5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 night lord ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ night lord ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ night lord ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ night lord ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ night lord ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ night lord ♂ ☉ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♂ ♃ ☉ ♀ ☽ ♀ ☿ night lord ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ☉ ♀ ☿ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ CHAP. XVI The Characters of the Angels of the seven dayes with their names of Figures Seales and Periapts These Figures are called the Seals of Earth without the which no Spirit will appear except thou have them with thee Michael Gabriel Samael Yaphael Sachiel Anael Calliel vel gaphriel ✚ Emanuel Sabaoth Adonay ✚ panthou ufyon ✚ Messyas ✚ Sother ✚ ✚ Dut tha gen ✚ Lap tenop ✚ Tyâ—ithaoth ✚ otheos yon mala iij la Aries Leo ✚ mala iij Alpha et ω on ely eloy Who so beareth this sign about him all Spirits shall do him homage Who so beareth this sign about him let him fear no fo but fear GOD. CHAP. XVII An Experiment of the Dead FIrst fast pray three dayes and abstain thee from all filthiness go to one that iâ— now buried such a one as killed himself or destroyed himself wilfully or else get the promise of one that shall be hanged and let him swear an Oath to thee after his body is dead that his Spirit shall come to thee and do thee true service at thy commandements in all days hours and minutes And let no persons see thy doings but thy fellow And about eleven a clock at night go to the place where he was buried and say with a bold faith and hearty desâ—re to have the spirit come that thou dost call for thy fellow having a Candle in his left hand and in his right hand a Crystal-stone and say these words following the Master having a Hazel-wand in his right hand and these names of God written thereupon Tetragrammaton ✚ Adonai ✚ Agla ✚ Craton ✚ Then strike three strokes on the ground and say Arise N. Arise N. Arise N. I'conjure thee Spirit N. by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ that thou do obey my words and come unto me this night verily and truly as thou believest to be saved at the day of Judgment And I will swear to thee an Oath by the peril of my soul that if thou wilt come to me and appear to me this night and shew me true visions in this Crystal-stone and fetch me the fairie Sibylia that I may talk with her visibly and she may come before me as the Conjuration leadeth and in so doing I will give thee an alms-deed and pray for thee N. to my Lord God whereby thou mayest be restored to thy Salvation at the Resurrection day to be received as one of the Elect of God to the everlasting glory Amen The Master standing at the head of the grave his fellow having in his hands the Candle and the Stone must begin the conjuration as followeth and the Spirit will appear to you in the Crystal-stone in a fair form of a child of twelve years of age And when he is in feel the stone and it will be hot and fear nothing for he or she will shew many delusions to drive you from your work Fear God but fear him not This is to constrain him as followeth I conjure thee Spirit N. by the living God the true God and by the holy God and by their vertues and powers which have created both thee and me and all the world I conjure thee N. by these holy Names of God Tetragrammaton ✚ Adonay ✚ Algramay ✚ Saday ✚ Sabaoth ✚ Planaboth ✚ Panthon ✚ Craton ✚ Neupmaton ✚ Deus ✚ Homo ✚ Omnipotens ✚ Sempiternus ✚ Ysus ✚ Lerra ✚ Vnigentius ✚ Salbator ✚ Via ✚ Vita ✚ Manus ✚ Fons ✚ Origo ✚ Filius ✚ And by their vertues and powers and by all their names by the which God gave power to man both to speak or think so by their vertues and powers I conjure thee spirit N. that now immediately thou do appear in this Crystal-stone visibly to me and to my fellow without any tarrying or deceit I conjure thee N. by the excellent Name of Jesus Christ Α and Ω the first and the last For this holy Name of Jesus is above all Names for in this Name of Jesus every knee doth bow and obey both of heavenly things earthly things and infernal And every tongue doth confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of the Father neither is there any other Name given to man whereby he must be saved Therefore in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth and by his Nativity Resurrection and Ascension and by all that appertaineth unto his passion and by their vertues and powers I conjure thee Spirit N. that thou do appear visibly in this Crystal-stone to me and to my fellow without any dissimulation I conjure thee N. by the blood of the innocent Lamb Jesus Christ which was shed for us upon the cross for all those that do believe in the vertue of his blood shall be saved I conjure thee N. by the vertues and powers of all the royal names and words of the living God of me pronounced that thou be obedient unto me and to my words rehearsed If thou refuse this to do I by the Holy Trinity and by their vertues and powers do condemn thee thou Spirit N. into the place where there is no hope of remedy or rest but everlasting horror of pain there dwelling and a place where there is pain upon pain dayly horribly and lamentably thy pain to be there augmented as the Starrs in the Heaven and as the gravel or Sand in the Sea except thou Spirit N. do appear to me and to my fellow visibly immediately in this Crystal Stone and in a fair form and shape of a child of twelve years of age and that thou alter not thy shape I change thee upon pain of everlasting condemnation I conjure thee Spirit N. by the golden Girdle which girdeth the loins of our Lord Jesus Christ so thou Spirit N. be thou bound into the perpetual pains of Hell fire for thy disobedience and unreverent regard that thou hast to the holy names and words and his precepts I conjure N. by the two edged Sword which John saw proceed out of the month of the Almighty and so thou Spirit N. be torn and cut in pieces with that Sword and to be condemned into everlasting pain where the fire goeth not out and where the worm dyeth not I conjure thee N. by the Heavens and by the celestial City of Jerusalem and by the Earth and the Sea and by all things contained in them and by their vertues and powers I conjure thee Spirit N. by the obedience that thou dost owe unto the principal Prince And
Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by all their virtues do I N. swear and promise thee to be obedient as is rehearsed And here for a witness do I N. give thee N. my right hand and do plight thee my faith and troth as God me help and holydome And by the holy contents in this Book do I N. swear that my spirit shall be thy true servant all the days of thy life as is before rehearsed and here for a witness that my Spirit shall be obedient unto thee N. and to those bonds of words that be written in this N. before the bonds of words shall be rehearsed thrice else to be damned for ever and thereto say all faithful souls and spirits Amen Amen Then let him swear this Oath three times and at every time kiss the Book and at every time make marks to the bond Then perceiving the time that he will depart get away the people from you and get or take your stone or glass or other thing in your hand and say the Pater noster Ave and Credo and this Prayer as followeth And in all the time of his departing rehearse the bonds of words and in the end of every bond say oftentimes Remember thine Oath and promise And bind him strongly to thee and to thy stone and suffer him not to depart reading thy bond 24 times And every day when you do call him by your other bond bind him strongly by the first bond by the space of 24. days apply it and thou shalt be made a man for ever Now the Pater noster Ave and Credo must be said and then the Prayer immediately following O God of Abraham God of Isaac God of Jacob God of Tobias the which didst deliver the three children from the hot burning oven Sidrac Misac and Abednago and Susanna from the false crime and Daniel from the Lions power even so O Lord Omnipotent I beseech thee for thy great mercy sake to help me in these my works and to deliver me this Spirit of N. that he may be a true subject unto me N all the days of my life and to remain with me and with this N. all the dayes of my life O glorious God Father Son and Holy Ghost I beseech thee to help me at this time and to give me power by thy holy Name Merits and vertues whereby I may conjure and constrain this Spirit of N. that he may be obedient unto me and may fulfill his Oath and promise at all times by the power of all thine holiness This grant O Lord God of Hosts as thou art righteous and holy and as thou art the Word and the Word God the beginning and the end sitting in the Thrones of thine everlasting Kingdoms and in the divinity of thine everlasting Godhead to whom be all honour and glory now and for ever und ever Amen Amen CHAP. XXVII A Bond to bind him to thee and to thy N. as followeth I Conjure and constrain the Spirit of N. by the living God by the true God and by the holy God and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constrain the Spirit of thee N. that thou shalt not ascend nor descend out of thy body to no place of rest but only to take thy resting place with N. and with this N. all the days of my life according to thine Oath and promise I conjure and constrain thee Spirit of N. by ehese holy Names of God ✚ Tetragrammaton ✚ Adonay ✚ Agla ✚ Saday ✚ Sabaoth ✚ Planabothe ✚ Panthon ✚ Craton ✚ Neupmaton ✚ Deus ✚ homo ✚ omnipotens ✚ sempiternus ✚ ysus ✚ terra ✚ unigenitus ✚ salbator ✚ via ✚ vita ✚ manus ✚ sons ✚ origo ✚ filius ✚ and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constrain the Spirit of N. that thou shalt not remain in the fire nor in the water in the air nor in any privy place of the earth but only with we N. and with this N. all the dayes of my life I charge thee Spirit of N. upon pain of everlasting condemnation remember thine Oath and promise Also I conjure the spirit of N. and constrain thee by the excellent Name of Jesus Christ Α and Ω the first and the last for this holy Name of Jesus is above all names for unto it all knees do bow and obey both of heavenly things earthly things and infernals Nor is there any other Name given to man whereby we have any salvation but by the Name of Jesus Therefore by the Name and in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth and by his Nativity Resurrection and Ascension and by all that appertaineth to his Passion and by their vertues and powers I