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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65369	The displaying of supposed witchcraft wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy, but that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the Devil and the witch ... is utterly denied and disproved : wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth of apparitions, the nature of astral and sydereal spirits, the force of charms, and philters, with other abstruse matters / by John Webster ...	Webster, John, 1610-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing W1230; ESTC R12517	396,606	368

which he found out the universal Medicine by a certain Aurum potabile by which he prolonged his life to the 145. year of his age in which year he suffered Martyrdom This I have produced to shew how inconsiderately and ignorantly the best learned of an Age may be and often are wrongfully and falsely traduced and slandered which may be a warning to all persons to take heed how they pass their censures until they understand perfectly all that is necessary to be known about the Subject they are to give judgment of before they utter or declare their sentence 5. Roger Bacon our Country-man who was a Franciscan Fryar and Doctor of Divinity the greatest Chymist Astrologer and Mathematician of his time yet could not escape the injurious and unchristian censure of being a Conjurer and so hard put to it that as Pitts saith he was twice cited to Rome by Clement the Fourth to purge himself of that accusation and was forced to send his Optical and Mathematical Instruments to Rome to satisfie the Pope and the Conclave which he amply performed and came off with honor and applause To vindicate whom I need say little because it is already performed by the Pens of those learned persons Pitts Leland Selden and Nandaeus only I shall add one Sentence forth of that most learned Treatise De mirabili potestate artis naturae de nullitate magiae Where he saith thus Quicquid autem est praeter operationem naturae vel artis aut non est humanum aut est fictum sraudibus occupatum Another of our Country-men Dr. John Dee the greatest and ablest Philosopher Mathematician and Chymist that his Age or it may be ever since produced could not evade the censure of the Monster-headed multitude but even in his life time was accounted a Conjurer of which he most sadly and not without cause complaineth in his most learned Preface to Euclid Englished by Mr. Billingsley and there strongly apologizeth for himself with that zeal and fervency that may satisfie any rational Christian that he was no such wicked person as to have visible and familiar converse if any such thing can be now adays with the Devil the known Enemy of Mankind of which take this short passage where he saith O my unkind Country-men O unnatural Country-men O unthankful Country-men O brain-sick rash spiteful and disdainful Country-men why oppress you me thus violently with your slandering of me contrary to verity and contrary to your own consciences Yet notwithstanding this and his known abilities in the most parts of abstruse Learning the great respect that he had from divers Princes Nobles and the most Learned in all Europe could not protect him from this harsh and unjust censure For Dr. Casaubon near fifty years after Dr. Dees death hath in the year 1659. published a large Book in Folio of Dees conversing for many years with Spirits wicked ones he meaneth But how Christian-like this was done to wound the mans reputation so many years after his death and with that horrid and wicked slander of having familiarity with Devils for many years in his life time which tends to the loss both of body and soul and to register him amongst the damned how Christian-like this is I leave all Christians to judge Besides let all the World judge in this case that Dr. Casaubon being a sworn Witchmonger even to the credulity of the filthiest and most impossible of their actions cannot but allow of the Law that doth punish them for digging up the bones of the dead to use them to Superstition or Sorcery what may he then think the World may judge him guilty of for uncovering the Dormitories of the deceased not to abuse their bones but to throw their Souls into the deepest pit of Hell A wickedness certainly beyond the greatest wickedness that he can believe is committed by Witches It is manifest that he hath not published this meerly as a true relation of the matter of fact and so to leave it to others to judge of but that designedly he hath laboured to represent Dee as a most infamous and wicked person as may be plainly seen in the whole drift of his tedious Preface But his design to make Dee a Converser with evil Spirits was not all he had another that concerned himself more nearly He had before run in a manner by labouring to make all that which he called Enthusiasm to be nothing else but imposture or melancholy and depraved phantasie arising from natural causes into the censure of being a Sadducee or Atheist To wash off which he thought nothing was so prevalent as to leap into the other end of the balance the mean is hard to be kept to weigh the other down by publishing some notorious Piece that might as he thought in an high degree manifest the existence of Spirits good and bad and this he thought would effect it sufficiently or at least wipe off the former imputation that he had contracted