a bare affirmation without proof that these things are verified to have been matters of fact and really performed both by authority and the evidence of sense which are both utterly false then they flye to this assertion That the Confessions of so many Witches in all Ages in several Countries at divers times and places all agreeing in these particulars are sufficient evidence of the truth of these matters To which we shall rejoyn that the Confessions of Witches however considered are not of credit and validity to prove these things but are in themselves null and void as false impossible and forged lyes which we shall make good by these following Reasons 1. The Witch must be taken to be either a person insanae vel sanae mentis and if they be insanae mentis their Confessions are no sufficient evidence nor worthy of any credit because there is neither Reason Law nor Equity that allows the testimony or confession of an Idiot Lunatick mad or doting person because they are not of a right and sound understanding and are not to be accounted as compotes mentis nor governed by rationability For as by the Civil Law mad Folks Idiots and Old men childish Bond-slaves and Villains are not capable of making a Will to dispose of Goods Lands or Chattels so much more are all these sorts of persons excepted for giving evidence by confessions or otherwise in matters concerning life and death which are of far greater weight and concernment And that these persons are of unsound understandings is manifest in all the points that they confess and therefore are no proof nor ought to be credited and that for these reasons 1. Because the things they confess are not attested by any other persons of integrity and sound judgment and they must of necessity be lyars because the Bond-slaves of the Devil whose works they will do and he was a lyar from the beginning 2. Because they confess things that are impossible as we shall prove anon and confiteri impossibilia insanienti◠est 3. There is no good end wherefore they make these Confessions neither do they receive any benefit by them either spiritual or temporal internal nor external And this doth sufficiently shew that they are deluded melancholy and mad persons and so their Confessions of no credit truth or validity 2. Their Confessions will be found null and false if we consider the impulsive cause that moves them to make them and the end wherefore they declare such false and lying matters and that in these particulars 1. The moving cause is not nor can be the Spirit of God which is a Spirit of truth and righteousness nor any motion of true remorse for their sins or any thing flowing from repentant hearts because they are persons forsaken of God and his Grace and given over to reprobate minds and senses and therefore the truth of the Word of God is fulfilled in them Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved therefore God shall send them strong delusion that they might believe a lye That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2. Neither is the end for the glory of God or their own Salvation because they are the Vassals and Bond-slaves of Satan being kept Captive at his will and are Rebels and Traitors against God and Christ his Church and Truth having renounced the Faith and become Apostata's to the truth 3. The impulsive cause and chief end wherefore they make these and such like confessions is sometimes and in some persons meerly to eschew torture and bodily pains and sometimes the quite contrary solely to escape the present miseries of a poor wretched and troublesom life and therefore these confessions not at all to be credited as being vain and feigned 4. Sometimes they are by force waking craft and cunning in hope of pardon and life to make such confessions as the base ends and corrupt intentions of the Inquisitors themselves or their Agents have infused into them for the advancement of false Doctrine Superstition and Idolatry such were the most if not all recorded by Delrio Bodinus and the rest of the Witchmongers to which no credit can be given at all 5. But the chief end that Satan hath who is the Forger Contriver and Deviser of these Confessions if voluntarily and freely made the principal Agent in all these matters is to set forth the power and glory of his own Kingdom thereby to lead men into and continue them in lyes and errors for when he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it and the Witches are his Children and the works of their Father the Devil they will do and he was and is a Murtherer and Lyar from the beginning And thus far we acknowledge a spiritual and mental League betwixt the Witch and the Devil by virtue of which they confess these horrible and abominable lyes of the glory of him and his Kingdom but other League or Covenant there is none neither is there any the least spark of truth in all that they say or confess because their sole end in making of these confessions is to advance the credit and power of Satan 6. The impulsive cause that often makes them to utter such confessions of strange and impossible things is the strong passive delusion that they lye under contracted by ignorant unchristian and superstitious education which they have suckt in with their milk heightned with an atrabilarious temper and constitution and confirmed by the wicked lyes and teaching of others which makes them confess these execrable things which they in their depraved and vitiated imaginations do think and believe they have done and suffered when there was never truly acted any such matter ad extrà but only in their mad and deluded Phantasies and so no more credit to be given to them than to the maddest Melancholist that ever was read or heard of 3. That there is not any jot of truth in these Confessions is manifest if we consider the subjective matter of them as is plain by these ensuing grounds 1. For the most of them are not credible by reason of their obscenity and filthiness for chast ears would tingle to hear such bawdy and immodest lyes and what pure and sober minds would not nauseate and startle to understand such unclean stories as of the carnal Copulation of the Devil with a Witch or of his sucking the Teat or Wart of an old stinking and rotten Carkass surely even the impurity of it may be sufficient to overthrow the credibility of it especially amongst Christians 2. There are many things that have no verity in them at all that notwithstanding have verisimilitude but these are not only void of truth but also of truth-likeliness for it is neither truth nor hath any likelihood of it to believe it for a truth that the Devil should carry an
That transformation that the Grace and Spirit of God doth work inwardly in the minds and hearts of the Godly which is not by changing their Nature or Persons but by transforming their minds and altering their wills and affections from sinful and earthly things to those that are holy and heavenly so the Apostle willeth the Romans that they be transformed by the renewing of their minds and so they come to be changed from glory to glory and this were blasphemy to say that either Devil or Witch could perform it 2. There is a transformation wrought in the minds of the wicked by the just judgment of God for the Text saith speaking of Antichrist Revealing even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness So in the case of Saul the Text saith And it came to pass on the morrow that the evil Spirit from God came upon Saul These therefore are inward judgments for wickedness sent by God by the ministry of Satan of which we shall speak more hereafter 3. We lastly come to the main point that is concerning the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar which the Witchmongers hold to be a real and an essential transubstantiation therefore let us hear the words as they run in our English Translation which are this And they shall drive thee from men and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field they shall make thee eat grass as oxen The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar and he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hairs were grown like Eagles feathers and his nails like birds claws And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lift up mine eyes unto heaven and mine understanding returned unto me At the same time my reason returned unto me And a little before Let his heart be changed from mans and let a beasts heart be given unto him From this place they commonly frame an argument to this purpose That Nebuchadnezzar being really and essentially changed from a man to a beast or an ox much more may Satan essentially transform himself into the shape of any Creature and consequently that he may really change the Witches into Hares Dogs Cats and the like But we shall unanswerably prove that the assumption is false that Nebuchadnezzar was not transubstantiated or essentially transformed at all And if he had been really so yet that the consequence is invalid and of no force and that by these Arguments 1. Because that being driven into the field and eating grass as oxen and having his body it was his body not the body of an oxe and therefore no corporeal nor real change wet with the dew of Heaven do not at all conclude or infer that his body was really and essentially changed nor in the external figure of it altered from what it was before for he might go upon all four and eat grass and yet that doth argue no real change of his bodily shape at all for so have divers persons done that being young have been lost in Woods and Desarts and have been brought up with Bears or Wolves To which purpose take one story for all from Philip Camerarius that learned Counsellor of Norimberg a man of great credit and reputation in these words In the year 1543. there was in the parts of Hesse a Lad taken who as he reported afterwards and so it was found true when he was but three years old was taken away and afterwards nourished and brought up by Wolves These Wolves when they got any prey would always bring the best of it to a Tree and give it to the Child which did eat it in Winter and time of cold they would dig a pit and strew it with grass and leaves of trees and thereupon lay the Child and lying round about it preserve him from the injury of the weather after they would make him go upon all four and run with him till by use and length of time he could skip and run like a Wolf being taken he was compelled by little and little to go only upon his feet He would often say that if it had been in his power he could have taken more delight to have conversed among Wolves than among men he was carried to the Court of Henry Lantgrave of Hesse to be seen And in the same Chapter he relateth another story to the same purpose of one that he himself had known and seen that was of admirable agility and more to the same end Now must we conclude that because this Boy did live and lye in the open air was fed with raw flesh and went upon all four that therefore he was really and essentially chaâ—ged into a Wolf no that would be inconsequent and ridiculous and so would it be if because Nebuchadnezzar lay in the open field was wet with the rain and dew and did eat grass as an ox to conclude that therefore he was really changed into a beast the absurdities are both alike This is as mad a kind of inference as if we should say Conies and Geese do eat grass like an Ox therefore they are Oxen or Asses when notwithstanding they still retain their essential beings and shapes without any essential transformations at all 2. Because the hairs of his head as the Text saith were grown like to an Eagles feathers and for that also the very nails of his hands and feet were like the claws of a bird yet it doth not prove that he was really changed into a beast and that for these Reasons 1. Because it would be more consonant to conclude that he was rather transformed into some bird having feathers and claws than into a beast that hath horns and hoofs though there was in him no corporeal transformation at all but only a changed mind 2. The Text is not according to the Hebrew Phrase used when there is real transubstantiation as in Lots Wife Et fuit statua salis but as Tremellius renders it Usquedum pili ejus ut Aquilarum plumae crevissent ungues ejus ut avium And Arias Montanus thus Donec capillus ejus sicut Aquilarum crevit ungues ejus sicut avium which is exactly agreeable to the Hebrew So that the assertion is not that his hairs were changed into Eagles feathers nor his nails into birds claws but that they were sicut as the feathers of Eagles and as the claws of birds the hairs by being grown ruffled squalid and rugged and the nails by being grown long hard and crooked for want of cutting dressing combing and ordering
ascribed unto himself and in this the Witchmongers do him no small service in giving that power and honour unto the most wicked and wrâ—hed of all Gods Creatures that is only due to the Creator and to his instrument Nature And to conclude this I cannot but repeat that excellent and Christian Sentence of Helmont Pigritiae saltem enim immensae inventum fuit omnia in Diabolum retulisse quae non capimus 3. A third kind of power that he ascribeth unto Devils is their changing and transmuting of bodies which is either in regard of substantial transformations or of those that are but in the external figure or shape or in the qualities accidents and adjuncts only Of real transubstantiations after a long dispute he granteth that they cannot be brought to pass but by a Divine and Omnipotent Power which we have sufficiently proved before and therefore shall forbear to say any further of it here And for what other portents prodigies or lying wonders he can perform we shall here examine and discuss them to the full in this order 1. We shall pass by what may be thought of the strange feats the Magicians of Pharaoh or Simon Magus did perform as fully examined and concluded before and shall give those Texts of Scripture that mention the signs and wonders that Antichrist and false Prophets that are Satans Instruments can or do work and they are these If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder And the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. And that Prophet or dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God Another place is this But the Prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak or that shall speak in the name of other gods even that Prophet shall die And if thou say in thine heart How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken When a Prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him From whence we may take these Observations 1. That we may know he is a false Prophet that speaketh a thing in the name of the Lord if the thing do not come to pass But yet this must be understood with limitation where God sendeth a Message by a true Prophet where the thing is spoken positively but the condition is concealed and not expressed as in the Message of Jonah to Nineveh yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown which was intended if they repented not but implicitely was understood as the event shewed if they did repent the Lord would spare them of which Learned D r Stillingfleet hath this Proposition Comminations of judgments to come do not in themselves speak the absolute futurity of the event but do only declare what the persons to whom they are made are to expect and what shall certainly come to pass unless God by his mercy interpose between the threatning and the event So that Comminations do speak only the debitum poenae and the necessary obligation to punishment but therein God doth not bind up himself as he doth in absolute promises the reason is because Comminations confer no right to any which absolute promises do and therefore God is not bound to necessary performance of what he threatens 2. That there are those that do foretel or shew signs and wonders that do come to pass and yet those that foretel them are false Prophets because sometimes God sendeth false Prophets with power to work signs and wonders thereby to try his people whether or no they will cleave unto him with all their hearts and souls or turn to other strange gods or Idols and this is ordered by the Providence of God for the trial of the faithful as was in the Case of Job But though these may be great signs and wonders to amaze and amuse men and likewise come to pass yet are they no true miracles but are distinguished in this that true miracles are alwayes for the establishing and confirmation of the true Doctrine and Worship of Christ but the other are lying wonders wrought only to try the godly or for the deluding and punishing of those that received not the knowledge of the truth And though there are and may be signs and wonders that are wrought by Antichrist and false Prophets by and in the power of Satan yet these are all ordered by the Wisdom and Providence of the Almighty and Satan is no more but an organ and instrument in the performance of them There are two other remarkable places of Scripture concerning the Devils power in working signs and wonders the first of which is this For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect The other is this Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders And with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness From whence we may take these remarkable observations 1. Though there arise false Christs and false Prophets and even the Antichrist himself working after the power of Satan with signs and lying wonders yet though Satan be the organ and instrument in performing these lying wonders God is the Author and efficient cause that doth inflict them because they are mala poenae and come not by a bare permissive power but are inflicted by him as punishments upon the wicked even those that received not the love of the truth and therefore these lying wonders cannot possibly deceive the elect but prove all deceiveableness of unrighteousness in them that perish and the reason why they are thus punished with the deceits and delusions of Satan is because they received not the love of the truth and therefore God doth send such strong delusion that they might believe a lie and this he doth rightly and justly that as Beza notes Ita tamen ut soli increduli sint illius fraude perituri Upon which place learned Rollock tells us this We are he saith to observe
