Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	cast_v	devil_n	divide_v	3,310	5	9.5405	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85867	Select cases of conscience touching vvitches and vvitchcrafts. By Iohn Gaule, preacher of the Word at Great Staughton in the county of Huntington.	Gaule, John, 1604?-1687.	1646 (1646)	Wing G379; Thomason E1192_1; ESTC R202117	42,863	218

these Names more then ten times might be added from other Languages expressing the severall sorts of Witches and Witcherafts either from their Nature Art power practice matter form end author meanes instrument or effect But because I labour all I may to bring the whole business to a Previate I shall onely treat of such kindes or sorts of them wherein they are more universally both comprized and distinguished 1. According to the vulgar conceit distinction is usually made betwixt the White and the Blacke Witch the Good and the Bad Witch The Bad Witch they are wont to call him or her that works Malefice or Mischiefe to the Bodies of Men or Beasts The good Witch they count him or her that helps to reveale prevent or remove the same But such consider not that devils with as certaine a Science and as safe a Conscience may be distinguished into Good and Bad as Witches Rather that the accounted Good Witch is indeed the worse and more wicked of the two For as Satan being a Fiend of darknes is then worst when hee transformes himselfe into an Angel of Light so likewise are his Ministers Now both these working by the Devill whereas the worst hurt that the one does proves but to bewitch the Body or outward man the best helpe that the other can doe tends and turns to bewitch the inner man or Soule In as much as it begets in the party to be thus holpen either a Petition or at least an inquisition either a perswasion or at least an expectation which is a faith or assent of the same nature that the Witch now workes by Notwithstanding all this it is objected that the Good Witch does good opposes the Bad Witch and the Devill and therefore certainly can be none of his nor have any dealings with him For if Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himselfe how shall then his Kingdome stand Matth. 12. 26. Are not these now the Patrons of Witches themselves that can make Scripture plead for them To whose mis-applying it is thus replyed That if Satan should cast out Satan spiritually or out of the soule here were a division indeed and now his Kingdome could in no wise stand But for Satan to cast out Satan corporally or out of the Body onely this may be done by a combination and so his Kingdome may grow the more For thus he agrees and willingly yeelds to his owne Children and Instruments to be even by them ejected out of the Body that so by the faith both of the doer and receiver he may the more easily be admitted into the Soule 2. Witches may universally be thus distinguished into either the Arted or the Pacted Witch The Arted Witch or one onely speculative upon the abstruse Mirables of Nature who by searching into her occult Qualities her hidden powers and secret vertues her Sympathies and Antipathies and by applying fitly Actives unto Passives now urges nature so Artificially that he makes her conclude assent to work wonders And happily thus far may proceed both with true Sciēce good conscience But what through vanity of Science error of Conscience lability of innocence what through curiosity Credulity vain Glory c. is at length taken in the snare of praestigious and Diabolicall delusion And now applies the Creature to those ends and uses to which either by its owne propensity or by Gods Institution it was never inclined The pacted Witch is one only Operative about some prodigious or Praestigious things and that only by vertue of a superstitious Compact or Contract made with the Divell without or against all Rules and orders of Nature Art or Grace 3. A generall distinction as touching kinds may be of the Active and the Passive Witch The Active Witch I conceive to Act together with the Divell but the Passive Witch to be Acted rather by him One by way of Confoederation the other by reason of some obsession One as it were tempting the Divell the other rather tempted by him One as it were the Author and the Divel the Instrument the other but the bare Instrument and the Divell the sole Author One maliciously rejoycing and glorying in prodigious prankes and Exploits the other somewhat irking and ashamed One not infesting onely but infecting also by seeking to make others Witches the other willing or wishing rather to bee unmade it selfe Of the one kinde I reckon the Witch of Endor I Sam. 28. of the other the Damsell in the Acts Acts 16. Yet ought even the Passive Witches to bee distinguished into the meerly and the mixtly Passive The meerly Passive be simply daemoniacks but not Energumenists That is mainly suffering rather then Acting by the Divell more excruciated and afflicted then occupied or exercised by him The mixtly Passive be not the Obsessed only but the Operative likewise Of more Active at first in giving up their Wills to Satans slavery now become more Passive and led Captive by him at his will First offering themselves freely and voluntarily after forced and as it were necessitated to doe his drudgery The Divell now infesting them if they grow slacke to infest others 3. Case Whether there be not sundry degrees of Witches and Witchcrafts to be considered ORiginall sin indeed being one alike in all admits of no variety of degrees in any But witchcraft is an actuall therefore none are borne all are made Witches Talk they what they can of an Incubus the Divell and the Witch produce not to witch-craft by Generation but seducement Moreover when by witchcraft one growes so high as the sin against the holy Ghost ther 's now no further measure save in numericall Acts for one Witch to exceed another Otherwise there 's no sinne taken indefinitely but may admit of severall Measures and so to every mans consideration highten or lessen the guilt or poenalty to that subject in which it inheres It is worthy to be conscionably waighed that in witchcraft there is an Inchoation as well as a Consūmation 1. The Inchoation or disposition to witch-craft is in superstition The Fathers and Schoolmen therefore are not much amisse in defining witch-craft by superstition Making this to be the Genus and gathering the other in all the species under it so that no kind of Witchcraft may be named which is not found upon superstition and works not by it Because in this main Act superstition and Witch-craft both agree to apply the Creature as means unto those ends and uses unto which it is neither apt by its own nature nor thereunto ordained by divine Institution Only these two differ in degrees for superstition is witchcraft begun and witch-craft is superstition finished Wherefore now since Superstitions are the seedes of witch-crafts and we all have in us the seeds of superstitions how ought we then to take heede of nourishing superstitions and those especially that bend dispose to witch-craft which are indeed too much to be observed in the Observations Traditions Opinions Affections Professions