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
Perkin's way for the Discovery of Witches I. There are Presumptions which do at least Probably and Conjecturally note one to be a Witch These give Occasion to Examine yet they are no Sufficient Causes of Conviction II. If any man or woman be notoriously defamed for a Witch this yeelds a strong Suspition Yet the Iudge ought Carefully to Look that the Report be made by men of Honesty and Credit III. If a Fellow Witch or Magician give Testimony of any Person to be a Witch this indeed is not sufficient for Condemnation but it is a fit Presumption to cause a strait Examination IV. If after Cursing there follow Death or at least some mischief for Witches are wont to practise their mischievous Facts by Cursing and Banning This also is a sufficient matter of Examination tho' not of Conviction V. If after Enmity Quarrelling or Thrèatening a present mischief do's follow that also is a great Presumption VI. If the Party suspected be the Son or Daughter the man-servant or maid-servant the Familiar Friend near Neighbour or old Companion of a known and Convicted Witch This may be likewise a presumption for Witchcraft is an Art that may be Learn'd and Convey'd from man to man VII Some add this for a Presumption If the party Suspected be found to have the Devils mark for it is Commonly thought when the Devil makes his Covenant with them he alwayes Leaves his mark behind them whereby he knows them for his own a mark whereof no Evident Reason in Nature can be given VIII Lastly If the party Examined be Unconstant or Contrary to himself in his Deliberate Answers it argueth a Guilty Conscience which stops the Freedom of Utteranee And yet there are causes of Astonishment which may befal the Good as well as the Bad IX But then there is a Conviction discovering the Witch which must proceed from just and sufficient proofs and not from bare Presumptions X Scratching of the Suspected Party and Recovery thereupon with several other such weak proofs as also the Fleeting of the Suspected Party thrown upon the Water These proofs are so far from being sufficient that some of them are after a sort practices of Witcheraft XI The Testimony of some Wizzard tho' offering to show the Witches face in a Glass This I grant may be a good presumption to cause a strait Examination but a sufficient proof of Conviction it cannot be If the Devil tell the Grand-Iury that the Person in Question is a Witch and offers withal to confirm the same by Oath should the Inquest Receive his Oath or Accusation to Condemn the man Assuredly No. And yet that is as much as the Testimony of another Wizzard who only by the Devils Help Reveals the Witch XII If a man being dangerously Sick and like to Dy upon Suspicion will take it on his Death that such an one hath Bewitched him it is an Allegation of the same Nature which may move the Iudge to Examine the Party but it is of â—…o onement for Conviction XIII Among the sufficient means of Conviction the first is the Free and Voluntary Confession of the Crime made by the Party Suspected and Accused after Examination I say not that a bare Confession is sufficient but a Confession after due Examination taken upon pregnant presumptions What needs now more Witness or further Enquiry XIV There is a second sufficient Conviction by the Testimony of Two Witnesses of Good and Honest Report avouching before the Magistrate upon their own Knowledge these two Things either that the Party Accused hath made a League with the Devil or hath done some known practices of Witchcraft And all Arguments that do Necessarily prove either of these being brought by two sufficient Witnesses are of Force fully to Convince the Party Suspected XV. If it can be proved that the Party Suspected hath called upon the Devil or desired his Help this is a pregnant proof of a League formerly made between them XVI If it can be proved that the Party hath Entertained a Familiar Spirit and had Conference with it in the Likeness of some visible Creatures here is Evidence of Witchcraft XVII If the Witnesses affirm upon Outh that the Suspected person hath done any Action or work which necessarily infers a Covenant made as that he hath used Enchantments Divined of things before they come to pass and that peremptorily Raised Tempests caused the Form of a Dead Man to appear it proveth sufficiently that he or she is a Witch This is the Substance of Mr. Perkins Take Next The Summ of Mr Gaules Judgment about the Detection of Witches I Some Tokens for the Trial of Witches are altogether Unwarrantable Such are the old Paganish Sign The Witches Long Eyes The Tradition of the Witches not weeping The casting of the Witch into the Water with Thumbs and Toes ty'd across And many more such Marks which if they are to know a witch by certainly 't is no other witch but the User of them II. There are some Tokens for the Trial of Witches more probable and yet not so certain us to afford Conviction Such are strong and long Suspicion Suspected Ancestors some Appearance of Fact The Corpse bleeding upon the Witches Touch The Testimony of the Party Bewitched The Supposed Witches unusual Bodily Marks The Witches usual Cursing and Banning The Witches lewd and naughty kind of Life III. Some Signs there are of a Witch more certain and infallible As Firstly Declining of Judicature or Fultring Faulty Unconstant and