French Tongue it has lost it's Ancient name in remembrance of the Resurrection of our Lord and is called Dimanche from Dies Dominica Sect. 9. Let us proceed from the Gods to the Demons or Spirits of a meaner Order Thales of Milet taught if we believe Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the World is full of Spirits namely the Air which they inhabit and the Earth in which they converse amongst Men the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know as signifying one that is very Learned because they believed that those Demons knew whatever is important to Men either for their Happiness or Misery and that they were as the Mediators of Men towards the Gods And 't is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise signifies to Mediate so that the Demons import so much as Mediators And therefore they have also been called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mediators and Directors of Men and have been placed according to the Opinions of the Heathens betwixt the Heavens and the Earth viz. in the Air and consequently betwixt the Gods and Men. Sect. 10. Though the Opinions were divided as to their Nature yet they agreed in these principal points that they were Spirits that they were Mortal and however that they were no Gods as Plato writes in his Timoeus which explaining more at large in his Convivium he says that the Demons have a Nature which is the Mene betwixt God and Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what virtue have they That of explaining and declaring to Men what things belong to the Gods which are their Commands and how Sacrifices must be performed As also that of offering to the Gods what comes from Men viz. their Prayers and Sacrifices so that they being in the middle comprehend the Nature of both as binding and uniting the whole together Sect. 12. As to their Administration Plato explains it thus From them come to us Predictions Auguries the worship of Sacrifices Conjurations Orations and the whole Art of Magick The Deitie meddles not with Men but those Spirits are the Directors of all the communication and converse of the Gods with us either wakeing or sleeping The Demons therefore being by their Nature Mediators betwixt the Gods and Men and being besides Spirits and almost Gods could not be better called then Spirits of a middle Order in relation to their Nature or Mediating Gods in reference to their Functions in how great consideration those Spirits were and what was the Sentiment of the Antients concerning them may be learned from St. Chrysostome Tom. 6. Less 66. Entituled Against those that say that the Demons direct the Affairs of Men. Sect. 12. But what will be most useful to observe was that there were Demons of a Superiour and others of an Inferior Order and that some were esteemed Good and others Wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good and favourable whereas the other were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil Spirits or by a more particular explication of their Qualities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wicked dangerous Enemies Cruel However these Demons either good or bad were not believed of all Nations to be of the same Dignity There were some amongst whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imported as much as Deity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine even in Plato the Soveraign God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest Demon. However the general use was to distinguish the Gods from the Demons as has been already observed and as Aeschines expresses it in his Clesias O Earth Gods Demons and Men whoever ye be that desire to know the Truth and therefore Plato in the place already quoted may rightly say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that those learned and middle Spirits are in great numbers and several kinds But 't is not necessary to speak more of it for perhaps it would only induce us into several errors there is so much uncertainty in Plato and others that have written upon it they are so much opposed against one another and even to themselves Sect. 13. As to the Heroes they were extraordinary Men and so far above the vulgar that every where especially amongst the Romans they used to consecrate and deifie them after their Death which was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Canonization Herodian in his Fourth Book Chap 2. makes a particular Description of that Ceremony with all the Circumstances of it on occasion of the Death of the Emperor Severus Besides we generally find in the writing of the Ancients that they paraell'd them with the Demons Plutarch relates in his Opinions of the Philosophers Chap. 8. Book First That Thales Plato and the Stoicks believ'd that the Demons were Spiritual substances and that the Heroes were Souls separated from the Body which were good or bad as Men had been Virtuous or Vitious this was especially the Doctrine of Pythagoras who in all things that relate to Religion has had more Disciples then any of the Ancient Heathens and is yet the most followed by those that are not Christians He teaches that those Demons and Heroes brought in Dreams Diseases and Cure to Men and even to Cattle and labouring Beasts according to the Testimony of Diogenes Laertius confirm'd by Plato and not contradicted by Aristotle Sect 14. Apuleius in the Book formerly quoted more particularly demonstrates that the powers which put the natural passions of Men into motion which govern them and Lord it over them as also the Souls separated from the Body are called Gods and Demons or Spirits that the Soul born with the Body dies not however with it and that she bears the name of Genius when they are separated from each other This meaning cannot methinks be better express'd than by naming those Souls Associated Spirits or Spirits peculiar to one subject since every Man has one within himself The others that is those that are separated from the Body or the Souls of the Deceased are commonly called Manes as though remaining because they remain of â—â—â—â—â—st after the Body for Which reason I shall name them Surviving Spirits However as to the Latin word it seems rather to be derived from Manis an Ancient obsolete Term which signifies fine and good as immanis imports as much as Vgly and Cruel because the Manes were ordinarily taken for Benevolent Spirits Sect. 15. Some of this last sort remained in the House of the deceased to watch over his Successors and were called Lares or Domestick Gods but the others err'd at random and as Exiles according as they had deserved by their wicked Life They could cause but vain Fears to virtuous Persons but to the vitious a just Terrour and all sorts of Pains They were called Lares Night Phantasms and Spectra Diogenes writes that most of those things were taught in the School of Plato as it still appears by his Book Entituled Phoedo They had also the name of Lemures which is supposed to come from Remures and this from Remus Brother to
the present Laplanders do not frequently nor publickly exercise Magick their Ancestors having been more addicted to those superstitions of which most of the modern Laplanders are free and thô the Country be purified of that sort of Witchcraft ever since the King of Sweden has forbidden under grievous pains to use Inchantments yet there are still a great number amongst them who make it their whole study and employment The cause of it is that every one of the Laplanders is perswaded that Magick is indispensably necessary to him that he may avoid the snares and insults of his Enemies To this he adds That they kept Schools in which Children are taught that Art and that Parents are often their Tutors in it That they exercise them in it required their assistance and are present at the performance of those detestable practices But what is yet more strange is what this Author farther relates That the Fathers bequeath as an Inheritance to their Children the wicked Spirits that were in their Service that by their help they may overcome the Demons of other Families their Enemies Sect. 5. What they pretend to effect by means of their Gods and Spirits is to discover some things by Divination and to operate some others by Witchcraft for Divination they make use of a Kannus which is like a Drum and must be made of a particular Wood and rather of Birch-tree than any other There is a Skin or Membrane extended upon the Body of that Drum wherein the Laplanders draw several Figures with a red colour made of the Bark of Alder-tree bruised and boyl'd they beat it with an Instrument like a Hammer 6 Inches long but not bigger then the little Finger not so much to make a noise as to cause a bundel of Brass Rings that lies upon it to move when that bundle begins to leap up they observe the parts and Figures towards which it moves and Divine by the Scituation Motion and rest of the bundle on the place which signifies the design they have form'd The manner of this enquiry is not always the same for they make use of several different from one another by those means they discover what passes in Foreign Countryes how distant soever they may be they know the good or bad success of the Affairs they have undertaken they cure Diseases they find out what Sacrifices and Victims are most pleasant to the Gods of the Land These that desire to know the State of their Friends or Enemies living a Thousand Miles from that place have but to go to a Laplander who discovers it this way He casts himself upon the Ground and becomes tike a Dead Man and his Face altogether livid He remains in that state an hour or two according as the Country whence he will get News is more or less distant and when he awakes he tells whatever passes in that Country especially as to what is enquired after There are yet some other particulars as to that way of Divining gather'd from several Authors but it would be too long and even unserviceable to relate them Sect. 6. They have yet other sorts of Witchcraft The First is a Twisted Cord with several knots which they use to raise Winds on the Sea so they do as it were sell the Winds and profer them to Merchants that are detain'd on their Coasts by Tempests and contrary Winds having agreed upon the price and receiv'd it they give him a string with three Magical Knots on which lies this Condition that as soon as they have untyed the First there rises a fresh and pleasant Gale when they have loosed the Second the Wind grows stronger but when they have unty'd the Third there arises such a Tempestuous Storm that they are no longer able to govern their Ship This sort of Trade is used especially in Finmarke amongst the Danish Laplanders because the Neighborhood of the Sea afford them more occasions of it then any where else But the account that Scheffer gives of their other sorts of Witchcraft shows that he himself gives little credit to it They have little Magical Darts made of Lead very short being no longer than ones Finger they dart them to the remotest place against their Enemies of whom they desire to avenge themselves and by that Witchcraft they send upon them such dangerous Diseases with such sharp pains that for the violence of them they often Die within three Days Thy have also a kind of Flyes call'd Gans which they let out of their Ganeske that is a Leaden Purse And Daily send some of them to annoy and vex their Enemies But we have not a perfect knowledge of whatever they practise on these occasions There are also some Laplanders who for this purpose make use of a Tyre which is a round Ball as big as a Walnut it has a particular shape as is described in Scheffer's relation and it has also some motion They sell this Tyre and the buyer may send it upon whomsoever he pleases he shall be most cruelly tormented with it Sect 7 But enough of the Laplanders let 's now speak of other Nations Litgau says that the Wild-Irish adore the Moon as well for their own preservation as for that of their Flocks and that they direct to her this Prayer amongst others Leave us as Healthfull as thou finds us Whence I infer that they hold something of the Ancient Paganism that ascribes a Divine Virtue to the Influence of the Stars thô it seems by this form of Prayer that they attribute not to them a full and Sovereign power in the Administration of the World Sect. 8. As for the remains of Paganism amongst the Samagites a People scituated betwixt Lithuania and Livonia we are taught that they much Worship the Sun and Moon the Fire the Thunder the Groves and Trees exceedingly high which shows that they go farther than the wild Irish and believe that there are Demons in the Air and upon Earth that reside in all those objects But it may be seen in Olaus Magnus what account they themselves make of the Gods of Thunder and of the Spirits in the Air. For says he they not only pretend to give succors to their Gods in their quarrels they have with their Enemies endeavouring to imitate the Thunder with the beating of Hammers but are not afraid even of Fighting against them with Arrows and other Arms they shoot in the Air. There are also places in Lithuania where the Inhabitants adore a Domestick God called Dinstipan that is The Director of the smoke or Chimneys Sect. 2. The Tartars Keremisses a People of Eastern Moscovy believe according to Olearius that there are malitious Spirits who may at pleasure cause several disturbances and vexations to Men in this Life for as to the future they have no notion of it To prevent those pains or turn off those Spirits they offer Sacrifices to them near Rivers they likewise adore the Sun and Moon because they perceive much good is done to the Earth
whom has a share in the Government of the World They say that Brama has power over all the Souls and distributes them to Men and Beasts as he pleases that Baffiuna teaches Men the Commandments of Permiseer and provides with all things in this life those that are obedient to him and that Mais calls to Judgment before Permiseer the Souls separated from the Bodies who sends them according to their deserts into the Bodies of Men or Beasts to be afterwards with them purified of their Fits in a certain purging Fire The Gentives in the Kingdom of Goleonda believe also one only God who has been from all Eternity but in process of time has associated himself to some inferior Gods chosen from amongst Men which notion is agreeable with the Semidii Indigetes or Heros of the Ancient Romans Sect. 7. Those Ancient Persians who have remained in their Religion since Mahometism has setled in their Country deserve to be taken notice of Some remained in Persia and live for the most part at Ispuhum the Capital of that Empire Others have retired into the Indies especially into the Kingdom of Gusuratte where they are in great numbers Here you have the belief of the people in the very words of Carolinus extracted from de Laat Varenius and Tuist They believe that there is one God present every where who Governs all things aâ— pleasure without needing the assistance of any one tho' in the mean time he has seven Ministers by him almost of the same Dignity with himself who have each their particular Office of which they are accountable to him The 1st is Hamalda the Governour of Men. The 2d is Baman who has inspection over the Beasts and the Creatures of the Sea The 3d. is Ardi Best who preserves Fire and hinders it from going out The 4th is Sariuard on whom Metals and Minerals depend The 5th is Espendaar who takes care lest the Earth should be fill'd with filthiness and grow wild The 6th is Arendaar who has the direction of the Waters and who takes care that they be not soiled with nastiness The last is Amadaat who has the inspection of the Trees and Fruits of the Earth and of Herbs All these Gods are only Inspectors and Directors it being not in their power to inflict death upon any thing or to give it a new Life for they are solely established to give an account to the Sovereign God and to inform against those that have ill used corrupted or violated the things that are under their keeping Sect. 8. Besides those 7 Ministers there are yet 26 of an inferior Order each of which has his particular district Sorach is the first whose Office it quickly to bring the Souls separated from the Bodies before their Judges viz. Mees Resna and Saros The 4th is Beram Carrasedaats who directs War at his pleasure The 5th is the Sun The 6th is Anoa who has dominion over the Waters The 7th is Ader who is established over Fire The 8th is Maho who governs the Moon The 9th is Tiera that is the Rains 10th Gos governs and preserves Cattle 11. Tavardi takes care of the Sâ—uls who are in Heaven 12th Aram brings Joy to tâ—e World and banishes Pains and Sorrows from thence 13th Goada rules the Winds tho' he be not the Wind himself 14th Dien gives to Nations information and understanding of the Laws and inclination to keep them 15. Appersone affords Riches 16th Astaat gives Vnderstanding and Memory 17 th Assamaan has the inspection of Wares 10. Gimninaat has the conduct of the Earth 19. Marisipant is the God of Goodness which he communicates to those that have recourse to him 20. Armira is the director of Money 21. Hoem is the Author of the conception of Women and gives life to their Fruit. 22 23. Dimnia and Base are established to succor those that stand in need of them The three last Befadeer Defemeer and Defyn stand by God to serve him and are always ready to perform his Orders These are the Names of those 26 Ministers whom the Country men of Persia honour with the Title of Gestio or Saint and whom they believe to have Authority and Power all the things that are under their direction For which reason they also adore them trusting that they will be their Intercessors to God and obtain from him whatever shall be necessary for their good Sect. 9. Having thus sufficiently spoken as to the Gods we 'll now treat of the Spirits tho' we find but little information upon this point in Authors saving in what concerns China and the East-Indies on this side the River Ganges I only find mention made that the Japanders in a place not farr from Osacca venerate a God or Spirit named Tiedebaie lest he should hurt them and that another God called Goquis frequently appears to them in a humane Shape In the Town of Micao They worship in a Statue of a frightful Figure another Spirit to whom the Christians give the name of King of the Devils There is no Pagod in all Japan saith Carolinus which is so frequented nor enriched with so great Presence because thereby they think to redeem their sins Sect. 10. Martinius Kircher and Trigaltius three Jesuits have written large Histories of China but very little insisted upon this matter However considering what they observe of the Worship of that People it may be concluded that they believe the existence of Spirits as we shall show hereafter The Siamese likewise venerate some wicked Gods though against the sentiment of many of their Doctors under pretence of charging those bad Spirits of such evils of which they will not make God the Author It is said of the same Nation that they give two Spirits to every Man one of which makes them to be good and the other evil Sect. 11. But the greatest knowledge we have of the Opinions of those Countries comes from the Coast of Choromandel Carolinus who has gatherd what Rogerius says of it in many places says That they believe good and bad Spirits that is Angels and Devels They name the Angels Deuetas and the Devils Ratsiasias They hold that both were begotten by Men and that their common Father was Cassiopa the first Bramaine or Priest and Legislator The Mother of the Deuetas was Diti and that of the Ratsiasias was Aditi both Wives of Cassiopa Sect. 12. There are two sorts of Deuetas For such Men as go after their Decease into the Happiness of the Worlds under the Sun and above the Earth are also called Deuetas but those places are not for them an eternal abode since after the succession of some Ages they must come back into the World and be Born again As to the other Deuetas who are in great numbers they never depart from their Abode The Sun Moon and Stars are in that number they ascribe unto them both Soul and Life Sect. 13. The Ratsiasias are also of two sorts some of them are Wicked Men who are condemn'd
of the first operating by the last and that they hold the Celestial Bodies for Gods because they act upon the sublunary which are of a particular and necessary use to Mankind Thus the Heathens endeavour each according to his fancy to acknowledge a Deity in Heaven and to adore it upon Earth Sect. 8. The immortality of the Soul the punishment of the wickâ—d and the rewards of pious Men after this Life are generally believed in Peru but not the Resurrection of the dead says Montanus pag. 307. However 't is strange that a People who have such a gross Religion and such material Gods should nevertheless believe that the Soul subsists tho' they hear nothing of it after the death of the Body and that they could not imagine that the Body which subsists still for some time before their Eyes though without Life can return to its first State as Trees Herbs and Plants which dye and revive Sect. 9. The Statues of their Gods that are of many strange Figures and some very frightful are used to utter Oracles in their Pagodes Some says Montanus give their Answers as formerly did the Diabolical Oracles of Delphos and Dodona he calls them Diabolical following the common Opinion that the Oracles of the Heathens were not pronounced by God but by the Devil But it may be seen in the Book of Anthony Vandale of Oracles how little ground that Opinion has and we shall also treat of it in its proper place Sect. 10. As to their practices no people is so much esteemed in Peru as those we call Exorcistâ— Magicians and Diviners because they discover private Robberies even such as are committed in very remote Countreys and foretell good or bad fortune which happâ—â—s saith Montanus by their converse with wicked Spirits in dark places They declared to the Spaniards the victories their Country-men obtained or the Battles they lost in the Low Countries the very same day that they were fought There are also in Peru many She Diviners who shut themselves in their Houses where they make themselves drunk with Chica mixed with the Herb Vilca till they fall down on the place and when they awake and come to themselves again they answer all the Questions that are proposed to them Sect. 11. The Cannibals who take the Name of Caraibes and dwell to the North of Southern America acknowledge the Sun for their Soveraign God but in the mean while each Bâ—ie or Priest has his own which he calls out to himself in the most frightful Nights by Songs or inchanted Verses in the midst of the smoak of Tobacco The Devil says Montanus but I would rather say the Spirit utters his Oracles by the means of dead bones wrap'd up in Cotton Those Heathens have at all times but especially in case of death much to endure from the Piais or Magicians but methinks Montanus had express'd himself better had he said Priests rather then Magicians One of the greatest disturbances they cause is that when they are consulted they persuade People that such or such has caused them to interrogate such a deceased which incites the nearest Relations of the deceased to avenge themselves of those that have disturbed his Rest by that action Sect. 12. Montanus adds to this also The Caraibes follow a most strange Opinion concerning the Soul every one believes to have as many Souls as beatings of the heart The chief of which is still the Heart it self which after the death goes to Icheiri or the God that is particular to him where he lives in the same condition that he has done upon Earth for which reason they kill the Servants upon the Tomb of their Masters to go and Minister to them in the other World The other Souls that consist in Beatings of the Heart have two sorts of abode The Maboias wander in Deserts and Woods and the Ormiceous keep along the Sea and overturn Vessels The Souls of warlike Heroes go into the fortunate Islands where the Arouages are their Slaves Bloâ—dy Cruel Mâ—n go out of this life eternally to wander in dry Wildernesses behind high Mountains to carry the Yoak of the Arouages a People that was expell'd out of its ancient abode if we believe the account that is given of their Destruction From all this it appears that this Nation acknowledges almost no other God but their own Souls of which they have very near the same Sentiments that the ancient Greeks had of their Demons and Heroes Sect. 13. Richard Blome an English Author has published of late in his America a large account of the Opinions and Practices of the Carabes where he speaks of the Isle of St Vincent They have says he some Natural Notion of a Deity or Supream Being but who is too much pleased with the enjoyment of the Soveraign Happiness to disturb himself with the Wicked Actions of Men and whose Goodness is so great that he is averse from avenging himself of his Enemies when they refuse to pay the Honour due to him They likewise believe that there are good and bad Spirits and that the Good are Gods each of whom has his particular Admistration but that the Vniverse was not created by them tho' every one of them may be the Creator of the Country where he is venerated and which he governs Sect. 14. They never call upon their Gods but to let them come to them which is done by the Ministry of the Priests and for the 4 following reasons First to be aveng'd for some injury received Secondly to be cured of their Diseases Thirdly to learn the success of the War Fourthly to expel the great Devil or rather the wicked God Mapoia whom they never adore Thence may be inferr'd that they believe good and bad Spirits besides they acknowledge the immortality of the Soul which Opinion is the Original of Demons and Heroes since as they suppose they are the Souls of the Deceased which they call to their assistance against their Enemies Sect. 15. The Description of their Witchcraft is to be found in the same place after this manner When their Priests call upon many of their Gods together they seem to dispute and quarrel with one another so far as to come to blows somtimes they hide themselves amongst Dead bones which they draw out of Graves and wrap up in Cotton whence they utter their Oracles They use that Witchcraft to bewitch their Enemies for which purpose the Witches must have somthing that has belong'd to the party to be bewitched the Spirit seizes sometimes upon the body of those Women whence they give formal answers to whatever is proposed to them They serve up Meat to those Spirits in places separated from the Commerce that is kept with them The Boy or Priest that has brought it being gone out they hear the Dish move and the Devil according to Blome or the God according to that People moves the Jaws and makes a great noise as if he chewed the Meat that has been served to him
