THE DOCTRINE OF DEVILS PROVED To be the grand Apostacy of these later Times An ESSAY tending to rectifie those Undue Notions and Apprehensions Men have about DAEMONS AND EVIL SPIRITS LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold at the Kings-Arms in the Poultry 1676. TO THE READER THat the Doctrine here in this Treatise maintained is not unnecessary will be easily concluded by all those that are any way concerned in the interest and honour of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ when they consider how basely is abused villanously handled and cruelly mangled what wounds and bruises what mutibations and even decollations and that in the house of his friends such at least as pretend themselves Christians he hath received we have no comfort donbtless but by Christ nor by Christ unless it be by whole Christ sound Christ Christ divided maimed or mutilated can do us no good A bone of him must not be broken nor may an atomical fragment of him be lost And yet if we observe we may find some not only breaking his bones or tearing him piece meal one joint from another but even breaking his heart by rending his Godhead from his manhood or nulliâ—ying one joint one part one excellency one attribute or other that essentially belonged to one of these Of old some there were who despoiled him of his body others indeed allowed him a body but a body brought from heaven made of caelestial matter others but a body framed out of the Elements not a humane body or a body partaking any thing of an earthly mother Some contended his body was meerly a phantasm without any reality at all a delusive apparition We may not forget the Monoâ—helites that would not allow him as man any Will nor yet pass over the Apollonatists who though they allowed him a body denied utterly that he had any Soul The Nestorians divided him into two distinct persons each perfectly compleat subsisting in themselves apart a God and a man without any personal union of the Natures so making us indeed two Christs are we not beholding to them instead of one though indeed making us more than one they left us none at all But then came Eutiches and he takes away both Godhead and manhood at once in a sort for while he confusedly jumbles both Natures together he makes him neither God nor man perfectly but some third thing though what they know not nor any man else unless it were a confused Chaos nor flesh nor fish nor good Red Herring Quaque erat tellus illic pontus nes But I must not forget the Arians they seemed indeed to deal a little better with him for as they never denied him to be something first a man so they acknowledg him too to be God indeed but then 't was but a deified God a God by grace and purchase not by nature and essence that is a God and no God A Sacrilegist one that being but a creature in himself was so bold as to challenge not the name and title only but the honour essence and incommunicable attributes of the supream Godhead I need name no more this is enough to shew how well they used him of old But how is he used now why truly which could scarce be thought of altogether as bad Christ hath still enemies and several armies of them that march up to confront him The first are the Socinians these lead the van requiring him to lay by his Godhead and in effecth is Priesthood too This is a blow to the head Then came the Familists the spawn of Henry Nicholas who think to puff him off into meer fume and smoke as a meer Allegory these lay their ax to the root of the tree and endeavour to destroy him root and branch at once making him scarce any better than a meer nothing The Antinomians come next and these deal worse with him than the former for while they say He imposeth no Laws leaving his Proselytes to be lawless and licentious libertines they make him to be a wicked thing God man or devil no matter which a wicked thing which ever it be is worse than nothing this is a deadly thrust too A fourth sort follows I know not what to call them Novalists Enthusiasts or Quakers I know not which term to give them or whether they may not deserve all these These as I said follow for from the wild heterodoxes of the former they have with the addition of rudeness impudence ignorance and non-sense patcht up a something or a nothing from or with the Socinians they account him but a meer man at least some calling him The man that suffered at Jerusalem and with the Nicholaitans they account him but a Quality an Ignis fatuus a meer illusion a light within them which is not much better than an Allegory or rather worse and with the Antinomians they respect no laws of King or Keisar nor Christ neither in his Gospel but the dictates of their own fanatick brains is not this worse than what Pilate abhorred Shall I crucifie your King it is a crucifying or worse even a mutilating an annihilating of our King our Christ our God For the Popeling I need not say any thing it hath been often enough proved to them That by their prefering the Blessed Virgin before him as to their Addresses to her more than unto him her compassion and comfort which they suppose she affords