Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	cast_v	devil_n	fast_v	3,166	5	10.2336	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

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

storing it with provisions necessary to keep himself from drowning in Anno Dom. 1524. 2. And that we may be certified how frequent and common these counterfeited Impostures have been and yet are practised take this other from undoubted authority The 15 of August being Sunday in the 16 of the raign of Queen Elizabeth Agnes Bridges a Maid about the age of 20 years and Rachel Pinder a Wench about the age of 11 or 12 years who both of them had counterfeited to be possessed by the Devil whereby they had not only marvellously deluded many people both Men and Women but also diverse such persons as otherwise seemed of good wit and understanding stood before the Preacher at Pauls-cross where they acknowledged their hypocritical counterfeiting with penitent behaviours requiring forgiveness of God and the world and the people to pray for them Also their several examinations and Confessions were there openly read by the Preacher and afterwards published in print for posterity hereafter to beware of the like deceivers From whence we may take these two Observations 1. We may from hence note how subject the nature of man is both to deceive and to be deceived and that not only the common people but also the wiser and more learned heads may most easily be imposed upon And that therefore in things of this nature and the like we cannot use too much circumspection nor use too much diligence to discover them 2. We may note that when such strange Impostures or false Miracles are pretended there is commonly some sinister and corrupt end aimed at under the colour of Religion and that those that are most ready to publish such things as true Miracles and Divine Revelations are generally those that did complot and devise them And therefore the greater number they be that cry them up and the more esteem the persons are of that blow abroad such things the greater suspicion we ought to have of the falsity and forgery of them Always remembring that the greater the fame and number of the persons are that conspire and confederate together the greater things they may bring to pass and be more able to deceive as was manifest by the Priests attending the Oracles who though they laboured to father their predictions upon some Deity yet it was manifest that it was nothing else but their own Confederacy Impostures and Juglings 3. But these Diabolical Counterfeitings of possessions and the maintaining of the power of dispossession and casting forth of Devils was not only upheld and maintained by the Papists to advance their superstitious courses but also in the said time of Queen Elizabeth there were divers Non-Conformists to gain credit and repute to their way that did by publick writing labour to prove the continuation of real possessions by Devils and that they had power by fasting and Prayer to cast them out Of which number were one M r Darrell and his Accomplices who not only writ divers Pamphlets in the positive defence of that opinion but also published certain Narrations of several persons that they pretended were really possessed with Devils which were cast forth by their means in using Fasting and Prayer Which writings were answered by M r Harsnet and others and their Theory not only overthrown but their practice discovered to be counterfeiting and Imposture Whereupon there were divers persons suborned to feign and counterfeit possessions as William Sommers of Nottingham who by the Exorcists was reported to have strange fits passions and actions which are at large described and set forth in that learned Treatise Dialogical Discourses of Spirits and Devils written about the same time by John Deacon and John Waller Ministers and of divers other persons who likewise pretended the same counterfeit possessions And though the said forged and feigned possessions were strongly maintained by their Abettors and the matters of fact audaciously asserted to be true yet after the said Darrell and his Accomplices were examined by the Queens Commissioners all was made apparent to be notorious counterfeiting cheating and imposture both by the confession of Sommers himself and by the Oaths of several Deponents Neither was that discourse containing the certain possession of seven persons in one Family in Lancashire at Cheworth in the Parish of Leigh in the Year 1594. though believed by many for a truth because of the streight tale told by the said Darrell in that Narrative of any better grain but full of untruths impossibilities absurdities and contradictions 4. Our next instance shall be a most strange Imposture acted in the time of King James and in a manner known unto the whole Nation that is of the Boy of Bilson in Staffordshire in the year 1620. by name William Perry whose condition as he had been taught and so left by the Popish Priests take as followeth This Boy being about thirteen years old but for wit and subtilty far exceeding his age was thought by divers to be possessed of the Devil and bewitched by reason of many strange fits and much distemper wherewith he seemed to have been extreamly affected In those fits he appeared both deaf and blind writhing his mouth aside continually groaning and panting and although often pinched with mens fingers pricked with Needles tickled on his sides and once whipped with a Rod besides other the like extremities yet could he not be discerned by either shrieking or shrinking to bewray the least passion or feeling Out of his fits he took as might be thought no sustenance which he could digest but together with it did void and cast out of his mouth rags thred straw crooked pins c. Both in and out of his fits his belly by wilful and continual abstinence defrauding his own ●uts was almost as flat as his back besides his throat was swoln and hard his tongue stiff and rolled up towards the roof of his mouth insomuch that he seemed always dumb save that he would speak once in a Fortnight or three Weeks and that but in very few words Two things there were which gave most just cause of presumption that he was possessed and bewitched one was that he could still discern when that Woman which was supposed to have bewitched him to wit Jone Cocke was brought in to any room where he was although she were secretly conveyed thither as was one time tryed before the Grand Jury at Stafford The second that though he would abide other passages of Scripture yet he could not indure the repeating of that Text viz. In the beginning was the word c. Jo. 1. ver 1. but instantly rolling his eyes and shaking his head as one distracted he would fall nto his usual fits of groaning panting distraction c. In which plight he continued many months to the great wonder and astonishment of thousands who from divers parts came to see him Thus much of his cunning Yet notwithstanding this most devillish and cunningly contrived counterfeiting and dissimulation was discovered and

