demonographers and Witchmongers have related and accumulated together were brought to the test of the Scriptures and sound reason they would soon be hissed off the Stage and find few believers or embracers of them But alas all nay few men have the right use and exercise of their rational faculty but men to see to are in themselves as beasts and therefore we may all pray with the Apostle to be delivered from unreasonable men or men without reason or absurd men that make no right use of reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. The Scriptures and right reason have declared all things concerning Spirits either good or bad as also all sorts of Diviners or Witches if you will have them called so and the nature power operations and actions of them more than any other Book that was written before the time of our Saviours Birth the dreams and whimsies of the Platonists only excepted or for the space of three hundred years after and therefore are the most fit Medium and Authority to determine these things by 1. For first it is manifest that all things are ordered by the wisdom of the Almighty who hath done whatsoever he would both in Heaven and he doth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou And these things God doth not by a naked prescience but by his divine will providence and ordination as a learned Divine hath taught us in these words Est hoc inprimis necessarium salutare Christiano nôsse quòd Deus nihil praescit contingenter sed quòd omnia incommutabili aeternâ infallibilique voluntate providet praeponit facit So it was only his will decree and determination that Christ should not be born or assume humane nature visibly but at that precise time that he had appointed according to the evidence of the Apostle But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the law And when that fulness of time was come that he sent him then did the divine Wisdom and Providence ordain all means objects and occasions whereby the fulness of the Godhead that dwelt in him bodily might be made manifest by working of miracles both by himself and his Apostles therefore were there so many several sorts of Demoniacks blind lame dumb deaf and diseased not by chance but by the providence of the Father and only and chiefly that the work of God might be manifest in them for the Evangelist tells us And as Jesus passed by he saw a man which was blind from his birth And his Disciples asked him saying Master who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him Upon which place Dr. Hammond doth give this clear Paraphrase And some of his followers asked him saying Sir was it any sin of his own when his soul was in another body or was it some sin of his parents at the time of his conception which caused this blindness in him Neither his own nor his parents sins were the cause of this blindness of his but Gods secret wisdom who meant by this means to shew forth in me his miraculous power among you And though the Doctor would bring in the opinion of Pythagoras of the Transmigration of Souls of which vain traditional fancies he is almost every where guilty as received and imbibed in by some of the Jews that then followed him yet it appeareth plainly that it was not interrogated by the Jews but by his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore it is a wonder the Doctor should be so grosly mistaken and Theophylact tells us thus much plainly Neque enim Apostoli Gentiles nugas receperunt quo anima ante corpus in alio mundo versans peccet ac deinde poenam quandam recipiat in corpus descendens Piscatores cùm essent neque audiverant tale quiddam quia haec Philosophorum dogmata erant And so declareth that the Disciples having seen Christ heal the man that had thirty eight years been impotent and lame and had said unto him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee did conceive that this man being born blind it had been a punishment upon him either for his own sins or the sins of his parents and so doubting asked the question And so also do St. Austin and Chrysostome expound the place which is both sound and rational And of our Saviours responsion That neither had this man sinned nor his parents the learned Father giveth a satisfactory answer saying Nunquid vel ipse sine originali peccato natus erat vel vivendo nihil addiderat Habebant ergo peccatum ipse parentes ejus sed non ipso peccato factum est ut caecus nasceretur Ipse autem causam dicit quare caecus sit natus cùm subdit sed ut manifestentur opera Dei in illo And to the same purpose Gregory hath this notable passage Alia itaque est percussio quâ peccator percutitur ut sine retractatione puniatur Alia quâ peccator percutitur ut corrigatur Alia quâ quisque percutitur non ut praeterita corrigat sed ne ventura committat Alia per quam nec praeterita culpa
old Witch in the Air into foraign Regions that can hardly crawl with a staff to dancing and banqueting and yet to return with an empty belly and the next day to be forced like old Dembdike or Elizabeth Sothernes and Alizon Denice to go a begging with the sowr-milk Can is this either probable or likely would it not much more have advantaged the Devils interest and his Kingdom to have furnished them with good and true meat and drink and not with such imaginary Cates which would neither fill the stomach nor satisfie the appetite Had it not been more for the Devils benefit to have furnished them with plenty of gold and silver than to let them go ragged and tattered begging their bread from door to door 3. As these confessions have no truth-likeliness in them so they are things that are simply impossible to be performed by any created power and therefore must needs be false and fictitious relations for no Creature can perform any thing but that for which by Creation it was ordered and designed to but the Devils by Creation have no generative power given them nor members or organs to perform the act of copulation withal and therefore their having carnal copulation with the Witches is a most monstrous fiction and an absolute impossibility and can have nothing in it more than the stirring up of the imaginative faculty and thereby to move titillation in the members fitted for the act of generation which is a thing that happens to many both men and women that are of hot constitutions and abound with seed which we call nocturna prolutiones of which the Divines and Casuists make that great question An nocturna prolutiones sint peccatum And it is as simply impossible for either the Devil or Witches to change or alter the course that God hath set in Nature as to transubstantiate a man or woman into a Cat a Dog or a Wolf and therefore are these confessions meer impossibilities and monstrous lyes 4. There can in sound and right reason no credit at all be given to these confessions because divers of them have been proved to be utterly false as is plain in the man that did confidently affirm that he was a true Wolf and that he had hair under his skin the woful tryal of which was his death though a pregnant and undeniable proof that the delusion was in the Phantasie and that there was no real change of the mans body into a Wolf and therefore doth flatly overthrow the credibility of these vain and lying confessions To the same purpose is the story related by Camerariâ—s from Johannes Baptista Porta a great Naturalist and a person of competent veracity which is this Once saith he I met an old Witch one of those that are said to enter houses in the night time and there to suck the blood of little children lying in their Cradles Having asked her a question of something she promised forthwith that within a while she would give me answer She puts forth of her Chamber all those that went in with me to be witnesses of that which should pass Having shut us out she strips her self stark naked and rubs over all her body with a certain Oyntment which we saw through the chinks of the door The operation of the soporiferous juyces whereof this Oyntment was compounded made her fall to the ground and brought her into a deep sleep Upon this we open the door and some of us begin to strike and knock her well-favour'dly but she was so soundly asleep that to strike her body and a stone it was all one Forth we go again in the mean time the Oyntment had ended his working and the old Trot being awaked and having put on her cloaths begins to tell tales of Robin Hood saying That she had passed over Seas and Mountains and then gives us false answers We tell her that her body had never stir'd out of the Chamber she maintains the contrary we shew her the blows we had given her she persisteth the more stifly in her opinion By the testimony of this Author who was an ear and eye-witness of this passage and other persons with him which manifests it to be good and sufficient evidence it appeareth that the Witches are under a melancholy and passive delusion promoted by the help of soporiferous Oyntments whereby they fancy and think they are carried into far remote places where they hear and see strange things and do and suffer that which is not at all performed but only as in a dream their bodies in the mean time lying immoveable and so do but relate falsities and lyes which is an unanswerable proof of the absolute falsity of their confessions the thing that here we undertook to make good And some late Learned men with Mr. Glanvil himself giving too much credit to the things related by the Witches in their confessions to be true stories of things really performed at a great distance have been forced to revive that old Platonical Whimsie of the Souls real egression forth of the body into far distant places and its return again with the certain knowledge of things there done or said according to the relation that Pliny gives us in these words Reperimus inquit interempla Hermotimi Clazomenii animam relicto corpore errare solitam vagamque è longinquo multa annuntiarâ— quae nisi à praesenti nosci non possent corpore interiâ— semianimi donec cremato eo inimici qui Cantharidae vocabantur remeanti animae velut vaginam ademerint To which notwithstanding he doth not seem to give credence But these Relations of the Witches are meer lyes and forgeries and are but taught them by the spiritual craft of the Devil thereby to pretend to imitate the true Visions that the Prophets had from God And though there may be some peculiar persons that have the way to fall into ecstasies as Helmont witnesseth of himself and may thereby understand many mystical matters yet in it there is no real egression of the Soul forth of the body but a freeing or withdrawing of it from the Phantasie and Senses and then as the Cabbalists and mystical Authors say it is joyned to the intelligible World and beholds things as present and though there may be something of truth in it yet few Authors of credit and veracity have attested it upon their own experience and there may be much fallacy and danger in it and therefore we leave it to further search and inquiry Another apparent ground of the nullity of the truth or credit of these confessions is that which a learned Divine in his Letter to Dr. Wierus gives us the substance of which we shall give in English which is this I have known he saith the year foregoing he writ his Epistle Anno 1565. many foolish things from the private confession of a certain old Woman an Inchanter who when she had heard in my Sermon the place in the 19. Chapter of the Acts
explained That many of the Ephesians being of those who had exercised curious Arts had brought their Books and burned them openly c. She forthwith he saith came unto me with a mind plainly troubled and with tears pouring forth into my bosom the secrets of her breast did receive Christian instruction and when she had understood by the blessing of God the vanity of Diabolical Impostures and perceived them with opened eyes she was easily converted to the light of truth the smoak of lyes being laid aside She truth being once received hath most constantly confessed that it did appear to her more clear than the light at noon day that Satan did only deceive and blind the eyes of his Vassals and that there was nothing done in verity and this she declared with a detestation of her Diabolical Art And so concludes it in these words Uno verbo dicam me satis experientiâ didicisse bonam partem incantationum mera esse insomnia And whosoever shall read and seriously consider the Epistle of that excellent and learned Divine will find the most of those vain illusions laid open and confuted so that in all or the most of the things attributed unto Witches we shall find no more of Diabolical operation in them than an internal mental and spiritual delusion in making the Witches to believe and to draw on others to the same opinion that the Devil hath a kind of omnipotent Power and Soveraignty Therefore did Aristotle well conclude Incantamenta esse muliercularum figmenta 4. A fourth Reason of the meer falsity and incredibility of these Confessions is this Is it possibly credible to a rational and unbiassed judgment that the Witches though never so many at several times and places having made themselves the Slaves and Vassals of the Devil both in soul and body and being led by his lying and deceitful Spirit though making large and voluntary confessions can be conceived to have any touch of truth in them at all Surely no more truth in these confessions than there is in the Devil who was a Lyar from the beginning and therefore we argue thus Such kind of will affections and inclinations as are in the Devil himself such kind are in his Children But the will and affections of the Devil are against God his Truth and against all Gods people and his inclinations tend to continual lying Therefore the will affections and inclinations of his Children such as the Witches are and are granted to be are against God his Truth and against all Gods people and their inclinations tend to continual lying The proof of the major and minor Proposition is the plain words of our Saviour Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father the devil ye will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he was a murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it And again St. John tells us He that committeth sin is of the devil for the devil sinneth from the beginning So that it may truly be said of them They delight in lyes and their confessions are nothing but lyes And if they object and say that here we confess a League with the Devil and the Witch otherwise the Witches could not be his Children Vassals and Bond-slaves which elsewhere we deny we answer it is a gross mistake in not observing the distinction we make betwixt a mental and spiritual League such as the Devil and Judas made and such as all wicked men make with him and under this League we acknowledge all Witches to be but a visible and corporeal League we positively deny and so the objection is of no validity And thus we suppose we have sufficiently proved that there ought no credit at all to be given to the Confessions of Witches no more than to Devils who are all lyars Now let us proceed to their third main Objection That so many wise and grave Judges and honest Juries could not have been deceived to put to death such great numbers of those kind of people without sufficient proof of the matters of fact Against which we oppose these following Reasons 1. It is but an Argument at the best to drive the other Party into an absurdity which is not of any such dangerous consequence as may be supposed for it would but conclude that many grave and wise Judges and Juries have been imposed upon and deceived which is but argumentum ad homines and doubtless many might and have been And do not we Christians hold that the gravest and wisest Judges amongst the Turks and Persians have been and are deceived and have done unjustly in persecuting and putting Christians to death because they would not submit to the Religion of Mahomet and yet we account it no absurdity or injustice to pass that censure upon them And do not the Idolaters in all those large Empires and Kingdoms of Tartary China the Moguls Country and the rest of those Countries in the East of Asia persecute and put many to death for not worshipping their Idols or embracing their Religion and do we think it absurd to censure and condemn them of injustice though in their own Countries they be accounted grave and wise Judges Surely we do not and there is the parity of reason in both the Arguments for all are but men and so may erre 2. But as for the grave learned and wise Judges and understanding and honest Juries within His Majesties Dominions we affirm they are clear and innocent from these imputations and that for divers and sundry sound reasons 1. Our Judges and Juries have no such sinister and corrupt ends to wrest the Laws or wring forth and extort feigned and false Confessions because they have no such ends as to uphold and maintain idolatrous and superstitious Tenents as praying to Saints magnifying of Holy-water or setting up of Purgatory as had the Popish Inquisitors and the Demonographers and Witchmongers that writ for those ends And therefore it is no absurdity to say or think that they dealt unjustly in their proceedings which our learned and pious Judges are not nor can be guilty of 2. The Inquisitors and their Agents had benefit by the death of Witches having a share in their Goods and therefore no absurdity to conclude that their proceedings were unjust partial and corrupt of which our Judges and Juries are clear as having no profit at all by the death of these wretched and deluded people 3. Our Judges are but sworn to the due execution of the Laws made and the Juries sworn to bring in their Verdicts according to their best evidence now if the Witnesses forth of malice envy ignorance or mistake swear to matters of fact for which death or other punishments are allotted by the Law both the Judges and the Jury are absolutely excusable and if there be any
Fascination and then diabolical is but in vain and needless 7. How can the Witches if not maniacal in the highest degree believe that the Devil who is a Lyar and the Father of lyes and whom they cannot but know hath in the like cases deceived many that have in their opinion made contracts with him will prove true in the performance of his promise Or that he who is the enemy of all truth and goodness and laboureth to deceive all Mankind will be faithful to perform his promise or to do them any good either real or apparent Or if the Witches be not incredibly mad can they believe that he will perform without Hostages Bonds-men or Sureties when we find that the weakest and maddest of Mortals if he make a Covenant with another of known loosness and deceit though for a thing of a far less value than either soul or body will he not require sufficient Bonds-men and Security Now what Bonds-men or Security can the Witches have 8. And if the Witches be not beyond measure deluded and mad must they not rationally know that if the Devil deceive them as he is sure to do there is no recompence to be had nor any that can compel him to perform bargains Before what Judicature before what Judges by what Law must they call him to an account or have him punished So that in all reason and sound judgment we must conclude the Witches to be absolutely mad and then all these things also madness lyes and folly or that there is not nor ever was any such League or Covenant 9. But if all this were granted yet who are the Witnesses to this visible League or Covenant can the Witches name or find any The things that cannot be proved by sufficient Witnesses are never to be believed and we have proved the nullity impossibility and falsity of the pretended Confessions of Witches themselves and therefore that no credit at all ought to be given unto them and however no Law nor Equity ought to allow the Evidence of a Party as in these cases all Witches are And though some few of them have been so exceedingly mad to make such false and absurd Confessions yet if the Records of all Ages and Courts were sought it will be found that many hundreds of them have suffered that never confessed the least tittle of any such matter and the supposed Witches of Salmesbury in the County of Lancaster the tenth year of the Raign of King James were so far from this confession that they were cleared and the accusation found to be false and all acted by the imposture of one Thompson or Christopher Southworth And I my self have known two supposed Witches to have been put to death at Lancaster within these eighteen years that did utterly deny any such League or ever to have seen any visible Devil at all and may not the confession of these who both dyed penitently be as well credited as the confessions of those that were brought to such confessions by force fraud or cunning perswasion and allurements But if there be any such League or Covenant betwixt the Witches and the Devil how cometh the truth of this matter of fact if ever there were or could be any such thing to be certainly known and revealed Have any of the Pen-men of the holy Scriptures recorded that there ever was is or can be any such League or Contract Or was it ever attested by any honest rational men that were ear or eye-witnesses of such a bargain and contract Therefore we must once again conclude De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio 10. As for the Witches either Males or Females having carnal Copulation with Devils either as an Incubus or Succubus and their stealing of seed from a man and conveying it into the vessels of the woman it is in it self so horrid monstrous and incredible that I cannot well believe him to be a rational person or sanae mentis that believes it as a truth and therefore cannot but think the rehearsal of it a sufficient confutation Also herein I do appeal to all learned Physicians who do know the way that Nature breeds humane seed the causes that make it prolifical and the members fit for its generation and reception who I doubt not will deride this Tenent and condemn it as false and abominable Moreover the horrid absurdity of it hath been sufficiently demonstrated by Wierus Dr. Tandlerus Mr. Scot Mr. Wagstaff and others and therefore all we shall say is this That Devils whether conceived to be corporeal or incorporeal and to assume bodies for the one it must of necessity be were not created of God to generate neither have they nor can have any seed or members fit for generation and therefore to copulate or generate is derogatory from the glory of Nature and blasphemous against God and his Power As for the Devils sucking the Teats Warts or such like excrescences of the Witches bodies we should have passed it over as easily as the former but only that Mr. Glanvil hath taken up the Cudgels to defend it to confute which we shall give these satisfactory Reasons 1. There can be no rational end assigned why the Devil should perform this action for we must tell Mr. Glanvil that supposals are no proofs and ex suppositis supposita consequuntur and in a thing of this nature arguments to prove it probable are insufficient And if as he confesseth for their being suckt by the Familiar I say he saith We know so little of the Nature of Demons and Spirits that 't is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the reason of so strange an action Now if he knew so little of their Nature it must needs be vanity and arrogance to take upon him to declare so much and if he could not certainly divine the reason of so strange an act it was extreme folly and pride in him to bring in idle and vain conjectures and probability where verity and certainty are expected One while he supposeth them corporeal which if granted will not prove that they are recreated by the reeks and vapours of humane blood because their bodies are of a more pure Nature than to be nourished with gross and sometimes especially in melancholick old men and women corrupted blood for if every thing be nourished by its like then they cannot be fed with humane blood for they have no flesh nor bones such as ours that have need to be nourished with blood And for his next perhaps and may be that it is a diabolical Sacrament we shall believe it when he proves it and not before But he hath a third supposal which to him seemeth most probable viz. That the Familiar doth not only suck the Witch but in the action infuseth some poysonous ferment into her If this had been most probable why did he bring in the other two that are less probable surely he might have known that srustra fit per
