In an era when the most profound ignorance prevailed with regard
to the simplest laws of health; when the commoner diseases were
considered as God's punishment for sin, and not attributable to natural
causes; when so eminent a divine as Bishop Hooper could declare that
"the air, the water, and the earth have no poison in themselves to hurt
their lord and master man,"[2] unless man first poisoned himself with
sin; and when, in consequence of this ignorance and this false
philosophy, and the inevitable neglect attendant upon them, those
fearful plagues known as "the Black Death" could, almost without notice,
sweep down upon a country, and decimate its inhabitants--it is not
wonderful that these terrible scourges were attributed to the
malevolence of the Evil One.
[Footnote 1: See secs. 63, 64.]
[Footnote 2: I Hooper, p. 308. Parker Society.]
78. But it is curious to notice that, although possessing such terrible
powers over the bodies and minds of mortals, devils were not believed to
be potent enough to destroy the lives of the persons they persecuted
unless they could persuade their victims to renounce God. This theory
probably sprang out of the limitation imposed by the Almighty upon the
power of Satan during his temptation of Job, and the advice given to the
sufferer by his wife, "Curse God, and die." Hence, when evil spirits
began their assaults upon a man, one of their first endeavours was to
induce him to do some act that would be equivalent to such a
renunciation.
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