them more than He while they worship the Picture with the same worship they do the divine person with many other particulars they ungod him and bring him into the condition of a creature while they make a creature equal if not superior to him in any excellency or perfection their magnifying his body into an immensity sometimes and then again at the same time minifying him into the smallest atomes of a wafer cake they nullifie his manhood As for his Kingly office their dispensing with his and ordaining others contrary to his Laws their abrogating his Doctrines and substituting new and contrary their offering up a wafer cake for the expiating the sins both of quick and dead take away all his offices But it is the Demonologists I am set against now in special who notwithstanding all their pretences to the contrary abuse Christ as much as any of the rest for while they equalize the Devil yea even Witches with him for stupendious and miraculous operations they cut off his head or ungod him and what can be worse He that debaseth a King unto the low degree of a common plebeian exalting the plebeian to an equality of power with the King maketh a King no King but a meer pleibeian and the plebeians no plebeians any longer but so many Kings so they that equalize devils with Christ for power make Christ either no King for power or at least devils for power Kings equal to Christ This is not a bruising of his heel only which is as much as the devil is said to do but a
but subsisted meerly by and in the other Person as a Ciens ingrafted doth in the Tree But best of all is this the Hypostatical Union of the two Natures in Christ adumbrated by the Union of the spiritual and corporeal parts in Man For as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is one Man so God and Man is one Christ as the Athanasian Creed hath it There be many resemblances of this it seems but not any kind of adumbration as yet found in nature how to shadow out the consubstantiation of two perfect compleat and subsistent individuals in one person And yet which is considerable too 2. God thought it needful to send an Angel even one of his mightiest most honourable most eloquent and most powerful even the Angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin her self To perswade her into the belief of the possibility of that whereas they say That the Union of Devils unto Man is easily credible and generally believed without half that trouble Strange That the stranger thing should be more easily believed than the easier 3. But yet further There was great ado and much trouble about it To unite Man to God the omnipotency of the holy Ghost and the power of the Almighty God were imployed and all needful for the effecting of it Where the Devil as the Ichneumon into the Crocodile can slip into mens mouths with ease as they gape and possess them wholly as their own members And yet again 4. In the Judgment of God himself It was needful That much time even Thirty years and more should be spent I will not say for the subjugating of the Manhood to an obediential subjection towards the Godhead but for the clearer manifestation of the reality of that Union yea and Three or four years of continual Miracles to boot Where the Devil can incarnate himself possess or enter into a Person make him subservient to his will beck or nodd and manifest himself unquestionably to be the Dominus fac totum in the Person and all that with the turn of a hand in an instant 5. I might add God never did that Miracle but once the Devil doth such as are parallel every way and Super-paramount to it every week and day for many Thousand years together so that in truth the Devil seems to be the greater Miracler as out-doing out-going out-stretching the Omnipotent God in that very particular that he counts his Master-piece God manifested in the flesh is no such great Mystery the Devil can and doth do as great or greater every day Oh intolerable opinion that yields such blasphemous results Devilmongers will no doubt disclaim this charge but they shall never be able to evade the guilt CHAP. VII It undervalues Christs Miracles in that it allows Ejection of evil Spirits to Devils and Witches BUt Secondly as this Doctrine in the point of possession undervalues the Mystery of Christs Incarnation So doth it more abuse Christ in the crotchet of Dispossession A Devil nay a Witch say they by the Devils power can eject or cast out Devils out of any one possessed First out of a Person where there never was any Devil But Christ saith Satan casts not out Satan else his house should be divided and his Kingdom could not stand And yet hath and doth it stand ever since though at least as the doctrines of Devils assert Satan hath cast out Devils or Satan all the World over for these Sixteen hundred years Thus therefore this doctrine makes Christ a lyer And which is as bad it attributes more power to the Devil than ever Christ though he appeal to his stupend works for the justification of his Godhead ever exerted while here on earth Christ never so much as cast out one Devil I know men generally run away with