were suitable to our sense For neither are Souls endowed with Fingers and Eyes neither do they suffer thirst neither have they mutual conference one with another Therefore the sum is that faithful Souls after they be departed from their Bodies do lead a pleasant and blessed life without the World And that most horrible torments are prepared for the reprobates which can no more be conceived by our minds than the immense Glory of Heaven 6. As for an Allegory which is a continuation of a Metaphor and properly signifies a figure expressing one thing by another from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enuntio and this is very frequently used in the Scriptures as when the Apostle speaking of the two Sons of Abraham the one from Hagar a bond woman the other from Sarah a free woman saith These things are an Allegorie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things do express one thing by another From whence we may note 1. That Allegories that tend to edification keeping the Analogie of Faith and not perverting or overthrowing the literal sense ought not to be so much cried down nor condemned as some have done both against Origen and others For the Apostle here as Beza hath noted made it manifest that he had followed the footsteps of the Prophet Isaiah who did foretel that the Church was to be constituted of the Children of Sarah that was barren that is to say of those who meerly and spiritually were by Faith to be made the Sons of Abraham rather than of Hagar that was fruitful even then foretelling the rejection of the Jews and the vocation of the Gentiles 2. Allegories may be used and the literal sense nevertheless preserved also for the History is literally true that Sarah and Hagar were two living Women the one Abrahams Wife a free Woman the other his Servant and a bond-woman and yet this did not hinder but that thereby an Allegory might be used and they might and did signifie and express another thing than what was meerly contained in the letter 3. We cannot here but add the grave and learned opinion of S. Augustin upon this very point who rejecting the tenent of some that made Paradise and the things therein contained meerly corporal and of some that made it only spiritual and intelligible doth run a middle course betwixt these two extreams saying thus As though Paradise could not be corporal because also it might be understood to be spiritual As though therefore there were not two Women Agar and Sarah and of them two Sons of Abraham one of the bond-woman the other of the free-woman because the Apostle saith that the two Testaments were prefigured in them or therefore that water had flowed from no rock Moses smiting because there by a figurative signification Christ also may be understood the Apostle saying and the rock was Christ. And after concludeth thus These and some others may be spoken of understanding Paradise spiritually and may be spoken without contradiction while notwithstanding the most faithful verity of that History may be believed in the commendable narration of the things done or performed This same opinion this learned Father doth maintain in another place where he is speaking of the Ark of Noah Having premised these rules for the right expounding of the Scriptures we shall now come to the main things that we purpose to handle in this Chapter And those that would uphold a kind of omnipotency in Devils and maintain their great power in Elementary and Sublunary things the better to defend the great power of Witches do alledge divers places of Scripture and expound them in favour of their gross tenents which now we shall examine and confute in order as they lie 1. The first colourable argument that they produce is from the Devils or the Serpents tempting and seducing of Eve where labouring to prove the Devils power and his visible apparition to Witches and making a compact with them they pretend that in the seducing of Eve he did visibly appear unto her and vocally discourse with her and to that purpose that he essentially entred into the Body of the Serpent and spoke through its Organs or that he assumed the visible and corporeal shape of a Serpent and so discoursed and had collocution with her To answer which that we may proceed methodically we shall lay down and labour to prove these two positions 1. That if it were granted that he did it either way it would be no advantage thereby to prove the ordinary power of Devils or Witches 2. That that place of Scripture if rightly weighed and considered will no way make it rationally appear that the Devil performed that temptation any other way but only mentally and that the History there in the manner and circumstances of it is only to be Allegorically and Metaphorically expounded And as to the first if it were granted it proves nothing to the purpose for the power of Devils or Witches as these two Arguments will sufficiently evince 1. From no single instance or particular proposition can ever a general conclusion be rightly drawn by any known and certain rules of Reason or Logick for Syllogizari non est ex particulari is known to any Tyronist in that Art But if Satan for that once should have entred into the natural Serpent or assumed his shape it is a deceivable and vitious way of arguing that therefore he hath such a power over all Bodies at all times when he pleaseth or that he can assume what shape he please and therefore it certainly and rationally concludeth nothing of validity 2. In the temptation of Eve there was something more extraordinary than can be assigned in any other temptation whatsoever except that of Christ. And therefore was there a more peculiar and extraordinary dispensation from God in that case than can be shewed in any others but that of Christ. For now it pleaseth God in his merciful providence so to order and overrule the malice of his hellish will and to restrain and bridle his envious nature that though his will be never so wicked yet is he kept in his chains of darkness and God will not suffer his people to be tempted above what they are able but will with the temptation also make way to escape that they may be able to bear it Now Adam and Eve were in an extraordinary condition in respect of the Saints of God in this life or of any other persons and there was a more high and greater end in the providence of God in ordering and permitting of that temptation than there is or can be in any others but that of Christ And therefore from what the Lord permitted and ordered to do in that temptation or the liberty that he might grant him to exert his own power then will no argument rationally follow that he can commonly and at his pleasure perform as much and so maketh no firm conclusion And as concerning that
place of Scripture in the third of Genesis the great and learned Jesuit Pererius doth undertake with tooth and nail to prove that it is to be literally interpreted and that Satan did really enter into the Body of the natural Serpent and spoke in him or through his Organs and laboureth though in vain to enervate and overthrow the strong arguments of his Brother in Religion the most learned Cardinal Cajetan Where he rejecteth the opinion of those that hold that the Devil did assume a Body in the shape of a Serpent because he saith that Satan presently after the temptation ended must have deposited and put off the assumed body but that the Serpent was after in Paradise and therefore that he did not act it in an assumed Body Therefore we shall also pass by that opinion of assuming of Bodies as being a meer groundless figment invented by the dreaming Schoolmen as we shall demonstrate hereafter But to proceed in order We shall first shew that the place must of necessity admit of an Allegory or Metaphor And secondly we shall lay down positive Arguments to shew the absurdity and impossibility of the Devils speaking in the Serpent or by his Organs And thirdly we shall answer all objections that are material and that in these particulars 1. The thing that in that History is to be taken literally is that Eve was tempted and seduced but the instrument by which it was done the manner and circumstances must of necessity have an Allegorical or Metaphorical interpretation otherwise no sense rationally can be made of the place at all 2. There can no blame of the action be imputed to Satan himself if neither absolutely nor properly nor Historically nor Allegorically nor Metaphorically nor no ways else he be named in that very History of Evahs tentation wherein the action it self with the several circumstances is fully and plainly expressed For the action especially being so weighty a matter was necessary to be known in every point And therefore it is not to be doubted but that the History concerning the same is so exactly set forth with every circumstance as that any Man may be able to judge of the principal Actors therein at the least So then although the Devil in that History be neither absolutely nor Historically nor properly expressed by name yet must we acknowledge him to be therein Allegorically and Metaphorically set forth at the least or otherways impose no blame upon him at all concerning the action And therefore must Pererius needs confess a Metaphor in the place or else the Devil cannot be made an actor in the business 3. It was no natural Serpent but the Devil himself Metaphorically set forth by the name of a Serpent who gave the onset upon Evah in that tentation Forby Allegories and Metaphors there is evermore some other thing meant than that which is literally expressed And that this is so is thus proved If in that action the Devil himself be not Historically and properly but Allegorically and Metaphorically called a Serpent because he is most crafty and subtile then undoubtedly the objection of a natural Serpent to be used in that action is very inconvenient But the antecedent is true and therefore also the consequent 4. The antecedent to that Hypothetical Argument foregoing is easily thus proved It is an accustomed thing in the Sacred Scriptures to use the names of other creatures in setting forth to our sense the Intellectual Creatures themselves Hereupon it is that in the Apocalypse the Devil by a perpetual Allegory is called a Dragon or Serpent And therefore in this History of Evahs tentation by the like perpetual Allegory he is also called a Serpent For no Man can be so absurd and foolish to think that the Devil literally and properly in that of the Revelation can be called a Dragon or Serpent but only in a Metaphorical and Mystical sense and therefore must in right reason be taken so in that place of Genesis for one part of Scripture is alwaies best interpreted by another 5. Again how can Judah literally be a lions whelp or Christ called the lion of the tribe of Judah must it needs be understood that Christ either assumed the shape of a natural Lion or that he entred into the Body of a natural Lion Surely not that were most absurd to think or believe Even so must it be accounted most absurd and abominable for Pererius or any other to fancy that the Devil may not properly enough in an Allegory or Mystical sense be called a Serpent in that action of tempting of Evah without either assuming the shape of a Serpent or entring into the Body of a natural one I appeal to all rational Men to judge if the absurdities of both be not alike if barely and literally taken But this being one of Cajetans Arguments was too hard a morsel for the teeth of Pererius and therefore he past it over without an answer Further when our Saviour called the Pharisees and Sadducees a generation of vipers must any Man be so extreamly mad as to believe that naturally and literally they were generated by vipers Must it not be understood that they were called so from their poysonous and wicked minds by way of Metaphor Yes surely and so is the Devil called a Serpent by a Metaphor or else literally so taken both appellations are equally absurd And let Pererius or any other unloose this knot 6. How can the Devil be a very murtherer from the beginning which he is Mystically so considered if he had no hand in the destroying of Evah and Adam both in Souls and Bodies But if by the Serpent the Devil was not understood then he stands acquitted and was not guilty of the murdering Adam and Evah both in Souls and Bodies But we must affirm that all learned and rational Divines whether antient middle or modern that have expounded or commented upon that place do by the words of our Saviour calling Satan a murderer from the beginning understand the murdering of Adam and Evah both in Souls and Bodies And we dare referr all those that have taken or will take pains to examine them upon that piece of Scripture that they shall be found as we have averred 7. Moses in that action doth purposely intitle the Devil by the name of a Serpent because by his effectual creeping into the interiour senses as also by infecting Mens minds with venomous perswasions he doth very lively represent the nature disposition and qualities of the venemous Serpent And in this same sense was the Apostle jealous over the Corinthians lest as that Serpent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which must necessarily be understood of Satan by a Metaphor of that Serpent beguiled Evah through his subtilty so they might by the cunning of Satan in his false Apostles have their minds corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 8. The Serpent that tempted Evah in Paradise is there said to be more
yea the Devils in the infernal pit and in the air do perform but without voice in a spiritual manner 3. If this opinion were true then the blessed Souls being divested from their Bodies should not have a communion one with another nor should jointly praise and glorifie God together which were false and absurd and therefore the learned Father said well It is to be holden stedfastly that the offices of the Heavenly Hoast are by no means performed in silence seeing we may read that the Angelical powers before the Throne of the Lord do sound forth his praise with unwearied voices 4. The sleights and subtil machinations for he hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or devices of Satans Kingdom could not be carried on if he had not a way and means to communicate them to the rest of the Crew of his inferiour Fiends and therefore doth plainly prove that there is a way of hidden Mystical and Spiritual discourse which the Devil might and did represent to the mind and understanding of Evah whereby she was seduced and that there was no need of a vocal and audible interlocution and so much in answer to his objection The next place of Scripture that is commonly brought and urged thereby to prove the great power of Devils and Witches is that of Pharaohs Magicians from whence they argue thus If the Magicians of Pharaoh were able by the power and assistance of the Devil to change their Rods into Serpents the Water into Blood and to produce Frogs Why may not Witches by the power and assistance of the Devil change themselves and other things into strange and several shapes and do the rest of the feats that are ascribed unto them But though this be but petitio principii a begging of the question that by the assistance of the Devil they did these things which is neither supposed nor granted but ought first to have been proved And though in the case of hardening Pharaohs heart there might be and was a peculiar dispensation from God at that time yet it will not follow that God doth always dispense with and give the Devil leave to operate the like things and so nothing firmly can be concluded from hence Yet I say though these be so we shall pretermit them and come to the full opening and discussion of the matter and that in these two particulars 1. How far the Devils power and assistance did concurr with the actions and performances 2. And wherein he did not concurr nor act at all 1. We shall grant that Pharaoh and the Magicians being Idolaters and worshippers of false gods their ends were principally to magnifie the power of their Idols and to manifest that their supposed gods could work and bring to pass as strange miracles or wonders as Moses and Aaron could perform by the assistance of the God of the Hebrews and in respect of this end they had all the assistance that Satan and his dark kingdom of Angels could afford them in a spiritual and hellish way for he is the Prince of the power of the air that worketh in the children of disobedience for such were both Pharaoh and his Magicians And to this purpose doth the Apostle tell us speaking of false and seducing teachers That they were like Jannes and Jaâ—bres that withstood Moses in their resisting of the truth so that the Magicians of Pharaoh were condemned for resisting the truth of that message that Moses and Aaron brought and of those real miracles that they performed and so in respect of the wicked end they aimed at they were assisted with the power and concurrence of the Devil and in that respect only were his servants and instruments But as for the second particular namely the efficient causes and â—eans of the producing of those thing that the Magicians did we affirm they were performed by the power of nature and art and that the Devil was no efficient cause of their production and that by these irrefragable arguments 1. Those that affirm that the Devil did or can produce such strange effects do also acknowledge that what he performeth in natural and elementary Bodies is done by applying natural agents to natural and fit patients which dotruly bring to pass such strange effects and that he doth no more but only make the local application of them From whence it must necessarily follow that the effects flow from natural agents and so no causality at all can be ascribed unto him except that fictitious one of being causa sine qua non which is as much as no cause And besides that there is no proof that he maketh this local application for if he be incorporeal then it is simply impossible that he should perform any such matter and however a man by natural power and means if he know the fit and apt actives and passives may perform them himself and so his assistance is needless and we have never yet met with any argument that bore any convincing force that might induce us to believe that he is so great a Naturalist 2. There are many persons that think themselves no mean sharers in the most sorts of learning and others that are very strait laced in their pretended zeal for godliness and in detesting the works of Satan that even startle and shew an abhorrency at the word Magick if it be but once named as though there were no Magick but what is diabolical or that which they call diabolical were any other way evil but only in the end and use for there are many plants and minerals that though poysonous are yet notwithstanding good in respect of their Creation and the good uses that may be made of them as to kill noxious animals that are hurtful unto man But if any forth of malice and wickedness should use them to poyson and destroy Men and Women it were wicked and diabolical in the end and use yet were the means lawful and natural So whatsoever the Devil may do by wicked Men his instruments in leading and drawing them to make use of the great magnalia naturae to work strange wonders by thereby to confirm Idolatry and Superstition or to resist the truth and such devilish ends though the end and use may be wicked and diabolical yet the efficient cause is natural and lawful And therefore we can find no other ground or reason of dividing Magick into natural and Diabolical but only that they differ in the end and use for otherwise they both work by a natural agency and means seeing the Devil can do nothing above or contrary to that course that God hath set in nature Therefore may men do without the aid of Devils whatsoever they can do seeing they have no advantage over us but operate only by applying active things to passive like as Men do And therefore said that most learned Philosopher Chymist and Mathematician our Countreyman Roger Bacon excellent well in these words non igitur oportet nos
