and by his unspeakable name Tetragrammaton and by all the holy sacraments and by the holy majesty and deity of the living God I conjure and exorcise thee Bealphares by the vertue of all angels archangels thrones dominations principaâ—s potestats virtures cherubim and seraphim and by their vertues and by the most truest and speciallest name of your master that you doe come unto us in faire form of man or woman kinde been visibly before this circle and not terrible by any manner of wayes This circle being our tuition and protection by the mercifull goodnesse of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that you doe make answer truly without craft or deceit unto all my demands and questions by the vertue and power of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. XIIII To bind the spirit Bealphares and to loose him again NOw when he is appeared bind him with these words which follow I conjure thee Bealphares by God the father by God the son and by God the Holy Ghost and by all the holy company in heaven and by their vertues and powers I charge thee Bealphares that thou shalt not depart out of my sight nor yet to alter thy bodily shape that thou art appeared in nor any power shalt thou have of our bodies or soules eartly or ghostly but to be obedient to me and to the words of my conjuration that be written in this book I conjure thee Bealphares by all angels and archangels thrones dominations principats potestates vertutes cherubim and seraphim and by their vertues and powers I conjure and charge binde and constraine thee Bealphares by all the 〈◊〉 words aforesaid and by their vertues that thou be obedient unto me and to come and appeare visibly unto me and that in all dayes houres and minutes wheresoever I be being called by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ the which words are written in this book Look ready thou be to appeare unto me and to give mee good counsell how to come by treasures hidden in the earth or in the water and how to come to dignity and knowledge of all things that is to say of the magick art and of grammar dialectike rhetorike arithmeticke musick geometry and of astromomy and in all other things my will quickly to be fulfilled I charge upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen When he is thus bound ask him what thing thou wilt and he will tell thee and give thee all things that thou wilt request of him without any sacrifice doing to him and without forsaking thy God that is thy maker And when the spirit hath fulfilled thy will and intent give him license to depart as followeth A license for the spirit to depart GO unto the place predestinated and appointed for thee where thy Lord God hath appointed thee untill I shall call thee again Be thou ready unto me and to my call as often as I shall call thee upon pain of everlasting damnation And if thou wilt thou mayst recite two or three times the last conjuration untill thou doe come to this â—earin In throno If he will not depart and then say In throno that thou depart from this place without hurt or damage of any body or of any deed to be done that all creatures may know that our Lord is of all power most mightiest and that there is none other God but he which is three and one living for ever and ever And the malediction of God the father omnipotent the son and the holy ghost descend upon thee and dwell alwayes with thee except thou doe depart without damage of us or of any creature or any other evill deed to be done and thou to goe to the place predestinated And by our Lord Jesus Christ I do else send thee to the great pit of hell except I say that thou depart to the place whereas thy Lord God hath appointed thee And see thou be ready to me and to my call at all times and places at mine own will and pleasure day or night without damage or hurt of me or of any creature upon pain of everlasting damnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen Amen The peace of Jesus Christ be between us and you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen Por crucis hoc ✚ signum c. Say In principio erat verbum verbum erat apud Deum In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and God was the word and so forward as followeth in the first chapter of saint Iohns Gospell staying at these words Full of grace and truth to whom bee all honour and glory world without end Amen A type or figure of the circle for the master and his fellowes to sit in shewing how and after what fashion it should be made THis is the circle for the master to sit in and his fellow or fellowes at the first calling sit back to back when hee calleth the spirit and for the fairies make this circle with chalk on the ground as is said before This spirit Bealphares being once called and found shall never have power to hurt thee Call him in the houre of ♃ or ♀ the ☽ increasing CHAP. XV. The making of the holy water EXorciso te creaturam salis per Deum vivum ✚ per Deum ✚ verum ✚ per Deum sanctum ✚ per Duem qui te per Elizaeum prophetam in aquam mitli jussit â—tâ—s naretur sterrilitas aquae ut efficiaâ—is sal exorcisaâ—us in saluum credentium ut sit omnibus te sumentibus sanitas animae corporis essugiat atque discedat ab co loco qui aspersus stâ—â—at omnis phantasia nequitia vel versutia diabolicae fraudis omnisque spiritus adjuratus per cum qui venturus est judicare vivos mo tuos saeculum perignem Amen Oremus Imunsam clementiam tuam omnipotens aeterne Deus humiliter imploramus ut hanc creaturam salis quam in usum generis humani tribuisti bene ✚ dicere sancti ✚ ficare tua prelate digneris ut sit omnibus sumentibus saâ—is menlis corporis ut quicquid ex co tactum suerit vel respersum careat omni immundicia omnique impugnatione spiritualis nequitia per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum filium tuum qui tecum vivit regnat in unitate spiritus sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen To the water say also as followeth Exorciso te creaturam aquae in nomine ✚ patris ✚ Iesu Christi filii ejus Domini nostri in virtute spiritus ✚ sanct ✚ ut siat aquae exorcisata ad estisgandam omnem potestatem inimici ipsum inimicum erodicare explantare valeas cum angelis suis apostatis per virtutem ejusdem Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos saeculum per ignem Amen Oremus Deus qui ad
and eye-lids their braines the roofe of their mouthes their tongues their throats their breast their hearts their bellies their livers all their bowels and their stomach Cursed be their navels their spleenes their bladder Cursed be their thighes their legs their feet their toes their necks their shoulders Cursed be their backs cursed be their armes cursed be their elbowes cursed be their hands and their fingers cursed be both the nails of their hands and feet cursed be their ribbs and their genitals and their knees cursed be their flesh cursed be their bones cursed be their bloud cursed be the skin of their bodies cursed be the marrows in their bones cursed be they from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot and whatsoever is betwixt the same be it accursed ' that is to say their five senses to wit their seeing their hearing their smelling their tasting and their feeling Cursed be they in the holy crosse in the passion of Christ with his five wounds with the effusion of his bloud and by the milk of the Virgine Mary I conjure thee Lucifer with all thy Souldiers by the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost with the humanity and nativity of Christ with the vertue of all Saints that thou rest not day nor night till thou bringest them to destruction either by drowning or hanging or that they be devoured by wild beasts or burnt or slain by their enemies or hated of all men living And as our Lord hath given authority to Peter the Apostle and his successors whose place we occupy and to us though unworthy that whatsoever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever we loose on earth shall be loose in heaven so we accordingly if they will not amend do shut from them the gates of heaven and deny unto them Christian burial so as they shall be buried in asses leaze Furthermore curssed be the ground wherein they are buried let them be confounded in the last day of Judgement let them have no conversation among Christians nor be houseled at the hour of death let them be made as dust before the face of the wind and as Lucifer was expelled out of heaven and Adam and Eve out of paradise so let them be expelled from the daylight Also let them be joyned with those to whom the Lord saith at the Judgement Go ye curssed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devill and his angels where the worme shall not die nor the fire be quenched And as the candle which is throwne out of my hand here is put out so let their works and their soul be quenched in the stench of hell fire except they restore that which they have stolne by such a day and let every one say Amen After this must be sung In media vita in morte sumus c. This terrible curse with bell book and candle added thereunto must needs work wonders howbeit among theeves it is not much weighed among wise and true men it is not well liked to them that are robbed it bringeth small releef the priests stomach may well be eased but the goods stolne will never the sooner be restored Hereby is bewrayed both the malice and folly of popish doctrine whose unchaâ—itable impietie is so impudently published and in such order uttered as every sentence if opportunity served might be proved both heretical and diabolical But I will answer this cruel curse with another curse far more mild and civil performed by as honest a man I dare say as he that made the other whereof mention was lately made So it was that a certain Sir John with some of his company once went abroad a jetting and in a moon-light evening robbed a millers weire and stole all his eeles The poor miller made his mone to Sir John himself who willed him to be quiet for he would so curse the theef and all his confederates with bell book and candel that they should have small joy of their fish And therefore the next sunday Sir John got him to the pulpit with his surplisse on his back and his stole about his neck and pronounced these words following in the audience of the people All you that have stolne the millers eeles Laudate Dominum de coelis And all they that have consented thereto Benedicamus Domino Lo saith he there is savoe for your eeles my masters Another inchantment CErtaine priests use the hundred and eight psalm as an inchantment or charm or at the leastwise saying that against whomsoever they pronounce it they cannot live one whole year at the uttermost CHAP. XVIII A charme or experiment to find out a witch IN die dominico sotularia juvenum axungia seu pinguedine porci ut moris est pro restauratione fieri perungunt and when she is once come into the church the witch can never get out untill the searchers for her give her expresse leave to depart But now it is necessary to shew you how to prevent and cure all mischiefs wrought by these charmes and witchcrafts according to the opinion of M. Mal. and others One principal way is to naile a horse-shoe at the inside of the outmost threshhold of your house and so you shall be sure no witch shall have power to enter thereinto And if you marke it you shall find that rule observed in many countrey-houses Otherwise Item the triumphant title to be written crossewise in every corner of the house thus Iesus ✚ Nazarenus ✚ rex ✚ Iudaeorum ✚ Memorandum you may join herewithal the name of the virgine Mary or of the four Evangelists or Verbum caro factum est Otherwise Item in some countries they naile a wolves head on the door Otherwise Item they hang Scilla which is either a root or rather in this place garlike in the roof of the house for to keep away witches and spirits and so they do Alicium also Otherwise Item perfume made of the gall of a black dog and his bloud besmeered on the posts and walles of the house driveth out of the doors both devils and witches Otherwise The house where Herba betonica is sown is free from all mischiefes Otherwise It is not unknown that the Romish church allowed and used the smoak of Sulphur to drive spirits out of their houses as they did frankincense and water hallowed Otherwise Apuleius saith that Mercury gave to Ulysses when he came neer to the inchantresse Circe an herb called Verbascum which in English is called Mullein or Tapsus barbatus or Longwoort and that preserved him from the inchantments Otherwise Item Pliny and Homer bo do say that the herb call'd Moly is an excellent herb against inchantments and say all that thereby Ulysses escaped Circes her sorceries and inchantments Otherwise also diverse waies they went to worke in this case and some used this defensive some that preservative against incantations And herein you shall see not only how the religion of papists and infidels
this will not only be found among indifferent actions but such as greatly advance the power and glory of God discovering their pride and falshood that 〈◊〉 upon them to work miracles and to be the mighty power of God as Iannes and Iambres and also Simon Magnus did If any man doubt of these things as whether they be not as strange to behold as I have reported or think with Bodin that these matters are performed by familiars or devils let him go into S. Martins and inquire for one Iohn Cautares a French man by birth in conversation an honest man and he will shew as much and as strange actions as these who getteth not his living hereby but laboureth for the same with the sweat of his browes and neverthelesse hath the best hand and conveyance I think of any man that liveth this day Neither do I speak as they say without book herein For if time place and occasion serve I can shew so much herein that I am sure Bodin Spinaeus and Vairus would swear I were a witch and had a familiar devill at commandement But truly my study and travell herein hath only beene employed to the end I might prove them fooles and finde out the fraud of them that make them fooles as whereby they may become wiser and God may have that which to him belongeth And because the manner of these juggling conveyances are not easily conceived by discourse of words I have caused to be set down divers formes of instruments used in this art which may serve for patternes to them that would throughly see the secrets thereof and make them for their own private practices to trie the event of such devices as in this trâ—ct of legierdemain are shewed Where note that you shall find every instrument that is most necessarily occupied in the working of these strange feats to bear the just and true number of the page where the use thereof is in ample words declared Now will I proceed with another cousening point of witchcraft apt for the place necessary for the time and in mine opinion meet to be discovered or at the least to be defaced among deceitful arts And because many are abused hereby to their utter undoing for that it hath had passage under the protection of learning whereby they pretend to accomplish their works it hath gone freely without general controlment through all ages nations and people Place this after 248. fol. The xiiii Book Of the Art of Alchimistry of their words of Art and devices to blear mens eyes and to procure credit to their profession CHAP. I. HEre I thought it not impertinent to say somewhat of the Art or rather the craft of Alchimistry otherwise called Multiplication which Chaucer of all other men most lively deciphereth In the bowels hereof doth both witchcraft and conjuration lie hidden as whereby some cousen others and some are cousened themselves For by this mystery as it is said in the Chanons mans prologue They take upon them to turn upside downe All the earth between Southwark and Canterburie towne And to pavÌ„e it all of silver and gold c. But ever they lack of their conclusion And to much folk they doe illusion For their stuffe slides away so fast That it makes them beggers at the last And by this craft they doe never win But make their purse empty and their wits thin And because the practisers hereof would be thought wise learned â—â—ing and their crafts masters they have devised words of art senâ—ces and epithers obscure and confections so innumerable which are 〈◊〉 compounded of strange and rare simples as confound the capacity of them that are either set on work herein or be brought to behold 〈◊〉 expect their conclusions For what plain man would not beleeve that they are learned and jolly fellowes that have in such readinesse 〈◊〉 many mysticall termes of art as for a taste their subliming amalâ—â—ming englutting imbibing incorporating cementing retrination terminations mollifications and indurations of bodies matters 〈◊〉 and coagulat ingots tests c. Or who is able to conceive by â—eason of the abrupt confusion contrariety and multitudes of drugs â—â—mples and confections the operation and mystery of their stuffe and â—orkmanship For these things and many more are of necessity to 〈◊〉 prepared and used in the execution of this indeavour namely orpiâ—ent sublimed Mercury iron squames Mercury crude groundly large 〈◊〉 armoniack verdegrece borace holes gall arsenick sal armoniack brimstone salt paper burnt bones unâ—â—aked lime clay saltpeter 〈◊〉 triall saltartre alcalie sal preparat clay made with horse dung 〈◊〉 hair oile of tartre allum glasse woort yest argoll resagor gleir oâ— an eye powders ashes dung pisse c. Then have they waters consive and lincall waters of albification and water rubifying c. Also oiles ablusion and metals fusible Also their lamps their urinals 〈◊〉 censories sublimatories alembecks viols croslets cucurbin stillâ—â—tories and their furnace of calcination also their soft and subtle 〈◊〉 some of wood some of coale composed specially of beech c. And because they will not seem to want any point of cousenage to astonish the simple or to move admiration to their enterprises they have â— they affirme four spirits to work withall whereof the first is orpimen the second quicksilver the third sal armoniack the fourth brimstone Then have they seven celestiall bodies namely Sol Luna Mars Mercurie Saturne Iupiter and Venus to whom they apply seven terrestrial bodies to wit gold silver iron quicksilver lead tinno and copper attributing unto these the operation of the other specially if the terrestriall bodies be qualified tempered and wrought in the house 〈◊〉 day according to the feats of the celestiall bodies with more life unity CHAP. II. The Alchymisters drift the Chanons yeomans tale of Alchymicall stones and waters NOw you must understand that the end and drift of all their work to attain unto the composition of the philosophers stone called 〈◊〉 and to the stone called Titanus and to Magnatia which is a 〈◊〉 made of the four elements which they say the philosophers 〈◊〉 sworne neither to discover nor to write of And by these they mâ—â— quicksilver and make it malleable and to hold touch hereby also to convert any other metall but specially copper into gold This â— ence forsooth is the secret of secrets even as Solomons conjure is said among the conjurors to be so likewise And thus when the chance to meet with young men or simple people they boast 〈◊〉 brag and say with Simon Magus that they can work miracles 〈◊〉 bring mighty things to passe In which respect Chaucer truly hereof 〈◊〉 Each man is as wise as Solomon When they are together everichone But he that seemes wisest is most fool in preef And he that is truest is a very cheef They seem friendly to them that know nought But they are fiendly both in word and thought Yet many men ride and
salutem humani generis maxima quaeque sacramenta in aquarum substantia condidisti adesto propitius invocationibus nostris elemento buic mâ—ltimodis purificationibus praeparato virtutem tuae bene ✚ dictionis insunde ut creatura tua mysteriis tuis servicas ad abigendos daemones maâ—bosque pellendos divinae gratiae sumat effectum ut quicquid in domibus vel inlocis fidelium haec unda resperserit careat omni immunditia liberetur a noxa non illic resideaâ— spiritus pestilens non aura corrumpens discedant omnes insidiâ— latentis inimici si quid est quod aut incolumitati habitantium invidet aut quieti asper sione hujus aquae effugiat ut salubritas per invocationem sancti tui nominis expetita ab omnibus sit impugnationibus desensa per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum filium tuum qui tecum vivil regnat in unitate spiritus sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen Then take the salt in thy hand and say putting it into the water making in the manner of a Cross. Commixtio salis aquae pariter fiat in nomine patris filii spiritus sancti Amen Domâ—aus vâ—biscum Et cum spiritu tuo Oremus Deus mâ—cte virtutis author insuperabilâ—s imperit â—ex aâ— semper magnificus ritumâ— bator qui ad â—â—â—ae dominationis vâ—â—â—s repâ—â—mis qui inimici rugiâ—uâ— sa vitiam superas qui hostiles nequittas potens â—a pugnas te Domine trementes su plices dâ—pâ—â—â—aâ—uâ— aâ— potimus ut hanc â—râ—â—â—tâ—am salis aquae aspiâ—ias bemguus 〈…〉 es putails tuae rore sanct ✚ fices ubicunque fuâ—â—ll aspersa per invocationem sancti tui nominis omnis infestatio in mundi spiritus abâ—â—tatur terrorque venenosi se pantis procul pellatur praesevita sancti spiritus nobis 〈◊〉 tuam poscentibus ubique adesse dignetur per Dominum nostrum Ipsum â— brisium filium â—â—â—un qui â—â—cum vivit regnat in unitate spiritus sancti Deus per omnia soecula saeculerum Amen Then sprinkle upon any thing and say as followeth Asperges me Domine â—yssopo mundabor lavabis me supra niven dealbabor Miscrere mei Deus secundum magnam misericordiaum tuam supra nivem dealâ—abor Gloria patri filio spiritus sancto Sicut 〈◊〉 in principio nunc semper in saecula saeculorum Amen Et supra nivem dealbabor aspergesme c. Oslende nobis domine misâ—rcordiam tuam salutare tuum da nobis exaudi nos Domine sancte pater omnipoteus aeteâ—â—â— Deus mittere dignere sanctum angelum tuum de coelis qui custodiat soâ—â—â— visitet defendat omnes habitantes in hoc â—abitaculo per Christum Dominus nostrum Amen Amen CHAP. XVI To make a spirit to appeare in a crystall I Do conjure thee N. by the father and the sonne and the Holy ghost the which is the beginning and the ending the first and the last an by the latter day of judgement that thou N. do appeare in this crystall stone or any other instrument at my pleasure to me and my fellow gently and beautifully in faire forme of a boy of twelve yeares of age without hurt or damage of any of our bodyes or soules and certainly to informe and to shew me without any guile or craft all that we do desire or demand of thee to know by the vertue of him which shall come to judge the quicke and the dead and the world by fire Amen Also I conjured and exorcise thee N. by the sacrament of the altar and by the substance thereof by the wisdome of Christ by the sea and by his vertue by the earth and by all things that are above the earth and by their vertues by the ☉ and the ☽ by ♄ ♃ ♂ and ♀ and by their vertues by the apostles martyrs confessors and the virgins and widowes and the chast and by all saints of men or of women and innocents and by their vertues by all the angels and archangels thrones dominations principats potestats virtutes cherubim and seraphim and by their vertues and by the holy names of God Tetragrammaton El Oâ—sion Aâ—la and by all the other holy names of God and by their vertues by the circumcision passion and resurrection of our Lord Iesus Christ by the heavines of our lady the virgine and by the joy which she had when she saw her sonne rise from death to life that thou N. do appeare in this crystall stone or any other instrument at my pleasure to me and to my â—e low gently and beautifully and visibly in faire forme of a child of twelve yeares of age without hurt or damage of any of our bodyes or soules and truly to informe and shew unto me and to my fellow without fraud or guile all things according to thine oath and promise to me whatsoever I shall demand or desire of thee without any hindrance or caâ—rying and this conjuration be read of me three times upon paine of eternall condemnation to the last day of judgement Fiat fiat fiat Amen And when he is appeared bind him with the hand of the dead above written then say as followeth I charge thee N. by the father to shew me true visions in this crystall stone if there be any treasure hidden in such a place N and wherein it lieth and how many foot from this peece of earth east west north or south CHAP. XVII An experiment of the dead FIrst go and get of some person that shal be put to death a promise and sweare an oath unto him that it he will come to thee after his death his spirit to be with thee and to remaine with thee all dayes of thy life and will do thee true service as it is contained in the oath and promise following Then lay thy hand on thy booke and sweare this oath unto him I N. do sweare and promise to thee N. to give for thee an almesse every moneth and also to pray for thee once in every weeke to say the Lords prayer for thee and so to continue all the dayes of my life as God me helpe and holy doome and by the contents of this booke Amen Then let him make his oath to thee as followeth and let him say after thee laying his hand upon the booke * I N. do sweare this oath to thee N. by God the father omnipotent by God the son Jesus Christ and by his precious bloud which hath redeemed all the world by the which bloud I do trust to be saved at the generall day of judgment and by the vertues thereof I N. doe sweare this oath to thee N. that my spirit that is within my body now shall not ascend nor descend nor go to any place of rest but shall come to thee N. and be very well pleased to remaine with thee N. all the dayes of thy life and so to be bound
Chard and Will. Brome booksellers Iac. de Chusa in lib. de appariâ—â—onib quorundam spirituum Observations for the exorcising priest Memorandum that he must be the veriest knave or fool in all the company The spirits are not so cunning by day as by night * For so they might be bewrayed For so the cousenage may be best handlrd A cousening conjuration * Of this order read noble stuffe in a book printed at Frankeford under the title of Alcoran Franciscanorum Note how the Franciscans cannot conjure without a confederate O notorious impudency with such shamelesse faces to abuse so worshipfull a company * The confederate spirit was taught that lesson before For so might the confederate be found An obstinate and wilfull persisting in the denying or not confessing of a fault committed A parecbasis or transition of of the author to matter further purposed In 4. dict 23. sent Et glos super i-l â—o ad coll 2. Mendaces debent esse memores multo magis astuti exorcisâ—ae Tho. Aquin. super Marc. ultim Mark 16.17 A trimme consequent Mal. Malef. par 2. que 2. Rites ceremonies and reliques of exorcism in rebaptizing of the possessed or bewitched Memorandum that this is for one bewitched Note the proviso Tho. Aquin. supr dist 6. Proper proofs of the seven reasons Why there were no conjurors in the primitive church with other subtill points A conjuror then belike must not be timerous or fearefull Where a witch cureth by incantation and the conjuror by conjuration * Tu. de ecclesiae dedicatione In Missali fol. 1. The manner of conjuring salt A prayer to be applyed to the former exorcisme A conjuration â—f frankincense set forth in forme Papists and conjurors cousening compeers 1 Sam. 16.7 1 Reg. 8.39 Jere. 17.10 Psal. 44.21 Psal. 72.18 Sap. 1.14 Ecclesi 9. Gen. 1. Act. 19. Mark 16.17 a Isa 43.11 b verse 13. cap. 44. ver 7. verse 25. Isai. 46.10 cap 47. verse 12 13 c. Luke 11.20 Matt. 12.28 Acts 8.49 Mony is the marke whereat all witches and conjurors do aime S. Martins conjuration In die sancti Martini lect 1. * To wit Vincent Dominica in albis in octa pasch.sermone 25. Durand de exorcist A foul offence to backbite the absent and to belye the dead Acts 19. Iust. lib. 16. Plin. lib. 30. cap. 2. Strab. lib. 16. Dan. in dialog desortiariis Tiridates the great magician biddeth the Emperor Nero to a banket c. Nero made laws against conjurors and conjurations C. Agrip. lib. de vanitat scient Probatum est upon a patient before witness Ergo no lie Lib. 4. dist 14. Decret aureum dist 21. Rub. de exorcist Lect. 5. 6. Lect. in die sanctissimae Marg. vir 5. Lect. 6. Look in the word Iidoni pag. 270. * For the priests profit I warrant you This is common they say when a witch or conjuror dieth Kacozâ—lia Mutuall error by means of sudden sight S. Vincent raiseth the dead woman to life S. Vincent maketh the dumb to speak Dist. 8. exempl 17. ferm 59. ca. 20. Secundum Bordinum Corrigens Quaesit Matth. tract 1. sect 77. Psellui de operatione daemonum Inspeculo exemplorum dist 6. ex lib. exemplorum Caesariis exempl 69. Memorandum it is confessed in popery that true miracles cannot be joined with false doctrine Ergo neither papist witch nor conjuror can work miracles Lect. in die sanctae Luci 7. 8 Against the counterfeit visions of popish priests and other cousening devices This doctrine was not only preached but also proved note the particular instances following H. Card. lib de var. rer 15. c. 92. Pope Celestinus cousened of his popedome by pope Boniface Visions 〈◊〉 stinguishâ—â— H. Card. lib de subtilitat 18. Idem ibid. Of Winchester noise Appendents unto the supposed divine art of Theurgie Marke the sum and scope of this letter Sr. Iohn Malbornes booke detecting the devises of conjuration c. The author his conclusion Andreas Gartnerus Maeriâ—montanus Eng by Ab. Fle. Matt. 10 26. Mark 4.22 Luke 8.17 and 12.2 The compilers or makers of the booke called a Mallet to braine witches No marvell that they were so opinionative herein for God gave them over into strong delusions The definition or description of witchcraft The formall cause The finall cause The materiall cause A necessary sequel Probatum est by mother Bungies confession that all witches are couseners * I. Bodin in the preface before his book of Daemonomania reporteth this by a conjuring priest late curat of Islington he also sheweth to what end read the place you that understand Latine Note this devise of the waxen images found of late neer London A strange miracle if it were true There the hypocrite was overmatcht for all his dissembled gravity Heming in lib. de superst magicis The greatest clarkes are not the wisest men A naturall reason of the former knack C. Agripp in lib. de vanit scient in epistola ante librum de occult philosophia Plin. lib. natural hist. 30. ca. 1. Pet. Mart. in lucis communibus Note that during all Christs time upon earth which was 33. yeares witches were put to silence c. But Christs argument was undoubted Ergo c. I marvell for what purpose that magistrate went to that fellows house Alberâ—us Crantzius in lib. 4. mertopolis cap. 4. Prov. 6. Mal. malef par 2. que 1. cap. 9. He should rather have asked who gave him orders and licence to preach Iohn Bodin Yet many that bear the shew of honest men are very credulous herein Witches are commonly very beggers A general conclusion against them whom the subject of this book concerneth Isigonus Memphradorus Solon c. Vairus I. Bodinus Mal. malef With the like property were the old Illyrian people indued if we wil credit the words of Sabinus grounded upon the report of Aul. Gell. I. Bap. Neapol in lib. de naturale magia This is held of some for truth Non est in speculo ves quae speculatur in illâ— Nescio quis oculus tâ—neros mibi sascinat agnos saith Virgil and thus Englished by Abraham Fleming I wore not I What watching eye Doth use to hant a My tender lams Sucking their dâ—â—â— And them inchant Englished by Abraham Fleming H. Card. lib. de var. rer 16. cap. 93. The Platonists and Stoicks The Epicureans and Peripateticks Summum bonum cannot consist in the happinesse of the body or minde Moral temperance Moral prudence Morall justice Morall fortitude Rom. 2. The question about spirits doubtfull and difficult Plotinus The Greeks Laur. Ananias The Manichees Plutarch Psellus Mal. malef Avicen and the Cabalâ—ists The Thalmudists Psellus c. The Platonists The Papists Apoc. 19.10 ibid. 22.8.9 The Sadduces Psâ—llus de operatione daemonum cap. 8. Such are spirits walking in white sheetes c. Psellus ibid. cap. 9. Idem cap. 10. Idem ibid. cap. 11. Oh heathenish nay oh papisticall folly The opinions of all papists A cousening knavery H. Card. lib. de var.
