Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (1).pdf/16

16 diabolical and the human: the reason of it, and how and by what means the power of the Devil is restrained by the Messiah; and to those who are willing to trust to gospel light, and believe what the scripture says of the Devil, there may much of his history be discovered: and therefore those that list, may go there for a fuller account of the matter.

It might take up a great deal of our time here to inquire whether the Devil has any particular shape, or personality of substance, which can be visible to us, felt, heard, or understood, and which he cannot alter; and then, what shapes or appearances the Devil has at any time taken upon him; and whether he can really appear in a body which might be handled and seen, and yet so as to know it to have been the Devil at the time of his appearing: but this also I defer, as not of weight in the present inquiry.

We have divers accounts of witches conversing with the Devil; the Devil in a real body, with all the appearances of a body of a man or woman appearing to them: also of having a familiar, as they call it, an incubus or little Devil, which sucks their bodies, runs away with then into the air, and the like. Much of this is said; but much more than it is easy to prove; and we ought to give but a just proportion of credit to those things.

How glorious is the Wisdom and goodness of the great Creator of the world! in thus restraining these seraphic from the power of assuming human or organic bodies! which, could they do, invigorating them with the supernatural powers, which as seraphs and angels, they now possess, and might exert, they