Contrary Answers upon Judicial and Deliberate Examination Secondly when upon due Enquiry into a persons Faith and Manners there are found all or most of the causes which produce Witchcraft namely God Forsaking Satun invading particular Sins disposing and Lastly a Compact compleating all Thirdly The Witches free Confession together with Full Evidence of the Fact Confession without First may be a meer Delusion and Fact without Confession may be a meer Accident 4thly The Semblable Gestures Actions of suspected Witches with the comparable Expressions of Affections which in all Witches have been observ'd and found very much alike Fifthly The Testimony of the Party Bewitched whether Pining or Dying together with the joint Oaths of sufficient persons that have seen certain prodigious Pranks or Feats wrought by the Party Accused IV. Among the most unhappy Circumstances to Convict a Witch One is A Maligning and Oppugning the Word Work and worship of God and by any Extraordinary Sign seeking to seduce any from it See Deut. 13. 1 2. Math. 24. 24. Act. 13 8 10. 2 Tim. 3 8. Do but mark well the places for this very Property of thus Opposing and perverting they are all there concluded arrant and absolute Witches V. It is not requisite that so palpable Evidence of Conviction should here come in as in other more sensible matters T is enough if there be but so much Circumstantial proof or Evidence as the Substance matter and Nature of such an Abstruse Mystery of Iniquity will
much for our Corollaries I hasten to the main Thing designed for your Entertainment And that is An Hortatory and Necessary ADDRESS To a Country now Extraordinarily Alarum'd by the Wrath of the Devil T is this LEt us now make a Good and a Right use of the Prodigious Descent which the Devil in Great Wrath is at this day making upon our Land Upon the Death of a Great Man once an Orator call'd the Town together crying out Câ—…currite Cives Dilapsa sunt vestra Maenia that is Come together Neighbours your Town-Walls are fallen down But such is the Descent of the Devil at this day upon ourselves that I may truly tell you The Walls of the whole World are broken down The usual Walls of Defence about mankind have such a Gap made in them that the very Devils are broke in upon us to Seduce the Souls Torment the Bodies Sully the Credits and consume the Estates of our Neighbours with Impressions both as Real and as Furious as if the Invisible World were becoming Incarnate on purpose for the vexing of us And what use ought now to be made of so Tremendous a dispensation We are engaged in a Fast this day but shall we try to fetch Meat 〈◊〉 of the Eater and make the Lion to afford some Hony for our Souls That the Devil is Come down unto us with great Wrath we find we feel we now deplore In many wayes for many years hat the Devil been assaying to Extirpate the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus here New-England may complain of the Devil as in Psal. 129. 1 2. Many a time have they Afflicted me from my Youth may New-England now say many a time have they Afflicted me from my Youth yet they have not prevailed against me But now there is a more than Ordinary Affliction with which the Devil is Galling of us and such an one as is indeed Unparallellable The Things Confessed by Witches and the Things Endured by Others laid together amount unto this account of our Affliction The Devil Exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small Black man has decoy'd a fearful Knot of Proud Froward Ignorant Envious and Malicious Creatures to List themselves in his Horrid Service by Entring their Names in a Book by him Tendred unto them These Witches whereof above a Score have now Confessed and shown their Deeds and some are now Tormented by the Devils for Confessing have met in Hellish Randezvouzes wherein the Confessors do say they have had their Diabolical Sacraments imitating the Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. In these Hellish Meetings these Monsters have associated themselves to do no less a Thing than To Destroy the Kingdom of our Lord Iesus Christ in these parts of the World and in order hereunto First they each of them have their Spectres or Devils Commission'd by them and Representing of them to be the Engines of their Malice By these wicked Spectres they Sieze poor people about the Country with Various and bloody Torments and of those Evidently Preternatural Torments there are some have Dy'd They have bewitched some even so far as to make them Self-Destroyers and others are in many Towns here and there Languishing under their Evil Hands The People thus Afflicted are miserably Scratched and Bitten so that the Marks are most Visible to all the World but the causes utterly Invisible and the same Invisible Furies do most Visibly stick Pins into the Bodies of the Afflicted and Scald them hideously Distort and Disjoint all their members besides a thousand other sorts of Plagues beyond these of any Natural Diseases which they give unto them Yea they sometimes drag the poor People out of their Chambers and Carry them over Trees and Hills for diverse Miles together A large part of the Persons tortured by these Diabolical Spectres are horribly Tempted by them sometimes with fair Promises and sometimes with hard Threatenings but alwayes with felt Miseries to sign the Devils Laws in a Spectral Book laid before them