discovered others of his companions as Barbelia the wife of Joannes Latomus Mayetta the wife of Laurentius who confessed she danced with those cloven-footed Creatures at what time Peter was amongst them And for further evidence of the businesse John Michaell Herds-man did confesse that while they thus danced he plaid upon his Crooked staffe and struck upon it with his fingers as if it had been a Pipe sitting upon an high bough of an Oake and that so soon as Nicolea called upon the name of Jesus he tumbled down headlong to the ground but was presently catch'd up again with a whirldwind and carryed to Weiller Meadowes where he had left his Herds a little before Adde unto all this that there was found in the place where they danced a round Circle wherein there was the manifest maâ—kes of the treading of cloven feet which were seen from the day after Nicolea had discover'd the businesse till the next Winter that the plough cut them out These things happened in the yeare 1590. CHAP. VIII Of Fairy Circles A larger discussion of those Controversies betwixt Bodinus and Remigius viz. whether the Bodyes of Witches be really transformed into the shape of Wolves and other Creatures whether the Souls of Witches be not sometimes at those nocturnall Conventicles their bodies being left at home as also whether they leavâ— not their bodies in those Extasies they put themselves in when they promise to fetch certain newes from remote places in a very short time IT might be here very seasonable upon the foregoing story to enquire into the nature of those large darke Rings in the grasse which they call Fairy Circles whether they be the Rendezvâ—â—z of Witches or the daâ—cing places of those little puppet-Spirits which they call Elves or Fairies But these curiosâ—ties I leave to more busy Wits I am onely intent now upon my serious purpose of proving there are Spirits which I think I have made a pretty good progresse in already and have produced such narrations that cannot but gain credit with such as are not perversly and wiâ—lfully incredulous There is another more profitable question started if it could be decided concerning these Night-revellings of VVitches whether they be not sometimes there their bodies lying at home as sundry Stories seem to favour that opinion Bodinus is for it Remigius is against it It is the same question whether when VVitches or VVizards professe they will tell what is done within so many miles compasse and afterwards to give a proof of their skill first anoint their bodies and then fall down dead in a manner and so lye a competent time senselesse whether I say their souls go out of their bodies or all be but represented to their Imagination We may add a third which may happily better fetch off the other two And that is concerning your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Germans call Were-VVolff the French Loups garous Men transformed into VVolves and there is much what the same reason of other Transformations I shall not trouble you with any Histories of them though I might produce many But as well those that hold it is but a delusion of the Divell and mere Tragedies in Dreames as they that say they are reall Transactions do acknowledge that those parties that have confessed themselves thus transformed have been weary and sore with running have been wounded and the like Bodinus here also is deserted of Remigius who is of the same mind with VVierus that sly smooth Physician and faithfull Patron of VVitches who will be sure to load the Divell as much as he can his shoulders being more able to bear it and so to ease the Haggs But for mine own part though I will not undertake to decide the controversy yet I thinke it not aâ—â—isse to declare that Bodinus may very well make good his own notwithstanding any thing those do alledge to the contrary For that which Wierus and Remigius seem so much to stand upon that it is too great a power for the Divell and too great indignity to Man that he should be able thus to transform him are in my mind but slight Rheâ—orications no sound Arguments For what is that outward misâ—apement of Body to the inward deformity of their Souls which he helps on so notoriously And they having given themselves over to him so wholy why may he not use them thus here when they shall be worse used by him hereafter And for the changeing of the species of things if that were a power too big to be granted the Divell yet it is no more done here when he thus transforms a Man into a VVolf then when he transforms himself into the shape of a Man For this VVolf is still a Man and that Man is still a Divell For it is so as the Poet sayes it was in Vlysses his companions which Circe turned into Hoggs They had the Head the Voice the Body and Bristles of Hoggs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But their Understanding was unchanged they had the Mind and Memory of a Man as before As Petrus Bourgotus professeth that when his companion Michael Verdung had aâ—ointed his body and transform'd him into a Wolf when he look'd upon his hairy feet he was at first affraid of himself Now therefore it being plain that nothing materiall is alledged to the contrary and that men confesse they are turn'd into Wolves and acknowledge the salvage cruelties they then committed upon Children Women and Sheep that they find themselves exceeding