Question II: Whom it is lawful to adjure

I assert first, that it is licit to adjure God, only by entreating through some sacred thing, for instance through the Passion of Christ. So D. Thom. art. 1. in corpore, et ad 3. D. Bonavent. in expositione Missae, cap. 2. and Tannerus observes disp. 5. quaest. 5. dub. 1. But we pray to, and adjure, God through the merits of Christ, not that his unchangeable will be changed, but as a medium assumed, as is believed, by the divine will, as Tannerus notes num. 40. after D. Bonavent. in 1. dist. 48. quaest. ultima. For it is an act of religion.

I assert second, that men also can be adjured. Superiors indeed by deprecation; but inferiors also by command, through the invocation of a sacred thing, or of the Divine name; and as to inferiors it is plain in Abraham, adjuring his servant, as I said in the first question.

It is PERVERSE, however, to adjure one who is not a subject. Thus Caiphas sinned by adjuring Christ, wishing to force him to say whether he was the Christ, as S. Bonaventure notes in meditationibus Passionis Christi, cap. 75. and with him Tanner. num. 41.

I assert third, that demons can be compelled by adjurations to render service to God. Thus Marci ultimo, it is said: In my name they shall cast out devils. So D. Thom. art. 2. And Lucae 10. Behold I have given you all power over all the might of the enemy. Which the S. Doctor accommodates to this passage of Luke, where he discourses on the purposes for which demons are to be adjured.

Yet it is not licit to adjure demons in order to learn or obtain something from them, or to contract society with them, as the Apostle warns, prima Corinth. 10. Do not become partakers of devils, and D. Thom. notes art. 2. and S. Bonaventure discourses serm. 2. in decem praecepta.

Nor are demons to be assisted by prayer, or invoked by any petition, as D. Bonavent. notes in 4. dist. 34. art. 2. quaest. 2. ad argumenta. For the exorcism is instituted to compel demons to depart, and to leave men free from their infestations, as the S. Doctor notes in Compendio Theologiae, lib. 6. cap. 10. And it is an act of Religion. So Valentia disput. 6. quaest. 8. puncto 2. Suarez tract. 2. lib. 4. cap. 3. Bassaeus num. 1.

I assert fourth, that irrational creatures can also be adjured, not indeed by an adjuration directed simply to them, for that would be vain: but either to God invoked, or for driving out from them the demons, who use irrational things to harm us; and in this way Exorcists make use of them, as D. Bonavent. notes supra, and with him Tannerus num. 44. and D. Thom. quaest. 90. art. 3. Sylvius there, Sanchez lib. 2. moral. cap. 42. num. 37. Lessius lib. 2. cap. 42. dub. 13. num. 72. Reginaldus lib. 18. cap. 9. num. 112. Nauar. lib. 5. consil. de excom. cons. 5. Tabiena, and Sylvester V. Adiuratio, Layman lib. 5. tract. 9. cap. 14. Petrus Ledesm. tract. 11. cap. 6. Viguer. cap. 5. §. 5. Bassaeus, and many others.