for a Christian to conceal the truth and not to dare to declare and defend it for fear of the vain and perishing censures of men is to make absolute sale of the truth and that for the worst of all prises that can be For what a weightless and worthless prise are the judgments and opinions of vain man whose breath is in his nostrils and whose life is but a vapor that a Christian should for fear of such vain censures be afraid to declare or defend the truth Therefore let the 〈◊〉 Politicians and Machiavillians of this Age who have in a manner turned the truth of the Christian Religion and the most certain Rules of Providence into Atheism and becom'd vain Idolaters to sacrifice to the falsely adored and deified fancies of their own craft and cunning think or say what they please yet the rule of pâ—ous Gregory will ever hold true Ille veritatis desensor esse debet qui quum rectè sentit loqui non metuit nec erubescit And that of Chrysostom ought never to be forgotten by a good Christian and one that fears God who saith Non solùm proditor est veritatis qui mendacium pro veritate loquitur sed qui non liberè pronuntiat veritatem quam pronuntiare oportet aut non liberè defendit veritatem quam defendere oportet But as there have been some that have been affrighted with the feigned Bugbears of malevolent mens censures and scandals so there have been others to whom Nature hath given greater Magnanimity who were better principled in their Morals and better rudimented in the Christian Religion that have scorned and undervalued those censures as vanities and trifles and these were those Quos Jupiter aequus amavit Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan. These were those that for the advancement of Truth and Learning and the benefit of Mankind durst undertake Ire per excubias se committere Parcis And feared not the tempestuous storms of venemous tongues or malicious minds of which we shall here enumerate a competent Catalogue 1. In the first place we need not travel far either in regard of time or place to find Precedents of such as have undergone no small censures and â—ubsannations for vindicating Truth and labouring the advancement of it though against common and deep rooted Opinion So ill entertainment new Inventors and Inventions have always found amongst the present Masters of several Professions and those that made the World believe that they alone had gained the Monopoly of all Learning Our learned Country-man Doctor Hackwell in his Preface to his Apology hath sufficiently proved this particular whose profound Piece of proving no decay in Nature a truth now sufficiently known and assented to found no small opposition both from the Learned in Theology and other persons and underwent many sharp censures until men had more considerately weighed the strength and cogency of his Arguments which carry sufficient evidence to confute rational persons Our learned and most industrious Anatomist Dr. Harvey who notwithstanding the late Cavils of some first found forth and evidenced to the World that rare and profitable discovery of the Circulation of the Blood did undergo the like Fate who for eighteen or twenty years together did groan under the heavy censur e of all the Galenists and expert Anatomists almost in Europe and was railed upon and bitterly written against not only by such as Alexander Rosse and Dr. Primrose but by Riolanus and others and not forborn by that famous Physiciâ—n of Roterodam Zacharias Sylvius who ingenuously confesseth thus much Primum mihi inventum hoc non placuit quod voce scripto publicè testatus sum sed dum postea ei resultando explodendo vchementiùs incumbo refutor ipse explodor adeò sunt rationes ejus non persuadentes sed cogentes diligenter omnes examinavi in vivis aliquot 〈◊〉 eum in sinem à mâ— dissectis verissimum comperi Which was a most candid and free retractation and confession of his own errours and may be proposed as an example to all rash and unadvised Censurers Neither could this most clear and evidential Verity which falls under ocular Demonstration and manifest Experiments find countenance in the World until that Wallaeus Plempius and divers other judicious and accurate Anatomists had found the truth of Harvey's opinion by their own tryals and ocular inspection so difficult it is to overthrow an old radicated opinion For I have known some years ago that a person for owning or maintaining the Circulation of the blood should have been censured and derided as much by other Physicians as one should be now for denying the same so hard it is to root out an opinion though never so false and groundless if once setled in the brains of many and hath had a long current of continued reputation and belief And it is much more to consider the ignorance stupidity and perversness of those that in this Age of Knowledge dare take upon them to censure nay to condemn that Society of persons and their endeavours who have a just pious merciful and learned King for their Founder and the greatest number of Nobility and Gentry renowned both for divine and humane Knowledge that can be chosen forth of the three Nations for their Members and whose undertakings and level are the most high noble and excellent that ever yet the World was partaker of And yet which may be wondred at I have not only met with many that do censure and misjudge their vast and laudable enterprise but even have been bold to appear in Print to censure and scandalize their proceedings as is manifest in that Piece styled Plus ultra written by Mr. Stubbs of Warwick wherein he hath effected as much as Dogs do by barking at the Moon But it is plain that highness of place or greatness of parts exempts no man from evil tongues or bad censures And to this purpose I cannot but add Dr. Casaubon who as he had a long sickness of body so doubtless he wanted not some distemper of mind when in his Treatise of Credulity and Incredulity he uttered this If I may speak my mind he saith without offence this prodigious propensity to innovation in all kinds but in matters of Learning particularly which so many upon no ground that I can see or appearance of reason are possessed with I know not what we should more probably ascribe it unto than to some sad Constellation or Influence Alas poor man he was so blind that he could see no ground or appearance of reason for the usefulness of Experimental Philosophy nor for the Institution of the Royal Society but must ascribe it to the Stars it is a wonder why he ascribes it not to natural Melancholy as he doth almost all strange Effects in his Book of Enthusiasm or why not unto Demons or Witches as he doth the most things in the Treatise quoted 2. That learned and
transferred to the actions of Witches yet as Calepine tells us Ab hujus avis nocumento striges appellamus mulieres 〈◊〉 fascinantes suo contactu lactis mammarúmque oblatione So that if the assimulation were proper in any proportion or particular those Women they do account Witches do but hurt the little children with the virulent steams of their breath and the effluviums that issue from their filthy and polluted bodies and so wrought by contact and contrectation by which the contagious poyson is conveyed but not by Witchcraft 3. There is another word that they apply to Witches as insignificant and improper as the other and that is Sortilegus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Teller of Fortunes by Lots or Cuts and Lambertus Danaeus who in other things was a judicious and learned person yet doted extremely about this opinion calling a Witch Sortiarius deriving it from Sortilegus which the French call Sorcier Now what affinity or congruity hath casting or using of Lots with that which these men call Witchcraft surely none at all For though Lots may like the best things be abused and wrested to a vain or evil end yet are they not altogether evil but that a civil and lawful use may be made of them as is manifest this day at the famous City of Venice where their chief Officers are chosen by them And also there hath been a godly and divine use made of them even by the Apostles themselves in the deciding of the Election of Barsabas and Matthias upon the latter of which the Lot fell and so he was numbred with the eleven Apostles And Solomon tells us The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And sure these men were at a loss to find a suitable word to fix upon these Creatures to whom they ascribe such impossible and incredible actions when they were fain to bring this appellation of Sortilegus that hath no kinship at all with such Witches as they mean and intend 4. Sometimes they call them by the name Saga which signifieth no more than a Wife and subtil Woman being derived à sagiendo to perceive quickly or to smell a thing quickly forth which the Germans call Enhold which is no more than malevolus or evilwilled 5. They use the word Veneficâ—s venefica and veneficium and this in its proper signification and derivation from the Latine doth import no more than a Poysoner or to make poyson venenum sacere and so might perhaps be given unto them because by Tradition they had learned several ways to poyson secretly and strangely as doubtless there may be divers hidden and not ordinarily known ways as we shall shew hereafter by which either by smelling tasting touching and it may be by sight they could kill and destroy though the means they used and the effects produced were meerly natural yet because the manner was very occult and unperceivable it was through ignorance and want of due inspection into the matters accounted Diabolical when there was no more of a Devil in the business than is in a Thief or Murtherer but only in the Use and Application which is to steal kill or destroy And this though now improperly and abusively called Witchcraft doth but signifie poysoning and so the French call it Empoisonnement and the Italians Veneficio or Avenenatione and the Germans Bergifftung which all amount to one purpose And this Veneficium or poysoning the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Medicamentum v l Venenum for sometimes it was taken in the better sense for a curing and healing Medicine and sometimes in the worse for poyson that did kill or destroy Neither can it be found in any Greek Author to signifie any more than such men or women that used Charms and Incantations and were believed by the Vulgar to effect strange things by them when in truth and indeed they effected nothing at all but by natural means and secret poysons and from thence had these names And the Poets spoke of them to adorn and imbellish their Poems withal according to common opinion not that either they themselves believed the things to be so done as the Vulgar believed nor to give credit to such false Fables and impossibilities but to make their Poems more delectable and welcome to the common people who are usually taken with such fond Romantick stories and lyes But after the year 1300. when the Spanish Inquisitors the Popish Doctors and Writers had found the sweetness and benefit of the confiscated Goods of those that they had caused to be accused and condemned for Witches in their sense then these words either in the Greek or Latine were wrested to signifie a Witch that made a visible and corporeal League with the Devil when in the true sense of them they did but signifie a secret Poysoner So that all things were hurried though never so improper and dissonant to be made serviceable to their filthy lucre and avaritious self-endedness Templum venale Deúsque 6. Lastly For Withcraft they used the Latine Fascinum and Fascinatio and so they called a Witch Fascinator and Fascinatrix and this the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fascinum Fascinatio also invidia odium seu invidentia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à fascinando seu oculis occidendo the Germans call it Zaubery and Berzauberung and sometimes â—erwerk the French Ensorcellement and Sorcelerie the Italians Lestrigare amaliare amaliamento the Belgicks Berâ—venge the Saxons called them and it â—icce and 〈◊〉 from whence we have the name Witch and Withcraft that signified Saga Venefica Lamia and Fascinum Magia Incantatio Fascinatio Praestigium of which because we shall have occasion to speak more of it hereafter we shall here only note these few things 1. It is taken sometimes for Envy and Malice because those that were supposed to use Fascination did direct it to one Creature more than another through their envious minds as may be perceived by some few Authors And so was accounted a kind of eyebitiâ—g whereby as the Vulgar believed children did wax lean and pined away the original whereof they referred to the crooked and wry looks of malicious persons never examining the truth of the matter of fact whether those children that pined away had any natural disease or not that caused that macilency or pining away nor considered whether or no there was any efficiency in the envy or wry looks of those malicious persons but vainly ascribed effects to those things that had in them no causality at all to produce such effects 2. Sometimes this kind of Fascination was ascribed to the sore or infected eyes of those that were accounted causers of hurt thereby in others and in this sense Virgil saith Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos And by this no more could be understood but that those that had infected and sore eyes might infect
others and this was nothing but contagion or corrupt steams issuing from one body to another which may happen in many diseases as is manifest by the Writings of divers learned Physicians as in bodies infected with the Plague French Pox Leprosie Ophthalmies and such like 3. Sometimes Fascination is taken for some kind of Incantation that by virtue of Words or Charms doth perform some strange things but concerning this there is such incertainty of the opinions of the Learned some flatly denying that Words or Charms have in them any natural efficacy at all others as strongly affirming it that of this point it is very difficult to make a clear determination and therefore we shall say but this of it here that the Angelical Doctor did conclude well in this particular in these words Ad sciendum autem quid sit fascinatio sciendum est quòd secundùm glossam fascinatio propriè dicitur ludificatio sensus quae per artes magicâ—s fieri consuevit putâ— cum hominem facit aspectibus aliorum apparere leonem vel cornutum hujusmodi Having been thus large in considering the names and denomination given to those persons that are esteemed Witches and finding them to be so improper impertinent various and uncertain let us now proceed to the notion and acceptation of Witchcraft and Witches to try if in that we can find any more certainty or consonancy and herein we shall produce some of the chief descriptions that are given of them by several Authors for to quote all would be tedious and superfluous Those that are or may be accounted Witches we rank in these two orders 1. Those that were and are active deceivers and are both by practice and purpose notorious Impostors though they shadow their delusive and cheating knaveries under divers and various pretences some pretending to do their Feats by Astrology which is a general Cheat as it is commonly used some by a pretended gift from God when they are notoriously drunken debauched and blasphemous persons such as of very late years was the Cobler that lived upon Ellill Moor named Richmond and divers others that I could name but that in modesty I would spare their reputations some by pretending skill in Natural Magick when indeed they can hardly read English truly some by pretending a familiar Spirit as one Thomas Bolton near Knaresborough in York-shire when indeed and in truth they have no other Familiar but their own Spirit of lying and deceiving some by pretending to reveal things in Crystal-glasses or Beryls as was well known to be pretended by Doctor Lamb and divers others that I have known And some by pretending to conjure and call up Devils or the Spirits of men departed and some by many other ways and means that are not necessary to be named here for errour and deceit have a numerous train of Followers and Disciples And the existence of such kind of Witches as these if you will needs call them by that name and not by their proper titles which are that they truly are Deceivers Cheaters Couseners and Impostors I willingly acknowledge as having been and are to be found in all ages and these sorts are also acknowledged by Wierus Mr. Scot Johannes Lazarus Gutierius Tobias Tandlerus Hieronymus Nymannus Martinius Biermannus and all the rest that notwithstanding did with might and main oppose the gross Tenent of the common Witchmongers And of this sort were all those several differences of Diviners Witches or Deceivers named in the Scriptures as Mr. Ady hath sufficiently declared in this passage which we shall transcribe A Witch is a man or woman that practiseth Devillish crafts of seducing the people for gain from the knowledge and worship of God and from the truth to vain credulity or believing of lyes or to the worshipping of Idols And again he saith Witchcraft is a Devillish craft of seducing the people for gain from the knowledge and worship of God and from his truth to vain credulity or believing of lyes or to the worshipping of Idols That it is a Craft truly so called and likewise that it is for gain is proved Act. 16. 