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OF MAN.

of the mind, and supposing that they did not contemn also their honour, gave counsel to the magistrates, to strip such as so hanged themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the story says, cured that madness. But on the other side, the same Grecians, did often ascribe madness to the operation of Eumenides, or Furies; and sometimes of Ceres, Phœbus, and other gods; so much did men attribute to phantasms, as to think them aerial living bodies; and generally to call them spirits. And as the Romans in this, held the same opinion with the Greeks, so also did the Jews; for they call madmen prophets, or, according as they thought the spirits good or bad, demoniacs: and some of them called both prophets and demoniacs, madmen; and some called the same man both demoniac, and madman. But for the Gentiles it is no wonder, because diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural accidents, were with them termed, and worshipped as demons. So that a man was to understand by demon, as well, sometimes an ague, as a devil. But for the Jews to have such opinion, is somewhat strange. For neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to prophesy by possession of a spirit; but from the voice of God; or by a vision or dream: nor is there anything in his law, moral or ceremonial, by which they were taught, there was any such enthusiasm, or any possession. When God is said, (Numb. xi. 25) to take from the spirit that was in Moses, and give to the seventy elders, the Spirit of God (taking it for the substance of God) is not divided. The Scriptures, by the Spirit of God in man, mean a man's spirit, inclined to godliness. And where it is said, (Exod. xxiii. 8) "whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom to make garments for Aaron," is not meant a spirit put into them, that can make garments, but the wisdom of their own spirits in that kind of work. In the like sense, the spirit of man, when it produceth unclean actions, is ordinarily called an unclean spirit, and so other spirits, though not

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