in its Perfection being the Life of fixed Love In any thing short of which the perfection of Virgin Life cannot consist So that meerly to abstain from the concupiscible lustings of Venus under the Spirit of this great World is but the Life of outward Chastity and but a particular Branch of the other For the Virgin Life is not attained till the Will of the Soul is brought through Death to be so Passive as to will desire and act nothing but what the essential Essence of Love wills moves and acts through it For till then the Soul cannot be a pure Virgin nor live without all Desire and Imagination which must all cease before the pure Life of God can come to be all in all This Life of Virginity was placed fore-right as to the inward Eye of the Mind being that mark of Persecution at which we are to aim in our pressing toward the Resurrection of the Dead To this Wisdom that Eternal Virgin Prov. 8. 20 23. as a Leading-Star invited us calling to follow her in the way of Circumcision Resignation and the Cross in the way of total Self-denial and forsaking of all for her sake in the way of Annihilation and conformity to Christ's Death by which we saw undoubtedly we should come to Christ's Resurrection Ascention Glorification and Fixation in the love of the Holy Ghost the third and last Dispensation Here we clearly saw the danger of looking back to the External World and of putting out our Imagination into the Inward World or the Kingdom of the Dragon or of resting in the openings and delights of the Inward Light World For by turning back into the delights of the Senses we saw the Soul would become Bastial by turning to the left Hand and imagining into the Kingdom of the Dragon in awakening the fire of Wrath and Subtilty devilishly and dangerously Wicked by turning to the right Hand in imagining into and taking too much complacency in the Visions Illuminations Tinctures and Enthusiasms of the Light World we saw the Soul might become elevated into self-conceit and tinctured with Pride and be in danger of neglecting the Death of the Cross which is the only safe Path into eternal Rest and Fixation Here then we were shewed that the way which leads up to the Virgin Essence the New Jerusalem was strait and narrow as upon the Breadth of an Hair so that we were to turn no way either on the right or left Hands but stand without Lusts with our Eyes fixed upon the Being of Love pressing forwards after Fixation in the Eternal House of God there to become immoveable Pillars no more to go out but there always to bear the Name of God and the Name of the City of God which is New Jerusalem And now for the space of this four Years ever since the time of these great Manifestations we by the Grace of God have enjoyed the exercises of our Spiritual Senses which never since have been shut neither ever will be except through voluntary Transgression and Disobedience we Apostatize and run back into the Earthly Nature or turn aside to center in something short of the pure Life of Virginity which calls us from the External through the Internal into the Eternal World which is that Kindom prepared for us from the beginning of the World But Thirdly after this extraordinary time of Grace and Mercy to us we enjoyed not only a clear leading convicting Light upon our Understandings but likewise received from the Lord a stamp and strong impression of Power moving our Wills to follow this Light through the Death of all things to come up into the perfect Life and Image of God that so we might be transformed into that Righteous Nature which we so clearly behold through Divine Light Hence we came to live in a greater abstraction from our Sensitive Nature in a constant watchful practice of the Cross in reference to all external and internal Objects which might by entertaining our Affections hinder our progress to God Hence also we came to live a more devoted strict dedicated Life sequestring our selves from the World and worldly things giving our selves almost continually to Prayer Fasting and waiting upon God in dying daily to all self-Ownments Relations and Proprieties in which most are intangled to the great prejudice of their Spirits And in this way we have ever since continued endeavouring to be wholly conformable to the Death of Christ in renouncing our own Lives and proper Wills as opposite to the Life and Will of God experimenting those profound Mysteries of the Cross of Christ which are hidden to most in the World But what Joy Life Power divine Pleasure and Heavenly Communion the Lord hath blessed us with in this our dying resigning Progress I shall wrap up in Silence together with those blessed Secrets of the Kingdom which in these few last Years past we have been acquainted with to the comfort of our Spirits in this sad time when we are judged and condemned of the World in the participations of Christ's Sufferings The Discovery of Thirty and Two young Girls in the Cloister of Madam Bourignon at Lisle found to be Witches Related by her self and the Continuator of her Life ANthoinette Bourignon was Born at Lisle in Flanders 13 January 1616. Her first appearance in the World was not without some Deformity her Forehead being grown all over with black Hairs her upper Lip drawn up to her Nose and her Mouth gaping wide open But the hairs of her Fore-head afterward fell off of themselves and her Lip was restored to its proper Posture by the help of a Chirurgeon and she grew more and more Comely yet her Mother had never any great Affection to her but loved her least of all her Children but her Father loved her best of all possibly the better for being of his own Complexion he being an Italian whereas all the rest who were Fair possibly took after their Mother who was of the Country of Lisle She was it seems from her Child-hood