is to blast with Mildew Lightning and Thunder any Vegetative proper to their Planet To deprive any Animal of sight or the motion of the nerves under their Dominion And lastly bring Plagues Pestilence and Famine Storms and Tempests or on the Contrary to bring sweet and excellent Influences upon Animals or Vegetatives under their Planetary Regiment if well and honourably dignified 4. Innumerable are the Spirits that inhabit the Aiery Region germinating amongst themselvs as Magicians affirm and begetting one another after a Mystical manner It is their property to be instant in storms and boistrous weather which is said to be joy and delight unto them And in such a season they may with most facility be calld upon and make their appearance which they do accordingly to their age and youthfulness seeming young or old at their appearance answerable to their years Besides they march in mighty Troops through the Aiery Region waging warr amongst themselves and destroying one anothers beings or Existences after which they are reduced to the primary source or nature of the Starrs This is likewise to be observed that according to the Language Vigour Life and Habit of that Region wherein they live such is their Habit Language and Ability one Caterva or Company being ignorant of their Neighbours or Enemies Language so that they have need of the Assistance of such Spirits as dwell in omnibus Elementis to be their Interpreters 5. And doubtless from hence arise the various deceptions thut men are incident unto in their judgments of Apparitions perswading themselves that they are portents and foretokens of Warr and Famine when such numerous Spirits are beheld Fighting or Marching either in the Air Earth or Water whereas it is nothing else but the bare effect of the Natures and Tempers of such Aerial beings to fight and randevouse immediately after sun-set or else later in the Summer evenings which is their principal time of such Conventions And though it must be confest that such Spirits may be and are the Devils Instruments as appertaining to the Kingdom whereof he is Ruler Yet considered in themselves their Nature is wholly harmless as to ought that may be called innate Evill having nothing in them that is eternal as the Soul of Man and consequently nothing in them that is able to make them capable of enjoying Heaven or induring the torments of Hell 6. And it is believed by some that according to the motion of the spheres there are certain companies of Aerial Spirits good and bad that follow them in their motions round the earth the good distilling influences that are good and the bad such influences as are destructive to every thing that is under their Dominion It is also believed that by the assistance of Devils and damned Spirits such Aerial Spirits are given for Familiars to some Magicians add Witches with whom they are said to have actual copulation and the enjoyment of every dainty meat through their assistance being able thereby to go invisible to fly through the air and steal Treasures and Jewels from the Coffers of Princes as also carouse in Wine-sellers and Pantries of those that are most amply provided with the choisest Daynties 7. Subordinate unto these of the Air are the Terrestrial Spirits which are of several degrees according to the places which they occupy as Woods Mountains Caves Fens Mines Ruins Desolate places and Antient Buildings calld by the Antient Heathens after various names as Nymphs Satyrs Lamii Dryades Sylvanes Cobali c. And more particularly the Faeries who do principally inhabit the Mountains and Caverns of the Earth whose nature is to make strange Apparitions on the Earth in Meddows or on Mountains being like Men and Women Souldiers Kings and Ladyes Children and Horse-men cloathed in green to which purpose they do in the night steal hempen stalks from the fields where they grow to Convert them into Horses as the Story goes Besides it is credibly affirmed and beleev'd by many That such as are real Changlings or Lunaticks have been brought by such Spirits and Hobgoblins the true Child being taken away by them in the place whereof such are left being commonly half out of their wits and given to many Antick practices and extravagant fancies which passions do indeed proceed from the powerful influence of the Planet in their nativity and not from such foolish conjectures 8. Such jocund and facetious Spirits are sayd to sport themselvs in the night by tumbling and fooling with Servants aad Shepherds in Country houses pinching them black and blew and leaving Bread Butter and Cheese sometimes with them which if they refuse to eat some mischief shall undoubtedly befall them by the means of these Faeries And many such have been taken away by the sayd Spirits for a fortnight or a month together being carryed with them in Chariots through the Air over Hills and Dales Rocks and Precipices till at last they have been found lying in some Meddow or Mountain bereaved of their sences and commonly of one of their Members to boot 9. Certainly the Lares and Penates or houshold Gods of the antient Heathens were no other then such like Spirits who for several years would keep their residence in one house till upon some displeasure offered or offences done by any of the sayd Family they departed and were never afterwards heard of There are plenty of such examples to be found in Olaus magnus and Hector Boethus in his History of Scotland relating wonderful passages of Robin-good fellows and such as have been familiar amongst mankind 10. Luridan a familiar of this kinde did for many years inhabit the Island Pomonia the largest of the Orcades in Scotland suplying the place of Man-servant and Maid-servant with wonderful diligence to these Families whom he did haunt sweeping their rooms and washing their dashes and making their fires before any were up in the morning This Luridan affirmed That he was the genius Astral of that Island that his place or residence in the dayes of Solomon and David was at Jerusalem That then he was called by the Jewes Belelah and after that he remaind Long in the Dominion of Wales instructing their Bards in Brittish Poesy and Prophesies being called Vrthin Wadd Elgin And now said he I have removed hither and alas my continuance is but short for in 70 years I must resigne my place to Balkin Lord of the Northern mountains 11. Many wonderful and incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin whom he called the Lord of the Northern Mountains affirming that he was shaped like a Satyr and fed upon the Air having Wife and Children to the number of 12 thousand which were the brood of the Northern Faeries inhabiting Southerland and Catenes with the adjacent Islands And that these were the Companies of Spirits that hold continual wars with the Fiery Spirits in the Mountain Heckla that vomits fire in Islandia That their speech was antient Irish and
buildeth high towers full of weapons and also Castles and Cities he inflicteth men thirty dayes with wounds both rotten and full of maggots at the Exorcists commandement he provideth good familiars and hath dominion over Fifty Legions Sidonay aliàs Asmoday a great King strong and mighty he is seen with three heads whereof the first is like a Bull the second like a man the third like a Ram he hath a Serpents tail he belcheth flames out of his mouth he hath feet like a Goose he sitteth on an infernal Dragon be carryeth a launce and a flag in his hand he goeth before others which are under the power of Amaymon When the Conjuror exerciseth this office let him be abroad let him be wary and standing on his feet if his cap be on his head he will cause all his doings to be bewrayed which if he do not the Exorcist shall be deceived by Amaymon in every thing But so soon as he seeth him in the form aforesaid he shall call him by his name saying Thou art Asmoday he will not deny it and by and by he boweth down to the ground he giveth the ring of virtues he absolutely teacheth Geometry Arithmetick Astronomy and handicrafts To all demands he answereth fully and truly he maketh a man invisible he sheweth the places where treasure lyeth and gardeth it if it be among the Legions of Amaymon he hath under his power Seventy two Legions Gaap aliàs Tap a great President and a Prince he appeareth in a meridional sign and when he taketh humane shape he is the guide of the four principal Kings as mighty as Bileth There were certain Necromancers that offered sacrifices and burnt offerings unto him and to call him up they exercised an art saying that Solomon the wise made it which is false for it was rather Cham the son of Noah who after the flood began first to invocate wicked Spirits He invocated Bileth and made an Art in his name and a book which is known to many Mathematitians There were burnt offerings and sacrifices made and gifts given and much wickedness wrought by the Exorcist who mingleth therewithal the holy Names of God the which in that Art are everywhere expressed Marry there is an Epistle of those names written by Solomon as also write Helias Aierosolymitanus and Helisaeus It is to be noted that if any Exorcist have the Art of Bileth and cannot make him stand before him nor see him I may not bewray how and declare the means to contain him because it is an abomination and for that I have learned nothing from Solomon of his dignity and office But yet I will not hide this to wit that he maketh a man wonderful in Philosophy and all the Liberal Sciences he maketh love hatred insensibility consecration and consecration of those things that are belonging unto the domination of Amaymon and delivereth familiars out of the possession of other Conjurors answering truly and perfectly of things present past and to come and transferreth men most speedily into other Nations he ruleth Sixty six Legions and was of the order of Potestates Shax aliàs Scox is a dark and great Marquess like unto a Stork with a hoarse and subtil voyce he doth marvellously take away the sight hearing and understanding of any man at the commandement of the Conjuror he taketh away money out of every Kings house and carryeth it back after 1200 years if he be commanded he is a horse-stealer he is thought to be faithful in all commandements and although he promise to be obedient to the Conjuror in all things yet he is not so he is a lyer except he be brought into a triangle and there he speaketh divinely and telleth of things that are hidden and not kept of wicked Spirits he promiseth good familiars which are accepted if they be not deceivers he hath Thirty Legions Procel is a great and strong Duke appearing in the shape of an Angel but speaketh darkly of things hidden he teacheth Geometry and the Liberal Arts he maketh great noises and causeth the waters to roar where are none he warmeth waters and distempereth baths at certain times as the Exorcist appointeth him he was of the order of Potestates and hath Forty eight Legions under his power Furcas is a Knight and cometh forth in the similitude of a cruel Man with a long beard and a hoary head she sitteth on a pale horse carrying in his hand a sharp weapon he perfectly teacheth practick Philosophy Rhetorick Logick Astronomy Chiromancy Pyromancy and their parts there obey him Twenty Legions Murmur is a great Duke and an Earl appearing in the shape of a Souldier riding on a Griffin with a Dukes crown on his head there go before him two of his Ministers with great trumpets he teacheth Philosophy absolutely he constraineth souls to come before the Exorcist to answer what he shall ask them he was of the order partly of Thrones and partly of Angels and ruleth Thirty Legions Caim is a great President taking the form of a Thrush but when he putteth on mans shape he answereth in burning ashes carrying in his hand a most sharpe sword he maketh the best disputers he giveth men the understanding of all birds of the lowing of bullocks and barking of Dogs and also of the sound and noise of waters he answereth best of things to come he was of the order of Angels and ruleth Thirty Legions Raum or Raim is a great Earl he is seen as a Crow but when he putteth on humane shape at the commandement of the Exorcist he stealeth wonderfully out of the Kings house and carryeth it whether he is assigned he destroyeth Cities and hath great despite unto dignities he knoweth things present past and to come and reconcileth friends and foes he was of the order of Thrones and governeth Thirty Legions Halphas is a great Earl and cometh abroad like a Stork with a hoarse voyce he notably buildeth up Towns full of amunition and weapons he sendeth men of war to places appointed and hath under him Twenty six Legions Focalor is a great Duke cometh forth as a man with wings like a Griffin he killeth men and drowneth them in the waters and overturneth ships of war commanding and ruling both Winds and Seas And let the Conjuror note that if he bid him hurt no man he willingly consenteth thereto he hopeth after 1000 years to return to the seventh Throne but he is deceived he hath Three Legions Vine is great King and an Earl he sheweth himself as a Lyon riding a black Horse and carryeth a Viper in his hand he gladly buildeth large Towres he throweth down stone walls and maketh waters rough At the commandement of the Exorcist he answereth of things hidden of Witches and of things present past and to come Bifrons is seen in the similitude of a Monster when he taketh the image of man he maketh one wonderful cunning in Astrology absolutely
give a sign whether he were a dum Spirit or no he began to rumble again which thing they took as a certain sign Having laid this foundation they go unto certain Citizens chief men and such as favoured them declaring that a heavy chance had happened at home in their Monastery not shewing what the matter was but desiring them to come to their Mattens at midnight When these Citizens were come and that Prayers were begun the counterfeit Spirit beginneth to make a marvellous noise in the top of the Church And being asked what he meant and who he was gave signs that it was not lawful for him to speak Therefore they commanded him to make answer by tokens and signs to certain things they would demand of him Now there was a hole made in the Vault through the which he might hear and understand the voyce of a Conjuror And then had he in his hand a little board which at every question he strake in such sort as he might easily be heard beneath First they asked him Whether he were one of them that had been buryed in the same place Afterwards they reckoning many by name which had been buryed there at the last also they name the Maiors wife and there by and by the spirit gave a sign that he was her soul He was further asked Whether he was damned or no and if he were for what cause for what desert or fault whether for Covetousness or wanton lust for Pride or want of Charity or whether it were for Heresie or the Sect of Luther newly sprang up also What he meant by that noise and stirre he kept there whether it were to have the body now buryed in holy ground to be digged up again and laid in some other place To all which points he answered by signes as he was commanded by the which he affirmed or denyed any thing according as he strake the board twice or thrice together And when he had thus given them to understand that the very cause of his damnation was Luthers Heresie and that the body must needs be digged up again the Monks requested the Citizens whose presence they had used or rather abused that they would bear witness of those things which they had seen with their eyes and that they would subscribe to such things as were done before The Citizens taking good advice on the matter lest they should offend the Maior or bring themselves into trouble refused so to do But the Monks notwithstanding take from thence the sweet bread which they called the host and and body of our Lord with all the reliques of Saints and carry them to another place and there say their Mass The Bishops substitute Judge whom they called Official understanding that matter cometh thither accompanyed with certain honest men to the intent he might know the whole circumstance more exactly and therefore he commandeth them to make Conjuration in his presence and also he requireth certain to be chosen to go up into the top of the vault and there to see whether any Ghost appeared or not Stephanus Aterbatensis stifly denyed that to be lawful and marvellously perswading the contrary affirmed that the Spirit in no wise ought to be troubled And albeit the Official urged them very much that there might be some Conjuring of the Spirit yet could he nothing prevail Whilest these things were doing the Maior when he had shewed the other Justices of the City what he would have them to do took his journey to the King and opened the whole matter unto him And because the Monks refused judgement upon plea of their own Laws and Liberties the King choosing out certain of the Aldermen of Paris giveth them absolute and full authority to make enquiry of the matter The like doth the Chancellor Master Anthonius Pratensis Cardinal and Legat for the Pope throughout France Therefore when they had no exception to alledge they were conveyed unto Paris and there constrained to make their answer But yet could nothing be wrung out of them by confession whereupon they were put a part into divers Prisons the Novice being kept in the house of Master Fumanus one of the Aldermen was oftentimes examined and earnestly requested to utter the truth but would notwithstanding confess nothing because he feared that the Monks would afterward put him to death for staining their order and putting it to open shame But when the Judges had made him sure promise that he should escape punishment and that he should never come into their handling he opened unto them the whole matter as it was done and being brought before his fellows avouched the same to their faces The Monks albeit they were convicted and by these means almost taken tardy with the deed doing yet did they refuse the Judges bragging and vaunting themselves on their priviledges but all in vain For sentence passed upon them and they were condemned to be carryed back again to Orleance and thereto be cast in Prison and so should finally be brought forth into the chief Church of the City openly and from thence to the place of execution where they should make open confession of their trespasses Surely this was most common among Monks and Fryers who maintained their Religion their Lust their Liberties their Pompe their Wealth their Estimation and Knavery by such cosening practices Now I will shew you more special orders of Popish Conjurations that are so shamelesly admitted into the Church of Rome that they are not only suffered but commandeth to be used not by night secretly but by day impudently And these forsooth concerning the curing of bewitched persons and such as are possessed to wit such as have a Devil put into them by Witches Inchantments And herewithal I will set down certain rules delivered unto us by such Popish Doctors as are of greatest reputation CHAP. XXXIII Who may he Conjurors in the Romish Church besides Priests a ridiculous definition of Superstition what words are to be used and not used in Exorcisms rebaptism allowed it is lawful to conjure any thing differences between Holy-water and Conjuration THomas Aquinas saith That any body though he be of an inferiour or superiour order yea of none order at all and as Gulielmus Durandus glossator Raimundi affirmeth A Woman so she bless not the girdle or the garment but the person of the bewitched hath power to exercise the order of an Exorcist or Conjuror even as well as any Priest may say Mass in an house unconsecrated But that is saith M. Mal. rather through the goodness and licence of the Pope than through the grace of the Sacrament Nay there are examples set down where some being bewitched were cured as M. Mal. taketh it without any Conjuration at all Marry there were certain Pater Nosters Aves and Credoes said and Crosses made but they are Charmes they say and no Conjurations For they say that such Charms are lawful because there is no Superstition in them
themselves with a Devil that are not acquainted with God I have dealt and conferred with many marry I must confess Papists for the most part that maintain every point of these absurdities And surely I allow better of their judgments than of others unto whom some part of these cosenages are discovered and seen and yet concerning the residue they remain as they were before specially being satisfied in the highest and greatest parts of conjuring and cosening to wit in Popery and yet will be abused with beggerly Jugling and Witchcraft CHAP. VIII Of Natural Witchcraft or Fascination But because I am loth to oppose my self against all the Writers herein or altogether to discredit their stories or wholly to deface their reports touching the effects of Fascination or Witchcraft I will how set down certain parts thereof which although I my self cannot admit without some doubts difficulties and exceptions yet will I give free liberty to others to believe them if they list for that they do not directly oppugn my purpose Many great and grave Authors write and many fond Writers also affirm that there are certain families In Africa which with their voices bewitch whatsoever they praise Insomuch as if they commend either Plant Corn Infant Horse or any other Beast the same presently withereth decayeth and dyeth This mystery of Witchraft is not unknown or neglected of out Witchmongers and superstitious fools here in Europe But to shew you examples neer home here in England as though our voyce had the like operation you shall not hear a Butcher of Horse-courser cheapen a Bullock or a Jade but if he buy him not he saith God save him if he do forget it and the Horse or Bullock chance to dye the fault is imputed to the chapman Certainly the sentence is godly if it do proceed from a faithful and godly mind but if it be spoken as a superstitious charm by those words and syllables to compound with the fascination and misadventure of unfortunate words the phrase is wicked and superstitious though there were farr greater shew of godliness than appeareth therein CHAP. IX Of Inchanting or Bewitching Eyes MAny Writers agree with Virgil Theocritus in the effect of bewitching eyes affirming that in Scythia there are women called Bithiae having two bals or rather blacks in the apple of their eyes And as Didymus reporteth some have in the one eye two such bals and in the other the image of a Horse These forsooth with their angry looks do bewitch and hurt not only young Lambs but young Children There be other that retain such venom in their Eyes and send it forth by beams and streams so violently that therewith they annoy not only them with whom they are conversant continually but also all other whose company they frequent of what age strength or complexion soever they be as Cicero Plutarch Philarchus and many others give out in their writings This Fascination saith John Baptista Porta Neapolitanus though it begin by touching or breathing is alwayes accomplished and finished by the Eye as an extermination or expulsion of the Spirits through the Eyes approaching to the heart of the bewitched and infecting the same c. Whereby is cometh to pass that a child or a young man endued with a clear whole subtil and sweet blood yieldeth the like spirits breath and vapours springing from the purer blood of the heart And the lightest and finest spirits ascending into the highest parts of the head do fall into the Eyes and so are from thence sent forth as being of all other parts of the body the most clear and fullest of veins and pores and with the very spirit or vapour proceeding thence is conveyed out as it were by beams and streams a certain fiery force whereof he that beholdeth sore Eyes shall have good experience For the poyson and disease in the Eye infecteth the air next unto it and the same proceedeth further carrying with it the vapour and infection of the corrupted blood with the contagion whereof the Eyes of the beholders are most apt to be infected By this same means it is thought that the Cockatrice depriveth the life and a Wolf taketh away the voyce of such as they suddenly meet withal and beholds Old women in whom the ordinary course of nature faileth in the office of purging their natural monthly humors shew also some proof hereof For as the said J. B.P.N. reporteth alledging Aristotle for his Author they leave in a Looking-glass a certain froth by means of the gross vapours proceeding out of their Eyes which cometh so to pass because those vapours or spirits which so abundantly come from their Eyes cannot pierce and enter into the Glass which is hard and without pores and therefore resisteth but the beams which are carryed in the chariot of conveyance of the spirits from the Eyes of one body to another do pierce to the inward parts and there breed infection whilest they search and seek for their proper region And as these beams and vapours do proceed from the heart of the one so are they turned into blood about the heart of the other which blood disagreeing with the nature of the bewitched party infeebleth the rest of his body and maketh him sick the contagion whereof so long continueth as the distempered blood hath force in the members And because the infection is of blood the feaver or sickness will be continual whereas if it were of choler or flegm it would be intermittent or alterable CHAP. X. Of Natural Witchcraft for Love c. BUt as there is Fascination and Witchcraft by malicious and angry eyes unto displeasure so are there witching Aspects tending contrariwise to Love or at the least to the procuring of good will and liking For if the Fascination or Witchcraft be brought to pass or provoked by the desire by the wishing and coveting any beautiful shape or favour the venom is strained through the eyes though it be from a far and the imagination of a beautiful form resteth in the heart of the Lover and kindleth the fire where it is afflicted And because the most delicate sweet and tender blood of the beloved doth there wander his countenance is there represented shining in his own blood and cannot there be quiet and is so haled from thence that the blood of him that is wounded reboundeth and slippeth into the wounder according to the saying of Lucretius the Poet to the like purpose and meaning in these verses Idque petit corpus mens unda est saucia amore Namque omnes plerunque cadunt in vulnus illam Emicat in patem sanguis unde icimur ictu Et si comminus est os tum ruber occupat humor Englished by Abraham Fleming And to that body 't is rebounded From whence the mind by Love is wounded For in a manner all and some Into that wound of Love do come And to that part the blood doth flee From whence with
