Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	saint_n	6,082	5	5.8116	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94031	The strange vvitch at Greenvvich, (ghost, spirit, or hobgoblin) haunting a wench, late servant to a miser, suspected a murtherer of his late vvife: with curious discussions of walking spirits and spectars of dead men departed, for rare and mysticall knowledge and discourse, / by Hieronymus Magomastix. April 24. 1650. Imprimatur. John Dovvname.	Hieronymus Magomastix.	1650 (1650)	Wing S5920; Thomason E600_15; ESTC R206398	23,528	30

out of her Grave did believe as their Creed verily and assuredly Verid. But as a woman being askt by Bonner if shee believed not Christs body and blood to bee in the Sacrament substantially and really Shee told him it was a substantiall lye and a reall lye so I assure you what ever the Pontificians doate or faigne or our Vulgars dreame of the Ghosts or Spirits of this man or that man walking after their deaths in this or that shape is a very lye an assured lye take this from me yea from Scripture Fathers Reason and Experience assuredly Scept But doe you not believe that many strange visions and apparitions have appeared unto men and have revealed divers strange things unto them and future events sometimes visible in bodily shapes and formes are not these the soul●s of the dead Verid. No they are not yet I should give a lye to abundant Histories and to all Antiquities if I should deny all Visions for the Author of the Booke of the Machab●●s tells us of two yong men who appeared to Heliodorus 2 Machab. 3.25.26 of five to Judas Machabeus 2 Machab. 10.23 and Zozomens Ecclesiasticall Historie relates a feare full spectar terryfying Julian the Apostate as hee was consulting with an Oracle lib. 5. cap. 2. and another in forme of a big woman with a horrid noise in the night terrifying the Antiochians lib. 7. cap. 23. and of another appearing to Apelles the Painter whose face hee burned with a hot Iron lib. 6 cap. 28. as St. Dunstan is sayd to take the Divell by the nose with a paire of hot pinchers yea to reflex from Ecclesiasticall on secular History a spectar appeared to Julius Caesar as hee led his Army into France incouraging him by a loud pipe to passe over the River Rubico another to Brutus telling him hee would meete him at Philippos another to Dionysius the Syracusan in forme of a woman as hee sate very solitary in the Porch of his house another to Polizelus the Athenians Generall in the Battle of Marathan where hee was victorious though it struck him blinde another to Athenodorus the Stoick which hee dispossessed out of a house in Athens which it haunted just as the Spirit now doth the house of Meriday and another in the Parish of Mentz who by breaking open doores casting stones pulling down walls and the like reakes that our Greenwich Spirit doth troubled and terrified many and another to Henry the third Emperour in Hungary neare Danubius in the shape of a black and big Aethiopian another also to Maximilian the first Emperour Anno 1503. in the forme of an Abatesse who was dead of all which with many more which I purposely pretermit for further satisfaction consult with Came arius in his Centuries Cent. 1. cap. 70. cap. 72. with Richtherus in his Occonomicall Axioms Reg. 2. 90. Aretius in his Probleams Page 113. Pliny in his seventh booke of Epistles to Sura Wolfius in his memorable Lecticus Tom. 1. Aventine in his Annalls lib. 5. Boiorum Artunus in his first Section of the History of Millaine together with Plutark in his Brutns and Dion Suetonius in his Caesar with others all which instances doe not onely confute and confound the ancient Saduces who denyed that there were either Spirits or Angells Acts 23.8 Math 22.23 yea conceited God himselfe to bee corporeall according to Lorinns in acta cap. 23.8 fol. 869. from Chrysostome and Oecumenius and not a spirit denying also the Holy Ghost according to Hierom in Math. 22. to bee a spirit or to bee any person in the Diety nor doe they onely muzzle the mouth of Atheisticall Politicians who with that Trismegistus in Saint Augustines City of God lib. 3. cap. 23. hold that there be no reall or substantiall Divells but onely the Furies and Erinnis of wicked consciences but also some neotorick and moderne Fantasticks and Scepticks who conceit all to bee meere fantasmes and delusions in this kinde and no more to bee credited then the fictitious Tritons Gerions and Chimeras of the Poets yea of no more credence then the old Wives Tales of King Oberon and Queene of the Fairies Scept To deny all Apparitions of spirits which the Disciples themselves feared when they saw Christ walking on the waters Math. 14.26 Mark 6.46 were to deny plaine Scriptures for they thought hee had beene a spirit for I believe the Relation of Suetonius in the life of Nero that after that Truculent Tyrant had butchered so many noble Senators made Bonefires of so many Christian Martyrs put to death his Master Seneca when hee was 114. yeares of age crucified Peter and Paul and unripped the bowells of his Mother Octavia with other such barbarous cruelties that hee was not onely racked and tortured with his owne