ball of his hand then with his left hand he taketh up a little white rod that he hath upon the Table with which he maketh people believe he performeth all his feats And then telling them a Story to amuse them that he will like Moses and Aaron transform that rod into a Serpent then he presently beginneth to stare about him and to utter some strange and nonsensical words as though he were invoking some Spirit or Goblin and so immediately conveyeth the rod either into his lap if sitting or into his sleeve if standing and then le ts loose the Serpent forth of his right hand with pushing it forward that what with the wiar and the nimble motion of his hand he maketh it to move a pretty space upon the Table which he continueth while offering with the one hand to catch it by the neck he nimbly with the other puts it forward and turneth it by touching the tail and the mean while hisseth so cunningly that the by-standers think it is the Serpent it self and presently whips it up and conveys it into his pocket And such a trick as this well acted might make Pharaoh and the beholders believe there was as much done as Moses and Aaron did but only that Aarons rod swallowed up their Serpents or his Serpent theirs which they might easily excuse As for the changing water into blood and the producing of Frogs they were so easy to be done after the same manner that they need not any particular explication for by this the manner of their performance may most easily be understood Though I once saw a Gentleman that was much delighted with these kind of tricks and did himself play them admirable well who performed it with a living Snake that he had got for one of his Children to keep in a box for in this North-Countrey they are plentiful and are also innoxious and it might have deceived a very wary person So that it is very foolish and absurd to bring in a Demon from Hell or an Angel from Heaven or a Soul from above to solve a thing that seems strange and uncouth by when the craft and cunning of Men if duely considered and examined are sufficient to perfom the same and much more 5. And in this place of Exodus where our Translators say and the Magicians did so or in like manner with their inchantments the word being Belahatehem ought to have been rendered suis laminis as we have proved before that is with their bright plates of metal for the word doth not signifie Inchantments in any one place in all the Old Testament And if truth and reason may bear any sway at all it must be understood that they were deeply skilled in natural and lawful Magick as generally the Aegyptians and the Eastern Nations were though they did use and apply it to an evil end namely the resisting the power of Gods miracles wrought by Moses and Aaron and so by this word suis laminis with their plates of Metal must be understood Metalline bright plates framed under certain fit constellations and insculped with certain figures by which naturally without any Diabolical assistance they did perform strange things and made the shapes of some things appear to the eye And though we may be derided and laughed to scorn by the ignorant or hardly taxed and censured by the greatest part of Cynical Criticks yet we cannot so far stifle the knowledge of our own brains nor be so cowardly in maintaining the truth but we must assert That anciently there hath been a certain lawful art whereby some sorts of metals might be mixed together under a due constellation and after ingraven in like fit Planetary times with sundry figures that would naturally work strange things And this piece of learning though it may justly be numbred amongst the Desiderata and might very well have been placed in the Catalogue of the Deperdita of Pancirollus yet was it well known unto the ancient Magicians and by them often with happy success put into practise And amongst those many noble attempts of that most learned and experienced though much condemned person Paracelsus this part of learning was not the least that he laboured to restore The truth of which we thus prove 1. That there have been formerly in the World many such like planetary Sigills or Talismans as the Persians called them is manifest from the authority of divers Authors of good credit and account For the learned and most acute Julius Scaliger relateth this saying The novelty of this History also may sharpen the wits of the studious In the Books of the Arabick Aegyptians he saith it is thus written That Hameth Ben Thaulon the Governour of Aegypt for the Arabians did command that a certain leaden Image or Picture of a Crocodile which was found in the ground-work of a certain Temple should be melted in the fire From which time the inhabitants did complain that those Countreys were more infested with Crocodiles than before against whose mischief that Image had been framed and buried there by the more ancient Wisemen or Magicians Junctin upon the Sphear of Sacrobosco affirms that his Master who was a Carmelite named Julianus Ristorius à Prato one that was not any whit superstitious was intreated by a Friend of his to make one of these Images for the cure of the Cramp which he was very much subject to This learned Man resenting his Friends sufferings taught him the manner how to make one so that he not content to make only one made divers of them when the Moon was in the Sign Cancer and that with so good success and with such certainty as that he immediately found the benefit of it Confecit saith he plures imagines pro se amicis suis quibus effectis unam pro se accepit liberatus est The same he reports of a certain Florentine a very Pious Man who made one of these Talismans for to drive away the Gnats which he did with good success Nicolaus Florentinus saith he Vir religiosus fecit in una constellatione annulum ad expellendum culices quas vulgo Zanzaras dicimus sub certis determinatis imaginibus usus fuit constellatione Saturni infortunati eâ—pulit culices Another Story take from an Arabick Cosmographer cited by Joseph Scaliger thus This Talisman he saith is to be seen in the Countrey of Hamptz in a City bearing the same name and it is only the Figure of a Scorpion graved upon one of the Stones in a certain Tower which is of so great virtue as that it suffers not any either Serpent or Scorpion to come within the City And if any one for experiment sake bring one of these out of the field into the City it is no sooner at the Gate but that it dies suddenly This Figure hath this virtue besides that when any one is stung with a Scorpion or bitten by any other Serpent they need but
these observations 1. Though Mr. Hotham seem to judge that this person accused had the white powder from some Spirit and that one also of the evil sort and upon a contract by the ingaging of his Soul we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of a visible and corporeal contract with the Devil neither was it yet ever proved that the Devil did any good either real or apparent but is the sworn enemy of all mankind both in their Souls and in their Bodies but this powder wrought that which was really good namely the curing of diseases and therefore rationally cannot be thought to be given from an evil spirit 2. Some there were that thought that the simple man told a plain and true story and that he had the powder from those people we call Fairies and there are many that do believe and affirm that there are such people of whom Paracelsus hath a Treatise of purpose holding that they are not of the seed of Adam and therefore he calls them non-Adamicks and that they have flesh and bones and so differ from spirits and yet that they can glide through walls and rocks which he calleth their Chaos as easily as we through the air and that they get children and are mortal like those that Hieronynus Cardanus relateth that appeared to his Father Facius Cardanus and these he calleth Pygmaei Silvestres Gnomi and Umbratiles but his proof of their existence to me doth not seem satisfactory what others may think of it I leave to their demonstrations if they have any 3. Some there were and those not of the meer ignorant sort that did judge that though the Man was simple yet that the story that he told was but framed and taught him the better to conceal the person from whom he received the white powder For they thought that some notable Chymist or rather an Adeptist had in charity bestowed that powder upon him for the relief of himself and family as we know it hath often happened to other persons at other times and places And this last opinion seems most consonant to reason and I the rather believe it because not many years after it was certainly known that there was an Adeptist in that Countrey and we ought not to fetch in supernatural causes to solve effects when natural causes may serve the turn 6. The last thing of this strange nature that we shall instance in is concerning the bleeding or cruentation of the bodies of those that have been murthered I mean of such as have been murthered by prepense malice and upon premeditated purpose for the bodies of others