this conceit because of these notions cast out Devils or cured a Demoniack or one possessed as we render it But if we consider That the Scripture speaketh but according to the mode and phrase of times then wherein according to the conceit of Platonizing Pharisees all great diseases afflictions or distempers wherein they thought as they did in all almost That there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some extraordinary and supernatural agency we may and will be easily satisfied That when Christ is said to cast out Devils they were but dangerous diseases uncommon maladies or extraordinary distempers or else sometimes sins that are meant CHAP. VIII Christ cast not out Devils What is meant by Devils where Christ is said to cast them out CHrist himself in his return to John's Message or Quaery Art thou he that should come or do we look for another speaks nothing but of curing Diseases and Preaching the Gospel Not a word of casting out Devils though in the same hour he had cast out one Luk. 7.19 Whatever is meant by it But could he have satisfied John better than by saying Devils also are cast out if he had cast out any Devil really And yet not a word of this in his Answer unto John Baptist nor which is as remarkable doth St. John though he set himself upon that point especially to prove the Godhead of Christ producing many yea very many very great and stupend Miracles done by Christ yet doth he not so much as hint at that of ejecting Devils A great oversight in such a Person in such a business to neglect such an Argument if any such thing had ever been This would have proved him to be God indeed and his Power paramount above all Principalities and Powers and Thrones and Dominions and so God without controversie or dispute But he urgeth it not and therefore we may well conclude if we will not think that he betrayed the Cause That there was no such thing Besides Demonium habere vel Demoniacum esse are most properly and most fitly rendered Madmen When some said In furorem versus est or he is mad others said he hath Beelzebub or a Devil as being in their conceit but one and the self-same thing Mark 3.30 21 He hath a Devil or is mad seem to be Synonimies and to interpret one the other John 10.20 So because of that mad wild frantick speech of his as they accounted it If any man keep my saying he shall never see death Now say they We know that thou hast a Devil and art mad For none thought they but a Madman would have vented such a wild word John 8.51 52. And therefore Maldonat a Jesuite and one that upheld the doctrine of Devils and possession as much as any Man for the maintenance of Purgatory Alii putant Alii in the Plural number 't was not one single Doctors Fathers Schoolmans opinion but a number of them Some think That this word Demonium habere or Demoniacum esse modum suisse loquend◠quo non significarent eum vere habere Demonium sed motae esse mentis delirare insanire To have a Devil was a kind of phrase or form of speech by which they did not
Fables incredible Lyes and monstrous Tales of old Wives which turn them from the Truth to the embracing of this doctrine of Devils This interpretation is consonant to Grammar to the letter of the Text and is fully justified by the success in all the particulars and therefore cannot I think be excepted against The doctrine of Devils is the opinion tenent or Teach of about or concerning Devils their wonderful power and most prodigious operations This is the sum and drift of this Tract There is not here any the least intention so much as to insinuate 1. That there be no Devils Or 2. That they are not abominably villainous in themselves Or 3. That they are not mischievous to the utmost of their power against Mankind But only That they have not such an unlimited irresistible and omnipotent power as Demonologers idolatrously attribute to them especially in Physical or natural things what-ever their power may be in respect of Morals That is another question CHAP. V. The Doctrine of Devils abuseth the blessed Lord Jesus Christ mightily And that first in general THis doctrine of the unlimited power of Devils in naturals thus by Christians entertained is the highest and most abominable Apostacy that ever was or can be in respect of Christ We need go no further than this very Text for the proof of this This Text no doubt is set in opposition to the last verse of the former Chapter where the Apostle having spoken of the Mystery of Godliness by the manifestation of God in the flesh the wonderful operations of this God-man Christ the admiration Angels had for him his universal goodness as offered to all Men the belief that was generally throughout the World against all credibility yielded unto him his glorification and in his ours He subjoyns this That there shall be a departing from the faith What Faith Why from the Faith of the particulars before mentioned However in what shall this departure be manifested or shewn Why in part and specially by giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Devils So that the giving heed to the attending observing entertaining or