and power of working And these beams are not only corporeal but of divers parts also If these I say be certain then doth the imagination work at distance by means of those beams and consequently Words and Charms and such like may be the means and instruments by which the imagination being the principal power of the sensitive Soul may operate strange things at distance and so that not be vain which learned Agrippa tells us Nos habitat non Tartara sed nec sydera Coeli Spiritus in nobis qui viget illa facit And we have before sufficiently proved that the species of bodies are corporeal and it is plain that these operate upon our eyes at a vast distance and do intersect one another in the air without confusion And we must in all reason acknowledge that the sensitive Soul must needs be of as much purity and energie as those that we call the sensible or visible species of things and then it must necessarily follow that it by the means of the imagination may operate at a great distance and so words and charms may from thence have power and operation For learned Agrippa that great Philosopher and master of lawful and natural Magick and not of that which is accounted diabolical as the wretched pen of Paulus Jovius hath painted him holds this Quod unicuique homini impressus est Character Divinus cujus vigore potest pertingere ad operandum mirabilia Which if so then many words charms and the like have a natural efficacy to work wonderful things and that at a great distance also 4. I cannot likewise but take notice of another caution very pertinent to our present purpose given us also by the said Lord Verulam and in English is this Again men are to be holden back from the peril of credulity lest here they too much rashly incline with an easy faith because they often see the event to answer to the operations For the cause of the success is to be referred often to the forces of the affections and imaginations in the body that is the agent which by a certain secondary reason may act in a diverse body As for example If any one carry about the figure of a Planet or a Ring or a part of some beast being certainly perswaded that it will prove helpful unto him in promoting his love or that he may be preserved from danger or wound in battel or in strife that he may overcome c. it may render his wit more stirring or may add spurs to his industry or may cherish confidence and hold up constancie from which perchancie he might have slided Now who is ignorant what industry and a mind tenacious of its purpose may design and bring to pass in civil affairs Therefore he concludeth he should err and deceive and be deceived who should ascribe these things to the force of imagination upon the body of another which his own imagination worketh in his own body And therefore this may caution all that would judge aright of the force and effects of words and charms that they may perhaps neither flow from the nature or efficacy of the words nor from the force of the imagination of him or her that pronounceth writeth giveth or applieth the charm but from the imagination and belief of the person to whom they are applied and for whom they are intended For it is manifest by common experience and we our selves have known it to be certain that these charms either pronounced or written and hung about the patients neck have produced the greatest effects upon such as are of the weakest judgment and reason as Women Children and ignorant and superstitious persons who have great confidence in such vain and inefficacious trifles and that they seldom or never produce any effects at all upon such as are obstinate Infidels in the belief of their operations and I fear we shall not or very hardly find any instance to make this good that they effectively work upon such as are utterly diffident of their force or power 5. It hath sometimes been a question Whether a rational Physician in the curing of melancholy persons or others in some odd diseases ought to grant the use of Characters or Charms and such ridiculous administrations Which is decided in the affirmative that it is lawful and necessary to use them by that able and learned Physician Gregorius Horstius by eight strong and convincing arguments And we our selves having practised the art of medicine in all its parts in the North of England where Ignorance Popery and superstition doth much abound and where for the most part the common people if they chance to have any sort of the Epilepsie Palsie Convulsions or the like do presently perswade themselves that they are bewitched fore-spoken blasted fairy-taken or haunted with some evil spirit and the like and if you should by plain reasons shew them that they are deceived and that there is no such matter but that it is a natural disease say what you can they shall not believe you but account you a Physician of small or no value and whatsoever you do to them it shall hardly do them any good at all because of the fixedness of their depraved and prepossessed imagination But if you indulge their fancy and seem to concur in opinion with them and hang any insignificant thing about their necks assuring them that it is a most efficacious and powerful charm you may then easily settle their imaginations and then give them that which is proper to eradicate the cause of their disease and so you may cure them as we have done great numbers Here it is most manifest that the charm or appension hath no efficacy at all and yet accidentally it conduces to settle their fancies and confidences which conduceth much to their cures And from hence it comes to pass that by reason of the fixed belief of the party to whom the charm is applied there are many helped when the causality and efficiency is solely in the person imaginant and confident of receiving help by the means of the charm and no efficacy at all in the charm it self nor no diabolical concurrence besides what obliquity may be in the minds of the actors nor no agency in the imagination of the charmer to produce the effect yet because often people are cured thereby the common people and sometimes the learned also do attribute the whole effect unto the charm when indeed it effecteth nothing at all And to this purpose Varius doth quote a passage from Galen which is this Sunt quidam natura laeti qui quando agrotant si eos sanos futuros medicus confirmet convaleseunt quorum spes sanitatis est causa medicus si animi desiderium incantatione aut alicujus rei ad collum appensione adjuverit citius ad valetudinem perducet But we now come to examine if we can find any convincing examples from Authors of credit that in words characters and
there is another way more extraordinary wherein as an instrument he may be said to cause diseases and sometimes death as in that case of Davids numbring of the people where there died of the Pestilence seventy thousand and though this Pestilence was sent by Jehovah yet was a destroying Angel the instrument and minister in the execution of it for the Text saith And when the Angel of the Lord stretched forth his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel that destroyed the people It is enough now stay thy hand And Herod for assuming to himself that honour that was only proper to God was immediately smitten by the Angel of the Lord and was eaten up of worms and gave up the Ghost And the Psalmist saith He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath indignation and trouble by sending evil Angels among them the Hebrew giveth it the emission or sending out of evil Angels From whence it is manifest that evil Angels are the organs and instruments of Gods wrath and as Ministers cause Plague Pestilence and other diseases 3. Thirdly there is another great question whether or not the Devil by his vassals to wit Sorcerers and Witches doth not cause diseases and death as is believed by those vomiting up of strange things exceeding the bigness of the Gullet to get either up or down of which we shall speak largely where we handle the opinion of Van Helmont concerning the actions of Witches Here only we shall say thus much that the Devil is author and causer of that hatred malice revenge and envy that is often abounding in those that are accounted Witches which desire of revenge doth stimulate them to seek for all means by which they may accomplish their intended wickedness and so they learn all the wicked and secret wayes of hurting poysoning killing but yet we affirm that what evil soever they perform it is by causes and means that work naturally and so the evil is only in the use and application and not in the efficients or means And whereas he holdeth that Devils as they can cause Diseases so they can cure them and take them away we must crave to be excused if we cannot subscribe to his opinion and that for these reasons 1. Because of their causing of Diseases we have sufficient evidence in the Scriptures but of their curing of any we have not any mention at all and though some will think this but weak because it is negative yet it is not probable but as it expresseth the one fully so it would have given some hint of the other if there had been any such matter 2. But the Scriptures do inform us that the gift of healing or curing Diseases is not in the power of Devils by their Creation much less since as a gift bestowed upon them but floweth solely from God by the Ministry of good Angels of whom Raphael that is the Medicine or health of God is the chief And that it is reckoned amongst the gifts of the Holy Ghost is most plain For to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit To another saith by the same spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit but these gifts of healing are not given to Devils but to the chosen ones of God And the Psalmist where he is speaking how God afflicted and brought low the people of Israel by reason of their sins saith Their soul abhorred all manner of meat and they drew near unto the gates of death but he sent his word and healed them And God declareth that if his people Israel would keep his Statutes he would bring none of those Diseases upon them that he had threatned for he saith I am the Lord that healeth thee and this he doth by the ministry of good Angels or by natural means and not by Devils 3. That Devils are no causers or instruments in curing Diseases is manifest because that were to make him act contrary to his original destination after his fall wherein in his own propriety he is a murderer from the beginning and that both of souls and bodies and never did nor doth any good to mankind either spiritual or natural either real or apparent for that were to act contrary to his will nature and disposition and contrary to the Ordinance and appointment of God who hath Created the destroyer to destroy Therefore-Satan after his fall was not ordained of God to be an healer preserver or sanator of diseases but to be a destroyer a wounder and murderer for his nature is be come so wicked and malignant that his whole endeavour is the destruction of mankind both in souls and bodies and so no healer no not of the least infirmity 4. But he is that grand Impostor that by lying cheating and delusion laboureth to make his Vassals and others believe that he can cure and heal Diseases when he can do no such thing and therefore hath and still doth amongst the Pagans by the wicked Priests his Slaves make the people believe that if the sick persons be brought before their Idols and there worship and pray that they shall be Cured when there is not any jot performed in the way of sanation but what is by natural means fancy and imagination or what is pretended to be done so by cheating counterfeiting and imposture And the very same thing is practised by the Papists unto this day in the pretence of their false and lying Miracles fathered upon their Saints and Images which are nothing else but lying cheats and Impostures as we shall fully make manifest hereafter 5. The Devil internally deludeth the minds of men in making them believe that Pictures Charms Amulets and such other inefficacious and ridiculous means have power to Cure these and these Diseases when indeed they are meerly inoperative and effect nothing at all but yet the Witchmongers will needs have them to be media operativa when they are utterly inefficacious and are only means of seduction and delusion to alter change or fortifie the imagination by which alone the Cures if any such be effected are brought to pass and not by any power of the Devil at all and he operateth nothing at all in them except a mental and internal delusion in making the Witchmongers and others believe that those things are wrought by a Diabolical Power which are only performed by the force of imagination and a natural agency and virtue 6. Again where there are many occult and wonderful effects wrought by natural causes and agents as by appensions of vegetables animals or their parts and minerals by magnetism as the Hoplochrism Sympathetic Powder by Transplantation and many other very abstruse and secret wayes and means the Devil laboureth to take away the glory of these sanative effects both from God and his Instrument which is Nature and to have it
shining into his understanding and so is become wilfully blind To such as these we shall only propose the example and practice of the Apostle who saith When I was a child I spake as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child But when I became a man I put away childish things And I advise them not to refuse the counsel of S. Augustine who saith Ad discendum quod opus est nulla aetas sera videri potest quia etsi senes magis decet docere quà m discere magis tamen decet discere quam ignorare And they need not be ashamed to imitate Socrates who did wax old every day learning something 5. As we have not intended this Treatise and Introduction for such conditioned persons as we have enumerated before so there are others to whom we freely offer and present it and shall shew the grounds and causes that moved us to undertake such a mysterious and dangerous subject And those are such as have an humble lowly and equal mind that they commonly read Books to be informed and to learn those truths of which they are ignorant or to be confirmed in those things they partly knew before It is to such as these only that we offer our labours and therefore shall candidly declare unto them the causes and reasons of our undertaking which are these 1. Though there be a numerous company of Authors that have written of Magick Witchcraft Sorcery Inchantment Spirits and Apparitions in sundry ages of divers Countrys and in various languages yet have they for the most but borrowed one from another or have transcribed what others had written before them So that thereby there hath been no right progress made truly to discover the theory or ground of these dark and abstruse matters nor no precise care taken to instance in matters of fact that have been warrantably and sufficiently attested But only rhapsodies and confused heaps of stories and relations shuffled together when not one of an hundred of them bore the face either of verity or truth-likeliness whereby the understandings of Readers have remained uninlightned their memories confounded and their brains stuffed with Whimsies and Chimera's And though there be nothing more common than disputes of Witches and Witchcraft both in words and writing yet not one of great multitudes that hath plainly told us in what notion or under what acceptation they take the words nor what description is agreed upon of either of these that their existence or not being their power and operations might be known and determined But all the disputes as yet concerning them have been loose wild and in vagum And therefore to remedie this as far as such a subject would allow and our abilities stretch we were moved and have attempted to clear those difficulties And if we do not which is epidemical to mankind flatter and deceive ourselves we have in some measure reasonably attained as having plainly laid down the notion and acceptation of the words Witches and Witchcraft in which we grant them an existence and in what sense and respect we grant them none which is more as we conceive than yet hath been performed by any And though our instances of matters of fact be neither so punctual nor full as might be wished for things of this nature are deep and hid yet are they the best we could select or chuse and this is one chief reason why I undertook to treat of this subject 2. Though the gross absurd impious and Popish opinions of the too much magnified powers of Demons and Witches in this Nation were pretty well quashed and silenced by the