do conjure and constrain the Spirit of N. that thou shalt not take any resting place in the ☉ nor in the ☽ nor in ♄ nor in ♃ nor in ♂ nor in ♀ nor in ☿ nor in any of the twelve signs nor in the concavity of the Clouds nor in any other privy place to rest or stay in but only with me N. or with this N. all the days of my life If thou be not obedient unto me according to thine Oath and promise I N. do condemn the spirit of N. into the pit of hell for over Amen I Conjure and constrain the spirit of N. by the blood of the innocent Lamb Jesus Christ the which was shed upon the Cross for all those that do obey unto it and believe in it shall be saved and by vertue thereof and by all the aforesaid royal names and words of the living God by me pronounced I do conjure and constrain the spirit of N. that thou do be obedient unto me according to thine Oath and promise If thou refuse to do as is aforesaid I N. by the holy Trinity and by his vertue and power do condemn the spirit of N. into the place whereas there is no hope of remedy but everlasting condemnation and horror and pain upon pain daily horribly and lamentably the pains there to be augmented so thick as the starrs in the Firmament and as the gravel sand in the Sea except thou Spirit of N. obey me N. as is afore rehearsed else I N. do condemn the spirit of N. into the pit of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat Amen Also I conjure thee and constrain the spirit of N. by all Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by the four Evangelists Matthew Mark Luke and John and by all things contained in the old Law and the new and by their vertues and by the twelve Apostles and by all Patriarchs Prophets Martyrs Confessors Virgins Innocents and by all the elect and chosen is and shall be which followeth the Lamb of God and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constrain the spirit of N. strongly to have common talk with me at all times and in all days nights hours and
the Falling-sickness and all Feavers Gowts Fluxes Fistula's issues of blood and finally whatsoever care even beyond the skill of himself or any other foolish Physitian is cured and perfectly healed by words of Inchantment Marry M. Ferrarius although he allowed and practised this kind of Physick yet he protesteth that he thinketh it none otherwise effectual than by the way of constant opinion so as he affirmeth that neither the Character nor the Charm nor the Witch nor the Devil accomplish the cure as saith he the experiment of the Tooch-ach will manifestly declare wherein the cure is wrought by the confidence or diffidence as well of the Patient as of the Agent according to the Poets saying Nos habitat non Tartara sed nec sidera caeli Spiritus in nobis qui viget illa facit Englished by Abraham Fleming Not hellish furies dwell in us Nor Stars with influence heavenlys The spirit that lives and rules in us Doth every thing ingeniously This saith he cometh to the unlearned through the opinion which they conceive of the Characters and holy words but the learned that know the force of the mind and imagination work miracles by means thereof so as the unlearned must have external helps to do that which the learned can do with a word only He saith that this is called Homerica medicatio because Homer discovered the blood suppressed by words and the infections healed by or in mysteries CHAP. XIII Of the Effects of Amulets the drift of Argerius Ferrarius in the commendation of Charms amp c. four sorts of Homerical Medicines and the choyce thereof of Imagination AS touching mine opinion of these Amulets Characters and such other bables I have sufficiently uttered it elsewhere and I will bewray the vanity of the superstitious trifles more largely hereafter And therefore at this time I only say that those Amulets which are to be hanged or carried about one if they consist of Herbs Roots Stones or some other metal they may have divers medicinable operations and by the vertue given to them by God in their creation may work strange effects and cures and to impute this vertue to any other matter is Witchcraft And whereas A. Ferrarius commendeth certain Amulets that have no shew of Physical operation as a nail taken from a Cross Holy-water and the very sign of the Cross with such like Popish stuffe I think he laboureth thereby rather to draw men to Popery than to teach or perswade them in the truth of Physick or Philosophy And I think thus the rather for that he himself seeth the fraud hereof confessing that where these Magical Physitians apply three seeds of three-leaved grass to a Tertian Ague and four to a Quartain that the number is not material But of these Homerical medicines he saith there are four sorts whereof Amulets Characters and Charms are three howbeit he commendeth and preferreth the fourth above the rest and that he saith consisteth in illusions which he more properly calleth stratagems Of which sort of illusions he alledgeth for example how Philodotus did put a Cap of Lead upon ones head who imagined he was headless whereby the party was delivered from his disease or conceit Item Another cured a woman that imagined that a Serpent or Snake did continually gnaw and tear her entrails and that was done only by giving her a Vomit and by foisting into the matter vomited a little Serpent or Snake like unto that which she imagined was in her belly Item Another imagined that he alwayes burned in the fire under whose bed a fire was privily conveyed which being taken out before his face his fansie was satisfied and his heat allayed Hereunto pertaineth that the Hickot is cured with sudden fear or strange news yea by that means Agues and many other strange and extream diseases have been healed And some that have lien so sick and sore of the Gowt that they could not remove a joynt through sudden fear of fire or ruin of houses have forgotten their infirmities and griefs and have run away But in my tract upon melancholy and the effects of imagination and in the discourse of Natural Magick you shall see these matters largely touched CHAP. XIV Choice of Charms against the Falling-Evil the biting of a mad Dog the stinging of a Scorpion the Tooth-ach for a Woman in Travel for the Kings-Evil to get a Thorn out of any member or a Bone out of ones Throat Charms to be said Fasting or at the gathering of Herbs for sore Eyes to open Locks against Spirits for the Bots in a Horse and specially for the Duke of Alba's Horse for sower Wines c. THere be innumerable Charms of Conjurers bad Physitians lewd Chirurgians Melancholick Witches and Coseners for all diseases and griefs specially for such as bad Physitians and Chirurgians know not how to cure and in truth are good stuffe to shadow their ignorance whereof I will repeat some For the Falling-Evill TAke the sick man by the hand and whisper these words softly in his Ear I conjure thee by the Sun and Moon and by the Gospel of this day delivered by God to Hubert Giles Cornelius and John that thou rise and fall no more Otherwise Drink in the night at a Spring water out of a skull of one that hath been slain Otherwise Eat a Pig killed with a knife that slew a man Otherwise as followeth Ananizapta ferit mortem dum laedere quaerit Est mala mors capta dum dicitur Ananizapta Ananizapta Dei nunc miserere mei Englished by Abraham Fleming Ananizapta smiteth death Whiles harm intendeth he This word Ananizapta say And death shall captive be Ananizapta O of God Have mercy now on me Against the biting of a Mad-Dog PUt a silver Ring on the finger within the which these words are graven ✚ Habay ✚ habar ✚ hebar ✚ and say to the person bitten with a mad Dog I am thy Saviour lose not thy life and then prick him in the nose thrice that at each time he bleed Otherwise take Pills made of the skull of one that is hanged Otherwise write upon a piece of bread Irioni khïriora esser khuder feres and let it be eaten by the party bitten Otherwise O Rex gloriae Jesu Christe veni cum pace In nomine Patris max. in nomine Filii max. in nomine Spiritus sancti prax Gasper Melchior Balthasar ✚ prax ✚ max ✚ Deus I max ✚ But in troth this is very dangerous insomuch as if it be not speedily and cunningly prevented either death or phrensie insueth through infection of the humor left in the wound bitten by a mad Dog which because bad Chirurgians cannot cure they have therefore used foolish cosening Charms But Dodonaeus in his Herbal saith that the herb Alysson cureth it which experiment I doubt not will prove more true then all the Charms in the world Bat where he saith That the same hanged at a mans Gate or Entry preserveth him and his
Aesops dog who greedily coveting to catch and snatch at the shadow of the flesh which he carried in his mouth over the water lost both the one and the other as they do their increase and their principal But to break off abruptly from this matter and to leave these hypocrites for why may they not be so named who as Homer speaking in detestation of such rakehells saith very divinely and truely Odi etenim seu claustra Erebi quicunque loquuntur Ore aliud tacitoque aliud sub pectore claudunt Englished by Abraham Fleming I hate even as the gates of Hell Those that one thing with tongue do tell And notwithstanding closely keep Another thing in heart full deep To leave these hypocrites I say in the dregs of their dishonesty I will conclude against them peremptorily that they with the rabble above rehearsed and the rout hereafter to be mentioned are rank Couseners and consuming Cankers to the Common-wealth and therefore to be rejected and excommunicated from the fellowship of all honest men For now their art which turneth all kind of metals that they can come by into mist and smoak is no less apparent to the world than the clear sunny rayes at noonsted insomuch that I may say with the Poet Hos populus ridet multumque torosa juventus Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos Englished by Abraham Fleming All people laugh them now to scorn each strong and lusty blood Redoubleth quavering laughters loud with wrinkled nose a good So that if any be so addicted unto the vanity of the art Alchymisticall as every fool will have his fancy and that beside so many experimented examples of divers whose wealth hath vanished like a vapour whiles they have been over rash in the practice hereof this discourse will not move to desist from such extream dotage I say to him or them and that aptly dicitque facitque quod ipse Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes Englished by Abraham Fleming He saith and doth that every thing which mad Orestes might With Oath averre became a man bereft of reason right BOOK XV. CHAP. I. Of