notice of it and there are yet higher than they are Not that they are placed one above the other as it is done amongst Men but as we ordinarily say of two wise persons that one is wiser than the other and that the Cause is more excellent than the Effect So that he pretends that God himself has produced those of the first Dignity who have brought for h those of the second and these those of the third and so forth Sect. 8. Jewish Authors ordinarily establish ten Degrees or Orders who are distinguished by their Names in the same Maimonides and in the Book Midrasch Bereshjit descending from the highest degree to the lowest 1. Chayos Hakkodesch 2. Ofanim 3 Oralim 4. Chasmalim 5. Seraphim 6. Malachim or Angels 7. Elohim 8. Bene Elohim 9. Cherubim 10. Yschim The signification of most of the Names is very uncertain and far fetcht However I shall translate them as briefly as I can and as I can best guess by the explications they have given of them 1. Living Holily 2. Quick 3. Powerful in strength 4. Flames of Fire 5. Gâ—owing Sparks 6. Messengers 7. Gods 8. Sons of God 9. Images of the Temple 10. Men. 'T is believed that the first are so called because they are originally Holy in a more excellent manner than Men and that by their influence they are the cause of the life of all the Creatures inferior to them which God has created by their Ministry The name of Men may have been given to the last because 't is supposed that they use sometimes to appear by the order of God in a human shape They only also saith Maimonides were those who spoke by the Prophets and are in the nearst degree to the human Knowledge Sect. 9. That 's the difference which is amongst them I shall yet set down in the words of the same Author how those ten Orders are distinguished from God and Men. All those living Beings says he know the Creator in an excellent degree of knowledge each in reference to his Order and not in relation to his Excellency For which reason the first Degree cannot conceive the Creator such as he is in himself because their Vnderstanding is too short to attain unto him However they approach nearer to him than the Beings of an inferior Order and each of these Orders unto the 10th knows the Creator more perfectly than Men who are composed of Matter and Form Sect. 10. The Cabbalists who have traced out the way to the Magick of the Jews are not contented with these Ten Orders but divide all the Creatures into four Circles The 1st is the Circle of the exhalations Avilos called otherwise Zephiros Lights so much exalted in all ages by the Jewish Doctors who will not have them called either Creatures or Essences of the Creator but perfections distinct from him as Manasse Ben-Israel explains it more particularly putting them into parallel with the Ideas of Platâ— and esteeming them to be the Principles of all things He counts 10 of this Order the Crown the Science Prudence Majesty Valour Beauty Victory Glory Foundation and Kingdom They name the second Circle that of the Creation in which are the Angels separated and distinct from all Corporality and divided into 10 Orders the names of which are set down Sect. 8. They place in the third Circle Jetzira that is the forms amongst which they reckon such Angels as have any communication with Bodies The 4th Circle contains all the other Creatures named Alchiia or compounded Beings Sect. 11. If I would relate more at large whatever the Jews have written of the Angels and the Opinion of each of their particular Doctors there would not be much agreement betwixt what I shoul say and what has already been said they differ so much from one another However here follow the Thoughts of some of their Ring-leaders They speak of three sorts of Angels the first is altogether free from Matter and there are four Troops of that sort which have each their Captain that stands at one of the corners of the Throne of God Michael is on the Right Gabriel on the Left Vriel before and Raphael behind This we learn from Rabbi Eliezer in his 4th Chapter Those Names have a very pregnant Sense Michael that is unless it be God Gabriel God is my Strength Vriel God is my Light Raphael God is my Physitian They never appear'd to the Eyes of Man nor in a human shape unless in a Vision and to the Prophets only The good Angels whom God employs in the Administration of the World are in the second Rank They have often appeared to the Prophets in an human shape they dwell above the Coelestial Orbs and are called the Army of Heaven But the Devils or Schediim that are the wicked Angels or as they use to speak Kacodaimones the Bad Demons of whom mention has been made Chap. 2. Sect. 12. have their abode under the Moon and are the Executioners of God's Wrath and Judgments But as to this last sort we must more particularly enquire after the Belief of the Jews Sect. 12. They call the Devils Angels of Destruction or Death Satanim Satans or Adversaries Philo that was Contemporary with the Apostles will best teach us what they think of it Thus he writes in his Book of the Giants Moses used to call Angels what the other Philosophers name Genii Here he takes the â—â—rd Genii in too large a Sense or he confines that of Angels to too strict a Signification according to that which has been observed before Chap. 2. S. 13 14. They are pursues that Author the Souls that fly into the Air which none ought to account a Fable and therefore it gives a more particular explication of it As we ordinarily say that there are good and bad Spirits and good and bad Souls it is the same with the Angels Some of them are called good and are Messengers that go to and fro from God to Men and from Men to God who are unreproachable and constant in their excellent Ministry but on the contrary there are others that are Prophane and Execrable and may well be call'd Damnable without fear of Lying Sect. 13. The Jews report very differently the originâ—l of Spirits Manasse Ben Israel asserts That they were produced by God himself on the second day of the Creation Prob. 23. Rabbi Eliezer relates their fall in these words Chap. 13. The Administring Angels say to God eternally Blessed O Lord God of the Vniverse What is Man that thou should'st put such value upon him What is he besides Vanity For he can but somewhat reason upon Terrestrial Things God answer'd do you pretend that I only desire to be Exalted and Glorified by you here above I am the same there below that I am here Who is it amongst you that can call all the Creatures by their Names There was not one amongst them that could do it Whereupon Adam rose and named all the Creatures by their
of the Ancient Christians they are explained more at large Chap. 15 Sect. 7 12 23 26. In the mean while I find not that they have asserted any thing contrary to the Opinion of the others Sect. 9. It is convenient to say also something of Purgatory the spring of a vast number of Apparitions and Witchcrafts 1 Whether the Jews Mahometans and ancient Christians speak clearly upon that subject or obscurely and doubtful yet they all agree in establishing a purging Fire or some such other Pain to be endured Such are the Pains which the Devils of Torments inflict upon the Jews at the time of Gilgul or the Revolution of Souls Chap. 12. Sect. 20. The Mahometans are not remote from that Opinion Ch. 14. S. 11. but the Christians Ch. 15. Sect. 27 28 34. or at least part of them have blown up that Fire from under the Ashes though the others whose number is far greater have not the least inclination to credit it 2. However those that are not altogether remote from them reject not wholly the Apparitions of the Souls separated from their Bodies nor their various Operations to which Justin and Irenaeus have traced out the way for them as we have seen Ch. 15. S. 7. Sect. 10. But neither the Jews nor the Mahometans carry Exorcisms and Conjurations to so great a height as the Christians in the mean while they all agree in this 1. That they are powerful upon the Spirits by the means of Names Words and Signs that they have so much virtue as to force them to answer to cast them out or to turn them off The Practices of the Jews Ch. 13. Sect. 6.11 Those of the Mahometans Ch. 14. Sect. 14 18. and the Declaration of the Christian Writers Ch. 16. Sect. 5.10 make it sufficiently evident that their Opinions are not much different as to this Point though the last bring not them into Practice 2. The Reader shall not find in my Quotations a very particular explication of Magick properly so call'd which as 't is supposed causes so many disturbances to Men upon Earth unless it be this that since on the one side the evils produced by those wicked Spirits are granted and on the other their obedience to Exorcists it is easie to infer that all the damage that Magicians cause by the help of the Devil must likewise be ascribed to them Sect. 11. When we compare all these things together we see the Heathens and Jews delivering their Opinions as from hand to hand to the Mahometans and Christians so that we easily perceive that both Jews and Christians have by degrees and insensibly received the Opinions of the Heathens by whom they were surrounded amongst whom they were mixed and from whom the Christians are descended And that the last have also borrowed much from the Jews who have delivered to them the Sacred Writings with most of their particular Interpretations that have been greedily swallow'd down and since increased to a great excess As to the Mahometans whose Law is a mixture of Heathen Jewish and Christian Doctrines and more composed of what is evil in them all than of what is good and therefore stored with more Errors than Truth It is not strange they should have so much agreement with those of the Nations we speak of We may observe hereafter how all these Opinions have insensibly been cherished and increased by Popery and have issued not only for the same Spring but also from another whence Mahomet has drawn something for the making up of his System But as I have ended the 11th Chapter of this Book with the Opinion of the Epicures I think it convenient to make a particular Chapter of those of the Manichees CHAP. XVIII That the Doctrines ascribed to the Manichees are a mixture of all the preceeding and the original of the Opinions most common at this day S. 1. IF it were absolutely requisite to know the Opinions of the ancient Hereticks at least of those that are call'd so we would be at the same Pains as those that endeavour to discover them For their own Books that were then condemned being lost 't is not reasonable blindly to believe whatever their Adversaries say of them whose Zeal for the Truth was often mixed with human Passions So that they may sometimes impute to their Antagonists Opinions that were not so bad as they gave out either misunderstanding or wresting them Perhaps St. Austin has increased the number of Heresies to a hundred for fear he should diminish that of seventy which Epiphanius had before established in his Preface and 57th Chapter of the Heresies For if Celsus could mark in the most remote Antiquity and from the first times that we have any knowledge of Books but 100 principal Doctors of Heathenism each of whom made not a particular Sect but only followed the footsteps of his Predecessors how can it be imagin'd that Christianity that has the Word of God for it's Rule should have been in much less time more divided than Paganism that was founded on such weak and uncertain Grounds Sect. 2. St. Austin it seems should be chiefly consulted as to the Doctrine of the Manichees since he himself had been infected with their poison and has particularly treated of that matter in his 46 Ch. of the Heresies however I shall do it with great caution by the Reasons just now alledged besides that these words of his Preface Ad quod vult Deum made him extreamly suspected for he says that in his little Book of Heresies he shows a way Vnde possit omnis haeresis quae nota est quae ignota vitari To avoid all Heresies whether known or unknown For how can one provide himself against what is unknown and consequently signifies nothing nay I may boldly say that what is unknown cannot be called Heresy since whatever deserves that name must be known or perhaps St. Austin's meaning must be understood in this sense that discovering the nature and Genius of such Heresies as are already known he has furnished us with light and weapons against those that are yet unknown but may become manifest hereafter However this being not the place to insist longer upon this Reasoning we shall return to our subject The same Father in his Book against the Manichees imputes to them some things Quantumlibet negent ad se pertinere Thô they deny them ever so much But as he treats not distinctly enough of all their Opinions especially those that belong to our design I shall rather follow Danaeus who has gathered the chief points of their belief as well out of the Book of St. Austin before quoted and the rest of his works as out of many other Authors from whom I shall only relate what may be subservient to our subject Sect. 3. As to God and the Spirits they are said First To have established two principles contrary to each other one of which was good and the Author and Original of all good and the
to reveal it to the Rector or other Priest commission'd by the Bishop never fail to fall into the possession of the Devil to whom the Monitory delivers them after it 's being thunder'd out and that the Devil transforms them most or all the Nights into Dogs Cats Wolves Goats and other Animals which is called to whurry as a Wolf If one meet in the night some Wild-Beast or a Domestick straying he fancies to have met the Wolf-man and is ready to swear it Some of the most thinking and less superstitious part at least believe that the Excommunication contained in those Monitories cuts off from the Communion of their Church and delivers to the Demons those that have not submitted to it by revealing such things as 't is often very convenient and useful to conceal Sect. 18. As all these things are said in general concerning the power of wicked Spirits so certain places are assigned to them where they usually produce their Effects The coâ—mon Opinion is that there are familiar Spirits Domestick and Mountanous Devils 1. The familiar Spirits Spiritus Familiares are those who always keep by a Man even when he calls not for them whether they do it of their own accord or that they have been hired very cheap for that purpose They serve him faithfully at least outwardly whether or no he calls for them They suffer themselves to be shut up in Rings Chrystals Chests and the like and to be carried away whither soever one pleases These are the very words of Schottus pag. 134. Those Demons in Glass or Rings are according to the common Opinion shut in or fastned to them with some certain ceremonies used in that case and not by the virtue of any Conjurations or Exorcisms nor by the power of him that carries them as 't is believed by some but they undergo this willingly or by the absolute order of the Prince of the Devils whom they blindly obey or lastly to deceive Men more easily When they are in those sorts of Prisons and have been carried through several places questions are put to them and sometimes they are forced to speak Then they discover to Men hidden Things and foretell those that are to come It is believed that in our days a great and victorious Prince carried one of these Spirits with him in his Ring and that he lost his sight in a Battle a little after the Stone that was in the Ring was broken into two pieces pag. 143. Sect. 19. Schottus and Dâ—â—â—io relate out of Meletius what is ordinarily said concerning Domestick Devils They withdraw into the most hidden places of the house upon piles of Wood where they are kept with the most delicious Meat because they carry to their Masters Corn that they have stolen from other People's Barns When those Spirits intend to settle in any House they make it known by leaping up sticks of Wood or throwing Dung into Pails of Milk If the Master of the House taking notice of it le ts alone those Sticks and the Dung in the Milk or even if he drinks of the Milk into which the Dung hat been thrown the Spirit appears to him and lives with him Those sorts of Spirits are called by the French Gobelins by the Dutch Guldelkens and Kabautermannekens and by the English Hobgoblins They appear in the shape of Men and Women as little as Dwarfs or such as Pigmies were formerly imagin'd to be Schottus says That it was usual in former times to see many of those Spirits in Houses where they did whatever was necessary They dr essed Horses they swept the House carried Wood and Water and did all sorts of Service pag. 145. he did well by saying 't was formerly done left he should be put to a proof in this curious Age. Sect. 20. He has taken from Georgius Agricola the description he makes of Mountanous Devils saying That they dwell in the Mines under the Mountains that they are cruel and frightful that they make uneasie and perpetually vex those that work in the Mines Some call them the little Hollanders because they ordinarily appear little scarce three foot high with an old wrinckled Face and in the same shape with the Miners clothed with a Wastecoat and Apron Nevertheless he says that they are not so wicked as they love to play Tricks and to be merrily Roguish especially when they will persuade that they do the greatest part of the work in the Mines When all 's done his Opinion comes at last to this that there are two sorts of that kind of Spirits some are good and the other bad The latter are feared and detested by the Workmen whereas they look with pleasure upon the former believing them to be of good Augury But Schottus being willing to grant that they are of a mean Order betwixt Men and Spirits holds them for bad Spirits what good soever they may do believing that when it happens so they are forced to it by God or that they do it Craftily to delude Men Pag. 114. and 149. Sect. 21. There is still more illusions made in relation to the shapes the Devils take on than in the other occasions above-mention'd I will not now speak of whole Armies that are believed frequently to appear in order of Battle of which Schottus treats at large in the addition to his second Book p. 336. but of those that are called Hobgoblins and Fairies Formally our People speak almost of nothing else Schottus writes thereupon p. 339. Delrio says That there is a sort of Spectres that appear as Women all in white in Woods and Meadows Some are seen in Stables with Wax Candles lighted some drops of which they let fall upon the Mains of Horses combing and twisting them very neatly those white Women are also call'd Sybils and 't is said that one of 'em named Haband is as the Queen of the others and commands them People believe their Apparitions to be of good Omen but the Doctors look on such presages as old Womens Tales acknowledging in the mean while that the thing is true or at least possible And Schottus relating p. 215. what Cornelius of Kempen says assures us that in the time of the Emperor Lotarius that is about 830. several of those Fairies were to be found in Friseland where they dwelt in Grotes or on the tops of Hills and Mountains whence they descended at night to carry away Shepherds from their Flocks Children from their Cradles and slip both into their Caverns CHAP. XX. What is the Doctrine of Popery concerning Apparitions of Spirits and how they torment Men either by themselves or by the Ministry of other Men. Sect. 1. IN speaking of this last kind of Demons we are descended by degrees even to Specters and Phantasms But First we have observed that there were yet two things to treat of touching Spirits that is their Apparitions to Men and their Operations in the same It is upon this subject of Apparitions that there is room to speak of
Author and what is his Method AS the two first Books of this work that I published at first have been differently received for Reasons alledg'd in the Preface It will not be amiss to represent to the Reader what has been properly my design in these four Books that I have Intituled The World Bewitch'd nor to shew what foundation I built upon and what way I take to find out the truth For althô I express my self clearly enough in the beginning of the work and in the Preface to the first part I know nevertheless that is not sufficient to destroy the prejudice wherewith the learned themselves appear more biassed than the Vulgar which I should never have thought but it seems at present I have found out the Reason which is that the most part of those which do not put themselves to the trouble to pass through all the Degrees of the Schools aspire to Sciences and sublime knowledge but for their particular pleasure they are the People that love liberty and to whom it matters not who is the Master that instructs them provided that they may learn something or if they are greedy of rarities they have not so much respect to the mode nor to that which is New or Antient as to the beauty of the matter and to that of the work On the contrary it is with those who pass through the Schools as with those who live in Shops where every one has his way every Master has his Method in the work he makes In one Town they make the same things after one fashion and in another after another when one is taken up with the mode he often rejects what is pleasing without any other Reason then because it is not as commonly used in the World And we have a strangeness for all novelties so long as they have not the common vogue althô otherwise we might approve them and have them cheap enough but as soon as Custom has introduced them one begins to seek them out and to be disgusted at the former Sciences are subject to the same inconveniencies Those that we send to the Schools continue in the road which has been mark'd out to them for their exercises they endeavour to form themselves upon the model of those which have most reputation or of those who are the nearest to their first prejudices so this is disapproving the part they have taken not to be apt to take any and to preserve our own liberty and thus we expose our selves very much but one runs a greater risk if willing to ascend higher and search things in their Fountains it happens at last that we find our selves out of the ordinary Road and that we are obliged to take another Hinc illae lachymae From thence proceeds all disorders The common Opinion of the Devil of his knowledge power and Operations and of People which are accused of having commerce with him began by little and little to become very suspitious by the help of natural light which I have common with others which was strengthened and purified by the Scripture so after I had well examined it I was in doubt whether I ought to maintain it any longer or abandon it not only by Reason of the truth but also because of the Piety which it seem'd to contradict My Conscience it self compel'd me to it for I was obliged to answer those that ask'd me and to take care of my Conduct because of the disposition I saw the People in It was the Duty of my charge and every Day occasions offer'd themselves my pain increased every moment by the continual necessity I found my self in to speak and act as others did or to oppose the publick with words or actions which agree not with my Character which is to be complaisant and to agree with all the World as much as is possible Besides I found not as yet foundation enough to act after an other manner which made me at first resolve to make an exact search after the Original of this common and general Opinion to know whether it was founded upon truth But because I make this examination à priore and not à posteriore as they in the Schools I have proposed the state of the Question but at the end of the first Book where I discovered in the 22th Chapter how many of the Opinions which I have related which are all those that ever were in the World upon this subject The Protestants have at last got together and formed those which they retain to this Day In the 23th Chapter I compare them with the Opinions of other Nations and in the 24th Chapter I shew by what means they have been introduced amongst us and what keeps us so strongly tyed to them So in the first Book I examine what is the rise of the Opinion concerning the Devil and in the following Books I discover what sentiments we ought to have of him An Abridgement of the First Book IN the First Book I run over all the World to find whence this Opinion has its Original And for this purpose I have omitted neither time nor place I observe that the subject ought to be examin'd in two Respects In respect of the Devil to find what is his Knowledge and Power and in respect of Men to see what they learn and effect by his means But because these things are preternatural or are so thought to be and that by consequence they are known only to God I have judg'd it necessary to know what are the Opinions of Men concerning the Divinity and Spirits in general either good or bad and of human Souls separated from their Bodies by death which are also Spirits I make a search of all these things First in the Books of the Ancients and afterwards in the Moderns of all Religions and amongst all Nations distinguishing them into Pagans Jews Mahometans and Christians in reference to the present state of the World I begin with the Ancient Pagans which are for the most part Greeks or Romans known to us by Greek and Latin Books they have lest us which I treat of in the 2d 3d and 4th Chapters for there are very few Histories of other Countries and other People which are come to our knowledge There you see what they believe touching Gods and Spirits which are neither Gods nor human Souls and as to the estate of the Souls after death You read there also what means they used to attain that knowledge and to operate things beyond the power of Nature by the means of those Spirits such as they believe them to be I come afterwards down to our time and examine all the Pagans in the World first in Europe in the 6th Chapter after in Asin in the 7th and 8th Chapters then in Africa in the 9th Chapter and at last in America in the 10th Chapter which gives me occasion to demonstrate in the 11th Chapter that the Pagans as well Ancient as Modern have had a notion of the Divinity
in this second examination of the second part where the certainty of the knowledge which proceeds from Scripture alone is treated of I am nevertheless obliged to employ my Reason to the end it may serve me to examine what Scripture contains not that it may reach so far as to comprehend the things themselves but it ought nevertheless to comprehend what the Scripture it self says and that things are such as it says although I conceive them not such as they are But see here the knot of the difficulty that is that every one crys out that the Scripture says such or such things because he conceives that the Scripture says them and when the Scripture may be understood two â—â—ys we easily embrace the Sense which best suites our Notions If already without too much examination we have sufferd our selves to be prejudiced with Opinions of which we would however be better satisfied and find some more particular instruction in the Scripture It is not sought with that impartiality and liberty of Mind which are necessary but we still incline towards the prejudices If there is the least appearance that we may by wresting the Scripture adapt it to the Sense we would have it we never fail to do all our Endeavours in order thereto and afterwards imagine to have found there sufficient proofs in favour of our Opinion because it seems to say what we desire As we see two Counsellors explain the same Law each for the advantage of his Client and that they never want Reasons on both sides to confute the contrary Arguments so that they appear each to have the right on his side and that it is very difficult to extricate what they have so much perplexed But it is said that I my self do what I condemn in others and for me I maintain that those who are conscious of their guilt and worthy of censure cast that imputation upon me seeing me explain so many passages in another Sense than that with which they are prevented without any other Reason than because it is ordinarily received They are persuaded that this change proceeds in me from the same cause that I discover in them See the true cause that makes them say I wrest the Scripture not that I really wrest it but rather that I keep not as a Slave to their Interpretations But I make say they a false Supposition and after I endeavour to give to the Scripture a Sense which agrees to that Supposition That may be but to know what it is you must examine after what manner I make the exposition of the Scripture and whether I turn it towards my prejudices and theâ—efore 't is necessary that I explain a little more clearly every one of the Articles I treat of The Principle they say I suppose is that a Spirit cannot act upon a Body nor upon other immaterial Spirits That 's the burthen of the Song and what they make me say over and over every where and is so confidently published that even my Friends can scarce forbear crediting it as there come every day occasions which make me know it It is a prejudice that passes from hand to hand from one party to another It insensibly spreads it self in all the Minds and in that Disposition the reading of my Book is undertaken but they seldom read it entire from one end to the other as it would be but just and necessary to do they only read some separate places viz. those they are referr'd to and especially those in which I dispute upon the Operations of Spirits For I may boldly say that of those that have read my Book with attention I find but very few which hold the same Discourses On the contrary they take quite another party viz. that of Truth So that I defie all those that have read it to mark so much as one place where I put as a Principle of my Opinion touching the Devil That a Spirit cannot act either upon a Body or another Spirit What is then the foundation of this noise which is so strongly and so generally spread abroad and which is the cause of the great prosecution that is made against me It is this general prejudice which proceeds from the common Exposition of the passages of Scripture upon this that is That a Spirit as a Spirit and so much the more as it is a Spirit can without Body act upon all sorts of Bodies and upon other Spirits I require proofs of this Thesis and because this demand is unthought of and extraordinary and upon which by consequence every one is not prepared my demand is taken for a Negative But before I lay my self that foundation which ordinarily is not call'd in Question I examine first the Grounds upon which these People themselves rest their Opinion or upon what they ought to establish it according to the Idea they have of Spirits I say according to the Idea they have of Spirits for whether according to the Principles of Descartes they distinguish them from Bodies the more neatly then other Philosophers do or that they grosly attribute something corporeal to them These two Idea's nevertheless proceed as yet equally from that they conceive the Operations of Spirits upon external Objects whether Bodies or other Spirits as a property of the Spiritual Nature and from that they include them in the notion they have of that Nature and it is by this means that instead of considering the Body as an instrument which is necessary to the Operation of Spirits or at least proper to them they look upon it as an obstacle to the liberty and virtue of the Operations of a Spiritual Nature Thence comes that every Body crys â—ut so differrently against me some saying that Descartes's Philosophy has spoiled me and that is the fruit which is reaped by his Followers desiring to cast upon it the Errors that they accuse me of Others who being in the same prejudice yet are Cartesians at bottom give out that I understand not the Philosophy of Descartes But whatever my Learning and Experience be I intend to have to do but with sensible People and leave the others at full liberty to pass upon the Doctrine I teach such Judgments as they please An Abridgment of the Second Book As to what concerns my Second Book see the method I have taken I begin with the distinction of names in fixing at first what must be understood by a Body and a Spirit to avoid all equivocations which I have done in the first Chapter I speak of God in the Second proveing not only that the supream Being which I denote by that word is only one but also that there is not the least communion between it and created things directly confuting the Opinion of Spinosa upon this subject which I pretend to do with more force and evidence than any hitherto because ordinarily they undertake to demonstrate by the most perfect and incomprehensible Essence of God the manner and virtue of the Operations