guilty conscience and terrified with agonizing feares in his dreames as were Caligula his Successor Herod after his assassinations of the Bethlem Infants and Jewish Synedrim Alexander after tue murther of Clitus Philip after the butchering of his innocent sonne Demetrins and our bloody Boare Richard the third after his murthering of his Brother and N●phewes in the Tower by Tirell whose pannick feares and terrours in the guilt of blood are more largely related by Patritius in his bookes of a Kingdome lib. 5. tit 8. pag 313. and by Strigellius in his Ethicks lib. 1. pag. 6.7.8 and in his Comments on 2 Sam. 3. pag. 9. pag. 15● but I believe also the Relation of the same Authours that hee was so whipped and scourged and scorched in his flesh as with hot brands with a spirit in the shape of his Mother that as Balthazar consulted with his Magitians in the like pannick feares Dan. 5. hee used all the helps hee could by Magick to appease as hee thought her angry Ghost neither have I any reason to contradict the received Relation of that terrible Vision of an ugly man in bulke like a Gyant appearing in the night to Pisistratus the Tyrant thundering to him what hee found true that nemo Improbus non luit poenam no wicked man must escape unpunished yet for all this I perswade my selfe many conceit they see or heare spirits when there is no such matter Verid. That is certaine for in the guilt of conscience Theoderick a cruel King of the Goth●● thought hee saw the bloody head of Symachus which hee had out off to gape with open mouth upon him when onely the head of a great Fish was set on his table by which Guilt of Conscience some have strangely discovered their owne murthers as many notorious Villaines have beene discovered by others of which many instances may bee seene in Gualters Homilies upon Luke cap. 12. pag. 324. as also Bucholcerus his Chronologies pag. 59. chiefely in Melancton in locis Manlii pag. 290. 308. Sometimes withall the senses are mainely deluded as the Moabites thought the waters were dyed with the blood of the Israelites when it was onely the Sunne which shined upon them to a waterish rednesse 2

The strange VVITCH AT GREENVVICH Ghost Spirit or Hobgoblin haunting a Wench late servant to a Miser suspected a Murtherer of his late VVife With curious Discussions of walking spirits and spectars of dead Men departed for rare and mysticall knowledge and discourse By HIERONYMUS MAGOMASTIX Eme Lysippo novos tota sonat Vrbe Libellos April 24. 1650. Imprimatur JOHN DOVVNAME LONDON Printed by Thomas Harper and are to be sold by John Saywell at the Greyhound in Little Britaine 1650. The strange Witch at Greenwich c. Scepticus REverend Sir though my acquaintance bee but yong with you yet imboldened upon these extraordinary curtesies I lately received from you ever obliging my gratitude by your candid imparting unto mee your learned notions to my full anchoring and setling in such poynts and doubts as before I was tossed and troubled in unsetled fluctuations as I then I thanke you thrashed out of your full mow and lighted my darke torch at your bright flame lapping as a poore Poet out of your Homericall Basin so knowing you are as willing to improve your able parts for publick and private good to the inlivening and inlightning of such weake tenuities as mine as a full dugd Mother or Nurse to communicate her milke to a hungry childe as the Sunne lends her light to the Moone Starres and Plannets and his influence to the sublunaries since bonum quo communius co melius good the more common it is the more commendable as a poore Beggar who knowes the way willingly to the house againe where hee received a Rich Almes I make bold to thrust my selfe further upon your favours so far as that you would bee pleased to informe mee both in the quid quale quomodo of the Reports in every mans tongue more common then the cough and fleame in an old womans mouth or Oaths and God dam mees in the mouths of some Roarers of a strange Witch or Ghost now at your Greenwich haunting the house of one Meriday and playing strange prankes by throwing stones at the glasse windowes making the stooles chaires and other utensills daunce Sellengers round or rather according to the Musick of these Times turnde all frets passing measure in lofty levaltoes without either Welsh Ha●pe Jewes Trumpe Scotch Bagpipe or English disorder I should say Recorder throwing also Bookes yea the Testament into the fire as though it cared as little for it as a new Enthusiast Papist or an Athiest peerking the ladle out of the Wives boyling pot below as high as into the Husbands bed above putting the Husbands breeches upon the Wives head as though the Grey Mare were the better Horse not induring that a boy should bee too captious or capritious throwing the boyes cap into the chimnyes smoake yea as a Lord of mistule breaking earthen pots as fast as some Merchants and Bankrouts in these broken and breaking Times with other such reakes and mad merry pranks as strange as ever Hobgoblins pinching Fairies and Robin Goodfellow acted in houses in old Times amongst Dayry Wenches and Kitchin Maids Veridicus Though usually fama mendax fame bee as lying as