Adulteries and Incests Thou shalt not lye with mankind as with womankind it is abomination Neither shalt thou lye with any beast to defile thy self therewith neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lye down thereto it is confusion Defile not your selves in any of these things for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you Now it cannot be rationally imagined that Moses having named and prohibited the less sins of bestial Copulation and Sodomy would have left out that which is the most horrid and execrable of all others to wit carnal Copulation with Devils if there had been any such thing either in possibility or act And therefore we may conclude according to the rules of sound reason that there is no such matter and that the Scriptures are the most fit Medium to decide these Controversies 5. The Scriptures and sound reason are the most fit Mediums to determine these things by because there is nothing that any hath written upon this Subject though the Authors be superfluously numerous but if it agree not with the principles of right reason and the rules of the Scriptures they ought to be rejected For what is not consonant to right reason ought not to be received by any that truly are rational Creatures and what agrees not with the Word of God ought not to be entertained by any that are or would be accounted good or true Christians And if all the gross fables lyes impossibilities and nonsensical stories that Demonographers and Witchmongers have related and accumulated together were brought to the test of the Scriptures and sound reason they would soon be hissed off the Stage and find few believers or embracers of them But alas all nay few men have the right use and exercise of their rational faculty but men to see to are in themselves as beasts and therefore we may all pray with the Apostle to be delivered from unreasonable men or men without reason or absurd men that make no right use of reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. The Scriptures and right reason have declared all things concerning Spirits either good or bad as also all sorts of Diviners or Witches if you will have them called so and the nature power operations and actions of them more than any other Book that was written before the time of our Saviours Birth the dreams and whimsies of the Platonists only excepted or for the space of three hundred years after and therefore are the most fit Medium and Authority to determine these things by 1. For first it is manifest that all things are ordered by the wisdom of the Almighty who hath done whatsoever he would both in Heaven and he doth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou And these things God doth not by a naked prescience but by his divine will providence and ordination as a learned Divine hath taught us in these words Est hoc inprimis necessarium salutare Christiano nôsse quòd Deus nihil praescit contingenter sed quòd omnia incommutabili aeternâ infallibilique voluntate providet praeponit facit So it was only his will decree and determination that Christ should not be born or assume humane nature visibly but at that precise time that he had appointed according to the evidence of the Apostle But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the law And when that fulness of time was come that he sent him then did the divine Wisdom and Providence ordain all means objects and occasions whereby the fulness of the Godhead that dwelt in him bodily might be made manifest by working of miracles both by himself and his Apostles therefore were there so many several sorts of Demoniacks blind lame dumb deaf and diseased not by chance but by the providence of the Father and only and chiefly that the work of God might be manifest in them for the Evangelist tells us And as Jesus passed by he saw a man which was blind from his birth And his Disciples asked him saying Master who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him Upon which place Dr. Hammond doth give this clear Paraphrase And some of his followers asked him saying Sir was it any sin of his own when his soul was in another body or was it some sin of his parents at the time of his conception which caused this blindness in him Neither his own nor his parents sins were the cause of this blindness of his but Gods secret wisdom who meant by this means to shew forth in me his miraculous power among you And though the Doctor would bring in the opinion of Pythagoras of the Transmigration of Souls of which vain traditional fancies he is almost every where guilty as received and imbibed in by some of the Jews that then followed him yet it appeareth plainly that it was not interrogated by the Jews but by his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore it is a wonder the Doctor should be so grosly mistaken and Theophylact tells us thus much plainly Neque enim Apostoli Gentiles nugas receperunt quo anima ante corpus in alio mundo versans peccet ac deinde poenam quandam recipiat in corpus descendens Piscatores cùm essent neque audiverant tale quiddam quia haec Philosophorum dogmata erant And so declareth that the Disciples having seen Christ heal the man that had thirty eight years been impotent and lame and had said unto him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee did conceive that this man being born blind it had been a punishment upon him either for his own sins or the sins of his parents and so doubting asked the question And so also do St. Austin and Chrysostome expound the place which is both sound and rational And of our Saviours responsion That neither had this man sinned nor his parents the learned Father giveth a satisfactory answer saying Nunquid vel ipse sine originali peccato natus erat vel vivendo nihil addiderat Habebant ergo peccatum ipse parentes ejus sed non ipso peccato factum est ut caecus nasceretur Ipse autem causam dicit quare caecus sit natus cùm subdit sed ut manifestentur opera Dei in illo And to the same purpose Gregory hath this notable passage Alia itaque est percussio quâ peccator percutitur ut sine retractatione puniatur Alia quâ peccator percutitur ut corrigatur Alia quâ quisque percutitur non ut praeterita corrigat sed ne ventura committat Alia per quam nec praeterita culpa
by ten or twelve thrown into one pit and yet not one of them have issued any fresh and pure blood Only from some of their wounds some sanious matter would have flowed putrefaction beginning by reason of the moisture and acidity in the air but no pure blood and therefore is not a common accident to all humane bodies that die naturally or violently but only is peculiar to some and especially to those that are murthered by prepensed malice as appeareth in the Histories recited above 2. We shall acknowledge with Gregorius Horstius Sperlingius and Gothofredus Voigtius that sometimes the bodies of those that have been murthered do bleed when the murtherer is not present as is manifest from the sixth History recited from Horstius of the young Man of twenty five years old that bled so long and so often though the murtherer was not present from whence they conclude that the presence of the murtherer is not a necessary cause of the bleeding of the murthered body and therefore that the bleeding of the body is not always a certain and infallible sign of discovering the murtherer To which we reply that the issuing of fresh and crimson blood from the wound or the nostrils of the persons body that hath been murthered is always a certain sign that the Corps that doth so bleed was murthered because those that die naturally or violently by chance man-slaughter or in the war do not bleed as hath been proved before Again if the murtherer be certainly known or have confessed the crime in regard of the final cause which is discovery there is no reason why the Corps should bleed And though the presence of the murtherer may not be the efficient cause why the Corps doth bleed yet is it the occasional as is manifest undeniably by sundry of the Histories that we have related where the murtherers had not been certainly known but by the bleeding of the body murthered 3. Whereas the three Authors above named thinking they have sufficiently confuted those that ascribed this effect of the bleeding of the dead body to Sympathy or Antipathy or to the moving of the bodies or heat in the air have assigned