of created Spirits which I absolutely reject as a way which is used to lead us into error By consequence I cannot admit the arguments which are taken from the nature of God to demonstrate in what manner acts a Spirit which is his creature and has nothing common with him but the name After in the Third Chapter I prove by arguments drawn from the sovereign perfection of God that there are none of those sorts of Spirits that the Pagans esteem to be Gods and ediators of Men towards the supream Divinity because the Reasons of those that ground that belief upon the perfection of God are directly opposite to this perfection We then having taken off the imaginary Spirits I come to those which we certainly know to exist that is our Souls that are a part of our selves and which by consequence are better known to us by our own experience this is treated of in the fourth Chapter where I prove as much as is possible their immortality and that they subsist even out of the body I employ for this purpose Reason and Scripture because they are two ways that equally conduct us to the knowledge of the Soul the first by experience and by our own Consciousness and the second by the particular instructions God gives us of the estate of the Soul after this life but I quote not the Scripture in this part of my Treatise where I examine but what concerns nature only Neither do I judge it necessary to do it afterwards because it is a point that a Christian looks upon as already sufficiently established and supposes it when he will engage in a dispute upon this subject Besides I reject as superstitions and fables whatever proceeds from the invention of Men especially of the Heathens which is the matter of the fifth Chapter So we come to know with certainty that such a Spirit that is the Soul which truly exists has a body with which it lives and without which it may still live and to reject all the other Spirits of whom the greatest part of the World falsly believe the existence But besides those Pagan Opinions we hear every day mention made of Angels not only by Christians but also by Jews and Mahometans The Question is Whether Reason alone is capable to discover to us that there are such Spirits destitute of a proper and peculiar body Upon this point I shew in the sixth Chapter that our understanding without the help of Scripture cannot penetrate farther than to comprehend that it is possible but not certain that there are Spirits For this Reason I have not judg'd it necessary to examine the Operations of these Spirits upon bodies or upon the other Spirits because it seems to me ridiculous to trouble ones self with the examination of the Operations of Creatures the existence of which is not established as certain And therefore I have spoken in the first Edition but by the way in verse which is at present the seventh Sect. of the sixth Chapter And therefore it is manifest how wrongfully many People would perswade themselves that I have composed my work only To deny the Operations of Spirits upon bodies and upon other Spirits And besides that I ground upon this negative all my explications of the passages of Scripture but that I may avoid this persecution for the future I thought fit to insert in the new Edition that is made of my Book a whole Chapter between the sixth and seventh so that this new Chapter is at present the seventh and the seventh is the eight and so of the others following There I pretend clearly to shew that the proofs related upon that subject strike not at all to the end and cannot be considered as true proofs which I mean as to what concerns nature and as to what Human Reason may conceive of it self as destitute of help from the word of God After that I come to the word of God and then I employ Reason no more but keep to the Scripture only and I search in it what it will teach me touching Spirits which is now the question there I find that under the name of Angels it gives us to understand such Spirits as are the Ministers of God toward other Creatures But there is nothing discovered to us touching their Essence neither is their any thing in the History of the Creation as to their Original or the manner of their fall for which Reason part of them was from the beginning rejected from God notwithstanding the Scripture puts these two things for certain which is the subject of the eight and ninth Chapters I consider afterwards the properties and Operations that the Scripture attributes to them and I endeavour to know what is their proper nature their power upon other Creatures either spiritual or corporeal But the passages that speak of these things do not appear to me to have been understood otherwise than those that attribute also to certain Men that is to Prophets and Apostles the works that they have done in dispensing the miracles of God That which gives me occasion to say that as this dispensation surpasses the force of those to whom it was entrusted it cannot make us know what was their proper nature whence I take occasion to infer the same things touching Angels this is in the tenth and eleventh Chapters That which could not be discovered by the means of the name Original or Operation of those Spirits I endeavour to learn by the means of their orders of which is made an ample mention in the twelfth fifteenth and nineteenth Chapters of my first Book But I draw not any light from thence save that Angels as well good as bad have each their head that the Prince of good Angels is called Michael and that of the bad named Diabolus the Devil that is in the two and twentieth Chapter Yet I leave it not here I consider again that the Scripture attributes in many places some particular administration to Angels I examined to know what it is first as to the good Angels in general in the thirteenth Chapter whom the Scripture often makes appear and always for particular revelations to the faithful either to work extraordinary miracles or execute God's Judgments upon Men by punishments or by deliverances But I conceive not that what is said of this Ministry is different from what is related of that of those holy Men who have been employed in the works of God and his miracles that they in no wise operated by their own virtue by consequence I find nothing as yet which may give me a certain knowledge of the proper Angels their power or their Operations Afterwards I come to a more particular examination of the principle passages especially of the manner of speaking of these three persons which appeared to Abraham of the two others that appeared to Lot Genesis Chapter the eighteenth and nineteenth and in making reflection upon this History and comparing it with other instructions of the Holy
Scriptures It seems to me that I am in the right to conclude that those Angels that is to say those Messengers were Men as they named themselves not being able in the mean while to determine what must be understood by the Angel of the Face of God which conducted Israel in the desert Exod. 23 Chap. and by the Angels by whom God gave his Law upon Mount Sinai I propose only my thoughts and what seems to me may be understood by it by a Collation of the passages of the Holy writ which make mention of the manner of that Divine conduct of the Israelites in the desert Chap. 15. I pass farther and examine what is said in the Scripture concerning the Angels with relation to some certain Persons Nations and Countries And I conclude from thence that what has ever been variously written upon this subject by particular Authors is not founded upon Scripture because all the passages made use of to ground those Opinions speak but figuratively At last coming to the Devil and to the rest of evil Angels I see that this name has been given as well to ill Men as to evil Spirits and even first to wicked Men. So I examine in the 17 18 and 19 Chapters what may most conveniently be understood by the Chief of evil Spirits but in making the examination of all the particular passages which are usually applied to the Devil I find that the name of Satan or Devil is used in some of these passages and that of Daemon and of Daemonium in some others And that there are several denominations ordinarily applied to the Devil which obliges me to double my cares that I may discover what ought to be understood by Devil especially in the History of the fall of the first Adam and in that of the temptation of the second This is the matter of the 20 and the 21st Chapters The other passages which contain the name of Satan appear to me to be different from these of which I treat in the 23 24 and 25 Chapters I examine afterwards in the 26 to the 30 what are the Daemonia and those that are called Possest And lastly in the 31st Chapter what must be understood in all the other passages where instead of the name of Devil and of Demons others quite different are used And therefore as the principal operations attributed to the Devil in Scripture consist in the fall of the First Man and the assaults he made upon our Saviour in the Desart Thence I take occasion to examine Whether those Accounts may serve to the Opinion of the power of this evil Spirit and of the power of his operation upon Men But it seems to me that in the narration of Moses touching the fall of Man that happen'd by the discourse of a Serpent nothing is said that ought to carry me to conclude that the Devil himself can act immediately upon the Soul and Body of Man Here I keep to that discovery without going any further Those that are of another Opinion find that this conclusion is drawn from that Relation with a full evidence and aske how the fall of Man could happen otherwise rendring themselves guilty of the same fault they reproach me with by pretending to know themselves how the thing came to pass and to be able to render the reason of it But he that judges ought not to speak of it so positively declaring he knows nothing of it and finds nothing revealed upon that point he is presently accused of denying the same thing it self and of not believing the matter of Fact because he grants he is not acquainted with the manner of it The celebrated Voetius has however explained himself upon this subject very near as I do for in the first part of his Disputes pag. 915. speaking of the fall of Man he says upon the Question to know how and in what manner it is not possible to give so satisfactory an answer but it may be seen that there remains still something which the weakness of our understanding cannot comprehend nor likewise how the Devil seduced Eve Examining the temptation of our Lord by the Devil I agree that the Tempter is the evil Spirit and I believe that the literal Sense may very well pass supposing that it was a wicked Man so called But I shew that understanding these words of the evil Spirit literally the quite contrary may be inferr'd from what is ordinarily gather'd from thence Thereupon if I be ask'd how I understand and explain that narration I answer That I believe that the thing was done in a Vision See how Schultetus speaks who as well as Voetius has been a member of the national Synod of Dordrecht in his Exercit. Evang. Lib. 11. Chap. 3. the question is to know whether the thing really happend or in a vision he answers it was in a vision and after gives some reasons which however I do not judge so strong as mine None has right to require from me that I should precisely explain my self upon the passages of Scripture and upon others from which they suppose to draw strong proofs in favour of that Opinion the truth of which I here call in question nor that I should declare what sense I give them especially to those who mention the fall of the first Man in Paradise and the temptation of our Lord in the Desart For I have had no other design on this occasion but to examine whether these passages understood according to the Letter afford sufficient proof to make us admit the consequences that are usually drawn from thence and to establish the common Opinion which is had of the craft and power of the Devil to act upon Men. If it were necessary to proceed farther and to examine all these passages to the bottom in order to penetrate their true sense a whole Book scarce suffices I refuse not however to do it and hope to undertake it as soon as the Divine Providence will furnish me with occasion and leisure I shew as to other passages of the Holy Writ that they cannot be understood of evil Spirits but only of ill Men and of the works of God not of those of the Devil thô without hesitating these passages are ordinarily applyed to the Devil I maintain in the 22 Chapter that it was a Man which brought David to number the People Chap. 23. that the passage wherein the fight of Michael against the Devil is mention'd is very obscure and that there is a great uncertainty in the present Opinions upon that point as all Divines grant and that by consequence nothing can be concluded from them especially if it be supposed as some learned do that the Devil was but a meer Man I shew in Chap. 24. That the Spirit of Python that is spoken of in the 16th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles can no ways be applied to the Devil Neither does the famous History of Job always alledged one of the first as a
proof of his power being well examined in its whole extent attribute to him the least part in the evils which by the Providence of God happen'd to that Holy Man As to the Angel of Satan which tormented St. Paul I place him in the same rank with the fight against Michael that is in uncertainty there being no ground to pretend to a perfect understanding of this passage and therefore I look upon it as insufficient to prove any thing which is the matter of the 25th Chapter But as the Possest are universally alledg'd for a certain proof of the great power of the Devil and that we read so many times in Scripture that the evil Spirits have been cast out by our Saviour Jesus Christ I beslow five Chapters upon examining what is in it I see that the term of Diabolus which we Translate Devil is not found in any of the passages in which those Relations are contained but only that of Daemon which I illustrate in the 26th Chapter In the 27th I shew that the most dangerous diseases especially those of the Head were usually ascribed to Demons or even call'd by the name of Demons and in the 28th that our Saviour Jesus Christ has not changed the usual way of speaking but made use of them according to the custom of that time neither did he always immediately confute all the errors in the 29th and 30th Chapters so that the cure of Daemonia was not properly an expulsion of Devils but a miraculous cure of incurable Diseases I come after to other passages of Scripture where neither the names of Devil Satan or Demon are made use of but those of the Prince of the World Prince of the power of the air Prince of this Age of Lordships Powers Dominions and the like And I shew that there is not the least cause to apply them to the Devil but that the Stile of Scripture leads us of it self to understand by all these names a certain order of persons Having then examined all I could not conclude that the Scripture considered truely and without prejudice attributes to the Devil this power and these operations which the prevention of Commentators and Translators discovers in it I grant it has been very troublesom to me to be obliged to take this party and to confute and censure very famous Men and most approved interpreters It even seemed to me that I exposed my self very much because I know that a more advantageous opinion is had of those that are not known and that a Prophet is neither esteemed in his own time nor in his own Country For this Reason I did first resolve not to meddle with those of Scripture where I found my self constrain'd to go from the expositions ordinarily received But at last considering that my work would appear but imperfect and that they would not fail to object those famous passages to which I should be then obliged to answer I at last prevailed with my self to venture in the main Sea and to fly before none that came to attack me further I do not believe that any one can shew me that the interpretations that I make are founded upon the light of reason and humane understanding or upon any other particular proposition I should have asserted such as this is said to be that a Spirit cannot act upon a body nor upon other Spirits I have made use of for this effect but of the ordinary means that the knowledge of Languages afford us so there is no more unjust accusation then that which is raised against me upon this subject And therefore when I compare with the analogy of the whole Scripture with the grounds of our Divinity and with the rules of true Piety whatever is ordinarily published concerning the understanding of the Devil his power his operations his apparitions in divers places in the World his Dominion and the Kingdom which he raises against that of Jesus Christ I conclude not only that they are not grounded upon these three principles but also being considered with all the necessary attention they appear contrary to them In this place I begin to enter into dispute and to draw my conclusion from arguments which the Scripture and reason furnishes me with having by the means heretofore established upon those two principles searched after the ways how plainly and without equivocation to understand the state of the questions which properly and particularly cocern the Devil This is not then the point in question to dispute of the meaning of those passages which mention the fall of Man or speak of Angels some of whom appeared to Abraham and others wrestled with Jacob or of the tentation of Our Lord Christ in the desert nor of the sense of those that say David was tempted by Satan and that Job was tormented by him and the like places but the Chief point the scope of all this search is to know what to believe concerning the Devil Upon this I bestow the five last Chapters and in the three first of these five which are the 32th 33th and 34th I am not afraid of calling Reason to my assistance after having shewn that the Scripture is silent upon this subject for I presume to have made appear in the 32th Chapter that the apparitions of Evil Spirits are contrary to true Reason and that the Holy Scripture affords no proofs of it Afterwards in the 33th Chapter I show that the knowledge that the Devil may have as well of things Natural as Civil and above all of things Spiritual which concern our Salvation is nothing of what is believed I rest as yet upon the same foundation of Scripture and Reason to prove the Empire of the Devil is but a Chimera and that he has neither such a Power nor such an Administration as is ordinarily ascribed to him which is contained in the 34th Chapter At last after having treated of all those things with all possible exactness I come to the conclusion of my second Book where I shew the importance of this examination by reason of the great value the vulgar put upon the Devil and his Operations in the World My Opinion is that these sorts of Discourses shake the Grounds of the Doctrine of our Salvation and cause a great damage to Piety in divers occasions I demonstrate the first of these things in the 35th Chapter and the second in the 36th As to the Doctrine I prove in this place what I have asserted in the first Chapter of my Book viz. that the common Opinion concerning the Devil is opposite to the proofs that Jehova is God and that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Books of the Prophets and Apostles are the Word of God In what concerns Piety I shew that the Service of God is thereby greatly weakened that the Filial fear is very much diminished by that they have of the Devil that the esteem that the holy Angels deserve is almost destroyed that the glory and virtue of the miracles of
our Saviour Jesus are very much lessened that the vanity of Man is maintained and increased and that the comfort of the humble is cut off or at least suffers a great diminution That is whatever is contained in my second Book An Abridgment of the Third Book After having thus simply treated of what concerns Spirits and particularly the Devil according to the knowledge that sound Reason can furnish us with according to that which may be drawn from the word of God where Reason ceases I pass still following the order and division established in my first Book to those Men who according to the common sentiment have communication with Spirits especially with the Devil The same order to which I have kept in my second Book is also observed in this for in the eight first Chapters I make an exact scrutiny of all which may contribute to clear the subject I treat of and afterwards in the seven last I shew what light the inquiry has afforded me and how far one can rely upon what I have discovered I propose at first the true state of the question shewing that the query is not Whether Magick is possible for I grant it but whether there is a Magick which by the virtue of agreement made between Men and the Devil may discover hidden things predict those that are to come and produce effects above the force of nature This is discust in the first Chapter Following the distinction that I have already heretofore many times set down I make in the first and second Chapters the search required and that first by the light of Reason which I divide it into two parts in the first I examine whether it be possible to conceive that Men have any commerce with Spirits that the one and the other may rely upon mutual help or that they may act one upon another In the second part I examine whether there is Reason to believe that there may be express compacts between them that they may mutually contract and reciprocally perform the conditions of their Covenants I expresly deny the first of these founded upon the Reasons alledged Book 2. Chap. 2. and I unfold a little more precisely in the 2 Chapter of this what is contained in the first which I defend against the arguments of Glanvil an English Author I bestow the third Chapter upon confuting those compacts of the Magicians with the Devil as ridiculous and altogether incredible and I answer at the same time several objections and shifts of Glanvil convincing him by his own Reasons that are sufficient for that purpose I pass afterwards to the Scripture as to an upper School from the 4th Chapter to the 7th I undertake it over from the beginning to the end to find out with the utmost exactness what it discovers to us upon this point and upon all it's dependencies either by it's expressions or by the examples it affords us Than I begin to establish what we may believe of it according to Scripture As an Introduction to this examination I relate all the names it gives to that sort of People to their trade and art and I compare the difference to be found between the translations of our own Interpreters as well as between the translation of others This examination is but general but afterwards I come to particulars whether the Scripture speaks of that sort of People of their trade and arts so as it is ordinarily supposed This I do from the fifth Chapter to the 12th but finding it expresses not it self as they give out I examine what sort of People they can be and what the Scripture really says of them from the 13 Chap. to the 17th I discuss the first of these as well by Scripture as Reason and proceed by degrees searching first whether these of whom the Scripture speaks have a particular communication with the Devil whether they make their predictions and enchantments by his undertaking or by his power and at last whether they have between them covenants for that purpose The passages of Scripture which I examine upon this subject are of three sorts some contain Histories of that kind of People and of their Witchcrafts which I show in the 5th 6th and 7th Chapters viz. In the 5th all the enchantments of the Egyptians in the 6th those of Bilsa those of the Priests of the Philistins and of the Witch of Endor and many others by whom the idolatrous Kings of Israel fell into great Sins especially when they came to the Court of Babylon and in the 7th Chapter the enchantment of Simon and Elimas who are called enchantors those of the maid servant which was in the Town of Philippi who had a Spirit of Pithon and those of the seven Brothers Exorcists Afterwards I come to the examination of the names of words of actions and circumstances as well by themselves as comparing the Dutch translations of the Scripture with those which have been made in divers Languages by different Translators and by comparing with the texts the explications which are given by so many different interpreters All the passages where those things are contained being examined very attentively give cause to conclude that the Magicians or Enchanters have been very mischeivous People whose Doctrine and morals were very much corrupted but they do not furnish any probable argument to assert that these People had a particular communication with the Devil The second Order of the passages of the Holy Writ upon this subject consists of those that contain the express Laws which condemn that sort of People and forbid them the exercise of their Function which I examine in the 8th and 9th Chapters But I find no other Reasons for those Prohibitions and the punishments inflicted upon them but their Idolatry and Cheats both of which are Criminal and not becoming the People of God The third Order consists in those Reasonings and Proverbial Expressions dispersed through the whole Scripture that have relation to those things either to the Persons themselves or to their ways I examine therefore whether nothing can be understood in those places whence some consequence may be drawn to illustrate the subject in hand But having bestowed the whole tenth Chapter upon it I find nothing more than before Now as in the third Chapter I have examined by the light of Reason whether there is cause to believe the possibility of the communication of Men with the Devil by express Covenants I do here the same by that of the Holy Writ For in the two following Chapters I run it over again and insisting upon all the passages where the least mention is made of Alliances or Compacts that are not made with God but against Him sinfully and with an evil design I find not so much as one that speaks of those Agreements made with the Devil or any thing like it Upon this I bestow the 11th Chapter In the 12th I run over again the whole Scripture from the beginning to the end From the
