do at the Fire Here we see the Picture of Wax roasted by the Witch hath no vertue in the Murdering but the Devil onely It is necessary in the first place that it be duly proved that the party Murther'd be Murthered by the Devil for it is a shame to bely the Devil and it is not possible to be proved if it be Subtilely done as a Spirit 5. Our Definers of Witch-craft dispute much whether the Devil can work a Miracle they resolve he can do a Wonder but not a Miracle Mirum but not Miraculum A Miracle saith Mr. Perkins is that which is above or against nature simply a Wonder is that which proceeds not from the ordinary course of nature Delrio will have a Miracle to be praeter or supra naturae creatae vires both seem to agree in this that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle it would pose Aristotle himself to tell us every thing that can be done by the power of Nature and what things cannot for there be daily many things found out and daily more may be which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible in Nature Those that were converted by the Miracles of our Saviour never stayed to enquire of their Philosophers what the power of Nature was it was sufficient to them when they saw things done the like whereof they had neither seen nor heard of to believe them to be Miracles 6. It is commonly believed and affirmed by Mr. Perkins that the cause which moves the Devil to bargain with a Witch is a desire to obtain thereby the Soul and Body of the Witch But I cannot see how this can agree with another Doctrine of his where he saith The Precepts of Witch-craft are not delivered indifferently to every Man but to his own subjects the wicked and not to them all but to special and tried ones whom he most betrusteth with his secrets as being the fittest to to serve his turn both in respect of their willingness to learn and practise as also for their ability to become Instruments of the mischief he intendeth to others All this argues the end of the Devils rules of Witch-craft is not to gain Novices for new Subjects but to make use of old ones to serve his turn 7. The last clause of Mr. Perkins definition is that Witch-craft doth work wonders so far as God shall permit I should here desire to have known whether Mr. Perkins had thought that God doth permit farther power to the Devil upon his contracting with the Witch than he had before the Contract for if the Devil had the same permission before the Contract then he doth no more mischief upon the Contract than he would have gladly done before seeing as Mr. Perkins saith The Devils malice towards all Men is of so high a degree that he cannot endure they should enjoy the World or the benefits of this life if it were possible so much as one hour But yet afterward I finde Master Perkins is more favourable to the Devil where he writes that if the Devil were not stirred up and provoked by the Witch he would never do so much hurt as he doth Of the Discerning and Discovery of a Witch A Magistrate saith Mr. Perkins may not take upon him to examine whom and how he willeth of any Crime nor to proceed upon slight causes or to shew his Authority or upon sinister respects or to revenge his malice or to bring parties into danger and suspition but he must proceed upon special presumptions He calls those presumptions which do at least probably and conjecturally note one to be a Witch and are certain signs whereby the Witch may be discovered I cannot but wonder that Mr. Perkins should say that presumptions do at least probably and conjecturally note and are certain signs to discover a Witch when he confesseth that though presumptions give occasion to examine yet they are no sufficient causes of conviction and though presumptions be never so strong yet they are not proofs sufficient for Conviction but onely for Examination Therefore no credit is to be given to those presumptions he reckons up 1. For common fame it falls out many times saith he that the innocent may be suspected and some of the better sort notoriously defamed 2. The testimony of a fellow-Witch he confesseth doth not probably note one to be a Witch The like may be said of his third and fourth presumption if after cursing or quarrelling or threatning there follow present mischief And the fifth presumption is more frivolous which is if the party be the Son or Daughter or Servant or Friend neer neighbour or old companion of a Witch The sixth presumption Mr. Perkins dares not or is loath to own but saith Some add if the party suspected have the Devils Mark and yet be resolves if such a Mark be descried whereof no evident reason in nature can be given the Magistrate may cause such to be examined or take the matter into his own hands that the truth may appear but he doth not teach how the truth may be made to appear The last presumption he names is if the party examined be unconstant or contrary to himself here he confesseth a good man may be fearful in a good cause sometimes by nature sometimes in regard of the presence of the Iudge or the greatness of the Audience some may be suddenly taken and others want that liberty of speech which other men have Touching Examination Mr. Perkins names two kinds of proceedings either by simple Question or by Torture Torture when besides the enquiry by words the Magistrate