Fault In the mean time We have no Bowels in us if we do not Compassionate the Distressed County of Essex now crying to all these Colonies Have pitty on me O ye my Friends Have pitty on me for the Hand of the Lord has Touched me and the Wrath of the Devil has been therewithal turned upon me But indeed if an hearty pitty be due to any I am sure the Difficulties which attend our Honourable Iudges doe demand no Inconsiderable share in that Pitty What a Difficult what an Arduous Task have those Worthy Personages now upon their Hands To carry the Knife so exactly that on the one side there may be no Innocent Blood Shed by too unseeing a Zeal for the Children of Israel and that on the other side there may be no Shelter given to those Diabolical Works of Darkness without the Removal whereof we never shall have Peace or fo those Furies whereof several have kill'd more people perhaps than would serve to make a Village Hic Labor Hoc Opus est O what need have we to â—…be concerned that the Sins of our Israel may not provoke the God of Heaven to leave his Davids unto a wrong Step in a matter of such Consequence as is now before them Our Disingenuous Uncharitable Unchristian Reproching of such Faithful Men after all The Prayers and Supplications with strong Crying and Tears with which we are daily plying the Throne of Grace that they may be kept from what They Fear is none of the way for our preventing of what We Fear Nor all this while ought our Pitty to forget such Accused ones as call for indeed our most Compassionate Pitty till there be fuller Evidences that they are less worthy of it If Satan have any where maliciously brought upon the Stage those that have hitherto had a just and good stock of Reputation for their just and good Living among us If the Evil One have obtained a permission to Appear in the Figure of such as we have cause to think have hitherto Abstained even from the Appearance of Evil It is in Truth such an Invasion upon Mankind as may well Raise an Horror in us all But O what Compassions are due to such as may come under such Misrepresentations of the Great Accuser Who of us can say what may be shown in the Glasses of the Great Lying Spirit Altho' the Usual Providence of God we praise Him keeps us from such a Mishap yet where have we an Absolute Promise that we shall every one alwayes be kept from it As long as Charity is bound to Think no Evil it will not Hurt us that are Private Persons to forbear the Iudgment which belongs not unto us Let it rather be our Wish May the Lord help them to Learn the Lessons for which they are now put unto so hard a School VI. With a Great Zeal we should lay hold on the Covenant of God that we may Secure Us and Ours from the Great Wrath with which the Devil Rages Let us come into the Covenant of Grace and then we shall not be hook'd into a Covenant with the Devil nor be altogether unfurnished with armour against the Wretches that are in that Covenant Theway to come under the Saving Influences of the New Coveâ—…ant is to close with the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Allsufficient Mediator of it Let us therefore do that by Resigning up ourselves unto the Saving Teaching and Ruling Hands of this Blessed Mediator Then we shall be what we read in Jude 1. Preserved in Christ Iesus That is as the Destroying Angel could not meddle with such as had been distinguished by the Blood of the Passeover on their Houses Thus the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ Sprinkled on our Souls will Preserve us from the Devil The Birds of prey and indeed the Devils most literally in the shape of great Birds are flying about Would we find a Covert from these Vultures Let us then Hear Our Lord Jesus from Heaven Clocqing unto us O that you would be gathered under my Wings Well When this is done Then let us own the Covenant which we are now come into by joining ourselves to a Particular Church walking in the Order of the Gospel at the doing whereof according to that Covenant of God We give up Ourselves unto the Lord and in Him unto One Another While others have had their Names Entred in the Devils Book let our Names be found in the Church Book and let us be Written among the Living in Ierusalem By no means let Church-Work sink and fail in the midst of us but let the Tragical Accidents which now happen exceedingly Quicken that Work So many of the Rising Generation utterly forgetting the Errand of our Fathers to build Churches in this Wilderness and so many of Our Cottages being allow'd to Live where they do not and perhaps cannot wait upon God with the Churches of His People t is as likely as any one thing to procure the swarmings of Witch-crafts among us But it becomes us with a like Ardour to bring our poor Children with us as we shall do when we come ourselves into the Covenant of God It would break an heart of Stone to have seen what I have lately seen Even poor Children of several Ages even from seven to twenty more or less Confessing their Familiarity with Devils but at the same time in Doleful bitter Lamentations that made a Little Pour traiture of Hell it self Expostulating with their execrable Parents for Devoting them to the Devil in their Infancy and so Entailing of Devillism upon them Now as the Psalmist