it was possible that whatever the Vulgar and the Learned say of Devils and whatever they ascribe to them were true I would not have spar'd so much time as to search into this matter had not I perceiv'd that the Opinions of most Men and perhaps of all the World are only grounded upon an unsure and wavering Foundation This has moved me impartially to examine several things which my Calling and common Conversation offered to me This examination forced my Mind to reject many Opinions which I had admitted at first only because they were common though grounded upon insufficient Reasons as I came by degrees to be sensible of so that I find that at present I know much less than I formerly imagined to do especially as to the subject in hand This however I do not say with a design to Censure or Destroy what others have Written I only intend to joyn my Thoughts to theirs for a fuller Instruction of such Readers as love Truth and are enquiring after it Sect. 2. I am not afraid to mistake if I say that whatever belongs to this matter has not been exhausted Those that have written upon it before having been somewhat retarded by Prejudices that stick to their Mind though they had freed themselves of many others for I own they have proceeded so far as to destroy most of the works of the Devil at least so far as 't was necessary to free Men from Superstition and frivolous Fears But as for me I would if it were possible altogether overthrow them and not leave one Stone upon another that should not be demolished And therefore I 'll try whether I can bring my Countrymen to my Opinion especially those of my Profession desiring them to read this Treatise with as little prejudice as I have written and not to suffer themselves to be persuaded by other Reasons but such as proceed from Natural Light from a clear Interpretation of the Holy Scripture and from certain Experiments I have right to require these Conditions from the Reader since they cannot be rejected by any Rational Person that they are a Law to which I submit my self and that the great consequence of the matter requires them Sect. 3. I am Confident and I hope that the Reader will more plainly perceive it hereafter that no point of the Christian Religion is more important than this and that no certain and sufficient proofs may be had of all the others than by rejecting the Opinion commonly receiv'd amongst the Vulgar concerning the Craft and Power of the Devil Can it be imagin'd a small Matter to know whether the Devil has a Kingdom upon Earth and what are the Limits that separate his Dominions from that of God Almighty Or is 〈◊〉 unserviceable to examine whether such a cursed and detestable Creature can do more wonderful things than God ever did and consequently whether the trust we repose in God and the fear we have of the Devil ought to be equal Such Thoughts ought never to enter into a Christian Heart yet they creep into it unawares at least I think so and can scarce doubt of it for the more I search into this matter the more it seems evident to me that whoever entirely believes all that it used to be ascrib'd to the Devils and his Angels and all that is commonly said of them both by the Learned and the Vulgar saving the bottom of the Doctrine publickly receiv'd and taught in our Church he can have no convincing proof that JESVS is the Messiah or that there is but one God And if in this Writing I do not make the Reader very sensible of it I grant that I have composed it to no purpose Sect. 4. But if I succeed it will at the same time plainly appear that it was altogether necessary to publish this Treatise because the Vulgar are still confirm'd in their Errors by Men of Letters and of great Name who being full themselves of those prejudices make use of their Tongue and Learning to lead others into the same Labyrinth To that end they wrest several Expressions and Histories of the Holy Scripture which being not accurately examined nor conferr'd with others give a great probability to the common Opinion concerning the Devil but if taken in the ordinary Sense they prove evidently oppos'd to other clear Expressions concerning the Fundamental Articles of our Faith It follows that such a Sense cannot subsist without overthrowing the grounds of our Salvation that I can hardly bear since a long time the nicety with which Points of small consequence or at least of little certainty use to be treated of since one cannot discuss them without getting into a suspicion of entertaining Erroneous Opinions whilst in the mean time we are not yet agreed upon Matters of the utmost consequence or if we are agreed upon them it 't is without any foundation And therefore since none was ever found fault with for defending an Article of Faith or giving out a new Explication of it so I persuade my self that I do well by publishing the Illustrations upon a matter on which the whole Edifice of our Salvation is grounded in order that whoever will carefully and impartially examine it may become Wiser and Learneder Sect. 5. As to what concerns this Book I will at first set down the subject matter of it before the Reader The design is to examine to the bottom what the Devil can do and what he really doth that is How far his Knowledge extends either in Natural or Supernatural Things Either as to the Presence as it is conceal'd from Men or as to the Future as it is contingent or possible and not necessary Moreover what Direction or Power he has to operate in Nature what Communication he has with Men with the Human Soul and with all sorts of Bodies That he should transmute himself into them or put on their various Forms That he should act upon the Soul or upon the Body That he should direct Thoughts Words Actions and Gestures What is his Power over the Beasts and Fruits of the Earth Over the Air and Winds What his help may contribute to the Knowledge of Man and his Actions Herein consist Auguries or Soothsaying Witchcraft the Art of Conjuring up Ghosts and of Divining Dreams All which things are methodically and in the same order that is mentioned here treated of in this Book Sect. 6. But because the perfect Knowledge of them depends upon another viz. which is the Nature of a Spirit wherein it consists and how it 's distinguished from that of the Body for Devils are undeniably Spirits and Man is composed of a Body and a Spirit so it will be necessary in this Treatise to proceed farther and to examine first the Nature of Spirits Good and Bad and then that of Man Besides God himself being a Spirit but infinite and independent we ought not to pay our selves with the conformity of the Name but by reason of the manifest difference betwixt
more largely explains in the forementioned place Equity says he Eternally attends him which is the Avenger of those that forsake the Law of God but happy is he who sticks to it and follows it constantly Sect. 4. But how advantageously soever they may speak of the supream Deity it nevertheless appears that they do not ascribe to him Independency nor the immediate direction of all things since they divided the Government of the World betwixt several Gods to each of whom they assigned his particular share 'T is very probable that the Caldees and Persians observing how Human affairs were often here below obnoxious to considerable changes which proceeded from Heaven took occasion from thence to contrive two supream Deities proceeding from that First being one of whom they called Oromasdes and gave him the direction of Heaven to the other named Arimanius they ascribed that of the Earth The Romans afterwards gave them the Greek names viz. to the former that of Jupiter and to the latter that of Pluto whom they at First look't upon as the God of the Earth And because all the wise held for a certain Truth that the Heavens surpass the Earth in perfection they placed the supream Deity in Heaven and the other Gods under it each according to his Dignity And as they conceived that the Soveraign God could never cease from being good so Jupiter who had the Empire of the Heavens was in great credit amongst them but Pluto the God of Hell obtain'd but an ill name Sect. 5. It is here methinks the proper place to distinguish the Doctrines of the Pagans into such as had either Religion or Nature for their object In the latter they enquired after the First and Second Causes of all things of their Motion and Changes without any reference to Religion Thus came upon the Stage Plato with his Idea's and Aristotle with his Intelligencies Plato called Idea's the principles that flow from the Divine Nature that subsists with him and by which all things subsist each of them being as an Engraven Image of him from whom they all proceed so that they all partake of the Nature of their Original and are such as the principal from whence they flow When I confer the sentiment of Pythagoras contained in the words of Socrates related in the Parmenis with what Plutarch sayes in his First Book Chap. the 10th of the Opinions of Philosophers and Laertius in the Life of the same Pythagoras as also Cicero in the First Book of the Tusculan Questions Fifty Eight wherein he explains the meaning of that Philosopher it seems to me that nothing can be better nor more plainly expressed concerning this subject As for Aristotle his Opinion was that there are substances distinct and separate from matter who put the Heavens into Motions supposing Heaven it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body in a continual and restless motion that the Stars are of an Eternal Nature and that whâ—t moveth must be more durable and precede that which is moved Thence he inferr'd that there are as many permanent and immoveable substances This is what he teaches in his Metaphysicks Book the 14th cap. 18. And what is called by his Latin Interpreters Intelligencies Sect. 6. But when they proceed to Religion there arise still among them more considerable differencies which may be plainly perceived in the Book of Plutarch Entituled The Opinions of Philosophers and elsewhere in the same Author as also in the Book which Apuleius a Platonist more Ancient than Plutarch has written of the Life of Socrates The sum of what he says comes to this that the Deitie is divided into Four as into some Degrees that descend from high to low and that the three last Degrees are again subdivided into several others which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Demons and Heroes Plato sayes Apuleius has divided the whole Nature into three with relation to Spirits in particular believing that there are Gods Superior Middle and Inferior Of which Three sorts of Gods it is convenient to say somthing Sect. 7. As to the Superior or Celestial Gods he sayes that their habitation is in Heaven that they are Immaterial and Eternal of their own Nature but that there are some which are in some sort visible in the Stars though others cannot be perceived by corporal Eyes but only by those of the Understanding After he has distinguished those Deities into Sexes like Mankind that is into Gods and Goddesses he mentions these 12 viz. Jupiter Apollo Vulcan Mars Neptune Mercury who are Six Gods Juno Diana Venus Ceres Vesta Minerva who are as many Goddesses The dignity of these Celestial Gods notwithstanding the liberty which the Poets often took to contrive other Accounts of them 't was esteem'd too high that it should allow them to descend and converse with Men though they govern'd their affairs each in his Jurisdiction But the same Plato believes the Stars are but improperly called Gods and only in reference to the Divine and Immutable conduct that is observable in them The names of the fixed Stars which are reckon'd amongst the visible Gods are contain'd in this Verse Arcturum pluviasque Hyadas geminosque Triones But leaving those Gods to Plato of whose making they were the Stars which are called by Ignorance Planets or erring Stars were also accounted amongst the Gods the Sun was called Apollo and the Moon Diana to which these Five were joyned Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus called also the Morning and Evening Star and Mercury though they appear but ordinary Stars Another source of the Pagan Errors in their Divinity is the Conformity betwixt the name of some Stars and those of their invisible Gods they believed that there were Deities in the Stars who acted by them or that the Stars were Gods who having life in themselves communicated it to other Creatures as it was believed by Alomen whose Opinion is related in Clemens Alexandrinus Sect. 8. We may still perceive some Remains of that Opinion in the names of the Days of the Week in the English French and Dutch Tongues as well as in Latin for they still name by one of the Seven Planets that Day on which they believe them to have a particular Influence As Lunae Dies Lundi Munday Maanday Martis Dies Mardi Duigsday an Abbreviation of Dyssenday which is still in use in Zealand and Brabant Mercury Dies Mecred Wednesday Woonsdag from Wodensday the Day of Woden the name of Mercury amongst the Ancient Germans and Dutch because he was the God of Merchants and the Messenger of the Gods Jovis Dies Jeudi Thursday Donderdag because Jupiter was esteem'd the God of Thunder Veneris Dies Vandredi Friday Vrydag from Freda the Ancient name of Venus in the Dutch and Saxon Tongue whence it comes that the Frisons called that Day Freed and whence undoubtedly comes the Dutch word Vryen to Court a Woman Saturni Dies Samedi Saturday Saterdag Solis Dies Sunday Sondag but in the
Romulus who frightfully imagined to see the Ghost of his Brother Remus after he had killed him If those Narrations were true such Spirits might be called terrifying Spirits Ovid in the Fifth Book of the Fasti plainly says what must be understood by that Name Mox etiam Lemures animas dixere silentum The Soul of the Dead had the Name of Lemures Sect. 16. The Lares or perhaps the Geniues are called by Macrobius in his Third Book of the Saturnalia Chap. 4. Penates that is Born together Quasi penes nos natos For as that Author pursues 't is by them that we breath by them that we have our Body and by them that our Soul subsists But 't is better to call them Gods and Governors of Countries to distinguish them from the Lares who were particular to each Family as they were both distinguished from the Geniuses and look'd upon as taking care of the exteriour of Man as the Geniuses did of the interior However it must be confess'd that there is but Confusion and Darkness to be met with in the Books of the Heathens concerning those Names and their pretended Signification they having not well known themselves what they Worshipped as Gods or as Spirits neither need we take much trouble in unravelling what they themselves knew not since the memory both of them and of their Daemons is long since extinguished upon Earth This being the Lot of the Heathens and of their Gods Jeremiah cap. 10. Sect. 17. Whether this last sort of Gods or Spirits were called Genii Manes Penates or Lemures it plainly appears that they believed the Immortality of the Soul which Opinion being confounded with that of Daemons gave occasion to contrive those sorts of Spirits Plato in his Book Of the Soul Entituled Phaedo induces Socrates speaking near his Death in these Words Above all the Soul must be immortal and unperishable and consequently it must go to live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in invisible places or as others pretend to infer from the Etymology of the Word in agreeable Places Marcilius Ficinus has Translated it in Latin apud Manes by the surviving Spirits as I have named them above but a little after he Translates apud Inferos in the Subterraneous Places which proceed from that they placed the Soul of the Deceased under the Earth Cicero in the first Book of the Tusculan Questions Sect. 26. shows both in these Words We believe that the Souls survive because all our Reasonings lead us to that Opinion Reason ought also to teach us where they are whence Ignorance has taken occasion to invent subterraneous places because Bodies being put into the Earth and cover'd with Earth humo whence comes humari to be Buried thereof it has been believed that the Dead still live under the Earth Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same word which the Interpreters of the New Testament sometimes Translate by that of Hell sometimes by that of Grave none of which agrees with the Sense of Socrates or that of Plato For at the end of the forementioned Book Socrates derides Crito who asked him how he would be buried He believes says he That I am that dead Body which he shall see anon signifying that they might indeed Bury his Dead Body but as to him that is his Soul he should pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the assur'd Felicity of the Blessed which very much differs from the Grave or Hell And therefore 't is certain that Socrates who spake so believed the Soul to be Immortal and that Plato who writ his Words was of the same persuasion Sect. 18. But there were others who tho' they were of the same opinion yet having not acquired so much insight into the State of Souls separated from their Bodies invented Transmigrations and Purifications The Druids so famous amongst the Ancient Gauls held together the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls with their Immortality For they unanimously taught according to the Testimony of Caesar Book 8. Chap. 18. Non interire animas sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios Souls die not but that after Death they pass from one to another The antient Egyptians were of the same Opinion and Herodotus writes that they were the first who taught the Immortality of the Soul For says he their sentiment is that the Soul being deprived of the Body passes into another Body which is then born and after she has thus walked through all sorts of Bodies upon Earth in the Sea and in the Air she at last returns into a human Body Thence it was that Pythagoras had his Doctrine which he brought over into Greece whence it passed into Italy Lactantius explains the Opinions of that Philisopher in his Seventh Book de Proemio Chap. 8. In these words Pythagoras as foolishly asserted that the Souls passed into other Bodies from the Bodies of Men into those of Beasts and from those of Beasts into those of Men again and that his own had formerly been that of Euphorbius Plato and several others have partly followed him which we shall be obliged frequently to mention hereafter Sect. 19. But Socrates as Plato relates in the forementioned Treatise which contains his last Words leads the Souls to some places where they shall be Blessed or Tormented without Bodies He sends those who shall have done Good into the Upper and Aetherial Regions where he believes the most pure part of this Orb to be and where the Soul shall Eternally live without the Body in an unexpressible Felicity Whereas he condemns those of the Wicked to the Tartarus which is a deep and frightful Abyss where they shall be punish'd according to their Deserts From that Gulf of Torments he draws four Rivers to which he gives as many Names very fit to express his Notion viz. Oceanus a precipitate Torrent Acheron a Torrent of Torments Pyriphlegeton Conflagration and Cocytus Bemoaning Here Sinners who have not been altogether incorrigible are to be purged with many Pains and Vexations more or less longer or shorter according to their Deserts There you have the original of Purgatory or of that purging Fire still believed by the Roman Church However Socrates gives out that Narration but for a Chimaera For before he begins it he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pretty Fable worth hearing and at the end he says But no Man of Sense ought to maintain that Opinion so as I have related though I esteem it rational and just to show that it goes very near so in reference to our Souls and their Habitations since it plainly appears that the Soul is immortal These Words of a Dying Man who exhorts those that were present to be at all times ready for Death persuade me more and more of what I have already said that the Heathens express'd themselves variously upon these Matters and that they speak otherwise when they consider them in reference to Religion than when they conceive them in relation
upon this Most of the Bramines that are not engaged in any of these two Sects Schaaruakka and Pasenda admit the immortality of human Souls and say that there are some who being separated from the Bodies become Devils because of their sins and that the time of their first punishment being finished they must wander in the Air and there induce an intolerable Hunger it being impossible for them to draw so much as the Leaf of an Herb or to supply their wants with any other thing besides what Men bestow upon them in Charity I had mention'd that Opinion speaking of the Ratsiasias Sect. 21. In a word when we gather all the Observations made in this Chapter and before it to discover the Opinions of the Heathens we find that tho' all their Superstitions be grounded upon very different Causes yet they all tend in the main to the same scope that is to worship one sole Object as the Supream Deity and yet to associate Spirits to him I cannot better express that Thought than by the very words of Carolinus which are as a re-capitulation of what has hitherto been said Some esteem says he that the Souls are mortal others esteem them immortal some establish rhe transmigration of Souls others are not of that Opinion and how much differ those that assert the Metempsychosis between themselves some as those of Java believe that the Soul goes into the first Body she meets with others believe that she is sent into such or such Body according as she has merited by the good or evil she has done which is the Opinion of the Banjanes Some affirm that the Souls change their abode but once others three times and others teach a vast number of Transmigrations others make them pass only into Men who must also be strangers others again send them into Man and Beasts but others at last make them pass only in the Females of Men and Beasts which is the imagination of the Thearauachs others have yet quite different Opinions In a word it may be rightly said upon this subject Many Men many Minds for there are almost as many Opinions as Persons CHAP VIII That the Witchcraft practised amongst the People proceeds from the same source Sect. 8. AS the name of Withcraft is given to whatever is supposed to be done by the help of the Devil I cannot but judge that many persons are called Sorcerers and Witches who perhaps are not so and that this must be ascribed to the same prejudice which I have mentioned before speaking of the worship of Demons And therefore I intend to examine hereafter what these People really are It is sufficient to advertise here before hand that all the Heathens must not be taken for Magicians Sorcerers and Inchanters because many Writers have called them by such names giving them indifferently in their Writings to all the He and She Priests and to all those who discharge any Office Ministry or employment in their Religious Worship and in their Sacrifices But I design to insert in this present Chapter whatever is known to us of their practices or of their communications with any of the inferior Gods or Spirits good or bad Sect. 2. The veneration which that People have for the Sun Moon and Stars is sufficient to establish the choice of Days amongst them whence proceeds whaâ— Peteâ— Vaudenbrook has observed speaking of the Benjanes of Narsinga That as to happy and unhappy â—ours they judge of them by the course of the Stars wâ—â—câ—â—heâ— oâ—sâ—â—â—e with great nicety Trigaltius in 〈…〉 Chap. â—9 says that there is no Su◠〈…〉 in China as that of observing the Feast and Working days and that they rule the whole conduct of their Lives upon the disposition of Time To that end there are Printed every year two sorts of Almanacks made in the Emperor's name by his own Astrologers which contributes to set off this delusion for a Truth there is marked every day what is good to be done or not to be done and to what hour must be deferr'd what offers it self in the intervals of the fortunate or unlucky moments Sect. 2. Carolinus has methinks made a good Abridgment of what follows in Trigaltius which therefore I intend to make use of There are other Books says he besides those that more particularly treat of this matter and even there 's a sort of Teachers which only subsist from what they get in prescribing happy Days and Hours to the Querists thô they have but a small reward for it They are so much bewitcht with those predictions that they often deferr an importunate Affair or a long and dangerous Journey till they have found out a Day or Hour of good Omen And thô it sometimes happens that at that Day or Hour there falls a great Rain or a contrary Wind blows yet for all that they begin the undertaking or journey in their perfixed time should they only proceed 4 steps or dig out but a Basket full of Earth from the place where they intend to lay the Foundation of a House That was also the employment of those that were Anciently called Astrologers and Mathematicians of whom we have spoken before Sect. 4. They are no less superstitiously curious in observing the time of the Birth to foretel the condition of the whole course of ones Life Those calculators of ones Nativity are the same with the Ancient Genethliaci before mentioned Chap. 3. Sect. 4. There are many other Diviners who boast of foreteling future things by the Observation of the Stars by the inspection of the Face by the Dreams by the posture of the enquirer by his manner of sitting or standing and this sort of Men are in great esteem amongst the vulgar Sect 5. Rogerius gives a larger account of what has been said concerning the choice of Days amongst the Chinese which is likewise practised amongst other Nations as especially the Inhabitants of the Coast of Coromandel where they use Almanacks like those of China and call them Paniangam That Author says That they are two sorts one that shows what must be done and the other what must be laid aside at every Hour of the Day of the Week and what shall succeed or not For a Specimen of it he relates the predictions of Sunday from Hour to Hour They reckon in that Country 30 Hours betwixt the Rising and Setting of the Sun 1. Good for all Affairs of Council and Reasoning 2. Undertaking shall prosper 3. Shall not succeed 4. Who means to get an Advantage shall not get it but his Enemy 5. Good for Trading Profitably 6. Good for Rejoycing and Undertaking whatever concern Merriment and Science 7. The Courting of Women shall succeed at a pleasure 8. Trade without gain 9. As the 6th Hour 10. No Project happy 11. Physicks and things taken for Pleasure will not prosper 12. Who aspires after Victory shall obtain it 13. Good for buying Cows and other Beasts 14. Good to take a Servant 15. Bad to enter into a
New house or to go a visiting 16. Good to lay the Foundation of Houses Villages or Towns 17. Unhappy Journeys 18. Good to pay Visits to the Great 19. Good for Erecting Statues in the Pagodas to the Honour of the Gods 20. Unhappy for all sorts of Undertaking 21. Nothing to be gotten 22. Who gives Battle shall loose the Day 23. Good to make Friends 24. Good for Fighting 25. Good for keeping Council 26. Unprofitable Trade 27. Who lies with a Woman shall get her with Child 28. Every Undertaking shall succeed 29. Shall not succeed 30. Good for Planting The Night is likewise distributed into several Hours as also the other Days and Nights of the Week Sect. 6. That Superstition has proceeded so far as to have stained an Art very commendable in it self and one of the liberal Arts. For according to the Relation of Daviti extracted from Osorius the Malabars who use to begin their Year with the Month of September have recourse to Superstitious Observations in Order to mark the First Day and Hour of it That Day all those that are above the Age of 15 cover their Eyes and Face that they may see nothing and cause themselves to be brought into the Pagodes of their Idols where they presently uncover their Faces and quickly cast their Eyes upon the First Object before them If it happens to be the Statute of some Idol for which they have a particular Veneration they fancy they shall pass the Year most happily Sect 7. Those that observe the cry of Birds have a very great relation with the Malabars and agree with them almost in the same things for Carolinus says after Rogerins that they observe what sort of Birds flie near them and to what part whence they draw a favourable or sinister Augury They say that when a Ash-coloured Crow whereof there are great numbers upon the Coast comes to touch some body in flying it forebodes very ill viz. that he that has been touched or some of his Friends shall Die within 6 Weeks Linschoten gives very near the same account of the Decanins and the Inhabitants of Gurusatte saying that if the First Object they see in the Morning is an Ash-coloured Crow they will not go out of their House for any thing Sect. 8. Daviti says after Mendoze that the Heathens of the Islands called by the Spaniards Philippines have some she Diviners named Holaoi whom they honour as Priests Who converse daily with the Demons at least in his Opinion and that they publickly before all the People make strange postures and a horrid noise during which the Spirit of Divination seizes upon them and gives by them answer to whatever is asked The same Author adds that they have a particular sort of Divination in which if they meet a Cayman in their way they return home Whence appears that they esteem that meeting unfortunate Sect. 9. Besides that all sorts of presages are in credit amongst those Nations who draw them from whatever offers it self to them If any body sneezes before them when they go out of their House they presently step in again for they esteem it a very bad Omen Peter Vandenbroek affirms the same of the Inhabitants of Narsinga and adds that when they go out in the Morning if they meet with some bad Augury they return back or stay till a more favourable offers it self We read in Carolinus which are according to them good or bad Signs which he has transcribed out of Tuisk and Vandenbroek Here they are Besides sneezing and flight of Birds there are several others ill pregages as an empty Cart a Dog who has nothing to Eat a Buffle an Ass a Guilded-he-Goat an Ape a loosen'd Hart a Goldsmith a Carpenter a Barber a Taylor a Cotton-Merchant a Farrier a Weaver a She-Widow a Dead body all People coming from a Burying before they be washed and having changed their Dress 'T is also an ill Augury to meet with one that carryes Butter Milk or brown Sugar or sour things as Apples and Lemmons or one that carries Fire and any thing used in War But 't is a good Omen to meet with an Elephant a Cammel either Loaden or Vnloaden a Horse better Vnloaden than Loaden a Cow an Ox a Buff Loaden with Water for Vnloaden it forebodes nothing but Ill a He-gcat a Dog Eating a Cat on the Right Hand likewise to meet one carrying Meat Curds or white-Sugar a Cock an Vnicorn running strait out in the way and a Hundred things of that Nature are esteemed so fortunate by them that they boldly pursue their way with hopes of a good Fortune Tereira adds that they believe it a very ill thing and even a Sin to Eat before Sun-set Sect 10. This is what I emended to relate as to Divination upon which point and especially upon Witchcraft I am surprized to find so little in the writings of so many Authors whom I have consulted with great exactness neither do I remember to have learned any thing more particular in the Conversations I have had with Gentlemen that have made long Journeys into the Eastern Countryes but I wonder most of all that Baldaeus whose chief scope in his writings is to treat of the Idolatry of the Eastern Countryes makes almost no mention of it The only thing I find in him concerns the Conjuration of Serpents The Inhabitants says he of the Coast of Coromandel and some of the Cingalese and Malabars know how to Enchant Serpents so that by their Songs they make them Dance which is strange and wonderful When they require the Oath of any Person they put his Hand in a Pot where there is a Serpent if he be not wounded they hold his Oath to be true but if he be bitten they believe him Perjur'd Peirard adds to this that they Conjure the greatest and most subtle Snakes not to be hurt by them and Baldaeus reports the same CHAP. IX That the Opinions and Practices of the African Heathens agree at bottom with the Sentiments and Customs of the other Pagans Sect. 1. THE Heathens of Africa being duller than the others because the Men of Letters are most or all Mahometans we can have little knowledge of their Opinions unless it be by their practices From them only we may infer their belief as to die matter in hand and thô Travellers have left us but few Observations I shall nevertheless examine them two ways to know what sort of Creatures are esteem'd and worshiped as Divine by those Nations and afterwards what sorts of Divination and Witchcraft are in use amongst them Amongst the best writers none have given more Information than Carolinus whom therefore I shall take for my leader but add to his Narration what I shall think convenient out of other Authors in proper places Sect. 2. Those Africans that without living under the Law of Christ or that of Mahomet having nevertheless some knowledge of God distribute the Deity amongst several Creatures as do all other Heathens