16 19. The Maid that followed Paul crying brought in her Master much gain and that it is a Craft of perverting the people or seducing them from God and his Truth is proved Act. 6. 7 8. Elimas the Sorcerer laboured to pervert the Deputy from the Faith So likewise Act. 8. 9 10 11. it doth more plainly prove all these words And there was a man before in the City called Simon which used Witchcraft and bewitched the people of Samaria saying That he himself was some great man to whom they gave heed from the least to the greatest saying This man is the great power of God and gave heed unto him because that of long time he had bewitched them with Sorceries How bewitched them with Sorceries That is seduced them with Devillish Crafts as the Greek and also Tremelius Latine Translation do more plainly illustrate In this sense speaketh Paul to the Galatians 3. 1. O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth And that a Witch or Witchcraft is taken in no other sense in all the Scripture it appeareth by the whole current of the Scriptures as you may see in this Book But against this Mr. Glanvil and the rest of his opinion will object and say that it is hard and severe that Cheaters and Impostors should be ranked with Inchanters and such as converse with Devils and with Idolaters and that of this it is hard to give a reason To this we shall give this full responsion 1. We are to consider in what precise respect actions are in Sacred Writ called sinful and wicked and wherefore they have such severe punishments annexed unto them and we shall find that this is not ratione medii vel actûs sed finis As for instance and illustration we shall find that the Law was peremptory in point of adultery which saith If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband then they shall both of them dye Now the act of copulation as it is an act is all one with a lawful wife and with the wife of another man that is one generically considered and yet the one is lawful as agreeing with Gods Law and Ordinance and the other is unlawful sinful wicked and therefore to be punished with death because it is an aberration from the Divine Ordinance and contrary to the Command of God who saith Thou shalt not commit adultery So though the things committed by these persons were or might be performed by natural or artificial means that simply in themselves were not sinful or so severely punishable yet were they evil in regard of the end which was to deceive and seduce the people to Idolatry 2. Therefore the true and punctual reason why these persons termed Witches or Diviners are by the Law of God so severely to be punished is because they
such strange things as Witchmongers fondly and falsely believe can be performed or effected Therefore by way of conclusion in this particular we grant that there are many sorts of such kind of Witches as for gain and vain-glory do take upon them to declare hidden and occult things to divine of things that are to come and to do many wonderful matters but that they are but Cheaters Deceivers and Couseners 2. And as there are a numerous crew of active Witches whose existence we freely acknowledge so there are another sort that are under a passive delusion and know not or at least do not observe or understand that they are deluded or imposed upon These are those that confidently believe that they see do and suffer many strange odd and wonderful things which have indeed no existence at all in them but only in their depraved fancies and are meerly melancholiae figmenta And yet the confessions of these though absurd idle foolish false and impossible are without all ground and reason by the common Witchmongers taken to be truths and falsely ascribed unto Demons and that they are sufficient grounds to proceed upon to condemn the Confessors to death when all is but passive delusion intrinsecally wrought in the depraved imaginative faculty by these three ways or means 1. One of the Causes that produceth this depraved and passive delusion is evil education they being bred up in ignorance either of God the Scriptures or the true grounds of Christian Religion nay not being taught the common Rules of Morality or of other humane Literature but only imbibing and sucking in with their mothers and nurses milk the common gross and erroneous opinions that the blockish vulgar people do hold who are all generally inchanted and bewitched with the belief of the strange things related of Devils Apparitions Fayries Hobgoblins Ghosts Spirits and the like so that thereby a most deep impression of the verity of the most gross and impossible things is instamped in their fancies hardly ever after in their whole life time to be obliterated or washt out so prevalent a thing is Custom and Institution from young years though the things thus received and pertinaciously believed and adhered unto are most abominable falsities and impossibilities having no other existence but in the brains and phantasies of old ignorant and doting persons and are meerly muliercularum nutricum terriculamenta figmenta and therefore did Seneca say Gravissimum est consuetudinis imperium And that this is one main cause of this delusion is manifest from all the best Historians that where the light of the Gospel hath least appeared and where there is the greatest brutish ignorance and heathenish Barbarism there the greatest store of these deluded Witches or Melancholists are to be found as in the North of Scotland Norway Lapland and the like as may be seen at large in Saxo Grammaticus Olaus Magnus Hector Boetius and the like 2. But when an atrabilarious Temperament or a melancholick Complexion and Constitution doth happen to those people bred in such ignorance and that have suckt in all the fond opinions that Custom and Tradition could teach them then what thing can be imagined that is strange wonderful or incredible but these people do pertinaciously believe it and as confidently relate it to others nay even things that are absolutely impossible as that they are really changed into Wolves Hares Dogs Cats Squirrels and the like and that they flye in the Air are present at great Feasts and Meetings and do strange and incredible things when all these are but the meer effects of the imaginative function depraved by the fumes of the melancholick humor as we might shew from the Writings of the most grave and learned Physicians but we shall content our selves with some few select ones 1. That distemper which Physicians call Lycanthropia is according to the judgment of Aetius and Paulus but a certain species of Melancholy and yet they really think and believe themselves to be Wolves and imitate their actions of which Johannes Fincelius in his second Book de Mirac giveth us a relation to this purpose That at Padua in the year 1541. a certain Husband-man did seem to himself a Wolf and did leap upon many in the fields and did kill them And that at last he was taken not without much difficulty and did confidently affirm that he was a true Wolf only that the difference was in the skin turned in with the hairs And therefore that certain having put off all humanity and being truly truculent and voracious did smite and cut off his legs and arms thereby to try the truth of the matter but the innocency of the man being known they commit him to the Chirurgions to be cured but that he dyed not many days after Which instance is sufficient to overthrow the vain opinion of those men that believe that a man or woman may be really transformed or transubstantiated into a Wolf Dog Cat Squirrel or the like without the operation of an omnipotent power as in Lots Wife becoming a Pillar of Salt though St. Augustine was so weak as to seem to believe the reality of these transformations of which we shall have occasion to speak more largely hereafter 2. Another story we shall give from the Authority of that learned Physician Nicolaus Tulpius of Amsterdam to this effect A certain famous Painter was for a long time infected with black Choler and did falsely imagine that all the bones of his body were as soft and flexible that they might be drawn and bended like soft wax Which opinion being deeply imprinted in his mind he kept himself in bed the whole Winter fearing that if he should rise they would not bear his weight but would shrink together by reason of their softness That Tulpius did not contradict him in that fancy but said that it was a distemper that Physicians were not ignorant of but had been long before noted by Fernelius that the bones like wax might be softned and indurated and that it might be easily cured if he would be obedient and that within three days he would make the bones firm and stable and that within six days he would restore him to the power of walking By which promises it was hard to declare how much hope of recovering health it had raised up in him and how obedient it made him So that with Medicines proper to purge the atrabilarious humour within the time appointed he was at the three days end suffered to stand upon his feet and upon the sixth day had leave given to walk abroad and so found himself perfectly sound afterwards but did not perceive the deceit in his phantasie that had made him lye a whole Winter in bed though he was no stupid but an ingenious person in his Art and scarce second to any 3. Thomas Bartholinus the famous Anatomist and Physician to Frederick the Third King of Denmark tells us these things That it is the property of
melancholy persons to fear things not to be feared and to feign things quae nec picta usquam sunt nec scripta A Plebeian he saith with them abounding with melancholy blood did imagine that his Nose was grown to that greatness that he durst not go abroad for fear it should be hurt or justled upon by those he met And that a famous Poet at Amsterdam did believe that his Buttocks were of glass and feared their breaking if he should sit down Another Old man of prime Dignity did suspect that he had swallowed a nail which being lost he could no where find and thought himself much tortured by its being fixed in him But was restored to his health by having a Vomit given and the Physician conveying a nail into the matter that he cast up And that a certain man in England would not make water for fear that all the blood in his body should have passed forth by that passage and therefore straitly tyed the yard with a thred for some days which swelling he was not far from death but that his Brother by force untyed it The Books of Physicians are very full with such relations and we in our Practice have met with divers as strange as these and cured them Also he tells us this A certain Student of a melancholick Constitution distracted with grief for the death of a Sister and wearied with lucubrations did complain to Bartholinus of the Devil haunting of him and did affirm that he felt the evil Spirit enter by his fundament with wind and so did creep up his body until it possessed the head lest he might attend his Prayers and Meditations with his accustomed devotion and that it did descend and go forth the same way when he bent himself to Prayers and reading of Sacred Books Before these things he used to be filled with unheard of joy from his assiduous Prayers and watching that also he had heard a celestial kind of Musick and therefore despising all mortal things he had distributed all things to the poor but that now piety waxing cold by too much appetite after meat and his brain troubled with that wind that he had heard a voice of one in his brain upbraiding him with Blasphemy and that he felt hands beating and a stink passing before his nose By all which Bartholinus guessed that it was Hypochondriacal Melancholy and by good Counsel proper Physick merry Company and rightly ordering of him he was perfectly cured 4. To these we will only add this that is related by Marcellus Donatus Physician to the Duke of Mantua and Montferrat to this purpose That he knew a Noble Countess of their City that did most earnestly affirm that she was made sick by the Witchery and Incantation of a certain ill-minded Woman which was apprehended by a learned Physician to be notwithstanding her fancy nothing else but Hypochondriacal Melancholy which he cured by giving her proper Medicaments to purge that humour and ordering her Waiting-maid to put into the matter she voided Nails Feathers and Needles which when with a glad countenance she had shewed to her Mistress she presently cryed out that she had not been deceived when she had referred the cause of her disease to Witchcraft and afterwards did daily recover more and more 3. And as ignorance and irreligion meeting with a melancholick Constitution doth frame many persons to strange fancies both of fear and credulity so when to these is added the teachings of those that are themselves under a most strong passive delusion then of all others these become most strongly confident that they can perform admirable things As when a person hath by education suckt in all the grossest fables and lyes of the power of Witches and familiar Devils and therein becometh extremely confident heightned with the fumes of black Choler and so thinks meditates and dreameth of Devils Spirits and all the strange stories that have been related of them and becometh maliciously stirred up against some Neighbour or other And so in that malicious and revengeful mind seeketh unto and inquireth for some famed and notorious Witch of whom they believe they may learn such craft and cunning that thereby they may be able to kill or destroy the persons or goods of those that they suppose have done them injuries Then meeting with some that are strongly deluded and confidently perswaded that they have the company and assistance of a familiar Spirit by whose help they believe they can do almost any thing especially in destroying men or cattel they are presently instructed what vain and abominable Ceremonies Observances Unguents Charms making of Pictures and a thousand such fond odd fopperies they are to use by which they believe they can do strange Feats And from this do proceed their bold and confident confessions of lyes and impossibilities that notwithstanding have abused so many to take them for certain truths so that according to the Proverb Popery and Witchcraft go by Tradition and we shall find none of these deluded Witches if they must be so called but they have been taught by others that thought themselves to be such also And this is a truth if we may trust the confession of Alizon Denice at the Bar at Lancaster who saith thus That about two years agone her Grandmother called Elizabeth Sotheres alias Dembdike did sundry times in going or walking together as they went begging perswade and advise this Examinate to let a Devil or a Familiar appear to her and that she this Examinate would let him suck at some part of her and she might have and do what she would But besides these two sorts of Witches whose Existence we deny not there is an acceptation of the word Witch in another sense the Existence of which I absolutely deny and that is this according to Mr. Perkins A Witch is a Magician who either by open or secret League wittingly and willingly consenteth to use the aid and assistance of the Devil in the working of Wonders But the full Description and Notion that the common Witchmongers give a Witch is this That a Witch is such a person to whom the Devil doth appear in some visible shape with whom the Witch maketh a League or Covenant sometimes by Bond signed with the Witches blood and that thereby he doth after suck upon some part of their bodies and that they have carnal Copulation together and that by virtue of that League the Witch can be changed into an Hare Dog Cat Wolf or such like Creatures that they can flye in the air raise storms and tempests kill men or cattel and such like wonders This notion of a Witch may be gathered from the Writings of these persons Delrio the Jesuit Bodinus Jacobus Springerus Johannes Niderus Bartholomeus Spineus Paulus Grillandus Lambertus Danaeus Hemmingius Erastus Sennertus and many others As also from the Writings of our own Country-men Mr. Perkins Mr. Bernard of Balcombe the Author of the Book called Demonology Mr. Gaâ—le Mr.