trifling vanity as in most horrible executions as the revenger of a doting old womans imagined wrongs to the destruction of many innocent children and as a supporter of her passions to the undoing of many a poor soul. And I see not but a witch may as well inchant when she will as a lier may lie when he list and so should we possesse nothing but by a witches licence and permission And now forsooth it is brought to this point that all devils which were wont to be spiritual may at their pleasure become corporal and so shew themselves familiarly to witches and conjurors and to none other and by them only may be made tame and kept in a box c. So as a malicious old woman may command her devil to plague her neighbor he is afflicted in manner form as she desireth But then cometh another witch and she biddeth her devil help and he healeth the same party So as they make it a kingdome divided in it self and therefore I trust it will not long endure but will shortly be overthrown according to the words of our Saviour Omne regnum in se divisum desolabitur Every kingdome divided in it self shall be desolate And although some say that the devil is the witches instrument to bring her purposes and practises to passe yet others say that she is his instrument to execute his pleasure in any thing and therefore to be executed But then methinks she should be injuriously dealt withall and put to death for anothers offence for actions are not judged by instrumental causes neither doth the end and purpose of that which is done depend upon the mean instrument Finally if the witch do it not why should the witch die for it But they say that witches are perswaded and think that they do indeed those mischifs have a will to perform that which the devil committeth and that therefore they are worthy to dy By which reason ev'ry one should be executed that wisheth evil to his neighbor c. But if the will should be punished by man according to the offence against God we should be driven by thousands at once to the slauterhouse or butchery For whosoever loatheth correction shall die And who should escape execution if this lothsomnesse I say should extend to death by the civil lawes Also the reward of sin is death Howbeit every one that sinneth is not to be put to death by the Magistrate But my Lord it shall be proved in my book and your Lordship shall trie it to be true as well here at home in your native country as also abrode in your several circuits that besides them that be Veneficae which are plaine poisoners there will be found among our witches only two sorts the one sort being such by imputation as so thought of by others and these are abused and not abusors the other by acceptation as being willing so to be accounted these be meer couseners Calvine treating of these magicians calleth them couseners saying that they use their juggling knacks only to amase or abuse the people or else for fame but he might rather have said for gain Erastus himself being a principal writer in the behalf of witches omnipotency is forced to confes that these Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are most commoly put for illusion false packing cousenage fraud knavery and deceipt is further driven to say that in ancient time the learned were not so blockish as not to see that the promises of magicians and inchanters were false and nothing else but knavery cousenage old wives fables yet defendeth he their flying in the aire their transferring of corn or gras from one field to another c. But as Erastus disagreeth herein with himself and his friends so is there no agreement among any of those writers but only in cruelties absurdities impossibilies And these my Lord that fall into so manifest contradictions and into such absurd asseverations are not of the inferior sort of writers neither are they all papists but men of such account as whose names give more credit to their cause then their writings In whose behalfe I am sorry and partly for reverence suppress their fondest errors foulest absurdities dealing specially with them that most contend in cruelty whose feet are swift to shed blood striving as Iesus the son of Sirach saith hasting as Solomon the son of David saith to pour out the blood of the Innocent whose heat against these poor wretches cannot be allaied with any other liquor then blood And therfore I fear that under their wings will be found the blood of the souls of the poor at that day when the Lord shall say Depart from me ye bloud-thirsty men And because I know your Lordship will take no councel against innocent bloud but rather suppres them that seek to imbrew their hands therein I have made choise to open their case to you to lay their miserable calamity before your feet following herein the advise of that learned man Brentius who saith Si quis admonuerit Magistratum â—e in miseras illas mulierculas saeviat eum ego arbitror divinitus excitatum that is If any admonish the Magistrate not to deale too hardly with these miserable wretches that are called witches I think him a good instrument raised up for this purpose by God himself But it will perchance be said by witchmongers to wit by such as attribut to witches the power which appertaineth to God only that I have made choise of your Lordship to be a Patrone to this my book because I think you favor mine opinions and by that means may the more freely publish any error or conceit of mine own which should rather be warranted by your Lordships authority then by the word of God or by sufficient argument But I protest the contrary and by these presents I renounce all protection and despise all friendship that might serve to help towards the suppressing or supplanting of truth knowing also that your Lordship is far from allowing any injury done unto man much more an enemy to them that go about to dishonor God or to embeazel the title of his immortal glory But because I know you to be perspicuous and able to see down into the depth and bottome of causes are not to be carried away with the vain perswasion or superstition either of man custome time or multitude but moved with the authority of truth only I crave your countenance herein even so far forth no further then the law of God the law of nature the lawe of this land the rule of reason shall require Neither do I treat for these poore people any otherwise but so as with one hand you may sustaine the good and with the other suppresse the evill wherein you shall be thought a father to orphanes an advocate to widowes a guide to the blind a stay to the lame a comfort countenance to
them and beleeve in them and their oracles whereby indeed all good learning and honest arts are overthrowne For these that most advance their power and maintaine the skill of these witches understand no part thereof and yet being many times wise in other matters are made fooles by the most fooles in the world Me thinks these magicall physicians deale in the common-wealth much like as a certaine kind of Cynicall people do in the churcâ— whose severe sayings are accompted among some such oracles as may not be doubted of who in stead of learning and authority which they make contemptible do feed the people with their own devises and imaginations which they preferre before all other divinity and labouring to erect a church according to their own fansies wherein all order is condemned and onely their magical words and curious directions advanced they would utterly overthrow the true Church And even as these inchanting Paracelsians abuse the people leading them from the true order of physick to their charms so do these other I say disswade from hearkening to learning and obedience and whisper in mens eares to teach them their frier-like traditions And of this sect the chiefe author at this time is one Browne a fugitive a meet cover for such a cup as heretofore the Anabaptists the Arrians and the Franciscane friers Truly not onely nature being the foundation of all perfection but also scripture being the mistresse and director thereof and of all christianity is beautified with knowledge and learning For as nature without discipline doth naturally inclinâ— unto vanities and as it were suck up errors so doth the word or rather the letter of the scripture without understanding not onely make us devoure errors but yeeldeth us up to death destruction and therefore Paul saith he was not â— minister of the letter but of the spirit Thus have I been bold to deliver unto the world and to you those simple notes reasons and arguments which I have devised or collected out of other authors which I hope shall be hurtful to none bâ—t my selfe great comfort if it may passe with good liking and acceptation If it fall out otherwise I should think my paines ill imployed For truly in mine opinion whosoever shall performe any thing or attaine to any knowledge or whosoever should travel throughout all the nations of the world or if it were possible should peepe into the heavens the consolation or admiration thereof were nothing pleasant unto him unlesse he had liberty to impart his knowledge to his friends Wherein becausâ— I have made special choise of you I hope you will read it or at the least lay it up in your study with your other bookes among which there is none dedicated to any with more good will And so long as you have it it shall be unto you upon adventure of my life a certain amulet periapt circle charme c. to defend you from all inchantments Your loving friend Reg. Scot. To the Readers TO you that are wise and discreet few words may suffice for such a one judgeth not at the first sight nor reproveth by hearsay but patiently heareth and thereby increaseth in understanding which patience bringeth forth experience whereby true judgement is directed I shall not need therefore to make any further suite to you but that it would please you to read my book without the prejudice of time or former conceite and having obtained this at your hands I submit my self unto your censure But to make a solemn suit to you that are partial readers desiring you to set aside partiality to take in good part my writing and with indifferent eies to looke upon my book were labour lost and time ill imployed For I should no more prevaile herein then if a hundred years since I should have intreated your predecessors to beleeve that Robin good-fellow that great and antient bull-begger had been but a cousening merchant and no devil indeed If I should go to a Papist and say I pray you beleeve my writings wherein I will prove all popish charmes conjurations exorcismes benedictions and curses not onely to be ridiculous and of none effect but also to be impious and contrary to Gods word I should as hardly therein win favour at their hands as herein obtain credit at yours Neverthelesse I doubt not but to use the matter so that as well the massemonger for his part as the witchmonger for his shall both be ashamed of their professions But Robin good-fellow ceaseth now to be much feared and popery is sufficiently discovered Neverthelesse witches charms and conjurors cousenages are yet thought effectuall Yea the Gentiles have espied the fraud of their cousening oracles and our cold prophets and inchanters make us fools still to the shame of us all but specially of Papists who conjure every thing and thereby bring to passe nothing They say to their candles I conjure you to endure for ever and yet they last not pater noster while the longer They conjure water to be wholesome both for body and soule but the body we see is never the better for it nor the soul any whit reformed by it And therefore I marvel that when they see their own conjurations confuted and brought to nought or at the least void of effect that they of all other will yet give such credit countenance and authority to the vaine cousenages of witches and conjurors as though their charmes and conjurations could produce more apparent certaine and better effects then their owne But my request unto all you that read my book shall be no more but that it would please you to conferre my words with your own sense and experience and also with the word of God If you find your selves resolved and satisfied or rather reformed and qualified in any one point or opinion that heretofore you held contrary to truth in a matter hitherto undecided and never yet looked into I pray you take that for advantage and suspending your judgement â—â—ay the sentence of condemnation against me and consider of the Rest at your further leisure If this may not suffice for to perswade you it cannot prevaile to annoy you and then that which is written without offence may be overpassed without any griefe And although mine assertion be somewhat differing from the old inveterate opinion which I confesse hath many gâ—ay hairs whereby mine adversarys have gained more authority then reason towards the maintenance of their presumptions and old wives fables yet shall it fully agree with Gods glory and with his holy word And albeit there be hold taken by mine adversarys of certain few words or sentences in the Scripture that make a shew for them yet when the whole course thereof maketh against them and impugneth the same yea and also their own places rightly understood do nothing at all releeve them I trust their glorious title and argument of antiquity will appear as stale and corrupt as the Apothecaries dâ—ugs or grocers spice which the
longer they be preserved the worse they are And till you have perused my book pondeâ— this in your mind to wit that Sagae Thessalae Striges Lamiae which words and none other being in use do properly signifie our witches are noâ— once found written in the old or new Testament and that Christ himself in his Gospel never mentioned the name of a witch And that neither he nor Moses ever spake any one word of the witches bargaine with the devil their hagging their riding in the aire their transferring of corn or grasse from one field to another their hurting of children oâ— cattel with words or charmes their bewitching of butter cheese ale c. nor yet their transubstantiation insomuch as the writers hereupon are not ashamed to say that it is not absuâ—d to â—ffirm that there were no witches in Jobs time The reason is that if there had been such witches then in being Job would have said he had been bewitched But indeed men took no â—eed in those daies to this doctrine of devils to wit to these fables of witchcraft which Peter saith that shal be much regarded and hearkened unto in the latter daies Howbeit how ancient so ever this barbarous conceipt of witches oâ—â—nipotencie is truth must not be measured by time for every old opinion is not sound Veritie is not impaired how long soever it be suppressed but is to be searched out in how daâ—ke a corner soever it lye hidden for it is not like a cup of ale that may be broched too ratheâ— Finally time bewraieth old errors and discovereth new matters 〈◊〉 truth Danaeus himself saith that this question hitherto hath never beeâ— handled nor the Scriptures concerning this matter have never bin exâ—pounded To prove the antiquity of the cause to confirme the opinion of the ignorant to inforce mine adversaries arguments to aggravate the punishments and to accomplish the confusion of these old women is added the vanity and wickednesse of them which are called witches the arrogancy of those which take upon them to worke wonders the desire that people have to hearken to such miraculous matters unto whom most commonly an impossibility is more credible than a verity the ignorance of naturall causes the ancient and universall hate conceived against the name of a witch their ill-favoured faces their spitefull words their curses and imprecations their charmes made in time and their beggery the fear of many foolish folke the opinion of some that are wise the want of Robin good-fellow and the fairies which were wont to maintain that and the common peoples talke in this behalfe the authority of the inquisitors the learning cunning consent and estimation of writers herein the false translations and fond interpretations â—sed specially by Papists and many other like causes All which toâ—es take such hold upon mens fansies as whereby they are led and enticed away from the consideration of true respects to the condemnation of that which they know not Howbeit I will by Gods grace in this my booke so apparently decipher and confute these cavils and all other their objections as every witch monger shall be abashed and all good men thereby satisfied In the mean time I would wish them to know that if neither the estimation of Gods omnipotency nor the tenor of his word nor the doubtfulnesse or rather the impossibility of the case nor the small proofes brought against them nor the rigor executed upon them nor the pitty that should be in a christian heart nor yet their simplicity impotency or age may suffice to suppresse the rage or rigor wherewith they are oppressed yet the consideration of their sex or kind ought to move some mitigation of their punishment For if nature as Plinie reporteth have taught a lion not to deale so roughly with a woman as with a man because she is in body the weaker vessell and in heart more inclined to pitty which Jeremy in his lamentations seemeth to confirme what should a man do in this case for whom a woman was created as an helpe and comfort unto him In so much as even in the law of nature it is a greater offence to slay a woman than a man not because a man is not the more excellent creature but because a woman is the weaker vessell And therefore among all modest and honest persons it is thought a shame to offer violence or injury to a woman in which respect Virgil saith Nullum memorabile nomen foeminea in poena est God that knoweth my heart is witnesse and you that read my book shall see that my drift and purpose in this enterprise tendeth onely to these respects First that the glory and power of God be not so abridged and abased as to be thrust into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman whereby the workâ— of the Creator shoul be attributed to the power of a creature Secondly that the religion â—f the gospell may be seen to stand without such peiâ—ish trumphery Thirdly thaâ— lawfull favour and christian compassion be rather used towards these your soules than â—igor and extremity Because they which are commonly accused of witch-craft are the least sufficient of all other persons to speake for themselves 〈◊〉 having the most base and simple education of all others the extremity of their age giving them leave to dote their poverty to beg their wrongs to chide and threaten as being void of any other way of revenge their humor melancholicall to be full of imaginations from whence chiefly proceedeth the vanity of their confessions as that they can transforme themselves and others into apes owles asses dogges cats c. that they can flie in the aire kill children with charmes hinder the coming of butter c. And for so much as the mighty helpe themselves together and the poor widowes cry though it reach to heaven is scarce heard here upon earth I thought good according to my poor ability to make intercession that some part of common rigor and some points of hasty judgement may be advised upon For the world is now at that stay as Brentius in a most godly sermon in these words affirmeth that even as when the heathen persecuted the Christians if any were accused to beleeve in Christ the common people cried Ad leonem so now if any woman be she never so honest be accused of witch-craft they cry Ad ignem What difference is between the rash dealing of unskilfull people and the grave counsell of more discreet and learned persons may appear by a tale of Danaeus his own telling wherein he opposeth the rashnesse of a few townsmen to the counsell of a whole senate preferring the folly of the one before the wisdome of the other At Oâ—leance on Loyre saith he there was a man-witch not only taken and accused but also convicted and condemned for witch craft who appealed from thence to the high court of Paris Which accusation the senate saw in sufficient and would not
to look back who also destroyed the city of Sodome at that instant had not also turned her into a salt stone And as though all this while God had been the devils drudge to go about this businesse all the night before and when a miracle should be wrought the devil must be fain to do it himself Item he affirmeth that these kind of transfigurations are more common with them in the west parts of the world then with us here in the east Howbeit this note is given withall that that is meant of the second persons and not of the first to wit of the bewitched and not of the witches For they can transforme themselves in every part of the world whether it be east west north or south Marry he saith that spirits and devils vex men most in the north-countries as Norway Finland c. and in the westerne islands as in the west India but among the heathen specially and wheresoever Christ is not preached And that is true though not in so foolish grosse and corporall a sense as Bodin taketh it One notable instance of a witches cunning in this behalfe touched by Bodin in the chapter aforesaid I thought good in this place to repeat he taketh it out of M. Mal. which tale was delivered to Sprenger by a knight of the Rhodes being of the order of S. Iones at Jerusalem and it followeth thus CHAP. III. Of a man turned into an asse and returned again into a man by one of Bodins witches S. Augustines opinion thereof IT happened in the City of Salamin in the kingdome of Cyprus wherein is a good haven that a ship loaden with merchandize stayed there for a short space In the meane time many of the Souldiers and Maâ—riners went to shoar to provide fresh victuals Among which number a certain English man being a sturdy young fellow went to a womans house a little way out of the city and not farre from the sea side to see whether she had any egs to sell. Who perceiving him to be a lustie young fellow a stranger and far from his countrey so as upon the losse of him there would be the lesse misse or inquiry she considered with her self how to destroy him and willed him to stay there a while whilest she went to fetch a few egs for him But she tarryed long so as the young man called unto her desiring her to make haste for he told her that the tide would be spent and by that meanes his ship would be gone and leave him behind Howbeit after some detracting of time she brought him a few egs willing him to return to her if his ship were gone when he came The young fellow returned towards his ship but before he went abroad he would needs eate an egge or twain to satisfie his hunger and within short space he became dumb and out of his wits as he afterwards said When he would have entered into the ship the marriners beâ— him back with a cudgell saying What a murren lacks the asse Whâ—â—ther the devill will this asse The asse or young man I cannot tell by which name I should teaâ—m him being many times repelled and understanding their words that called him asse considering that he could speak never a word and yet could understand every body he thought that he was bewitched by the woman at whose house he was And therefore when by no meanes he could get into the boate but was driven to tarry and see her departure being also beaten from place to place as an asse he remembred the witches words and the words of his own fellowes that called him asse and returned to the witches house in whose service he remained by the space of three yeares doing nothing vvith his hands all that vvhile but carried such burthens as she layed on his back having onely this comfort that although he vvere reputed an asse among strangers and beasts yet that both this vvitch and all other vvitches knevv him to be a man After three yeares vvere passed over in a morning betimes he went to tovvne before his dame vvho upon some occasion of like to make vvater stayed a little behind In the meane time being neer to a church he heard a little saccaring bell ring to the elevation of a morrow masse and not daring to go into the church least he should have been beaten and driven out with cudgels in great devotion he fell down in the church-yard upon the knees of his hinder-legs and did lift his forefeet over his head as the priest doth hold the sacrament at the elevation Which prodigious sight when certaine merchants of Genua espyed and with wonder beheld anon commeth the witch with a cudgell in her hand beating forth the asse And because as it hath been said such kinds of witchcrafts are very usuall in those parts the merchants aforesaid made such meanes as both the asse and the witch vvere attached by the judge And she being examined and set upon the rack confessed the vvhole matter and promised that if she might have liberty to go home she vvould restore him to his old shape and being dismissed she did accordingly So as notvvithstanding they apprehended her againe and burned her and the young man returned into his countrey vvith a joyfull and merry heart Upon the advantage of this story M. Mal. Bodin and the residue of the vvitchmongers triumph and specially because S. Augustine subscribeth thereunto or at the least to the very like Which I must confesse I find too common in his books insomuch as I judge them rather to be foisted in by some fond papist or witchmonger than so learned a mans doings The best is that he himselfe is no eye-witnesse to any of those his tales but speaketh onely by report wherein he uttereth these words to wit that it were a point of great incivility c. to discredit so many and so certaine reports And in that respect he justifieth the corporall transfigurations of Vlysses his mates through the witch-craft of Circes and that foolish fable of Praestantius his father who he saith did eat provender and hay among other horses being himselfe turned into an horse Yea he veryfieth the starkest ly that ever was invented of the two alewives that used to transforme all their guests into horses and to sell them away at markets and faires And therefore I say with Cardanus that how much Augustine saith he hath seen with his eyes so much I am content to beleeve Howbeit S. Agustine concludeth against Bodin For he affirmeth these traâ—ssustrutiations to be but fantastical and that they are not according to the verity but according to the appearance And yet I cannot allow of such appearances made by witches or yet by devils for I find no such power given by God to any creature And I would wit of S. Augustine where they became whom Bodins transformed wolveâ— devoured But ô quam Credula mens hominis erectae fabulis
to do For â—â— Samuel 15.23 it is all one with rebellion Iesabel for her idolatrous 〈◊〉 is called a witch Also in the new testament even S. Paul saith the Galathians are bewitched because they were seduced and lead from the true understanding of the Scriptures Item sometimes it is taken in good part as the magicians that came to worship and offer to Christ and also where Daniel is said to be an inchanter yea a principall inchanter which title being given him in divers places of that story he never seemeth to refuse or dislike but rather intreateth for the pardon and qualification of the rigor towards other inchanters which were meer coseners indeed as appeareth in the second chapter of Daniel where you may see that the king espyed their fetches Sometimes such are called conjurers as being but rogues and lewd people would use the name of Jesus to worke miracles whereby though they being faithlesse could work nothing yet is their practise condemned by the name of conjuration Sometimes jugglers are called witches Sometimes also they are called sorcerers that impugne the gospell of Christ and seduce others with violent perswasions Sometimes a murtherer with poison is called a witch Sometimes they are so termed by the very signification of their names as Elimaâ— which signifieth a sorcerer Sometimes because they study curious and vaine arts Sometimes it is taken for wounding or grieving of the heart Yea the very word Magus which is Latine for a magician is translated a witch and yet it was heretofore alwaies taken in the good part And at this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue She is a witch or She is a wise woman Sometimes observers of dreames sometimes sooth sayers sometimes the observers of the flying of fowleâ— of the meeting of todes the falling of salt c. are called witches Sometimes he or she is called a witch that take upon them either for gaine or glory to do miracles and yet can do nothing Sometimes they are called witches in common speech that are old lame curst or melancholike as a nick-name But as for our old women that are said to hurt children with their eyes or lambs with their lookes or that pull down the moon out of heaven or make so foolish a bargain or do such homage to the devill you shall not read in the bible of any such witches or of any such actions imputed to them The sixt Book CHAP. I. The exposition of this Hebrew word Chasaph wherein is answerâ—â— the objection contained in Exodus 22. to wit Thou shalt not 〈◊〉 a witch to live and of Simon Magus Acts. 8 CHasaph being an Hebrew word is latined Venefiâ—â—â— and is in English poisoning or witch-craft if you will so have it The Hebrew sentence written in Exodus 22. is by the 70. interpreters translated thus in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Latine is Veneficos sive veneficas non retinebitis in vita in Englishâ— You shall nor suffer any poisoners or as it is translatedâ— witches to live The which sentence Iosephus an Hebrew borne and man of great estimation learning and fame interpreteth in this 〈◊〉 Let none of the children of Israel have any poyson that is deadly or prâ—â—pared to any hurtfull use If any be apprehended with such stuffe let 〈◊〉 be put to death and suffer that which he meant to do to them for whâ—â— he prepared it The Rabbins exposition agreeth herewithall Lex Corâ—â—â— differeth not from this sense to wit that he must suffer death which other maketh selleth or hath any poison to the intent to kill any 〈◊〉 This word is found in these places following Exodus 22.18 Deut. 18. â—â— 2 Sam 9.22 Dan. 2.2 2 Câ—r 33.6 Esay 47.9.12 Malach. 3.5 Ierem. 27. Mich. 5.2 Nab. 3.4 bis Howbeit in all our English translations Chasaph translated witch-craft And because I will avoid prolixity and contention both at once I 〈◊〉 admit that Veneficae were such witches as with their poisons did 〈◊〉 hurt among the children of Israel and I will not deny that there 〈◊〉 such untill this day bewitching men and making them beleeve 〈◊〉 by vertue of words and certaine ceremonies they bring to 〈◊〉 such mischiefs and intoxications as they indeed accomplish by poisoâ—â— And this abuse in cosenage of people together with the taking of Goâ—â— name in vaine in many places of the scripture is reproved especialâ—â— by the name of witch-craft even where no poysons are According 〈◊〉 the sense which S. Paul used to the Galathians in these words where â—â— sheweth plainly that the true signification of witch-craft is cosenage ye foolish Galathians saith he who hath bewitched you to wit cosened or abused you making you beleeve a thing which is neither so 〈◊〉 so Whereby he meaneth not to ask of them who hath with charmeâ— c. or with poysons deprived them of their health life cattle or chilâ—dren c. buâ— who hath abused or cosened them to make them beleeâ—â— lies This phrase is alsoused by Job 15. But that we may be througly resolved of the true meaning of this phrase used by Paul Gal. 3. let us examined the description of a notable witch called Simon Magus made by S. Luke There was saith he in the city of Samaria a certain man called Simon which used witch-craft and bewitched the people of Samaria saying that he himselfe was some great man I demand in what other thing here do we see any witch-craft than that he abused the people making them beleeve he could worke miracles whereas in truth he could do no such thing as manifestly may appear in the 13. and 19. verses of the same chapter where he wondered at the miracles wrought by the apostles and would have purchased with money the power of the Holy Ghost to work wonders It will be said the people had reason to beleeve him because it is written that he of long time had bewitched them with sorceries But let the bewitched Galathians be a warning both to the bewitched Samaritans and to all other that are cosened or bewitched through false doctrine or legierdemaine least while they attend to such fables and lies they be brought into ignorance and so in time be led with them away from God And finally let us all abandon such witches and coseners as with Simon Magus set themselves in the place of God boasting that they can do miracles expound dreames foretell things to come raise the dead c. which are the workes of the Holy Ghost who onely searcheth the heart and reines and onely worketh great wonders which are now stayed and acomplished in Christ in whom who so steadfastly beleeveth shall not need to be by such meanes resolved or confirmed in his doctrine and gospell And as for the unfaithfull they shall have none other miracle shewed unto them but the signe of Ionas the prophet And therefore I say whatsoever they be that with Simon Magus take