thô in the Morning they find that he has not touched it Sect. 16. I shall yet give a more particular Relation of the Caraibes drawn from the description made by de la Borde who was sent by the French King with the Jesuit Simon to convert that People what he has in his Relation subservient to our design viz. to know their sentiments concerning the Deity and the Spirits and to be inform'd of their practices is as follows Louquo who was the First Man and Caraibe and consequently the Common-Father of all the others was not made by any but descended from Heaven here below where he liv'd very long He had a great Navel whence he brought out the First Man as well as out of his Thigh making there an Incision There happened many stories during his Life that would be shameful and infamous to be reported he made little Fishes from scraps and little bits of Manjou which he threw into the Sea but the great from great parcels of the same Root He rose again three days after his Death and returned to Heaven Terrestrial Animals are come since but they know not whence They believe that the Heavens have been from all Eternity but not the Earth nor the Sea that neither of them was in that fine disposition in which they now are their mover and first actor Louquo having first made the Earth soft smooth without Mountains but they know not whence he had the matter of it the Moon followed immediatly but eversince she saw the Sun she got away and hid her self for shame and ever since shewed her self but at Night they attribute the Eclipses to Mapoia the wicked Spirit who endeavours to kill them They more esteem the Mâ—on than the Sun and for that Reason rule the days by the Moon and not by the Sun never saying a Month but a Moon nor how many days shall you be on your journey but how many nights shall you sleep abroad Sect. 17. Their Opinion concerning the Demons Inferior Gods and Heroes may easily be learned They believe that all the Stars are Caraibes and that Racunnon was one of the First whom Louquo made he was changed into a great Snake that had a Man's Head and always stood upon a Cabalas which is a very thick hard high and straight Tree but he was since transmuted into a Star Savacon another Caraibe and since a Star is the Captain of the Hurricanes and of Thunder and 't is he that causes great Rains Achinaon a Caraibe and Star causes little Rains and great Winds the Star Couromon raises a Wind that makes the Sea ebb and flow They reckon and mark the Years by the Constellation Chirities which is by them the name of the Pleiades Cavalnia is the Captain of the Zemeans Limacani is a Comet sent by the Captain of the Zemeans to hurt when he is Angry Joalouca or the Rainbow is a Zemean too that makes the Caraibes sick when he finds no Victuals If it appear to them at Sea they take it as a good Omen and say that it comes to accompany them and procure them a good Voyage but if it appears at Land they hide themselves within their Cottages fancying that it is a Foreign Zemean that has no Master that is to say no Piaie and therefore can do nothing but hurt by his Evil Influencies and undoubtedly seeks to kill some body Sect. 18. There are several other things of which they make Zemeans especially such as cause some terrour or amazement as Bats Which they name Boulliri that flie by Night about the Houses they believe that they keep them and that such as kill those Creatures become Sick They have so many sorts of Boule Bonum that is to say bad Omens that I cannot resolve my self to relate all their Trifles and Dreams Sect. 19. Their Religious worship chiefly consists in such Divinations and Witchcrafts as are agreable to their strange notions Assoon as they fall into a Disease they fancy themselves to be bewitch'd and if they can catch the Woman they suspect they kill or cause her to be killed for they commonly assault Women not so freely daring make bold with Men But before they kill her they exercise an unheard of Crueltie upon the poor Wretch their Relations and Friends go to catch her and cause her to rake up the Ground in several places untill she has found what they suppose she has hidden and often that miserable Woman confesses an untruth to free her self from those Tortures When they have gotten that proof of her being a Witch they put her to Death in a most Cruel and Barbarous manner related by the Author who adds that the Caraibes fancy to have several other means to preserve themselves from Witchcraft for Instance They put in a great Gourd Hairs or some bones of their Deceased Relations which they keep in their Carbet for some Witchcraft and say that the Ghost of the Deceased speaks therein and advertises them of the designs of their Enemies Sect. 20. Divinations are made by the means of Zemeans that is to say familiar Spirits Each Picas or Boie having his own and ruling himself by the advices of his detestable Oracles Thus to know the event of their Diseases they cause a Piaice to come at Night who immediatly orders all the Fire of the Cottage to be put out and the suspected Persons to be gone then he withdraws into a Corner where he causes the Sick to be brought and having smoaked a little Tobacco he bruises it in his Hands and blows into the Air shaking and snaking his Fingers 'T is said that the Zemean fails not to come at the smell of that precious Incense and Perfume by the Ministry of the Boie who doubtless is in a compact with the Devil There being interrogated it answers with an audible Voice and as it were at a distance to the Queries put to it Afterwards he comes near the Sick Person strokes and gently handles several times the afflicted part still blowing upon it and sometimes drawing or feigning to draw out of it Thorns little parcels of Manioc Wood Bones or little Fish-bones which his Devil supplyes him with perswading the sick that it was that which caused his pain He often sucks the Aking part and immediatly goes out of the Cottage to spew up says he the Venom Thus the crazy distemper'd is cured rather by Imagination than reallity 'T is observable that he cures neither Agues nor Wounds as those of Arrows or a Knife Not a word is to be said in that Diabolical Assembly nor any noise to be made no not so much as to let a Fart otherwise the Zemean flies away The Caraibes believe that all the time the Piaie goes above and comes back only when the Zemean is gone As a Gratuity they present in their Cottages without other Ceremony the Zemean and the Piaie too for the trouble he has been at in calling out the Spirit some refreshment as some Ouicou and
be in the Elysian Fields which they fancy to be beyond the Indian Sea The Author gives the name of Elysian Fields to the places he describes because of the Relation he has found betwixt them and those the Greeks have call'd by that name CHAP. XI Where all the Sentiments and Practices of so many different Heathens are usefully compared together Sect. 1 HItherto we have but gather'd the various Opinions of the Antient and Modern Pagans and related their Customs without passing any Judgment upon them neither is it time to do it as yet we must first see of what use it may prove to be informed of all these things to which end we must again consider together what has been hitherto related to see what will be the result of it On the one side we find that Nations that extreamly differ in the Opinions they have concerning the Gods and the Spirits yet on the other side they wonderfully agree upon the same subject They differ in the Names they give them which is not strange the Tongues being so different and all the Nations not ascribing the same properties to Spiritual Beings Thence proceeds a second difference that they make not their number equal nor distinguish them in the same manner as to their Dignity and Administration or as to their Operations as it has particularly been shewn in the 2 Chap. Sect. 21. concerning the Inhabitants of Asia But the difference to be found amongst them is not material and must be accounted as inconsiderable comparatively to the conformity that is betwixt them all that looks as a work to which they should unanimously have conspired Sect. 2. Whatever has been hitherto quoted is either collected from the Writings of the Pagans or taken from what passes amongst them and relates partly to their Sentiments partly to their Practices They agree in their Sentiments in two respects as their understanding is yet in some manner illuminated by the natural Light or as it is darkned by error I shall mark both these conformities and at the same time the places in which they have been before related where the instances are to be found because it would be too long and tedious to repeat them every time and that I may hope the Reader will take the trouble to look them over or being all fresh in his memory he will excuse me from an unnecessary trouble Sect. 3. As to the first conformity if we attentively reflect upon so many instances and testimonies as are contained in the 2d 5th 6th 8th 9th and 10th Chapt. We shall perceive that those that are least provided with human Light and Reason agree nevertheless upon the most important points referring the Reader to the places where the Instances are set down All the Heathens therefore whether Ancient or Modern Europeans Asiatick Africans North and South Americans agree in these five principal points which are of an undeniable Truth 1. That there is only a first Being or a Supream Divinity Chap. 2. Sect. 3. Chap. 7 Sect. 1 2 3 5 7. Chap. 10. Sect. 6 11 16 24 27. 2. That there are Spirits who have had a beginning and that they are distinguished from humane Souls Chap. 1. Sect. 2 9 10 11. Chap. 7. Sect. 2 9 12 18. Chap. 10. Sect. 3 13. 3. That those Spirits are either good or bad some Friends and others Enemies to Mankind Chap. 2. Sect. 11 15. Chap. 7. Sect. 9 10. Chap. 10. Sect. 5 13 14 27. 14. That humane Souls dye not with their Bodies Chap. 2. Sect. 15 16 17. Chap. 6. Sect. 3. Chap. 7. Sect. 2 3 5 6 12 20. Chap. 9. Sect. 4. Chap. 10. Sect. 8 12 14 22 25 27. 5. That the Good or evil we have done will be rewarded or punished after this Life Chap. 2 Sect. 18. Chap. 7. Sect. 2 5 6 8 16 17 18 19 20. Chap. 10. Sect. 3 12 25. for if in the Sentiments of Epicure there appear something contrary to this last proposition I shall speak of it and explain it in its proper place Sect. 4. But the proof of the obscurity that is spread over their understanding discovers it self in their other Opinions for 't is observable that in all their Reasonings even those in which they speak the Truth they must take two ways by compelling the Divine Majesty to descend from Heaven upon Earth and by raising the humbleness of Man from the Earth to the Heavens So that they have too high an Opinion of the Creature and too despicable of the Creator That mistake which proceeds from a confused Notion of what belongs to the Divine Nature and to that of Created Beings leaves them to gross errors and that are source of their Idolatry and Magick For 't is easie to perceive that none of those practices flow from those 5 Truths just now mention'd but only from a false and erroneous Idea as we shall see if we hear in few words the result of the preceding observations Sect. 5. Concerning the Divine Essence we see First that they conceive the Divine Greatness and Excellence only with relation to their Ideas of the Human Nature since they ascribe to the Gods both Superior and Inferior an Human Original Marriages begetting of Children c. Chap. 7. Sect. 5 6 17. Chap. 10. Sect. 16. Second That they have too vile and abject Thoughts of the perfections of God fancying that he would tire himself and impair his Glory and Felicity if he should take in his own hands the direction of all things Chap. 2. Sect. 4. Chap. 10. Sect. 13. For which reason they have associated with him inferior Gods as Governors under him Chap. 2. Sect. 7.12 Chap. 7. Sect. 2 8. Chap. 10. Sect. 6 7 12 13. Third That they fix not Goodness as a nccessary Idea to the Deity since they have almost all a wicked God as well as a good Chap. 2. Sect. 4.12 Chap. 7. Sect. 3. Chap. 10. Sect. 5. However with this difference that they always place the good above the bad thô some honour them most who fright them most as the Tapaians and the Inhabitants of New England Chap. 10. Sect. 5.23 Fourth That they easily confound the Creator with the Creature Chap. 4. Sect. 7. Chap. 6. Sect. 2 3. Chap. 10. Sect. 6 7 17 23 24. Sect. 6. Concerning Spirits it may be observed First That they make not a suitable distinction betwixt Spiritual and Corporeal substances Chap. 2. Sect 1 6. Whence proceeds that they have attributed not only to the Spirits but also to the Deity it self bodily motions and properties diversions affixed above in the Heavens in the Air upon Earth or under it Chap. 2. Sect. 14 16. Chap. 7. Sect. 6.14 18. Chap. 10. Sect. 12 25. Second That considering the Spirits or Demons as inferior Gods and Ministers of the great God they distinguish them into several Orders as into so many Degrees according to the administration they have been been entrusted with Chap. 2. Sect. 6 14. Chap. 2. Sect. 7 8 11
12 13 18. Third That conceiving not what difference there is betwixt the Soul of Man and that of Beasts Some are fall'n into that gross error as to ascribe to Men and Beasts a Soul of the same Nature Chap. 7. Sect. 14. Without which it had been impossible that the Opinion of Pythagoras concerning the Transmigration of Souls into the Bodies of other Men and Beasts indifferently should have taken so deep roots and have spread so far into the World Chap. 2. Sect. 17. Chap. 7 Sect. 14 15 16 17 18. Fourth That from the same source this Sentiment has visibly proceeded that the Spirits are wandring as well as the Souls of Men after their death Chap. 2. Sect. 15. Chap. 6. Sect. 2. Chap. 7. Sect. 19 20. Chap. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 7. What contributes most to the vilifying of the Deity is that they deify even Men either during their Life or after their Death Witness the ancient Greeks and Romans who transformed the Passions of Men and the Motions of the Heart into so many Gods and Goddesses or as the modern Cannibals who are very near of the same mind as has been shewed Chap. 2. Sect. 14. Chap. 7. Sect. 5 6. Chap. 10. Sect. 14. which however is not commonly us'd but after death as appears by the Apotheosis of the Ancients Chap. 2. Sect. 13. and was no where brought to such a light as amongst the Cannibals as has been said Chap. 10. Sect. 12 16. That they believe the whole race of the Gods issued from their Ancestors and that they themselves are of Celestial Origin from the same spring is derived the Sentiment of the Existence of the Genii or Zemeans that is of helpful Spirits the description of whom may be seen in several Authors Sect. 8. It is now easy to conceive on what ground are founded the Divination and Magick of the Ancients that are the same with the predictions and Witchcraft of the modern Heathens for as to their foretelling or Divination it is grounded upon this First Every God has his People whom he favours and protects or his own property for which Reason they put questions to him concerning that which is to happen to his People and what is to be done on that occasion Second That every God has his Enemy for which Reason every one looks for help against the Gods of whom he is to receive damage and implores the assistance of such Gods as are esteem'd to be their most violent Enemies Third That every Man has his God or particular Spirit and therefore every one mistakes his own passions and whatever comes into his fancy for divine Inspirations and motions especially when Dreams supply him with the occasion of it not knowing that the employments or accidents that have preceeded the Dreams are the Origin of them or being hindered by his prejudices to make an exact enquiry after their possible cause Fourth That it is by confounding the Deity with the Creature that there have been introduced so many sorts of Divinations and Prognosticks drawn from the Stars from the Thunder from Birds Mountains Woods Waters and from all the things in which 't is believed that some Deity is discoverable Fifth That from the belief that the Souls of the Dead are wandering about their Corps it was easy to take occasion to conjure up Ghosts Sect. 9. Concerning the Witchcraft we shall only make the following Considerations First That it is not strange that distinguishing not only created Spirits but even the Gods into good and bad they should endeavour to set them one against another and to defend themselves by the help of the good or of some of the wicked against another or to avenge themselves by the power of one God of the wrong they suppose to have received from another Second That having forged to themselves so many sorts of Gods and Spirits superior and inferior 't is no wonder they should believe to destroy the power of the less by the assistance of the greater Third That having so base thoughts of the Gods whom they subject to the same passions as Men and thus Deify human passions themselves they act consequently by stirring them up against their Enemies as it comes into their fancy Fourth That putting some of their Gods so low and in so great a familiarity with the Spirits they seem to assume to themselves the quality of their Directors and to be able to make the Divine Operations even in the most hidden things subservient to what use they please Chap. 6. Sect. 4. Sect 10. There is yet somthing to be said upon Divination and Witchcraft together which partly concerns the thing it self and partly the gestures of the body used in it What concerns the thing it self comes to this First That the Opinion of the Heathens concerning the Genii or familiar Spirits and the Spirits wandring about Graves makes 'em believe that somthing may be operated by the means of Graves and Carcasses for which Reason they use the bones of the Dead in their Witchcraft and consult them in their Divinations in hopes of getting an answer from the Gods or Spirits which operate in them or abide near them Chap. 10. Sect. 11 15. Second That according to this their belief of the existence of so many sorts of Spirits whereof most part are wicked Spirits that walk and wander every where they are always ready in any unforeseen disease Mortality or sinister Accident to cast the suspicion upon their Enemies or Envious who have bewitchd them for believing that the inferior Gods or Spirits act according to the Will of the Men to whom they belong they must consequently believe that those Men will not fail to effect reciprocally the one against the other whatever the help and power of the Spirits will allow Now those suspitions that will surely move Men to seek by whom they have been bewitch'd or the cause matter and foundation of Divination Chap. 10. Sect. 8 16. Sect. 11. As to the postures used in Witchcraft First The Corpereal Ideas which they have of the Spirits and of the Gods themselves move them doubtless to use so many outward gestures in their Conjuration Chap. 10. Sect 16. But there is still another Reason of that Custom viz. That the Priests who are Impostors make use of them to impose so much the easier upon the simplicity of the Vulgar Second Considering how the Opinion of Pythagoras is become almost Universal it may be methinks conceived at the same time how it was possible that Men should place some Virtue in Letters and Numbers by gathering and disposing them in such or such a way and consequently in the pronunciation of some certain words for the same Pythagoras has believed that the Virtue of the Deity influenc'd the proportion and Harmony of Numbers Now the Letters of the Alphabet being employed to mark the numbers not only amongst the Greeks and Hebrews but by all the other Nations that have some knowledge of Letters it follows
that ther 's not one word but it can make up a number whence it may rationally be inferr'd that such or such a word composed in such or such a manner of such or such or such Letters more or less has according to their Opinion more or less power in Witchcraft Third Besides the ordinary numbers they use also Names and Characters as it is seen at this day especially amongst the Laplanders and Finlanders whose enchanted Drums are spotted with the like Characters Chap. 6. Sect. 5. Sect. 12. But I have nor yet spoken of what is most important in these Conjurations that are used as well for Divination as Witchcraft which consists in this that they are part of the Pagan Religion and even make it wholly up amongst some Nations especially in the West-Indies Chap. 9. Sect. 6. Chap. 10. Sect. 16. And 't is almost impossible it should be otherwise since their whole Religion turns upon their Opinion of the Gods or draws it 's Original from thence First They look by no means upon their practices nor the scope they aim at as things evil of their own nature but only by the bad use that is made of them wherefore anciently the Magi and Diviners were found amongst the King 's Attendants and in the Temples as are still at this day the Brainines in the East-Indies the Fetisseros in Guinea the Baivas or Piais in Peru and the Country of the Cannibals c. and several others of the same quality so that no body is acknowledg'd for Wise Doctor Priest Prophet nor becomes Councellor of State unless he be Diviner or Magician in the sense that has been set down The Holy Scripture shows the same in the persons Jannes Jambres Balaam Daniel and his Companions of which we have said something before Chap. 4. Sect. 1 4. And it may be observed in the general instances that have been alledg'd that the Heathens had publick Schools to teach those Arts that the Priests especially instructed the â—â—ople in that Ministry and trained them up from their Youth which is still practised amongst the bruitish and dull Laplanders Second We see at the same time for what Reason the entrails of sacrificed Beasts and some Meat and dress'd Herbs were imployed in their Witchcraft and Divinations viz. because in their Opinion something divine was mix'd with them Sect. 13. 'T is therefore certain that all their practices were grounded upon a certain knowledge and partly upon vain conjectures and very great errors for to seek the Deity and to fear it is an effect of the natural knowledge of God which Men keep in the midst of their greatest corruption But to admit so many sorts of Deities of such a low rank and such a contemptible Nature and to serve him in so many different ways is an effect of the corruption of the mind which let it be said in reference to those that acknowledge one God or Spirit and who believe the Immortality of the Soul to which believe the Opinion of the Epicures is not wholly opposite thô they seem to deny both or at least to call them in question for Epicure and his modern followers deny not so much the existence of a God and of Spirits as they are earnest to perswade such as believe both that their practices bely their Faith and are not agreeable to their principles and therefore 't is impossible that one should be both an Epicure and a Sorcerer or a Diviner And on the contrary no Heathen ever endeavoured to contradict the Hypotheses of Epicure without admitting those Arts and their effects Sect. 14. For a greater certainty it will be convenient to hear those Philosophers speak in their own words Gassendus has collected part of what they say Sect. 11. Chap 6. 'T is the same thing that God should govern the World by himself as some affirm or as others assert by Ministers generally call'd Genii or Demons for when all is done things go nevertheless their usual way in great part as thô there were no such Ministers And thô it were granted that there are some they could not be such as they are fancyed viz. of Human shape and conversing with us I will not say that being for the most part wicked they could not lead a long and happy life because malignity is joyned to Ignorance and tends to ruin That 's what they say concerning Spirits let us then speak of what is practised upon that Account They use to alledge Divination as a proof both of Providence and of the existence of Spirits but I look with sorrow upon that Human weakness which seeks for Oracles even in Dreams as thô God being set upon Stilts came by frightful visions to forewarn Men in their deepest Sleep of what is to happen to them as thô fortune and chance were not sufficient to produce such events without mixing God not only with the Sun and Moon and several other kinds of Annimals but also with all sorts of Stone and Brass Those that speak so make it evident that they rather have to deny the existence of God and Spirits than to acknowledge them such as the other Heathens believed them and to be obliged to own themselves Sorcerers and Diviners by granting that they exist So much for Paganism 't is time to proceed further CHAP. XII What are the Opinions of the Jews and how necessary it is to examine them Sect. 1. WE have hitherto only considered Paganism which has no other light but that of Nature now we shall enquire what those that are illuminated with the light of the Holy Scripture believe or practise upon that account In the mean while it must be observed that they are not all of one sense being divided into Jews Mahometans and Christians which difference proceeds from the inequality of the light they have received or made use of I shall begin with those that are at greatest distance from Christianity and consequently the nearest to Paganism It seems that the followers of Mahomet should have that place so much the more because we have favourable prejudices on behalf of the Jews as having Anciently been the People of God But notwithstanding what they have been they are now so much degenerated that the belief of the Mahometans may be said to have more conformity with ours then theirs hath both detest Idolatry and acknowledge one God and take his word for the rule of their Faith The Jews receive only the Old Testament but the Mahometans admit also of the New adding the Alcoran or Mahomet's Law to those of Moses and Christ in order to correct and perfect them both The Jews do almost the same as to the Law of Moses by the Addition of the Talmud which contains the traditions of the Ancient But if the Opinions of both parties were deeply searched into perhaps it would be found that those of the Mahometans favour more the infalibility of the Law and Gospel than those of the Jews that of the Law alone Add