Nature no not of those whereby the propagation of the Gospel might have been much advanced viz. the Mystery of Printing and the Magnet and yet no one useth his silence in these instances as an argument against the being of things which are evident objects of sense To which we answer 1. He falleth into a common mistake in making the Proposition universal and dolus versatur in universalibus when it ought but to be particular so for him to say that no silence of Scripture is argumentative is too universal for its silence in point of Geography as in describing America and the people thereof nor in discovering the Magnalia Naturae Artis is not argumentative and we do not say that all silence of Scripture is argumentative but yet we affirm that some silence of Scripture is argumentative So we cannot universally say that nothing hath a being but what is mentioned in Scripture but we may very well affirm that some things have no being of truth of existence because not declared in Scripture 2. The Scriptures were not written to teach Naural Philosophy Arts or Sciences humane Policy or the like but were given that the man of God might be perfect furnished for every good work and it is by them that we have the doctrine of eternal Salvation revealed unto us and we positively affirm the sufficiency of the Scriptures unto Salvation which thing no Orthodox Divine we suppose will deny and Bellarmine himself did confess in these words Prophetici Apostolici libri sunt verum verbum Dei ac stabilis regula fidei And if it be a certain Rule of Faith and the true Word of God then whatsoever it is silent of we ought not to believe and so its silence is argumentative in that point The Scriptures are utterly silent concerning Purgatory and therefore it is a good argument to affirm there is no such place as Purgatory because the Word of God is silent as concerning it but if it had been necessary to have been believed then there would have been mention made of it 3. And as the Scriptures are sufficient in matters of Faith and circa credenda and what they are silent in are not to be received as Articles of our Faith but to be rejected as having no truth of Existence So likewise what Worship God requireth of his people is fully revealed in his Word and therefore I am to reject the worshipping of Mahomet with the Turks or Images and praying to Saints with the Papists because I have neither precept nor president in the Word but it is silent in such matters nay tells us That he is the Lord our God and him only we ought to serve 4. Though Mr. Glanvil say that God hath given no account of the state of the other World but only that general one of the happiness of some and the misery of others yet Am I to believe as Mr. Glanvil somewhere in his Book affirmeth that Samuels Soul was raised up by the Woman at Endor and that those that he feigneth to make Leagues and Contracts with Witches are the Souls of such as had been Witches when they lived and asketh Who saith that happy Souls were never imployed in any ministeries here below Or am I to believe that both the Souls of the godly and wicked do rove up and down here upon earth and make Apparitions because the Popish Teachers do hold it to be so I hope not and therefore I shall in part give an answer here to some of these and handle that of the Woman of Endor in another place 1. The Word of God doth particularly teach us the state and condition of the Souls after death that they shall be like the Angels in Heaven and all other things necessary to move and draw us to believe the immortal Existence of Souls as that most able and learned Divine Dr. Stillingfleet hath asserted in these words The Scriptures give the most faithful representation of the state and condition of the Soul of Man The World he saith was almost lost in Disputes concerning the Nature Condition and Immortality of the Soul before divine Revelation was made known to Mankind by the Gospel of Christ but life and immortality was brought to light by the Gospel and the future state of the soul of man not discovered in an uncertain Platonical way but with the greatest light and evidence from that God who hath the supreme disposal of souls and therefore best knows and understands them A Sentence truly pious and orthodoxal 2. Hath not God in the holy Scriptures amply and plainly taught us the state of the other World in describing unto us such a numerous company of Sâ—raphims and Cherubims Angels and Archangels with their several Orders Offices Ministeries and Imployments and this is more than a general account as may be seen at full in that learned and godly Piece of Bishop Halls called The invisible World And hath he not given us a particular account of the very Kingdom of Darkness telling us of the Devil and his Angels and precisely in this enumeration For we wrestle not with flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiâ—al wickedness in high places And this is more than a general account and we must needs fay that what he holds is very derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of God and the sufficiency and truth of the Scriptures 3. Must I believe him that the souls of the Saints do rove and wander here below when as Bishop Hall saith where he is speaking against the opinion of those that hold that Souls do sleep until the Day of Judgment Indeed who can but wonder that any Christian can possibly give entertainment to so absurd a thought whilst he hears his Saviour say Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with â—e where I am and that not in a safe sleep they may behold my glory which thou hast given me Sure if the Souls departed be with Christ where he is and do behold his glory then it is a Popish Fable of Mr. Glanvil to feign their coming upon Messages hither The saying of St. Bernard is remarkable in this case Advertisâ—is 〈◊〉 esse sanctarum status animarum primum videlicet in coâ—pore 〈◊〉 â—cundum sinâ— corpore tertium in corpore jam glorificatoâ— Primum in militiâ— secundum in requie tertium in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if the second state of holy Souls bâ— without 〈◊〉 body and be at peace and rest then it must necessarily be a truth that they do not wander here nor run upon Errands For the souls of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord and there shall no torment touch theâ— And our Saviour told the Thief upon the Cross This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise that is as Dr. Hammond giveth the Paraphrase Immediately after thy death thou shalt go to a
Athenodorus the Philosopher adventured upon it and abode the coming of the Apparition or Phantasm and upon its signs followed it to a place below and then it vanished he marked the place and went to the Magistrate and caused the place to be digged up and found the bones of a person inchained or fettered and caused the bones to be buried and so the House remained free afterwards It is a wonder to think how many Authors have swallowed this relation nay even Philip Camerarius himself who though a very Learned man yet in things of this nature too extremely credulous and urged it for proof as a matter of great credit and authority when we cannot discern that it affords any credible ground to a rational man to believe it not only because the very matter it self and the circumstances of it do yield sufficient grounds of the suspicion of its verity but chiefly because Pliny doth but relate it by hear-say exponam ut accepi and of it and the rest he desires the opinion of his Friend Sura from whom we do not find any answer The story taken from Plutarch a grave Author if he be considered as an Heathen and a Moralist yet of no authority to decide such points as these are of the voice that called upon Thamus and commanded him to declare when he came at Palodes that the great God Pan was dead which he performed and that thereupon followed a great lamentation of many the story at large is related by many and urged as a matter of great weight and credibility when indeed there is no ground sufficient to perswade any that it was true For if it had been related by Plutarch as an ear-witness of it yet was he but an Heathen that we know believed many fond lying and impossible things especially of their Gods and therefore in this case to a considerate Christian could be of no great authority And if his authority had been great or of weight in such matters as these yet was he but singularis testis which is not sufficient in these things to be relied upon And lastly to our present purpose here he doth not record it as a thing of his own certain knowledge but of hear-say from Epitherses who was but a single Relator and a man of no certain veracity and therefore we can have no rational ground to believe the truth of the story but it may be rejected with more reason than it can be affirmed by Of no greater credit can his story be of Brutus his malus Genius appearing unto him because he received this by meer Tradition and hear-say neither could it have any other rise but from the relation of Brutus himself whose guilty conscience and troubled brain fancied such vain things for those that were near Brutus neither saw nor heard any such matter and therefore must have been a deception of Phansie and no real Apparition ad extra 2. And as evidence of the matter of fact recorded from the relation of others is of no validity to a judicious person so if the matter of fact be witnessed but by one single testimony though an eye or an ear-witness it is not sufficient because one single person may be imperfect in some senses or under some distemper and so be no proper Judge of what it sees or hears and the Word of Truth tells us That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established and therefore we are not especially in such abstruse matters as these to trust the evidence of one single testimony To make clear this Particular we shall relate a story or two from the credit of the Reverend and Learned Bishop Hall joyned with his judgment of such weak and feigned Tales one of which runs thus Johannes à Jesu Maria a modern Carmelite writing the Life of Theresia Sainted lately by Gregory XV. tells us that as she was a vigilant Overseer of her Votaries in her life so in and after death she would not be drawn away from her care and attendance For saith he if any of her Sisters did but talk in the set hours of their silence she was wont by three knocks at the door of the Cell to put them in mind of their enjoyned taciturnity And on a time appearing as she did often in a lightsome brightness to a certain Carmelite is said thus to bespeak him Nos coelestes ac vos exules amore ac puritate foederati esse debemus c. We Citizens of Heaven and ye exiled Pilgrims on earth ought to be linked in a League of love and purity c. Methinks the Reporter saith the Bishop should fear this to be too much good fellowship for a Saint I am sure neither Divine nor Ancient story had wont to afford such familiarity and many have misdoubted the agency of worse where have appeared less causes of suspicion That this was if any thing an ill Spirit under that face I am justly confident neither can any man doubt that looking further into the relation finds him to come with a ly◠in his mouth For thus he goes on We Celestial ones behold the Deity ye banished ones worship the Eucharist which ye ought to worship with the same affection wherewith we adore the Deity such perfume doth this holy Devil leave behind him The like might be instanced in a thousand Apparitions of this kind all worthy of the same entertainment This is a story from one single person a lying Carmelite one that for interest and upholding of Superstition and Idolatry had feigned and forged it for in it self it appeareth to be a meer falsity and figment as any rational man may easily discern and so are a thousand stories of this kind worthy of the like entertainment that is to be condemned for most horrid lyes Another he tells us Amongst such fastidious choice of whole dry-fats of voluminous relations I cannot forbear to single out that one famous of Magdalen de la Croix in the year of our Lord Christ 1545 c. The third from the mouth of another lying Fryar named Jacobus de Pozali in his Sermon That St. Macarius once went about to make peace betwixt God and Satan c. Now whatsoever credit this Learned man who in things of this kind appeareth to be as vainly credulous as any doth seem to give unto these or what use soever he would make of them it is undeniably manifest to all impartial judgments that they were but absolute forgeries and knacks of Imposture and Knavery and according to his own opinion may justly be ranked amongst those thousand Apparitions of this kind all worthy of the same entertainment that is to be rejected for abominable lyes or forgeries and that for these reasons 1. Because they are not attested by any sincere and uncorrupt ear and eye-witnesses but by reports and relations and that of those that were corrupt and partial or Accomplices to bring to pass the fraud and
imposture 2. If they be run up to their first Author or Venter of the Tale he will but be found a single Witness which is utterly insufficient in evidencing truly a matter of fact 3. The Relaters of them did publish them for interest sake and upon design to advance false Doctrine Worship Superstition and Idolatry and therefore are not of validity and credit 4. In themselves if strictly considered they will appear to be lying ridiculous contradictory in themselves and contrary to the authority of Divine Writ and dissonant to sound and right reason and therefore ought to have no other entertainment but as abominable lyes and forgeries 3. But if matters of fact be witnessed and attested by many or divers persons that were ear and eye-witnesses yet may their testimony bear no weight in the balance of Justice or right Reason because they may be corrupt in point of interest and so have their judgments mis-guided and biassed by the corruption of their desires and affections or relate things out of spleen envy and malice and so may not in these mysterious matters be fit authority to rely upon nor competent evidence in these particulars as Dr. Casaubon is forced to confess in these words In the relation of strange things whether natural or supernatural to know the temper of the Relator if it can be known and what interest he had or might probably be supposed to have had in the relation to have it believed And again whether he profess to have seen it himself or taken it upon the credit of others And whether a man by his profession in a capacity probable to judge of the truth of those things to which he doth bear witness Every one of these particulars would require a particular consideration For if there be interest in point of Religion then all authorities all colour of reason is drawn in to make good this interest and verity is commonly stifled in this contest for selfness and interest and the adverse parties stigmatized with all the filthy lyes and enormous crimes that can be invented as is most manifest in these instances The Popish party finding themselves hindred and opposed in point of the highest interest have forged a thousand false stories and tales to make good the interest of their Party and have left no dirt and dung unscraped up to throw in the faces of their Opponents and so have each Party done against other where religious interest was the quarrel as Bishop Hall hath truly observed in this passage where he is shewing the abominable corruptions of the Church of Rome A Religion that cares not by what wilful falshoods it maintains a part as Wickliffs blasphemy Luthers advice from the Devil Tindals Community Calvins feigned Miracle and blasphemous death Bucers neck broken Beza's Revolt the blasting of Huguenots Englands want of Churches and Christendom Queen Elizabeths unwomanliness her Episcopal Jurisdiction her secret fruitfulness English Catholicks cast in Bears skins to Dogs Plesses shameful overthrow Garnats straw the Lutherans obscene Night-Revels Scories drunken Ordination in a Tavern the Edict of our gracious King James An. 87. for the establishment of Popery our casting the crusts of our Sacrament to Dogs and ten thousand of this nature maliciously raised against knowledge and conscience for the disgrace of those whom they would have hated e're known The rise of this opinion that we are disputing against that the Devil makes a visible and corporeal League with the Witches that he sucks upon their bodies hath carnal Copulation with them and that they are changed into Hares Dogs Cats or Wolves and the like was soon after the thirteenth hundred year of Christ when as Frederick the Second had made a Law temporal for the burning of Hereticks And not long after that was the Inquisition set up in Rome and Spain and then did the Inquisitors and their Adherents draw in from the Heathen Poets and all other Authors whatsoever might carry any colour of authority or reason the better to countenance their bloody and unjust proceedings where they drew thousands of people into the snare of the Inquisition for pretended Witchcraft which they made to be Heresie And whatsoever these have written concerning these things such as Delrio Bodinus Romigius Springerus Niderus Spineus Grillandus and a whole rabble besides not necessary to be named are nothing but lyes and forgeries and deserve no credit at all for these reasons 1. Because as many of them as either were Inquisitors themselves or those that had any dependence upon them or received benefit by their proceedings are all unjust and corrupt Authors and Witnesses as writing and bearing witness for their own ends interest and profit having a share in the Goods and Estates of all that were convicted and condemned and the Wolf and Raven will be sure to give judgment on the Serpents side that he may devour the man though never so innocent because they hope to have a share of his flesh or at least to pick the bones 2. These Authors that were the first Broachers of these monstrous stories of Apparitions and Witches and are so frequently quoted by others that ought to have been more wary and might have seen reason enough to have rejected all their feigned lyes and delusions were not only sharers in the spoil of the Goods of the condemned who were judged per fas nefas but also had another base end and interest to wit to advance the opinion of Purgatory praying for the dead setting up the vain Superstitions of the virtue of the sign of the Cross holy Water and the like And therefore they did forge so many stories of Apparitions and Souls coming forth of Purgatory and recorded so many false lying and impossible things from the forced extorted and pretended confessions of the Witches themselves which were nothing else but an Hotch-potch of horrid and abominable lyes not to be credited because the Authors only invented them to promote their own base ends and wretched interests Again where Authors are engaged for interest sake they fall into heat passion malice and envy and what they cannot make out by strength of arguments they labour to make good by lyes and scandals as is most apparent in this one Example we shall here give Henricus Cornelius Agrippa a person in his time well known to most of the Learned in Europe and admired for his general and universal skill in all kind of Learning having published a Piece which he styled A Declaration of the incertitude and vanity of Sciences and Arts and the excellency of the Word of God wherein amongst other things he had sharply taxed the Monks and Fryars and other Orders of their ignorance idleness and many other crimes and misdemeanors whereby certain Theologasters of Lovain netled with their own guilt did in bitter malice draw up certain Articles against him therein accusing him of Errour Impiety and Heresie and had so far incensed Charles the Fifth then Emperour against him that
