the Divel are swoâ—…n Enemiâ—…s to each other the Terms between them are those in Zech. 11. 18. My Soul 〈◊〉 them and their Soul also Abbâ—…rred me And from this Furious Wrath or Displeasure and Prejudice at God proceeds the Divels Wrath at us the poor Children of Men. Our doing the Service of God is one thing that Exposes us to the Wrath of the Divel We are the High-Priests of the World when all Creatures are call'd upon Praise ye the Lord they bring to us those demanded Praises of God saying Do you Offer them for us Hence 't is that the Divel has a a Quarrel with us as he had with the High-Priest in the Vision of Old Our bearing the Image of God is another thing that brings the Wrath of the Divel upon us As a Tygre thro' his Hatred at a man will tear the very Picture of him if it come in his way such a Tygre the Devil is because God said of old Let us make Man in our Image the Devil is ever saying Let us pâ—…ll this man to pieces But the envious Pride of the Devil is one thing more that gives an Edge unto his Furious Wrath against us The Apostle has given us an hint as if Pride had been the Condemnation of the Devil 'T is not unlikely that the Devils Affectation to be above that Condition which he might learn that Mankind was to be preferr'd unto might be the occasion of his taking up Arms against the Immortal King However the Devil now sees Man lying in the Bosome of God but Himself damned in the Bottom of Hell and this Enrages him exceedingly O says he I cannot bear it that man should not be as miserable as myself Proposition III. The Devil in the prosecution for the execution of His wrath upon them often getts a Liberty to make a Descent upon the Children of men When the Devil does Hurt unto us he Comes Down unto us for the Randezvouze of the Infernal Troops is indeed in the Supernal Parts of our Air. But as t is said A. sparrow of the Air does not fall down without the will of God so I may say Not a Devil in the Air can come down without the leave of God Of this we have a famous Instance in that Arabian Prince of whom the Devil was unable so much as to Touch any thing till the most High God gave him a permission to go down The Divel stands with all the Instruments of Death aiming at us and begging of the Lord as that King ask'd for the Hood-winck'd Syrians of old Shall I Smite 'em shall I Smite ' em He cannot strike a Blow till the Lord say Go down and smite but sometimes He does obtain from the High Possessor of Heaven and Earth a License for the doing of it The Divel sometimes does make most rueful Havock among us but still we may say to him as our Lord said unto a great servant of his Thou couldest have no power against me except it were given thee from above The Divel is called in 1 pet 5. 8. your Adversary T is a Law-term and it notes An Adversary at Law The Divel cannot come at us except in some sence according to Law but sometimes he does procure sad things to be inflicted according to that Law of the eternal King upon us The Divel First Goes up as an Accuser against us He is therefore styled The Accuser and it is on this account that his proper Name does belong unto him There is a Court somewhere kept a Court of Spirits where the Divel enters all sorts of Complaints against us all he charges us with manifold sins against the Lord our God There he loads us with heavy Imputations of Hypocrisy Iniquity Disobedience where upon he uâ—…ges Lord Let 'em now have the Death which is their Wages paid unto ' em If our Advocate in the Heavens do not now take off his Libels the Devil then with a Concession of God Comes down as a Destroyer upon us Having first been an Attorney to bespeak that the Judgments of Heaven may be Ordered for us he then also pleads that he may be the Executioner of those Judgments and the God of Heaven sometimes after a sort signs a Warrant for this Destroying Angel to do what has bin desired to be done for the Destroying of men But such a Permission from God for the Divel to Come down and Break in upon mankind oftentimes must be Accompanyed with a Commission from some wretches of mankind it 〈◊〉 Every man is as 't is hinted in Gen. 4 9. His Brothers Keeâ—…per We are to keep one another from the 〈◊〉 of the Divel by mutual and Cordiâ—…l wiâ—…hes of prosperity to one another When ungodly people give their Consents in witchcrafts diabolically performed for the Divell to annoy their Neighbours he â—…nds a Breach made in the Hedge about us whereat he Rushes in upon us with gâ—…ievous molestations Yea when Impious people that never saw the Divel do but utter their Curses against their Neighbours those are so many Watch words whereby the Maâ—…ives of Hell are animated presently to fall upon us ' Tiâ—… thus that the Devil gets Leave to worry us Proposition IV. Most Horrible Woes come to be inflicted upon Mankind when the Divel do's in Great Wrath make a Descent upon them The Divel is a Do-Evil and wholly set upon mischief When Our Lord once was going to Muzzel him that he might not mischief others he cry'd out Art thou come to 〈◊〉 me He is it seems himself Tormented if he be but Restrained from the Tormenting of Men. If upon the Sounding of the Three last Apocalyptical Angels it was an