An essay for the recording of illustrious providences

So then it is not beyond Satan's power to effect such things, if the great God give him leave, without whose leave he cannot blow a Feather: much less raise a Thunder-storm. And as the Scriptures intimate Satan's Power in the Air to be great, so Histories do abundantly confirm it by remarkable Instances. One of the Scholars of Empedocles has testified, that he saw his Master raising Winds and laying them again; and there were once many Witnesses of it, whence they called Empedocles [Greek or Hebrew] Clemens Alexandrinus mentions this as unquestionably true. Our great Rainold (de libr•s Apocryphis Lect.202.) saith, that we may from jo• conclude, it was not impossible for Empedocles by the Devils aid, to do as has been reported of him. Dio relates that when the Roman Army in the days of the Emperor Claudius, pursuing the Africans, ⟨p. 127⟩was in extreme danger of perishing by Drought: a Magician undertook to procure water for them, and presently upon his Incantations, an astonishing shower fell. Jovianus Pontanus reports, that when King Ferdinand besieged the City Suessa, all the waters in the Cisterns being dried up, the Citizens had like to have lost their lives by the prevailing Drought. The Popish Priests undertook by Conjuration to obtain Water. The Magical Ceremonies by them observed were most horrid and ridiculous. For they took an Ass, and put the Sacrament of the Eucharist into his Mouth, sang Funeral Verses over him, and then buried him alive before the Church doors; as soon as these rites, so pleasing to the Devil were finished, the Heavens began to look black, and the Sea to be agitated with Winds, and anon it rained, and lightened, after a most horrendous manner. Smetius in his Miscellanies, Lib. 5. Relates that a Girl foolishly imitating the Ceremonies of her Nurse, whom she had sometimes seen raising Tempests, immediately a prodigious Storm of Thunder and Lightning happened, so as that a Village near Lipsia was thereby set on fire; This Relation is mentioned by Sennertus, as a thing really true. At some places in Denmark, it is a common and a wicked practice ⟨p. 128⟩to buy Winds, when they are going to Sea• If Satan has so far the power of the Air as to cause Winds, he may cause Storms also Livy reports concerning Romulus, that he was by a Tempest of Thunder and Lightning transported no man knew whither, being after that never heard of. Meurerus (in Comment.