man might as well cavillâ— the Holy Ghost as for the other CHAP. VI. In what kind of confectionâ— that witch-craft which is called Veâ—â—ficium consisteth of love-caps and the same confuted by pâ—eâ— AS touching this kind of witch-craft the principall part thereof â—â—â—sisteth in certain confections prepared by lewd people to prooâ—â— love which indeed are meer poisons bereaving some of the beneâ—â— the braine and so of the sense and understanding of the minde And 〈◊〉 some it taketh away life and that is more common then the other 〈◊〉 be called Philtra or Pocula amatoâ—â—â— or Venenosa pocula or Hippomeâ—â— which bad and blinde Physitians rather practise than witches or conjâ—â—â— c. But of what value these bables are towards the end why they 〈◊〉 provided may appear by the opinions of Poets themselves from whâ— was derived the estimation of that stuffe And first you shall hear 〈◊〉 Ovid saith who wrote of the very art of love and that so cunningly 〈◊〉 feelingly that he is reputed the speciall doctor in that science Fallitur Aemonias si quis decurrit ad artes Datque quod a teneri fronte revellet epui Non facient ut vivat amor Meddeides berbae Mistaque cum magicis mersa venena sonis Phasius Aesonidem Circe tenuisset Vlyssem Si modo servari carmine posset amor Nec data profuerinâ— pallentia philtra puellis Philtra nocent animis vimque furoris habent Who so doth run to Haemon arts I dub him for a dolt And giveth that which he doth pluck from forehead of a colt Medeas herbs will not procure that love shall lasting live Nor steeped poison mixt with ma gicke charmes the same can give The witch Medea had full fast held Jason for her own So had the grand witch Circe too Ulysses if alone With charmes maintaind and kept might be the love of twain in one No slibbersawees given to maides to make them pale and wan Will helpe such slibbersawces marre the minds of maide and man And have in them a furious force of phrensie now and than Viderit Aemoniae si quis mala pabula terra Et magicas artes posse juvare putate If any think that evill herbs in Haemon land which be Or witch-craft able is to helpe let him make proofe and seâ— These verses precedent do shew that Ovid knew that those beggerly â—orceries might rather kill one or make him starke mad than do him â—ood towards the atteinment of his pleasure of love and therefore he â—iveth his counsell to them that are amorous in such hot manner that either they must enjoy their love or else needs dy saying Sit procul omne nefas ut ameris amabilis estâ— â—arre off be all unlawfull meanes thou amiable be â—oving I meane that she with love may quit the love of thee CHAP. VII It is proved by more credible writers that love-cups rather ingender death through venome than love by art and with what toies they destroy cattell and procure love BUt because there is no hold nor trust to these Poets who say and 〈◊〉 say dallying with these causes so as indeed the wise may perceiâ—â— they have them in derision let us see that other graver authors speâ—â— hereof Eusebius Caesariensis writeth what the poet Lucretius was killed with one of those lovers poisoned cups Hierome reporteth that one 〈◊〉 herewith killed her husband whom she too much hated and 〈◊〉 killed hers whom she too much loved Calisthenes killed Luciu's Luciu the Emperour with a love-pot as Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos 〈◊〉 Pliny and Iosephus report that Caesonia killed her husband Caligula 〈◊〉 rio poculo with a lovers cup which was indeed starke poison Aristoâ—â—â— saith that all which is beleeved touching the efficacie of these matter lies and old wives tales He that will read more arguments and histâ—â—â— concerning these poisons let him look in 1. Wier de veneficiis The toies which are said to procure love and are exhibited in 〈◊〉 poison loving cups are these the haire growing in the nerhern 〈◊〉 part of a wolves taile a wolves yard a little fish called Remora the 〈◊〉 of a cat of a newt or of a lizzard the bone of a green frog the 〈◊〉 thereof being consumed with pismiers or ants the left bone whereâ—â— gendreth as they say love the bone on the right side hate Also said that a frogs bones the flesh being eaten off round about with whereof some will swim and some will sinke those that sinke bâ—â— hanged up with a white linnen cloth ingender love but if a man touched therewith hate is bred thereby Another experiment is thereof with young swallowes whereof one brood or nest being taken and 〈◊〉 in a crock under the ground till they be starved up they that be 〈◊〉 open mouthed serve to engender love they whose mouths are shut 〈◊〉 to procure hate Besides these many other follies there be to this purpâ—â—â— proposed to the simple as namely the garments of the dead 〈◊〉 that burne before a dead corps and needles wherewith dead bodies sowne or sockt into their sheets and diverse other things which the reverence of the reader and in respect of the uncleane speech to used in the description thereof I omit which if you read Dioscoâ—â—â— or diverse other learned physitians you may see at large In the meâ—â—â— while he that desireth to see more experiments concerning this matâ—â—â— let him read Leonardus Vairus de fascino now this present year 15â—â— newly published wherein with an incestuous mouth he affirmeth daâ—â—ly that Christ and his Apostles were Venefici very fondly prosecuting 〈◊〉 argument and with as much popish folly as may be labouring to 〈◊〉 it lawfull to charme and inchant vermine c. CHAP. VIII Iohn Bodin triumphing against Iohn Wier is overtaken with false Greek and false interpretation thereof MOnsieur Bodin triumpheth over doctor Wier herein pronouncing a heavy sentence upon him because he referreth this word to poison But he reigneth or rather rideth over him much more for speaking false Greek affirming that he calleth Veneficos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as true as the rest of his reports and fables of witches miracles contained in his book of devilish devises For in truth he hath no such word but saith they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas he should have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true accent being omitted and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being enterpoled which should have been left out Which is nothing to the substance of the matter but must needs be the Printers fault But Bodin reasoneth in this wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes put for Magos or Praestigiatores â— Ergo in the translation of the Septuaginta it is so to be taken Wherein he manifesteth his bad Logick more then the others ill Greek For it is well known to the learned in this tongue that the usual and proper signification of this word with all
its derivations and compounds doth signifie Veneficos Poisoners by medicine Which when it is most usual and proper why should the translators take it in a signification lesse usual and nothing proper Thus therefore he reasoneth and concludeth with his new-found Logick and old found Greek Sometimes it signifieth so though unproperly or rather metaphorically Ergo in that place it is so to be taken when another fitter word might have been used Which argument being vain agreeth well with his other vain actions The Septuaginta had been very destitute of words found for this purpose But if no proper word could have been found where they have occasion to speak of witchcraft in their translations they use Magian Maggagian c. and therefore belike they see some difference betwixt them and the other and knew some cause that moved them to use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Veneficium The seventh book CHAP. I. Of the Hebrew word Ob what it signifieth where it is found of Pâ—â—â—thonisses called ventriloquae who they be and what their practiâ—â—â— are experience and examples thereof shewed THis word Ob is translated Pytho or Pythonicus spiritâ—â—â— Deut. 18 Isay. 19. 1 Sam. 28. 2 Reg. 23. c. sometime though unproperly Magus as 2 Sam. 33. 〈◊〉 Ob signifieth most properly a bottle and is used in 〈◊〉 place because the Pythonists spake hollow as in the bottome of their bellies whereby they are aptly in Lâ—tin called Ventriloqui of which sort was Elizabeth â—â—â—ton the holy maid of Kent c. These are such as take upon them 〈◊〉 give oracles to tell where things lost are become and finally to â—ppeach others of mischiefs which they themselves most commonly 〈◊〉 brought to passe whereby many times they overthrow the good 〈◊〉 of honest women and of such others of their neighbours with whom they are displeased For trial hereof letting passe a hundred coseniâ—â— that I could recite at this time I will begin with a true story of a 〈◊〉 practising her diabolical witch craft and ventriloquie An. 1574. at Wâ—â—â—well in Kent within six miles where I dwell taken and noted by 〈◊〉 ministers and preachers of Gods word four substantial yeomen and thâ—â— women of good fame and reputation whose names are after written Mildred the base daughter of Alice Norrington and now servant 〈◊〉 William Sponer of Westwell in the county of Kent being of the age of seventeen years was possessed with Satan in the night and day aforesaid About two of the clock in the afternoone of the same day there came in the same Sponers house Roger Newman minister of Westwell Iohn Brainford minister of Kinington with others whose names are underwritten who made their praiers unto God to assist them in that needfull case and then commanded Satan in the name of the eternall God and of his son Jesus Christ to speak with such a voice as they might understand and to declare from whence he came But he would not speak but rosed and cried mightily And though we did command him many times in the name of God and of his son Jesus Christ and in his mighty power 〈◊〉 speak yet he would not untill he had gone through all his delaies a roring crying striving and guashing of teeth and otherwhile with mowing and other terrible countenances and was so strong in the maid that four men could scarce hold her down And this continued by the space almost of two hours So sometimes we charged him earnestly to spake and againe praying unto GOD that he would assist us at the last he spake but very strangely and that was thus He comes he comesâ— and that oftentimes he repeated and he goes he goes and then we charged him to tell us who sent him And he said I lay in her way like a log and I made her runne like fire but I could not hurt her And why so said we Because God kept her said he When camest thou to her said we To night in her bed said he Then we charged him as before to tell what he was and who sent him and what his name was At the first he said The devil the devil Then we charged him as before Then he rored and cried as before and spake terrible words I will kill her I will kill her I will teare her in peeces I will teare her in peeces We said Thou shalt not hurt her He said I will kill you all We said Thou shalt hurt none of us all Then we charged him as before Then he said you will give me no rest We said Thou shalt have none here for thou must have no rest within the servants of God but tell us in the name of God what thou art and who sent thee Then he said he would tear her in peeces We said Thou shalt not hurt her Then he said again he would kill us all We said again Thou shalt hurt none of us all for we are the servants of God And we charged him as before And he said again Will you give me no rest We said Thou shalt have none here neither shalt thou rest in her for thou hast no right in her sith Jesus Christ hath redeemed her with his bloud and she belongeth to him and therefore tell us thy name and who sent thee He said his name was Satan We said Who sent thee He said Old Alice old Alice Which old Alice said we Old Alice said he Where dwelleth she said we In Westwell street said he We said How long hast thou been with her These twenty years said he We asked him where she did keep him In two bottels said he Where be they said we In the backside of her house said he In what place said we Under the wall said he Where is the other In Kenington In what place said we In the ground said he Then we asked him what she did give him He said her will her will What did she bid thee do said we He said Kill her maid Wherefore did she bid thee kill her said we Because she did not love her said he We said How long is it ago since she sent thee to her More then a year said he Where was that said we At her masters said he Which masters said we At her master Brainfords at Kinington said he How oft wert thou there said we many times said he Where first said we In the garden said he Where the second time In the hall Where the third time In her bed Where the fourth time In the field Where the fift time In the court Where the sixt time In the water where I cast her into the mote Where the seventh time In her bed We asked him again where else He said in Westwell Where there said we In the vicarige said he Where there In the loft How camest thou to her said we In the likenesse of two birds said he Who sent thee to that place said we Old Alice said he What other spirits werewith thee
profession The words of the prophet Zacharie are plaine touching the ceasing both of the good and bad prophets to wit I will cause the prophets uncleane spirits to depart out of the land when any shall yet prophesie his parents shall say to him Thou shalt not live for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord and his parents shall thrust him through when he prophesieth c. No no the foretelling of things to come is the onely worke of God who disposeth all things sweetly of whose counsel there hath never yet been any man And to know our labours the times and moments God hoth placed in his owne power Also Phavorinus saith that if these cold prophets or oraclers tell thee of prosperity and deceiv thee thou art made a miser through vain expectation if they tell thee of adversity c. and ly thou art made a miser through vaine fear And therefore I say we may as well look to heare prophesies at the tabernacle in the bush of the cherubin among the clouds from the angels within the arke or out of the flame c. as to expect an oracle of a prophet in these dayes But put the case that one in our Common-wealth should step up and say he were a prophet as many frantick persons do who would beleeve him or not think rather that he were a lewd person See the statutes Elizab. 5. whether there be not laws made against them condemning their arrogancy and cousenage so also the canon lawes to the same effect CHAP. III. That Oracles are ceased TOuching oracles which for the most part were Idols of silver gold wood stones c. within whose bodies some say uncleane spirits hid themselves and gave answers as some others say that exhalations rising out of the ground inspire their minds whereby their priests gave out oracles so as spirits and winds rose up out of that soile and indued those men with the gift of prophesie of things to come though in truth they were all devises to cousen the people and for the profit of priests who received the idols answers over night and delivered them back to the idolaters the next morning you shall understand that although it had been so as it is supposed yet by reasons and proofes before rehearsed they should now cease and whatsoever hath affinity with such miraculous actions as witehcraft conjuration c. is knocked on the head and nailed on the crosse with Christ who hath broken the power of devils and satisfied Gods justice who also hath troden them under his feet and subdued them c. At whose coming the prophet Zacharie saith that the Lord will cut the names of idols out of the land and they shall be no more remembred and he will then cause the prophets and uncleâ—ne spirits to depart out of the land It is also written I will cut off thine inchanters out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more soothsayers And indeed the gospel of Christ hath so laid open their knavery c. that since the preaching thereof their combes are cut and â—ew that are wise regard them And if ever these prophesies came to take effect it must be upon the coming of Christ whereat you see the devils were troubled and fainted when they met him saying or rather exclaming upon 〈◊〉 on this wise Fili Dei cur venisti nos cruciare ante tempus O thou son of God why comest thou to molest us or confound us before our timâ— appointed Which he indeed prevented and now remaineth he our defender and keeper from his clawes So as now you see here is no roome left for such guests Howbeit you shall heare the opinion of others that have beene â— much deceived as your selves in this matter and yet are driven to confesse that GOD hath constituted his sonne to beat down the powerâ— of devils and to satisfie Gods justice and to heale our wound received by the fall of Adam according to Gods promise in Genesis 3. The seed of the woman shall tread downe the serpent or the devil Eusebius in his first booke De praedicatione Evangelij the title whereof is this that the poâ—â—â— of devils is taken away by the coming of Christ saith All answers made by devils all soothsayings and divinations of men are gone and vanished away Item he ciâ—eth Porphyrie in his booke against christian religion wherein these words are rehearsed It is no marvel though the plague be so hot in this city for ever since Jesus hath beene worshipped we can obtaine nothing that good is at the hands of our Gods And of this defection and ceasing of oracles writeth Cicero long before and that to have happened also before his time Howbeit Chrysostome living long since Cicero saith that Apollo was forced to grant that so long as any relike of a martyr was held to his nose he could not make any answer or oracle So as one may perceive that the heathen were wiser in this behalfe than many christians who in times past were called Oppugnatores incantamentorum as the English Princes are called Defensâ—â—es fidei Plutarch calleth Poeoâ—ia as we call bablers by the name of many words because of the multitude of oracles there which now saith he are like to a spring or fountaine which is dried up If any one remained I would ride five hundred miles to see it but in the whole world there is not one to be seene at this hour popish cousenages excepted But Plutarch saith that the cause of this defection of oracles was the devils death whose life he held to be determinable and mortal saying they died for very age and that the divining priests were blown up with a whirle-winde and sunke with an earthquake Others imputed it to be the sight or the place of the planets which when they passed over them carried away that art with them and by revolution may returne c. Eusebius also citeth out of him the story of Pan which because it is to this purpose I will insert the same and since it mentioneth the devils death you may beleeve it if you list for I will not as being assured that he is reserved alive to punish the wicked and such as impute unto those idols the power of Almighty God CHAP. IIII. A tale written by many grave authors and beleeved by many wise men of the devils death Another story written by papists and beleeved of all catholikes approving the devils honesty conscience and courtesie PLutarch saith that his countrey-man Epotherses told him that as he passed by sea into Italy many passengers being in his boate in an evening when they were about the islands Echinadae the wind quite ceased and the ship driving with the tide was brought at last to Paxe And whilest some slept and others quaft and othersome were awake perhaps in as ill case as the rest after supper suddainly a voice was heard calling Thamus in such sort as every man marvelled
attended on oracles waxed â—eary of the peoples curiosity and importunity and for shame forsooke â—he temple But as one that of late hath written against prophesies saith â—t is no marvel that when the familiars that speak in truâ—ks were repelâ—ed â—rom their harbour for feare of discovery the blocks almighty lost their â—enses For these are all gone now and their knavery is espied 〈◊〉 as they can to longer abuâ—â— the world with such bables But whereas these great doctors suppâ—se that the cause of their dispatch was the coming of Christ if they meane that the devil died so soone as he was born or that then he gave over his occupation they are deceived For the popish church hath made a continuall practise hereof partly for their own private profit lucre and gaine and partly to be had in estimation of the world and in admiration among the simple But indeed 〈◊〉 that have learned Christ and been conversant in his word have discovered and shaken off the vanity and abomination hereof But if those doctors had lived till this day they would have said and written that oracles had ceased or rather been driven out of England in the time 〈◊〉 King Henry the eight and of Queene Elizabeth his daughter who 〈◊〉 done so much in that behalfe as at this houre they are not onely all gone but forgotten here in this English nation where they swarmed as this as they did in Boeâ—tia or in any other place in the world But the credit they had depended not upon their desert but upon the credulity 〈◊〉 others Now therefore I will conclude and make an end of this â—â—â—ter with the opinion and saying of the prophet Vaine is the answer 〈◊〉 idols For they have eyes and see not eares and heare not mounthes 〈◊〉 speak not c. and let them shew what is to come and I will say â—â— are gods indeed The ninth Booke CHAP. I. The Hebrew word Kasam expounded and how farre a Christian may conjecture of things to come KAsam as Iohn Wierus upon his owne knovvledge affirmeth and upon the word of Andraeas Masius reporteth differeth little in signification from the former word Ob betokening Vaticinari which is To prophesie and is most commonly taken in evil part as in Deut. 18. Jer. 27. c. howbeit sometime in good part as in Esay 3. verse 2. To foretel things to come upon probable conjectures so as therein we reach no further than becometh humane capacity is not in mine opinion unlawful but rather a commendable manifestation of wisdome and judgement the good gifts and notable blessings of GOD for the which we ought to be thankful as also to yeeld due honour and praise unto him for the noble order which he hath appointed in nature praying him to lighten our hearts with the beames of his wisdome that we may more and more profit in the true knowledge of the workemanship of his hands But some are so nice that they condemne generally all sorts of divinations denying those things that in nature have manifest causes and are so framed as they soreshew things to come and in that shew amonish us of things after to insue exhibiting â—ignes of unknowne and future matters to be judged upon by the order law and course of nature proposed unto us by God And some on the other side are so bewitched with solly as they attribute to creatures that estimation which rightly and truly appertaineth to God the creator of all things affirming that the publike and private destinies of all humane matters and whatsoever a man would know of things come or gone is manifested to us in the heavens so as by the starres and planets all things might be knowne These would also that nothing should be taken in hand or gone about without the favourable aspect of the planets By which and other the like devises they deprave and prophane the ancient and commendable observations of our forefathers as did Colebrasus who taught that all mans life was governed by the seven planets and yet a christian and condemned for heresie But let us so farre forth imbrace and allow this philosophie and prophesying as the word of God giveth us leave and commendeth the same unto us CHAP. II. Proofes by the old and new Testamentâ— that certaine observations of the weather are lawful WHen God by his word and wisdome had made the heavens and placed the starres in the firmanent he said Let them be for signes and for seasons and for dayes and years When he created the rainebowe in the clouds he said it should be for a signe and token unto us Which we find true not onely of the â—â—ood past but also of the shewers to come And therefore according to Jesus Sirachs advise let us behold it and praise him that made it The â—rophet David saith The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth sheweth his handy worke day unto day uttereth the same and night unto night teacheth knowledge It is also written that by the commandement of the holy one the starres are placed and continue in their order and â—aile not in their watch Iâ— should appeare that Christ himselfe did not altogether neglect the course and order of the heavens in that he said When you see a cloud rise out of the west streightway you say a shewer cometh and so it is And when you see the southwinde blowe you say it will be hot and so it cometh to passe Againe when it is evening you say â—aire weather for the skie is red and in the morning you say to day shall be a tempest for the skie is red and louring Wherein as he noteth that these things do truly come to passe according to ancient observation and to the rule astronomical so doth he also by other words following admonish us that in attending too much to those observations we neglect not specially to follow our christian vocation The physician is commended unto us and allowed in the scriptures but so to put trust in him as to neglect and distrust God is severely forbidden and reproved Surely it is most necessary for us to know and observe divers rules astrological otherwise we could not with opportunity dispatch our ordinary affaires And yet Lactantius condemneth and recounteth it among the number of witchcrafts from whose censure Calvine doth not much varie The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants and living creatures fruitful so as in the full moone they are in best strength decaying in the wane and in the conjunction do utterly wither and sade Which when by observation use and practise they have once learned they distribute their businesse accordingly 〈◊〉 their times and seasons to sowe to plant to pruine to let their 〈◊〉 blood to cut c. CHAP. III. That certaine observations are indifferent certaine ridiculous and certaine impious whence that cunning is derived of Apollo and of
Aruspices I Know not whether to disallow or discommend the curious observation used by our elders who conjectured upon nativities so as if Saturne and Mercurie were opposite in any brute signe a man then borne should be dumb or stammer much whereas it is dâ—yly seene that children naturally imitate their parents conditions in that behalfe Also they have noted that one borne in the spring of the moone shall be healthy in that time of the wane when the moone is utterly decayed the childe then borne cannot live and in the conjunction it cannot long continue But I am sure the opinion of Julius Maternus is most impious who writeth that he which is borne when Saturne is in Leone shall live long and after his death shall go to heaven presently And so is this of Albumazar who saith that whosoever prayeth to God when the moone is in Capite draconis shall be heard and obtaine his prayer Furthermore to play the cold prophet as to recount it good or bad luck when salt or wine falleth on the table or is shed c. or to prognosticate that guests approach to your house upon the chattering of pies or haggisters whereof there can be yeelded no probable reason is altogether vanity and superstition as hereafter shall be more largely shewed But to make simple people beleeve that a man or woman can foretel good or evil fortune is meere witchcraft or cousenage for God is the onely searcher of the heart and delivereth not his counsel to so lewd reprobates I know divers writers affirme that witches foretel things as prompted by a real devil and that he againe learneth it out of the prophesies written in the scriptures and by other nimble sleights wherein he passeth any other creature earthly and that the same devil or some of his fellowes runnes or flies as far as Rochester to mother Bungy or to Canturbury to M. T. or to Delphos to Apollo or to Aesculapius in Pergamo or to some other idol or witch and there by way of oracle answers all questions through his understanding of the prophesies contained in the old testament especially in Daniel and Esay whereby the devil knew of the translation of the monarchie from Babylon to Graecia c. But either they have learned this of some oracle or witch or else I know not where the devil they find it Marry certaine it is that herein they shew themselves to be witches and â—ond diviners for they find no such thing written in Gods word Of the idoll called Apollo I have somewhat already spoken in the former title of Ob or Pytho and some occasion I shall have to speak thereof hereafter and therefore at this time it shall suffice to tell you tht the credit gained thereunto was by the craft and cunning of the priests which tended thereupon who with their counterfeit miracles so bewitched the people as they thought such vertue to have been contained in the bodies of those idols as God hath not promised to any of his angels or elect people For it is said that if Apollo were in a chafe he would sweat if he had remorse to the afflicted and could noâ— help them he would shed tears which I believe might have been wiped away with that handkerchiefe that wiped and dâ—yed the Rood of graces face being in the like perplexities Even as another sort of witching priests called Arâ—spices prophesied victory to Alexander because 〈◊〉 eagle lighted one his head which eagle might I beleeve be cooped or caged with Mahomets dove that picked â—eason out of his eare CHAP. IV. The predictions of soothsayers and lewd peiests the prognostications of Astronomers and Physitians allowable Divine Prophesie holy and good THe cousening tricks of oracling priests and monkes are and have been specially most abominable The superstitious observations of seâ—lesse augurors and soothsaiers contrary to Philosophy and without authority of scripture are very ungodly and ridiculous Howbeit I reject not the prognostications of astronomers nor the conjectures or fore warnings of Physitians nor yet the interpetations of Philosophers although in respect of the divine prophesies contained in holy Scriptures they are not to be weighed or regarded For the end of these and the other is not only far differing but whereas these contain onely â—he words and will of God with the other are mingled most horrible lies and cousenages For though there be many of them learned and godly yet lurke there in corner of the same profession a great number of counterfeits and couseners I. Bodin putteth this difference between divine prophets and inchantors to wit the one saith alwaies true the others words proceeding from the devil are alwaies false or for one truth they tell a hundred lies And then why may not every witch be thought as cunning as Apollo And why not every counterâ—eit consener as good 〈◊〉 witch as mother Bungie For it is ods but they will hit the truth once in a hundred divinations as well as the best CHAP. V. The diversity of true Prophets of Vrim and of the propheticall use of the twelve precious stones contained therein of the divine voice called Eccho IT should appear that even of holy prophets there were divers sorâ—â— For David and Solomon although in their psalmes and parables are contained most excellent mysteries and notable allegories yet they were not indued with that degree of prophesie that Ely and Elisha were c. For as often as it is said that God spake to David or Solomon it is meant to be done by the prophets For NATHAN or GAD were the Messengers and Prophets to reveale Gods will to David And Ahiam the Silonite was sent from God to Solomon Item the spirit of prophesie which Elias had was doubled upon Elisha Also some prophets prophesied all their lives some had but one vision and some had more according to Gods pleasure yea some prophesied unto the people of such things as came not to passe and that was where Gods wrath was pacifyed by repentance But these prophets were alwaies reputed among the people to be wise and godly whereas the Heathen prophets were evermore known and said to be mad and foolish as it is written both of the prophets of Sibylla and also of Apollo and at this day also in the Indies c. But that any of these extraordinary gifts remain at this day Bodin nor any witchmonger in the world shall never be able to prove though he in his book of devilish madnesse would make men believe it For these were miraculously maintained by God among the Jewes who were instructed by them of all such things as should come to passe or else informed by Urim so as the priests by the brightnesse of the twelve pretious stones contained therein could prognosticate or expound any thing Which brightnesse and vertue ceased as Josephus reporteth two hundred years before he was born So as since that time no answers were