could say My Zeal hath Consumed me because my Enemies have forgotten thy Words Even so let the nefarious wickedness of those that have Explicitly dedicated their Children to the Devil even with Devillish Symbols of such a Dedication Provoke our Zeal to have our Children Sincerely Signally and openly Consecrated unto God with an Education afterwards assuring and confirming that Consecration VII Let our Prayer Go up with Great Faith against the Devil that comes down in Great Wrath. Such is the Antipathy of the Devil to our Prayer that he cannot bear to stay long where much of it is indeed it is Diaboli Flagellum as well as Miseriae Remedium the Devil will soon be Scourg'd out of the Lords Temple by a Whip made and used with the Effectual Fervent Prayer of Righteous Men. When the Devil by Afflicting of us drives us to our Prayers he is The Fool making a Whip for his own Back Our Lord said of the Devil in Mat. 17. 21. This Kind goes not out but by Prayer and Fasting But Prayer and Fasting will soon make the Devil be gone Here are Charms indeed Sacred and Blessed Charms which the Devil cannot stand before A Promise of God being well managed in the Hands of them that are much upon their Knees will so Resist the Devil that he will Flee from us At every other Weapon the Devils will be too hard
Infernal Enemy that hath been Coming in like a Flood upon us I do therefore make it my particular and Earnest Request unto you that as soon as may be you will Commit the same unto the PRESS accordingly I am Your Assured Friend William Stoughton I Live by Neighbours that force me to produce these Undeserved Lines But now as when Mr. Wilson beholding a great Muster of Souldiers had it by a Gentleman then present said unto him Sir I 'l tell you a great Thing here is a mighty Body of People and there is not SEVEN of them all but what Loves Mr. Wilson that Gracious Man presently pleasantly Reply'd Sir I 'll tell you as good a thing as that here is a mighty Body of People and there is not so much as ONE among them all but Mr. Wilson Loves him Somewhat so 'T is possible that among this Body of People there may be few that Love the Writer of this Book but give me leave to boast so far there is not one among all this Body of People whom this Mather would not Study to Serve as well as to Love With such a Spirit of Love is the Book now before us written I appeal to all this World and if this World will deny me the Right of acknowlèdging so much I Appeal to the Other that it is Not written with an Evil Spirit for which cause I shall not wonder if Evil Spirits be Exasperated by what is Written as the Sadducees doubtless were with what was Discoursed in the Days of our Saviour I only Demand the Iustice that others Read it with the same Spirit wherewith I writ it Enchantments Encountred S 1. IT was as long ago as the year 1637. that a Faithful Minister of the Church of England whose Name was Mr. Edward Symons did in a Sermon afterwards Printed thus Express himselfe At New-England now the Sun of Comfort begins to appear and the Glorious Day-Star to show it self Sed Venient Annis Saecula Seris there will come Times in after-ages when the Clouds will over-shadow and darken the Sky there Many now promise to themselves nothing but successive Happiness there which for a Time through Gods Mercy they may Enjoy and I Pray God they may a Long Time but in this World there is no Happiness perpetual An Observation Or I had almost said an Inspiration very dismally now verify'd upon us It has been affirm'd by some who best knew New-England That the World will do New-England a great piece of Injustice if it acknowledge not a measure of Religion Loyalty Honesty and Industry in the people there beyond what is to be found with any other people for the Number of them When I did a few years ago publish a Book which mentioned a few Memorable Witchcrafts committed in this Country the Excellent Baxter graced the Second Edition of that Book with a kind Preface wherein he sees cause to say If any are Scandalized that New-England a place of as serious Piety as any I can hear of under Heaven should be Troubled so much with Witches I think t is no Wonder Where will the Devil show most Malice but where he is Hated and Hateth most And I hope the Country will still deserve and answer the Charity so Expressed by that Reverend man of God! Whosoever travels over this Wilderness will see it richly bespangled with Evangelical Churches whose Pastors are Holy Able Painful Overseers of their Flocks Lively Preachers and Vertuous Livers and such as in their Several Neighbourly Associations have had their Meetings whereat Ecclesiastical matters of common Concernment are Considered Churches whose Communicants have been seriously Examined about their Experiences of Regeneration as well as about their Knowledge and Beleef and Blameless Conversation before their Admission to the Sacred Communion although others of less but Hopeful Attainments in Christianity are not ordinarily deny'd Baptism for themselves and theirs Churches which are Shy of using any thing in the Worship of God for which they cannot see a Warrant of God but with whom yet the Names of Congregational Presbyterian Episcopalian or Antipaedobaptist are swallowed up in that of