ravine theft and violence and yet none of them all are so just but that the very best and uprightest of them fall into great infirmities both doing and suffering much wrong and injury And what is their fortitude but to arm them to indure misery grief danger and death it self But what happiness or goodness is to be reposed in that life which must be waited upon with such calamities and finally must have the help of death to finish it I say if it be so miserable why do they place Summum bonum therein S. Paul to the Romans sheweth that it cannot be that we should attain to justice through the moral and natural actions and duties of this life because that never the Jews nor the Gentiles could eâ—press so much in their lives as the very law of Nature or of Moses required And therefore he that worketh without Christ doth as he that reckoneth without his host CHAP. II. Mine own opinion concerning this Argument to the disproof of some Writers hereupon I For my part do also think this Argument about the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits to be so difficult as I am perswaded that no one Author hath in any certain or perfect sort hitherto written thereof In which respect I can neither allow the ungodly and prophane sects and doctrines of the Sadduces and Peripateticks who deny that there are any Devils or Spirits at last nor the fond and superstitious Treatises of Plato Proclus Plotinus Porphyrie or yet the vain and absurd opinions of Psellus Nider Sprenger Cumanus Bodin Michael Andreas Janus Matchaeus Laurentius Ananias Jambilchus who with many others write so ridiculously in these matters as if they were babes frayed with bugges Some affirming That the souls of the dead become spirits the good to be Angels the bad to be Devils Some That Spirits or Devils are only in this life Some That they are men Some That they are women Some That Devils are of such gender as they list themselves Some That they had no beginning nor shall have ending as the Manichees maintain Some That they are mortal and die as Plutarch affirmeth of Pan Some That they have no bodies at all but receive bodies according to their phantasies and imaginations Some That their bodies are given unto them Some That they make themselves Some say They are wind Some That they are the breath of living creatures Some That one of them begat another Some That they were created of the least part of the mass whereof the Earth was made and some That they are substances between God and Man and that of them some are Terrestrial some Celestial some Watery some Airy some Firy some Starry and some of each and every part of the Elements and that they know our thoughts and carry our good Works and Prayers to God and return his benefits back unto us and that they are to be worshipped wherein they meet and agree jump with the Papists as if you read the notes upon the second chapter to the Colossians in the Seminaries Testament printed at Rhemes you shall manifestly see though as contrary to the Word of God as black to white as appeareth in the Apocalypse where the Angel expresly forbad John to worship him Again some say That they are mean betwixt Terrestrial and Celestial bodies communicating part of each nature and that although they be eternal yet that they are moved with affections and as there are Birds in the air Fishes in the water and Worms in the earth so in the fourth Element which is the fire is the habitation of Spirits and Devils And lest we should think them idle they say They have charge over men and Government in all Countries and Nations Some say That they are only imaginations in the mind of man Tertullian saith They are Birds and fly faster then any fowl of the air Some say That Devils are not but when they are sent and therefore are called evil Angels Some think That the Devil sendeth his Angels alroad and he himself maketh his continual abode in Hell his Mansion place CHAP. III. The opinion of Psellus touching Spirits of their several Orders and a Confutation of his Errors therein PSellus being of authority in the Church of Rome and not impugnable by any Catholick being also instructed in these supernatural or rather Diabolical matters by a Monk called Marcus who had been familiarly conversant a long time as he said with a certain Devil reporteth upon the same Devils own word which must needs understand best the state of this question That the bodies of Angels and Devils consist not now of all one element though perhaps it were otherwise before the fall of Lucifer and That the bodies of Spirits and Devils can feel and be felt do hurt and be hurt in so much as they lament when they are striken and being put to the fire are burnt and yet that they themselves burn continually in such sort as they leave ashes behind them in places where they have been as manifest tryal thereof hath been if he say truly in the borders of Italy He also saith upon like credit and assurance That Devils and Spirits do avoid and shed from out of their bodies such seed or nature as whereby certain vermin are ingendered and that they are nourished with food as we are saving that they receive it not into their mouths but suck it it up into their bodies in such sort as sponges soke up waser Also he saith They have names shapes and dwelling places as indeed they have though not in temporal and corporal sort Furthermore he saith That there are six principal kind of Devils which are not only corporal but temporal and worldly The first sort consist of fire wandering in the Region neer to the Moon but have no power to go into the Moon The second sort consisting of air have their habitation more low and neer unto us These saith he are proud and great boasters very wise and deceitful and when they come down are seen with streams of fire at their tail He saith That these are commonly conjured up to make Images laugh and Lamps burn of their own accord and that in Assyria they use much to prophesie in a Bason of Water Which kind of Incantation is usual among our Conjurors but it is here commonly performed in a Pitcher or Pot of water or else in a Vial of Glass filled with water wherein they say at the first a little sound is heard without a voyce which is a token of the Devils coming Anon the water seemeth to be troubled and then there are heard small voyces wherewith they give their answers speaking so softly as no man can well hear them because saith Cardan they would not be argued or rebuked of lyes But this I have elsewhere more largely described and confuted The third sort of Devils are earthly the fourth watery or of the Sea
we may certainly know the same we ought to content and frame our selves faithfully to believe the words and sense there delivered unto us by the high Spirit which is the Holy Ghost who is Lord of all spirits alwayes considering that evermore spirits are spoken of in Scripture as of things spiritual though for the help of our capacities they are sometime more grossly and corporally expressed either in Parables or by Metephors than indeed they are As for example and to omit the History of Job which elsewhere I handle it is written The Lord said Who shall entice Ahab that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead c. Then came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will go entice him And the Lord said Wherewith And he said I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets Then he said Go forth thou shalt prevail c. This story is here set forth in this wise to bear with our capacities and specially with the capacity of that age that could not otherwise conceive of spiritual things than by such corporal demonstrations And yet here is to be noted that one spirit and not many or divers did possess all the false Prophets at once Even as in another place many thousand Devils are said to possess one man yet it is also said even in the self same place that the same man was possessed only with one Devil For it is there said that Christ met a man which had a Devil and he commanded the foul spirit to come forth of the man c. But Calvin saith Where Satan or the Devil is named in the singular number thereby is meant that power of wickedness that standeth against the Kingdom of justice And where many Devils are named in the Scriptures we are thereby taught that we must fight with an infinite multitude of enemies lest despising the fewness of them we should be more slack to enter into battel and so fall into security and idleness On the other side it is as plainly set down in the Scripture That some are possessed with the Spirit of God as that the others are endued and bound with the spirit of the Devil Yea sometimes we read That one good Spirit was put into a great number of persons and again That divers Spirits rested in and upon one man and yet no real or corporal spirit meant As for example The Lord took of the spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the seventy Elders and when the Spirit rested upon them they prophesied Why should not this be as substantial and corporal a spirit as that wherewith the Maid in the Acts of the Apostles was possessed Also Elisha intreated Elias that when he departed his spirit might be double upon him We read also that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel upon Gideon Jeptha Samson Balaam Saul David Ezekiel Zachary Amasay yea it is written that Caleb had another spirit than all the Israelites beside and in another place it is said that Daniel had a more excellent spirit than any other So as though the spirits as well good as bad are said to be given by number and proportion yet the quality and not the quantity of them is alwayes thereby meant and presupposed Howbeit I must confess that Christ had the Spirit of God without measure as it is written in the Evangelist John But where it is said that spirits can be made tame and at commandment I say to those gross conceivers of Scripture with Solomon who as they falsly affirm was of all others the greatest Conjuror saith thus in express words No man is lord over a spirit to retain a spirit at his pleasure CHAP. XVII Whether Spirits and Souls can assume bodies and of their Creation and Substance wherein Writers do extreamly contend and vary SOme hold opinion that Spirits and Souls can assume and take unto them bodies at their pleasure of what shape or or substance they list of which mind all Papists and some Protestants are being more gross than another sort which hold that such bodies are made to their hands Howbeit these do vary in the Elements wherewith these spiritual bodies are composed For as I have said some affirm That they consist of fire some think of air and some of the Stars and other celestial powers But if they be celestial then as Peter Martyr saith must they follow the circular motion and if they be elementary then must they follow the motions of those Elements of which their bodies consist Of air they cannot be for air is Corpus homogeneum so as every part of air is air whereof there can be no distinct members made For an organical body must have bones sinews veins flesh c. which cannot be made of air Neither as Peter Martyr affirmeth can an anybody receive or have either shape or figure But some ascend up into the clouds where they find as they say divers shapes and forms even in the air Unto which objection Peter Martyr answereth saying and that truly That Clouds are not altogether air but have a mixture of other elements mingled with them CHAP. XVIII Certain Popish Reasons concerning Spirits made of Air of Day-Devils and Night-Devils and why the Devil loveth no Salt in his Meat MAny affirm upon a fable cited by M. Mal. that Spirits are of air because they have been cut as he saith in sunder and closed presently again and also because they vanish away so suddenly But of such Apparitions I have already spoken and am shortly to say more which are rather seen in the imagination of the weak and diseased than in verity and truth Which sights and apparations as they have been common among the unfaithful so now since the preaching of the Gospel they are most rare And as among faint-hearted people namely women children and sick folks they usually swarmd so among strong bodies and good stomachs they never used to appear as elsewhere I haved proved which argueth that they were only phantastical and imaginary Now say they that imagine Devils and Spirits to be made of air that it must needs be that they consist of that element because otherwise when they vanish suddenly away they should leave some earthy substance behind them If they were of water then should they moisten the place where they stand and must needs be shed on the floor If they consisted of fire then would they burn any thing that touched them and yet say they Abraham and Lot washed their feet and were neither scalded nor burnt I find it not in the Bible but in Bodin that there are Day-Devils and Night-Devils The same fellow saith That Deber is the name of that Devil which hurteth by night and Cheleb is he that hurteth by day howbeit he confesseth that Satan can hurt both by day and night although it be certain
that all the creatures of God are good and again when God in the creation of the world saw all that he had made was good the Devil is not comprehended within those words of commendation For it is written that he was a murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him but when he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own as being a lyer and the father of lyes and as John saith a sinner from the beginning Neither was his creation so far as I can find in that week that God made man and those other creatures mentioned in Genesis the first and yet God created him purposely to destroy I take his substance to be such as no man can by learning define nor by wisdom search out M. Deering saith Tha◠Paul himself reckoning up principalities powers c. addeth Every name that is named in this world or in the world to come A clear sentence saith he of Paul 's modesty in confessing a holy ignorance of the state of Angels which name is also given to Devils in other places of the Scripture His essence also and his form is also so proper and peculiar in mine opinion unto himself as he himself cannot alter it but must needs be content therewith as with that which God hath ordained him and assigned unto him as peculiarly as he hath given to us our substance without power to alter the same at our pleasures For we find not that a spirit can make a body more than a body can make a spirit the Spirit of God excepted which is Omnipotent Nevertheless I learn that their nature is prone to all mischeif for as the very signification of an Enemy and as an accuser is wrapped up in Satan and Diabolus so doth Christ himself declare him to be in the thirteenth of Matthew And therefore he brooketh well his name for he lyeth dayly in wait not only to corrupt but also to destroy mankind being I say the very tormentor appointed by God to afflict the wicked in this world with wicked temptations and in the world to come with Hell fire But I may not here forget how M. Mal. and the residue of that crew do expound that word Diabolus for Dia say they is Duo and Bolus is Morsellus whereby they gather that the Devil eateth up a man both body and soul at two morsels Whereas in truth the wicked may be said to eat up and swallow down the Devil rather than the Devil to eat up them though it may well be said by a figure that the Devil like a roaring Lion seeketh whom he may devour which is meant of the soul and spiritual devouring as very novices in Religion may judge CHAP. XXXIII Against fond Witchmongers and their opinions concerning corporal Devils NOw how Brian Darcies he-spirits and she-spirits Titty and Tiffin Suckin and Pidgin Liard and Robin c. his white-white-spirits and black-black-spirits gray-gray-spirits and red-red-spirits Devil-toad and Devil-lambe Devils-cat and Devils-dam agree herewithal or can stand consonant with the Word of God or true Philosophy let Heaven and Earth judge In the mean time let any man with good consideration peruse that Book published by W.W. it shall suffice to satisfie him in all that may be required touching the vanities of the Witches Examinations Confessions and Executions where though the tale be told only of the accusers part without any other answer of theirs than their Adversary setteth down mine assertion will be sufficiently proved true And because it seemeth to be performed with some kind of authority I will say no more for the confutation thereof but referr you to the Book it self whereto if nothing be added that may make to their reproach I dare warrant nothing is left out that may serve to their condemnation See whether the witnesses be not single of what credit sexe and age they are namely lewd miserable and envious poor people most of them which speak to any purpose being old women and children of the age of 4 5 6 7 8 or 9. years And note how and what the Witches confess and see of what weight and importance the causes are whether their confessions be not won through hope of favour and extorted by flattery or threats without proof But in so much as there were not past seventeen or eighteen condemned at once at S. Osees in the County of Essex being a whole Parish though of no great quantity I will say the less trusting that by this time there remain not many in that Parish If any be yet behind I doubt not but Brian Darcie will find them out who if he lack aid Richard Gallis of Windsor were meet to be associated with him which Gallis hath set forth another Book to that effect of certain Witches of Windsor executed at Abington But with what impudency and dishonesty he hath finished it with what lyes and forgeries he hath furnished it what folly and frenzy he hath uttered in it I am ashamed to report and therefore being but a two-penny Book I had rather desire you to buy it and so to peruse it than to fill my Book with such beastly stuffe CHAP. XXXIV A Conclusion wherein the Spirit of spirits is described by the illumination of which Spirit all spirits are to be tryed with a Confutation of the Pneumatomachi flatly denying the divinity of this Spirit TOuching the manifold signification of this word Spirit I have elsewhere in this brief discourse told you my mind which is a word nothing different in Heb. from breath or wind For all these words following to wit Spiritus Ventus Platus Halitus are indifferently use by the Holy Ghost and called by this Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sacred Scripture For further proof whereof I cite unto you the words of Isaiah For his Spirit or Breath is as a River that overfloweth up to the neck c. in which place the Prophet describeth the coming of God in heat and indignation unto judgement c. I cite also unto you the words of Zacharie These are the four Spirits of the Heaven c. Likewise in Genesis And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters Moreover I cite unto you the words of Christ The Spirit or Wind bloweth where it listeth Unto which said places infinite more might be added out of holy Writ tending all to this purpose namely to give us this for a note that all the sayings above cited with many more that I could alledge where mention is made of spirit the Hebrew Text useth no word but one to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth as I said Spiritum ventum flatum halitum which may be Englished Spirit wind blast breath But before I enter upon the very point of my purpose it shall not be amiss to make you acquainted with the collection of a certain School Divine who distinguisheth and divideth this word
therefore may and is called the Spirit of spirits This Spirit withdrawing it self from the hearts of men for that it will not inhabit and dwell where sin hath dominion giveth place unto the spirit of errour and blindness to the spirit of servitude and compunction which biteth gnaweth and whetteth their hearts with a deadly hate of the Gospel in so much as it grieveth their minds and irketh their ears either to hear or understand the truth of which disease properly the Pharisees of old were and the Papists even now are sick Yea the want of this good Spirit is the cause that many fall into the spirit of perverseness and frowardness into the spirit of giddiness lying drowsiness and dulness according as the Prophet Isaiah saith For the Lord hath covered you with a spirit of slumber and hath shut up your eyes and again elsewhere Dominus miscuit in medio c. The Lord hath mingled among them the spirit of giddiness and hath made Egypt to err as a drunken man erreth in his vomit And as it is said by Paul And their foolish heart was blinded and God gave them over unto their own hearts lusts Which punishment Moses threatneth unto the Jews The Lord shall smite thee with madness with blindness and amazedness of mind and thou shalt grope at high noon as a blind man useth to grope c. In some this word Spirit doth signifie a secret force and power wherewith our minds are moved and directed if unto holy things then it is the motion of the holy Spirit of the Spirit of Christ and of God if unto evil things then is it the suggestion of the wicked spirit of the Devil and of Satan Whereupon I inferr by the way of a question with what spirit we are to suppose such to be moved as either practice any of the vanities treated upon in this Book or through credulity addict themselves thereunto as unto divine oracles or the voyce of Angels breaking through the clouds We cannot impute this motion unto the good Spirit for then they should be able to discern between the nature of spirits and not swerve in judgment it followeth therefore that the spirit of blindness and error doth seduce them so that it is no marvel if in the alienation of their minds they take falsehood for truth shadows for substances fancies for verities c for it is likely that the good Spirit of God hath forsaken them or at leastwise absented it self from them else would they detest these devillish devices of men which consist of nothing but delusions and vain practices whereof I suppose this my Book to be a sufficient discovery It will be said That I ought not to judge for he that judgeth shall be judged Whereto I answer That judgment is not to be understood of three kind of actions in their proper nature whereof the first are secret and the judgment of them shall appertain to God who in time will disclose whatsoever is done in covert and that by his just judgment The second are mixed actions taking part of hidden and part of open so that by reason of their uncertainty and doubtfulness they are discussable and to be tryed these after due examination are to have their competent judgment and are incident to the Magistrate The third are manifest and evident and such as do no less apparently shew themselves than an inflammation of blood in the body and of these actions every private man giveth judgment because they be of such certainty as that of them a man may as well conclude as to gather that because the Sun is risen in the East Ergo it is morning he is come about and is full South Ergo it is high noon he is declining and closing up in the West Ergo it is evening So that the objection is answered Howbeit letting this pass and spiritually to speak of this Spirit which whiles many have wanted it hath come to pass that they have proved altogether carnal and not savouring heavenly divinity have tumbled into worse than Philosophical barbarism and these be such as of Writers are called Pneumatomachi a Sect so injurious to the holy Spirit of God that contemning the sentence of Christ wherein he foretelleth That the sin against the Holy Spirit is never to be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come they do not only deny him to be God but also pull from him all being and with the Sadduces maintain there is none such but that under and by the name of holy Spirit is meant a certain divine force wherewith our minds are moved and the grace and favour of God whereby we are his beloved Against these shameless Enemies of the Holy Spirit I will not use material weapons but syllogistical charms And first I will set down some of their paralogisms or false arguments and upon the neck of them infer fit confutations grounded upon sound reason and certain truth Their first Argument is knit up in this manner The Holy Spirit is nowhere expresly called God in the Scriptures Ergo he is not God or at leastwise he is not to be called God The Antecedent of this Argument is false because the Holy Spirit hath the title or name of God in the fift of the Acts. Again the consequent is false For although he were not expresly called God yet should it not thereupon be concluded that he is not very God because unto him are attributed all the properties of God which unto this do equally belong And as we deny not that the Father is the true light although it be not directly written of the Father but of the Son He was the true light giving light to every man that cometh into this world so likewise it is not to be denyed that the Spirit is God although the Scripture doth not expresly and simply note it sithence it ascribeth equal things thereunto as the properties of God the works of God the service due to God that it doth interchangeably take the names of Spirit and of God oftentimes They therefore that see these things attributed unto the Holy Spirit and yet will not suffer him to be called by the name of God do as it were refuse to grant unto Eve the name of Homo whom notwithstanding they confess to be a creature reasonable and mortal The second reason is this Hilarie in all his twelve Books of the Trinity doth nowhere write that the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped he never giveth thereunto the name of God neither dares he otherwise pronounce thereof than that it is the Spirit of God Besides this There are usual Prayers of the Church commonly called the Collects whereof some are made to the Father some to the Son but none to the Holy Spirit and yet in them all mention is made of the three persons Hereunto I answer that although Hilarie doth not openly call the Holy Spirit God yet
food is the Gas of the Water and the Blas of the Air And in their Aspects or countenances they differ as to vigour and cheerfulness They occupy various places of this world as Woods Mountains Waters Air fiery Flames Clouds Starrs Mines and hid Treasures as also antient Buildings and places of the slain Some again are familiar in Houses and do frequently converse with and appear unto mortals 15. They are capable of hunger grief passion and vexation they have not any thing in them that should bring them unto God being meerly composed of the most spiritual part of the Elements And when they are worn out they return into their proper essence or primary quality again as Ice when it is resolved into Water They meet in mighty Troops and wage warr one with another They do also procreate one another and have power sometimes to make great commotions in the Air and in the Clowds and also to cloath themselves with visible bodies out of the four Elements appearing in Companies upon Hills and Mountains and do often deceive and delude the observers of Apparitions who take such for portents of great alterations which are nothing but the sports and pastime of these frolick Spirits as Armies in the Air Troops marching on the Land noises and slaughter Tempest and Lightning c. 16. These Astral Spirits are variously to be considered some are beings separate and absolute that are not constitute to any work or service Others are subservient to the Angels that have dominion over the Influences of the Stars Others are the Astral Spirits of men departed which if the party deceased was disturbed and troubled at his decease do for many years continue in the source of this world amongst these airy Spirits to the great disquietness of the soul of the person to whom they belong Besides the causes are various that such Spirits rest not 1. When by Witchcraft they are inchanted and bound to wander so many years as thrice or fourtimes seven before they can be resolved into nothing 2. When the person hath been murthered so that the Spirit can never be at rest till the crime be discovered 3. When desires and lusts after Wife or Children House Lands or Money is very strong at their departure it is a certain truth that this same spirit belonging to the Starrs will be hanckering after these things and drawn back by the strong desires and fixation of the Imagination which is left behind it Nor can it ever be at rest till the thing be accomplished for which it is disturbed 4. When Treasure hath been hid or any secret thing hath been committed by the party there is a magical cause of something attracting the starry spirit back again to the manifestation of that thing Upon all which the following Chapters do insist more largely and particularly CHAP. II. Of the Good and Evil Daemons or Genii Whither they are what they are and how they are manifested also of their names powers faculties offices how thy are to be considered 1. ACcording to the disposition of the mind or soul there is a good or evil Daemon that accompanies the party visibly or invisibly and these are of such rancks and orders and names as the capacity of the persons soul is to whom they belong Their Office is said to be fore-warning the person of eminent danger sometimes by inward instinct sometimes by dreams in the night and sometimes by appearing outwardly The Daemon or Genius changeth its nature and power as the person changeth his and if from good the party degenerate to iniquity then by degrees the good Angel leaves him and an evil Daemon doth naturally succeed for each thing draws after that which is like it self 2. Magicians mention three several wayes of enjoying the society of the Bonus Genius first by intellectual association when secret and mental instigations do arise in their hearts to do this or that and to forbear the other as in the Manuscript of Nagar the Indian his own testimony of himself is to this effect My blessed Guardian Damilkar hath now so sweetly communicated himself unto me That by all the manifestations whereby a holy Daemon can attend and converse with mankind he appeareth unto me first in the intellectual way he is ever present and every moment prompts me what to act what to forbear from acting Ah had he not rushed up through the powers of my soul and suddenly warned me in my Travel to Quiansi in China through the airy Region to turn nimbly to the right hand at an instant a mighty Troop of Devils whose Leader was Grachnoek coming through that tract of air had crusht me into a thousand peices This is the first degree of its appearing 3. Then he proceedeth in the language of Sina describing the second way of its manifestation And when the deepest sleep hath over-poured we I am never without him sometimes my Damilkar stands before me like a glorious Virgin administring to me a Cup of the drink of the Gods which my Intellectual man exhausteth sometimes he brings caelestial Companies and danceth round about me and when after the weariness of the Senses through contemplation I fell into gentle sleep on the holy Mountain of Convocation which is called Adan he shewed me the motion of the Heavens the nature of all things and the power of every evil Daemon 4. Thirdly he continueth to describe the External appearance of the Genius to this effect Damilkar appears before me at my desire for my desires are as his desires When I slept a long space in my private dwelling he appeared outwardly and watering me with the dew of the fourth Heaven I awakned when he had thrice said Nankin Nagar so the time being come we mounted through the Air unto the holy Mountain of Convocation 5. In this Example the three degrees of the Apparition of the Bonus Genius or Good Daemon are excellently deciphered which is also the same in the appearance of the bad Genius and according to the deepest Magicians there be seven good Angels who do most frequently become particular Guardians of all others each to their respective capacities and also seven evil Daemons that are most frequent in association with depraved persons as Guardians to them 6. These are the seven good Angels or Daemons Iubanladace a mighty Prince in the Dominion of Thrones he cometh unto such as follow national affairs and are carryed forth unto warr and conquest he beareth alwayes a flaming Sword and is girded about having a helmet upon his head and appearing still before the party in the Air he must be sollicited and invocated with Chastity Vows Fumes and Prayers and this his is Character to be worn as a Lamin â— Yah-li-Yah one of the Powers accompanying such as are Virgins and devoted to Religion and a Hetmits life he teacheth all the names and powers of Angels and gives holy Charms against the assaults of Evil Daemons he
