particular is onely this that he cannot conceive how such things can be performed which onely argues the weakness and imperfection of our knowledge and apprehensions not the impossibility of those performances and we can no more from hence form an Argument against them then against the most ordinary effects in Nature We cannot conceive how the Faetus is form'd in the womb nor as much as how a Plant springs from the Earth we tread on we know not how our Souls move the Body nor how these distant and extreme natures and united And if we are ignorant of the most obvious things about us and the most considerable within our selves 't is then no wonder that we know not the constitution and powers of the Creatures to whom we are such strangers Briefly then matters of fact well proved ought not to be denied because we cannot conceive how they can be perform'd Nor is it a reasonable method of inference first to presume the thing impossible and thence to conclude that the fact cannot be proved On the contrary we should judge of the action hy the evidence and not the evidence by the measures of our fancies about the action This is proudly to exalt our own opinions above the clearest testimonies and most sensible demonstrations of fact and so to give the Lie to all Mankind rather then distrust the little conceits of our bold imaginations But yet further 3. I think there is nothing in the instances mention'd but what may as well be accounted for the Rules of Reason and Philosophy as the ordinary affairs of Nature For in resolving natural Phaenomena we can only assign the probable causes shewing how things may be not presuming how they are And in the particulars under our Examen we may give an account how 't is possible and not unlikely that such things though somewhat varying from the common rode of Nature may be acted And if our narrow and contracted minds can furnish us with apprehensions of the way and manner of such performances though perhaps not the true ones 't is an argument that such things may be effected by creatures whose powers and knowledge are so vastly exceeding ours I shall endeavour therefore briefly to suggest some things that may render the possibility of these performances conceivable in order to the removal of this Objection that they are contradictions and impossible For the First then That the confederate Spirit should transport the Witch through the Air to the place of general Rendezvous there is no difficulty in conceiving and if that be true which great Philosophers affirm concerning the real separability of the Soul from the Body without death there is yet less for then 't is easie to apprehend that the Soul having left its gross and sluggish Body behind it and being cloath'd only with its immediate vehicle of Air or more subtile matter may be quickly conducted to any place it would be at by those officious Spirits that attend it And though I adventure to affirm nothing concerning the truth and certainty of this supposition yet I must needs say it doth not seem to me unreasonable And our experience of Apoplexies Epilepsies Extasies and the strange things men report to have seen during those deliquiums look favourably upon this conjecture which seems to me to contradict no principle of Reason or Philosophy since Death consists not so much in the actual separation of Soul and Body as in the indisposition and unfitness of the Body for vital union as an excellent Philosopher hath made good On which Hypothesis the Witches annointing her self before she takes her flight may perhaps serve to keep the Body tenantable in fit disposition to receive the Spirit at its return These things I say we may conceive though I affirm nothing about them and there is nothing in such conceptions but what hath been affirm'd by men of worth and name and may seem fair and accountable enough to those who judge nor altogether by the measures of the popular and customary opinion And there 's a saying of a great Apostle that seems to countenance this Platonick opinion what is the meaning else of that expression Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell except the Soul may be separated from the Body without death which if it be granted possible 't is sufficient for my purpose And 2 The Transformations of Witches into the shapes of other Animals upon the same supposal is very conceivable since then 't is easie enough to imagin that the power of imagination may form those passive and pliable vehicles into those shapes with more ease then the fancie of the Mother can the stubborn matter of the Foetus in the womb as we see it frequently doth in the instances that occur of Signatures and monstrous Singularities And perhaps sometimes the confederate Spirit puts tricks upon the senses of the spectators and those shapes are onely illusions But then 3 when they feel the hurts in their gross bodies that they receive in their aëry vehicles they must be supposed to have been really present at least in these latter and 't is no more difficult to apprehend how the hurts of those should be translated upon their other bodies then how diseases should be inflicted by the imagination or how the fancy of the Mother should wound the Foetus as several credible relations do attest And 4 for their raising storms and tempests they do it not be sure by their own but by the power of the Prince of the Air their friend and allie and the Ceremonies that are injoin'd them are doubtless nothing else but entertainments for their imaginations and are likely design'd to persuade them that they do these strange things themselves And lastly for their being suck'd by the Familiar I say 1 we know so little of the nature of Daemons and Spirits that 't is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the reason of so strange an action And yet 2 we may conjecture at some things that may render it less imporbable For some have thought that the Genii whom both the Platonical and Christian Antiquity thought embodied are recreated by the reeks and vapours of humane bloud and the spirits that derive from them Which supposal if we grant them bodies is not unlikely every thing being refresh'd and nourish'd by its like And that they are not perfectly abstract from all body and matter besides the reverence we owe to the wisest antiquity there are several considerable arguments I could alledge to render it exceeding probable Which things supposed the Devil 's sucking the Sorceress is no great wonder nor difficult to be accounted for Or perhaps 3 this may be onely a diabolical Sacrament and Ceremony to confirm the hellish covenant To which I adde 4 That which to me seems most probable viz. Tha the Familiar doth not onely suck the Witch but in the action infuseth some poisonous ferment into her which gives her imagination and spirits a magical tincture