Magical Circles and the reason of their Institution MAgitians and the more learned sort of Conjurers make use of Circles in various manners and to various intentions First when convenience serves not as to time or place that a real Circle should be delineated they frame an imaginary Circle by means of Incantations and Consecrations without either Knife Pensil or Compasses circumscribing nine foot of ground round about them which they pretend to sanctifie with words and Ceremonies spattering their Holy Water all about so far as the said Limit extendeth and with a form of Consecration following do alter the property of the ground that from common as they say it becomes sanctifi'd and made fit for Magicall uses How to consecrate an imaginary Circle LEt the Exorcist being cloathed with a black Garment reaching to his knee and under that a white Robe of fine Linnen that falls unto his ankles fix himself in the midst of that place where he intends to perform his Conjurations And throwing his old Shooes about ten yards from the place let him put on his consecrated shooes of russet Leather with a Cross cut on the top of each shooe Then with his Magical Wand which must be a new hazel-stick about two yards of length he must stretch forth his arm to all the four Windes thrice turning himself round at every Winde and saying all that while with fervency I who am the servant of the Highest do by the vertue of his Holy Name Immanuel sanctifie unto my self the circumference of nine foot round about me ✚ ✚ ✚ from the East Glaurah from the West Garron from the North Cabon from the South Berith which ground I take for my proper defence from all malignant spirits that they may have no power over my soul or body nor come beyond these Limitations but answer truely being summoned without daring to transgress their bounds Worrh worrah harcot Gambalon ✚ ✚ ✚ Which Ceremonies being performed the place so sanctified is equivalent to any real Circle whatsoever And in the composition of any Circle for Magical feats the fittest time is the brightest Moon-light or when storms of lightning winde or thunder are raging through the air because at such times the infernal Spirits are nearer unto the earth and can more easily hear the Invocations of the Exorcist As for the places of Magical Circles they are to be chosen melancholly dolefull dark and lonely either in Woods or Deserts or in a place where three wayes meet or amongst ruines of Castles Abbies Monasteries c. or upon the Sea-shore when the Moon shines clear or else in some large Parlour hung with black and the floor covered with the same with doors and windowes closely shut and Waxen Candles lighted But if the Conjuration be for the Ghost of one deceased the fittest places to that purpose are places of the slain Woods where any have killed themselves Church-yards Burying-Vaults c. As also for all forts of Spirits the places of their abode ought to be chosen when they are called as Pits Caves and hollow places for Subterranean Spirits The tops of Turrets for Aerial Spirits Ships and Rocks of the Sea for Spirits of the Water Woods and Mountains for Faries Nymphs and Satyres following the like order with rall the rest The reason that Magitians give for Circles and their Institution is That so much ground being blest and consecrated by holy Words hath a secret force to expel all evil Spirits from the bounds thereof and being sprinkled with holy water which hath been blessed by the Master the ground is purified from all uncleanness besides the holy Names of God written all about whose force is very powerful so that no wicked Spirit hath the ability to break through into the Circle after the Master and Scholler are entered and have closed up the gap by reason of the antipathy they possesse to these Mystical Names And the reason of the Triangle is that if the Spirit be not easily brought to speak the truth they may by the Exorcist be conjured to enter the same where by virtue of the names of the Sacred Trinity they can speak nothing but what is true and right But if Astral Spirits as Faries Nymphs and Ghosts of men be called upon the Circle must be made with Chalk without any Triangles in the place whereof the Magical Character of that Element to which they belong must be described at the end of every Name As for Spirits of the Air Water Fire Woods Caves Mountains Mines Desolate Buildings CHAP. II. How to raise up the Ghost of one that hath hanged himself THis experiment must be put in practice while the Carcass hangs and therefore the Exorcist must seek out for the straightest hazel wand that he can find to the top whereof he must binde
minutes and to talk in my mother tongue plainly that I may hear it and understand it declaring the truth unto me of all things according to thine oath and promise else to be condemned for ever Fiat fiat Amen Also I conjure and constrain the spirit of N. by the golden Girdle which girdeth the loins of our Lord Jesus Christ so thou spirit of N. be thou bound and cast into the pit of everlasting condemnation for thy great disobedience and unreverent regard that thou hast to the holy names and words of God Almighty by me pronounced Fiat Amen Also I conjure constrain command and by the spirit of N. by the two-edged Sword which John saw proceed out of the mouth of God Almighty except thou be obedient as is aforesaid the Sword cut thee in pieces and condemn thee into the pit of everlasting pains where the fire goeth not out and where the worm dyeth not Fiat fiat fiat Amen Also I conjure and constrain the spirit of N. by the Throne of the Godhead and by all the Heavens under him and by the celestial City new Jerusalem and by the Earth by the Sea and by all things created and contained therein and by their vertues and powers and by all the infernals and by their vertues and powers and by all things contained therein and by their vertues and powers I conjure and constrain the spirit of N. than now immediately thou be obedient unto me at all times hereafter and to those words of me pronounced according to thine oath and promise else let the great curse of God the anger of God the shadow and darkness of everlasting condemnation be upon thee thou spirit of N. for ever and ever because thou hast denyed thine health thy faith and salvation for the great disobedience thou art worthy to be condemned Therefore let the divine Trinity Angels and Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Chrumbim and Seraphim and all the souls of the Saints that shall stand on the right hand of our Lord Jesus Christ at the general Day of Judgment condemn the spirit of N. for ever and ever and be a witness against thee because of thy great disobedience in and against thy promises Fiat fiat Amen Being thus bound he must needs be obedient unto thee whether he will or no prove this And here followeth a bond to call him to your N. and to shew you true visions at all times as in the hour of ♄ to bind or inchant any thing and in the hour of ♃ for peace and concord in the hour of ♂ to marre to destroy and to make sick in the hour of the ☉ to bind tongues and other bonds of men in the hour of ♀ to increase love joy and good will in the hour of ☿ to put away enimity or hatred to know of theft in the hour of the ☽ for love good will and concord ♄ lead ♃ tin ♂ iron ☉ gold ♀ copper ☿ quick-silver ☽ silver c. CHAP. XXVIII This Bond as followeth is to call him into your Crystal-stone or Glass c. ALso I do conjure thee spirit N. by God the Father by God the Son and by God the Holy Ghost Α and Ω the first and the last and by the latter day of Judgement of them which shall come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire and by their vertues and powers I constrain thee spirit N. to come to him that holdeth the Crystal-stone in his hand and to appear visibly as hereafter followeth Also I conjure thee Spirit N. by these holy Names of God ✚ Letragrammaton ✚ Adonay ✚ El ✚ Ousion ✚ Agla ✚ Iesus ✚ of Nazareth ✚ and by the vertues thereof and by his nativity death burial resurrection and ascension and by all other things appertaining unto his passion and by the blessed Virgin Mary Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and by all the joy which she had when she saw her Son rise from death to life and by the vertues and powers thereof I constrain thee Spirit N. to come into the Crystal-stone and to appear visibly as hereafter shall be declared Also I conjure thee N. thou Spirit by all Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by the ☉ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ♀ ☿ and by the twelve signes and by their vertues and powers and by all things created and confirmed in the Firmament and by their vertues and powers I constrain thee Spirit N. to appear visibly in that Crystal-stone in fair form and shape of a white Angel a green Angel a black Angel a Man a Woman a Boy a maiden Virgin a white Greyhound a Devil with great horns without any hurt or danger of our bodies or souls and truly to inform and shew unto us true visions of all things in that Crystal-stone according to thine Oath and Promise and that without any hinderance or tarrying to appear visibly by this Bond of words read over by me three times upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat Amen Then being appeared say these words following I Conjure thee Spirit by God the Father that thou shew true visions in that Crystal-stone where there be any N. in such a place or no upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat Amen Also I conjure thee Spirit N. by God the Son Jesus Christ that thou do shew true visions unto us whether it be gold or silver or any other metals or whether there were any or no upon pain of condemnation Fiat Amen Also I conjure thee Spirit N. by God the Holy Ghost the which doth sanctifie all faithful souls and spirits and by their vertues and powers I constrain thee Spirit N. to speak open and to declare the true way how we may come by these treasures hidden in N. and how to have it in our custody and who are the keepers thereof and how many there be and what be their names and by whom it was laid there and to shew me true visions of what sort and similitude they be and how long they have kept it and to know in what dayes and hours we shall call such a Spirit N. to bring unto us these treasures into such a place N. upon pain of everlasting condemnation ✚ Also I constrain thee Spirit N. by all Angels Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim that you do shew a true vision in this Crystal-stone who did convey or steal away such a N. and where it is and who hath it and how far off and what is his or her name and how and when to come unto it upon pain of eternal condemnation Fiat Amen Also I conjure thee Spirit N. by the ☉ ☽ ♄ ♃ ♂ ♀ ☿ and by all the Characters in the Firmament that thou do shew unto me a true vision in this Crystal-stone where such N. and in what state he is and how long he hath been there and