But that I may not be too tedious I shall sum up briefly some others by which it may be made clear that those dauntless Spirits that have adventured to cross the current of common opinion and those that have handled abstruse Subjects have never wanted opposition and scandal how true or profitable soever the things were that they treated or writ of Trithemius that Honour and Ornament of Germany for all sorts of Literature wanted not a Bouillus to calumniate and condemn him of unlawful Magick from which all the Learned in Europe know he is absolved by the able and elegant Pen of him that styles himself Gustavus Silenus and others Cornelius Agrippa run the same Fate by the scribling of that ignorant and envious Monk Paulus Jovius from whose malicious slander he is totally acquitted by the irrefragable evidence of Wierus Melchior Adams Nandaeus and others Who almost have not read or heard of the horrid and abominable false scandals laid upon that totius Germaniae decus Paracelsus by the malevolent Pen of Erastus and after swallowed up with greediness by Libanius Conringius Sennertus and many others for not only labouring to bring in a new Theory and Practice into the Art of Medicine but also for striving to purge and purifie the ancient natural laudable and lawful Magick from the filth and dregs of Imposture Deceit Ceremonies and Superstitions yet hath not wanted most strong and invincible Champions to defend him as Dorne Petrus Severinus Smetius Crollius Bitiscius and many others Our Country-man Dr. Fudd a man acquainted with all kinds of Learning and one of the most Christian Philosophers that ever writ yet wanted not those snarling Animals such as Marsennus Lanovius Foster and Gassendus as also our Casaubon as mad as any to accuse him vainly and falsely of Diabolical Magick from which the strength of his own Pen and Arguments did discharge him without possibility of replies We shall now come to those that have treated of Witchcraft and strongly

cannot be found nor read of having the unquestionable authority of sacred writ to avouch it 2. Another parallel unto it and of equal authority verity and perspicuity is the sending of the Angel Gabriel unto the Virgin Mary her seeing of him hearing of his salutation having discourse with him and seeing his departure both which are undoubted testimonies of the true and real appearance of good Angels even to sight and hearing 3. That sometimes the good Angels have been sent to the servants of God and have appeared and spoken unto them in dreams as that the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream and bade him to take unto him Mary his wife which was a blessed and clear apparition though in a dream in his sleep And likewise by the appearing of an Angel unto him in a dream he was warned to take the child and his mother and to flee into Aegypt and also again was commanded by an Angel after the death of Herod that appeared in a dream and bade him to take the young child and his mother and to go into the land of Israel 3. Of the visible apparition of evil Angels we scarce have any evidence at all in the Scriptures except we should take supposals for proofs or disputable places to be certain demonstrations or wrest and hale the word of God to make it serve our preconceived opinions For I do not find any one place in all the Scriptures where plainly and positively any apparition of evil spirits is recorded or that by any rational and necessary consequence such a visible appearance can be deduced or proved For we have clearly proved that the tempting of Evah by the Serpent doth not necessarily inferr that it was by a visible apparition but by a mental delusion and that that of Saul and the Woman of Endor or the Mistriss of the bottle was neither Samuel in Soul and Body nor his Soul alone neither the Devil in his shape we suppose we have evinced past answer and that the tempting of our blessed Saviour by Satan was internal or at least the greatest part of it so that there doth remain but little of certain proof of the apparition of Devils in that gross manner and so common and frequent as many do too peremptorily affirm yet for all this we think it rational to grant that as God hath in times past often sent messages by good Angels for the teaching counselling and comforting of his servants both audibly and visibly to be perceived so also that sometimes God might not only send evil Spirits internally and mentally to deceive and seduce the wicked as in the case of the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets but also visibly to appear to terrifie punish and destroy the wicked or to make way for the manifestation of his glory And the Scriptures that mention Demoniacks and such as are commonly said to be possessed though that were not by an essential inhesion but by an effective operation both upon the Souls and Bodies of the persons that were so affected and afflicted do plainly shew that the operative effects of the Devils power was both heard and seen by their words and actions So the Devils using the organs of the man in whom was the legion of them they besought Christ not to command them to go out into the deep but besought him to suffer them to go into the herd of swine Which plainly sheweth that their words were audible and were heard of the multitude that were by and the acts that they performed were visible enough for by the power of the Devil he brake