weary and sometimes wounded it is more naturall to conclude they were really thus transformed then that it was a mere Delusion of Phansy For I conceive the Divell gets into their body and by his subtile substance more operative and searching than any fire or putrifying liquour melts the yielding Compages of the body to such a consistency and so much of it as is fitt for his purpose and makes it plyable to his imagination and then it is as easy for him to work it into what Shape he pleaseth as it is to work the Aire into such forms and figures as he ordinarily doth Nor is it any more difficulty for him to mollify what is hard then it is to harden what is so soft and fluid as the Aire And he that hath this power we can never stick to give him that which is lesse viz. to instruct men how they shall for a time forsake their Bodies and come in again For can it be a hard thing for him that can thus melt and take a pieces the particles of the Body to have the skill and power to loosen the Soul a substance really distinct from the Body and separable from it which at last is done by the easy course of Nature at that finall dissolution of Soul and Body which we call Death But no course of Nature ever transforms the body of Man into the shape of a Wolf so that this is more hard and exoâ—bitant from the order of Nature then the other I
but you 'l say the greatnesse and incrediblenesse of the Miracle is this That there should be an actuall separation of Soul and Body and yet no Death But this is not at all strange if we consider that Death is properly a disjunction of the Soul from the Body by reason of the Bodie 's unfitnesse any longer to entertain the Soul which may be caused by extremity of Diseases outward Violence or Age And if the Divell could restore such bodies as these to life it were a miracle indeed But this is not such a miracle nor is the Body properly dead though the Soul be out of it For the life of the Body is nothing else but that fitnesse to be actuated by the Soul The conservation whereof is help'd as I conceive by the anointing of the Body before the Extasy which ointment filling the pores keeps out the cold and keeps in the heat and Spirits that the frame and temper of the Body may continue in fit case to entertain thâ— Soul again at her return So the vital streames of the carcasse being not yet spent the pristâ—ne operations of life are presently again kindled as a candle new blown out and as yet reeking suddenly catches fire from the flame of another though at some distance the light gliding down along the smoke Wherefore there being nothing in the nature of the thing that should make us incredulous these Sorceresses so confidently pronouncing that they are out of their Bodies at such times and see and do such such things meet one another bring messages discover secrets and the like it is more naturall and easy to conclude they be really out of their Bodies then in them Which we should the more easily be induced to believe if we could give credit to that Story Wierus tells of a Souldier out of whose mouth whilest he was asleep a thing in in the shape of a Wesell came which nuddâ—â—ng along in the grasse and at last coming to a brook side very busily attempting to get over but not being able some one of the standers by that saw it made a bridge for it of his sword which it passed over by and coming back made use of the same passage and then entred into the Souldier's mouth again many looking on when he waked he told how he dream'd he had gone over an iron Bridge and other particulars answerable to what the spectatours had seen afore-hand Wierus acknowledgeth the truth of the story but will by all meanes have it to be the Divell not the Soul of the Man which he doth in a tender regard to the Witches that from such a truth as this they might not be made so obnoxious to suspicion that their Extasies are not mere Dreames and Delusions of the Divell but are accompanied with reall effects I will not take upon me to decide so nice a controversy only I will make bold to inâ—ermeddle thus farre as to pronounce Bodinus his opinion not at all unworthy of a rationall and sagacious man And that though by his being much addicted to such like speculations he might attribute some naturall effects to the ministry of Spirits when there was no need so to doe yet his judgement in other things of thâ—s kind is no more to be slighted for that then Cartesius that stupendious Mechanicall Witt is to be disallowed in those excellent inventions of the causes of those more generall Phaenomena of Nature because by his successe in those he was imboldned to enlarge his Principles too farre and to assert that Aâ—imalls themselves were mere Machina's like Aristoxenus the Musician that made the Soul nothing else but an Harmony of whom Tully pleasantly observes Quod non recessit ab arte sua Every Genius and Temper as the sundry sorts of Beasts and living Creatures have their proper excrement and it is the part of a wise man to take notice of it and to chuse what is profitable as well as to abandon what is uselesse and excrementitious CHAP. IX The Coldnesse of those bodyes that Spirits appear in witnessed by the experience of Cardan and Bourgotus The naturall Reason of this Coldnesse That the Divell does really lye with VVitches That the very substance of Spirits is not fire