For by that means men should have good occasion and opportunity to flie from him and to run to God for succour as the manner is of all them that are terrified though perchance they thought not upon God a long time before But in truth we never have so much cause to be afraid of the Devil as when he flatteringly insinuateth himself into our hearts to satisfie please and serve our humours enticing us to prosecute our own appetites and pleasures without any of these external terrours I would weet of these men where they do find in the Scriptures that some Devils be spiritual and some corporal or how these earthy or watery Devils enter into the mind of man Augustine saith and divers others affirm That Satan or the Devil while we feed allureth us with gluttony he thrusteth lust into our generation and sloth into our exercise into our conversation envie into our traffick avarice into our correction wrath into our government pride he putteth into our hearts evil cogitations into our mouthes lyes c. When we wake he moveth us to evils works when we sleep to evil and filthy dreams he provoketh the merry to loosness and the sad to despair CHAP. XII That the Devils assaults are Spiritual and not Temporal and how grossly some understand those parts of the Scripture UPon that which hitherto hath been said you see that the assaults of Satan are spiritual and not temporal in which respect St. Paul wisheth us not to provide a corselet of Steel to defend us from his claws but biddeth us Put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against the invasions of the Devil For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities powers and spiritual wickedness And therefore St. Peter adviseth us To be sober and watch for the Devil goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour He meaneth not with carnal teeth for it followeth thus Whom resist ye stedfast in the faith And again St. Peter saith That which is spiritual only discerneth spiritual things for no carnal man can discern the things of the spirit Why then should we think that a Devil which is a Spirit can be known or made tame and familiar unto a natural man or contrary to nature can be by a Witch made corporal being by God ordained to a spiritual proportion The cause of this gross conceipt is that we hearken more diligently to old Wives and rather give credit to their fables than to the Word of God imagining by the tales they tell us that the Devil is such a Bulbegger as I have before described For whatsoever is proposed in Scripture to us by Parable or spoken figuratively or significatively or framed to our gross capacities c. is by them so considered and expounded as though the bare letter or rather their gross imaginations thereupon were to be preferred before the true sense and meaning of the Word For I dare say that when these blockheads read Jothams Parable in the ninth of Judges to the men of Sichem to wit that The trees went out to anoint a King over them saying to the Olive-tree Reign thou over us who answered and said Should I leave my fatness c. they imagine that the wooden Trees walked and spake with a mans voyce or else that some spirit entred into the Trees and answered as is imagined they did in the Idols and Oracles of Apollo and such like who indeed have eyes and see not ears and hear not mouths and speak not c. CHAP. XIII The Equivocation of this word Spirit how diversly it is taken in the Scriptures where by the way is taught that the Scripture is not alwayes literally to be interpreted nor yet allegorically to be understood SUch as search with the the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding shall find that Spirits as well good as bad are in the Scriptures diversly taken yea they shall well perceive that the Devil is no horned beast For sometimes in the Scriptures Spirits and Devils are taken for infirmities of the body sometimes for the vices of the mind sometimes also for the gifts of tither of them Sometimes a man is called a Devil as Judas in the sixt of John and Peter in the 16. of Matthew Sometimes a Spirit is put for the Gospel sometimes for the mind or soul of man sometimes for the wil of man his mind and councel sometimes for Teachers and Prophets sometimes for zeal towards God sometimes for joy in the Holy Ghost c. And to interpret unto us the nature and signification of spirits we find these words written in the Scripture to wit The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him The Spirit of counsel and strength The Spirit of wisdom and understanding The spirit of knowledg and the fear of the Lord. Again I will pour out my Spirit upon the house of David c. The Spirit of grace and compassion Again Ye have not received the spirit of bondage but the Spirit of adoption And therefore St. Paul saith To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another the gift of healing to another the gift of faith by the same Spirit to another the gift of prophesie to another the operation of great works to another the discerning of spirits to another the diversity of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues and all these things worketh one and the self-same Spirit Thus far the words of St. Paul And finally Isaiah saith that The Lord mingled among them the spirit of errour And in another place The Lord hath covered you with a spirit of slumber As for the spirits of divination spoken of in the Scripture they are such as was in the woman of Endor the Philippian woman the wench of Westwell and the holy maid of Kent who were indued with spirits or gifts of divination whereby they could make shift to gain money and abuse the people by sleights and crafty inventions But these are possessed of borrowed spirits as it written in the Book of Wisdom and spirits of meer cosenage and deceipt as I have sufficiently proved elsewhere I deny not therefore that there are Spirits and Devils of such substance as it hath pleased God to create them But in what place soever it be found or read in the Scriptures a Spirit or Devil is to be understood spiritually and is neither a corporal nor a visible thing Where it is written That God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Sichem we are to understand that he sent the spirit of hatred and not a Bulbegger Also where it is said If the Spirit of jealousie come upon him it is as much as to say If he he be moved with a jealous mind and not that a corporal Devil
that all the creatures of God are good and again when God in the creation of the world saw all that he had made was good the Devil is not comprehended within those words of commendation For it is written that he was a murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him but when he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own as being a lyer and the father of lyes and as John saith a sinner from the beginning Neither was his creation so far as I can find in that week that God made man and those other creatures mentioned in Genesis the first and yet God created him purposely to destroy I take his substance to be such as no man can by learning define nor by wisdom search out M. Deering saith Tha◠Paul himself reckoning up principalities powers c. addeth Every name that is named in this world or in the world to come A clear sentence saith he of Paul 's modesty in confessing a holy ignorance of the state of Angels which name is also given to Devils in other places of the Scripture His essence also and his form is also so proper and peculiar in mine opinion unto himself as he himself cannot alter it but must needs be content therewith as with that which God hath ordained him and assigned unto him as peculiarly as he hath given to us our substance without power to alter the same at our pleasures For we find not that a spirit can make a body more than a body can make a spirit the Spirit of God excepted which is Omnipotent Nevertheless I learn that their nature is prone to all mischeif for as the very signification of an Enemy and as an accuser is wrapped up in Satan and Diabolus so doth Christ himself declare him to be in the thirteenth of Matthew And therefore he brooketh well his name for he lyeth dayly in wait not only to corrupt but also to destroy mankind being I say the very tormentor appointed by God to afflict the wicked in this world with wicked temptations and in the world to come with Hell fire But I may not here forget how M. Mal. and the residue of that crew do expound that word Diabolus for Dia say they is Duo and Bolus is Morsellus whereby they gather that the Devil eateth up a man both body and soul at two morsels Whereas in truth the wicked may be said to eat up and swallow down the Devil rather than the Devil to eat up them though it may well be said by a figure that the Devil like a roaring Lion seeketh whom he may devour which is meant of the soul and spiritual devouring as very novices in Religion may judge CHAP. XXXIII Against fond Witchmongers and their opinions concerning corporal Devils NOw how Brian Darcies he-spirits and she-spirits Titty and Tiffin Suckin and Pidgin Liard and Robin c. his white-spirits and black-spirits gray-spirits and red-spirits Devil-toad and Devil-lambe Devils-cat and Devils-dam agree herewithal or can stand consonant with the Word of God or true Philosophy let Heaven and Earth judge In the mean time let any man with good consideration peruse that Book published by W.W. it shall suffice to satisfie him in all that may be required touching the vanities of the Witches Examinations Confessions and Executions where though the tale be told only of the accusers part without any other answer of theirs than their Adversary setteth down mine assertion will be sufficiently proved true And because it seemeth to be performed with some kind of authority I will say no more for the confutation thereof but referr you to the Book it self whereto if nothing be added that may make to their reproach I dare warrant nothing is left out that may serve to their condemnation See whether the witnesses be not single of what credit sexe and age they are namely lewd miserable and envious poor people most of them which speak to any purpose being old women and children of the age of 4 5 6 7 8 or 9. years And note how and what the Witches confess and see of what weight and importance the causes are whether their confessions be not won