believing of this doctrine of Devils is a denying refusing rejecting of or a departing from those great Mysteries and fundamental points of the Christian Religion As particularly a denying of or a departing from or a rejecting of that stupend miracle of Christ's Incarnation and the benefits that proceed from it 2. An abusing or vilifying of his most wonderful operations 3. A taking off of that great admiration that Angels had before justly of him 4. A denyal or abusing of that universal goodness which he offered unto all mankind 5. A vilifying of that wonderful reception of his Doctrine and Gospel throughout the World at the first Preaching though for the strangeness of it to Mans natural and carnal understanding so unlikely to be entertained 6. The magnificence of his installation in Glory He that turns Jew Turk Pagan doth not possibly for substance abuse Christ worse than he that heartily and in its latitude embraceth this doctrine of Devils though he may indeed retain the name of Christian The difference is only in the circumstance or manner the one wilfully desperately obstinately the other as 't is hoped but out of ignorance inadvertency mistake and interpretatively But the same substantial Apostacy in both CHAP. VI. This Doctrine of Devils draweth men off particularly from that most comfortable and fundamental Article of the Christian Creed viz. The Incarnation of the Son of God I Shall touch but upon some of the former particulars the rest will easily be guest at when it shall be manifested in some chief of these That this doctrine of Devils draws men off from them And first thus The manifestation of God in the flesh or the Hypostatical Union of the Godhead to the Manhood in one person was heretofore and now too still ought to be accounted The great miracle of the World The Miracle of Miracles The most stupend Miracle that ever was shall or can be wrought by omnipotency it self but if there be a possession of Men by Devils as Demonologers give out Preach Print Publish and Promulgate then must this stupend and most miraculous work of Omnipotency shrink into nothing or at least into Vnum e millibus into an ordinary and common feat it is but an ordinary usual and common prank no more than Devils do and can do every day every hour every-where if they please It is possible that the Demonologers will strain hard to wring out some nice obscure or critical difference between this true and unquestionable Union of the two natures in Christ and this fained one of Devils to Men but certainly if as Demonologers say a Devil or an evil Fiend can act mans body so as to move carry roodge hurry transport it as he pleaseth make it light or heavy quantitive or not quantitive visible or invisible too make it swim like a piece of Cork dive like a Fish fly like a Bird the natural capacity of such a Person yea his Reason Will Intellect Judgment all the powers and faculties of his Soul being not only guided governed or directed by but swallowed up and metamorphosed into the will humour nature condition inclination of the Devil the difference I suspect will be very nice or rather none at all This once the Apostle puts the Mysterium magnum upon this That God was manifested in the flesh and is not the Devil too and that in his utmost Devilship and that in the flesh also manifested according to this feigned possession or incarnation which this doctrine of Devils attributeth to him I have in another place toucht upon the particular mode of the Hypostatical Union of the two natures in Christ and have shewn That as that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substantialiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inconverse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indivise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inconfuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communicative and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inseparate So according to the doctrine of Devils is the coagulation of Devil to Man in the possessed in all and every respect answerable I shall therefore here now add but these few particulars 1. That this Union of Devils to Men in this supposed Possession seems a more difficult hard and more unintelligible miracle than that of the two natures in Christ That being but the coalescency of two Natures into one Person this the jumbling together of two numerical distinct and subsistent persons into one Individual There may in nature as it were be some kind of dark Adumbration of that some instance in the Misseltoe growing out of or upon and subsisting in the Oak without any proper subsistency of its own But how well this agrees let the Authors of the conceit well consider There was it is generally known throughout this Kingdom not many years since a Person that had another body living creature or if you will another Person growing out of his side
