These with the rest of such Legends have this direct tendency, _viz._ To tell the World that the Devil is more ready to serve his Votaries, by his doing for them things above or against the course of Nature, shewing himself to them, and making explicit contract with them, _&c._ than the Divine Being is to his faithful Servants, and that as he is willing, so also able to perform their desires.[175] The way whereby these People are believed to arrive at a power to Afflict their Neighbours, is by a compact with the Devil, and that they have a power to _Commissionate_ him to those Evils, P. 72. However Irrational, or inscriptural such Assertions are, yet they seem a necessary part of the _Faith_ of such as maintain the belief of such a sort of _Witches_. As the Scriptures know nothing of a covenanting or commissioning Witch, so Reason cannot conceive how Mortals should by their Wickedness arrive at a power to Commissionate Angels, Fallen Angels, against their Innocent Neighbours. But the Scriptures are full in it, and the Instances numerous, that the Almighty, Divine Being has this prerogative to make use of what Instrument he pleaseth, in Afflicting any, and consequently to commissionate Devils: And tho this word commissioning, in the Authors former Books, might be thought to be by inadvertency, yet now after he hath been caution'd of it, still to persist in it seems highly Criminal. And therefore in the name of God, I here charge such belief as guilty of Sacrilege in the highest Nature, and so much worse than stealing Church Plate, _&c._ As it is a higher Offence to steal any of the glorious Attributes of the Al[155]mighty, to bestow them upon Mortals, than it is to steal the Utensils appropriated to his Service. And whether to ascribe such power of commissioning Devils to the worst of Men, be not direct Blasphemy, I leave to others better able to determine. When the _Pharisees_ were so wicked as to ascribe to _Beelzebub_, the mighty works of Christ (whereby he did manifestly shew forth his Power and Godhead) than it was that our Saviour declar'd the Sin against the Holy Ghost to be unpardonable. When the Righteous God is contending with Apostate Sinners, for their departures from him, by his Judgments, as Plagues, Earthquakes, Storms and Tempests, Sicknesses and Diseases, Wars, loss of Cattle, _&c._ Then not only to ascribe this to the Devil, but to charge one another with sending or commissionating those Devils to these things, is so abominable and so wicked, that it requires a better Judgment than mine to give it its just denomination.[176]