of Gods which are plural and more than one but he asketh in the singular what form is he of By all which it is manifest that he yet saw nothing at all For when we plainly see a thing we do not usually ask others what form it is of because our eyes can inform us of that So that he saw nothing either because he was not in the same room or that there appeared nothing that was visible 6. Now after all these ambigous lies and delatory cheats the crafty quean doth begin to come more near to give satisfaction to the blinded expectation of Saul who all this while stood gaping to see the appearance of Samuel and so she tells him who was fit to believe any thing though never so absurd or impossible behold an old man comes up and he is covered with a mantle In the beginning of the action the Text saith and when the woman saw Samuel she cried out then she said she saw gods ascending out of the earth and now after all this discourse and expence of time Samuel is but coming up all was lies and delayes the more to blind and delude the poor credulous King But yet thus far it is plain that Saul saw nothing at all and so must needs all this while either be in another room or else for certain there was no apparition visible and all the satisfaction that he had was from the lying stories the Woman told him Now let Mr. Glanvil consider and answer whether it be not only intimated but clearly holden forth in the Text that either they were in two distinct rooms or that nothing visible did appear before Saul 7. Now after all this the Text saith and Saul perceived that it was Samuel the Hebrew word doth signifie to know or to perceive and relates to the understanding but how did he know or perceive that it was Samuel not by the sight of his eyes for we have made it plain that he was either in another room or that no visible apparition presented it self before his eyes but he only perceived it by the description of the crafty Woman who knew well enough what habit or garments Samuel wore in his life time as one that was the most publickly known Man in Israel and therefore the subtil and crafty quean knowing that Saul only required Samuel to be brought up and no other doth at the last frame her tale agreeable to Sauls desire and so describes him an old Man covered with a mantle and such an one Saul had known him to be while he was living But if Saul had seen any such thing as the shape or form of Samuel then the Hebrew Verb thrice used in that action that properly signifieth to see with the eyes would have been used in this place as well as when it relateth what she saw and not the verb for knowing or perceiving that relateth to the mind and Samuel he saw not but only believed the lies she told him For otherwise it would have been And Saul saw Samuel and not Saul perceived that it was Samuel which he could not do but only by her relation and forged tales 8. The last thing in this action is that Saul stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself now to what did he stoop and bow seeing he had seen nothing with his own eyes neither knew any thing that appeared but as the Woman told him Could it be to any thing but to an imaginary Samuel and such an one as she had described whom he conceited in his Phantasie to be Samuel himself Surely in rational consequence it could be nothing else For all that she had done and said before being undeniably lies and cheats this also in just and right reason must be judged to be so also So that it was either the Woman that being in another room did change and alter her voice and so plaid the part of Samuel or else that she had a confederate knave whom she turned out to act the part of dead Samuel 6. The last thing that we shall handle concerning this controverted subject is the examination of the grounds and reasons of those that are of a different judgment which may be comprised in these three several heads 1. Some do conceive that it was the Body of Samuel that was raised up and acted by his soul or by Satan 2. Some hold that it was Samuels Soul that appeared in the shape and habit that he had living 3. Others do positively affirm that it was the Devil that assumed the shape of Samuel and so acted the whole business by a compact betwixt him and the Woman These we shall confute in order 1. That it was not the Body of Samuel that was raised up nor the Soul joyned with it that acted Samuels part is manifest from these reasons 1. Because Samuels Body had lain too long in the grave for some account it near two years and therefore must needs in a great part be corrupted wasted and disfigured that none could have certainly known that it was Samuel 2. It must have been so putrified and stinking that none could have endured near it for the noisome and horrible smell 3. Who should have covered it with the mantle which had it been buried with him must in so long a time have been rotten and consumed Surely there were no Taylors in the Grave to make him a new one but in reason and likelihood if it had been his Body it should have appeared in Linnen or a winding-sheet if that had not been rotten likewise 4. To raise a Body so long dead must needs have required an omnipotent power for it is the Almighty power of Christ alone that raiseth up the vile Bodies of his Saints and maketh them like his glorious Body And therefore neither the woman with all her Divinations nor all the Devils in Hell nor any created power but the Lord Almighty could have wrought this miracle who would never have done it to gratifie the humour or to magnifie the cheating craft of an idolatrous wicked and couzening Witch And if the Devil or any created power could raise up the Body of a departed Saint then the rising out of the Graves of many Bodies of Saints that had slept and their coming into the holy City and appearing unto many after Christ was risen from the dead had been no certain or convincing argument of the undoubted truth of the Divinity and Resurrection of our most Blessed Saviour But they were most infallible evidences of them both as saith the Father S. Hierome in these words Sic multa corpora sanctorum resurrexerunt ut dominum ostenderent resurgentem tamen cum monumenta aperta sunt non antè resurrexerumt quà m resurgeret dominus ut esset primogenitus resurrectionis à mortuis 5. That it was not Samuels Soul joyned with the Body that acted this we thus argue That Tenent that is flatly contrary to the plain Doctrine of the Scripture must
needs be false But this tenent of Samuels Soul acting in the Body after death is flatly contrary to the plain Doctrine of the Scripture ergo it is false The major we suppose no Oxthodox Christian can justly deny and the minor is proved thus The Scripture doth assure us that those that die in the Lord as without all doubt Samuel did are blessed and rest from their labours Therefore must this Tenent be abominably false for if the Soul of Samuel after his death had been brought again to act in the Body then he had not rested from his labours but had been disquieted and brought to new trouble to have been vexed to have seen Saul committing more wickedness than before in taking counsel from a cursed Idolatrous Woman such as the Lord had commanded to be destroyed And there is no one point in all this transaction of Saul with the Witch that speaketh her Imposture more apparently than where this counterfeit Samuel saith Why hast thou disquieted me As though the Saints of God after death could be disquieted by a Devil or a Witch who according to Gods infallible truth are blessed and rest from their labours and are in the hands of the Lord where no Torments can touch them And therefore none would have spoken those lying words but a devilish cheating quean or a damnable suborned confederate 6. If Samuels Soul was again joined to his body so long after separation and so performed vital actions who was the author of this conjunction or union could the Witch or the Devil or any created power effect that union Surely not none but the almighty power of Jehovah who breathed into Adam the breath of life And therefore we are bold to assert with all the company of learned Christians that this opinion is erroneous impious and blasphemous 2. The second opinion that it was Samuels Soul that appeared in his wonted shape and habit that he wore while he lived hath been strenuously maintained by the Popish party and as strongly confuted by the reformed Divines But we shall not trouble our selves and our readers with them all but only urge two or three that are most cogent thereby to answer Mr. Glanvils fopperies and they are these 1. If it were Samuels Soul that appeared it cannot be supposed to come contrary or whether God would or not for hardly any rational Man we believe will affirm that because God doth whatsoever he will both in Heaven and Earth and who hath resisted his will 2. And it cannot be rationally thought that Samuel who whilst he lived was so punctually careful to do nothing especially in his prophetick office but what he was commanded of God would after his death run an errand without his consent or licence 3. And that his Soul did not come by the command of God is most certain Though Mr. Glanvil ask the question who saith that happy departed Souls were never imployed in any ministeries here below To which though we have answered it before we now again reply that all learned Divines of the reformed Churches have said and maintained it and so do we both say and affirm that they never were nor are imployed in ministeries here below because never created nor ordained of God for any such end or purpose but there are legions of Angels that are ordained to be ministring Spirits and not the Souls of the Saints departed this life But Mr. Glanvil goeth further and saith that Samuel was not raised by the power of the Witches inchantments but came on that occasion on a Divine errand And though we have before unanswerably proved in the general that no Souls of those that are dead do after death appear or wander here below nor come such sleveless errands as he supposeth yet we shall add one or two here in particular to prove that Samuels Soul came not on a Divine errand as sent by God without which mission it could not have come at all 4. For fourthly if Mr. Glanvil had proved by any argument or colour of reason that his Soul had come upon such a Divine errand it had been something but he hath only laid down an affirmation without either proof reason or authority and we may with as good reason deny it as he affirm it for bare affirmations prove nothing at all 5. It is manifest that God in all his ordinances of providence especially in the order of his miracles doth work chiefly to confirm and witness truth for that as the worthy and learned Stillingsleet hath observed is the most proper criterium of a miracle and to send a Soul from the dead must needs be miraculous Now if the chief end in Gods working of miracles for none else but he can work them be to establish truth and settle his own Divine and pure worship then it cannot be to uphold lies and Idolatrous courses But if God should have sent Samuels Soul on a Divine errand when the Witch was practising her Diabolical Divinations and cheating tricks it had been to have countenanced and confirmed both Saul and the Witch in their wicked wayes and to have contradicted his own law and command which did positively order that all that used Divinations should be put to death and all those that sought for counsel from them to be severely punished Now let Mr. Glanvil or any other prove that God orders that to be done by the dead which he forbad to be done by the living 6. If it had been the true Samuel that appeared it is not rational nor credible to imagine that he would neither rebuke Saul for consulting with a Woman that practised those things that were forbidden by the law upon pain of death nor that he would either reprove or punish so wicked a Woman finding her in the very act We say it is not credible unless we suppose Samuel less zealous for the law and commands of God being dead than he was for them being living Surely he that living hewed Agag in pieces only because God had commanded he should be slain would if it had been the true Samuel which without all question it was not have done as much or worse to the cursed and Idolatrous cheating Witch though after his death if he had come upon a Divine errand 7. God should have shewed himself very mutable if he had answered Saul in a miraculous way by a dead Prophet that had refused to answer him by one living And Samuel while living knew certainly that the Lord had rejected Saul from being King over Israel and had testified unto him that the strength of Israel would not lie and that he was not like a man that he should repent But if it had been the true Samuel that had been sent to speak to Saul he knowing both by his own knowledge and relation of Saul himself that God had refused to answer him by Prophets must in that conference both have made God a liar and mutable and also himself who living had testified
the contrary and therefore it could not be either the true Samuel nor his Soul 8. It is manifest that the Lord had before withdrawn his good Spirit from Saul and an evil one from the Lord was come upon him and therefore it was no way probable that the Lord would in a miraculous manner answer such a wicked person whom he had utterly rejected as a reprobate Neither is it like that God would shew him an extraordinary favour by a dead Prophet that would not vouchsafe him his Spirit in an ordinary way And Samuel that came not at him for a long time though but a little distance asunder while he lived was not like to make so long a journey in a Divine errand to visit him after his death 9. And if Abraham at the request of the rich Man would not send Lazarus to warn his brethren lest they should come into that place of torment which bore with it a fair shew both of Charity and Piety much less would God give way or Samuel be desirous to come to send a blessed Soul from its rest for such a frivolous matter and in no wise to connive at the wickedness of both Saul and the Witch and never move either of them to the amendment of their lives 10. Where doth Mr. Glanvil find it mentioned in any part of Scripture or where is it recorded in the writings of any reformed or Orthodoxal Divines or where in any of their works is it declared that ever any blessed Soul after death was either sent or did come upon a Divine errand to any here below Is it not monstrous confidence not to say impudence to utter such groundless assertions without any proof reason or authority at all Let all learned and judicious persons consider and judge 3. That the Devil assumed the shape of Samuel and acted the whole business is the opinion of all or the most of the learned Divines of the reformed Churches of whom we shall crave pardon if we dissent from them it being no fundamental of Religion nor any Article of the Faith And this we profess is not done out of the spirit of contradiction nor for singularity but only because as we conceive the Tenent hath no sufficient grounds neither from Scripture nor sound reason to support it and therefore we shall labour its confutation by these ensuing arguments 1. Because this opinion that the Devil should perform this apparition doth beg two suppositions never yet sufficiently proved and that have in them no certain truth For first they take for an Hypothesis that Devils are meerly and simply incorporeal Spirits which we shall prove hereafter to be false Secondly they take for another Hypothesis that Spirits and Devils can assume what bodies they please and appear in any figure or shape which is a meer figment invented by the doating Schoolmen as we shall sufficiently make good hereafter 2. We are not of their opinion that think that the Devils do move and rove up and down in this elementary world at their pleasure to act what they list and appear when how and in what shapes they please for then the World would be full of nothing almost but apparitions and every corner replenished with their ludicrous tricks as formerly in the times of blind Popery and ignorance there was no discourse almost but of Fairies Hobgoblins apparitions Spirits Devils and Souls ranting in every house and playing feats in every Town and Village when it was nothing but the superstitious credulity and ignorant fancies of the people joined with the Impostures of the Priests and Monks And if this were true then how should Men know a true natural substance or body from these fictitious apparitions Nay how could a Man have known his Father or Mother his Brethren or Sisters his Kinsmen or Neighbours might they not as well have believed them to be Phantasms and assumed bodies as real and true creatures 3. But though faln Angels in respect of their malice wicked wills and envious desires whereby they seek as much as in them lies the ruine of all mankind both in Soul and Body may in that particular end and regard be said to be like roaring Lions going about and seeking whom they may devour and compassing the earth and walking to and fro in it yet we must affirm that in respect of executing their wicked envious and malicious wills and desires they are restrained nay kept in the chains of everlasting darkness from which fetters and chains they go not out but when and so far as they are sent ordered licensed or as some would have it worded permitted by the purpose and decree of the Divine and Almighties providence So that it is most certain that the faln Spirits cannot go forth of their chains when they list to act what mischief they would contrary to the will of the Almighty who hath fettered and still keeps them in those chains but when they are at any time let loose it is only by the will decree licence and order of Jehovah who sends them forth to accomplish his will either for punishment to the wicked to inflict upon them his just judgments for which they are the appointed ministers and executioners and in the performance of these offices of his wrath they are limited and bounded how far they shall proceed and no further or else they are sent forth to tempt or afflict the godly for the trial of their faith and herein they are so restrained and bounded by the power of the Almighty as they cannot act one jot beyond the limit of his commands or Commissions as is manifest in the case of David who was tempted by Satan to number the people and in the affliction of Job wherein he was bounded how far he should act and no further And when the evil Angels are thus sent forth and limited by God what and how far they shall act it is always for just and righteous ends as in the case of Ahab when a lying Spirit was sent by God into the mouths of his Prophets that he might be persuaded to go up to Ramath Gilead that he might be slain there or as it was for a judgment and destruction upon Sennacheribs Army that Jerusalem might be saved and freed and he sent back with shame and confusion into his own countrey or it is to manifest his glory goodness and mercy to his Saints so David was moved to number the people that falling under that temptation and he and the people therefore plagued might be brought to a greater degree of repentance and to know that their defence stood not in the multitude of men but in the benignity of Jehovah who was their strength and their defender and so Job was so sore afflicted that his Faith and Patience might be made manifest and remain for an example to all succeeding posterities But it is utterly irrational and incredible that God would send the Devil without whose mission he could not have done it to