guilt in the Witnesses or falsity in their Evidences it lyes at their own doors and upon their own consciences and the Judges and Jurors are clear and not to be blamed for no humane prudence can altogether prevent that Witnesses may not erre or swear falsely 3. Have there not been many thousands of true and faithful Martyrs that have suffered and been condemned in many Ages in many and several Countries at many different and distinct times And some of these have been condemned by such as were called and accounted General Councils Parliaments High-Courts of Justice and other places of great Judicature before Judges that were accounted wise grave and learned and by Juries of honesty and understanding were there therefore no true Martyrs and were they all justly condemned and put to death or is it absurd to be guilty of such incredulity as to think and hold that so many grave and wise Judges and knowing Juries were deceived and did unjustly Let Mr. Glanvil or any other solve this Argument and carry the cause or else we must necessarily conclude that opinio quae à se non propellit absurda per absurda non premit adversarium Now having given a full and satisfactory Answer to their main and strongest Objections and defeated the whole force of their first and most furious Charge we shall proceed to overthrow their main Battel in proving the four Particulars mentioned in the beginning of the Chapter to be false and impossible And in doing of this we shall handle the three first promiscuously and all together and the fourth about Transubstantiations or Change of Witches into Cats Hares Dogs Wolves or the like we shall handle by it self 1. And first we acknowledge an internal mental and spiritual League or Covenant betwixt the Devil and all wicked persons such as are Thieves Robbers Murtherers Impostors and the like whereby the temptations suggestions and allurements of Satan spiritually darted and cast into the mind the persons so wrought upon and prevailed withal do assent and consent unto the motions and counsels of the evil Spirit and so do make a League and Covenant with the said evil Spirit as saith the Text According to the Prince of the power of the air that now worketh in the children of disobedience He doth not only rule over them but also worketh in them for men are either the Temples of God or the Temples of Satan and Antichrist who sitteth in the Temple of God and opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or worshipped Such a spiritual League or Covenant as this did Judas make with the Devil whereby he agreed to betray his Master Christ. Then entred Satan into Judas not that essentially or personally he entred into Judas but that he put it into his heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to betray him which wrought so effectively in him in a spiritual manner that he took up that Diabolical resolution to betray his innocent Master and this was entring into a spiritual League with the Devil For as Theophylact saith upon the place Hoc enim significat spospondit hoc est perfectam promissionem pactum fecit And another saith In Judam Satanas intravit non impellens sed patulum inveniens ostium nam oblitus omnium quae viderat ad solam avaritiam dirigebat intuitum And again Missio ista spiritualis suggestio est non sit per aurem sed per cogitationem diabolicae enim suggestiones immittuntur humanis cogitationibus immiscentur 2. We acknowledge that this spiritual League in some respects and in some persons may be and is an explicit League that is the persons that enter into it are or may be conscious of it and know it to be so for when a person resolves to murther he cannot but know that he then maketh a League with the Devil who was a Murtherer from the beginning And it is manifest that in this League and in no other were all the Priests that belonged to the Oracles who knew well enough that the Idols or false Gods they worshipped did give no answers at all but the responsions given were only of their own devising and framing to uphold their credit and more colourably to cozen and deceive the people they did pretend that they had answers from their Gods or Idols and thus far the Devil was in all their impostures and jugglings And so all the several sorts of the Diviners or Witches mentioned in the Old Testament were under a spiritual League with the Devil and did very well know that what they did was not by the finger of God but either by the help of Art Nature Leger-de-main Confederacy or such like impostures and cheats and yet they pretended as did Simon Magus and gave out that they were some great men thereby to deceive others when explicitly they plainly knew that themselves were but dissemblers and lyars and that for gain credit and vain-glory they pretended to do those things which they could never truly perform And under this spiritual League explicitly considered are all our Figure-flingers contained who take upon them far beyond the Rules of the true Art to declare where stollen Goods are and to cause them to be brought back again and many other such vain and lying matters which they well know they have no power to perform but that they willingly and knowingly take upon them to pretend to do these things for vain-glory and filthy lucre sake And of this sort are all our pretending Conjurers Diviners Wizards and those that take upon them to reveal things by looking in Crystals Beryls and the like of which we may perhaps speak more largely hereafter that indeed know well enough they do but deceive and cheat others of all which we could recite very lepid and apposite stories certainly known unto us or discovered by us but Mr. Glanvil would account them but silly Legends and old Wives Fables and therefore we shall supersede here and leave them to a fitter place 3. There are others that are under this spiritual League though implicitly as are all those that we have granted to be passively deluded Witches those that by ignorant and irreligious education joyned with a melancholy temper and disposition to which they have added Charms Pictures and other superstitious Ceremonies which they learned by Tradition By all which they become so deluded and besotted in their Phantasies that they believe the Devil doth visibly appear unto them suck upon them have carnal copulation with them that they are carried in the Air to feastings dancings and such like Night-revellings and that they can raise tempests kill men or beasts and an hundred such like fopperies and impossibilities when they do nor suffer any thing at all but in their depraved and deceived imaginations And so do blindly and implicitly believe that the Devil doth perform all these things for them when indeed and truth he doth nothing but dart and cast in these filthy
Fascination and then diabolical is but in vain and needless 7. How can the Witches if not maniacal in the highest degree believe that the Devil who is a Lyar and the Father of lyes and whom they cannot but know hath in the like cases deceived many that have in their opinion made contracts with him will prove true in the performance of his promise Or that he who is the enemy of all truth and goodness and laboureth to deceive all Mankind will be faithful to perform his promise or to do them any good either real or apparent Or if the Witches be not incredibly mad can they believe that he will perform without Hostages Bonds-men or Sureties when we find that the weakest and maddest of Mortals if he make a Covenant with another of known loosness and deceit though for a thing of a far less value than either soul or body will he not require sufficient Bonds-men and Security Now what Bonds-men or Security can the Witches have 8. And if the Witches be not beyond measure deluded and mad must they not rationally know that if the Devil deceive them as he is sure to do there is no recompence to be had nor any that can compel him to perform bargains Before what Judicature before what Judges by what Law must they call him to an account or have him punished So that in all reason and sound judgment we must conclude the Witches to be absolutely mad and then all these things also madness lyes and folly or that there is not nor ever was any such League or Covenant 9. But if all this were granted yet who are the Witnesses to this visible League or Covenant can the Witches name or find any The things that cannot be proved by sufficient Witnesses are never to be believed and we have proved the nullity impossibility and falsity of the pretended Confessions of Witches themselves and therefore that no credit at all ought to be given unto them and however no Law nor Equity ought to allow the Evidence of a Party as in these cases all Witches are And though some few of them have been so exceedingly mad to make such false and absurd Confessions yet if the Records of all Ages and Courts were sought it will be found that many hundreds of them have suffered that never confessed the least tittle of any such matter and the supposed Witches of Salmesbury in the County of Lancaster the tenth year of the Raign of King James were so far from this confession that they were cleared and the accusation found to be false and all acted by the imposture of one Thompson or Christopher Southworth And I my self have known two supposed Witches to have been put to death at Lancaster within these eighteen years that did utterly deny any such League or ever to have seen any visible Devil at all and may not the confession of these who both dyed penitently be as well credited as the confessions of those that were brought to such confessions by force fraud or cunning perswasion and allurements But if there be any such League or Covenant betwixt the Witches and the Devil how cometh the truth of this matter of fact if ever there were or could be any such thing to be certainly known and revealed Have any of the Pen-men of the holy Scriptures recorded that there ever was is or can be any such League or Contract Or was it ever attested by any honest rational men that were ear or eye-witnesses of such a bargain and contract Therefore we must once again conclude De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio 10. As for the Witches either Males or Females having carnal Copulation with Devils either as an Incubus or Succubus and their stealing of seed from a man and conveying it into the vessels of the woman it is in it self so horrid monstrous and incredible that I cannot well believe him to be a rational person or sanae mentis that believes it as a truth and therefore cannot but think the rehearsal of it a sufficient confutation Also herein I do appeal to all learned Physicians who do know the way that Nature breeds humane seed the causes that make it prolifical and the members fit for its generation and reception who I doubt not will deride this Tenent and condemn it as false and abominable Moreover the horrid absurdity of it hath been sufficiently demonstrated by Wierus Dr. Tandlerus Mr. Scot Mr. Wagstaff and others and therefore all we shall say is this That Devils whether conceived to be corporeal or incorporeal and to assume bodies for the one it must of necessity be were not created of God to generate neither have they nor can have any seed or members fit for generation and therefore to copulate or generate is derogatory from the glory of Nature and blasphemous against God and his Power As for the Devils sucking the Teats Warts or such like excrescences of the Witches bodies we should have passed it over as easily as the former but only that Mr. Glanvil hath taken up the Cudgels to defend it to confute which we shall give these satisfactory Reasons 1. There can be no rational end assigned why the Devil should perform this action for we must tell Mr. Glanvil that supposals are no proofs and ex suppositis supposita consequuntur and in a thing of this nature arguments to prove it probable are insufficient And if as he confesseth for their being suckt by the Familiar I say he saith We know so little of the Nature of Demons and Spirits that 't is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the reason of so strange an action Now if he knew so little of their Nature it must needs be vanity and arrogance to take upon him to declare so much and if he could not certainly divine the reason of so strange an act it was extreme folly and pride in him to bring in idle and vain conjectures and probability where verity and certainty are expected One while he supposeth them corporeal which if granted will not prove that they are recreated by the reeks and vapours of humane blood because their bodies are of a more pure Nature than to be nourished with gross and sometimes especially in melancholick old men and women corrupted blood for if every thing be nourished by its like then they cannot be fed with humane blood for they have no flesh nor bones such as ours that have need to be nourished with blood And for his next perhaps and may be that it is a diabolical Sacrament we shall believe it when he proves it and not before But he hath a third supposal which to him seemeth most probable viz. That the Familiar doth not only suck the Witch but in the action infuseth some poysonous ferment into her If this had been most probable why did he bring in the other two that are less probable surely he might have known that srustra fit per
these particulars 1. He doth not at all deny the existence or beings of Spirits neither that Spirits do not or cannot make visible apparitions but doth grant both 2. But he restrains these apparitions to those inseparable properties that belong to Bodies and Spirits that is a body that is to say an humane body hath flesh and bones but a Spirit hath neither as Christs or humane bodies have and therefore saith a learned Person upon the place Docet se non esse Spiritum hoc modo Spiritus inquit non habet carnem ossa Ego verò ut conspicitis habeo carnem ossa Ergo ego non sum Spiritus Vide igitur ex sensu sensibilibus sensu nimirum visus sensu tactus ex visibilibus tractabilibus se corpus esse non autem Spiritum edocet Per sensum enim fides gignitur confirmatur So that whether Spirits be taken to be corporeal and so appear in their own bodies or to be incorporeal and so to appear in assumed bodies yet are they both to sight and especially to feeling not as humane bodies are that have flesh and bones So that however they do may or can appear for it must be considered in that latitude else our Saviours argument would not be irrefragable and convincing they to the resistibility of touching cannot be as flesh and bones are for they to the sense of touching do resist and are solid but so the bodies of Spirits in what appearance soever have not nor can have otherwise our Saviours argument falls to the ground and proves nothing 3. He confirmeth this by the Disciples own proof of feeling and touching the prints or scars of the nails in his hands and the print of the wound in his side and thereby manifesteth that it was he himself and the very same individual body in which he suffered by which Thomas his great unbelief and doubting was unanswerably satisfied by putting his fingers into or upon the very prints of the nails and by putting his hand into or upon the wound or scar upon his side And therefore though the same power that raised him from the dead and rouled the sealed stone from the Sepulchre could have perfected his body to be without prints or scars of the wounds yet did the divine Wisdom reserve them thereby to cure the infidelity of his Disciples and undeniably to confirm the truth of his Resurrection to which purpose one said well Ibi ad dubitantium corda sananda vulnerum sunt servata vestigia And the further to establish and settle their Faith he took a piece of a broiled fish and of an honey-comb and eat before them all which concluded him to have a true body and that he was not a Spirit from whence we draw these conclusions 1. That howsoever Spirits do or may appear they have not or can have such a body that in respect of tangibility is as flesh and bones For flesh and bones are dense solid and make sensible resistance to the touch but the bodies of Spirits in their apparitions are not nor can be so For as we deny not but there are and may be apparitions in any figure or shape yet they can but be as the figures and shapes in the Clouds which are often seen and cause much wonder though we suppose many of them may be rather attributed to the assimilation made in mens fancies than to their real existence in those forms or shapes So they may be as shadows or the species of bodies that we see near or afar off or as the images that we behold of our selves and other things in Mirrours or Looking-glasses which though without doubt they be not non-entities for nullius entis nulla est operatio but these affect the senses which is an operation or action yet do they all easily yield to the touch and have no firmness nor solidity as flesh and bones have and this is all that can be justly deduced from our Saviours argumentation 2. Either we must believe that our Saviours argument is of no force and validity which is blasphemous and horrid to affirm or imagine he being the way the truth and the life and in whose mouth there was found no guile and thereby overthrow the whole foundation of the Christian Religion or else we must for certain believe that Spirits whensoever they appear have no such solidity or resistibility as to touch as flesh and bones have And consequently that what strange things soever we may by sight and touch take to be the apparitions of Spirits that to touch have the solidity of flesh and bones we must conclude that they are not Spirits but must be some other kind of Creatures of whose nature and properties we are to inquire for doubtless as we shall manifest hereafter there are many strange Creatures that for their rarity or strange qualities have been and are mistaken for the apparition of Spirits For the Disciples doubts must still have remained unsatisfied if Spirits could appear to have bodies to touch of that solidity that flesh and bones are of and then the truth of our Saviours Resurrection falls to the ground and the Christian Faith is vain 3. Therefore that Demons do appear in the shape of Dogs Cats and the like and do carry the heavy bodies of Witches in the air do suck upon their bodies and have carnal copulation with them must suppose them to have bodies as solid and tangible as flesh and bones and so overthrow the main proof of our Saviours Resurrection and consequently the very foundation of the Christian Religion For if Christ be not risen our faith is vain we are yet in our sins and are of all men most miserable as having only hope in this life and no further And this is sufficient to shew the horrid and execrable absurdity of these opinions which objection Mr. Glanvil calls spiteful and mischievous but durst not undertake the solution but with a plain shuffle leaves and over-runs it as indeed being too hard a morsel for his tender teeth And if any do object as we have heard some do that three Angels did appear unto Abraham in the Plains of Mamre as he sate in the Tent-door and did eat and drink and washed their feet and therefore that they had flesh and bones to that we return this responsion 1. It is a very froward and perverse way of arguing to make one place of Scripture to clash with another when they ought all to be expounded according to the Analogy of Faith and it is a perfect Harmony which we ought to labour to find out and rejoyce in 2. It is no perfect way of arguing from the Dispensations in the time of the Patriarchs and Prophets to those that God useth now in the time of the Gospel for so they might argue that God should answer by Urim and Thummim because he did so in the time of the Levitical Priesthood but that is now ceased