Christian Persons of all those Perswasions being actually taken into our Fellowship when Visible Godliness has Recommended them Churches which usually do within themselves manage their own Discipline under the Conduct of their Elders but yet call in the help of Synods upon Emergencies or Aggrievances Churches Lastly wherein Multitudes are growing Ripe for Heaven every Day and as fast as these are taken off others are daily Rising up And by the presence and power of the Divine Institutions thus mentained in the Country we are still so Happy that I suppose there is no Land in the Universe more free from the Debauching and the Debasing Vices of Ungodliness The Body of the People are hitherto so disposed that Swearing Sabbath-breaking Whoring Drunkenness and the like do not make a Gentleman but a Monster or a Goblin in the Vulgar Estimation All this notwithstanding we must humbly Confess to our God that we are miserably Degenerated from the First Love of our Predecessors however we boast our selves a litile when Men would go to trample upon us and we venture to say Whereinsoever any is bold we speak foolishly we are bold also The first Planters of these Colonies were a Chosen Generation of men who were first so Pure as to disrelish many things which they thought wanted Reformation else where and yet withal so Peaceable that they Embraced a Voluntary Exile in a Squalid horrid American Desart rather than to Live in Contentions with their Brethren Those Good men imagined that they should Leave their Posterity in a place where they should never see the Inroads of Profanity or Superstition and a famous Person returning hence could in a Sermon before the Parliament profess I have now been seven years in a Country where I never saw one man drunk or heard one Oath sworn or beheld one Beggar in the Streets all the while Such great persons as Budaeus and others who mistook Sir Thomas Mores UTOPIA for a Country really Existent and stirr'd up some Divines Charitably to undertake a Voyage thither might now have certainly found a Truth in their Mistake New-England was a true Utopia But alas the Children and Servants of those Old Planters must needs afford many Degenerate Plants and there is now Risen up a Number of people otherwise Inclined than our Ioshua's and the Elders that out-lived them Those two things our Holy Progenitors and our Happy Advantages make Omissions of Duty and such Spiritual Disorders as the whole World abroad is overwhelmed with to be as Provoking in us as the most flagitious wickednesses Committed in other places and the Ministers of God are accordingly severe in their Testimonies But in Short Those Interests of the Gospel which were the Errand of our Fathers into these Ends of the Earth have been too much Neglected and Postponed and the Attainments of an hand-some
the great wrath of God will send us down from whence there is no Redemption Corollary IV. How wellcome should a Death in the Lord be unto them that belong not unto the Divel but unto the Lord While We are sojourning in this world we are in what may upon too many accounts be called The Divels Country we are where the Divel may Come down upon us in Great Wrath continually The day when God shall take us out of this world will be The Day when the Lord will deliver us from the Hand of all our enemies and from the Hand of Satan In such a day why should not our Song be that of the Psalmist Blessed be my Rock and let the God of my Salvation be Exalted While we are here we are in the Valley of the shadow of Death and what is it that makes it so Ti 's because the Wild Beasts of Hell are lurking on every side of us every minute ready to Salley forth upon us But our Death will fetch us out of that Valley and carry us where we shall be For ever with the Lord. We are now under the daily Buffetings of the Divel and he does molest us with such Fiery Darts as cause us even to cry out I am weary of my Life Yea but are we as Willing to Dy as Weary of Life Our Death will then soon set us where we cannot be Reach'd by the Fist of Wickednoss and where the Perfect cannot be shotten at It is said in Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the Dead which Dy in the Lord They Rest from their Labours But we may say Blessed are the Dead in the Lord inasmuch they Rest from the Devils Our Dying will be but our Taking Wing When attended with a Convoy of Winged Angels we shall be convey'd into that Heaven from whence the Devil having been thrown he shall never more come thither after us What if God should now say to us as to Moses Go up and Dy As long as we Go up when we Dy Let us receive the Message with a Joyful Soul we shall soon be there where the Devil can't Come Down upon us If the God of our Life should now send that Order to us which he gave to Hezekiah Set thy House in Order for thou shalt Dy and not Live We need not be cast into such deadly Agonies thereupon as Hezekiah was We are but going to that House the Golden Doors whereof cannot be Entred by the Devil that here did use to Persecute us Methinks I see the Departed Spirit of a Believer Triumphantly carried thro' the Devils Territories in such a Stately and Fiery Chariot as the Spiritualizing Body of Elias had methinks I see the Devil with whole Flocks of