appear in the shape of Samuel either to magnifie the skil or practice of a lewd wicked and Idolatrous Woman which thing he had forbidden by his plain and open law nor to gratifie the curiosity of a wretched Reprobate such as was Saul whom he had denied to answer by living Prophets and therefore would not answer him by the apparition of a Devil to have committed a counterfeit Imposture in the shape of holy Samuel And therefore we conclude that it was no apparition of the Devil but meerly the Imposture of the Woman either alone or with a Confederate There is also a fourth opinion concerning the transaction of this Woman of Endor that holds that it was neither the Body or Soul of Samuel that was raised up neither the Devil that appeared in his shape nor that it was the Imposture of the Witch alone or with a Confederate but that it was the Sydereal or Astral Spirit as they are pleased to term it of Samuel that was made to appear and speak by the art and skill of the Woman But because this Tenent is not of much Antiquity nor hath many assertors of it as also because it taketh that for an Hypothesis to wit that there are three parts in Man the Body Soul and Spirit and that the Soul goeth immediately after death either to Heaven or Hell the Body to the grave and that the Spirit doth for a certain time after death wander in the air and may be by a certain kind of art brought to appear visibly and to give answers of all things that it knew living which as yet hath never been sufficiently proved therefore we shall pass it over here having perhaps occasion to speak of it more largely hereafter We shall now come to mention some places in the New Testament that are produced by some thereby to prove the great power of Devils and Witches in transferring and carrying bodies in the air as is that of our Saviours temptation where it is said that the Devil took him into an exceeding high Mountain and that he set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem from whence they thus argue That if the Devil had power to carry our most blessed Saviour in the air into an high mountain and to set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple that much more hath he power to carry the bodies of Witches who are his sworn vassals in the air whither he pleaseth or they desire To annul the force of which objection we give these reasons 1. If it were granted that the Devil did transport our Saviour in the air yet it will not follow that he can at any time when he pleaseth carry the Bodies of Men or Women so likewise for no particular proposition will according to the rules of art infer a general or universal conclusion nor one example or instance inductively prove a general practice one Swallow doth not make a Summer For though once when our blessed Saviour was baptized the Holy Ghost did descend like a Dove and light upon him it will not follow that in all other of his actions of preaching or working of miracles the holy Spirit should appear also in the form of a Dove nor when otheâ— Saints are Baptized will it follow that it doth or should alwaies appear in the same form And though Samson did once slay a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Aâ—s it doth not follow that either he did so in like manner in every battel or that every Man may do the like 2. If it were granted that the Devil did carry Christs Body in the air it will not follow that he can do so at any other times when he pleaseth because in the temptation of Christ there was an extraordinary dispensation of God for the same which cannot be presupposed in the ordinary transportation of Witches and therefore the argument falls quite to the ground 3. In the actions of Satan especially in elementary things for we speak not of the acts of his will the will order and licence of God is chiefly to be considered because his power in respect of execution is under the power of the Almighty so that he can do nothing in this respect but what he is ordered and commanded to do And therefore the end of the action is principally to be regarded for if God should have given way that Christ should be carried by Satan in the air it was for a glorious and good end that the obedience of his will to the Father might be shown and that his victory over the Devil might be made manifest but in carrying the Bodies of Witches in the air there can be no good just or pious end wherefore the Devil should be licensed or permitted to carry them in the air except it were to promote filthiness and abominable wickedness which were absurd and blasphemous to imagine And therefore we may rationally and plainly conclude that the carrying of the Bodies of Witches in the air by the power of the Devil is a false wicked and impious opinion 4. Some are of opinion that this whole transaction was visible sensible and corporeal as Theophylact and many others Some are of opinion that it was wholly in a Vision And some take a middle way that it was partly sensible and visible and partly mental and by way of vision Of which opinion the great Cameron seems to be who compares it with that of Ezekiel who saith And the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem And sheweth that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth agree with the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as applicable to lifting up or carrying in a vision as to bodily transportation And that it was either altogether or partly in a vision the learned Beza gives us this note Hoc videtur satis ostendere haec omnia per visionem quandam non corporali transvectione ostensione esse gesta quomodo nempe humanitus videre potuisset omnia regna orbis gloriam eorum in momento But though it be the more sound and rational opinion that the whole transaction was mental and in a vision yet we shall not altogether stand upon that but if it be granted that it was corporeal and visible yet it doth not appear that our Saviour was in his Body carried by the power of the Devil in the air either to the top of an high mountain nor set upon the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and that for these reasons 1. Our Saviour did not go to undertake this combat with Satan unwillingly that he need be constrained or carried to try the utmost power and malice of the Devil but readily and willingly by the conduct and leading of the holy Spirit for the Text saith in Matthew Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil
we ought not to take adventitious ones instead of those that are innate nor fictitious ones for either but to make a due distinction of each of them one from another 4. Neither is indiscerpibility a proper difference of a spiritual substance from a corporeal one because the visible species of things do in the air intersect one another and suffer not discerpibility and that these are bodies is manifest because they affect the senses and therefore that which is a property of some bodies cannot be the proper difference to distinguish a spirit from a body 5. This is only an arbitrary and feigned supposition and cannot be proved either by the testimony of any of the senses by sound reason or innate notions and what is or cannot be proved by some of these according to his own position ought to be rejected And therefore as indiscerpibility is no proper difference of a spirit from a body no more is penetrability which can no more be in a spiritual substance than either in discreet quantity one can be two or two one or in continuate quantity one inch can be two or two can become one D r Glisson from his much admired Suarius the great Weaver of fruitless Cobwebs hath devised another difference of spirit from body which he thus layeth down as we give it in this English I assign he saith a twofold difference betwixt the substance of matter and that of spirits The first is taken from the substantial à substantiali materiae mole heap or weight of the matter For I he saith besides the actual and accidental extension do attribute to the matter this substantial heap or weight which is denied to spirits But the sign of this heap or weight is that if the matter in the same space be duplicated triplicated or centuplicated that it will be made more dense twofold threefold or an hundred fold And concludeth thus I answer he saith that matter and spirit in this do agree betwixt themselves that they both are finite and from thence that they have this common that neither of them can reduce themselves into a littleness that is infinite or into an infinite magnitude Therefore the difference betwixt them doth not consist in this but in this that a spirit whether it be contracted or dilated is not made more dense or rare but on the contrary matter whether it be contracted or expanded is made more dense or more rare To which we return this responsion 1. It is usual with men when by their wills and fancies they would maintain an opinion that is weak and groundless finding they cannot clearly perform it to bring in some strange obscure or equivocal word thereby to make a flourish though they prove nothing So here this learned person to make a shew to prove the difference of spirit doth assign moles substantialis as peculiar to body but not to spirit but what is to be understood by moles he might know his own meaning but I am sure there are few others that do or can understand it and therefore is but a devised subterfuge to stumble and blind mens intellects and not to prove the thing intended 2. If by the word moles he intend weight or gravity and what else it can signifie is not intelligible then it will not be a difference betwixt body and spirit because gravity and levity are differences of bodies in respect of one another and therefore can be none as he assignes it 3. To assert that a spirit when contracted or dilated is not made more dense or more rare but that matter whether it be contracted or expanded is made more dense or more rare is easily spoken but not so easily proved and rude assertions without sound proof are of no validity and may with as good reason be denied and rejected as affirmed or received 4. We have no density in bodies but in respect of the paucity and parvity of the pores so that less of another body is contained in them and that is accounted rare that hath many or greater and so containeth more of another body in them and are qualities or modifications that only belong unto bodies and not at all unto spirits and is but precariously taken up by the Doctor without any proof or demonstration at all 5. If spirits cannot expand themselves into an infinite space nor contract themselves into an infinite littleness then where are bounds and limits of this contraction and expansion or how is it proved that they can do either seeing they are properties and affections of bodies and matter and never were proved to be peculiar to spirits 4. Those that are much affected to and zealous for experimental Philosophie do often run into that extream as utterly to condemn and throw away all the ancient Scholastick Learning as though there were nothing in it of verity or worth But this is too severe and dissonant from truth as might be made manifest in many of their Maximes but we shall only instance in one as pertinent to our present purpose which is this Imaginatio non transcendit Continuum And this if we perpend it seriously is a most certain and transcendant truth for when we come to cogitate and conceive of a thing we cannot apprehend it otherwise than as continuate and corporeal for what other notions soever we make of things they are but adventitious arbitrary and fictitious for even non entia ad modum entium concipiuntur And therefore those that pretend that Angels are meerly incorporeal must needs err and put force upon their own faculties which cannot conceive a thing that is not continuate and corporeal But if they will trust their own Cogitations and faculties rightly disposed and not vitiated then they must believe that Angels are Corporeal and not meerly and simply spirits for absolutely nothing is so but God only 5. If the Angelical nature were simply and absolutely spiritual and incorporeal then they would be of the same essential Identity with God which is simply impossible For the Angels were not Created forth of any part of Gods Essence for then he should be divisible which he is not nor can be his Essence being simplicity unity and Identity it self and therefore the Angels must of necessity be of an essence of Alterity and different from the essence of God Now God being a simple pure and absolute spirit in the Identity of his essence if the Angels were simply and absolutely spiritual and incorporeal then they must be of the same essence with him which is absurd and impossible and therefore they have Alterity in them and so of necessity must be Corporeal and not simply and meerly spiritual And that as much as we contend for here is granted by Dr Moore in these words For he saith I look upon Angels to be as truly a compound Being consisting of soul and body as that of men and brutes Whereby he plainly asserteth their Composition and so their Alterity and therefore that they must
needs have an Internum and externum as the learned and Christian Philosopher Dr Fludd doth affirm in these words Certum est igitur inesse ipsis scilicet Angelis aliud quod agit aliud autem quod patitur nec verò illud secundùm quod agunt aliud quam actus esse poterit qui forma dicitur neque etiam illud secundum quod patiuntur est quicquam praeter potentiam haec autem materia appellatur 6. Therefore to conclude these arguments do sufficiently and evidently prove that Angels are either Corporeal or have bodies united unto them which is all one to our purpose whether way soever it be taken To which only we shall add these authorities and first S. Bernard tells us thus much rendered into English Therefore he saith as we render unto God alone true immortality so also incorporeity because he alone doth so far transcend the universal Corporeal nature of spirits that he doth not stand need of any body whatsoever in any operation whatsoever being content with only a spiritual nodd or motion when he will to perform whatsoever he pleaseth Therefore only that majesty of his is that which neither for himself nor for another hath need of the help of a Corporeal instrument by which omnipotent will he is immediately present at every work And that of Damascen is full to the purpose which is this That Angels quantum ad nos are said to be incorporeal and immaterial but compared to God are found to be Corporeal and material And of this opinion besides were Tertullian S. Augustin Nazianzen Beda and many others as may be seen in the learned Writings of Zanchy upon this subject with whose words we shall shut up this particular Certum enim est ex iis quae scripturae tradunt de Angelis probabiliorem esse Patrum sententiam quà m Scholasticorum utram tamen sequaris non multum peccaveris nec proptereà inter Haereticos haberi poteris And on the otherside if they be holden to be simply and absolutely incorporeal then these absurdities must of necessity follow 1. If Angels be simply incorporeal then they can cause no Physical or local motion at all because nothing can be moved but by contact and that must either be by immediate or virtual contact for the Maxime is certain Quicquid agit agit vel mediatione suppositi as when ones hand doth immediately touch a thing and so move it vel mediatione virtutis as when a man with a rod or a line doth draw a thing forth of the water both of these do require a Corporeal contact that is that the superficies of the body moveing or drawing must either mediately or immediately touch the superficies of the body to be moved or drawn But that which is absolutely incorporeal hath no superficies at all and therefore can make no contact either mediate or immediate and therefore Angels if simply incorporeal can cause no Physical or local motion at all 2. If Angels be absolutely incorporeal then they cannot be contained or circumscribed in place and consequently can perform no operation in Physical things To which if they answer with Thomas Aquinas Quod circumscribi terminis localibus est proprium Corporum sed circumscribi terminis essentialibus est commune cuilibet Creaturae tam corporali quam spirituali This aiery distinction might have taken place if Aquinas had shewed us what essential terms and limitations are but of this we have no proof at all and what was never proved may justly be denied For what a definitive place is was never yet defined neither can we possibly conceive an Idea or notion of any such thing but only as we may make a Chimaera or figment of that which never was nor is For though we may apprehend that they are not circumscribed in place as gross bodies are yet it is not to be doubted but that they move from place to place and do so consist in some place that they occupy a certain space of place and this is most certain if we believe as we ought those things which the Scriptures do declare concerning the mission and motion of Angels And therefore notwithstanding this frivolous and feigned distinction we may conclude with Theodoret Angelorum naturam esse finitam circumscriptam eóque opus habere loco Neither doth that avail to solve the business and make this a good distinction which is brought by D r Moore to wit that there are two acceptions of place the one being imaginary space the other that place is the concave superficies of one body immediately environing another body and that therefore there being these two acceptions of place he concludeth that the distinction of being there Circumscriptivè definitivè is an allowable distinction But by the Doctors leave we must affirm that what he saith is not allowable and that for these reasons 1. Because imaginary space hath no existence in nature but only in the fancy of the Imaginant entia rationalia non sunt entia naturalia ex parte rerum existentia 2. Because it is a certain truth which Des Cartes hath taught us to wit That the names of place or space do not signifie any thing different from a body that is said to be in a place but only do design the magnitude figure and site of it amongst other bodies And that this fite may be determined we ought to have respect unto some other bodies which we may consider as immoveable And as we respect divers bodies we may say that the same thing at the same time doth change place and not change place As when a Ship is carried in the Sea he who sitteth in the Ship doth alwayes remain in one place if respect be had to the parts of the Ship betwixt which parts he keepeth the same site And the same person doth continually change place if respect be had to the shores because he continually receedeth from some shores and cometh more near unto other 3. Neither is this distinction good because as the same Author tells us Non etiam in re differunt spatium sive locus internus substantia corporea in eo contenta sed tantùm in modo quo à nobis concipi soleat 4. D r Moore granteth that spirits are substances and have extension and we affirm that nothing can be so but what is Corporeal and consequently must be in place circumscriptively and therefore the fancy of a definitive place is meerly a fictitious foppery without ground or reason And now let us examine the objections that are usually brought against this opinion the strongest of which is to this purpose that if Angels be Corporeal then of necessity they must be mortal alterable and destructible to which I answer 1. Because no Creaturely nature is or can be immortal per se ab intrinsecâ propriâ naturâ for God only is so as saith the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who only hath
are by their offices all but ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation By which it is manifest that this place is to be understood of their ministration and offices and not of their nature or substances 2. They can no more be meerly and literally said to be spirits understanding spirit to intend an absolute incorporeal substance than his ministers can be literally understood to be flaming-fire they must either be both literally true which is absolutely absurd or else those words must have a metaphorical interpretation as they may and must have and there is no inconvenience in that exposition For as the winds which is but a strong motion of the air and the shining or flaming fire are two of the most quick agile and operative agents that are known unto us in nature so the Angels and Christs Ministers are strong quick and most nimble and powerful in performing their offices and administrations Therefore we shall conclude this as Scheibler doth from S. Augustine Nihil enim invisibile incorporeum naturâ credendum est praeter solum Deum qui ex eo incorporeus invisibilis dicitur quia infinitus incircumscriptus est simplex sibi omnibus modis sufficiens se ipso per seipsum omnis verò rationalis creatura corporea est Angeli omnes Virtutes corporeae sunt licet non subsistunt in carne Now though we have sufficiently proved that they are corporeal that is that they have bodies naturally united unto them and so have an internum or moving power and an externum or a part moved that is as Dr. Moore confesseth a spiritual and incorporeal part and a corporeal part or vehicle yet to assign what kind of bodies they have or what proper difference there is betwixt their substance and other corporeal substances is no easie matter to determine Only we shall give two differences whereby they are distinguished from other substances that are corporeal and that as the Scripture holdeth them forth unto us 1. The first differential distinction is that their bodies do not suffer or are altered or dissipated by the most strong and operative sublunary agent that is known unto us Amongst which we have none of greater force and activity than our culinary fire yet it is manifest that that Element did not work upon nor burn the Angel that appeared to Manoah and his Wife who ascended in the flame of the altar and was not touched or altered at all which plainly sheweth that his body was not to be wrought upon by the fierce flame of sublunary fire and he is there called the Angel of Jehovah This also is confirmed by that which Nebuchadnezzar saw and confessed that though there were three men only cast into the fiery furnace yet he saw a fourth which by all the learned is judged to be an Angel and they had no hurt upon them that is the fire did not work upon their bodies to burn alter or consume them So that in this the bodies of Angels differ from the most of other bodies because they do not suffer by sublunary fire the most violent agent that we know And this must needs rationally be taken to be proper unto Angels in regard of their created natures and not as superadded by a Divine and Almighty Power as in some other cases it may be granted 2. A second difference is that what bodies soever spirits or Angels have or appear in they have not flesh and bones such as Christ had in his true and numerical body in which he did appear after his resurrection which was the same individual body which he had before he was crucified But though they have bodies yet to feeling and tangibility they have not flesh and bones as humane bodies have which have a renitency and resistibility to our touch which their bodies have not being as it were ethereal airy and shadowy and yielding and giving way to the touch and though to be divided and separated yet may be do as soon close by counition and so suffer nothing at all by that division Concerning the properties of their bodies it seems to have been the opinion of Tertullian as I find him quoted by Mr. Baxter that they had thin pure and aereal bodies which they could dilate and expand condense and contract at their pleasures and so frame them into diverse and sundry shapes his words are these Daemones sua haec corpora contrahunt dilatant ut volunt sicut etiam lumbrici alia quaedam insecta So we see that some worms and insects will extend themselves into a vast length and smallness that they can pass through a very small hole or passage and again contract themselves into a great bulk drawing in the length and increasing the breadth and thickness which though it still be the same corporeal substance and in general doth in what figure soever it be brought into but retain the same dimensions in respect of place yet in regard of accidental shape or figure it may change the dimensions in respect of one another as one while to be more in longitude and less inbreadth and depth and sometimes more in breadth and depth and less in length So may the bodies of Angels by contraction and dilatation sundry wayes alter their dimensions and consequently their shapes and figures and all this according to the motion and act of their own wills so that still there must be limits to these acts of distention and contraction that they can do neither in an infinite degree as either to become an insensible and indivisible prick nor to be infinitely expanded or dilated and this opinion hath sufficiency of rationality and intelligibility in it Of this very point S. Bernard speaketh thus modestly Videntur Patres de hujusmodi diversa sensisse nec mihi perspicuum est undè alterutrum doceam nescire me faâ—or And though we cannot punctually enumerate nor assign the certain properties of their bodies yet we may rationally conclude thus much 1. That they being creatures ordained for high and noble ends must needs have their bodies and organs fitted and suitably proportioned to fulfil and accomplish those ends as doth most manifestly appear by the bodies and organs of all other creatures which are most wisely and fitly framed by the Almighty according to the several ends and uses they were created and ordained for 2. It is most probable that considering there are creatures that as their wills are moved by their passions and affections can alter the colours and figures of their own bodies as is manifest in worms and in the colours of the Chameleon as it is asserted by the experience of the learned Physician Dominicâ— Panarolus so from the less to the more that Angels have bodies of far more excellency to perform their ministrations in than those gross and terrestrial bodies have that are here below And it is no small wonder