the cause to be the beginning of putrefaction in the bodies murthered by which a new motion is caused in the humors and so in the blood by which means it floweth afresh against this these two reasons oppose themselves 1. Must putrefaction needs begin at that very moment when the murtherer toucheth the body For in divers of them there was no bleeding until the murtherers were present or did touch the bodies and their touching could not cause the beginning of putrefaction and soon after their removing the bleeding hath ceased so that putrescence in fieri cannot be the cause of the fresh bleeding 2. Putrefaction beginning could not be the cause why the murthered Shepherds body in the ninth History should with its hands point to the wound and to the murtherers nor that the hands of the Wench murthered by the Jews in the tenth History should be stretched forth to the Prince of Baden or that the Lips and Nostrils of the Body of Gawkley should work and open at the touch of the murtherer How this must of necessity proceed from some higher cause than putrefaction or any other they have laid down 4. But though it should be acknowledged that in some of these bleedings there were something that were extraordinary or supernatural yet as learned Horstius tells us It is he saith an inconvenient Tenent of those that hold that the Souls of those that are murthered wandering about the Bodies by reason of the hatred they bear towards those that were their murtherers do cause these bleedings but this in Philosophy cannot stand because the separate form can by no means operate upon the subject any longer And he saith the same thing in Theologie seems to be very impious because the Souls of the dead are without mundane conversation as is sufficiently manifest from the History of the Rich Man and Lazarus Luke 16. 5. And if some should refer these effects immediately unto God as many learned Authors have done as though God by this means would sometimes make known those that are guilty or to refer this unto the Devil as though he would sometimes elude the Judges and to do this that so the innocent might be punished with the wicked We answer he saith to this briefly by adding this only that a supernatural cause is not rashly to be feigned where a natural one is ready at hand And if there be such examples which cannot be reduced to these aforesaid natural causes of which sort many are related by Libanius part 2. sol 172. then we can by no reason be repugnant but that they are preternaturally brought to pass And of this opinion are most of the Pontificial Writers that thereby they might the better maintain their Tenent that miracles are not ceased though we do not understand that if we should grant that in these things there should be some concurrence of Divine Power more than ordinary that therefore it must be a miracle for it is yet not infallibly concluded what a miracle is and every wonderful thing is not therefore concluded to be a miracle and a miracle being not absolutely defined what is not one cannot be certainly resolved 6. Some there are that ascribe these strange bleedings of murthered bodies and of their strange motions with the sweating of blood as upon the Pedlars bended dagger or knife mentioned in the eleventh History unto the Astral or Sydereal spirit and that not improbably that being a middle substance betwixt the Soul and the Body doth when separated from the Body wander or hover near about it bearing with it the irascible and concupiscible faculties wherewith being stirred up to hatred and revenge it causeth that ebullition and motion in the blood that exudation of blood upon the weapon and those other wonderful motions of the Body Hands Nostrils and Lips thereby to discover the murtherer and bring him to condign punishment Neither is any Tenent yet brought by any that is more rationally probable to solve these and many other wonderful Phenomena's than this of the Astral Spirit if it can be but fully proved that there is such a part of Man that doth separately exist which we shall endeavour to prove ere we end this Chapter 7. But it is granted upon all sides that if the murtherer be brought to the presence or touch of the person murthered and not quite dead that then the wounds though closed and staid from bleeding or the nostrils will freshly break forth and bleed plentifully The reason is obvious because the Soul being yet in the Body retaining its power of sensation fancy and understanding will easily have a presension of the murderer and then no marvail that through the vehement desire of revenge the irascible and concupiscible faculties do strongly move the blood that before was
them to agree together in a common lye I say we have the light of all these circumstances to confirm us in the belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge beyond the reach of Art and ordinary Nature Standing publick Records have been kept of these well-attested Relations and Epocha's made of those unwonted events Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile practices those among the Jews and our own are notorious such Cases have been often determined near us by wise and reverend Judges upon clear convictive Evidence and thousands in our own Nation have suffered death for their vile compacts with Apostate Spirits And a little after he saith And I think those that can believe all Histories are Romances that all the wiser World have agreed together to juggle Mankind into a common belief of ungrounded Fables that the sound senses of multitudes together may deceive them and Laws are built upon Chimera's that the gravest and wisest Judges have been Murderers and the sagest persons Fools or designing Impostors Bishop Hall maketh the like Objection saying Neither can I make question of the authentick Records of the Examinations and Confessions of Witches and Sorcerers in several Regions of the World agreeing in the truth of their horrible pacts with Satan of their set Meetings with evil Spirits their beastly Homages and Conversations I should hate to be guilty of so much incredulity as to charge so many grave Judges and credible Historians with lyes These Objections at the first view seem very plausible and to carry with them a great splendour and weight of truth and reason but if they be looked into and narrowly weighed in the balance of sound reason and unbiassed judgment they will be found too light and will soon vanish into Rhetorical fumes and frothy vapours which that it may be more clearly performed we shall rank them into the number of three in which all their seeming strength lyes and these are they 1. They pretend that these things are sufficiently proved by Historians of unquestionable credit and reputation 2. That the Confessions of Witches themselves in divers Regions at several times and places who have all acknowledged these particulars are sufficient evidence of the truth of these performances 3. That so many wise and grave Judges and honest Juries could not have been deceived to put to death such great numbers of these kind of people called or accounted Witches without sufficient proof of the matters of fact To all which we shall give a full response in respect of the four particulars mentioned in the beginning of this Chapter and shall commix and adjoyn such positive Arguments as will be cogent to all rational persons whose corrupt wills have not perverted their judgments 1. It is much to be admired that Mr. Glanvil but especially Bishop Hall a very Reverend and Learned person should lye any great stress upon such a weak foundation For there is none of these three Objections that will amount to a necessary Proposition but only to a contingent one which will infer no certain and necessary Conclusion nor bring forth any certitude or science but only bare opinion and probability Propositio contingens est quâ— sic vera est ut falsa esse possit and at the best the strength of all these are but testimonia humana which are but weak and no sufficient ground for a rational man to believe them to be true because humanum est errare And the weight of these matters is not a contention de lana caprina vel de umbra asini sed de pelle humana for the lives and estates of many poor Creatures and they professed Christians too and therefore doth require stronger Arguments than contingent Propositions to establish a firm