directs that Prayer Psal. 71. 9 10. Cast me not off in the time of old age forsake me not when my strength faileth For They that keep my soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the LXX and the Vulgar Latin Qui custodiunt animam meam they take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him persecute him and take him for there is none to deliver him But I adde 2 That 't is very probable that the state wherein they are will not easily permit palpable intercourses between the bad Genii and our nature since 't is like enough that their own Laws and Government do not allow their frequent excursions into this world Or it may with as great probability be supposed that 't is a very hard and painful thing for them to force their thin and tenuious bodies into a visible consistence and such shapes as are necessary for their designs in their correspondencies with Witches For in this action their bodies must needs be exceedingly compress'd which cannot be well supposed without a painful sense And this is perhaps a reason why there are so few Apparitions and why appearing spirits are commonly in such haste to be gone viz. that they may be deliver'd from the unnatural pressure of their tender Vehicles which I confess holds more in the apparitions of good than of evil Spirits most Relations of this kind describing their discoveries of themselves as very transient though for those the Holy Scripture records there may be peculiar Reasons why they are not so whereas the wicked ones are not altogether so quick and hasty in their Visits The reason of which probably is the great subtilty and tenuity of the bodies of the former which will require far greater degrees of compression and consequently of pain to make them visible whereas the latter are more foeculent and gross and so nearer allyed to palpable consistencies and more easily reduceable to appearance and visibility At this turn Sir you may perceive that I have again made use of the Platonick Hypothesis That Spirits are Embodyed upon which indeed a great part of my Discourse is grounded And therefore I hold my self obliged to a short account of that supposal It seems then to me very probable from the Nature of Sense and Analogie of Nature For 1. We perceive in our selves that all Sense is caus'd and excited by motion made in matter And when those motions which convey sensible impressions to the Brain the Seat of Sense are intercepted Sense is lost So that if we suppose Spirits perfectly to be disjoyn'd from all matter 't is not conceivable how they can have the sense of any thing For how material Objects should any way be perceiv'd or felt without vital union with matter 't is not possiblè to imagine Nor doth it 2. seem suitable to the Analogie of Nature which useth not to make precipitious leaps from one thing to another but usually proceeds by orderly steps and gradations whereas were there no order of Beings between us who are so deeply plunged into the grossest matter and pure unbodied Spirits 't were a mighty jump in Nature Since then the greatest part of the World consists of the finer portions of matter and our own Souls are immediately united unto these 't is infinitely probable to conjecture that the nearer orders of Spirits are vitally joyn'd to such Bodies And so Nature by Degrees ascending still by the more refin'd and subtile matter gets at last to the pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or immaterial minds which the Platonists made the highest Order of created Beings But of this I have discoursed else-where and have said thus much of it at present because it will enable me to add another Reason of the unfrequency of Apparitions and Compacts viz. 3. Because 't is very likely that these Regions are very unsuitable and disproportion'd to the frame and temper of their Senses and Bodies so that perhaps the Courser Spirits can no more bear the Air of our World then Batts and Owls can the brightest beams of Day Nor can the Purer and Better any more endure the noysom steams and poysonous reeks of this Dunghil Earth then the Delicate can bear a confinement in nasty Dungeons and the foul squallid Caverns of uncomfortable Darkness So that 't is no more wonder that the better Spirits no oftner appear than that men are not more frequently in the Dark Hollows under ground Nor is 't any more strange that evil Spirits so rarely visit us then that Fishes do not ordinarily fly in the Air as 't is said one sort of them doth or that we see not the Batt daily fluttering in the beams of the Sun And now by the help of what I have spoken under this Head I am provided with some things wherewith to disable another Objection which I thus propose XI If there be such an intercourse between Evil Spirits and the Wicked how comes it about that there is no correspondence between Good Spirits and the Vertuous since without doubt these are as desirous to propagate the Spirit and Designes of the upper and better World as those are to promote the Interest of the Kingdom of Darkness Which way of arguing is still from our