through hope of favour and extorted by flattery or threats without proof But in so much as there were not past seventeen or eighteen condemned at once at S. Osees in the County of Essex being a whole Parish though of no great quantity I will say the less trusting that by this time there remain not many in that Parish If any be yet behind I doubt not but Brian Darcie will find them out who if he lack aid Richard Gallis of Windsor were meet to be associated with him which Gallis hath set forth another Book to that effect of certain Witches of Windsor executed at Abington But with what impudency and dishonesty he hath finished it with what lyes and forgeries he hath furnished it what folly and frenzy he hath uttered in it I am ashamed to report and therefore being but a two-penny Book I had rather desire you to buy it and so to peruse it than to fill my Book with such beastly stuffe CHAP. XXXIV A Conclusion wherein the Spirit of spirits is described by the illumination of which Spirit all spirits are to be tryed with a Confutation of the Pneumatomachi flatly denying the divinity of this Spirit TOuching the manifold signification of this word Spirit I have elsewhere in this brief discourse told you my mind which is a word nothing different in Heb. from breath or wind For all these words following to wit Spiritus Ventus Platus Halitus are indifferently use by the Holy Ghost and called by this Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sacred Scripture For further proof whereof I cite unto you the words of Isaiah For his Spirit or Breath is as a River that overfloweth up to the neck c. in which place the Prophet describeth the coming of God in heat and indignation unto judgement c. I cite also unto you the words of Zacharie These are the four Spirits of the Heaven c. Likewise in Genesis And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters Moreover I cite unto you the words of Christ The Spirit or Wind bloweth where it listeth Unto which said places infinite more might be added out of holy Writ tending all to this purpose namely to give us this for a note that all the sayings above cited with many more that I could alledge where mention is made of spirit the Hebrew Text useth no word but one to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth as I said Spiritum ventum flatum halitum which may be Englished Spirit wind blast breath But before I enter upon the very point of my purpose it shall not be amiss to make you acquainted with the collection of a certain School Divine who distinguisheth and divideth this word
doth he constantly deny it to be a creature Now if any ask me why Hilarie was so coy and nice to name the Holy Spirit God whom he denyeth to be a creature when as notwithstanding between God and a creature there is no mean I will in good sooth say what I think I suppose that Hilarie for himself thought well of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit but this opnion was thrust and forced upon him by the Pneumatomachi who at that time rightly deeming of the Son did erewhiles join themselves to those that were sound of judgment There is also in the Ecclesiastical History a little book which they gave Liberius a Bishop of Rome whereinto they foisted the Nicene Creed And that Hilarie was a friend of the Pneumatomachi it is perceived in his Book De Synodis where he writeth in this manner Nihil autem mirum vobis videri debet fratres charissimi c. It ought to seem no wonder unto you dear Brethren c. As for the objection of the Prayers of the Church called the Collects that in them the Holy Spirit is not called upon by name we oppose and set against them the Songs of the Church wherein the said Spirit is called upon But the Collects are more ancient than the Songs Hymns and Anthems I will not now contend about ancientness neither will I compare Songs and Collects together but I say thus much only to wit that in the most ancient times of the Church the Holy Spirit hath been openly called upon in the Congregation Now if I be charged to give an instance let this serve In the Collect upon Trinity Sunday it is thus said Almighty and everlasting God which hast given unto us thy servants grace by the confession of a truth to acknowledg the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine Majesty to worship the Unity we beseech thee that through the stedfastness of this faith we may evermore be defended from all adversity which livest and reignest one God world without end Now because that in this Collect where the Trinity is expresly called upon the names of persons are not expressed but Almighty and Everlasting God invocated who abideth in Trinity and Unity it doth easily appear elsewhere also that the persons being not named under the Name of Almighty and Everlasting God not only the Father is to be understood but God which abideth in Trinity and Unity that is the Father the Son and the Holyghost A third objection of theirs is this The Son of God oftentimes praying in the Gospels speaking unto the Father promiseth the Holy Spirit and doth also admonish the Apostles to pray unto the heavenly Father but yet in the Name of the Son Besides that he prescribeth them this form of Prayer Our Father which art in Heaven Ergo The Father only is to be called upon and consequently the Father only is that one and very true God of whom it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Whereto I answer first by denying the consequent The Son prayed to the Father only Ergo the Father only is of us also to be prayed unto For the Son of God is distinguished of us both in Person and in Office he as a Mediator maketh Intercession for us to the Father and although the Son and the Holy Spirit do both together receive and take us into favour with God yet is he said to intreat the Father for us because the Father is the fountain of all counsels and divine works Furthermore touching the form of Praying described by Christ it is not necessary that the Fathers name should personally be there taken sith there is no distinction of persons made but by the Name of Father indefinitely we understand God or the Essence of God the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost For this name hath not alwayes a respect unto the generation of the Son of God but God is called The Father of the faithful because of his gracious and free adopting of them the foundation whereof is the Son of God in whom we be adopted but yot so adopted that not the Father only receiveth us into his favour but with him also the Son and the Holy Spirit doth the same Therefore when we in the beginning of Prayer do advertise our selves of God's goodness towards us we do not cast an eye to the Father alone but also to the Son who gave us the Spirit of Adoption and to the Holy Spirit in whom we cry Abba Father And if so be that invocation and Prayer were restrained to the Father alone then had the Saints done amiss in calling upon invocating and praying to the Son of God and with the Son the Holy Spirit in Baptism according to the form by Christ himself assigned and delivered Another objection is out of the fourth of Amos in this manner For lo it is I that make the Thunder and create the spirit and shew unto men their Christ making the light and the clouds and mounting above the high places of the earth the Lord God of Hosts is his Name Now because it is read in that place Shewing unto men their Christ the Pneumatomachi contended that these words are to be understood of the Holy Spirit But Ambrose in his Book De Spiritu Sancto lib. 2. cap. 7. doth rightly answer That by Spirit in this place is meant the Wind for if the Prophets purpose and will had been to speak of the Holy Spirit he would not have begun with Thunder nor have ended with light and clouds Howbeit the same father saith If any suppose that these words are to be drawn unto the interpretation of the Holy Spirit because the Prophet saith Shewing unto men their Christ he ought also to draw these words unto the mystery of the Lords incarnation and he expoundeth Thunder to be the words of the Lord and Spirit to be the reasonable and perfect soul But the former interpretation is certain and convenient with the words of the Prophet by whom there is no mention made of Christ but the power of God is set forth in his works Behold saith the Prophet he that formeth the Mountains and createth the Wind and declareth unto man what is his thought which maketh the morning darkness and walketh upon the high places of the earth the Lord God of Hosts is his Name In this sort Santes a right skilful man in the Hebrew tongue translateth this place of the Prophet But admit this place were written of the Holy Spirit and were not appliable either to the Wind or to the Lords Incarnation yet doth it not follow that the Holy Spirit is a creature because this word of Creating doth not alwayes signifie a making of something out of nothing as Eusebius dxpounding these wrrds The Lord created me in the beginning of his wayes writeth thus The Prophet in the Person of God saying Behold I am he that made the Thunder and created the Spirit and
