Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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2. The second grand instance of his power I shall produce from those actions of wonder and astonishment which he sometime performs, which indeed have been so great that they have occasioned that question—

Whether Satan can do miracles?

To this we answer—

(1.) That God alone can work miracles, a miracle being a real act, done visibly, and above the power of nature. Such works some have ranked into three heads:116 [1.] Such as created power cannot produce; as to make the sun stand still or go backward. [2.] Such as are in themselves produceable by nature,117 but not in such an order; as to make the dead to live, and those that were born blind to see, which is strongly argued, John ix. 32, to be above human power; and, John x. 21, to be above the power of devils. [3.] Such as are the usual works of nature, yet produced, above the principles and helps of nature, as to cure a disease by a word or touch.

Things that are thus truly and properly miraculous are peculiarly works of God; neither can it be imagined, that since he hath been pleased to justify his commands, ways, and messages, by such mighty acts—2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 4; John x. 38—and also hath been put to it, to justify himself and his sole supreme being and godhead from false competitors—Ps. lxxxvi. 10, and lxxii. 18—by his miraculous works, it cannot be imagined, I say, that he would permit any created being, much less Satan, to do such things.