done any such Miraculous VVorks it can be no argument at all That Christs Miracles alone were no sure or sussicient Argument of his God-Head I fear the Learned Man was so bewitched with that most Monstrous but most Absurd and Ridiculous Legend of Doctor Dee's Conversing with Spirits because he had retrived it from Dust and Rottenness where it ought to have perish'd Everlastingly unless in Providence it be reserv'd as a Monument of the Impudent Knavery some Desperate Varlets will venter on or of the Monstrous Credulity some besorted Melancholicoes may be inveigled into That he Strains or Tuggs might and main Hook and Nail to make his Devil if possible Aequipollent to Christ our Saviour if not Superexcellent for Power of Miracles and most stupend Operations above Him CHAP. XXX A Reply to the Objection against the Book called The Case of Witchcraft Debated THat it is Passion or Prepossession That engageth the Learned Man to be so earnest for the Power of Devils seemeth clear to me from the petty Cavils he hath against that Judicious Book called The Question of VVitchcraft Debated Debated not Stated but with Modesty enough if not too much Debated a Book that contains more good Reason true Religion and right Christianity than all those Lumps and Cart-Loads of Luggage that hath been Fardled up by all the Faggeters of Demonologistical VVinter-Tales and Witcheraftical Legendaries since they first begun to foul clean Paper His first Attempt is To prove against that Ingenious Author that Casaph signifies in Scripture Witches i. e. such Persons as acted by a Power derived to them from the Devil and not mock-Miraclers Impostors or Juglers because most if not all Translaetors and he reckons up many names so interpret it but he leaves-out Josephus and the Septuagint who being Natural Jews and Great Scholars to boot counterballance all the other great Names Especially since they were Persons that lived long before this Doctrine of Devils was hatch'd and so more likely to be more Vnbyassed Interpreters than those who lived after the World was bewitched with that monstruous Opinion Josephus without doubt was as Antient as any of his Interpreters nay they meer Youngsters in respect of him all And for the Septuagint they were at least 350. Years Elder than his Eldest Interpreters who yet by his own Confession pag. 180. interpret Casaph by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Veneficus Besides what-ever his Interpreters were they had but the word Casaph the Etymon and the use of that Word or the Coherence of the Text To guide them into the Interpretation of it And all these have we now as well as they 1. For the Word we may say it boldly It doth not in of or by it self signifie a Witch i. e. One that is in Compact with the Devil for neither is Compact nor Devil included in the Notion of it But only a Covering Changing or Altering the outward Face or Appearance of things which may be done many wayes without the Intervention of Devils Yea cannot be done by any Assistance from them 2. For the use of the word Josephus and the Septuagint interpreting it Poysoner it is more than probable that this was the most usual Sense of it 3. For the Coherence of the Text it is never any where used in Scripture where the sense of the Context doth not plainly Determine it to Impostor Spiritual Poysoner Jugler or Deceiver rather than to Witch in the Demonologist's Sense all the Scripture over as is plain if any man do but unbyassedly consider the several places where the word is used as I have intimated afore Yea when the Learned man comes to give the Words of the Interpreters they are but these Magus Maleficus or Veneficus for that 's the Word he proceeds on in his Descant and Praestigiator c. which are so far from intimating his Witches as Latro in Latin is from signifying a Regicide or to use his own Terms as far as Lapis is from signifying a pumice or Panis a Wafer-Cake The Words not any of them in any sort intimating the Thing they are produc'd for First Magus is properly a great Naturalist or a Person well skil'd in the Courses and Operations of Nature improperly and by Abuse a Fellow that pretending to do great things in cheat Supernaturally with much Artifice and Cunning makes use only of some Natural Operations that be somewhat unusual and not ordinarily known to deceive the Simple 2. Venesicus is a Poysoner and cannot well be hal'd in to signifie any thing else at least not one that by a power derived from the Devil can or doth do strange things No more than Beneficus or Salvificus can signifie a Person that by Influence from an Angel can work Miracles It is true because some of these Villains with so much Cunning and Artifice exercised this their Wickedness That ordinarily it was not conceived how they could effect their Mischiefs without the Intervention of some Supernatural Assistance Veneficus might abusively be usurped for one that dealt with Evil Spirits But as there nor are now nor ever were any such Persons So nor did doth nor can that Word properly signifie any such thing and therefore the Poets themselves the first Finders Makers and Fathers of Witches Virgil Horace Ovid Lucan Tibullsu Homer c. bring them in still as gathering mixing and compounding Poysonous Herbs and such deleterious stuffe by which they acted their strangest and most