Ignorance of the State and Government of the other World which must be confest and may without prejudice to the Proposition I defend But particularly I say 1. That we have ground enough to believe that Good Spirits do interpose in yea and govern our Affairs For that there is a Providence reaching from Heaven to Earth is generally acknowledg'd but that this supposeth all things to be order'd by the immediate influence and interposal of the Supreme Deity is not very Philosophical to suppose since if we judge by the Analogie of the Natural World all things we see are carried on by the Ministry of Second Causes and intermediate Agents And it doth not seem so Magnificent and Becoming an apprehension of the Supreme Numen to phancy His immediate Hand in every trivial Management But 't is exceeding likely to conjecture that much of the Government of us and our Affairs is committed to the better Spirits with a due subordination and subserviency to the Will of the chief Rector of the Universe And 't is not absurd to believe that there is a Government runs from Highest to Lowest the better and more perfect orders of Being still ruling the inferiour and less perfect So that some one would phancy that perhaps the Angels may manage us as we do the Creatures that God and Nature have placed under our Empire and Dominion But however that is That God rules the lower World by the Ministry of Angels is very consonant to the sacred Oracles Thus Deut. XXXII viii ix When the Most High divided the Nations their inheritance when he separated the sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the number of the Angels of God as the Septuagint renders it the Authority of which
would reconcile to men's minds but to endeavour the removal of those prejudices they have received against it the chief of which I shall particularly deal with and I begin with that bold Assertion That 1 The notion of a Spirit is impossible and contradictious and consequently so is that of Witches the belief of which is founded on that Doctrine To which Objection I answer 1 If the notion of a Spirit be so absurd as is pretended that of a God and a Soul distinct from matter and immortal is likewise an absurdity And then that the world was jumbled into this elegant and orderly Fabrick by chance and that our Souls are onely parts of Matter that came together we know not whence nor how and shall again shortly be dissolv'd into those loose Atoms that compound them That all our conceptions are but the thrusting of one part of matter against another and the Idea's of our minds meer blind and casual motions These and a thousand more the grossest impossibilities and absurdities consequents of this Proposition That the notion of a Spirit is absurd will be sad certainties and demonstrations And with such Assertors I would cease to discourse about Witches and Apparitions and address my self to obtain their assent to truths infinitely more Sacred And yet 2 though it should be granted them that a substance immaterial is as much a contradiction as they can fancy yet the Air and all the Regions above us may have their invisible intellectual Agents of nature like unto our Souls be that what it will and some of them at least as much degenerate as the vilest and most mischievous among Men. This I say may reasonably enough be supposed though as I intimated above the Atheist hath another chain of consequences And this Hypothesis will be enough to secure the possibility of Witches and Apparitions and that all the upper Stories of the Universe are furnish'd with Inhabitants 't is infinitely reasonable to conclude from the analogy of Nature Since we see there is nothing so contemptible and vile in the world we reside in but hath its living creatures that dwell upon it the Earth the Water the inferiour Air the Bodies of Animals the flesh the skin the entrails the leaves the roots the stalks of Vegetables yea and all kind of Minerals in the subterraneous Regions I say all these have their proper Inhabitants yea I suppose this Rule may hold in all distinct kinds of bodies in the world That they have their peculiar Animals The certainty of which I believe the improvement of microscopical observation will discover From whence I infer That since this little spot is so thickly peopled in every Atom of it 't is weakness to think that all the vast spaces above and hollows under ground are desert and uninhabited And if both the superiour and lower Continents of the Universe have their inhabitants also 't is exceedingly improbable arguing from the same analogy that they are all of the meer sensible nature but that there are at least some of the Rational and Intellectual Orders Which supposed there is good foundation for the belief of Witches and Apparitions though the notion of a Spirit should prove absurd and unphilosophical And so this first Objection comes to nothing I descend then to the second Prejudice which may be thus formed in behalf of the Objectors 2 There are Actions in most of those Relations ascribed to Witches which are ridiculous and impossible in the nature of things such are 1 their flying out of windows after they have annointed themselves to remote places 2 Their transformation into Cats Hares and other Creatures 3 Their feeling all the hurts in their own bodies which they have received in these 4 Their rasing Tempests by muttering some nonsensical words or performing some little ridiculous ceremonies And 5 their being suck'd in a certain private place of their bodies by a Familiar These are presumed to be actions inconsistent with the nature of Spirits and above the powers of those poor and miserable Agents And therefore the Objection supposeth them performed only by the fancy and that the whole mystery of Witchcraft is but an illusion of crasie imagination But to this Objection I return 1 in the general The more absurd and unaccountable these actions seem the greater confirmations are they to me of the