writings of Wierus Tandler Mr. Scot Mr. Ady Mr. Wagstaff and others and by the grave proceedings of many learned Judges and other judicious Magistrates yet finding that of late two persons of great learning and note who are both as I am informed beneficed Ministers in the Church to wit Dr. Casaubon and Mr. Glanvil have afresh espoused so bad a cause and taken the quarrel upon them And to that purpose have newly furbished up the old Weapons and raked up the old arguments forth of the Popish Sink and Dunghills and put them into a new dress that they might appear with the greater luster and so do with Tooth and Nail labour to maintain the old rotten assertions the one in his Book called A Treatise proving Spirits and Witches c. the other in a Treatise called A blow at modern Sadducism c. Finding these I say as two new Champions giving defiance to all that are of a contrary judgment I was stirred up to answer their supposed strong arguments and invincible instances which I have done I confess without fear or any great regard to their Titles Places or Worldly Dignities but only considering the strength or weakness of their arguments proofs and reason For in this particular that I have to deal it is not with the men but their opinions and the grounds they would lay their foundations upon And if I be censured for dealing too sharply and harshly with them they must excuse me for I profess I have no evil will at all against their persons no more than against a non-Entity but was justly zealous for the truth and bitter against such opinions as they have vented which to me seem dangerous and in some respect impious as I suppose I have fully proved And this was another reason of my writing about this subject 3. Another reason that made me undertake this subject was the horrid absurdities the tenent of the common Witchmongers brings along with it as not only tending to advance superstition and Popery but also to be much derogatory to the Wisdom Justice and Providence of the Almighty and to cry up the power of the Kingdom of darkness to question the verity of the principal Article of the Christian Faith concerning the Resurrection of Christ in his true numerical Body and generally to tend to the obstruction of the practice of Godliness and Piety These after I had seriously weighed and considered them did move me to labour as far as the light of Gods word the grounds of true Theology and the clear strength of reason would guide and direct me to undertake the confutation of them as far as I was able and if I have failed I humbly desire those that are more able to handle the matter more fully if possible If any be moved that I seem to maintain some things that are Paradoxes I hope I may crave leave as well to discede from the opinions of others as others have done from those that went before them And I desire them not so much to consider either the novelty or strangeness of the opinions as the weight and strength of the reasons that are laid down to support and statuminate them for if the arguments be sound and valid the Tenents built thereupon cannot be weak and tottering And however I acknowledge my self to have humane frailties and so
which he found out the universal Medicine by a certain Aurum potabile by which he prolonged his life to the 145. year of his age in which year he suffered Martyrdom This I have produced to shew how inconsiderately and ignorantly the best learned of an Age may be and often are wrongfully and falsely traduced and slandered which may be a warning to all persons to take heed how they pass their censures until they understand perfectly all that is necessary to be known about the Subject they are to give judgment of before they utter or declare their sentence 5. Roger Bacon our Country-man who was a Franciscan Fryar and Doctor of Divinity the greatest Chymist Astrologer and Mathematician of his time yet could not escape the injurious and unchristian censure of being a Conjurer and so hard put to it that as Pitts saith he was twice cited to Rome by Clement the Fourth to purge himself of that accusation and was forced to send his Optical and Mathematical Instruments to Rome to satisfie the Pope and the Conclave which he amply performed and came off with honor and applause To vindicate whom I need say little because it is already performed by the Pens of those learned persons Pitts Leland Selden and Nandaeus only I shall add one Sentence forth of that most learned Treatise De mirabili potestate artis naturae de nullitate magiae Where he saith thus Quicquid autem est praeter operationem naturae vel artis aut non est humanum aut est fictum sraudibus occupatum Another of our Country-men Dr. John Dee the greatest and ablest Philosopher Mathematician and Chymist that his Age or it may be ever since produced could not evade the censure of the Monster-headed multitude but even in his life time was accounted a Conjurer of which he most sadly and not without cause complaineth in his most learned Preface to Euclid Englished by Mr. Billingsley and there strongly apologizeth for himself with that zeal and fervency that may satisfie any rational Christian that he was no such wicked person as to have visible and familiar converse if any such thing can be now adays with the Devil the known Enemy of Mankind of which take this short passage where he saith O my unkind Country-men O unnatural Country-men O unthankful Country-men O brain-sick rash spiteful and disdainful Country-men why oppress you me thus violently with your slandering of me contrary to verity and contrary to your own consciences Yet notwithstanding this and his known abilities in the most parts of abstruse Learning the great respect that he had from divers Princes Nobles and the most Learned in all Europe could not protect him from this harsh and unjust censure For Dr. Casaubon near fifty years after Dr. Dees death hath in the year 1659. published a large Book in Folio of Dees conversing for many years with Spirits wicked ones he meaneth But how Christian-like this was done to wound the mans reputation so many years after his death and with that horrid and wicked slander of having familiarity with Devils for many years in his life time which tends to the loss both of body and soul and to register him amongst the damned how Christian-like this is I leave all Christians to judge Besides let all the World judge in this case that Dr. Casaubon being a sworn Witchmonger even to the credulity of the filthiest and most impossible of their actions cannot but allow of the Law that doth punish them for digging up the bones of the dead to use them to Superstition or Sorcery what may he then think the World may judge him guilty of for uncovering the Dormitories of the deceased not to abuse their bones but to throw their Souls into the deepest pit of Hell A wickedness certainly beyond the greatest wickedness that he can believe is committed by Witches It is manifest that he hath not published this meerly as a true relation of the matter of fact and so to leave it to others to judge of but that designedly he hath laboured to represent Dee as a most infamous and wicked person as may be plainly seen in the whole drift of his tedious Preface But his design to make Dee a Converser with evil Spirits was not all he had another that concerned himself more nearly He had before run in a manner by labouring to make all that which he called Enthusiasm to be nothing else but imposture or melancholy and depraved phantasie arising from natural causes into the censure of being a Sadducee or Atheist To wash off which he thought nothing was so prevalent as to leap into the other end of the balance the mean is hard to be kept to weigh the other down by publishing some notorious Piece that might as he thought in an high degree manifest the existence of Spirits good and bad and this he thought would effect it sufficiently or at least wipe off the former imputation that he had contracted But that I may not be too tedious I shall sum up briefly some others by which it may be made clear that those dauntless Spirits that have adventured to cross the current of common opinion and those that have handled abstruse Subjects have never wanted opposition and scandal how true or profitable soever the things were that they treated or writ of Trithemius that Honour and Ornament of Germany for all sorts of Literature wanted not a Bouillus to calumniate and condemn him of unlawful Magick from which all the Learned in Europe know he is absolved by the able and elegant Pen of him that styles himself Gustavus Silenus and others Cornelius Agrippa run the same Fate by the scribling of that ignorant and envious Monk Paulus Jovius from whose malicious slander he is totally acquitted by the irrefragable evidence of Wierus Melchior Adams Nandaeus and others Who almost have not read or heard of the horrid and abominable false scandals laid upon that totius Germaniae decus Paracelsus by the malevolent Pen of Erastus and after swallowed up with greediness by Libanius Conringius Sennertus and many others for not only labouring to bring in a new Theory and Practice into the Art of Medicine but also for striving to purge and purifie the ancient natural laudable and lawful Magick from the filth and dregs of Imposture Deceit Ceremonies and Superstitions yet hath not wanted most strong and invincible Champions to defend him as Dorne Petrus Severinus Smetius Crollius Bitiscius and many others Our Country-man Dr. Fudd a man acquainted with all kinds of Learning and one of the most Christian Philosophers that ever writ yet wanted not those snarling Animals such as Marsennus Lanovius Foster and Gassendus as also our Casaubon as mad as any to accuse him vainly and falsely of Diabolical Magick from which the strength of his own Pen and Arguments did discharge him without possibility of replies We shall now come to those that have treated of Witchcraft and strongly
such strange things as Witchmongers fondly and falsely believe can be performed or effected Therefore by way of conclusion in this particular we grant that there are many sorts of such kind of Witches as for gain and vain-glory do take upon them to declare hidden and occult things to divine of things that are to come and to do many wonderful matters but that they are but Cheaters Deceivers and Couseners 2. And as there are a numerous crew of active Witches whose existence we freely acknowledge so there are another sort that are under a passive delusion and know not or at least do not observe or understand that they are deluded or imposed upon These are those that confidently believe that they see do and suffer many strange odd and wonderful things which have indeed no existence at all in them but only in their depraved fancies and are meerly melancholiae figmenta And yet the confessions of these though absurd idle foolish false and impossible are without all ground and reason by the common Witchmongers taken to be truths and falsely ascribed unto Demons and that they are sufficient grounds to proceed upon to condemn the Confessors to death when all is but passive delusion intrinsecally wrought in the depraved imaginative faculty by these three ways or means 1. One of the Causes that produceth this depraved and passive delusion is evil education they being bred up in ignorance either of God the Scriptures or the true grounds of Christian Religion nay not being taught the common Rules of Morality or of other humane Literature but only imbibing and sucking in with their mothers and nurses milk the common gross and erroneous opinions that the blockish vulgar people do hold who are all generally inchanted and bewitched with the belief of the strange things related of Devils Apparitions Fayries Hobgoblins Ghosts Spirits and the like so that thereby a most deep impression of the verity of the most gross and impossible things is instamped in their fancies hardly ever after in their whole life time to be obliterated or washt out so prevalent a thing is Custom and Institution from young years though the things thus received and pertinaciously believed and adhered unto are most abominable falsities and impossibilities having no other existence but in the brains and phantasies of old ignorant and doting persons and are meerly muliercularum nutricum terriculamenta figmenta and therefore did Seneca say Gravissimum est consuetudinis imperium And that this is one main cause of this delusion is manifest from all the best Historians that where the light of the Gospel hath least appeared and where there is the greatest brutish ignorance and heathenish Barbarism there the greatest store of these deluded Witches or Melancholists are to be found as in the North of Scotland Norway Lapland and the like as may be seen at large in Saxo Grammaticus Olaus Magnus Hector Boetius and the like 2. But when an atrabilarious Temperament or a melancholick Complexion and Constitution doth happen to those people bred in such ignorance and that have suckt in all the fond opinions that Custom and Tradition could teach them then what thing can be imagined that is strange wonderful or incredible but these people do pertinaciously believe it and as confidently relate it to others nay even things that are absolutely impossible as that they are really changed into Wolves Hares Dogs Cats Squirrels and the like and that they flye in the Air are present at great Feasts and Meetings and do strange and incredible things when all these are but the meer effects of the imaginative function depraved by the fumes of the melancholick humor as we might shew from the Writings of the most grave and learned Physicians but we shall content our selves with some few select ones 1. That distemper which Physicians call Lycanthropia is according to the judgment of Aetius and Paulus but a certain species of Melancholy and yet they really think and believe themselves to be Wolves and imitate their actions of which Johannes Fincelius in his second Book de Mirac giveth us a relation to this purpose That at Padua in the year 1541. a certain Husband-man did seem to himself a Wolf and did leap upon many in the fields and did kill them And that at last he was taken not without much difficulty and did confidently affirm that he was a true Wolf only that the difference was in the skin turned in with the hairs And therefore that certain having put off all humanity and being truly truculent and voracious did smite and cut off his legs and arms thereby to try the truth of the matter but the innocency of the man being known they commit him to the Chirurgions to be cured but that he dyed not many days after Which instance is sufficient to overthrow the vain opinion of those men that believe that a man or woman may be really transformed or transubstantiated into a Wolf Dog Cat Squirrel or the like without the operation of an omnipotent power as in Lots Wife becoming a Pillar of Salt though St. Augustine was so weak as to seem to believe the reality of these transformations of which we shall have occasion to speak more largely hereafter 2. Another story we shall give from the Authority of that learned Physician Nicolaus Tulpius of Amsterdam to this effect A certain famous Painter was for a long time infected with black Choler and did falsely imagine that all the bones of his body were as soft and flexible that they might be drawn and bended like soft wax Which opinion being deeply imprinted in his mind he kept himself in bed the whole Winter fearing that if he should rise they would not bear his weight but would shrink together by reason of their softness That Tulpius did not contradict him in that fancy but said that it was a distemper that Physicians were not ignorant of but had been long before noted by Fernelius that the bones like wax might be softned and indurated and that it might be easily cured if he would be obedient and that within three days he would make the bones firm and stable and that within six days he would restore him to the power of walking By which promises it was hard to declare how much hope of recovering health it had raised up in him and how obedient it made him So that with Medicines proper to purge the atrabilarious humour within the time appointed he was at the three days end suffered to stand upon his feet and upon the sixth day had leave given to walk abroad and so found himself perfectly sound afterwards but did not perceive the deceit in his phantasie that had made him lye a whole Winter in bed though he was no stupid but an ingenious person in his Art and scarce second to any 3. Thomas Bartholinus the famous Anatomist and Physician to Frederick the Third King of Denmark tells us these things That it is the property of