it easily be denyd That to every man and woman while they live the natural Life there belongs a Syderial or starry Spirit which takes its original wholly from the Elemental property And according to the weaker or stronger capacity of the party it hath the longer or shorter continuance after the bodyes decease 3. Such persons as are secretly murthered and such as secretly murther themselves do most frequently appear again and wander hear the place where their Carcase is till the radical moisture be totally consumed according to the opinion of Paracelsus after the consumption whereof they can re-appear no longer but are resolv'd into their first being or Astrum after a certain term of months or years according to the vigour or force of that first attraction which was the only cause of their returning 4. The manner and seasons of their appearing are various Sometimes before the person unto whom they do belong depart this life they do by external presentations forewarn him near the time that the day of death approacheth As it is reported of Codrus Laaenus to whom an empty meager Ghost appeared at midnight signifying unto him how sad and lachrymable a Tragedy was shortly to attend him and also adding that he would visit him in the Execution thereof which proved not contrary to the words of the apparition for at the very instant when his Treacherous Wife had stab'd him at the heart on a suddain he beheld the same with preparations for his interment whilst he yet survived after the fatall wound was given 5. Sometimes the starry spirit of a person appears to his beloved Companion many hundred of miles asunder who was ignorant of the death of the party And it hath often been heard that when none of the kindred or family of the said party deceased have ever been disturbed by it or in the least been sensible of its appearing yet to some of its most intimate acquaintance it discovers it self and importunes them to perform some ceremony or other that it may be returned into rest or else discovers some treasure which was hid by the party whilest alive or else some murther which it had commited But the most frequent cause of their returning is when the party hath himself been privately murthered 6. For such is the poysonous malice and bloudy spirit of the murtherers that it sufficeth them not to have privately bereaved them of their Lives but also by certain earnest Wishes Curses and Conjurations they do afterwards adjure them that for such a term of years they shall never have power to appear again Which wishes being earnestly given forth from the hellish root in the murtherer do exceedingly torment the murthered parties spirit taking deep impression thereon so that it is alwayes in continual sorrow and anguish till the term of years be expired and till the murther be made manifest to the world after which discovery it returns to perfect rest This is well known to those that are exercised in Witchcraft and cruell Murthers though not common to those that murther but once 7. There be many Ancient families in Europe to whom the Ghost of their first Progenitor or Ancestor appears immediately before the departure of some Heir or chief in the same family which assertion is confirmed by Cardan in an Example of an Antient family in the Dukedome of Parma called the Tortells to whom there belongs an ancient Castle with a spatious Hall near the Chimney of the said Hall an old decrepit Woman for these hundreds of years is wonted to appear when any of the Family is about to dye And it is reported amongst them that the same is the Ghost of one belonging to the same name and family who for her Riches was murthered by some of her Nephews and thrown into a pit 8. Many such apparitions do for many years continue to be seen in one particular place ever watching for opportunity to discover some murther or Treasure hid And the cause of the difficulty of the said discovery consists in the nature of their substance for could they make use of the organ of the Tongue they might quickly discover it or if they had the outward benefit of Hands they might produce the said Treasure or Carcase murthered but this they are seldome able to accomplish being destitute of the outward Organs and mediation of Hands to hold withall or Tongue to vent their grievances And that this is true the manner of their appearance doth confirm it For all that they are able to effect if they have been murthered is commonly to appear near the very place where their body lies and to seem as if they sunk down or vanished in the same or else to appear in the posture of a murthered person with mangled and bloudy wounds and hair dishevel'd But it is rarely known that any such apparitions have plainly spoken or uttered by words the time of their murther with the cause the persons name or place unless the murther by circumstances hath been more then ordinary horrid and execrable then the remembrance of the same doth sometimes enable the apparition to frame a voice by the assistance of the Air and discover the fact 9. But to speake in general concerning apparitions why they are so seldome seen and why such spirits as appear can not without mans assistance accomplish their design It may easily be apprehended that all Spirits or spiritual Substances and Devills have their life breath and motion in another source or Element then this external world And as any creature whom the Element of Water hath nourished and bred can live but short while upon the Land So it s with them when they come out of their proper habitations which is the cause of the rarity of apparition it being as difficult for any spirit to manifest it self in this outward principle of the four Elements as for a man to continue with his head under water yea it is rather pain then pleasure for any spirit whether good or bad to come into this outward world 10. Great is the villany of Necromancers and wicked Magicians in dealing with the spirits of men departed whom they invocate with certain forms and conjurations digging up their Carkasses again or by the help of Sacrifices and Oblations to the infernal Gods compelling the Ghost to present it self before them how this was performed in antient times by Hags and Witches is notably described in the Aethiopian History of Heliodorus in the practice of an antient woman who coming into the Camp in the dead of night where amongst many slaughtered bodies the body of her Son was also slain whose carkase she laid before her digging a hole and making a fire on each side with the body in the midst Then taking an earthen pot from a three footed stool she poured honey out of it into the pit then out of another pot she poured milk and likewise out of the third Lastly she cast a Lump
of any miserable Man or Woman she makes his Image of Wax in such an ominous aspect as may conduce to her design making several magical Characters upon the sides of the head describing the Character of the hour or Planetary time upon the breast of the Image the name of the party on his forehead the intended effect to be wrought upon him upon his back When they cause aches pains and violent pangs in the sinews and the flesh they stick thorns and pins in divers places of their arms breasts and legs When they cast them into Feavers and Consumptions they spend an hour in every day to warm and turn the Image before a doleful and lingring fire composed of divers exotick Gums and magical Ingredients of sweet Odours and strange Roots of shrubs efficient for their purpose 18. Wonderful are the various postures and pranks which Magicians play with Images neither will I mention the most perfect and prevalent part of the practice of Images and the powerful operations thereof least the evil minded should work abominations therewith upon the Persons or Possessions of their neighbours 19. According to the nature of what they would effect they frame their Images if by Images they would provoke two parties to love or be enamoured on one another they frame their Images naked with Astrological Observations and Imbraces of those that are Venereal to provoke unto enmity they place malignant Characters and Aspects and the Images in a fighting posture 20. If their intentions be for good all their Characters are engraven upon the foreparts of the body But if they would afflict the party with Consumption or with death they thrust Needles through the hearts and engrave their Characters upon their Posteriors or upon their shoulders using all their Conjurations retrograde and repeating every Charm opposite to the former 21. Thousands of strange and uncouth Charms might be here described according to the exact form wherein Tradition hath left them But I have only insisted upon the description of the natures in General And as by Images and Telesms the Europeans have effected admirable things so the Tartars have a wonderful ways of producing the like effects by Botles Sheep-skins Rods Basins Letters or Missives unto certain Spirits and many otherwayes unheard of in Europe 22. As for the Tying of the Point which is a strong impediment in Conjugal Rites to restrain the acts of secresie betwixt two marryed persons This knot or ligament is become so notorious both in the practice and effect throughout France Italy and Spain as also in all the Eastern Countries that the Laws of several Nations have prohibited the performance thereof neither is it fit to be openly described in this place 23. Other stratagems they have by turning the Sive with a pair of Sizzers by voices uttered out of skins which is in common amongst the Turks by Letters wrote unto certain Spirits which by due appointments will have their answers returned By the Turning of the Cord with several names wrapped round the same which with certain repetitions will of it self be tyed into several strange knots which unty themselves again Besides the many wayes by Lots in extractings Scrolls consulting with the Staff and the empty Pot with others tedious to be ennumerated 24. The Art of Transplantation is also reckoned amongst Charms with the vulgar And indeed one member thereof viz. the Transferring of Diseases is really Magical and much in practice amongst Witches for by certain baits given to any domestick Beasts they remove Feavers Agues and Consumptions from Martial men or from one to another by burying certain Images in their neighbours ground they bring all evil fortune to the owner of the ground yet though they add strange Words and Conjurations in the practice the effects thereof are more from Nature then Conjuration 25. For by the same Cause those that are profound can destroy diseases take off Warts and other Excrescences kill cure purge and poyson at a distance from the party by their hair fatt blood nails excrements c. or by any root or carnuous substance rubbed upon their hands breasts or leggs by burying which they free them from Diseases which experiments take effect according to the Mediums and their Consumption under ground 26. And as by natural reason every Magical Charm or Receipt had its first institution In like manner have Magicians disposed the Matter and Manner together with the times of their Utensils and Instruments according to the Principles of Nature As the Hour wherein they compose their Garments must either be in the hour of Luna or else of Saturn in the Moons increase 27. Their Garments they compose of White Linnen black Cloth black Cat-skins Wolves Bears or Swines skins The Linnen because of its abstracted Quality for Magick delights not to have any Utensils that are put to common uses The skins of the aforesaid Animals are by reason of the Saturnine and Magical qualities in the particles of these beasts Their sowing thred is of silk Cats-guts mans Nerves Asses hairs Thongs of skins from Men Cats Bats Owls Moles and all which are enjoyn'd from the like Magical cause 28. Their Needles are made of Hedge-hog prickles or bones of any of the abovesaid Animals Their Writing-pens are of Owls or Ravens their Ink of Mans blood Their Oyntments Mans fat Blood Usnea Hoggs-grease Oyl of Whales Their Characters are ancient Hebrew or Samaritan Their Speech is Hebrew or Latine Their Paper must be of the Membranes of Infants which they call Virgin-parchment or of the skins of Cats or Kids Besides they compose their Fires of sweet Wood Oyl or Rosin And their Candles of the Fatt or Marrow of Men or Children Their Vessels are Earthen their Candlesticks with three feet of dead mens bones Their Swords are steel without guards the poynts being reversed These are their Materials which they do particularly choose from the Magical qualities whereof they are composed 29. Neither are the peculiar shapes without a natural cause Their Caps are Oval or like Pyramids with Lappets on each side and furr within Their Gowns reach to the ground being furr'd with white Fox-skins under which they have a Linnen Garment reaching to their Knee Their Girdles are three inches broad and have many Caballistical Names with Crosses Trines and Circles inscribed thereon Their Knives are Dagger-fashion and the Circles by which they defend themselves are commonly nine foâ—t in breadth but the Eastern Magicians give but seven And these are the matter and manner of their Preparations which I thought fit here to insist upon because of their affinity with the Instruments of Charms for both which a natural cause is constantly pretended 30. Thus I have briefly spoken of the Nature of every Spirit good or evil so farr as safety or convenience would permit adding also this last Discourse of Charms and Conjurations in their speculative part forbearing to describe the
Forms themselves because many of them are not only facil but also of mighty power when they are seasonably applyed So that to describe distinctly by what means Magicians kill cure or conquer were to strengthen the hands of the Envious against their Neighbours Lives and Fortunes And therefore the Readers must rest contented with what is here related of the Nature of Astral or Infernal Spirits FINIS The Contents of the Chapters in The Discourse concerning Devils and Spirits BOOK I. Chap. I. THE Philosophers opinions concerning Devils and Spirits their manner of reasoning thereupon and the same confuted Page 1 Chap. II. Mine own opinion concerning this argument to the disproof of some writers hereupon Page 2 Chap. III. The opinion of Psellus touching spirits of their several Orders and a confutation of his errors therein Page 3 Chap. IV. More absurd assertions of Psellus and such others concerning the actions and passions of spirits his definition of them and of his experience therein Page 4 Chap. V. The opinion of Fascius Cardanus touching spirits and of his familiar devil Page 5 Chap. VI. The opinion of Plato concerning spirits devils and angels what sacrifices they like best what they fear and of Socrates his familiar devil Page 6 Chap. VII Plato's nine orders of spirits and angels Dionysius his division thereof not much differing from the same all disproved by learned Divines Page 7 Chap. VIII The commencement of devils fondly gathered out the 14. of Isaiah of Lucifer and of his fall the Cabalists the Talmudists and Schoolmens opinions of the creation of angels ibid. Chap. IX Of the contention between the Greek and Latine Church touching the fall of angels the variance among Papists themselves herein a conflict between Michael and Lucifer Page 8 Chap. X. Where the battell between Michael and Lucifer was sought how long it continued and of their power how fondly Papists and Infidals write of them how reverently Christians ought to think of them Page 9 Chap. XI Whether they became devils which being angels kept not their vocation in Jude and Peter of the fond opinions of the Rabbins touching spirits bugs with a confutation thereof Page 10 Chap. XII That the Devils assaults are spiritual and not temporal and how grossly some understand those parts of the scripture Page 11 Chap. XIII The equivocation of this word Spirit how diversly it is taken in the Scriptures where by the way is taught that the Scripture is not always literally to be interpreted nor yet All gorically to be understood Page 12 Chap. XIV That it pleased God to manifest the power of his Sonne and not of witches by miracles Page 13 Chap. XV. Of the possessed with devils Page 14 Chap. XVI That we being not throughly informed of the nature of devils and spirits must satisfie our selves with that which is delivered us in the Scriptures touching the same how this word Devil is to be understood both in the singular and plural number of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the devil of tame spirits of Ahab ibid. Chap. XVII Whether spirits and souls can assume bodies of their creation and substance wherein Writers do extremely contend and vary Page 15 Chap. XVIII Certain Popish reasons concerning spirits made of air of day devils and night devils and why the devil loveth no salt in his meat Page 16 Chap. XIX That such devils as are mentioned in the scriptures have in their names their nature and qualities expressed with instances thereof ibid Chap. XX. Divers names of the devil whereby his nature and disposition is manifested Page 17 Chap. XXI That the Idols or gods of the Gentiles are devils their diverse names and in what affairs their labours and authorities are employed wherein also the blind superstition of the heathen people is discovered Page 18 Chap. XXII Of the Romans chief gods called Dii selecti and of other heathen gods their names and offices Page 19 Chap. XXIII Of divers gods in divers Countreys Page 20 Chap. XXIV Of Popish provincial gods a comparison between them and heathen gods of physical gods and of what occupation every Popish god is ibid. Chap. XXV A comparison between the heathen and Papists touching their excuses for idolatry Page 22 Chap. XXVI The conceipt of the heathen and the Papists all one in Idolatry of the Councel of Trent a notable story of a hangman arraigned after he was dead and buryed c. Page 23 Chap. XXVII A confutation of the fable of the hang-man of many other feigned and ridiculous tales and apparitions with a reproof thereof Page 24 Chap. XXVIII A confutation of Johannes Laurentius and of many others maintaining these faigned and ridiculous tales and apparitions and what driveth them away of Moses and Elias their appearance in mount Tabor Page 25 Chap. XXIX A confutation of assuming of bodies and of the serpent that seduced Eve Page 26 Chap. XXX The objection concerning the devils assuming of the serpents body answered ibid. Chap. XXXI Of the Curse rehearsed Gen. 3. and that place rightly expounded Calvins opinion of the devil Page 27 Chap. XXXII Mine own opinion and resolution of the nature of spirits of the devil with his properties Page 28 Chap. XXXIII Against fond Witchmongers and their opinions concerning corporal devils Page 29 Chap. XXXIV A conclusion wherein the Spirit of spirits is described by the illumination of which spirit all spirits are to be tryed with a confutation of the Pneumatomachi flatly denying the divinity of this Spirit Page 30 BOOK II. Chap. I. OF Spirits in general what they are and how to be considered also how far the power of Magitians and Witches is able to operate in Diabolical Magick Page 39 Chap. II. Of the good and evil Daemons or Genii whether they are what they are and how they are manifested also of their names powers faculties offices how they are to be considered Page 42 Chap. III. Of the Astral Spirits of Men departed what they are and why they appear again and what witchcraft may be wrought by them Page 45 Chap. IV. Of astral spirits or separate daemons in all their distinctions names natures and places of habitations what may be wrought by their assistance Page 49 Chap. V. Of the Infernal Spirits or devils damned souls treating what their natures names powers are Page 56 Chap. VI. Of the nature force forms of charms periapts amulets pentacles conjurations ceremonies c. Page 66 Chap. VII Being the conclusion of the whole wherein divers ancient spells charms incantations and exorcisms are briefly spoken of Page 68 THE END Apoc. 4.11 Rom. 8 Act. 5. Apoc. 2. Luk. 16. Dan. 2.28 47 Psal 72. 136. Jerem. 5. Job 5. 36. Sam. 12. 1 King 8. 2 King 3. Isai 5. Zac. 10. 14. Amos 4 7. Job 1. Isai 42.8 Prov. 5. Insti lib. 5 cap. 8. sect 6. Item upon Deut. c. 18 Lib. de lamiis pag. 5. Isa 59.7 Rom. 3.15 Eccles 27.5 Prov.
Oracles whereby indeed all good learning and honest arts are overthrown For these that most advance their power and maintain the skill of these Witches understand no part thereof and yet being many times wise in other matters are made fools by the most fools in the world Me thinks these Magical Physitians deal in the Common-wealth much like as a certain kind of Cynical people do in the Church whose severe sayings are accompted among some such Oracles as may not be doubted of who in stead of learning and authority which they make contemptible do feed the people with their own devices and imaginations which they prefer before all other Divinity and labouring to erect a Church according to their own fansies wherein all order is condemned and only their Magical words and curious directions advanced they would utterly overthrow the true Church And even as these inchanting Paracelsians abuse the people leading them from the true order of Physick to their Charms so do these other I say disswade from hearkning to learning and obedience and whisper in mens ears to teach them their Fryer-like traditions And of this sect the chief author at this time is one Brown a fugitive a meet cover for such a cup as heretofore the Anabaptists the Arrians and the Franciscan Fryers Truly not only nature being the foundation of all perfection but also Scripture being the Mistress and director thereof and of all Christianity is beautified with knowledge and learning For as nature without discipline doth naturally incline unto vanities and as it were suck up errors so doth the word or rather the letter of the Scripture without understanding not only make us devoure errors but yieldeth us up to death and destruction and therefore Paul saith he was not a Minister of the letter but of the spirit Thus have I been bold to deliver unto the world and to you those simple notes reasons and arguments which I have devised or collected out of other Authors which I hope shall be hurtful to none but to my self great comfort if it may pass with good liking and acceptation If it fall out otherwise I should think my pains ill imployed For truly in mine opinion whosoever shall perform any thing or attain to any knowledge or whosoever should travel throughout all the Nations of the world or if it were possible should peep into the heavens the consolation or admiration thereof were nothing pleasant unto him unless he had liberty to impart his knowledge to his friends Wherein because I have made special choice of you I hope you will read it or at the least lay it up in your study with your other Books among which there is none dedicated to any with more good will And so long as you have it it shall be unto you upon adventure of my life a certain Amulet Periapt Circle Charm c. to defend you from all Inchantments Your loving Friend REGINALD SCOT To the READERS TO you that are wise and discreet few words may suffice for such a one judgeth not at the first sight nor Reproveth by hearsay but patiently heareth and thereby increaseth in understanding which patience bringeth forth experience whereby true judgement is directed I shall not need therefore to make any further suite to you but that it would please you to read my Book without the prejudice of time or former conceit and having obtained this at your hands I submit my self unto your censure But to make a solemn suit to you that are partial Readers desiring you to set aside partiality to take in good part my writing and with indifferent eyes to look upon my Book were labour lost and time ill imployed For I should no more prevail herein then if a hundred years since I should have intreated your predecessors to believe that Robin Good-fellow that great and ancient Bull-begger had been but a cosening Merchant and no Devil indeed If I should go to a Papist and say I pray you believe my writings wherein I will prove all Popish Charms Conjurations Exorcisms Benedictions and Curses not only to be ridiculous and of none effect but also to be impious and contrary to God's Word I should as hardly therein win favour at their hands as herein obtain credit at yours Nevertheless I doubt not but to use the matter so that as well the Massemonger for his part as the Witchmonger for his shall both be ashamed of their Professions But Robin Good-fellow ceaseth now to be much feared and Popery is sufficiently discovered Nevertheless Witches Charms and Conjurors Cosenages are yet though effectual Yea the Gentiles have espyed the fraud of their cosening Oracles and our cold Prophets and Inchanters make us fools still to the shame of us all but specially of Papists who conjure every thing and thereby bring to pass nothing They say to their Candles I conjure you to endure for ever and yet they last not a Pater Noster while the longer They conjure water to be wholesome both for body and soul but the body we see is never the better for it nor the soul any whit reformed by it And therefore I marvel that when they see their own Conjurations confuted and brought to nought or at the least void of effect that they of all other will yet give such credit countenance and authority to the vain cosenages of Witches and Conjurors as though their Charms and Conjurations could produce more apparent certain and better effects then their own But my request unto all you that read my Book shall be no more but that it would please you to conferr my words with your own sense and experience and also with the Word of God If you finde your selves resolved and satisfied or rather reformed and qualified in any one point or opinion that heretofore you held contrary to truth in a matter hitherto undecided and never yet looked into I pray you take that for advantage and suspending your judgement stay the sentence of condemnation against me and consider of the rest at your further leisure If this may not suffice for to perswade you it cannot prevail to annoy you and then that which is written without offence may be overpassed without any grief And although mine assertion be somewhat differing from the old inveterate opinion which I confess hath many gray hairs whereby mine adversaries have gained more authority then reason towards the maintenance of their presumptions and old wives fables yet shall it fully agree with God's glory and with his holy Word And albeit there be hold taken by mine Adversaries of certain few words or sentences in the Scripture that make a shew for them yet when the whole course thereof maketh against them and impugneth the same yea and also their own places rightly understood do nothing at all relieve them I trust their glorious title and argument of Antiquity will appear as stale and corrupt as the Apothecaries Drugs or Grocers Spice which the longer they be preserved the
