by terrifying them with false prodigies, counterfeit miracles, sending storms, tempests, diseases, plagues (as of old in Athens there was Apollo, Alexicacus, Apollo [Greek:  loimios], pestifer et malorum depulsor), raising wars, seditions by spectrums, troubling their consciences, driving them to despair, terrors of mind, intolerable pains; by promises, rewards, benefits, and fair means, he raiseth such an opinion of his deity and greatness, that they dare not do otherwise than adore him, do as he will have them, they dare not offend him.  And to compel them more to stand in awe of him, [6370]"he sends and cures diseases, disquiets their spirits” (as Cyprian saith), “torments and terrifies their souls, to make them adore him:  and all his study, all his endeavour is to divert them from true religion to superstition:  and because he is damned himself, and in an error, he would have all the world participate of his errors, and be damned with him.”  The primum mobile, therefore, and first mover of all superstition, is the devil, that great enemy of mankind, the principal agent, who in a thousand several, shapes, after diverse fashions, with several engines, illusions, and by several names hath deceived the inhabitants of the earth, in several places and countries, still rejoicing at their falls.  “All the world over before Christ’s time, he freely domineered, and held the souls of men in most slavish subjection” (saith [6371]Eusebius) “in diverse forms, ceremonies, and sacrifices, till Christ’s coming,” as if those devils of the air had shared the earth amongst them, which the Platonists held for gods ([6372]_Ludus deorum sumus_), and were our governors and keepers.  In several places, they had several rites, orders, names, of which read Wierus de praestigiis daemonum, lib. 1. cap. 5. [6373]Strozzius Cicogna, and others; Adonided amongst the Syrians; Adramalech amongst the Capernaites, Asiniae amongst the Emathites; Astartes with the Sidonians; Astaroth with the Palestines; Dagon with the Philistines; Tartary with the Hanaei; Melchonis amongst the Ammonites:  Beli the Babylonians; Beelzebub and Baal with the Samaritans and Moabites; Apis, Isis, and Osiris amongst the Egyptians; Apollo Pythius at Delphos, Colophon, Ancyra, Cuma, Erythra; Jupiter in Crete, Venus at Cyprus, Juno at Carthage, Aesculapius at Epidaurus, Diana at Ephesus, Pallas at Athens, &c.  And even in these our days, both in the East and West Indies, in Tartary, China, Japan, &c., what strange idols, in what prodigious forms, with what absurd ceremonies are they adored?  What strange sacraments, like ours of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, what goodly temples, priests, sacrifices they had in America, when the Spaniards first landed there, let Acosta the Jesuit relate, lib. 5. cap. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., and how the devil imitated the Ark and the children of Israel’s coming out of Egypt; with many such.  For as Lipsius well discourseth out of the doctrine of the Stoics,