bear this signification is manifest from the things they performed for in Exodus they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they in like manner cast down every man his rod and they became serpents not that their rods were really transubstantiated into true serpents as Aarons was for that could not be done but by an Omnipotent and Divine power which they had not It was only done as Juglers do seemingly by sleight and cunning and so had an appearance of true serpents but were not so indeed or else in making a shew to throw down their rods they secretly conveyed them away and threw down serpents in their stead as might easily be done by sleight of hand as we shall shew more fully hereafter 5. That this is the genuine meaning of this word is manifest from the circumstances of some other places duly weighed and compared together for one text saith as our English Translators have rendered it And it came to pass when Joram saw Jehu that he said Is it peace Jehu And he answered What peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many Now why they should translate it witchcrafts cannot well be imagined except it were to draw the Scriptures to speak according to their preconceived opinions for the word used there is the same we speak of to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which though Arias Montanus rendereth veneficia ejus that according to the Latine signification is but poysonings or poyson making which doth not intimate Witchcraft in that sense that is vulgarly understood which Tremellius properly renders praestigae ejus and Luther renders it by the words Coeverye and so doth the Low-Dutch Though the proper High-Dutch word for praestigiator a Jugler be Bautâ—er which is as Calepin tells us that Praestigiae sunt incantationes delusiones cujusmodi sunt quae manuum quadam dexteritate alia apparent quam rever â sunt Now what whoredoms or fornications had Jezebel committed Spiritual whoredomes and not Carnal ones for she had her self gone a whoring after Idols and strange gods and as much as in her lay drew the people of Israel into the same whoredoms and for this it was that so fearful a judgment fell upon her And what Witchcrafts if they must be so called had she practised or followed Was it any other than in setting up maintaining and defending the Priests of Baal and of the groves who practised several sorts of divination jugling impostures and delusions whereby they were seduced and blinded to follow and worship the false god and Idols And from this it is plain that all her Witchcrafts were only impostures and delusions whereby the people were led unto idolatry and so the true signification of this word is a deceiver and an impostor and intendeth no other kind of Witchcraft at all And in the same sense must the word given by those we call the Septuagint which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pharmaca vel venena sua her poysons that is her deceits and delusions that she set up by the lying Divinations Juglings and Impostures of the Priests by which the people were seduced and blinded and poysoned with the filthy Doctrine and practice of Idol worship And in the same sense must the words be taken in the Revelation where the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used For the Text saith And a mighty Angel took up a stone like a great milstone and cast it into the sea saying Thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thâ—wn down and shall be found no more at all And after For thy merchants were the great men of the earth For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived These words are spoken mystically of spiritual Babylon in which Antichrist ruleth who as the Apostle saith sitteth in the temple of God and exalteth himself against all that is called god and this is he whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders So that it is plain that his working being by lying wonders his Merchants must needs be lyers and deceivers and it is these Sorceries impostures and delusions by which all Nations are deceived and caused to err and so is no other Witchcraft but meer lying delusion and imposture And to this purpose doth Dr. Hammond Paraphrase it in these words speaking of the destruction of Babylon And three eminent causes he saith there are of this First Luxury which inriched so many Merchants and made them so great Secondly seducing other people to their Idolatries and abominable courses by all arts of insinuation And thirdly the persecuting and slaying of the Apostles and other Christians And in the same sense must this word also be taken in the Galathians which though translated Witchcraft must needs mean imposture deceit and delusion by which people are led from the true Doctrine and Worship of Christ to vain and lying Superstition and Idolatry and not bodily poysoning 6. Thus far we can find no such Hebrew word as signifieth any such kind of a Witch as Dr. Casaubon or Mr. Glanvill intend or labour to prove and therefore we may proceed to the next Only we cannot but take notice of one other text that our English Translators have erroneously rendered and that is this where Samuel is rebuking Saul for sparing Agag and the best of the spoil he saith For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry Which Tremellius renders thus Quin sicut peccatum divinationis est rebellio sicut superstitio Idola est repugnantia And Arias Montanus gives it thus Quia peccatum divinationis est rebellio mendacium vel Idolum Teraphim transgredi which both are agreeable to the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth properly Divination So that this place noteth not rebellion against an earthly or temporal King but against the King of Heaven and to disobey his command and to follow our own wills and judgments and to persevere therein is as odious and detestable as to set up lying Divinations thereby to follow Idols and false gods for the following the fancies of our own brains is to follow the divinations of our own counsel and to make an Idol and a Teraphim of our own frail weak and blind judgments and to forsake the pure and perfect Law of the Lord which ought to be a lantern to our feet and a light unto our paths and is spiritual rebellion even as the divinations of Idol-priests and Idol-worship were 6. The next word in this place of Deuteronomy is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utens incantatione vel incantans incantatione aut juâ—gens junctiones from the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sociatus est junctus fuit alteri copulatus est for so Avenarius renders it And Schindlerus saith Incantator vel qui consortium habet cum Daemonibus conjurator qui incantationibus multa animalia in unum locum
uti magicis illusionibus cum potestas Philosophiae doceat operari quod sufficit Therefore are those men that came from the East to worship Christ called Magicians not because that great knowledge they had in the secrets of Nature was Diabolical or unlawful for the name of a Magician was honourable and laudable until Knaves and Impostors made use of it to cheat and couzen withal and for wicked and ungodly ends but because they had made use of it for the glory of God and the good of mankind therefore were they Magicians in the genuine and best sense as working by lawful and natural means and to a good end when the Magicians of Pharaoh may be called Cacomagicians because they used the good and excellent causes and agents of nature to a wicked and Diabolical end namely to resist the truth and so the only difference of Magick is from the end and uses and not from the causes or agents that are both natural So what these Magicians of Pharaoh did though it were strange and wonderful yet was it meerly by natural means and causes and yet being for a wicked end was therefore Diabolical So Jacob when he set the pilled rods with white streakes in them before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs that when the Rams and the Sheep came up to drink and coupled together they might conceive and bring forth ring streaked speckled and spotted young ones It came so to pass and is confessed by Pererius himself and the most of learned Expositors upon that place to be from natural causes and was a strange feat of natural Magick but not evil because not directed to a wicked end but that of Pharaohs though wrought likewise by a natural causes for so it was whether ascribed to the Devil that can but work by natural means or not was wicked and Diabolical because they did it to resist Moses and Aaron the messengers of the Lord Jehovah 3. The most or all the learned Expositors that have Commented upon this place of Exodus as may be seen in Dr. Willets Hexapla and divers other learned Authors though they attribute these things done by the Magicians to the power and assistance of Satan yet in the manner they do acknowledge them not to be done really and in truth but only in shew and appearance But what they mean by shew and appearance is not so easie to find out and determine for if by it they mean that they did it as Juglers and those that use the Art of Legierdemane do that is by shewing one thing and then by nimble sleight and agility convey it away and suddainly and unperceiveably substitute another thing in its place which they perform by leading the Eyes and attentions of the spectators another way with staring and using of strange and insignificant words then we should be soon accorded for so they might probably and easily have been performed as we shall prove anon but this is not the thing they mean or intend But some do mean that the Devil did only deceive the Phantasie and imagination of the beholders in causing them to imagine and believe that the rods were changed into Serpents when they were not changed at all but only their imaginations deceived in thinking them to be Serpents when they were but only rods as melancholy persons Men in Feavers Phrensies and Maniacal distempers do often think and affirm that they see strange things when they see no such things externally but the Phantasie is only deceived with the species and images of those things within This might be granted if Pharaoh and all the Spectators could be proved to be Men under those forenamed distempers and the like though yet that might and doth often come to pass from meer natural causes where the Devil hath nothing to do at all But the beholders of these actions of the Magicians are neither proved nor can rationally be supposed to be Men under any such distempers but must be understood to be Men of several constitutions tempers and of sound health and therefore not any way capable of any such illusions neither could the Devil in a moment have so vitiated their imaginations which we affirm he can no ways do except the humours fumes and spirits in the Body be first altered by natural causes which cannot be done instantaneously and if it could then it would follow that no Man could certainly tell when he were deceived in his imagination when not neither could it be as some imagine by casting a mist before their Eyes for though Christ did hold the two Disciples Eyes going from Emaus that they did not know him it were blasphemous to think that Satan could do so also And a mist casting before their Eyes might make them to see more dimly and confusedly and cause things to appear greater than they were but not to make one thing seem a quite contrary But it never was yet proved that Satan could do such a thing and what was never proved may safely and rationally be denied Some do suppose that the Devil did cloath or cover the Magicians rods with some such vestment of an airy substance as might make the rods appear to the eye like Serpents but this is as groundless a whimsey as any of the rest and as it hath no proof so it needs no confutation 4. But to come more close to the matter it is most plain and perspicuous that what they did was meerly by Art or by Art and Nature joined with it for if we may trust any thing to propriety of the words as we have proved sufficiently before they are called mechassephim praestigiatores that is Juglers such as by sleight of hand and nimble conveyance could perform strange and wonderful things and after they are called Hartummin that is Magicians such as had skill in natural things and by knowing their causes and making due and timely application of them to passives that were suitable could produce wonderful effects And if we seriously consider the few things that they performed they might easily be brought to pass by Legerdemain alone For as for holding a rod in their hands and seeming to throw it down upon the ground how soon might they throw down an artificial Serpent in its stead and immediately and unperceivedly make conveyance of the rod And if it be thought difficult or impossible I shall unriddle the mystery as I have sometimes seen it performed and is but thus The Jugler that is to perform this feat is usually provided before-hand with a wiar so twined and wrested that it may be pressed together with the little finger in the ball of the hand and when let loose it will extend it self like a spring and make a pretty motion upon a Table this is fitted with a suitable head and a piece of neatly painted linnen perfectly resembling a Serpent with Eyes and all This thus fitted he holdeth in his right hand betwixt his little finger and the
and incorporeal 4. There is nothing that is more undoubtedly true than what the Lord Verulam hath told us in these words Causa vero radix ferè omnium malorum in scientiis ea una est quod dum ment is humanae vires falso miramur extollimus vera ejus auxilia non quaeramus And again Subtilit as naturae subtilitatem sensûs intellectûs multis partibus superat the which may be proved from many undeniable instances which need not here be mentioned only we shall add what the aforesaid learned Lord speaks to the same purpose which is this The fault of sense is twofold For it either forsaketh or deceiveth us For first there are many things that escape the sense though rightly disposed and no way impeded either by the subtilty of the whole body or by the minuteness of the parts or by the distance of place or tardity and velocity of motion or by the familiarity of the object or by reason of other causes Neither again where the sense doth apprehend the thing are those apprehensions sufficiently firm For the testimony and information of sense is always from the Analogie of Man not from the Analogie of the Universe And it is altogether asserted with great error that sense is the measure of things Neither can these notions the Doctor would make so clear be had or gathered without some intimation from some of the senses 2. Further the Doctor tells us that the Idea of a Spirit is as easie a notion as of any other substance whatsoever And he also saith Nevertheless I shall not at all stick to affirm that his Idea or notion speaking of God is as easy as any notion else whatsoever and that we may know as much of him as of any thing else in the World This later he speaketh concerning God But that these assertions are unsound these following reasons will sufficiently evince 1. He doth define a Spirit thus A Spirit is a substance penetrable and indiscerpible Now if it be true that he affirms before that the subject or naked essence or substance of a thing is utterly unconceiveable to any of our faculties and that if we take away aptitudes operations properties and modifications from a subject that then the conception vanisheth into nothing but into the Idea of a meer undiversificated substance so that one substance is not then distinguishable from another but only from accidents or modes to which properly belongs no subsistence So then if we take away penetrability and indiscerpibility which are but the modes and properties of a Spirit whose genus he maketh substance to be then it vanisheth into an indistinguishable notion and so his definition comes to nothing 2. For if substances be known by their properties and modifications as we grant they are the modifications and properties must of necessity be some ways known unto us but there are no ways either by common notions evidence of the senses or sound deductions of reason that can certainly inform us of these properties or modifications of penetrability and indiscerpibility and the Doctor yet never proved either but is only a bare supposition and a melancholy figment 3. He tells us that all substance has dimensions that is length breadth and depth but all has not impenetrability and boldly saith It is not the Characteristical of a body to have