that forthwith six thousand Franks should be given to Brabantius that three Masses might be said every day to redeem his Father forth of Purgatory otherwayes that there could be no redemption for him And thereupon the Son obliged both by conscience and religion although unwillingly delivers so many to the trust of Brabantius all lawful evidence of the agreement and performance being utterly neglected The Father freed from the fire and torments afterwards hath rested quiet and by speaking did not trouble the Son any more But the wretched Cornutus after Brabantius was gone being one time more pleasant than wonted which made his Table-companions much to wonder and forthwith opening the cause to them inquiring it he was forthwith so derided of all because that in his judgment he had been so beguiled and cheated of his money besides that within few days after he died for plain grief and so followed his Father to know the truth of that thing of him But to make this more plain and certain we shall add a Story of a notable Impostor or Ventriloquist from the testimony of Mr. Ady which we have had confirmed from the mouth of some Courtiers that both saw and knew him and is this It hath been saith he credibly reported that there was a Man in the Court in King James his days that could act this imposture so lively that he could call the King by name and cause the King to look round about him wondering who it was that called him whereas he that called him stood before him in his presence with his face towards him but after this Imposture was known the King in his merriment would sometimes take occasion by this Impostor to make sport upon some of his Courtiers as for instance There was a Knight belonging to the Court whom the King caused to come before him in his private room where no Man was but the King and this Knight and the Impostor and feigned some occasion of serious discourse with the Knight but when the King began to speak and the Knight bending his attention to the King suddenly there came a voice as out of another room calling the Knight by name Sir John Sir John come away Sir John at which the King began to frown that any Man should be so unmannerly as to molest the King and him And still listning to the Kings discourse the voice came again Sir John Sir John come away and drink off your Sack at that Sir John began to swell with anger and looked into the next rooms to see who it was that dared to call him so importunately and could not find out who it was and having chid with whomsoever he found he returned again to the King The King had no sooner begun to speak as formerly but the voice came again Sir John come away your Sack stayeth for you At that Sir John began to stamp with madness and looked out and returned several times to the King but could not be quiet in his discourse with the King because of the voice that so often troubled him till the King had sported enough I my self also have seen a young man about 16 or 17 years of age who having learned at School and having no great mind to his Book fell into an Ague in the declination of which he seemed to be taken with convulsion-fits and afterwards to fall into Trances and at the last to speak as with another small voice in his Breast or Throat and pretended to declare unto those that were by what sinful and knavish tricks they had formerly acted or what others were doing in remote places and rooms So that presently his Father and the Family with the neighbourhood were perswaded that he was possest and that it was a spirit that spoke in him which was soon heightned by Popish reports all over the Countrey But there being a Gentleman of great note and understanding his Kinsman caused him to be sent over unto me to have mine opinion whether it were a natural distemper or not The Father and the Boy with an old cunning Woman the made creature to cry up the certainty of his possession and the verity of a spirit speaking in him came unto me who all appeared to my judgment and best reason fit persons to act any designed Imposture The Father having been one that had lived profusely and spent the most of his means being sufficiently prophane and irreligious The Boy by his face appearing to be of a melancholy complexion and of a subtile and crafty disposition the Woman cunning who would have forced me to believe whatsoever she related thinking to impose upon me as she had done upon others I presently judged it to be neither natural disease nor supernatural distemper but only knavery and Imposture and so made the Woman silent and told her she was a cheater and deserved due punishment and that what she told were the most of them lies of her own inventing and told the Father and the Son that I could soon cast forth all the Devils that he was possessed with but then I must have him in mine own custody and none of them to come near him nor to speak with him A long time I expected to have seen him in one of his fits but his Devil was too timerous of my sterâ— countenance and rough carriage Well after they three had consulted together the Lad by no means could be gotten to stay with me no not for that night nor be prevailed with again to be brought into my presence but away they went the Lad riding behind his Father and when about a quarter of a mile from the Town the Father turned the Horse to come back again unto me the Lad leapt from off the Horse and run away crying from the Townwards as fast as he could They went that night to a Popish House where were concourse of people sufficient and many tales told of the Divinations of the spirit in the Boy but not one word either of me or against me Soon after the Gentleman that was of kin to the Boy came over and I gave him satisfaction that it was a contrived cheat and after he returned he would have prevailed with them to have sent the Boy to me but by no means could effect it and so he never after gave any regard unto them and soonafter it vanished to nothing I my self also knew a person in the West-riding of Yorkshire who about some forty years or above to have made sport would have put a Coverlet upon him and then would have made any believe that knew not the truth that he had a child with him he would so lively have discoursed with two voices and have imitated crying and the like And also the said person under a Coverlet and coming upon all four would so exceeding aptly even to the life have acted a skirmish betwixt two Mastiffs both by grinning snarling and all other motions and noise that divers understanding persons have been
things to come of which she was utterly ignorant so that we grant her under a spiritual league with the Devil as all wicked persons are but we deny that she had any other familiar spirit but only the spirit of delusion and Imposture as we shall make good by these arguments 1. Because the word sometimes signifieth the persons pretending to be skilful in this sort of Divinations for so the Woman saith unto Saul Behold thou knowest what Saul hath done how he hath cut off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythones that is the persons that pretended and practised that kind of Divination And so again in that of Isaiah And thy voice shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sicut Pythonis as the voice of one that useth this kind of Divination So that it is clear that the act is ascribed unto and was performed by the persons practising this couzening craft and not unto a familiar or Devil 2. Sometimes it is taken for the means that they pretended they performed it by as in Sauls deluded and despairing sense for he saith Divina quaeso mihi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Pythone vel per Pythonem and cause to ascend whom I shall name unto thee So that he vainly thought that she could call up and make to ascend whomsoever he should name so blind and deluded was he when the spirit of the Lord was departed from him and was justly delivered up to believe lies because he had not received the love of the truth 3. It doth not appear that she had any familiar spirit or called up any for the name that is there given her is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominam Pythonis vel utris the Mistriss of the Bottle or of the Oracle for Saul saith seek me a Woman that is Mistriss of the Bottle or of the Oracle for so it must signifie if it be genuinely and fitly translated and his servants tell him that at Endor there is a Woman that was Mistriss of Ob the Bottle or Oracle For though some translate it mulier habens Pythonem or as Tremellius mulier praedita Pythone it will but reach thus much that she was possessed of or had in her power this Ob Bottle or Oracle that could be nothing but the fit contrived place to give answers as they did at the Oracle For if they meant that she had a familiar spirit in her Belly then it was possest of her more than she could be said to be possest of it But there is another Text that doth fully agree with this and will help to explicate it and is this speaking of the destruction of Nineveh or the Jewish Nation and the causes of it Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the welfavoured harlot the Mistriss of Witchcrafts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Domina vel patrona the Mistriss or Patroness of Juglings and delusions So that in propriety of language she of Endor is called the Mistriss of Python or Oracle because she could play the couzening feats that belonged unto it 4. Amongst all the several ways of Idolatry that Manasseh set up or caused to be set up this is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fecit Pythonem or fecissetque Pythonem he made Ob or Pytho and though Translators have been much perplexed and hard put to it to give a signification agreeable to their preconceived opinion yet have they were it right or wrong brought it to their minds though it be utterly false and erroneous for Tremellius renders it instituitque Pythonem which though pretty near yet is altogether short of the propriety and the most of the rest have run quite Counter but our English Translators the worst of all others who give it and dealt with a familiar spirit When it is plain that this word must be taken in this place as it is in the third verse of this Chapter he made groves fecitque lucos because the words are both from the same root which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fecit confecit perâ—ecit and so it is and must be taken in other places and is especially manifest in these God said to Noah make thee an Ark of Gopher wood and after a window shalt thou make to the Ark. The Psalmist saith But our God is in heaven he hath done whatsoever he pleased and again To him who alone doth great wonders We might add forty places more where the word is used that cometh from this root and hath the same punctual signification so that from hence we may conclude 1. That Manasseh could not make a Devil nor a Spirit and therefore that the word Ob doth not intend nor bear forth any such matter in true and genuine signification 2. That he could not make a Man or Woman and therefore the word properly doth signifie neither 3. That he only could make and cause to be contrived the Groves in such as order ar the Idol-Priests might direct as most fit for them to play their couzening and Jugling feats and delusions in So he might make or cause to be contrived the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or place for the Oracle and prepare those knacks and implements wherewith and in which place the Diviner might either by him or her self or with the help of confederates bring to pass strange things which they made the blind and ignorant people believe were performed by the God worshipped in and by those Idols or by Demons and Spirits or the calling up of the dead When in truth there was nothing at all performed but either in raptures feigned and forced Furies Trances and thereby lying predictions and ambiguous equivocations were uttered whereby the people were deluded and drawn unto Idolatry or by giving dark and obscure responsions by Ventriloquy speaking in Bottles or through hollow Pipes and cavities whereby they did peep and mutter or lastly by having knavish confederates hidden in secret and cunningly contrived places and suitably habited to personate those that were desired to be raised up as is most probable in this Woman of Endor and the forged and pretended Samuel So that there was no Devil nor familiar but a couzening Knave or a Quean more crafty than the Demons themselves 5. That they had no familiar Spirit is manifest if we consider the manner how they carried themselves in these cheating actions and performances for the Prophet tells us thus And when they shall say unto you seek unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Pythones unto Oraclers and unto Wizards that peep and mutter If they had a familiar Spirit or Demon what need they chirp peep or mutter could it not speak loud and plain enough Yea doubtless it could if they had any such but it is to conceal their own deceit and knavery lest it should be found forth and discovered And without such chirping and muttering they could neither perform their Jugling delusions nor keep them from being known and derided Tremellius his note upon this place is
dispersed in this caliginous air or Atmosphere for the Devil is called the Prince of the air if that be literally to be understood and he compasseth the earth and walketh to and fro in it and goeth about seeking whom he may devour and therefore by their agility of body and celerity of motion may easily know what is done and spoken and may so very quickly convey it one to another and so may most readily communicate things that are acted or spoken at an incredible distance one from another but yet all this no further than Divine Providence will permit and allow of 6. The Witchmongers and others do attribute a kind of omnisciency to Devils in respect of their acquired knowledge which we by no means can allow them and that for these reasons 1. Though it be granted that they do grow and increase in the knowledge of sin evil and wickedness therewith to hurt devour and destroy or gain more skill and craft to lie cheat delude and deceive yet that they either gain or gather any knowledge that is good or for any good end is absolutely false for they abode not in the truth neither are they lovers of truth but are utter Enemies to all good knowledge and verity 2. That they may be Masters of all the arts or wayes of deceit lying cheating and delusion is no way to be denied but that they should as many suppose by reason of their longevity and duration learn and be perfect in any or all of the good Arts or Sciences is to me utterly incredible because they are the Corruptors of all but the perfectors of none else should they be the greatest Philosophers in the World which is false And therefore most Christian and pious was that Sentence of that unjustly censured Person Paracelsus in these words Et licèt Diabolus quidem plurima machinetur hoc tamen cum omnibus suis legionibus praestare minimè potest ut vel abjectam ollam frangat nedum eandem faciat multò is minùs quenquam occidere aut jugulare potest nisi id mandato permissu jussuque ac vi divina faciat The other main point that we undertake to handle in this Chapter is touching the power of the faln Angels and that is to be considered in these three particulars 1. In general in respect of their power either in spiritual and moral things or in things natural 2. Or in respect of spiritual and moral things in particular 3. Or in respect of Physical and sublunary things 1. And for the first it must of necessity be granted that their power since their fall is much diminished or at least restrained and chained and fettered up For they becoming Rebels against the Almighty and not keeping their first Estate but having left their own habitation it was most agreeable to the wisdom and justice of God to take away from them the greatest part of that power and authority that he formerly had given them and so to imprison and chain them up that they might never be able to attempt or perform the like Rebellion again otherwise the Almighty should not have used that wisdom that is ordinary with earthly Princes who haveing overcome those that rebelled against them do not only disarm them but also confine or imprison them And to this very thing do the Scriptures allude when they say that they are delivered into chains of darkness and that they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day So that though the Devils still retain their cruel wicked and devouring will and mind yet they are but like the Lyon within the Bars of Iron or Bajazet in the Cage of Iron led about by Tamberlan and so though they be never so cruelly bent to do mischief yet they are under the Chains and cooped up in the Grates of Darkness and kept in Everlasting Chains that they are never able to break or unloose And though he be called the God of this World and the Prince of it yet that is not to be understood that he is the Prince and Ruler of the Creatures of the World or that he giveth riches health honour or the like for those are the gift of God only and not of the Devil but he is the God and Prince of the evil and wickedness that is in the World for in that and by that he reigneth and ruleth and to this purpose saith Rollock Damnatio est Satanae qui peccati author est Nam vit a hujus mundi est secundum principem cui potestas est aeris c. Dicitur autem Princeps hujus mundi quia per peccatum mortem regnat in mundo ut enim teste Paulo Regnum Dei positum est in justitiâ pace gaudio per spiritum sanctum sic regnum Satanae positum est in injustitia morte Unde ipse propter peccatum per quod regnat dicitur rector tenebrarum Propter mortem per quam regnat dicitur imperium mortis habere And upon this place St. Augustin saith thus Nunc Princeps hujus mundi ejicietur foras absit ut Diabolum principem mundi it a dictum existimemus ut eum Coeli terrae dominari posse credamus sed mundus appellatur in malis hominibus qui toto orbe terrarum diffusisunt Sic ergò dictum est Princeps hujus mundi id est princeps malor um hominum qui habitant in mundo Appellatur etiam mundus in bonis qui similiter per totum orbem terrarum diffusi sunt Ideò dicit Apostolus Deus erat in Christo mundum reconcilians sibi Hi sunt ex quorum cordibus principes mundi ejicientur foras And whereas also Satan is called the Prince of the power of the air that worketh in the Children of disobedience it is not literally so to be understood as though he had the natural power of ruling the air and causing of winds hail snow frost rain thunder and lightning for these are all ordered according to the will of divine providence and the causes that he hath established in the Elements So David speaking of the Heavens the Earth and the Elements doth conclude thus They continue this day according to thine ordinances for all thy servants And it is he that ordereth all these as saith the Text Who covereth the Heavens with Clouds who prepareth rain for the earth who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains He giveth snow like wool he scattereth the hoary frost like ashes He casteth forth his ice like morsels Who can stand before his Cold He sendeth forth his word and melteth them he causeth his wind to blow and the waters flow And all these fulfil the will and command of God and not the will of the faln Angels for the Text saith Fire and hail snow and vapour stormy wind fulfilling his word so that if they have any thing to do in the sublunary changes or motions of