to be conformable to her Saviour in Sufferings And her first Persecutions were by her own Kindred and nearest Relations even her Mother and her Sister which had this happy effect upon her that she became very Retired and Serious in her tender Age. And she then received such strong impressions and attractions by the Grace of God as soon as she had the use of Reason that her Thoughts and Discourses were such as seemed not to come from a Child but from one of well grown in Years She always thought she should be in some other Place and enquiring where was the Country where Christians Inhabit expressed a desire to go thither And when she was told she was then in a Country of Christians she could not believe it because Jesus Christ was born in a Stable and lived in Poverty but the People there had stately Houses rich Furniture and plenty of Mony c. But such Discourse would not down there but
prefix a Meditation though not finished of that no less Wise Profound Sagacious and Ingenuous than Just and Good Man the late Lord Chief Justice HALE concerning the Mercy of God in preserving us from the Malice and Power of Evil Angels which he wrote at Cambridge the next Lord's day after the Tryal of certain Witches before him at St. Edmund's bury whom he there Condemned and ordered to be Executed after a long Tryal from Seven or Eight in the Morning till Seven or Eight at Night wherein be called to his assistance divers Physitians and other learned Men and at last after a full and careful Examination the Jury finding them Guilty he passed Sentence upon them with full Satisfaction of the Justice of their Verdict There is a Relation of it in print written by his Marshal which I suppose is very true though to the best of my Memory not so compleat as to some observable Circumstances as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit But that he was well satisfied in it may be perceived by his Writing this Meditation so immediately upon it And therefore I think it very proper for this place not only for the use which well-disposed People may make of it but also as an Evidence of the Judgment of so Great so Learned so Profound and Sagatious so Cautious Circumspect and Tender a Man in matters of Justice and especially in matter of Life and Death upon so great Deliberation for he knew by his Kalendar before-hand what a Cause he was to Try and he well knew the Notions and Sentiments of the Age and upon so solemn an Occasion to check and correct the Impiety the Vanity the Self-conceitedness or Baseness of such Witch-Advocates as either confidently maintain that there are no Witches at all making their shallow Conceptions an adequate measure for the extent of the Powers of Nature and of the Wisdom and Power of God or contrary to their Duty and their Oaths make light of the Examination and Tryal of them when brought before them Such Persons may have cause to be ashamed of themselves after notice of such a Judgment and others may hereby be admonished what to think of them if they persist in such Assertions or Pretences A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The great Mercy of God in preserving us from the Power and Malice of Evil Angels Written by Sir Matt. Hale at Cambridge 26 Mar. 1661. Vpon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St. Edmund's-Bury 1. THat there are such evil Angels it is without all question The Old Testament assures us of it as it easily appears upon the consideration of the Temptation of our first Parents the History of Abimeleck and the Men of Shechem the History of Saul and the Witch of Endor the History of Micaâ—ah and the false Prophets the History of Job the Prophecy of the Desolation of Babylon wherein Jim and Ziim and the Satyrs were Prophesied to Inhabit The New Testament more explicitly and abundantly clears it by the History of the Temptation of our Lord the Demoniacks of several Symptoms Cured by our Lord and his Apostles the Procession of the Evil Spirit and his return with seven other Spirits the Vision of the Fall of Satan from Heaven like Lightning by our Saviour the several assertings of it in the Gospel and Apostolical Epistles the Prince of the power of the Air the Spirit ruling in the Children of Disobedience the Kingdom of Satan Principalities and Powers in high Places and more frequently yet in the Apocalyps It is also confirmed to us by daily Experience of the Power and Energy of these Evil Spirits in Witches and by them 2. That these evil Spirits have likewise a great measure of Power and a greater measure of Malice appears in the same Scriptures and by Experience The greatest Strength and Energy of any corporeal Creature is in the vigourand power of those Natural and Animal Spirits that are within them The great swiftness and strength of the Lyon the Wolf the Tyger and of the strongest of Men is the exerting of these Vital and Animal Spirits without which their Bodies tho of the exactest Model and Compages for strength were but a Trunk and iners moles Certainly therefore those Separate Spirits that are not clogged nor encumbred with Matter have a greater strength and energy which is evident in those Possessed Demoniacks both in the Gospel and in known Experience who could not be holden by the strength of Men when Possessed with this powerful and malignant Influence 3. And yet their Malice to the Children of Men is more extensive than their Power It began with the First Man in Innocence and it hath improved ever since The evidence both of his Power and Malice is mostlively seen in that display of the Invisible Administration and Exercise of it towards Job that it contented not it self with any Bounds his Goods his Children his Name his Body the very Peace of his Soul and Mind were not enough to content or quenoh it insomuch that