outcry made in Heaven Wo Wo Wo to the inhabitants of the Earth by reason of the voice of the Trumpet I am sure a Descent made by the Angel of Death would give cause for the like Exclamation Wo to the World by reason of the Wrath of the Divel What a Woful plight Mankind would by the Descent of the Divel be brought into may be gathered from the Woful pains and wounds and hideous desolations which the Divel bâ—…ings upon them of whom he has with a Bodily Possession made a Siezure You may both in Sacred and Profane History read many a direful Account of the Woes which they that are possessed by the Divel do undergo And from thence conclude What must the Children of Men hope from such a Divel Moreover the Tyrannical Ceremonies whereto the Divel uses to subjugate such VVoful Nations or Orders of men as are more Entirely under his Dominion do declare what VVoful Work the Divel would make where he comes The very Devotions of those forlorn Pagans to whom the Divel is a Leader are most bloody Penances and what VVoes indeed must we expect from such a Divel of a Mâ—…loch as relishes no Sacrifices like those of Humane Heart-Blood and unto whom there is no musick like the bitter dying doleful Groans ejulated by the Roasting
a Spirit and thus they become Improv'd in Sinfulness Yea the Devil will put Good Men upon doing Ill. Thus we read in 1 Chron. 21. 1. Satan provoked David to Number Israel And so the Devil provokes men that are Eminent in Holiness unto such Things as may become eminently pernicious he provokes them especially unto Pride and unto many unsuitable Emulations There are likewise most lamentable Impressions which the Devil makes upon the Souls of men by way of punishment upon them for their Sins 'T is thus when an Offended God puts the Souls of men over into the Hands of that Officer Who has the Power of Death that is the Devil It is the woful misery of Unbelievers in 2 Cor. 4. 4. The God of this World has blinded their minds And thus it may be said of those Woful Wretches whom the Devil is a God unto The Devil so Muffles them that they cannot see the things of their Peace And The Devil so Hardens them that nothing will awaken their cares about their Souls How come so many to be Seared in their Sins 'T is the Devil that with a Red Hot Iron fetch 't from his Hell does cauterise them Thus t is till perhaps at last they come to have a Wounded Conscience in them and the Devil has often a share in their Torturing and Confounding Anguishes The Devil who Terrify'd Cain and Saul and Iudas into Desperation still becomes a King of Terrors to many Sinners and frights them from laying hold on the Mercy of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. In these regards Wo to us when the Devil comes down upon us Proposition V. Toward the End of his Time the Descent of the Devil in Wrath upon the World will produce more woful Effects than what have been in Former Ages The Dying Dragon will bite more Cruelly sting more bloodily than ever he did before The â—…th-pangs of the Devil will make him to be more of a Devil than ever he was and the Furnace of this Nebuchadnezaear will be heated seven times hotter just before its putting out We are in the first place to Apprehend That there is a Time fixed and stated by God for the Devil to enjoy a Dominion over our sinful and therefore woful World The Dâ—…vil once Exclaimed in Mat. 8. 29. Iesus thou Son of God art thou come hither to Torment us before our Time It is plain That until the Second Coming of our Lord the Devil must have a Time of plaguing the World which he was afraid would have Expired at His First The Devil is By the wrath of God the Prince of this World and the Time of his Reign is to continue until the Time when our Lord Himself shall Take to Himself his great Power and Reign Then 't is that the Devil shall hear the Son of God swearing with loud Thunders against him Thy Time shall now be no more Then shall the Devil with his Angels receive their Doom which will be Depart into the Everlasting Fire prepared for you We are also to Apprehend that in the mean time the Divel can give a shrowd guess when he drawes near to the End of his Time When he saw Christianity enthron'd among the Romans it is here said in our Rev 12 12 He knows he hath but a short time And how does he know it Why Reason will make the Divel to know that God won't suffer him to have the Everlasting Dominion that when God has once begun to rescue the world out of his hands Hee 'l go through with it until The Captives of the mighty shall be taken away and the prey of the Terrible shall be delivered But the Divel will have Scripture also to make him Know that when his Antichristian Vicar the seven headed Beast on the seven-hilled City shall have spent his determined years he with his Vicar must unavoidably go down into the Bottomless Pitt It is not Improbable that the Divel often hears the Scripture expounded in our congregations yea that we never Assemble without a Satan among us As there are some Divines who do with more uncertainty conjecture from a â—…eartain Pâ—…ace in the Epistle to the Ephesians That the Angels do some times come into our Churches to gain some Advantage from our Ministry But be sure our Demonstra ble Interpretations may give Repeated Notices to the-Divel That his time is almost out and what the preacher says unto the Young Man Know thou that God will bring thee into Iudgment THAT may our Sermons tell unto that Old Wretch Know thou that the time of thy Iudgment is at hand But we must now likewise Apprehend that in such a time the Woes of the world will be heightened beyond what they were at any Time yet from the foundation of the world Hence ti 's that the Apostle has forewarned us in 2. Tim. 3. 