ground for the belief of this opinion 2. It is one thing barely to affirm and another thing to prove sufficiently and fully For though they boldly alledge that these things are sufficiently proved by Authors of unquestionable credit and verity we must return a flat negative and that for these reasons 1. Let them shew us any one Author of credible veracity that ever was ear or eye-witness of the Devils making of a visible and corporeal League or Bargain with the Witches or that he ever suckt upon their bodies or that he had carnal Copulation with them or that by the experience of his senses ever certainly knew a man really transubstantiated and transformed into a Wolf or a Wolf into a man and we will yield the whole Cause But we must assert and truly affirm that this pretence of theirs that these things are sufficiently proved by Historians of good credit is a meer falsity and a lying flourish of vain words There are we confess a multitude of vain and lying stories amassed up together in the Writings of Demonographers and Witchmongers of strange and odd Apparitions Feats Confessions and such like but never any one positive proof of any of these four particulars by any Authors of credit and reputation and this we dare boldly aver to the world 2. Let them produce any two Witnesses that were of honesty and integrity sound understandings and ability that ever were present and ear and eye-witnesses of a visible vocal and corporeal League made betwixt the Devil and the Witch or let them tell us who was by and watched and really and truly saw the Devil suck upon some part of the Witches body or who were the Chamberlains Pimps or Panders when the Devil and the Witch committed carnal Copulation or who were ever present when a Witch was changed into a Cat a Dog an Hare or a Wolf If they can but bring forth any two credible Witnesses to prove these things by then we shall believe them but we must assert that never any such two could be produced yet and therefore cannot but wonder at the shameless impudence of such persons that dare affirm these things that never were nor can be proved and yet have not blushed to vent and trumpet forth such execrable and abominable lyes to the World Mr. Glanvil confidently affirms these things to be matters of fact and affirmanti incumbit probatio let him produce his Witnesses and if they be persons of judgment veracity and impartiality then we shall accept their proof but it is not figments supposals weak presumptions or apparent falsities that will perform it for that which never was acted can never truly be proved and things that appear not are as though they were not therefore he must produce his testimonies or lose both his cause and credit and must be taken for an Assertor of never-proved Fables Lying lips are abomination unto the Lord but they that deal truly are his delight Now we know they use to do in this case as Souldiers use who when they are beaten forth of some Out-work or Trench they then retreat into another that they think more strong and safe And being driven from their weak Hold of
plura quod fieri potest per pauciora And is his sucking now come to infusion and injection surely these will not accord but enough of supposals 2. But we must know of Mr. Glanvil how he comes to know that the Devils sucking of the Witches bodies is a truth or ever was proved to be matter of fact who were by and present that were ear or eye-witnesses of it A thing that never was proved ought never to be believed and if he recur to the Witches confessions that is fully overthrown before and we are sure that in these late years that are past when so many pretended Witch-finders were set abroad in Scotland and Northumberland they never mánifested nor could verifie any such thing but were found and discovered to be notorious Impostors and Knaves pretending to discover Witches by putting sharp Needles or Pins into the Warts and hollow Excrescences of divers persons when the persons so dealt withal did not see nor know and if the persons did not feel nor complain of pain then forsooth they must be taken for Witches and be burnt So of many persons they got money and bribes that they might not be searcht or stript naked and of others for finding Excrescences upon them that were hollow and fistulous and therefore when the Pin was thrust into the fistulous cavity that was skinned within and so indolent they were then accounted guilty and were either forced to compound with these notorious pretended Witch-finders or to be prosecuted for their lives By which wicked means and unchristian practices divers innocent persons both men and women lost their lives and these wicked Rogues wanted not greater persons even of the Ministry too that did authorize and incourage them in these Diabolical courses as though this had been some way prescribed by God or his Word to discover Witches by when it was an Hellish device of the Devil to delude Witchmongers and bring poor innocent people to danger and death Yet it had prevailed further if some more wise Heads and Christian Hearts had not interposed by whom the Villany was detected and the Impostors severely punished and that this is a most certain truth hundreds yet living can witness and testifie And the like in my time and remembrance happened here in Lancashire where divers both men and women were accused for supposed Witchcraft and were so unchristianly unwomenly and inhumanely handled as to be stript stark naked and to be laid upon Tables and Beds to be searched nay even in their most privy parts for these their supposed Witch-marks so barbarous and cruel acts doth diabolical instigation working upon ignorance and superstition produce 3. But as this was never really proved de facto that the Devil did suck upon the body of a supposed Witch so the possibility of it likewise can never be demonstrated For whether a Spirit be taken to be corporeal or to assume a body yet it neither hath nor can have such a body as our Saviour did appear in after his Resurrection which was the same real and numerical body that he suffered in and was by the sense of seeing and feeling distinguished from any bodies that Spirits can have and appear in especially in solidity and tangibility for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as he was felt and seen to have And where there is no flesh and bones there cannot be any animal sucking and we speak not here of artificial sucking or attraction of which there is a great question whether any such thing be at all or not but however the Spirits have no power to suck because they have not flesh and bones 4. That there are divers Nodes Knots Protuberances Warts and Excrescences that grow upon the bodies of men and women is sufficiently known to learned Physicians and experienced Chirurgions Some have them from their mothers wombs some grow afterwards some proceed from internal causes some from external hurts some are soft some hard some pendulous some not some fistulous and issue matter some hollow and indolent and many other ways And these are more frequent in some persons by reason of their Complexion and Constitution in others by reason of their Age Sex and other accidents and circumstances especially in Women that are old and their accustomed purgations staid or by reason of Child-birth and the like Now if all these were Witch-marks then few would go free especially those that are of the poorer sort that have the worst diet and are but nastily kept And for their being indolent it doth argue nothing but ignorance for many sorts of Tumors and Excrescences are without pain as well as fistulous and hollow Warts And it is a woful errour to make that a sign and mark of a diabolical Contract that hath natural causes for its production And it is a strange kind of Logick to argue or conclude that men or women are Witches and have made a Contract with the Devil because they have such Warts or Excrescences that are indolent when pricked into where is the coherence connexion or just consequence Let all wise men judge As for that vain opinion that Witches are or can be really and essentially transformed into Dogs Cats Hares and the like or men transubstantiated into Wolves it is largely by numerous positive arguments confuted by Casmannus and by the Authors of that learned Treatise of Spirits and Devils written in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth as also by Wierus Mr. Scot and others so that we shall not bring all that others have written about this point but note such things as are most material and have been less handled or regarded by others and that in these Particulars 1. It is taken to be a great matter with some because St. Augustin seemeth to favour this opinion of transformation and tells us this Si enim dixerimus ea non esse credenda non desunt etiam nunc qui ejusmodi quaedam vel certissima and isse vel etiam expertos se esse asseverent And then saith And we when we were in Italy did hear such things of a certain Region of those parts where certain Women that kept Inns being skilled in these Arts they did say were wont to give in Cheese to Travellers that they could get to take it from whence forthwith they were turned into Juments and carried necessary burdens and when they had done did again return unto themselves but that while they had not a bestial but rational and humane understanding And yet concludeth Haec vel falsa sunt vel tam inusitata ut meritò non credantur To which we shall return these short answers 1. Though St. Austin were in many things a very Learned man yet being but a man might and did erre not only in this point but in many others 2. His Reasons to prove it by are weak and groundless 3. He speaketh nothing of his certain and peculiar knowledge but by common fame and hearsay and therefore the matters
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
immortality Therefore the Angels whether corporeal or incorporeal are not immortal neither by themselves or their intrinsick nature either as the Schools speak à parte ante vel à parte post because God only is so exclusively considered in regard of any Creature and so the objection is of no force 2. The Corporeity of Angels doth not at all hinder their immortality à parte post for as God is only immortal in respect of Essence Eternity Infinity and Independency so Angels nor any Creatures are immortal in that point or respect but only in regard of their dependency upon God who by his conservative power doth keep them by Christ that for the time or duration to come they shall not die perish or be annihilated and this he can and doth as well perform if they be corporeal as spiritual even as he doth preserve and conserve the bodies of the Saints in their Graves until the general Resurrection and in the World to come doth keep them in immortality though they be changed and made spiritual bodies yet they remain bodies still For it is he that sustaineth all things by the power of his word And it is he that doth vivifie or quicken all things and if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath all flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again unto dust So that the objection is of no validity because no Creature is kept in perpetual duration à parte post ab intrinsecâ naturâ sed ex causis conservantibus which is the good will benignity and blessed influence of Jehovah and not from any internal creaturely power 3. Every spiritual and incorporeal substance that is created is as annihilable by the prime power that created it as is a Corporeal created substance And on the contrary a Corporeal or material substance is no more capable of annihilation by any power or efficiency of second Causes than an incorporeal and spiritual substance is and therefore whether Angels be simply incorporeal or that they be Corporeal it neither maketh for nor against their immortality which consists only in the benign emanation of the Divine conservative power of the Almighty And therefore doth profound Bradwardine draw that invincible and undeniable Corollary of verity Quod necesse est Deum servare quamlibet Creaturam immediatiùs quacunque causa creata 4. Though the most of the bodies that are known unto us be divisible alterable and discerpible or dissipable in respect of our conceptions of them yet actually we may find many bodies in nature that are not nor ever were dissipated or dissevered secundum totum though there may be alteration in their superficial parts as the Earth the Sun Moon the rest of the Planets and those great and glorious bodies that we call Stars so that for the duration of bodies à parte post we can conclude little of certainty And as there are bodies that secundum suum totum are not severed or dissipated so there are some bodies that though they may suffer division and dissipation into smaller parts yet do those parts though most minute suffer no real transmutation but remain of the same Homogeneous nature they were before as is most manifest in Silver dissolved in Aqua fortis wherein though it be so severed and dispersed that it appear not at all unto the eye yet may it be from thence recovered and redintegrated into its own nature as it was before And also the Masters of the more abstruse Philosophy affirm to us upon their own certain experience that though metallick Mercury may be divided into insensible and invisible Atomes yet still it retains the nature of metallic Mercury and that thus Helmont tells us Si non vidissem argentum vivum eludere quamcunque artificum operam adeò quod aut totum avolet adhuc integrum aut totum in igne permaneat atque utrolibet modo servet impermutabilem sui ac primitivam identitatem identitatisque homogeneitatem anaticam dicerem artem non esse veram quae vera est sine mendacio atque longe verissima So also there are bodies which although they suffer division and separation by some other bodies dissevering of them yet by motion of coition they soon close and redintegrate themselves having thereby suffered no detriment at all as is most apparent in the pure body of the Aether the visible species of things the images in a Looking-glass and in shadows which are all bodies So that seeing bodies no more than Spirits to be annihilable by second causes and that there are some bodies that are not dissipated secundum totum and that there are others that though they are separable into more minute particles yet do they remain in Anatical and Homogeneous Identity and that there are others that though they be actually for a small moment divided yet they do instantaneously coalesce and by coition unite themselves yet we may therefore rationally conclude that corporeity quatenus such doth not at all take away immortality à parte post because bodies as well as spirits may be kept in immortality by the conservative concourse of Divine Power and so the objection utterly falls to the ground 2. There is only another argument that the persons of the other opinion have urged such as Aquinas and the rest of the Scholastick rabble to wit the Text in the Psalm which is this Who maketh his Angels spirits his ministers a flaming fire From whence they would positively conclude that they are spirits and absolutely incorporeal but fail of their purpose for these clear reasons 1. The Text there cannot be rationally understood of their creation or of their creaturely nature but of their offices and administrations because the word used there is not from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to create or form forth of nothing but from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fecit that is by ordering them in their offices and ministrations And again the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not alwaies or of necessity signifie an incorporeal thing but that which is a body as the winds and so doth Luther and diverse others render it and it is commonly attributed to beasts as well as Men as in that of Solomon Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth Where the word spirit which is all one in the Hebrew is attributed to beasts as well as to men but no man I suppose will believe that the spirit of a beast is simply incorporeal and therefore by the word spirit in the Psalm cannot necessarily be understood a simple incorporeal substance and therefore the consequence is not necessary But the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews must needs be taken for the best Expositor of these words of the Psalmist who doth quote them only for this purpose to prove that Christ in dignity and office is far above-the Angels who are all ordered to serve and obey him and