The place of Deuteronomy expounded wherein are recited all kind of Witches also their opinions confuted which hold that they can work such Miracles as are imputed unto them THe greatest and most common objection is that if there were not some which could work such miraculous or supernatural feats by themselves or by their Devils it should not have been said Let none be found among you that maketh his son or his daughter to go through the fire or that useth Witchcraft or is a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of fowles or a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that counselleth with Spirits or a Soothsayer or that asketh counsel of the dead or as some translate it that raiseth the dead But as there is no one place in the Scripture that saith they can work Miracles so it shall be easie to prove that these were all Coseners every one abusing the people in his several kind and are accursed of God Not that they can do all such things indeed as there is expressed but for that they take upon them to be the mighty power of God and to do that which is the only work of him seducing the people and blaspheming the Name of God who will not give his glory to any creature being himself the King of Glory and Omnipotency First I ask What miracle was wrought by their passing through the fire Truly it cannot be proved that any effect followed but that the people were bewitched to suppose their sins to be purged thereby as the Spaniards think of scourging and whipping themselves so as Gods power was imputed to that action and so forbidden as an Idolatrous Sorcery What wonders worketh the regarder of times What other Devil dealeth he withal than with the spirit of Superstition Doth he not deceive himself and others and therefore is worthyly condemned for a Witch What spirit useth he which marketh the flying of Fowls Nevertheless he is here condemned as a practiser of Witchcraft because he coseneth the people and taketh upon him to be a Prophet impiously referring Gods certain ordinances to the flittering feathers and uncertain wayes of a bird The like effects produceth Sorcery Charming consultation with Spirits Sooth-saying and consulting with the dead in every of the which Gods power is obscured his glory defaced and his commandement infringed And to prove that these Sooth-sayers and Witches are but lying mates and coseners note these words pronounced by God himself even in the self same place to the children of Israel Although the Gentiles suffered themselves to be abused so as they gave ear to these Sorcerers c. he would not suffer them so but would raise them a Prophet who should speak the truth As if he should say The other are but lying and cosening mates deceitful and undermining Merchants whose abuses I will make known to my people And that every one may be resolved herein let the last sentence of this precept be well weighed to wit Let none be found among you that asketh counsel of or raiseth the dead First you know the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and resting with Lazarus in Abrahams bosome do sleep in Jesus Christ And from that sleep man shall not be raised till the heavens be no more according to this of David Wilt thou shew wonders among the dead Nay the Lord saith the living shall not be taught by the dead but by the living As for the unrighteous they are in hell where is no redemption neither is there any passage from heaven to earth but by God and his Angels As touching the resurrection and restauration of the body read John 5. and you shall manifestly see that it is the only work of the Father who hath given the power thereof to the Son and to none other c. Dominus percutit ipse medetur Ego occidam ego vivefaciam And in many other places it is written that God giveth life and being to all Although Plato with his Master Socrates the chief pillars of these vanities say That one Pamphilus was called up out of hell who when he came among the people told many incredible tales concerning infernal actions But herein I take up the Proverb Amicus Plato amicus Socrates sed major amica veritas So as this last precept or last part thereof extending to that which neither can be done by Witch nor Devil may well expound the other parts and points thereof For it is not meant hereby that they can do such things indeed but that they make men believe they do them and thereby cosen the people and take upon them the office of God and therewithal also blaspheme his holy name and take it in vain as by the words of charmes and conjurations doth appear which you shall see if you look into these words Habar and Idoni In like manner I say you may see that by the prohibition of divination by augury and of Sooth-sayings c. who are Witches and can indeed do nothing but lye and cosen the people the law of God condemneth them not for that they can work miracles but because they say they can do that which pertaineth to God and for cosenage c. Concerning other points of Witch-craft contained therein and because some cannot otherwise be satisfied I will alledge under one sentence the decretals the mind of S. Augustine the Aurelian Councel and the determination of Paris to wit Who so observeth or giveth heed unto Soothsayings Divinations Witch-craft c. or doth give credit to any such he renounceth Christianity and shall be counted a Pagan and an enemy to God yea and he erreth both in Faith and Philosophy And the Reason is therewithal expressed in the Canon to wit Because hereby is attributed to a creature that which pertaineth to God only and alone So as under this one sentence Thou shalt not suffer a Poysoner or a Witch to live is forbidden both murther and Witchcraft the murther consisting in poyson the Witchcraft in cosenage or blasphemy CHAP. III. That Women have used poysoning in all ages more than Men and of the inconvenience of poysoning AS Women in all ages have been counted most apt to conceive Witchcraft and the Devils special instruments therein and the only or chief practisers thereof so also it appeareth that they have been the first inventers and the greatest practisers of poysoning and more naturally addicted and given thereunto than men according to the saying of Quintilian Latrocinium facilius in viro veneficium in foemina credam From whom Pliny differeth nothing in opinion when he saith Scientiam foeminarum in veneficiis praevalere To be short Augustine Livy Valerius Diodorus and many other agree That Women were the first inventers and practisers of the art of poysoning As for the rest of their cunning in what estimation it was had may appear by these verses of Horace wherein he doth not only declare the vanity of Witchcraft but also
deceived taking Christ to be a Spirit when he walked on the Sea And why might not they be deceived herein as well as in that they thought Christ had spoken of a temporal Kingdom when he preached of the Kingdom of Heaven Which thing they also much misconceived as likewise when he did bid them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees they understood that he spake of material bread CHAP. V. Why Apollo was called Pytho whereof those Witches were called Pythonists Gregory his Letter to the Devil BUt to return to our Oracle of Apollo at Delphos who was called Pytho for that Apollo slue a Serpent so called whereof the Pythonists take their name I pray you consider well of this tale which I will truly rehearse out of the Ecclesiastical history written by Eusebius wherein you shall see the absurdity of the opinion the cosenages of these Oracles and the deceived mind or vain opinion of so great a Doctor bewrayed and deciphered altogether as followeth Gregory Neocaesariensis in his journey and way to pass over the Alpes came to the Temple of Apollo where Apollo's Priest living richly upon the revenues and benefit proceeding from that Idol did give great entertainment unto Gregory and made him good chear But after Gregory was gone Apollo waxed dumb so as the Priests gains decayed for the Idol growing into contempt the Pilgrimage ceased The Spirit taking compassion on the Priests case and upon his grief of mind in this behalf appeared unto him and told him flatly that his late guest Gregory was the cause of all his misery For saith the Devil he hath banished me so that I cannot return without a special license or pasport from him It was no need to bid the Priest make haste for immediately he took post-horse and galloped after Gregory till at length he overtook him and then expostulated with him for his discourtesie proffered in recompence of his good chear and said that if he would not be so good unto him as to write his Letter to the Devil in his behalf he should be utterly undone To be short his importunity was such that he obtained of Gregory his Letter to the Devil who wrote unto him in manner and form following word for word Permitto tibi redire in locum tuum agere qua consuevisti which is in English I am content thou return into thy place and do as thou wast wont Immediately upon the receipt of this Letter the Idol spake as before And here is to be noted that as well in this as in the execution of all their other Oracles and Cosenages the answers were never given Ex tempore or in that day wherein the question was demanded because forsooth they expected a Vision as they said to be given the night following whereby the cosenage might the more easily be wrought CHAP. VI. Apollo who was called Pytho compared to the Rood of Grace Gregories Letter to the Devil confuted WHat need many words to confute this fable For if Gregory had been an honest man he would never have willingly permitted that the people should have been further Cosened with such a lying spirit or if he had been half so holy as Eusebius maketh him he would not have consented or yielded to so lewd a request of the Priest nor have written such an impious Letter no not though good might have come thereof And therefore as well by the impossibility and folly contained therein as of the impiety whereof I dare excuse Gregory you may perceive it to be a lye Me thinks they which still maintain that the Devil made answer in the Idol of Apollo c. may have sufficient perswasion to revoke their erroneous opinions in that it appeareth in record that such men as were skilful in Augury did take upon them to give Oracles at Delphos in the place of Apollo of which number Tisanius the son of Antiochus was one But vain is the answer of Idols Our Rood of grace with the help of little S. Rumbal was not inferior to the Idol of Apollo for these could not work eternal miracles but manifest the internal thoughts of the heart I believe with more lively shew both of humanity and also of Divinity then the other As if you read M. Lamberts book of the perambulation of Kent it shall partly appear But if you talk with them that have been beholders thereof you will be satisfied herein And yet in the blind time of Popery no man might under pain or damnation nor without danger of death suspect the fraud Nay what Papists will yet confess they were Idols though the wiers that made their eyes gogle the pins that fastened them to the posts to make them seem heavy were seen and burnt together with the Images themselves the knavery of the Priests bewrayed and every circumstance thereof detected and manifested CHAP. VII How divers great Clerks and good Authors have been abused in this matter of spirits through false reports and by means of their credulity have published lies which are confuted by Aristotle and the Scriptures PLutarch Livy and Valerius Maximus with many other grave Authors being abused with false reports write that in times past beasts spake and that Images could have spoken and wept and did let fall drops of blood yea and could walk from place to place which they say was done by procreation of spirits But I rather think with Aristotle that it was brought to pass Hominum sacerdotum deceptionibus to wit by the cosening art of crafty Knaves and Priests And therefore let us follow Isaiah's advice who saith When they shall say unto you enquire of them that have a spirit of Divination and at the Soothsayers which whisper and mumble in your ears to deceive you c. enquire at your own God c. And so let us do And here you see they are such as run into corners and cosen the people with lies c. for if they could do as they say they could not aptly be called lyers neither need they to go into corners to whisper c. CHAP. VIII Of the Witch of Endor and whether she accomplished the raising of Samuel truly or by deceipt the opinion of some Divines hereupon THe Woman of Endor is comprised under this word Ob for she is called Pythonissa It is written in 1 Sam. 28. that she raised up Samuel from death and the other words of the text are strongly placed to inforce his very resurrection The mind and opinion of Jesus Sirach evidently appeareth to be that Samuel in person was raised out from his grave as if you read Eccl. 46.19 20. you shall plainly perceive Howbeit he disputeth not there whether the story be true or false but only citeth certain verses of 1 Sam. 28. simply according to the letter perswading to manners and the imitation of our vertuous predecessors and repeating the examples of divers excellent men namely of Samuel even as the text it self urgeth the
were repugnant to the word and see whether this illusion may not be contrived by the art and cunning of the Woman without any of these supernatural devices for I could cite a hundred Papistical and cosening practices as difficult as this and as cleanly handled And it is to be surely thought if it had been a Devil the text would have noted it in some place of the story as it doth not But Bodin helpeth me exceedingly in this point wherein he forsaketh he saith Augustine Tertullian and D. Kimchi who say it was the Devil that was raised up which saith Bodin could not be for that in the same communication between Saul and Samuel the name of Jehovah is five times repeated of which name the Devil cannot abide the hearing CHAP. XI The objection of the Witchmongers concerning this place fully answered and what circumstances are to be considered for the understanding of this story which is plainly opened from the beginning of 1 Sam. 28. to ver 12. WHere such a supernatural miracle is wrought no doubt it is a testimony of truth as Peter Martyr affirmeth And in this case it should have been a witness of lyes for saith he a matter of such weight cannot be attributed to the Devil but it is the mighty power of God that doth accomplish it And if it lay in a Witches power to call up a Devil yet it lyeth not in a Witches power to work such miracles for God will not give his power and glory to any creature To understand this place we must diligently examine the circumstance thereof It was well known that Saul before he resorted to the Witch was in despair of the mercies and goodness of God partly for that Samuel told him long before that he should be overthrown and David should have his place and partly because God before had refused to answer him either by Samuel when he lived or by any other Prophet or by Urim or Thummim c. And if you desire to see this matter discussed turn to 1 Sam. 28. and confer my words therewith Saul seeing the host of the Philistines come upon him which thing could not be unknown to all the people fainted because he saw their strength and his own weakness and specially that he was forsaken so as being now strait of mind desperate and a very fool he goeth to certain of his servants that saw in what taking he was and asked them for a Woman that had a familiar Spirit and they told him by and by that there dwelt one at Endor By the way you shall understand that both Saul and his Servants meant such a one as could by her Spirit raise up Samuel or any other that was dead and buryed Wherein you see they were deceived though it were true that she took upon her so to do To what use then served her familiar spirit which you conceive she had because Sauls servants said so Surely as they were deceived and abused in part so doubtless were they in the rest for to what purpose I say should her familiar serve if not for such intents as they reported and she undertook I think you will grant that Sauls men never saw her familiar for I never heard any yet of credit say that he was so much in the Witches favour as to see her Devil although indeed we read amongst the Popish trumpery that S. Cicilie had an Angel to her familiar and that she could shew him to whom she would and that she might ask and have what she or her friend list as appeareth in the lesson read in the Popish Church on S. Cicilies day Well I perceive the Woman of Endors spirit was a counterfeit and kept belike at her closet at Endor or in the bottle with mother Alices Devil at Westwell and are now bewrayed and fled together to Limbo patrum c. And though Saul were bewitched and blinded in the matter yet doubtless a wise man would have perchance espied her knavery Me thinks Saul was brought to this Witch much after the manner that Doctor Burcot was brought to Feats who sold master Doctor a familiar whereby he thought to have wrought miracles or rather to have gained good store of money This fellow by the name of Feats was a Jugler by the name of Hilles a Witch or Conjurer every way a Cosener his qualities and feats were to me and many others well known and detected And yet the opinion conceived of him was most strange and wonderful even with such and in such cases as it grieveth me to think of specially because his knavery and cosenage reached to the shedding of innocent blood But now forsooth Saul covereth himself with a net and because he would not be known he put on other garments but to bring that matter to pass he must have been cut shorter by the head and soulders for by so much he was higher then any of the people and therefore whatsoever face the crafty quean did set upon it she knew him well enough And for further proof thereof you may understand that the Princes of the Jews were much conversant with the people And it appeareth manifestly that Saul dwelt very near to Endor so as she should the rather know him for in the evening he went from his lodging unto her house neither should it seem that she was gone to bed when he came but because that may be uncertain you may see in the process of the text That in a piece of the night he went from his house to hers and with much ado intreated her to consent to his request She finished her conjuration so as both Sauls part the Witches part and also Samuels part was played and after the solemnization thereof a Calf was killed a batch of Bread baked and a supper made ready and eaten up and after all this he went home the same night and had need so to do for he had some business the next day By these and many other circumstances it may be gathered that she dissembled in saying she knew him not and consequently counterfeited and made a fool of him in all the rest It appeareth there that he with a couple of his men went to her by night and said Conjecture unto me by thy familiar spirit and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee The godly-learned know that this was not in the power of the Witch of Endor but in the God of heaven only to accomplish Howbeit Saul was bewitched so to suppose and yet is he more simple that will be overtaken with the devises of our old Witches which are produced to resemble her And why should we think that God would rather permit the Witch to raise Samuel then that Dives could obtain Lazarus to come out of Abrahams bosome upon more likely and more reasonable conditions Well now doth this strumpet according to the guise of our cosening Witches and Conjurers make the matter strange
unto Saul saying that he came to her in a snare c. But Witches seldome make this objection saving when they mistrust that he which cometh to them will espie their Jugling for otherwise where the Witchmonger is simple and easie to be abused the Witch will be as easie to be intreated and nothing dangerous of her cunning as you see this Witch was soon perswaded notwithstanding that objection because she perceived and saw that Saul was afraid and out of his wits And therefore she said unto him Whom shall I raise up As though she could have brougt unto him Abraham Isaac or Jacob who cannot hear us therefore cannot rise at our call For it is written Look thou down from heaven and behold us c. as for Abraham he is ignorant of us and Israel knoweth us not CHAP. XII 1 Sam. 28.12 13 14. expounded wherein is shewed That Saul was cosened and abused by the Witch and that Samuel was not raised is proved by the Witches own talk THe manner and circumstance of their communion or of her conjuration is not verbatim set down and expressed in the text but the effect thereof briefly touched yet will I shew you the common order of their conjuration and specially of hers at this time used When Saul had told her that he would have Samuel brought up to him she departed from his presence into her Closet where doubtless she had had her familiar to wit some lewd crafty Priest and made Saul stand at the door like a fool as it were with his finger in a hole to hear the cosening answers but not to see the cosening handling thereof and the counterfeiting of the matter And so goeth she to work using ordinary words of Conjuration of which there are sundry varieties and forms whereof I shall have occasion to repeat some in another place as you see the Juglers which be inferior Conjurors speak certain strange words of course to lead away the eie from espying the manner of their conveyance whilest they may induce the mind to conceive and suppose that he dealeth with Spirits saying Hay fortune fury nunque credo passe passe when come you sirra So belike after many such words spoken she said to her self Lo now the matter is brought to pass for I see wonderful things So as Saul hearing these words longed to know all and asked her what she saw whereby you may know that Saul saw nothing but stood without like a mome whilest she played her part in her closet as may most evidently appear by the 21 ver of this Chap. where it is said Then the woman came out unto Saul Howbeit a little before she cunningly counterfeited that she saw Samuel and thereby knew that it was Saul that was come unto her whereby all the world may perceive the cosening and her dissimulation for by that which hath been before said it must needs be that she knew him And I pray you why should she not have suspected as well him to be Saul before when in express words he required her to bring unto him Samuel as now when Samuel appeared unto her Well to the question before proposed by Saul she answereth and lyeth that she saw Angels or Gods ascending up out of the earth Then proceedeth she with her inchanting phrases and words of course so as thereby Saul gathereth and supposeth that she hath raised a man for otherwise his question dependeth not upon any thing before spoken For when she hath said I saw Angels ascending c. the next word he saith is What fashion is he of which I say hangeth not upon her last expressed words And to this she answered not directly that it was Samuel but that it was an old man lapped in a mantle as though she knew not him that was the most notorious man in Israel that had been her neighbour by the space of many years and upon whom while he lived every eye was fixed and whom also she knew within less then a quarter of an hour before as by whose means also she came acquainted with Saul Read the text and see But she describeth his personage and the apparel which he did usually wear when he lived which if they were both buryed together were consumed and rotten or devoured with worms before that time Belike he had a new mantle made him in heaven and yet they say Taylors are skanty there for that their consciences are so large here In this Countrey men give away their garments when they dye if Samuel had so done he could not have borrowed it again for of likelihood it would have been worn out in that space except the donor had been a better husband than I for the testator was dead as it is supposed two years before CHAP. XIII The residue of 1 Sam. 28. expounded wherein is declared how cunningly this Witch brought Saul resolutely to believe that she raised Samuel what words are used to colour the cosenage and how all might also be wrought by Ventriloquie NOw cometh in Samuel to play his part but I am perswaded it was performed in the person of the Witch her self or of her confederate He saith to Saul Why hast thou disquieted me to bring up As though without guile or packing it had been Samuel himself Saul answered that he was in great distress for the Philistines made war upon him Whereby the Witch or her confederate Priest might easily conjecture that his heart failed and direct the Oracle or Prophesie accordingly especially understanding by his present talk and also by former Prophesies and doings that were past that God had forsaken him and that his people were declining from him For when Jonathan a little before overthrew the Philistines being thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen Saul could not assemble above six hundred souldiers Then said Samuel which some suppose was Satan and as I think was the Witch with a confederate for what need so far fetches as to fetch a Devil supernaturally out of hell when the illusion may be here by natural means decyphered And if you note the words well you shall perceive the phrase not to come out of a spiritual mouth of a Devil but from a lying corporal tongue of a Cosener that careth neither for God nor the Devil from whence issueth such advice and communication as greatly disagreeth from Satans nature and purpose For thus I say the said Samuel speaketh Wherefore dost thou asks of me seeing the Lord is gone from thee and is thine enemy Even the Lord hath done unto him as he spake by my hands for the Lord will rent thy Kingdom out of thine hand and give it to thy neighbour David because thou obeyedst not the voyce of the Lord c. This I say is no phrase of a Devil but of a Cosener which knew before what Samuel had Prophesied concerning Sauls destruction For it is the Devils condition to allure the people unto wickedness
through weakness of mind and body are shaken with vain dreams and continual fear The Scythians being a stout and a warlike Nation as divers writers report never see any vain sights or spirits It is a common saying A Lyon feareth no Bugs But in our childhood our Mothers maids have so terrified us with an ugly Devil having horns on his head fire in his mouth and a tail in his breech eyes like a bason fangs like a Dog claws like a Bear askin like a Niger and a voyce roaring like a Lyon whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Bough and they have so frayed us with Bul-beggers Spirits Witches Urchens Elves Hags Fairies Satyrs Pans Faunes Sylens Kit with the canstick Tritons Centaures Dwarfes Gyants Imps Calcars Conjurers Nymphes Changelings Incubus Robin Goodfellow the Spoorn the Mare the man in the Oak the Hell-wain the firedrake the Puckle Tom-thombe Hob-goblin Tom-tumbler Boneless and such other Bugs that we are afraid of our own shadows insomuch that some never fear the Devil but in a dark night and then a polled Sheep is a perilous beast and many times is taken for our Fathers soul specially in a Churchyard where a right hardy man heretofore scant durst passe by night but his hair would stand upright For right grave writers report that spirits most often and specially take the shape of women appearing to Monks c. and of Beasts Dogs Swine Horses Goats Cats Hares of Fowles as Crowes night Owles and shreek Owles but they delight most in the likeness of Snakes and Dragons Well thanks be to God this wretched and cowardly infidelity since the Preaching of the Gospel is in part forgotten and doubtless the rest of those illusions will in short time by Gods grace be detected and vanish away Divers writers report that in Germany since Luthers time Spirits and Devils have not personally appeared as in times past they were wont to do This argument is taken in hand or the ancient Fathers to prove the determination and ceasing of Oracles For in times past saith Athanasius Devils in vain shapes did intricate men with their illusions hiding themselves in waters stones woods c. But now that the word of God hath appeared those sights Spirits and mockeries of Images are ceased Truly if all such Oracles as that of Apollo c. before the coming of Christ had been true and done according to the report which hath been brought through divers ages and from far Countries unto us without Priestly fraud or guil or as the spirits of Prophesie and working of Miracles had been inserted into a Idol as hath been supposed yet we Christians may conceive that Christs coming was not so fruitless and prejudicial in this point unto us as to take away his spirit of Prophesie and Divination from out of the mouth of his elect people and good Prophets giving no answer of any thing to come by them nor by Urim nor Thummim as he was wont c. And yet to leave the Devil in the mouth of a Witch or an Idol to Prophesie or work Miracles c. to the hinderance of his glorious Gospel to the discountenance of his Church and to the furtherance of Infidelity and false religion whereas the working of Miracles was the only or at least the most special means that moved men to believe in Christ as appeareth in sundry places of the Gospel and specially in John where it is written That a great multitude followed him because they saw his Miracles which he did c. Nay is it not written That Jesus was approved by God among the Jews with miracles wonders and signes c. And yet if we confer the Miracles wrought by Christ and those that are imputed to Witches Witches miracles shall appear more common and nothing inferior unto his CHAP. XVI Witches Miracles compared to Christs that God is the creator of all things of Apollo and of his names and portraiture IF the Witch of Endor had performed that which many conceive of the matter it might have been compared with the raising up of Lazarus I pray you is not the converting of water into milk as hard a matter as the turning of water into wine And yet as you may read in the Gospel That Christ did the one as his first miracle so may you read in M. Mal. and in Bodin that Witches can easily do the other yea and that which is a great deal more of Water they can make Butter But to avoid all cavils and least there should appear more matter in Christs miracle then the others you shall finde in M. Mal. that they can change water into Wine and What is it to attribute to a Creature the power and work of the Creator if this be not Christ saith Opera quae ego facio nemo potest facere Creation of substance was never granted to Man nor Angel Ergo neither to Witch nor Devil for God is the only giver of life and being and by him all things are made visible and invisible Finally this woman of Endor is in the Scripture called Pythonissa whereby it may appear that she was but a very cosener for Pytho himself whereof Pythonissa is derived was a counterfeit And the original story of Apollo who was called Pytho because he killed a Serpent of that name is but a Poetical fable for the Poets say he was the God of Musick Physick Poetry and Shooting In heaven he is called Sol in earth Liber Pater in hell Apollo He flourisheth alwayes with perpetual youth and therefore he is painted without a beard his picture was kept as an Oracle-giver and the Priests that attended thereon at Delphos were coseners and called Pythonists of Pytho as Papists of Papa and afterwards all Women that used that trade were named Pythonissae as was this Woman of Endor But because it concerneth this matter I will briefly note the opinions of divers learned men and certain other proofs which I finde in the Scripture touching the ceasing of Miracles Prophesies and Oracles BOOK VIII CHAP. I. That Miracles are ceased ALthough in times past it pleased God extraordinarily to shew Miracles amongst his people for the strengthening of their faith in the Messias and again at his coming to confirm their faith by his wonderful doings and his special graces and gifts bestowed by him upon the Apostles c. yet we ordinarily read in the Scriptures That it is the Lord that worketh great wonders Yea David saith That among the dead as in this case of Samuel God himself sheweth no wonders I find also That God will not give his glory and power to a creature Nicodemus being a Pharisee could say That no man could do such Miracles as Christ did except God were with him according to the saying of the Prophet to those Gods and Idols which took on them the power of God Do either good or ill if you can c.