the threatnings and curses pronounced by God and expressed in his word And thus much touching the word Kasam The tenth Book CHAP. I. The interpretation of this Hebrew word Onen of the vanity of dreams and divinatiâ—ns thereupon ONEN differeth not much from Kasam but that it is extended to the interpretation of dreames And as for dreames whatsoever credit is attributed unto them proceedeth of folly and they are fooles that trust in them for why they have deceived many In which respect the prophet giveth us good warning not to follow nor harken to the expositors of dreames for they come through the mâ—â—titude of businesse And therefore those witches that make men beleeve they can prophesie upon dreames as knowing the interpretation of them and either for money or glory abuse men and women thereby are meere couseners and worthy of great punishment as are such witchmongers as beleeving them attribute unto them sâ—chdivine power 〈◊〉 onely belongeth to God as appeareth in Jeremy the prophet CHAP. II. Of divine naturall and casuall dreames with their differing causes and effects MAcrobius recounteth five differences of images or rather imaginations exhibited unto them that sleepe which for the most part do figniâ—ie somewhat in admonition There be also many subdivisions made hereof which I think needlesse to rehearse In Jasper Peâ—cer they are to be seene with the causeâ— and occasions of dreames There were woâ—â— to be delivered from God himselfe oâ— his angels certaine dreames and visions unto the prophets and holy fathers according to the saying of Joel I will poure my spirit upon all flesh your young men shall dream dreames and your old men shall see visions These kind of dreames I say were the admonishments and forewarnings of God to his people as that of Joseph to abide with Mary his wife after she was conceived by the Holy Ghost as also to convey our Saviour Christ into Aegypt c. the interpretation whereof are the peculiar gifts of God which Joseph the patriarch and Daniel the prophet had most specially As for physical conjectures upon dreames the scriptures improve them not for by them the physitians many times do understand the state of their patients bodies For some of them come by meanes of choler flegme melancholy or blood and some by love surfet hunger thirst c. Galen and Boetius were said to deale with devils because they told so justly their patients dreames or rather by their dreames their special diseases Howbeit physical dreames are natural and the cause of them dwelleth in the nature of man For they are the inward actions of the mind in the spirits of the braine whilest the body is occupied with sleepe for as touching the minde it selfe it never sleepeth These dreams vary according to the difference of humors vapors There are also casual dreams which as Solomon saith come through the multitude of businesse For as a looking-glasse sheweth the image or figure thereunto opposite so in dreames the phantasie and imagination informes the understanding of such things as haunt the outward sense Whereupon the poet saith Somnia ne cures nam mens humana quod optat Dum vigil at sperans per somnum cernit id ipsum Regard no dreames for why the mind Of that in sleepe a view doth take Which it doth wish and hope to find At such time as it is awake CHAP. III. The opinion of divers old writers touching dreames and how they vary in noting the causes thereof SYnesius Themistius Democritus and others grounding themselves upon examples that chance hath sometimes verified perswade men that nothing is dreamed in vaine affirming that the heavenly influencies do bâ—ing forth divers formes in corporal matters and of the same influencies visions and dreames are printed in the fantastical power which is instrumental with a celestial disposition meete to bring forth some effect especially in sleepe when the mind being free from bodily cares may more liberally receive the heavenly influencies whereby many things are knowne to them sleeping in dreames which they that wake cannot see Plato attributeth them to the formes and ingendred knowledges of the soule Avicen to the last intelligence that moveth the moone through the light that lighteneth the fantasie in sleepe Aristotle to the phantastical sense Averroës to the imaginative Albert to the influence of superior bodies CHAP. IV. Against interpreters of dreames of the ordinary cause of dreamer Hemingius his opinion of diabolical dreames the interpretation of dreames ceased THere are bookes carried about concerning this matter under the name of Abraham who as Philo In lib. gigantum saith was the first inventor of the exposition of dreames and so likewise of Solomon and Daniel But Cicero In lib. de divinatione confuteth the vanity and folly of them that give credit to dreames And as for the interpreters of dreams as they know not before the dreame nor yet after any ceatainty yet when any thing afterwards happeneth then they apply the dreame to that which hath chanced Certainly men never lightly faâ—le to dreame by night of that which they meditate by day and by day they see divers and sundry things and conceive them severally in their minds Then those mixed conceits being laid up in the closet of the memory strive together which because the phantasie cannot discerne nor discusse some certaine thing gathered of many conceits is bred and contrived in one together And therefore in my opinion it is time vainly employed to study about the interpretation of dreames He that list to see the folly and vanity thereof may read a vaine treatise set out by Thomas Hill Londoneâ— 1568. Lastly there are diabolical dreames which Nicholaus Hemingius devideth into three sorts The first is when the devil immediately of himselfe he meaneth corporally offereth any matter of dreame Secondly when the devil sheweth revelations to them that have made request unto him therefore Thirdly when magicians by art bring to passe that other men dreame what they will Assuredly these and so all the rest as they may be used are very magicall and devilish dreames For although we may receive comfort of minde by those which are called divine dreames and health of body through physical dreames yet if we take upon us to use the office of God in the revelation or rather the interpretation of them or if we attribute unto them miraculous effects now when we see the gifts of prophesie and of interpretation of dreames and also the operation of miracles are ceased which were special and peculiar gifts of God to confirme the truth of the word and to establish his people in the faith of the Messias who is now exhibited unto us both in the testament and also in the blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ we are bewitched and both abuse and offend the majesty of God and also seduce delude and cousen all such as by our perswasion and their own light beleefe give us
none other commonly but beets rootes nuts beanes pease c. Now saith he when I considered throughly hereof remaining doubtful of the matter there fell into my hands a witch who of her owne accord did promise me to fetch me an errand out of hand from far countries and willed all them whom I had brought to witnesse the matter to depart out of the chamber And when she had undressed her selfe and fâ—oted her body with certaine ointments which action we beheld through a chinke or little hole of the doore she fell downe through the force those soporiferous or sleepy ointments into a most sound and heavy sleep so as we did break open the doore and did beate her exceedingly but the force of her sleepe was such as it took away from her the sense of feeling and we departed for a time Now when her strength and powers were weary and decayed she awoke of her owne accord and began to speak many vaine and doting words affirming that she had passed over both seas and mountaines delivering to us many untrue and false reports we earnestly denied them she impudently affirmed them This saith he will not so come to passe with every one but onely with old women that are melancholick whose nature is extreame cold and their evaporation small and they both perceive and remember what they see in that case and taking of theirs CHAP. IX A confutation of the former follies as well concerning ointments dreames c. as also of the assembly of witches and of their consultations and bankets at sundry places and all in dreames BUt if it be true that S. Augustine saith and many other writers that witches nightwalkings are but phantasies and dreames then all the reports of their bargaine transporting and meetings with Diana Minerva c. are but fables and then do they ly that maintaine those actions to be done in deed and verity which in truth are done no way It were marvel on the one side if those things happened in dreames which neverthelesse the witches affirme to be otherwise that when those witches awake they neither consider nor remember that they were in a dreame It were marvel that their ointments by the physicians opinions having no force at all to that effect as they confesse which are inquisitors should have such operation It were marvel that their ointments cannot be found any where saving onely in the inquisitors bookes It were marvel that when a stranger is anointed therewith they have sometimes and yet not alwayes the like operation as with witches which all the inquisitors confesse But to this last frier Bartholomaeus saith that the witches themselves before they anoint themselves do heare in the night time a great noise of minstrels which fly over them with the lady of the fairies and then they addresse themselves to their journy But then I marvel againe that no body else hearth nor seeth this troope of minstrels especially riding in a moon-light night It is marvel that they that think this to be but in a dreame can be perswaded that all the rest is any other thâ—â— dreames It is marvel that in dreames witches of old acquaintance meet so just together and conclude upon murthers and receive ointments rootes powders c. as witchmongers report they do and as they make the witches confesse and yet ly at home fast asleepe It is marvel that such preparation is made for them as Sprenger Bartholomew and Bodin report as well in noble mens houses as in alehouses and that they come in dreames and eate up their meate and the alâ—wiâ—e specially is not wearied with them for non-payment of their score or false payment to wit with imaginary money which they say is not substantial and that they talke not afterwards about the reckoning and so discover the matter And it is most marvel of all that the hostesse c. doth not sit among them and take part of their good cheer For so it is that if any part of these their meetings and league be true it is as true and as certainly proved and confessed that at some ale-house or some time at some Gentlemans house there is continuall preparation made monethly for this assembly as appeareth in S. Germans story CHAP. X. That most part of prophesies in the old Testament were revealed in dreams that we are not now to look for such revelations of some who have dreamt of that which hath come to passe that dreams prove contrary Nabuchadnezzers rule to know a true Expositor of Dreames IT is held and maintained by divers and gathered out of the 12. of Numbers that all which was written or spoken by the prophets among the children of Israel Moses excepted was propounded to them by dreames And indeed it is manifest that many things which are thought by the unlearned to have been really finished have been only performed by dreames and visions As where Solomon required of God the gift of wisdome that was I say in a dream and also where he received promise of the continuance of the kingdome of Israel in his line So was Esay's vision in the 6. of his prophesie as also that of Ezechiel the 12. Finally where Jeremie was commanded to hide his girdle in the clift of a rock at the River Euphrates in Babylon and that after certain daies it did there putrefy it must needs be in a dream for Jeremy was never or at least wise not then at Babylon We that are christians must not now slumber and dream but watch and pray and meditate upon our salvation in Christ both day and night And if we expect revelations in our dreams now when Christ is come we shall deceive our selves for in him are fullfilled all dreams prophesies Howbeit Bodin holdeth that dreams and visions continue till this day in as miraculous manner as ever they did If you reade Artemidorus you shall reade many stories of such as dreamt of things that afterwards came to passe But he might have cited a thousand for one that fel out contrary for as for such dreamers among the Jews themselves as had not extraordinary visions miraculously exhibited unto them by God they were counted couseners as may appear by these words of the prophet Zacharie Surely the idols have spoken vanity and the soothsayers have seen a ly and the dreamers have told a vainthing According to Solomons saying In the multitude of dreames and vanities are many words It appeareth in Jeremie 23. that the false prophets whilest they illuded the people with lies counterfeiting the true prophets used to cry out Dreames dreames We have dreamed a dreame c. Finally Nabuchadnezzer teacheth all men to know a true expositor of dreames to wit such a one as hath his revelation from God For he can as Daniel did repeate your dream before you discover it which thing if any expounder of dreames can do at this day I will believe him The eleventh Book CHAP.
as though saith he that little bloud could ascend up to the cloudes and do any good for their relief in this matter And here by the waie I will impart unto you a Venetian superstition of great antiquity and at this day for ought I can reade to the contrary in use It is written that every year ordinarily upon Ascension day the Duke of Venice accompanyed with the States goeth with great solemnity unto the sea and after certaine ceremonies ended casteth thereinto a gold ring of great value and estimation for a pacificatory oblation wherewithal their predecessors supposed that the wrath of the Sea was asswaged By this action as a late writer saith they do Dâ—sponsare sibimare that is espouse the sea unto themselves c. Let us therefore according to the prophets advise aske raine of the Lord in the hours of the latter time and he shall send white cloudes and give us raine c for surely the idols as the same prophet saith have spoken vanity the soothsaiers have seen a ly and the dreamers have told a vaine thing They comfort in vain and therefore they went away like sheep c. If any sheepbiter or witchmonger will follow them they shall go alone for me The Twlfeth Book CHAP. I. The Hebrew word Habar expounded where also the supposed secret force of charmes and inchantments is shewed and the efficacy of words is diverse waies declared THis Hebrew word Habar being in Greeke Epathin and in Latine Incantare is in English To inchant or if you had rather have it so to bewitch In these inchantments certain words verses or charmes c. are secretly uttered wherein there is thought to be miraculous efficacie There is great variety hereof but whether it be by charmes voices images characters stones plans metals herbes c there must herewithall a speciall form of words be alwaies used either divine diabolicall insensible or papistical whereupon all the vertue of the work is supposed to depend This word is specially used in the 58. Psalm which place though it be taken up for mine adversaries strongest argument against me yet me thinks it maketh so with me as they can never be able to answer it For there it plainly appeareth that the adder heareth not the voice of the charmer charm he never so cunningly contrary to the poets fabling Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis The coldish snake in meadowes green With charmes is burst in pieces clean But here of more shall be said hereafter in due place I grant that words sometimes have singular vertue and efficacy either in perwasion or disswasion as also diverse other waies so as thereby some are converted from the waie of perdition to the estate of salvation and so contrariwise according to the saying of Solomon Death and life are in the instrument of the tongue but even therein God worketh all in all as well in framing the heart of the one as in directing the tongue of the other as appeareth in many places of the holy scriptures CHAP. II. What is forbidden in Scriptures concerning witchcraft of the operation of words the superstition of the Cabalists and Papists who createth substances to imitate God in some cases is presumption words of sanctification THat which is forbidden in the Scriptures touching inchantment or witch craft is not the wonderfull working with words For where words have had miraculous operation there hath been alwaies the special providence power and grace of God uttered to the strengthening of the faith of Gods people and to the furtherance of the gospel as when the apostle with a word slue Ananias and Saphira But the prophanation of Gods name the seducing abusing and cosening of the people and mans presumption is hereby prohibited as whereby many take upon them after the recital of such names as God in the scripture seemeth to appropriate to himselfe to foreshew things to come to worke miracles to detect fellonies c. as the Cabalists in times past tooke upon them by the ten names of God and his angels expressed in the scriptures to worke wonders and as the papists at this day by the like names by crosses by gospels hanged about their necks by masses by exorcismes by holy water and a thousand consecrated or rather execrated things promise unto themselves and others both health of body and soul. But as herein we are not to imitate the papists so in such things as are the peculiar actions of God we ought not to take upon us to counterfeit or resemble him which with his word created all things For we neither all the conjurors Cabalists papists soothsayers inchanters witches nor charmers in the world neither any other humane or yet diabolicall cunning can adde any such strength to Gods workmanship as to make any thing anew or else to exchange one thing into another New qualities may be added by humane art but no new substance can be made or created by man And seeing that art faileth herein doubtlesse neither the illusions of devils nor the cunning of witches can bring any such thing truly to passe For by the sound of the words nothing cometh nothing goeth otherwise than God in nature hath ordained to be done by ordinary speech or else by his speciall ordinance Indeed words of sanctification are necessary and commendable according to S. Pauls rule Let your meat be sanctified with the word of God and by prayer But sanctification doth not here signifie either change of substance of the meate or the adding of any new strength thereunto but it is sanctified in that it is received with thanksgiving and prayer that our bodies may be refreshed and our souls thereby made the apter to glorifie God CHAP. III. What effect and offence witches charmes bring how unapt witches are and how unlikely to work those things which they are thought to do what would follow if the those things were true which are lald to their charge THe words and other the illusions of witches charmers and conjurors though they be not such in operation and effect as they are commonly taken to be yet they are offensive to the majestie and name of God obscuring the truth of divinity and also of philophie For if God onely give life and being to all creatures who can put any such vertue or lively feeling into a body of gold silver bread or wax as is imagined If either priests devils or witches could so do the divine power should be checked and outfaced by magicall cunning and Gods creatures made servile to a witches pleasure What is not to be brought to passe by these incantations if that be true which is attributted to witches and yet they are women that never went to schoole in their lives nor had any teachers and therefore without art or learning poore and therefore not able to make any provision of metals or stones c. whereby to bring to passe strange matters by natural
Christ did ordaine The sound save every hower The sick and sore make whole again By vertue of thy power And that which mans unablenesse Hath never comprehended Grant by thy name of holynesse It may be fully ended c. A charme taken out of the Primer THis charm following is taken out of the Primer aforesaid Omnipotens ✚ Dominus ✚ Christus ✚ Messias ✚ with 34. names more and as many crosses and then proceeds in this wife Ista nomina me protegant ab omni adversitate plaga infirmitate corporis animae plenè liberent assistent in auxilium ista nomina regum Gasper c. 12. Apostoli videlicet Petrus c. 4. Evangelistae vedelicet Matthaeus c. mibi assistent in omnibus necessitatibus meis ac me defendant liberent ab omnibus periculis corporis animae omnibus malis praeteritis praesentibus futuris c. CHAP. X. How to make holy water and the vertues thereof St. Rufins charm of the wearing and bearing of the name of Iesus that the sacrament of confession and the eucharist is of as much efficacy as other charms and magnified by L. Vairus IF I did well I should shew you the confection of all their stuffe and how they prepare it but it would be too long And therefore you shall only have in this place a few notes for the composition of certaine receipts which instead of an Apothecary if you deliver to any morrowmâ—sse priest he will make them as well as the pope himselfe Mary now they wax every Parliament deerer and deerer although therewithall they utter many stale drugs of their own If you look in the popish pontifical you shall see how they make their holy water to wit in this sort I conjure thee thou creature of water in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy-ghost that thou drive the devill out of every corner and hole of this church and altar so as he remaine not within our precincts that are just and righteous And water thus used as Durandus saith hath power of his own nature to drive away divels If you will learn to make any more of this popish stuffe you may go to the very masse-book and find many good receipts marry if you search Durandus c. you shall find abundance I know that all these charmes and all these paltery confections though they were far more impious and foolish will be maintained and defended by massemongers even as the residue will be by witchmongers and therefore I will in this place insert a charm the authority whereof is equal with the rest desiring to have their opinions herein I find in a book called Pomoerium sermonum quadragefimalium that S. Francis seeing Rufinus provoked of the devil to think himself damned charged Rufinus to say this charme when he next met with the devill Aperios ibi 〈◊〉 nam stercus which is as much to say in English as Open thy mouth and I will puâ— in a plum a very ruffinly charme Leonard Vairus writeth De veris piis ac sanctis amuletis fascinum â—â—que omnia veneficia destruent ibus wherein he specially commendeth the name of Jesus to be worne But the sacrament of confession he extolleth above all things saying that whereas Christ with his power did beâ—throw divels out of mens bodies the priest driveth the devil out of man soul by confession For saith he these words of the priest when he saith Ep te absolvo are as effectuall to drive away the princes of darknesse throoâ— the mighty power of that saying as was the voice of God to drive away the darknesse of the world when at the beginning he said Fiat lux He commendeth also as wholesome things to drive away devils the sacrament of the eucharist and solitarinesse and silence Finally he saith thaâ— if there be added hereunto an Agnus Dei the same be worne about onâ— neck by one void of sin nothing is wanting that is good and wholesome for this purpose But he concludeth that you must wear and make 〈◊〉 in your forehead with crossing your selfe when you put on your shoe and at every other action c. and that is also a present remedie to dinâ— away devils for they cannot abide it CHAP. XI Of the Noble balme used by Moses apishly counterfeited in the châ—rcâ— of Rome THe noble balme that Moses made having indeed many excellent vâ—â—â—tues besides the pleasant and comfortable savour thereof wheâ— withall Moses in his politike lawes enjoined Kings Queens and Prince to be anointed in their true and lawful elections and coronations 〈◊〉 the everlasting King had put on man upon him is apishly counterfeit in the Romish Church with divers terrible conjurations three breâ—â—â—ings crossewise able to make a quezie stomach spue nine mumbliâ—â— and three curtsies saying thereunto Ave sanctum oleum ter ave sancta balsamum And so the devil is thrust out and the Holy Ghost let 〈◊〉 to his place But as for Moses his balm it is not now to be found either 〈◊〉 Rome or elsewhere that I can learn And according to this papistiâ—â— order witches and other superstitious people follow on with charmâ— and conjurations made in form which many bad Physicians also practiâ—â—â— when their learning faileth as may appear by example in the sequele CHAP. XII The opinâ—on of Ferrarins touching charmes periapis appensions amulets c. Of Homericall medicines of constant opinion and the effects thereof ARgerius Ferrarius a physician in these dayes of great account doth say that forsomuch as by no diet nor physicke any disease can be so taken away or extinguished but that certain dregs and reliques will remaine therefore physicians use physical alligations appensions peraipts amulets charmes characters c. which he supposeth may do good but harm he is sure they can do none urging that it is necessary and exâ—pedient for a physician to leave nothing undone that may be devised for his patients recovery and that by such means many great cures are done He citeth a great number of experiments out of Alexander Trallianus Aetius Octavianus Marcellus Philodotus Archigines Philostratus Plinie c Dioscorides and would make men beleeve that Galen who in truth despised and derided all those vanities recanted in his latter dayes his former opinion and all his invectives tending against these magicall cures writing also a book intituled De Homerica medicatione which no man could ever see but one Alexander Trallianus who saith he saw it and further affirmeth that it is an honest mans part to cure the sicke by hook or by crooke or by any means whatsoever Yea he saith that Galen who indeed wrote and taught that Incantamenta sunt muliercularum figmenta and be the onely clokes of bad physicians affirmeth that there is vertue and great force in incantations As for example saith Trallian Galen being now reconciled to this opinion
into the said dike and there killed him You must think that this was a devil in a serpents likenesse which for the love he bare to the poore snakes killed the sorcerer to reach all other witches to beware of the like wicked practise And surely if this be not true there be a great number of lies contained in M. Mal. and I. Bodin And if this be well weighed and conceived it beateth downe to the ground all those witchmongers arguments that contend to wring witching miracles out of this place For they disagree notably some denying and some affirming that serpents may be bewitched Neverthelesse because in every point you shall see how popery agreeth with paganisme I will recite certaine charmes against vipers allowed for the most part in and by the church of Rome as followeth I conjure thee O serpent in this house by the five holy wounds of our Lord that thou remove not out of this place but here stay as certainly as God was borne of a pure virgine Otherwise I conjure thee serpent In nomine patris filii spiritus sancti I command thee serpent by our lady S. Mary that thou obey me as wax obeyeth the fire and as fire obeyeth water that thou neither hurt me nor any other christian as certainly as God was borne of an immaculate virgine in which respect I take thee up In nomine patris filii spiritus sancti Ely lash eiter ely lash eiter ely lash eiter Otherwise O vermine thou must come as God came unto the Iewes Otherwise L. Vairus saith that Serpens quernis frondibus contacta that a serpent touched with oake-leaves dieth and stayeth even in the beginning of his going if a feather of the bird Ibis be cast or thrown upon him and that a viper smitten or hot with a reed is astonied and touched with a beechen branch is presently numme and stiffe Here is to be remembered that many use to boast that they are of S. Pauls race and kindred shewing upon their bodies the prints of serpentâ— which as the papists affirme was incident to all them of S. Pauls stock Marry they say herewithall that all his kinsfolks can handle serpents or any poison without danger Others likewise have as they brag a Katharine-wheele upon their bodies and they say they are kinne to S. Katharine and that they can carry burning coales in their bare hands and dip their said hands in hot skalding liquor and also go into hot ovens Whereof though the last be but a bare jest and to be done by any that will prove as a bad fellow in London had used to do making no tarriancâ—e at all therein yet there is a shew made of the other as though it were certaine and undoubted by anointing the hands with the juice of mallowes mercury urine c. which for a little time are defensatives against these scalding liquors and scorching fires But they that take upon them to worke these mysteries and miracles do indeed after rehearsall of these and such like words and charmes take up even in their bare hands those snakes and vipers and sometimes pâ—â— them about their necks without receiving any hurt thereby to the terror and astonishment of the beholders which naturally both feare and abhorre all serpents But these charmers upon my word dare not trust to their charmes but use such an inchantment as every man may lawfully use and in the lawfull use thereof may bring to passe that they shall be in security and take no harme how much soever they handle them marry with a woollen rag they pull out their teeth before hand as some men say but as truth is they weary them and that is of certainty And surely this is a kind of witchcraft which I terme private confederacy Bodin saith that all the snakes in one countrey were by charmes and verses driven into another region perhaps he meaneth Ireland where S. Patrik is said to have done it with his holynesse c. James Sprenger and Henry Institor affirme that serpents and snakes and their skins exceed all other creatures for witchcraft insomuch as witches do use to bury them under mens thresholds either of the house or stalles whereby barrennesse is procured both to woman and beast yea and that the very earth and ashes of them continue to have force of fascination In respect whereof they wish all men now and then to dig away the earth under their thresholds and to sprinkle holy water in the place and also to hang boughes hallowed on midsummer day at the stall doore where the cattel stand and produce examples thereupon of witches lies or else their owne which I omit because I see my book groweth to be greater than I meant it should be CHAP. XVI Charmes to carry water in a sive to know what is spoken of us behind our backs for bleere eyes to make seeds to grow well of images made of wax to be rid of a witch to hang her up notable authorities against waxen images a story bewraying the knavery of waxen images LEonardus Vairus saith that there was a prayer extant whereby might be carried in a sive water or other liquor I think it was clam clay which a crow taught a maid that was promised a cake of so great quantity as might be kneaded of so much floure as she could wet with the water that she brought in a sive and by that meanes she clamd it with clay and brought in so much water as whereby she had a great cake and so beguiled her sisters c. And this tale I heard among my grandams maides whereby I can decipher this witchcraft Item by the tingling of the eare men heretofore could tell what was spoken of them If any see a scorpion and say this word Bud he shall not be stung or bitten therewith These two Greek letters Î and A written in a paper and hung about ones neck preserve the party from bleereyednesse Cummin or hempseed sowen with cursing and opprobrious words grow the faster and the better Berosus Anianus maketh witchcraft of great antiquity for he saith that C ham touching his fathers naked member uttered a charme whereby his father became emasculated or deprived of the powers generative A charme teaching how to hurt whom you list with images of wax c. MAke an image in his name whom you would hurt or kill of new virgine wax under the right arme-poke whereof place a swallows heart and the liver under the left then hang about the neck thereof a new thred in a new needle pricked into the member which you would have hurt with the rehearsall of certain words which for the avoiding of foolish superstition and credulity in this behalf is to be omitted And if they were inserted I dare undertake they would do no harme were it not to make fooles and catch gudgins Otherwise Sometimes these images are made of brasse and then the hand is placed where the