1. this know that in the last days perillous times shall come Truly when the Divel knows that he is got into his Last days he will make Perillous Times for us the times will grow more full of Divels and therefore more full of Perils than everthey were before Of this if we would Know what cause is to be assigned It is not only because the Divel growes more Able and more Eager to Vex the world but also and cheefly Because the world is more worthy to be Vexed by the Divel than ever heretofore The Sins of men in this Generation will be more mighty Sins than those of the Former Ages men will be more Accurate Exquisite Refined in the Arts of Sinning than they use to be And besides their own sins the sins of all the Former Ages will also lie upon the sinners of this generation Do we ask why the mischievous powers of darkness are to prevail more in our days than they did in those that are past gone T is because that men by sinning over again the sins of the Former days have a Fellowship with all those unfruitful works of darkness As 't was said in Math. 23. 36. All these things shall come upon this generation so the men of the Last generation will find themselves involved in the guilt of all that went before them Of Sinners t is said They Heap up Wrath and the sinners of the Last generations do not only add unto the Heap of sin that has been pileing up ever since the Fall of man but they Interest themselves in every sin of that enormous Heap There has been a Cry of sin in all Former Ages going up to God That the Divel may come down and the sinners of the Last generations do sharpen and louden that cry till the thing do come to pass as Destructively as Irremediably From whence it follows that the Thrice Holy God with His Holy Angels will now after a sort more Abandon the World than in the former Ages The Roaring Impieties of the Old World at last gave Mankind such a Distaâ—…t in the Heart of the Just God
We can set our foot no where but we shall tread in the midst of most Hellish Rattle-Snakes and one of those Rattle-Snakes once thro' the mouth of a Man on whom he had Siezed hissed out such a Truth as this If God would let me loose upon you I should find enough in the Best of you all to make you all mine What shall I say The VVilderness thro' which we are passing to the Promised Land is all over fill'd with Fiery flying serpents But blessed be God None of them have hitherto so fastned upon us as to confound us utterly All our way to Heaven lies by the 〈◊〉 of Lions and the Mounts of Leopards there are incredible Droves of Divels in our way But have we safely got on our way thus far O let us be thankful to our Eternal preserver for it It is said in Psal. 76. 10. Surely the wrath of Man shall praise thee and the Remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain But surely It becomes us to praise God in that we have yet sustain'd no more Damage by the wrath of the Devil and in that he has restrain'd that Overwhelming wrath We are poor Travellers in a World which is as well the Devils Field as the Devils Gaol a World in every Nook whereof the Devil is encamped with Bands of Robbers to pester all that have their Face looking Zion-ward And are we all this while preserved from the undoing Snares of the Devil it is Thou O keeper of Israel that hast hitherto been our Keeper And therefore Bless the Lord O my soul Bless his Holy Name who has redeemed thy Life from the Distroyer Corollary II. We may see the rise of those multiply'd magnify'd and Singularly stinged Afflictions with which aged or dying Saints frequently have their Death Prefaced their Age embittered When the Saints of God are going to leave the World it is usually a more Stormy World with them than ever it was and they find more Vanity and more Vexation in the world than ever they did before It is true That many are the afflictions of the Righteous but a little before they bid adieu to all those many Afflictions they often have greater harder Sorer Loads thereof laid upon them than they had yet endured It is true That thro' much Tribulation we must enter in the Kingdom of God but a little before our Entrance thereinto our Tribulation may have some sharper accents of Sorrow than ever were yet upon it And what is the cause of this It is indeed the Faithfulness of our God unto us that we should find the Earth moâ—…e full of Thorns and Briars than ever just before he fetches us from Earth to Heaven that so we may go away the more willingly the more easily and with less Convulsion at his calling for us O there are ugly Ties by which we are fastned unto this world but God will by Thorns and Briars tear those Ties asunder But Is not the Hand of Ioab here Sure There is the wrath of the Devll also in it A little before we step into Heaven the Devil thinks with himself My time to abuse that Saint is now but short what Mischief I am to do that Saint must be done quickly if at all he 'l shortly be out of my Reach for ever And for this cause he will now fly upon us with the Fiercest Efforts and Furies of his Wrath. It was allowed unto the Serpent in Gen. 2. 