useth the Rack or some other violent means to urge Confession this he saith may be lawfully used howbeit not in every case but onely upon strong and great presumptions and when the party is obstinate Here it may be noted that it is not lawful for any person but the Judge onely to allow Torture suspitious Neighbours may not of their own heads use either Threats Terrors or Tortures I know not any one of those presumptions before-cited to be sufficient to warrant a Magistrate to use Torture or whether when the party constantly denies the Fact it must be counted obstinacy In case of Treason sometimes when the main Fact hath been either confessed or by some infallible proofs manifested the Magistrate for a farther discovery of some circumstance of the Time the Place and the Persons or the like have made use of the Rack and yet that kind of torture hath not been of antient usage in this Kingdom for if my memory fail not I have read that the Rack hath been called the Duke of Exeters Daughter and was first used about Hen. 6. days From presumptions Mr. Perkins proceeds to proofs of a Witch and here he hath a neat distinction of proofs less sufficient or more sufficient by less sufficient he meaneth insufficient but gives them this mild and strange phrase
Citizens of Rome who had been Conquerours of all Nations round about them could not endure of Warriers to become Quarriers and Day-labourers Whereas it is said that Tarquin was expelled for the Rape committed by his Son on Lucrece it is unjust to condemn the Father for the Crime of his Son it had been fit to have petitioned the Father for the Punishment of the Offender The Fact of young Tarquin cannot be excused yet without wrong to the Reputation of so chaste a Lady as Lucrece is reputed to be it may be said she had a greater Desire to be thought chaste than to be chaste she might have died untouched and unspotted in her Body if she had not been afraid to be slandered for Inchastity both Dionysius Halicarnasseus and Livie who both are her Friends so tell the Tale of her as if she had chosen rather to be a Whore than to be thought a Whore To say Truth we find no other Cause of the Expulsion of Tarquin than the Wantonness and Licentiousness of the People of Rome This is further to be considered in the Roman Government that all the time between their Kings and their Emperours there lasted a continued strife between the Nobility and Commons wherein by Degrees the Commons prevailed at last so to weaken the Authority of the Consuls and Senate that even the last sparks of Monarchy were in a manner extinguished and then instantly began the Civil War which lasted till the Regal Power was quickly brought home and setled in Monarchy So long as the Power of the Senate stood good for the Election of Consuls the Regal Power was preserved in them for the Senate had their first Institution from Monarchy It is worth the noting that in all those places that have seemed to be most popular that weak Degree of Government that hath been exercised among them hath been founded upon and been beholden unto Monarchical Principles both for the Power of assembling and manner of consulting for the entire and gross Body of any People is such an unweildy and diffused thing as is not capable of uniting or congregating or deliberating in an entire Lump but in broken Parts which at first were regulated by Monarchy Furthermore it is observable that Rome in her chief Popularity was oft beholden for her Preservation to the Monarchical Power of the Father over the Children by means of this Fatherly Power saith Bodin the Romans flourished in all Honour and Vertue and oftentimes was their Common-weal thereby delivered from most imminent Destruction when the Fathers drew out of the Consistory their Sons being Tribunes publishing Laws tending to Sedition Amongst others Cassius threw his Son headlong out of the Consistory publishing the Law Agraria for the Division of Lands in the Behoof of the People and after by his own private Judgment put him to Death the Magistrates Serjeants and People standing thereat astonied and not daring to withstand his Fatherly Authority although they would with all their Power have had that Law for Division of Lands which is sufficient Proof this Power of the Father not only to have been sacred and inviolable but also to have been lawful for him either by Right or Wrong to dispose of the Life and Death of his Children even contrary to the Will of the Magistrates and People It is generally believed that the Government of Rome after the Expulsion of Kings was popular Bodin endeavours to prove it but I am not satisfied with his Arguments and though it will be thought a Paradox yet I must maintain it was never truly popular First it is difficult to agree what a popular Government is Aristotle saith it is where Many or a Multitude do rule he doth not say where the People or the major part of the People or the Representors of the People govern Bodin affirms if all the People be interessed in the Government it is a Popular Estate Lib. 2. c. 1. but after in the same Chapter he resolves that it is a Popular Estate when all the People or the greater part thereof hath the Sovereignty and he puts the Case that if there be threescore thousand Citizens and forty thousand of them have