foot should be and the foot where the hand and the face downward Otherwise For a greater mischiefe the like image is made in the forme of a man or woman upon whose head is written the certain name of the party and on his or her ribs these words Ailif casyl zaze hit mel meltat then the same must be buried Otherwise In the dominioâ— of Mars two images must be prepared one of wax the other of the earth of a dead man each image must have in his hand a sword wherewith a man hath been slain and that he must be slain may have his head thrust through with a foin In both must be written certain peculiar characters and then must they be hid in a certain place Otherwise To obtain a womans love an image must be made in the hour of Venus of virgine wax in the name of the beloved whereupon a character is written and is warmed at a fire and in doing thereof the name of some Angell must be mentioned To be utterly rid of the witch and to hang her up by the haire you must prepare an image of the earth of a dead 〈◊〉 to be baptized in another mans name whereon the name with a character must be written then must it be perfumed with a rotten bone and then these psalmes read backward Domine Dominus noster Dominus illuminatio mea Domine exaudi orationem meam Deus laudem meam 〈◊〉 tacueris and then bury it first in one place and afterwards in another Howbit it is written in the 21. article of the determination of Paris thâ—â— to affirme that images of brasse lead gold of white or red wax or of any other stuffe conjured baptized consecrated or rather execrated through these magical arts at certaine daies have wonderful vertueâ— or such as are avowed in their bookes or assertions is error in faith 〈◊〉 philosophy and true astronomy yea it is concluded in the 22. article of that councell that it is as great an error to believe those things as to do them But concerning these images it is certain that they are much feareâ— among the people and much used among cousening witches as party appeareth in this discourse of mine else-where and as partly you may see by the contents of this story following Not long sithence a young maiden dwelling at New Romny here in Kent being the daughter of one â— L. Stuppeny late Jurat of the same town but dead before the execution hereof and afterwards the wife of Thom. Eps who is at this instant Maâ—or of Romny was visited with sicknesse whose mother and father in 〈◊〉 being abused with credulity concerning witches supernatural power repaired to a famous witch called mother Baker dwelling not farre from thence at a place called Stonstreet who according to witches couseâ—ing custome asked whether they mistrusted not some bad neighbour 〈◊〉 whom they answered that indeed they doubted a woman neer unto them and yet the same was of the honester and wiser sort of her neighbour reputed a good creature Neverthelesse the witch told them that these was great cause of their suspition for the same said she is the very partâ— that wrought the maidens destruction by making a heart of wax priâ—â—ing the same with pins and needles affirming also that the same neighbor of hers had bestowed the same in some secret corner of the house This being beleeved the house was searched by credible persons but nothing could be found The witch or wise woman being certified hereof continued her assertion and would needs go to the house where she herself as she affirmed would certainly find it When she came thither she used her cunning as it chanced to her own confusion or at leastwise to her detection for herein she did as some of the wiser sort mistrusted that she would do laying down privily such an image as she had before described in a corner which by others had been most diligently searched and looked into and by that meanes her cousenage was notably bewrayed And I would wish that all witchmongers might pay for their lewd repaire to inchanters and consultation with witches and such as have familiar spirits as some of these did and that by the order of the high Commissioners which partly for respect of neighbourhood and partly for other considerations I leave unspoken of CHAP. XVII Sundry sorts of charms tending to diverse purposes and first certain charms to make taciturnity in tortures IMparibus meritis tria Pendont corpora ramis Dismas Gestas In medio est divina potestas Dismas damnatur Gestas ad astra levatur Three bodies on a bough do hang For merits of inequality Dismas and Gestas in the midst The power of the divinity Dismas is damn'd but Gestas lifted up above the starres on high Also this Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum veritatem nun quam diâ—am regi Otherwise As the milk of our lady was lussious to our Lord Jesus Christ so let this torture or rope be pleasant to mine armes and members Otherwise Iesus autem transiens per medium illorum ibat Otherwise You shall not breake a bone of him Counter-charms against these and all other witchcrafts in the saying also whereof witches are vexed c. ERuctavit cor meum verbum bonum dicam cuncta opera mea regi Otherwise Domine labia mea aperies os meum annunciabit veritatem Otherwise Contere brachia iniqui rei lingua maligna subvertet ur A charm for the choine cough TAke three sips of a chalice when the priest hath said masse and swallow it down with good devotion c. For corporall or spiritual rest In nomine patris up and downe Et filii spiritus sancti upon my crowne Crux Christi upon my brest Sweet lady send me eternal rest Charmes to find out a theefe THe meanes how to find out a theefe is thus Turne your face to the east and make a crosse upon christall with oile alive and under the crosse write these two words Saint Helen Then a child that is innocent and a chaste virgine borne in true wedlock and not base begotten of the age of ten yeares must take the christall in his hand and behind his back kneeling on thy knees thou must devoutly and reverently say over this prayer thrice I beseech thee my lady S. Helen mother of king Constantine which diddest find the crosse whereupon Christ died by that thy holy devotion and invention of the crosse and by the same crosse and by the joy which thou conceivedst at the finding thereof and by the love which thou bearest to thy sonne Constantine and by the great goodnesse which thou doest alwaies use that thou shew me in this christall whatsoever I aske or desire to know Amen And when the child seeth the angel in the christal demand what you will and the angel will make answer thereunto Memorandum that this be done just at the sunne-rising when
resorted a Gentleman that had been vexed with sicknesse named Elibert having a kerchiefe on his head according to the guise of sick folke But the Chirurgian made him pull off his kerchiefe and willed him to drink with him freely The sick man said he durst not for he was forbidden by physick so to do Tush said this cunning man they know not your disease be ruled by me and take in your drink lustily For he thought that when he was well tippled he might the more easily beguile him in his bargaine and make his reward the greater which he was to receive in part aforehand When they had well drunk he called the sick man aside and told him the greatnes and danger of his disease and how that it grew by meanes of withcraft and that it would he universally spread in his house and among all his cattel if it were not prevented and impudently perswaded the sick man to receive câ—re of him And after bargain made he demanded of the sick man whether he had not any at home whom he might assuredly trust The sick man answered that he had a daughter and a servant The cousener asked how old his daughter was The patient said twenty Well said the cousener that is fit for our turn Then he made the mother and father to kneel on their knees to their daughter and to desire her in all things to obey the physician and that she would do in every thing as he commanded her otherwise her father could not be restored to his health In which respect her parents humbly besought her on their knees so to do Then he assigned her to bring him into his lodging her fathers haire and her mothers and of all those which he kept in his house as well of men and woman as also of his cattel When she came therewith unto him according to the match made and her parents commandment he lead her down into a low parlour where having made a long speech he opened a book that lay on the boord and layeth thereon two knives acrosse with much circumstance of words Then conjureth he and maketh strange characters and at length he maketh a circle on the ground wherein he causeth her to stick one of those conjured knives and after many more strange words he maketh her stick the other knife beside it Then fell down the maid in a swoon for fear so as he was fain to frote her and put a sop into her mouth after the receipt whereof she was sore troubled and amazed Then he made her breasts to be uncovered so as when they were bare he dallied with them diversly and long together Then he made her lie right upward all uncovered and bare below her pappes Wherein the maid being loath to obey him resisted and in shame forbad that villainy Then said the knave Your fathers destruction is at hand for except you will be ruled he and all his family shall sustaine greater griefe and inconvenience then is yet happened unto him And no remedy except you will seeke his utter overthrow I must have carnall copulation with you therewithal sell into her bosome and overthrew her and her virginity So did he the second day and attempted the like on the third day But he failed then of his purpose as the wench confessed afterwards In the meane time he ministred so cruel medicines to the sick man that through the torments thereof he feared present death and was faine to keep his bed whereas he walked about before very well and lustily The patient in his torments calleth unto him for remedy who being slack and negligent in that behalfe made roome for the daughter to accompany her father who asked her what she thought of the cure and what hope she had of his recovery Who with teares remained silent as being oppressed with grief till at the last in abundance of sorrow she uttered the whole matter to her father This doth Iohannes Wierus report saying that it came unto him by the lamentable relation of the father himselfe And this is here at this time for none other purpose rehearsed but that men may hereby learne to take heed of such cosening merchants and know what they be that take upon them to be so cunning in witchcraft leâ—t they be bewitched as master Elibert and his daughter were Another witchraft or knavery practised by the same Chirurgian THis Chirurgian ministred to a noble man that lay sick of an ague offering unto him three pieces of a roote to be eaten at three morsels saying to the first I would Christ had not been borne unto the second I would he had not suffered unto the third I would he had not risen againe And then putting them about the sick mans neck said Be of good cheere And if he lost them whosoever tooke them up should therewithall take away his ague Otherwise Jesus Christ which was Born deliver thee from this infirmity ✚ Jesus Christ which died ✚ deliver thee from this infirmity ✚ Jesus Christ which rose againe ✚ deliver thee from this infirmity Then dayly must be said five Pater nosters and five Aves Another experiment for one bewitched ANother such cosening physician perswaded one which had a timpany that it was one old viper and two young maintained in his belly by witchcraft But being watched so as he could not convey vipers into his ordure or excrements after his purgations at length he told the party that he should suffer the paines of childbirth if it were not prevented and therefore he must put his hand into his breech and rake out those wormes there But the mother of the sick party having warning hereof said she could do that her selfe So the cosener was prevented and the party died onely of a timpany and the knave ran away out of the countrey Otherwise MOnsieur Bodin telleth of a witch who undertaking to cure a woman bewitched caused a masse to be sung at midnight in our ladies chappel And when she had overlaien the sick party and breathed certaine words upon her she was healed Wherein Bodin saith she followed the example of Elisha the prophet who raised the Shunamits son And this story must needs be true for goodman Hardivin Blesensis his host at the signe of the lion told him the story A knack to know whether you be bewitched or no c. JT is also expedient to learne how to know whether a sick man be bewitched or no this is the practise hereof You must hold molten lead over the sick body and poure it into a porrenger full of water and then if there appeare upon the lead any image you may then known the party is bewitched CHAP. XIX That one witchcraft may lawfully meete with another SCotus Hostiensis Gofridus and all the old canonists agree that it is lawful to take away witchcraft by witchcraft Et vana vanis conlundere And Scotus saith It were folly to forbear to
extraordinary sicknesse or to be bewitched or as they say strangely taken looke in B Googe his third book treating of cattel and happily you shall find some good medicine or cure for them or if you list to see more antient stuffe reade Vegetius his four bookes thereupon or if you be unlearned seek some cunning bullocke-leech If all this will not serve then set Jobs patience before your eyes And never think that a poore old woman can alter supernaturally the notable course which God hath appointed among his creatures If it had been Gods pleasure to have permitted such a course he would no doubt have both given notice in his word that he had given such power unto them and also would have taught remedies to have prevented them Furthermore if you will know assured meanes and infallible charmes yielding indeed undoubted remedies and preventing all manner of witchcrafts and also the assaults of wicked spirits then despise first all cosening knavery of priests witches and coseners and with true faith reade the sixt chapter of S. Paul to the Epesians and follow his counsell which is ministred unto you in the words following deserving worthily to be called by the name insuing The charme of charmes Finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might Put on the whole armour of God that you may stand against the assaults of the devil For we wrestle not against flesh and blood 〈◊〉 against principalities and powers and against wordly governoâ—â—â— the princes of the darknesse of this world against spiritual wickednesse which are in the high places For this cause take unto you the armour of God that you may be able to resist in the evill day and having finished all things stand fast Stand therefore and your loines giâ—ded about with verity and having on the brestplate of righteousnesse c. â— followeth in that chapter verses 15 16 17 18. 1 These 5. 1 Pet. 5. verse 8. Ephes. 1. and elsew-here in the holy scripture Otherwise JF you be unlearned and want the comfort of friends repaire to 〈◊〉 learned godly and discreet preacher If otherwise need require â—â— to a learned physician who by learning and experience knoweth and 〈◊〉 discerne the difference signes and causes of such diseases as 〈◊〉 lesse men and unskilful physicians impute to witchcraft CHAP. XXIII A confutation of the force and vertue falsely ascribed to charmes and amulets by the authorities of ancient writers both Divines and Physitians MY meaning is not that these words in the bare letter can doe any thing towards your ease or comfort in this behalf or that it were wholesome for your body or soul to wear them about your neck for then would I wish you to wear the whole Bible which must needs bee more effectuall than any one parcell thereof But I find not that the Apostles or any of them in the primitive Church either carried S. Iohns Gospell or any Agnus Dei about them to the end they might be preserved from bugs neither that they looked into the four corners of the house or else in the roof or under the threshold to find matter of witchcraft and so to burn it to be freed from the same according to the popish rules Neither did they by such and such verses or prayers made unto Saints at such or such houres seek to obtain grace neither spake they of any old women that used such trades Neither did Christ at any time use or command holy water or crosses c. to be used as terrours against the Divell who was not affraid to assault himself when he was on earth And therefore a very vain thing it is to think that hee feareth these trifles or any externall matter Let us then cast away these prophane and old wives fables For as Origen saith Incantationes sunt daemonum irrisiones idolatriae faex animarum infatuatio c. Incantations are the Divels sport the dregs of Idolatry the besotting of souls c. Chrysostome saith there be some that carry about their necks a peece of a Gospell But is it not dayly read saith he and heard of all men But if they be never the better for it being put into their ears how shall they be saved by carrying it about their necks And further hee saith Where is the vertue of the Gospell In the figure of the letter or in the understanding of the sense If in the figure thou doest well to wear it about thy neck but if in the understanding then thou shouldst lay it up in thine heart Augustine saith Let the faithfull Ministers admonish and tell their people that these Magicall Arts and incantations doe bring no remedy to the infirmities either of men or cattell c. The heathen Philosophers shall at the last day confound the infidelity and barbarous foolishnesse of our christian or rather antichristian or prophane Witchmongers For as Aristotle saith that Incantamenta sunt muliercularum figmenta Inchantments are womens figments So doth Socrates who was said to be cunning herein affirm that Incantationes sunt verba animas decipientia humanas Incantations are words deceiving humane soules Others say Inscitiae pallium sunt carmina maleficium incantatio The cloak of Ignorance are charms witchery and incantation Galen also saith that such as impute the falling evill and such like diseases to divine matter and not rather to naturall causes are Witches Conjurers c. Hippocrates calleth them arrogant and in another place affirming that in his time there were many deceivers and couseners that would undertake to cure the falling evill c. by the power and help of Divels by burying some lots or inchantments in the ground or casting them into the Sea concludeth thus in their credit that they are all knaves and couseners for God is our only defender and deliverer O notable sentence of a beathen Philosopher The thirteenth Book CHAP. I. The signification of the Hebrew word Hartumim where it is found written in the Scriptures and how it is diversly translated whereby the objection of Pharaohs Magicians is afterward answered in this Book also of naturall magick not evill in it self HArtumim is no naturall Hebrew word but is borrowed of some other nationâ— howbeit it is used of the Hebrews in these places to wit Gen. 4.1.8.24 Exod. 7.13.24 8.7.18 9.11 Dan. 1.20 2.2 Hierom sometimes translateth it Conjectores sometimes Malefici sometimes Arioll which we for the most part translate by this word witches But the right signification hereof may be conceived in that the inchanters of Phaeraoh being Magicians of Aegypt were called Hartumim And yeâ— in Exodus they are named in some latine translations Venefici Rabbi Lâ—i saith it betokeneth such as doe strange and wonderfull things naturally artificially and deceitfully Rabbi Isaac Natar affirmeth that such were so termed as amongst the Gentiles professed singular wisdome Aâ—â—â— Ezra expoundeth it to signifie such as know the
right hand and leave the ashes with the other ball betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand and with the two thumbs and two fore-fingers together seem to take pains to frot and rub the ashes untill your thred be renewed and draw out that thred at length which you kept all this while betwixt your left finger and thumb This is not inferiour to any jugglers feat if it be well handled for if you have legierdemain to bestow the same ball of thred and to change it from place to place betwixt your other fingers as may easily be done then will it seeme very strange To cut a lace asunder in the midst and to make it whole again BY a devise not much unlike to this you may seem to cut asunder any lace that hangeth about ones neck or any point girdle or garter c. and with witchcraft or conjuration to make it whole and closed together again For the accomplishment whereof provide if you can a peece of the lace c. which you mean to cut or at the least a pattern like the same one inch and a half long and keeping it double privily in your left hand betwixt some of your fingers neer to the tips thereof take the other lace which you mean to cut still hanging about ones neck and draw downe your said left hand to the bought thereof and putting your own peece a little before the other the end or rather middle whereof you musâ— hide betwixt your ore-finger and thumb making the eie or bought which shall be seen of your own pattern let some stander by cut the same asunder and it will be surely thought that the other lace is cut which with words and frotting c. you shall seem to renew and make whole again This if it be well handled will seem miraculous How to pull laces innumerable out of your mouth of what colour or length you list and never any thing seen to be therein AS for pulling laces out of the mouth it is somewhat a stale jest whereby jugglers gain mony among maids selling lace by the yard putting into their mouths one round bottom as fast as they pull out another and at the just end of every yard they tie a knot so as the same resteth upon their teeth then cut they off the same and so the beholders are double and treble deceived seeing as much lace as will be contained in a hat and the same of what colour you list to name to be drawn by so even yards out of his mouth and yet the juggler to talk as though there were nothing at all in his mouth CHAP. XXXIII How to make a booke wherein you shall shew every leaf therein to be white blacke blew red yellow green c. THere are a thousand jugglings which I am loath to spend time to describe whereof some be common and some rare and yet nothing else but deceit cousenage or confederacie whereby you may plainly see the art to be a kind of witchcraft I will end therefore with one devise which is not common but was specially used by Claruis whom though I never saw to exercise the feat yet am I sure I conceive aright of that invention He had they say a book whereof he would make you think first that every leaf was clean white paper then by vertue of words he would shew you every leaf to be painted with birds then with beasts then with serpents then with angels c. the devise thereof is this Make a book seven inches long and five inches broad or according to that proportion and let there be 49 leaves to wit seven times seven contained therein so as you may cut upon the edge of each leaf six notches each notch in deâ—â— half a quarter of an inch and one inch distant Paint every fourteenth and fifteenth page which is the end of every sixt leaf and the beginning of every seventh with like colour or one kind of picture Cut off with a pair of sheers every notch of the first leaf leaving only one inch of paper in the uppermost place uncut which will remain almost half a quarter of an inch higher than any part of that leaf Leave another like inch in the second place of the second leaf clipping away one inch of paper in the highest place immediately above it and all the notches below the same and so orderly to the third fourth c. so as there shall rest upon each leaf one only inch of paper above the rest One high uncut inch of paper 〈◊〉 answer to the first directly in every seventh leaf of the book so â—â— when you have cut the first seven leaves in such sort as I first described you are to begin in the self same order at the eight leaf descending in such wise in the cutting of seven other leaves and so again at the fifteenth to 21 c. untill you have passed through every leafe all the thicknesse of your book Now you shall understand that after the first seven leaves every seventh leaf in the book is to be painted saving one seven leaves which must remain white Howbeit you must observe that at each Bumleaf or high inch of paper seven leaves distant opposite one directly and lineally against the other through the thicknesse of the book the same page with the page precedent so to be painted with the like colour or picture and so must you passe through the book with seven severall sorts of colours or pictures so as when you shall rest your thumb upon any of those Bumleaves or high inches and open the book you shall see in each page one colour or picture throughout the book in another row another colour c. To make that matter more plain unto you let this be the description hereof Hold the book with your left hand and betwixt your fore-finger and thumb of your right hand slip over the book in what place you list and your thumb will always rest at the seventh leaf to wit at the bumleaf or high inch of paper from whence when your book is strained it will fall or slip to the next c. Which when you hold fast and open the book the beholders seeing each leaf to have one colour or picture with so many varieties all passing continually and directly through the whole book will suppose that with words you can discolour the leaves at your pleasure But because perhaps you will hardly conceive hereof by this description you shall if you bee disposed see or buy for a small value the like book at the shop of W. Brome in Pauls churchyard for your further instruction There are certaine feats of activity which beautifie this art exceedingly howbeit even in these some are true and some are counterfeit to wit some done by practise and some by confederacy There are likewise divers feats arithmeticall and geometricall for them read Gemma Phrysius and Record c.
Ore aliud tacitoque aliud sub pectore claudunt I hate even even as the gates of hell Those that one thing with tongue do tell And notwithstanding closely keep Another thing in heart full deep To leave these hypocrites I say in the dregs of their dishonesty I will conclude against them peremptorily that they with the rable above rehearsed and the rout hereafter to be mentioned are rank couseners and consuming cankers to the common wealth and therefore to be rejected and excommunicated from the fellowship of all honest men For now their art which turneth all kind of metals that they can come by into mist and smoak is no lesse apparent to the world than the clear sunny rayes at noon sted in so much that I may say with the poet Hos populus videt multumque torosa juventus Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos All people laugh them now to scorne each strong and lusty bloud Redoubleth quavering laughters loud with wrinkled nose a good So that if any be so addicted unto the vanity of the art Alchymisticall as every foole will have his fancy and that beside so many experimented examples of divers whose wealth hath vanished like a vapor whiles they have beene over rash in the practise hereof this discourse will not move to desist from such extreame dotage I say to him or them and that aptlie dicitque facitque quod ipse Non sani esse hominis non juret Orestes He saith and doth that every thing which mad Orestes might With oath averre became a man bereft of reason right The xv Booke The exposition of Iidoni and where it is found whereby the whole Art of conjuration is deciphered CHAP. I. THis word Iidoni is derived of Iada which properly signifieth to know it is sometimes translated Divinus which is a diviner or soothsaier as in Deut. 18. Levit. 20. sometimes Ariolus which is one that also taketh upon him to foretell things to come and is found Levit. 19. 2 Kings 23. Esai 19. To be short the opinion of them that are most skilfull in the tongues is that it comprehendeth all them which take upon them to know all things past and to come and to give answers accordingly It alwayes followeth the word Ob and in the scriptures is not named severally from it and differeth little from the same in sense and doe both concerne oracles uttered by spirits possessed people or couseners What will not couseners or witches take upon them to doe Wherein will they professe ignorance Aske them any question they will undertake to resolve you even of that which none but God knoweth And to bring their purposes the better to passe as also to winne further credit unto the counterfeit art which they professe they procure confederates whereby they work wonders And when they have either learning eloquence or nimblenesse of hands to accompany their confederacy or rather knaverie then forsooth they passe the degree of witches and intitle themselves to the name of conjurors And these deale with no inferiour causes these fetch divels out of hell and angels out of heaven these raise up what bodies they lift though they were dead buried and rotten long before and fetch soules out of heaven or hell with much more expedition than the pope bringeth them out of purgatory These I say among the simple and where they feare no law nor accusation take upon them also the raising of tempests and earthquakes and to doe as much as God himselfe can doe These are no small fooles they go not to work with a baggage tode or a cat as witches doe but with a kind of majesty and with authority they call up by name and have at their commandement seventy and nine principall and princely divels who have under them as their ministers a great multitude of legions of petty divels as for example CHAP. II. An inventarie of the names shapes powers governement and effects of divels and spirits of their severall segniories and degrees a strange discourse worth the reading THeir first and principall king which is of the power of the east is called Baell who when he is conjured up appeareth with three heads the first like a tode the second like a man the third like a caâ— He speaketh with a hoarse voice he maketh a man go invisible he hath under his obedience and rule sixty and six legions of divels The first duke under the power of the east is named Agares he commeth up mildly in the likenes of a faire old man riding upon a crocodile and carrying a hawk on his fist he teacheth presently all manner of tongues he fetcheth backe all such as run away and maketh them run that stand still he overthroweth all dignities supernaturall and temporall hee maketh earthquakes and is of the order of vertues having under his regiment thirty one legions Marbas alias Barbas is a great president and appeareth in the forme of a mighty lion but at the commandement of a conjuror commeth up in the likenes of a man and answereth fully as touching any thing which is hidden or secret he bringeth diseases and cureth them be promoteth wisdome and the knowledge of mechanicall arts or handicrafts he changeth men into other shapes and under his presidency or govenment are thirty six legions of devils contained Amon or Aamon is a great and mighty marques and commeth abroad in the likenesse of wolfe having a serpents taile spetting out and breathing flames of fire when he patteth on the shape of a man he sheweth out dogs teeth and a great head like to a mighty raven he is the strongest prince of all other and understandeth all things past and to come he procureth favour and reconcileth both friends and foes and ruleth fourty legions of divels Barbatos a great county or earle and also a duke he appeareth in Signo sagittarii sylvestris with foure kings which bring companies and great troopes He understandeth the singing of birds the barking of dogs the lowing of bullocks and the voice of all living creatures He detecteth treasures hidden by magicians and inchanters and is of the order of vertues which in part beare rule he knoweth all things past and to come and reconcileth friends and powers and governeth thirty legions of divels by his authority Buer is a great president and is seene in this signe he absolutely teacheth philosophy morall and naturall and also logicke and the vertue of herbes he giveth the best familiars he can heale all diseases specially of men and reigneth over fifty legions Gusoin is a great duke and a strong appearing in the forme of a Xenophilus he answereth all things present past and to come expounding all questions He reconcileth friendship and distributeth honours and dignities and ruleth over fourty legions of divels Botis otherwise Otis a great president and an earle he commeth forth in the shape of an
because thou hast denyed thy faith thy health and salvation For thy great disobedience thou art worthy to be condemned Therefore let the divine trinity thrones dominions principats potestats virtutes cherubim and seraphim and all the soules of saints both of men and women condemn thee for ever and be a witnesse against thee at the day of judgement because of thy disobedience And let all creatures of our Lord Jesus Christ say thereunto Fiat fiat fiat Amen And when he is appeared in the crystall stone as is said before bind him with this bond as followeth to wit I conjure thee spirit N. that an appeared to me in this crystall stone to me and to my fellow I conjure thee by all the royall words aforesaid the which did constrain thee to appeare therein and their vertues I charge thee by them all that thou shall not depart out of this crystall stone untill my will being fulfilled thou be licensed to depart I conjure and bind thee spirit N. by that omnipotent God which commanded the angell S. Michaâ—ll to drive Lucifer out of the heavens with a sword of vengeance and to fall from joy to paine and for dread of such paine as he is in I charge thee spirit N. that thou shalt not goe out of the crystall stone nor yet to alter thy shape at this time except I command thee otherwise but to come unto me at all places and in all houres and minutes when and wheresoever I shall call thee by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ or by any conjuration of words that is written in this book and to shew me and my friends true visions in this crystall stone of any thing or things that we would see at any time or times and also to goe and fetch me the fairy Sibylla that I may talk with her in all kinde of talk as I shall call her by any conjuration of words contained in this book I conjure thee spirit N. by the great wisdome and divinity of his Godhead my will to fulfill as is aforesaid I charge thee upon pain of condemnation both in this world and in the world to come Fiat fiat fiat Amen I conjure thee spirit N. in this crystall stone by God the father by God the son Jesus Christ and by God the Holy Ghost three persons and one God and by their vertues I conjure thee spirit that thou do goe in peace and also to come again to me quickly and to bring with thee into that circle appointed Sibylia fairie that I may talk with her in those matters that shall be to her honour and glory and so I change thee declare unto her I conjure thee spirit N. by the bloud of the innocent lamb the which redeemed all the world by the vertue thereof I charge thee thou spirit in the crystal stone that thou do declare unto her this message Also I conjure thee spirit N. by all angels and archangels thrones dominations principats potestates virtues cherubim and seraphim and by their vertues and powers I conjure thee N. that thou do depart with speed and also to come again with speed and to bring with thee the fairie Sibylia to appeare in that circle before I doe read the conjuration in this booke seven times Thus I charge thee my will to be fulfilled upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen Then the figure aforesaid pinned on thy brest rehearse the words therein and say ✚ Sorthie ✚ Sorthia ✚ Sorthios ✚ then begin your conjuration as followeth here and say I conjure thee Sibylia O gentle virgine of fairies by the mercy of the Holy Ghost and by the dreadfull day of doom and by their vertues and powers I conjure thee Sibylia O gentle virgin of fairies and by all the angels of ♃ and their characters and vertues and by all the spirits of ♃ and ♀ and their characters and vertues and by all the characters that be in the firmanent and by the king and queen of fairies and their vertues and by the faith and obedience that thou bearest unto them I conjure thee Sibylia by the bloud that ran out of the side of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified and by the opening of heaven and by the renting of the Temple and by the darknesse of the Sunne in the time of his death and by the rising up of the dead in the time of his resurrection and by the Virgin Mary Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the unspeakable name of God Tetragrammaton I conjure thee O Sibylia O blessed and beautifull Virgine by all the riall words aforesaid I conjure thee Sibylia by all their vertues to appeare in that circle before me visible in the form and shape of a beautifull woman in a bright and white vesture adorned and garnished most fair and to appeare to me quickly without deceit or tarrying and that thou faile not to fulfill my will and desire effectually For I will choose thee to be my blessed virgin and will have common copulation with thee Therefore make hast and speed to come unto me and to appear as I have said before To whom be honor and glory for ever ever Amen The which done and ended if thee come not repeat the conjuration till they doe come for doubtlesse they will come And when shee is appeared take your censers and incense her with frankincense then bind her with the bond as followeth I doe conjure thee Sibylia by God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost three persons and one God and by the blessed virgine Mary mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and by all the whole and holy company of heaven and by the dreadfull day of doome and by all angels and archangels thrones dominations principates potestates virtutes cherubim and seraphim and their vertues and powers I conjure thee and binde thee Sibylia that thou shalt not depart out of the circle wherein thou art appeared nor yet to alter thy shape except I give thee licence to depart I conjure thee Sibylia by the bloud that ran out of the side of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified and by the vertue hereof I conjure thee Sibylia to come to me and to appeare to me at all times visibly as the conjuration of words leadeth written in this book I conjure thee Sibylia O blessed Virgine of fairies by the opening of heaven and by the renting of the Temple and by the darknesse of the Sun at the time of his death and by the rising of the dead in the time of his glorious resurrection and by the unspeakable name of God ✚ Tetragrammaton ✚ and by the king and queen of fairies and by their vertues I conjure thee Sibylia to appeare before the conjuration be read over four times and that visibly to appeare as the conjuration leadeth written in this book and to give mee good counsell at all times and to come by treasures hidden in the earth and all other things