flying growne much bigger like Snow Balls by tumbling from mouth to mouth yet to answer you in your Jocoserious straine what you have related and much more as of much more authentick credit then what the Popish Proselites believe as Gospell truth in their leaden Legends of St. Dennyes and St. Guthmar taking their heads in their hands and burying them when they were cut off of Justina being a right woman who spoke when her tongue was cut out of St. Tryar who caused a sheepe as most blabbing meate to bleate in a Thieves belly who had eate it of St. Francis who caused a Wolfe to leave woarying Sheepe calling him brother Wolfe of the stones who sayd Amen venerable Bede when hee had ended his Sermon of St. Cuthbert who made the Crowes doe pennance in black sheetes for pulling the thatch off his house of St. Dominîck who tooke up his bookes falne into the Sea as dry as dust and of St. Margaret who by the signe of the all wonder working crosse caused a Spider which shee had swallowed come out at her legge by a little scratching with a number such like which they scrape and scratch and patch together like shreds in a Beggars Cloake to make up a fardle of fooleries and a bundle of bables for as I have examined the truth of these things you have related not onely from the Wife Sonne and Daughter of that Merryday but from Master Halsepenny and his Wife who saw a Laundyron of it self without any visible mover leape out of the fire a Candlestick skippe up into the chamber as other Neighbours other such postures as true as strange hearing also strange noises and ratlings as of Carts or Waynes rumbling up and downe the house when the doores have been lockt and except a Cat or Rat no visible Creature within so I my selfe being one night with much company in the house as wee went out a round stone was throwne at my Daughters heeles another time as I was in the house with the old Wife and two Children as I went into the Garden a knife was throwne after mee which I tooke up and with vehemency threw back againe to the very place from whence it came daring the Witch or Spirit to throw it at mee againe and conjuring it in the name of that Jesus which is terrible to Divells to speake unto mee and to reveale the reason why it haunted the house and to returne to it own place but I had no reply neither by voice or gesture Scept But did you not in this case use exorcismes which you so condemne in Priests and Jesuites Verid. I know well both Durand in the Rites of his Church lib. 1. cap. 19. and Thiraeus de Demonibus part 3. and Delrius in his Magicall disquisitions Tom. 3. and Bellarmine and the Rhemists upon Timothy 1 Cor. 3. and all the Rabble of them make exorcisme or adjuration of Spirits one of the disorderly Orders of their Church and they joyne it with the Acolythites Ostiarians Readers Priests and Deacons and Bristow in his Motives Bozius and Campian make it one of the Notes of their Church as the chiefe of their Miracles and both Staphilus and Smediline page 404. and Lindan in his Dialogues dial 3. cap. 1. and Bredenbachius in his Collations lib. 7. cap. 40. cap. 42. scoffe at Luther and his Protestants because they cannot conjure Spirits which they say was attempted to their great scaith and scorne both in Wittemb●rge Anno 1545. and else where Anno 1563. I know also that they pretend this exorcizing of Spirits came from Solomon and so according to Origen tract 35. in Math. they make it Judaicall and consequently since according to Junius Judizare est Christum denegare they deny Christ and his Gospel by Judaizing I know also Tertullian in his Prescriptions cap. 4. deny this power unto women yet they

promises as Children with Bables and old Flowers throwne by as old Ladders after their ends bee climbed and shaken off as Foxes doe their Fleas Scept But not to jeast with the times which is to touch the Lyons paw or play with his beard I see give the Divell an inch and hee will take an ell sup of his broth and cate of his roast-meate it being dangerous to give his waters the least passage or to entertaine the least sparke of his hellish heates into a harboring heart but principiis obstare to resist him in the beginning to quench his sparkes with prayers and teares in the first kindling to crush his injected temptations as yong Serpents in the heads and Cocatrices in their shells yea to pump them out as water out of a shippe as fast as they leaker or dash in This infernall Fox or Serpent wresting in himselfe whole where hee gets but in his head like a hungry Dogge following still for more if hee get but one luring crust to intice him on I see also how soone these yong things God leaving them to themselves and to their strong soone budding corruptions like soft Waxe take suddaine Sathanicall Impressions like that yong Pythonist or Ventriloquist who got her Masters much gaine by Southsayings Acts 16. and that yong baggage who like the cackling of a Hen that Peter was a Galilean made that Cock cry Craven to the denying of his Master Math. 27. and that yong Herodias in whom the Divell daunced faith Chrysostome till her round turnings and mimicall gestures layd John Baptists round head in a platter Marke 6. and