[2.] Secondly, Many things of wonder done by such persons, to which some suppose the secret powers of herbs or things contribute their natural aids or concurrence, are evidences of Satan’s deep knowledge of and insight into natural causes. Of this nature is that ointment with which witches are said to besmear themselves in order to their transportation; the power and efficacy whereof is by some imagined to consist in this, that it keeps the body tenantable and in a fit condition to receive the soul by re-entry after such separations, as, by all circumstances are concluded, have been really made in pursuit of those visionary perambulations and transactions; which things, if they be so—as they are not improbable—witches have them from Satan’s discovery, and they are to be ascribed to his power.[114]
[3.] Thirdly, Those actions that are most properly the witch’s own actions, and in which the power of hurting doth, as some suppose, reside, are notwithstanding either awakened or influenced by Satan; so though we grant, what some would have, that the power of hurting is a natural power, and a venomous magnetism of the witch, and that her imagination, by her eye darts those malignant beams which produce real hurts upon men—after the manner of the imagination’s force upon a child in the womb, which hath, as by daily experience and history is confirmed, produced marks, impressions, deformities, and wounds—and that Satan doth but cheat the witch into a belief of his aid in that matter; that with a greater advantage he may make use of her power, without which he could do nothing; yet even this speaks his ability, in that at least he doth awaken and raise up that magical force which otherwise would be asleep, and so puts the sword into their hand. Yet some attribute far more to him—to wit, the infusion of a poisonous ferment—by that action of sucking the witch in some part of the body—by which not only her imagination might be heightened by poisonous streams breathed in, which might infect blood and spirits with a noxious tincture.[115]
2. The second grand instance of his power I shall produce from those actions of wonder and astonishment which he sometime performs, which indeed have been so great that they have occasioned that question—
Whether Satan can do miracles?
To this we answer—
(1.) That God alone can work miracles, a miracle being a real act, done visibly, and above the power of nature. Such works some have ranked into three heads:[116] [1.] Such as created power cannot produce; as to make the sun stand still or go backward. [2.] Such as are in themselves produceable by nature,[117] but not in such an order; as to make the dead to live, and those that were born blind to see, which is strongly argued, John ix. 32, to be above human power; and, John x. 21, to be above the power of devils. [3.] Such as are the usual works of nature, yet produced, above the principles and helps of nature, as to cure a disease by a word or touch.
Things that are thus truly and properly miraculous are peculiarly works of God; neither can it be imagined, that since he hath been pleased to justify his commands, ways, and messages, by such mighty acts—2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 4; John x. 38—and also hath been put to it, to justify himself and his sole supreme being and godhead from false competitors—Ps. lxxxvi. 10, and lxxii. 18—by his miraculous works, it cannot be imagined, I say, that he would permit any created being, much less Satan, to do such things.
(2.) Secondly, Though Satan cannot do things miraculous, yet he can do things wonderful and amazing—mira non miracula. And in this point lies the danger of delusion, as Christ foretells: Mat. xxiv. 24, ‘False Christs shall arise, and shew great signs and wonders.’ In 2 Thes. ii. 4, the apostle tells us, ‘The coming of antichrist shall be with all power, and signs, and wonders’—that is, as some interpret,[118] with the power of signs and wonders; which, however they be lying, both in reference to the design they drive at—which is to propagate errors—and also in their own nature, being truly such, in respect of their form, false as miracles, being indeed no such matter, but juggling cheats; yet, notwithstanding, there is no small cunning and working of Satan in them, insomuch that the uncautious and injudicious are ‘deceived by those wonders that he hath power to do,’ Rev. xiii. 13. In this matter, though we are not able to give a particular account of these underground actions, yet thus much we may say—
[1.] First, That in many cases his great acts, that pass for miracles, are no more but deceptions of sense. Naturalists have shewn several feats and knacks of this kind. Jo. Bap. Porta[119] hath a great many ways of such deceptions, by lamps and the several compositions of oils, by which not only the colours of things are changed, but men appear without heads, or with the heads of horses, &c. The like deceptions are wrought by glasses of various figures and shapes. If art can do such things, much more can Satan.
[2.] Secondly, He can mightily work upon the fancy and imagination; by which means men are abused into a belief of things that are not; as in dreams, the fancy presents things which are really imagined to be done and said, whenas they are visions of the night, which vanish when the man is awake; or as in melancholy persons, the fancy of men doth so strongly impose upon them, that they believe strange absurd things of themselves—that they have horns on their head, that they are made of glass, that they are dead, and what not. If fancy, both asleep and awake, may thus abuse men into an apprehension of impossible things, and that with confidence, no wonder if Satan, whose power reacheth thus far, as was before proved, doth take this advantage for the amusing of men with strange things. Nebuchadnezzar his judgment, Dan. iv. 25, whereby he was ‘driven from men, and ate grass as oxen,’ was not a metamorphosis, or real change into an ox. This all expositors reject as too hard. Neither seems it to be only his extreme necessity and low estate, whereby he seemed to be little better than a beast, though Calvin favour this interpretation;[120] but by that expression, ver. 25, ‘then my understanding came to me,’ it seems evident, as most commentators think, that his understanding was so changed in that punishment that he imagined himself to be a beast, and behaved himself accordingly, by eating grass, and lying in the open fields. There are several stories to this purpose of strange transformations, as the bodies of men into asses, and other beasts, which Augustine thinks to be nothing else but the devil’s power upon the fancy.[121]