that is to do me pleasure and to fulfill my will without any deceit or tarrying nor yet that thou shalt have any power of my body or soul earthly or ghostly nor yet to perish so much of my body as one haire of my head I conjure thee Sibylia by all the riall words aforesaid and by their vertues and powers I charge and binde thee by the vertue thereof to be obedient unto me and to all the words aforesaid and this bond to stand between thee and me upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen CHAP. IX A license for Sibylia to goe and come by at all times I Conjure thee Sibyliae which art come hither before me by the commandement of thy Lord and mine that thou shalt have no powers is thy going or comming unto me imagining any evill in any manner of wayes in the earth or under the earth of evill doings to any person or persons I conjure and command thee Sibylia by all the riall work and vertues that be written in this Book that thou shalt not goe to the place from whence thou camest but shalt remaine peaceably invisibly and look thou be ready to come unto me when thou are called by any conjuration of words that be written in this book to come I say at my commandement and to answer unto me truly and duly of all things my will quickly to be fulfilled Vade in pace in nomine patris filii spirtus sancti And the holy ✚ crosse ✚ be between thee and me or between us and you and the Lion of Iuda the root of Iesse the kindred of David be between thee and mee ✚ Christ commeth ✚ Christ commandeth ✚ Christ giveth power ✚ Christ defend me ✚ and his innocent bloud ✚ from all perils of body and soul sleeping or waking Fiat fiat Amen CHAP. X. To know of treasure hidden in the earth WRite in paper these characters following on the saturday in the 〈◊〉 of ☽ and lay it where thou thinkest treasure to be if there be any the paper will burn else not And these be the characters This is the way to goe invisible by these three sisters of Fairies In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost First goe to a fair parlor or chamber and an even ground and in no lost and from people nine dayes for it is the better and let all thy clothing be clean and sweet Then make a candle of Virgine wax and light it and make a faire fire of charcoles in a fair place in the midle of the parlour or chamber Then take fair clean water that runneth against the east and set it upon the fire and yet thou wathest thy selfe say these words going about the fire three times holding the candle in the right hand ✚ Panthon ✚ Craton ✚ Muriton ✚ Lisecognaton ✚ Seston ✚ Diaton ✚ Maton ✚ Tetâ—agrammaton ✚ Agla ✚ Agarion ✚ Tegra ✚ Pentessaron ✚ Tendicata ✚ Then rehearse these names ✚ So thie ✚ Sorthia ✚ Sortheos ✚ Milia ✚ Achilia ✚ Sibylia ✚ In nomine patris filii spiritus sancti Amen I conjure you three sisters of fairies Milia Achilia Sibylia by the Father by the Son and by the Holy Ghost and by their vertues and powers and by the most mercifull and living God that will command his angell to blow the trump at the day of Judgement and he shall say Come come come to judgement and by all angels archangels thrones dominations principats potestaâ—es virtutes cherubim and seraphim and by their vertues and powers I conjure you three sisters by the vertue of all the riall words aforesaid I charge you that you doe appeare before me visibly in form and shape of faire women in white vestures and to bring with you to me the ring of invisibility by the which I may goe invisible at mine owne will and pleasure and that in all houres and minutes In nomine patris filii spiritus sancti Amen * Being appeared say this bond following O blessed virgins ✚ Milia ✚ Achili◠✚ I conjure you in the name of the Father in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost by their vertues I charge you to depart from me in peace for a time And Sibylia I conjure thee by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the vertue of his flesh and pretious bloud that he took of our blessed Lady the Virgine and by all the holy company in heaven I charge thee Sibylia by all the vertues aforesaid that thou be obedient unto me in the name of God that when and in what time and place I shall call thee by this foresaid conjuration written in this book looke thou be ready to come unto me at all houres and minutes and to bring unto me the ring of invisibility whereby I may goe invisible at my will and pleasure and that at all houres and minutes Fiat fiat Amen And if he come not the first night then doe the same the second night and so the third night untill they doe come for doubtlesse they will come and lie thou in thy bed in the same parlor or chamber And lay thy right hand out of the bed and look thou have a faire silken kercher bound abound thy head and be not afraid they will doe thee no harm For there will come before thee three fair women and all in white clothing and one of them will put a ring upon thy finger wherewith thou shalt goe invisible Then with speed bind them with the bond aforesaid When thou hast this ring on thy finger looke in a glasse and thou shalt not see thy self And when thou wilt goe invisible put in on thy finger the same finger that they did put it on and every new ☽ renew it again For after the first time thou shalt ever have it and ever begin this work in the new of the ☽ and in the houre of ♃ and the ☽ in ♋ ♠♓ CHAP. XI An experiment following of Citrael c. angeli diei dominici Say first the prayers of the angels every day for the space of seaven dayes O Ye glorious angels written in this square be you my coadjutors and helpers in all qâ—estions and demands in all my businesse and other causes by him which shall â—ome to judge both the quick and the dead and the world by fire O angeli gloriosi in hac quadra scripti estote câ—adjutores auxiliatores in omnibus quaestionibus intervogationibus in omnibus negotiis caeterisque causis per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos mumdum per ignem Say this prayer fasting called Regina linguae ✚ Lemae ✚ solma ac ✚ elmay ✚ gezagra ✚ raamaasin ✚ ezierego ✚ mial ✚ egziephiaz Iosamin ✚ sabach ✚ ha ✚ aem ✚ re ✚ be ✚ esepha ✚ sephar ✚ â—â—mar ✚ semoit ✚ lemajo ✚ pheralon ✚ amic ✚
to thee N. and to appeare to thee N. in any crystall stone glasse or other mirror and so to take it for my resting place And that so soone as my spirit is departed out of my body straightway to be at your commandements and that in and at all days nights houres and minutes to be obedient unto thee N. being called of the eâ—by the vertue of our Lord Jesuâ— Christ and our of hand to have common talke with thee at all times and in all houres and minutes to open and declare to thee N. the truth of all things present past and to come and how to worke the magick art and all other noble sciences under the throne of God If I do not performe this oath and promise to thee N. but doe flie from any part thereof then to be condemned for ever and ever Amen Also I N. do sweare to thee by God the Holy ghost and by the great wisedome that is in the divine Godhead and by their vertues and by all the holy angels archangels thrones dominations principats poteslaus virtutes cherubim and seraphim and by all their vertues do I N. sweare and promise thee to be obedient as is rehearsed And here for a witnesse do I N. give thee N. my right hand and do plight thee my faith and troth as God me helpe and holydome And by the holy contents in this booke do I N. sweare that my spirit shall be thy true servant all the dayes of thy life as is before rehearsed and here for a witnesse that my spirit shal be obedient unto thee N. and to those bonds of words that be written in this N. before the bonds of words shall be rehearsed thrise else to be damned for ever and thereto say all faithfull soules and spirits Amen Amen Then let him sweare this oath three times and at every time kisse the book and at every time make marks to the bond Then perceiving the time that he will depart get away the people from you and get or take your stone or glasse or other thing in your hand and say the Pater noster Ave and Credo and this prayer as followeth And in all the time of his departing rehearse the bonds of words and in the end of every bond say oftentimes Remember thine oath and promise And bind him strongly to thee and to thy stone and suffer him not to depart reading thy bond 24. times And every day when you do call him by your other bond bind him strongly by the first bond by the space of 24. dayes apply it and thou shalt be made a man for ever Now the Pater noster Ave and Credo must be said and then the prayer immediately following O God of Abraham God of Isaac God of Iacob God of Tobias â—he which diddest deliver the three children from the hot burning oven Sidrac Misac and Abednago and Susanna from the false crime and Daniel from the lions power even so O Lord omnipotent I beseech thee for thy great mercy sake to helpe me in these my works and to deliver me this spirit of N. that he may be a true subject unto me N. all the dayes of my life and to remaine with me and with this N. all the dayes of my life O glorious God Father Sonne and Holy ghost I beseech thee to help me at this time and to give me power by thy holy name merits and vertues wherby I may conjure and constraine this spirit of N. that he may be obedient unto me and may fulfill his oath and promise at all times by the power of all thine holinesse This grant O Lord God of hosts as thou art righteous and holy and as thou art the word and the word God the beginning and the end sitting in the thrones of thine everlasting kingdomes and in the divinity of thine everlasting Godhead to whom be all honour and glory now and for ever and ever Amen Amen CHAP. XVIII A bond to binde him to thee and to thy N. as followeth IN conjure and constraine the spirit of N. by the living God by the true God and by the holy God and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constraine the spirit of thee N. that thou shalt not ascend nor descend out of thy body to no place of rest but onely to take thy resting place with N. and with this N. all the dayes of my life according to thine oath and promise I conjure and constraine the spirit of N. by these holy names of God ✚ Tetragrammaton ✚ Adonay ✚ Agla ✚ Saday ✚ Sabaoth ✚ planabothe ✚ panthon ✚ craton ✚ vcupmaton ✚ Deus ✚ homo ✚ omnipotens ✚ sempiternus ✚ ysus ✚ terra ✚ unigenitus ✚ salvator ✚ via ✚ vila ✚ manus ✚ sons ✚ origo ✚ filius ✚ and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constraine the spirit of N. that thou shalt not remaine in the fire nor in the water in the aier nor in any privy plaâ—e of the earth but onely with me N. and with this N. all the dayes of my life I charge the spirit of N. upon paine of everlasting condemnation remember thine oath and promise Also I conjure the spirit of N. and constraine thee by the excellent name of Jesus Christ A and Ω the first and the last for this holy name of Jesus is above all names for unto it all knees doe bow and obey both of heavenly things earthly things and infernals Nor is there any other name given to man whereby we have any salvation but by the name of Iesus Therefore by the name and in the name of Jesus of Nazareth and by his nativity resurrection and ascension and by all that appertaineth to his passion and by their vertues and powers I do conjure and constraine the spirit of N. that thou shalt not take any resting place in the ☉ not in the ☽ nor in ♄ nor in ♃ nor in ♂ nor in ♀ nor in ☿ nor in any of the twelve signes nor in the concavity of the clouds nor in any other privie place to rest or stay in but onely with me N. or with this N. all the dayes of my life If thou be not obedient unto me according to thine oath and promise I N. do condemne the spirit of N. into the pit of bell for ever Amen I conjure and constraine the spirit of N. by the bloud of the innocent lambe Jesus Christ the which was shed upon the crosse for all those that do obey into it and beleeve in it shall be saved and by vertue thereof and by all the aforesaid riall names and words of the living God by me pronounced I do conjure and constraine the spirit of N. that thou do be obedient unto me according to thine oath and promise If thou refuse to do as is aforesaid I N by the holy Trinity and by his vertue and power do condemne the spirit of N. into the place whereas there is no
be and what be their names and by whom it was laid there and to shew me true visions of what sort and similitude they be and how long they have kept it and to know in what dayes and houres 〈◊〉 shall call such a spirit N. to bring unto us these treasures into such a plan N. upon paine of everlasting condemnation ✚ Also I constraine thee spirit N. by all angels archangels thrones dominations principats potestaâ—s virtutes cherubim seraphim that you do shew a true vision in this crystall stone who did convay or steale away such a N. and where it is and who hath it and how far off and what is his or her name and how and when to come unto it upon paine of eternall condemnation Fiat Amen Also I conjure thee spirit N. by the ☉ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ♀ ☿ by all the characters in the firmament that thou do shew unto me a true vision in this crystall stone where such N. and in what state he is and how long â—e hath been there and what time he will be in such a place what day and houre and this and all other things to declare plainely in paine of hell fire Fiat Amen A licence to depart Depart out of the sight of this crystall stone in peace for a 〈◊〉 and ready to appeare therein againe at any time or times I shal call thee by the vertue of our Lord Iesus Christ and by the bonds of words which are written in this booke and to appeare â—â—sibly as the words be rehearsed I constraine thee spirit N. by the divinity of the Godhead to be obedient unto these words rehearsed upon paine of everlasting condemnation both in this world and in the worldâ— come Fiat fiat fiat Amen CHAP. XX. When to talk with spirits and to have true answers to find out a theife THe dayes and houres of ♄ ♂ ☿ and the ☽ is best to doe all crafts of necromancy and for to speak with spirits and for to find theft and to have true answer thereof or of any other such like And in the dayes and houres of ☉ ♃ ♀ is best to doe all experiments of love and to purchase grace and for to be invisible and to do any operations whatsoever it be for any thing the ☽ being in a convenient signe As when thou labourest for theft see the moon be in an earthy signe as ♉ ♠♑ or of the air as ♊ ♎ â™’ And if it be for love favour or grace let the ☽ be in a signe of the fire as ♈ ♌ â™ and for hatred in a signe of the water as ♋ ♠♓ For any other experiment let the ☽ be in ♈ And if thou findest the ☉ and the ☽ in one sign that is called in even number then thou mayst write consecrate conjure and make ready all manner of things that thou wilt doe c. To speak with spirits Call these names Orimoth Belimoth Lymâ—ck and say thus I conjure you up by the names of the angels Satur and Azimor that you intend to me in this houre and send unto a me spirit called Sagrigrit that he do fulfill my commandement and desire and that also can understand my words for one or two years or as long as I will c. CHAP. XXI A confutation of conjuration especially of the raising binding and dismissing of the divell of going invisible and other lewd practises THus far have we waded in shewing at large the vanity of necromancers conjurors and such as pretend to have reall conference and consultation with spirits and divels wherein I trust you see what notorious blasphemy committed besides other blind superstitious ceremonies a disordered heap which are so far from building up the endeavours of these black art practitioners that they doe altogether ruinate and overthrow them making them in their follies and falsehoods as bare and naked as an anatomy As for these ridiculous conjurations last rehearsed being of no small reputation among the ignorant they are for the most part made by T. R. for so much of his name he bewrayeth and Iohn Cokirs invented and deviced for the augmentation and maintenance of their living for the edifying of the poore and for the propagating and inlarging of Gods glory as in the beginning of their book of conjurations they protest which in this place for the further manifestation of their impiety and of the witchmongers follie and credulity I thought good to insert whereby the residue of their proceedings may be judged or rather detected For if we seriously behold the matter of conjuration and the drift of conjurors we shall finde them in mine opinion more faulty then such as take upon them to be witches as manifest offenders against the majesty of God and his holy law and as apparent violators of the laws and quietnesse of this realm although indeed they bring no such thing to passe as is surmised and urged by câ—edulous persons cousenors lyars and witchmongers For these are alwayes learned and rather abusers of others than they themselves by others abused But let us see what appearance of truth or possibility is wrapped withiâ— thesâ— mysteries and let us unfold the deceipt They have made choice of certaine words whereby they say they can work miracles c. And first of all that they call divels and soules out of hell though we find in the Scripture manifest proofs that all passages are stopped concerning the egresse out of hell so as they may goe thither but they shall never get out for Ab inferno nulla est redemptio out of hell there is no redemption Well when they have gotten them up they shut them in a circle made with chalk which is so strongly beset and invironed with crosses and names that they cannot for their lives get out which is a very probable matter Then can they bind them and loose them at their pleasures and make them that have been lyers from the beginning to tell the truth yea they can compell them to doe any thing And the divels are forced to be obedient unto them and yet cannot be brought to due obedience unto God their creator This done I say they can worke all manner of miracles saving blew miracles and this is beleeved of many to be true Tam credula mens hominis arrectae fabulis aures So light of beleef is the mind of man And attentive to tales his eares now and than But if Christ onely for a time left the power of working miracles among his Apostles and Disciples for the confirmation of his Gospell and the faith of his elect yet I deny altogether that hee left that power with these knaves which hide their cousening purposes under those lewd and foolish words according to that which Peter saith With faigned words they make merchandize of you And therefore the counsell is good that Paul giveth us when he biddeth us take heed that no man
power For besides him there is no saviour none can deliver out of his hand Who but he can declare set in order appoint and tell what is to come He destroyeth the the tokens of foothsayers and maketh the conjecturers fooles c. He declareth things to come and so cannot witches There is no helpe in inchanters and soothsayers and other such vaine sciences For divels are cast out by the finger of God which Matthew calleth the spirit of God which is the mighty power of God and not by the vertue of the bare name only being spoken or pronounced for then might every wicked man do it And Simon Magus needed not then to have proffered mony to have brought the power to do miracles and wonders for he could speake and pronounce the name of God as well as the apostles Indeed they may soone throw out all the divells that are in frankincense and such like creatures wherein no divels are but neither they nor all their holy water can indeed cure a man possessed with a divell either in body and mind as Christ did Nay why do they not cast out the divell that possesseth their owne soules Let me heare any of them all speake with new tongues let them drinke but one dramme of a potion which I will prepare for them let them cure the sicke by laying on of hands though witches take it upon them and witchmongers beleeve it and then I will subscribe unto them But if they which repose such certainety in the actions of witches and conjurors would diligently note their deceit and how the scope whereat they shoote is money I meane not such witches as are falsely accused but such as take upon them to give answers c as mother Bungie did they should apparently see the cousenage For they are abused as are many beholders of jugglers which suppose they do miraculously that which is done by sleight and subtilty But in this matter of witchcrafts and conjurations if men would rather trust their own eyes than old wives tales and lies I dare undertake this matter would soone be at a perfect point as being easier to be perceived than juggling But I must needs confesse that it is no great marvell though the simple be abused therein when such lies concerning those matters are maintained by such persons of account and thrust into their divine service As for example It is written that S. Martine thrust his fingers into ones mouth that had a divell within him and used to bite folk and then did bid him devoure them if he could And because the divell could not get out at his mouth being stopt with S. Martins fingers he was fain to run out at his fundament O stinking lye CHAP. XXX That it is a shame for papists to beleeve other conjurors doings their owne being of so little force Hippocrates his opinion herein ANd still me thinks papists of all others which indeed are most credulous and doe most maintaine the force of witches charmes and of conjurors cousenages should perceive and judge conjurors doings to be void of effect For when they see their owne stuffe as holy water salt candles c. conjured by their holy bishop and priests and that in the words of consecration or conjuration for so their own Doctors terme them they adjure the water c. to heal not onely the soules infirmitie but also every malady hurt or ach of the body and doe also command the candles with the force of all their authority and power and by the effect of all their holy words not to consume and yet neither soul nor body any thing recover nor the candles last one minute the longer with what face can they defend the others miraculous workesâ— as though the witches and conjurors actions were more effectuall than their owne Hippocrates being but a heathen and not having the perfect knowledge of God could see and perceive their cousenage and knavery well enough who saith They which boast so that they can remove or help the infections of diseases with sacrifices conjurations or other magicall instruments or means are but needy fellows wanting living and therefore refer their words to the divell because they would seeme to know somewhat more then the common people It is marvell that papists doe affirm that their holy water crosses or bugges words have such vertue and violence as to drive away divels so as they dare not approach to any place or person besmeared with such stuffe when as it appeareth in the Gospell that the divell presumed to assault and tempt Christ himself For the divell indeed most earnestly busieth himselfe to seduce the godly as for the wicked he maketh reckoning and just accompt of them as of his own already But let us goe forward in our refutation CHAP. XXXI How conjurors have beguiled witches what bookes they carry about to procure credit to their art wicked assertions against Moses and Joseph THus you see that conjurors are no small fooles For whereas witches being poor and needy goe from doore to doore for relief have they never so many todes or cats at home or never so much hogs dung and charvill about them or never so many charmes in store these conjurors I say have gotten them offices in the church of Rome whereby they have obtained authority and great estimation And further to adde credit to that art these conjurors carry about at this day books entituled under the names of Adam Abel Tobie and Enoch which Enoch they repute the most divine fellow in such matters They have also among them bookes that they say Abraham Aaron and Salomon made Item they have books of Zachary Paul Honorius Cyprian Ierome Ieremy Albert and Thomas also of the angels Riziel Razael and Raphael and doubtless these were such books as were said to have been burnt in the lesser Asia And for their further credit they boast that they must be are skilfull and learned in these arts to wit ars Almadell ars Notoria ars Bulaphiae ars Arthephii ars Pomena ars Revelationis c. Yea these conjurors in corners stick not with Iustine to report and affirm that Ioseph who was a true figure of Christ that delivered and redeemed us was learned in these arts and thereby prophesied and expounded dreams and that those arts came to him from Moses and finally from Moses to them which thing both Pliny and Tacitus affirm of Moses Also Strabo in his cosmographiâ— maketh the very like blasphemous report and likewise Apollonius Molon Possidonius Lisimachus and Appian term Moses both a magician and a conjuror whom Eusebius confuteth with many notable arguments For Moses differed as much from a magician as truth from falshood and piety from vanity for in truth he confounded all magick and made the world see and the cunningest magicians of the earth confesse that their own doings were but illusions and that his miracles were wrought by the finger of God But
that the poore old witches knowledge reacheth thus far as Danaus affirmeth it doth is untrue for their furthest fetches that I can comprehend are but to fetch a pot of milk c. from their neighboure house half a mile distant from them CHAP. XXXII All magicall arts confuted by an argument concerning Nero what Cornelius Agrippa and Carolus Gallus have left written thereof and proved by experience SUrely Nero proved all these magicall arts to be vain and fabulous lies and nothing but cousenage and knavery He was a notable prince having gifts of nature enough to have conceived such matters treasure enough to have imployed in the search thereof he made no conscience therein he had singular conferences thereabout he offered and would have given halfe his kingdom to have learned those things which he heard might be wrought by magicians he procured all the cunning magicians in the world to come to Rome he searched for bookes also and all other things necessary for a magician and never could find any thing in it but cousenage and legier demaine At length he met with one Tiridates the great magician who having with him all his companions and fellow magicians witches conjurors and cousenors invited Nero to certaine magicall bankets and exercises Which when Nero required to learne he to hide his cousenage answered that he would not nor could not teach him though he would have given him his kingdome The matter of his refusall I say was least Nero should espy the cousening devises thereof Which when Nero conceived and saw the same and all the residue of that art to be vaine lying and ridiculous having only shadows of truth and that their arts were only veneficall hee prohibited the same utterly and made good and strong laws against the use and the practises thereof as Pliny and others doe report It is marvell that any man can be so much abused as to suppose that Satan may be commanded compelled or tyed by the power of man as though the Divell would yield to man beyond nature that will not yeeld to God his creator according to the rules of nature And in so much as there be as they confesse good angels as well as bad I would know why they call up the angels of hell and not call downe the angels of heaven But this they answer as Agrippa saith Good angels forsooth doe hardly appeare and the other are ready at hand Here I may not omit to tell you how Cornelius Agrippa bewrayeth detecteth and defaceth this art of conjuration who in his youth travelled into the bottom of all these magicall sciences and was not only a great conjuror and practiser thereof but also wrote cunningly De occulta philosophia Howbeit afterwards in his wiser age he recanteth his opinions and lamenteth his follies in that behalfe and discovereth the impiety and vanities of magicians and inchanters which boast they can doe miracles which action is now ceased saith he and assigneth them a place with Iannes and Iambres affirming that this art teacheth nothing but vain toies for a shew Carolus Gallus also saith I have tried oftentimes by the witches and conjurors themselves that their arts especially those which doe consist of charmes impossibilities conjuraâ—iuns and witchcrafts whereof they were wont to boast to be meer foolishnesse doting lies and dreams I for my part can say as much but that I delight not to alleadge mine owne proofs and authorities for that mine adversaries will say they are partiall and not indifferent CHAP. XXXIII Of Salomons conjurations and of the opinion conceived of his cunning and practise therein IT is affirmed by sundry authors that Salomon was the first inventor of those conjurations and thereof Iosephus is the first reporter who in his first book De Iudaenâ—um antiquitatibus cap. 22. rehearseth soberly this story following which Polydore Virgil and many other repeat verbatim in this wiâ—â— and seem to credit the fable whereof there is skanâ— a true word Salomon was the greatest philosopher and did philosophy about all things and had the full and perfect knowledge of all their properties but he had that gift given from above to him for the profit and health of mankinde which is effectuall against divels He made also inchantments wherewith diseases are driven away and left divers manners of conjurations written where no the divels giving place are so driven away that they never return And this kind of healing is very common among my country men for I saw a neighbour of mine one Eleazar that in the presence of Vespasian and his sonnes and the rest of the souldiers cured many that were possâ—ssed with spirits The manner and order of his cure was this He did put unto the nose of the possessed a ring under the seal whereof was inclosed a kind of root whose vertue Salomon declared and the savour thereof drew the divell out at his nose so as down fell the man and then Eleazar conjured the divell to depart and to return no more to him In the mean time he made mention of Salomon reciting incantations of Salomons owne making And then Eleazar being willing to shew the standers by his cunning and the wonderfull efficacy of his art did set not far from thence a pot or basen full of water and commanded the divell that went out of the man that by the overthrowing thereof he would give a signe to the beholders that he had utterly forsaken and left the man Which thing being done none there doubted how great Salomons knowledge and wisdome was Wherein a â—ugling knack was produced to confirm a cogging cast of knavery or cousenage Another story of Salomons conjuration I finde cited in the sixt lesson read in the church of Rome upon S. Margarets day far more ridiculous than this Also Peter Lombarb master of the Senâ—ences and Graetiâ—◠〈◊〉 brother the compiler of the golden decrees and Durandus in his Rationale livinorum doe all soberly affirm Salomons cunning in this behalf and specially this tale to wit that Salomon inclosed certain thousand divels in a brazen bowle and left it in a deep hole or lake so as afterwards the Babylonians found it and supposing there had beene gold or silver therein brake it and out flew all the divels c. And that this fable is of credit you shall perceive in that it is thought worthy to be read in the Romish church as parcell of their divine service Look in lessons of the day of S. Margaret the virgine and you shall finde these words verbatim which I the rather recite because it serveth me for divers turns to wit for Salomons conjurations for the tale of the brazen vessell and for the popes conjurations which extended both to faith and doctâ—ine and to shew of what credit their religion is that so shamefully is stained with lies and fables CHAP. XXXIV Lessons read in all Churches where the Pope hath authority on S. Margarets day translated into