to us who do not know the causes that are in nature so well as that old serpent neither do we apprehend the manner by which he worketh and acteth his tricks From which ignorance it proceedeth that those wonders that in themselves are no true miracles nor done contrary to the order of nature are by us taken to be true miracles But we will draw towards a conclusion of this point with that definition and corollaries that learned Zanchy gives us in these particulars Miraculum ait igitur est externum visibile verum simpliciter mirabile factum ad optimos fines atque imprimis ad salutem hominum ad Dei gloriam promovendam editum From whence these points are to be observed 1. That a Miracle is external and made visible For so he saith are all those things that we read of in Scripture that are taken to be true miracles And therefore that the pretended invisible miracle of Transubstantiation as they call it in the ordinance of the Lords Supper is a meer figment because no such thing was ever made visible or truely witnessed But let us press this his argument a little further If it be as indeed it must be a certain property of a true miracle that it be external and visible that there may be witnesses of it otherwise that which none ever saw or knew may be the property of a miracle Then those great wonders that Witchmongers do affirm that the Devil worketh with and for Witches as having carnal copulation with them sucking upon their bodies making a corporeal and oral league with them carrying them in the air changing them into Cats or Dogs must of necessity be a meer figment and an impossibility Because never yet seen witnessed or proved by any that were of sound judgment right understanding or of clear reason but are meerly the works of darkness having existence no where but in the minds and brains of the Witchmongers who are ruled by the Prince of darkness 2. A miracle ought to be really and truly done that is that indeed it be such a thing as it appeareth as the water that Christ changed into Wine was really such that is it was truely Wine to the sight and taste of all those that drank of it Therefore those things that are brought to pass by the prestigious juglings of Devils and Magicians are indeed no true miracles And to apply this to our present purpose it is manifest that those things that Witchmongers do believe that the Witches do or suffer as to fly in the air to be present at dancings and banqueting and yet to remain empty and hungry and the like are but meer delusory dreams and cheating fancies in their brains and if any thing be done ad extra it is but meerly as Juglers do by drawing the eyes from observing the manner of their conveyances by substituting one thing in the stead of another and the like So that at the best Satan in respect of what he performeth in these aforesaid actions is but as a chief Hocus Pocus fellow or Jugler and one that acteth to a worse end than our common Juglers do who act but to move sport and delight and thereby to get something to be a livelihood but Satan works his tricks to blind and delude the Soul and to lead it to error and destruction 3. A true miracle ought to be simply miraculous and wonderful that is with and unto all And such are those miracles whose causes are hid from all and therefore are those things that are done contrary to the order of nature by the only virtue and power of the Almighty God Therefore those things that are done by natural causes though occult to many as are oftentimes done by Devils are no true miracles From whence therefore we may conclude that whatsoever is performed in Physical actions by natural causes and it is the general Tenent of all that Devils in these cases can work nothing but by natural causes are no miracles and that as they are agents are not evil but only become so in the use and application 4. Every true miracle is wrought above all for most good ends and especially for the Salvation of Men and the true Glory of God By this particular therefore all those signs and wonders that are wrought by Devils are excluded from the name of true miracles because they are all wrought for evil ends and contrary to the Glory of God and for the deceiving and perdition of Men. And therefore all prodigies wrought by Devils are called lies 4. The fourth and last particular that he setteth down that the Devils have power in and operate here below is that they can insinuate themselves into and penetrate our bodies and so move Men diverse ways driving them into the solitary places and Monuments and by throwing them into the fire or water by strange tearing and tormenting of them and by manyother ways of which we shall only note these few things 1. It is manifest that in the times of our Saviours being here upon earth and his Disciples that there were many Demoniacks or Men possessed with Devils or Men that were devillished or over whom the Devil exercised an effective and ruling power and the reason was plain and manifest for our blessed Saviour being to establish the Doctrine of the Gospel by great and true miracles it was necessary that there might be fitting subjects for the effecting of such stupendious miracles in and by and therefore the Father in his providence had prepared and provided Lunaticks Demoniacks those that were born blind and other strange Diseases that the power of Christ and his Apostles might be manifest in their miraculous cures But whether or no that Devils have at all times the same power over mens bodies is much to be doubted there being not the same causes or ends for permitting the same now that was at that season as we perhaps shall shew hereafter 2. The manner of the Devils possessing of the minds and bodies of Men he laboureth to prove to be essential and personal and not virtual and effective which he thinketh he sufficiently proveth by the words to enter and to dwell of which we shall only say this 1. That upon the supposition that Devils are corporeal and have thin pure and etherial bodies it may be granted that they may really and substantially enter into bodies for he saith Daemones autem habent corpora aerea aere etiam subtiliora tenuiora Deindè ut Tertullianus ait Daemones sua haec corpora contrahunt dilatant ut volunt sicut etiam lumbrici alia quaedam insecta Ita difficile illis non est penetrare in nostra corpora 2. But secondly there is none of those places that he citeth nor any other that signifieth a local or personal possession or any such local inherency in the bodies of Men but only a spiritual rule he that is Satan worketh in the children of disobedience
or an effective dominion over them by which he doth actually afflict vex and torment Men sundry and diverse ways Neither is the word Dâ—monizomenos translated or understood by learned Men of an essential or personal possession of Devils to be inherently in men but only of an effective dominion in afflicting and tormenting of them 3. And this is most manifest that as the Text saith that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith where it were absurd to understand by Christs dwelling in the hearts of the faithful a personal essential or substantial dwelling but only an effective one because he worketh effectually in them by his spirit Even so were it absurd to take the other places of entring into and dwelling there in so gross and literal a sense as personally to inhabite but only effective by his power and dominion For though the Text saith that after the sop Satan entred into Judas yet in the same Chapter the Evangelist expoundeth what manner of entrance it was not a personal one but an effective one by putting or darting it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Judas heart to betray his Master And whereas it is said that Satan had filled the heart of Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost no man can rationally understand it of a personal and essential repletion but only of an effective one having by his power seduced the heart of Ananias and filled it with deceit by his effectual operation and not otherwise And whereas it is said by S. Luke and S. Mark of the legion of Devils that our Saviour did cast out that they entred into the swine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Matthew makes it clear saying they went into the herd of swine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in gregem or as Tremellius renders it ad gregem porcorum by which it is manifest that they did go amongst or into the herd of Swine and put them