dimensions but to be impenetrable to which we answer It is strongly asserted by learned Helmont that by the ultimate strength of nature bodies do sometimes penetrate themselves and one another and to that purpose he giveth convincing examples and concludeth thus from them Invenio equidem naturae contiguam dimensionum penetrationem licet non ordinariam And after saith thus Quibus constat corpora solida satis magna penetrasse stomachum intestina uterum omentum abdomen pleuram vesicam membranas inquam tanti vulneris impatientes Id est absque vulnere cultros per istas membranas transmissos Quod aequivalet penetrationi dimensionum factae in natura absque ope Diaboli And to the same purpose that most acute person Dr. Glisson handling this very point saith Verum enimverò si sola quantitas actualis sit causa impenetrabilitatis corporum ut ex supra dictis liquet eaque sit naturaliter mutabilis quid impedit ne substantia materialis aliam substantiam mutatâ quantitate novâque simul assumptâ utrisque communi penetret And therefore we may as confidently deny his assumption that Impenetrability is the Characteristical of body as he affirm it without proof and must with all the whole company of the learned assign Extension to be the true and Genuine Character of Body And further he granting that substance hath length breadth and depth we must of necessity conclude that whatsoever hath those properties must needs be material and corporeal and so that which he would make to be Spirit is meerly Body 4. Whereas he saith that the notion of Spirit is as easy a notion as any other whatsoever it is granted but is not at all to the purpose for our inquiry need not be of the facility of a notion but of the verity of it that is of the congruity and adequation of the notion and the thing from whence it is taken otherwise though the notion be easy yet without an adequate congruity to the thing it is meerly false As for instance when a melancholy person doth verily imagine himself to be changed into a Wolf or Dog it is not only an easy notion but also it is truly a notion and yet a false notion because there is no true congruity betwixt it and the thing from whence it is taken the Body of the person so conceiving being not at all changed into Wolf or Dog but still retaining its humane shape and figure And therefore the Lord Verulam doth to this point speak truly and clearly in these words Itaque si notiones ipsae mentis quae verborum quasi anima sunt totius hujusmodi structurae ac fabricae basis malè ac temere à rebus abstractae vagae nec satis definitae circumscriptae denique multis modis vitiosae fuerint omniaruunt And therefore the Doctor might very well have considered whether these his new notions had been fitly and rightly drawn from the things to which he doth so confidently affix them before he had so boldly asserted them which though they be truly his notions that is that he did think conceive and frame them yet they are not truly abstracted from the things And so he may be rather judged to be led by speculative and Philosophick Euthusiasm than by the clear light of a sound understanding 5. And concerning his Tenent that the Idea or Notion of God is a◠easy as the notion of any thing else whatsoever that the notion may be easy we grant but whether it be true and adequate there lies the question For those
blood or affinity Also money was given as was said to the Poysoners instead of inheritance But when they had murthered the Brother and only Son of one Necus and that scarcely others than the Masters of Families themselves or their Sons did perish And that also they had marked that into what Houses those Conspirators had insinuated themselves that those for the most part did perish into whose Houses they entred but the Conspiracy being found out they were all put to death with most exquisite torments They also confessed that they had determined to kill all the Citizens upon a Festival day by anointing the Seats and to that purpose they had prepared twenty Pots full of that pernicious and hellish Ointment And Paracelsus tells us that at St. Vitum and Villacum certain of the Poyson-makers in the time of a Plague did take the Earth and Dust from the Graves of those that had been buried and did so prepare it with their Magical Art that they raised up a most cruel and raging Plague whereby many thousands of men were infected and slain But that the manner of that preparation is by no means to be revealed Those that desire more satisfaction in this particular may have recourse to that learned Treatise de Peste written by the learned and industrious Matthias Untzerus 5. But there is no where a more strange accident written than what is recorded in our own Annals in the year 1579. the nineteenth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in these words The 4 5 and 6. days of July were the Assises holden at Oxford where was arraigned and condemned one Rouland Jenkes for his Seditious Tongue at which time there arose such a damp that almost all were smothered very few escaped that were not taken at that instant The Jurors died presently Shortly after died Sir Robert Bell Lord Chief Baron Sir Robert de Olie Sir William Babington M r Weneman M r De Olie High Sheriff M r Davers M r Farcurt M r Kirle M r Pheteplace M r Greenwood M r Foster Serjeant Baram M r Stevens c. There died in Oxford 300. persons and sickned there but died in other places 200. and odd from the sixth of July to the twelfth of August after which day died not one of that sickness for one of them infected not another nor any one Woman or Child died thereof This is the punctual relation according to our English Annals which relate nothing of what should be the cause of the arising of such a damp just at the Conjuncture of time when Jenkes was Condemned there being none before and so it could not be a Prison Infection for that would have manifested it self by smell or by operating sooner But to take away all scruple and to assign the true Cause it was thus It fortuned that a Manuscript fell into my hands collected by an antient Gentleman of York who was a great observer and gatherer of strange things and facts who lived about the time of this accident happening at Oxford wherein it is related thus That Rouland Jenkes being imprisoned for treasonable words spoken against the Queen and being a Popish Recusant had notwithstanding during the time of his restraint liberty sometimes to walk abroad with a Keeper and that one day he came to an Apothecary and shewed him a receipt which he desired him to make up but the Apothecary upon the view of it told him that it was a strong and dangerous receipt and required some time to prepare it but also asked him to what use he would apply it he answered to kill the Rats that since his Imprisonment spoiled his Books so being satisfied he promised to make it ready After a certain time he cometh to know if it were ready but the Apothecary said the ingredients were so hard to procure that he had not done it and so gave him the receipt again of which he had taken a Copy which mine Author had there precisely written down but did seem so horribly poysonous that I cut it forth lest it might fall into the hands of wicked persons But after it seems he had got it prepared and against the day of his tryal had made a week or wick of it for so is the word that is so fitted that like a Candle it might be fired which as soon as ever he was Condemned he lighted having provided himself a Tinder-box and Steel to strike fire And whosoever should know the ingredients of that Wick or Candle and the manner of the Composition will easily be perswaded of the virulency and venenous effects of it and this in him in regard of the use and end was meerly Diabolical though th◠agency and effects were meer natural 6. It is very strange to consider what learned and grave Authors have left recorded of the Ligation or binding of Husbands that they might not be viripotent or be able to have to do with their Wives for a longer or a shorter time nay some even have proceded so faras to write it and seem also to believe it that by venifice or Witchcraft the virile members may be quite taken away as is related by Codronchius of a certain young man that had his members quite taken away by a Woman Witch which notwithstanding she restored again by beating and putting her in the fear of death And of this incredible story Sennertus a professed maintainer of the impossible power of Witches doth notwithstanding give this censure The Devil doth often delude men by prestigious and jugling deceits and perswadeth them that he hath brought such Diseases as indeed are none at all as this taking away the virile member related by Baptista Codronchius For although some be of that opinion that the genital members may really be taken away and restored by the Devil notwithstanding he saith I had rather hold with those that believe such things are meer juglings and delusions seeing it is not in the power of the Devil to restore unto man a member lost or taken away The most learned Lord Bacon doth affirm that this kind of Ligation or binding to make men impotent for Coition is frequent in Santonne and Gascoigne and is used to be done upon the Marriage day and that it is often performed by the Mothers to prevent that incantation by others and that they may loose it when they please And doth think it no light matter because punishable by their laws And saith after If it exceed not nature it hath its force from the Imagination of the binder of the virile member and adds Putem ego illud ab incantatione alienum esse quia non à certis personis tantum quales incantatores sed à quolibet fieri potest But that which puts it forth of all doubt that it is nothing but melancholy and the abuse of the fancy is manifest from the observation of perspicacious Salmuth which is this I have known two he saith who did imagine themselves impotent
to the act of Venery and thought themselves maleficiated or bewitched when as before they had afforded themselves sufficiently strenuous in that warfar also with their Wives But both being he saith handled and cured by me as persons melancholick and Hypochondriacal have afterwards sufficiently laughed at themselves But I did conjecture them to be melancholick by this because they did complain that about that act they were overwhelmed with an heap of Cogitations From whence it is manifest from what cause that effect did proceed And therefore it is deservedly doubted of Wierus whether or no there be any true impotency at all but what is from natural Causes 7. That the most of those vomitings of strange things is only caused from natural Causes as poysonous Potions Philters and the like is manifest by another example given us by that famous Chymist and learned Physician of Frisuiga in Bavaria Martinus Rulandus which is this David Held Student in the Arts about the twentieth year of his Age did receive from a wicked Woman Cakes which he did eat and departing from her forthwith in the way he began to doat and being brought home he began to rage more and fell into madness And to help this madness the Students came unto me and declare the insanity the Philter that he had taken and his being infected or brought into that madness by it and desire some help against it To oppose which he saith I gave six Ounces of my Aqua Benedicta which I commanded straightway to be given him in the name of Jesus And this being taken soon after by vomiting he cast up the Philter or invenomed Cakes that he had swallowed which being cast upon the Earth they did with the admiration of the by-standers begin to wax hot and to boil as meat with the fire doth grow hot and boil So that this poison being cast up as a thing unhoped for soon after the insanity is driven away and within two days his understanding was perfectly restored and by the power of the Almighty did totally recover So that it is manifest that these kind of people that are commonly called Witches are indeed as both the Greek and Latin names do signifie Poysoners and in respect of their Hellish intentions are Diabolical but the effects they procure flow from natural Causes If any require more ample satisfaction in this point they may find divers Histories recorded in Schenkins his Observations lib. 7. de venenis to verifie this particular 8. There is no one Argument that doth more confirm that what effects soever Devils or those called Witches do bring to pass in humane bodies are wrought by natural means and proceed from natural causes Because what diseases soever are cured by natural causes and agents must of necessity be brought into humane bodies by natural means But many diseases attributed to the Devil or Witches as instruments have been cured by natural means and applications as we shall prove both by authorities and matters of fact And therefore those diseases must of necessity grow and arise from natural causes And for authority we find Helmont affirming thus much And also partly the curing of these diseases is to be had by certain Simples to which the omnipotent goodness hath given a gift from the beginning of the Creation of resisting preventing and correcting of Veneficia Witchcrafts or poysonings and of bringing forth things injected For he saith certain Simples do drive away evil spirits a miserable company of Men who give worship to Gods that are not able to resist the natural efficacy of Simples and reckons some that take away the penetration of the formal light tied to the excrements Some do hinder the touch entrance or application And that there are many such like that do correct the poysons and kill them And chiefly he commendeth the Electrum minerale immaturum of Paracelsus the Phu of Dioscorides being a kind of Valerian with purple flowers and likewise there commemorateth diverse others To confirm this assertion of Helmonts we shall transcribe what the Honourable person Mr. Boyle hath set down to this purpose Since the beginning of this Essay he saith I saw a lusty and very sprightful Boy child to a famous Chymical Writer I judge it to be Joachimus Poleman who as his Father assured me and others being by some enemies of this Physicians when he was yet an infant so bewitcht that he constantly lay in miserable torment and still refusing the breast was reduced by pain and want of food to a desperate condition the experienced relator of the story remembring that Helmont attributes to the Electrum minerale immaturum Paracelsi the virtue of relieving those whose distempers come from Witchcraft did according to Helmonts prescription hang a piece of this noble mineral about the infants neck so that it might touch the pit of the Stomach whereupon presently the child that could not rest in I know not how many dayes and nights before fell for a while asleep and waking well cried for the Teat which he greedily suckt from thenceforth hastily recovering to the great wonder both of the Parents and several others that were astonisht at so great and quick a change And though I am not forward he saith to impute all those diseases to Witchcraft which even learned Men father upon it yet it 's considerable in our present case that whatsoever were the cause of the disease the distemper was very great and almost hopeless and the cure suddenly performed by an outward application and that of a Mineral in which compacted sort of bodies the finer parts are thought to be lockt up Another example he giveth us in these words The same Henricus ab Heer among his freshly commended observations hath another of a little Lady whom he concludes to have been cast into the strange and terrible distemper which he there particularly records by Witchcraft Upon so severe an examination of the Symptomes made by himself in his own house that if notwithstanding his solemn professions of veracity he mis-relate them not I cannot wonder he should confidently impute so prodigious a disease to some supernatural cause But though the observation with its various circumstances be very well worth your perusing yet that for which I here take notice of it is what he adds about the end of it concerning his having cured her after he had in despair of her recovery sent her back to her Parents by an outward medicine namely an Oyntment which he found extolled against pains produced by Witchcraft in a Dutch book of Carrichter's where also I remember I met with it set down a little differently from what he delivers But to conclude this tedious particular I shall only add one observation more from learned Salmuth which is this The servant Maid he saith of Caesars à Breitenbach was taken with a most intense pain of her left arm which when it did not at all remit or abate but that the dolour was augmented
