The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, chapter 11: Of the Knowledge, and Power of faln Angels (part 2 of 4)

1. And for the first it must of necessity be granted, that their power since their fall is much diminished, or at least restrained and chained and fettered up. For they becoming Rebels against the Almighty, and not keeping their first Estate, but having left their own habitation, it was most agreeable to the wisdom and justice of God to take away from them the greatest part of that power and authority that he formerly had given them, and so to imprison and chain them up, that they might never be able to attempt or perform the like Rebellion again; otherwise the Almighty should not have used that wisdom that is ordinary with earthly Princes, who haveing overcome those that rebelled against them, do not only disarm them, but also confine or imprison them. And to this very thing do the Scriptures allude, when they say, that they are delivered into chains of darkness, and that they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. So that though the Devils still retain their cruel, wicked and devouring will and mind; yet they are but like the Lyon within the Bars of Iron, or Bajazet in the Cage of Iron led about by Tamberlan, and so though they be never so cruelly bent to do mischief, yet they are under the Chains and cooped up in the Grates of Darkness, and kept in Everlasting Chains that they are never able to break or unloose. And though he be called the God of this World and the Prince of it, yet that is not to be understood, that he is the Prince and Ruler of the Creatures of the World, or that he giveth riches, health, honour or the like, for those are the gift of God only and not of the Devil; but he is the God and Prince of the evil and wickedness that is in the World, for in that, and by that, he reigneth and ruleth; and to this purpose saith Rollock: Damnatio est Satanae, qui peccati author est. Nam vit a hujus mundi est secundum principem cui potestas est aeris, &c. Dicitur autem Princeps hujus mundi, quia per peccatum, & mortem regnat in mundo: ut enim teste Paulo, Regnum Dei positum est in justitiâ, & pace, & gaudio per spiritum sanctum, sic regnum Satanae positum est in injustitia, & morte. Unde ipse propter peccatum per quod regnat, dicitur rector tenebrarum. Propter mortem per quam regnat, dicitur imperium mortis habere. And upon this place St. Augustin saith thus: Nunc Princeps hujus mundi ejicietur foras, absit ut Diabolum principem mundi it a dictum existimemus, ut eum Coeli & terrae dominari posse credamus: sed mundus appellatur in malis hominibus, qui toto orbe terrarum diffusisunt. Sic ergò dictum est: Princeps hujus mundi, id est princeps malor um hominum qui habitant in mundo. Appellatur etiam mundus in bonis, qui similiter per totum orbem terrarum diffusi sunt: Ideò dicit Apostolus, Deus erat in Christo mundum reconcilians sibi: Hi sunt ex quorum cordibus principes mundi ejicientur foras. And whereas also Satan is called the Prince of the power of the air, that, worketh in the Children of disobedience, it is not literally so to be understood, as though he had the natural power of ruling the air, and causing of winds, hail, snow, frost, rain, thunder and lightning, for these are all ordered according to the will of divine providence and the causes that he hath established in the Elements: So David speaking of the Heavens, the Earth, and the Elements, doth conclude thus; They continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all thy servants: And it is he that ordereth all these, as saith the Text: Who covereth the Heavens with Clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth snow like wool, he scattereth the hoary frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: Who can stand before his Cold? He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow. And all these fulfil the will and command of God, and not the will of the faln Angels; for the Text saith: Fire and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind fulfilling his word; so that if they have any thing to do in the sublunary changes or motions of Meteors, it is but only as instrumental and organical Causes, working meerly as they are ordered and acted by the first cause that worketh all in all, as the Christian Philosopher Doctor Fludd hath most learnedly proved in his Treatise of Cosmical Meteors, which I seriously commend to those that desire full satisfaction in this particular. But the Devil is chiefly called the Prince of the power of the air, because he is the proud, high, airy and spiritual Prince and Ruler of wickedness in high or super-coelestial places, by which proud, airy, and spiritual wickedness, he worketh in the Children of disobedience. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, [non-Latin script]. Upon which learned Beza saith thus: Homine[…] quorum fragilis & caduca est natura, cui opponuntur versutiae spirituales, infinitis partibus potentiores. And again, Ist a nomina tribuit Angelis malis, propter effectus, non quod eos suâ vi possint praestare, sed quia illis Deus laxat habenas. And therefore S. Chrysostom upon this place saith thus: Mundi verò dominos eos vocat, non quod mundum gubernent, sed solet scriptura malos actus hunc mundum vocare, ut quando Christus dicit, vos non estis ex hoc mundo quemadmodum ego non sum ex mundo.