that are killed by chance-medley and by man-slaughter we do not read nor find any examples that ever their bodies did bleed And though we have not been ocular witness of any such bleeding yet are there records of such accidents given us by many learned and credible authors that a man might almost be accounted an Infidel not to give credit to them and that both of those that have bled when the murtherer hath not been present and also of those that have bled the murtherer being present And first of those bodies that have issued blood when the murtherer was not by Gregorius Horstius a Physician of great experience and learning and of no less integrity recordeth this story thus Englished In the year of our Lord 1604. the twenty sixth day of December a young Nobleman of twenty five years old was shot at with a Gun in the night time about nine a clock from an high window of an house in the Town of Blindmarck in lower Austria and the bullet entring his left breast went forth at his right side and so forthwith died in the place The dead body being viewed again and the wound considered the same quantity or bigness both of the entrance and out-going are found with great plenty of blood issuing The following day being the twenty seventh of December in the morning the body of the murthered young man hath other cloaths put upon it and so is kept quiet for the space of two days Furthermore upon the thirtieth of December he is laid upon the Bier and kept in the Church and that without any further motion where nevertheless from the upper wound the fresh blood did daily flow until the eighth of January 1605. from which time the Hemorrhage ceased But again the thirteenth of February about noon the flux of blood by the lower wound for an hour or two was observed to issue as though the slaughter had been newly done In the mean time the habit of the whole body was such as did most easily agree to what it was living the colour of his face remained even unto his burial ruddy and florid the vein appearing in his forehead filled with good blood no sign of an incipient putrefaction appearing for so many weeks no stink or ungrateful odour which otherwise doth accompany dead bodies within a few days was here found at all The fingers of the hands remained soft moveable or flexible without any wast the natural colour being not very much changed except that in process of time about the last week before burial they begun in a certain manner to wax livid in the extremities 7. This following he giveth to prove that as cold constringeth and shuteth up the veins so heat doth open them and cause the blood to flow and saith This is proved a few years since by experience in an infant slain by a most wicked Mother forthwith after it was born and thrown from the Tower of a Noble Baron of upper Austria into a ditch that was full with water which after five weeks by good fortune was found and taken out And forthwith he saith the Mother not present it being then not known who was the Mother when it felt the force of the external air it begun to distil forth very fresh blood because the pores which by reason of the cold were shut that the blood could not flow were then unlockt and opened by the heat of the ambient air And thus much of those that have bled the murtherers not being present 8. Next we shall give some examples of those that have bled when the murtherers have been brought into the presence of the body murthered or caused to touch it and this Franciscus Valeriola doth attest with an ample faith that he himself saw When he saith James of Aqueria a Senator of Arles was found dead of a wound that he that gave that wound was apprehended by the Magistrate and brought into the view of the dead body that he might acknowledge the person murthered and confess the fact by and by the bubling blood all the by standers looking on begun to come forth with much fervour and bubbles from the wound and the nostrils 9. Take this other as it is cited by Gothofredus Voigtius in this manner In the year 1607 the 25. of April a certain Shepherd in Spain
and fond cogitations into their minds agreeable to their wicked wills and corrupted desires and so are fast bound in this spiritual and implicit League And under this spiritual implicit League are also comprehended all those that are Witchmongers and believe the verity and performance of these things and think that the Devil can both hurt and also help and that there is a bad and a good Witch or with Mr. Perkins a black and a white one by which wicked opinion the seeking unto Witches Wizards Mutterers Murmurers Charmers South-sayers Conjurers Cunning-men and women as we speak here in the North and such like is still upholden by the Authors and Favourers of this opinion contrary to the direct counsel of the Holy Ghost who saith And when they shall say unto you Seek unto them that have familiar Spirits and unto Wizards that peep and that mutter should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them And therefore saith one Admonet etiam nos adversus impios cultus superstitiones tutos fore si in lege Domini acquiescamus The League or Covenant betwixt the Devil and the Witch is that which is visible and corporeal where he is supposed to appear in some bodily shape unto the Witch and to have oral and audible conference with him or her and so to make a League or Covenant and this is the thing that we deny and the consequents thereof that he doth not suck upon their bodies nor hath carnal copulation with them nor carries them in the Air nor for them nor by them doth destroy or kill man or beast raise tempests or change them into Cats Hares Wolves Dogs or the like and this we oppose with these following Reasons 1. Whatsoever the Devil worketh it is to bring advantage to his own Kingdom or otherwise he should act in vain But whatsoever he worketh by a visible Covenant is not for the advantage of his own Kingdom and therefore it is in vain The major is plain from the Text Be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour whom resist stedfast in the faith The minor is manifest in these two particulars 1. Satan is that old Serpent that was and is more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God hath created which notwithstanding the vain Cavils and seeming Arguments of Pererius must be understood of Satan the Adversary of Mankind and not of the natural Serpent which is not the most subtile beast that God hath created there being many others more subtile than the Serpent and the Scripture tells us of his cunning and wiliness for the Apostle saith We are not ignorant of his wiles or devices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Apostle in another place calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wiles which are so great that if it were possible they might deceive the very elect So that he wants no cunning nor subtilty to know how to bring a sinner into his snare and to hold him fast and when he is fast he knows he need do no more and therefore acts not in vain 2. Before he need attempt a visible apparition to the Witch if any such thing could be he knows that the Witch is sure and fast in his snare by a spiritual Covenant already entred into and therefore knows he need do no more and he is too cunning to act to no purpose and therefore doth St. Paul warn Timothy That a Bishop must have a good report lest he fall into the snare of the devil all sins being the snares of the Devil and when men are fast taken in them they are in Satans fetters and he labours no more but to keep them there And so the same Apostle speaketh of those that oppose the Gospel that they must be instructed in meekness that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will So that sins keep men in the spiritual snare of the Devil and so are all those that are accounted Witches in that spiritual snare holden fast enough by their own consents and corrupt wills and need no bodily apparition to make them surer and so this visible League falls to the ground as having no ground nor end why it should be made And for the Devil to appear like a Dog or a Cat and speak would sure not only fright and startle an old Witch but even the boldest and most stout-hearted person 2. The Witches by visible apparitions of the Devil if any such thing could be in any shape could have no more assurance of Satans performances than they have already by mental perswasion and the dominion of him in their hearts who is the Prince of the air and worketh in the children of disobedience because by that visible appearance there is not brought any Hostages or Witnesses which are absolutely necessary to confirm such a League or Covenant And these representations being made in their imaginations and fancies wherein they think they see do and suffer these delusive Visions they are most firmly and pertinaciously confirmed in the belief of them that any Apparition externally must needs be vain and superfluous 3. If the Witches be not superlatively mad and if so then so to be judged of and all that in this point is believed of them either in doing suffering or otherwise must be judged extreme folly and madness they will not make a League with the Devil knowing him to be the Devil because they cannot but know that he was and is a Lyar and a Murtherer from the beginning and hath deceived many before them that were of the same way and profession And a visible appearance can afford them no certain security but that he may and will deceive them still and that he continueth a lyar and a deceiver But while the delusion is internal and the imagination depraved and led by the suggestions and motions of Satan they then are so blinded that they see not nor understand the danger they run into nor the certainty of the deceit they lye under which a visible Apparition would sooner shake and overthrow than any way confirm and therefore is false and needless 4. But how come the Witches certainly to know that the Devil can perform such things as they would have done Surely by no means but either by traditional hear say or inward delusion the one they know not but that it is a lye and the other concludeth their passive delusion to neither of which a visible Apparition like a Cat or a Dog and speaking unto them can bring any confirmation except the Devil should bring them good store of gold or silver or work some strange feat before their eyes as to kill some men or