Harpies grinning at this Child of God but unable to fasten any of their Griping Talons upon him And then upon the utmost Edge of our Atmosphaere methinks I over-hear the Holy Soul with a most Heavenly Gallantry deriding the Defeated Fiend and saying Ah! Satan Return to thy Dungeons again I am going where thou canst not come for ever O 't is a Brave Thing so to Dy And especially so to Dy in Our Time For tho' when we call to mind That the Devils Time is now but short it may almost make us wish to Live unto the End of it and to say with the Psalmist Because the Lord will shortly appear in His Glory to Build up Zion O my God Take me not away in the midst of my Dayes Yet when we bear in mind That the Devils Wrath is now most Great it would make one willing to be Out of the Way Inasmuch as now is the Time for the doing of those things in the prospect whereof Balaam long ago cry'd out Who shall live when such Things are done We should not be inordinately loth to Dy at such a Time In a word The Times are so Bad that we may well count it as Good a Time to Dy in as ever we saw Corollary V. Good News for the Israel of God and particularly for His New-English Israel If the Devils Time were above a Thousand Years ago pronounced Short What may we suppose it now in Our Time Surely We are not a Thousand Years distant from those Happy Thousand Years of rest and peace and which is better Holiness reserved for the people of God in the latter days and if we are not a Thousand Years yet short of that Golden Age there is cause to think that we are not an Hundred That the blessed Thousand Years are not yet begun is abundantly clear from this We do not see the Devil bound No the Devil was never more let Loose than in our Days and it is very much that any should imagine otherwise But the same thing that proves the Thousand Years of Prosperity for the Church of God UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN to be not yet Begun do's also prove that it is not very Far Off and that is the prodigious Wrath with which the Devil do's in our Days Prosecute yea Desolate the World Let us cast our Eyes almost where we will and we shall see the Devils Domineering at such a rate as may justly fill us with astonishment it is Quaestionable whether Iniquity ever were so Rampant or whether Calamity were ever so Pungent as in this Lamentable Time We may truly say T is the Hour and the Power of Darkness But tho' the Wrath be so Great the Time is but Short when we are perplexed with the Wrath of the Devil the Word of our God at the same time unto us is that in Rom. 16. 20. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet SHORTLY SHORTLY didst thou say Dearest Lord O! Gladsome word Amen Even so Come Lord Lord Iesus Come Quicâ—…ly We shall never be rid of this Troublesome Devil till Thou do come to Chain him up But because the people of God would willingly be told Whereabouts we are with reference to the Wrath and the Time of the Devil you shall give me leave humbly to set before you a few Conjectures The first Conjecture The Devils Eldest Son seems to be towards the End of his last Half-time and if it be so the Devils Whole-time cannot but be very near it's End It is a very scandalous thing that any Protestant should be at a loss where to find The Anti-Christ But we have sufficient Assurance that the Duration of Antichrist is to be but for a Time and for Times and for Half a time that is for Twelve-hundred and Sixty Years And indeed those Twelve Hundred and Sixty years were the very Spott of Time left for the Devil and meant when 't is here said He has but a short time Now I should have an Easy Time of it if I were never put upon an Harder Task than to produce what might render it extreamly probable That Antichrist entred his last Half-time or the Last Hundred and Fourscore years of his Reign at or soon after the Celebrated Reformation which began
which he usually wore with a Napkin Ty'd about his Head His Countenance was very Pale Ghastly Deadly and he had a Bloody Wound On one Side of his Forehead Brother saies the Affrighted Ioseph Brother Answered the Apparition Said Ioseph What 's the matter Brother How came you here The Apparition reply'd Brother I have been most Barbarously and Injuriously Butchered by a Debauch'd Drunken Fellow to whom I never did any wrong in my life Whereupon he gave a particular Description of the Murderer adding Brother This Fellow changing his Name is attempting to come cover unto New-England in Foy or Wild I would pray you on the first Arrival of either of these to get an Order from the Governour to Seiz the person whom I have now described and then do you Indict him for the Murder of me your Brother I 'le Stand by you and prove the Indictment And so he vanished Mr. Beacon was extreamly astonished at what he had seen and heard and the People of the Family not only observed an extraordinary Alteration upon him for the Week following but have also given me under their Hands a full Testimony that he then gave them an Account of this Apparition All this while Mr. Beacon had no Advice of any thing amiss attending his Brother then in England but about the latter end of Iune following he understood by the common ways of communication that the April before his Brother