Meteors it is but only as instrumental and organical Causes working meerly as they are ordered and acted by the first cause that worketh all in all as the Christian Philosopher Doctor Fludd hath most learnedly proved in his Treatise of Cosmical Meteors which I seriously commend to those that desire full satisfaction in this particular But the Devil is chiefly called the Prince of the power of the air because he is the proud high airy and spiritual Prince and Ruler of wickedness in high or super-coelestial places by which proud airy and spiritual wickedness he worketh in the Children of disobedience For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon which learned Beza saith thus Homine◠quorum fragilis caduca est natura cui opponuntur versutiae spirituales infinitis partibus potentiores And again I st a nomina tribuit Angelis malis propter effectus non quod eos suâ vi possint praestare sed quia illis Deus laxat habenas And therefore S. Chrysostom upon this place saith thus Mundi verò dominos eos vocat non quod mundum gubernent sed solet scriptura malos actus hunc mundum vocare ut quando Christus dicit vos non estis ex hoc mundo quemadmodum ego non sum ex mundo 2. To consider their power in spiritual and moral things particularly we shall find they have no power in some things but by their fall have utterly lost it as is apparent in these few points 1. They have lost that freedom of will that they had by Creation and were partakers of before they fell and agreeable to this is the Thesis of learned Zanchy which is this That all Devils have so far their wills made obstinate in sins the hatred of God Christ and of Mankind that from this evil they cannot will to repent and thereby be saved and this he thus proveth 1. Because in the Scriptures they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they are now become such that they cannot be changed from their malice and wickedness because it is become natural unto them 2. From whence it is manifest that the whole time since their fall never yet any of them hath given any sign of resipiscence 3. If they could repent and believe in Christ then for them and their sins Christ also should have died for he saith that he prayed for those that were to believe in him but they neither believe in him neither did he die for them 4. But the chief cause of their impenitency is the just judgment of God that hath given them up to hardness of heart because they sinned knowingly and wilfully against the truth And this point is sufficiently proved by Thomas Aquinas the rest of the Schoolmen and many others 2. So that as they have lost freedom of will so they cannot at all will or act to be saved or to repent 3. And as they cannot will or act to repent or be saved so the whole acts of their wills are evil malicious and wicked being liars and murtherers from the beginning 3. The third is to consider their power in sublunary and elementary things which is the most pertinent to our present purpose it being the thing that some have magnified even to a kind of omnipotency and therefore we must the more narrowly ventilate and examine it which we shall do in this order 1. How great soever the power of the faln Angels may be supposed to be yet neither in knowlege can they be deemed to be omniscient or in power to be omnipotent because they are created Beings circumscribed limited and finite and consequently can perform no act that necessarily must require an omnipotent power and so can neither create things de novo annihilate or transubstantiate any Creature or substance or pervert or put forth of order the things that God by Creation Decree and Providence hath set into their certain orders of Generation alteration and corruption 2. How great soever their power may be supposed to be yet rationally it must be taken for a truth that they have not the same power that they had before their fall For as Zanchy saith Certum est enim in universum in genere hac etiam in parte illos punitos fuisse ut non possint quicquid poterant cum boni essent nec etiam quicquid nunc velint Because the Holy Ghost beareth witness that they are bound in Chains and that Satan begged leave of God to invade Job that they fought with the good Angels but were overcome and that they may be so resisted of believing men that they may be overthrown Ac vae nobis nisi potentia Daemonum infirmata esset à Domino comprimeretur compesceretur 3. And what power soever be granted to the faln Angels yet it is by the opinion of all the learned restrained only to these sublunary and inferior bodies and that they have neither power by Creation or Ordination to work upon move or alter things that are Angelical Celestial Ethereal and Superior but only are chained in this Caliginous Atmosphere and impure air For it is manifest that superior bodies work upon those that are inferior but not on the contrary neither have we any examples that can prove that they do operate upon Celestial bodies and so their power how great soever some may suppose it to be is only restrained to these inferior sublunary things 4. The operations and actions performed by the faln Angels may be considered either in the simple respect of their natural and created power and this how great soever it was before their fall is not only lessened but that which remains is limited and restrained with the Adamantine Chains of the decree of divine providence or in respect of what power they may have superadded by God when they are Commissionated and sent by God to effect some particular actions as for example Moses and Aaron had but the ordinary strength and power that was common to other men before they were sent upon the message to Pharaoh and made Instruments to deliver the Israelites for then were they armed and indowed with the power of working great and stupendious Miracles So it cannot rationally be imagined that the two Angels that were sent as Instruments to destroy Sodom and Gomorrha did or could of their own proper individual and created power bring down Fire and Brimstone from Heaven to burn those two Cities but that it was brought to pass by the Power of the Almighty as granted and given to them for that judgment only and not by that ordinary power that they could always exercise for the Text saith Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha brimstome and fire from the Lord forth of heaven Neither can it rationally be supposed that one Angel
that Antichrist is nothing else but Gods Executioner by whom he punisheth those by his just judgment who have not received the love of the truth but have contemned the Gospel which is so far forth true that if there had not been and now were a contempt of the truth then altogether Antichrist had not been that is the Executioner had not been whom God sendeth to execute his just judgment upon those that despise the truth of his Gospel So that it is manifest that God doth make a just and good use of the very malice and lying nature of Devils in punishing those that did not receive the love of the truth but deceiving them by strong delusions that they might believe a lie and this he doth as sent and commanded of God and so cannot go one jot further than his Commission or as far as he is limited by God 2. We may observe that how great soever these signs and wonders be yet they are but lying ones both in regard of the end for which they are done and in respect of their substance And therefore how great soever the signs and wonders be that evil Angels do perform yet they are totally different from true miracles those being alwayes wrought for the confirming of the true Doctrine and Worship of God but these have their end only to establish false doctrine lies and erroneous opinions or Idolatrous Worships So they differ in their substance for those miracles that God sheweth for the confirmation of his truth are alwayes true and real being against and above the whole power and course of nature but those wonders wrought by Satan are but delusions cheats juglings and impostures which though they may seem strange to those that are ignorant of their causes yet do but all arise from natural causes or from artificial cunning confederacy and the like And therefore we may conclude that what miracles soever are wrought by a Divine Power tend to the overthrow of Satans power in the world but all false miracles are wrought to uphold the power of Satans Kingdom in the world and following delusions lies and false doctrines 3. Therefore what signs and wonders soever Satan doth work they are no real and true miracles for as Dr. Stillingfleet saith God alone can really alter the course of nature I speak not he saith of such things which are apt to raise admiration in us because of our unacquaintedness with the causes of them or manner of their production which are thence called Wonders much less of meer juggles and impostures whereby the eyes of Men are deceived but I speak of such things as are in themselves either contrary to or above the course of nature i. e. that order which is established in the universe And this cannot be altered by any diabolical power but only by that which is Divine and Omnipotent which never doth it but for considerable ends and important causes as may be manifest from these unshaken grounds 1. That Devils can work no true miracles is manifest from the definition of a miracle which is this Verum miraculum est opus quod fit praeter contra naturam secundas causas cujus nulla Physica ratio potest reddi But Satan cannot alter or change the order and course of nature Therefore Satan cannot work or effect a true miracle The proposition may be illustrated by an induction made of many great miracles of which there is mention made in the Old and New Testament all which are of that sort that are repugnant to the order and course of nature and of which no natural or physical reason can be rendered and given Such were the taking of Enoch and Elias into Heaven the conserving of Noah and his Family in the Ark the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel the fecundity of Sarah being old and barren the passage of the children of Israel over the red Sea and over Jordan the standing still of the Sun in the battel of Joshuah its going back in the dial of Ahaz its eclipse at our Saviours suffering the preservation of Daniel in the Den of the Lions and of the three companions of Daniel in the fiery furnace the preserving Jonas in the belly of the Whale the raising up of the dead and the curing of the Man born blind and all the rest of those most true and wonderful miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles 2. The assumption of the Syllogism is thus proved It is the part of the same power to change the order of nature and to create things that were not existent and so the mutation of the order of nature is a certain kind of new creation But Satan hath not power by which he can create things that as yet had no existence as all persons of reason must needs confess From whence it must follow that Satan hath not power to change the order of nature and consequently that he cannot work true and real miracles 3. The working of true miracles is only a proper attribute of God and incommunicable to any creaturely power for the Text saith Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things And again thou art the God that dost wonders And these two things the changing of the order of nature and creation S. Paul attributeth to God as only proper to him God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things that be not as though they were Upon which Beza gives this note Eo qui vitae restituit Apud quem jam sint quae alioqui reipsa non sunt ut qui vel uno verbo quidvis possit ex nihilo efficere But if it be objected that though Satan and his Angels of themselves and by their own proper power do not work true miracles yet may not God work real miracles by them as he did by the Prophets Apostles and his Ministers It is answered That the wonders which are wrought by Satan do tend to that end that they might confirm lies against God and his glory But God doth not accommodate his power to confirm lies contrary to his glory and against himself Therefore Satan by the power of God as his Minister doth not work true miracles for God doth use the faln Angels as executioners of his wrath and judgments for the afflicting and punishing of men but when God worketh any thing for the good of mankind either in Soul or Body he doth not use Devils as his Ministers but the good and blessed Angels who are ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And if it be queried what things and of what sort and kind are those wonders that are wrought by Satan and Antichrist I answer that either they are indeed nothing but prestigious juglings and illusions or if they be any thing they are not brought to pass contrary to the order of nature and second causes although they may seem so
more and more and that no tumour nor any other preternatural thing did outwardly appear the beholders did fear some sort of venefice or Witchcraft Therefore they apply a well tryed medicine which in such a case is said to be much approved to wit red Corals well beaten with the leaves of Oak and with Rose-water brought into the form of a Cataplasm and leave it on for the space of 24 hours In which space of time the place is brought to suppuration and within as many more hours the same remedy being applyed again the abscess is broken and in it needles hairs and burnt coals are found All these together with the Amulet they put into an hole made with an Augur or Gimlet in the root of an Oak towards the East in the morning before the Sun rise and they stopped up the same hole with a wedge or pin made of the wood of the same Tree The pain thereupon plainly ceaseth and the place is with other medicaments brought to Cicatrization But some deriding such things and thinking them to be prestigious delusions do pull them forth of the hole again Hereupon forthwith that miserable servant was again afflicted with cruel pains more raging than the former Therefore they repeat the former medicaments and more copious matter doth issue forth which being taken together with the Amulet and put in the former place in the Oak all the pains did forthwith vanish and she afterwards lived altogether sound And so I conceive that by these reasons authorities and instances of matters of fact it is sufficiently proved that what Devils or Witches work in humane bodies or in corporeal matter is by applying fit actives to suitable passives and so the effects are only produced by natural causes and means which was the thing I undertook to make good The next thing that in this Chapter we have to consider and examine is the opinion of Johannes Baptista van Helmont that great Physician Philosopher and Chymist which we shall open in these particulars 1. He reciteth a large Catalogue of things that are in a most strange manner brought or injected into the bodies of Men and Women as darts thorn-pricks or pins chaff hairs dust of wood that hath been sawed little stones egg-shels and pieces of pots hulls and husks or swads insects things of linen needles and the instruments of artificers which have been injected insensibly and entred altogether in an invisible manner but were detained and ejected with direful pains and tortures And that sometimes they are greater than the holes or passages by which they are intromitted 2. And to confirm this assertion he bringeth instances of matters of fact as these following For he saith of late there was a part of an Oxe-hide injected by the pores of the skin it being intire which the Chirurgeon did draw forth with a pair of Forceps it being of the magnitude of the ball of a Mans hand the Apostume first being ripened And a Witch burned at Bruges did confess that she had injected that hide into the good man So he saith we have in times past seen at Lira the children of Orphans to have cast up by vomit an artificial Horse and Cart drawn forth by the hands of the by-standers to wit a four footed board accompanied with its ropes and wheel And what way soever it were placed it was easily greater than the double throat Further he saith I have seen at Antwerp in the year 1622. a young Maid who had vomited perhaps two thousand pins conglomerated together and with them hairs and filth Another Maid he saith at Mechlin in the year 1631 who we being present did vomit up shavings of wood or chips cut off in plaining with the Hatchet with much slimy stuff to the magnitude of two fists It is he saith a frequent thing every where admitted by learned Men. Upon which we will only give these Animadversions 1. That things as strange as these that Helmont seems to avouch of his own sight and knowledge are also attested by other persons of great learning and credit as besides what we have immediately before shewed from Salmuth of the needles hairs and burnt coals that came forth of the Maids arm these examples may ratifie We will pass by Sprenger Bodin Remigius and Del Rio as Pontificial Authors and therefore partial and interested only in the first place we shall give this from Alexander Benedictus who telleth this That he saw two Women his neighbours upon one day being infected by potions of evil medicaments who afterwards were wonderfully tormented with strange vomitings That the one cast up with great strainings an head bodkin very great bended like an hook with a great lump of Womens hair wrapped with the pairing of nails who died the day following The other vomited up a Womans Quoif pieces of glass with three dried pieces of a Dogs tail that was hairy so that she had voided by vomiting as much if set together as would have equalized the quantity of the whole tail But the most strange story that possibly can be read is recorded by Thomas Bartholinus who was Physician to Frederick the third King of Denmark of Anna Erici who vomited up at several times a piece of sharp wood great store of black blood an hem or fring of silk or linen cloath of a blew colour sowed with a green thred in which were hid three pieces of lead two pieces of glass three Almonds three pieces of a Tobacco-pipe and white stones or flints And afterwards many other horrid strange and incredible things that may be read in the place quoted in the Margent 2. It would seem a point of strange Scepticism or infidelity to distrust and reject these relations as lies and fictions seeing the Authors that recite them do for the most part attest them upon their own view or knowledge or at least from unquestionable eye-witnesses and that they were Men of great Reputation and Credit that lived in several Countrys and in different times and therefore could not conspire in a lie 3. But notwithstanding all this we find persons of great learning and sober judgments to use much hesitation about these things and either to suspend their belief of them as having never seen any such things themselves and therefore may well conclude as many Wise Men do that he that hath seen a thing may better believe it than he that hath not seen it or else are utterly diffident and believe no such matters of fact at all And indeed there is no greater folly than to be very inquisitive and laborious to find out the causes of such a Phenomenon as never had any existence and therefore Men ought to be cautious and be fully assured of the truth of the effect before they adventure to explicate the cause And I find both my Lord Bacon and that honourable and learned person Mr. Boyle when they have occasion to mention these things do it with extream caution