deceived and verily believed that there were two Mastiffs under the Coverlet until their eyes have convinced them of their error So delusive may art or cunning be being seconded by use and agility I also have sometimes seen a person that lived in Southwark near London who holding his lips together and making no sound or noise at all would notwithstanding have by the motion of the muscles of his face and the agitation of his head and hands and other gesticulations of his Body made any of the beholders understand what tune he had modulated in his fancy which was very strange and pleasant to behold and that which I could not have believed if I had not seen it We might hereunto add the Story of the pretended sleeping preacher who had drawn many into admiration and belief that he did it either by Divine inspiration or vision and yet was but a voluntary cheat and a delusive Imposture as may be seen at large in Stowes Chronicle We have been thus tedious in giving these examples that it may appear how improperly Men fly to supernatural causes to solve effects by that are and may be performed by natural means and that Men need neither fetch a Devil from Hell nor a Soul from Heaven to solve these effects that mens cunning art and craft are able to perform 4. Next the more fully to explain this we may consider the place in the Acts which is rendred thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the learned and judicious Isaac Casaubon saith thus An ancient interpreter readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Syrian version rendereth spiritum divinationis It may be quere'd seeing Apollo is understood why S. Luke doth use the Epithete of him rather than the proper name And the reason is because the ancients did call the Ventriloquists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythonists And it is plain that it was Divination that was telling of secret things whether past present or to come that the Maid pretended and undertook for the text saith Which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is by Vaticination Beza in his Latine translation saith in his Marginal Notes That that Spirit of Oracling was only an expression alluding to the Idol Apollo which was called Python and gave answers unto them that asked namely by the Priests that belonged unto it of which Idol the Poets feigned many things so that they that had the Imposture of Divination were said by the Heathen to be inspired by the spirit of Apollo And in this place of the Acts S. Luke speaketh after the common Phrase of the Heathen because he delivereth the error of the common people but not by what instinct the Maid gave Divinations for it is certain that under the Mask of that Idol the Devil plaid his deluding pranks and this spirit of Apollo was nothing but as much as to say an Imposture or deluding trick of the Devil practised by the Priests of Apollo So much saith Beza who plainly expoundeth That that Spirit of Divination or Oracling was only a Devilish deluding Imposture and not a familiar Devil as many do fondly imagine And whereas it is said in the verse following that S. Paul did cast that Spirit out of the Maid it was that he by the power of the Gospel of Jesus rebuked her wickedness so that her Conscience being terrified she was either converted or else at the least dared not to follow that deluding craft of Divination any longer as when Christ did cast out seven Devils out of Mary Magdalen it is to be understood that he did convert her from many devilish sinful courses in which she had walked Thus far learned Beza and Mr. Ady who both seem to understand no other Demon in the case than only a crafty and devilish Imposture and Cheat and most certainly it could be nothing else 5. But to come to the stress of the business these things are to be considered 1. Some thought that they were really and essentially possessed with an evil spirit that did speak in them and gave forth answers and this is the most common though most false opinion which if it were true it maketh nothing for those familiars that are ascribed to our Witches for by that they mean a visible Devil without them in the shape of a Dog a Cat or the like and both these are equally absurd and false as we shall shew anon 2. Some thought that an evil spirit ab extra did but work upon their minds and so inspired them with these Divinations and this seems to have been the opinion of Plutarch and some others of the Heathen 3. But others which is that which we affirm did hold that they were but counterfeiting deluding Impostors and what they did was only by Ventriloquy Jugling and confederacy and that all their pretended Divinations and predictions were nothing but lying conjectures and ambiguous equivocations But to open it fully we must conceive that they did pretend and take upon them to foretel and declare things to come which notwithstanding were but false forgeries and lies for if they had really had any certain foreknowledge of things to come then when Jehu was made King and in subtilty pretended to sacrifice to Baal and so got together all the Priests to sacrifice if these base lying cheating Impostors had really had any skill in Divination then they might have known that their calling together was not truly to advance their Idolatry but to take away their lives and it may safely be concluded that those that could not foresee the danger threatning their own lives could not truly foretel contingent effects to others and though the Scripture give us many such examples as these yet to eschew prolixity this may suffice to evince that all their pretended predictions were nothing but conjectures or lying forgeries And as they did take upon them to foretel things to come so this Woman of Endor and in likelihood the rest did pretend to do it by raising up or causing to ascend those that were dead to give answers of the things demanded Now therefore the state of the question will be whether this Woman had really a familiar or supernatural spirit that gave her answers or that she raised such an one or that only she was a deceiver and Impostor that could cast her self into a Trance and so speak in her Breast or that she had a place contrived for the purpose as they had at the Oracle at Delphos by which means she could speak as in a Bottle or hollow cavity and had other Confederates sutably fitted to accomplish her design Here we shall only speak as to the significancy of the words relating to this matter and shall handle the History of the matter of fact elsewhere And in the first place we allow and grant that she had the cooperating power of the Devil in her mind and will leading her to take upon her to foretel