more and more and that no tumour nor any other preternatural thing did outwardly appear the beholders did fear some sort of venefice or Witchcraft Therefore they apply a well tryed medicine which in such a case is said to be much approved to wit red Corals well beaten with the leaves of Oak and with Rose-water brought into the form of a Cataplasm and leave it on for the space of 24 hours In which space of time the place is brought to suppuration and within as many more hours the same remedy being applyed again the abscess is broken and in it needles hairs and burnt coals are found All these together with the Amulet they put into an hole made with an Augur or Gimlet in the root of an Oak towards the East in the morning before the Sun rise and they stopped up the same hole with a wedge or pin made of the wood of the same Tree The pain thereupon plainly ceaseth and the place is with other medicaments brought to Cicatrization But some deriding such things and thinking them to be prestigious delusions do pull them forth of the hole again Hereupon forthwith that miserable servant was again afflicted with cruel pains more raging than the former Therefore they repeat the former medicaments and more copious matter doth issue forth which being taken together with the Amulet and put in the former place in the Oak all the pains did forthwith vanish and she afterwards lived altogether sound And so I conceive that by these reasons authorities and instances of matters of fact it is sufficiently proved that what Devils or Witches work in humane bodies or in corporeal matter is by applying fit actives to suitable passives and so the effects are only produced by natural causes and means which was the thing I undertook to make good The next thing that in this Chapter we have to consider and examine is the opinion of Johannes Baptista van Helmont that great Physician Philosopher and Chymist which we shall open in these particulars 1. He reciteth a large Catalogue of things that are in a most strange manner brought or injected into the bodies of Men and Women as darts thorn-pricks or pins chaff hairs dust of wood that hath been sawed little stones egg-shels and pieces of pots hulls and husks or swads insects things of linen needles and the instruments of artificers which have been injected insensibly and entred altogether in an invisible manner but were detained and ejected with direful pains and tortures And that sometimes they are greater than the holes or passages by which they are intromitted 2. And to confirm this assertion he bringeth instances of matters of fact as these following For he saith of late there was a part of an Oxe-hide injected by the pores of the skin it being intire which the Chirurgeon did draw forth with a pair of Forceps it being of the magnitude of the ball of a Mans hand the Apostume first being ripened And a Witch burned at Bruges did confess that she had injected that hide into the good man So he saith we have in times past seen at Lira the children of Orphans to have cast up by vomit an artificial Horse and Cart drawn forth by the hands of the by-standers to wit a four footed board accompanied with its ropes and wheel And what way soever it were placed it was easily greater than the double throat Further he saith I have seen at Antwerp in the year 1622. a young Maid who had vomited perhaps two thousand pins conglomerated together and with them hairs and filth Another Maid he saith at Mechlin in the year 1631 who we being present did vomit up shavings of wood or chips cut off in plaining with the Hatchet with much slimy stuff to the magnitude of two fists It is he saith a frequent thing every where admitted by learned Men. Upon which we will only give these Animadversions 1. That things as strange as these that Helmont seems to avouch of his own sight and knowledge are also attested by other persons of great learning and credit as besides what we have immediately before shewed from Salmuth of the needles hairs and burnt coals that came forth of the Maids arm these examples may ratifie We will pass by Sprenger Bodin Remigius and Del Rio as Pontificial Authors and therefore partial and interested only in the first place we shall give this from Alexander Benedictus who telleth this That he saw two Women his neighbours upon one day being infected by potions of evil medicaments who afterwards were wonderfully tormented with strange vomitings That the one cast up with great strainings an head bodkin very great bended like an hook with a great lump of Womens hair wrapped with the pairing of nails who died the day following The other vomited up a Womans Quoif pieces of glass with three dried pieces of a Dogs tail that was hairy so that she had voided by vomiting as much if set together as would have equalized the quantity of the whole tail But the most strange story that possibly can be read is recorded by Thomas Bartholinus who was Physician to Frederick the third King of Denmark of Anna Erici who vomited up at several times a piece of sharp wood great store of black blood an hem or fring of silk or linen cloath of a blew colour sowed with a green thred in which were hid three pieces of lead two pieces of glass three Almonds three pieces of a Tobacco-pipe and white stones or flints And afterwards many other horrid strange and incredible things that may be read in the place quoted in the Margent 2. It would seem a point of strange Scepticism or infidelity to distrust and reject these relations as lies and fictions seeing the Authors that recite them do for the most part attest them upon their own view or knowledge or at least from unquestionable eye-witnesses and that they were Men of great Reputation and Credit that lived in several Countrys and in different times and therefore could not conspire in a lie 3. But notwithstanding all this we find persons of great learning and sober judgments to use much hesitation about these things and either to suspend their belief of them as having never seen any such things themselves and therefore may well conclude as many Wise Men do that he that hath seen a thing may better believe it than he that hath not seen it or else are utterly diffident and believe no such matters of fact at all And indeed there is no greater folly than to be very inquisitive and laborious to find out the causes of such a Phenomenon as never had any existence and therefore Men ought to be cautious and be fully assured of the truth of the effect before they adventure to explicate the cause And I find both my Lord Bacon and that honourable and learned person Mr. Boyle when they have occasion to mention these things do it with extream caution
to the Oaken pin that it had not by nature for in probability it will constantly by a natural power produce the same effect only thus far the Devil had a hand in the action to draw some wicked person to fix the pin there where the Man was accustomed to make water thereby to hurt and torture him and so was only evil in respect of the end 3. We observe and affirm that whatsoever effects are brought to pass by that which is commonly called and accounted Witchcraft if they be not brought to pass by jugling confederacy delusion and imposture as the most of them are if not all then they are performed either by meer natural causes or the strength of the Witches fancy and most vehement desire of doing of mischief to those she hateth or by both joined together and that Satan is no further an author or actor but as he leadeth and draweth the minds of the Witches to do such mischievous actions and pusheth on to seek about to learn of others such secret poysons charms images and other hidden things that being used so or so may produce such destructive ends as their wicked and diabolical purposes are led to and in this sense they are his clients and bounden vassals and not otherwise 4. The stories that he relateth are either all to be taken to be true or none of them and if they be all alike equally to be credited then it will undeniably follow that they were all alike produced by natural causes and so no need at all of the Devils assistance in performing of them no more than by working upon the minds of such as used those natural means to a wicked and mischievous end For first he giveth these instances of things that were very strange that were voided either by vomit or stool by the ordinary power of nature without suspicion of diabolical cooperation as the voiding of the piece of the brass Cannon with its letters with the Eele wrapped in its secundines The Dragon that the Oxe voided by taking three herbs with a tail like an Eele a body like or of leather with a Serpentine head and not less than a Partridge The knife that the Thieves forced a man to swallow which he voided by an Apostume in the side and was after sound also the arrow head of three fingers broad strucken into the back and after voided by stool with diverse such which we recited before And that these being solid bodies should have penetrated and passed through parts that are impatient of wounds and in which a wound is mortal must of necessity be very wonderful and might as soon and upon as rational grounds be taken to be diabolical as those that he enumerateth to be so For from these it is manifest that either nature put to her last pinch doth make penetration of dimensions or else so inlarge the pores that those solid bodies may pass without wound which if seriously considered is a stupendious operation and effect And as there needeth no cooperation of a diabolical power for the performing of these no more needeth there any concurrence of Devils to the others that to that purpose he relateth Only here is all the difference these are wrought by the ultimate endeavour of the Archaeus to save life without the concurrence of external causes the others that are therefore called diabolical are commonly wrought for a bad end namely to hurt or to take away life and have an external cause to wit the force of the Witches imagination and strong desire of doing of mischief which is stirred up to that end by Satan and therefore in regard of the end are devilish though they be both wrought by the agency of nature the one in the body of the imaginant the other in the body that the Witch intendeth to hurt by the force of her imagination and vehement desire whereby a seminal Idea is created or formed which is sufficiently operative to accomplish the end intended 5. The arguments that he bringeth to prove penetration of dimensions to be in nature or something equivalent thereunto seem to be strong and convincing For in the generation of things whosoever shall seriously and strictly mark shall find as he alledgeth that the spirit of the Archeus though not altogether incorporeal doth in the seeds of things penetrate it self and their parts one another which he further maketh good by the instance of Gold generated of water for it must of necessity be that more than fifteen parts of water must fall in or penetrate one another that from thence one part of Gold may be made for weight is not of nothing but argueth the matter ponderous in the Ballance Therefore naturally the water must so oft penetrate its body as the Gold doth preponderate the water And though it be granted that the water hath pores yet notwithstanding it cannot contain so much as fourteen times it whole And therefore he irrefragably concludeth Est ergo ordinarium in natura quod aliquae partes aquae se penetrent in unicum locum And this he backs with an unanswerable story of a Woman that longing for Muscles did in greediness eat some of them with the shells twice or thrice broken with her teeth and that she brought forth a child with the same half eaten shells and a wound in the belly therefore those shells had penetrated the stomach womb and secundines or otherwise the force of the Archeus had opened the pores and letten them pass in an unconceiveable manner So that if these things be granted to be true and we confess we know not how they can be answered then there need no diabolical power be brought to solve the injecting of strange things into mens bodies seeing nature is sufficient of it self and therefore we can allow no power at all unto Devils in effecting these things if they be truly done and be not delusions but only in drawing the minds of the Witches to these wicked and mischievous courses and therefore the Lord Bacon said profoundly and wisely these words Ut in operationibus illis earumque causis error cavendus est ita quoque danda vel imprimis opera est ne effecta nobis imponant temere judicantibus talia esse quae eousque nondum processerunt Sic prudentes judices praescripta velut norma fidem haberi temere nolunt confessionibus sagarum nec etiam factorum contra illas probationi Sagas enim turbat imaginationis vertigo ut putent se illud facere quod non faciunt populumque hîc ludit credulitas ut naturae opera imputent fascino 6. And to confirm this point he addeth far more stupendious matters of fact than the former of things that were within being taken to without or invisibly conveyed away as the woman at Mechlin that saw the Souldier in a conflict lose his hand and forthwith brought forth a Daughter wanting an hand which was never found and the wench died of the Haemorrhage
Another at Antwerpe seeing a Souldier begging with his right arm shot off and bloody forthwith brought forth a Daughter wanting the right arm whose bloody shoulder the Chirurgeon cured and she was married after and that the arm was never found neither did there appear any bones or putrefied matter into which the arm might waste Also another Woman going to see the Decollation of thirteen men did soon after bring forth a mature Child with a bloody neck the head no where appearing I confess it would rack the judgment even of the most credulous to the highest pitch to believe these unparallel'd Stories but the Author relating them as of his own knowledge and being a person of unquestionable veracity I cannot conceive how they can rationally be denied especially finding M r Boyle to affirm that in those experiments much more relations of matters of fact that Helmont avouched upon his own knowledge he durst be his Compurgator Who would not believe but that these things could never have been done but by a supernatural and Diabolical power but that this Author to which all judicious persons in reason may adhere doth utterly deny that the arm was either pull'd away or conveyed none can tell whither by Satan and therefore that in such a strange Paradox trivial reasons are not to be allowed and it were too much sloathfulness to ascribe all effects unto Satan of which we are ignorant And therefore if an hand an arm nay an whole head could be separated from the rest of the body and conveyed forth of the Womb by the Archeus or natural spirit thereunto excited by the impression of horror and terror in the Women In like manner by the same power of the natural spirit of man or woman excited by a vehement and fierce imagination to revenge and to do mischief may strange things be injected if there can be any sound proof of such a matter of fact into the bodies of such men or women as the Witches intend to do hurt unto and yet Satan hath no more hand in it but only as a spiritual agent to move the wills of those wicked and malicious people to do mischief unto those that they hate though without cause And the great secret of that which may be called Witching is the learning of others who likewise have had it by tradition the great force of imagination and the natural spirit with the ways and means how to excite it and exalt it herein stands the mystery of all Magick and it becomes only evil in the use and application and they are to be condemned that use it to such devillish ends even as those that use those good Creatures that nature doth produce to poysonous wicked and destructive purposes And lastly here we may note that if things or bodies that are without may be injected into the bodies of others by the force of exalted imagination and a vehement desire then the same power that doth inject them through skin flesh and bones must also be able to bring them near to the place and need not at all the assistance of Satan because it is far easier to carry them near the place than to thrust them into the body and so this Author hath here introduced the Devils aid to bring them to the place to no purpose and never yet proved either by reason or matter of fact that ever Satan did any such thing and so is a meer supposition without proof 7. The other matters of fact that he relateth are prodigious and