stupend Mischiefs And because vulgarly it was not known how their strange Effects were produced It was thought generally especially by the Rabble and possibly by some others who were look't upon by themselves and others too as Wise-men as the Effects wrought now by the Magnetick Powder and the Weapon-Salve are by some who reckon themselves no mean Sciolists that they acted altogether by the Assistance of some Daemons when they wrought any unusual Feats But Poysoner is the signification of the word Veneficus and the Practise of those that were so called was Poysoning as I could instance in all the fore-named Poets and others besides these But I will here only make use of Lucan as he is Translated into English that it may the better be understood by the vulgar Sextus Pompeius comes to that notorious Cheat or Witch Erichtho to understand the fatal Issue of the Pharsalian Battail which she in some sort cheatingly undertakes to discover and having found a Carcass fit for the purpose you must permit Poets to fancy what Fooleries they please especially when they speak of Witches she falls to her Witchcraft but how Mark Pectora cùm primùm ferventi sanguine supplet Vulneribus laxata suis taboque medullas Alluit et virus largè lunare ministrat Huc quicquid fato genuit Natura sinistro Miscetur non spuma Canum quibus unda timori est Viscera non Lyncis non dirae nodus Hyenae Defuit Cervi pasti serpente medulla Non puppim retinens Euro tendente rudentes In
very ridiculous Winter-Tale such are if well examined all the rest that are brought by Demonologers to fortifie their Opinion The first Argument is Consensus generis humani or The Vniversal Consent of Mankind a large Word for his Opinion This is the great and grand Topick of the Demonologists But I have already in another place answered more than all that that is here said amounts unto by shewing first That there never was for some Thousand of Years any such Conceit muchless general Consent of man-kind nor ever since for Witchcraft nor if there had been was it a sufficient Argument to prove the truth of the Opinion by instancing in a Foppery that hath as generally been received and more as this Opinion of Witchcraft and yet no Reality or Truth in the Figment at all I shall add another That every man may be doubly provided for the baffling of this Objection when ever they meet with it An instance it is of a thing if any such thing there be or were that came under the Dijudication of Sense and yet nothing but Fiction and Cheat in it though generally believed as de side I mean the Miracles and Wonders that are have been reported to have been done at the Tombs Dormitories Sepulchers or before the Shrines Images and Pictures of Saints and Martyrs or by their Reliques as by the Arm Legg Foot Head Hand small Finger or little Toe c. by the Nails Hair and such Excrements c. Yea but the Cast Clouts Tottered Rags and Old Shoos of Saints Oh! What Volumes what Cart-loads what Dung-hills of Legends to this purpose and all for many hundred Years believed all Christendome over which then when these Miracles came in Vogue was the greatest and best inhabited part of the then known World the most part of Europe Asia and Africa resounded with them and now yet tootaking in America That Extent is not any way lessened And all these obtruded upon and believed by Christians as unquestionable Truths as true as Gospel yea and truer too For for these Things sake was the Gospel laid aside the Reading of it superseded yea forbidden and the Legends brought in to be read in Churches and Preached out of the Pulpits as more true more edifying and more for the setting forth of God's Glory And which was more Their Shrines Chappels or Temples so enriched with Gifts Presents and Oblations That an Ordinary King's Exchequer could not countervail the Wealth of one of them Nay though the supposed Saint were not Majorum Gentium but a Diminutive indeed nay but a Rebel or a Traytor as Thomas à Becket whose Monument was so rich in Jewels of Inestimable Value That two great Chests were filled with the Spoyls thereof So heavy and so capacious That no fewer than eight men were needful to carry each of them out of the Church Thus one records it Another thus There were no less than Twenty-six Wain-Loads of Gold Silver and Pretious-stones found in it And which was Ten thousand times worse and more There were some times an Hundred Thousand Worshippers upon the account of the Miracles fained of him attending at his Chappel And yet none of these Miracles true no none of them no not so much as One though averred attested and sworn by many Reverend Holy and Religious Fryars Monks and other Shavelings of unquestionable Sincerity among the People and therefore generally believed For it is incredible That the most Wise God should exsert the Power of His Omnipotency for the advancing of the Honour of Dead-men of Wicked-men of Abominable Reprobates some of them so high as that their Skeletons Dead-bones and Excrements their Chairs and Chains yea their Cast-Clouts Rotten Rags and Old Shoos should work such Miracles when he never honoured