move and impell a Body, since without Quantity and Dimensions on both fides there can be no Contact; and since without Contact some think all Impulsions impossible, this Maxim, if too far insisted upon, would bear as hard upon the Soul itself, as to its moving the Body, (allowing it to be a Spiritual Immaterial Substance; which, I hope, in a Christian Auditory, needs not to be proved.) And now, the Premisses thus supposed, how easy must it be for this Spirit, to cast any Person poffeffed by him, into a kind of Prophetick Extasy, and with other amazing Extravagancies, to utter through him certain Sentences and Opinions, and in the utterance thereof, to intermix some things pious and good, to take off the Sufpicion, and qualify the Poison of the bad? For fo the Sibyls used to wait, till at a certain time the Damons entred into them, and gave Answers by them, suspending the natural Actings of their Souls, and using their bodily Organs of Speech, with strange prodigious Convulfions, and certain Circumstances of raving and unfeemly Horror attending them; as Virgil elegantly describes the Cumaan Sibyl, in his 6th Eneid.

----Subitò non vultus, non color unus,
Non compta mansere coma, sed pectus pect an-
belum,

Et

Et rabie fera corda tument; majorq; videri,
Nec mortale fonans, &c.

Of which Words, the Quakers amongst us (as little as they deal in Latin) have yet been the best and fullest Interpreters, by being the liveliest Instances of the Thing described in them, of any that I know. And so likewise in the Cafe of the Person possessed, Acts xix. 16. Certainly he could never have prevailed over so many Men, had he not had fomething in him, stronger than Man. But what needs there any farther arguing, or how is it poffible for that Man to question, whether the Devil can enter into, and take Poffeffion of Men, who shall read how often our Saviour cast him out?

These, I say, are the Physical ways of Operation, which the Devil can employ so, as to infinuate thereby his Impostures, in a clever unsuspected manner: Which three general Ways doubtless may be improved, by so experienced a Craftsman, into Myriads of Particulars. But I shall confine myself to his Dealings with the Church, and that only within the Times of Chriftianity; and so pass to the Second general Head proposed.

2. Which was to shew the grand Instances, in which the Devil, under this Mask of Light, has imposed upon the Christian World. And here here we must premise this general Observation, as the Basis of all the ensuing Particulars, viz. That it has been the Devil's constant Method, to accommodate his Impostures to the most received and prevailing Notions, and the peculiar proper Improvements of each particular Age. And accordingly, let us take a Survey of the several Periods of them. As,

1. The grand ruling Principle of the first Ages of the Church, then chiefly confifting of the Gentile Converts, was an extraordinari. ly zealous Devotion, and Concern for the Honour, and Worship of one only God, having been so newly converted from the Worship of many. Which great Truth, since the Devil could neither seasonably, nor successfully oppose then, he saw it his Interest to swim with the Stream, which he could not stem, and by a dextrous turn of Hand, to make use of one Truth to supplant another. Accordingly, having met with a fit Instrument for his Purpose, he sets up in Arianism, and with a bold Stroke strikes at no lower an Article than the Godhead of the Son of God; and so manages this mighty and universal hatred of Polytheism, to the Rejection of a Trinity of Divine Coequal Persons, as no ways consistent with the Unity of the Divine Effence. The Blafphemy of which Opinion needed, no doubt, a more than ordinary Artist, to give it the best Glofs

VOL. V.

I

and

and Colour he could, and therefore was not to be introduced and ushered into the World, but by very plausible, and seemingly Pious Pleas.

As for Instance; that the afcribing of a Deity, or Divine Nature to Christ, was not fo much a Removal of Polytheism, as a Change. That for Chrift to decry the Pagan Gods, and yet affume the Godhead to himself, was, instead of being their Reformer, to be their Rival; and that by thus transferring Divine Worship to his own Person, he did not fo much destroy Idolatry, as monopolize it. Moreover, that Christ himself professes his Father to be greater than He; and therefore, that either he himself is not God; or if so, that the Deity then includes not the highest Degree of Perfection. For if Christ was God, and upon that Account comprehended in him all Perfections, how could the Father be greater? which Relation yet must imply a Degree of Perfection above that of the Son. And if it should be here replyed, that the Father is greater in respect of a Personal Excellency, but not of a Natural; such as reply so, should do well to confider, how it can be; that where Essence includes all Perfection, Personality can add any farther. Besides, that the granting Chrift to be the Son of God, will not therefore inferr him to be God. For the Son of a King is but his Father's Subject; and consequently, to affert any more concerning Christ, seems to be only Paganism refined, and Idolatry in a better Dress.

These, I say, were the Arian Objections against the Deity of our Saviour; all of them extremely Sophistical and flight, and such as the Heathen Philosophers had urged all along against the Christian Religion, for near Three Hundred Years before Arius was born: And we shall find them grounded only upon their not diftinguishing between Perfection Absolute and Relative, and their absurd arguing from Finite and Created Beings to a Being Infinite and Uncreate; as might easily be shewn in each of the foregoing Particulars, would the Time allotted for this Exercise permitt. So that it was a most true and proper Remark: That if we take from Hereticks disputing against any Article of the Christian Faith, what is common to them with the Heathens disputing against the whole Body of Christianity, they will have little, or nothing left them, which is new, or can be called peculiarly their own. Nevertheless, fuch plausible Stuff, back'd with Power, and managed by the Devil, drew over most of the Christian Churches, for a confiderable Time, to Arianism; and so, by a very Preposterous way of Worship, made them facrifice the Son to the Honour of the Father. But 2. As

12