acknowledge their effects. Beside, being a natural magician he may perform many acts in ways above our knowledge, though not transcending our natural power, when our knowledge shall direct it. Part hereof hath been discovered by himself, and some by human indagation, which though magnified as fresh inventions unto us, are stale unto his cognition. I hardly believe he hath from elder times unknown the verticity of the loadstone; surely his perspicacity discerned it to respect the north, when ours beheld it indeterminately. Many secrets there are in nature of difficult discovery unto man, of easy knowledge unto Satan. Whereof some his vain glory cannot conceal, others his envy will not discover.

Again, such is the mystery of his delusion, that although he labour to make us believe that he is God, and supremest nature whatsoever, yet would he also persuade our beliefs that he is less than angels or men, and his condition not only subjected unto rational powers, but the action of things which have no efficacy on ourselves. Thus hath he inveigled no small part of the world into a credulity of artificial magic; that there is an art, which without compact commandeth the powers of hell; whence some have delivered the polity of spirits, and left an account even to their provincial dominions, that they stand in awe of charms, spells, and conjurations, that he is afraid of letters and characters, of notes and dashes, which, set together, do signifie nothing, not only in the dictionary of man, but the subtiler vocabulary of Satan. That there is any power in bitumen, pitch or brimstone, to purifie the air from his uncleanness, that any virtue there is in hypericon to make good the name of Fuga Dæmonis* any such magic as is ascribed unto the root baaras by Jose

*St. John's wort, so called by magicians.

hypericon.] This subject is thus alluded to by Stukely, in his Palaographia Sacra, p. 16: "Hypericon, called 'fuga demonum,' reckoned among sacred magical plants, on account of the Druids using them." The plant is the Hypericum perforatum of botanists, and will be found described and depicted in Sowerby's English Botany, tab. 295. It was probably employed in the Druidical rites, on account of its aromatic qualities, and of the flowers yielding a red essential oil; all plants having powerful effects upon the senses or upon the animal economy, being supposed, in former times, to possess mystical virtues, either in the way of propitiating good spirits or deities, or in that of charming away evil ones.-Br.

phus, or cynospastus by Ælianus, it is not easy to believe, nor is it naturally made out what is delivered of Tobias, that by the fume of a fish's liver he put to flight Asmodeus. That they are afraid of the pentangle of Solomon,*5 though so set forth with the body of man, as to touch and point out the five places wherein our Saviour was wounded, I know not how to assent. If, perhaps, he hath fled from holy water, if he cares not to hear the sound of Tetragrammaton, † if his eye delight not in the sign of the cross, and that sometimes he will seem to be charmed with words of holy scripture, and to fly from the letter and dead verbality, who must only start at the life and animated interiors thereof;it may be feared they are but Parthian flights, ambuscado retreats, and elusory tergiversations; whereby to confirm our credulities, he will comply with the opinion of such powers, which in themselves have no activities. Whereof, having once begot in our minds an assured dependence, he makes us rely on powers which he but precariously obeys, and to desert those true and only charms which hell cannot withstand.

Lastly, to lead us farther into darkness, and quite to lose us in this maze of error, he would make men believe there is no such creature as himself, and that he is not only subject unto inferior creatures, but in the rank of nothing, insinuating into men's minds there is no devil at all; and contriveth, accordingly, many ways to conceal or indubitate his existency. Wherein, beside that he annihilates the blessed angels and spirits in the rank of his creation, he begets a security of himself, and a careless eye unto the last remunerations. And, therefore, hereto he inveigleth, not only Sad

* Three triangles intersected and made of five lines. +Implying Jehovah, which in Hebrew consisteth of four letters.

5 pentangle of Solomon.] After the unexpected discovery of the treasury in Misticot's grave, by Sir Arthur Wardour and his friends, in "The Antiquary," the writer introduces into Oldbuck's attack upon the German adept, Dousterswivel, on the latter pretending that the discovery had been effected by means of his magical arts, the following allusion to the pentangle :-"You have used neither charm, lamen, sigil, talisman, spell, crystal, pentacle, magic mirror, nor geomantic figure." The Antiquary, edit. with author's notes, vol. ii. p. 32.-Br. indubitate.] To bring into doubt; for in English the adjective signifies doubtless.- Wr.

ducees and such as retain unto the church of God, but is also content that Epicurus, Democritus, or any heathen should hold the same. And to this effect he maketh men believe that apparitions, and such as confirm his existence, are either deceptions of sight, or melancholy depravements of fancy. Thus when he had not only appeared but spake unto Brutus; Cassius, the Epicurean, was ready at hand to persuade him it was but a mistake in his weary imagination, and that indeed there were no such realities in nature. Thus he endeavours to propagate the unbelief of witches, whose concessions infers his coexistency; by this means also he advanceth the opinion of total death, and staggereth the immortality of the soul; for, such as deny there are spirits subsistent without bodies, will with more difficulty affirm the separated existence of their own.7

Now, to induce and bring about these falsities, he hath laboured to destroy the evidence of truth, that is, the revealed verity and written word of God. To which intent he hath obtained with some to repudiate the books of Moses,