Spirits skirmishing on the ground Field fights and Sea fights seen in the Aire BUt to return into the way I might adde other stories of your Daemones Metallici your Guardian Genii such as that of Socrates and that other of which Bodinus tells an ample story which hee received from him who had the society and assistance of such an Angell or Genius which for my own part I give as much credit to as to any story in Livy or Plutarch Your Lares familiares as also those that haunt and vexe families appearing to many and leaving very sensible effects of their appearings But I will not so farre tire either my self or my Reader I will only name one or two storyes more rather then recite them As that of Cardan who writes as you may see in Otho Melander that a Spirit that familiarly was seen in the house of a friend of his one night layd his hand upon his brow which felt intolerably cold And so Petrus Bourgotus confessed that when the Divell gave him his hand to kisse it felt cold And many more examples there be to this purpose And indeed it stands to very good reason that the bodies of Divels being nothing but coagulated Aire should be cold as well as coagulated Water which is Snow or Ice and that it should have a more keen and piercing cold it consisting of more subtile particles than those of water and therefore more fit to insinuate and more accurately and stingingly to affect and touch the nerves Wherefore Witches confessing so frequently as they do that the Divel lyes with them and withall complaining of his tedious and offensive coldnesse it is a shrewd presumption that he doth lie with them indeed and that it is not a mere Dreame as their friend Wierus would have it Hence we may also discover the folly of that opinion that makes the very essence of Spirits to be fire for how unfit that would be to coagulate the aire is plain at first sight It would rather melt and dissolve these consistencies then constringe them and freeze them in a manner But it is rather manifest that the essence of Spirits is a substance specifically distinct from all corporeall matter whatsoever But my intent is not to Philosophize concerning the nature of Spirits but only to prove their Existence Which the story of the Spectre at Ephesus may be a further argument of For that old man which Apollonius told the Ephesians was the walking plague of the city when they stoned him and uncovered the heap appear'd in the shape of an huge black dog as big as the biggest Lion This could be no imposture of Melanchly nor â—raud of any Priest And the learned Grotius a man far from all Levity and
themselves into such damps and deadnesse of Spirit that to be buried quick were lesse torture by farre then such darke privations of all the joyes of life then such sad and heart-sinking Mortifications I say whether we consider these inward pangs of the Soul or the externall outrages caused by Religion and Religious pretense will animate men to the committing such violences as bare Reason and the single passions of the Mind unback'd with the fury of Superstition will never venture upon it is manifest that if there were no God no Spirit no Life to come it were farre better that there were no such Religious propensions in Man-kind as we see universally there is For the feare of the Civill Magistrate the convenience of mutuall ayde and support and the naturall scourge and plague of diseases would contain men in such bounds of Justice Humanity and Temperance as would make them more clearly and undisturbedly happy then they are now capable of being from any advantage Religion does to either Publique State or private person supposing there were no God Wherefore this Religious affection which Nature has implanted and as strongly rooted in Man as the feare of death or the love of women would be the most enormous slip or bungle she could commit so that she would so shamefully faile in the last Act in this contrivance of the nature of Man that instead of a Plaudite she would deserve to be hissed off the Stage But she having done all things else so wisely let us rather suspect our own ignorance then reproach her and expect that which is allowed in well approved Comedies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for nothing can unlose this knot but a Deity And then we acknowledging Man to dwell as it were in the borders of the spirituall and materiall world for he is utriusque mundi nexus as Scaliger truly calls him we shall not wonder that there is such tugging and pulling this way and that way upward and downward and such broken disorder of things those that dwell in the confines of two kingdomes being most subject to disquiet and confusion And hitherto of the Passions of the mind of Man as well those that tye him down to the Body as those that lift him up towards God Now briefly of the whole Man as he is part of the Vniverse It is true if we had not been here in the world we could not then have missed our selves but now we find our selves in being and able to examine the reasonableness of things we cannot but conclude that our Creation was an Act of very exquisite Reason Counsel For there being so many notable Objects in the world to entertaine such faculties as Reason and inquisitive Admiration there ought to be such a member of this visible Creation as Man that those things might not be in vaine And if Man