Want of faith, no feeling of grace for the present, are not fit directions; we must live by faith, not by feeling; ’tis the beginning of grace to wish for grace: we must expect and tarry.

David a man after Gods own heart, was so troubled himself; Awake, why sleepest thou? O Lord, arise, cast me not off; wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest mine affliction and oppression? My soul is bowed down to the dust. Arise, redeem us, &c. Psal. 44. 22. He prayed long before he was heard, expectans expectavit; endured much before he was relieved, Psal. 69. 3. He complains, I am weary of crying, and my throat is dry, mine eyes fail, whilst I wait on the Lord; and yet he perseveres. Be not dismayed, thou shalt be respected at last.

God often works by contrarieties, he first kils and then makes alive, he woundeth first and then healeth, he makes man sow in tears that he may reap in joy; ’tis Gods method: He that is so visited, must with patience endure and rest satisfied for the present.

The Paschal Lamb was eaten with sowr hearbs; we shall feel no sweetness of his blood, till we first feel the smart of our sins.

Thy paines are great, intolerable for the time; thou art destitute of grace and comfort, stay the Lords leisure, he will not (I say) suffer thee to be tempted above that thou art able to bear, 1 Cor. 10. 13. but will give an issue to temptation. He works all for the best in them that love God, Rom. 8. 28.

Doubt not of thine election, it is an immutable decree; a mark never to be defaced; you have been otherwise, you may and shall be. And for your present affliction, hope the best, it will shortly end. He is present with his servants in their affliction, Ps. 91. 15. Great are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of all. Psal. 34. 19. Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh in us an eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. 4. 17. Not answerable to that glory which is to come; though now in heaviness, saith 1 Pet. 1. 6. you shall rejoyce.

Now last of all to those external impediments, terrible objects, which they hear and see many times, divels, bugbears, and Mormeluches, noysome smels, &c. These may come, as I have formerly declared in my precedent discourse of the Symptomes of Melancholy, from inward causes; as a concave glass reflects solid bodies, a troubled brain for want of sleep, nutriment, and by reason of that agitation of spirits to which Hercules de Saxonia attributes all Symptomes almost, may reflect and shew prodigious shapes, as our vain fear and crased phantasie shall suggest and faign,

as many silly weak women and children in the dark, sick folks, and frantick for want of repast and sleep, suppose they see that they see not: Many times such terriculaments may proceed from natural causes, and all other senses may be deluded.

Besides, as I have said, this humour is Balneum Diaboli, the divels bath, by reason of the distemper of humours, and infirm Organs in us: he may so possess us inwardly to molest us, as he did Saul and others, by Gods permission; he is Prince of the Ayr, and can transform himself into several shapes, delude all our senses for a time, but his power is determined, he may terrifie us, but not hurt;

God hath given his Angels charge over us, he is a wall round about his people, Psal. 91. 11. 12. There be those that prescribe Physick in such cases, ’tis Gods instrument and not unfit. The divel works by mediation of humours, and mixt diseases must have mixt remedies.

Levinus Lemnius cap. 57. & 58. exhort. ad vit. ep. instit. is very copious in this subject, besides that chief remedy of confidence in God, prayer, hearty repentance, &c. of which for your comfort and instruction, read Lavater de spectris part. 3. cap. 5. & 6. Wierus de præstigiis dæmonum lib. 5. to Philip. Melancthon, and others, and that Christian armour which Paul prescribes; he sets down certain Amulets, hearbs, and precious stones, which have marvelous vertues all profligandis dæmonibus, to drive away Divels and their illusions.

Saphyres, Chrysolites, Carbuncles, &c. Quæ mirâ virtute pollent ad Lemures, Stryges, Incubos, Genios aëreos arcendos, si veterum monimentis habenda fides.

Of hearbs, he reckons us Pennirial, Rue, Mint, Angelica, Piony: Rich. Argentine de præstigiis dæmonum cap. 20. addes hypericon or S. Johns wort, perforata herba, which by a divine vertue drives away divels, and is therefore called fuga dæmonum:

all which rightly used by their suffitus, Dæmonum vexationibus obsistunt, afflictas mentes à dæmonibus relevant, & venenatis fumis, expel divels themselves, and all divelish illusions.

Anthony Musa the Emperour Augustus his Physitian, cap. 6. de Betonia approves of Betony to this purpose; the ancients used therefore to plant it in Church-yards, because it was held to be an holy hearb and good against fearful visions, did secure such places it grew in, and sanctified those persons that carried it about them.

Idem fere Mathiolus in Dioscoridem. Others commend accurate musick, so Saul was helped by Davids harpe. Fires to be made in such roomes where spirits haunt, good store of lights to be set up, odors, perfumes, and suffumigations, as the Angel taught Tobias;

of brimstone and bitumen, thus, myrrha, briony root, with many such simples which Wecker hath collected lib. 15. de secretis cap. 15.