hath by his created power that ability that he can slay in one night an hundred fourscore and five thousand as it is written the Angel did in the camp of the Assyrians but that it was brought to pass by the power of Jehovah superadded unto him to work the great deliverance of Hezekiah and his people Upon which place the learned Expositor John Calvin saith thus Solus quidem dominus satis per se potest ac certè solus nos servat Angeli enim manus quodammodo sunt ipsius Unde etiam Virtutes Potestates vocantur Interim haec vis soli Deo tribuenda cujus organa tantummodò sunt Angeli ne in superstitionem incidamus From whence we may note these two things 1. That even Devils are but the organs and instruments by which God accomplisheth his will and executeth his wrath and justice and so are but as tormenters and executioners to act no more than what they are appointed and commanded to do 2. We may observe that in times past they had large Commissions given and great power superadded to perform great wonders for the destruction of the wicked which was done for great and extraordinary ends such as in these days the Lord doth seldom or never use and therefore there can be no reason now shewed why Devils should have any extraordinary power added unto them in working strange feats for Witches and Sorcerers 5. It will much conduce to the clearing of this point of the power of Devils to examine into what place they are faln or since their rebellion into what Prison they are shut and this we shall give in the Thesis of learned Zanchy who saith thus All the evil Angels were thrust down from Heaven into places that are below the Celestial Orbs to wit into this air and below as it were into a caliginous Prison where they are reserved unto the Universal Judgment as bound with chains And this is plain from the words of S. Peter who saith For if God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment To which accordeth that of Jude And the Angels that kept not their first estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day For as learned Musculus tells us Decet Christianum hominem ea modestia cautio ut nihil affirmet nec si quis alius affirmaverit inconsideratè recipiat quod non certo veritatis testimonio è sacris literis desumpto confirmari queat To this we shall only add what the acute and learned Theologue Amesius notes upon this place of Peter which in English is this In general he saith we are taught that they did not keep their first estate that is they did forsake righteousness and that station in which they were placed of God and afterwards they have exercised from the beginning envy lies and murther against Men. Also he saith we are taught that they were a great number that were partakers of this defection and therefore the Apostle speaketh in the plural number 1. They are said to be thrust down in Tartarum into Hell by reason of the commutation of estate and condition because that from a most high condition which they received by creation they were cast down to an estate most low 2. By reason of commutation of place because they were thrust down from a place of beatitude where they were conversant about the Throne of God with the rest of the Angels into an inferiour place subject to sin and misery But that this place is in the lowest parts of the earth as the Papists do hold cannot be made forth from the Scriptures but rather the contrary for they are said to be conversant and to rule in the air and to walk to and fro in the earth seeking the subversion of Men. This at the least is manifest from the Scriptures and ought to satisfie those that are not too curious 1. That they suffer a great change of estate and condition 2. That they are excluded and shut out from their first habitation 3. That they are in such a place where they suffer both the pain of loss and of sense They are said to be delivered over to darkness partly in respect of sin and partly in respect of misery for darkness in Scripture doth denote both and they are said to be delivered in chains by a metaphor taken from facinorous persons that are condemned and kept bound in prison with chains and the chains are these 1. Obfirmation or obduration in sins 2. An utter despair of any freedom or deliverance 3. A terrible expectation of extream misery and an horrid fear of being cast into the abysse or deep 4. The Providence of God which continually watches over their custody imprisonment and punishment They are said to be reserved to damnation because they are so bound up in these evils and miseries that they never can escape and yet these are but the beginnings only of their miseries for they are hereafter to go into that everlasting fire that is prepared for the Devil and his Angels 6. Though the Devils be said to be reserved in everlasting chains of darkness yet are they said sometimes to be loosed and to go to and fro in the earth and to walk up and down in it and that Satan doth like a roaring lion walk about seeking whom he may devour Which must be understood as we have shewed before that in respect of his evil will malice and envy he seeketh and desireth the overthrow of all mankind but yet is so restrained that he doth but act what where when and so far only as God doth limit and order him For though it be usually said that God doth permit him yet it cannot be understood as a bare and nude permission as though God should suffer him to go so loose and at liberty that he may exert and exercise his power to the uttermost for then all the godly should be destroyed both in Souls and Bodies and God should only sit by as a bare spectator not as an Orderer Ruler and Governour even as though an hungry fierce Lion that had been chained up in a grate should be let loose to rage and run where he would and to kill and devour what he could and thus the Witchmongers do suppose of him which is false and contrary to the testimony of Gods word But when the Almighty maketh use of Satan or his Angels they are only so let loose that he hath a hook in their Nostrils and their Necks in a chain that they can act no more nor no further than he ordereth and gives them leave to accomplish and thus are they limited not only by his irresistible will and decree but they are also watched over and ruled by the good Angels that are as it were their keepers and overseers So
there is another way more extraordinary wherein as an instrument he may be said to cause diseases and sometimes death as in that case of Davids numbring of the people where there died of the Pestilence seventy thousand and though this Pestilence was sent by Jehovah yet was a destroying Angel the instrument and minister in the execution of it for the Text saith And when the Angel of the Lord stretched forth his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel that destroyed the people It is enough now stay thy hand And Herod for assuming to himself that honour that was only proper to God was immediately smitten by the Angel of the Lord and was eaten up of worms and gave up the Ghost And the Psalmist saith He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath indignation and trouble by sending evil Angels among them the Hebrew giveth it the emission or sending out of evil Angels From whence it is manifest that evil Angels are the organs and instruments of Gods wrath and as Ministers cause Plague Pestilence and other diseases 3. Thirdly there is another great question whether or not the Devil by his vassals to wit Sorcerers and Witches doth not cause diseases and death as is believed by those vomiting up of strange things exceeding the bigness of the Gullet to get either up or down of which we shall speak largely where we handle the opinion of Van Helmont concerning the actions of Witches Here only we shall say thus much that the Devil is author and causer of that hatred malice revenge and envy that is often abounding in those that are accounted Witches which desire of revenge doth stimulate them to seek for all means by which they may accomplish their intended wickedness and so they learn all the wicked and secret wayes of hurting poysoning killing but yet we affirm that what evil soever they perform it is by causes and means that work naturally and so the evil is only in the use and application and not in the efficients or means And whereas he holdeth that Devils as they can cause Diseases so they can cure them and take them away we must crave to be excused if we cannot subscribe to his opinion and that for these reasons 1. Because of their causing of Diseases we have sufficient evidence in the Scriptures but of their curing of any we have not any mention at all and though some will think this but weak because it is negative yet it is not probable but as it expresseth the one fully so it would have given some hint of the other if there had been any such matter 2. But the Scriptures do inform us that the gift of healing or curing Diseases is not in the power of Devils by their Creation much less since as a gift bestowed upon them but floweth solely from God by the Ministry of good Angels of whom Raphael that is the Medicine or health of God is the chief And that it is reckoned amongst the gifts of the Holy Ghost is most plain For to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit To another saith by the same spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit but these gifts of healing are not given to Devils but to the chosen ones of God And the Psalmist where he is speaking how God afflicted and brought low the people of Israel by reason of their sins saith Their soul abhorred all manner of meat and they drew near unto the gates of death but he sent his word and healed them And God declareth that if his people Israel would keep his Statutes he would bring none of those Diseases upon them that he had threatned for he saith I am the Lord that healeth thee and this he doth by the ministry of good Angels or by natural means and not by Devils 3. That Devils are no causers or instruments in curing Diseases is manifest because that were to make him act contrary to his original destination after his fall wherein in his own propriety he is a murderer from the beginning and that both of souls and bodies and never did nor doth any good to mankind either spiritual or natural either real or apparent for that were to act contrary to his will nature and disposition and contrary to the Ordinance and appointment of God who hath Created the destroyer to destroy Therefore-Satan after his fall was not ordained of God to be an healer preserver or sanator of diseases but to be a destroyer a wounder and murderer for his nature is be come so wicked and malignant that his whole endeavour is the destruction of mankind both in souls and bodies and so no healer no not of the least infirmity 4. But he is that grand Impostor that by lying cheating and delusion laboureth to make his Vassals and others believe that he can cure and heal Diseases when he can do no such thing and therefore hath and still doth amongst the Pagans by the wicked Priests his Slaves make the people believe that if the sick persons be brought before their Idols and there worship and pray that they shall be Cured when there is not any jot performed in the way of sanation but what is by natural means fancy and imagination or what is pretended to be done so by cheating counterfeiting and imposture And the very same thing is practised by the Papists unto this day in the pretence of their false and lying Miracles fathered upon their Saints and Images which are nothing else but lying cheats and Impostures as we shall fully make manifest hereafter 5. The Devil internally deludeth the minds of men in making them believe that Pictures Charms Amulets and such other inefficacious and ridiculous means have power to Cure these and these Diseases when indeed they are meerly inoperative and effect nothing at all but yet the Witchmongers will needs have them to be media operativa when they are utterly inefficacious and are only means of seduction and delusion to alter change or fortifie the imagination by which alone the Cures if any such be effected are brought to pass and not by any power of the Devil at all and he operateth nothing at all in them except a mental and internal delusion in making the Witchmongers and others believe that those things are wrought by a Diabolical Power which are only performed by the force of imagination and a natural agency and virtue 6. Again where there are many occult and wonderful effects wrought by natural causes and agents as by appensions of vegetables animals or their parts and minerals by magnetism as the Hoplochrism Sympathetic Powder by Transplantation and many other very abstruse and secret wayes and means the Devil laboureth to take away the glory of these sanative effects both from God and his Instrument which is Nature and to have it
that Antichrist is nothing else but Gods Executioner by whom he punisheth those by his just judgment who have not received the love of the truth but have contemned the Gospel which is so far forth true that if there had not been and now were a contempt of the truth then altogether Antichrist had not been that is the Executioner had not been whom God sendeth to execute his just judgment upon those that despise the truth of his Gospel So that it is manifest that God doth make a just and good use of the very malice and lying nature of Devils in punishing those that did not receive the love of the truth but deceiving them by strong delusions that they might believe a lie and this he doth as sent and commanded of God and so cannot go one jot further than his Commission or as far as he is limited by God 2. We may observe that how great soever these signs and wonders be yet they are but lying ones both in regard of the end for which they are done and in respect of their substance And therefore how great soever the signs and wonders be that evil Angels do perform yet they are totally different from true miracles those being alwayes wrought for the confirming of the true Doctrine and Worship of God but these have their end only to establish false doctrine lies and erroneous opinions or Idolatrous Worships So they differ in their substance for those miracles that God sheweth for the confirmation of his truth are alwayes true and real being against and above the whole power and course of nature but those wonders wrought by Satan are but delusions cheats juglings and impostures which though they may seem strange to those that are ignorant of their causes yet do but all arise from natural causes or from artificial cunning confederacy and the like And therefore we may conclude that what miracles soever are wrought by a Divine Power tend to the overthrow of Satans power in the world but all false miracles are wrought to uphold the power of Satans Kingdom in the world and following delusions lies and false doctrines 3. Therefore what signs and wonders soever Satan doth work they are no real and true miracles for as Dr. Stillingfleet saith God alone can really alter the course of nature I speak not he saith of such things which are apt to raise admiration in us because of our unacquaintedness with the causes of them or manner of their production which are thence called Wonders much less of meer juggles and impostures whereby the eyes of Men are deceived but I speak of such things as are in themselves either contrary to or above the course of nature i. e. that order which is established in the universe And this cannot be altered by any diabolical power but only by that which is Divine and Omnipotent which never doth it but for considerable ends and important causes as may be manifest from these unshaken grounds 1. That Devils can work no true miracles is manifest from the definition of a miracle which is this Verum miraculum est opus quod fit praeter contra naturam secundas causas cujus nulla Physica ratio potest reddi But Satan cannot alter or change the order and course of nature Therefore Satan cannot work or effect a true miracle The proposition may be illustrated by an induction made of many great miracles of which there is mention made in the Old and New Testament all which are of that sort that are repugnant to the order and course of nature and of which no natural or physical reason can be rendered and given Such were the taking of Enoch and Elias into Heaven the conserving of Noah and his Family in the Ark the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel the fecundity of Sarah being old and barren the passage of the children of Israel over the red Sea and over Jordan the standing still of the Sun in the battel of Joshuah its going back in the dial of Ahaz its eclipse at our Saviours suffering the preservation of Daniel in the Den of the Lions and of the three companions of Daniel in the fiery furnace the preserving Jonas in the belly of the Whale the raising up of the dead and the curing of the Man born blind and all the rest of those most true and wonderful miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles 2. The assumption of the Syllogism is thus proved It is the part of the same power to change the order of nature and to create things that were not existent and so the mutation of the order of nature is a certain kind of new creation But Satan hath not power by which he can create things that as yet had no existence as all persons of reason must needs confess From whence it must follow that Satan hath not power to change the order of nature and consequently that he cannot work true and real miracles 3. The working of true miracles is only a proper attribute of God and incommunicable to any creaturely power for the Text saith Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things And again thou art the God that dost wonders And these two things the changing of the order of nature and creation S. Paul attributeth to God as only proper to him God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things that be not as though they were Upon which Beza gives this note Eo qui vitae restituit Apud quem jam sint quae alioqui reipsa non sunt ut qui vel uno verbo quidvis possit ex nihilo efficere But if it be objected that though Satan and his Angels of themselves and by their own proper power do not work true miracles yet may not God work real miracles by them as he did by the Prophets Apostles and his Ministers It is answered That the wonders which are wrought by Satan do tend to that end that they might confirm lies against God and his glory But God doth not accommodate his power to confirm lies contrary to his glory and against himself Therefore Satan by the power of God as his Minister doth not work true miracles for God doth use the faln Angels as executioners of his wrath and judgments for the afflicting and punishing of men but when God worketh any thing for the good of mankind either in Soul or Body he doth not use Devils as his Ministers but the good and blessed Angels who are ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And if it be queried what things and of what sort and kind are those wonders that are wrought by Satan and Antichrist I answer that either they are indeed nothing but prestigious juglings and illusions or if they be any thing they are not brought to pass contrary to the order of nature and second causes although they may seem so