are brought to prove that Satan is an actor to convey these strange things into the bodies of men and are these A piece of an Oxe Hide taken forth of a mans Arm so also that Equuleum a Wood-Horse or a four-footed board with a wheel and ropes twice as broad as the gullet Another that vomited up perhaps two thousand pins conglomerated together with filth and hairs another that vomited up he being present wooden Chips that had been cut off with the Hatchet in smoothing of wood with much slime to the bigness of two fists of which we shall note these Conclusions 1. It doth no way appear if these things be granted to be true both for matter and manner neither doth he offer to prove it that these are any more than the former Diabolical but only in the end because they are for the hurt and destruction of mankind and not otherwise and there being no proof of the Devils Cooperation any further but in working upon the minds of those that are agents and instruments to bring these things to pass we may very well reject those things that are supposed but not proved 2. The ejecting or voiding of such strange things as here he hath related doth not necessarily suppose their injection or thrusting in because they may be bred there by natural Causes so Worms of many sorts and strange Figures also Frogs Dracunculos and Askers have been voided and doubtlesly bred there by natural causes and were not injected or thrust in and for proof of this I refer the Reader to the relations of learned Schenchius lib. 3. p. 363. of those strange sorts of Worms and other Creatures that he from divers Authors sheweth have been vomited up which without all scruple were not injected but bred there To confirm this and to prove what strange things are sometimes bred in Apostumes and Tumors we shall translate a passage or two and first take this from Levinus Lemnius that learned and famous Physician of Zeland who writeth thus Also forth of sordid Ulcers and Impostures he saith we have known that the fragments of nails hairs shells little bones and stones have been taken forth which were concreted and grown together forth of putrid humours As also little creatures worms with tails and little beasts of an unaccustomed form cast up by vomiting especially in those who were oppressed with contagious diseases in whose urines I have often discerned to swim little Animalcles like to Pismires or to those creatures we observe in the estival months to move in the celestial dew here in England we call it Woodsoar or Cuckow-spittle Take another from that learned and expert Chirurgeon Ambrosius Paraeus where he is speaking of strange tumors in these words Also in these tumors being opened thou maist see bodies of all kinds and far differing from the common matter of Tumors as stones chalk sand coals cockles ears of corn hay horn hairs flesh as well hard as spongious grisles bones and whole Animalcles as well living as dead The generation of which things by the corruption and alteration of the humors will not much astonish us if we consider that even as nature hath framed Man as a Microcosm forth of all the seeds and elements of the whole great world that he might be as it were the lively image of that great world So in that Microcosm nature hath willed that all the species of all motions and actions might be manifest nature being
never idle in us as long as matter is not a wanting to work upon So that it is most plain that these strange things may be bred within and so the opinion of injecting them is but a meer figment 3. Neither can the vomiting up of such strange things as he relateth conclude necessarily that they were injected either by the power of Satan or the Witch because they may be performed by jugling sleight of hand confederacy and the like as was manifest in the Boy of Bilson and diverse that we have known that had made some numbers of others to believe that they had voided strange things as pins needles crooked-knitting-pricks moss nails and the like but upon a strickt search have but proved delusions and sleight such as our common Hocus Pocus Men use when they make the people believe they swallow a long pudding of white tinn and again pull it forth of their mouths or in pulling ribbins or laces of diverse colours forth of their throats 4. And again the most of these relations are but commonly taken upon trust from the affirmations of the by-standers who might be confederate parties or ignorant persons and so easily deceived and it appeareth not that Helmont was by at the very instant when the children vomited up the wooden horse or fourfooted board but that it was the by-standers that drew it forth who might be parties to the cheat or be themselves deluded and so aver it pertinaciously to others For I have in my practice known a young Wench about 9 or 10 years old who that she might be pittied and have an idle life had made her Father and Mother believe that quick worms came forth at her ear and also I taking her into mine own house she had perswaded all the family that it was true and did often open her head-cloaths and holding down her ear a quick worm would drop forth of the hair who notwithstanding by diligent watching was found out to get them privately from under stones or wood and so did cunningly convey them into her hair but being discovered was by due correction reclaimed and so the wonder ceased And it is as common to mistake things either by absolute judging them to be such a thing indeed when it hath but some slender resemblance of it or by judging a thing to be really so because of such a name but metaphorically given unto it so it is usual to call a Carcinoma in the highest degree Lupus or a Wolf because as a Wolf is a most voracious creature so this ulcer is the most devouring of all others and therefore have we known after that such have been by incision eradicated by our selves and others and exposed to the view of the vulgar people they would presently most earnestly affirm to others that they had seen it and that it was a living creature and had mouth eyes and ears so far will ignorant mistake induce credulity 8. That the force of imagination accompanied with the passions of horror fear envy malice earnest desire of revenge and the like is great upon the body imaginant as also upon the foetus in the womb is acknowledged by all But that it can at distance work upon another body though denied by Fienus and the whole rabble of the Schoolmen yet is strongly proved by this learned Author and allowed of by all others that truly understood the operations of nature which we also take to be a certain truth and do assert that if those people that are esteemed Witches do really and truly of which we utterly doubt inject any of these strange things into the bodies of men that they are brought to pass meerly by the imagination of the Witch and the Devil acteth nothing in it at all but the setting of his will upon that mischief As for the handling the dispute concerning the manner of the injecting of these strange things so strongly pursued by this Author Sennertus and others we shall totally supersede and suspend our judgment until the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be sufficiently proved which yet lies under water and unseen and then it will be time enough to dispute the manner when the matter is certainly made evident Therefore we will shut up this with that modest and grave advice of the Lord Bacon in these words Ideo cogemur in hac inquisitione ad nova experimenta confugere ubi directiones tantùm eorum praescribi possunt non ulla positiva in medium adferri Si quis putet subsistendum nobis fuisse donec tentamentis res penitus innotuisset ut fecisse nos ubique probant alii tituli sciat dubia nos fide amplecti quaecunque imaginationis effecta circumferuntur animum tamen esse illa per otium exigere ad Lydium veritatis lapidem id est experimentorum lucem CHAP. XIII That the ignorance of the power of Art and Nature and such like things hath much advanced these foolish and impious opinions THE opinions that we reject as foolish and impious are those we have often named before to wit that those that are vulgarly accounted Witches make a visible and corporeal contract with the Devil that he sucks upon their bodies that he hath carnal copulation with them that they are transubstantiated into Cats Dogs Squirrels and the like or that they raise tempests and fly in the air Other powers we grant unto them to operate and effect whatsoever the force of natural imagination joyned with envy malice and vehement desire of revenge can perform or perpetrate or whatsoever hurt may be done by secret poysons and such like wayes that work by meer natural means And here we are to shew the chief causes that do and have advanced these opinions and this principally we ascribe to mens ignorance of the power of Nature and Art as we shall manifest in these following particulars 1. There is nothing more certain than that how great soever the knowledge of Men be taken to be yet the ultimate Sphere of natures activity or ability is not perfectly known which is made most manifest in this that every day there are made new discoveries of her secrets which prove plainly that her store is not yet totally exhausted nor her utmost efficiency known And therefore those Men must needs be precipicious and build upon a sandy foundation that will ascribe corporeal effects unto Devils and yet know not the extent of nature for no Man can rationally assign a beginning for supernatural agents and actions that does not certainly know where the power and operation of nature ends 2. And as it is thus in general so in many particulars as especially in being ignorant of many natural agents that do work at a great distance and very occultly both to help and to hurt as in the weapon salve the Sympathetick powder the curing of diseases by mumial applications by Amulets Appensions and Transplantions which all have been and commonly are ascribed unto Satan when they are truly wrought
by natural operations And so as we have sufficiently manifested before by many strange and secret poysons both natural and artificial that have no bewitching power in them at all but work naturally and only may be hurtful in their use through the devilishness of some persons that use them to diverse evil ends 3. There is nothing that doth more clearly manifest our scanted knowledge in the secret operations of nature and the effects that she produceth than the late discoveries of the workings of nature both in the vegetable animal and mineral Kingdoms brought dayly to light by the pains and labours of industrious persons As is most evident in those many elucubrations and continued discoveries of those learned and indefatigable persons that are of the Royal Society which do plainly evince that hitherto we have been ignorant of almost all the true causes of things and therefore through blindness have usually attributed those things to the operation of Cacodemons that were truely wrought by nature and thereby not smally augmented and advanced this gross and absurd opinion of the power of Witches 4. Another great means in advancing these Tenents hath been Mens supine negligence in not searching into and experimenting the power of natural agents but resting satisfied in the sleepy notions of general rules and speculative Philosophy By which means a prejudice hath been raised against the most occult operations of nature and natural magick which is as Agrippa truly said The comprizer of great power full of most high mysteries and containeth the most profound contemplation nature power quality substance and virtue of most secret things and the knowledge of all nature to be condemned as the work of the Devil and hellish fiends which is the handmaid and instrument of the Almighty And from this diabolical pit of the ignorance of the power of nature especially when assisted by art have sprung up those black and horrid lies in the mouths of Erastus Conringius and above all of Kircherus denying the possibility of the transmutation of metals by the power of Art and Nature and ascribing the performance thereof by Paracelsus Lullius Sendinogius and others to the Devil so malevolent do men grow when they are led by nescience and ignorance 5. The ignorance of the strange and wonderful things that Art can bring to pass hath been no less a cause why the most admirable things that Art bringeth to pass by it are through blind ignorance ascribed unto Devils for so have many brave learned Artists and Mechanicians been accused for Conjurers as happened to Roger Bacon Dr. d ee Trithemius Cornelius Agrippa and many others when what they performed was by lawful and laudable art The strange things that the Mathematicks and Mechanicks can perform are hardly to be enumerated of which were those most wonderful catoptrical glasses mentioned by Nicero Aquilonius Baptista Porta and many others those wonderful engines in the shape of Birds Men Beasts and Fishes that do move sing hiss and many such like things mentioned by Heron of Alexandria and our Countryman Dr. Fludd and those that would have more ample sâ—tisfaction concerning the stupendious things that are produced by art may receive most large satisfaction in reading that most learned and elaborate Epistle written as a preface before the Book of Johannes Ernestus Burgravius called Biolychnium vel de lampade vitae mortis by Marcellus Uranckheim Doctor of both laws as also in reading that profound and mysterious piece written by Roger Bacon de admirabili potestate artis naturae de nullitate magiae with the learned notes of Dr. d ee upon it of which he saith this Ut videatur quod omnis potestas magica sit inferior his operibus indigna And therefore there can be nothing more unworthy than for any man that pretendeth to any portion of reason so far to dote or suffer himself to be led with ignorance and rashness as to ascribe those strange things that Nature and Art or both joined together do produce unto Devils And yet there is nothing that is more common not only by the blind vulgar but even by those that otherwise would be accounted learned and wise enough pride and folly attendeth the most of the Sons of Men. 6. Another gross mistake there is in supposing those strange things that are performed by vaulters tumblers dancers upon ropes and such like not possible to be done but by the assistance of the Devil when they are altogether brought to pass and effected by use custome exercise nimbleness and agility of body And yet we have known some not only of the popular rank but many that thought themselves both wise learned and religious that have been so blind as to father these things upon Devils and seriously to seem to believe that the actors of these things had made a league and compact with the Devil by whose help they performed them And I do remember that a pretty active young man within these few years went about in this North Countrey with a neat Bay Mare for money to shew tricks which were very odd and strange for if she had been blindfolded and several pieces of money taken from several persons and wrapped in a cloath the Mare would have given every one their own piece of money and this and many other feats she plaid were not only by the common people but by others that should have been more wise judged to be performed by no other means but by the Devil and some were so stark mad as to believe and affirm that the Mare was not a natural one but that it was the Devil that plaid those strange tricks in the shape of a Mare when more sober judgments knew that they were performed by the masters eye and rod directing the Mare Error credulitas multum in hominibus possunt 7. In like manner are often both those that are learned as well as the vulgar most wofully imposed upon by the odd and strange feats performed by Legierdemain sleight of hand and by wonderful things brought to pass by subtile and cunning Impostors that act by confederacy and the like of which we have given some instances before in this treatise And it was no evil piece of service that Master Scot did in his book of the discovery of Witchcraft when he laid open all the several tricks of Legierdemain and sleight of hand thereby to undeceive the ignorant multitude and that is no less praise-worthy that is performed by the Author of that little treatise called Hocus Pocus junior where all the feats are set forth in their proper colours so that the most ignorant may see how they are done and that they are miracles unknown and but bables being discovered which treatise I could commend to be read of all Witchmongers and vain credulous persons that thereby their ignorance may be laid open and they convinced of their errors 8. The ignorance or mistaking of these things joyned with the notions
