The displaying of supposed witchcraft

by John Webster

But the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews must needs be taken for the best Expositor of these words of the Psalmist, who doth quote them only for this purpose, to prove that Christ in dignity and office is far above the Angels who are all ordered to serve and obey him, and are by their offices all but ministring spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation. By which it is manifest that this place is to be understood of their ministration and offices, and not of their nature or substances. 2. They can no more be meerly and literally said to be spirits, understanding spirit to intend an absolute incorporeal substance, than his ministers can be literally understood to be flaming fire, they must either be both literally true, which is absolutely absurd, or else those words must have a metaphorical interpretation, as they may and must have, and there is no inconvenience in that exposition. For as the winds, which is but a strong motion of the air, and the shining or flaming fire, are two of the most quick, agile and operative agents that are known unto us in nature, so the Angels and Christs Ministers are strong, quick and most nimble and powerful in performing their offices and administrations. Therefore we shall conclude this as Scheibler doth from S. Augustine: Nihil enim invisibile & incorporeum naturâ credendum est, præter solum Deum, qui ex eo incorporeus & invisibilis dicitur, quia infinitus, & incircumscriptus est, & simplex, & sibi omnibus modis sufficiens se ipso, & per seipsum: omnis verò rationalis creatura corporea est, Angeli & omnes Virtutes corporeæ sunt, licet non subsistunt in carne.

Judges 13. 20.

Dan. 3. 24, 25.

Luke 24. 39.

Now though we have sufficiently proved that they are corporeal, that is, that they have bodies naturally united unto them, and so have an internum, or moving power, and an externum, or a part moved, that is, as Dr. Moore confesseth, a spiritual and incorporeal part, and a corporeal part or vehicle, yet to assign what kind of bodies they have, or what proper difference there is betwixt their substance and other corporeal substances is no easie matter to determine. Only we shall give two differences whereby they are distinguished from other substances that are corporeal, and that as the Scripture holdeth them forth unto us. 1. The first differential distinction is, that their bodies do not suffer, or are altered or dissipated, by the most strong, and operative sublunary agent that is known unto us: Amongst which we have none of greater force and activity than our culinary fire, yet it is manifest that that Element did not work upon nor burn the Angel that appeared to Manoah and his Wife, who ascended in the flame of the altar, and was not touched, or altered at all, which plainly sheweth that his body was not to be wrought upon by the fierce flame of sublunary fire, and he is there called the Angel of Jehovah. This also is confirmed by that which Nebuchadnezzar saw, and confessed, that though there were three men only cast into the fiery furnace, yet he saw a fourth (which by all the learned is judged to be an Angel) and they had no hurt upon them, that is, the fire did not work upon their bodies to burn, alter, or consume them. So that in this the bodies of Angels differ from the most of other bodies, because they do not suffer by sublunary fire, the most violent agent that we know. And this must needs rationally be taken to be proper unto Angels in regard of their created natures, and not as superadded by a Divine and Almighty Power, as in some other cases it may be granted. 2. A second difference is, that what bodies soever spirits or Angels have, or appear in, they have not flesh and bones such as Christ had in his true and numerical body in which he did appear after his resurrection, which was the same individual body which he had before he was crucified. But though they have bodies, yet to feeling and tangibility they have not flesh and bones as humane bodies have, which have a renitency and resistibility to our touch, which their bodies have not, being as it were ethereal, airy and shadowy; and yielding and giving way to the touch, and though to be divided and separated, yet, maybe, do as soon close by counition, and so suffer nothing at all by that division.

Saints Everlast. rest, c. 7. part 2. p. 255.

Sup. Cantic. p. 504.

Concerning the properties of their bodies it seems to have been the opinion of Tertullian (as I find him quoted by Mr. Baxter) that they had thin pure and aereal bodies which they could dilate and expand, condense and contract at their pleasures, and so frame them into diverse and sundry shapes; his words are these: Dæmones sua hæc corpora contrahunt, & dilatant, ut volunt: sicut etiam lumbrici, & alia quædam insecta. So we see that some worms and insects will extend themselves into a vast length and smallness, that they can pass through a very small hole, or passage, and again contract themselves into a great bulk, drawing in the length, and increasing the breadth and thickness, which though it still be the same corporeal substance, and in general doth, in what figure soever it be brought into, but retain the same dimensions in respect of place, yet in regard of accidental shape or figure it may change the dimensions in respect of one another, as one while to be more in longitude, and less in breadth and depth, and sometimes more in breadth and depth, and less in length. So may the bodies of Angels by contraction and dilatation, sundry wayes alter their dimensions, and consequently their shapes and figures, and all this according to the motion and act of their own wills, so that still there must be limits to these acts of distention and contraction, that they can do neither in an infinite degree as either to become an insensible and indivisible prick, nor to be infinitely expanded or dilated, and this opinion hath sufficiency of rationality and intelligibility in it. Of this very point S. Bernard speaketh thus modestly: Videntur Patres de hujusmodi diversa sensisse, nec mihi perspicuum est undè alterutrum doceam: & nescire me fateor. And though we cannot punctually enumerate, nor assign the certain properties of their bodies, yet we may rationally conclude thus much. 1. That they being creatures ordained for high and noble ends must needs have their bodies and organs fitted and suitably proportioned to fulfil and accomplish those ends, as doth most manifestly appear by the bodies and organs of all other creatures, which are most wisely and fitly framed by the Almighty, according to the several ends and uses they were created and ordained for. 2. It is most probable that considering there are creatures that as their wills are moved by their passions and affections can alter the colours and figures of their own bodies, as is manifest in worms, and in the colours of the Chameleon, as it is asserted by the experience of the learned Physician Dominicus Panarolus, so from the less to the more, that Angels have bodies of far more excellency to perform their ministrations in, than those gross and terrestrial bodies have that are here below. And it is no small wonder to observe our ordinary Gallus Turcicus vel Gallopavus, how quiet and demissly sometimes he goes, and then again upon the suddain by some emotion of spirit, how will his train be advanced and extended, his barbles swelled and puffed up, and the appendicle that comes over the bill or rostrum, be extended or contracted at the pleasure of the animal: And much more to consider the quick and suddain change of the colours of both those parts, as sometimes to a whitishness, or an ash-colour, sometimes purple, sometimes blewish, and sometimes pure red, so quick a motion that creature can give to the spirits and blood, that they can so quickly alter and change, not only the colours, but also the magnitude. And much more may we rationally believe that Angels can alter and change the figure and colour of their bodies according to the ministrations they are imployed about.

Mark 12. 25.

1 Cor. 15. 44.