many yong wily Wenches in our Times some discovered by Doctour Harsuet some by Deakon and Walker in their printed Dialoguizings and some by deepe and judicious King James to have playd strange reakes by the tutorings and impostures of Fryars and Jesuits and by the trainings of some old Witches and Wizzards both black and white and indeede I have a strong jealousie that this Impe hath a laire Father or laire-mother besides Sathan the Father of all impostures some hee or shee Witch who traines her besides these Legerdemaines even in Wichcraft it selfe Verid. Truely my jealousies and suspitions in this kinde have been and still are as strong as yours that as the old Cocks crow the yong ones learne and for this purpose I have toucht every string rowled every stone improved all my best by my selfe and friends to finde out the old serpent of this young spawne and by this Cubbe I have used all the Terriers of my best wits to hunt the old Foxe to the hole to trap her teachers but though much suspected nothing yet can be detected Yea I have dealt by all wayes and meanes with the Wench faire and foule menaces threatnings and promises to reveale her Magicall Tutresse but as shee is as subtile as a yong serpent I can get no more out of her then water out of a stone or Oyle from a Pumice whether guilty or not guilty I thinke an English Rack or Spanish strappado would no more get it out of her then Austogiton Leaena and Hermodius confessed in tortures Unlesse wee could discover her as now the Scotch Witches by water Ordeall as once amongst the old Saxons I thinke it s as hard to finde her out in any Witchcrafts as to finde out these minotaures Caniballs and Cormorants who have devoured into the Cu●tian gulph of their owne coffers all these vast summes of moneys even many thousands which they have as sacrilegious thieves received deceived from the charity of Holland London England to the reliefe of the poore hunger starved Protestants from ●reland so shearing the Ape robbing the Spittle for Achans wedge and unprosperous Tholous Gold till the hooke of vengeance stick in the jawes of in justice Joh 20.10.11.12.13.14 Scept indeede Murther Treason Witchcraft Theft Cousenage chiefely walking in a Fox furd Gowne are as hard to bee found out as the head of Nilus or as an Officer who smoothly licks his yellow dusted fingers as the Harlot her lippes and saith I have not sinned more then some Taylor stealer who lookes up to Heaven till hee throw Sathan into Hell hole protesting hee takes nothing but that which is brought to him but leaving these digressions upon unreformed yea unquest●oned transgressions some have a great jealousie of the old Wife her Mother in Law that shee should bee loose in the haft and not so good as shee should bee yea that shee should have a great hand head or heart in these witchly or spiritly postures as though by some explicite or implicite compact with Sathan shee should delude the world by these fascinations what think you of her Verid. Charity bids mee thinke the best of her and forbids mee to judge rashly of her lest I enter into a premunire against God who is onely the fearcher of the Reines I have no windows into her heart and for her outward carriage it is so candid square and faire that I see no cause either in Reason or Religion to suspect her unlesse upon some grounding probabilities I could derect her shee seemes to me to bee so passive in the premises yea so passionate and compassionate in all the passages recited so strong in faith so frequent and fervent in prayer so zealous in her devotions so sincerely subordinate to all ordinances publick and private that if shee bee any way active in this base businesse either in complotting contriving confederating councelling consenting countenancing or concealing I shall not onely say hypocrisie is spunne with a faire thread and that all is not Gold that glisters but that shee were a worse shee Divell yea white Divell for a woman then Judas for a man whose hypocrisie like a dunghill under a great snow unmelted was so long ere it was discovered John 13. Scept If then neither the old woman of the house have been the Authour of nor Actor in these motions and molestations nor any Witcheraft can bee detected its probable the Wench acts all her self with her owne hands by legerdemaine Verid. Something shee doth but not all for sollid witnesses omni exceptione majores beyond all exception will depose if neede bee as I will by these premises lay ten pounds to ten shillings against any Sceptick or Junior Didimu that will not believe what I relate that stooles in the house sticks out of the fire Laundyrons out of the chimney have removed of themselves and other things also they looking on and seeing nothing move them more then they see a voice a found a wind a noise a soule in man or their owne hearts which they perceive really though they see nothing visibly Scept Then these motions from an invisible Agent come either from a Witch set a worke by the Wench or by some others or else it is the Ghost or Spirit of the dead woman her late Dame which walkes as I will assure you many in the Towne and most in the Countrey ere shee was rooke