what the matter was the people told me that it was the Boy that discovered Witches upon which I went to the house where he was to stay all night where I found him and two very unlikely persons that did conduct him and manage the business I desired to have some discourse with the Boy in private but that they utterly refused then in the presence of a great many people I took the Boy near me and said Good Boy tell me truly and in earnest did thou see and hear such strange things of the meeting of Witches as is reported by many that thou dost relate or did not some person teach thee to say such things of thy self But the two men not giving the Boy leave to answer did pluck him from me and said he had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace and they did never ask him such a question to whom I replied the persons accused had therefore the more wrong But the Assizes following at Lancaster there were seventeen found guilty by the Jury yet by the prudent discretion of the Judge who was not satisfied with the evidence they were reprieved and his Majesty and his Council being informed by the Judge of the matter the Bishop of Chester was appointed to examine them and to certifie what he thought of them which he did and thereupon four of them to wit Margaret Johnson Francis Dicconson Mary Spenser and Hargraves Wife were sent for up to London and were viewed and examined by his Majesties Physicians and Chirurgeons and after by his Majesty and the Council and no cause of guilt appearing but great presumptions of the boys being suborned to accuse them falsely Therefore it was resolved to separate the Boy from his Father they having both followed the women up to London they were both taken and put into several prisons asunder Whereupon shortly after the Boy confessed that he was taught and suborned to devise and feign those things against them and had persevered in that wickedness by the counsel of his Father and some others whom envy revenge and hope of gain had prompted on to that devillish design and villany and he also confessed that upon that day when he said that they met at the aforesaid house or barn he was that very day a mile off getting Plums in his Neighbours Orchard And that this is a most certain truth there are many persons yet living of sufficient reputation and integrity that can avouch and testifie the same and besides what I write is the most of it true upon my own knowledge and the whole I have had from his own mouth more than once Thus having brought these unquestionable Histories to manifest the horrid cheats and impostures that are practised for base wicked and devillish ends we must conclude in opposing that objection proposed in the beginning of this Chapter which is this That though some be discovered to be counterfeitings and impostures yet all are not so to which we surther answer 1. That all those things that are now adayes supposed to be done by Demoniacks or those that pretend possessions as also all those strange feats pretended to be brought to pass by Witches or Witchcraft are all either performed by meer natural causes for it is granted upon all sides that Devils in corporeal matter can perform nothing but by applying fit actives to agreeable passives And miracles being long since ceased it must needs follow that Devils do nothing but only draw the minds of Men and Women unto sin and wickedness and thereby they become deceivers cheats and notorious impostours so that we may rationally conclude that all other strange feats and delusions must of necessity be no better or of any other kind than these we have recited except they can shew that they are brought to pass by natural means Must not all persons that are of sound understanding judge and believe that all those strange tricks related by Mr. Glanvil of his Drummer at Mr. Mompessons house whom he calls the Demon of Tedworth were abominable cheats and impostures as I am informed from persons of good quality they were discovered to be for I am sure Mr. Glanvil can shew no agents in nature that the Demon applying them to fit patients could produce any such effects by and therefore we must conclude all such to be impostures 2. It is no sound way of reasoning from the principles of knowing either thereby to prove the existence of things or the modes of such existence because the principle of being is the cause of the principle of knowing and not on the contrary and therefore our not discovering of all Impostures that are or have been acted doth not at all conclude the rest that pass undiscovered are diabolical or wrought by a supernatural power for it ought first to be demonstrated that there are now in these days some things wrought by the power of Devils that are supernatural in elementary and corporeal matter which never was nor can be as from the testimonies of all the learned we have shewed before And therefore a man might as well argue that there are no more thieves in a Nation but those that are known and brought to condign punishment when there may be and doubtless are many more so likewise there are many hundreds of Impostures that pass and are never discovered but that will not at all rationally conclude that those must be diabolical that are not made known CHAP. XV. Of divers Creatures that have a real existence in Nature and yet by reason of their wonderous properties or seldom being seen have been taken for Spirits and Devils BEfore we come to speak of Apparitions in general we shall premise some few things by way of caution because there is not one subject that we know of in the World that is liable to so many mistakes by reason of the prepossessed fancies of men in adhering to those fictions of Spirits Fairies Hobgoblins and many such like which are continually heightned by ignorant education and vain melancholy fears We shall not mention those many apparitions that are frequently practised by forgery and confederacy for base ends and interests as have been commonly used in the time of Popery and attempted in our dayes though with little success As also by other persons for base lucre or worse intents of which we have known some notorious ones that have been discovered Neither shall we speak of those feigned ones that have been practised to hide thievery and roguery as we once knew that certain persons who stole mens sheep in the night did carry them away upon a thing made like a Bier covered with a white sheet by which means those that saw them took it to be an apparition and so durst not come near them and so the most part of the people of 3 or 4 Villages were terrified and the report was far spred that it was a walking spirit and yet at last discovered to be a cunning piece of
cannot be found nor read of having the unquestionable authority of sacred writ to avouch it 2. Another parallel unto it and of equal authority verity and perspicuity is the sending of the Angel Gabriel unto the Virgin Mary her seeing of him hearing of his salutation having discourse with him and seeing his departure both which are undoubted testimonies of the true and real appearance of good Angels even to sight and hearing 3. That sometimes the good Angels have been sent to the servants of God and have appeared and spoken unto them in dreams as that the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream and bade him to take unto him Mary his wife which was a blessed and clear apparition though in a dream in his sleep And likewise by the appearing of an Angel unto him in a dream he was warned to take the child and his mother and to flee into Aegypt and also again was commanded by an Angel after the death of Herod that appeared in a dream and bade him to take the young child and his mother and to go into the land of Israel 3. Of the visible apparition of evil Angels we scarce have any evidence at all in the Scriptures except we should take supposals for proofs or disputable places to be certain demonstrations or wrest and hale the word of God to make it serve our preconceived opinions For I do not find any one place in all the Scriptures where plainly and positively any apparition of evil spirits is recorded or that by any rational and necessary consequence such a visible appearance can be deduced or proved For we have clearly proved that the tempting of Evah by the Serpent doth not necessarily inferr that it was by a visible apparition but by a mental delusion and that that of Saul and the Woman of Endor or the Mistriss of the bottle was neither Samuel in Soul and Body nor his Soul alone neither the Devil in his shape we suppose we have evinced past answer and that the tempting of our blessed Saviour by Satan was internal or at least the greatest part of it so that there doth remain but little of certain proof of the apparition of Devils in that gross manner and so common and frequent as many do too peremptorily affirm yet for all this we think it rational to grant that as God hath in times past often sent messages by good Angels for the teaching counselling and comforting of his servants both audibly and visibly to be perceived so also that sometimes God might not only send evil Spirits internally and mentally to deceive and seduce the wicked as in the case of the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets but also visibly to appear to terrifie punish and destroy the wicked or to make way for the manifestation of his glory And the Scriptures that mention Demoniacks and such as are commonly said to be possessed though that were not by an essential inhesion but by an effective operation both upon the Souls and Bodies of the persons that were so affected and afflicted do plainly shew that the operative effects of the Devils power was both heard and seen by their words and actions So the Devils using the organs of the man in whom was the legion of them they besought Christ not to command them to go out into the deep but besought him to suffer them to go into the herd of swine Which plainly sheweth that their words were audible and were heard of the multitude that were by and the acts that they performed were visible enough for by the power of the Devil he brake the chains and fetters wherewithal he was bound and was driven of the Devil into the wilderness and that these Devils went forth of the man and entered in amongst the herd of swine by whose effective power the swine ran violently down a steep rock into the sea and were drowned And this doth plainly manifest the present operation of the Devils that was apparent both by the words and actions that were both to be seen and heard so that this in that large sense that it is usually taken in was a real apparition of Devils or at least equivalent thereunto For we do but here inquire after such appearances of Devils that do necessarily infer their presence in operating so in and upon creatures or corporeal matter that by sight hearing or other of the senses it may certainly be manifest to work above the ordinary power of nature and may induce us rationally by the testimony of our senses to believe that those things are brought to pass by those creatures that we call Demons as many of these persons who were said to have been or to be afflicted with Devils were in the days of our blâ—ssed Saviours remaining in the flesh 4. But though it be never so freely and fully granted that in the ages and times mentioned in the Old and New Testament nay it may be for a century or more after there were persons that were possessed and afflicted with Devils and also that for that time there were many miracles wrought Yet now it will be said that miracles are totally ceased as not being any way necessary to confirm the Gospel which is now established and setled This we confess is so strongly and convincingly proved by the Divines of the reformed Churches that we account him wilfully blind that will oppose it Yet notwithstanding all this that miracles are totally ceased I grant that there are some strange things that have happened in late ages and some in our own time that cannot be any way solved by meer ordinary natural causes and apparitions made by some kind of creatures that must be derived from some such causes as those of good or bad Spirits or from creatures of the like nature And that though miracles be ceased it will not therefore follow that every thing that hath a cause above or differing from the usual and ordinary course of nature must be also ceased for quanquam nunc non sint miracula possint tamen esse miranda and though that miracles be ceased yet it will not follow that apparitions are so also because apparitions are not miracles for a good Angel to be sent and to appear cannot be said to be a miracle because it is the end for which he was created they that is the Angels are all ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And it cannot be said otherwise of evil Angels or of any other creatures that may make these apparitions for as they are and must be creatures so there is and must be some certain ends for which they were created and are imployed unto 5. But to prove the truth of apparitions or other strange Phenomena's equivalent unto them as to have been truly performed as matters of fact is extream difficult and almost impossible because the Histories and relations of things of this nature are
President of a National Synod in those parts to whom also the said Perreaud was well known who was a religious well poised venerable Divine And M r Boyle saith that he had had converse with this pious Author at Geneva and had inquired after the Writer and some passages of the Book which overcame all his setled indisposedness to believe strange things The Character given of this Author and the assent of such learned persons to the things related have gained an ample suffrage to give credit to them also But notwithstanding all this there are many passages in the relation that a quick-sighted Critick would find to be either contradictory or inconsistent and it cannot rationally be thought that he was a Cacodemon his actions were so harmless civil and ludicrous and if he were to be believed and in some things he did speak truth and the Minister himself M r Perreaud did in some things give credit to him he was no Devil but hoped to be saved by Jesus Christ. But whether a Devil or not yet the story for substance doth sufficiently prove the existence of such kind of Demons that can work strange and odd feats 4. M r Baxter a person of great learning and piety whose judgment bears great sway with me speaking of Apparitions saith thus I know many are very incredulous herein and will hardly believe that there have been such Apparitions For my own part he saith though I am as suspicious as most in such reports and do believe that most of them are conceits or delusions yet having been very diligently inquisitive in such Cases I have received undoubted testimony of the truth of such Apparitions some from the mouths of men of undoubted honesty and godliness and some from the report of multitudes of persons who heard or saw Were it fit here to name the persons I could send you to them yet living by whom you would be as fully satisfied as I Houses that have been so frequently haunted with such terrors that the inhabitants successively have been witnesses of it 7. Though some of these last recited testimonies might sufficiently convince the most obstinate and incredulous that there are Apparitions and some other such strange accidents that cannot be solved by the supposed principles of matter and motion but that do necessarily require some other causes that are above or different from the visible and ordinary course of nature yet because it is a point dark and mystical and of great concern and weight we shall add some unquestionable testimonies either from our own Annals or matters of fact that we know to be true of our own certain knowledge that thereby it may undoubtedly appear that there are effects that exceed the ordinary power of natural causes and may for ever convince all Atheistical minds of which in this order 1. In the first year of Edward the Sixth Anno Domini 1551. on St. Valentines day at Feversham in Kent one Arden a Gentleman was murthered by procurement of his own Wife for the which fact she was the fourteenth of March burnt at Canterbury Michael M r Arden's Man was hang'd in Chains at Feversham and a Maiden burnt Mosbie and his Sister were hanged in Smithfield at London Greene which had fled came again certain years after and was hanged in Chains in the High-way against Feversham and black Will the Ruffian that was