the chains and fetters wherewithal he was bound and was driven of the Devil into the wilderness and that these Devils went forth of the man and entered in amongst the herd of swine by whose effective power the swine ran violently down a steep rock into the sea and were drowned And this doth plainly manifest the present operation of the Devils that was apparent both by the words and actions that were both to be seen and heard so that this in that large sense that it is usually taken in was a real apparition of Devils or at least equivalent thereunto For we do but here inquire after such appearances of Devils that do necessarily infer their presence in operating so in and upon creatures or corporeal matter that by sight hearing or other of the senses it may certainly be manifest to work above the ordinary power of nature and may induce us rationally by the testimony of our senses to believe that those things are brought to pass by those creatures that we call Demons as many of these persons who were said to have been or to be afflicted with Devils were in the days of our bl●ssed Saviours remaining in the flesh 4. But though it be never so freely and fully granted that in the ages and times mentioned in the Old and New Testament nay it may be for a century or more after there were persons that were possessed and afflicted with Devils and also that for that time there were many miracles wrought Yet now it will be said that miracles are totally ceased as not being any way necessary to confirm the Gospel which is now established and setled This we confess is so strongly and convincingly proved by the Divines of the reformed Churches that we account him wilfully blind that will oppose it Yet notwithstanding all this that miracles are totally ceased I grant that there are some strange things that have happened in late ages and some in our own time that cannot be any way solved by meer ordinary natural causes and apparitions made by some kind of creatures that must be derived from some such causes as those of good or bad Spirits or from creatures of the like nature And that though miracles be ceased it will not therefore follow that every thing that hath a cause above or differing from the usual and ordinary course of nature must be also ceased for quanquam nunc non sint miracula possint tamen esse miranda and though that miracles be ceased yet it will not follow that apparitions are so also because apparitions are not miracles for a good Angel to be sent and to appear cannot be said to be a miracle because it is the end for which he was created they that is the Angels are all ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And it cannot be said otherwise of evil Angels or of any other creatures that may make these apparitions for as they are and must be creatures so there is and must be some certain ends for which they were created and are imployed unto 5. But to prove the truth of apparitions or other strange Phenomena's equivalent unto them as to have been truly performed as matters of fact is extream difficult and almost impossible because the Histories and relations of things of this nature are

God granted to them when they are sent forth to perform such or such an act For as it may not be rationally granted that the two Angels that were instruments for the destroying of Sodom and Gomorrha did bring down fire and brimstone from Heaven by their own created power nor that the destroying Angel in Egypt did in one night kill all the first-born by his own power but by the power of the Almighty granted unto him in that mission so it is not rational to suppose that although Satan might by internal motions and spiritual temptations prevail with the Sabaeans and Chaldaeans who were his Vassals wherein he could work what he would to take away the Oxen Asses and Camels of Job and to slay his Servants though I say he might do this by his created power yet that he should bring fire from Heaven to destroy the sheep or that he by his created power could raise such a wind as could blow down the house in which the Sons and Daughters of Job were and slay them is not probable but that it was performed by that assisting power that was granted him of God to effect that affliction upon Job that God had determined for the trial and manifestation of his Faith and Patience which cannot in any reason be said to be done by Devils in their transactions with Witches and therefore must needs be Fables and Chimeras 5. And whereas he addeth that the Devils can perform all kind of motions with natural bodies and that none can resist them it is too large by far for by that rule they might shake and remove the earth which they cannot do for it abideth firm according to Gods appointment in the creation And it is absurd to think that the superior and good Angels cannot resist them who have far greater force and might than the faln Angels have 6. And whereas he would prove the power of Devils by that of the spirit of the Lord conveying of Philip from the Ethiopian Eunuch which supposing it to be a good Angel it must likewise be granted to be furnished from God to have that power to carry him away and doth not necessarily conclude that the Angel did it by its proper created power neither is the consequence good to argue that what a good Angel may do that therefore a bad one may do the same or the like for their powers and strength are not equal the one