my life" as well knowing it neither safe nor easy, to part with ourselves upon such terms.

Far, far be it from us, to put into this rank and file those worthy Martyrs, which, in the fervour of their holy zeal, have put themselves forward to martyrdom; and have courageously prevented the lust and fury of tyrants, to keep their chastity and faith inviolable. I look upon these, as more fit objects of wonder, than either of censure or imitation. For these, whom we may well match with Sampson and Eleazar, what God's Spirit wrought in them, he knows that gave it. Rules are they, by which we live; not examples.

2. However we may not, by any means, directly act to the cutting off the thread of life; yet I cannot but yield, with learned Lessius', that there may fall out cases, wherein a man may, upon just cause, do or forbear something, whereupon death may indirectly ensue. Indirectly, I say; not with an intention of such issue; for it is not an universal charge of God, that no man should, upon any occasion, expose his life to a probable danger: if so, there would be no war, no traffic: but only, that he should not causelessly hazard himself; nor with a resolution of wilful miscarriage.

To those instances he gives, of a soldier, that must keep his station, though it cost him his life of a prisoner, that may forbear to flee out of prison, though the doors be open: of a man condemned to die by hunger, in whose power it is to refuse a sustenance offered: of a man, that latches the weapon in his own body, to save his prince: or, of a friend, who, when but one loaf is left to preserve the life of two, refrains from his part and dies first: or, that suffers another to take that plank in a shipwreck, which himself might have prepossessed, as trusting to the oars of his arms: or, that puts himself into an infected house, out of mere charity to tend the sick, though he know the contagion deadly: or, in a sea-fight, blows up the deck with gunpowder, not without his own danger: or, when the house is on fire, casts himself out at the window with an extreme hazard: to these, I say, may be added many more; as the cutting off a limb, to stop the course of gangrene; to make an adventure of a dangerous incision in the body, to draw forth the stone in the bladder; the taking of a large dose of opiate pills, to ease a mortal extremity; or, lastly, when a man is already seized on by death, the receiving of some such powerful medicine as may facilitate his passage, the defect of which care and art the eminently learned Lord Verulam justly complains of in physicians. In these and the like cases, a man may lawfully do those things, which may

m

Less. de Jure 1. ii. c 9. dub. 6.

m 'Ev@avaria. Lord Verulum's " Advancement of Learning,"

a

tend, in the event, to his own death, though without an intention of procuring it.

And unto this head must be referred those infinite examples of deadly sufferings for good causes, willingly embraced for conscience sake. The seven brethren in the Maccabees, alluded to by St. Paul to his Hebrews, Heb. xi. 35. will and must rather endure the butchering of their own flesh, than the eating of swine's flesh, in a willing affront of their Law. Daniel will rather die, than not pray. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will rather fall down bound into the fiery furnace seven-fold heated, than fall down before the golden image.

And every right disposed Christian will rather welcome death, than yield a willing act of idolatry, rebellion, witchcraft. If, hereupon, death follow by the infliction of others, they are sinful agents, he is an innocent sufferer.

As for that scruple among our Casuists, Whether a man, condemned to die by poison, may take the deadly draught that is brought him; it is such, as wise Socrates never made of old, when the Athenians tendered him his hemlock: and, indeed, it may as well be disputed, Whether a man, condemned to die by the axe, may quietly lay down his head upon the block; and not, but upon force, yield to that fatal stroke.

A juster scruple is, Whether a man, condemned to a certain and painful death, which he cannot possibly eschew, may make choice rather of a more easy passage out of the world. Wherein I marvel at the indulgence of some doctors, that would either excuse or mince the matter: for, although I cannot blame that natural disposition in any creature, to shrink from pain; and to affect, what it may, the shifting from extremity of misery: yet, for a Christian so to do it, as to draw a greater mischief to himself and an apparent danger to his soul, it cannot justly bear any other than a hard construction. For, thus to carve himself of justice, is manifestly to violate lawful authority; and, while he would avoid a short pain, to incur the shame and sin of a self-executioner.

But if in that way, wherein the doom of death is passed, a man can give himself ease or speed of dissolution; as when a martyr, being adjudged to the fire, uses the help of a bag of gunpowder to expedite his passage; it cannot be, any way, judged unlawful. The sentence is obeyed: the execution is accordingly done: and, if the patient have found a shorter way to that end which is appointed him, what offence can this be either to the law or to the judge?

RESOLUTIONS.

THE THIRD DECADE.

CASES OF PIETY AND RELIGION,

CASE I.

Whether, upon the appearance of Evil Spirits, we may hold discourse with them; and how we may demean ourselves concerning them?

THAT there are Evil Spirits is no less certain, than that there are men. None but a Sadducee or an Atheist can make

question of it.

That Evil Spirits have given certain proofs of their presence with men, both in visible apparitions, and in the possessions of places and bodies, is no less manifest, than that we have souls whereby they are discerned.

Their appearances are not wont to be, without grievous inconveniences; whether in respect of their dreadfulness, or their dangerous insinuations.