the Persons while alive with any such Miraculous Power Especially since these pretended Miracles did in their very nature and tendency tend directly to the bringing in of Superstition Idolatry and the shameful undervaluing of the Miracles and Wonders wrought by the great God and His Blessed Son Jesus as the very Pretence actually did Now that I may extend the Credulity of this Dream to as vast Limits as any Demonologer can extend the conceit of Witchcraft I add That all this infatuated conceit concerning such Miracles was but a meer Relickt or Apish-imitation of Pagan Dreams and Heathenish Adorations in respect to their antient Heroes demi-Gods or Demons Did they not all of them as far as Paganism extended and that was far enough fancy and believe Miracles and Wonders to have been done by those whom they accounted Heroick Persons had deify'd after Death for their Gallantries Inventions Glorious Acts done by them when alive Hence it is That we hear of such strange Things done by Jupiter Apollo Mars Juno Pallas Hercules Bacchus Castor Pollux yea Romulus and Apollonius In other Countries they had other Names Termes and Titles for their Devil-Gods but the same Superstition and besotted Credulity of believing Miracles done by them after their departure hence to their own places And this As at other places often So at their Shrines before their Images or Pictures in their Temples most frequently where the Priests resided who were indeed the Persons that did the Feats and had Face and Knavery enough to venter upon the Juggle of a Miracle That they might continue to receive the Rich Presents and Oblations which made up Treasuries so hugely vast as is almost incredible as appears by those huge Masses of Wealth belonging to Jupiter Hammon's and Apollo's Temple at Delphos Who was the Author or first Inventor of those Prodigious Romances but most Monstrous Fictions it matters not much but when once such wild Figments were published abroad concerning one of their Idols in one place That he or it had done such and such Feats there was a general Entertainment and Invention of the like monstrous Fables throughout the Pagan World These also in this place must invent too some strange things in honour of their Idol as well as others had of theirs in another place And thus it went round Nay the Mahometans too though but Vpstarts in respect of the former Superstitionists sneakingly creeping into the World but of late when one would have expected That after the Detection of so many Knaveries in this kind throughout the World every-where man-kind should have been grown wâ—ser yet think this a notable politick Trick too to draw in Disciples to the entertainment of their Alchoran And therefore they report of great and strange Miracles done and these must too be believed by every Massulman upon pain of some most fearful mischief not only by Mahomet when alive or at Mecca and Medina-Tal-naby where his Tombe is said to hang most miraculously to this day but at other places also many are now yet still daily done by their Syets and their other pretending Religionists but really Hypocritical Impostors Now put all this toâ—â—ther the Dreams of Turks Pagans Christians all
of London A Description of the Four parts of the world taken from the Works of Monsieur Sanson Geographer to the French King and other eminent Travellers and Authors to which is added the Commodities Coyns Weights and Measures of the chief places of Traffick in the world illustrated with variety of useful and delightful Maps and Figures By Richard Blome Gent. Memotres of the Lives Actions Sufferings and Deaths of those Excellent Personages that suffered for Allegiance to their Soveraign in our late intestine Wars from the year 1637 to 1666 with the Life and Martyrdom of King Charles the First By David Lloyd The Exact Politician or Compleat Statesan c. By Leonard Willan Esquire A Relation in form of a Journal of the Voyage and Residence of King Charles the Second in Holland Mores hominum the Manners of Men described in sixteen Satyrs by Juvenal together with a large Comment clearing the Author in every place wherein he seemed obscure out of the Laws and Customs of the Romans and the Latine and Greek Histories By Sir Robert Stapleton Knight A Treatise of Justification By George Downham Dr. of D. Fifty-one Sermons Preached by the Reverend Dr. Mark Frank Master of Pembroke-Hill in Cambridg Arch-Deacon of St. Albons c. To which is added a Sermon preached at Pauls Cross Anno 1641. and then commanded to be Printed by King Charls the First Bentivolio and Urania in six Books By Nathaniel Ingelo D. D. The third Edition wherein 〈◊〉 the obscure words throughout the Book are interpreted in the Margent which makes this much more delightful to read than the former De Jure Uniformitatis Ecclesiasticae or three Books of the Rights belonging to an Uniformity in Churches in which the chief things of the Laws of Nature and Nations and of the Divine Law concerning the Consistency of the Ecclesiastical Estate with the Civil are unsolded by Hugh Daviâ— Ll. B. late Fellow of New Colledg in Oxon. An