cannot be found nor read of having the unquestionable authority of sacred writ to avouch it 2. Another parallel unto it and of equal authority verity and perspicuity is the sending of the Angel Gabriel unto the Virgin Mary her seeing of him hearing of his salutation having discourse with him and seeing his departure both which are undoubted testimonies of the true and real appearance of good Angels even to sight and hearing 3. That sometimes the good Angels have been sent to the servants of God and have appeared and spoken unto them in dreams as that the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream and bade him to take unto him Mary his wife which was a blessed and clear apparition though in a dream in his sleep And likewise by the appearing of an Angel unto him in a dream he was warned to take the child and his mother and to flee into Aegypt and also again was commanded by an Angel after the death of Herod that appeared in a dream and bade him to take the young child and his mother and to go into the land of Israel 3. Of the visible apparition of evil Angels we scarce have any evidence at all in the Scriptures except we should take supposals for proofs or disputable places to be certain demonstrations or wrest and hale the word of God to make it serve our preconceived opinions For I do not find any one place in all the Scriptures where plainly and positively any apparition of evil spirits is recorded or that by any rational and necessary consequence such a visible appearance can be deduced or proved For we have clearly proved that the tempting of Evah by the Serpent doth not necessarily inferr that it was by a visible apparition but by a mental delusion and that that of Saul and the Woman of Endor or the Mistriss of the bottle was neither Samuel in Soul and Body nor his Soul alone neither the Devil in his shape we suppose we have evinced past answer and that the tempting of our blessed Saviour by Satan was internal or at least the greatest part of it so that there doth remain but little of certain proof of the apparition of Devils in that gross manner and so common and frequent as many do too peremptorily affirm yet for all this we think it rational to grant that as God hath in times past often sent messages by good Angels for the teaching counselling and comforting of his servants both audibly and visibly to be perceived so also that sometimes God might not only send evil Spirits internally and mentally to deceive and seduce the wicked as in the case of the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets but also visibly to appear to terrifie punish and destroy the wicked or to make way for the manifestation of his glory And the Scriptures that mention Demoniacks and such as are commonly said to be possessed though that were not by an essential inhesion but by an effective operation both upon the Souls and Bodies of the persons that were so affected and afflicted do plainly shew that the operative effects of the Devils power was both heard and seen by their words and actions So the Devils using the organs of the man in whom was the legion of them they besought Christ not to command them to go out into the deep but besought him to suffer them to go into the herd of swine Which plainly sheweth that their words were audible and were heard of the multitude that were by and the acts that they performed were visible enough for by the power of the Devil he brake the chains and fetters wherewithal he was bound and was driven of the Devil into the wilderness and that these Devils went forth of the man and entered in amongst the herd of swine by whose effective power the swine ran violently down a steep rock into the sea and were drowned And this doth plainly manifest the present operation of the Devils that was apparent both by the words and actions that were both to be seen and heard so that this in that large sense that it is usually taken in was a real apparition of Devils or at least equivalent thereunto For we do but here inquire after such appearances of Devils that do necessarily infer their presence in operating so in and upon creatures or corporeal matter that by sight hearing or other of the senses it may certainly be manifest to work above the ordinary power of nature and may induce us rationally by the testimony of our senses to believe that those things are brought to pass by those creatures that we call Demons as many of these persons who were said to have been or to be afflicted with Devils were in the days of our blâ—ssed Saviours remaining in the flesh 4. But though it be never so freely and fully granted that in the ages and times mentioned in the Old and New Testament nay it may be for a century or more after there were persons that were possessed and afflicted with Devils and also that for that time there were many miracles wrought Yet now it will be said that miracles are totally ceased as not being any way necessary to confirm the Gospel which is now established and setled This we confess is so strongly and convincingly proved by the Divines of the reformed Churches that we account him wilfully blind that will oppose it Yet notwithstanding all this that miracles are totally ceased I grant that there are some strange things that have happened in late ages and some in our own time that cannot be any way solved by meer ordinary natural causes and apparitions made by some kind of creatures that must be derived from some such causes as those of good or bad Spirits or from creatures of the like nature And that though miracles be ceased it will not therefore follow that every thing that hath a cause above or differing from the usual and ordinary course of nature must be also ceased for quanquam nunc non sint miracula possint tamen esse miranda and though that miracles be ceased yet it will not follow that apparitions are so also because apparitions are not miracles for a good Angel to be sent and to appear cannot be said to be a miracle because it is the end for which he was created they that is the Angels are all ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And it cannot be said otherwise of evil Angels or of any other creatures that may make these apparitions for as they are and must be creatures so there is and must be some certain ends for which they were created and are imployed unto 5. But to prove the truth of apparitions or other strange Phenomena's equivalent unto them as to have been truly performed as matters of fact is extream difficult and almost impossible because the Histories and relations of things of this nature are
these observations 1. Though Mr. Hotham seem to judge that this person accused had the white powder from some Spirit and that one also of the evil sort and upon a contract by the ingaging of his Soul we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of a visible and corporeal contract with the Devil neither was it yet ever proved that the Devil did any good either real or apparent but is the sworn enemy of all mankind both in their Souls and in their Bodies but this powder wrought that which was really good namely the curing of diseases and therefore rationally cannot be thought to be given from an evil spirit 2. Some there were that thought that the simple man told a plain and true story and that he had the powder from those people we call Fairies and there are many that do believe and affirm that there are such people of whom Paracelsus hath a Treatise of purpose holding that they are not of the seed of Adam and therefore he calls them non-Adamicks and that they have flesh and bones and so differ from spirits and yet that they can glide through walls and rocks which he calleth their Chaos as easily as we through the air and that they get children and are mortal like those that Hieronynus Cardanus relateth that appeared to his Father Facius Cardanus and these he calleth Pygmaei Silvestres Gnomi and Umbratiles but his proof of their existence to me doth not seem satisfactory what others may think of it I leave to their demonstrations if they have any 3. Some there were and those not of the meer ignorant sort that did judge that though the Man was simple yet that the story that he told was but framed and taught him the better to conceal the person from whom he received the white powder For they thought that some notable Chymist or rather an Adeptist had in charity bestowed that powder upon him for the relief of himself and family as we know it hath often happened to other persons at other times and places And this last opinion seems most consonant to reason and I the rather believe it because not many years after it was certainly known that there was an Adeptist in that Countrey and we ought not to fetch in supernatural causes to solve effects when natural causes may serve the turn 6. The last thing of this strange nature that we shall instance in is concerning the bleeding or cruentation of the bodies of those that have been murthered I mean of such as have been murthered by prepense malice and upon premeditated purpose for the bodies of others that are killed by chance-medley and by man-slaughter we do not read nor find any examples that ever their bodies did bleed And though we have not been ocular witness of any such bleeding yet are there records of such accidents given us by many learned and credible authors that a man might almost be accounted an Infidel not to give credit to them and that both of those that have bled when the murtherer hath not been present and also of those that have bled the murtherer being present And first of those bodies that have issued blood when the murtherer was not by Gregorius Horstius a Physician of great experience and learning and of no less integrity recordeth this story thus Englished In the year of our Lord 1604. the twenty sixth day of December a young Nobleman of twenty five years old was shot at with a Gun in the night time about nine a clock from an high window of an house in the Town of Blindmarck in lower Austria and the bullet entring his left breast went forth at his right side and so forthwith died in the place The dead body being viewed again and the wound considered the same quantity or bigness both of the entrance and out-going are found with great plenty of blood issuing The following day being the twenty seventh of December in the morning the body of the murthered young man hath other cloaths put upon it and so is kept quiet for the space of two days Furthermore upon the thirtieth of December he is laid upon the Bier and kept in the Church and that without any further motion where nevertheless from the upper wound the fresh blood did daily flow until the eighth of January 1605. from which time the Hemorrhage ceased But again the thirteenth of February about noon the flux of blood by the lower wound for an hour or two was observed to issue as though the slaughter had been newly done In the mean time the habit of the whole body was such as did most easily agree to what it was living the colour of his face remained even unto his burial ruddy and florid the vein appearing in his forehead filled with good blood no sign of an incipient putrefaction appearing for so many weeks no stink or ungrateful odour which otherwise doth accompany dead bodies within a few days was here found at all The fingers of the hands remained soft moveable or flexible without any wast the natural colour being not very much changed except that in process of time about the last week before burial they begun in a certain manner to wax livid in the extremities 7. This following he giveth to prove that as cold constringeth and shuteth up the veins so heat doth open them and cause the blood to flow and saith This is proved a few years since by experience in an infant slain by a most wicked Mother forthwith after it was born and thrown from the Tower of a Noble Baron of upper Austria into a ditch that was full with water which after five weeks by good fortune was found and taken out And forthwith he saith the Mother not present it being then not known who was the Mother when it felt the force of the external air it begun to distil forth very fresh blood because the pores which by reason of the cold were shut that the blood could not flow were then unlockt and opened by the heat of the ambient air And thus much of those that have bled the murtherers not being present 8. Next we shall give some examples of those that have bled when the murtherers have been brought into the presence of the body murthered or caused to touch it and this Franciscus Valeriola doth attest with an ample faith that he himself saw When he saith James of Aqueria a Senator of Arles was found dead of a wound that he that gave that wound was apprehended by the Magistrate and brought into the view of the dead body that he might acknowledge the person murthered and confess the fact by and by the bubling blood all the by standers looking on begun to come forth with much fervour and bubbles from the wound and the nostrils 9. Take this other as it is cited by Gothofredus Voigtius in this manner In the year 1607 the 25. of April a certain Shepherd in Spain
by ten or twelve thrown into one pit and yet not one of them have issued any fresh and pure blood Only from some of their wounds some sanious matter would have flowed putrefaction beginning by reason of the moisture and acidity in the air but no pure blood and therefore is not a common accident to all humane bodies that die naturally or violently but only is peculiar to some and especially to those that are murthered by prepensed malice as appeareth in the Histories recited above 2. We shall acknowledge with Gregorius Horstius Sperlingius and Gothofredus Voigtius that sometimes the bodies of those that have been murthered do bleed when the murtherer is not present as is manifest from the sixth History recited from Horstius of the young Man of twenty five years old that bled so long and so often though the murtherer was not present from whence they conclude that the presence of the murtherer is not a necessary cause of the bleeding of the murthered body and therefore that the bleeding of the body is not always a certain and infallible sign of discovering the murtherer To which we reply that the issuing of fresh and crimson blood from the wound or the nostrils of the persons body that hath been murthered is always a certain sign that the Corps that doth so bleed was murthered because those that die naturally or violently by chance man-slaughter or in the war do not bleed as hath been proved before Again if the murtherer be certainly known or have confessed the crime in regard of the final cause which is discovery there is no reason why the Corps should bleed And though the presence of the murtherer may not be the efficient cause why the Corps doth bleed yet is it the occasional as is manifest undeniably by sundry of the Histories that we have related where the murtherers had not been certainly known but by the bleeding of the body murthered 3. Whereas the three Authors above named thinking they have sufficiently confuted those that ascribed this effect of the bleeding of the dead body to Sympathy or Antipathy or to the moving of the bodies or heat in the air have assigned the cause to be the beginning of putrefaction in the bodies murthered by which a new motion is caused in the humors and so in the blood by which means it floweth afresh against this these two reasons oppose themselves 1. Must putrefaction needs begin at that very moment when the murtherer toucheth the body For in divers of them there was no bleeding until the murtherers were present or did touch the bodies and their touching could not cause the beginning of putrefaction and soon after their removing the bleeding hath ceased so that putrescence in fieri cannot be the cause of the fresh bleeding 2. Putrefaction beginning could not be the cause why the murthered Shepherds body in the ninth History should with its hands point to the wound and to the murtherers nor that the hands of the Wench murthered by the Jews in the tenth History should be stretched forth to the Prince of Baden or that the Lips and Nostrils of the Body of Gawkley should work and open at the touch of the murtherer How this must of necessity proceed from some higher cause than putrefaction or any other they have laid down 4. But though it should be acknowledged that in some of these bleedings there were something that were extraordinary or supernatural yet as learned Horstius tells us It is he saith an inconvenient Tenent of those that hold that the Souls of those that are murthered wandering about the Bodies by reason of the hatred they bear towards those that were their murtherers do cause these bleedings but this in Philosophy cannot stand because the separate form can by no means operate upon the subject any longer And he saith the same thing in Theologie seems to be very impious because the Souls of the dead are without mundane conversation as is sufficiently manifest from the History of the Rich Man and Lazarus Luke 16. 5. And if some should refer these effects immediately unto God as many learned Authors have done as though God by this means would sometimes make known those that are guilty or to refer this unto the Devil as though he would sometimes elude the Judges and to do this that so the innocent might be punished with the wicked We answer he saith to this briefly by adding this only that a supernatural cause is not rashly to be feigned where a natural one is ready at hand And if there be such examples which cannot be reduced to these aforesaid natural causes of which sort many are related by Libanius part 2. sol 172. then we can by no reason be repugnant but that they are preternaturally brought to pass And of this opinion are most of the Pontificial Writers that thereby they might the better maintain their Tenent that miracles are not ceased though we do not understand that if we should grant that in these things there should be some concurrence of Divine Power more than ordinary that therefore it must be a miracle for it is yet not infallibly concluded what a miracle is and every wonderful thing is not therefore concluded to be a miracle and a miracle being not absolutely defined what is not one cannot be certainly resolved 6. Some there are that ascribe these strange bleedings of murthered bodies and of their strange motions with the sweating of blood as upon the Pedlars bended dagger or knife mentioned in the eleventh History unto the Astral or Sydereal spirit and that not improbably that being a middle substance betwixt the Soul and the Body doth when separated from the Body wander or hover near about it bearing with it the irascible and concupiscible faculties wherewith being stirred up to hatred and revenge it causeth that ebullition and motion in the blood that exudation of blood upon the weapon and those other wonderful motions of the Body Hands Nostrils and Lips thereby to discover the murtherer and bring him to condign punishment Neither is any Tenent yet brought by any that is more rationally probable to solve these and many other wonderful Phenomena's than this of the Astral Spirit if it can be but fully proved that there is such a part of Man that doth separately exist which we shall endeavour to prove ere we end this Chapter 7. But it is granted upon all sides that if the murtherer be brought to the presence or touch of the person murthered and not quite dead that then the wounds though closed and staid from bleeding or the nostrils will freshly break forth and bleed plentifully The reason is obvious because the Soul being yet in the Body retaining its power of sensation fancy and understanding will easily have a presension of the murderer and then no marvail that through the vehement desire of revenge the irascible and concupiscible faculties do strongly move the blood that before was