7 Lastly, &c.] Most certainly the Devil would have work enough on his hands, if he were concerned in all the mischief, real and imaginary, which has been attributed to him by many great men, and, among others, by our author. As an admirer of Browne, I cannot but regret most deeply the share which his views of Satanic influence led him to take in the trial of Amy Duny and Rose Cullendon, who were condemned and executed as witches, in 1664, at Bury, before one of the greatest and best men of his time, Sir Matthew Hale.-But, on the other hand, although we attribute to popular superstition the belief in modern witchcraft, and although it be conceded to the research and ingenuity of recent very eminent physiologists, that many of the best attested cases of apparitions were spectral illusions, attributable to physical causes,—we must not hence be supposed to doubt the existence and active agency of the Devil;-nor to question the scriptural relation of witches, and spiritual appearances. I am by no means inclined to admit that apparitions "confirm the existence of the Devil;" but I feel no greater difficulty in believing that such spiritual manifestations may still be occasionally permitted to take place, than in admitting that spiritual existence is not subject to the same laws as those which govern material existence. The spirit, at death, leaves the body permanently no more to resume its tenement on earth; why then should not a transient separation during life take place, and the spirit-bound by no laws of time and space-pay its monitory visit to some distant friend? See Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions; Alderson's Essay on Apparitions; Ross, p. 72, § 6.

others those of the prophets, and some both; to deny the gospel and authentic histories of Christ; to reject that of John, and to receive that of Judas; to disallow all, and erect another of Thomas.8 And when neither their corruption by Valentinus and Arrius, their mutilation by Marcion, Manes, and Ebion, could satisfy his design, he attempted the ruin and total destruction thereof; as he sedulously endeavoured, by the power and subtilty of Julian, Maximinus, and Dioclesian.

But the longevity of that piece, which hath so long escaped the common fate, and the providence of that spirit which ever waketh over it, may at last discourage such attempts, and if not make doubtful its mortality, at least, indubitably declare this is a stone too big for Satan's mouth, and a bit indeed oblivion cannot swallow.

And thus how strangely he possesseth us with errors may clearly be observed, deluding us into contradictory and inconsistent falsities; whilst he would make us believe,—That there is no God-that there are many-that he himself is God—that he is less than angels or men-that he is nothing at all.

Nor hath he only by these wiles depraved the conception of the Creator, but with such riddles hath also entangled the nature of our Redeemer.9 Some denying his humanity, and that he was one of the angels, as Ebion; that the Father and Son were but one person, as Sabellius. That his body was phantastical, as Manes, Basilides, Priscillian, Jovinianus ; that he only passed through Mary, as Eutyches and Valentinus. Some denying his divinity; that he was begotten of human principles, and the seminal son of Joseph, as Carpocras, Symmachus, Photinus: that he was Seth, the son of

8 to receive that of Judas, &c.] In Fabricii Codex Apocryphus and in Jones's Method of settling the Canonical authority of the New Testament, accounts are to be found of these Apocryphal gospels. There were two under the name of Judas; one of Judas Iscariot, and the other of Judas Thaddeus, but they are not now extant. Of the gospel of Thomas, some fragments yet remain, under the name of "the gospel of our Saviour's infancy."

9

nature of our Redeemer.] The doctrines of the Heresiarchs enu merated in this paragraph, are, upon the whole, accurately stated by our author: detailed views of most of them will be found in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History.-Br.

Adam, as the Sethians; that he was less than angels, as Cerinthus; that he was inferior unto Melchisedec, as Theodotus; that he was not God, but God dwelt in him, as Nicolaus; and some embroiling them both. So did they which converted the trinity into a quaternity, and affirmed two persons in Christ, as Paulus Samosatenus; that held he was a man without a soul, and that the word performed that office in him, as Apollinaris; that he was both Son and Father, as Montanus; that Jesus suffered, but Christ remained impatible, as Cherinthus. Thus he endeavours to entangle truth; and, when he cannot possibly destroy its substance, he cunningly confounds its apprehensions-that from the inconsistent and contrary determinations thereof, consectary impieties and hopeful conclusions may arise, there's no such thing at all.

CHAPTER XI.

A further Illustration of the same.

Now, although these ways of delusion most Christians have escaped, yet are there many other whereunto we are daily betrayed; and these we meet with in obvious occurrents of the world,2 wherein he induceth us to ascribe effects unto causes of no cognation;3 and, distorting the order and theory of causes perpendicular to their effects, he draws them aside unto things whereto they run parallel, and in their proper motions would never meet together.

Thus doth he sometime delude us in the conceits of stars and meteors, beside their allowable actions ascribing effects thereunto of independent causations. Thus hath he also made the ignorant sort believe that natural effects immediately and commonly proceed from supernatural powers: and these he usually derives from Heaven, and his own principality the air, and meteors therein; which, being of themselves the effects of natural and created causes, and such as, upon a due conjunction of actives and passives, without a

1

consectary impieties.] "Consequent impieties."

2 occurrents of the world.] "Occurrences of the world."

3

of no cognation.] "Of no relation."