A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolvedA Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved

And as most evil Motions on the Soul have Satan for their Father, and our own Hearts as the Mothers, so most or many bodily Diseases are by Satan, permitted by God, though there be Causes of them also in the Body it self. And when our own Miscarriages, and Humours, and the Season, Weather, and Accidents may be Causes, yet Satan may by these be a superior Cause.

And as most evil Motions on the Soul have Satan for their Father, and our own Hearts as the Mothers, so most or many bodily Diseases are by Satan, permitted by God, though there be Causes of them also in the Body it self. And when our own Miscarriages, and Humors, and the Season, Weather, and Accidents may be Causes, yet Satan may by these be a superiour Cause.

And when his Operations are such as we call a Possession, yet he may work by means and bodily dispositions; and sometimes he worketh quite above the power of the Disease it self (as when the unlearned speak in strange Languages, and when bewitched Persons vomit Iron, Glass, &c) And sometime he doth only work by the Disease it self (as in Epilepsies, Madness, &c.)

From all this it is easy to gather, 1. That for Satan to possess the Body, is no certain Sign of a graceless state, nor will this condemn the Soul any, if the Soul it self be not possessed: Nay there are few of Gods Children, but its like are sometime afflicted by Satan, as the Executioner of Gods correcting them, and sometime of Gods Trials, as in the Case of Job; whatever some say to the contrary, it is likely that the •rick in the Flesh, which was Satan's Messenger to beset Paul, was some such Pain as the Stone, which yet was not removed (that we ⟨p. 273⟩find) after thrice praying, but only he had a promise of sufficient Grace.