truth of those Relations and the reality of what the Objectors would destroy For these circumstances being exceeding unlikely judging by the measures of common belief 't is the greater probability they are not fictitious For the contrivers of Fictions use to form them as near as they can conformably to the most unsuspected realities endeavouring to make them look as like truth as is possible in the main supposals though withal they make them strange in the circumstance None but a fool or mad-man would relate with a purpose of having it believed that he saw in Ireland Men with hoofs on their heads and eyes in their posteriors or if any should be so ridiculously vain as to be serious in such an incredible Romance it cannot be supposed that all Travellers that come into those parts after him should tell the same story There is large field in fiction and if all those Relations were arbitrary compositions doubtless the first Romancers would have framed them more agreeable to the common doctrine of Spirits at least after these supposed absurdities had been a thousand times laugh'd at people by this time would have learn'd to correct those obnoxious extravagancies and though they have not yet more veracity than the Ages of Ignorance and Superstition yet one would expect they should have got more cunning This suppos'd impossibility then of these performances seems to me a probable argument that they are not wilful and designed forgeries And if they are Phancyes 't is somewhat strange that Imagination which is the most various thing in all the world should infinitely repeat he same conceit in all times and places But again 2 the strange Actions related of Witches and presumed impossible are not ascribed to their own powers but to the Agency of those wicked Confederates they imploy And to affirm that those evil spirits cannot do that which we conceit impossible is boldly to stint the powers of Creatures whose natures and faculties we know not and to measure the world of spirits by the narrow rules of our own impotent beings Wee see among our selves the performances of some out-go the conceits and possibilities of others and we know many things may be done by the Mathematicks and Mechanick Artifice which common heads think impossible to be effected by the honest ways of Art and Nature And doubtless the subtilties and powers of those mischievous Fiends are as much beyond the reach and activities of the most knowing Agents among us as theirs are beyond the wit and ability of the most rustick and illiterate So that the utmost that any man's reason in the world can amount to in this
whereby they become mischievously influential and the word venefica intimates some such matter Now that the imagination hath a mighty power in operation is seen in the just now mention'd Signatures and Diseases that it causeth and that the fancy is modified by the qualities of th bloud and spirits is too evident to need proof which things supposed 't is plain to conceive that the evil spirit having breath'd some vile vapour into the body of the Witch it may taint her bloud and spirits with a noxious quality by which her infected imagination heightned by melancholy and this worse cause may do much hurt upon bodies that are impressive by such influences And 't is very likely that this ferment disposeth the imagination of the Sorceress to cause the mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or separation of the soul from the body and may perhaps keep the body in fit temper for its re-entry as also it may facilitate transformation which it may be could not be effected by ordinary and unassisted imagination Thus we see 't is not so desperate to form an apprehension of the manner of these odde performances and though they are not done the way I have describ'd yet what I have said may help us to a conceit of the possibility which sufficeth for my purpose And though the Hypothesis I have gone upon will seem as unlikely to some as the things they attempt to explain are to others yet I must desire their leave to suggest that most things seem unlikely especially to the conceited and opinionative at first proposal and many great truths are strange and improbable till custom and acquaintance have reconciled them to our fancies And I 'le presume to adde on this occasion though I love not to be confident in affirming that there is none of the Platonical supposals I have used but what I could make appear to be fair and reasonable to the capable and unprejudic'd But I come 3 to another prejudice against the being of Witches which is That 't is very improbable that the Devil who is a wise and mighty spirit should be at the beck of a poor Hag and have so little to do as to attend the errands of the impotent lusts of a silly old woman To which I might answer 1 That 't is much more improbable that all the world should be deceiv'd in matters of fact and circumstances of the clearest evidence and conviction than that the Devil who is wicked should be also unwise and that he that persuades all his subjects and accomplices out of their wits should himself act like his own temptations and persuasions In brief there is nothing more strange in this objection than that wickedness is baseness and servility and that the Devil is at leisure to serve those he is at leisure to tempt and industrious to ruin And again 2 I see no necessity to believe that the Devil is always the Witch's confederate but perhaps it may fitly be consider'd whether the Familiar be not some departed humane spirit forsaken of God and goodness and swallowed up by the unsatiable desire of mischief and revenge which possibly by the laws and capacity of its state it cannot execute immediately And why we should presume that the Devil should have the liberty of wandering up and down the Earth and Air when he is said to be held in the chains of darkness and yet that the separated souls of the wicked of whom no such thing is affirm'd