to this that Christ is acknowledged by the Mahometans for a great Prophet and honoured in that quality whereas he is horribly blasphemed by the Jews For these reasons I say that the Mahometans are halfe nearer to us than the modern Jews But what need we any farther proof since as to this matter it is plain that the Jews are less from Paganism than the Mahometans as shall appear by the proof I shall produce Sect. 2. As long as we have had to do with Heathens only we needed but to make an inquiry after their Opinions concerning their Gods the Spirits and the Souls But here the Question is not concerning the plurality of Gods for thô formerly the Jews have been extraordinarily inclined to Idolatry they have now such a great aversion for Polytheism ever since 2300 years that they are returned from the Babylonian Captivity that they will acknowledge but one Person in the Divine Unity They believe by the light of the Holy Writ that this only God is Almighty and sufficient to himself and to all things which he has created of nothing and governs and maintains alone Amongst his Creatures they reckon Angels and Men and think that the last have a Soul more excellent than that of Bruits tho' far inferior to the Angelical Perfection Such has been in all times the belief of the Jews and so farr is more agreeable to the Christian Faith then that of the Mahometans as we shall say hereafter Sect. 3. But the state of the Jewish Religion whilst the first Temple stood must be well distinguished from that into which it is insensibly fall'n The Jews of that time were Orthodox save only those who suffer'd themselves to be carried into Idolatry and undoubtedly they had no other Opinion of the Angels Demons and Souls of Men but what the Holy Writings still teach us so that if we still look upon them as different from us it is because we consider those of latter times when their State was in its fall and Christianity in its growth But tho' they be now divided into two Sects that of the Carraijim who only follow the Holy Writ and that of the Rabbanim who adhere to the Traditions of their Doctors there is yet but the latter which deserves to come into consideration the number of the former being altogether inconsiderable they being a remainder of the Sadduces which are hardly known in Europe whereas the other may be called the posterity of the Pharisees Sect. 4. Tho' we design only to insist upon the latter yet a more particular difference may be observed betwixt the Ancient Jews and the Modern By the Ancient Jews I understand here those that lived in the time of our Saviour of his Apostles or a little after Philo who was the Learnedst and Wisest is of an Opinion not far from that of Plato when he says that the Stars are animated and that they move circularly by their own intelligence Ben Maimon is in that point of his Sentiment of which he has made an abridgement in these words All the Stars and Celestial Orbs have a Soul Knowledge Vnderstanding and a lasting Life knowing him by whose Word the Vniverse was made Each of those â—reatures according to his Excellency and Dignity praisâ—s and glorifies his Author following the example of the Angels but as they know God so they understand what they are themselves as well as the Angels who however are above them Their Knowledge being inferior to that of the Angels and superior to that of Men This is to be read in the Book of that Author Entituled Of the Grounds of Faith Sect. 5. If we come more particularly to examine their Opinions as to the Spirits whether Angels or Human Souls we shall not find the Ancient and Modern Writers agree well together Philo who is amongst the former believes That the Air is full of Spirits the most perfect of whom never assumed Bodies but go to and fro ascend and descend from Heaven upon Earth for the service of the Great God That there are others inferior in Dignity to the first who take on Bodies of which they are deprived by death and into which some of them return But others being wearied of this life go up higher and live there in peace But there are others the most pure and excellent of all who have a sublime and Divine Vnderstanding despise Terrestrial and perishing things are the Ministers of the Almighty and as the Ears and Eyes of the Great God those see and hear everything The Philosophers call them Genii and the Holy Writ names them most properly Angels that is to say Messengers for they are really Messengers who carry to Children the Orders of their Father and to the Father the Prayers of his Children wherefore it is said of them that they ascend and descend This is contained in the Book of Dreams written by Philo. Sect. 6. If you now desire to hear the Jews of the latter times and their Opinions upon the Nature of Angels Vorstius will tell you most truly in his Annotations upon the Grounds of the Faith written by Maimonides that they do not perfectly agree together For some believe That those Spirits have been created of the most subtile Elements as Rabbi Juda relates it in his Book Entituled Cusri Chap. 4. Sect. 4. Others as the Author of the Book Jezira hold as the same Rabbi Juda assures us that the Angels proceeded from the Holy Ghost We find also in the Book Chagiga fol. 14. That by the word of God administring Angels are created every day But Maimonides speaks of his own more wisely upon this subject and generally upon all others The Angels says he in Chap. 2. Sect. 4 Have an Essence that subsists without Matter not having Bodies but being Essences distinguished from one another Sect. 7. Upon this difference of the Angels in the opinion of the Jews I think it better to propose what has been said by the same Author than to quote any other because there is none amongst them that may be compar'd to him either for Learning or Judgment as not intending to impute to them more foolish Doctrines than those that are admitted by their most authentick Writers Thus then Maimonides expresses this Opinion When the Prophets say that they have seen the Angels as a fire and with wings they speak after the manner of the Prophets and by a simile designing only to shew that they are neither corporeal nor heavy In this sense it is that God himself is called a Consuming fire viz. improperly thus likewise this passage must be understood he makes the Winds his Angels or as it is in some Translations The Spirits for the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ruach having those two significations of Spirits and of Winds And therefore the Angels being material are essentially distinguished betwixt themselves as by degrees the one being above the other to which the Author applies these words For a higher than that high takes
Names which the Administring Angels seeing said among themselves Let us consult together how we shall do to make Adam Sin against his Creator otherwise he is like to become our Master Sammael who was a great Prince in Heaven she has been before mentioned Ch. 12. S. 8. was present at this Council with the Saints of the first Order and the Seraphins of six Troops Sammael chose some of the twelve Orders to accoâ—â—â—â—ny him and came down below to visit all the Creatures whom God eternally Blessed had created He found none so cunning and so proper to deceive as the Serpent The Author comes afterwards to the Seduction and Fall of Man upon which he tells as many Stories as he has already done So was the Seduction of Man the cause of the fall of the Devil Afterwards he relates how God punished Adam Eve and the Serpent and imposed on each of them his proper Pain He call'd them all three before him charged by his Sentence Adam with nine Curses and condemn'd him to Death but he precipitated Sammael and his whole Troop from the Heavens the abode of his Holiness He cut off the Feet of the Serpent for it had before the shape of a Camel and Sammael rode upon him and he cursed it above all other Beasts and living Creatures That 's the Fall of the Devil according to the Opinion of the Jews for we must not charge this Story upon Eliezer alone The Targums that contain the most ordinary and received explications of their best Doctors mention this Fable in several places Sect. 14. They give yet another original to the Demon feigning him to be issued from Lilis That 's saith Manasse the Name of the Wife of the Devil who according to the Opinion of some had been the Wife of Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lilit Is a word to be found in the Holy Scripture Isa 34 14. which our Interpreters translate Satyr the French Lutin and the Dutch Duyuell but we must hear Rabbi Elisha who in his Thisbi has set up the whole Legend We find in some Writings that for one hunderd and thirty years during which Adam abstained from his Wife there came she Devils to him who grew big with Child and brought forth Devils Spirits Hobgoblins and Night Phantasms I find again in other places that the Devils have been brought forth by four Mothers Lilis Naome Ogera and Macholas We likewise read in the Book of Ben Syra Quest 60. that Nebuchadnezar asking him why most Children died within the eighth day of their Birth he answer'd because Lilis kill'd them of which matter there is more largely treated in the same place but I shall not write more of it because I dont credit it By that Narration may be seen how gross the Fictions of the Jewish Doctors are since there are Men amongst 'em who cannot believe them how apt soever that Nation may be to be imposed upon Sect. 15. But as if those four she Devils had not been sufficient to People the World with wicked Spirits they have invented a third sort from what is mention'd Gen. 6.2 That the Sons of God seeing the Daughters of Men that they were fair took for Wives such as they liked From very ancient times the Jews by those Sons of God understand the Angels Wherefore Josephus says in his first Book of the Jewish Antiquities Chap. 4. That several Angels of God mixing themselves with Women begot a very insolent Generation He even knows the Names of those Angels that were carried to that excess of Letchery Aza and Azael were the chiefest amongst them being both enamour'd with the Beauty of Naema Cain's Daughter Thence proceeded the Giants mention'd in the same place of the Holy Writ who as we may infer from that Narration must have been half Devils and half Men. Asmodee the wicked Spirit of Sara Daughter to Raguel of whom mention is made in the Book of Tobit was likewise issued from that Marriage but others affirm him to be Sammael If it be asked how Spirits have the faculty of Generating Eliezer explains that difficulty in his 22th Chapter When they were thrown down from their Holy abode their strength and shape became like to that of Men. Sect. 16. But not to fill up this Book with Tales they had rather imagine as some Heathens have done Chap. 2. S. 12. that those wicked Spirits are half Angels and half Men. Whereupon Vorstius in his Notes upon Rabbi Eliezer relates the following words taken from Rabbi Scheem Toob in that place where Rabi Nitron speaks of Lilis The power of the Devils Night Phantasms and Wicked Spirits which we sometimes see in a human shape proceeds from the concourse of that Chief of theirs and as to their state the Opinion of the Learned is that they resemble Men as much as they do Angels because on the one side they are not such a subtle substance as those of the other Spirits and on the other they are not composed of such a gross matter as that of Men. If we desire to know why those cursed Creatures are called by the Jewish Doctors sometimes Spirits and sometimes Male and Female as tho' they were Men the same Toob will tell us in his 5th Chapter as Vorstius relates in the 22th Chapter of Rabi Eliezer where he speaks of a second Order of Spirits consider'd as distinguished into ten Orders From that Order proceeds in the Universe two sorts of Spirits of Error or Satyrs who behave themselves like Men who appear to them in their Dreams in the shape of handsome Women transforming themselves now into Men then Women Sect. 17 'T is now time to learn their Opinion concerning human Souls at least if they understand themselves distinctly enough to inform us of it For it already appears from what I have quoted out of Philo Sect. 12. that the most Learned do not stick to an accurate distinction betwixt Angels and Souls And Josephus that famous Historian almost as ancient as that other Author says in his seventh Book of the Wars of the Jews Chap. 25. That the Spirits called Daemons are those of the worst of Men who fall upon the living and kill them if not hindred from it Thence it appears that he ascribes something Corporeal to those Spirits so much the more that he fancies that they may be expell'd by the Root Baaras or by some other formerly shewed by Solomon as the same Author intimates in his eighth Book of the Jewish Antiquities But I am to make a large mention of that sort of Enchantment in the following Chapter Sect. 18. The Book which the learned Hoornbeck has written against the Jews contains in short their Opinions as to the Nature and Original of Souls Their Opinion says he Pag. 319. is that the Souls were all created together with the Light the first day of the Creation and not only that they were Created together but by Couples the Soul of a Man and that of a Woman so that
tbem who eagerly addicted themselves to Magick by which they got afterwards into great reputation and that the expounding of Dreams was a pretence they made use of to commit a vast number of Deceits and Villanies We see continues that learned Author in the Book Maarsar Shemi fol. 45. Col. 2 3. That Rabbi Joseph Ben Calpata Rabbi Ismael Ben. Jose Rabbi Lazarus and Akiba made it their whole business many of their expoundings are related in the place I have quoted out of Lightfoot and from several things contained therein it may be infer'd that they instructed their Disciples in those Arts. In the Book Shabbat fol. 3. Col. 2. mention is made of a Phantasm that appeared to one of their Bigots whilst he was meditating the Law and fol. 8. Col. 2. fol. 14. Col. 3. all sorts of Conjurations are treated of some to cure Wounds others against the sting of Serpents against Theft and even against Enchantments this I have Collected from the Second part of the works of Lightfoot page 147. where many other things of that nature are to be found but not necessary to relate and much less to extract out of the own Books of the Jews Sect. 3. However it will not be besides the purpose to add what the same Lightfoot has gather'd from several of their writings especially from the Book Sanhedrin concerning their Bathkol or the Daughter of the Voice which is the name the Jews gave to the Echo pretending it was an Oracle that under the Second Temple supplyed the want of the Vrim and Thummim with which the First Temple was honoured This is known by all that are but a little acquainted with the Jewish affairs and have read some of their writings but here are proofs that show they made use of Bathkool Divinations Rabbi Jochanan and Rabbi Simeon designing to consult Bathkool to go and see Rabbi Samuel the Babylonian they pass'd before the School and heard a Boy reading what is contained 1 Sam. Chap. 25. verse 1. Samuel is Dead They observ'd that and found that the Samuel they sought was Dead Here follows another story Rabbi Jonah and Rabbi Josah went to visit Rabbi Acha while he lay sick they said let us hear what Bathkool will say and immediatly they heard a Voice of a Woman that said to her Neighbor The Candle goes out to which the Neighbor answer'd Pray don't let it go out nor extinguish the light of Israel Lightfoot Tom. 2. p. 167. It is as sure that those words proceeded from Bathkool as it is certain that Elijah is present at the Circumcision of the Children of the Jews as 't is commonly believed among them and as all the learned know Sest 4. But besides those singularities we may take notice that all their Witchcraft is founded upon two grounds the influences of the Stars and thy apparitions of Spirits the reason of the former ground is that thô they esteem not the Celestial lights to be Gods yet they ascribe to them a particular virtue working upon and influencing Human Actions as well external as internal senses We have already heard Philo and Ben. Maimon upon that matter 'T is very usual with them to say The Planets make such a one Wise or Rich as Buxtorf relates it in his Lexicon Talmudicum out of the Books of the Sabbath these are happy influences or Constellations that are called Mazzal-toob but Mazzal-ra is a malignant Star under which one is born or whose virtue influences him all his Life Buxtorf says again upon the Authority of the same Book That the Planet of the Day of ones Birth influences him not but only that of the Hour And even we find in that Book which is the Genius of every Man according to the Planet under which he 's born He who is born under the Sun will be handsom free not dissembling but of an unconstant humour Under Venus he 'll be rich and letcherous Under Mercury skilful and of a good memory Under the Moon sickly and unstedfast Under Saturn unfortunate Under Jupiter just and Under Mars happy Which is the same with all the other Constellations In the mean while it is commonly said That there is no Planet in Israel because all the Jews seem to be born under one Planet being all of the same Genius and Conduct therefore we must conclude that those distinctions concern only strangers and that Israel has the skill of foretelling their good and bad Fortune However they are much disturb'd when the Moon is Eclipsed because they take that accident as an ill presage to them which is an evident proof of the unstedfastness of the Jewish Nation Sect. 5. As to the Spirits Manasse Ben Israel discovering the true ground of the Jewish Divinations leads us to the wicked Spirits saying That some of them are skilful and shrew'd and others foolish and dull The most skilful flying from one corner of the World to the other sometimes learn what is to happen For this Reason he acknowledges page 18. That several Conjure up those Spirits and do wonders by help of the black Art We read even in some Cabbalistical Books as in Pirke Chalos and Ratsiel and in some others the names of those Spirits and the form of the Conjurations used for that purpose There are also to be found all the presages that may be drawn from the various sorts of Apparitions If those Sprits appear to a Man alone they forebode nothing good if they appear to two persons together they presage nothing ill but it never happens that they shew themselves to three in a company Sect. 6. The ways and means they use for their Witchcraft and Divinations are to be observed in the Ceremonies of their Feasts and the whole course of their ordinary Life Every one knows that Marriage is the lawful way to beget Children which makes them believe one must needs know how to preserve himself in that occasion from the wicked Spirits There is none but has read the Book of Tobit how he expel'd the Devil Asmodee by the inspiration of the Angel Raphael and how they took together a Fish which as some suppose was a Pike as to the Heart and Liver says Raphael if the Demon or wicked Spirit disturbs any Person whether Man or Woman he needs but make a perfume before him and the party shall be no more vexed Chap. 6. v. 7. When he was marryed with Sara he remembred the words of Raphael and took the Ashes of the perfumes put the Heart and the Liver of the Fish thereupon and made a smoke with it which when the Evil Spirit had smelt he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt and the Angel bound him there Chap. 8. v. 23. Sect. 7. If that Narration is esteem'd Apochryphal by the Protestants that of Josephus deserves not a better name when in the Second Chap. of the 8th Book of his Jewish Antiquities he deduces the Original of Magick from Solomon and lays the foundation of it upon the wisdom
of that King nay he asserts That God himself had inspired him with that Art so powerful against Demons for says he He has made use of Witchcraft to expel diseases and has left in his writings forms of Conjurations by which the Devils that molest mankind are so far banished that they never dare come back again And that sort of cure is now in great request amongst our Nation It consisted according to the description given of it in the use of some certain Root which they seal'd up and put under the Nostrils of the possessed At the same time they uttered the name of Solomon and the words of his Conjuration and so was the Devil forced to flie He declares to have been an Eye-witness himself of an operation of this nature made in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and his Sons on the Person of one Eliezer We will examine in our 4th Book how the sight of Josephus was then disposed but in the mean while we could wish he had explained to us whether this Root is the same with that he mentions in the 28th Chap. of the 7th Book of the Jewish Antiquities which he calls Baaras because of the place where it grows since he also ascribes to this last the wonderful virtue of expelling Demons for according to his relation one needs but touch the possess'd with it and the Devil is forced to run away but of this more in the 4th Book Sect. 8. Here follows how the present Jews are molested all their Life by the wicked Spirits and how they beware of them When a Child comes into the World the terrour of Lilis comes with him to seize upon the Spirits of the Parents because that Lilis intends to kill the Boys within 8 days of their birth and the Girls within the 21th The remedy of the German Jews to preserve themselves from that danger is To draw circular lines with Chalk or Charcoles upon the 4 Walls of the Chamber wherein the Woman lies and to write upon each Circle Adam Eve let Lilis be gone they also write upon the Door of the Chamber the names of the three Angels that preside over Physick Senoi Sansenoi and Saumangelof as Lilis her self taught them when she hoped to drown them all in the Sea This is related by Elias in his Book entituled Thisbi to which he gives no great credit as he himself witnesses I cannot omit what Buxtorf says in his Lexicon Talmudicum concerning the weapons wherewith they arm themselves against Phantoms A Vail spread over the Face hinders the Phantasm from knowing him that is frighted but if God judges that he deserves to be terrified for his sins he causes the vizard to fall down that the Ghost may see and bite him Sect. 9. But what terrour soever the Devil causes to them they nevertheless believe that if they take their opportunity they may prevent his endeavours without trouble To this the choice of days is of great use and they have so great a regard for them that they do no longer deserve the reproach that was cast upon them of Not understanding the signs of times The same Buxtorf in his School of the Jews will supply us with a specimen of that Custom At the great day of propitiations they appease Sammael with a present for on that only day in the whole Year he is allowed by a compact with God to accuse Israel of their transgressions Besides they believe themselves so cunning as to cheat the Devil The First means they use for that purpose is to blow upon the Corn withall their strength from morning to night fancying to make Sammael forget the quality of it by the fright they cast upon him The First Day of the Year is also fit to put another cheat upon him for as on that day God sits in judgment for the examination of Sins they endeavour to hinder their Enemy from bringing his accusations against them by concealing from him the date of the Day The subtilty they use in that occasion is that they forbear to read either the begining or the end of the Law as Sammael supposes that they shall do that Day and thus they never fail to catch him They also abstain as much as they can on the 17th day of the Month Tammus that answers to our June and the 9th of the following Month on which falls their Second fast to go from home and especially avoid to make any journey of 4 or 5 Miles or to appear in a Court of Justice because that time is the reign of a wicked Spirit call'd Ketelmeriri bitter Destruction a name drawn from Deut. Chap. 32. v. 24. Where Moses however speaks of quite other matters Sect. 10. The Cabbala chiefly uses such Witchcraft as is made by numbers and Letters and is in great request amongst the Jews It even teaches to apply to it the sacred word of God and withal some sentences and discourses or only some proper words and particular names to which the Jews ascribe a great Virtue whether they attribute it to the power of the apparition of absent bodies or of incorporeal substances or whether they presume to effect by that means strange and wonderful things Malka Scheva or the Queen of Sheba that went to visit King Solomon in his glory has been often conjured up as they fancy and has appeared to the superstitious In short as to what concerns the other extraordinary effects which they boast to produce they are held for great forcerers even by Christians over credulous in this point for there are Germans who look upon them as Men that can stop conflagrations and quench Fire by throwing upon it some bewitch'd things that can draw two or several sorts of Wine out of the same Vessel and are capable of producing many other wonders Sect. 11. To speak of the other uses they make of names in Witchcraft it must be granted that they make no more difficulty to mix the name of God with it than that of the Devil The famous name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which we use to read Jehovah when punctuated is multiplied by their Doctors by 12 42 and the 72 Letters which they dispose and make words of them and apply them to Witchcraft For that Reason they call it Shem Hamphorash a name explained or divided They believe it to have a great Virtue by him Moses kill'd the Egyptian by him Israel was preserv'd from the hand of the destroying Angel in the Wilderness and by him Jesus Christ expel'd wicked Spirits Thus they blaspheme the Second Person of the Holy Trinity not being able to deny his power It is easy to be inform'd of all these things in their own writings and by their own consent The name of the Devil is likewise of much force to his great loss and sorrow That force proceeds from the 4 Hebrew Letters that compose this name with the Article perfixed to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hassatan that make up just