into with others should pass to another and should bind with the same impiety that is not agreeable to truth seeing that the consent of those that make the league doth effect and confirm the compacts Which if it be he saith far absent from us that is a compact and in the use of conceived words by which the malady is taken away there be contained nothing that is impious and that we implore the divine assistance I do not see he saith any thing hurtful to Religion nor unbeseeming a good and Pious Man For as if things that are salutiferous to mankind should come from Men that were Atheists we should imbrace them not respecting the Authors So if he saith things that are profitable should be shewed of a Demon I should not think they were to be rejected 7. Lastly he saith Why may we not also refer effects in the sanation of diseases which do accompany the enunciation or description of conceived words to those we call good or guardian Angels Why should we not judge that these would be as ready to ease and help as others to hurt especially in diseases where we are destitute of natural helps And this opinion he saith Constantinus magnus did approve Codicis lib. 9. tit ●0 leg 4. The Science of them he saith is to be punished who being skilled in Magical Arts are discovered either to endeavour the impairing the health of men or the drawing of chast minds to lust But for seeking remedies to humane bodies they ought not to be punished But perhaps thon wilt say that words are in vain muttered forth unless a compact do interceed But that which happened he saith at Lipsick some twelve or fifteen years since doth refell this opinion where a little Wench that by reason of her age did not know what she did while she imitated the whole action of her nurse which she had often seen her use and therewith stirred up tempests herewith the little Wench raised up such Thunders and Lightenings by which a Village not far from the City was burned As he saith D. Nenius told him and was a thing known to innumerable Citizens For the Wench being brought to the Court it was debated whether by law she could be punished but it was decided by the opinions of the Lawyers that she could not be punished seeing that by reason of her young age she was altogether ignorant of what she did 8. We cannot also but remember here some notable passages of Paracelsus where he is speaking of the power of faith and strong confidence meerly considered as a nude and natural power And affirming its great force and operation to effect strange things he saith But truly we cannot deny but that spirits do commix themselves with such a faith in celebrated feasts and the like as though they had performed those things But not at all they but faith only doth these things As if a Man had honey and did not know from whence it came nor what kind of creature did make it and the Beetle should brag that she had made it So the Devils though they perform nothing at all but the effects are meerly produced by the power of a natural or miraculous faith yet they glory as though they had done them in all things being liars and deceivers and therefore do they what they can to confirm and raise up ceremonies and superstitions From which commotions faith is brought forth and faith worketh those strange effects and therefore by reason of the superstition used the Devils would make men believe that they are authors of those strange effects which are onely wrought by the Power of an humane Faith that they might rob God of his Glory and have it ascribed unto themselves And therefore no persons do the Devils more service than those that ascribe those works unto them that are wrought by natural power and the strength of humane faith From whence he concludeth thus Eodem modo fides est in homine ut laqueus quo strangulatur fur ad multa utilis sit Ea sides facit ut fiat Si sides etiam in filum lineum est similiter fit Interim tamen hoc nec Diabolus facit nec fur nec laqueus nec carnifex sed adulterina tua fides quam non impendis ut debebas Having sufficiently we suppose proved that in the producing the effects by words or charms the Devil doth operate nothing at all in them but only as a lying deceiver and Impostor laboureth to have the honour of those effects ascribed unto him we shall now come to the second and that is those that hold that the effects are solely produced by the force of the imagination and faith of the Charmer and so that imagination doth work further than the proper body of the imaginant upon other extraneous bodies and that the words or characters avail nothing but the fortifying and exalting of the faith of the Operator to prove which are brought these arguments 1. When the Disciples asked our Saviour Why they could not cast forth the Devil out of the child that was lunatick and sore vexed and oft fell into the fire and into the water he told them Because of their unbelief and said For verily I say unto you if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye shall say unto this mountain remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you Upon which place learned Beza gives us this note Non fidem illam generalem historicam intelligit Nec etiam fidem justificantem Sed illam demum specialem quibusdam Christianis particularem quâ animus quodam spiritus sancti impulsu ad res mirandas perficiendas impellitur ista vocatur fides miraculorum And against diffidence our Saviour orders the remedy of fasting and prayer But this was a power given by Christ unto them which they it seems had lost and are here taught to resuscitate it by prayer and fasting Others take it to be a natural power of faith or strength of imagination in all men which they may stir up by fasting and prayer therewith to operate that which is good but being suscitated by the means of images pictures superstitious ceremonies and the like and so may effect either good or bad but this later opinion we reject as unsound and contrary to the Scriptures and so the argument doth prove very little 2. Helmont holdeth that every man in respect that they have been partakers of the image of God hath power to create certain entities by the power of imagination and that these conceived Ideas do cloath themselves with a body in the shape of the image fabricated in the imagination and it is by these that those strange things are effected that are falsly attributed to Demons And that man solely hath this power Which if his argument be well grounded doth prove plainly that these strange effects are brought to pass by