in any Sacred Record should be thought so imprison'd that they cannot possibly wag from the place of their confinement I know no shadow of conjecture This conceit I 'm confident hath prejudic'd many against the belief of Witches and Apparitions they not being able to conceive that the Devil should be so ludricous as appearing spirits are sometimes reported to be in their frolicks and they presume that souls departed never re-visit the free and open Regions which confidence I know nothing to justifie For since good men in their state of separation are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why the wicked may not be supposed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the worst sense of the word I know nothing to help me to imagine And if it be supposed that the Imps of Witches are sometimes wicked spirits of our own kind and nature and possibly the same that have been Sorcerers and Witches in this life This supposal may give a fairer and more probable account of many of the actions of Sorcery and Witchcraft than the other Hypothesis that they are always Devils And to this conjecture I 'l adventure to subjoyn another which also hath its probability viz. 3 That 't is not impossible but that the Familiars of Witches are a servile kind of spirits of a very inferiour constitution and nature and none of those that were once of the highest Hierarchy now degenerated into the spirits we call Devils And for my part I must confess that I think the common division of spirits much too general conceiving it likely there may be as great a variety of Intellectual creatures in the invisible world as there is of Animals in the visible and that all the superiour yea and inferiour Regions have their several kinds of spirits differing in their natural perfections as well as in the kinds and degrees of their depravities which being supposed 't is very probable that those of the basest and meanest Orders are they who submit to the mention'd servilities And thus the sagess and grandeur of the Prince of darkness need not be brought into question But 4 the opinion of Witches seems to some to accuse Providence and to suggest that it hath exposed Innocents to the fury and malice of revengeful Fiends yea and supposeth those most obnoxious for whom we might most reasonably expect a more special tutelary care and protection most of the cruel practices of those presum'd Instruments of Hell being upon Children who as they least deserve to be deserted by that Providence that superintends all things so they most need its guardian influence To this so specious an Objection I have these things to answer 1 Providence is a Deep unfathomable and if we should not believe the Phoenomena of our senses before we can reconcile them to our notions of Providence we must be groffer Scepticks than ever yet was extant The miseries of the present life the unequal distributions of good and evil the ignorance and barbarity of the greatest part of mankind the fatal disadvantages we are all under and the hazard we run of being eternally miserable and undone these I say are things that can hardly be made consistent with that Wisdom and Goodness that we are sure hath made and mingled it self with all things And yet we believe there is a beauty and harmony and goodness in that Providence though we cannot unriddle it in particular instances nor by reason of our ignorance and imperfection clear it from contradicting appearances and consequently
we ought not to deny the being of Witches and Apparitions because they will create us some difficulties in our notions of Providence But to come more close 2 Those that believe that Infants are Heirs of Hell Children of the Devil as soon as they are disclosed to the world cannot certainly offer such an objection for what is a little trifling pain of a moment to those eternal tortures to which if they die as soon as they are born according to the tenour of this Doctrin they are everlastingly exposed But however the case stands as to that 't is certain 3 That Providence hath not secur'd them from other violences they are obnoxious to from cruelty and accident and yet we accuse It not when a whole Townful of Innocents fall a Victim to the rage and ferity of barbarous executioners in wars and Massacres To which I adde 4 That 't is likely the mischief is not so often done by the evil spirit immediately but by the malignant influence of the Sorceress whose power of hurting consists in the fore-mention'd ferment which is infused into her by the Familiar So that I am apt to think there may be a power of real fascination in the Witch's eyes and imagination by which for the most part she acts upon tender bodies Nescio quis teneros oculus For the pestilential spirits being darted by a sprightful and vigorous imagination from the eye and meeting with those that are weak and passive in the bodies which they enter will not fail to infect them with a noxious quality that makes dangerous and strange alterations in the person invaded by this poysonous influence which way of acting by subtil and invisible instruments is ordinary and familiar in all natural efficiencies And 't is now past question that nature for the most part acts by subtil streams and aporhaea's of minute particles which pass from one body to another Or however that be this kind of agency is as conceivable as any of those qualities ignorance hath call'd sympathy and antipathy the reality of which we doubt not though the manner of action be unknown Yea the thing I speak of is as easie to be apprehended as how infection should pass in certain tenuious streams through the air from one house to another or as how the biting of a mad Dog should fill all the bloud and spirits with a venomous and malign ferment the application of the vertue doing the same in our case as that of contract doth in this Yea some kinds of fascination are perform'd in this grosser and more sensible way as by striking