15. To Bruise the Heel Why at the Heel or at the Close of our Lives the Serpent will be nibbling more than ever in our Lives before and it is Because now he has but a short time He knows That we shall very shortly be Where the Wicked cease from Troubling and where the Weary are at Rest wherefore that Wicked one will now Trouble us more than ever he did and we shall have so much Disrest as will make us more weary than ever we were of things here below Corollary III What a Reasonable Thing then is it that they whose Time is but short should make as great Use of their Time as ever they can I pray let us learn some good even from the Wicked One himself It has been advised Be Wise as Serpents why there is a peece of Wisdom whereto that old Serpent the Divel himself may be our Monitor When the Divel perceives his Time is but short it puts him upon Great Wrath. But how should it be with us when we perceive that our Time is but short why it should put us upon Great Work The motive which makes the Divel to be more full of wrath should make us more full of warmth more full of watch and more full of All Diligence to make our Vocation and Election sure Our Pace in our Journey Heaven-ward must be Quickened if our space for that Journey be shortened even as Israel went further the two last years of their Journey Canaan ward than they did in Thirty eight years before The Apostle brings this as a spur to the Devotions of Christians in 1. Cor. 7. 29. This I say Bretheren the time is short Even so I say this day some things I lay before you which I do only think or guess but here is a thing which I venture to say with all the freedom Imaginable You have now a Time to Get good even a Time to make sure of Grace and Glory and every good thing by true Repentance But This I say the time is but short You have now Time to Do good even to serve out your generation as by the Will so for the Praise of God But This I say the time is but short And what I say thus to All People I say to Old People with a Peculiar Vehemency Syrs It Cannot be long before your Time is out there are but a few Sands Left in the glass of your Time And it is of all things the saddest for a man to say My Time is done but my work undone O then To work as fast as you can and of Soul-Work and Church-Work Dispatch as much as ever you can Say to all Hindrances as the Gracious Ieremiah Burrows would sometimes to Visitants You 'l excuse me if I ask you â—…o be short with me for my work is great and my Time is but short Methinks every Time we hear a clock or see a watch we have an Admonition given us That our Time is upon the wing and it will all be gone within a little while I Remember I have read of a famous man who having a Clock-Watch long Lying by him out of Kilture in his Trunk it unaccountably Struck Eleven just before he Dy'd Why there are many of you for whom I am to do that office this day I am to tell you You are come to your Eleventh Hour there is no more than a Twelfth Part at most of your life yet behind But if we neglect our business till our short Time shall be reduced into None then â—…o to us for
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
for Witchcraft there were now heard the Testimonies of several Persons who were most notoriously Bewitched and every day Tortured by Invisible Hands and these now all charged the Spectres of G. B. to have a share in their Torments At the Examination of this G. B. the Bewitched People were grievously harassed with Preternatural Mischiefs which could not possibly be Dissembled and they still ascribed it unto the Endeavours of G. B. to kill them And now upon his Trial one of the Bewitched Persons testify'd That in her Agonies a little Black hair'd man came to her saying his Name was Band bidding her set her hand unto a Book which he show'd unto her and bragging that he was a Conjurer above the ordinary Rank of Witches That he often persecuted her with the offer of that Book saying She should be well and need fear no body if she would but Sign it but he inflicted cruel Pains and Hures upon her because of her Denying so to do The Testimonies of the other Sufferers concurred with these and it was Remarkable that whereas Biting was one of the ways which the Witches used for the vexing of the Sufferers when they cry'd out of G. B. biting them the print of the Teeth would be seen on the Flesh of the Complainers and just such a sett of Teeth as G. B' s would then appear upon them which could be distinguished from those of some other mens Others of them testify'd That in their Torments G. B. tempted them to go unto a Sacrament unto which they perceived him with a sound of Trumpet Summoning of other Witchâ—…s who quickly after the Sound would come from all Quarters unto the Rendezvouz One