Hebrew word Onen of the vanity of Dreams and Divinations thereupon ONEN differeth not much from Kasam but that it is extended to the Interpretation of Dreams And as for Dreams whatsoever credit is attributed unto them proceedeth of folly and they are fools that trust in them for why they have deceived many In which respect the Prophet giveth us good warning Not to follow nor harken to the Expositors of Dreams for they come through the multitude of business And therefore those Witches that make men believe they can Prophesie upon Dreams as knowing the interpretation of theme and either for money or glory abuse men and women thereby are meer coseners and worthy of great punishment as are such Witchmongers as believing them attribute unto them such Divine power as only belongeth to God as appeareth in Jeremiah the Prophet CHAP. II. Of Divine Natural and Casual Dreams with their differing causes and effects MAcrobius recounteth five differences of Images or rather Imaginations exhibited unto them that sleep which for the most part do signifie somewhat in admonition There be also many subdivisions made hereof which I think needless to rehearse In Jasper Peucer they are to be seen with the causes and occasions of Dreams There were wont to be delivered from God himself or his Angels certain Dreams and Visions unto the Prophets and holy Fathers according to the saying of Joel I will powre my spirit upon all flesh your young men shall dream Dreams and your old men shall see Visions These kind of Dreams I say were the admonishments and forewarnings of God to his people as that of Joseph To abide with Mary his wife after she was conceived by the holy Ghost as also To convey our Saviour Christ into Aegypt c. the interpretation whereof are the peculiar gifts of God which Joseph the Patriarch and Daniel the Prophet had most specially As for Physical conjectures upon Dreams the Scriptures reprove them not for by them the Physicians many times do understand the state of their Patients bodies For some of them come by means of Choler Flegme Melancholy or Blood and some by Love Surfet hunger thirst c. Galen and Boetius were said to deal with Devils because they told their Patients Dreams or rather by their Dreams their special Diseases Howbeit Physical Dreams are natural and the cause of them dwelleth in the nature of Man for they are the inward actions of the mind in the spirits of the brain whilest the body is occupied with sleep for as touching the minde it self it never sleepeth These Dreams vary according to the difference of humors and vapors There are also casual Dreams which as Solomon saith come through the multitude of business for as a looking-glass sheweth the image or figure thereunto opposite so in Dreams the phantasie and imagination informes the understanding of such things as haunt the outward sense whereupon the Poet saith Somnia ne cures nam mens humana quod optat Dum vigilat sperans per somnum cernit id ipsum Englished by Abraham Fleming Regard no Dreams for why the minde Of that in sleep a view doth take Which it doth wish and hope to finde At such time as it is awake CHAP. III. The opinion of divers old Writers touching Dreams and how they vary in nothing the causes thereof SYnesius Themistius Democritus and others grounding themselves upon example that chance hath sometimes verified perswade men that nothing is dreamed in vain affirming that the heavenly influences do bring forth divers formes in corporal matter and of the same influences visions and dreams are printed in the fantastical power which is instrumental with a Celestial disposition meet to bring forth some effect especially in sleep when the mind being free from bodily cares may more liberally receive the heavenly influences whereby many things are known to them sleeping in Dreams which they that wake cannot see Plato attributeth them to the forms and ingendred knowledges of the soul Avicen to the last intelligence that moveth the Moon through the light that lighteneth the fantasie in sleep Aristotle to the Phantastical sense Averroes to the imaginative Albert to the influence of superior bodies CHAP. IV. Against Iterpreters of Dreams of the ordinary cause of Dreams Hemingius his opinion of Diabolical Dreams the Interpretation of Dreams ceased THere are Books carryed about concerning this matter under the name of Abraham who as Philo in lib. gigantum saith was the inventor of the exposition of Dreams and so likewise of Solomon and Daniel But Cicero in lib. de divinatione confuteth the vanity and folly of them that give credit to Dreams And as for the Interpreters of Dreams as they know not before the Dream nor yet after any certainty yet when any thing afterwards happeneth then they apply the Dream to that which hath chanced Certainly men never lightly fail to Dream by night of that which they meditate by day and by day they see divers and sundry things and conceive them severally in their minds Then those mixed conceits being laid up in the closet of the memory strive together which because the phantasie cannot discern nor discuss some certain thing gathered of many conceits is bred and contrived in one together And therefore in my opinion it is time vainly imployed to study about the interpretation of Dreams He that list to see the folly and vanity thereof may read a vain Treatise set out by Thomas Hill a Londoner 1568. Lastly there are Diabolical Dreams which Nicholaus Hemingius divideth into three sorts The first is when the Devil immediately of himself he meaneth corporally offereth any matter of Dream Secondly when the Devil sheweth Revelations to them that have made request unto him therefore Thirdly when Magicians by Art bring to pass that other men Dream what they will Assuredly these and so all the rest as they may be used are very Magical and Devilish Dreams For although we may receive comfort of mind by those which are called Divine Dreams and health of body through Physical Dreams yet if we take upon us to use the office of God in the Revelation or rather the Interpretation of them or if we attribute unto them miraculous effects now when we see the gifts of Prophesie and of interpretation of Dreams and also the operation of Miracles are ceased which were special and peculiar gifts of God to confirm the truth of the Word and to establish his people in the faith of the Messias who is now exhibited unto us both in the Testament and also in the blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ we are bewitched and both abuse and offend the Majesty of God and also seduce delude and cosen all such as by our perswasion and their own light belief give us credit CHAP. V. That neither Witches nor any other can either by words or hearbs thrust into the mind of a sleeping man what Cogitations or
off their phantasms will at last present themselves before the Exorcist in humane form Then the Master must be mindful to take the consecrated Sword and the cup of Wine into his hands the Wine he shall pour into the fire and the Sword he shall brandish in his right arm being girded about with a Scarlet Ribbon after this the Magician shall say Gahire Gephna Anephexaton then the Spirits will begin to bow unto the Exorcist saying We are ready to fulfil thy pleasure So that when the Magician hath brought the Spirits to this length he may ask what ever he desireth and they will answer him provided the questions belong to that order whereof they are Now the properties wherein they excel are these They can give the gift of Invisibility and the fore-knowledge of the change of weather they can teach the Exorcist how to excite Storms and Tempests and how to calm them again they can bring news in an hours space of the success of any Battle Seidge or Navy how farr off soever they can also teach the language of Birds and how to fly through the air invisibly 'T was through the assistance of these airy Spirits that Charchiancungi the Tartarian Emperour did give the Chinois such a desperate rout near the year 1646. for it is reported that he had constantly in his presence two Magicians named Ran and Sionam who perceived every motion of the China's Army and had intelligence by these Spirits of the Emperours private Counsels and Consultations And it is credibly reported by Magicians that wonderful things may be with facility effected through the assistance of these aforesaid Spirits so that the Exorcist must be very affable unto them and gently dismiss them when he is satisfied in this following manner Seeing ye have willingly answered all our Interrogations and desires we give you leave and licence In the Name of the Father Son and Holy-Ghost to depart unto your place and be ever ready to attend our call Depart I say in peace and peace be confirmed betwixt us and you Amen ✚ ✚ ✚ After all these Ceremonies are finished the Spirits will begin to depart making obeysance as they go and then the Master must demolish the Circle and taking up all the Utensils repeat the Pater Noster as they are going away from the place of Conjuration CHAP. VII How to obtain the familiarity of the Genius or Good Angel and cause him to appear ACcording to the former Instructions in conjuring Spirits we must proceed to consult with the Familiars or Genii first after the manner prescribed by Magicians the Exorcist must inform himself of the name of his good Genius which he may find in the Rules of Travius and Philermus as also what Character and Pentacle or Lamin belongs to every Genius After this is done Let him compose an earnest Prayer unto the said Genius which he must repeat thrice every morning for seven dayes before the Invocation The Magician must also perfectly be informed to what Hierarchy or Order the Genius belongs and how he is dignified in respect of his Superiours and Inferiours for this form of Conjuration belongs not to the Infernal or Astral Kingdom but to the Celestial Hierarchy and therefore great gravity and sanctity is herein required besides the due observation of all the other injunctions until the time approach wherein he puts the Conjuration in execution When the day is come wherein the Magician would invocate his proper Genius he must enter into a private closet having a little Table and Silk Carpet and two Waxen Candles lighted as also a Chrystal Stone shaped triangularly about the quantity of an Apple which Stone must be fixed upon a frame in the center of the Table And then proceeding with great devotion to Invocation he must thrice repeat the former Prayer concluding the same with Pater Noster c. and a Missale de Spiritu Sancto Then he must begin to Consecrate the Candles Carpet Table and Chrystal sprinkling the same with his own blood and saying I do by the power of the holy Names Aglaon Eloi Eloi Sabbathon Anephexaton Iah Agian Iah Iehovah Immanuel Archon Archonton Sadai Sadai Ieovaschah c. sanctifie and consecrate these holy utensils to the performance of this holy work In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen Which done the Exorcist must say this following Prayer with his face towards the East and kneeling with his back to the consecrated Table O thou blessed Phanael my Angel Guardian vouchsafe to descend with thy holy Influence and presence into this spotless Chrystal that I may behold thy glory and enjoy thy society O thou who art higher then the fourth Heaven and know'st the secrets of Elanel Thou that ridest upon the wings of the wind and art mighty and potent in thy celestial and super-lunary motion do thou descend and be present I pray thee and desire thee if ever I have merited thy society or if my actions and intentions be pure and sanctified before thee bring thy external presence hither and converse with thy submissive Pupil by the tears of Saints and Songs of Angels In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost who are one God for ever and ever This Prayer being first repeated towards the East must be afterwards said towards all the four winds thrice And next the 70. Psalm repeated out of a Bible that hath been consecrated in like manner as the rest of the utensils which ceremonies being seriously performed the Magician must arise from his knees and sit before the Crystal bare-headed with the consecrated Bible in his hand and the Waxen Candles newly lighted waiting patiently and internally for the coming and appearance of the Genius Now about a quarter of an hour before the Spirit come There will appear great variety of apparitions and sights within the glass as first a beaten road or tract and travelers men and women marching silently along next there will Rivers Wells Mountains and Seas appear after that a Shepherd upon a pleasant hill feeding a goodly flock of Sheep and the Sun shining brightly at his going down and lastly innumerable shews of Birds and Beasts Monsters and strange appearances noises glances and affrightments which shews will all at last vanish at the appearance of the Genius And then the Genius will present it self amidst the Crystal in the very same apparel and similitude that the person himself is in giving instructions unto the Exorcist how to lead his life and rectifie his doings But especially which is the proper work of every Genius he will touch his heart and open his senses and understanding so that by this means he may attain to the knowledge of every Art and Science which before the opening of his Intellect was lockt and kept secret from him After which the Genius will be familiar in the Stone at the Prayer of the Magician CHAP. VIII A form of Conjuring Luridan the Familiar
Oh Father Omnipotent oh wise Son oh holy Ghost the searcher of hearts oh you three in persons one true Godhead in substance which didst spare Adam and Eve in their sins and oh thou Son which dyedst for their sins a most filthy death sustaining it upon the holy cross oh thou most merciful when I flie unto thy mercy and beseech thee by all the means I can by these the holy Names of thy Son to wit Α and Ω and all other his Names grant me thy Virtue and Power that I may be able to cite before me thy Spirits which were thrown down from heaven and that they may speak with me and dispatch by and by without delay and with a good will and without the hurt of my body soul or goods c. as is contained in the book called Annulus Solomonis Oh great and eternal vertue of the highest which through disposition these being called to judgement Vachoon Stumulamaton Esphares Tetragrammaton Olioram Cryon Esytion Existion Eriona Onela Brasim Noym Messias Soter Emanuel Sabboth Adonay I worship thee I invocate thee I implore thee with all the strength of my mind that by thee my present Prayers Consecrations and Conjurations be hollowed and wheresoever wicked Spirits are called in the virtue of thy names they may come together from every coast and diligently fulfil the will of me the Exorcist Fiat fiat fiat Amen CHAP. XIV A confutation of the manifold vanities conteined in the precedent Chapters specially of commanding of Devils HE that can be perswaded that these things are true or wrought indeed according to the assertion of Coseners or according to the supposion of Witchmongers and Papists may soon be brought to believe that the Moon is made of green Cheese You see in that which is called Solomons Conjuration there is a perfect inventary registred of the number of Devils of their Names of their Offices of their Personages of their Qualities of their Powers of their Properties of their Kingdoms of their Governers of their Orders of their Dispositions of their Subjection of their Submission and of the wayes to bind or loose them with a note what Wealth Learning Office Commodity pleasure c. they can give and may be forced to yield in spight of their hearts to such forsooth as are cunning in this Art of whom yet was never seen any rich man or at least that gained any thing that way or any unlearned man that became learned by that means or any happy man that could with the help of this Art either deliver himself or his friends from adversity or add unto his Estate any point of felicity yet these men in all worldly happiness must needs exceed all others if such things could be by them accomplished according as it is presupposed For if they may learn of Marbas all secrets and to cure all diseases and of Furcas wisdome and to be cunning in all Mechanical Arts and to change any mans shape of Zepar if Bune can make them rich and eloquent if Beroth can tell them of all things present past and to come if Asmodie can make them go invisible and shew them all hidden treasure if Salmacke will afflict whom they list and Allocer can procure the love of any Woman if Amy can provide them excellent Familiars if Caym can make them understand the voyce of all Birds and Beasts and Buer and Bifrons can make them live long and finally if Orias could procure unto them great friends and reconcile their enemies and they in the end had all these at commandement should they not live in all worldly honour and felicity Whereas contrariwise they lead there lives in all obloquy misery and beggery and in fine come to the gallows as though they had chosen unto themselves the spirit Valefer who they say bringeth all them with whom he entreth into familiarity to no better end then the gibbet or gallows But before I proceed further to the confutation of this stuff I will shew other Conjurations devised more lately and of more Authority wherein you shall see how fools are trained to believe these absurdities being won by little and little to such credulity For the Author hereof beginneth as though all the cunning of Conjurors were derived and fetcht from the Planetary motions and true course of the Stars Celestial bodies c. CHAP. XV. The names of the Planets their Characters together with the twelve signes of the Zodiack their Dispositions Aspects and Government with other observations The Characters of the Planets ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ Saturn Jupiter Mars Sol. Venus Mercury Luna The five Planetary Aspects ☌ ⚹ □ 🜂 ☠Conjunction Sextile Quadrat Trine Opposition The twelve signs of the Zodiack their Characters and Denominations c. ♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♠♎ ♠♠♑ ♒ ♓ Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo. Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricornus Aquarius Pisces Their Disposition or Inclinations Good signes ♈ ♋ ♉ ♓ ♠Evil signes ♎ ♠♑ ♒ ♊ Signes indifferent ♒ ♠♋ ♓ ♠Very good signes ♈ ♎ ♠Very evil signes ♑ ♊ ♌ ♉ The Disposition of the Planets ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ planets good ♃ ♀ Indifferent ☉ ☽ ☿ Euill ♄ ♂ ♑ ♒ ♠♓ ♃ ♠♈ ♂ ♌ ☉ ♉ ♎ ♀ ♊ ♠☿ ♋ ☽ A fierie Triplicitie ♈ ♂ ☉ ♃ ♉ ♂ ☉ An earthie Triplicitie ♌ ☉ ♃ ♠☿ ♠♃ ☉ ♑ ♄ ♂ A waterie Triplicitie ♋ ☽ ♃ ♀ ♊ ☿ An aierie Triplicitie ♠♂ ♎ ♀ ♄ ♃ ♓ ♃ ☽ ♀ ♒ ♄ ♃ The Aspects of the Planets ☌ Is the best Aspect with good Planets and the worst with evil ⚹ Is a mean Aspect in goodness or badness 🜂 Is very good in aspect to good Planets and hurteth not in evil □ This Aspect is of enimity not full perfect ☠This Aspect is of enimity most perfect How the Day is divided or distinguished A Day natural is the space of four and twenty hours accounting the Night withal and beginneth at one of the clock after midnight An artificial day is that space of time which is betwixt the rising and falling of the Sun c. all the rest is night and beginneth at the Sun rising Hereafter followeth a Table shewing how the day and the night is divided by hours and reduced to the regiment of the Planets The division of the Day and the Planetary Regiment day lord 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 day lord ☉ ♠☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ day lord ☽ ♄ ♃ ♠☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ day lord ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ☿ ♀ ☽ day lord ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ day lord ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ day lord ☿ ♀ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ day lord ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♂ ♃ ☉ ♀ The division of the Night and the Planetary Regiment night lord 1 2 3 4
teach shew and declare unto me and to my friends at all hours and minutes both night and day the truth of all things both bodily and ghostly in this world whatsoever I shall request or desire declaring also unto me my very name And this I command in your part to do and to obey thereunto as unto your own Lord and Master That done they will call a certain spirit whom they will command to enter into the centre of the circled or round Crystal Then put the Crystal between the two circles and thou shalt see the Crystal made black Then command them to command the spirit in the Crystal not to depart out of the Stone till thou give him licence and to fulfill thy will for ever That done thou shalt see them go upon the Crystal both to answer your requests and to tarry your licence That done the spirits will crave licence and say Go ye to your place appointed of Almighty God in the Name of the Father c. And then take up thy Crystal and look therein asking what thou wilt and it will shew it unto thee Let all your Circles be nine foot every way and made as followeth Work this work in ♋ â™ or ♓ in the hour of the ☽ or ♃ And when the spirit is inclosed if thou fear him bind him with some bond in such sort as is elsewhere expressed already in this our Treatise A Figure or Type proportional shewing what form must be observed and kept in making the Figure whereby the former secret of inclosing a Spirit in Crystal is to be accomplished c. 2 alanta â— 3 Thamaor 1 itrael 4 Ifalaur 5 itrami North South Est West Agla el ya Panthon ✚ dextera dmÌ„i exaltauit me ✚ dextera dmÌ„i fecit untâ—le ✚ dextera dmÌ„i exalfaâ—tine ✚ dextera dÌ„mi fect virtute ✚ Messias Emanuel Alpha et ω CHAP. XXII An Experiment of Bealphares ✚ ✚ ✚ Homo sacarus museo lomeas cherubozca ✚ The two and twentieth Psalm O My God my God look upon me why hast thou forsaken me and art so farr from my health and from the words of my complaint And so forth to the end of the same Psalm as it is to be found in the Book This Psalm also following being the fifty one Psalm must be said three times over c. HAve mercy upon me O God after thy great goodness according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences And so forth to the end of the same Psalm concluding it with Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end Amen Then say this verse O Lord leave not my soul with the wicked nor my life with the blood-thirsty Then say a Pater noster an Ave Maria and a Credo Ne nos inducas O Lord shew us thy mercy and we shall be saved Lord hear our prayer and let our cry come unto thee Let us pray O Lord God Almighty as thou warnedst by thine Angel the three Kings of Cullen Jasper Melchior and Balthasar when they came with worshipful presents toward Bethelem Jasper brought myrrh Melchior incense Balthasar gold worshipping the high King of all the world Jesus Gods Son of Heaven the second Person in Trinity being born of the holy and clean Virgin S. Mary Queen of Heaven Empress of Hell and Lady of all the world at that time the holy Angel Gabriel warned and bad the foresaid three Kings that they should take another way for dread of peril that Herod the King by his Ordinance would have destroyed these three Noble Kings that meekly sought out our Lord and Saviour As wittily and truly as these three Kings turned for dread and took another way so wisely and so truly O Lord God of thy mightiful mercy bless us now at this time for thy blessed passion save us and keep us all together from all evil and thy holy Angel defend us Let us pray O Lord King of all Kings which containest the Throne of Heavens and beholdest all deeps weighest the hills and shuttest up with thy hand the earth hear us most meek God and grant unto us being unworthy according to thy great mercy to have the verity and vertue of knowledge of hidden treasure by this Spirit invocated through thy help O Lord Jesus Christ to whom be all honour and glory from worlds to worlds everlastingly Amen Then say these names ✚ Helie ✚ Helion ✚ essejere ✚ Deus eternus ✚ Eloy ✚ clemens ✚ Heloye ✚ Deus sanctus ✚ Sabaoth ✚ Deus exercituum Adonay ✚ Deus mirabilis ✚ jao ✚ berax ✚ anepheneton ✚ Deun ineffabilis ✚ Sodoy ✚ Dominatoz Dominus ✚ on fortissimus ✚ Deus ✚ qui the which wouldest be prayed unto of sinners receive we besiech thee these sacrifices of praise and our meek Prayers which we unworthy do offer unto thy Divine Majesty Deliver us and have mercy upon us and prevent with thy Holy Spirit this work and with thy blessed help to follow after that this our work begun of thee maybe ended by thy mighty power Amen Then say this anon after ✚ Homo ✚ sacarus ✚ Musceolameus ✚ cherubozca ✚ being the figure upon thy brest aforesaid the Girdle about thee the circle made bless the Circle with holy Water and sit down in the midst and read this Conjuration as followeth sitting back to back at the first time I exercise and conjure Baalphares the practiser and preceptor of this Art by the maker of Heavens and of Earth and by his vertue and by his unspeakable Name Tetragrammaton and by all the holy Sacraments and by the holy Majesty and Deity of the living God I conjure and exorcise thee Bealphares by the vertue of all Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by their vertues and by the most truest and speciallest Name of your Master that you do come unto us in fair form of man or woman-kinde here visibly before this circle and not terrible by any manner of wayes This circle being our tuition and protection by the merciful goodness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that you do make answer truly without craft or deceit unto all my demands and questions by the vertue and power of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. XXIII To bind the Spirit Bealphares and to loose him again NOw when he is appeared bind him with these words which follow * I conjure thee Bealphares by God the Father by God the Son and by God the Holy Ghost and by all the holy company in Heaven and by their vertues and powers I charge thee Bealphares that thou shalt not depart out of my sight nor yet to alter thy bodily shape that thou art appeared in nor any power shalt thou have of our bodies or souls earthly or ghostly but be obedient unto me and to the words of my
not blind But surely he that cannot make one hair white or black whereof on the other side not one falleth from the head without Gods special Providence can never bring to pass that the visible creature of God shall become nothing or lose the vertue and grace poured therein by God the Creator of all things If they say that the Devil covereth them with a cloud or veil as M. Mal Bodin and many other do affirm yet me thinks we should either see the cover or the thing covered And though perchance they say in their hearts Tush the Lord seeth not who indeed hath blinded them so as seeing they see not yet they shall never be able to perswade the wise but that both God and man doth see both them and their knavery in this behalf I have heard of a fool who was made believe that he should go invisible and naked while he was well whipped by them who as he thought could not see him Into which fools Paradise they say he was brought that enterprised to kill the Prince of Orenge CHAP. XXXI A Comparison between Popish Exorcists and other Conjurors a Popish Conjuration published by a great Doctor of the Romish Church his rules and cautions I See no difference between these and Popish Conjurations for they agree in order words and matter differing in no circumstance but that the Papists do it without shame openly the other do it in hugger mugger secretly The Papists I say have Officers in this behalf which are called Exorcists or Conjurors and they look narrowly to other cosenours as having gotten the upper hand over them And because the Papists shall be without excuse in this behalf and that the world may see their cosenage impiety and folly to be as great as the others I will cite one Conjuration of which sort I might cite a hundred published by Jacobus de Chusa a great Doctor of the Romish Church which serveth to find out the cause of noise and spiritual rumbling in Houses Churches or Chappels and to conjure walking Spirits which evermore is knavery and cosenage in the highest degree Mark the cosening device hereof and confer the impiety with the others First forsooth he saith it is expedient to fast three days and to celebrate a certain number of Masses and to repeat the seven Penitential Psalms then four or five Priests must be called to the place where the haunt or noise is then a Candle hallowed on Candlemas day must be lighted and in the lighting thereof also must the seven Psalms be said and the Gospel of St. John Then there must be a Cross and a Censer with Frankinsense and therewithal the place must be censed or perfumed holy Water must be sprinkled and a holy Stoal must be used and after divers other Ceremonies a Prayer to God must be made in manner and form following O Lord Jesus Christ the knower of all secrets which alwayes revealest all wholesome and profitable things to thy faithful children and which sufferest a Spirit to shew himself in this place we beseech thee for thy bitter Passion c vouchsafe to command this spirit to reveal and signifie unto us thy servants without our terrour or hurt what he is to thine honour and to his comfort In Nomine Patris c. And then proceed in these words We beseech thee for Christs sake O thou spirit that if there be any of us or among us whom thou wouldst answer name him or else manifest him by some sign Is it Fryer P. or Doctor D. or Doctor Burc or sir Feats or sir John or sir Robert Et sic de caeteris circumstantibus For it is well tryed saith the gloss he will not answer every one If the Spirit make any sound of voyce or knocking at the naming of any one he is the Cosenour the Conjuror I would say that must have the charge of this Conjuration or Examination And these forsooth must be the interrogatories to wit Whose Soul art thou Wherefore camest thou What wouldst thou have Wantest thou any Suffrages Masses or Alms How many Masses will serve thy turn three six ten twenty thirty c By what Priest Must he be religious or secular Wilt thou have any Fasts What How many How great And by what persons Among Hospitals Lepers or Beggars What shall be the sign of thy perfect deliverance Wherefore liest thou in Purgatory and such like This must be done in the night If there appear no sign at this hour it must be deferred until another hour Holy water must be left in the place There is no fear they say that such a Spirit will hurt the Conjuror for he can sin no more as being in the mean state between good and evil and as yet in the state of satisfaction If the Spirit do hurt then it is a damned soul and not an elect Every man may not be present hereat specially such as be weak of complexion They appear in divers manners not alwayes in body or bodily shape as it is read in the life of S. Martine that the Devil did but sometimes invisible as only by sound voyce or noise Thus far Jacobus de Chusa But because you shall see that these be not empty words nor slanders but that in truth such things are commonly put in practice in the Romish Church I will here set down an instance lately and truly though lewdly performed and the same in effect as followeth CHAP. XXXII A late Experiment or cosening Conjuration practised at Orleance by the Franciscan Friers how it was detected and the Judgement against the Authors of that Comedy IN the year of our Lord 1534. at Orleance in France the Maiors wife dyed willing and desiring to be buried without any pomp or noise c. Her husband who reverenced the memorial of her did even as she had willed him And because she was buryed in the Church of the Franciscans besides her Father and Grandfather and gave them in reward only six Crowns whereas they hoped for a greater prey shortly after it chanced that as he felled certain Woods and sold them they desired to give them some part thereof freely without money which he flatly denyed This they took very grievously And whereas before they misliked him now they conceived such displeasure as they devised this means to be revenged to wit that his Wife was damned for ever The chief workmen and framers of this tragedy were Colimannus and Stephanus Aterbatensis both Doctors of Divinity this Colimannus was a great Conjuror and had all his implements in a readiness which he was wont to use in such business And thus they handle the matter They place over the Arches of the Church a young novice who about midnight when they came to mumble their Prayers as they were wont to do maketh a great rumbling and noise Out of hand the Monks began to conjure and to charm but he answered nothing Then being requireed to