shewed unto men their Christ this word created is not so to be taken as that it is to be concluded thereby that the same was not before For God hath not so created the Spirit fithence by the same he hath shewed and declared his Christ unto al men Neither was it a thing of late beginning under the Son but it was before all beginning and was then sent when the Apostles were gathered together When a sound like Thunder came from Heaven as it had been the coming of a mighty wind this word created being used for sent down for appointed ordained c. and the word Thunder signifying in another kind of manner the Preaching of the Gospel The like saying is that of the Psalmist A clean heart create in me O God wherein he prayed not as one having no heart but as one that had such a heart as needed purifying as needed perfecting and this phrase also of the scripture that he might create two in one new man that is that he might joyn couple or gather together c. Furthermore the Pneumatomachi by these testimonies insuing endeavour to prove the Holy Spirit to be a creature Out of John the 1. ch By this word were all things made and without it nothing was made Out of 1 Cor. 8. We have one God the Father even he from whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and we by him Out of Col. 1 By him were all things made things in heaven and things in earth visible and invisible c. Now if all things were made by the Son it followeth that by him the Holy Spirit was also made Whereto I answer that when all things are said to be made by the Son that same universal proposition is restrained by John himself to a certain kind of things Without him saith the Evangelist was nothing made that was made Therefore it is first to be shewed that the Holy Spirit was made and then will we conclude out of John that if he were made he was made of the Son The Scripture doth no where say that the Holy Spirit was made of the Father or of the Son but to proceed to come and to be sent from them both Now if these universal propositions are to suffer no restraint it shall follow that the Father was made of the Son than the which what is more absurd and wicked Again they object out of Mat. 11. None knoweth the Son but the Father and none the Father but the Son to wit of and by himself for otherwise both the angels and to whomsoever else it shall please the Son to reveal the Father these do know both the Father and the Son Now if so be the Spirit be not equal with the Father and the Son in knowledge he is not only unequal and lesser than they but also no God for ignorance is not incident unto God Whereto I answer that where in holy Scripture we do meet with universal propositions negative or exclusive they are not to be expounded of one person so as the rest are excluded but creatures or false gods are to be excluded and whatsoever else is without or beside the essence and being of God Reasons to prove and confirme this interpretation I could bring very many whereof I will adde some for example In the seventh of John it is said When Christ shall come none shall know from whence he is notwithstanding which words the Jews thought that neither God nor his Angels should be ignorant from whence Christ should be In the fourth to the Galatians A mans Covenant or testament confirmed with authority no body doth abrogate or adde any thing thereunto No just man doth so but tyrants and truce-breakers care not for covenants In John eight Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst And yet it is not to be supposed that a multitude of people was not present and the Disciples of Christ likewise but the word Solus alone is referred to the womans accusers who withdrew themselves away every one and departed In the sixt of Mark When it was evening the ship was in the midst of the sea and he alone upon land he was not alone upon land or shore for the same was not utterly void of dwellers but he had not any of his Disciples with him nor any body to carry him a shipboard unto his Disciples Many phrases or forms of speeches like unto these are to be found in the sacred scriptures and in authors both Greek and Latin whereby we understand that neither universal negative nor exclusive particles are strictly to be urged but to be explained in such sort as the matter in hand will bear When as therefore the Son alone is said to know the Father and it is demanded whether the holy Spirit is debarred from knowing the Father out of other places of Scripture judgment is to be given in this case In some places the Holy Spirit is counted and reckoned with the Father and the Son jointly wherefore he is not to be separated Elsewhere also it is attributed to the holy spirit that he alone doth know the things which be of God and searcheth the deep secrets of God wherfore from him the knowing of God is not to be excluded They do yet further object that it is not convenient or fit for God after the manner of suters to humble and cast down himself but the holy Spirit doth so praying and intreating for us with unspeakable groans Rom. 8. Ergo the holy Spirit is not God Whereunto I answer that the Holy Spirit doth pray and intreat insomuch as he provoketh us to pray and maketh us to groan and sigh Oftentimes also in the Scriptures is that action or deed attributed unto God which we being stirred up and moved by him doe bring to passe So it is said of God unto Abraham Now I know that thou fearest God and yet before he would have sacrificed Isaac God knew the very heart of Abraham and therefore this word Cognovi I know is as much as Cognoscere feci I have made or caused to know And that the Spirit to pray and intreat is the same with that to make to pray and intreat the apostle teacheth even there writing that we have received the spirit of adoption in whom we cry Abba Father Where it is manifest that it is we which cry the Holy-ghost provoking and forcing us thereunto Howbeit they goe further and frame this reason Whosoever is sent the same is inferior and lesser than he of whom he is sent and furthermore he is of a comprehensible substance because he passeth by local motion from place to place but the Holy Spirit is sent of the Father and the Son John 14 15. 16. It is poured forth and shed upon men Acts 10. Ergo the Holy
Spirit is lesser than the Father and the Son and of a comprehensible nature and consequently not very God Whereto I answer first that he which is sent is not alwayes lesser than he that sendeth to prove which position any mean wit may inferre many instances Furthermore touching the sending of the Holy Spirit we are here to imagine no changing or shifting of place For if the Spirit when he goeth from the Father and is sent changeth his place then must the Father also be in a place that he may leave it and goe to another And as for the incomprehensible nature of the Spirit he cannot leaving his place passe unto another Therefore the sending of the Spirit is the eternal and unvariable will of God to do something by the Holy Spirit and the revealing and executing of this will by the operation and working of the Spirit The Spirit was sent to the Apostles which Spirit was present with them sith it is present every where but then according to the will of God the Father he shewed himself present and powerful Some man may say If sending be a revealing and laying open of presence and power then may the Father be said to be sent because he himself is also revealed I answer that when the Spirit is said to be sent not only the revealing but the order also of his revealing is declared because the will of the Father and of the Son of whom he is sent going before not in time but in order of persons the Spirit doth reveal himself the Father and also the Son The Father revealeth himself by others the Son and the Holy Spirit so that his will goeth before Therefore sending is the common work of all the three persons howbeit for order of doing it is distinguished by divers names The Father will reveal himsâ—lf unto men with the Son and the Spirit and be powerful in them and therefoâ—â— is said to send The Son doth assent unto the will of the Father and will that 〈◊〉 be done by themselves which God will to be done by them these are said to be sent And because the will of the Son doth goe before the Spirit in order of persons he is also said to send the Spirit Yet for all this they alledge That if the Spirit had perfection then would he speak of himself and not stand in need alwayes of anothers admonishment but he speaketh not of himself but speaketh what he heareth as Christ expresly testifieth John 16. Ergo he is unperfect and whatsoever he hath it is by partaking and consequently he is not God Whereto I answer that this argument is stale for it was objected by Heretiques long ago against them that held the true opinion as Cyrill saith who answereth that by the words of Christ is rather to be gathered that the Son and the Spirit are of the same substance For the Spirit is named the minde of Christ 1 Cor. 2. and therefore he speaketh not of his own proper will or against his will in whom and from whom he is but hath all his will and working naturally proceeding from the substance as it were of him Lastly they argue thus Every thing is either unbegotten or unborn or begotten and created the Spirit is not unbegotten for then he were the Father and so there should be two without boginning neither is he begotten for then he is begotter of the Father and so there shall be two Sons both Brothers or he is begotten of the Son and then shall he be Gods Nephew than the which what can be imagined more absurd Ergo he is created Whereto I answer that the division or distribution is unperfect for that member is omitted which is noted of the very best Divine that ever was even Jesus Christ our Saviour namely to have proceeded or proceeding That same Holy Spirit saith he which proceedeth from the Father Which place Nazianzen doth thus interpret The Spirit because he proceedeth from thence is not a creature and because he is not begotten he is not the Son but because he is the mean of begotten and unbegotten he shall be God c. And thus having avoided all these cavils of the Pneumatomachi a Sect of Heretiques too too injurious to the Holy Spirit insomuch as they seek what they can to rob and pull from him the right of his divinity I will all Christians to take heed of their pestilent opinions the poison whereof though to them that be resolved in the Truth it can do little hurt yet to such as stand upon a wavering point it can do no great good Having thus farr waded against and overthrown their opinons I must needs exhort all to whom the reading hereof shall come that first they consider with themselves what a reverend mystery all that hitherto hath been said in this chapter concerneth namely The Spirit of Sanctification and that they so ponder places to and fro as that they reserve unto the holy Spirit the glorious title of Divinity which by nature is to him appropriate esteeming of those Pneumatomachi or Theomachi as of Swine delighting more in the durty draffe of their devices than in the fair Fountain water of Golds Word yea condemning them of grosser ignorance than the old Philosophers who though they favoured little of heavenly Theology yet some illumination they had of the Holy and Divine Spirit marry it was somewhat misty dark lame and limping nevertheless what it was and how much or little soever it was they gave thereunto a due reverence in that they acknowledged and intituled it Animam Mundi The soul or life of the World and as Nazianzen witnesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The mind of the universal and the outward breath or the breath that cometh from without Porphyrie expounding the opinion of Plato who was not utterly blind in this mystery saith That the divine substance doth proceed and extend to three subsistencies and beings and that God is chiefly and principally good next him the second Creator and the third to be the soul of the world for he holdeth that the divinity doth exttend even to this foul As for Hermes Trismegistus he saith That all things have need of this Spirit for according to his worthiness he supporteth all he quickneth and sustaineth all and he is derived from the holy Fountain giving breath and life unto all and evermore remaineth continual plentiful and unemptyed And here by the way I give you a note worth reading and considering namely how all Nations in a manner by a kind of heavenly influence agree in writing and speaking the Name of God with no more than four letters As for example the Egyptians do call him Theut the Persians call him Syre the Jews express his unspeakable name as well as they can by the word Adonai consisting of four vowels the Arabians call him Alla the Mahometists call him Abdi the Greeks call him Theos the Latines call