which two or three of these poor Sufferers being by their Tiresome Sufferings overcome to do they have immediately been released from all their Miseries they appear'd in Spectre then to Torture those that were before their Fellow-Sufferers The Witches which by their Covenant with the Devil are become Owners of Spectres are oftentimes by their own Spectres Required and Compelled to give their Consent for the Molestation of some which they had no mind otherwise to fall upon and Cruel Depredations are then made upon the Vicinage In the Prosecution of these Witchcrafts among a thousand other unaccountable Things the Spectres have an odd Faculty of Cloathing the most Substantial and Corporeal Instruments of Torture with Invisibility while the Wounds thereby given have been the most palpable Things in the World so that the Sufferers assaulted with Instruments of Iron wholly unseen to the Standers-by tho' to their cost seen by themselves have upon snatching wrested the Instruments out of the Spectres Hands and every one has then immediately not only beheld but handled an Iron Instrument taken by a Devil from a Neighbour These wicked Spectres have proceeded so far as to Steal several Quantities of Mony from divers people part of which Money has before sufficient Spectators been dropt out of the Air into the Hands of the Sufferers while the Spectres have been urging them to Subscribe their Covenant with Death In such extravagant wayes have these Wretches propounded the Dragooning of as many as they can into their own Combination and the Destroying of others with Lingring Spreading Deadly Diseases till our Country should at last become too hot for us Among the Ghastly Instances of the Success which those Bloody Witches have had we have seen even some of their own Children so Dedicated unto the Devil that in their Infancy it is found the Imps have Sucked them and Rendred them Venemous to a Prodigy We have also seen Devils First Batteries upon the Town where the First Church of our Lord in this Colony was Gathered producing those Distractions which have almost Ruined the Town We have seen likewise the Plague reaching afterwards into other Towns far and near where the Houses of Good Men have the Devils filling of them with terrible Vexations This is the Descent which as it seems the Devil has now made upon us But that which makes this Descent the more formidable is The Multitude and Quality of Persons Accused of an Interest in this Witchcraft by the Efficacy of the Spectres which take their Name and Shape upon them causing very many Good and Wise men to fear That many Innocent yea and some Vertuous Persons are by the Devils in this matter Imposed upon That the Devils have obtain'd the power to take on them the Likeness of Harmless People and in that Likeness to Afflict other People and be so abused by Praestigious Dâ—…emons that upon their Look or Touch the Afflicted shall be oddly Affected Arguments from the Providence of God on the one side
Dayes of Greatest Light has had that in it which may divert the Calumnies of an Ill-natured World from Centring here They are the words of the Devout Bishop Hall Satans Prevalency in this Age is most clear in the marvellous Number of Witches abounding in all places Now Hundreds are discovered in one Shire and if Fame Deceive us not in a Village of Fourteen Houses in the North are found so many of this Damned Brood Yea and those of both Sexes who have Professed much Knowledge Holiness and Devotion are drawn into this Damnable Practice I suppose the Doctor in the first of those Passages may refer to what happened in the Year 1645. When so many Vassals of the Devil were Detected that there were Thirty Try'd at one time whereas about Fourteen were Hang'd and an Hundred more Detained in the Prisons of Suffolk and Essex Among other things which many of these Acknowledged one was That they were to undergo certain Punishments if they did not such and such Hurts as were appointed them And among the Rest that were then Executed there was an Old Parson called Lowis who Confessed that he had a Couple of Imps whereof One was alwayes putting him upon the doing of Mischief Once particularly that Imp calling for his Consent so to do went immediately and Sunk a Ship then under Sail. I pray Let not New-England become of an Unsavoury and a Sulphurous Resentment in the Opinion of the World Abroad for the Doleful Things which are now fallen out among us while there are such Histories of other places abroad in the World Nevertheless I am sure that we the People of New-England have cause enough to Humble our selves under our most Humbling Circumstances We must no more be Haughty because of the Lords Holy Mountain among us No it becomes us rather to be Humble because we have been such an Habitation of Unholy Devils II. Since the Divel is come down in great wrath upon us let not us in our great wrath against one another provide a Lodging for him It was a most wholesome caution in Eph. 4. 26. 27. Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath Neither give place to the Divel The Divel is come down to see what Quarter he shall find among us and if his coming down do now fill us with wrath against one another and if between the cause of the Sufferers on one hand and the cause of the Suspected on t'other we carry things to such extreames of Passion as are now gaining upon us the Devil will Bless himself to find such a convenient Lodging as we shall therein afford unto him And it may be that the wrath which we have had against one another has had more then a little Influence upon the coming down of the Divel in that wrath which now amazes us Have not many of us been Devils one unto another for Slanderings for Backbitings for Animosities For this among other causes perhaps God has permitted the Devils to be Worrying as they now are among us But it is high time to leave off all Devilism when the Devil himself is falling upon us and it is no time for us to be Censuring and Reviling one another with a Devilish Wrath when the Wrath of the Devil is annoying of us The way for us to out-wit the Devil in the Wiles with which he now Vexes us would be for us to join as one man in our cries to God for the Directing and Issuing of this Thorny Business but if we do not Lift up our Hands to Heaven Without Wrath we cannot then do it without Doubt of speeding in it I am ashamed when I read French Authors giving this Character of Englishmen Ils se haissent Les uns les autres et sont en Division Continuelle They hate one one another and are always Quarrelling one with another And I shall be much more ashamed if it become the Character of New-Englanders which is indeed what the Devil would have Satan would make us Bruise one another by breaking of the Peace among us but O let us disappoint him We read of a thing that sometimes happens to the Devil when he is foaming with his Wrath in Mat. 12. 4â—… The unclean Spirit seeks rest and finds none But we give Rest unto the Devil by Wrath one against another If we would lay aside all fierceness and keeness in the disputes which the Devil has raised among us and if we would use to one another none but the Soft Answers which Turn away Wrath I should hope that we might light upon such Counsels as would quickly Extricate us out of our Labyrinths But the Old Incendiary of the world is come from Hell with Sparks of Hell-Fire Flashing on every side of him and we make ourselves Tynder to the Sparks When the Emperour Henry III. kept the Feast of Pentecost at the City Mentz there arose a Dissension among some of the People there which came from words to Blows and at last it passed on to the Shedding of Blood After the Tumult was over when they came to that clause in their Devotions Thou hast made this day Glorious the Devil to the unexpressible Terrour of that vast Assembly made the Temple Ring with that Outcry But I have made this Day Quarrelsome We are truly come into a day which by being well managed might be very Glorious for the exterminating of those Accursed Things which have hitherto been the Clogs of our Prosperity but if we make this day Quarrelsome thro' any Raging Confidences Alas O Lord my Flesh Trembles for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy Iudgments Erasmus among other Historians tells us that at a Town in Germany a Witch or Devil appear'd on the Top of a Chimney Threatning to set the Town on Fire and at length Scattering a Pot of Ashes abroad the Town was presently and Horribly Burn't unto the Ground Methinks I see the Spectres from the Tops of the Chimneys to the North ward threatning to Scatter Fire about the Countrey but let us Quench that Fire by the most amicable Correspondencies Lest as the Spectres have they say already most Literally Burn't some of our Dwellings there do come forth a further Fire from the Brambles of Hell which may more terribly Devour us Let us not be like a Troubled House altho we are so much haunted by the Devils Let our Long Suffering be a Well-placed piece of Armour about us against the Fiery Darts of the wicked ones History informs us That so long ago as the year 858. a certain Pestilent and Malignant sort of a Daemon molested Caumont in Germany with all sorts of methods to stir upStrife among the Citizens He uttered Prophecies he detected Villanies he branded people with all kind of Infamies He incensed the Neighbourhood against one Man particularly as the cause of all the mischiefs who yet proved himself innocent He threw stones at the Inhabitants and at length burn't their Habitations till the Commission of the
Daemon could go no further I say Let us be well aware lest such Daemons do Come hither also III. Inasmuch as the Devil is come down in Great Wrath we had need Labour with all the Care and Speed we can to Divert the Great Wrath of Heaven from coming at the same Time upon us The God of Heaven has with long and loud Admonitions been calling us to A Reformation of our Provoking Evils as the only way to avoid that Wrath of His which does not only Threaten but Consume us 'T is because we have been Deaf to those Calls that we are now by a provoked God laid open to the Wrath of the Devil himself It is said in Prov. 16. 7. When a mans ways please the Lord He maketh even his Enemies to be at peace with him The Devil is our Grand Enemy and tho' we would not be at peace with him yet we would be at peace from him that is we would have him unable to Disquiet our Peace But inasmuch as the Wrath which we Endure from this Enemy will allow us no Peace we may be sure Our Ways have not pleased the Lord. It is because we have Broken the Hedge of Gods Precepts that the Hedge of Gods Provodence is not so Entire as it uses to be about us but Serpents are Biting of us O let us then set our selves to make our Peace with our God whom we have Displeased by our Iniquities and let us not imagine that we can Encounter the Wrath of the Devil while there is the Wrath of God Almighty to set that Mastiff upon us REFORMATION REFORMATION has been the Repeated Cry of all the Judgments that have hitherto been upon us because we have been as Deaf Adders thereunto the Adders of the Infernal Pit are now hissing about us At length as it was of old said in Luc 16. 