he could tell where any thing lost became with divers other such practices whereby his fame was farr beyond the others And yet on his death-bed he confessed that he knew nothing more then any other but by sleight and devices without the assistance of any Devil or Spirit saving the Spirit of cosenage and this did he I say protest before many of great honesty credit and wisdom who can witness the same and also gave him good commendations for his godly and honest end Again who will maintain that common Witchcrafts are not Cosenages when the great and famous Witchcrafts which had stoln credit not only from all the common people but from men of great wisdom and authority are discovered to be beggerly sleights of cosening varlots Which otherwise might and would have remained a perpetual objection against me Were there not three images of late years found in a dunghil to the terrour and astonishment of many thousands In so much as great matters were thought to have been pretended to be done by Witchcraft But if the Lord preserve those person whose destruction was doubted to have been intended thereby from all other the lewd practices and attempts of their enemies I fear not but they shall easily withstand these and such like devices although they should indeed be practised against them But no doubt if such bables could have brought those matters of mischief to pass by the hands of Traitors Witches it Papists we should long since have been deprived of the most excellent jewel and comfort that we enjoy in this world Howbeit I confess that the fear conceit and doubt of such mischievous pretences may breed inconvenience to them that stand in aw of the same And I wish that even for such practices though they never can or do take effect the practisers be punished with all extremity because therein is manifested a traiterous heart to the Queen and a presumption against God But to return to the discovery of the foresaid Knavery and Witchcraft So it was that one old Cosenor wanting money devised or rather practised for it is a stale device to supply his want by promising a young Gentleman whose humor he thought would that way be well served that for the sum of forty pounds he would not fail by his cunning in that Art of Witchcraft to procure unto him the love of any three women whom he would name and of whom he should make choice at his pleasure The young Gentleman being abused with his cunning devices and too hastily yielding to that motion satisfied this cunning mans demand of money Which because he had it not presently to disburse provided for him at the hands of a friend of his Finally this Cunning man made the three puppets of Wax c. leaving nothing undone that appertained to the cosenage until he had buried them as you have heard But I omit to tell what ado was made hereof and also what reports and lies were bruited as what white Dogs and black Dogs there were seen in the night season passing through the watch maugre all their force and preparation against them c. But the young Gentleman who for a little space remained in hope mixed with joy and love now through tract of time hath those his felicities powdred with doubt and despair For instead of atcheiving his love he would gladly have obtained his money But because he could by no means get either the one or the other his money being in hucksters handling and his sute in no better forwardness he revealed the whole matter hoping by that means to recover his money which he neither can yet get again nor hath payed it where he borrowed But till trial was had of his simplicity or rather folly herein he received some trouble himself hereabout though now dismissed CHAP. IV. Of one that was so bewitched that he could read no Scriptures but Canonical of a Divel that could speak Latine a proof that Witchcraft is flat Cosenage HEre I may aptly insert another miracle of importance that happened within the compass of a childs remembrance which may induce any reasonable body to conceive that these supernatural actions are but fables and cosenages There was one whom for some respects I name not that was taken blind deaf and dumb so as no Physitian could help him That man forsooth though he was as is said both blind dumb and deaf yet could he read any Canonical Scriptures but as for Apocrypha he could read none wherein a Gods Name consisted the miracle But a leaf of Apocrypha being extraordinarily inserted among the Canonical Scriptures he read the same as Authentick wherein his knavery was bewrayed Another had a Devil that answered men to all questions Marry her Devil could understand no Latine and so was she and by such means all the rest may be bewrayed Indeed our witching Writers say that certain Devils spaek only the language of that Countrey where they are resiant as French or English c. Furthermore in my conceit nothing proveth more apparently that Witchcraft is cosenage and that Witches Instrument are but ridiculous Bables and altogether void of effect than when learned and godly Divines in their serious writings produce experiments as wrought by Witches and by Devils at Witches commandements which they expound by miracles although indeed meer trifles Whereof they conceive amiss being overtaken with credulity CHAP. V. Of the Divination of the Sive and Sheers and by the Book and Key Hemingius his opinion thereof confuted a Bable to know what is a clock of certain Jugling knacks manifold reasons for the overthrow of Witches and Conjurors and their cosenages of the Devils transformations of Ferrum candens c. TO pass over all the fables which are vouched by the Popish Doctors you shall hear the words of N. Heminguis whose zeal and learning otherwise I might justly commend howbeit I am sorry and ashamed to see his ignorance and folly in this behalf Neither would I have bewrayed it but that he himself among other absurdities concerning the maintenance of Witches Omnipotency hath published it to his great discredit Popish Priests saith he as the Chaldaeans used the Divination by Sive and Sheers for the detection of theft do practice with a Psalter and a Key fastened upon the 49. Psalm to discover a Thief and when the names of the suspected persons are orderly put into the Pipe of the Key at the reading of these words of the Psalm If thou suwest a Theef thou didst consent unto him the Book will wagge and fall out of the fingers of them that hold it and he whose name remaineth in the Key must be the theef Hereupon Hemingius inferreth that although conjuring Priests and Witches bring not this to pass by the absolute words of the Psalm which tend to a far other scope yet Satan doth nimbly with his invisible hand give such a twitch to the Book as also in the other case to the
pitiful sight without hurt or danger ibid. To thrust a piece of Lead into ones Eye and drive it about with a stick between the skin and flesh of the fore-head until it be brought to the other eye and there thrust out ibid. To cut half your Nose asunder and to heal it again presently without any salve ibid. To put a Ring through your cheek ibid. To cut off ones head and to lay it in a Platter c. which the Juglers call the Decollation of John Baptist 197. To thrust a Dagger or Bodkin into your guts very strangely and to recover immediately ibid. To draw a Cord through your nose mouth or hand so sensible as it is wonderful to see 198. The Conclusion wherein the Reader is referred to certain patterns of Instruments wherewith divers feats here specified are to be executed ibid. BOOK XIV CHAP. I. OF the Art of Alchymistry of their words of Art and devices to blear mens eyes and to procure credit to their Profession Page 202 CHAP. II. The Alchymisters drift the Canons Yeomans tale of Alchymistical Stones and Waters Page 203 CHAP. III. Of a Yeoman of the Country cosened by an Alchymist Page 204 CHAP. IV. A certain King abused by an Alchymist and of the King's Fool a pretty jest Page 206 CHAP. V. A notable story written by by Erasmus of two Alchymists also of Longation and Curtation ibid. CHAP. VI. The Opinion of divers learned men touching the folly of Alchymistry Page 210 CHAP. VII That vain and deceitful hope is a great cause why men are seduced by this alluring Art and that their labours therein are bootless c. Page 212 CHAP. VII A Continuation of the former matter with a Conclusion of the same ibid. BOOK XV. CHAP. I. OF Magical Circles and the reason of their Institution Page 215 CHAP. II. How to raise up the Ghost of one that hath hanged himself Page 217 CHAP. III. How to raise up the three Spirits Paymon Bathin and Barma and what wonderful things may be effected through their Assistance Page 218 CHAP. IV. How to consecrate all manner of Circles Fumigations Fires Magical Garments and Utensils Page 220 CHAP. V. Treating more practically of the Consecration of Circles Fires Garments and Fumigations Page 221 CHAP. VI. How to raise and exorcise all sorts of Spirits belonging to the Airy Region Page 222 CHAP. VII How to obtain the familiarity of the Genius or Good Angel and cause him to appear Page 223 CHAP. VIII A form of Conjuring Luridan the Familiar otherwise called Belelah Page 224 CHAP. IX How to conjure the Spirit Balkin the Master of Luridan Page 226 CHAP. X. The Exposition of Jidoni and where it is found whereby the whole Art of Conjuration is deciphered Page 229 CHAP. XI An inventary of the names shapes powers government and effects of Devils and Spirits of their several signiorities and degrees a strange discourse worth the reading ibid. CHAP. XII The hours wherein principal Devils may be bound to wit raised and restrained from doing of hurt Page 238 CHAP. XIII The form of adjuring or citing of the Spirits aforesaid to arise and appear ibid. CHAP. XIV A confutation of the manifold vanities contained in the precedent Chapters specially of commanding of Devils Page 240 CHAP. XV. The names of the Planets their Characters together with the twelve Signs of the Zodiack their dispositions aspects and government with other observations 241. The twelve Signs of the Zodiack their characters and denominations c ibid. Their dispositions or inclinations ibid. The disposition of the Planets ibid. The aspects of the Planets 242. How the day is divided or distinguished ibid. The division of the Day and the Planetary Regiment ibid. The division of the Night and the Planetary Regiment ibid. CHAP. XVI The characters of the Angels of the Seven days with their names of Figures Seals and Periapts Page 243 CHAP. XVII An experiment of the dead Page 244 CHAP. XVIII A Licence for Sybilla to go and come by at all times Page 247 CHAP. XIX To know of Treasure hidden in the Earth ibid. This is the way to go Invisible by thâ—se three Sisters of Fairies ibid. CHAP. XX. An experiment of Citrael c. Angeli diei dominici 248. The Seven Angels of the Seven Days with the Prayer called Regina linguae Page 249 CHAP. XXI How to inclose a Spirit in a Crystal-stone ibid. A figure or type proportional shewing what form must be observed and kept in making the figure whereby the former secret of inclosing a Spirit in Crystal is to be accomplished c. Page 251 CHAP. XXII An Experiment of the Spirit Bealphares ibid. The two and twentieth Psalm 252. This Psalm also following being the fifty one Psalm must be said three times over c. ibid. CHAP. XXIII To bind the Spirit Bealphares and to lose him again 253. A Licence for the Spirit to depart 254. A type or figure of the Circle for the Master and his fellows to fit in shewing how and after what fashion it should be made Page 255 CHAP. XXIV The making of the Holy Water ibid. To the water say also as followeth ibid. Then take the Salt in thy hand and say putting it into the water making in the manner of a Cross 256. Then sprinkle upon any thing and say as followeth ibid. CHAP. XXV To make a Spirit to appear in a Crystal ibid. CHAP. XXVI An Experiment of the Dead 257. Now the Pater noster Ave and Credo must be said and then the Prayer immediately following Page 258 CHAP. XXVII A Bond to bind him to thee and to thy N. as followeth ibid. CHAP. XXVIII This Bond following is to call him inso your Crystal-stone or Glass c. 260. Then being appeared say these words following ibid. A Licence to depart Page 261. CHAP. XXIX When to talk with Spirits and to have true answers to find out a Thief ibid. To speak with Spirits ibid. CHAP. XXX A Confutation of Conjuration especially of the raising binding and dismissing of the Devil of going Invisible and other lewd practices ibid. CHAP. XXXI A Comparison between Popish Exorcists and other Conjurors A Popish Conjuration published by a great Doctor of the Romish Church his rules cautions Page 263 CHAP. XXXII A late Experiment or cosening Conjuration practised at Orleance by the Franciscan Fryers how it was detected and the judgment against the Authors of that Comedy Page 264 CHAP. XXXIII Who may be Conjurors in the Romish Church besides Priests a ridiculous definition of Superstition what words are to be used and not used in Exorcisms Rebaptism allowed it is lawful to Conjure any thing differences between Holy Water and Conjuration Page 266 CHAP. XXXIV The seven Reasons why some are not rid of the Devil with all their Popish Conjurations why there were no Conjurors in the Primitive Church and why the Devil is not so soon cast out of the bewitched as of the possessed Page 267 CHAP. XXXV Other gross absurdities of
of Rome but might also have made the Pope that now is content with our Christmas and Easter-day and not to have gathered the minutes together and reformed it so as to shew how falsly he and his predecessors whom they say could not err hath observed it hitherto And truly this and the dancing of the Sun on Easter-day morning sufficiently or rather miraculously prove that computation which the Pope now beginneth to doubt of and to call in question CHAP. V. The Opinion of Fascius Cardanus touching Spirits and of his Familiar Devil FAscius Cardanus had as he himself and his son Hierome Cardanus report a familiar Devil consisting of the fiery Element who so long as he used Conjuration did give true answers to all his demands but when he burned up his Book of Conjurations though he resorted still unto him yet did he make false answers continually He held him bound twenty and eight years and loose five years And during the time that he was bound he told him that there were many Devils or Spirits He came not always alone but sometimes some of his fellows with him He rather agreed with Psellus then with Plato for he said they were begotten born died and lived long but how long they told him not howbeit as he might conjecture by the Devils face who was 42 years old and yet appeared very young he thought they lived two or three hundred years and they said that their souls and ours also died with their bodies They had Schools and Universities among them but he conceived not that any were so dull headed as Psellus maketh them But they are very quick in credit that beleive such fables which indeed is the ground-work of Witchcraft and Conjuration But these Histories are so gross and palpable that I might be thought as wise in going about to confute them as to answer the stories of Fryer Rush Adam Bell or the golden Legend CHAP. VI. The Opinion of Plato concerning Spirits Devils and Angels what Sacrifices they like best what they fear and of Socrates his familiar Devil PLato and his followers hold that good Spirits appear in their own likeness but that evil Spirits appear and shew themselves in the form of other bodies and that one Devil reigneth over the rest as a Prince doth in every perfect Common-wealth overmen Item they obtain their purposes and desires only by intreaty of men and women because in nature they are their inferiors and use authority over men none otherwise than Priests by vertue of their function and because of Religion wherein they say they execute the Office of God Sometimes they say that the fiery Spirits or supreme Substances enter into the purity of the mind and so obtain their purpose sometimes otherwise to wit by vertue of holy Charms and even as a poor man obtaineth for Gods sake any thing at a Princes hand as it were by importunateness The other sort of Devils and defiled souls are so conversant on earth as that they do much hurt unto earthly bodies specially in leachery Gods and Angels say they because they want all material and gross substance desire most the pure Sacrifice of the Mind The grosser and more terrestrial Spirits desire the grosser Sacrifices as Beasts and Cattel They in the middle or mean Region delight to have Frankincense and such mean stuffe offered unto them and therefore say they it is necessary to Sacrifice unto them all manner of things so the same be slain and dye not of their own accord for such they abhor Some say that Spirits fear wonderfully vain threats and thereupon will depart as if you tell them that you will cut the Heavens in pieces or reveal their secrets or complain of them to the gods or say that you will do any impossibility or such things as they cannot understand they are so timerous as they will presently be gone and that is thought the best way to be rid of them But these be most commonly of that sort or company which are called Principatus being of all other the most easie to be conjured They say Socrates had a familiar Devil which Plato relyeth much upon using none other argument to prove that there are such Spirits but because Socrates that would not lye said so and partly because that Devil did ever disswade and prohibit not only in Socrates his own cases but sometimes in his friends behalf who if they had been ruled might through his admonition have saved their lives His Disciples gathered that his Devil was Saturnal and a principal fiery Devil and that he and all such as do naturally know their Devils are only such as are called Daemonii viri otherwise coseners Item they say That fiery Spirits urge men to contemplation the airy to business the watery to lust and among these there are some that are Martial which give fortitude some are Jovial giving wisdom some Saturnal always using disswasion and dehorting Item some are born with us and remain with us all our life some are meer strangers who are nothing else but the souls of men departed this life c. CHAP. VII Plato's nine Orders of Spirits and Angels Dionysius his Division thereof not much differing from the same all disproved by learned Divines PLato proposeth or setteth forth nine several orders of Spirits besides the spirits and souls of men The first Spirit is God that commandeth all the residue the second are those that are called Ideae which gave all things to all men the third are souls of heavenly bodies which are mortal the fourth are Angels the fift Archangels the sixt are Devils who are ministers to infernal powers as Angels are to supernal the seventh are half Gods the eighth are Principalities the ninth are Princes From which division Dionysius doth not much swerve saving that he dealeth as he saith only with good Spirits whom he likewise divideth into nine parts or offices The first he calleth Seraphim the second Cherubim the third Thrones the fourth Dominations the fift Vertues the sixt Powers the seventh Principalites the eighth Archangels the ninth and inferiour sort he calleth Angels Howbeit some of these in my thinking are evil Spirits or else Paul gave us evil counsel when he willed us To fight against Principalities and Powers and all spiritual wickedness But Dionysius in that place goeth further impropriating to every Countrey and almost to every person of any accompt a peculiar Angel as to Jewry he assigneth Michael to Adam Razael to Abraham Zekiel to Isaac Raphael to Jacob Peliel to Moses Metraton c. But in these discourses he either followed his own imaginations and conceits or else the corruptions of that age Nevertheless I had rarher confute him by Mr. Calvin and my Kinsman M. Deering than by my self or mine own words For Mr. Calvin saith That Dionysius herein speaketh not as by hearsay but as though he had slipped down from Heaven and told of things which he had
the battel was fought in the highest Region of the Air Others say In the Firmament Others In Paradise The Thomists also say It continued but one instant or prick of time for they tarryed but two instants in all even from their Creation to their Expulsion The Scotists say That between their production and their fall there were just four instants Nevertheless the greatest number of Schoolmen affirm That they continued only three instants because it stood with Gods justice to give them three warnings so as at the third warning Lucifer fell down like lead for so are the words to the bottom of Hell the rest were left in the Air to tempt man The Sadduces were as gross the other way for they said That by Angels was meant nothing else but the motions that God doth inspire in men or the tokens of his power He that readeth Eusebius shall see many more absurd opinions and asseverations of Angels as how many thousand years they serve as Angels before they come to the promotion of Archangels c. Monsieur Bodin M. Mal. and many other Papists gather upon the seventh of Daniel That there are just ten Millions of Angels in Heaven Many say that Angels are not by nature but by office Finally it were infinite to shew the absurd and curious collections hereabout I for my part think with Calvine That Angels are creatures of God though Moses spake nothing of their creation who only applyed himself to the capacity of the common people reciting nothing but things seen And I say further with him That they are heavenly spirits whose ministration and service God useth and in that respect are called Angels I say yet again with him That it is very certain that they have no shape at all for they are spirits who never have any and finally I say with him That the Scriptures for the capacity of our wit doth not in vain paint out Angels unto us with wings because we should conceive that they are ready swiftly to succour us And certainly all the sounder Divines do conceive and give out that both the names and also the number of Angels are set down in the Scripture by the Holy-Ghost in terms to make us understand the greatness and the manner of their messages which I say are either expounded by the number of Angels or signified by their names Furthermore the School Doctors affirm That four of the Superior Orders of Angels never take any form or shape of bodies neither are sent of any errand at any time As for Archangels they are sent only about great and secret matters and Angels are common Hacknies about every trifle and that these can take what shape or body they list marry they never take the form of women and children Item they say That Angels take most terrible shapes for Gabriel appeared to Mary when he saluted her Facie rutilante veste coruscante ingressu mirabili aspectu terribili c. that is With a bright countenance shining attire wonderful gesture and a dreadful visage c. But of Apparitions I have spoken somewhat before and will say more hereafter It hath been long and continueth yet a constant opinion not only among Papists but among others also that every man hath assigned him at the time of his nativity a good Angel and a bad For the which there is no reason in Nature nor authority in Scripture For not one Angel but all the Angels are said to rejoyce more at one Convert than of ninety and nine just Neither did one only Angel convey Lazarus into Abraham's bosome And therefore I conclude with Calvin That he which referreth to one Angel the care that God hath to every one of us doth himself great wrong as may appear by so many fiery Chariots shewed by Elizaeus to his servant But touching this mystery of Angels let us reverently think of them and not curiously search into the nature of them considering the vileness of our condition in respect of the glory of their creation And as for the foresaid fond imaginations and fables of Lucifer c. they are such as are not only ridiculous but also accomptable among those impious curiosities and vain questions which Paul speaketh of neither have they any title or letter in the Scripture for the maintenance of their gross opinions in this behalf CHAP. XI Whether they became Devils which being Angels kept not their Vocation in Jude and Peter of the fond Opinion of the Rabbins touching Spirits and Bugs with a Confutation thereof WE do read in Jude and find it confirmed in Peter That the Angels kept not their first estate but left their own habitation and sinned and as Job saith committed folly and that God therefore did cast them down into Hell reserving them in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day But many Divines say That they find not anywhere that God made Devils of them or that they became the Princes of the World or else of the Air but rather Prisoners Howbeit divers Doctors affirm That this Lucifer notwithstanding his fall hath greater power than any of the Angels in Heaven Marry they say That there be certain other Devils of the inferior fort of Angels which were then thrust out for smaller faults and therefore are tormented with little pains besides eternal damnation and these say they can do little hurt They affirm also That they only use certain juggling knacks delighting thereby to make men laugh as they travel by the high wayes but other say they are much more churlish For proof hereof they alledge the eighth of Matthew where he would none otherwise be satisfied but by exchange from the annoying of one man to the destruction of a whole herd of Swine The Rabbins and namely Rabbi Abraham writing upon the second of Genesis do say That God made the Fairies Bugs Incubus Robin Good-fellow and other familiar or domestical Spirits and Devils on the Friday and being prevented with the evening of the Sabbath finished them not but left them unperfect and therefore that ever since they use to flie the holiness of the Sabbath seeking dark holes in Mountains and Woods wherein they hide themselves till the end of the Sabboth and then come alroad to trouble and molest men But as these opinions are ridiculous and fondly collected so if we have only respect to the bare word or rather to the letter where Spirit or Devils are spoken of in the Scriptures we shall run into as dangerous absurdities as these are For some are so carnally minded that a Spirit is no sooner spoken of but immediately they think of a black man with cloven feet a pair of horns a tail claws and eyes as broad as a Bason c. But surely the Devil were not so wise in his generation as I take him to be if he would terrifie men with such ugly shapes though he could do it at his pleasure
For by that means men should have good occasion and opportunity to flie from him and to run to God for succour as the manner is of all them that are terrified though perchance they thought not upon God a long time before But in truth we never have so much cause to be afraid of the Devil as when he flatteringly insinuateth himself into our hearts to satisfie please and serve our humours enticing us to prosecute our own appetites and pleasures without any of these external terrours I would weet of these men where they do find in the Scriptures that some Devils be spiritual and some corporal or how these earthy or watery Devils enter into the mind of man Augustine saith and divers others affirm That Satan or the Devil while we feed allureth us with gluttony he thrusteth lust into our generation and sloth into our exercise into our conversation envie into our traffick avarice into our correction wrath into our government pride he putteth into our hearts evil cogitations into our mouthes lyes c. When we wake he moveth us to evils works when we sleep to evil and filthy dreams he provoketh the merry to loosness and the sad to despair CHAP. XII That the Devils assaults are Spiritual and not Temporal and how grossly some understand those parts of the Scripture UPon that which hitherto hath been said you see that the assaults of Satan are spiritual and not temporal in which respect St. Paul wisheth us not to provide a corselet of Steel to defend us from his claws but biddeth us Put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against the invasions of the Devil For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities powers and spiritual wickedness And therefore St. Peter adviseth us To be sober and watch for the Devil goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour He meaneth not with carnal teeth for it followeth thus Whom resist ye stedfast in the faith And again St. Peter saith That which is spiritual only discerneth spiritual things for no carnal man can discern the things of the spirit Why then should we think that a Devil which is a Spirit can be known or made tame and familiar unto a natural man or contrary to nature can be by a Witch made corporal being by God ordained to a spiritual proportion The cause of this gross conceipt is that we hearken more diligently to old Wives and rather give credit to their fables than to the Word of God imagining by the tales they tell us that the Devil is such a Bulbegger as I have before described For whatsoever is proposed in Scripture to us by Parable or spoken figuratively or significatively or framed to our gross capacities c. is by them so considered and expounded as though the bare letter or rather their gross imaginations thereupon were to be preferred before the true sense and meaning of the Word For I dare say that when these blockheads read Jothams Parable in the ninth of Judges to the men of Sichem to wit that The trees went out to anoint a King over them saying to the Olive-tree Reign thou over us who answered and said Should I leave my fatness c. they imagine that the wooden Trees walked and spake with a mans voyce or else that some spirit entred into the Trees and answered as is imagined they did in the Idols and Oracles of Apollo and such like who indeed have eyes and see not ears and hear not mouths and speak not c. CHAP. XIII The Equivocation of this word Spirit how diversly it is taken in the Scriptures where by the way is taught that the Scripture is not alwayes literally to be interpreted nor yet allegorically to be understood SUch as search with the the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding shall find that Spirits as well good as bad are in the Scriptures diversly taken yea they shall well perceive that the Devil is no horned beast For sometimes in the Scriptures Spirits and Devils are taken for infirmities of the body sometimes for the vices of the mind sometimes also for the gifts of tither of them Sometimes a man is called a Devil as Judas in the sixt of John and Peter in the 16. of Matthew Sometimes a Spirit is put for the Gospel sometimes for the mind or soul of man sometimes for the wil of man his mind and councel sometimes for Teachers and Prophets sometimes for zeal towards God sometimes for joy in the Holy Ghost c. And to interpret unto us the nature and signification of spirits we find these words written in the Scripture to wit The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him The Spirit of counsel and strength The Spirit of wisdom and understanding The spirit of knowledg and the fear of the Lord. Again I will pour out my Spirit upon the house of David c. The Spirit of grace and compassion Again Ye have not received the spirit of bondage but the Spirit of adoption And therefore St. Paul saith To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another the gift of healing to another the gift of faith by the same Spirit to another the gift of prophesie to another the operation of great works to another the discerning of spirits to another the diversity of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues and all these things worketh one and the self-same Spirit Thus far the words of St. Paul And finally Isaiah saith that The Lord mingled among them the spirit of errour And in another place The Lord hath covered you with a spirit of slumber As for the spirits of divination spoken of in the Scripture they are such as was in the woman of Endor the Philippian woman the wench of Westwell and the holy maid of Kent who were indued with spirits or gifts of divination whereby they could make shift to gain money and abuse the people by sleights and crafty inventions But these are possessed of borrowed spirits as it written in the Book of Wisdom and spirits of meer cosenage and deceipt as I have sufficiently proved elsewhere I deny not therefore that there are Spirits and Devils of such substance as it hath pleased God to create them But in what place soever it be found or read in the Scriptures a Spirit or Devil is to be understood spiritually and is neither a corporal nor a visible thing Where it is written That God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Sichem we are to understand that he sent the spirit of hatred and not a Bulbegger Also where it is said If the Spirit of jealousie come upon him it is as much as to say If he he be moved with a jealous mind and not that a corporal Devil