him Deus c. This although it be not so proper to our present purpose yet because we are in hand with the Holy Spirits Deity is not altogether impertinent But why God would have his Name as it were universally bounded within the number of four letters I can give sundry reasons which requires too long a discourse of words by digression and therefore I will conceal them for this time These opinions of Philosophers I have willingly remembred that it might appear that the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit is very ancient which they have taken either out of Moses writings or out of the works of the old Fathers published in and set forth in Books though not wholly fully and perfectly understood and known and also that our Pneumatomachi may see themselves to be more doltish in divine matters than the Heathen who will not acknowledg that essential and working power of the divinity whereby all things are quickened which the Heathen did after a sort see after a sort I say because they separated the soul of the world which they also call the begotten mind from the most soveraign and unbegotten God and imagined certain differences of degrees and as Cyrill saith did Arrianize in the Trinity So then I conclude against these Pneumatomachi that in so much as they imitate the old Gyants who piling up Pelion upon Ossa and them both upon Olympus attempted by scaling the Heavens to pull Jupiter out of his Throne of Estate and to spoil him of his principality and were notwithstanding their strength whereby they were able to carry huge Hills on their shoulders overwhelmed with those Mountains and squeized under the weight of them even to the death so these Pneumatomachi being Enemies both to the Holy Spirit and no friends to the Holy Church for then would they confess the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity and consequently also the Deity of the Holy Spirit deserve to be consumed with the fire of his mouth the heat whereof by no means can be slacked quenched or avoided For there is nothing more unnatural nothing more monstrous then against the Person of the Deity I mean the Spirit of Sanctification to oppose mans power mans wit mans policy c. which was well signified by that Poetical fiction of the Giants who were termed Anguipedes Snake-footed which as Joachimus Camerarius expoundeth of wicked Counsellours to whose filthy perswasions Tyrants do trust as unto their feet and James Sadolet interpreteth of Philosophers who trusting over-much unto their own wits become so bold in challenging praise for their wisdom that in fine all turneth to folly and confusion so I expound of Hereticks and Schismaticks who either by corrupt doctrine or by maintaining precise opinions or by open violence c. assay to overthrow the true Religion to break the unity of the Church to deny Caesar his homage and God his duty c. and therefore let Jovis fulmem wherewith they were slain assure these that there is Divina ultio due to all such as dare in the fickleness of their fancies arrear themselves against the Holy Spirit of whom sith they are ashamed hereupon earth otherwise they would confidently and boldly confess him both with mouth and pen he will be ashamed of them in Heaven where they are like to be so farre from having any society with the Saints that their portion shall be even in full and shaken measure with miscreants and Infidels And therefore let us if we will discern and try the Spirits whether they be of God or no seek for illumination of this inlightning Spirit which as it bringeth light with it to discover all Spirits so it giveth such a fiery heat as that no false spirit can abide by it for fear of burning Howbeit the Holy Spirit must be in us otherwise this prerogative of trying spirits will not fall to our lot But here some will peradventure move a demand and do ask How the Holy Spirit is in us considering that Infiniti ad finitum nulla est proportio neque loci angustia quod immensum est potest circumscribi of that which is infinite to that which is finite there is no proportion neither can that which is unmeasurable be limited or bounded within any precinct of place c. I answer That the most excellent Father for Christs sake sendeth him unto us according as Christ promised us in the person of his Apostles The Comforter saith he which is the Holy Spirit whom my Father will send in my Name And as for proportion of that which is infinite to that which is finite c. I will in no case have it thought that the Holy Spirit is in us as a body placed in a place terminably but to attribute thereunto as duly belongeth to the Deity an ubiquity or universal presence not coporally and palpably but effectually mightily mystically divinely c. Yea and this I may bodldly add that Christ Jesus sendeth him unto us from the Father neither is he given us for any other end but to enrich us abundantly with all good gifts and excellent graces and among the rest with the discerning of Spirits aright that we be not deceived And here an end of the first Book BOOK II. CHAP. I. Of Spirits in General What they are and how to be considered Also how farr the Power of Magitians and Witches is able to operate in Diabolical Magick 1. BEcause the Author in his foregoing Treatise upon the Nature of Spirits and Devils hath only touched the subject thereof superficially omitting the more material part and with a brief and cursory Tractar hath concluded to speak the least of this subject which indeed requires most amply to be illustrared therefore I thought fit to adjoyn this subsequent discourse as succedaneous to the fore-going and conducing to the compleating of the whole work 2. The Nature of Spirits is variously to be considered according to the source to which each Caterva doth belong for as some are altogether of a divine and celestial nature not subject to the abominable Inchantments and Conjurations of vitious mankind so others are the grand Instigators stirring up mans heart to attempt the inquiry after the darkest and most mysterious part of Magick or Witchcraft neither is this their suggestion without its secret end that is that by the private insinuation and as it were incorporating themselves into the affection or desire of the Witch or Magician they may totally convert him into their own nature reducing him at last by constant practice to such obdurateness and hardness of heart that he becometh one with them and delighted with their association being altogether dead to any motions in himself that may be called good 3. And if we may credit example which is the surest proof the very imaginations and affection of a Magician doth create an evil Essence or Devil which was not before in being for as the Astral Spirits are
Oracles whereby indeed all good learning and honest arts are overthrown For these that most advance their power and maintain the skill of these Witches understand no part thereof and yet being many times wise in other matters are made fools by the most fools in the world Me thinks these Magical Physitians deal in the Common-wealth much like as a certain kind of Cynical people do in the Church whose severe sayings are accompted among some such Oracles as may not be doubted of who in stead of learning and authority which they make contemptible do feed the people with their own devices and imaginations which they prefer before all other Divinity and labouring to erect a Church according to their own fansies wherein all order is condemned and only their Magical words and curious directions advanced they would utterly overthrow the true Church And even as these inchanting Paracelsians abuse the people leading them from the true order of Physick to their Charms so do these other I say disswade from hearkning to learning and obedience and whisper in mens ears to teach them their Fryer-like traditions And of this sect the chief author at this time is one Brown a fugitive a meet cover for such a cup as heretofore the Anabaptists the Arrians and the Franciscan Fryers Truly not only nature being the foundation of all perfection but also Scripture being the Mistress and director thereof and of all Christianity is beautified with knowledge and learning For as nature without discipline doth naturally incline unto vanities and as it were suck up errors so doth the word or rather the letter of the Scripture without understanding not only make us devoure errors but yieldeth us up to death and destruction and therefore Paul saith he was not a Minister of the letter but of the spirit Thus have I been bold to deliver unto the world and to you those simple notes reasons and arguments which I have devised or collected out of other Authors which I hope shall be hurtful to none but to my self great comfort if it may pass with good liking and acceptation If it fall out otherwise I should think my pains ill imployed For truly in mine opinion whosoever shall perform any thing or attain to any knowledge or whosoever should travel throughout all the Nations of the world or if it were possible should peep into the heavens the consolation or admiration thereof were nothing pleasant unto him unless he had liberty to impart his knowledge to his friends Wherein because I have made special choice of you I hope you will read it or at the least lay it up in your study with your other Books among which there is none dedicated to any with more good will And so long as you have it it shall be unto you upon adventure of my life a certain Amulet Periapt Circle Charm c. to defend you from all Inchantments Your loving Friend REGINALD SCOT To the READERS TO you that are wise and discreet few words may suffice for such a one judgeth not at the first sight nor Reproveth by hearsay but patiently heareth and thereby increaseth in understanding which patience bringeth forth experience whereby true judgement is directed I shall not need therefore to make any further suite to you but that it would please you to read my Book without the prejudice of time or former conceit and having obtained this at your hands I submit