hired to do that act after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a Scaffold at Flushing in Zealand The same horrid murther is more at large related by Hollingshead who lived at that time and had information of all the particulars who saith thus much more This one thing he faith seemeth very strange and notable touching M r Arden that in the place he was laid being dead all the proportion of his body might be seen two years after and more so plain as could be for the grass did not grow where his body had touched but between his legs between his arms and about the hollowness of his neck and round about his body And where his legs arms head or any part of his body had touched no grass growed at all of all that time So that many strangers came in that mean time beside the Townsmen to see the print of his body there on the ground in that Field which Field he had as some have reported cruelly taken from a Woman that had been a Widdow to one Cooke and after Married to one Richard Read a Marriner to the great hinderance of her and her Husband the said Read for they had long enjoyed it by a Lease which they had of it for many years not then expired Nevertheless he got it from them for the which the said Reads Wife not only exclaimed against him in shedding many 〈◊〉 salt tear but also cursed him most bitterly even to his face wishing many a vengeance to light upon him and that all the World might wonder on him which was thought then to come to pass when he was thus murthered and lay in that Field from midnight till the morning and so all that day being the Fair-day till night all the which day there were many hundreds of people came wondring about him From whence we may take this Observation As it is most certain that this is a true and punctual relation given us by Hollingshead as being a publick thing done in the face of a Nation the print of his body remaining so long after and viewed and wondered at by so many so that it hath not left the least starting hole for the most incredulous Atheist to get out at So likewise it may dare the most deep-sighted Naturalist or unbelieving Atheist that would exalt and so far deifie Nature as to deny and take away the existence of the God of Nature to shew a reason of the long remaining of the print of his body or the not growing of the grass in those places where his body had touched for two years and more after Could it be the steams or Atoms that flowed from his body then are why not such prints left by other murthered bodies which we are sure by sight and experience not to be so And therefore we can attribute it justly to no other cause but only to the power of God and divine vengeance who is a righter of the oppressed fatherless and Widdows and hears their cries and regardeth their tears 2. In the second year of the Reign of King James of famous memory a strange accident happened to the terror of all bloody murtherers which was this One Anne Waters enticed by a lover of hers consented to have her Husband strangled and then buried him secretly under the Dunghil in a Cow-house Whereupon the man being missing by his Neighbours and the Wife making shew of a wondering what was become of him it pleased God that one of the inhabitants of the Town dreamed one night that his Neighbour Waters was strangled and buried under the
being feeding his flock was slain by two Noblemen and his body thrown into a company of bushes The Judges of the same place having much and daily sought the Shepherd after four days at length find his body in the bushes But because that murder was committed no witnesses being by the suspicion fell upon the two Noblemen inhabiting in the nearest place who being taken were haled to the body of the person murthered But what comes to pass The first scarce with his eyes had looked upon the dead body but behold the blood in plenty begun to flow from thence But the other coming near the very right hand of the person murthered did first of all shew to those that were by the wound and afterward the murderer himself Which being done forthwith the two Gentlemen or Nobles did of their own accord confess that they were the Authors of the murther and did receive the punishment that was worthy of their deeds 10. Another very remarkable one we have from the same Author cited from Cantipratanus lib. 2. mirac c. 29. in this manner It happened the Author saith in the year of Christ 1271. in the Town Psorizheim that a certain most wicked old Woman familiar with the Jews did sell them a girl of seven years old and without parents to be slain Her therefore in secret her mouth being stopt setting her upon linnen cloaths they wound almost in all the junctures of the members with incisions and with great endeavour press forth the blood and receive it most diligently in the linnen cloaths But she being dead after great pains the Jews throw her body into a running water near the Town and laid an heap of Stones upon it But after the third or fourth day her body is found by Fishers by means of her hand stretched forth towards Heaven and carried into the Town the people with abomination crying forth that so great a wickedness was perpetrated by the Jews And the Marquiss of Baden being near went unto the Corps and straightway the body standing upright did stretch forth its hands unto the Prince as though it would implore the revengment of blood or perhaps mercy But after half an hour it disposed it self upon its back after the manner of those that are dead Therefore the wicked Jews being brought to the spectacle forthwith all the wounds of the body burst forth and in testimony of the horrid murder poured forth great plenty of blood whereupon the Jews were put to death 11. Another the same Author relateth from Jacobus Martinius in Disp. de Cognitione sui propl 8. who saith In the year of our Saviour 1503. a certain Inn-keeper by name Buggerlinus with whom a certain poor Merchant or Pedlar had laid up his money or stock occasion being taken by the Inn-keeper he kills him in a Wood and buries him privately but afterwards when he was found the suspicion of the murther fell upon the Inn-keeper For that Pedlar had a bended knife or dagger at his girdle which they took and shewed to the Inn-keeper asking him if he knew it But behold assoon as he took it in his hand it sweat drops of blood whereby the murtherer being affrighted confessed the murther and so was Executed 12. We have also a punctual History to this purpose related by Holling shead Stow and Sir Richard Baker from Roger of Winchester of King Henry the second which is this This King when he was carried forth to be buried was first apparelled in his Princely Robes having his Crown on his Head Gloves on his Hands and Shoes on his Feet wrought with Gold Spurs on his Heels a Ring of Gold on his Finger a Scepter in his Hand a Sword by his Side and so was laid uncovered having a pleasant countenance which when it was told to his Son Richard he came with all speed to see him and as soon as he came near him the blood gushed out of the nose of the dead Corps in great plenty even as if the spirit of the dead King had disdained and abhorred the presence of him who was thought to be the chief cause of his death Which thing caused the said Richard to weep bitterly and he caused his Fathers body to be honourably buried at Fonteverard 14. The last story that we shall relate of this nature is from a Minister that is learned sincere and of great veracity who had it from those that were eye-witnesses and is this In the year of our Lord God 1661. January 30th on Saturday at night about nine of the Clock did John How of Bruzlington-Bank at the foot of an Hill which is about two miles distant from Bishop-Awkland murther Ralph Gawkley who was a Glover in Bishop-Awkland This How was the next day apprehended and brought to touch Gawkleys Corps the lips and nostrils of the dead body wrought and opened as he touched which made him afraid to touch the second time then presently the Corps bled abundantly at the nostrils in the sight of Mr. Robert Harrison the Coroner now Tenant at Bishop-Awkland to Mr. Franckland from whom I had the relation of Anthony Cummin and his Brother c. of the Jury and of a great many towns people who were then present So How was Executed the next Assizes after at Durham Witnesses against him were Anne Wall whom he also wounded yet she escaped with her life and How 's own Wife at the motion of her own Father a very honest Man who bid her tell the truth and she should never want help Some may think that I have been too large and tedious in heaping so many stories concerning the bleeding of the bodies of those that have been murthered but I did it for this reason because there are many that think it but to be a Fable of the credulous vulgar and others think that it is but an ordinary matter that happens to any bodies that are dead and no extraordinary or supernatural thing in it at all But whosoever shall but use so much patience as seriously to read and consider these select Histories that we have recited may easily be satisfied both that such bleeding is absolutely true de facto and also that there is something more than ordinary in it and therefore we shall inlarge in these observations 1. It will not be found to hold touch upon diligent observation and strict inquiry that all dead bodies do bleed fresh and rosie blood especially after the third or fourth day or after some weeks as divers of the instances above given do manifestly prove and therefore is an accident incident to some dead bodies and no to all And it will as far fail that wounded bodies that have been slain in the wars after the natural heat be gone will upon motion bleed any fresh or crimson blood at all for we our selves in the late times of Rebellion have seen some thousands of dead bodies that have had divers wounds and lyingnaked and being turned over and over and
is written And these are called mental vocal and written The two that is mental and that which is written are referred to the predicament of quality And whereas oration vocal is by some referred to the predicament of quantity as it is the measure of sounds and syllables as it is pronounced whereof some are made long and some short and so while distinct sounds and syllables are uttered in a certain mood they are said to be measured and to belong to quantity But if we will understand aright one thing in different respects may belong both to the predicament of quantity and quality So the prolation of sounds or syllables in respect of their modification and comparing one to another some may be long and some may be short and have a different part of time in their pronunciation and so may Analogically and by way of similitude be said to be measured and consequently referred to the predicament of quantity Yet if we consider speech or oration which consists of sounds and syllables in relation to the efficient cause the material and instrumental which is the breath of Man by his several organs moving modulating and figuring the air which is the subject matter into diversity of sites motions contextures and moods then we must conclude that words charms or rhythms having efficient material and instrumental causes do belong to the predicament of Quality and are of great force and virtue naturally notwithstanding all that is or can be objected to the contrary 5. Lastly we are to consider that the breath of Man being variously modulated by its passage from the lungs by the throat palate tongue and other vocal organs doth make such several impressions and configurations of the moved atomes in the air that thereby so great a diversity of impulses or sounds are made upon the drum of the ear that thereby naturally we are able to distinguish one from another Now humane institution found forth the ways of making these several sounds or tones to be appropriated to such and such things or to signifie the diversity of creatures and things according to the several compacts and agreements of Men amongst themselves so that what one sound doth signifie in one language may signifie another thing in another So that not considering the institution or invention of this or that significancy of several sounds in several languages every sound or articulate prolation doth naturally make a distinct and several impulse upon the ear and thereby the senses and consequently the mind are variously affected by them And therefore the younger Helmont doth give us an apposite passage or two to this purpose Englished thus For as in those of ripe years certain musical modulations being heard do often so efficaciously imprint in the mind the Idea of the voice and tones that diverse do sensibly feel them for so long a time in themselves as it were yet sounding that they cannot when they would be freed from them From whence also he saith the word inchanting seemeth with the Latines and Gauls to have drawn its original So the Idea of our Mothers tongue impressed in infants doth so long adhere there that to them about to speak afterwards it doth as it were place and order the tongue and so is the only one mistress of their speech And again he saith If in times past there were found those who by the benefit of musical instruments could move and mollifie the mind of Man various ways How much more humane voice if it being moderated by prudence do break forth from a living spirit shall not only have power to effect those things but also those that are far greater Having thus far largely handled this point we shall only recapitulate a few things and so conclude this Treatise 1. It being granted that great effects have been produced by words charms rhythmes and tunes we have removed all diabolical concurrence to those effects except what may be mental and internal as in all wicked persons when they use natural means to a wicked and evil end and that as we conceive by sufficient and convincing arguments And especially because where there is no natural agent there the Devil can operate nothing at all and if there be a natural agent his concurrence is not necessary 2. As for the force of imagination upon extraneous bodies we cannot in reason affirm it to be none at all neither dare or will we assert that its power in that respect is so vastly great as many do pretend 3. And for what strange effects soever that are true and real that do follow upon the use of words charms characters rhythms and the like we do confidently affirm that they are effected by lawful and natural means but withal that of this sort in this age few or none are found out that are efficacious But that error credulity ignorance and superstition do put great force and stress upon these things when really they produce no effects at all The Alarm that the Pendle-forest Witches gave to all this Kingdom that they were sent for to London great sums gotten at the Fleet to shew them and publick Plays acted thereupon and the Original Examination coming lately to the Authors hand it is desired the Reader will after these words Page 277. line 4. and had incouragement by the adjoining Magistrates peruse these following Depositions viz. The Examination of Edmund Robinson Son of Edmund Robinson of Pendle-Forest eleven years of age taken at Padham before Richard Shutleworth and John Starkey Esquires two of his Majesties Justices of the Peace within the County of Lancaster the 10 th day of February 1633. WHO upon Oath informeth being examined concerning the great meeting of the Witches of Pendle saith that upon All Saints-day last past he this Informer being with one Henry Parker a near door-neighbour to him in Wheatleylane desired the said Parker to give him leave to gather some Bulloes which he did In gathering whereof he saw two Gray-hounds viz. a black and a brown oâ—e came running over the next field towards him he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutters and the other to be Mr. Robinsons the said Gentlemen then having such like And saith the said Grayhounds came to him and fawned on him they having about their necks either of them a Collar unto each of which was tied a string which Collars as this Informer affirmeth did shine like Gold And he thinking that some either of Mr. Nutters or Mr. Robinsons Family should have followed them yet seeing no body to follow them he took the same Gray-hounds thinking to course with them And presently a Hare did rise very near before him At the sight whereof he cried Loo Loo Loo but the Doggs would not run Whereupon he being very angry took them and with the strings that were about their Collars tied them to a little bush at the next hedge and with a switch that he had in his hand he beat them And in stead