things to come of which she was utterly ignorant so that we grant her under a spiritual league with the Devil as all wicked persons are but we deny that she had any other familiar spirit but only the spirit of delusion and Imposture as we shall make good by these arguments 1. Because the word sometimes signifieth the persons pretending to be skilful in this sort of Divinations for so the Woman saith unto Saul Behold thou knowest what Saul hath done how he hath cut off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythones that is the persons that pretended and practised that kind of Divination And so again in that of Isaiah And thy voice shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sicut Pythonis as the voice of one that useth this kind of Divination So that it is clear that the act is ascribed unto and was performed by the persons practising this couzening craft and not unto a familiar or Devil 2. Sometimes it is taken for the means that they pretended they performed it by as in Sauls deluded and despairing sense for he saith Divina quaeso mihi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Pythone vel per Pythonem and cause to ascend whom I shall name unto thee So that he vainly thought that she could call up and make to ascend whomsoever he should name so blind and deluded was he when the spirit of the Lord was departed from him and was justly delivered up to believe lies because he had not received the love of the truth 3. It doth not appear that she had any familiar spirit or called up any for the name that is there given her is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominam Pythonis vel utris the Mistriss of the Bottle or of the Oracle for Saul saith seek me a Woman that is Mistriss of the Bottle or of the Oracle for so it must signifie if it be genuinely and fitly translated and his servants tell him that at Endor there is a Woman that was Mistriss of Ob the Bottle or Oracle For though some translate it mulier habens Pythonem or as Tremellius mulier praedita Pythone it will but reach thus much that she was possessed of or had in her power this Ob Bottle or Oracle that could be nothing but the fit contrived place to give answers as they did at the Oracle For if they meant that she had a familiar spirit in her Belly then it was possest of her more than she could be said to be possest of it But there is another Text that doth fully agree with this and will help to explicate it and is this speaking of the destruction of Nineveh or the Jewish Nation and the causes of it Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the welfavoured harlot the Mistriss of Witchcrafts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Domina vel patrona the Mistriss or Patroness of Juglings and delusions So that in propriety of language she of Endor is called the Mistriss of Python or Oracle because she could play the couzening feats that belonged unto it 4. Amongst all the several ways of Idolatry that Manasseh set up or caused to be set up this is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fecit Pythonem or fecissetque Pythonem he made Ob or Pytho and though Translators have been much perplexed and hard put to it to give a signification agreeable to their preconceived opinion yet have they were it right or wrong brought it to their minds though it be utterly false and erroneous for Tremellius renders it instituitque Pythonem which though pretty near yet is altogether short of the propriety and the most of the rest have run quite Counter but our English Translators the worst of all others who give it and dealt with a familiar spirit When it is plain that this word must be taken in this place as it is in the third verse of this Chapter he made groves fecitque lucos because the words are both from the same root which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fecit confecit perâ—ecit and so it is and must be taken in other places and is especially manifest in these God said to Noah make thee an Ark of Gopher wood and after a window shalt thou make to the Ark. The Psalmist saith But our God is in heaven he hath done whatsoever he pleased and again To him who alone doth great wonders We might add forty places more where the word is used that cometh from this root and hath the same punctual signification so that from hence we may conclude 1. That Manasseh could not make a Devil nor a Spirit and therefore that the word Ob doth not intend nor bear forth any such matter in true and genuine signification 2. That he could not make a Man or Woman and therefore the word properly doth signifie neither 3. That he only could make and cause to be contrived the Groves in such as order ar the Idol-Priests might direct as most fit for them to play their couzening and Jugling feats and delusions in So he might make or cause to be contrived the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or place for the Oracle and prepare those knacks and implements wherewith and in which place the Diviner might either by him or her self or with the help of confederates bring to pass strange things which they made the blind and ignorant people believe were performed by the God worshipped in and by those Idols or by Demons and Spirits or the calling up of the dead When in truth there was nothing at all performed but either in raptures feigned and forced Furies Trances and thereby lying predictions and ambiguous equivocations were uttered whereby the people were deluded and drawn unto Idolatry or by giving dark and obscure responsions by Ventriloquy speaking in Bottles or through hollow Pipes and cavities whereby they did peep and mutter or lastly by having knavish confederates hidden in secret and cunningly contrived places and suitably habited to personate those that were desired to be raised up as is most probable in this Woman of Endor and the forged and pretended Samuel So that there was no Devil nor familiar but a couzening Knave or a Quean more crafty than the Demons themselves 5. That they had no familiar Spirit is manifest if we consider the manner how they carried themselves in these cheating actions and performances for the Prophet tells us thus And when they shall say unto you seek unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Pythones unto Oraclers and unto Wizards that peep and mutter If they had a familiar Spirit or Demon what need they chirp peep or mutter could it not speak loud and plain enough Yea doubtless it could if they had any such but it is to conceal their own deceit and knavery lest it should be found forth and discovered And without such chirping and muttering they could neither perform their Jugling delusions nor keep them from being known and derided Tremellius his note upon this place is
the contrary and therefore it could not be either the true Samuel nor his Soul 8. It is manifest that the Lord had before withdrawn his good Spirit from Saul and an evil one from the Lord was come upon him and therefore it was no way probable that the Lord would in a miraculous manner answer such a wicked person whom he had utterly rejected as a reprobate Neither is it like that God would shew him an extraordinary favour by a dead Prophet that would not vouchsafe him his Spirit in an ordinary way And Samuel that came not at him for a long time though but a little distance asunder while he lived was not like to make so long a journey in a Divine errand to visit him after his death 9. And if Abraham at the request of the rich Man would not send Lazarus to warn his brethren lest they should come into that place of torment which bore with it a fair shew both of Charity and Piety much less would God give way or Samuel be desirous to come to send a blessed Soul from its rest for such a frivolous matter and in no wise to connive at the wickedness of both Saul and the Witch and never move either of them to the amendment of their lives 10. Where doth Mr. Glanvil find it mentioned in any part of Scripture or where is it recorded in the writings of any reformed or Orthodoxal Divines or where in any of their works is it declared that ever any blessed Soul after death was either sent or did come upon a Divine errand to any here below Is it not monstrous confidence not to say impudence to utter such groundless assertions without any proof reason or authority at all Let all learned and judicious persons consider and judge 3. That the Devil assumed the shape of Samuel and acted the whole business is the opinion of all or the most of the learned Divines of the reformed Churches of whom we shall crave pardon if we dissent from them it being no fundamental of Religion nor any Article of the Faith And this we profess is not done out of the spirit of contradiction nor for singularity but only because as we conceive the Tenent hath no sufficient grounds neither from Scripture nor sound reason to support it and therefore we shall labour its confutation by these ensuing arguments 1. Because this opinion that the Devil should perform this apparition doth beg two suppositions never yet sufficiently proved and that have in them no certain truth For first they take for an Hypothesis that Devils are meerly and simply incorporeal Spirits which we shall prove hereafter to be false Secondly they take for another Hypothesis that Spirits and Devils can assume what bodies they please and appear in any figure or shape which is a meer figment invented by the doating Schoolmen as we shall sufficiently make good hereafter 2. We are not of their opinion that think that the Devils do move and rove up and down in this elementary world at their pleasure to act what they list and appear when how and in what shapes they please for then the World would be full of nothing almost but apparitions and every corner replenished with their ludicrous tricks as formerly in the times of blind Popery and ignorance there was no discourse almost but of Fairies Hobgoblins apparitions Spirits Devils and Souls ranting in every house and playing feats in every Town and Village when it was nothing but the