In order then to this Enquiry, you must know that it was not for want of Servants, that Satan took this Sort of People into his Pay; he had, as I have observ’d in its Place, Millions of diligent Devils at his Call, whatever Business, and however difficult, he had for them to do; but as I have said above, that our modern People are forwarder than even the Devil himself can desire them to be; and that they come before they are call’d, run before they are sent, and crowd themselves into his Service; so it seems it was in those early Days, when the World was one universal Monarchy under his Dominion, as I have at large describ’d in its Place.
In those Days the Wickedness of the World keeping a just Pace with their Ignorance, this inferior Sort of low priz’d Instruments did the Devil’s work mighty well; they drudg’d on in his Black-Art so laboriously, and with such good Success, that he found it was better to employ them as Tools to delude and draw in Mankind, than to send his invisible Implements about, and oblige them to take such Shapes and Dresses as were necessary upon every trifling Occasion; which, perhaps, was more Cost than Worship, more Pains than Pay.
Having then a Set of these Voluntiers in his Service, the true Devil had nothing to do but to keep an exact Correspondence with them, and communicate some needful Powers to them, to make them be and do something extraordinary, and give them a Reputation in their Business; and these, in a Word, did a great Part of, nay almost all the Devil’s Business in the World.
To this Purpose gave he them Power, if we may believe old Glanville, Baxter, Hicks, and other learn’d Consultors of Oracles, to walk invisible, to fly in the Air, ride upon Broom-sticks, and other Wooden Gear, to interpret Dreams, answer Questions, betray Secrets, to talk (Gibberish) the universal Language, to raise Storms, sell Winds, bring up Spirits, disturb the Dead, and torment the Living, with a thousand other needful Tricks to amuse the World, keep themselves in Veneration, and carry on the Devil’s Empire in the World.
The first Nations among whom these infernal Practices were found, were the Chaldeans; and that I may do Justice in earnest, as well as in jest, it must be allow’d that the Chaldeans, or those of them so call’d, were not Conjurers or Magicians, only Philosophers and Studiers of Nature, wise, sober and studious Men at first, and we have an extraordinary Account of them; and if we may believe some of our best Writers of Fame, Abraham was himself famous among them for such Magick, as Sir Walter Raleigh expresses it, Qui Contemplatione Creaturarum Cognovit Creatorem.
Now granting this, it is all to my Purpose, namely, that the Devil drew these wise Men in, to search after more Knowledge than Nature could instruct them in; and the Knowledge of the true God being at that Time sunk very low, he debauch’d them all with Dreams, Apparitions, Conjurers, &c. till he ruin’d the just Notions they had, and made Devils of them all, like himself.
The learned Senensis, speaking of this Chaldean Kind of Learning, gives us an Account of five Sorts of them; you will pardon me for being so grave as to go this Length back.
1. Chascedin or Chaldeans, properly so call’d, being Astronomers.
2. Asaphim or Magicians, such was Zoroastres and Balaam the Son of Beor.
3. Chatumim or Interpreters of Dreams and hard Speeches, Inchanters, &c.