S. Margaret is a fable may be proved by the incredible impossible foolish impious and blasphemous matters contained therein and by the ridiculous circumstance thereof Though it were cruelly done of her to beat the divell when his hands was bound yet it was curteously done of her to pull away her foot at his desire He could not speak so long as she troad on his head and yet he said Tread off that I may tell you what I am She saw the heavens open and yet she was in a close prison But her sight was very clear that could see a little dove sitting upon a crosse so far off For heaven is higher than the Sun and the sun when it is neerest to us is 3966000. miles from us And she had a good pair of ears that could hear a dove speak so far off And she had good luck that S. Peter who they say is porter or else the Pope who hath more doings than Peter had such leisure as to stay the gates so long for her Salomon provided no good place neither took good order with his brazen bowl I marvell how they escaped that let out the divels It is marvell also that they melted it not with their breath long before for the divels carry hell and hell fire about with them alwayes in so much as they say they leave ashes evermore where they stand Surely she made in her prayer an unreasonable request but the date of her patent is out for I beleeve that whosoever at this day shall burn a pound of good candles before her shall be never the better but three pence the worse But now we may find in S. Margarets life who it is that is Christs wife whereby we are so much wiser then we were before But look in the life of S. Katharine in the golden legend and you shall find that he was also married to S. Katherine and that our Lady made the marriage c. An excellent authority for bigamie Here I will also cite another of their notable stories or miracles of authority and so leave shameing of them or rather troubling you the readers thereof Neither would I have written these fables but that they are authentick among the papists and that we that are protestants may be satisfied as well of conjurors and witches miracles as of others for the one is as grosse as the the other CHAP. XXXVII A pleasant miracle wrought by a popish Priest WHat time the Waldenses heresies began to spring certain wicked meâ— being upheld and maintained by diabolicall vertue shawed certaine signes and wonders whereby they strengthened and confirmed their heresies and perverted in faith many faithfull men for they walked on the water and were not drowned But a certain catholick priest seeing the same and knowing that true signs could not be joined with false doctrine brought the body of our Lord with the pix to the water where they shewed their power and vertue to the people and said in the hearing of all that were present I conjure thee O divell by him 〈◊〉 I carry in my hands that thou exercise not these great visions and phantasies by these men to the drowning of this people Notwithstanding their words when they walked still on the water as they did before the priest in a rage threw the body of our Lord with the pix into the river and by and by so soon as the sacrament touched the element the phantasie gaâ—â— place to the verity and they being proved and made false did sink 〈◊〉 lead to the bottome and were drowned the pix with the sacrament immediately was taken away by an angell The priest seeing all these things was very glad of the miracle but for the losse of the sacrament he was very pensive passing away the whole night in tears and mourning in the morning he found the pix with the sacrament upon the altar CHAP. XXXVIII The former miracle confuted with a strange story of St Lucy HOw glad Sr Iohn was now it were folly for me to say How would he have plagued the divell that threw his God in the river to be drowned But if other had had no more power to destroy the Waldenses with sword and fire than this priest had to drown them with his conjuring box and cousening sacraments there should have been many a life saved But I may not omit one fable which is of authority wherein though there be no conjuration expressed yet I warrant you there was cousenage both in the doing and telling thereof You shall read in the lesson on saint Lucies day that she being condemned could not be removed from the place with a teem of Oxen neither could any fire burn her in somuch as one was faine to cut off her head with a sword and yet she could speak afterwards as long as she list And this passeth all other miracles except it be that which Bodin and M. Mal. recite out of Nider of a witch that could not be burned till a scroll was taken away from where she hid it betwixt her skin and flesh CHAP. XXXIX Of visions noises apparitions and imagined sounds and of other illusions of wandering soules with a confutation thereof MAny through melancholy doe imagine that they see or hear visions spirits ghosts strange noises c. as I have already proved before at large Many again through fear proceeding from a cowardly nature and complexion or from an effeminate and fond bringing up are timerous and afraid of spirits and bugs c. Some through imperfection of sight also are afraid of their own shadows as Aristotle saith see themselves sometime as it were in a glasse And some through weaknesse of body have such imperfect imaginations Drunken men also sometimes suppose they see trees walk c. according to that which Salomon saith to the drunkards Thine eyes shall see strange visions and marvellous appearances In all ages monkes and priests have abused and bewitched the world with counterfeit visions which proceeded through idlenesse and restraint of marriage whereby they grew hot and lecherous and therefore devised such means to compasse and obtaine their loves And the simple people being then so superstitious would never seem to mistrust that such holy men would make them cuskholds but forsooke their beds in 〈◊〉 case and gave room to the cleargy Item little children have been so scared with their mothers maids that they could never after endure to â—e in the dark alone for fear of bugs Many are deceived by glasses through art perspective Many hearkening 〈◊〉 false reports conceive and beleeeve that which is nothing so Many give credit to that which they read in authors But how many stories and bookes are writen of walking spirits and soules of men contrary to the word of God a reasonable volum cannot containe How common an opinion was it among the papists that all soules walked 〈◊〉 the earth after they departed from their bodyes In so much as it was in
their cousenages of the divels transformations of Ferrum candens c. TO passe over all the fables which are vouched by the popish doctors you shall heare the words of N. Hemingius whose zeal and learning otherwise I might justly commend howbeit I am sorry and ashamed to see his ignorance and folly in this behalf Neither would I have bewrayed it but that he himself among other absurdities concerning the maintenance of witches omnipotency hath published it to his great discredit Popish priests saith he as the Chaldaeans used the divination by sive and sheeres for the detection of theft doe practise with a psalter and a key fastened upon the 49. psalme to discover a theef and when the names of the suspected persons are orderly put into the pipe of the key at the reading of these words of the psalme If thou sawest a theef thou 〈◊〉 consent unto him the book will wagge and fall out of the fingers of them that hold it and he whose name remaineth in the key must be the theef Hereupon Hemingius inferreth that although conjuring priests and witches bring not this to passe by the absolute words of the psalm which tend to a far other scope yet satan doth nimbly with his invisible 〈◊〉 give such a twitch to the Book as also in the other case to the sive and the sheers that down-fals the book and key sive and sheeres upstarts the 〈◊〉 and away runneth the divell laughing c. But alas Hemingius is deceived as not perceiving the conceipt or rather the deceipt thereof For where he supposeth those actions to be miraculous and done by a divell they are in truth meer bables wherein coeâ—â—steth not so much as legierdemaine For every carter may conceive the sleight hereof because the book and key sive and sheeres being stayed up in that order by naturall course of necessity must within that space by means of the air and the pulse beating at the fingers end turn and fall down Which experience being known to the witch or conjuror she or hee doe form and frame their prophefie accordingly as whosoever maketh proofe thereof shall manifestly perceive it By this 〈◊〉 practise or experience you shall know what it is a clock if you 〈◊〉 between your finger and your thumb a thred of six or seven inches long unto the other end whereof is tyed a gold ring or some such like things in such sort as upon the beating of your pulse and the moving of the ring the same may strike upon either side of a goblet or glasse Theâ—â— things are I confesse witchcraft because the effect or event proceeded not of that cause which such couseners say and others beleeve they do As when they lay a medicine for the ague c. to a childs wrists they also 〈…〉 vertue whereof they say the child is healed whereas indeed the medicine only doth the feat And this is also a silly jugglers knack which wanteth legierdemaine whom you shall see to thrust a pinne or a small knife through the head and brain of a chicken or pullet and with certaine mysticall words seeme to cure him whereas though no such words were spoken the chicken would live and doe well enough as experience teacheth and declareth Again when such as have maintained the art and prosession of conjuring and have written thereupon most cunningly have published recantations and confessed the deceipts thereof as Coâ—nelius Agrippa did why should we defend it Also when heathen princes of great renown authority and learning have searched with much industry and charge the knowledge and secrecy of conjuration and witchcraft and finally found by experience all to be false and vain that is reported of them as Nero Iulianus apostata and Valence did why should we seek for further triall to prove witchcraft and conjuration to be cousenage Also when the miracles imputed unto them exceed in quantity quality and number all the miracles that Christ wrought here upon earth for the establishing of his Gospell for the confirmation of our faith and for the advancement of his glorious name what good christian will beleeve them to be true And when Christ himselfe saith The works that I doe no man else can accomplish why should we think that a foolish old woman can doe them all and many more Also when Christ knew not these witches nor spake one word of them in all the time of his being here upon earth having such necâ—ssary occasion if at leastwise they with their familiars could doe as he did by the spirit of God as is constantly affirmed why should we suppose that they can doe as they say but rather that they are deceivers When they are fain to say that witches wrought not in that art all those thirty three yeeres that Christ lived and that there were none in Iobs time and that the cousening oracles are now ceased who seeth not that they are witlesse and madde fooles that maintaine it When all the mischiefs are accomplished by poysons and naturall means which they affirm to be brought to passe by words it manifesteth to the world their cousenage When all the places of Scripture which witchmongers allow for the proof of such witches are proved to make nothing for their purpose their own fables and lies deserve small credit When one of the chief points in controversie to wit execution of witches is grounded upon a false translation namely You shall not suffer a witch to live which is in Latine Venesicam non vetinebitis in vita where the word in every mans ear soundeth to be a poisoner rather than a worker of miracles and so interpreted by the seventy interpreters Iosephus and almost all the Rabbins which were Hebrews born why should any of their interpretations or allegations be trusted or well accompted of When working of miracles is ceased and the gift of prophesie also so as the godly through invocation of the holy spirit cannot perform such wonderfull things as these witches and conjurors by the invocation of divels and wicked spirits undertake and are said to doe what man that knoweth and honoureth God will be so infatuate as to beleeve these lies and so prefer the power of witches and divels before the godly indued with Gods holy spirit When many printed bookes are published even with authority in confirmation of such miracles wrought by those couseners for the detâ—ction of witchcrafts and in fine all is not onely sound false and to have been accomplished by cousenage but that there hath been therein a set purpose to defame honest matrones as to make them be thought to be witches why should we beleeve Bodin M. Mal. c. in their cousening tales and fables When they say that witches can flie in the air and come in at a little coane or a hole in a glasse window and steal away sucking children and hurt their mothers and yet when they are brought into prison they cannot escape out of the grate which is
a whit nice of their cunning yea greater matters are said to be in one of their powers than is in all the other saints And these are they S. mother Bungiâ— S. mother Paine S. Feats S. mother Still S. mother Duâ—ten S. Kytrell S. Ursula Kempe S. mother Newman S. doctor Heron S. Rosimund a good old father and diverse more that deserve to be registred in the popes kalendar or rather the divels rubrick CHAP. XXV A comparison between the heathen and the papists touching their excuses for idolatry ANd because I know that the papists will say that their idols are saints and no such divels as the gods of the Gentiles were you may tell them that not only their saints but the very images of them were called Divi. Which though it signifie gods and so by consequence idols or friends yet put but an â—â— thereunto and it is Divill in English But they will say also that I do them wrong to gibe at them because they were holy men and holy women I grant some of them were so and further from allowance of the popish idolatry employed upon them than grieved with the derision used against that abuse Yea even as silver and gold are made idols unto them that love them too well and seek too much for them so are these holy men and women made idols by them that worship them and attribute unto them such honour as to god only appertaineth The heathen gods were for the most part good men and profitable members to the commonwealth wherein they lived and deserved fame c. in which respect they made gods of them when they were dead as they made divels of such emperours and philosophers as they hated or as had deserved ill among them And is it not even so and worse in the common wealth and church of popery Doth not the pope excommunicate curse and condemne for hereticks and drive to the bottomlesse pit of hell proclaiming to the very divels all those that either write speak or think contrary to his idolatrous doctrine Cicero when he derided the heathen gods and inveyed against them that yeelded such servile honour unto them knew the persons unto whom such abuse was committed had well deserved as civill citizens and that good fame was due unto them and not divine estimation Yea the infidels that honoured those gods as hoping to receive benefits for their devotion employed that way knew and conceived that the statues and images before whom with such reverence they powred forth their prayers were stocks and stones and only pictures of those persons whom they resembled yea they also knew that the parties themselves were creatures and could not doe so much as the papists and witchmongers think the Roode of grace or mother Bungie could doe And yet the papists can see the abuse of the Gentiles and may not hear of their owne idolatry more grosse and damnable than the others CHAP. XXVI The conceipt of the heathen and the papists all one in idolatry of the councell of Trent a notable story of a hangman arraigned after he was dead and buried c. BUt papists perchance will deny that they attribute so much to these idols as I report or that they think it so meritorious to pray to the images of saints as is supposed affirming thay they worship God and the saints themselves under the formes of images Which was also the conceipt of the heathen and their excuse in this behalf whose eyesight and insight herein reached as farre as the papisticall distinctions published by popes and their councels Neither doe any of them admit so grosse idolatry as the councel of Trent hath done who alloweth that worship to the Rood that is due to Jesus Christ himselfe and so likewise of other images of saints I thought it not impertinent therefore in this place to insert an example taken out of the Rosarie of our Lady in which book do remain besides this ninety and eight examples to this effect which are of such authority in the church of Rome that all scripture must give place unto them And these are either read there as their speciall homilies or preached by their chief doctors And this is the sermon for this day verbatim translated out of the said Rosarie a book much esteemed and reverenced among papists A certain hangman passing by the image of our Lady saluted her commending himself to her protection Afterwards while he prayed before her he was called away to hang an offendor but his enemies intercepted him and slew him by the way And loe a certain holy priest which nightly walked about every church in the city rose up that night and was going to his Lady I should say to our Lady church And in the churchyard he saw a great many dead men and some of them he knew of whom he asked what the matter was c. who answered that the hangman was slain and the divel challenged his soul the which our Lady said was hers and the judge was even at hand comming thither to hear the cause and therefore said they we are now come together The priest thought he would be at the hearing hereof and hid himselfe behind a tree and anon he saw the judiciall seat ready prepared and furnished where the judge to wit Jesus Christ sate who took up his mother unto him Soon after the divels brought in the hangman pinnioned and proved by good evidence that his soul belonged to them On the other side our Lady pleaded for the hangman proving that he at the hour of death commended his soul to her The judge hearing the matter so well debated on either side but willing to obey for these are his words his mothers desire and loath to do the divels any wrong gave sentence that the hangmans soul should returne to his body untill he had made sufficient satisfaction ordaining that the pope should set forth a publick forme of prayer for the hangmans soul. It was demanded who should doe the errand to the popes holinesse Maâ—y quoth our Lady that shall yonder priest that lurketh behind the tree The priest being called forth and injoined to make relation hereof and to desire the pope to take the paines to do according to tâ—is decree asked by what token he should be directed Then was delivered unto him a rose of such beauty as when the pope saw it he knew his message was true And so if they do not well I pray God we may CHAP. XXVII A confutation of the fable of the hangman of many other feigned and ridiculous tales and apparitions with a reproofe thereof BY the tale above mentioned you see what it is to worship the image of our lady For though we kneel to God himself and make never so humble petitions unto him without faith and repentance it shall do us no pleasure at all Yet this hangman had great friendship shewed him for one point of courtesie used to our
M. Mal. and the residue of that crew doe expound this word Diabolus for Dia say they is Duo and Bolus is Morsellus whereby they gather that the divell eateth up a man both body and soul at two morsels Whereas in truth the wicked may be said to eat up and swallow down the divell rather then the divell to eat up them though it may well be said by a figure that the divell like a roaring lion seeketh whom he may devoure which is meant of the soul and spirituall devouring as very novices in religion may judge CHAP. XXXIII Against fond witchmongers and their opinions concerning corporall divels NOw how Brian Darcies he spirits and she spirits Titty and Tifâ—â— Suckin and Pidgin Liard and Robin c. his white spirits and blacke spirits gray spirits and red spirits divell tode and divell lambe 〈◊〉 cat and divels dam agree herewithall or can stand consonant with the word of God or true philosophy let heaven and earth judge It 〈◊〉 mean time let any man with good consideration peruse that book 〈◊〉 by W. W. and it shall suffice to satisfie him in all that may required touching the vanities of the witches examinations confessions and executions where though the tale be told only of the accusers part without any other answer of theirs than their adversary â—â—teth down mine assertion will be sufficiently proved true And 〈◊〉 it seemeth to be performed with some kind of authority I will say 〈◊〉 more for the confutation thereof but referre you to the book it selfe whereto if nothing be added that may make to their reproach I 〈◊〉 warrant nothing is left out that may serve to their condemnation 〈◊〉 whether the witnesses be not single of what credit sex and age they â—â— namely lewd miserable and envious poor people most of them 〈◊〉 speak to any purpose being old women and children of the age of 4 5 6 7 8 or 9. years And note how and what the witches confesse and see of what weight and importance the causes are whether their confessions be not wonne through hope of favour and extorted by flattery or threats without proof But in so much as there were not past seventeen or eighteen condemned at 〈◊〉 at S. Osees in the county of Essex being a whole parish though of no great quantity I will say the lesse trusting that by this time there remain not many in that parish If any be yet behind I doubt not but 〈◊〉 Darcie will find them out who if he lack aid Richard Gallis of Windsor were meet to be associated with him which Gallis hath set forth another book to that effect of certain witches of Windsor executed at Abiâ—â—ton But with what impudency and dishonesty he hath finished it with what lies and forgeries he hath furnished it what folly and frenzy he hath mered in it I am ashamed to report and therefore being but a two penny book I had rather desire you to buy it and so to peruse it than to fill my book with such beastly stuffe CHAP. XXXIIII A conclusion wherein the Spirit of spirits is described by the illumination of which spirit all spirits are to be tryed with a confutation of the Pneumatomachi flatly denying the divinity of this Spirit TOuching the manifold signification of this word Spirit I have elsewhere in this brief discourse told you my minde which is a word nothing differing in Heb. from breath or wind For all these words following to wit Spiritus Ventus Flatus Halitus are indifferently use by the Holy Ghost and called by this Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sacred scripture For further proof whereof I cite unto you the words of Isay For his spirit or breath is as a river that overfloweth up to the neck c. in which place the prophet describeth the comming of God in heat and indignation unto judgment c. I cite also unto you the words of Zaccharie These are the four spirits of the heaven c. Likewise in Genesis And the spirit of God moved upon the waters Moreover I cite unto you the words of Christ The spirit or wind bloweth where it listeth Unto which said places infinite more might be added out of holy writ tending all to this purpose namely to give us this for a note that all the sayings above cited hath many more that I could alleadge where mention is made of spirit the Hebrew text useth no word but one to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth as I said Spiritum ventum flatum halitum which may be Englished Spirit wind blast breath But before I enter upon the very point of my purpose it shall not bee misse to make you acquainted with the collection of a certaine Schoole divine who distinguisheth and divideth this word Spirit into six significations saying that it is sometimes taken for the air sometimes for the bodies of the blessed sometimes for the souls of the blessed sometimes for the power imaginative or the minde of man and sometimes for God Again he saith that of spirits there are two sorts some created and some uncreated A spirit uncreated saith he is God himselfe and it is essentially taken and agreeth unto the three persons notionally to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost personally A spirit created is a creature and that is likewise of two sorts to wit bodily and bodilesse A bodily spirit is also of two sorts for some kinde of spirit is so named of spiritualnesse as it is distinguished from bodilinesse otherwise it is called Spiritus a spirando id est a stando of breathing or blowing as the winde doth A bodilesse spirit is one way so named of spiritualnesse and then it is taken for a spirituall substance and is of two sorts some make a full and compleat kind and is called compleat or perfect as a spirit angelicall some doe not make a full and perfect kind and is called incompleat or unperfect as the soule There is also the spirit vitall which is a certaine subtill or very fine substance necessarily disposing and tending unto life There be moreover spirits naturall which are a kind of subtill and very fine substances disposing and tending unto equall complexions of bodies Again there be spirits animall which are certain subtill and very fine substances disposing and tempering the body that it might be animated of the form that is that it might be perfected of the reasonable soul. Thus far he In whose division you see a philosophicall kinde of proceeding though not altogether to be condemned yet in every point not to be approved Now to the spirit of spirits I mean the principall and holy spirit of God which one defineth or rather describeth to be the third person in trinity issuing from the Father and the Son no more the charity dilection love of the Father and the Son than the Father is the charity dilection and love of the Son and Holy
to enter into such desperate perill to endure such intolerable torments for no gaine or commodity how it comes to passe that witches are overthrowne by their confessions 42 How melancholy abuseth old women and of the effects thereof by sundry examples pag. 43. That voluntary confessions may be untruly made to the undoing of the confessors and of the strange operation of melancholie proved by a familiar and late example p. 45. The strange and divers effects of melancholy and how the same humor abounding in witches or rather old women filleth them ful of marvellous imaginations and that their confessions are not to be credited 46. A confutation of witches confessions especially concerning their league pag. 48. A confutation of witches confessions concerning making of tempests and raine of the natural cause of raine that witches or divels have no power to do such things ibid. What would ensue if witches confessions or witchmongers opinions were true concerning the effects of witchcraft inchantments c. 50 Examples of forein nations who in their warres used the assistance of witches of eybiting witches in Ireland of two archers that shot with familiars pag. 51. Authors condemning the fantasticall confessions of witches and how a popish doctor taketh upon him to disprove the same pag. 52. Witchmongers reasons to prove that witches can worke wonders Bodins tale of a Friseland priest transported that imaginations proceeding of melancholie do cause illusions pag. 53. That the confession of witches is insufficient in civill and common 〈◊〉 to take away life What the sounder divines and decrees of councels determine in this case pag. 54. Of foure capitall crimes objected against witches all fully answered and confuted as frivolons p. 55. A request to such readers as loath to heare or read filthy bawdy matters which of necessity are here to be inserted to passe over eight chapters pag. 56 The fourth Book OF witchmongers opinions concerning evill spirits how they frame themselves in more excellent sort than God made us Pag. 58. Of bawdy Incubus and Succubus and whether the action of venery may be performed betweene witches and divels and when witches first yeelded to Incubus ibid. Of the divels visible and invisible dealing with witches in the way of lechery pag. 60. That the power of generation is both outwardly and inwardly inpeached by witches and of divers that had their genitals taken from them by witches and by the same meanes againe restored ibid. Of bishop Sylvanus his leachery opened and covered againe how maids having yellow haire are most combred with Incubus how maried men are bewitched to use other mens wives and to refuse their owne pag. 62. How to procure the dissolving of bewitched love also to enforce a man how proper so ever he be to love an old hag and of a bawdy tricke of a priest in Gelderland ibid. Of divers saincts and holy persons which were exceeding bawdy and lecherous and by certain miraculous meanes became chast pag. 63. Certaine popish and magicall cures for them that are bewitched in their privities ibid. A strange cure done to one that was molested with Incubus pag. 64. A confutation of all the former follies touching Incubus which by examples and proofes of like stuffe is shewed to be flat knavery wherein the carnall copulation with spirits is overthrowne pag. 65. That Incubus is a naturall disease with remedies for the same besides magicall cures herewithall expressed pag. 69. The censure of G. Chancer upon the knavery of Incubus pag. 67. The fift Book OF transformations ridiculous examples brought by the adversaries for the confirmation of their foolish doctrine Pag. 66. Absurd reasons brought by Bodin such others for confirmation of transformations pag. 71. Of a man turned into an asse and returned againe unto a man by one of Bodins witches S. Augustines opinion thereof pag. 72. A summarie of the former fable with a refutation thereof after due examination of the same pag. 74. That the body of a man cannot be turned into the body of a beast by a witch is proved by strong reasons scriptures and authorites pag. 75. The witchmongers objections concerning Nebuchadnezzar answerred and their error concerning Lycanthropia consuted pag. 77. A speciall objection answered concerning transportations with the consent of diverse writers thereupon pag. 78. The witchmongers objection concerning the history of Iob answered 79. What severall sorts of witches are mentioned in the scriptures how the word witch is there applied pag. 82. The sixt Book THe exposition of this Hebrue word Chasaph wherein is answered the objection contained in Exodus 22. to wit Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live and of Simon Magnus Acts. 8. pag. 84. The place of Deuteronomy expounded wherein are recited all kind of witches also their opinions confuted which hold that they can worke such miracles as are imputed unto them pag 85. That women have used poisoning in all ages more then men and of the inconvenience of poisoning pag. 87. Of divers poisoning practises otherwise called veneficia committed in Italy Genua Millen Wittenberge also how they were discovered and executed pag 88. A great objection answered concerning this kind of witchcraft calâ—ed Veneficium pag. 89. In what kind of confections that witchcraft which is called Veneficium consisteth of love-cups the same confuâ—ed by poets ibid. It is proved by more credible writers that love-cups rather ingender death through venome than love by arâ— and with what toies they destroy cattell procure love p. 92. J. Bodin triumphing against I. Wier is over taken with false â—reeke and false interpretation thereof p. 93. The seventh Booke OF the Hebrue word Ob what it signifieth where it is found of Pythonisses called Ventriloquae who they be and what their practises are experience and examples thereof shewed Pag. 94. How the lewd practise of the Pythonist of Westwell came to light and by whom she was examined and that all her diabolicall speach was but ventriloquie and plaine cousenage which is proved by her owne confession pag. 96. Bodins stuffe concerning the Pythonist of Endor with a true story of a counterfeit Dutchman pag 98. Of the great oracle of Apollo the Pythonist how men of al sorts have been deceived and that even the apostles have mistaken the nature of spirits with an unanswerable argument that spirit can take no shapes pag. 99. Why Apollo was called Pytho wherof those witches were called Pythonists Gregory his letter to the divell pag. 101. Apollo who was called Pytho compared to the Rood of grace Gregories letter to the divell coÌ„fused 102 How diverse great clarkes and good authors have beene abused in this matter of spirits through false reports and by means of their credulity have published lies which are confuted by Aristotle and the scriptures Ibid. Of the witch of Endor and whetler she accomplished the raising of Samuel truly or by deceipt the opinion of some Divines hereupon p. 103. That Samuel was not raised indeed and how