superstitious credulity and ignorant fancies of the people joined with the Impostures of the Priests and Monks And if this were true then how should Men know a true natural substance or body from these fictitious apparitions Nay how could a Man have known his Father or Mother his Brethren or Sisters his Kinsmen or Neighbours might they not as well have believed them to be Phantasms and assumed bodies as real and true creatures 3. But though faln Angels in respect of their malice wicked wills and envious desires whereby they seek as much as in them lies the ruine of all mankind both in Soul and Body may in that particular end and regard be said to be like roaring Lions going about and seeking whom they may devour and compassing the earth and walking to and fro in it yet we must affirm that in respect of executing their wicked envious and malicious wills and desires they are restrained nay kept in the chains of everlasting darkness from which fetters and chains they go not out but when and so far as they are sent ordered licensed or as some would have it worded permitted by the purpose and decree of the Divine and Almighties providence So that it is most certain that the faln Spirits cannot go forth of their chains when they list to act what mischief they would contrary to the will of the Almighty who hath fettered and still keeps them in those chains but when they are at any time let loose it is only by the will decree licence and order of Jehovah who sends them forth to accomplish his will either for punishment to the wicked to inflict upon them his just judgments for which they are the appointed ministers and executioners and in the performance of these offices of his wrath they are limited and bounded how far they shall proceed and no further or else they are sent forth to tempt or afflict the godly for the trial of their faith and herein they are so restrained and bounded by the power of the Almighty as they cannot act one jot beyond the limit of his commands or Commissions as is manifest in the case of David who was tempted by Satan to number the people and in the affliction of Job wherein he was bounded how far he should act and no further And when the evil Angels are thus sent forth and limited by God what and how far they shall act it is always for just and righteous ends as in the case of Ahab when a lying Spirit was sent by God into the mouths of his Prophets that he might be persuaded to go up to Ramath Gilead that he might be slain there or as it was for a judgment and destruction upon Sennacheribs Army that Jerusalem might be saved and freed and he sent back with shame and confusion into his own countrey or it is to manifest his glory goodness and mercy to his Saints so David was moved to number the people that falling under that temptation and he and the people therefore plagued might be brought to a greater degree of repentance and to know that their defence stood not in the multitude of men but in the benignity of Jehovah who was their strength and their defender and so Job was so sore afflicted that his Faith and Patience might be made manifest and remain for an example to all succeeding posterities But it is utterly irrational and incredible that God would send the Devil without whose mission he could not have done it to
And S. Mark saith And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness And S. Luke saith He was led by the spirit into the wilderness Beza saith subductus fuit in desertum and Tremellius saith ductus fuit upon the place in S. Matthews Gospel And in S. Luke Tremellius saith Et duxit eum spiritus in desertum and Beza actus est ab eodem spiritu in desertum And in S. Mark Tremellius saith deduxit eum spiritus in desertum and Beza rendreth it expellit eum spiritus in desertum And because of the Greek word which is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he addeth this note Non significatur expulsio violenta sed vis divina quae Christum qui ad illud usque tempus ut privatus vixerat nova persona induit ac luctae proximae ministerio praeparatur Therefore saith Origen Sequebatur planè quasi athleta ad tontationem sponte proficiscens quodammodo loquebatur Duc quo vis invenies me in omnibus fortiorem So that it is most plain that he was no otherwise led or carried by Satan but as he was led by the Holy Ghost so that he went whithersoever Satan would desire him of his own mind and accord and needed not to be carried by the Devil for S. Luke useth the same Greek word both for the Holy Spirit leading of him and Satans leading of him so that Satan did not carry his body in the air as Men vainly conceive 2. Though S. Matthew use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may signifie assumpsit he took him and set him upon a pinnacle of the Temple and took him into an high mountain yet it cannot be understood thereby that he took him and carried his Body but that he went before and led Christ to those places that he thought most fit for him to prevail in his temptations to which places Christ went not by an unwilling constraint or hurried and carried in the air but by a ready willingness as one that certainly knew and was assured that he should win the Victory where ever or how great soever the combat and temptations were And therefore S. Luke useth the same word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 duco both for the Spirits and Satans leading as signifying no more but to go before and lead the way or to draw one to such or such a place by persuasion and desire and not to be carried in the air which appeareth to be a vain and forged interpretation and not the true meaning of the places Concerning Simon Magus we have before in this Treatise sufficiently proved that he was only a deceiver and Impostor and what strange feats he had done to astonish and stupifie the Samaritanes were only jugling knacks or deceits by confederacy and no supernatural things so that here we will say no more but only add That though our English translation say that he bewitched the people of Samaria with sorceries and that he himself when he beheld the miracles and signs that were done wondered yet the word that they translate in the one place bewitching and in the other wondered are both from one Thema which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de statu mentis dejicio facio ut aliquis mente non constet perterrefacio obstupefacio And therefore either it ought to be that the Samaritanes were astonisht at the feats that Simon wrought and that he himself was astonisht at the miracles of Philip or that they were both bewitched for they were both under the same amazement and there is no reason at all to give it one sense in one place and a different one in the other We need not here say any thing of Elymas who is stiled a Magician because it is manifest that he was a false Prophet full of all subtilty and all mischief a Child of the Devil and an enemy of all righteousness which character truly given to him by the un-erring sentence of S. Paul may be really ascribed to the whole tribe and profession of such kind of seducers and deceivers Like unto whom were those seven Sons of Sceva a Jew who are called exorcists that took upon them to call over them that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus saying We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth but were soundly beaten for their pains a fit reward for such vagabonds And if all that profess or practise such wicked vain and lying things were duely punished the poor ignorant people would not be so much abused as they are The other places in the New Testament we have handled and answered and also have touched upon that Text in the Galathians where we spoke of Fascination but lest it be not sufficient we shall handle it fully here The words are O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth From whence they use thus to argue If Witchcraft in the Apostles time had not been known and practised he would not have made use of that Phrase then concerning which we return these responsions 1. If we consider natural Fascination was by the Philosophers and Poets only taken to be contagious steams flowing from the eyes or breaths of malevolent and envious persons that had some infectious diseases as we see in the Plague Small-pox Lues Venerea soreness of Eyes Tinea's and the like which are contagious to others that lie with them or converse near them the infected atomes or steams issuing in a certain Sphear of activity are received by the pores or mouths of the sound persons by which they come to be infected also And this the Poet witnessed Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos Now this being the common opinion the Apostle taketh the metaphor from thence as who should say who with their virulent and poysonous opinions have infected you that you should not obey the truth And this is the genuine meaning of that metaphorical phrase and no other sense can rationally and congruously be put upon the place and this conduceth nothing to that opinion of Witchcraft that we oppose For Philosophica seu Physica fascinatio non nisi impropriè dici potest â—scinatio propriè verò est contagio seu infectio And therefore did the learned Vallesius to the same purpose speak this Sed neque si quis pestilenti affectus febri aut etiam sine febre deferens secum seminaria pestis alium intuens intuentem inficiat dicetur fascinasse sed peste affecisse 2. Some of the fathers which may be offered for an objection do seem to hold that S. Paul here meant of diabolical fascination and so Tertullian in English thus For there is also something amongst the Gentiles to be feared which they call fascination being a more unfortunate event of praise and great glory this we sometimes interpret of the Devil And S. Hierome saith upon this place Fascination is when some things by Magical illusions are shewed to