retaining what he had by creation the other losing much by reason of his rebellion and fall as an outlawed person hath not in a civil respect the same power that another person hath that is under a legal capacity and as a prisoner that is loaden with chains gives and fetters can neither walk leap or run so fast as he that hath none no more can the fettered Devils move with that agility and celerity that the good Angels can do that have no fetters nor chains at all 2. A second kind of actions that he assigneth unto Devils is that they cannot only move bodies locally but also can alter them diverse and sundry ways as to make hot things of cold and so on the contrary white things of black and black of white and can make of fair things deformed ones and so on the contrary and can make sound bodies sick and sick bodies sound affecting them with various qualities But these particulars he leaves altogether without proof except one Text in these words And he cried with a loud voice unto the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the seas From whence we shall observe these things 1. It is granted that God doth make use of evil Angels to punish the wicked and to chastise and afflict the godly and in the effecting of these things that they have a power given them to hurt the earth and the Sea and things therein as to bring tempests thunder lightning plague dearth drought and the like but that in the effecting these things they have a dative power above what they had in Creation and that they are commissioned and sent by God upon purpose to fulfil and effect these things and so are as the organs and instruments to perform the will of God in his justice and are always for such ends as tend to the Glory of the Creator But for Devils to be sent to play such ludicrous filthy and wicked tricks with Witches as is commonly affirmed suits not at all with the Wisdom and Justice or Glory of God neither have we any such examples in holy Writ no further but that Devils only are Gods Executioners or Hangmen 2. It doth no where appear that the Devils can alter or change the shape or qualities of things at his own will and pleasure but the contrary is manifest in the Priests of Baal in the time of Elijah upon the Mount Carmel where their Idols or Gods were to shew their power by firing the Sacrifice a thing which if Satan could have done for them with all his power it had been most advantagious for his Kingdom but it is evident that he neither did nor could procure as much fire as would burn the Sacrifice though earnestly called upon by his best Servants the Idolatrous Priests But thou wilt say his power was then restrained and withholden at that time from effecting any such thing Well grant it were so what was the end that God used that restriction upon him at that time for was it not because God would not contribute to magnifie the Devils Kingdom nor to suffer him any longer to deceive his people But to discover the weakness of his power who is not able of his own created power to bring forth fire where there is none not able to break a paper window unless he have leave and power given him from God And therefore much less can for the magnifying of his own power and to dishonour the Creator appear as a Cat Dog Squirrel or the like to Witches suck upon their bodies have carnal copulation with them or transport them in the air for this were to advance his credit too much and utterly derogatory to the Glory of God 3. Concerning Satans being an instrument and means to bring and cause diseases it may be considered these two ways 1. In an ordinary way he seduceth and draweth men to gluttony and drunkenness by which way of i●gurgitation and excess they draw and contract to themselves diverse Diseases as Coughs Catarrhs Dropsies Scorbutick Distempers and the like Others he draweth to insatiable lust and concupiscence that thereby they fall into the Lues Venereae and the whole troop of those dire and horrid Symptomes that accompany it whereby Men and Women undergo great misery pains sickness and sometimes death Sometimes he pusheth Men on so far in malice wrath choler and passion and many other such like ways that they wound lame and sometimes kill one another and in this sense he may be said to cause diseases diverse ways 2. But

there is another way more extraordinary wherein as an instrument he may be said to cause diseases and sometimes death as in that case of Davids numbring of the people where there died of the Pestilence seventy thousand and though this Pestilence was sent by Jehovah yet was a destroying Angel the instrument and minister in the execution of it for the Text saith And when the Angel of the Lord stretched forth his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel that destroyed the people It is enough now stay thy hand And Herod for assuming to himself that honour that was only proper to God was immediately smitten by the Angel of the Lord and was eaten up of worms and gave up the Ghost And the Psalmist saith He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath indignation and trouble by sending evil Angels among them the Hebrew giveth it the emission or sending out of evil Angels From whence it is manifest that evil Angels are the organs and instruments of Gods wrath and as Ministers cause Plague Pestilence and other diseases 3. Thirdly there is another great question whether or not the Devil by his vassals