the number of 364 that is of all the days of the Year but one Now the Jews pretend that by Reason of the Virtue of that number 364 included in the name of Hassatan he is deprived of the right of accusing them during a like number of days in the Year and therefore he has but one remaining in which he may do it so that if he chance to neglect that day or to be then deceived or puzled he may well be sorrowful and the Jews very glad all this is grounded upon the passage of Zacharia Chap. 3. v. 2 The Lord rebuke thee O Satan Sect. 12. They also pretend to find a great Virtue in the reckoning of Letters and their disposition into several different orders They write on the forepart of Houses and the Walls of Chambers some strange Characters of no less extraordinary names which they use to give to those Angels that are established over the plague supposing by that means to be sufficiently seâ—ure from the burning darts of that consuming scouâ—ge The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diriroon is likewise an infallible preservative against the Pestilence when 't is written 22 or 23 times that is as many times as there are Letters in their Alphabet of which they put one every time before that word beginning with the first Letter and ending with the last They have likewise excellent remedies against Agues the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is made up of Six Letters being written 6 times in as many different files 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving out a Letter of every file on the left side is in their Opinion an excellent remedy against the quartan Ague the stumbling block of the Physitians By this any one may perceive how great Virtue the Jews ascribe to Letters Characters and Names Here you have another Mystery taught in the Book Aroda Zara 'T is dangerous to drink at Night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why because that makes People blind but if one be dry and he drinks what then here is the remedy The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shebriri that is lost sight or sudden blindness being written as it is here in the Margent and hung about the Neck cause the blindneâ—â— to go off as much as we see decrease the first Letters of this word untill they be altogether vanished and the blindness gone Those Instructions are to be found in the Lexicon Talmudicum of Buxtorf Sect. 13. By this short Specimen of their Witchcrafts may be seen the Relation that there is betwixt the Practices and Doctrines of their Rabbins contained in the fore-going Chapter from which doubtless those practices take their Original First Their opinions of the Materiality as I may say of good and bad Spirits Chap. 12. Sect. 8.10 14 15. was the cause that they ascribe to them external and visible shapes with effects of the same nature as they have been described Sect. 6.8 For material Causes act materially whereas Spiritual things are for those that are Spiritual 1 Cor. 2.13 Second It was no hard matter that the st aâ—ge Thoughts they have of Sammael Prince of the Devils and of Lilis his Mother according to some Chap. 12. Sect. 13 14 should carry them to practise Conjurations by which they hope to put Mother and Son to flight or at least to turn them off Sect. 7 8 9. Whoever is so credulous in that point is very apt to mistake in all others Third Their great and general esteem for the Cabbala that ascribes so much power to Letters Names and Numbers is the original of all the sorts of Witchcraft that are performed with Letters Numbers and Characters Sect. 10 11 12. And 't is no wonder that a Nation who has lost the vivifying Spirit of the Letters of the Holy Writ should now so curiously and with so much trouble seek the help of those Letters destitute of the Spirit of Life Fourth It must be observed that being antiently used to Prophesies Visions Vrim and Thummim they now bethought themselves of the empty sound of Bathcole and the influences of the Stars to supply the want of the advantages they had lost Sect. 14. When we recollect all those things we easily perceive that thô the Jews are not partakers of the Pagans Idolatry yet they have a near Relation to them as to the Opinions and Customs they have not drawn from the Holy Scripture Nay they go farther than the Heathens and are in a more Diametrical opposition to the Principles of their own Doctrine than the Heathens with those of their Religion for the Jews conceiving plainer than they do that there is but one Creator and Director of all sufficient to himself and having such a strong prejudice against all the Gods invented by Men and against whatever has any nearness to Idolatry 'T is not easie to forgive them their dependency upon the Stars their fear of the great Devil Sammael nor their Faith for the virtue of Words Letters Characters and Numbers since the Heathens were obnoxious to those faults only because they had not a sufficient knowledge of the Supreme Deity and did not relye so much upon him as they ought to have done whereas they trusted too much upon the Creatures which they had Deify'd themselves However our amazement will diminish if we observe that all these Doctrines have been drawn from Paganism and have been received amongst them only by an effect of the natural inclination and eagerness of that People for such Fables and Inventions without considering whether or no they were agreeable to the Rules of the Law But the utmost blindness is to persist in them to this very day without reflecting upon the State in which the Divine Justice has put them by an entire destruction of their Common-wealth and scattering of their Nation amongst the Heathens In the mean while I desire the Reader to observe that hitherto we have met with nothing of whatever is called Witchcraft Phantasms or Diabolical Apparitions but it draws its Original from Heathenism CHAP. XIV That the Doctrine of the Spirits and the exercise of Magick are also in request amongst the Mahometans Sect. 1. WE cannot say many things with great certainty concerning the Mahometans upon the matter in hand for we must learn it either in the Alcoran that is the Law of Mahomet or from the Precepts of their Doctors which very much differ from the Law As to the Alcoran I would not trust to any but my self and therefore have read it sheet by sheet from the beginning to the end but could not gather any particulars relating to our subject except that little which I shall mention hereafter Besides there are come to my hands but very few writings of the Mahometans yet I have read some very credible Christian Authors that treat of their belief whom I shall presume to make use of because every one knows that during their abode amongst those Nations they have examined very impartially and narrowly such
as he believes particularly happens some certain Nights Chap 96. Pag. 284. The Angels descend at night upon Earth by the leave of their Lord and visit the true faithful till the break of the day Chap. 12. Pag. 290. They will visit the faithful in the Garden of Eden they will salute them and say here is the reward of their perseverance here is the Eternal Grace Sect. 7. As he holds that the Angels are always ready to serve God on behalfe of the Faithful so he believed them no less forward in performing his Orders against the impious When says he Chap. 5. pag. 155. the wicked are at the point of death the Angels stretch out their hands to seize upon their Souls And further P. 172. The Angels of death shall kill those that blaspheme God and his Commandments Chap. 7. Pag. 203 204. Thou hast seen that the Angels have put to death the unfaithful and stricken them before and behind A great power for the executing of God's Judgments is ascribed to them for an Angel is sufficient to destroy all the Inhabitants of the World as Levinius Varnerius quotes it out of a Turkish Book Sect. 8. He forgets not the evils caused by the Devil for the seducing of Man The first was his having them banish'd from Paradise Chap. 1. Pag. 7. He caused Adam and his Wife to sin and to fall from the Grace in which they were Chap. 2. Pag. 8. God advertises Mahomet that the Devil would make hâ—m afraid of the unfaithful Pag. 150. The Devil will make them forget my Commandments Pag. 160. Think upon the day in which I shall gather all the Peopâ—e and say to the Devil O thou Prince of the Devils why hast thou rebelled against me Chap. 56. Pag. 608. For the Devil has puft up Man and made â—im revolt from the Commandments of God He seems even to believe that the malice of the Devil extends as far as the Stars with which he says God has adorned the Heavens and which he preserves against the attempts of the Devils Chap. 40. Pag. 534. Sect. 9. Such are his Opinions as to the Angels in general but as to their particular Ministry Thevenot relates That the Turks acknowledge Guardian Angels but in far greater number than we do for say they God has ordained 70 Angels for an invisible Guard to each Musulman and there happens nothing to any person but they attribute it to them Each has his particular Office one watches over one Member and th' other over another one is so subservient in this and the other in that Affair Amongst all those Angels there are two who preside over all the rest sitting one on the Right and th' other on the Left hand and being call'd Kerim Kiatib that is to say Merciful Writers That on the Right hand keeps account of the good Actions and that on the Left of the bad They are so merciful that they spare him if he commits any sin before he falls asleep hoping he shall repent if not they set it down but if he repents they write Estig fourillah God forgive They accompany him every where unless when he goes to the Necessary house whither they let him go alone waiting for him at the door where they again take possession of him For that reason when the Turks go to that place they go in with the Left Foot and when they come out they put the Right Foot foremost that the Angel who sets down their good Works should seize first upon them Mahomet himself confirms that Fable saying Chap. 52. Pag. 594. Think O Man on the day when thou shalt see near thee thy good Angel on thy Right hand and thy bad Angel on thy Left who have noted and written whatever thou hast done Sect. 10. 'T is observable that this Fable has its Original from the immortality of the Soul and the resurrection of the dead which the Turks believe and are plainly express'd in the foregoing words and else-where as Chap. 12. Pag. 280. The faithful shall go into the Garden of Eden but to the unfaithful he says Pag. 288. Hell is the place to which you are destin'd Chap. 52. Pag. 594. God takes up the Soul of Man as he thinks fit to send her into one of those places But first she returns into the Body after its burying to undergo the strict examination of two frightful Angels Munquir and Guauquir the Fable which Thevenot relates upon their account and that of the Beasts is so gross that I should be ashamed to recite it at large Sect. 11. In the mean while it will not be unserviceable to our subject to give a more particular instruction of their belief upon the state of the Dead I will not here speak of their Carnal Paradise because I treat not of all the points of the Mahometan Religion but only of what concerns the the Spirits they acknowledge that there are appointed two very different places one for the damned and the other for the saved that is to say there are Men who have done so many good works that at the very hour they expire they are admitted into the happiness of Paradise but there are others who having not a sufficient Faith are subjected to I pains for their Sins until they be all expiated after which they enjoy in Paradise the same felicity with the others that are gone in first But as to the unfaithful and wicked they go to burn forever in Hell where there bodies are as often repaired by God as they are reduced to Ashes that their torments may be Eternal That 's the substance of what Thevenot writes Chap. 20 and 31 of his journey and Ricaut says almost the same thing Chap. 2.6 and 12. Sect. 12. The transmigration of Souls from one body into another not only of Human Souls but likewise of those of Beasts is also believed by some Mahometans Ricaut testifies Book 2. Ch. 12. That one of their Sects called Munasichi holds that Opinion and takes occasion from thence to relate how one Roboroski a Polander was dealt with by a Drugist that was angry with him because he had kick'd his Dog for they believe That the Souls of Men after Death enter into the bodies of such Beasts with which the Nature and temper of the bodies that were animated by those Souls had most relation that the Soul of a Glutton passed into the body of a Hog that of a Letcherous into that of a He-goat that of a Generous person is destin'd to animate a Horse and that of a Watchful Man to quicken a Dog To this he adds several circumstances which the curious may see in his own Book He likewise asserts that the Sect Eschrakin that is illuminated is likewise Pythagorean but that it holds not much of the Doctrines of the Alcoran thô most of it's followers are the Schicks or the Preachers and chief Doctors of the Turks They have more rational Opinions than the others concerning the immateriality of Spirits
other bad the Author of all Evil and the Prince of darkness That the first as they say is the God that has formed all things and that the other is Hyle that is the matter from which all things have been formed and which is esteem'd by them to be the Devil Some distinguish the Devil from the Prince of darkness and translate not as we do the last words of the 44th v. of the 8th Ch. of St. John He is the Father of lies but his Father is a lie namely the Father of the Devil Second As to the good God they say that his Essence is dispersed as by portions through all the Creatures and inherent to them which they explain by many wonderful Commentaries This is what they think of God and the Devil in relation to their Essence and Existence what follows concerns their Operations Sect. 4. Third The People of darkness formerly warr'd with the People of light The good God went himself to attack the Prince of darkness by some certain principal Spirits which he had produced of his own Essence who however being too weak were taken Prisoners but Christ came to repair that disorder having been begotten by some certain first Man who had been the promoter of this War and had begun it Fourth That in the mean while Christ himself is the Serpent that seduced Adam and Eve Fifth That Christ is now fixed amongst the Stars especially in the luminous Globe of the Sun in which sense they explain his Ascension to Heaven Sect. 5. Sixth They believe the Metempsychosis in this manner That the Souls shall pass into the bodies of such a kind of living Creatures as they have most loved or abused during their Life He that has killed a mouse or a fly shall pass in punishment into the body of a mouse or a fly the state in which he shall be put after death shall likewise be opposed to that in which he was during his Life He that is rich shall be poor and he that is poor shall be rich Seventh They also give two Souls to every Man one of which is always contrary to the other But enough of their Doctrines we leave the rest to Danaeus who ascribes to them 21 in all because what he and other Authors say belongs not to our subject Sect. 6. However I am not apt to assert that they have believed and taught such gross Doctrines as are imputed to them and have been now related For supposing the common Opinion concerning the Doctrine of the Manichees that they were chiefly extracted from the Philosophy of the Persians since Manes their First Author was undoubtedly a Persian and that they are strangely mingled with the Christian Divinity It is unreasonable to have the same Opinion of that People that we have of other Nations who never cultivated the study of Nature and Human learning such as those we have met with in the Northern parts of Africa and the Southern of America It may well be that the Manichees ascribe to the whole Vniverse a principle like that which is observed in it's parts viz. The active cause and the matter which Aristotle established to be eternal as well as the World and that afterwards matter considered as insensible by a misinterpretation of the words of Moses that spreads in the beginning darkness over the Abyss and the Spirit of God moving over it should have produced those monstrous thoughts of which we have given some instances Sect. 7. Supposing they have established two principal causes one of good and the other of evil but yet so as that the First is uncontestably superior to the Second as much as light is above darkness and the workman above the matter he works upon 't is probable that they had an Idea of God as a Soul infused through the whole Vniverse that consider'd by them as the body in which that First cause continually operates And as the contrary motions of corporeal passions rise against the Empire of Reason that ought to govern them so they might believe that the Animal Spirits proceeding from matter perpetually rebel against God the Fountain of all Reason Whence it would follow that God should not be more absolute master of the Vniverse than Man is of his body thence has proceeded that Idea of two different Gods one good and the other bad the latter being still inferior to the former who is indeed the workman but has not an arbitrary Government there being a power in the World so great that it is able to resist him Sect. 8. But whether I have made a just conjecture or whether the Manichees had other Opinions then those I imagine it seems nevertheless that I may reasonable suppose it upon this foundation that no Opinions so gross as those that are ascribed to them not only are not admitted but not so much as moved or propounded as we shall see very soon in the series of this work because the principal points of those sorts of belief with their dependencies have a great relation with my Second and Third Book as I hope to show at the end of the Second And therefore whether any one treats of the Devil and Spirits according to the Holy Scripture or whether he only follows his own sense and right it may 〈◊〉 assured that all his Reasonings will turn upon this notion of his that God and the Devil have each an Empire one contrary to the other and that thô the Devil be subject to the power of God yet his Empire is more apparent It is denyed that God now works any miracles but some are rashly ascribed to the Devil that surpass all those that are mentioned in the Holy writ We believe that there are Angels and gather from the Holy Scripture that they encamp about the faithful and the Devil likewise is incessantly active to do them hurt if possible he can but his abode is in Hell However it is very rare to hear any one say he has seen an Angel in a vision whereas the Devil appears almost continually If any thing has been either signified or foretold we never believe it to be the Operation of an Angel but of the Devil one is possest by him and another bewitch'd by his means unknown Tongues are spoken strange things are said others no less wonderful are perform'd and the most hidden secrets discover'd But you will scarce meet with any that has so good Opinion of the power of an Angel if we have any Holy thought or good inspiration how inconsiderable soever it may be we ascribe it to the Holy Ghost and seem not to believe that the Angels are so much as capable of contributing to it since it ne'er comes in our mind to think upon them But the Devil penetrates the most secret thoughts of Men overthrows their best designs and incessantly excites them to Evil if they are accused and convicted of any crime the excuse is always at hand for the Devil has done it or at least
Phantasms which according to the opinion of the Papists are good and bad Angels or Souls of the deceased which become visible or which are understood without being seen either that they speak intelligibly or that they make only some sound and noise There is yet this difference in their Apparitions that there are some Souls which whether they manifest themselves visibly or whether they are only heard work some effects whereas there are others that operate nothing Schottus freely teaches us many things which relates to them that is First in what places Specters chiefly used to appear Secondly what Specters and Phantasms are Thirdly what they act Fourthly to whom they particularly appear Fifthly what means there are to avoid them and be rid of them Sect. 2. Those places where Phantoms appear Schottus persuades himself that there is no place in the World but that may happen However that there are some where it happens more frequently than elsewhere As 1. In Desarts and in solitary places he grounds his opinion upon Scripture Isai 33.14 Apoc. 18.2 Tob. 8.3 And confirms it by the consideration of that which hapned to our Saviour Jesus Christ himself St. Matthew Chap. 4. St. Luke Chap. 4. It is for this reason that the good St. Anthony was so hardly dealt with in the Desart by all sorts of Hobgoblings and Spirits Pag. 226. 2. If one were in the humor also to believe a sort of Water Demons our Author would very often make them appear in Ponds and Marshes Pag. 227. 3. If the Pagans have had since a long time Gods of the Groves the Christians will not deny but that there are such for they say that there are particular Phantoms in Woods and Meadows Pag. 229. 4. When they are to fight any bloody Battle or after it has been fought many Specters have often been seen in the field of Battle Pag. 230. 5. Phantasms often appear in Baths and Stoves Pag. 232. 6. Which happens also in Fortresses and Castles Pag. 234. 7. In Mines and Caverns as it has been said before concerning Mountain Gods Pag. 235. 8. There are seen more Apparitions in places where Murderers and Thieves haunt than in other places Pag. 235. 9. Holy Cloysters Churches and Temples of God's Worship are not also exempted Pag. 237. As for me I am very much perswaded that there is no place in the World where there are more Delusions and Apparitions made or rather deceitful Visions than in those places 10. So it is no marvel that the same happens to every particular person in his House Pag. 238. Sect. 3. If one asks what it is that appears or What these Fantomes are you will not fail to be immediately satisfied Sometimes they are good Angels but most frequently evil Spirits Souls of the deceased However in this occasion there is said touching Angels very little and that very uncertain fortassis etiam Angeli boni sometimes perhaps good Angels says Schotus Pag. 247. But concerning Demons he affirms very neatly and with a great assurance that they are not all alike wicked Because Phantasms are distinguished in mites tetricâ—s seu truculentos in good and cruel that which is found explained in the same place by these words taken out of Cassien touching some unpure Spirits as are ordinarily called Faunos Faunes Kabautermannakens or Hobgoblins it is notorious that they delude Men as by way of sport and pastime so that in certain places they post themselves ordinarily in the way and take them up however without tormenting the passengers they are contented to laugh at them and make raillery and play them some pleasant pranks And they seem rather to have a design to tire them than to give them any displeasure But it is also known there are others so evil and so cruel that it does not satisfie them to torment People and cruelly to tear them where they come this ought to be understood of the possessed But they will attack those who pass by altho' at the same time they are a great way off and horribly treat them See one that says he knows them very well himself and further that no body is ignorant of it he relyes upon his own perswasion and does applaud himself for it Would it not be more mischievous than the Will with a wisp himself that sets upon passengers to suspect and confute his belief However he is but a little while to be quiet for we cannot avoid troubling him and shewing his Error Fourth The Souls of the deceased are either saved or damned it is held for certain that those that are happy are often seen to appear to holy Men for their good and that they appear still The Legends contain an infinite number of examples which have been compiled from all sorts of Histories even of those which are the least worthy of credit and that are enriched with a great many new ornaments that have been lent them in compiling of the work But there are none which appear so worthy of remark as these apparitions of Souls which happen in consequence of Covenants that have been made betwixt Holy People in their life time that is when two or more have mutually promised that who should die first should appear to the other and come and tell him news of the estate he was in whether in Purgatory or in Heaven The Author makes no doubt but the thing happens as it is agreeds but he dares not decide whether such an agreement be lawful in which case he believes it must be made by a particular inspiration from God p. 333. Sect. 5. There is no more doubt of the apparitions of Souls that are damned and they are grounded upon proofs of the same certainty as the former Schottus reports an example drawn from Bencius and Delrio which appears so strong and convinceing that he expresses himself thus at the end It is a story which is confirmed by the belief generally given to it it is publickly in all places by many Books and by a great number of letters and the thing has happened in the time and place mentioned It is a Question to know if any thing may not be false or mixed with any falsity because it has been published a long time without being contradicted either in word or writing but it would be too long to treat upon this Question here it will be proper in another place However if this History be true it might confirm the sentiments of the Papists which say That the Souls of the damned appear here upon Earth to the living to present to them in a frightful manner the torments they suffer in Hell to the end they may bring them by that to repent and leave off Sinning Sect. 6. Our Jesuit is too wise to speak much himself of Purgatory he leaves that to others he held nevertheless with those of his Faith That the Souls of the deceased desire often of the living the help of their Prayers and good works and that by consequence the
Souls in whatsoever place they may be expect those that are entred into Heaven or into Hell appear to Men p. 253. We see that he will not much trouble us with Purgatory and instead of perplexing himself with a determin'd place he chooses rather to be at large in placeing Souls in loco dispensationis in a place of dispensation such as the Schoolmen have forged it whose Opinion some of ours find not condemnable in what place soever those Souls may be the Papists believe certainly that they appear often to Men to the ends that have been mentioned It is also the common Opinion that the greatest part of the Souls are not those that are in Paradise or in Hell but those that dwel between those two places or in Purgatory for frequent journeys from Heaven to Earth would too much disturb the repose of the Souls that are there and Hell keep its Captives too closely confin'd to give them so much liberty and if it be permitted me to divert the publick I shall say it would bring no profit to the Churches Coffers whose fire of Purgatory makes the pot boyl much better then all the flames of Hell do or all the heat of the Celestial fire Sect. 7. If one would know what all those fantoms do in the World Schottus will not fail to inform you and even to mark with a great deal of care and exactness many different manners in which they shew themselves p. 269 c. First They appear to the sight under divers figures as well of Men as of Beasts or frightful Monsters Second The Ears are often struck without seeing any thing and even sometimes in such an extraordinary manner that it causes astonishment and fear p. 271. Third The touch has it's share in it if what the Author says be true That they move them sometimes to touch Men without doing them any harm but at other times they push them so that they drive them with violence they make them fall down bruise them and beat them that they even trouble them and tempt them to Letchery p. 273. Sect. 8. It is likewise necessary to know that which is written Concerning the figure of bodies in which Phantasms appear he says p. 287. That the Abbot Trithemeus Thyreus Delrius and others whence it apperrs that it is the common Opinion relate Certain signs by which one may know if whether Spirits who present themselves in a corporeal form are Angels or Men good Angels or Devils Souls of the blessed or damned or Souls which are in Purgatory to be purified there However he affords not a very ample instruction upon this point for the chief matter that he says of it is That the Souls of the blessed appear with an Air of content and joy that the Souls which are in Purgatory have a more doleful countenance but that those of the damned have a more frightful aspect with signs of despair And thô it be the common Opinion that there are always some defects or something disfigured in the body in which the Devil presents himself notwithstanding neither our Jesuit nor Delrius holds it for certain see that which the first puts for certain and as generally believed p. 291. It is that when the Devil appears and speaks he always speaks the language of the Country where he is so that he must understand more languages than Mithridates or every Devil can appear but in his proper Country But the voice of a Specter is always perplex'd trembling weak and as muttering as thô it were understood through a Tub or through the cheft of an Earthen Vessel for says Schottus The Devil can speak no better See according to this Author and those of his belief a good mark to know him Sect. 9. We must not omit that which is given out as a thing certain that a Phantasm feels always cold when one touches it Cardan Alexander ab Alexandro are witnesses that affirm it and Cajetan gives a reason that he has learned from the Devil 's own mouth who being asked by a Witch concerning this subject answer'd that the thing must needs be so and that it could not be otherwise the Cardinal explained the words of the Devil in this sense that he will not communicate to a body he takes that moderate heat which is so agreeable or that God will not permit him The Witch was contented with that positive answer without putting the Question further Sect. 10. The Question now is to know who they are which oftenest see Specters our Author answers pertinently to this Question p. 292 and 293. And his words deserve very well to be reported as they are The Souls which are in Purgatory appear rather to the Faithful then to the Excommunicated or to Infidels and among these first they appear rather to their Parents to their Allies and to those which belong to them in any manner whatsoever then they do to Strangers because that they hope for succor from them which they cannot hope from others The Souls of the damned appear particularly to those which have been the cause of their loss and of the torments they suffer The apparitions of Devils are made also with reference to the ruins of those they persecute and their ill will for Mankind whom they take pleasure to torment On the first respect those who are charged with a greater number of Sins have most to suffer in the second the most Virtuous Men are the more exposed to their attacks Sect. 11. After the Specters let us come to the possessest refering the remedies against these two accidents to the following Chapter That which happens to the possest gives occasion to know more particularly what the Devil can act Possessing says Schottus is an inevitable torment to Man from the Devil which is in his body who acts there and keeps him in his power for a certain time p. 521. Which he unfolds more particularly afterwards but as there has been lately published an History of the Devils of Loudun and of a possession very famous said to have happened in the Town the circumstances of which give a great deal of light upon this point we will alledge that which will be proper for this subject referring a more strict examination to our 4th Book which we shall not be afraid to do nothwithstanding the Author appears to be a Protestant because that the most part of the stories this History contains are gathered from many Ecclesiastick Books where they are grounded upon Authentick publick acts and that the possession was declared true by a decree of the Bishop It was also confirm'd by the blood of a Priest who was executed for a Magician after having been condemn'd by an act made by a sentence of Judges Commissioner sent by the French King to examine this affair see then yet what Schottus says p. 533. c. First That a Man may be possest by all sorts of evil Spirits of what order soever they may be for it has been said in