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
of strange qualities have made many to believe that they were Demons nay it seems their Images and Pictures have been taken for Devils and yet are but meer natural Creatures and by learned men accounted a kind of Apes which we shall now prove by an undeniable instance or two and first this from the pen of that learned Physician Nicholaus Tulpius who saith thus In our remembrance he saith there was an Indian Satyre brought from Angola and presented as a gift to Frederick Henry Prince of Aurange This Satyre was four-footed and from the humane shape which it seems to bear it is called of the Indians Orang antang homo silvestris a wild man and of the Africans Quoias morron expressing in longitude a Child of three years old and in crassitude one of six years It was of body neither fat nor lean but square most able and very swift And of its joints so firm and the Muscles so large that it durst undertake and could do any thing on the foreparts altogether smooth and rough behind and covered with black hairs It s face did resemble a man but the nose broad and crooked downwards rugged and a toothless female But the ears were not different from humane shape As neither the breast adorned on both sides with a swelling dug for it was of the feminine Sex the belly had a very deep navil and the joints both those above and those below had such an exact similitude with man that one egg doth not seem more like another Neither was there a-wanting a requisite commissure to the arm nor the order of fingers to the hands nor an humane shape to the thumb or a prop of the legs to the thighs or of the heel to the foot Which fit and decent form of the members was the cause that for most part it did go upright neither did it lift up any kind of weight less heavily than remove it easily When it was about to drink it would hold the handle of the Kan with the one hand and put the other under the bottom of the Cup then would it wipe off the moysture left upon its lips not less neatly than thou shouldest see the most delicate Courtier Which same dexterity it did observe when it went to bed For lying her head upon the Pillow and fitly covering her body with the Cloaths it did hide it self no otherwise than if the most delicate person had laid there Moreover the King of Samback he saith did one time tell our Kinsman Samuel Blomart that these kind of Satyres especially the Males in the Iland of Borneo have so great boldness of mind and such a strong compaction of Muscles that they have often forceably set upon armed men and not only upon the weak sex of Women and Girls with the flagrant desire of which they are so inflamed that catching them often they abuse them For they are highly prone to lust which is common to these with the lustful Satyres of the ancients yea sometimes so keen and salacious that therefore the Indian Women do eschew the Woods and Groves as worse than a Dog or a Snake in which these impudent animals do lie hid And that this lascivious animal is found in the Eastern Mountains of India as also in Africa between Sierra Liona and the Promontory of the Mountain where perhaps were those places where Plinius lib. 5. cap. 5. affirmeth that upon the nights there was seen to shine frequent Fires of the Aegipanes and to abound with the lasciviousness of the Satyres who do love craggy Dens and Caves and shun the society of mankind being a salacious hairy four-footed Creature with human shape and a crooked nose But that the foot of this Creature neither hath hoofs nor the body every where hairs but only the head shoulders and back The rest of the parts are smooth and the Ears are not sharp So that from hence it is undeniably true that there are such Creatures existent in nature and have been either taken for Devils or the Apparitions of Demons in this shape of Satyres as Doctor Brown hath well observed in these words A conceit there is he saith that the Devil commonly appeareth with a cloven foot or hoof wherein although it seem excessively ridiculous there may be somewhat of truth and the ground thereof at first might be his frequent appearing in the shape of a Goat which answers that description This was the opinion of ancient Christians concerning the Apparitions of Pans Fauns and Satyres and in this form we read of one that appeared unto Antony in the Wilderness The same is also confirmed from expositions of holy Scripture for whereas it is said Thou shalt not offer unto Devils the original word is Sehhirim that is rough and hairy Goats because in that shape the Devil most often appeared as is expounded by the Rabbins as Tremellius hath also explained But saving the reputation of learned Saint Hierome and D r Brown it is but a supposition unproved that ever the Devil appeared in the shape of a Goat the rise of the opinion was only because the Devil was worshipped in an Idol made in the shape of a Goat 3. In a few ages past when Popish ignorance did abound there was no discourse more common which yet is continued amongst the vulgar people than of the apparition of certain Creatures which they called Fayries that were of very little stature and being seen would soon vanish and disappear And these were generally believed to be some kind of Spirits or Demons and Paracelsus held them to be a kind of middle Creatures and called them non-Adamicks as not being of the race of Adam but there are Authors of great credit and veracity that affirm there have been Nations of such people called Pygmies And though Doctor Brown hath learnedly and elegantly handled the question Whether there have been or are any such dwarfish race of mankind as but of three spans not considering them singly but nationally or not and hath brought the most probable arguments that well can b◠to prove that there are not nor have been any such race of people called Pygmies yet doth he moderately conclude in these words There being thus he saith no sufficient confirmation of their verity some doubt may arise concerning their possibility wherein since it is not defined in what dimensions the soul may exercise her faculties we shall not conclude impossibility or that there might not be a race of Pygmies as there is sometimes of Giants and so may take in the opinion of Austine and his Commentator Ludovicus Vives And though Kircherus with his wonted impudence do conclude in these words Fabulosa itaque sunt omnia quae de hujusmodi Pygmaeis veteres Geographi à simplici populo sola relatione descripta tradiderunt Yet I say notwithstanding these negative arguments I give the relation of others that are of as great or greater credit in the affirmative And thus much is affirmed
it was at Durham they were arraigned found guilty condemned and executed but I could never hear that they confessed the fact There were some that reported that the apparition did appear to the Judge or the Foreman of the Jury who was alive in Chester in the street about ten years aâ—go as I have been credibly informed but of that I know no certainty There are many persons yet alive that can remember this strange murder and the discovery of it for it was and sometimes yet is as much discoursed of in the North Countrey as any thing that almost hath ever been heard of and the relation printed though now not to be gotten I relate this with the greater confidence though I may fail in some of the circumstances because I saw and read the Letter that was sent to Serjeant Hutton who then lived at Goldsbrugh in Yorkshire from the Judge before whom Walker and Mark Sharp were tried and by whom they were condemned and had a Copy of it until about the year 1658. when I had it and many other books and papers taken from me And this I confess to be one of the most convincing stories being of undoubted verity that ever I read heard or knew of and carrieth with it the most evident force to make the most incredulous spirit to be satisfied that there are really sometimes such things as apparitions And though it be not easy to assign the true and proper cause of such a strange effect yet must we not measure all things to be or not to be to be true or false according to the extent of our understandings for if there be many of the magnalia naturae