into such a fright or fury by an effective power working upon them that they ran down a steep place into the Sea and perished in the waters but not that they did personally and essentially enter into the bodies of the Swine for that were absurd and needless for the Swineherd can with his Horn and Whip drive them without creeping into their bellies and much more might the Devils drive them into the Sea according to the Proverb They must needs run whom the Devil drives without a personal and local being in their bellies as though a Piper cannot effectively play several tunes upon his Pipes except he creep into them CHAP. XII If the Devil or Witches have power to perform strange things whether they do not bring them to pass by meer natural means or otherwise And of Helmonts opinion concerning the effects caused by Devils or Witches HAving handled the knowledge and power of the faln Angels as far forth as there is any thing manifested in the Scriptures or that may be deducted from thence by sound reason and finding their knowledge and power to be much less in these inferior bodies and elements than is commonly supposed we are now to proceed to examine what they do simply of their own power and what they perform by natural means And first it cannot be denyed but that they can of themselves dart in evil thoughts suggestions and temptations into the minds of Men immediately of their own power as also to allure Men to sin by the irritation of external objects presented to the senses as also by means of the phantasie and especially by the melancholy humour which is Balneum Diaboli But secondly the great question is what they work in elemental and corporeal things and whether it be not only by natural means as the applying of fit actives to agreeable passives whereby the acts ascribed unto them are performed or not Which we affirm from these grounds 1. Because it is the common and unanimous opinion of Philosophers Theologues and Physicians that what the Devils operate in sublunary bodies or in causing diseases in humane bodies is by the applying fit actives to convenient passives by which the effects are brought to pass And this is an argument sufficiently pressive and convincing if there be any force in arguments brought from humane authority especially considering that no other causes besides what are natural could ever yet be assigned much less proved 2. And this is more plain if we consider what thâ— Author quoted last in the Margent saith to the same purpose Daemon propria virtute nequit transmutare materiam corpoream nisi adhibeat illi activa proportionata effectibus quos intendit As for example the Devil may cause burning by reason that there is a combustible subject as also a fiery and burning agent in nature and this agent being fire being applyed to combustible matter would produce that effect which we call cremation or burning But if there were no combustible matter in nature or that there were no igneous agent then it is plain the Devils could produce no burning at all and so where there is no agent and patient in nature to produce the effect intended as in pretended fascination there is neither there such an effect could not possibly be produced so that from hence it must necessarily follow that Devils can operate nothing in corporeal matter but by applying fit agents to convenient patients and therefore Helmont said well Quasi Satanas supra naturam esset operareturque naturae impossibilia Dono quidem modum operando exoticum at sane ad intra naturam coerceri oportet 3. And that many strange things that are vomited up by such as are supposed to be bewitched do proceed from natural causes and that the Devil worketh no more in them but by instigation to move wicked persons such as are commonly those that are accounted Witches to give and administer strange things Philters or secret poisons to such as they would kill torment make mad or draw to unlawful love or rather lust as may be made manifest from the testimonies of persons of unquestionable veracity and judgment some few of which we shall here relate Philip Salmuth chief Physician to the Prince of Anhalt recordeth this which we shall give in English The Daughter of a certain Inkeeper was desperately in love with a principal Nobleman To whom going away she offers a most beautiful apple This he suspecteth and throweth into a Basket After three days he remembers it and looks at it and then it altogether appeared blackned He expecteth for the space of other three days and then findeth abundance of little Frogs there Therefore he returneth into that Inn where the Maid lived and doth counterfeit sickness and huge torments The Maid willeth him to use warm milk That he poureth upon the Frogs who take it greedily and by little and little do increase But he every day feigneth greater pains whereupon the Maid pitying him doth will him to take the urine of a Mare newly made and
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
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
storing it with provisions necessary to keep himself from drowning in Anno Dom. 1524. 2. And that we may be certified how frequent and common these counterfeited Impostures have been and yet are practised take this other from undoubted authority The 15 of August being Sunday in the 16 of the raign of Queen Elizabeth Agnes Bridges a Maid about the age of 20 years and Rachel Pinder a Wench about the age of 11 or 12 years who both of them had counterfeited to be possessed by the Devil whereby they had not only marvellously deluded many people both Men and Women but also diverse such persons as otherwise seemed of good wit and understanding stood before the Preacher at Pauls-cross where they acknowledged their hypocritical counterfeiting with penitent behaviours requiring forgiveness of God and the world and the people to pray for them Also their several examinations and Confessions were there openly read by the Preacher and afterwards published in print for posterity hereafter to beware of the like deceivers From whence we may take these two Observations 1. We may from hence note how subject the nature of man is both to deceive and to be deceived and that not only the common people but also the wiser and more learned heads may most easily be imposed upon And that therefore in things of this nature and the like we cannot use too much circumspection nor use too much diligence to discover them 2. We may note that when such strange Impostures or false Miracles are pretended there is commonly some sinister and corrupt end aimed at under the colour of Religion and that those that are most ready to publish such things as true Miracles and Divine Revelations are generally those that did complot and devise them And therefore the greater number they be that cry them up and the more esteem the persons are of that blow abroad such things the greater suspicion we ought to have of the falsity and forgery of them Always remembring that the greater the fame and number of the persons are that conspire and confederate together the greater things they may bring to pass and be more able to deceive as was manifest by the Priests attending the Oracles who though they laboured to father their predictions upon some Deity yet it was manifest that it was nothing else but their own Confederacy Impostures and Juglings 3. But these Diabolical Counterfeitings of possessions and the maintaining of the power of dispossession and casting forth of Devils was not only upheld and maintained by the Papists to advance their superstitious courses but also in the said time of Queen Elizabeth there were divers Non-Conformists to gain credit and repute to their way that did by publick writing labour to prove the continuation of real possessions by Devils and that they had power by fasting and Prayer to cast them out Of which number were one M r Darrell and his Accomplices who not only writ divers Pamphlets in the positive defence of that opinion but also published certain Narrations of several persons that they pretended were really possessed with Devils which were cast forth by their means in using Fasting and Prayer Which writings were answered by M r Harsnet and others and their Theory not only overthrown but their practice discovered to be counterfeiting and Imposture Whereupon there were divers persons suborned to feign and