were out of the world who were then left to view the face of Heaven to wonder at the transcursion of Comets to calculate Tables for the Motions of the Planets and Fix'd Starres and to take their Heights and Distances with Mathematicall Instruments to invent convenient Cycles for the computation of time and consider the severall formes of Yeares to take notice of the Directions Stations and Repedations of those Erratick lights and from thence most convincingly to informe himself of that pleasant and true Paradox of the Annuall Motion of the Earth to view the asperityes of the Moon through a Diâ—ptrick-glasse and venture at the Proportion of her Hills by their shadowes to behold the beauty of the Rain-bow the Halo Parelii and other Meteors to search out the causes of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea and the hidden vertue of the Magnet to inquire into the usefullnesse of Plants and to observe the variety of the wisdome of the first Cause in framing their bodies and giving sundry observable instincts to Fishes Birds and Beasts And lastly as there are particular Priests amongst Men so the whole Species of Man-kind being indued with Reason and a power of finding out God there is yet one singular end more discoverable of his Creation viz. that he may be a Priest in this magnificent Temple of the Vniverse and send up prayers and praises to the great Creatour of all things in behalf of the rest of the Creatures Thus we see all filled up and fitted without any defect or uselesse superfluity Wherefore the whole Creation in generall and every part thereof being so ordered as if the most exquisite Reason and Knowledge had contrived them it is as naturall to conclude that all this is the work of a wise God as at the first sight to acknowledge that those inscribed Vrnes and Coynes digg'd out of the Earth were not the Products of unknowing Nature but the Artifice of Man CHAP. I. That good men not alwayes faring best in this world the great examples of Divine Vengeance upon wicked and blasphemous Persons are not so convincing to the obstinate Atheist The irreligious Jeares and Sacrileges of Dionysius of Syracuse That there have been true Miracles in the world as well as false and what are the best and safest wayes to distinguish them that we may not be impos'd upon by History HItherto I have insisted upon such Arguments for the proving of the Existence of God as were taken from the ordinary and known Phaenomena of Nature For such is the History of Plants Animalls and Man I shall come now to such effects discovered in the World as are not deemed naturall but extraordinary and miraculous I do not mean unexpected discoveries of Murders a conspicuous Vengeance upon proud and blasphemous Persons such as Nicanor Antiochus Herod and the like of which all Histories as well Sacred as Profane are very full and all which tend to the impressing of this divine Precept in the Poet upon the minds of Men Discite Justitiam moniti non temnere Divos For though these Examples cannot but move indifferent men to an acknowledgment of divine Providence and a superiour Power above and different from the Matter yet I having now to do with the obstinate and refractory Atheist who because himself a known contemner of the Deity he finds to be safe and well at ease will shuffle all these things off by asking such a Question as he did to whom the Priest of Neptune shewed the many Dâ—naria hung up in his Temple by his Votaries saved from ship-wrack therefore vaunted much of the Power of that God of the Sea But what is become of all those saith he that notwithstanding their vowes have been lost So I say the Atheist to evade the force of this Argument will whisper within himself But how many proud blasphemous Atheisticall men like my self have escaped and those that have been accounted good have dyed untimely deaths Such as Aesop and Socrates the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs with sundry other wise and good men in all Ages and Places who yet being not so well aware of the ill
condition and restinesse of this wicked World of which they have truely profess'd themselves no Citizens but Strangers have suffered the greatest mischiefs that can happen to humane Nature by their innocent meaning and intermedling in Aliena Republica It having usually been more safe craftily and cautiously to undermine the honour of God then plainly and honestly to seek the good and wellfare of Men. Nay outragious affronts done on purpose to Religion will the Atheist further reply have not onely past applauded by the World but unpunish'd by divine Justice As is notorious in that Sacrilegious Wit Dionysius of Syracuse who spoiling Jupiter Olympius of his costly Robe very stiff and ponderous with Gold added this Apologetical jear to his Sacrilege that this golden Vestment was too heavy for the Summer and too cold for the Winter but one of wooll would fit both Seasons So at Epidaurus he commanded the golden Beard of Aesculapius to be cut off and carried away alledging that it was very unfit that the Son should wear a Beard when as his Father Apollo wore none That also was not inferiour to any of his Sacrilegious jests when taking away the golden Cups and Crowns held forth by the hands of the Images of the Gods he excused himself saying that he received but what they of their own accord gave