that yet lie hidden from the wisest of men then much more may the magnalia Dei be unknown unto us whose judgments are unsearchable and his wayes past finding out And as in the rest we cannot ascribe this strange apparition to any diabolical operation nor to the Soul of the Woman murthered so we must conclude that either it was meerly wrought by the Divine Power or by the Astral spirit of the murthered Woman which last doth seem most rational as we shall shew hereafter 5. To these though it be not altogether of the same nature we shall add one both for the oddness and strangeness of it as also because it happened in my time and I was both an eye and ear-witness of the trial of the person accused And first take a hint of it from the pen of Durant Hotham in his learned Epistle to the Mysterium magnum of Jacob Behemen upon Genesis in these words There was he saith as I have heard the story credibly reported in this Country a Man apprehended for suspicion of Witchcraft he was of that sort we call white Witches which are such as do cures beyond the ordinary reasons and deductions of our usual practitioners and are supposed and most part of them truly to do the same by the ministration of spirits from whence under their noble favours most Sciences at first grew and therefore are by good reason provided against by our Civil Laws as being ways full of danger and deceit and scarce ever otherwise obtained than by a devillish compact of the exchange of ones Soul to that assistant spirit for the honour of its Mountebankery What this man did was with a white powder which he said he received from the Fairies and that going to a Hill he knocked three times and the Hill opened and he had access to and converse with a visible people and offered that if any Gentleman present would either go himself in person or send his servant he would conduct them thither and shew them the place and persons from whom he had his skill To this I shall only add thus much that the man was accused for invoking and calling upon evil spirits and was a very simple and illiterate person to any mans judgment and had been formerly very poor but had gotten some pretty little meanes to maintain himself his Wife and diverse small children by his cures done with this white powder of which there were sufficient proofs and the Judge asking him how he came by the powder he told a story to this effect That one night before day was gone as he was going home from his labour being very sad and full of heavy thoughts not knowing how to get meat and drink for his Wife and Children he met a fair Woman in fine cloaths who asked him why he was so sad and he told her that it was by reason of his poverty to which she said that if he would follow her counsel she would help him to that which would serve to get him a good living to which he said he would consent with all his heart so it were not by unlawful ways she told him that it should not be by any such ways but by doing of good and curing of sick people and so warning him strictly to meet her there the next night at the same time she departed from him and he went home And the next night at the time appointed he duly waited and she according to promise came and told him that it was well that he came so duly otherwise he had missed of that benefit that she intended to do unto him and so bade him follow her and not be afraid Thereupon she led him to a little Hill and she knocked three times and the Hill opened and they went in and came to a fair hall wherein was a Queen sitting in great state and many people about her and the Gentlewoman that brought him presented him to the Queen and she said he was welcom and bid the Gentlewoman give him some of the white powder and teach him how to use it which she did and gave him a little wood box full of the white powder and bad him give 2 or 3 grains of it to any that were sick and it would heal them and so she brought him forth of the Hill and so they parted And being asked by the Judge whether the place within the Hill which he called a Hall were light or dark he said indifferent as it is with us in the twilight and being asked how he got more powder he said when he wanted he went to that Hill and knocked three times and said every time I am coming I am coming whereupon it opened and he going in was conducted by the aforesaid Woman to the Queen and so had more powder given him This was the plain and simple story however it may be judged of that he told before the Judge the whole Court and the Jury and there being no proof but what cures he had done to very many the Jury did acquit him and I remember the Judge said when all the evidence was heard that if he were to assign his punishment he should be whipped from thence to Fairyhall and did seem to judge it to be a delusion or an Imposture From whence we may take
upon as good grounds may any one reject this his single opinion as fabulous because there are a whole cloud of witnesses against him of as great credit and authority as himself and experience every day will make it manifest that great effects do follow from the appension of charms and characters not determining here whether they cause those effects causally as efficients or but meerly accidentally and occasionally and therefore in this point Dr. Casaubon saith well As for Valesius opinion he saith though a learned Man and for ought I know Pious and Wise yet it is no wonder to me that any one man though pious and learned should fall into an opinion very Paradoxical and contrary to most other mens belief especially in a thing of this nature which most depends of experience 3. Notwithstanding all this for the most part all charms spells and characters are inefficacious fallacious superstitious and groundless and hardly fit for an honest and wise man to use except only to settle the imaginations of patients that they may more readily and hopefully take those things that may effectually cure them I say for the most part not alwayes because I grant that they do sometimes either efficiently or accidentally produce real effects But that they are sometimes fallacious is manifest in the Charmer of Saltzburg who though with his charms he could prevail against the little serpents yet that great one that came prevailed against him and threw him into the ditch and killed him And how vain it is to put any confidence in these idle trifles and how fallacious and ineffectual and destructive they are may appear by two deplorable examples Amatus Lusitanus a learned and experienced Physician and a man of great repute and veracity doth relate this That in the end of the Spring the Summer coming on two young men did go from Ancona to the City Auximum and by the way the one of them turning aside to make water found a Viper in an hole at the bottom of a Tree with a great deal of rejoicing but with an unhappy success He did contend with his companion that he could take the Viper with his hand without any hurt and did brag that with the murmuring of certain words he could make all Serpents obey him lying still as stupid The other did laugh him to scorn At last they come to a wager But the Viper more audacious than was right remained always truculent and unaltered At last when he stretched forth his hand to take her it being stirred up with a mad and venemous fury lifting up the neck did bite him in the finger which beginning to pain him he quickly put his finger to his mouth perhaps to suck forth the blood but within a small while the unhappy young-man died by his own fault neither did medical helps yield him any succour but he might have escaped if he had not put the poyson of the Serpent to his mouth And this wofull example may be a sufficient warning to all that they be not too hasty to put confidence in these fallacious trifles Another story we shall give of our own knowledge and is this I had dismembred a pretty Young-mans leg by reason of a Gangrene his name Robert Taylor a good Scholar and had been a Clerk to a Justice of Peace and about three weeks after when the stump was near healed I being gone from home his Mother lying in the same room with him but having gotten too much drink he calling upon her to help him to the Close-stool but she not hearing he scrambled up himself as well as he could but hit the end of the stump that was not quite closed whereby the arteries were opened and a great Hemorrhage followed And there being an honest simple man that owed the house where he lay having a vain confidence that with a charm he said he had he could undoubtedly stay the bleeding and therefore would not suffer them to call up my man to stay the Flux until day which continuing so long the vain and fruitless charm prevailing nothing though my man when he came did stop it yet had he lost so much blood that he died the next day and this may serve for a sufficient caution against vain confidence in charms 4. Further we are to consider that there are many notorious impostures frauds and cheats committed upon the poor ignorant credulous and silly common people while some make