the Sovereignty and twenty thousand be excluded it shall be called a popular Estate But I must tell him though fifty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine of them govern yet it is no popular Estate for if but one man be excluded the same reason that excludes that one man may exclude many hundreds and many thousands yea and the major part it self if it be admitted that the People are or ever were free by Nature and not to be governed but by their own Consent it is most unjust to exclude any one man from his Right in Government and to suppose the People so unnatural as at the first to have all consented to give away their Right to a major part as if they had Liberty given them only to give away and not to use it themselves is not onely improbable but impossible for the whole People is a thing so uncertain and changeable that it alters every moment so that it is necessary to ask of every Infant so soon as it is born its Consent to Government if you will ever have the Consent of the whole People Moreover if the Arbitrary Tryal by a Jury of twelve men be a thing of that admirable Perfection and Justice as is commonly believed wherein the Negative Voice of every single Person is preserved so that the dissent of any of the twelve frustrates the whole Judgment How much more ought the natural freedom of each man be preserved by allowing him his Negative Voice which is but a continuing him in that estate wherein it is confessed Nature at first placed him Justice requires that no one Law should bind all except all consent to it there is nothing more violent and contrary to Nature than to allow a major part or any other greater part less than the whole to bind all the People The next difficulty to discovering what a Popular Estate is is to find out where the Supreme Power in the Roman Government rested it is Bodin's opinion that in the Roman state the Government was in the Magistrates the Authority and Counsel in the Senate but the Sovereign Power and Majesty in the People Lib. 2. c. 1. So in his first Book his Doctrine is that the ancient Romans said Imperium in Magistratibus Authoritatem in Senatu Potestatem in plebe Majestatem in Populi jure esse dicebant These four words Command Authority Power and Majesty signifie ordinarily one and the same thing to wit the Sovereignty or supreme Power I cannot find that Bodin knows how to distinguish them for they were not distinct Faculties placed in several Subjects but one and the same thing diversly qualified for Imperium Authoritas Potestas and Majestas were all originally in the Consuls although for the greater shew the Consuls would have the Opinion and Consent of
Soveraignty or power absolute except such conditions annexed to the Soveraignty be directly comprehended within the Laws of God and Nature Albeit by the sufferance of the King of England controversies between the King and his people are sometimes determined by the high Court of Parliament and sometimes by the Lord Chief Iustice of England yet all the Estates remain in full subjection to the King who is no ways bound to follow their advice neither to consent to their requests It is certain that the Laws Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their life if they be not ratified by the express consent or by sufferance of the Prince following especially Priviledges Much less should a Prince be bound unto the Laws he maketh himself for a man may well receive a Law from another man but impossible it is in nature for to give a Law unto himself no more than it is to command a mans self in a matter depending of his own will The Law saith Nulla obligatio consistere potest quae à voluntate promittentis statum capit The Soveraign Prince may derogate unto the Laws that he hath promised and sworn to keep if the equity thereof be ceased and that of himself without the consent of his Subjects The Majesty of a true Soveraign Prince is to be known when the Estates of all the people assembled in all humility present their requests and supplications to their Prince without having power in any thing to command determine or give voice but that that which it pleaseth the King to like or dislike to command or bid is holden for Law wherein they which have written of the duty of Magistrates have deceived themselves in maintaining that the power of the people is greater than the Prince a thing which causeth oft true Subjects to revolt from their obedience to their Prince and ministreth matter of great troubles in Common-wealths of which their opinion there is neither reason nor ground for if the King be subject unto the Assemblies and Decrees of the people he should neither be King nor Soveraign and the Common-wealth neither Realm nor Monarchy but a meer Aristocracie So we see the principal point of Soveraign Majesty and absolute power to consist principally in giving Laws unto the Subjects in general without their consent Bodin de Rep. l. 1. c. 8. To confound the state of Monarchy with the Popular or Aristocratical estate is a thing impossible and in effect incompatible and such as cannot be imagined for Soveraignty being of it self indivisible how can it at one and the same time be divided betwixt one Prince the Nobility and the people in common The first mark of Soveraign Majesty is to be of power to give