him adding that it were a gross piece of foolishness when as we pray to the Gods for all good things not to take them when they so freely offer them with their own hands These and other such like irreligious Pranks did this Dionysius play who notwithstanding fared no worse then the most demure and innocent dying no other death then what usually other Mortalls do as if in those Ages there had been as great a lack of Wit as there was here in England once of Latin and that he escaped a more severe Sentence by the benefit of his Clergy But others think that he was pay'd home and punish'd in his Son that succeeded him But that will the Atheist reply is but to whip the absent as Aristotle wittily said to him that told him that such an one did unmercifully traduce him behind his back Wherefore I hold it more convenient to omit such Arguments as may intangle us in such endless Altercations to bring only those that cannot be resolved into any Naturall causes or be phansyed to come by Chance but are so Miraculous that they do imply the presence of some free subtile understanding essence distinct from the brute Matter and ordinary power of Nature And these Miraculous effects as there is nothing more cogent if they could be believed so there is nothing more hard to the Atheist to believe then they are For Religionists having for pious purposes as they pretend forged so many false miracles to gull and spoile the credulous people they have thereby with the Atheist taken away all belief of those which are true And the childish superstitious fear of Spirits in Melancholick persons who creâ—te strange Monsters to themselves terrible Apparitions in the darke hath also helped them with a further evasion to impute all Spectres and strange Apparitions to mere Melancholy and disturbed Phansy But that there should be so universall a fame and feare of that which never was nor is nor can be ever in the world is to me the greatest Miracle of all For if there had not been at some time or other true Miracles as indeed there ought to be if the faculties of Man who so easily listens to and allowes of such things be not in vain it is very improbable that Priests and cunning Deluders of the people would have ever been able so easily to impose upon them by their false As the Alchymist would never go about to sophisticate Metalls then put them off for true Gold and Silver but that it is acknowledged that there is such a thing as true Gold and Silver in the world In like manner therefore as there is an indeavour of deluding the people with false Miracles so it is a signe there have been and may be those that are true But you 'l say there is a Touch-stone whereby we may dâ—scerne the truth of Metalls but that there is nothing whereby we may discover the truth of Miracles recorded every where in History But I answer there is and it is this First if what is recorded was avouched by such persons who had no end nor interest in avouching such things Secondly if there were many Eye-witnesses of the same Matter Thirdly and lastly if these things which are so strange and miraculous leave any sensible effect behind them Though I will not acknowledge that all those stories are â—alse that want these conditions yet I dare affirme that it is mere humour and sullennesse in a man to reject the 〈◊〉 of those that have them For it is to believe nothing but what he seeth himself From whence it will follow that he is to read nothing of History for there is neither pleasuâ—e nor any usefullnesse of it if it deserve no belief CHAP. II. The Moving of a Sieve by a Charme Coskinomancy A Magicall cure of an Horse The Charming of Serpents A strange Example of one Death-strucken as he walked the Streets A story of a suddain winde that had like to have thrown down the Gallows at the hanging of two Witches ANd now that I have premised thus much I will bâ—iefly recite some of few those many miraculous passages we meet with in Writers beginning first with the bare and simple effects of Spirits as I will aforehand adventure to pronounce them and then afterwards we shall come to the Apparitions of Spirits themselves And of those bare effects we will not care to name what may seem slightest first Bodinus relates how himself and severall others at Paris saw a young man with a Charme in French move a Sieve up and down And that ordinary way of Divination which they call Coskinomancy or finding who stole or spoiled this or that thing by the Sieve and Sheares Pictorius Vigillanus professeth he made use of thrice and it was with successe A friend of mine told me this story concerning Charms that himself had an Horse which if he had stood sound had been of a good value His servants carried him to severall Farriers but none of them had the skill to cure him At last unknown to their Master they led him to a Farrier that had it should seem some tricks more then ordinarie and dealt in Charms or Spells and such like Ceremoniâ—s in vertue of these he made the Horse sound The Owner of him after he had observ'd how well his Horse was asked his servants how they got him cured Whence understanding the whole matter and observing also that there was an S. branded on his buttock which he conceited stood for Satan chid his servants very roughly as having done that which was unwarrantable and impious Upon this profession of his dislike of the