giving Apples and the like by which the contagious quality may be transmitted as we see diseases often are by the touch Now in this way of conjecture a good account may be given why Witches are most powerful upon Children timorous persons viz. because their spirits and imaginations being weak and passive are not able to resist the fatal invasion whereas men of bold minds who have plenty of strong and vigorous spirits are secure from the contagion as in pestilential Airs clean bodies are not so liable to infection as are other tempers Thus then we see 't is likely enough that very often the Sorceress her self doth the mischief and we know de facto that Providence doth not always secure us from one another's injuries And yet I must confess that many times also the evil spirit is the mischievous Agent though this confession draw on me another objection which I next propose 5 Then it may be said that if wicked spirits can hurt us by the direction and at the desire of a Witch one would think they should have the same power to do us injury without instigation or compact and if this be granted 't is a wonder that we are not always annoi'd and infested by them To which I return 1 That the laws liberties and restraints of the inhabitants of the other world are to us utterly unknown and this way we can only argue our selves into confessions of our ignorance which every man must acknowledge that is not as immodest as ignorant It must be granted by all that own the being power and malice of evil spirits that the security we enjoy is wonderful whether they act by Witches or not and by what Laws they are kept from making us a prey to speak like Philosophers we cannot tell yea why they should be permitted to tempt and ruine us in our Souls and restrain'd from touching or hurting us in our Bodies is a mystery not easily accountable But yet 2 though we acknowledge their power to vex and torment us in our bodies also yet a reason may be given why they are less frequent in this kind of mischief viz. because their main designs are levell'd against the interest and happiness of our Souls which they can best promote when their actions are most sly and secret whereas did they ordinarily persecute men in their bodies their agency and wicked influence would be discover'd and make a mighty noise in the world whereby men would be awaken'd to a more suitable and vigorous opposition by the use of such means as would engage Providence to rescue them from their rage and cruelties at last defeat them in their great purposes of undoing us eternally Thus we may conceive that the security we enjoy may well enough consist with the power and malice of those evil spirits and upon this account we may suppose that Laws of their own may prohibit their unlicens'd injuries not from any goodness there is in their Constitutions but in order to the more successful carrying on the projects of the dark Kingdom as Generals forbid plunder not out of love to their Enemies but in order to their own success And hence 3 we may suppose a Law of permission to hurt us at the instance of the Sorceress may well stand with the polity of Hell since by gratifying the wicked person they encourage her in malice and revenge and promote thereby the main ends of their black confederacy which are to propagate wickedness and to ruine us in our eternal interests And yet 4 't is clear to those that believe the History of the Gospel that wicked spirits have vexed the bodies of men without any instigation that we read of and at this day 't is very likely that many of the strange accidents and diseases that befall us may be the infliction of evil spirits prompted to hurt us only by the delight they take in mischief So that we cannot argue the improbability of their hurting Children and others by Witches from our own security and freedom from the effects of their malice which perhaps we feel in more instances than we are aware of But 6 another prejudice against the belief of Witches is a presumption upon the enormous forces of melancholy and imagination which without doubt can do wonderful things and beget strange persuasions and to these causes some ascribe the presum'd effects of Sorcery
and Witchraft To which I reply briefly and yet I hope sufficiently 1 That to resolve all the clear circumstances of fact which we find in well attested and confirm'd Relations of this kind into the power of deceivable imagination is to make fancy the greater prodigy and to suppose that it can do stranger feats than are believed of any other kind of fascination And to think that Pins and Nails for instance can by the power of imagination be convey'd within the skin or that imagination should deceive so many as have been witnesses in objects of sense in all the circumstances of discovery this I say is to be infinitely more credulous than the assertors of Sorcery and Demoniack contracts And by the same reason it may be believ'd that all the Battels and strange events of the world which our selves have not seen are but dreams and fond imaginations and like those that are fought in the clouds when the brains of the deluded spectators are the onely Theatre of those fancied transactions And 2 to deny evidence of fact because their imagination may deceive the Relators when we have no reason to think so but a bare presumption that there is no such thing as is related is quite to destroy the credit of all humane testimony and to make all men liars in a larger sense than the Prophet concluded in his haste For not onely the melancholick and the fanciful but the grave and the sober whose judgments we have no reason to suspect to be tainted by their imaginations have from their own knowledge and experience made reports of this nature But to this it will possibly be rejoyn'd the Reply will be another prejudice against the belief I contend for viz. 7 That 't is a suspicious circumstance that Witchcraft is but a fancy since the persons that are