that these Apparitions of Souls are but knaveries and cosenages they object that Moses and Elias appeared in Mount Tabor and talked with Christ in the presence of the principal Apostles yea and that God appeared in the bush c. As though Spirits and Souls could do whatsoever it pleaseth the Lord to do or appoint to be done for his own glory or for the manifestation of his Son miraculously And therefore I thought good to give you a taste of the Witchmongers absurd opinions in this behalf And first you shall understand that they hold That all the souls in heaven may come down and appear to us when they list and assume any body saving their own otherwise say they such souls should not be perfectly happy They say That you may know the good souls from the bad very easily For a damned soul hath a very heavy and sowre look but a Saints soul hath a cheerful and a merry countenance these also are white and shining the other cole black And these damned souls also may come up out of Hell at their pleasure although Abraham made Dives believe the contrary They affirm That damned Souls walk oftenest next unto them the souls of Purgatory and most seldom the souls of Saints Also they say That in the old Law souls did appear seldom and after dooms-day they shall never be seen more in the time of grace they shall be most freequent The walking of these souls saith Michael Andr. is a most excellent argument for the proof of Purgatory for saith he those souls have testified that which the Popes have affirmed in that behalf to wit that there is not only such a place of punishment but that they are released from thence by Masses and such other satisfactory works whereby the goodness of the Mass is also ratified and confirmed These heavenly or purgatory souls say they appear most commonly to them that are born upon Ember-dayes and they also walk most usually on those Ember-dayes because we are in best state at that time to pray for the one and to keep company with the other Also they say That souls appear oftenest by night because men may then be at be at best leisure and most quiet Also they never appear to the whole multitude seldom to a few and most commonly to one alone for so one may tell a lye without controlment Also they are oftenest seen by them that are ready to die as Trasilla saw Pope Foelix Ursine Peter and Paul Galla Romana S. Peter and as Musa the maid saw our Lady which are the most certain appearances credited and allowed in the Church of Rome Also they may be seen of some and of some other in that presence not seen at all as Ursine saw Peter and Paul and yet many at that instant being present could not see any such sight but thought it a lye as I do Michael Andraeas confesseth That Papists see more Visions than Protestants he saith also That a good soul can take none other shape than of a man marry a damned soul may and doth take the shape of a Black-moor or of a Beast or of a Serpent or specially of an Heretick The Christian signs that drive away these evil souls are the cross the Name of Jesus and the relicks of Saints in the number whereof are Holy-water Holy-bread Agnus Dei c. For Andrew saith That notwithstanding Julian was an Apostate and a betrayer of Christian Religion yet at an extremity with the only sign of the Cross he drave away from him many such evil spirits whereby also he saith the greatest diseases and sicknesses are cured and the sorest dangers avoided CHAP. XXIX A Confutation of assuming of Bodies and of the Serpent that seduced Eve THey that contend so earnestly for the Devils assuming of bodies and visible shapes do think they have a great advantage by the words uttered in the third of Genesis where they say the Devil entered into a Serpent or Snake and that by the curse it appeareth that the whole displeasure of God lighted upon the poor Snake only How those words are to be considered may appear in that it is of purpose so spoken as our weak capacities may thereby best conceive the substance tenor true meaning of the word which is there set down in the manner of a Tragedy in such humane and sensible form as wonderfully informeth our understanding though it seem contrary to the spiritual course of Spirits and Devils and also to the nature and divinity of God himself who is infinite and whom no man ever saw with corporal eyes and lived And doubtless if the Serpent there had not been taken absolutely nor Metaphorically for the Devil the Holy Ghost would have informed us thereof in some part of that story But to affirm it sometimes to be a Devil and sometimes a Snake whereas there is no such distinction to be found or seen in the Text is an invention and a fetch methinks beyond the compass of all divinity Certainly the Serpent was he that seduced Eve now whether it were the Devil or a Snake let any wiseman or rather let the Word of God judge Doubtless the Scripture in many places expoundeth it to be the Devil And I have I am sure one wise man on my side for the interpretation hereof namely Solomon who saith Through envie of the Devil came death into the world referring that to the Devil which Moses in the letter did to the Serpent But a better Expositor hereof needeth not than the Text it self even in the same place where it is written I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed he shall break thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel What Christian knoweth not that in these words the mystery of our redemption is comprised and promised Wherein is not meant as many suppose that the common seed of women shall tread upon a Snakes-head and so break it in pieces c. but that special seed which is Christ should be born of a woman to the utter over-throw of Satan and to the redemption of mankind whose heel or flesh in his members the Devil should bruise and assault with continual attempts and carnal provocations c. CHAP. XXX The Objection concerning the Devils Assuming of the Serpents Body answered THis word Serpent in holy Scripture is taken for the Devil The Serpent was more subtil than all the Beasts of the field It likewise signifieth such as be evil speakers such as have slandering tongues also Hereticks c. They have sharpened their tongues like Serpents It doth likewise betoken the death and Sacrifice of Christ As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so must the Son of man be lifted up upon the Cross Moreover it is taken for wicked men O ye Serpents and generation of Vipers Thereby also is signified as well a wise as a subtil man
Spirit into six significations saying that it is sometimes taken for the air sometimes for the bodies of the blessed sometimes for the souls of the blessed sometimes for the power imaginative or the mind of man and sometimes for God Again he saith That of spirits there are two sorts some created and some uncreated A spirit uncreated saith he is God himself and it is essentially taken and agreeth unto the three Persons notionally to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost personally A spirit created is a creature and that is likewise of two sorts to wit bodily and bodiless A bodily spirit is also of two sorts for some kind of spirit is so named of spiritualness as it is distinguished from bodiliness otherwise it is called Spiritus a spiriando id est a flando of breathing or blowing as the wind doth A bodiless spirit is one way so named of spiritualness and then it is taken for a spiritual substance and is of two sorts some make a full and compleat kind and is called compleat or perfect as a spirit angelical some do not make a full and perfect kind and is called incompleat or unperfect as the soul There is also the spirit vital which is a certain subtil or very fine substance necessarily disposing and tending unto life There be moreover spirits natural which are a kind of subtil and very fine substances disposing and tending unto equal complexions of bodies Again there be spirits animal which are certain subtil and very fine substances disposing and tempering the body that it might be animated of the form that is that it might be perfected of the reasonable soul Thus far he In whose division you see a Philosophical kind of proceeding though not altogether to be condemned yet in every point not to be approved Now to the Spirit of spirits I mean the principal and holy Spirit of God which one defineth or rather describeth to be the third Person in the Trinity issuing from the Father and the Son no more the charity dilection and love of the Father and the Son than the Father is the charity dilection and love of the Son and Holy Ghost Another treating upon the same argument proceedeth in this reverent manner The holy Spirit is the vertue or power of God quickning nourishing fostering and perfecting all things by whose only breathing it cometh to pass that we both know and love God and become at the length like unto him which Spirit is the pledge and earnest penny of grace and beareth witness unto our heart whiles we cry Abba Father This Spirit is called the Spirit of God the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of him which raised up Jesus from the dead Jesus Christ for that he received not the Spirit by measure but in fulness doth call it his Spirit saying When the Comforter shall come whom I will send even the Holy Spirit he shall testifie of me This Spirit hath divers Metaphorical names attributed thereunto in the Holy Scriptures It is called by the name of water because it washeth comforteth moistneth softeneth and maketh fruitful with all godliness and vertues the mindes of men which otherwise would be unclean comfortless hard dry and barren of all goodness whereupon the Prophet Isaiah saith I will pour water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground c. Wherewithal the words of Christ do agree He that believeth in me as saith the Scripture out of his belly shall flow rivers of waters of life And elsewhere Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never be more athirst Other places likewise there be wherein the Holy Spirit is signified by the name of water and flood as in the 13. of Isaiah the 29. of Ezek. the 146. Psalm c. The same Spirit by reason of the force and vehemency thereof is termed fire For it doth purifie and cleanse the wholeman from top to toe it doth burn out the soil and dross of sins and setteth him all in a flaming and hot burning zeal to prefer and further Gods glory Which plainly appeared in the Apostles who when they had received the Spirit they spake fiery words yea such words as were uncontrollable in somuch as in none more than in them this saying of the Prophet Jeremy was verified Nunquid non verba mea sunt quasi ignis Are not my words even as it were fire This was declared and shewed by those fiery tongues which were seen upon the Apostles after they had received the Holy Spirit Moreover this Spirit is called annointing or ointment because that as in old time Priests and Kings were by annointing deputed to their office and charge and so were made fit and serviceable for the same even so the elect are not so much declared as renewed and made apt by the training up of the Holy Spirit both to live well and also to glorifie God Whereupon dependeth the saying of John And ye have no need that any should teach you but as the same ointment doth teach you It is also called in Scripture The Oil of gladness and rejoycing whereof it is said in the Book of Psalms God even thy God hath annointed thee with the Oil of joy and gladness c. And by this goodly and comfortable name of Oil in the Scriptures is the mercy of God oftentimes expressed because the nature of that doth agree with the property and quality of this For as Oil doth float and swim above all other liquors so the mercy of God doth surpass and over-reach all his works and the same doth most of all disclose it self to miserable man It is likewise called the Finger of God that is the might and power of God by the vertue whereof the Apostles did cast out Devils to wit even by the finger of God It is called the Spirit of Truth because it maketh men true and faithful in their vocation and for that it is the touch-stone to try all counterfeit devices of mans brain and all vain Sciences prophane Practices deceitful Arts and circumventing Inventions such as be in general all sorts of Witchcrafts and Inchantments within whose number are comprehended all those wherewith I have had some dealing in my Discovery to wit Charms or Incantations Divinations Augury Judicial Astrology Nativity-casting Alchymistry Conjuration Lot-share Popery which is meer paltry with divers other not one whereof no nor altogether are able to stand to the tryal and examination which this Spirit of Truth shall and will take of those false and evil spirits Nay they shall be found when they are laid into the balance to be lighter than vanity very dross when they once come to be tryed by the fervent heat of this Spirit and like chaffe when this Spirit bloweth upon them driven away with a violent whirlwind such is the perfection integrity and effectual operation of this Spirit whose working as it is manifold so it is marvellous and
doth he constantly deny it to be a creature Now if any ask me why Hilarie was so coy and nice to name the Holy Spirit God whom he denyeth to be a creature when as notwithstanding between God and a creature there is no mean I will in good sooth say what I think I suppose that Hilarie for himself thought well of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit but this opnion was thrust and forced upon him by the Pneumatomachi who at that time rightly deeming of the Son did erewhiles join themselves to those that were sound of judgment There is also in the Ecclesiastical History a little book which they gave Liberius a Bishop of Rome whereinto they foisted the Nicene Creed And that Hilarie was a friend of the Pneumatomachi it is perceived in his Book De Synodis where he writeth in this manner Nihil autem mirum vobis videri debet fratres charissimi c. It ought to seem no wonder unto you dear Brethren c. As for the objection of the Prayers of the Church called the Collects that in them the Holy Spirit is not called upon by name we oppose and set against them the Songs of the Church wherein the said Spirit is called upon But the Collects are more ancient than the Songs Hymns and Anthems I will not now contend about ancientness neither will I compare Songs and Collects together but I say thus much only to wit that in the most ancient times of the Church the Holy Spirit hath been openly called upon in the Congregation Now if I be charged to give an instance let this serve In the Collect upon Trinity Sunday it is thus said Almighty and everlasting God which hast given unto us thy servants grace by the confession of a truth to acknowledg the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine Majesty to worship the Unity we beseech thee that through the stedfastness of this faith we may evermore be defended from all adversity which livest and reignest one God world without end Now because that in this Collect where the Trinity is expresly called upon the names of persons are not expressed but Almighty and Everlasting God invocated who abideth in Trinity and Unity it doth easily appear elsewhere also that the persons being not named under the Name of Almighty and Everlasting God not only the Father is to be understood but God which abideth in Trinity and Unity that is the Father the Son and the Holyghost A third objection of theirs is this The Son of God oftentimes praying in the Gospels speaking unto the Father promiseth the Holy Spirit and doth also admonish the Apostles to pray unto the heavenly Father but yet in the Name of the Son Besides that he prescribeth them this form of Prayer Our Father which art in Heaven Ergo The Father only is to be called upon and consequently the Father only is that one and very true God of whom it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Whereto I answer first by denying the consequent The Son prayed to the Father only Ergo the Father only is of us also to be prayed unto For the Son of God is distinguished of us both in Person and in Office he as a Mediator maketh Intercession for us to the Father and although the Son and the Holy Spirit do both together receive and take us into favour with God yet is he said to intreat the Father for us because the Father is the fountain of all counsels and divine works Furthermore touching the form of Praying described by Christ it is not necessary that the Fathers name should personally be there taken sith there is no distinction of persons made but by the Name of Father indefinitely we understand God or the Essence of God the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost For this name hath not alwayes a respect unto the generation of the Son of God but God is called The Father of the faithful because of his gracious and free adopting of them the foundation whereof is the Son of God in whom we be adopted but yot so adopted that not the Father only receiveth us into his favour but with him also the Son and the Holy Spirit doth the same Therefore when we in the beginning of Prayer do advertise our selves of God's goodness towards us we do not cast an eye to the Father alone but also to the Son who gave us the Spirit of Adoption and to the Holy Spirit in whom we cry Abba Father And if so be that invocation and Prayer were restrained to the Father alone then had the Saints done amiss in calling upon invocating and praying to the Son of God and with the Son the Holy Spirit in Baptism according to the form by Christ himself assigned and delivered Another objection is out of the fourth of Amos in this manner For lo it is I that make the Thunder and create the spirit and shew unto men their Christ making the light and the clouds and mounting above the high places of the earth the Lord God of Hosts is his Name Now because it is read in that place Shewing unto men their Christ the Pneumatomachi contended that these words are to be understood of the Holy Spirit But Ambrose in his Book De Spiritu Sancto lib. 2. cap. 7. doth rightly answer That by Spirit in this place is meant the Wind for if the Prophets purpose and will had been to speak of the Holy Spirit he would not have begun with Thunder nor have ended with light and clouds Howbeit the same father saith If any suppose that these words are to be drawn unto the interpretation of the Holy Spirit because the Prophet saith Shewing unto men their Christ he ought also to draw these words unto the mystery of the Lords incarnation and he expoundeth Thunder to be the words of the Lord and Spirit to be the reasonable and perfect soul But the former interpretation is certain and convenient with the words of the Prophet by whom there is no mention made of Christ but the power of God is set forth in his works Behold saith the Prophet he that formeth the Mountains and createth the Wind and declareth unto man what is his thought which maketh the morning darkness and walketh upon the high places of the earth the Lord God of Hosts is his Name In this sort Santes a right skilful man in the Hebrew tongue translateth this place of the Prophet But admit this place were written of the Holy Spirit and were not appliable either to the Wind or to the Lords Incarnation yet doth it not follow that the Holy Spirit is a creature because this word of Creating doth not alwayes signifie a making of something out of nothing as Eusebius dxpounding these wrrds The Lord created me in the beginning of his wayes writeth thus The Prophet in the Person of God saying
Behold I am he that made the Thunder and created the Spirit and shewed unto men their Christ this word created is not so to be taken as that it is to be concluded thereby that the same was not before For God hath not so created the Spirit fithence by the same he hath shewed and declared his Christ unto al men Neither was it a thing of late beginning under the Son but it was before all beginning and was then sent when the Apostles were gathered together When a sound like Thunder came from Heaven as it had been the coming of a mighty wind this word created being used for sent down for appointed ordained c. and the word Thunder signifying in another kind of manner the Preaching of the Gospel The like saying is that of the Psalmist A clean heart create in me O God wherein he prayed not as one having no heart but as one that had such a heart as needed purifying as needed perfecting and this phrase also of the scripture that he might create two in one new man that is that he might joyn couple or gather together c. Furthermore the Pneumatomachi by these testimonies insuing endeavour to prove the Holy Spirit to be a creature Out of John the 1. ch By this word were all things made and without it nothing was made Out of 1 Cor. 8. We have one God the Father even he from whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and we by him Out of Col. 1 By him were all things made things in heaven and things in earth visible and invisible c. Now if all things were made by the Son it followeth that by him the Holy Spirit was also made Whereto I answer that when all things are said to be made by the Son that same universal proposition is restrained by John himself to a certain kind of things Without him saith the Evangelist was nothing made that was made Therefore it is first to be shewed that the Holy Spirit was made and then will we conclude out of John that if he were made he was made of the Son The Scripture doth no where say that the Holy Spirit was made of the Father or of the Son but to proceed to come and to be sent from them both Now if these universal propositions are to suffer no restraint it shall follow that the Father was made of the Son than the which what is more absurd and wicked Again they object out of Mat. 11. None knoweth the Son but the Father and none the Father but the Son to wit of and by himself for otherwise both the angels and to whomsoever else it shall please the Son to reveal the Father these do know both the Father and the Son Now if so be the Spirit be not equal with the Father and the Son in knowledge he is not only unequal and lesser than they but also no God for ignorance is not incident unto God Whereto I answer that where in holy Scripture we do meet with universal propositions negative or exclusive they are not to be expounded of one person so as the rest are excluded but creatures or false gods are to be excluded and whatsoever else is without or beside the essence and being of God Reasons to prove and confirme this interpretation I could bring very many whereof I will adde some for example In the seventh of John it is said When Christ shall come none shall know from whence he is notwithstanding which words the Jews thought that neither God nor his Angels should be ignorant from whence Christ should be In the fourth to the Galatians A mans Covenant or testament confirmed with authority no body doth abrogate or adde any thing thereunto No just man doth so but tyrants and truce-breakers care not for covenants In John eight Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst And yet it is not to be supposed that a multitude of people was not present and the Disciples of Christ likewise but the word Solus alone is referred to the womans accusers who withdrew themselves away every one and departed In the sixt of Mark When it was evening the ship was in the midst of the sea and he alone upon land he was not alone upon land or shore for the same was not utterly void of dwellers but he had not any of his Disciples with him nor any body to carry him a shipboard unto his Disciples Many phrases or forms of speeches like unto these are to be found in the sacred scriptures and in authors both Greek and Latin whereby we understand that neither universal negative nor exclusive particles are strictly to be urged but to be explained in such sort as the matter in hand will bear When as therefore the Son alone is said to know the Father and it is demanded whether the holy Spirit is debarred from knowing the Father out of other places of Scripture judgment is to be given in this case In some places the Holy Spirit is counted and reckoned with the Father and the Son jointly wherefore he is not to be separated Elsewhere also it is attributed to the holy spirit that he alone doth know the things which be of God and searcheth the deep secrets of God wherfore from him the knowing of God is not to be excluded They do yet further object that it is not convenient or fit for God after the manner of suters to humble and cast down himself but the holy Spirit doth so praying and intreating for us with unspeakable groans Rom. 8. Ergo the holy Spirit is not God Whereunto I answer that the Holy Spirit doth pray and intreat insomuch as he provoketh us to pray and maketh us to groan and sigh Oftentimes also in the Scriptures is that action or deed attributed unto God which we being stirred up and moved by him doe bring to passe So it is said of God unto Abraham Now I know that thou fearest God and yet before he would have sacrificed Isaac God knew the very heart of Abraham and therefore this word Cognovi I know is as much as Cognoscere feci I have made or caused to know And that the Spirit to pray and intreat is the same with that to make to pray and intreat the apostle teacheth even there writing that we have received the spirit of adoption in whom we cry Abba Father Where it is manifest that it is we which cry the Holy-ghost provoking and forcing us thereunto Howbeit they goe further and frame this reason Whosoever is sent the same is inferior and lesser than he of whom he is sent and furthermore he is of a comprehensible substance because he passeth by local motion from place to place but the Holy Spirit is sent of the Father and the Son John 14 15. 16. It is poured forth and shed upon men Acts 10. Ergo the Holy
must be addrest unto by Prayer resignation and fasting with a celestial Song out of the Canto's of Nagar this is his Character â— Nal-gah appearing to those that are devoted to the knowledge of Magick teaching them how to exercise Infernal Witchcraft without danger and in despight to the Devils he must be sought by hours minutes constellations privacy and blood c. He hath a bow bent in his hand and a Crown of Gold upon his head this is his Character â— Maynom one of the Powers who hath the ability of subservient administration that is at one time to be present with many he resembleth a Ew with Lamb typifying his nature in that appearance Gaonim an Angel causing his Pupil to go invisible and transporting him at his pleasure in a moment to the outmost parts of the earth Halanu the Instructer in Manual operations by whom Bezaliah and Aholibah were divinely inspired for the structure of the Tabernacle Rama-umi who is the Instructer in Cabalistical Magick and reveals the secrets of numbers the names of Angels and the vertue of Boim 7. These are the seven bad Angels or Daemons As the power and capacity of the good proceeds from the strength of God in the quality of heaven so is the force of the evil Genii in the hellish quality correspondent for it is to be noted that these evil Angels did before their fall enjoy the same places and degrees that now the good or holy Angels do so that as their power is to instruct men in Government Abstinence Philosophy Magick and Mechanick Arts for a good intent and for the glory of God The power of the evil ones is the very same to inform and instigate unto the same attainments as farr as they may be instrumental for the Devil or the Kingdom of Darkness therein 8. Their names are 1. Panalcarp like a Crocodile with two heads 2. Baratron appearing like a Conjurer in a Priestly habit 3 Sondennah like a Hunts-man 4. Greizmodal accompanying his Pupil like a Spaniel-Dog 5. Ballisargon the grand Inticer to theeving and robbery till he hath brought his followers to destruction 6. Morborgran who can put on various likenesses especially appearing as a Serving-man 7. Barman who most commonly possesseth the soul of those that are joyned unto him 9. These are the names of the 7 good and evil Daemons according to the antient writing on the Magical Art who do also to many particular Cities and Countries ascribe certain good and evil Angels the one whereof protects and defends the other inflicts Pestilence and Famin upon them Like unto which is the story recorded by Sigbertus in Chronicis That in the 11th year of the reign of Constans a good Angel and a bad were seen by the whole City of Constantinople nightly to fly about the City and as often as by the command of the good Angel the other smote any house with a dart in his hand such was the number that dyed in that house according to the stroaks given 10. And indeed it is to be feared that whosoever have ever pretended or do at present alledge that they enjoy familiarity with a familiar Spirit I say its greatly to be suspected that all such familiars belong to the Kingdom of Darkness for such are too too officious and ready to attend the depraved desires of mortal men whereas if communication with Angels or good and holy Guardians be at all attainable yet such is the difficulty of the attainment that the examples thereof if true are exceeding rare But in general the writings of Magicians and Naturallists do plentifully abound with examples of this nature whether good or evil is yet to be determined I have been told of a certain Country-man in these dayes who was continually pestered with the company of a woman discerned by none but by himself If he was upon Horse-back she would be behind him if at dinner she sate at his elbow if lying on his bed there she was also present And if at any time he had taken a journey or gone about some unprofitable business at such a time she accompanyed him not and seldom escaped he some mischief when she was absent But at last for all her dutiful pretences as she accompanyed him riding through a deep and swift running River she tumbled him into the deepest part and lay upon him till she had strangled or drowned him 11. Amongst the Jews this kind of Idolatry was frequent to consult with and associate themselves unto familiar Spirits whom they compelled to do them domestick service dressing their Camels lifting their burthens and doing their messages for the attaining their service they had many blasphemous Forms and superstitious Ceremonies and Sacrifices making the holy Names of God subservient to their accursed practices one whose name was Baal-Ben-ammim was adjudged by the Law of Moses to be burnt for the like practices being condemned in the time of one Judah a high Priest in the Captivity for killing an Infant and with its blood performing Sacrifice to Baalzebub with various ceremonies intermixed by which means his God had bequeathed unto him a certain Lacky from the Infernal Troop to attend and serve him for his whole life time this is to be found in Zoar's Coment upon Berosus and Belus who affirms That at his tryal he endeavoured to prove that the same was the good Angel or Genius given unto him by the mercy of God 12. Both the Hebrew Cabalists and Heathen Magicians as also those addicted to Magick in Christianity have all of them laid down certain forms of attaining the company of a good or evil Angel by number and astrological Observations fitted to the rules of Conjuration and Invocations And many of the superstitious Rabbi's have affirmed That they were able by such practices to cause the ghost of Adam Eve or any of the holy Patriarchs to appear unto them which was surely the delusion of Satan to harden their hearts But in the Addition to the 15th Book of the Discovery this Subject is more practically handled where many forms of obtaining the Society of the Bonus or Malus Genius are plainly decyphered so far as with safety and convenience they could be described Chap. III. Of the Astral Spirits of men departed What they are And why they appear again And what Witchcraft may be wrought by them 1. AS the Astral Spirits separate which belong not to any deceased person do for many years survive or continue so if the party deceased hath departed in discontent and melancholy it is often known that they return again and causing terrour to families and houses do wait for opportunity to disburthen themselves that at length they may come into their desired rest 2. The opinion of many is That the Devill in their likenesse is all that appears But the more Learned have sufficiently demonstrated through Example and Experience That the apparition is really proper to the person deceased Nor can