30. If one went unto them from the Dead they will Repent Even so There are some come unto us from the Damned The Great God has Loosed the Bars of the Pit so that many Damned Spirits are come in among us to make us Repent of our Misdemeanours The means which the Lord had formerly Employ'd for our Awakening were such that he might well have said What could I have done more and yet after all He has done more in some regards than was ever done for the Awakening of any People in the World The Things now done to Awaken our Enquiries after our Provoking Evils and our Endeavours to Reform those Evils are most EXTRAORDINARY Things For which cause I would freely speak it If we now do not some EXTRAORDINARY Things in Returning to God we are the most Incurable and I wish it be not quickly said the most Miserable People under the Sun Believe me 't is a Time for all people to do something EXTRAORDINARY In Searching and in Trying of their Ways and in Turning to the Lord. It is at an EXTRAORDINARY Rate of Circumspection and Spiritual Mindedness that we should all now maintain a Walk with God At such a Time as This ought Magistrates to Do something EXTRAORDINARY in promoting of what is Laudable and in Restraining and Chastising of Evil Doers At such a Time as This ought Ministers to Do something EXTRAORDINARY in pulling the Souls of men out of the Snares of the Devil not only by publick Preaching but by personal Visits and Counsels from House to House At such a Time as This ought Churches to Do something EXTRAORDINARY in Renewing of their Covenants and in Remembring and Reviving the Obligations of what they have Renewed Some Admirable Designs about the Reformation of Manners have lately been on foot in the English Nation in pursuance of the most Excellent Admonitions which have been given for it by the Letters of Their Majesties Besides the vigorous Agreements of the Iustices here and there in the Kingdom assisted by Godly Gentlemen and Informers to Execute the Laws upon Profane Offenders there has been started A PROPOSAL for the well-affected people in every Parish to enter into orderly Societies whereof every Member shall bind himself not only to Avoid Profaneness in himself but also according unto their Place to do their utmost in first Reproving and if it must be so then Exposing and so Punishing as the Law directs for others that shall be guilty It has been observed That the English Nation has had some of its greatest Successes upon some special and signal Actions this way and a Discouragement given unto Legal Proceedings of this Kind must needs be very exerciâ—…ng to the Wise that observe these Things But O why should not New-England be the most forward part of the English Nation in such Reformations Methinks I hear the Lord from Heaven saying over us O that my People had hearkened unto me Then I should soon have subdued the Devils as well as their other Enemies There have been some fome feeble Essays towards Reformation of late in our Churches but I pray what comes of them Do we stay till the Storm of his Wrath be over Nay let us be Doing what we can as fast as we can to divert the Storm The Devils having broke in upon our World there is great Asking Who is it that have brought them in and many do by Spectral Exhibitions come to be cry'd out upon I hope in Gods Time it will be found that among those that are thus Cry'd out upon there are persons yet Clear from the Great Transgression but indeed all the Unreformed among us may justly be Cry'd out upon as having too much of an Hand in letting of the Devils in to our Borders 't is our Worldliness our Formality our Sensuality and our Iniquity that has help'd this Letting of the Devils in O Let us then at last Consider our Wayes 'T is a strange passage recorded by Mr. Clark in the Life of his Father That the People of his Parish refusing to be Reclaimed from their Sabbath Breaking by all the zealous Testimonies which that Good man bore against it at last on a Night after the people had Retired Home from a Revelling Profanation of the Lords Day there was heard a Great Noise with Rattling of Chains up and down the Town and an horrid Scent of Brimstone fill'd the Neighbourhood Upon which the Guilty Consciences of the Wretches told them the Devil was come to fetch them away and it so terrify'd them that an Eminent Reformation follow'd the Sermons which that man of God Preached thereupon Behold Sinners Behold and Wonder lest you Perish the very Devils are Walking about our Streets with Lengthened Chains making a dreadful Noise in our Ears and Brimstone even without a Metaphor is making an Hellish and Horrid Stench in our Nostrils I Pray Leave off all those things whereof your Guilty Consciences may now accuse you lest these Devils do yet more direfully fall upon you Reformation is at this Time our only Preservation IV. When the Devil is come down in Great Wrath Let every Great Vice