2. To consider their power in spiritual and moral things particularly, we shall find they have no power in some things, but by their fall have utterly lost it, as is apparent in these few points. 1. They have lost that freedom of will that they had by Creation, and were partakers of before they fell, and agreeable to this is the Thesis of learned Zanchy, which is this: That all Devils have so far their wills made obstinate in sins, the hatred of God, Christ, and of Mankind, that from this evil they cannot will to repent, and thereby be saved; and this he thus proveth. 1. Because in the Scriptures they are called, [non-Latin script], for they are now become such, that they cannot be changed from their malice and wickedness; because it is become natural unto them. 2. From whence it is manifest, that the whole time since their fall, never yet any of them hath given any sign of resipiscence. 3. If they could repent and believe in Christ, then for them and their sins Christ also should have died; for he saith, that he prayed for those that were to believe in him; but they neither believe in him, neither did he die for them. 4. But the chief cause of their impenitency is the just judgment of God, that hath given them up to hardness of heart, because they sinned knowingly and wilfully against the truth. And this point is sufficiently proved by Thomas Aquinas, the rest of the Schoolmen and many others. 2. So that as they have lost freedom of will, so they cannot at all will or act to be saved, or to repent. 3. And as they cannot will or act to repent or be saved, so the whole acts of their wills are evil, malicious and wicked, being liars and murtherers from the beginning.

3. The third is to consider their power in sublunary and elementary things which is the most pertinent to our present purpose, it being the thing that some have magnified even to a kind of omnipotency, and therefore we must the more narrowly ventilate and examine it, which we shall do in this order.

1. How great soever the power of the faln Angels may be supposed to be, yet neither in knowlege can they be deemed to be omniscient, or in power to be omnipotent, because they are created Beings, circumscribed, limited and finite, and consequently can perform no act that necessarily must require an omnipotent power, and so can neither create things de novo, annihilate or transubstantiate any Creature or substance, or pervert or put forth of order, the things that God by Creation, Decree and Providence hath set into their certain orders of Generation, alteration and corruption.

2. How great soever their power may be supposed to be, yet rationally it must be taken for a truth, that they have not the same power that they had before their fall. For as Zanchy saith: Certum est enim in universum, & in genere, hac etiam in parte illos punitos fuisse, ut non possint quicquid poterant, cum boni essent, nec etiam quicquid nunc velint. Because the Holy Ghost beareth witness, that they are bound in Chains, and that Satan begged leave of God to invade Job, that they fought with the good Angels, but were overcome, and that they may be so resisted of believing men that they may be overthrown. Ac vae nobis, nisi potentia Daemonum infirmata esset, & à Domino comprimeretur, & compesceretur.

3. And what power soever be granted to the faln Angels, yet it is by the opinion of all the learned, restrained only to these sublunary and inferior bodies, and that they have neither power by Creation or Ordination, to work upon, move, or alter things that are Angelical, Celestial, Ethereal and Superior, but only are chained in this Caliginous Atmosphere, and impure air. For it is manifest, that superior bodies work upon those that are inferior, but not on the contrary, neither have we any examples that can prove that they do operate upon Celestial bodies, and so their power (how great soever some may suppose it to be) is only restrained to these inferior sublunary things.

