strings, whose motion begets such, and such phantasms; otherwhile, the loose Spirits wandring up and down in the brain, casually hit upon such filaments and strings whose motion excites a conception, which we call a Fancy, or Imagination; and if the evidence of the outward senses be shut out by sleep or melancholy, in either case, we believe those senses to be real and external transactions, when they are only within our heads; Thus it is in Enthusiasms, and Dreams, And besides the causes of the motions which stir imagination, there is little doubt, but that Spirits good, or bad can so move the instruments of Sense in the brain, as to awake such imaginations, as they have a mind to excite; and the imagination having a mighty influence upon the affections, and they upon the will and external actions, 'tis very easie to conceive how good Angels may stir us up to Religion and Vertue, and the Evil ones tempt us to Lewdness and Vice, viz. by representments that they make upon the stage of imagination, which invite our affections, and allure, though they cannot compel, our wills.
This I take to be an intelligible account of temptations, and also of Angelical encouragements; and perhaps this is the only way of immediate influence that the Spirits of the other world have upon us. And by it, 'tis easie to give an account of Dreams both Monitory, and Temperamental, Enthusiasms, Fanatick Extasies, and the like, as I suggested.
Thus, Sir, to the first. But the other pretence must also be examined.
SECT. XX.
(2.) Miracles are ceast, therefore the presumed actions of Witchcraft are tales, and illusions.
To make a due return to this, we must consider a great and difficult Problem, which is, What is a real Miracle? And for answer to this weighty Question, I think,
(1.)THAT it is not the strangeness or unaccountableness of the thing done simply, from whence we are to conclude a Miracle. For then, we are so to account of all the Magnalia of Nature and all the Mysteries of those honest Arts, which we do not understand.
