a Saviour's death: but for this, it is evident beyond all contradiction, the devil himself confeffed it. Certainly it is not a warrantable curiofity, to examine the verity of scripture by the concordance of human history, or feek to confirm the chronicle of Efther, or Daniel, by the authority of * Megasthenes or Herodotus: I confefs I have had an unhappy curiofity this way, till I laughed myfelf out of it with a piece of † Juftin, where he delivers that the children of Ifrael for being scabbed were banished out of Egypt. And truly fince I have understood the occurrences of the world, and know in what counterfeit fhapes, and deceitful vizards, time represents on the stage things paft;, I do believe them little more than things to come. Some have been of my opinion, and endeavoured to write the history of their own lives; wherein * In his oracle to Augustus. wherein Mofes hath outgone them all, and left not only the ftory of of his life, but, as fome will have it, of his death also. SECT. XXX. It is a riddle to me, how this ftory of oracles hath not worm'd out of the world that doubtful conceit of fpirits and witches; how fo many learned heads fhould fo far forget their metaphyficks, and deftroy the ladder and scale of creatures, as to queftion the existence of fpirits: for my part, I have ever believed, * and do now know, that there are witches; they that doubt of thefe, do not only deny them, but fpirits; and are obliquely and upon confequence a fort, not of infidels, but of atheifts. Thofe, who to confute their incredulity defire to fee apparitions, fhall questionless never behold any, nor have the power to be fo much as nou zz to vol. 2, of Mumie witches; Essays witches; the devil hath them already in a herefy as capital as witchcraft, and to appear to them, were but to convert them: of all the delufions wherewith he deceives mortality, there is not any that puzzleth me more than the legerdemain of Changelings; I do not credit those transformations of reafonable creatures into beafts, or that the devil hath a power to tranfpeciate a man into a horse, who tempted Chrift (as a trial of his divinity) to convert but stones into bread. I could believe that fpirits ufe with man the the act of carnality, and that in both fexes; I conceive they may affume, steal, or contrive a body, wherein there may be action enough to content decrepit luft, or paffion to fatisfy more active veneries; yet in both, without a poffibility of generation: and therefore that opinion, that antichrift fhould be born of the tribe of Dan, by conjunction with the devil, is ridiculous, and a conceit fitter for a Rabbin than a Christian. I hold that the devil doth really poffefs fome men, the fpirit of melancholy others, the fpirit of delufion others; that as the devil is concealed and denied by fome, fo ?God and good angels are pretended by others, whereof the late defection of the maid of Germany hath left a pregnant example. SECT XXXI. Again, I believe that all that use forceries, incantations, and spells, are not witches, or, as we term them, magicians; I conceive there is a traditional magick, not learned immediately from the devil, but at fecond hand from his fcholars; who, having once the fecret betrayed, are able, and do empirically praEtise without his advice, they both proceeding upon the principles of nature; nature; where actives, aptly con- a gard a Thereby is meant our good angel, appoint ed us from our nativity. •Commun =catio from on to anothe + channels of Communication between dif few only, What was witchcraft when known to became philosophy when commsureated to many |