Great Brittain which is King James the Sixth King of Scotland and First King of England of that name and the other to one of his Scotch Subjects a Scot by birth as by name being call'd Reynard Scot the King held the affirmative as to the popular Opinion of Witchcraft and Apparition of Spirits which his subject had already confuted John Wierus who lived in the begining of the Reformation made by means of Luther and Calvin had from that time published his Opinion upon the delusion of Spirits and upon the impostures of Witches and he had taken a part which held in the middle between those two Opinions so King James in his Book of Demonology contested with these two Authors according to his express Declaration in the Preface Sect. 8. What is most important in his Book comes very near to this In the sixth Chapter of the first Book there are descriptions so exact of leagues that Magicians make with the Devil that it seems as if the King himself had seen the Original or that they had been reported in the Council In the fourth Chapter of the second Book the King puts for certain that evil Spirits may carry Men through the Air or assume divers forms to visit the Magicians when they are in Prison In the seventh Chapter he says that in the time of Popery and Paganism there was a great many more Apparitions but that it was observed that since this last Reformation of the Christian Church there have been fewer Apparitions and a great many more Witchcrafts Concerning the apparitions of Hobgoblins and Phantoms of which he treats in the Third Book there are scarce any kind to which this Prince gives not credit even to Incubusses and Succubusses which are Spirits who as Men mix themselves carnally with Women and as Women with Men. In reference to the possest the King agrees that the Popish Priest may drive out the Devil but upon the proofs that he has to convince one of the crime of Magick he only says there must be no less than twelve witnesses amongst which may be admitted Infants infamous People and even those that are taken to be Magicians Sect. 9. Now althô the learned as I have already said extol not so much all these things nor teach them so expresly and that by consequence they credit not so much what is ordinarily believed and said touching the power and Operations of the Devil upon Men and concerning that which they effect by the means of Men we must however observe that they give so much extent to his power and actions that not only they help not to destroy the general Opinion that is had of him but also maintain it by different expressions they make use of and by the instructions they give It is what is seen especially in the works of two English Authors who explain themselves more plainly and precisely than all others upon this matter which they treat from the foundation whereas others keep the same language only by occasion and when treating of other subjects they are obliged to speak of them The first of these Authors is William Gurnal in his great Book upon the Ephesians 6.11.18 entituled The Christian in compleat Armour the first Edition is in the Year 1655. And since there has been Printed at London in folio in 1679. the sixth Edition He says That the Devil being a spiritual being extreamly evil these two considerations ought to cause a great deal of fear to a Christian p. 94. Because he is a great Prince who surpasses Man very much in power and craft that his craft is observed by his marvelous knowledge first in spying proper occasions to tempt Men p. 36. Secondly in his subtle and artificial conduct and in all the vices he makes use of for this effect p. 37. Thirdly in the care he takes to make all the preparations necessary to attack us to his advantage every time he finds opportunity to do it p. 43. Fourthly In the trouble that he stirs up in our Consciences in reproaching us with our Sins and in the artifices that he uses and the ambushes he lays p. 44. As to what concerns the power and Virtue of the Devil the Author holds in the first place That he has power not only on the Elements and corporeal senses but also upon spiritual substances of the World and upon the Souls of Men p. 74. Afterwards he declares what is the time and place of his Empire over his subjects viz. the time in this life over people of Darkness the place in the World for as much as it is plung'd into impiety p. 79. Sect. 10. The other English Author is Joseph Glanvill the title of which Book is Saducismus Triumphatus Saducism defeated a Book wherein he imploys a great deal of Learning to prove that Witchcrafts Inchantments Apparitions and Phantoms are possible and afterwards that they are things practised and which actually happen The first Edition of it has been also in English at London in 1661. after the death of the Author He pretends that what he establishes as a certain Truth is grounded upon Reasons and Examples And I grant that as to the force of Reasoning I do not know any Writer who has better succeeded than he has Here are his supposed Truths That among other effects which are attributed to Magicians of both Sexes First Being anointed with certain Magical Ointments they pass through the Chimney and are transported into very distant places Secondly That they are turned into Cats Hares and divers other Creatures and Figures Thirdly That they feel in their own Bodies the same wounds that are made in the Bodies they borrow Fourthly That in muttering certain unintelligible Words and in making certain Gestures extraordinary and ridiculous they raise Tempests Fifthly That they are sucked by familiar Spirits in the most secret parts of their Bodies The Author believes that the more these things are incredible and ridiculous the more certain they are I shall examine his Reasons in my second and third Book and his Instances in my last with more exactness than what other Authors have written upon this Subject for the consideration I have already alledged that he carries it above all others as to the force of his Reasoning Sect. 11. All that has hitherto been saâ—d respects first the Devil and afterwards Men that are believed to have Commerce with him considered distinctly and separately from him But an union must be made betwixt them For which effect the Leagues already mention'd were invented Sect 5. of this Chapter and heretofore Chap. 20. Sect. 13. Moreover the Opinions which have been reported having passed from Popery amongst us and been admitted by many Doctors of our Communion yet I know not any who has taken their part so much as Daneus which is chiefly observed in two Points in his Description of the Leagues and in the effects he attributes to Sorcerers and Witches for these two things are found very amply treated of in his
which is nevertheless the common belief of all the Pagans which is received among the Jews and has not been confuted sufficiently by the primitive Christians among whom are found some who have expresly taught it Sect. 7. But the Pagans differ from the Mahometans and Christians chiefly in two points First That they mix and confound together the supream God with other superior and inferior Gods good and bad and also the Souls of Men with all those Gods in such a confused manner that it is impossible to comprehend any thing and that it is a Labyrinth from whence they cannot extricate themselves On the contrary the Jews and Mahometans agree with the Christians in this point that there is one only God and that all that is besides him has been created by him Second In that that not only they make no great difficulty to deify Men but that they make also the Gods return to the condition of Men and that they believe there are Men the issue of the Gods there are some of these errors which the Papists cannot boast of being entirely free from for they may reasonably be reproached that they have substituted their Saints to these imaginary Gods and to those Demons of the Pagans That they speak of Saints as the Pagans do of their Gods that they make them act in the same manner that these false Deities were supposed to act But pure Christianity such as has been in all times upon this point never make Gods a Man nor never raises Man to the dignity of God Sect. 8. There is notwithstanding some point upon which the Protestants are not agreed and upon which nevertheless the Papists the primitive Christians the Jews the Mahometans and all the Pagans agree viz. The Tutelary Gods of the Pagans who were the guardian Angels in the first Christianity We have lately seen they are admitted without contestation among the Papists the Protestants in general are not disposed to receive this Opinion those of the profession of France Holland and Swisserland reject it and nevertheless there are some but very few that admit it or at least believe not that there are sufficient reasons to oppose it we shall examine afterwards which is the soundest of these Opinions In the mean while we must take notice before hand that what the Papists teach upon this subject together with some of other Christians that are not of their Communion relates more to the light and knowledge which they suppose that those Spirits communicate to them than real help they can expect in their actions and in their manner of living for it is rarely seen or to say better it is never seen that the People ascribe a considerable deliverance or a great oppression that befal them to an Angel either their keeper or their enemy but they never fail to ascribe it immediatly to the providence of God or if they sometimes turn their Eyes to another side the Papists as to their particular refer all the good that happens to them to the protection of some great Saint especially to that of the Virgin Mary but the Protestants lest they should seem to favour the belief of the Popish Saints would rather say if occasion serves that the Devil was the Author of it Sect. 9. There is also a difference to be taken notice of betwixt the Heathens on one side the Jews and the Mahometans on the other and all the Christians on another it is chiefly in the practice of Witchcraft and Divination which according to the principles of the first is a laudable practice in it self althô often abused as a great many good things are according to the principles of the second it is only allow'd and useful in many occasions and according to the last it is directly opposite to Christianity The reason of it is that the Pagans hold for Gods or at least for Ministers and Ambassadors of the Gods Spirits which are lookt upon by Christians as unpure Spirits and that the Jews and the Mahometans cause to proceed from the Virtue of the Caballa and the influences of the Stars whatever the Christians take to be Magick Witchcraft or Enchantments It is true that in the time of Ancient Paganism the Mathematicians have been put into the rank of Poisoners and that both were treated as persons equally pernicious to whom it was forbidden to exercise their art as being unlawful But the occasion of these prohibitions was only founded upon the ill use that was made of this Art which had been before not only permitted but even much esteem'd At this time the Christians have no longer any aversion for the name of Mathematician but that of Poysoner never received any good interpretation no that words are here to be disputed for 't is of things that we treat and we are to examine them and not words Perhaps there will be occasion to have some regard to them in our third Book where without doubt it will be necessary to speak fully of these terms and of many others Sect. 10. Let 's now see what conformity is found among all these People together Pagans Jews Mahometans Christians both Ancient and Modern Roman Catholicks Protestants and others They all confess First That there are Spirits distinct from God and bodies for thô some contrive yet another kind of Spirits as we have said it is one of the points in dispute among them and now we are about to seek wherein they agree together Second That there natures are different some absolutely subsisting without body as Angels and others being united to a body as Souls Third That however both are mortal Fourth That of such Spirits as are united to a body some are good to Men and others bad Fifth That therefore Man has reason to seek the friendship of good Spirits that is the Angels and to take all possible care to divert from him evil Spirits which are Devils Sixth That an infinite happiness or misery attends Men after this life Seventh That likewise of the Souls of the deceased some are bad and some good and holy thô they seem not to explain themselves always in the same manner sometimes upon one of the points and sometimes upon the other it i◠nevertheless certain considering the bottom of the matter that their sentiments are agreeable see then in what consists the conformity of the Opinions in general of all Nations and in what they differ We have now to examine what is true or what not in all that has been related and it is for that purpose I design my second and third Book according to the division I have established before Chapter the first Sect. 8. However we shall yet see what cautions may be drawn from all that has been said CHAP. XXIV That all that has been related shews upon what foundation the Christians in general and the Protestants in particular say such extraordinary things of the Devil Sect. 1. BEfore I pass to my second Book where I shall examine what is purely
alledged but to set off with some likelihood the private Opinions with which we are taken up Sect. 9. I hope that what I have just now said will easily be credited if attention be given to what follows I say that the Character of Philosophy such as is learned in the Schools pours it self upon all the Interpretations and Translations that are of the Holy Writ It was the Opinion of Aristotle that the four Elements Earth Water Air and Fire were included within one another as by Circles reaching from the Center to the highest place of the Universe So as that the Earth was the lowest being mixed with Water in its Superficies and the Air above it surrounding the Terraqueous Globe These Propositions are granted by all But that Philosopher also believes that Fire surrounds the Air as the Celestial Heavens divided into several Vaults do Fire These Vaults to which the Sun Moon and Stars are fastned and are of a subtile and incorruptible matter in themselves surround one another and turn about us every year every month and every day by the vertue of some certain Spirits call'd Assisting Forms Those that hold that Opinion for probable are very apt to be persuaded that the wicked Spirits dwell in the Air because the superiour Spheres are too pure for them When therefore those sort of Men hear St. Paul mentioning the Prince of the Power of the Air Ephes 2.1 Or the Spiritual Wickedness in high Places Ch. 6.12 they doubt not but St. Paul was of the Opinion of Aristotle and that by these words of the Holy Scripture the wicked Spirits must be understood Thus those who by reading Plato have fill'd their heads with his Demons fancy that tâ—is word is used in the Scripture in a Platonick Sense without considering that this Philosopher lived not in the time that the Holy Writ was published in which the former signification of these Terms might be chang'd as it daily happens and without so much as examining in what Sense they were taken by other Authors contemporary with the Sacred Writers whether 't is probable that other Authors whose Books are lost understood 'em in the same Sense or lastly whether the Jews in whose Tongue the Holy Scripture was written and who consequently ought to understand it best put the same signification upon them Sect. 10. What I say of the ill use made of Philosophy as to this Point must not appear strange for it extends to every thing When Copernicus began to assert by Reasons that seem'd very strong to him that the Sun is fast and unmoveable and that the Terraqueous Globe moves Those that held the Hypothesis of Ptolomey pretended to explode that Opinion by clear and formal Texts of the Holy Scripture but those that maintained it contrived Explications to those passages and wanted not plausible Reasons to set them off Thus those that after Descartes believe Man has an Idea of God in his Understanding found the same Doctrine in St. Paul and understood in that Sense these Words of his Epistle to the Romans Ch. 1.19 That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shewed it unto them Even some of Descartes's Followers have explained the History of the Creation in the first Chapter of Genesis according to the principles of that Philosopher that is quite contrary to the right meaning of this Narration as the Author himself confesses in his little Book Intituled Cartesius Mosaisans Sect. 11. It is the same with Divinity as with Philosophy Those that are call'd the Fathers of the Church that is her First or chief Doctors in the Primitive times the Authority of whom the Papists equal to that of the Word of God having been at first imbued with that false Philosophy did not so much as think upon freeing themselves of their prejudices by a true Interpretation and Translation of the Holy Scripture On the contrary they have pour'd their preventions over whatever they have writ for whether they treated of such Articles of Faith as were most controverted or whether they interpreted passages of the Holy Writ they have adher'd to bare speculations and apply'd them to subjects quite different from those the Sacred Writing aimed at St. Austin in the 4th and 5th Century has been fruitful in speculations and Origen in the 3d has surpass'd all the others in mis-applications remote from the scope of the Holy Pen-men as may have been observed by what has been alleag'd from them and several others concerning Spirits in the 15th Chapter Their Homilies that is their Sermons contain but few Expositions of the Holy Scripture and still fewer Translations 'T is true that Origen and St. Jerom have taken more pains than the others and been also more puzled having translated the Sacred Writings in those Ages in which the knowledge of Tongues was not much look'd after nor improv'd In the mean while what those Doctors hape propos'd upon many separate passages dispers'd thro' their Writings upon which instead of a serious examination they have put the Sense that was most favourable to their private Opinions has ever been received and taught afterwards Thus 't is happen'd long after the knowlege of Tongues not being better improv'd that their Interpretations have been admitted without contradiction only upon their own credit and look'd upon with that veneration that is commonly paid to Antiquity as tho' the World in process of time was grown younger than before By these means it is that their Doctrines concerning Spirits and especially the bad have insensibly been bequeathed as an inheritance to posterity Sect. 12. Since therefore every one is so much taken up with this Sect and pays so great a deference to those that are call'd the eminent Fathers 't is no wonder that the Papists who above all others put a high value upon them should use their Language and consecrate all their Expressions And 't is long since the Protestants have observ'd that these their Adversaries have founded the Prayers for the dead the worshiping of Saints and the like Doctrines upon some expressions of the Fathers that seem to favour them When afterwards they were compell'd to give some proof out of the Holy Scripture they found the first together with Purgatory in the 1st Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 3.13 That fire shall try every Man's work 'T is almost the same with those that are bred amongst the Lutherans how great a Philosopher and how learned soever any one may be he will find no reason and much less a necessity to believe that Christ is locally and visibly ascended to Heaven but it will appear to him a necessary proposition that our Lord after his Resurrection penetrated thro' doors shut up and that his Humanity is omnipotent How learned soever one may be in the Tongues there are however frequent occasions in which it can neither be seen or conjectur'd upon what ground the learned have given to some certain words a signification that favours the
Judaism or Popery but they draw their Original from Paganism What Reason than may a Protestant have to reject the fables of the Talmud and the stories of the Popish writings as soon as those fables and tales are naturaliz'd by Jews or Papists and to hold them for truths or at least for probable things as long as Paganism cherishes them in it's bosom All must be rejected together or the whole whatever it may be must be let alone Why do we not free our selves from all our prejudices and associciate Scripture to Reason to ground our Reasonings only upon them and to look upon them as the only pure spring What pains and trouble has not our credulity to those Heathen tales cost us How many learned Divines and Philosophers have puzled their brains to ascribe to the Devil those Oracles which they look not for the effects of Human knowledge and withall such wonders as they could not believe to be performed by Human power So when it seem'd that the answers that were given by the false Gods and the effects that were produced among the Heathens were too extraordinary and above the force of nature 't was thought fit to cut the knot that could not be untyed 'T was supposed that Spirits only could be the Authors of all these things a suitable power and knowledge was ascribed to them and at last the very manner of effecting them was determined such is the Original of that science falsâ—y so call'd the contradictions of which the Apostle commands a Christian to avoid in his 1 Epist to Timothy Chap. 6. v. 20. Sect. 18. The old Women's tales as St. Paul call's them in the same Epistle Chap. 4. v. 7. which the Popish writers tell us and the fables they rehearse would supply us with abundant matter of meditation should we as much credit them as we do the others For what must not be said if supposing that Human deceits have no share in them we would examine how the Devil could produce all the effects that are told in those narrations we believe it more convenient to spare our selves that trouble by rejecting as meer lies the greatest part of what comes from that side But what Reason have we to deal otherwise with the Papists than with the Heathens 'T is because of the particular hatred we have for Popery from which we have been separated not long since and with which we are in continual War besides the Reformation of Doctrine and Worship that was made in the Church at the beginning of the last Century extended not to those Opinions which were scarce taken notice of and which had taken root even before the decay of the Church was perceived so that it was only purified of such Errors the rejection of which was judged absolutely necessary in conference betwixt Luther and Calvin Not long after when the Reformation was carryed farther such points only were handled as had some relation with the former 'T is properly for that Reason that in those publick writings that are call'd the Liturgy of our Churches it was never minded to correct those expressions that had been so long in use as to Spirits and Devils no controversy having ever been rais'd either amongst the Christians in general or the Papists in particular Yet I doubt not but it had been done had this Article been taken so much notice of and examined with so much attention as the others were or had but one half of the difficulties that are now proposed been alledged at that time Sect. 19. Moreover amongst the qualities that are ascribed to Popery the picture of which I confess can scarce be more unshaply then the Original it self That of Antichristianism was thought very convenient as that of Antichrist to fit the Pope extraordinary well Immediatly the words of St. Paul in his 2 Epistle to the Thessalonians Chap. 2. v. 3. to the 9th were explained in that sense and it was thought that the Apostle had an Eye to Popery when he said That his coming would be in the efficacy of Satan with all Power Signs and Lying Wonders By the explication the Protestants were disposed to joyn together Satan and Antichrist that is the Devil and the Pope as two Brothers and to draw that consequence that Popery was the Doctrine of the Devil By which means it was easy to insinuate that the Devil interestes and has his vote in the tenets of the Papists and that the See of Rome is the seat of his Empire Sect. 20. Thence proceeds the stile that is ordinarily used both in Discourses and Books even as to the smallest Controversies that are raised about some point of Doctrine or Worship when any sticks not to the vulgar Opinions 't is presently cry'd up that the Devil 's let loose and uses all his violence and crafty Devices to assault the Church 'T is said he 's always ready to oppose all our Motions towards good and a thousand like People are pleas'd to hear the Devil so set off they love the occasion of casting upon him all the faults they are guilty of and of applauding themselves for victory when they have overcome some Temptation which they imagined to have been raised by the endeavours of that powerful Enemy We look upon it as a piece of Eloquence not only to take God's Name in vain but also incessantly to joyn that of the Devil with it In a word the Almighty forms almost no project but immediately the Devil endeavours to destroy it and the most vitious Men commit scarce any Crimes but they are driven to them by the Devil Sect. 21. With all those prejudices we undertake the expounding and translating of the Holy Writ for having never conceived the least doubt as to these things we had never occasion to examine whether they are really true But why should we take so much trouble is it not far more convenient to believe what is generally believed and to speak as the other do The enquiry of Truth is an undertaking in which little assistance is to be hoped and there are so many guards on all the ways that lead to it that it would prove very hard to break through 'T is an ancient Proverb That every one is not allow'd to go to Corinth Whoever intends to overcome so many difficulties cannot hope to succeed but by his diligence eagerness and earnestness To this end I know not a better means than to proceed to the Interpretation of the Holy Scripture as though it had never been interpreted before to search into all things carefully to enquire after the Connection of all the Doctrines contained in it and to have recourse to Interpreters only to borrow some light for dark places but not to follow them as true and infallible Guides This I hope to put in practice in my second Book if God gives me life Sect. 22. But doubtless this advice will prove serviceable only to my self and some few Persons who shall perceive its usefulness neither have I reason to hope that it should ever be relisht by the publick Popery being not so far eradicated out of the Protestants Hearts but that it springs up again from time to time in some places There is a fault of which the visible Church was never free that is the having too much deference for Authority and Tradition For though a great Respect ought to be paid to those that are established as God's Ministers in the Church and that several things concerning her external Government ought to be ruled by her Directors yet we must not give up our selves wholly to them There is a great regard to be had as to this Point and a Mean to be chosen with much Discretion lest to avoid the reproach of Irreverence and Irregularity we should ascribe too much to the Authority of the Church and the common Opinion of her chief Doctors In this Sense it is that one of the most learned Men of this Age undertook to assert this Thesis Papatus est inseparabilis ab Ecclesia The Popedom is inseparable from the Church As for me who perhaps have more experience in this matter than any other Person in these Provinces I dare not hope this method should change and even have no Reason to believe it considering what passes whilst I am taken up with this present work However I shall prosecute my design relying upon the Grace of God being persuaded that I write for maintaining the Truth and that I cannot forbear to do it since I am informed of it After all as I aim at nothing else but the Glory of God and the defence of the true Faith so I see that my labour has not been in vain but has already produced great Fruit. This bears up my Courage and inspires me with great ardour to apply my self to the composition of the following Books The End of the First Book