℞ sulphuris drachmam unam, recoquatur in vitis albæ aqua, ut dilutius sit sulphur; detur ægro; nam dæmones sunt morbi (saith Rich. Argentine lib. de præstigiis dæmonum cap. ult.)

Vigetus hath a far larger receit to this purpose, which the said Wecker cites out of Wierus. ℞ sulphuris, vini, bituminis, opoponacis, galbani, castorei, &c.

Why sweet perfumes, fires and so many lights should be used in such places, Ernestus Burgravius Lucerna vitæ & mortis, and Fortunius Lycetus assignes this cause, quod his boni Genii provocentur, mali arceantur; because good spirits are well pleased with, but evil abhor them.

And therefore those old Gentiles, present Mahometans, and Papists have continual lamps burning in their Churches all day and all night, lights at funerals and in their graves; lucernæ ardentes ex auro liquefacto for many ages to endure (saith Lazius) ne dæmones corpus lædant; lights ever burning as those Vestall virgins, Pythonissæ maintained heretofore, with many such,

of which read Tostatus in 2 Reg. cap. 6. quæst. 43. Thyreus cap. 57. 58. 62. &c. de locis infestis, Pictorius Isagog. de dæmonibus, &c. see more in them.

Cardan would have the party affected wink altogether in such a case, if he see ought that offends him, or cut the aire with a sword in such places they walke and abide; gladiis enim & lanceis terrentur, shoot a pistole at them, for being aerial bodies, (as Cælius Rhodiginus lib. 1. cap. 29. Tertullian, Origen, Psellus, and many hold) if stroken, they feel pain.

Papists commonly injoyne and apply crosses, holy water, sanctified beads, Amulets, musick, ringing of bells, for to that end are they consecrated, and by them baptized, Characters, counterfeit reliques, so many Masses, peregrinations, oblations, adjurations, and what not?

Alexander Albertinus à Rocha, Petrus Thyreus, and Hieronymus Mengus with many other Pontificial writers, prescribe and set down several formes of exorcismes, aswell to houses possessed with divels, as to dæmoniacal persons; but I am of Lemnius mind, ’tis but damnosa adjuratio, aut potius ludificatio, a meer mockage, a counterfeit charme, to no purpose, they are fopperies and fictions,

as that absurd story is amongst the rest, of a penitent woman seduced by a Magitian in France, at S. Bawne, exorcised by Domphius, Michaelis, and a company of circumventing Friers.

If any man (saith Lemnius) will attempt such a thing, without all those jugling circumstances, Astrological elections of time, place, prodigious habits, fustian, big, sesquipedal words, spels, crosses, characters, which exorcists ordinarily use, let him follow the example of Peter and John, that without any ambitious swelling terms, cured a lame man, Acts 3. In the name of Christ Jesus rise and walke.

His Name alone is the best and only charme against all such diabolical illusions, so doth Origen advise: and so Chrysostome, Hæc erit tibi baculus, hæc turris inexpugnabilis, hæc armatura.

Nos quid ad hæc dicemus, plures fortasse expectabunt, saith S. Austin. Many men will desire my counsel and opinion whats to be done in this behalfe; I can say no more, quam ut verâ fide, quæ per dilectionem operatur, ad Deum unum fugiamus, let them fly to God alone for helpe.

Athanasius in his book De variis quæst. prescribes as a present charme against divels, the beginning of the 67. Ps. Exurgat Deus, dissipentur inimici, &c.

But the best remedy is to flye to God, to call on him, hope, pray, trust, rely on him, to commit our selves wholly to him. What the practise of the primitive Church was in this behalfe, Et quis dæmonia ejiciendi modus, read Wierus at large, lib. 5. de Cura. Lam. meles. cap. 38. & deinceps.

Last of all: If the party affected shall certainly know this malady to have proceeded from too much fasting, meditation, precise life, contemplation of Gods judgements, (for the Divel deceives many by such means) in that other extreme he circumvents Melancholy it self, reading some books, Treatises, hearing rigid preachers, &c.

If he shall perceive that it hath begun first from some great loss, grievous accident, disaster, seeing others in like case, or any such terrible object, let him speedily remove the cause, which to the cure of this disease Navarrus so much commends, avertat cogitationem à re scrupulosa,

by all opposite means, art, and industry, let him laxare animum, by all honest recreations, refresh and recreate his distressed soul; let him direct his thoughts, by himself and other of his friends.

Let him read no more such tracts or subjects, hear no more such fearful tones, avoid such companies, and by all means open himself, submit himself to the advice of good Physitians and Divines, which is contraventio scrupulorum, as he calls it, hear them speak to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the learned, to be able to minister a word to him that is weary, whose words are as flagons of wine.