would God give way (or _Samuel_ be desirous to come) to send a blessed Soul from its rest for such a frivolous matter, and in no wise to connive at the wickedness of both _Saul_ and the Witch, and never move either of them to the amendment of their lives. 10. Where doth Mr. _Glanvil_ find it mentioned in any part of Scripture? or where is it recorded in the writings of any reformed or Orthodoxal Divines? or where in any of their works is it declared, that ever any blessed Soul after death, was either sent, or did come upon a Divine errand to any here below? Is it not monstrous confidence (not to say impudence) to utter such groundless assertions, without any proof, reason, or authority at all? Let all learned and judicious persons consider and judge. 3. That the Devil assumed the shape of _Samuel_, and acted the whole business, is the opinion of all, or the most of the learned Divines of the reformed Churches, of whom we shall crave pardon, if we dissent from them, it being no fundamental of Religion, nor any Article of the Faith. And this we profess is not done out of the spirit of contradiction, nor for singularity, but only because (as we conceive) the Tenent hath no sufficient grounds neither from Scripture nor sound reason, to support it, and therefore we shall labour its confutation, by these ensuing arguments. 1. Because this opinion, that the Devil should perform this apparition, doth beg two suppositions, never yet sufficiently proved, and that have in them no certain truth. For first they take for an Hypothesis, that Devils are meerly and simply incorporeal Spirits, which we shall prove hereafter to be false. Secondly they take for another Hypothesis, that Spirits and Devils can assume what bodies they please, and appear in any figure or shape, which is a meer figment invented by the doating Schoolmen, as we shall sufficiently make good hereafter. 2. We are not of their opinion, that think, that the Devils do move, and rove up and down in this elementary world at their pleasure, to act what they list, and appear when, how and in what shapes they please, for then the World would be full of nothing almost but apparitions, and every corner replenished with their ludicrous tricks, as formerly in the times of blind Popery and ignorance, there was no discourse almost, but of Fairies, Hobgoblins, apparitions, Spirits, Devils and Souls, ranting in every house, and playing feats in every Town and Village, when it was nothing but the superstitious credulity, and ignorant fancies of the people, joined with the Impostures of the Priests and Monks. And if this were true, then how should Men know a true natural substance or body, from these fictitious apparitions? Nay how could a Man have known his Father or Mother, his Brethren or Sisters, his Kinsmen or Neighbours? might they not as well have believed them to be Phantasms, and assumed bodies, as real and true creatures? [Sidenote: 1 Kings 22.] [Sidenote: Isa. 37.]