Bodin and all papists due herein and that souls cannot be raised by witchcraft pag. 104. That neither the divell nor Samuel was raised but that it was a meere cousenage according to the guise of our Pythonists pag. 105. The objection of the witchmongers concerning this place fully answered and what circumstances are to be considered for the understanding of this story which is plainely opened from the beginning of the 28. chapt of the 1. Samuel to the 12. verse pag. 106. The 12.13 14. verses of 1. Sam. 28. expounded wherein is shewed that Saul was cousened and abused by the witch and that Samuel was not raised is proved by the witches owne talke pag. 108. The residue of 1. Sam. 28. expounded wherein is declared how cunningly this witch brought Saul resolutely to beleeve that she raised Samuel what words are used to colour the cousenage how all might also he wrought by ventriloquie p 109. Opinions of some learned men that Samuel was indeed raised not by the witches art or power but by the speciall miracle of God that there are no such visions in these cur dayes and that our witches cannot do the like pag. 111. Of vaine apparltions how people have beene brought to feare bugs which is partly reformed by preaching of the gospell the true effect of Christs miracles pag. 112. Witches miracles coÌ„pared to Christs that God is the creator of al things of Apollo and of his names and portraiture pag. 113. The eight booke THat miracles are ceased Pag. 115. That the gift of prophesie is ceased pag. 116. That Oracles are ceased pag. 117. A tale written by many grave authors and beleeved by many wise men of the divels death An other storywriby papists beleeved of all catholikes approving the divels honesâ—y conscience and courtesie pag. 119. The judgements of the ancient fathers touching oracles and their abolishment and that they be now transferred form Delphos to Rome p. 120. Where and wherein couseners witches and priests were wont to give oracles and to worke their feats pag. 121. The ninth Booke THe Hebrue word Kasain expounded and how farre a Christian may conjecture of things to come pag. 123. Proofes by the old and new testament that ceâ—taine observations of the weather are lawfull pap 124. That certaine observations are indifferent certaine ridiculous and certaine impious whence that cunning is derived of Apollo and of Aruspicus pag. 125. The predictions of soothsayers lewd priests the prognostications of astronomers and physitians allowable divine prophesies holy and good pag. 126. The diversity of true prophets of Vrim and the propheticall use of the twelve pretious stones contained therein of the divine voice called Eccho ibid. Of prophesies conditionall whereof the prophesies in the old testament doe intreat and by whom they were published witchmongers answers to the objections against witches supernaturall actions pag. 1â—7 What were the miracles expressed in the old testament and what are they in the new testament and that we are not now to looke for any more miracles pag. 128. The tenth Booke THe interpretation of the Hebrue word Onen of the vanity of dreames and divinations thereupon Pag. 130. Of divine naturall and casuall dreames with the different causes and effects ibid. The opinion of divers old writers touching dreames how they vary in noting the causes thereof p 131. Against interpretors of dreames of the ordinary cause of dreames Hemingibus opinion of diabolicall dreames the interpretation of dreames ceased pag. 132. That neither witches nor any other can either by words or herbs thrust into the mind of a sleeping man what cogitations or dreams they list and whence magicall dreames come pag. 133. How men have been bewitched cousened or abused by dreams to dig and search for money pag. 134. The art order to be used in digging for money revealed by dreams how to procure pleasant dreams of morning and midnight dreams ibid. Sundry receipts and ointments made and used for the transportation of witches and other miraculous effects an instance thereof reported and credited by some that are learned pag. 135. A confutation of the former follies as well conceâ—ning ointments dreams c. as also of the assembly of witches and of their consultations and bankets at sundry places and all in dreams pag. 136. That most part of prophesies in the old testament were revealed in dreams that we are not how to look for such revelations of some who have dreampt of that which hath come to passe that dreams prove contrary Nebuchadnezzars rule to know a true expositor of dreams pag. 137. The eleventh Book THe Hebrew word Nahas expounded of the art of augury who invented it how slovenly a science it is the multitude of sacrifices and sacrificers of the heathen and the causes thereof pag. 138. Of the Iewes sacrifice to Moloch a discourse thereupon and of purgatory ibid. The Canibals cruelty of popish sacrifices exceeding in tyranny the â—ewes or Gentiles pag. 139. The superstition of the heathen about the element of fire and how it grew in such reverence among them of their corruptions and that they had some inkling of the godly fathers doings in tâ—at behalf ibid. Of the Roman sacrifices of the estimation they had of augury of the law of the twelve tables pag. 140. Colleges of augurors their office their number the signification of augury that the practisers of that art were couseners their profession their places of exercise their apparell their superstition pag. 141. The times and seasons to exercise angury the manner and order thereof of the ceremonies thereunto belonging pag. 142. Vpon what signes and tokens augurors did prognosticate observations touching the inward and outward parts of beasts with notes of beasts behaviour in the slaughter-house ibid. A confutation of augury Plato his reverend opinion thereof of contrary events false predictions p. 143 The cousening art of sortilege or lotarie practised especially by Egyptian vagabonds of allowed lots of Pythagoras his lot c. ibid Of the Cabalistieall art consisting of traditions and unwritten verities learned without book and of the division thereof pag. 144. When how and in what sorâ— sacrifices were first ordained and how they were prophaned and how the pope corrupteth the sacraments of Christ pag. 145. Of the objects whereupon the augurors used â—o prognoâ—ticate with certain cautions and notes pag. 146. The division of augury persons admittable into the colledges of augury of their superstition pag. 147. Of the common peoples fond and superstitious collections and observâ—tions ibid. How old writers vary about the matter the manner and the means whereby things augurificall are moved pag. 149. How ridiculous an art augury is how Cato mocked it Aristotles reason against it fond collections of auguâ—ors who allowed and who disallowed it pag. 150. Fond distinctions of the heathen writers concerning augury pag. 151. Of naturall and casuall augury the one allowed and the other disallowed ibid. A confutation of casual augury which is
meer witchcraft upon what uncertainty those divinations are grounded pag. 152. The figure-casters are witches the uncertainty of their art and of their contradictions Cornelius Agripas sentence against judicial astrologie ibid. The subtilâ—y of astrologers to maintain the credit of their art why they remain in credit certain impieties contained in astrologers assertions pag. 153. Who have power to drive away divels with their only presence who shall receive of God whatsoever they aske in prayer who shall obtain everlasting life by means of constellations as nativity-casters affirme pag. 155. The twelfth Book THe Hebrew word Habar expounded where also the supposed secret fâ—rce of charmes and inchantments is shewed and the efficacy of words is diverse waies declared pag. 156. What is forbidden in scriptures concerning witcâ—craft of the operation of words the superstition of the Caâ—alists and papists who createth substances to imitate God in some cases is presumption words of sanctification ibid. What effect offence witches charmes bring how unapt witches are and how unlikely to work those things which they are thought to do what would follow if those things wer true which are laid to their charge e pag. 157 Why God forbad'the practise of witchcraft the absurdity of the law of the twelve tables whereupon their estimation in miraculous actions is grounded of their wonderous works pag. 158. An instance of one arraigned upon the law of the twelve tables whereby the said law is proved ridiculous of two witches that could do wonders pag. 159. Lawes provided for the punishment of such witches as work miracles whereof some are mentioned and of certain popish lawes published against them pag. 160. Poeticall authorities commonly alledged by witchmongers for the proof of witches miraculous actions and for confirmation of their supernaturall power pag. 161. Poetry and popery compared in inchantments popish witchmongers have more advantage herein than protestants pag. 165. Popish periapts amulets charmes agnus Dei a wastcote of proofe a charme for the falling evill a writing brought to S. Leo from heaven by an angel the vertues of S. Saviours epistle a charme against theeves a writing found in Christs wounds of the crosse c. p. 166. A charme against shot or a wastcote of proof Against the falling evil p. 167. A popish periapt or charme which must never be said but carried about one against theeves Another amulet pag. 168. A papistical charme A charme found in the canone of the masse Other papisticall charmes pag. 196. A charme of the holy chrosse pag. 170. A charme takâ—n out of the Primer pag. 171. How to make holy water the vertues thereof S. Rufins charme of the wearing bearing of the name of Iesus that the sacrament of confession the euchraist is of as much efficacy as other charmes and magnified by L. Varus ibid. Of the noble balme used by Moses apâ—shly counteâ—feited in the church of Rome pag. 172. The opinion of Fâ—rrarius touching charmes periapts appensions amulets c. Of Homericall medicines of constant opinion and the effects thereof pag. 173. Of the effects of amulets the 〈◊〉 oâ— Argerius Ferrarius in the commendation of charmes c foure sorts of Homericall medicines the choice thereof of imagination pag. 174. Choice of charmes against the falling evill the bitting of a mad dog the stinging of a scorpion the toothach for a woman in travell â—or the kings evil to gâ—t a thorne out of any member or a bone out of ones throte charmes to be said fasting or at the gathering of hearbs for sore eyes to open locks against spirits for the bots in a horse and specially for the Duke of Albas horse for sowre wines c. pag. 175. For the faling evill ibid. Against the biting of a mad dog ibid. Against the biting of a scorpion pa. 176. Against the toothach A charme to reâ—ease a woman in travell To heale the Kings or Queenes evill or any other sorenesse in the throte A charme read in the Romish church upon saint Blazes day that will fetch a thoâ—ne out of any place of ones body a bone out of the throte c. Lâ—ct 3. ibid. A charme for the headach pag. 177. A charme to be said each morning by a witch fasting or at least before she go abroad Another charme that witches use at the gathering of their medecinable hearbs An old womans charme wherwith she did muâ—â— good in the country and grew â—amous thereby ibid. Another like charme A charme to open locks A charme to drive away spirits that haunt any housâ— pag. 178. A pretty charme or conclusion for one possâ—ssed Another for thâ— same purpose Another to the same effâ—ct ibid. Another charme or witchcraft for the same pag. 179. A charme for the bots in a horse ibid. A charme against vineger pag. 180. The inchanting of serpents snakes objections answerâ—d concerning the same fond reasons why charmes take effect therein Mahomets pigâ—on miracles wrought by an Asse aâ— Memphis in Aegypt popish charmes against serpents of miracle-workers the taming of snakes Bodins lie of snakes ibid. Charmes to carry water in a sive to know what is spoken of us behind our backs for bleare cies to make seeds to grow well of images made of wax to be rid of a witch to hang her up notable authorities against waxen images a story bewraying the knavery of Waxen images pag. 185. A charme teaching how to hurt whom you lift with images of wax c. ibid. Sundry spirts of charmes tending to divers purposes and first certaine charmes to make taciturnity in tortures pag. 187. Countrey charmes against these and all other witchcrafts in the saying also whereof witches are vexed ibid A charme for the choine cough For corporall or spirituall rest Charmeâ— to find out a theefe ibid. Another way to find out a theef that hath stolne any thing from you pag. 189. To put out the theeves eye Another way to find out a theef ibid. A charm to find ouâ— or spoil a theef ibid. S. Adelberts curse or charme against theeves pag. 190. Anâ—ther inchantment pag. 192. A charm or experiment to finde out a witch ibid. To spoil a theef a witch or any other enemy and to be delivered from the evill pag. 194. A notable charme or medicine to pull out an arrow-head or any such thing that sticketh in the flesh or bones and cannot otherwise he had out Charmes against a quâ—â—idian ague ibid. For all manner of agues intermittent Periapts characters c. for agues and to cure all diseases and to deliver from all evill p. 195. More charms for agues ibid. For a bloudy flux or rather an issue of bloud Cures commenced and finished by witchcraft pa. 196. Another witchcraft or knavery practised by the same surgeon pag. 198. Another experiment for one bewitched Otherwise A knack to know whether you be bewitched or no c. ibid. That one witchcraft may lawfully meet with another pag. 199. Who are priviledged from witches what
bodies are aptest to be bewitched or to be witches why women are rather witches than men and what they are ibid. What miracles witchmongers report to have been done by witches words c. contradictions of witchmongers among themselves how beasts are cured hereby of bewitched butter a charm against witches and a counter charm the effect of charmes and words proved by L. Vairus to be wonderfull pag. 200. A charme to find her that bewitched your kine Another for all that have bewitched any kind of cattell p. 201. A speciall charme to preserve all cattell from witchcraft ibid. Lawfull charmes rather medicinable cures for diseased cattell The charme of charmes and the powâ—r thereof ibid. The charme of charmes Otherwise ibid. A confutation of the force and vertue falsly ascribed to charmes and amulets by the authorities of ancient writers both divines and physitians pag. 201. The XIII Book THe signification of the Hebrew word Hartumin where it is found written in the scriptures and how it is diversly translated whereby the objection of Pharaohs magitians is afterwards answered in this book also of naturall magick not evill in it selfe pag. 203. How the philosophers in times past travelled for the knowledge of naturall magick of Solomons knowledge therein who is to be called a natural magician a distinction therof and why it is condemned for witchcraft pag. 204. What secrets do lie hidden and what is taught in naturall magick how Gods glory is magnified therein and that it is nothing but the work of nature ibid. What strange things are brought to passe by naturall magick pag. 205. The incredible operation of waters both standing and running of wels lakes rivers and of their wonderfull effects pag 206. The vertues and qualities of sundry precious stones of cousening Lapidaries c. ibid. Whence the precious stones receive their operations how curious Magitians use them and of theiâ— seals pag. 210. The sympathy and antipathy of naturall and elementary bodies declared by diverse examples of beasts birds plants c. pag. 212. The former matter proved by many examples of the living and the dead pag. 213. The bewitching venome contained in the body of an harlot how her eye her tongue her beauty behaviour bewitcheth some men of bones and hornes yeelding great vertue pag. 214. Two notorious wonders and yet not marvelled at pag. 215. Of illusions confederacies and legierdemain and how they may be well or ill used pag. 216. Of private confederacy and of Brandons Pigeon pag. 217. Of publick confederacy and whereof it consisteth pag. 218. How men have been abused with words of equivocation with sundry examples thereof ibid. How some are abused with naturall magick and sundry examples thereof when illusion is added thereunto of Iacobs pied sheep and of a black Moore pag. 219. The opinion of witchmongers that divels can create bodies and of Pharaohs magicians pag. 220. How to produce or make monsters by art of magick why Pharaohs magitians could not make lice ibid. That great matters may be wrought by this art when princes esteem and maaintain it of divers wonderfull experiments and of strange conclusions in glasses of the art perspective c. pag. 222. A comparison betwixt Pharaohs magitians and our witches and how their cunning consisted in juggling knacks pag. 223. That the serpents and frogs were truly presented and the water poisoned indeed by Iannes and Iambres of false prophets and of their miracles of Balaams asse pag. 224. The art of juggling discovered and in what points it doth principally consist pag. 226. Of the ball and the manner of legierdemain therewith also notable feats with one or divers bals ibid. To make a little ball swell in your hand till it be very great p. 227. To consume or rather to convey one or many bals into nothing pag. 228. How to rap a wag upon the knuckles ibid. Of conveyance of money ibid. To convey money out of one of your hands into the other by legierdemain ibid. To convert or transubstantiate money into counters or counters into money pag. 229. To put one testor into one hand and another into the other hand and with words to bring them together ibid. To put one testor into a strangers hand and another into your own and to convey both into the strangers hand with words ibid. How to doe the same or the like feat otherwise ibid. To throw a piece of money away and to finde it again where you lift pag. 230. With words to make a groat or a testor to leap out of a pot or to run along upon a table ibid. To make a groat or a testor to sink through a table and to vanish out of a handkercher very strangely ibid. A notable trick to transforme a counter to a groat pag. 231. An excellent feat to make a two penny peece lye plain in the palme of your hand and to be passed from thence when you liâ—t ibid. To convey a testor out of ones hand that holdeth it fast pag. 232. To throw a piece of money into a deep pond and to fetch it again from whence you lift ibid. To convey one shilling being in one hand into another holding your armes abroad like a rood ibid. How to wrap a wag on the knuckles ibid. To transforme any one small thing into any other form by holding of paper pag. 233. Of cards with good cautions how to avoide cousenage therein speciall rules to convey and handle the cards and the manner and order how to accomplish all difficult and strange things wrought by cards ibid. How to deliver out four aces and to convert them into four knaves p. 234. How to tell one what card he seeth in the bottome when the same card is shuffled into the stock pag. 235. Another way to do the same having your self indeed never seen the card ibid. To tell one without confederacy what card be thinketh ibid. How to tell what card any man thinketh how to convey the same into a kernell of a nut or cheristone c. and the same again into ones pocket how to make one draw the same or any card you list and all under one device pag. 236. Of fast or loose how to knit a hard knot upon a hanckercher and to undo the same with words p. 237. A notable feat of fast or loose namely to pull three beadstones from off a cord while you hold fast the ends thereof without removing of your hand ibid. Iuggling knacks by confederacy and how to know whether one â—ast crosse or pile by the ringing pag. 238. To make a shoale of goslings draw a timber log ibid. To make a pot or any such thing standing fast on the cubboord to fall down thence by vertue of words ibid. To make one danse naked pag. 239. To transforme or alter the colour of ones cap or hat ibid. How to tell where a stollen horse is become ibid. Boxes to alter one grain into another or to consume the grain or corn
to nothing ibid. How to convey with words or charmes the corn contained in one boxe into another pag. 240. Of another boxe to convert wheat into flower with words c. ibid. Of diverse petty juggling knackes ibid. Tr burne a thred and to make it whole againe with the ashes thereof pag. 241. To cut a lace asunder in the middest and to make it whole again ibid. How to pull laces innumerable out of your mouth of what colour or length you liâ—t and never any thing seen to be therein pag. 242. How to make a book wherein you shall shew every leaf therein to be white black blew red yellow green c. ibid. Desperate or dangerous juggling knacks wherein the simple are made to think that a seely juggler with words can hurt and help kill and revive any creature at his pleasure and first to kill any kind of pullen and to give it life again pag. 244. To eat a knife and to fetch it out of any other place ibid. To thrust a bodkin into your head without hurt ibid. To thrust a bodkin through your tongue and a knife through your arme a pitiful sight without hurt or danger pag. 245. To thrust a piece of lead into one eye and drive it about with a stick between the skin and flesh of the forehead until it be brought to the other eye and there thrust out ibid. To cut halfe your nose asunder and to heal it again presently without any salve ibid. To put a ring through your cheeke pag. 246. To cut off ones head and to lay it in a platter c. which the iuglers call the decollation of Iohn Baptist. ibid. To thrust a dagger or bodkin into your guts very strangely and to recover immediatly pag. 247. To draw a cord through your nose mouth or hand so sensible as it is wonderfull to see ibid. The conclusion wherein the reader is referred to certaine patterns of instruments wherewith diverse feats here specified are to be executed pag. 248. The xiiii Book OF the art of Alcumystry of their words of art and devises to bleare mens eies to procure credit to their profession Pag. 249. The Alcumysters drift the Canons yeomans tale of alcumystical stones and waters pag. 250. Of a yeoman of the country cousened by an Alcumyst pag. 254. A certaine king abused by an Alcumist and of the kings foole a prety jest pag. 252. A notable story written by Erasmus of two Alcumysts also of longation and curtation ibid. The opinion of divers learned men touching the â—â—lly of Alcumystry pag. 260. That vaine and deceitfull hope is a great cause why men are seduced by this alluring art and â—hat their labours therein are bootlesse c. pag. 261. A continuation of the former matter with a conclusion of the same p 262. The xv Book THe exposition of Iidoni and where it is found whereby the whole art of consuration is deciphered Pag 265. An inventary of the names shapes powers government and effects of divels and spirits of their severall sâ—igniorities and degrees a strange discourse worth the reading p. 266. The houres wherein poincipall divels may be bound to wit raised and restrained from doing of hurt p. 277. The sorme of adjuring or citing of the spirits aforesaid to arise and appeare pag 278. A confutation of the manifold vanities contained in the precedent chapters specially of commanding of devils pag. 279. The names of the planets their characters together with the twelve signes of the zodiake their dispositions aspects and government with other observations pag. 281. The twelve signes of the zodiake their characters and denominations c. ibid. Their dispositions or inclinations 282. The disposition of the planets pag. 282. The aspects of the planets ibid. How the day is divided or distinguished p. 283. The division of the day and the planetary regiment pag. 283 The division of the night and the planetary regiment ibid. The characters of the angels of the seven dayes with their names of figures seales and periapts pag. 284. An experiment of the dead pag. 285. A licence for Sibylla to go and come by at all times pag. 290. To know of treasure hidden in the earth ibid. This is the way to go invisible by these three sisters of fairies pag 291. An experiment of Citrael c. angeli diâ—i dominici pag. 292. The seven angels of the seven dayes with the prayer called Regina linguae ibid. How to inclose a spirit in a crystall stone pag. 293. A figure or type proportionall shewing what form must be observed kept in making the figure whereby the former secret of inclosing a spirit in crystal is to be accomplished c. pag. 295. An experiment of the spirit Bealphares pag. 296. The two and twentieth Psalme pag. 299. This psalme also following being the fifty one psalme must be said three times over c. ibid. To bind the spirit Bealphares and to lose him again pag. 300. A licence for the spirit to depart pag. 301 A type or figure of the circle for the master and his fellowes to sit in shewing how and after what fashion it should be made pag. 302. The making of the holy water pag. 303. To the water say also as followeth ibid. Then take the salt in thy hand and say putting it into the water making in the manner of a crosse pag. 304 Then sprinkle upon any thing and say as followeth ibid. To make a spirit to appear in a crystall ibid. An experiment of the dead pag 305. Now the Pater noster Ave and Credo must be said and then the prayer immediately following pag. 306. A bond to bind him to thee and to thy Nâ—as followeth pag. 307 This bond following is to call him into your crystall stone or glass c. pag 309. Then being appeared say these words following pag. 310 A licence to depart ibid. When to talk with spirits and to have true answers to finde out a theefe pag. 311. To speak with spirits ibid. A confutation of conjuration especially of the raising binding and dismissing of the divell of going invisible and other lewd practises ibid. A comparison between popish exorcists and other conjurors a popish conjuration published by a great doctor of the Romish church his rules and cautions pag 313. A late experiment or cousening conjuratiâ—n practised at Orleance by the Franciscane Fryers how it was detected and the judgement against the authors of that comedie pag 315. Who may be conjurors in the Romish Church besides priests a ridiculous definitionâ— of superstision what words are to be used and not used in exorcismes rebaptisme allowed it is lawfull to conjure any thing differences between holy water and conjuration pag. 317. The seven reasons why some are not rid of the divell with all their popish conjurations why there were no coÌ„jurors in the primitive church and why the divell is not so soâ—ne cast out of the bewitched as of the possessed pag. 319. Other grosse absurdities of
I. The Hebrew word Nahas expounded of the art of augury who invented it how slovenly a science it is the multitude of sacrifices and sacrificers of the heathen and the causes thereof NAHAS is to observe the flying of birds and comprehendeth all such other observations where men do ghesse upon uncertain toies It is found in Deut. 18. and in 2. Chron. 33. and elsewhere Of this art of augury Tyresias the king of the Thebans is said to be the first inventor but Tages first published the discipline thereof being but a little boy as Cicero reporteth out of the bookes of the Hetruscans themselves Some points of this art are more high and profound than some others yet are they more homely and slovenly then the rest as namely the divination upon the entrails of beasts which the Gentiles in their sacrifices specially observed Insomuch as Marcus Varro seeing the absurdity thereof said that these gods were not only idle but very slovens that used so to hide their secrets and councels in the guts and bowels of beasts How vainly absurdly and superstitiously the heathen used this kind of divination in their sacrifices is manifested by their actions and ceremonies in that behalfe practised as well in times past as at this hour The Aegyptians had 666. several sorts and kinds of sacrifices the Romans had almost as many the Graecians had not so few as they the Persians and the Medes were not behind them the Indians and other nations have at this instant their sacrifices full of variety and more full of barbarous impiety For in sundry places these offer sacrifices to the devil hoping thereby to move him to lenity yea these commonly sacrifice such of their enemies as they have taken in war as we reade that the Gentiles in ancient time did offer sacrifice to appease the wrath and indignation of their feigned gods CHAP. II. Of the Iews sacrifice to Moloch a discourse thereupon and of Purgatory THe Jewes used one kind of diabolical sacrifice never taught them by Moses namely to offer their children to Moloch making their sonnes and their daughters to runne through the fiâ—e supposing such grace and efficacy to have been in that action as other witcheâ— affirm to be in charmes and words And therefore among other points of witchcraft this is specially and namely forbidden by Moses We reade of no more miracles wrought hereby than by any other kind of witchcraft in the old or new Testament expressed It was no ceremony appointed by God no figure of Christ perhaps it might be a sacrament or rather a figure of purgatory the which place was not remembred by Moses Neither was there any sacrifice appointed by the law for the releefe of the Israelites soules that there should be tormented Which without all doubt should not have beene omitted if any such place of purgatory had been then as the Pope hath lately devised for his private and speciall lucre This sacrificing to Moloch as some affirme was usual among the Gentiles from whence the Jewes brought it into Israel and there of likelyhood the Eutichists learned the obomination in that behalfe CHAP. III. The Canibals cruelty of popish sacrifices exceeding in tyranny the Iewes or Gentiles THe incivility and cruel sacrifices of popish priests do yet exceed both the Jew and the Gentile for these take upon them to sacrifice Christ himselfe And to make their tyranny the more apparent they are not contended to have killed him once but dayly and hourely torment him with new deaths yea they are not ashamed to sweare that with their carnal hands they teare his humane substance breaking it into small gobbets and with their external teeth chew his flesh and bones contrary to divine or humane nature and contrary to the prophesie which saith There shall not a bone of him be broken Finally in the end of their sacrifices as they say they eate him up rawe and swallow downe into their guts every member and parcel of him and last of all that they convey him into the place where they bestowe the residue of all that which they have devoured that day And this same barbarous impiety exceedeth the cruelty of all others for all the Gentiles consumed their sacrifices with fire which they thought to be holy CHAP. IV. The superstition of the heathen about the element of fire and how it grew in such reverence among them of their corruptions and that they had some inkling of the godly fathers doings in that behalfe AS touching the element of fire and the superstition thereof about those businesses you shall understand that many superstitious people of all nations have received and reverenced as the most holy thing among their sacrifices insomuch I say as they have worshipped it among their gods calling it Orimasda to wit holy fire and divine light The Greekes called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Romans Vesta which is The fire of the Lord. Surely they had heard of the fire that came downe from heaven and consumed the oblations of the fathers and they understood it to be God himselfe For there came to the heathen the bare names of things from the doctrine of the godly fathers and patriarches and those so obscured with fables and corrupted with lies so overwhelmed with superstitions disguised with ceremonies that it is hard to judge from whence they came Some cause thereof I suppose was partly the translations of governments whereby one nation learned folly of another and partly blind devotion without knowledge of Gods word but specially the want of Grace which they sought not for according to Gods commandement and will And that the Gentiles had some inkling of the godly fathers doings may diversly appeare Do not the Muscovits and Indian prophets at this day like apes imitate Esay Because he went naked certaine years they forsooth counterfeit madnes and drink potions for that purpose thinking that whatsoever they say in their madnesse will certainly come to passe But hereof is more largely discoursed before in the word Kasam CHAP. V. Of the Romane sacrifices of the estimation they had of augury of the law of the twelve tables THe Romans even after they were growne to great civility and enjoyed a most flourishing state and common-wealth would sometimes sacrifice themselves sometimes their children sometimes their friends c. consuming the same with fire which they thought holy Such estimation I say was attributed to that of divination upon the entrails of beasts c. At Rome the chiefe princes themselves exercised the same namely Romulus Fabius Maximus c. insomuch as there was a decree made there by the whole senate that â—ix of the cheefe magistrates sonnes should from time to time be put forth to learne the mystery of these arts of augury and divination at Hetruria where the cunning and knowledge thereof most abounded When they came home well informed and instructed in this art their estimation and dignity was such as