the people believe that their diseases are inflicted by such and such Saints and therefore they must use such and such strange lustrations suffumigations and other vain superstitious Rites and Ceremonies Others pretend to drive away evil Spirits by exorcisms and conjurations and others to cure all diseases in a manner with words charms characters amulets and the like when the most of these pretenders are meer ignorant Knaves and Impostors that do nothing but cheat the too credulous people of their money and defame and dishonour the most noble Art of Medicine of which we have known divers sorts some of which we have mentioned before in this Treatise To such as these that ancient Author supposed by some to be Hippocrates De morbo sacro doth give sufficient reproof and of whom he saith thus Ac mihi certè qui primi hunc morbum ad Deos retulerunt tales esse videntur quales sunt magi expiatores circulatores ac arrogantes ostentatores qui se valde pios esse plurimumque scire simulant A most large Catalogue of these kind of pestiferous impostors and many others you have at full and to the life painted forth by Paracelsus in his Preface to his less Chirurgery where he hath sufficiently stigmatized them with all those wicked marks and brands that justly belong unto them The same also is fully performed by learned Langius in his Epistles to whom I referr the readers 5. We are to consider that though we should grant that words or charms had in them no energie nor efficiency at all by any natural power and that the Devils power doth not concur to make them operative yet as we have partly shewed before they are of singular use and benefit to a learned Physician whereby he may settle the fancies of his patients to cause them more chearfully and confidently to commit them to his hands and to take what he shall order and prescribe them and this manner of their use is no way to be dispraised or condemned and we leave it as excepted forth of the dispute we have in hand There are chiefly three opinions amongst those that grant the truth of the matter of fact concerning the proper cause of these effects produced by words 1. Of which the first sort are those that hold there is no efficiency at all in the words themselves which are nothing but the sign of the league and compact betwixt the Charmer and the Devil and that whatsoever is brought to pass is only effected by the
Devils power and of this opinion are the greatest part of the learned 2. Are those that hold that the words or charms are but means to heighten the imagination and that it is the strength of the exalted imagination only that produceth those things that seem to be effected by those words or charms and of this opinion was Avicen and many of the Arabians Ferrerius Montanus and many others 3. There are those that hold that there is a natural efficiency in words and characters rightly fitted and conjoined together in proper and agreeable constellations and of this opinion were Johannes Ludovicus de la Cerda Johannes Branus Camisius Lusitanus Paracelsus Galeottus Martius Henricus Cornelius Agrippa and many others and of these we shall speak in order 1. The first opinion doth takeup a false supposition for its ground to wit that the Devil doth make a visible and corporeal league with the Charmer by virtue of which compact the effects are produced and if this compact be not explicite yet it may be implicite and so the Devil operateth the effects thereby to draw the Charmer into his league and service But we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of any such Covenant and shewed plainly that it is a false impious and diabolical Tenent and that there is not nor can be any other league betwixt the Devil and wicked men but what it spiritual internal and mental and therefore that the Devil doth not bring those effects to pass by pretence of a league that hath no being or existence 2. We have proved by the unanimous consent of all the whole army of the learned that the Devil can work no alteration or change in natural bodies but by the applying of fit agents to agreeable patients but what agent could the Devil have applied to make the iron that stuck in the Souldiers shoulder-bone related by Benevenius to come forth without pain surely none at all For where an agent in nature is awanting to produce an effect there the Devil must needs also be lame and can effect nothing and if either the words had a sufficient natural power to cause the iron to come forth or the Souldiers imagination exalted by confidence in the Charm and Charmer then the Devils help is in vain implored or he brought in to be an actor of that he hath no power at all to perform and there was no other natural agent applied and therefore it must of necessity be one of the two that produced the effect and not a Demon. 3. It cannot in any reason be imagined that the Devil that for the space of above five thousand years hath been the bitter and inveterate enemy to the health of Man both in Soul and Body should now be become a Physician an healer We read that God sent forth evil Angels amongst the people but he sent forth his word and they were healed But it is manifest that the evil Angels since their fall are ordained of God to be the instruments and organs for the executing of his wrath and the good Angels are his ministring Spirits for the good of his people both in Souls and Bodies and therefore that the Devil should be the author or instrument of curing any disease at all were to make him to act contrary to that end for which God hath ordained him for he is the destroyer that is ordained to destroy but not to heal 4. But we shall take another argument or two from the learned pen of Henricus Brucaeus in his Epistle to Thomas Erastus where about this point he saith this What is that he saith that the most of the Grecian Physicians were ignorant of Demons or that it should be agreeable to truth that they have not judged that Demons had any power either in inflicting or taking away any diseases For that sentence of Hippocrates that there is somewhat that is divine in diseases Galen doth shew in his Comment how it is to be understood and Hippocrates himself in that Treatise of the Falling-sickness doth sufficiently open it Notwithstanding these chief men being Physicians and Philosophers by whom the power of natural things and words was principally looked into they were more willing to assent to things that were evidently apparent than take away the force of incantation by it self By it self he saith Because they have had no remembrance of Demons from whom the causes of such effects which follow incantations do seem only they can possibly be derived 5. Before he argueth thus But the curation of diseases which are performed by conjurations and imprecations he ascribeth unto the Devil Notwithstanding he saith some things do move a scruple to me because that some things of them do seem to be of that kind which cannot at all be referred to Demons in which no league or compact doth seem to interceed For leagues or compacts seem to be contracted for that also those things comprehended are to be performed to those that Covenant that by that means those that Covenant with him may be withdrawn from the worship of the true God or that some may be confirmed in their impiety Which causes in Men to whom the true God is utterly unknown have no place for neither are they to be withdrawn from the true God whom they altogether ignore or to be confirmed in impiety when they have been brought up in the worship of Idols from their tender years For he saith Aloisius Cadamustus in the 18 Chap. of the Indian Navigations relateth that Serpents seeking to destroy Sheep in the Kingdom of Senega which is given to Idolatrous Worship they will on the night aim by heaps at the Sheep-folds from whence they are driven away with certain conceived words and this reason is not unknown to many others And that Trallianus where he treateth of the stone acknowledgeth the force of incantations in healing of diseases and he witnesseth that Galen himself taught by experience did come over to this opinion For though Galen before as we have shewed did account charms but as Aniles fabulae yet this Author Trallianus doth quote a piece of Galens wherein he maketh a retractation of that opinion and it standeth with good reason that it might be so Trallianus living near his time and so might notwithstanding what Guitterrius bawleth to the contrary have that part of his writing that since might be lost for I remember Paracelsus somewhere saith that in his travels he found the works of Galen far more genuine and incorrupt than those that were published and extant 6. A further reason this Author gives us thus Furthermore he saith that it is not impious to frame to cure a disease with conceived words and cannot be perswaded to believe it especially seeing that those diseases that are caused by Magick are only to be cured by Magick But he saith I confess that compacts with Demons are not to be entred into but that compacts being entred