great hater of superstition did cause it to be broken into small pieces and so with the Silk in which it was wrapped threw it into the sink of the House I confess I have heard strange stories of things that have been revealed by these supposed apparitions from persons both of great worth and learning but seeking more narrowly into the matter I found them all to be superstitious delusions fancies mistakes cheats and impostures For the most part the child tells any thing that comes into his fancy or doth frame and invent things upon purpose that he never seeth at all and the inquirers do presently assimilate them to their own thoughts and suspicions Some that pretended to shew and foretel strange things thereby to get money have been discovered to have had confederates that conveied away mens goods into secret places and gave the cunning Man notice where they were hid and then was the child taught a straight framed tale to describe what a like Man took them away and where they were which being found brought credit enough to the couzeners and this I knew was practised by one Brooke and Bolton Some have had artificial glasses whereinto they would convey little pictures as Dr. Lambe had It being manifest by what we have laid down that there are apparitions and some such other strange effects whereby murthers are often made known and discovered and also having mentioned that it may be most rationally probable that they are caused by the Astral or Sydereal Spirit it will be necessary to open and explain that point and to shew what grounds it hath upon which it may be settled which we shall do in this order 1. There are many especially Popish Authors thereby to uphold their Doctrine of Purgatory that maintain that they are the Souls of the persons murthered and deceased and this opinion though unanswerably confuted by the whole company of reformed Divines is notwithstanding revived by Dr. Henry Moore but by no arguments either brought from Scripture or grounded upon any solid reasons but only some weak conjectures seeming absurdities and Platonick whimsies which indeed merit no responsion And we have by positive and unwrested Scriptures in this Treatise afore proved that the Souls of the righteous are in Abrahams bosom with Christ at peace and rest and that the Souls of the wicked are in Hell in torments so that neither of them do wander here or make any apparitions for as S. Augustine taught us Duo sunt habitacula unum in igne aeterno alterum in regno aeterno And in another place Nec est ulli ullus medius locus ut possit esse nisi cum Diabolo qui non est cum Christo. And Tertullian and Justin Martyr two most ancient writers do tell us That Souls being separated from their Bodies do not stay or linger upon the earth And after they be descended into the infernal pit they do neither wander here upon their own accord nor by the power and command of others But that wicked spirits may counterfeit by craft that they are the Souls of the dead Vid. Lavaterum de Spectris secunda parte c. 5. 2. We have also shewed that these apparitions that discover murther and murtherers and brings them to condign punishment cannot be the evil Angels because they are only Ministers of torture sin horror and punishment but are not Authors of any good either Corporeal or Spiritual apparent or real So that it must of necessity be left either to be acted by a Divine Power and that either by the immediate power of the Almighty for which we have no proof but only may acknowledge the possibility of it or mediate by the ministery of good Angels which is hard to prove there being no one instance or the least intimation of any such matter in all the Scriptures and therefore in most rational probability either relations of matters of fact of this nature are utterly false or they are effected by the Astral spirit 3. Concerning the description of this Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body for though it be as a spirit or the image in the looking-glass yet it is truly corporeal we shall give the sum of it as Paracelsus in his magisterial way without proof doth lay down He positively holdeth that there are three essential parts in Man which he calleth the three great substances and that at death every one of these being separated doth return into or unto the Womb from whence it came as The Soul that was breathed in by God doth at death return unto God that gave it And that the Body that is to say that gross part that seems to be composed of the two inferior Elements of Earth and Water doth return unto the Earth and there in time consume away some bodies in a longer time some in a shorter But the third part which he calleth the Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body as being firmamental and consisting of the two superior Elements of Air and Fire it he saith returneth into its Sepulcher of the Air where in time it is also consumed but requireth a longer time than the body in regard it consisteth of more pure Elements than the other and that one of these Astral Spirits or Bodies doth consume sooner than another as they are more impure or pure And that it is this spirit that carrieth along with it the thoughts cogitations desires and imaginations that were impressed upon the mind at the time of death with the sensitive faculties of concupiscibility and irascibility And that it is this spirit or body and not the Soul that resteth in the hands of the Lord that appeareth and is most usually conversant in those places and those negotiations that the mind of the person living whose spirit it was did most earnestly follow and especially those things that at the very point of death were most strongly impressed upon this spirit as in the case of the person murthered whose mind in the very minute of the murther receiveth a most deep impression of detestation and revenge against the murtherer which this spirit bearing with it doth by all means possible seek the accomplishment of that revenge and therefore doth cause dreams of discovery bleedings and strange motions of the body murthered and sometimes plain apparitions of the persons murthered in their usual shape and habit and doth vocally and audibly reveal the murther with all the circumstances as is apparent in the two forementioned Histories of the apparition of Fletcher to Raynard and of the Woman murthered by Mark Sharp to the Miller Grimes 4. And this Astral Spirit is no more than that part in Man that is commonly called the sensitive Soul and by the Schools is commonly defined thus Anima sentiens est vis quae apprehendit percipit ea quae extra ipsam sunt And this is corporeal and as Dr. Willis holdeth mortal and coextended with the Body and that it hath the power of imagination appetite desire and
aversion and the like and in a manner a sensitive way of ratiocination and yet is distinct from the ratinal Soul or Mens that is incorporeal immortal and far more excellent And perspicacious Helmont holding this sensitive Soul to be distinct from the mens or immortal and rational Soul saith thus Est ergo anima sensitiva caduca mortalis mera lux vitalis data à patre luminum nec alio modo verboque explicabilis But of the rational Soul he saith Ipsa autem mens immortalis est substantia lucida incorporea immediate Dei sui imaginem referens quia eandem in creando sive in ipso Empsychosis instanti sibi insculptam suscepit So that both these late and learned Authors hold that in every Man there are two distinct Souls the sensitive that is mortal corporeal and coextended with the Body and the rational that is immortal and absolutely incorporeal so that though in words and terms they seem to differ yet in substance they agree For the Hermetick School the Platonists Paracelsus Jacob Behemen and others do hold three parts in Man which they call Soul Spirit and Body and these two last Authors do hold the body to be one part in Man and two Souls besides the sensitive and rational that are two distinct parts the one corporeal and mortal and the other incorporeal and immortal and so they do but nominally differ And now our task must be to prove that first there are such three parts in Man and that after death they do separately exist which we shall attempt in this order 1. Though arguments taken à notatione nominis do not necessarily prove yet they illustrate and render the case plain and intelligible and we shall find that the Hebrews have three distinct appellations for these three parts As for the Soul either rational or sensitive or vital spirit they use Nephesh which is common to brutes and reptiles as well as to Man as saith the Text And to every beast of the earth and to every sowl of the air and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth in which there is a living soul Nephesh Haiah And therefore to distinguish the rational and immortal Soul from this which is sensitive mortal and common with brutes the Text saith And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Upon which Tremellius gives us this note Ut clarins appareret discrimen quod est inter animam hominis reliquorum animantium Horum enim animae ex eadem materia provenerunt unde corpora habebant illius verò anima spiritale quiddam est Divinum And upon the words Sic fuit homo Id est ait hac ratione factum est ut terrea illa statua animata viveret Another word they use which is Ruah and this is also generally attributed to Men and Beasts as the words of Solomon do witness Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upwards and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth And in both these touching both Man and Beast the word Ruah is used as common to them both and sometimes it is taken specially for the rational immortal Soul as And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it Also they have the word Niblah and Basar that is corpus caro or cadaver and by these three they set forth or distinguish these three parts And the Grecians have likewise their three several names for these parts as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 anima vita which is taken promiscuously sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul as in this place And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell And it is taken for the life in that of the Acts And Paul said Trouble not your selves his life is in him Also they have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus ventus spiritus vitae being variously taken yet sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul as Father into thy hands I commend my spirit So they have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corpus the body or gross and fleshly part And to these accord the three Latine terms for these three distinct parts Anima Spiritus and Corpus 2. This opinion of these three parts in Man to wit Body Soul and Spirit is neither new nor wants Authors of sufficient credit and learning to be its Patrons For Hermes Trismegistus an Author almost of the greatest Antiquity saith thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is God is in the mind the mind in the soul and the soul in matter But Marsilius Ficinns gives it thus Beatus Deus Daemon bonus animam esse in corpore mentem in anima in mente verbum pronunciavit And further addeth Deus verò circa omnia simul atque per omnia mens circa animam anima circa aërem aër circa materiam And some give it more fully thus God is in the mind the mind in the Soul the Soul in the Spirit the Spirit in the blood and the blood in the Body But besides this ancient testimony it is apparent that the whole School of the Platonists both the elder and later were of this opinion and also the most of the Cabalists For Ficinus from the Doctrine of of Plato tells us this Humanae cogitationis domicilium anima ipsa est Animae domicilium spiritus Domicilium spiritus hujus est corpus But omitting multitudes of others that are strong Champions for this Tenent we think for authorities to acquiesce in that of our most learned Physician and Anatomist Dr. Willis and in those that he hath quoted which we shall give in the English First he saith Lest I be tedious in rehearsing many it pleaseth me here only to cite two Authors but either of which is a Troop for the confutation of the contrary opinion The one he saith is the most famous Philosopher Petrus Gassendus who Physic. Sect. 3. lib. 9. c. 11. doth divide toto Coelo as is said the mind of man from the other sensitive power as much as is possible to be done by many and most signal notes of discrimination yea disjoining of them as it is said in the Schools by specific differences Because when he had shewed this to be corporeal extended nascible and corruptible he saith the other is an incorporeal substance and therefore immortal which is immediately created and infused into the body by God to which opinion he sheweth Pythagoras Plato Aristotle and for the most part all the ancient Philosophers except Epicurus did much agree excepting notwithstanding that they did hold as not knowing the origin of the Soul which they judged to be immortal that it being cropt off from the soul of the world did slide into the body
supposing it to be the matter of the stone did distill it and work upon it and in the glasses they did perceive certain Phantasms or Shapes of Men of which they were no little afraid 3. Our Countryman Dr. Flud a person of much learning and great sincerity doth tell us this well attested story That a certain Chymical Operator by name La Pierre near that place in Paris called Le Temple received blood from the hands of a certain Bishop to operate upon Which he setting to work upon the Saturday did continue it for a week with divers degrees of fire and that about midnight the Friday following this Artificer lying in a Chamber next to his Laboratory betwixt sleeping and waking heard an horrible noise like unto the lowing of Kine or the roaring of a Lion and continuing quiet after the ceasing of the sound in the Laboratory the Moon being at the full by shining enlightening the Chamber suddenly betwixt himself and the Window he saw a thick little cloud condensed into an oval form which after by little and little did seem compleatly to put on the shape of a Man and making another and a sharp clamour did suddenly vanish And that not only some Noble Persons in the next Chambers but also the Host with his Wife lying in a lower room of the house and also the neighbors dwelling in the opposite side of the street did distinctly hear as well the bellowing as the voice and some of them were awaked with the vehemency thereof But the Artificer said that in this he found solace because the Bishop of whom he had it did admonish him that if any of them from whom the blood was extracted should die in the time of its putrefaction his Spirit was wont often to appear to the sight of the Artificer with perturbation Also forthwith upon Saturday following he took the retort from the Furnace and broke it with the light stroak of a little key and there in the remaining blood found the perfect representation of an humane head agreeable in face eyes nostrils mouth and hairs that were somewhat thin and of a golden colour And of this last there were many ocular witnesses as the Noble Person Lord of Bourdalone the Chief Secretary to the Duke of Guise and that h ehad this relation from the Lord of Menanton living in that house at the same time from a certain Doctor of Physick from the owner of the house and many others So that it is most evident that there are not only three essential and distinct parts in Man as the gross body consisting of Earth and Water which at death returns to the earth again the sensitive and corporeal Soul or Astral Spirit consisting of Fire and Air that at death wandereth in the air or near the body and the immortal and incorporeal Soul that immediately returns to God that gave it But also that after death they all three exist separately the Soul in immortality and the body in the earth though soon consuming and the Astral spirit that wanders in the air and without doubt doth make these strange apparitions motions and bleedings and so we conclude this tedious discourse with the Chapter CHAP. XVII Of the sorce and efficacy of Words or Charms whether they effect any thing at all or not and if they do whether it be by Natural or Diabolical virtue and force THere is nothing almost so common not only in the Poets who have been the chief disseminators of many such things but in most of other Authors as the mention of the force of Charms and Incantations And yet if we narrowly search into the bottom of the matter there is nothing more difficult than to find out any truth of the effects of them in matters of fact and therefore that we may more clearly manifest what we have proposed in this Chapter we shall first premise these few things 1. Those that take the effects of them to be great as many Divines Philosophers and Physicians do suppose no efficacy in them solely holding that quantitates rerum nullius sunt efficaciae but that they are only signs from the Devil to delude the minds of those that use them and in the mean time that the Devil doth produce the effects But it had been well if those that are of this opinion had shewed us the ways and means how the Devil doth operate such things seeing he can do nothing in corporeal matter but by natural means So that either we must confess that there is no force at all in Charms or that the effects produced are by natural means 2. Neither can we assent fully to those that hold that the force of imagination can work strange things upon other bodies distinct and separate from the body imaginant upon which it is not denied to have power to operate very wonderful things and that for the reason given by the most learned Lord Verulam which is this Experimenta quae vim imaginationis in corpora aliena solidè probent pauca aut nulla prorsus sunt cum fascini exempla huc non faciant quod Daemonum interventu fortasse non careant 3. I said not assent fully because there are some reasons that incline me to believe the possibility of it though there be hardly found any experiments that solidly prove it For as the said Lord Verulam saith again Movendi sunt homines ne fidem detrahant operationibus ex transmissione spirituum vi imaginationis quia eventus quandoque fallit And there are so many learned Authors though Dr. Casaubon according to his scurrilous manner stiles them Enthusiastical Arabs of all sorts that do stifly maintain the power of the imagination upon extraneous bodies with such strength of argument that I much stagger concerning the point and therefore dare not say my assent is fully to either For learned Dr. Willis having as we conceive unanswerably proved that there is a twofold Soul in Man and that the one which is the sensitive is corporeal though much approaching to the nature of spirit how far the force of imagination which is its instrument may reach or what it may work at distance is not easy to determine And if the Soul as Helmont laboureth to prove by the Prerogative of its creation can when suscitated by strong desire and exalted phantasie operate per nutum then it must needs follow that it may work upon other bodies than its own and so using Words Charms Characters and Images may bring to pass strange things But if these three conclusions be certain and true written by the pen of a most learned though less vulgarly known Author to wit 1. The Soul is not only in its proper visible body but also without it neither is it circumscribed in an organical body 2. The Soul worketh without or beyond its proper body commonly so called 3. From every body flow corporeal beams by which the Soul worketh by its presence and giveth them energie
Devils power and of this opinion are the greatest part of the learned 2. Are those that hold that the words or charms are but means to heighten the imagination and that it is the strength of the exalted imagination only that produceth those things that seem to be effected by those words or charms and of this opinion was Avicen and many of the Arabians Ferrerius Montanus and many others 3. There are those that hold that there is a natural efficiency in words and characters rightly fitted and conjoined together in proper and agreeable constellations and of this opinion were Johannes Ludovicus de la Cerda Johannes Branus Camisius Lusitanus Paracelsus Galeottus Martius Henricus Cornelius Agrippa and many others and of these we shall speak in order 1. The first opinion doth takeup a false supposition for its ground to wit that the Devil doth make a visible and corporeal league with the Charmer by virtue of which compact the effects are produced and if this compact be not explicite yet it may be implicite and so the Devil operateth the effects thereby to draw the Charmer into his league and service But we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of any such Covenant and shewed plainly that it is a false impious and diabolical Tenent and that there is not nor can be any other league betwixt the Devil and wicked men but what it spiritual internal and mental and therefore that the Devil doth not bring those effects to pass by pretence of a league that hath no being or existence 2. We have proved by the unanimous consent of all the whole army of the learned that the Devil can work no alteration or change in natural bodies but by the applying of fit agents to agreeable patients but what agent could the Devil have applied to make the iron that stuck in the Souldiers shoulder-bone related by Benevenius to come forth without pain surely none at all For where an agent in nature is awanting to produce an effect there the Devil must needs also be lame and can effect nothing and if either the words had a sufficient natural power to cause the iron to come forth or the Souldiers imagination exalted by confidence in the Charm and Charmer then the Devils help is in vain implored or he brought in to be an actor of that he hath no power at all to perform and there was no other natural agent applied and therefore it must of necessity be one of the two that produced the effect and not a Demon. 3. It cannot in any reason be imagined that the Devil that for the space of above five thousand years hath been the bitter and inveterate enemy to the health of Man both in Soul and Body should now be become a Physician an healer We read that God sent forth evil Angels amongst the people but he sent forth his word and they were healed But it is manifest that the evil Angels since their fall are ordained of God to be the instruments and organs for the executing of his wrath and the good Angels are his ministring Spirits for the good of his people both in Souls and Bodies and therefore that the Devil should be the author or instrument of curing any disease at all were to make him to act contrary to that end for which God hath ordained him for he is the destroyer that is ordained to destroy but not to heal 4. But we shall take another argument or two from the learned pen of Henricus Brucaeus in his Epistle to Thomas Erastus where about this point he saith this What is that he saith that the most of the Grecian Physicians were ignorant of Demons or that it should be agreeable to truth that they have not judged that Demons had any power either in inflicting or taking away any diseases For that sentence of Hippocrates that there is somewhat that is divine in diseases Galen doth shew in his Comment how it is to be understood and Hippocrates himself in that Treatise of the Falling-sickness doth sufficiently open it Notwithstanding these chief men being Physicians and Philosophers by whom the power of natural things and words was principally looked into they were more willing to assent to things that were evidently apparent than take away the force of incantation by it self By it self he saith Because they have had no remembrance of Demons from whom the causes of such effects which follow incantations do seem only they can possibly be derived 5. Before he argueth thus But the curation of diseases which are performed by conjurations and imprecations he ascribeth unto the Devil Notwithstanding he saith some things do move a scruple to me because that some things of them do seem to be of that kind which cannot at all be referred to Demons in which no league or compact doth seem to interceed For leagues or compacts seem to be contracted for that also those things comprehended are to be performed to those that Covenant that by that means those that Covenant with him may be withdrawn from the worship of the true God or that some may be confirmed in their impiety Which causes in Men to whom the true God is utterly unknown have no place for neither are they to be withdrawn from the true God whom they altogether ignore or to be confirmed in impiety when they have been brought up in the worship of Idols from their tender years For he saith Aloisius Cadamustus in the 18 Chap. of the Indian Navigations relateth that Serpents seeking to destroy Sheep in the Kingdom of Senega which is given to Idolatrous Worship they will on the night aim by heaps at the Sheep-folds from whence they are driven away with certain conceived words and this reason is not unknown to many others And that Trallianus where he treateth of the stone acknowledgeth the force of incantations in healing of diseases and he witnesseth that Galen himself taught by experience did come over to this opinion For though Galen before as we have shewed did account charms but as Aniles fabulae yet this Author Trallianus doth quote a piece of Galens wherein he maketh a retractation of that opinion and it standeth with good reason that it might be so Trallianus living near his time and so might notwithstanding what Guitterrius bawleth to the contrary have that part of his writing that since might be lost for I remember Paracelsus somewhere saith that in his travels he found the works of Galen far more genuine and incorrupt than those that were published and extant 6. A further reason this Author gives us thus Furthermore he saith that it is not impious to frame to cure a disease with conceived words and cannot be perswaded to believe it especially seeing that those diseases that are caused by Magick are only to be cured by Magick But he saith I confess that compacts with Demons are not to be entred into but that compacts being entred
