ipsam intelligentiam daemones fallunt_, they deceive all our senses, even
our understanding itself at once. [1155]They can produce miraculous
alterations in the air, and most wonderful effects, conquer armies, give
victories, help, further, hurt, cross and alter human attempts and projects
(_Dei permissu_) as they see good themselves. [1156]When Charles the Great
intended to make a channel betwixt the Rhine and the Danube, look what his
workmen did in the day, these spirits flung down in the night, _Ut conatu
Rex desisteret, pervicere_. Such feats can they do. But that which Bodine,
_l. 4, Theat. nat._ thinks (following Tyrius belike, and the Platonists,)
they can tell the secrets of a man's heart, _aut cogitationes hominum_, is
most false; his reasons are weak, and sufficiently confuted by Zanch. _lib.
4, cap. 9._ Hierom. _lib. 2, com. in Mat. ad cap. 15_, Athanasius _quaest.
27, ad Antiochum Principem_, and others.

_Orders_.] As for those orders of good and bad devils, which the Platonists
hold, is altogether erroneous, and those Ethnics _boni et mali Genii_, are
to be exploded: these heathen writers agree not in this point among
themselves, as Dandinus notes, _An sint [1157]mali non conveniunt_, some
will have all spirits good or bad to us by a mistake, as if an Ox or Horse
could discourse, he would say the Butcher was his enemy because he killed
him, the grazier his friend because he fed him; a hunter preserves and yet
kills his game, and is hated nevertheless of his game; _nec piscatorem
piscis amare potest_, &c. But Jamblichus, Psellus, Plutarch, and most
Platonists acknowledge bad, _et ab eorum maleficiis cavendum_, and we
should beware of their wickedness, for they are enemies of mankind, and
this Plato learned in Egypt, that they quarrelled with Jupiter, and were
driven by him down to hell. [1158]That which [1159]Apuleius, Xenophon, and
Plato contend of Socrates Daemonium, is most absurd: That which Plotinus of
his, that he had likewise _Deum pro Daemonio_; and that which Porphyry
concludes of them all in general, if they be neglected in their sacrifice