had there not been a guard upon his Life his Malice had also seized that And which is yet more his Malice against the everlasting Soul of Man is unsatiable as appears in that express description of the Tempting of our Lord Tempting him to Presumption to Despair to Apostacy from God And this he did not only out of a particular or personal Malice against him but as in his first Temptation of the First Adam his Malice was not only at him but at the whole Kind which in a great measure he effected so in his Tempting of our Lord he aimed not only Personally at him but in him at the totum genus Humanum For tho possibly he might be ignorant of the hypostatical Union of the Divine Nature to our Lord yet doubtless he did suspect that much of the good of Mankind was deposited in that Treasury which if he could have shattered and broken he had exquisitely satisfied the extent of his Malice against Mankind 4. This Malice and Power of that Evil one is much advantaged in reference to Man 1. By his great Experience and Subtilty 2. By his Invisibility and Swiftness whereby he can secretly and powerfully insinuate and mingle himself with the Subject he means to mischief He knows the Avenues into Man and he knows how most subtily and unsuspectedly to seize upon them In reference to the Body of Man he knows his Humours his Temper his Distemper and hath the advantage of the higher Ground as Perseus had in his fight with the Monster in the Fable as the Eagle in his fight with the Dragon He can watch his Advantage and Undiscovered can derive into him a malignant Air or a poysonous Fume or a venomous Infusion His Experience in Natural Causes his Ability to discover fit Actives and to apply them effectually to Passives his acquaintance with the Natural Constitutions and his opportunities to disturb or invenom it his
dwelling in a true Believer and Pious Soul 5. Of the Name of this particular Spirit that speaks out of the Possessed Lad his Authority and the cause of his cruel Works As to the First he answered all my Questions affirmatively and confessed that all things even their Infernal Government are executed according to the Will of God But that word he would not name till he was constrained by a Command in the Name of the most High which then he uttered storming Then I proceeded to all the Ordinary Attributes of God which tho against his will he owned saying with a roaring Voice Yes it is true At the Second he grew very impatient Gnashing with his Teeth and would not name the name of Christ till I constrained him as before and alledged the Example of the Devil in the Gospel that had spoke concerning Christ. I Then proceeded to the Third Whereupon he acknowledged an Order amongst them but would not confess of what Order himself was but said Thou askest more than is needful for thee to know I replied But thou knowest well enough that I know full well what pitiful things you Spirits are without God's Permission He. I know it or else thou would'st forbear to vex me thus I. How comest thou to be such a silly Devil that thou canst speak nothing but High Dutch He. Are you Men then all of the same Capacity I passed then to the former things and spake to him of the Blood of Christ c. He. I 'll be gone I. No thou shalt first answer me to this He answered I know Christ has redeemed Men and therefore we can do nothing to you without Permission And repeated divers times I 'll be gone At last I said Go then and be Hanged And immediately he went forth with a great Outcry whereupon the poor Lad being come as out of an Extasie after divers applications returned to himself again I asked the Devils their Names he said his Name was Pretty Betty the other was call'd Longtale and the third Cuckow and these three possessed the Lad whereof two go forth but one of them keeps always possession of the Body The next day being the day of the Circumcision of Christ I went on where I left off the day before and so came To the Fourth Of the Holy Ghost which he resisted hard but at last owned all that I demanded on that head but within half an hour would be gone But I would not let him go according to his will till he had answered me fully and then he went away as the day before If we interrogate the Devil too profoundly or too curiously he answers Thou askest more than is fit for thee to know or permitted to me to say Three German Miles from hence dwells one Mr. Crom whose little Daughter of about Twelve Years Old is in like manner possessed out of whom the Devil speaks all manner of Languages imaginable The END Neither the Country nor the Time is mentioned in the Letter ADVERTISEMENT 1. THe Revelation Unvailed Or an Essay towards the Discovering 1. When many Scripture Prophesies had their Accomplishment and turned into History 2. What are now Fulfilling 3. What rest still to be Fulfilled with a guess at the time of them With an Appendix proving that Pagan Rome was not Babylon Rev. 17. And that the Jews shall be Converted By Mr. Samuel Petto of Sudbury in Suffolk Price 1 s. 6 d. 2. The Life and Death of the late Ancient and Eminent Divine Mr. Hanser'd Knollys who Died in the 93 d. Year of his Age. Written with his own Hand to the Year 1672. and continued in General in an Epistle By Mr. William Kiffien To which is added His last Legacy to the Church Price Stitch'd 6 d. 3. A Compendious History of the first Inventers and Institutors of the most Famous Arts Mysteries Laws Customs and Manners in the whole World Together with many other Rarities and Remarkable things never before made Publick To which are added several Curious Inventions peculiarly attributed to England and Englishmen The whole Work Alphabetically digested Being very helpful to the Readers of History Price 1 s. All Printed for John Harris at the Harrow in the Poultry