accused are commonly poor and miserable old women who are overgrown with discontent and melancholy which are very imaginative and the persons said to be bewitch'd are for the most part Children or people very weak who are easily imposed upon and are apt to receive strong impressions from nothing whereas were there any such thing really 't is not likely but that the more cunning and subtil desperado's who might the more successfully carry on the mischievous designs of the dark Kingdom should be oftner engaged in those black confederacies and also one would expect effects of the hellish combination upon others than the innocent and the ignorant To which Objection it might perhaps be enough to return as hath been above suggested that nothing can be concluded by this and such like arguings but that the policy and menages of the instruments of darkness are to us altogether unknown and as much in the dark as their natures mankind being no more acquainted with the reasons and methods of action in the other world than poor Cottagers and Mechanicks are with the intriques of Government and reasons of State Yea peradventure 2 't is one of the great designs as 't is certainly the interest of those wicked Agents and Machinators industriously to hide from us their influences and ways of acting and to work as near as is possible incognito upon which supposal 't is easie to conceive a reason why they most commonly work by and upon the weak and the ignorant who can make no cunning observations or tell credible tales to detect their artifice Besides 3 't is likely a strong imagination that cannot be weaken'd or disturb'd by a busie and subtil ratiocination is a necessary requisite to those wicked performances and without doubt an heightned and obstinate fancy hath a great influence upon impressive spirits yea and as I have conjectur'd before on the more passive and susceptible bodies And I am very apt to believe that there are as real communications and intercourses between our spirits as there are between material agents which secret influences though they are unknown in their nature and ways of acting yet they are sufficiently felt in their effects for experience attests that some by the very majesty and greatness of their spirits discover'd by nothing but a certain noble air that accompanies them will bear down others less great and generous and make them sneak before them and some by I know not what stupifying vertue will tie up the tongue and confine the spirits of those who are otherwise brisk and voluble Which thing supposed the influences of a spirit possess'd of an active and enormous imagination may be malign and fatal where they cannot be resisted especially when they are accompanied by those poisonous reaks that the evil spirit breaths into the Sorceress which likely are shot out and applied by a fancy heightned and prepared by melancholy and discontent And thus we may conceive why the melancholick and envious are used upon such occasions and for the same reason the ignorant since knowledge checks and controls imagination and those that abound much in the imaginative faculties do not usually exceed in the rational And perhaps 4 the Daemon himself useth the imagination of the Witch so qualified for his purpose even in those actions of mischief which are more properly his for it is most probable that spirits act not upon bodies immediately and by their naked essence but by means proportionate and suitable in instruments that they use upon which account likely 't is so strictly required that the Sorceress should believe that so her imagination might be more at the devotion of the mischievous Agent And for the same reason also Ceremonies are used in Inchantments viz. for the begetting this diabolical faith and heightning the fancy to a degree of strength and vigour sufficient to make it a fit instrument for the design'd performance And these I think are reasons of likelihood and probability why the hellish confederates are mostly the ignorant and the melancholick To pass then to another prejudice 8 The frequent impostures that are met with in this kind beget in some a belief that all such relations are forgeries and tales and if we urge the evidence of a story for the belief of Witches or Apparitions they will produce two as seemingly strong and plausible which shall conclude in mistake or design inferring thence that all others are of the same quality and credit But such arguers may please to consider 1 That a single relation for an Affirmative sufficiently confirmed and attested is worth a thousand tales of forgery and imposture from whence cannot be concluded an universal negative So that though all the Objectors stories be true and an hundred times as many more such deceptions yet one relation wherein no fallacy or fraud could be suspected for our Affirmative would spoil any Conclusion could be erected on them And 2 It seems to me a belief sufficiently bold and precarious that all these relations of forgery and mistake should be certain and not one in millions of those which attest the affirmative reality with circumstances as good as could be expected