their dwelling the Caverns of the Rocks and Mountains which relation is recorded in the Antiquities of Pomonia 12. I have read another wonderful relation in a book de Annulis Antiquorum Concerning a young man from whom the power of Venus was taken away so that he could not Company with his new marryed Wife The Story is briefly thus Being busy at play or exercise with some of his Companions on his marriage day he put his weddng Ring on the finger of the Statue of Venus that stood besides the place least it should be lost when he had done returning to take his Ring the finger was bended inward so that he could by no means pluck off the Ring to his great amazement at which instant he forsooke the place and in the night the Image of Venus appeared unto him saying Thou hast espoused me and shalt not meddle with any other in the morning returning the Ring was gone and the finger made straight again which troubled him mightily so that he consulted with a Magician who wrote a Letter to some Principal Spirit in that Dominion to which Venus belong'd bidding the party stand watching at such a place at such an houre till he saw many troops of Spirits pass by him and describing one in a Chariot of stern and terrible Countenance to whom he bad him deliver the Letter All which he performed and after the person in the Chariot had read the contents thereof he broke out into this expression great God how long shall we be subject to the insolencies of this accursed Rascal naming the Magitian But withal calling to a most beauteous Woman from amongst the Company he charged her to deliver back the Ring which at length she did with much aversness and after that he injoyd his Marriage rites without impediment 13. Besides the innumerable Troops of Terrestrial Spirits called Faeryes there are also Nymphs of the Woods Mountains Groves and Fountains as Eagle Arethusa Io Menippa Irene c. who are sayd to be altogether of the faeminine kinde sporting and dancing and feasting amongst the trees in Woods and bathing in clean and limpid Fountains such have been seen by many and are often alluded to by the Roman and Greek Poets There is also a relation of a German Prince who being exceeding thirsty and weary with hunting and hawking lost his Company in the Woods on a suddain beheld an opening at a little hillock amongst the trees and a most beautiful Maiden offering a Golden Morn full of Liquor which he received and drunk and after rid quite away with the sayd Horn not regarding the Virgins tears who lamented after him t is sayd that having spilt some of the sayd Liquor it fetcht the hair from off his Horses skin and the horn is yet to be seen in Germany which I have been told by one that hath seen and handled it affirming That the Gold for purity cannot ba parallel'd 14. Another sort are the Incubi and Succubi of whom it is reported that the Hanns have the original being begotten betwixt these Incubi and certain Magical women whom Philimer the King of the Goths banished into the deserts whence arose that savage and untamed Nation whose speech seemed rather the mute attempts of brute Beasts then any articulate sound and well distinguished words To these Incubi are attributed the diseases of the blood called the Night-hag which certainly have a natural cause although at the instant of time when the party is oppressed it is probable that certain malevolent Spirits may mix themselvs therein and terrifie the soul and minde of the afflicted party 15. And amongst such Spirits as are resident amongst mortals there is a very froward kinde who take delight to pull down what man hath builded who have been seen at the building of strong and mighty Castles to come in the night and tumble all to the ground that the workmen had reared the day before of this sort were Horon Stilkon Glaura and Ribbolla four pestiferous and turbulent Animals that for many years infested the first founders of the Emperours Seraglio Till one of the holy Musselmans did by certain Charms and Exorcisms constrain and binde them to tell their names and the cause of their disturbing which they declared and were by him confined to destroy the mines of Copper in Hungaria 16. There is also a Relation extant in the Life of Paul the Hermit of a Satyr appearing to him in the Woods and discoursing with him that it was a mortal Creature as he and served the same God dehorting the people to worship them for demi-Gods as they had been accustomed to Like unto this is the Story of the Death of the great God Pan That a Mariner sailing by the Island of Cicilia was called by his name from the shore and by a certain voice was bid to tell the Inhabitants of the next Island that the great God Pan was dead which he obeyd and though in the next Island there were no Inhabitants yet when he approached he proclaimed towards the shoar that Pan was deceased immediately after which Proclamation he could sensibly hear most doleful and lachrymable Cryes and noyses as of those that lamented his departure 17. Ianthe is sayd by Magitians to be a water Spirit who is ever present when any are drownd in the water being delighted much in the destruction of mankinde that it may enjoy the Company of their Astral Spirits after their decease for according to the four Complexions or Constitutions of the body of Man The Astral Spirit associates it self with separated substances The Phlegmatick to the watry Spirits The Sanguine to those of the Aire The Cholerick to the Fire and the Melancholy to the Terrestrial Spirits But this is only to be supposed of such persons as dyed in discontent and restlesness 18. Of another sort are such Aquatick Animals as in former times have conversed and procreated with mankinde bearing divers Children And at length snatching all away into the watry Element again whereof there are variety of Examples in Cardanus and Bodin Of this sort was the Familiar of Paulus a Mendicant Frier called by him Florimella and entertaind as his Bed-fellow for forty years though unknown and unseen to any but himself till upon some unhandsome carriage of the Fryer his Companion accompanying him over the Danube leapt into the River and was never after seen 19. Innumerable are the reports and accidents incident unto such as frequent the seas as fisher-men and sailers who discourse of noises flashes shadows echoes and other visible appearances nightly seen and heard upon the surface of the water And as the disposition of the Heavens is according to the constellations and climates so are these spectres appropriate to particular parts and coasts from the North to the Southern pole But more especially abounding in the North about Norweigh Isleland Green Land and Nova Zembla 20. Neither are the Storyes of the Greek
the first order in the astringency are appeased and provoked when the fumes are put upon a Tripod in the hour of Saturn according to the Planetary division These Fumigations make these Spirits appear like old men with promiss beards and meager looks like Serpents Cats Wolves Badgers Panthers like old Men in Armour like Trumpeters in many ranks and divisions 12. For Spirits under Jupiter they take Lignum Aloes Ashen-Keys Benjamin Storax Peacocks-feathers and Lapis Lazuli mixing the same with the blood of a Stork a Swallow or a Hart the brains being also added The fumes are kindled in Jupiters hour and in a place appropriate to his nature And by this sacrifice the Spirits of the next order are called up like glorious Kings with many attendants and mighty pomp with Heralds before them and Ensign-bearers Trumpeters Guards and all sorts of musical Instruments 13. They make Fumigations unto such Spirits of the order of Powers as are under Mars in the Planetary division with Aromatick Gum Bdellium Euphorbium Load-stone Hellebore white and black and an addition of Sulphur to make them into an Amalgama with Man's blood and the blood of a black Cat which mixtures are said to be exceeding magical so that without any other addition they say this fumigation is able of it self to make such Spirits to appear before the Exorcist at their appearance they come with weapons brandishing and shining Armour being terrible in their looks yet of power inferiour to the Spirits of Saturn though they can likewise shew themselves as Lions Wolves Tygers Bears and all other cruel or ravenous Beasts 14. They do likewise unto the Spirits under Sol being of the order of Thrones Suffumigate Saffron Musk Laurel Cinnamon Ambergriece Cloves Myrrhe and Frankincense Musk and the Balsamick Tree mixed up together with the brain of an Eagle and the blood of a white Cock being made up like Pills or little Balls and put upon the Tripod their appearances are Castles Gardens Mountains Rivers Fisher-men Hunters Reapers Dogs Sheep Oxen and other domestick Beasts 15. Under Venus are the Spirits of the sixth order in the Powers their appearances are very stately like the nature of the Planet like Courtiers Ladies Princes Queens Infants Children and fragrant smells The fumigations appropriate unto them are Roses Coral Lignum Aloes and Sperma Ceti made up with Sparrows brains and blood of Pidgeons to be fumigated with a Song 16. Mercury sendeth Horsemen Fishers Labourers Priests Students Servants c. Also Foxes Serpents Dogs Hares Hyena's Hydra's and other Monstrous Animals unto him they fumigate Frankincense Mastick Cinkfoyl incorporated with the brain of a Fox and the blood of a Mag-Pye 17. Spirits under Luna are like Ghosts and shadows very gastly to behold though in humane shape sometimes male sometimes female Fumigations are offered unto them of Frogs dryed white Poppy-seed Bulls Eyes Camphire and Frankincense incorporated with Gooses blood and the menstruous blood of Women 18. These are the divisions of fumigations neither can it be denyed but that in many Ceremonies of this kind there is great inherent virtue according to the Doctrines of Sympathy and Antipathy whereby every thing is drawn by its like in the Idea whither by words or actions according to the saying In verbis herbis lapidibus latet virtus so that the Ceremonies and Charms with other circumstances used by Magicians are doubtless prevalent to the accomplishment of that work which they undertake to wit The calling up and Exorcizing of Infernal Spirits by Conjurations CHAP. VII Being the Conclusion of the Whole wherein divers antient Spells Charms Incantations and Exorcisms are briefly spoken of 1. BEsides what the Author hath set down there be many other Spells and Charms which Tradition hath left unto Posterity being many of them effectual for the thing intended by them as in the precedent Chapter is set down wherein the Orders of Fumigations are described Besides there are Magical Characters attributed to the Planets whereof Telesms Periapts Amulets and Philters are composed by buryings writings bindings engravings alligations c. to effect various purposes in Astrological hours To conquer Enemies cure diseases overturn Cities stop Inundations render bodies Invulnerable and the like which are all effected by medium's of this kind with the assistance of Imagination 2. Yet are there many natural Compositions which have very stupendious effects of themselves without assistance of Superstition for the commixtion of things is of two-fold force or vertue First When the Celestial vertues are duly disposed in any natural body so that in one thing are couched various Influences of superiour Powers The second is from Artificial mixtures and Compositions of natural things amongst themselves in a certain proportion to agree with the Heavens under certain Constellations This proceeds from the correspondence of natural things amongst themselves whereby things are effected even unto admiration as Agrippa declares Cap. 35. lib. 1. 3. And as unto every Planet certain fumigations are ascribed so unto such Spirits as are under them certain Places are adopted for the Ceromonies of Conjuration which Magicians chose when they set upon their works of Darkness Unto Saturn are ascribed dark melancholy Places Vaults Tombes Monasteries empty Houses Dens Caves Pits Unto Jupiter Theaters Schools Musick houses Judgment seats To Mars Fields where Battels have been fought Bake-houses Glass-houses Shambles Places of Execution To Sol Palaces Mountains Meddows Sunshine Groves and upper Rooms To Venus Fountains Meadows Gardens and the Sea-shore Unto Mercury all publick places belonging unto Cities To Luna Wildernesses Woods Rocks Forrests Ships High-wayes c. 4. In like manner are Spells and Charms adapted to the thing which they must effect according to the matter form and place of their composition as for the procuring of Love they bury Rings Ribbons Seals Pictures Looking-Glasses c. in Stews Baths Beds that in such places they may contract some Venereal faculty When they gather Herbs or other Ingredients they chuse the hour and place when such Planets have Dominion as are over these Herbs which they collect ever remembring to turn their faces to the East or South when Saturnine Martial or Jovial Herbs are gathered because their Principal houses are Southern signs for Venereal Mercurial or Lunary herbs they must look towards the West or North because their houses are chiefly Northern signs Yet in any Solar or Lunar operations the body of the Sun and Moon must be respected in the operation 5. Colours are also much regarded amongst Magicians according to the Planet as black leaden brown unto Saturn saphire vernal green purple golden unto Jupiter red burning violet bloody and iron colours unto Mars golden saffron scarlet c. unto the Sun white fair green ruddy pleasant mixed colours unto Venus Mercury and Luna In like manner they ascribe colours unto the twelve Houses and according to the Planets have also certain compositions for fire
are not subject to conjurations What Spirits may be conjured The nature of the Astral Spirits Their degrees Their actions and affections The distinct orders of starry Spirits The office of Daemons or Genii Three ways of enjoying their society The first way The second way The third way of their appearance Their number The seven good Angels The nature of both The seven evil Genii and the manner of their appearances An example The uncertainty of communicating with Angels Familiars in the time of the Jews Several men have wrote and methodized the Art of Conjuration The spirits of men return again All men have starry Spirits What sort of persons most frequently re-appear The manner and time of their appearance The reason thereof The power of Magitians over them Example The cause the difficulty and paucity of appearances More particularly of the same The nefarious practices of Necromancers in an example Example The state of the Starry Spirit Why the Ghost of Samuel appeared The opinions of Plato Of Phythagoras Of other Philosophers The Raptures of Lunaticks Their Entertainments A strange example Apparitions before Christianity were frequent Why Funeral Piles were instituted What the want of Burial causeth The conclusion of this Chapter with an example Astral Spirits common The Spirits of the Planets The Power of the Planets Spirits the Air. Their Actions Spirits appropriate to the Spheres Terrestrial Spirits Faeries Lares and Domestick Spirits Luridan a famaliar Spirit Balkin a Familiar A strange example Spirits of Woods and Mountains Incubi and Succubi A froward kinde of Spirit Example Example Janthe a Spirit of the water Watry Spirits that procreate Apparitions on the water Prophetical rivers and vocal fountains Example Spirits in Green-Land Destroying Spirits Fiery Spirits What these Spirits are Why they delight in the fiery element Spirits that burn Cities Their food and pastime Why they delight in the fiery quality Astral Spirits ministers to the devill Why the devil requires their help Subterranean Spirits Spirits of the Mountains Caves and Tombs Spirits of hidden Treasures The nature of such Spirits Spirits that infest Mines and Miners An Example of a turbulent Spirit Conclusion What this Chapter treats of The place of hell or the habitation of devils Illustrated by a similitude The differerence betwixt heaven and hell How the Devils can come into this World The great difficulty of their appearance The cause of few appearances now The Devils power in the time of the Law His power under Christ in the flesh Under Christianity Under Apostacies Under Idolatry How power in new discovered Lands His power in America The variety of Conjurations according to the Countries Why few are able to raise Spirits The Names of Devils in the time of the Law Their Names in China In the East-Indies Tartaria Greece Italy West Indies The nature of their Names The names of of Devils in Scot. The names of Damned souls Whence the names of Devils are The names of Devils in the Kingdom of Fiacim The Shapes of Devils As they appear to Magicians in the highest ranks In the lower orders That the Devils are answerable to the unclean Beasts The shapes of Damned Souls Their times and seasons Their places of appearance When Tempests reign According to the situation of Regions Their Ranks and Orders In three distinctions Their numbers Their natures and properties Their torments The Variety thereof The Nature thereof Their torment in the source of Anger In all the five Senses By their acquaintance on earth The Nature of Hell The food of Devils Their food in the Astral source Their Speech What Language they affect Their unconstancy Their Power When they are called up Fumigations made unto them The Conclusion Shews before Spirits appear A Relation of a Magician His Actions Another Magician What Charms are Pentacles Their force Telesms For Diseases Fumigations For Saturn Jupiter Mars Sol. Venus Mercury Luna Why such Ceremonies are of force Charms Natural Operations Places ascribed to the seven Planets Spells Secret Conclusions The Candle of life That Characters are compacts The force of Words and Characters The vanity of Conjuration By Similitude Exorcising or casting out Like desires its like Nothing is compelled by contraries Of Images of Wax and what is wrought by them Further concerning Images Of Images provoking Love Forms of Charms in Tartary The tying of the Point Charming by the Sive By Bottles Skins Letters Cords Lots Transplantation Ceremonious And meerly natural Magical Instruments Their matter Substance And Form The Conclusion
the Circle into seven parts and write these seven names at the seven divisions setting at every Name a Candle lighted in a brazen Candlestick in the space betwixt the Circles The names are these Cados ✚ Escherie 🜂 Anick ✚ Sabbac Sagun ✚ ✚ Aba ✚ Abalidoth When the Candles are lighted let the Magician being in the midst of the Circle and supporting himself with two drawn Swords say with a low and submissive voyce I do by the vertue of these seven holy Names which are the Lamps of the living God Consecrate unto my use this inclosed Circle and exterminate out of it all evill Spirits and their power that beyond the limit of their circumference they enter not on pain of torments to be doubled Yah Agion Helior Heligah Amen When this Consecration is ended Let him sprinkle the Circle with consecrated Water and with a Chasing-dish of Charcole perfume it with Frankincense and Cinamon laying the Swords a cross the Circle and standing over them then whilest the fumigation burneth let him begin to call these three Spirits in this following manner I Conjure and Exorcize you the three Gentle and Noble Spirits of the power of the North by the great and dreadful name of Peolphan your King and by the silence of the night and by the holy rites of Magick and by the number of the Infernal Legions I adjure and invocate you That without delay ye present your selves here before the Northern quarter of this Circle all of you or any one of you and answer my demands by the force of the words contained in this Book This must be thrice repeated and at the third repetition the three Spirits will either all appear or one by lot if the other be already somewhere else imployed at their appearance they will send before them three fleet Hounds opening after a Hare who will run round the Circle for the space of half a quarter of an hour after that more hounds will come in and after all a little ugly Aethiop who will take the Hare from their ravenous mouths and together with the Hounds vanish at last the Magician shall hear the winding of a Hunts-mans horn and a Herald on Horseback shall come galloping with three Hunters behind upon black Horses who will compass the Circle seven times and at the seventh time will make a stand at the Northern quarter dismissing the Herald that came up before them and turning their Horses towards the Magician will stand all a brest before him saying Gil pragma burthon machatan dennah to which the Magician must boldly answer Beral Beroald Corath Kermiel By the sacred rites of Magick ye are welcome ye three famous Hunters of the North and my command is that by the power of these Ceremonies ye be obedient and faithful unto my summons unto which I conjure you by the holy Names of God Yah Gian Soter Yah Iehovah Immanuel Letragrammaton Yah Adonay Sabray Seraphin Binding and obliging you to answer plainly faithfully and truly by all these holy names and by the awful name of your mighty King Peolphon Which when the Magician hath said the middle Hunter named Paymon will answer Gil pragma burthon machatan dennah We are the three mighty Hunters of the North in the Kingdom of Fiacim and are come hither by the sound of thy Conjurations to which we swear by him that liveth to yield obedience if Judas that betrayed him be not named Then shall the Magician swear By him that liveth and by all that is contained in this holy Book I swear unto you this night and by the mysteries of this action I swear unto you this night and by the bonds of darkness I swear unto you this night That Judas the Traitor shall not be named and that blood shall not be offered unto you but that truce and equal terms shall be observed betwixt us Which being said the Spirits will bow down their heads to the Horses crests and then alighting down will call their Herald to withdraw their Horses which done The Magician may begin to bargain with all or any one of them as a familiar invisibly to attend him or to answer all difficulties that he propoundeth Then may he begin to ask them of the frame of the World and the Kingdoms therein contained which are unknown unto Geographers He may also be informed of all Physical processes and operations also how to go invisible and fly through the airy Region They can likewise give unto him the powerful Girdle of Victory teaching him how to compose and consecrate the same which hath the force being tyed about him to make him conquer Armies and all men whatsoever Besides there is not any King or Emperour throughout the world but if he desires it they will engage to bring him the most pretious of their Jewels and Riches in twenty four hours discovering also unto him the way of finding hidden treasures and the richest mines And after the Conjurer hath fulfilled his desires he shall dismiss the aforesaid Spirits in this following form I charge you ye three officious Spirits to depart unto the place whence ye were called without injury to either man or Beast leaving the tender Corn untouched and the seed unbruised I dismiss you and licence you to go back untill I call you and to be alwayes ready at my desire especially thou nimble Bathin whom I have chosen to attend me that thou be alwayes ready when I ring a little Bell to present thy self without any Magical Ceremonies performed and so depart ye from hence and peace be betwixt you and us In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen When the Magician hath repeated this last form of dismission he will hear immediately a horn winding after which the Herald with the jet black Horses and the three Spirits will mount upon them compassing the Circle seven times with the Herald winding his horn before them and at every Candle they will bow towards the Horses crest till coming towards the Northern quarter they will with great obeysance seem to march away out through the solid wall as through a City gate CHAP. IV. How to Consecrate all manner of Circles Fumigations Fire Magical Garments and Utensills COnsecrations are related either to the person or the thing consecrated The person is the Magitian himself whose consecration consisteth in Abstinence Temperance and holy Garments The things consecrated are the Oyl the Fire the Water The Fumigations consisting of oriental Gums and Spices the magical Sword Pensils Pens and Compasses the measuring Rule and waxen Tapers the Pentacles Periapts Lamins and Sigils Vests Caps and Priestly Garments these are the materials to be consecrated The sacred Pentacles are as signs and charms for the binding of Evil Daemons consisting of Characters and Names of the Superior order of the good Spirits opposite unto those evils ones whom the Magitian is about to Invocate And of sacred Pictures Images and
Mathematical Figures adapted to the names and natures of separated Substances whither good or evil Now the form of Consecrating such Magical Pentacles is to name the vertue of the holy Names and Figures their Antiquity and Institution with the intention of the Consecration purifying the Pentacle by consecrated fire and waving the same over the flames thereof When the Exorcist would consecrate Places or Utensils Fire or Water for magical uses he must repeat the Consecration or Dedication of Solomon the King at the building of the Temple the Vision of Moses at the Bush and the Spirit of the Lord on the tops of the Mulberry-trees repeating also the Sacrifice of it self being kindled the Fire upon Sodom and the Water of Eternal Life Wherein the Magitian must still remember to speak of the seven golden Candlesticks and Ezekiels Wheels closing the Consecration with the deep and mysterious Names of God and holy Daemons When particular Instruments are to be sanctified the Magitian must sprinkle the same with consecrated Water and fumigate them with fumigations anoint them with consecrated Oyl And lastly Seal them with holy Characters after all which is performed an Oration or Prayer must follow relating the particulars of the Consecration with Petitions to that Power in whose Name and Authority the Ceremony is performed And in like manner shalt thou consecrate and sanctifie every Utensil whatsoever by Sprinklings Fumigations Unctions Seals and Benedictions commemorating and reiterating the sanctifyings in the holy Scripture of the Tables of the Law delivered to Moses of the two Testaments in the New Covenant of the holy Prophets in their Mothers wombs and of Aholiah and Aholibah whom the Spirit of God inspired to frame all sorts of curious workmanship for the Tabernacle This is the sum of Consecrationn CHAP. V. Treating more practically of the Consecration of Circles Fires Garments and Fumigations IN the Construction of Magical Circles the hour day or night and season of the year and the Constellation are to be considered as also what sort of Spirits are to be called and to what Region Air or Climate they belong Therefore this method is to be followed for the more orderly and certain proceeding therein First a Circle nine foot over must be drawn within which another Circle three inches from the outermost must be also made in the Center whereof the name of the hour the Angel of the hour the Seal of the Angel the Angel of the day predominant wherein the work is undertaken Note these attributes are to be inscribed betwixt the Circles round about with Alpha at the beginning and Omega at the close When the Circle is composed it must be sprinkled with holy Water while the Magician saith Wash me O Lord and I shall be whiter then Snow And as for the Fumigations over them this Benediction must be said O God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob bless these thy subservient creatures that they may multiply the force of their excellent odors to hinder evil spirits and phantasms from entring the Circle through our Lord. Amen An Exorcism for the fire The Exorcist ought to have an earthen Censer wherein to preserve the fire for magical uses and the expiations and fumigations whose consecration is on this manner By him that created Heaven and Earth and is the God and Lord of all I exorcize and sanctifie thee thou creature of Fire that immediately thou banish every phantasm from thee so that thou prove not hurtful in any kind Which I beseech thee O Lord to confirm by sanctifying and making pure this creature of fire that it may be blessed and consecrate to the honour of thy holy Name Amen At the putting on the Garments Let the Magician say By the figurative mystery of this holy Stole or Vestment I will cloath me with the armour of Salvation in the strength of the highest Ancor Amacor Amides Lheodonias Anitor That my desired end may be effected through thy strength Adonai to whom the praise and glory will for ever belong Which Ceremonies being finished the Exorcist shall proceed to the practical part of Invocation and Conjuration of all degrees of Spirits having every utensil and appendix in readiness for the performance and proceeding according to the method in these following Chapters CHAP. VI. How to raise and exorcize all sorts of Spirits belonging to the Airy Region THe Garment which the Exorcist is cloathed withall at the performance of this action ought according to the opinions of the chiefest Magicians to be a Priestly Robe which if it can no where be procured may be a neat and cleanly linnen Vest with the holy Pentacle fastned thereunto upon Parchment made of a Kids skin over which an Invocation must be said and then the Pentacle must be sprinkled with holy Water At the putting on the Magical Garment this Prayer must be repeated By thy holy power Adonai Sabaoth And by the power and merit of thine Angels and Archangels and by the vertue of holy Church which thou hast sanctified do I cloath me with this consecrated Garment that what I am to practice may take effect through thy Name who art for ever and ever Now as for the time of operation and the manner thereof The Instructions before set down are sufficient to direct the Exorcist only the Acter and his Scholar must be mindful in the way as they go towards the place of Conjuration to reiterate the sacred forms of Consecrations Prayers and Invocations the one bearing an Earthen Vessel with consecrated fire and the other the Magical Sword the Book and Garments till approaching nigh the place where the Circle is to be drawn they must then proceeed to compose it after the aforesaid manner And at last Exorcize the Spirits on this following manner Seeing God hath given us the power to bruise the Serpents head and command the Prince of Darkness much more to bear rule over every airy Spirit Therefore by his strong and mighty Name Iehovah do I conjure you naming the Spirits and by his secret commands delivered to Moses on the Mount and by his holy Name Tetragrammaton and by all his wonderful Names and Attributes Sadai Ollon Emillah Athanatos Paracletos c. That ye do here immediately appear before this Circle in humane form and not terrible or of monstrous shape on pain of eternal misery that abides you unless you speedily fulfil my commands Bathar Baltar Archim Anakim Nakun Amen When the Exorcist hath finished this Conjuration he and his companion shall continue constantly turning themselves to the East West North and South saying with their Caps in their hands Gerson Anek Nephaton Basannah Cabon and within a little space they will behold various apparitions upon the ground and in the air with various habits shapes and instruments after that he shall perceive a troop of armed men with threatning carriage appear before the Circle who after they are conjured to leave