1. If the Devil be considered as an incorporeal creature simply and absolutely, then it will follow, that he cannot act upon any corporeal matter, because an incorporeal substance can make no contact upon a body, unless it were it self corporeal; for, _quicquid agit, agit per contactum, vel mediatum, vel immediatum._ But both those are caused by the touch of one body upon another, as when ones hand by touching a straw doth immediately move it forth of its place, or else by blowing doth remove it, which is by the mediation of the air; but that which is meerly incorporeal can perform neither: Because that which is meerly incorporeal hath no superficies, whereby to touch the body to be removed; and therefore can make no motion of it at all; and where there is no motion, there can be no alteration, and consequently no speech nor articulation at all. And therefore the Devil (if incorporeal) could not, move the Organs of the Serpent at all, and so could not speak in the Serpent nor move his organs, if they had been fit for articulate prolation, which they were not. Which was the thing required to be proved. [Sidenote: _Reas. 2._] 2. The Serpent by the ordinance of God in the Creation was specificated to an inarticulate sound, not to an articulate: but the Devil neither hath, nor ever had any power to change and overturn the course of Gods ordination in nature, and therefore hath not power, nor never had to make the Serpent speak articulately; for that were to overthrow the inviolable order of God set in the Creation, which no man of sound judgment did ever aver that the Devil could do. [Sidenote: _Reas. 3._] 3. I take it to be one of the most firm maximes that ever the Schools had, that, _immateriale non agit in materiale, nisi eminenter ut Deus_: Therefore that the Devil being incorporeal and immaterial cannot act upon that which is material, as was the body of the Serpent, unless he had had a super-eminent and omnipotent power, which were blasphemous to attribute unto him, therefore could he not articulately speak in the Serpent unto _Evah_, because immaterial, and had no omnipotent power. [Sidenote: _Reas. 4._] 4. And if he be conceived to be corporeal, then he could either of himself speak articulately and audibly, or else not. And if he could do so of himself, then to enter into the Serpent was needless and superfluous. And if he could not, then the entring into the Serpent would not have contributed that faculty unto him, and so neither way he could have performed it; For a Frog creeping into the body of a Man, will not cause the Frog to speak, though it may make some noise or croaking. [Sidenote: _Reas. 5._]