or wish'd should be true but all fabulous and vain And they have no reason to object credulity to the assertors of Sorcery and Witchcraft that can swallow so large a morsel And I desire such Objectors to consider 3 Whether it be fair to infer that because there are some Cheats and Impostures that therefore there are no Realities Indeed frequency of deceit and fallacy will warrant a greater care and caution in examining and scrupulosity and shiness of assent to things wherein fraud hath been practised or may in the least degree be suspected But to conclude because that an old woman's fancy abused her or some knavish fellows put tricks upon the ignorant and the timorous that therefore whole Assises have been a thousand times deceived in judgments upon matters of fact and numbers of sober persons have been forsworn in things wherein perjury could not advantage them I say such inferences are as void of reason as they are of charity and good manners But it may be suggested further 9 That it cannot be imagin'd what design the Devil should have in making those solemn compacts since persons of such debauch'd and irreclaimable dispositions as those with whom he is supposed to confederate are pretty securely his antecedently to the bargain and cannot be more so by it since they cannot put their souls out of possibility of the Divine Grace but by the Sin that is unpardonable or if they could so dispose and give away themselves it will to some seem very unlikely that a great and mighty Spirit should oblige himself to such observances and keep such a-do to secure the soul of a silly body which 't were odds but it would be His though He put himself to no further trouble than that of his ordinary temptations To which suggestions 't were enough to say that 't is sufficient if the thing be well prov'd though the design be not known And to argue negatively à fine is very unconclusive in such matters The Laws and affairs of the other world as hath been intimated are vastly differing from those of our Regions and therefore 't is no wonder we cannot judge of their designs when we know nothing of their menages and so little of their natures The ignorant looker-on can't imagine what the Limner means by those seemingly rude lines and scrawls which he intends for the rudiments of a Picture and the Figures of Mathematick Operation are non-sense and dashes at a venture to one uninstructed in Mechanicks We are in the dark to one another's purposes intendments and there are a thousand intrigues in our little matters which will not presently confess their design even to sagacious inquisitors And therefore 't is folly and incogitancy to argue any thing one way or other from the designs of a sort of Beings with whom we so little communicate and possibly we can take no more aim or guess at their projects and designments than the gazing Beasts can do at ours when they see the Traps and Gins that are laid for them but understand nothing what they mean Thus in general But I attempt something more particularly in order to which I must premise that the Devil is a name for a Body Politick in which there are very different Orders and Degrees of Spirits and perhaps in as much variety of place and state as among our selves so that 't is not one and the same person that makes all the compacts with those abused and seduced Souls but they are divers and those 't is like of the meanest and basest quality in the Kingdom of darkness which being supposed I offer this account of the probable design of those wicked Agents viz. That having none to rule or tyrannize over within the Circle of their own nature and government they affect a proud Empire over us the desire of Dominion and Authority being largely spread through the whole circumference of degenerated nature especially among those whose pride was their original transgression every one of these then desires to get him Vassals to pay him homage and to be emploied like Slaves in the services of his lusts and appetites to gratifie which desire 't is like enough to be provided and allowed by the constitution of their State and Government that every wicked spirit shall have those Souls as his property and particular servants and attendants whom he can catch in such compacts as those wild Beasts that we can take in hunting are by the allowance of the Law our own and those Slaves that a man hath purchas'd are his peculiar goods and the vassals of his will Or rather those deluding Fiends are like the seducing fellows we call Spirits who inveigle Children by their false and flattering promises and carry them away to the Plantations of America to be servilly emploied there in the works of their own profit and advantage And as those base Agents will humour and flatter the simple unwary Youth till they are on Ship-board and without the reach of those that might rescue them from their hands In like manner the more mischievous Tempter studies to gratifie please and accommodate to those he deals with in this kind till death hath lanch'd them into the Deep and they are past the danger of Prayers Repentance and Endeavours and then He useth them as pleaseth Him This account I think is not unreasonable and 't will fully answer the Objection For though the matter be not as I have conjectur'd yet 't will suggest a way how it may be conceiv'd which nulls the pretence That the Design is inconceiveable But then we are still liable to be question'd 10 how it comes about that those proud and insolent Designers practise in this kind upon so few when one would expect that they should be still trading this way and everywhere be driving on the project which the vileness of men makes so feisable and would so much serve the interest of their lusts To which among other things that might be suggested I return 1 That we are never liable to be so betraied and abused till by our vile dispositions and tendencies we have forfeited the tutelary care and oversight of the better Spirits which though generally they are our guard and defence against the malice and violence of evil Angels yet it may well enough be thought that sometimes they may take their leave of such as are swallowed up by malice envy and desire of revenge qualities most contrary to their Life and Nature and leave them exposed to the invasion and sollicitations of those wicked Spirits to whom such hateful Attributes make them very suitable And if there be particular guardian Angels as 't is not absurd to fancy it may then well be supposed that no man is obnoxious to those projects and attempts but onely such whose vile and mischievous natures have driven from them their protecting Genius And against this dereliction to the power of evil spirits 't is likely enough what some affirm that the Royal Psalmist