English French Italian Spanish Dictionary by James Howel Observations on Millitary and Political Affairs by the Honourable George Duke of Albemarle The manner of Exercising the Infantry as it 's now practised in the Armies of his most Christian Majesty Quarto A Letter from Dr. Robert Wild to his Friend Mr. J. J. upon occasion of his Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Together with his Poetica Licentia a friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist The Dutch Remonstrance concerning the Proceedings and Practices of John de Wit Pensionary and Ruwaert Van Putten his Brother with others of that Faction Translated out of Dutch Index Biblicus or an Exact Concordance to the Holy Bible according to the last Translation by John Jackson Minister of the Gospel at Moulsea in Surrey The Christian-Mans-Calling or a Treatise of making Religion ones Business wherein the Christian is directed to perform in all Religious duties Natural Actions particular Vocations Family directions and in his own Recreations in all Relations in all Conditions in his dealings with all men in the choice of his Company both of evil and good in solitude on a week-day from morning to night in visiting the sick and on a dying-bed by Geo. Swinnock Mr. Caryl's Exposition on the Book of Joh. Gospel-Remission or a Treatise shewing that true Blessedness consists in the pardon of sin By Jeremiah Burroughs An Exposition of the Song of Solomon By James Durham late Minister in Glasgow The Real Christian or a Treatise of Effectual Calling wherein the work of God in drawing the Soul to Christ being opened according to the Holy Scriptures some things required by our late Divines as necessary to a right Preparation for Christ and a true closing with Christ which have caused and do still cause much trouble to some serious Christians and are with due respects to those worthy men brought to the ballance of the Sanctuary there weighed and accordingly judged to which is added a few words concerning Socinianism By Giles Firmin sometimes Minister at Shalford in Essex Mount Pisgab or a Prospect of Heaven being an Exposition on the fourth Chapter of the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians By Tho. Case sometimes Student in Christ-Church Oxon and Minister of the Gospel The Vertue and Value of Baptism By Za. Crofton The Quakers Spiritual Court proclaimed Being an exact Narrative of a New high Court of Justice also sundry Errors and Corruptions amongst the Quakers which were never till now made known to the world By Nath. Smith who was conversant among them fourteen Years A Discourse of Prodigious abstinence occasion'd by the twelve Months fasting of Martha Tayler the faim'd Darby-shire Damsel proving that without any Miracle the texture of Humane bodies may be so altered that Life may be long continued without the supplies of Meat and Drink By John Reynolds A Grave for Controversies between the Romanist and the Protestant lately presented to the French King Jacksons Recantation or the Life and Death of a Notorious Highway man wherein is truely discovered the whole Mistery of that wicked and fatal profession of Padding on the Road. A Sermon delivered at the Funeral of right Honourable Charles Earl of Warwick Sept. the 9th 1673. by Anthony Walker Rector of Fyfiâ—ld The Retired mans Meditations or the Mistery and Power of Godliness presenting to view the riches and fullness of Christs person as Mediator or the Natural and Spiritual man in their proper distinctions c. by Henry Vane Knight Large Octavo A Sober enquiry into the nature measure and principle of Moral Vertue its distinction from Gospel Holiness with reflections upon what occurs disserviceable to Truth and Religion in this matter in three late Books viz. Ecclesiastical Policy Defence and Continuation and Reproof to the Rehersal Transprosed By R. Ferguson A Collection of Sermons Preach'd at the Morning Lecture in Southwark and else-where By N. Blakie Gramatica Quadrilinguis or Brief Instructions for the French Italian Spanish and English Tongues with Proverbs of each Language fitted for those who desire to perfect themselves therein By J. Smith M. A. The Works of Mr. James Janeway Containing these 6 following Treatises Heaven upon Earth or the Best of Friends in the Worst of Time Death Unstung a Sermon Preach'd at the Funeral of Thomas Mosely an Apothecary with a Narrative of his Life and Death also the manner of Gods dealing with him before and after his Conversion A Sermon Preach'd at the Funeral of Thomas Savage Invisibles Realities demonstrated in the Holy Life and Triumphant Death of Mr. John Janeway The Saints Encouragement to Diligence in Christs Service with Motives and Means to Christian Activity Mr. Janeway's last Legacy to his Friends containing twenty-seaven famous instances of Gods Providences in and about Sea-dangers and Deliverances with the names of several that were Eye-witnesses to many of them whereunto is added a Sermon on the same Subject A Brief Exposition of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Gallathians and Ephesians by James Ferguson