Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/167

 upon his brow, which felt intolerably cold. And so * Petrus Bourgotus confessed, that when the Devil gave him his hand to kiss, it felt cold. And many more examples there be to this purpose.

2. And indeed it stands to very good reason that the Bodies of Devils, being nothing, but coagulated Aire, should be cold, as well as coagulated Water, which is Snow or Ice; and that it should have a more keen and piercing cold, it consisting of more subtile particles then those of Water, and therefore more fit to insinuate, and more accurately and stingingly to affect and touch the nerves.

3. Wherefore Witches confessing so frequently as they do, that the Devil lies with them, and withall complaining of his tedious and offensive coldness, it is a shrewd presumption that he doth lie with them indeed, and that it is not a mere Dream, as their friend Wierus would have it.

4. Hence we may also discover the folly of that opinion that makes the very Essence of Spirits to be Fire: for how unfit that would be to coagulate the Aire is plain at first sight. It would rather melt and dissolve these consistences, then constringe them and freez them in a manner. But it is rather manifest that the Essence of Spirits is a substance specifically distinct from all corporeal matter whatsoever. But my intent is not to Philosophize concerning the nature of Spirits, but onely to prove their Existence.

5. Which the Spectre at Ephesus may be a further argument of. For that old man which Apollonius told the Ephesians was the walking plague of the City, when they stoned him and uncovered the heap, appear'd in the shape of an huge black Dog as big as the biggest Lion. This could be no imposture of Melancholy, nor Fraud of any Priest. And the learned Grotius, a man far from all Levity and vain Credulity, is so secure of the truth of Tyaneus his Miracles, that he does not stick to term him impudent that has the face to deny them.

6. Our English Chronicles also tell us of Apparitions, armed men, foot and horse, fighting upon the ground in the North part of England and in Ireland for many Evenings together, seen by many hundreds of men at once, and that the grass was troden down in the places where they were seen to fight their Battails: which agreeth with Nicolea Langbernhard her Relation of the cloven-footed Dancers, that left the print of their hoofs in the ring they trod down for a long time after.

7. But this skirmishing upon the Earth puts me in mind of the last part of this argument, and bids me look up into the Aire. Where, omitting all other Prodigies, I shall onely take notice of what is most notorious, and of which there can by no means be given any other account then that it is the effect of Spirits. And this is the Appearance of armed men fighting and encountring one another in the Sky. There are so many examples of these Prodigies in Historians, that it were superfluous to instance in any. That before the great slaughter of no less then fourscore thousand made by Antiochus in Jerusalem, recorded in the second of Maccabees chap. 5. is famous. The Historian there writes, "That through all the City for the space almost of fourty daies there were seen Horsemen running in the Aire in cloth of Gold, and arm'd with Lances, like a band