4. The operations and actions performed by the faln Angels, may be considered, either in the simple respect of their natural and created power, and this how great soever it was before their fall, is not only lessened, but that which remains, is limited and restrained with the Adamantine Chains of the decree of divine providence: or in respect of what power they may have superadded by God, when they are Commissionated and sent by God to effect some particular actions, as for example, Moses and Aaron had but the ordinary strength and power that was common to other men, before they were sent upon the message to Pharaoh, and made Instruments to deliver the Israelites, for then were they armed and indowed with the power of working great and stupendious Miracles. So it cannot rationally be imagined that the two Angels that were sent as Instruments to destroy Sodom and Gomorrha, did or could of their own proper, individual and created power, bring down Fire and Brimstone from Heaven to burn those two Cities, but that it was brought to pass by the Power of the Almighty, as granted and given to them for that judgment only, and not by that ordinary power that they could always exercise, for the Text saith: Then the Lord rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrha brimstome and fire from the Lord forth of heaven. Neither can it rationally be supposed that one Angel hath by his created power, that ability, that he can slay in one night an hundred fourscore, and five thousand, as it is written the Angel did in the camp of the Assyrians, but that it was brought to pass by the power of Jehovah superadded unto him, to work the great deliverance of Hezekiah and his people. Upon which place the learned Expositor John Calvin saith thus: Solus quidem dominus satis per se potest, ac certè solus nos servat: Angeli enim, manus quodammodo sunt ipsius: Unde etiam Virtutes & Potestates vocantur. Interim haec vis soli Deo tribuenda, cujus organa tantummodò sunt Angeli, ne in superstitionem incidamus. From whence we may note these two things. 1. That even Devils are but the organs and instruments by which God accomplisheth his will, and executeth his wrath and justice, and so are but as tormenters and executioners to act no more than what they are appointed and commanded to do. 2. We may observe that in times past they had large Commissions given and great power superadded to perform great wonders for the destruction of the wicked, which was done for great and extraordinary ends, such as in these days the Lord doth seldom or never use, and therefore there can be no reason now shewed why Devils should have any extraordinary power added unto them in working strange feats for Witches and Sorcerers.

5. It will much conduce to the clearing of this point of the power of Devils to examine into what place they are faln, or since their rebellion into what Prison they are shut, and this we shall give in the Thesis of learned Zanchy who saith thus: All the evil Angels were thrust down from Heaven, into places that are below the Celestial Orbs, to wit into this air, and below, as it were into a caliginous Prison, where they are reserved unto the Universal Judgment as bound with chains. And this is plain from the words of S. Peter, who saith: For if God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. To which accordeth that of Jude: And the Angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. For as learned Musculus tells us: Decet Christianum hominem ea modestia, & cautio, ut nihil affirmet, nec si quis alius affirmaverit, inconsideratè recipiat, quod non certo veritatis testimonio è sacris literis desumpto, confirmari queat. To this we shall only add what the acute and learned Theologue Amesius notes upon this place of Peter, which in English is this: In general (he saith) we are taught, that they did not keep their first estate, that is, they did forsake righteousness and that station in which they were placed of God, and afterwards they have exercised from the beginning, envy, lies and murther against Men. Also (he saith) we are taught, that they were a great number that were partakers of this defection, and therefore the Apostle speaketh in the plural number. 1. They are said to be thrust down in Tartarum into Hell by reason of the commutation of estate and condition, because that from a most high condition, which they received by creation, they were cast down to an estate most low. 2. By reason of commutation of place, because they were thrust down from a place of beatitude, where they were conversant about the Throne of God with the rest of the Angels, into an inferiour place subject to sin and misery. But that this place is in the lowest parts of the earth, as the Papists do hold, cannot be made forth from the Scriptures, but rather the contrary, for they are said to be conversant, and to rule in the air, and to walk to and fro in the earth seeking the subversion of Men. This at the least is manifest from the Scriptures, and ought to satisfie those that are not too curious. 1. That they suffer a great change of estate and condition. 2. That they are excluded and shut out from their first habitation. 3. That they are in such a place where they suffer both the pain of loss and of sense. They are said to be delivered over to darkness, partly in respect of sin, and partly in respect of misery; for darkness in Scripture doth denote both: and they are said to be delivered in chains, by a metaphor taken from facinorous persons, that are condemned and kept bound in prison with chains, and the chains are these. 1. Obfirmation or obduration in sins. 2. An utter despair of any freedom or deliverance. 3. A terrible expectation of extream misery, and an horrid fear of being cast into the abysse or deep. 4. The Providence of God which continually watches over their custody, imprisonment, and punishment. They are said to be reserved to damnation, because they are so bound up in these evils and miseries, that they never can escape; and yet these are but the beginnings only of their miseries, for they are hereafter to go into that everlasting fire, that is prepared for the Devil, and his Angels.