of them falling into a kind of Trance afterwards afâ—…ed That G. B. had carried her into a very high Mountain where he show'd her mighty and glorious Kingdoms and said He would give them all to her if she would write in his Book but she told him They were none of his to give and refused the motions enduring of much misery for that Refusal It cost the Court a wonderful deal of Trouble to hear the Testimonies of the Sufferers for when they were going to give in their Depositions they would for a long while be taken with fitts that made them uncapable of saying any thing The Chief Judge asked the prisoner who he thought hindred these witnesses from giving their testimonies and he answered He supposed it was the Divel That Honourable person then reply'd How comes the Divel so loathe to have any Testimony born against you Which cast him into very great confusion III. It has been a frequent thing for the Bewitched people to be entertained with Apparitions of Ghosts of murdered people at the same time that the Spectres of the witches trouble them These Ghosts do always affright the Beholders more than all the other spectral Representations and when they exhibit themselves they cry out of being Murdered by the witchcrafts or other violences of the persons who are then in spectre present It is further considerable that once or twice these Apparitions have been seen by others at the very same time that they have shown them selves to the Bewitched seldom have there been these Apparitions but when somthing unusual suspected had attended the Death of the party thus Appearing Some that have bin accused by these Apparitions accosting of the Bewitched People who had never heard a word of any such persons ever being in the world have upon a fair examination freely and fully confessed the murders of those very persons altho' these also did not know how the Apparitions had complained of them Accordingly several of the Bewitched had given in their Testimony that they had been troubled with the Apparitions of two women who said that they were G. Bs. two wives and that he had been the Death of them and that the Magistrates must be told of it before whom if B. upon his trial deny'd it they did not know but that they should appear again in the Court Now G. B. had been infamous for the Barbarous usage of his two successive wives all the Country over Moreover It was testifi'd the spectre of G. B. threatning of the sufferers told them he had killed besides others Mrs Lawson and her Daughter Ann. And it was noted That these were the vertuous wife and Daughter of one at whom this G. B. might have a prejudice for his being serviceable at Salem-village from whence himself had in Ill Terms removed some years before that when they dy'd which was long since there were some odd circumstances about them which made some of the Attendents there suspect something of witchraft tho' none Imagined from what Quarter it should come Well G. B. being now upon his Triall one of the Bewitched persons was cast into Horror at the Ghosts of B's two deceased wives then appearing before him and crying for Vengeance against him Hereupon several of the Bewitched persons were successively called in who all not knowing what the former had seen and said concurred in their Horror of the Apparition which they affirmed that he had before him But he tho' much appalled utterly deny'd that he discerned anything of it nor was it any part of his Conviction IV Judicious Writers have assigned it a great place in the Conviction of witches when persons are Impeached by other Notorious witches to be as Ill as themselves especially if the persons have been much noted for neglecting the Worship of God Now as there might have been Testimonies Enough of G. B's Antipathy to Prayer and the other Ordinances of God tho' by his profession singularly obliged thereunto so there now came in against the prisoner the Testimonies of several persons who confessed their own having been Horrible Witches and ever since their confessions had been themselves terribly Tortured by the Devils and other Witches even like the other Sufferers and therein undergone the pains of many Deaths for their Confessions These now Testify'd that G. B. had been at Witch-Meetings with them and that he was the Person who had Seduced and Compelled them into the snares of Witchcraft That he promised them Fine Cloaths for doing it that he brought Poppets to them and thorns to stick into those Poppets for the afflicting of other People And that he exhorted them with the rest of the Crue to bewitch all Salem-Village but besure to do it Gradually if they would prevail in what they did When the LancashireWitches were condemn'd I don't Remember that there was any considerable further Evidence than that of the Bewitched and then that of some that confessed We see so much already against G. B. But this being indeed not Enough there were other things to render what had been already produced credible V. A famous Divine recites this among the Convictions of a Witch The Testimony of the Party Bewitched whether Pining or Dying together with the Ioint Oathes of Sufficient Persons that have seen certain Prodiâ—…ious Pranks or