the sole power of the phantasie of the person imaginant or using the charms and neither by the power of the Devil nor of the charms 3. The argument to prove these things by that they are brought to pass by the strength of imagination used by Cornelius Agrippa is this Non mediocri experientia ait comprobatum est insitam à natura homini quandam dominandi ligandi vim And that there is an active terror in man if it be rightly resuscitated in him and that he know how to direct and make use of it impressed in him by the Creator which is as it were a terrifical character and signacle of God instamped upon man by which all creatures do fear and reverence man as the image of his Creator and as by the law of creation to be Lord and to bear rule over them all And here I cannot but mention that lepid though tedious ludicrous tale that Dr. Casaubon gives us of an horse-rider called John Young that could tame the most fierce Bulls and unruly Horses as also by pipeing to make the most couragious and fierce Mastiff to lie close down and to be quiet by the force of his imagination and charms And this John Youngs Philosophy was agreeable to this of Agrippa's to wit That all creatures were made by God for the use of Man and to be subject unto him and that if men did use their power rightly any man might do what he did Fides sit apud anthorem 4. Avicenna Algazel Alkindus Marsilius Ficinus Jacobus de Forluio Pomponatius Paracelsus and others do sometimes hold that the Soul the sensitive and corporeal it must be understood not by a nude apprehension or meer impery but by the emission of spirits or corporeal beams as we have shewed before do work upon external bodies and so move and alter them Sometimes they hold that the whole Soul sensitive must be meant doth go quite forth of the Body and wander into far distant places and there not only see what things are done but also to act something it self And to this opinion only meaning of the immortal and immaterial Soul Dr. Moore and Mr. Glanvil do seem to agree namely that the Soul may for a time depart forth of its Body and return again And to prove this the argument of Avicen is this Superior things he saith have dominion over the inferior and the Intelligences do rule and change corporeal things And that the Soul is a spiritual and separable substance And therefore after the same manner may act in corporeal things and change them as may be seen at large with responsions in the book of Fienus Now we come to the third and last opinion of those that positively hold that there is a force in words and characters if rightly framed to effect strange things withal and this is as strongly denied by many Therefore we shall only offer the most convincing arguments that we meet withal and leave it to the censure of others and that in this order But before we enter upon the positive arguments we think it fit lest we be mistaken though in part we may have touched some ofthem before to lay down some few cautions and considerations which we shall do in this manner 1. It is to be taken for a certain truth that the greatest part of those pretended charms and characters that are in this our age used by ignorant superstitious and cheating impostors are utterly false and of no power or efficacy at all And this was understood by our learned Countreyman Roger Bacon who tells us thus much For without all doubt he saith all of this sort now a days are false or doubtful or irrational and therefore not at all to be trusted unto And to this doth Paracelsus fully agree saying All characters are not to be trusted to or any confidence to be placed in them nor in like manner in words For the Nigromancers and Poets being very laboriously imployed about them have filled all Books with comments proceeding forth of their brains wanting all truth and foundation of which some thousands are not worth one deaf nut 2. Yet for all this we are to consider that all of them are not totally to be rejected for Bacon tells us That there are certain deprecations of ancient times instituted of men or rather ordained of God and good Angels that are both true and efficacious and such like as these may retain their first virtue As in some Countreys he saith yet some certain prayers are made upon red hot iron and upon the water of the flood and likewise upon other things by which the innocent are tried and the guilty condemned And this was the trial that by the Saxons when used in England was called Drdeall Therefore Paracelsus saith thus Repeto ergo characteribus verbis non omnibus fidendum esse sed eligenda retinenda quae recta genuina ex fundamento veritatis deprompta ac multoties probata sint which is counsel good sound and profitable And somewhere he tells us that even those true and genuine characters and Gamahuis that were rightly fabricated under due constellations and were in old time efficacious may have now lost their virtue because the configurations of the Heavens are altered 3. Many of these strange characters or words were not by wise men inserted into their works that thereby any strange things might be wrought by them but were invented to conceal those grand secrets that they would not have to be made known unto the unworthy And therefore Bacon gives us this profound and honest counsel So therefore he saith there are very many things concealed in the books of the Philosophers by sundry ways In which a Wise Man ought to have this prudence that he pass by the charms and characters and make trial of the work of nature and art And so he shall see as well animate things as inanimate to concur together by reason of the conformity of nature not because of the virtue of the charm or character And so many secrets both of Nature and Art are of the unlearned esteemed to be magical And Magicians do foolishly confide in charms and characters judging virtue to be in them and because of their vain confidence in them they forsake the work of Nature and Art by reason of the error of charms and characters And so both these sort of Men are deprived of the benefit of wisdom their own foolishness so compelling them 3. The same most learned Countryman of ours Roger Bacon doth further give us this advice saying But those things that are contained in the books of Magicians ought by right to be banished although they have in them something of truth Because they are mixed with falsities that it cannot be discerned betwixt that which is true and that which is false And also Impostors and ignorant persons have feigned and forged divers writings under the
names of ancient wise men thereby to allure the curious and to deceive the unwary which with great care and consideration we ought to eschew To the same purpose Paracelsus doth caution us in this point Cuilibet ergo promptum sit characteres verba quaevis discernere posse 4. But for all this as we have often intimated before charms and characters though in themselves of none effect may conduce to heighten the fancy and confidence of a Patient and render him more willing to take those things that may cure And to this purpose the forementioned Author Roger Bacon from Constantine the Physician tells us thus much But it is to be considered that a skilful Physician or any other that would excite and stir up the mind may profitably make use of charms and characters though feigned not because the characters or charms themselves do operate any thing but that the medicine may be received with more desire and devotion and that the mind of the Patient may be stirred up and may confide more freely and may hope and rejoice Because the Soul being excitated can renew many things in its proper body so that from infirmity it may be restored to health by joy and confidence If therefore he saith a Physician to magnific his work that the Patient may be raised up to hope and confidence shall do any thing of this nature not for fraud but because of this that he may confide that he may be healed it is not to be condemned We brought this authority to confirm what we had asserted before and that these things are wonderfully prevalent we have before shewed examples 1. There are some that to prove that words and characters have a natural efficacy do alledge some passages of Scripture which we shall propose as very probable but not as necessarily convincing and the first is this And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them Which some understand that the name Jehovah which they call Tetragrammaton was worn upon them and that thereby they were blessed and from thence they suppose that Hebrew names especially that are very efficacious and powerful Another is The man cloathed in linnen that had the Ink-horn by his side is commanded to set a mark or as some read it a Tau upon those that mourned This is the name of a letter the last in the Alphabet and hath in the old books of the Hebrews as Schindlerus tells us the figure of a cross and such like the Samaritans use to this day From whence by Tau some in Ezekiel do understand the figure of the Cross of Christ. 2. But to explicate what is meant by charms and characters we are to note that it is not to be understood of those words that are by humane institution significant according to the imposition of men nor of any sort of charms or characters but of such as by wise men are duly fitted and joined together in and under a right and favourable constellation for it is from the Influence of the Stars as we have proved before that words charms images and characters do receive their energie and virtue And to this purpose is the true rendition of the words in the Psalm Which hearkeneth not to the voice of those that mutter the conjunction of the learned joyner That is that the Serpent doth not hearken unto or obey the charms that are framed or joined together by the learned joiner or framer of charms So that there is a great learning required to frame and compose charms rightly that they may be efficacious For Paracelsus witnesseth that Serpents once hearing an efficacious charm do forthwith stop their ears lest they should hear the words repeated again Of both these sorts the learned Roger-Bacon doth tell us this Of characters therefore according to the first manner it is so to be judged as we have shewed in common speech But of sigills and characters of the second manner unless they be made in elected seasons they are known to have no efficacy at all And therefore he that doth practise them as they are described in books not respecting but only the figure that the exemplar doth represent is judged of every wise man to do nothing But those which know to perform their work in fit constellations according to the face of the Heavens those may not only dispose characters but all their works both of Art and Nature according to the virtue of the Stars But because it is a difficult thing to understand the certainty of Celestials in these things therefore in these things there is much error with many and there are few that understand to order any thing profitably and truly And to this purpose Paracelsus tells us Certain Chirurgical Arts invented of the first improvers of Astronomy by which admirable things were by an Ethereal virtue performed But these after the decease of the ancient Magicians were so lost were as scarce any footsteps do now remain But it was the Art of Celestial impressions that they might draw down the influent action into some corporeal substance The thing is plain by example The seed of a Rose doth obtain the virtue and nature of a Rose yet for all that it is not a Rose but when being put into the earth it doth sprout then at the last it produceth a Rose By the same reason there are certain celestial virtues and actions in being which being sown into Gemms which were called of the ancient Magicians Peantides and Gamahii otherwise gemmae huyae from whence they have afterwards sprung up no otherwise than seed which doth fall from the Tree and doth regerminate This was that Astronomie of the ancient Aegyptians and Persians by which they did adorn Gemms with celestial virtues Neither are these things forthwith to be reputed impossible For if we believe that the Heaven doth send the Plague and other diseases upon us why may we not hope that the benignity of its virtues may be communicated to us also In like manner if the Heaven doth act upon the bodies of men why may we not think that they may wrest their darts into stones Many are touched with such like celestial darts which a Magician who hath skill of the Firmament may easily if they be noxious shun or if they be benign shall by putting some body communicate it to that body that now that body may fully obtain into it self the virtue of that dart or influence From whence stones are found amongst the Aegyptians which being born do cause diseases But again there are others that do throughly make sound those diseases So he saith we have seen Gemmâ—s Huyâ— that is Peantides wherein the sign of the Sagittary was insculped against weapons which were prevalent against wounds made with Swords Also we have known he saith that Magicians have rendered stones efficacious to cure Feavers nor only to have made them strong to cure diseases but also
of himself speak articulately and audibly or else not And if he could do so of himself then to enter into the Serpent was needless and superfluous And if he could not then the entring into the Serpent would not have contributed that faculty unto him and so neither way he could have performed it For a Frog creeping into the body of a Man will not cause the Frog to speak though it may make some noise or croaking 5. Though the Devil being corporeal should have entred into the body of the Serpent yet by no motion that could be made with or upon her organs could they have been framed to have uttered an articulate sound because they were not fitted for that purpose but only to have made a sibilation or hissing For in Instruments that are artificial the several sounds and tunes made by them are but agreeable to the diversity of their parts and their several compactions so an Harp cannot when made be ordered to give forth a sound like a Trumpet nor the noise of a pair of Organs nor on the contrary and if any of their parts be wanting defective or broken then the orderly sound and Musick is spoyled And though a Parret or Paraquet may by vocal and external teaching be brought to learn and speak some words yet it is not by the teachers entring into her belly but by his outward vocal teaching whereby her senses and phantasie are audibly wrought upon and not otherwise But in this action ascribed unto Satan he is not supposed to be able to speak articulately nor to have taught the Serpent vocally and audibly which if he could have done yet were not her organs capable of any such matter and therefore it had been more subtilty in the Devil rather to have chosen a Parret than a serpent The only objection worth taking notice of that Pererius bringeth against the sound and reasonable opinion of learned Cajetan is this That Adam and Evah being in the state of innocency could not be wrought upon by an interiour tentation because that neither the sensitive appetite nor the phantasie were corrupted and therefore Satan could not internally work upon them and therefore that the whole tentation must be extrinsecal To which we return this sufficient reply 1. It is but a bare assertion without any proof at all and he doth but only shelter it under the authority of S. Austin and Gregory whose authority in many other matters he doth often reject when they agree not with his humour end and interest But however they are but testimonia humana and we are not to regard what the Men are that do speak so much as to consider the weight and reason of what they do speak 2. He proceeds upon false supposition that the sensitive appetite and consequently the Phantasie could not be wrought upon nor drawn but by a sensible and exteriour object when it is manifest that the sight of the Serpent alone could not have stirred the sensitive appetite for it is rationally to be supposed as a certainty that Evah had seen the Serpent before that time Neither could it be the discourse with the Serpent barely considered as discourse that could have moved it for it is certain she had heard and had had audible vocal and articulate discourse with her Husband before this time of the temptation Neither could it be the beholding of the tree of knowledge of good and evil for by the discourse it appeareth that she had before seen it and it is probable that the tentation was in the view of it and its species that appeared to her eye of the said tree was the same that it was before So that it will be most manifest that the tentation took effect from the strong lie that Satan told her that their eyes should be opened and they should be as Gods knowing good and evil and so her deception was first made in her mind and understanding and thereby the will was drawn and the sensitive appetite moved whereupon she took of the fruit of the tree and did eat And this may far more reasonably be thought to be brought to pass by a mental discourse and internal motions than by external collocution which must first work upon the mind before that the Phantasie or sensitive appetite could at all be moved or drawn 3. If the tentation had been this way that Pererius supposeth it our first parents could not have been seduced for Satans argument lay not to perswade Evah that it was pleasant for the taste or good for the Stomach thereby to have drawn the sensitive appetite and the Phantasie but that it was good and profitable to make them wise and to be like Gods whereby he insnared her understanding with a fallacious and lying argument thus framed as learned Pisoator lays it down That thing which will bring you Divine Wisdom and Felicity that thing ye ought to make use of But the eating of this fruit can bring you Divine Wisdom and Felicity Therefore the eating of the fruit of this tree ye ought to make use of And so the seduction was not at all by the sensitive appetite that could receive no more benefit by it than by the other fruits in the Garden but by her understanding being blinded with a specious shew of an apparent not a real benefit and thereby her will drawn and led to put forth her hand and to eat And therefore consequently there was no need at all of an extrinsecal tentation which might and was brought to pass by an intrinsick discourse working upon her understanding 4. Surely if Pererius had been aware of the many inconveniences that this opinion of his doth hurry along with it he would never have plunged himself into a Labyrinth of such perplexities some of which we shall here enumerate and so conclude 1. If this opinion were true that Evah by reason of her perfection in the state of innocency could not be tempted nor seduced but only by an external way and means Then how could it come to pass that the Angels in their Primitive Estate which was as perfect if not more than that of Evahs were without a tempter or any external means drawn unto that defection who left their estate and station and abode not in the truth 2. How could the defection have been so general for multitudes of them fell if they had not had some way or means to have communicated their cogitations and intentions one to another For though we are not able to apprehend the manner how they discourse or commune one with another yet it must be taken for a truth that they have a way and means to manifest their cogitations one to another which is some way Analogous to that which we call speech or discourse Therefore concerning this point doth learned and judicious Zanchy thus conclude Therefore he saith that which we do by a sensible voice the same thing the Angels and blessed Souls in Heaven