Laws and to command over them unto the Subjects and who should those Subjects be that should yield their obedience to the Law if they should have also power to make the Laws who should he be that could give the Law being himself constrained to receive it of them unto whom himself gave it so that of necessity we must conclude That as no one in particular hath the power to make the Law in such a State that then the State must needs be a State popular Never any Common-wealth hath been made of an Aristocracy and popular Estate much less of the three Estates of a Common-weal Such States wherein the rights of Soveraignty are divided are not rightly to be called Common-weals but rather the corruption of Commonweals as Herodotus has most briefly but truly written Common-weals which change their state the Sovereign right and power of them being divided find no rest from Civil wars and broils till they again recover some one of the three Forms and the Soveraignty be wholly in one of the states or other Where the rights of the Soveraignty are divided betwixt the Prince and his Subjects in that confusion of state there is still endless stirs and quarrels for the superiority until that some one some few or all together have got the Soveraignty Id. lib. 2. c. 1. This Judgment of Bodin's touching Limited and Mixed Monarchy is not according to the mind of our Author nor yet of the Observator who useth the strength of his Wit to overthrow Absolute and Arbitrary Government in this Kingdom and yet in the main body of his discourse le ts fall such Truths from his pen as give a deadly wound to the Cause he pleads for if they be indifferently weighed and considered I will not pick a line or two here and there to wrest against him but will present a whole Page of his Book or more together that so we may have an entire prospect upon the Observators mind Without society saith the Observator men could not live without Laws men could not be sociable and without Authority somewhere to judge according to Law Law was vain It was soon therefore provided that Laws according to the dictate of Reason should be ratified by common consent when it afterward appeared that man was yet subject to unnatural destruction by the Tyranny of entrusted Magistrates a mischief almost as fatal as to be without all Magistracy How to provide a wholsome remedy therefore was not so easie to be invented it was not difficult to invent Laws for the limiting of Supream Governours but to invent how those Laws should be executed or by whom interpreted was almost impossible Nam quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes to place a Superiour above a Supream was held unnatural yet what a lifeless thing would Law be without any Iudge to determine and force it If it be agreed upon that limits should be prefixed to Princes and Iudges to decree according to those limits yet another inconvenience will presently affront us for we cannot restrain Princes too far but we shall disable them from some good long it was ere the world could extricate it self out of all these extremities or find out an orderly means whereby to avoid the danger of unbounded Prerogative on this hand and to excessive liberty on the other and scarce has long experience yet fully satisfyed the minds of all men in it In the Infancy of the world when man was not so artificial and obdurate in cruelty and oppression as now and Policy most rude most Nations did choose rather to subject themselves to the meer discretion of their Lords than rely upon any limits and so be ruled by Arbitrary Edicts than written Statutes But since Tyranny being more exquisite and Policy more perfect especially where Learning and Religion flourish few Nations will endure the thraldome which usually accompanies unbounded and unconditionate Royalty Yet long it was ere the bounds and conditions of Supream Lords was so wisely determined or quietly conserved as now they are for at first when as Ephori Tribuni Curatores c. were erected to poise against the scale of Soveraignty much blood was shed about them and States were put into new broils by them and some places
sepultura hazimos acuerdo It may be wondered that neither Mr. Perkins nor the Jesuit have any other or better Texts to prove this Contract between the Witch and the Devil But the truth is it is very little that either of them say of this great point but pass it over perfunctorily Perhaps it may be thought that King Iames hath said or brought more and better proofs in this point but I do not finde that he doth meddle with it at all but takes it for granted that if there be Witches there must needs be a Covenant and so leaves it without further proof A second note is that the agreement between the Witch and the Devil they call a Covenant and yet neither of the parties are any way bound to perform their part and the Devil without doubt notwithstanding all his craft hath far the worst part of the bargain The bargain runs thus in Mr. P. the Witch as a slave binds himself by Vow to believe in the Devil and to give him either Body or Soul or both under his hand-writing or some part of his Blood The Devil promiseth to be ready at his vassals command to appear in the likeness of any Creature to consult and to aid him for the procuring of Pleasure Honour Wealth or Preferment