6. Though the Devils be said to be reserved in everlasting chains of darkness, yet are they said sometimes to be loosed, and to go to and fro in the earth, and to walk up and down in it, and that Satan doth like a roaring lion walk about seeking whom he may devour. Which must be understood (as we have shewed before) that in respect of his evil will, malice and envy, he seeketh and desireth the overthrow of all mankind, but yet is so restrained that he doth but act, what, where, when and so far only as God doth limit and order him. For though it be usually said that God doth permit him, yet it cannot be understood as a bare and nude permission, as though God should suffer him to go so loose and at liberty, that he may exert and exercise his power to the uttermost, for then all the godly should be destroyed both in Souls and Bodies, and God should only sit by as a bare spectator, not as an Orderer, Ruler and Governour, even as though an hungry fierce Lion that had been chained up in a grate, should be let loose to rage and run where he would, and to kill and devour what he could, and thus the Witchmongers do suppose of him, which is false and contrary to the testimony of Gods word. But when the Almighty maketh use of Satan or his Angels, they are only so let loose that he hath a hook in their Nostrils, and their Necks in a chain, that they can act no more nor no further than he ordereth, and gives them leave to accomplish, and thus are they limited not only by his irresistible will and decree, but they are also watched over and ruled by the good Angels that are as it were their keepers and overseers. So when the Devil is used as an instrument to afflict Holy Job, he is first let loose to afflict him in his Children and Goods, but not to touch his Body; and the second time he hath leave and power given him to lay his hand upon Jobs Body, but not to take away his life: which do plainly shew, that he is not only and barely suffered to do what he will, but hath his limits set how far he shall act, and no farther. And when God maketh use of him for the punishment of the wicked, he giveth him power, and ordereth him how far to act or prevail. As in the case of the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets, the evil spirit is sent forth with this commission, And God said thou shalt perswade him and prevail also: go forth and do so. By which it is manifest that he prevaileth more by the virtue of Gods command and commission, than by his own proper created power.

7. It is manifest that as the good Angels are the Ministers of God for the Salvation of mankind, so the evil Angels are ministring spirits only seeking the destruction and damnation of Men; and though God doth use the Ministry of these that are evil and have an evil will, yet he useth them well, and to good ends, that is, as the executioners of his justice to chasten the godly, and to restrain, or destroy the wicked. Therefore God and the Devil do not afflict, tempt or do any other thing for the same ends; for God acteth to prove, preserve, and stir up to goodness, but the Devil acteth to bring into sin and evil, to destroy and to bring to despair, as is manifest in the History of Job. And therefore here we may consider the several ways wherein God useth the evil Angels as his instruments, and that is in these particulars. 1. God useth him generally for temptation both of the good and the bad; so he tempted David, Christ and the Disciples, for Satan had desired to sift them as wheat, and therefore he is called [non-Latin script], the tempter: and these temptations are internal and spiritual, for we fight not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places. And in these as far as concerneth the faithful, he acteth but only as God permitteth or ordereth him, as is plain in the case of David, where one Text saith, Jehovah moved David to number the people, and in another place, and Satan stood up, and moved David to number the people: where it is to be noted that God did it as the director and orderer, and Satan performed it as his instrument and servant. And the Apostle telleth us; that God is faithful, and would not suffer the believing Corinthians to be tempted above what they were able, but would with the temptation also make a way to escape, that they might be able to bear it. 2. God maketh use of him for the chastisement and affliction of the godly, as is most manifest in that of Job; but this only so far as he is limited, ordered and commanded from God and no further. 3. When Satan as a tormenting or punishing instrument is used of God, he hath his commission given him how far only he shall act and proceed, beyond which he cannot go one hairs breadth, as is manifest in the case of Ahab and the Gadarens Swine, so that we may conclude this with the learned Aphorism of Piscator in these words: Etsi autem Satan seu Diabolus cu[…] suis Angelis Deo & filiis Dei adversatur quantum in ipso est, nimirùm voluntate & conatu: non tamen effectu; ita nimirum ut vel fidelibus perniciem afferre, vel quicquam efficere possit quod Deus nolit. Deus enim illum potentiae suae fraeno vinctum constrictumq tenet: ut ea modò exequatur quae ei divinitùs mandata, aut concessa fuerint.