It is the great mercy of the God of Spirits, that he hath bound up the Evil Angels in the chains of darkness; restraining them from those frequent and horrible appearances, which they would otherwise make, to the terror and consternation of his weak creatures.

Whensoever it pleaseth the Almighty, for his own holy purposes, so far to loosen or lengthen the chains of Wicked Spirits, as to suffer them to exhibit themselves in some assumed shapes unto men, it cannot but mainly import us, to know what our deportment should be concerning them. Doubtless, to hold any fair terms of commerce or peace, much more of amity and familiarity, with them, were no better than to profess ourselves enemies to God: for such an irreconcileable hostility there is, betwixt the Holy God and these Malignant Spirits, that there can be no place for a neutrality in our relation

to them; so as he is an absolute enemy to the one, that bids not open defiance to the other.

As, therefore, we are wont, by our silence, to signify our heart-burning against any person; in that we abide not to speak unto those, whom we hate: so must we carry ourselves towards Evil Spirits. And, if they begin with us, as that Devil did in the Serpent with Eve, how unsafe and deadly it may be to hold chat with them, appears in that first example of their onset: the issue whereof brought misery and mortality upon all mankind: yet then, were our first parents in their innocency, and all earthly perfection; we, now so tainted with sin, that Satan hath a kind of party in us, even before his actual temptations.

As, therefore, we are wont to say, That the fort that yields to parley is half won; so may it prove with us, if we shall give way to hold discourse with Wicked Spirits, who are far too crafty for us to deal withal: having so evident an advantage of us; both in nature, we being flesh and blood, they spiritual wickednesses; and, in duration and experience, we being but of yesterday, they coetaneous with the world and time itself.

If you tell me, that our Saviour himself interchanged some speeches with the spirits whom he ejected, it is easily answered, that this act of his was never intended for our imitation: since his omnipotence was no way obnoxious to their malice; our weakness is.

I cannot, therefore, but marvel at the boldness of those men, who, professing no small degree of holiness, have dared to hold familiar talk with Evil Spirits, and could be content to make use of them for intelligence: as the famous Jesuit in our time, Pere Cotton: who, having provided fifty questions to be propounded to a demoniac, some concerning matters of learning, some other matters of state concerning the then French King and the King of England; and having them written down under his own hand to that purpose; being questioned concerning it, answered, that he had licence from Rome to tender those demands: as I received it, upon a certain relation, from the learned Dr. Tilenus, with many pregnant and undeniable circumstances, which I need not here express. Although this need not seem strange to me, when I find that Navarre determines plainly, that "When Evil Spirits are present, not by our invocation, as in possessed bodies, it is lawful to move questions to them, so it be without our prayers to them or pact with them, for the profit of others: yea, thus to confer with them, even out of vanity or curiosity, is but venial at the most"." Thus he with whom Lessius goes so far, as to say, Licitum est petere verbo à Diabolo, ut nocere

Navarr. Enchir. cap. 11. n. 28.

desinat, &c. "It is lawful to move the Devil in words, to cease from hurting, so it be not done by way of deprecation, or in a friendly compliance, but by way of indignation":" a distinction, which I confess past the capacity of my apprehension; who have not the wit to conceive, how a man can move without implying a kind of suit, and how any suit can consist with an indignation.

It savours yet of a more heroical spirit, which the Church of Rome professeth to teach and practice, the ejection of Evil Spirits by an imperious way of command; having committed to her exorcists a power of adjuration, to which the worst of Devils must be subject: a power, more easily arrogated, than really exercised. Indeed, this overruling authority was eminently conspicuous; not only in the selected twelve, and the seventy disciples of Christ who returned from their embassy with joy (Luke x. 17.) that the devils were subject to them through his name, but even in their holy successors of the Primitive Church, while the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were sensibly poured out upon men: but, if they will be still challenging the same power, why do they not as well lay claim to the speaking of strange tongues? to the supernatural cure of all diseases? to the treading on serpents and scorpions ? to the drinking of poisons without an antidote? Mark xvi. 17, 18: and, if they must needs acknowledge these faculties above their reach, why do they presume to divide the Spirit from itself? arrogating to themselves the power of the greatest works, while they are professedly defective in the least. Wherein, surely, as they are the true successors of the sons of Sceva, who would be adjuring of devils by the name of Jesus, whom St. Paul preached: so they can look for no other entertainment, than they found from those demoniacs; which was to be baffled, and beaten, and wounded; Acts xix. 13-16.

Especially, if we consider the foul superstition and gross magic, which they make use of in their conjurations; by their own vainly-devised exorcisms, feoffing a supernatural virtue upon drugs and herbs, for the dispelling and staving-off all Evil Spirits.

Because the books are not perhaps obvious, take but a taste in one or two.

In the "Treasure of Exorcisms," there is this following Benediction of Rue, to be put into a hallowed paper, and to be carried about you and smelled at for the repelling of the

b Less. 1. ii. de Magiâ. cap. 44. dub. 6.

"Thesaurus Exorcismorum, atque Conjurationum Terribilium, &c." Tract. Dispersio Dæmonum," Fratris Valerii Polydori Patavini, Ord. Minorum Conventualium.