counterfeit possessions as William Sommers of Nottingham who by the Exorcists was reported to have strange fits passions and actions which are at large described and set forth in that learned Treatise Dialogical Discourses of Spirits and Devils written about the same time by John Deacon and John Waller Ministers and of divers other persons who likewise pretended the same counterfeit possessions And though the said forged and feigned possessions were strongly maintained by their Abettors and the matters of fact audaciously asserted to be true yet after the said Darrell and his Accomplices were examined by the Queens Commissioners all was made apparent to be notorious counterfeiting cheating and imposture both by the confession of Sommers himself and by the Oaths of several Deponents Neither was that discourse containing the certain possession of seven persons in one Family in Lancashire at Cheworth in the Parish of Leigh in the Year 1594. though believed by many for a truth because of the streight tale told by the said Darrell in that Narrative of any better grain but full of untruths impossibilities absurdities and contradictions 4. Our next instance shall be a most strange Imposture acted in the time of King James and in a manner known unto the whole Nation that is of the Boy of Bilson in Staffordshire in the year 1620. by name William Perry whose condition as he had been taught and so left by the Popish Priests take as followeth This Boy being about thirteen years old but for wit and subtilty far exceeding his age was thought by divers to be possessed of the Devil and bewitched by reason of many strange fits and much distemper wherewith he seemed to have been extreamly affected In those fits he appeared both deaf and blind writhing his mouth aside continually groaning and panting and although often pinched with mens fingers pricked with Needles tickled on his sides and once whipped with a Rod besides other the like extremities yet could he not be discerned by either shrieking or shrinking to bewray the least passion or feeling Out of his fits he took as might be thought no sustenance which he could digest but together with it did void and cast out of his mouth rags thred straw crooked pins c. Both in and out of his fits his belly by wilful and continual abstinence defrauding his own â—uts was almost as flat as his back besides his throat was swoln and hard his tongue stiff and rolled up towards the roof of his mouth insomuch that he seemed always dumb save that he would speak once in a Fortnight or three Weeks and that but in very few words Two things there were which gave most just cause of presumption that he was possessed and bewitched one was that he could still discern when that Woman which was supposed to have bewitched him to wit Jone Cocke was brought in to any room where he was although she were secretly conveyed thither as was one time tryed before the Grand Jury at Stafford The second that though he would abide other passages of Scripture yet he could not indure the repeating of that Text viz. In the beginning was the word c. Jo. 1. ver 1. but instantly rolling his eyes and shaking his head as one distracted he would fall nto his usual fits of groaning panting distraction c. In which plight he continued many months to the great wonder and astonishment of thousands who from divers parts came to see him Thus much of his cunning Yet notwithstanding this most devillish and cunningly contrived counterfeiting and dissimulation was discovered and
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
charms there is any force or efficacy and this we shall endeavour from the best and most punctual Authors that have come within the compass of our knowledge or reading and that in this order to which we shall add some observations 1. I think there are few that have been or are Students or Practitioners in the Art of Medicine that have not either heard or read the writing of that most able and learned person Johannes Fernelius who was Physician to the most Christian King of France Henry the second who in that most profound piece that he writ De abditis rerum causis gives us as an ocular witness this relation I have he saith seen a certain Man who by the virtue or force of words did brings various Specters or Apparitions into a looking-glass which did there so clearly express forthwith either in writing or in true images whatsoever he commanded that all things were readily and easily known to those that were by 1. From hence we may observe that Fernelius seeing this as he saith with his eyes cannot being so great a Scholar and a circumspect person be imagined to have been deceived or imposed upon though as much as he relates might have been brought to pass by the artificial placing of the glass and having several images and things written moved by a confederate placed in some secret corner where the images might fitly be reflected from the glass to the sight of the by-standers or by some other means performed by the optical science and confederacy And it is no sure ground to introduce a Demon to act the business when artificial means may rationally solve the matter neither was it impossible but he might mistake in the conjecture of the cause of those Phenomena 2. And though he seems by his preceeding discourse to believe it to have been caused but by a league and compact betwixt the person that shewed it and some Cacodaemon yet he bringeth no better proof for it than the rotten authority of Porphyrius and Proclus and no convincing argument that Demons can perform any such strange matters And however if they were the meer apparitions of evil spirits it is much to be wondered that Fernelius would be present at any such sinful and dangerous sights or have such familiar conversation with any of that damned crew seeing he there saith Quae omnes prorsus vanae captiosae sunt artes 3. If these Apparitions were caused by Cacodaemons then there was no efficacy in the words at all they were nothing but the sign of the league betwixt the evil spirit and the person that represented them and then he need not have said that they were derived into the glass vi verborum and so this will not prove that it was effected by force of the words But if all this that he relates did proceed but from lawful and natural causes as Paracelsus strongly holds the glass being but made as that which he saw in Spain of the Electrum that he mentions then the words might be efficacious and so it is a punctual instance to prove that words are operative which is the thing de facto that we here seek after 2. The next History to this purpose we shall take from Antonius Benevenius as we find him quoted by that learned person Marcellus Donatus and likewise Dr. Casaubon for I have not the book by me who renders it thus A Souldier had an arrow shot through the left part of his breast so that the iron of it stuck to the very bone of the right shoulder Great endeavours were used to get it out but to no purpose Benevenius doth shew that it was not feasible without present death The Man seeing himself forsaken by Physicians and Chirurgeons sends for a noted Ariolus or Conjurer who setting his two fingers upon the wound with some Charms he used commanded the iron to come out which presently without any pain of the patient came forth and the Man was presently healed And this the Doctor who I presume had the book saith that Benevenius saith vidimus we have seen it which Marcellus Donatus saith the Author ascribed to the virtue of the words and others to the force of imagination 1. Here we may observe that this may either be brought to pass by the efficacy of the words or charms that he muttered and then we must needs confess that charms are of great and stupendious force or that it might be effected by the imagination of the Charmer and then we must suppose which the most do deny that the imagination of the person imaginant hath power to operate upon ex traneous bodies if it had power to cause the iron to come without harm forth of the wounded Souldiers body or it may be caused and that in most probability by the imagination of the party wounded being excited and roused up by the uttering of the charm in which the patient in all likelihood had no small confidence And so however the charm was an accidental cause or as they use to say causa sine qua non of the bringing