to go for him to carry him any whither and do any command Whereby we see the Devil is not to have benefit of his bargain till the Death of the Witch in the mean time he is to appear always at the Witches command to go for him to carry him any whither and to do any command which argues the Devil to be the Witches slave and not the Witch the Devils Though it be true which Delrio affirmeth that the Devil is at liberty to perform or break his compact for that no man can compel him to keep his promise yet on the other side it is as possible for the Witch to frustrate the Devils Contract if he or she have so much grace as to repent the which there may be good cause to do if the Devil be found not to perform his promise Besides a Witch may many times require that to be done by the Devil which God permits not the Devil to do thus against his will the Devil may lose his credit and give occasion of repentance though he endeavour to the utmost of his power to bring to pass whatsoever he hath promised and so fail of the benefit of his bargain though he have the hand-writing or some part of the blood of the Witch for his security or the solemnity before witnesses as Delrio imagineth I am certain they will not say that Witch-craft is like the sin against the Holy Ghost unpardonaable for Mr. Perkins confesseth the contrary and Delrio denies it not for he allows the Sacrament of the Eucharist to be administred to a condemned Witch with this limitation that there may be about four hours space between the Communion and the Execution in which time it may be probably thought that the Sacramental Species as they call it may be consumed 3. Delrio in his second Book and fourth Question gives this Rule which he saith is common to all Contracts with the Devil That first they must deny the Faith and Christianism and Obedience to God and reject the patronage of the Virgin Mary and revile her To the same purpose Mr. Perkins affirms that Witches renounce God and their Baptism But if this be common to all Contracts with the Devil it will follow that none can be Witches but such as have first been Christians nay and Roman Catholiques if Delrio say true for who else can renounce the patronage of the Virgin Mary And what shall be said then of all those Idolatrous Natious of Lapland Finland and of divers parts of Africa and many other Heathenish Nations which our Travellers report to be full of Witches and indeed what need or benefit can the Devil gain by contracting with those Idolaters who are surer his own than any Covenant can make them 4. Whereas it is said that Witchcraft is an Art working wonders it must be understood that the art must be the Witches Art and not the Devils otherwise it is no Witch-craft but Devils-craft It is confessed on all hands that the Witch doth not work the wonder but the Devil onely It is a rare Art for a Witch by her Art to be able to do nothing her self but to command another to practise the Art In other Arts Mr. Perkins confesseth that the Arts Master is able by himself to practise his Art and to do things belonging thereunto without the help of another but in this it is otherwise the power of effecting strange works doth not flow from the skill of the Witch but is derived wholly from Satan To the same purpose he saith that the means of working wonders are Charms used as a Watch-word to the Devil to cause him to work wonders so that the Devil is the worker of the wonder and the Witch but the Counsellour Perswader or Commander of it and onely accessary before the Fact and the Devil onely principal Now the difficulty will be how the accessary can be duely and lawfully convicted and attainted according as our Statute requires unless the Devil who is the Principal be first convicted or at least outlawed which cannot be because the Devil can never be lawfully summoned according to the rules of our Common-law For further proof that the Devil is the principal in all such wonders I shall shew it by the testimony of King Iames in a case of Murther which is the most capital crime our Laws look upon First he tells us that the Devil teaches Witches how to make Pictures of Wax and Clay that by the rosting thereof the persons that they bear the Name of may be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness not that any of these means which he teacheth them except poysons which are composed of things natural can of themselves help anything to these turns they are imployed in Secondly King Iame affirms that Witches can bewitch and take the life of Men or Women by rosting of the Pictures which is very possible to their Master to perform for although that instrument of Wax have no vertue in the turn doing yet may he not very well by that same measure that his conjured Slave melts that Wax at the fire may he not I say at these same times subtilly as a spirit so weaken and scatter the spirits of life of the patient as may make him on the one part for faintness to sweat out the humours of his body and on the other part for the not concurring of these spirits which cause his digestion so debilitate his stomack that his humour radical continually sweating out on the one part and no new good Suck being put in the place thereof for lack of digestion on the other he at last shall vanish away even as his Picture will