But why then does our Saviour proceed in the curing of them,as if they were possessed,and not as it they were mad?To which I can give no other kind of answer but that which is given to those that urge the Scripture in like manner against the opinion of the motion of the earth.The Scripture was written to show unto men the kingdom of God,and to prepare their minds to become His obedient subjects,leaving the world,and the philosophy thereof,to the disputation of men for the exercising of their natural reason.Whether the earth's or sun's motion make the day and night,or whether the exorbitant actions of men proceed from passion or from the Devil,so we worship him not,it is all one,as to our obedience and subjection to God Almighty;which is the thing for which the Scripture was written.As for that our Saviour speaketh to the disease as to a person,it is the usual phrase of all that cure by words only,as Christ did,and enchanters pretend to do,whether they speak to a devil or not.For is not Christ also said to have rebuked the winds?Is not he said also to rebuke a fever?Yet this does not argue that a fever is a devil.And whereas many of those devils are said to confess Christ,it is not necessary to interpret those places otherwise than that those madmen confessed Him.And whereas our Saviour speaketh of an unclean spirit that,having gone out of a man,wandereth through dry places,seeking rest,and finding none,and returning into the same man with seven other spirits worse than himself;it is manifestly a parable,alluding to a man that,after a little endeavour to quit his lusts,is vanquished by the strength of them,and becomes seven times worse than he was.So that I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief that demoniacs were any other thing but madmen.
There is yet another fault in the discourses of some men,which may also be numbered amongst the sorts of madness;namely,that abuse of words,whereof I have spoken before in the fifth chapter by the name of absurdity.And that is when men speak such words as,put together,have in them no signification at all,but are fallen upon,by some,through misunderstanding of the words they have received and repeat by rote;by others,from intention to deceive by obscurity.
And this is incident to none but those that converse in questions of matters incomprehensible,as the Schoolmen;or in questions of abstruse philosophy.The common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly,and are therefore,by those other egregious persons,counted idiots.But to be assured their words are without anything correspondent to them in the mind,there would need some examples;which if any man require,let him take a Schoolman into his hands and see if he can translate any one chapter concerning any difficult point;as the Trinity,the Deity,the nature of Christ,transubstantiation,free will,etc.,into any of the modern tongues,so as to make the same intelligible;or into any tolerable Latin,such as they were acquainted withal that lived when the Latin tongue was vulgar.What is the meaning of these words:"The first cause does not necessarily inflow anything into the second,by force of the essential subordination of the second causes,by which it may help it to work?"They are the translation of the title of the sixth chapter of Suarez's first book,Of the Concourse,Motion,and Help of God.When men write whole volumes of such stuff,are they not mad,or intend to make others so?And particularly,in the question of transubstantiation;where after certain words spoken they that say,the whiteness,roundness,magnitude,quality,corruptibility,all which are incorporeal,etc.,go out of the wafer into the body of our blessed Saviour,do they not make those nesses,tudes,and ties to be so many spirits possessing his body?For by spirits they mean always things that,being incorporeal,are nevertheless movable from one place to another.So that this kind of absurdity may rightly be numbered amongst the many sorts of madness;and all the time that,guided by clear thoughts of their worldly lust,they forbear disputing or writing thus,but lucid intervals.And thus much of the virtues and defects intellectual.