and always with an If or some other note of signal dubitation and also the Lord Mountaigue in his Essays and our Countreyman Mr. Osburne no contemptible persons in his writings seem utterly diffident of any such matter 4. Again if we consider how easy a thing it is for the most vigilant attentive and wisest person either to impose upon himself being drawn by those overruling notions that he suckt in from his childhood whereby the will and affections being never so little byassed the judgment will be presently swayed that way or how subject the most wary and perspicacious person is to be imposed upon by the cunning craftiness or confederacy of others or drawn to believe a meer impossibility by the perseverant asseverations of what others have seen and known may certainly induce us though not utterly to reject all relations of this nature yet to stand like Janus in this field of doubtful perplexity 5. If to this we add the consideration how rare and seldome these things happen and how long though it argue but negatively many Physicians have practised and yet have never met with any such strange accidents and withal that many of these vomitings of strange stuff and the like have been meer counterfeit juglings and Impostures as was manifest in the Boy of Bilson Sommers of Nottingham and diverse others besides I that have practised Physick above forty years could never find any such thing in truth and reality but have known many that have counterfeited these strange vomitings and the like which we and others have plainly laid open and detected So that though we shall not simply deny the verity of these relations so we cannot but believe that some of them have been cheats and delusions and others meer mistakes of ignorance and vain credulity and in the belief of any of them that we ought to proceed with much cautiousness and careful foresight 3. The next thing that Helmont lies down after he thinketh that he hath proved the matters of fact sufficiently is the assigning of the true cause as he thinketh of the bringing to pass these wondrous effects And these he maketh twofold first the Devil by reason of the league with the Witch doth bring and convey the things to be injected to the place or near the object and makes them invisible by his spiritual power Secondly that the Witch by the strength of her imagination and the motion of her free will which he holds to be the only peculiar prerogative of mankind and to remain both with Men and Women after the fall namely a power by their free wills and force of imagination to create or frame seminal and efficacious Ideas to work as it were ad nutum doth convey or inject these strange things into the bodies of those they would hurt or torment and that in this case as the ultimate attempt of nature there is and may be a penetration of dimensions and these things he attempteth to prove after this manner which we shall first amply lay down and relate and afterwards we shall give some notes and observations upon them as things of great weight and consideration 1. He granteth that the evil spirit hath a power motive yet therewith cannot hurt the innocent as he pleaseth And further he tells us that these injected things do enter invisibly And that this one thing is meerly Diabolical For the most miserable scoffer he saith seeing he hath nothing that is real left to his liberty yet he hath vain appearances Because he is the Father of lies he feigneth those things and maketh them to appear falsly or otherwise than they are from the beginning of the World And in these juglings the Man that is the Devils bondslave worketh nothing at all But by what manner the Devil maketh things visible in themselves to be invisible or how he involves them in his invisible spirit he confesseth that he is not a sedulous searcher of the works of Satan that belong unto him in propriety And therefore that the Devil doth transfer the things to be injected being made invisible unto the object the Idea of humane desire directing And because it is not permitted to the Devil to enter into Man much less that he may hurt him and least of all with an invisible burden therefore he useth the free motive power of the Man bound unto him The Man doth therefore impress his free motive Blas into the body made invisible but the Devil doth carry it unto the Man into whom it is to be injected And as a knife by the desire and consent of the person wounding is fixed into the flesh of him that is wounded So this body made invisible by the Devil is injected into the body of the person to be inchanted by the Idea of the motive power of the Witch Satan conspiring to this because of the purposed direction of hurting the person 2. Truly I believe he saith that it doth fight with Piety if a power exceeding nature be attributed to the Devil As though Satan should be above nature and should operate things impossible to nature I grant that the manner is exotick and strange but yet notwithstanding it ought to be contained within the limits of nature And if it be said the manner is unknown by which nature should do it The manner is also equally unknown by what means Satan should do it Therefore they gain nothing who refer the work of nature unto the Devil But whether they offend or not let others look to it For at least it is an invention of immense sloathfulness to refer all things to the Devil that we do not understand Neither would I saith he have the Devil called upon to satisfie our questions by a temerarious attribution of power 3. Therefore he saith I will shew that the aid of Satan is not at all needful that some solid body may be drawn without the comminution of it self by a passage far less than it self For the evil spirit though he have a motive Blas yet notwithstanding it is against piety that he can hurt the innocent at his pleasure Which certainly should come to pass if every where he could inject these things according to his nefarious will for he saith I have seen these things happen to innocent children to Virgins that were pious and devoted to God after a singular manner And to prove this point he giveth these instances Cornelius Gemma de Cosmocriticis doth recite that he had seen a piece of three pounds or 48. ounces weight of a brass Cannon which a Maid the Daughter of a Cooper had voided by stool with its characters or letters together with an Eele wrapt in its secundines But it is impossible to nature to melt powdered metal in us and to be detained so many months in its pristine figure in the Intestines or that the Eele should so often be made into small powder and to arise again from death And that pieces of wood and leather
storing it with provisions necessary to keep himself from drowning in Anno Dom. 1524. 2. And that we may be certified how frequent and common these counterfeited Impostures have been and yet are practised take this other from undoubted authority The 15 of August being Sunday in the 16 of the raign of Queen Elizabeth Agnes Bridges a Maid about the age of 20 years and Rachel Pinder a Wench about the age of 11 or 12 years who both of them had counterfeited to be possessed by the Devil whereby they had not only marvellously deluded many people both Men and Women but also diverse such persons as otherwise seemed of good wit and understanding stood before the Preacher at Pauls-cross where they acknowledged their hypocritical counterfeiting with penitent behaviours requiring forgiveness of God and the world and the people to pray for them Also their several examinations and Confessions were there openly read by the Preacher and afterwards published in print for posterity hereafter to beware of the like deceivers From whence we may take these two Observations 1. We may from hence note how subject the nature of man is both to deceive and to be deceived and that not only the common people but also the wiser and more learned heads may most easily be imposed upon And that therefore in things of this nature and the like we cannot use too much circumspection nor use too much diligence to discover them 2. We may note that when such strange Impostures or false Miracles are pretended there is commonly some sinister and corrupt end aimed at under the colour of Religion and that those that are most ready to publish such things as true Miracles and Divine Revelations are generally those that did complot and devise them And therefore the greater number they be that cry them up and the more esteem the persons are of that blow abroad such things the greater suspicion we ought to have of the falsity and forgery of them Always remembring that the greater the fame and number of the persons are that conspire and confederate together the greater things they may bring to pass and be more able to deceive as was manifest by the Priests attending the Oracles who though they laboured to father their predictions upon some Deity yet it was manifest that it was nothing else but their own Confederacy Impostures and Juglings 3. But these Diabolical Counterfeitings of possessions and the maintaining of the power of dispossession and casting forth of Devils was not only upheld and maintained by the Papists to advance their superstitious courses but also in the said time of Queen Elizabeth there were divers Non-Conformists to gain credit and repute to their way that did by publick writing labour to prove the continuation of real possessions by Devils and that they had power by fasting and Prayer to cast them out Of which number were one M r Darrell and his Accomplices who not only writ divers Pamphlets in the positive defence of that opinion but also published certain Narrations of several persons that they pretended were really possessed with Devils which were cast forth by their means in using Fasting and Prayer Which writings were answered by M r Harsnet and others and their Theory not only overthrown but their practice discovered to be counterfeiting and Imposture Whereupon there were divers persons suborned to feign and counterfeit possessions as William Sommers of Nottingham who by the Exorcists was reported to have strange fits passions and actions which are at large described and set forth in that learned Treatise Dialogical Discourses of Spirits and Devils written about the same time by John Deacon and John Waller Ministers and of divers other persons who likewise pretended the same counterfeit possessions And though the said forged and feigned possessions were strongly maintained by their Abettors and the matters of fact audaciously asserted to be true yet after the said Darrell and his Accomplices were examined by the Queens Commissioners all was made apparent to be notorious counterfeiting cheating and imposture both by the confession of Sommers himself and by the Oaths of several Deponents Neither was that discourse containing the certain possession of seven persons in one Family in Lancashire at Cheworth in the Parish of Leigh in the Year 1594. though believed by many for a truth because of the streight tale told by the said Darrell in that Narrative of any better grain but full of untruths impossibilities absurdities and contradictions 4. Our next instance shall be a most strange Imposture acted in the time of King James and in a manner known unto the whole Nation that is of the Boy of Bilson in Staffordshire in the year 1620. by name William Perry whose condition as he had been taught and so left by the Popish Priests take as followeth This Boy being about thirteen years old but for wit and subtilty far exceeding his age was thought by divers to be possessed of the Devil and bewitched by reason of many strange fits and much distemper wherewith he seemed to have been extreamly affected In those fits he appeared both deaf and blind writhing his mouth aside continually groaning and panting and although often pinched with mens fingers pricked with Needles tickled on his sides and once whipped with a Rod besides other the like extremities yet could he not be discerned by either shrieking or shrinking to bewray the least passion or feeling Out of his fits he took as might be thought no sustenance which he could digest but together with it did void and cast out of his mouth rags thred straw crooked pins c. Both in and out of his fits his belly by wilful and continual abstinence defrauding his own â—uts was almost as flat as his back besides his throat was swoln and hard his tongue stiff and rolled up towards the roof of his mouth insomuch that he seemed always dumb save that he would speak once in a Fortnight or three Weeks and that but in very few words Two things there were which gave most just cause of presumption that he was possessed and bewitched one was that he could still discern when that Woman which was supposed to have bewitched him to wit Jone Cocke was brought in to any room where he was although she were secretly conveyed thither as was one time tryed before the Grand Jury at Stafford The second that though he would abide other passages of Scripture yet he could not indure the repeating of that Text viz. In the beginning was the word c. Jo. 1. ver 1. but instantly rolling his eyes and shaking his head as one distracted he would fall nto his usual fits of groaning panting distraction c. In which plight he continued many months to the great wonder and astonishment of thousands who from divers parts came to see him Thus much of his cunning Yet notwithstanding this most devillish and cunningly contrived counterfeiting and dissimulation was discovered and
President of a National Synod in those parts to whom also the said Perreaud was well known who was a religious well poised venerable Divine And M r Boyle saith that he had had converse with this pious Author at Geneva and had inquired after the Writer and some passages of the Book which overcame all his setled indisposedness to believe strange things The Character given of this Author and the assent of such learned persons to the things related have gained an ample suffrage to give credit to them also But notwithstanding all this there are many passages in the relation that a quick-sighted Critick would find to be either contradictory or inconsistent and it cannot rationally be thought that he was a Cacodemon his actions were so harmless civil and ludicrous and if he were to be believed and in some things he did speak truth and the Minister himself M r Perreaud did in some things give credit to him he was no Devil but hoped to be saved by Jesus Christ. But whether a Devil or not yet the story for substance doth sufficiently prove the existence of such kind of Demons that can work strange and odd feats 4. M r Baxter a person of great learning and piety whose judgment bears great sway with me speaking of Apparitions saith thus I know many are very incredulous herein and will hardly believe that there have been such Apparitions For my own part he saith though I am as suspicious as most in such reports and do believe that most of them are conceits or delusions yet having been very diligently inquisitive in such Cases I have received undoubted testimony of the truth of such Apparitions some from the mouths of men of undoubted honesty and godliness and some from the report of multitudes of persons who heard or saw Were it fit here to name the persons I could send you to them yet living by whom you would be as fully satisfied as I Houses that have been so frequently haunted with such terrors that the inhabitants successively have been witnesses of it 7. Though some of these last recited testimonies might sufficiently convince the most obstinate and incredulous that there are Apparitions and some other such strange accidents that cannot be solved by the supposed principles of matter and motion but that do necessarily require some other causes that are above or different from the visible and ordinary course of nature yet because it is a point dark and mystical and of great concern and weight we shall add some unquestionable testimonies either from our own Annals or matters of fact that we know to be true of our own certain knowledge that thereby it may undoubtedly appear that there are effects that exceed the ordinary power of natural causes and may for ever convince all Atheistical minds of which in this order 1. In the first year of Edward the Sixth Anno Domini 1551. on St. Valentines day at Feversham in Kent one Arden a Gentleman was murthered by procurement of his own Wife for the which fact she was the fourteenth of March burnt at Canterbury Michael M r Arden's Man was hang'd in Chains at Feversham and a Maiden burnt Mosbie and his Sister were hanged in Smithfield at London Greene which had fled came again certain years after and was hanged in Chains in the High-way against Feversham and black Will the Ruffian that was hired to do that act after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a Scaffold at Flushing in Zealand The same horrid murther is more at large related by Hollingshead who lived at that time and had information of all the particulars who saith thus much more This one thing he faith seemeth very strange and notable touching M r Arden that in the place he was laid being dead all the proportion of his body might be seen two years after and more so plain as could be for the grass did not grow where his body had touched but between his legs between his arms and about the hollowness of his neck and round about his body And where his legs arms head or any part of his body had touched no grass growed at all of all that time So that many strangers came in that mean time beside the Townsmen to see the print of his body there on the ground in that Field which Field he had as some have reported cruelly taken from a Woman that had been a Widdow to one Cooke and after Married to one Richard Read a Marriner to the great hinderance of her and her Husband the said Read for they had long enjoyed it by a Lease which they had of it for many years not then expired Nevertheless he got it from them for the which the said Reads Wife not only exclaimed against him in shedding many 〈◊〉 salt tear but also cursed him most bitterly even to his face wishing many a vengeance to light upon him and that all the World might wonder on him which was thought then to come to pass when he was thus murthered and lay in that Field from midnight till the morning and so all that day being the Fair-day till night all the which day there were many hundreds of people came wondring about him From whence we may take this Observation As it is most certain that this is a true and punctual relation given us by Hollingshead as being a publick thing done in the face of a Nation the print of his body remaining so long after and viewed and wondered at by so many so that it hath not left the least starting hole for the most incredulous Atheist to get out at So likewise it may dare the most deep-sighted Naturalist or unbelieving Atheist that would exalt and so far deifie Nature as to deny and take away the existence of the God of Nature to shew a reason of the long remaining of the print of his body or the not growing of the grass in those places where his body had touched for two years and more after Could it be the steams or Atoms that flowed from his body then are why not such prints left by other murthered bodies which we are sure by sight and experience not to be so And therefore we can attribute it justly to no other cause but only to the power of God and divine vengeance who is a righter of the oppressed fatherless and Widdows and hears their cries and regardeth their tears 2. In the second year of the Reign of King James of famous memory a strange accident happened to the terror of all bloody murtherers which was this One Anne Waters enticed by a lover of hers consented to have her Husband strangled and then buried him secretly under the Dunghil in a Cow-house Whereupon the man being missing by his Neighbours and the Wife making shew of a wondering what was become of him it pleased God that one of the inhabitants of the Town dreamed one night that his Neighbour Waters was strangled and buried under the