forth of the iron 3. Another History we must borrow from the aforesaid two Authors Donatus and Dr. Casaubon which they have transcribed forth of Johannes Baptista Montanus because I have not the Author by me and is this My self with mine eyes you may he saith believe me have seen it A certain man who when he had made a circle and drawn some characters about it and uttered some words he did call together above a hundred Serpents And further saith that though he did murmur certain words yet he holdeth that the bringing of the Serpents together was not performed by the force of the words but by the power of a strong imagination and that some by the strength of imagination not ofwords are said to draw forth darts and to cure wounds 1. And here we may take notice that this is a punctual and positive History plainly declaring the matter of fact in calling together above an hundred Serpents and this must be done either by the force of the words or by the strength of the persons imagination or both unless we must admit the Devil to perform it which may vainly be supposed but cannot be proved by what natural means he should bring it to pass But however the relation is very credible Montanus being a famous Physician and Professor at Padua and affirms it as seen with his own eyes 4. To these we may add one of sufficient credit from the learned Masius as it is cited by Wierus and Dr. Casaubon which may be we have related before but not to this purpose and is this I also he saith have seen them who with words or charms could stop wild beasts and force them to await the stroak of the dart who also could force that Domestick beastly creature which we call a Rat as soon as seen amazed and astonished to stand still as
names of ancient wise men thereby to allure the curious and to deceive the unwary which with great care and consideration we ought to eschew To the same purpose Paracelsus doth caution us in this point Cuilibet ergo promptum sit characteres verba quaevis discernere posse 4. But for all this as we have often intimated before charms and characters though in themselves of none effect may conduce to heighten the fancy and confidence of a Patient and render him more willing to take those things that may cure And to this purpose the forementioned Author Roger Bacon from Constantine the Physician tells us thus much But it is to be considered that a skilful Physician or any other that would excite and stir up the mind may profitably make use of charms and characters though feigned not because the characters or charms themselves do operate any thing but that the medicine may be received with more desire and devotion and that the mind of the Patient may be stirred up and may confide more freely and may hope and rejoice Because the Soul being excitated can renew many things in its proper body so that from infirmity it may be restored to health by joy and confidence If therefore he saith a Physician to magnific his work that the Patient may be raised up to hope and confidence shall do any thing of this nature not for fraud but because of this that he may confide that he may be healed it is not to be condemned We brought this authority to confirm what we had asserted before and that these things are wonderfully prevalent we have before shewed examples 1. There are some that to prove that words and characters have a natural efficacy do alledge some passages of Scripture which we shall propose as very probable but not as necessarily convincing and the first is this And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them Which some understand that the name Jehovah which they call Tetragrammaton was worn upon them and that thereby they were blessed and from thence they suppose that Hebrew names especially that are very efficacious and powerful Another is The man cloathed in linnen that had the Ink-horn by his side is commanded to set a mark or as some read it a Tau upon those that mourned This is the name of a letter the last in the Alphabet and hath in the old books of the Hebrews as Schindlerus tells us the figure of a cross and such like the Samaritans use to this day From whence by Tau some in Ezekiel do understand the figure of the Cross of Christ. 2. But to explicate what is meant by charms and characters we are to note that it is not to be understood of those words that are by humane institution significant according to the imposition of men nor of any sort of charms or characters but of such as by wise men are duly fitted and joined together in and under a right and favourable constellation for it is from the Influence of the Stars as we have proved before that words charms images and characters do receive their energie and virtue And to this purpose is the true rendition of the words in the Psalm Which hearkeneth not to the voice of those that mutter the conjunction of the learned joyner That is that the Serpent doth not hearken unto or obey the charms that are framed or joined together by the learned joiner or framer of charms So that there is a great learning required to frame and compose charms rightly that they may be efficacious For Paracelsus witnesseth that Serpents once hearing an efficacious charm do forthwith stop their ears lest they should hear the words repeated again Of both these sorts the learned Roger-Bacon doth tell us this Of characters therefore according to the first manner it is so to be judged as we have shewed in common speech But of sigills and characters of the second manner unless they be made in elected seasons they are known to have no efficacy at all And therefore he that doth practise them as they are described in books not respecting but only the figure that the exemplar doth represent is judged of every wise man to do nothing But those which know to perform their work in fit constellations according to the face of the Heavens those may not only dispose characters but all their works both of Art and Nature according to the virtue of the Stars But because it is a difficult thing to understand the certainty of Celestials in these things therefore in these things there is much error with many and there are few that understand to order any thing profitably and truly And to this purpose Paracelsus tells us Certain Chirurgical Arts invented of the first improvers of Astronomy by which admirable things were by an Ethereal virtue performed But these after the decease of the ancient Magicians were so lost were as scarce any footsteps do now remain But it was the Art of Celestial impressions that they might draw down the influent action into some corporeal substance The thing is plain by example The seed of a Rose doth obtain the virtue and nature of a Rose yet for all that it is not a Rose but when being put into the earth it doth sprout then at the last it produceth a Rose By the same reason there are certain celestial virtues and actions in being which being sown into Gemms which were called of the ancient Magicians Peantides and Gamahii otherwise gemmae huyae from whence they have afterwards sprung up no otherwise than seed which doth fall from the Tree and doth regerminate This was that Astronomie of the ancient Aegyptians and Persians by which they did adorn Gemms with celestial virtues Neither are these things forthwith to be reputed impossible For if we believe that the Heaven doth send the Plague and other diseases upon us why may we not hope that the benignity of its virtues may be communicated to us also In like manner if the Heaven doth act upon the bodies of men why may we not think that they may wrest their darts into stones Many are touched with such like celestial darts which a Magician who hath skill of the Firmament may easily if they be noxious shun or if they be benign shall by putting some body communicate it to that body that now that body may fully obtain into it self the virtue of that dart or influence From whence stones are found amongst the Aegyptians which being born do cause diseases But again there are others that do throughly make sound those diseases So he saith we have seen Gemmâ—s Huyâ— that is Peantides wherein the sign of the Sagittary was insculped against weapons which were prevalent against wounds made with Swords Also we have known he saith that Magicians have rendered stones efficacious to cure Feavers nor only to have made them strong to cure diseases but also