spirits might be accelerated by the agitations of a mind thus unhinged; the Devil would still keep his hold, and be nowise affected by it. But when once his agency is removed, as a groundless and superstitious terror, these men will think themselves not altogether unable to deal with the miraculous cures of the Gospel on our own principles. They will recount to us the astonishing effects of the Imagination in pregnant women, and in atrabilare and melancholy subjects; supported by cases recorded in the writings of Physicians of the greatest authority and credit*. They will remind us of the cures worked by Greatrix the Stroker, in the memory of our Fathers; and of those performed at the Tomb of Abbé Paris, in our own. They will tell us of a learned French Physician †, who was so struck with this astonishing force of the human Imagination, that he thought it capable of working Miracles, or affecting things supernatural. Nay, they will pretend to account for all this, by the mechanism of the body, unaccountably subject to the delusions of the mind, when unduly agitated either by sensation or reflection. Nor has any one borne a stronger testimony to these amazing delusions than

* See Fienus de viribus Imaginationis. + Augerius Ferrerius. Of whom Thuanus says,-Medicinam professus, quam et felicissimè et summo judicio fecit. Hist. Lib. LXXXIX.

Quid mirabilius iis, quæ in Graviditatibus non raro contingere videmus? Fœmina in utero gestans, si forte quid appetiverit, et frustra sit, interdum rei concupita figuram quandam, aut similitudinem, in hac aut illa cor

than the learned person whose objections to the Gospel Demoniacs we have just now examined: which may seem the more strange, as the testimony is borne by one who, at the same time, expresses his surprise that Divines should contend so eagerly for this triumph of Christ over Demons, as if something were wanting to demonstrate his power, when exercised only over natural diseases *.

Without doubt,

poris parte, fœtui suo imprimit. Imo, quod majus est, et prodigii instar, subita partis alicujus læsione perterrita matre, ipsa illa pars in infante noxam sentit, et nutrimenti defectu marcessit. Scio hujusmodi omnes historias à medicis nonnullis, quoniam, qui talia fieri possint, haud percipiunt, in dubium vocari. At multa, quæ ipse vidi, exempla mihi hac in re scrupulum omnem ademerunt. Tam stupenda autem est facultatis imaginandi vis, ut non minus falsæ quam veræ imagines afficiant, ubi mens iis assidue sit addicta. Id enim in mulieribus, quæ sagæ dicuntur, usu comperimus, quæ consimili mentis errore captæ, cum Dæmonibus non tantum consuetudinem habere, sed et pacta cum iis se inivisse, sæpe imaginantur; idque animo adeo obstinato, ut etiam in judicium vocatæ, se facinorum quæ nunquam perpetraverint, reas confiteantur, cum ob ea ipsa jam mortis supplicium subituræ sint. Proinde omnibus notum est, quam mirabilibus modis in melancholicis mens perturbatur, &c.Pp. 70-72.

* P. vii. Præf. Sæpe quidem mirari soleo, çur fidei nostræ Antistites Dæmonas in scenam producere tantopere contendant, quo scilicet divinum Christi numen de victis hisce infernis hostibus triumphos agat. An divinam Christi virtutem gravissimorum morborum sanationes, jussu illius momento temporis peracta, minus patefaciunt; quam malorum Geniorum ex hominum corporibus expulsiones ?—

doubt, Divines may contend for it on that principle, without being laughed at. And I have written to little purpose, if this discourse does not prove that something would have been wanting to demonstrate, if not the power, yet the assumed character of Jesus, had it been exercised only over natural diseases. So that it appeared to me that what they contended for was highly useful; to cut off a subterfuge to which Unbelievers have had recourse, and which this learned Physician's just account of the force of the Imagination contributes to support. How pertinent the inference may be, which Unbelievers draw from this force of the Imagination, it is not my purpose, at present to inquire. The mischief to Religion is not inconsiderable, that diseased Nature hath afforded these PHILOSOPHERS a handle for any inference at all.

But this is not the worst.

There is an unavoid

able inference to be drawn from this anti-demoniac system when proved, more fatal to the truth of the Gospel than that other. It is an unquestioned fact, that the Evangelic History of the Demoniacs hath given occasion to the most scandalous frauds, and sottish superstitions, throughout almost every age of the Church; the whole trade of Exorcisms, accompanied with all the nummery of frantic and fanatic agitations, having arisen from thence.

Now, were the Gospel Demoniacs really possessed, the honour of Religion is safe; and no more affected by these ingrafted frauds and follies of the Church of Rome, than is the Law of Moses by their Inquisitorial Murders, committed under cover of God's

penal

penal Statutes against Jewish Idolaters. If men will turn the Truths of God to the support of their crimes and follies; the sacred Oracles will receive no attaint from such their malice and perversity.

But were the Possessions, recorded in the Gospel, imaginary; and Demoniacs only a name for the naturally diseased; and that yet, Jesus and his Apostles, instead of rectifying the People's follies and superstitions on this head, chose rather to inflame them, by assuring certain of the distempered that they were really possessed by evil Spirits over whom the name of Christ had power and authority*: if this, I say, were the case, I should tremble for the consequence: for then would Jesus and his Disciples, who were sent to propagate the TRUTH, appear to be answerable for all the mischief, which the rivetting of this superstition in the minds of men, produced in afterages for there is not a clearer conclusion in moral science, than that He, who commits a premeditated fraud, is answerable for the evil which necessarily or naturally proceedeth from it. So little did the learned Physician, with whom we have to do, see into the Casuistry of this question, when he took it for granted, that our contending for the reality of demoniacal possessions makes the Gospel, and us, its Ministers who thus interpret it, answerable for all the tricks of the Church of Rome, whieh rise upon the avowal of it †.

* Matt. xvii. 15.

On

+ Præf. p. iv. Erroris patrocinio non indiget veritas, uti nec vultus natura nitidus fucum requirit. Et certum est, opinionem istam, quæ jam per multa sæcula invaluit,

VOL. X.

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.de

On the contrary, from what hath been here said, it evidently appears, that the Opinion of the Accommodators (who suppose Jesus and his Disciples took advantage of a favourable superstition), and not the Opinion of those Divines who hold Gospel-Demonianism to be real, is the very thing which brings this opprobrium on the first Propagators of our holy Faith.

Nor can that reason which is sometimes given for permitting superstitious errors, (although this were, which it is not, of the number of such as might be suffered to hold their course) have any weight in this case; namely, the difficulty or danger in eradicating them.

Danger there could be none, from the nature of things. For, to remove the false terrors concerning this Enemy of mankind, could never indispose men to embrace their Saviour and Redeemer.

As little difficult had it been to eradicate so pernicious an error, how deeply soever rooted, in the popular superstition. For when they saw Jesus cure all diseases with a word, and the pretended Demoniac

as

de potentia ad corpora mentesque humanas vexandas dæmonibus adhuc permissa, variis astutorum hominum præstigiis, cum maximo rei Christianæ damno et opprobrio ansam præbuisse. Quis non merito irridet solennes istus Romæ pontificum ritus, quibus exercitantur, ut loqui amant, Dæmoniaci.-Verum istæ præstigiæ, quantumvis occulis et mentibus ignaræ plebis illudant; paulo, tamen sagaciores non modo offendunt, sed revera ipsis nocent. Hi enim, dolo perspecto, ad impietatem proni ducuntur.