to wit Sorcerers and Witches doth not cause diseases and death as is believed by those vomiting up of strange things exceeding the bigness of the Gullet to get either up or down of which we shall speak largely where we handle the opinion of Van Helmont concerning the actions of Witches Here only we shall say thus much that the Devil is author and causer of that hatred malice revenge and envy that is often abounding in those that are accounted Witches which desire of revenge doth stimulate them to seek for all means by which they may accomplish their intended wickedness and so they learn all the wicked and secret wayes of hurting poysoning killing but yet we affirm that what evil soever they perform it is by causes and means that work naturally and so the evil is only in the use and application and not in the efficients or means And whereas he holdeth that Devils as they can cause Diseases so they can cure them and take them away we must crave to be excused if we cannot subscribe to his opinion and that for these reasons 1. Because of their causing of Diseases we have sufficient evidence in the Scriptures but of their curing of any we have not any mention at all and though some will think this but weak because it is negative yet it is not probable but as it expresseth the one fully so it would have given some hint of the other if there had been any such matter 2. But the Scriptures do inform us that the gift of healing or curing Diseases is not in the power of Devils by their Creation much less since as a gift bestowed upon them but floweth solely from God by the Ministry of good Angels of whom Raphael that is the Medicine or health of God is the chief And that it is reckoned amongst the gifts of the Holy Ghost is most plain For to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit To another saith by the same spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit but these gifts of healing are not given to Devils but to the chosen ones of God And the Psalmist where he is speaking how God afflicted and brought low the people of Israel by reason of their sins saith Their soul abhorred all manner of meat and they drew near unto the gates of death but he sent his word and healed them And God declareth that if his people Israel would keep his Statutes he would bring none of those Diseases upon them that he had threatned for he saith I am the Lord that healeth thee and this he doth by the ministry of good Angels or by natural means and not by Devils 3. That Devils are no causers or instruments in curing Diseases is manifest because that were to make him act contrary to his original destination after his fall wherein in his own propriety he is a murderer from the beginning and that both of souls and bodies and never did nor doth any good to mankind either spiritual or natural either real or apparent for that were to act contrary to his will nature and disposition and contrary to the Ordinance and appointment of God who hath Created the destroyer to destroy Therefore-Satan after his fall was not ordained of God to be an healer preserver or sanator of diseases but to be a destroyer a wounder and murderer for his nature is be come so wicked and malignant that his whole endeavour is the destruction of mankind both in souls and bodies and so no healer no not of the least infirmity 4. But he is that grand Impostor that by lying cheating and delusion laboureth to make his Vassals and others believe that he can cure and heal Diseases when he can do no such thing and therefore hath and still doth amongst the Pagans by the wicked Priests his Slaves make the people believe that if the sick persons be brought before their Idols and there worship and pray that they shall be Cured when there is not any jot performed in the way of sanation but what is by natural means fancy and imagination or what is pretended to be done so by cheating counterfeiting and imposture And the very same thing is practised by the Papists unto this day in the pretence of their false and lying Miracles fathered upon their Saints and Images which are nothing else but lying cheats and Impostures as we shall fully make manifest hereafter 5. The Devil internally deludeth the minds of men in making them believe that Pictures Charms Amulets and such other inefficacious and ridiculous means have power to Cure these and these Diseases when indeed they are meerly inoperative and effect nothing at all but yet the Witchmongers will needs have them to be media operativa when they are utterly inefficacious and are only means of seduction and delusion to alter change or fortifie the imagination by which alone the Cures if any such be effected are brought to pass and not by any power of the Devil at all and he operateth nothing at all in them except a mental and internal delusion in making the Witchmongers and others believe that those things are wrought by a Diabolical Power which are only performed by the force of imagination and a natural agency and virtue 6. Again where there are many occult and wonderful effects wrought by natural causes and agents as by appensions of vegetables animals or their parts and minerals by magnetism as the Hoplochrism Sympathetic Powder by Transplantation and many other very abstruse and secret wayes and means the Devil laboureth to take away the glory of these sanative effects both from God and his Instrument which is Nature and to have it