going in hast by night to call a coach for a Lady mett a fellow then in drink with his Doxy in his hand Some way or other the fellow thought himself affrontted in the hasty passage of this Beacon immediately ran in to the â—…-side of a Neighbouring Tavern from whence he fetch'd out a Fire-fork wherewith he grievously wounded Beacon in the skull even in that very part where the Apparition show'd his wound Of this Wound he Languished until he Dy'd on the second of May about five of the Clock in the morning at London The murderer it seems was endeavouring an escape as the Apparition affirm'd but the Friends of the Deceased Beacon siezed him and prosecuting him at Law he found the help of such Friends as brought him off without the loss of his Life since which there has no more been heard of the Business This History I received of Mr Ioseph Beacon himself who a little before his own Pious Hopeful Death which follow'd not long after gave me the Story written and signed with his own Hand and Attested with the Circumstances I have already mentioned BUt I shall no longer detain my Reader from His expected entertainment in a Brief Account of the Trials which have passed upon some of the Malefactors Lately Executed at Salem for â—…he Wâ—…hcrafts whereof they stood Convicted For my own part I was not Present at any of Them nor ever Had I any personal prejudice at the persons thus brought upon the Stage much less at the Surviving Relations of those persons with and for whom I would be as Hearty a mourner as any man Living in the World The Lord Comfort them But having Received a â—…mand so to do I can do no other than shortly Relate the Chief Matters of fact which accurr'd in the Trials of some that where Executed in an Abridgment collected out of the Court-Papers on this occasion put into my Hands You are to take the Truth just as it was and the Truth will hurt no good man There might have been more of these if my Book would not thereby have been swollen too big and if some other worthy hands did not perhaps intend something further in these Collections for which cause I have only singled out Four or Five which may serve to Illustrate the way of dealing wherein Witchcrafts use to be concerned and I Report matters not as an Advocate but as an Historian They were some of the Gracious Words inserted in the Advice which many of the Neighbouring Ministers did this Summer humbly lay before our Honourable Judges We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which the Merciful God has given unto the Sedulous and Assiduous endeavours of Our Honourable Rulers to detect the abominable Witchcrafts which have been committed in the Country Humbly Praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected If in the midst of the many Dissatisfactions among us the publication of these Trials may promote such a pious Thankfulness unto God for Justice being so far executed among us I shall Rejoyce that God is Glorified and pray that no wrong steps of ours may ever fully any of His Glorious Works But we will begin with A Modern Instance of Witches Discovered and Condemned in a Trial before that Celebrated Judge Sir Matthew Hale IT may cast some Light upon the Dark Things now in America if we just give a glance upon the Like Things lately hapening in Europe We may see the Witchcrafts here most exactly resemble the Witchcrafts there and we may learn what sort of Devils do trouble the World The Venerable Baxter very truly sais Iudge Hale was a Person than whom no Man was more backward to Condemn a Witch without full Evidence Now One of the Latest Printed Accounts about a Trial of Witches is of what was before him and it ran on this wise Printed in the Year 1682 And it is here the rather mentioned because it was a Trial much considered by the Judges of New-England I. Rose Cullender and Amy Duny were severally Indicted for Bewitching Elizabeth Durent Ann Durent Iane Bocking Susan Chandler William Durent Elizabeth and Deborah Pacy And the evidence whereon they were Convicted stood upon diverse particular Circumstances II. Ann Durent Susan Chandler and Elizabeh Pacy when they came into the Hall to give Instructions for the drawing the Bills of Indictments they fell into strange and violent Fitts so that they were unable to give in their Depositions not only then but also During the whole Assizes William Durent being an Infant his Mother Swore That Amy Duny looking after her Child one Day in her absence did at her return confess that she had given suck to the Child tho' she were an Old Woman Whereat when Durent expressed her displeasure Duny went away with Discontents and Menaces The Night after the Child fell into strange and sad Fitts wherein it continued for Diverse Weeks One Doctor Iacob advised her to hang up the Childs Blanket in the Chimney Corner all Day and at Night when she went to put the Child into it if she found any Thing in it then to throw it without fear into the Fire Accordingly at Night there fell a great Toad out of the Blanket which ran up down the Hearth A Boy catch't it held it in the Fire with the Tongs where it made an horrible Noise and Flash'd like to Gun-Powder with a report like that of a Pistol Whereupon the Toad was no more to be seen The next Day a kinswoman of