my self unto your censure But to make a solemn suit to you that are partial Readers desiring you to set aside partiality to take in good part my writing and with indifferent eyes to look upon my Book were labour lost and time ill imployed For I should no more prevail herein then if a hundred years since I should have intreated your predecessors to believe that Robin Good-fellow that great and ancient Bull-begger had been but a cosening Merchant and no Devil indeed If I should go to a Papist and say I pray you believe my writings wherein I will prove all Popish Charms Conjurations Exorcisms Benedictions and Curses not only to be ridiculous and of none effect but also to be impious and contrary to God's Word I should as hardly therein win favour at their hands as herein obtain credit at yours Nevertheless I doubt not but to use the matter so that as well the Massemonger for his part as the Witchmonger for his shall both be ashamed of their Professions But Robin Good-fellow ceaseth now to be much feared and Popery is sufficiently discovered Nevertheless Witches Charms and Conjurors Cosenages are yet though effectual Yea the Gentiles have espyed the fraud of their cosening Oracles and our cold Prophets and Inchanters make us fools still to the shame of us all but specially of Papists who conjure every thing and thereby bring to pass nothing They say to their Candles I conjure you to endure for ever and yet they last not a Pater Noster while the longer They conjure water to be wholesome both for body and soul but the body we see is never the better for it nor the soul any whit reformed by it And therefore I marvel that when they see their own Conjurations confuted and brought to nought or at the least void of effect that they of all other will yet give such credit countenance and authority to the vain cosenages of Witches and Conjurors as though their Charms and Conjurations could produce more apparent certain and better effects then their own But my request unto all you that read my Book shall be no more but that it would please you to conferr my words with your own sense and experience and also with the Word of God If you finde your selves resolved and satisfied or rather reformed and qualified in any one point or opinion that heretofore you held contrary to truth in a matter hitherto undecided and never yet looked into I pray you take that for advantage and suspending your judgement stay the sentence of condemnation against me and consider of the rest at your further leisure If this may not suffice for to perswade you it cannot prevail to annoy you and then that which is written without offence may be overpassed without any grief And although mine assertion be somewhat differing from the old inveterate opinion which I confess hath many gray hairs whereby mine adversaries have gained more authority then reason towards the maintenance of their presumptions and old wives fables yet shall it fully agree with God's glory and with his holy Word And albeit there be hold taken by mine Adversaries of certain few words or sentences in the Scripture that make a shew for them yet when the whole course thereof maketh against them and impugneth the same yea and also their own places rightly understood do nothing at all relieve them I trust their glorious title and argument of Antiquity will appear as stale and corrupt as the Apothecaries Drugs or Grocers Spice which the longer they be preserved the
The place of Deuteronomy expounded wherein are recited all kind of Witches also their opinions confuted which hold that they can work such Miracles as are imputed unto them THe greatest and most common objection is that if there were not some which could work such miraculous or supernatural feats by themselves or by their Devils it should not have been said Let none be found among you that maketh his son or his daughter to go through the fire or that useth Witchcraft or is a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of fowles or a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that counselleth with Spirits or a Soothsayer or that asketh counsel of the dead or as some translate it that raiseth the dead But as there is no one place in the Scripture that saith they can work Miracles so it shall be easie to prove that these were all Coseners every one abusing the people in his several kind and are accursed of God Not that they can do all such things indeed as there is expressed but for that they take upon them to be the mighty power of God and to do that which is the only work of him seducing the people and blaspheming the Name of God who will not give his glory to any creature being himself the King of Glory and Omnipotency First I ask What miracle was wrought by their passing through the fire Truly it cannot be proved that any effect followed but that the people were bewitched to suppose their sins to be purged thereby as the Spaniards think of scourging and whipping themselves so as Gods power was imputed to that action and so forbidden as an Idolatrous Sorcery What wonders worketh the regarder of times What other Devil dealeth he withal than with the spirit of Superstition Doth he not deceive himself and others and therefore is worthyly condemned for a Witch What spirit useth he which marketh the flying of Fowls Nevertheless he is here condemned as a practiser of Witchcraft because he coseneth the people and taketh upon him to be a Prophet impiously referring Gods certain ordinances to the flittering feathers and uncertain wayes of a bird The like effects produceth Sorcery Charming consultation with Spirits Sooth-saying and consulting with the dead in every of the which Gods power is obscured his glory defaced and his commandement infringed And to prove that these Sooth-sayers and Witches are but lying mates and coseners note these words pronounced by God himself even in the self same place to the children of Israel Although the Gentiles suffered themselves to be abused so as they gave ear to these Sorcerers c. he would not suffer them so but would raise them a Prophet who should speak the truth As if he should say The other are but lying and cosening mates deceitful and undermining Merchants whose abuses I will make known to my people And that every one may be resolved herein let the last sentence of this precept be well weighed to wit Let none be found among you that asketh counsel of or raiseth the dead First you know the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and resting with Lazarus in Abrahams bosome do sleep in Jesus Christ And from that sleep man shall not be raised till the heavens be no more according to this of David Wilt thou shew wonders among the dead Nay the Lord saith the living shall not be taught by the dead but by the living As for the unrighteous they are in hell where is no redemption neither is there any passage from heaven to earth but by God and his Angels As touching the resurrection and restauration of the body read John 5. and you shall manifestly see that it is the only work of the Father who hath given the power thereof to the Son and to none other c. Dominus percutit ipse medetur Ego occidam ego vivefaciam And in many other places it is written that God giveth life and being to all Although Plato with his Master Socrates the chief pillars of these vanities say That one Pamphilus was called up out of hell who when he came among the people told many incredible tales concerning infernal actions But herein I take up the Proverb Amicus Plato amicus Socrates sed major amica veritas So as this last precept or last part thereof extending to that which neither can be done by Witch nor Devil may well expound the other parts and points thereof For it is not meant hereby that they can do such things indeed but that they make men believe they do them and thereby cosen the people and take upon them the office of God and therewithal also blaspheme his holy name and take it in vain as by the words of charmes and conjurations doth appear which you shall see if you look into these words Habar and Idoni In like manner I say you may see that by the prohibition of divination by augury and of Sooth-sayings c. who are Witches and can indeed do nothing but lye and cosen the people the law of God condemneth them not for that they can work miracles but because they say they can do that which pertaineth to God and for cosenage c. Concerning other points of Witch-craft contained therein and because some cannot otherwise be satisfied I will alledge under one sentence the decretals the mind of S. Augustine the Aurelian Councel and the determination of Paris to wit Who so observeth or giveth heed unto Soothsayings Divinations Witch-craft c. or doth give credit to any such he renounceth Christianity and shall be counted a Pagan and an enemy to God yea and he erreth both in Faith and Philosophy And the Reason is therewithal expressed in the Canon to wit Because hereby is attributed to a creature that which pertaineth to God only and alone So as under this one sentence Thou shalt not suffer a Poysoner or a Witch to live is forbidden both murther and Witchcraft the murther consisting in poyson the Witchcraft in cosenage or blasphemy CHAP. III. That Women have used poysoning in all ages more than Men and of the inconvenience of poysoning AS Women in all ages have been counted most apt to conceive Witchcraft and the Devils special instruments therein and the only or chief practisers thereof so also it appeareth that they have been the first inventers and the greatest practisers of poysoning and more naturally addicted and given thereunto than men according to the saying of Quintilian Latrocinium facilius in viro veneficium in foemina credam From whom Pliny differeth nothing in opinion when he saith Scientiam foeminarum in veneficiis praevalere To be short Augustine Livy Valerius Diodorus and many other agree That Women were the first inventers and practisers of the art of poysoning As for the rest of their cunning in what estimation it was had may appear by these verses of Horace wherein he doth not only declare the vanity of Witchcraft but also
Nativities so as if Saturn and Mercury were opposite in any brute sign a man then born should be dumb or stammer much whereas it is dayly seen that children naturally imitate their Parents conditions in that behalf Also they have noted that one born in the Spring of the Moon shall be healthy in that time of the wane when the Moon is utterly decayed the child then born cannot live and in the conjunction it cannot long continue But I am sure the opinion of Julius Maternus is most impious who writeth that he which is born when Saturn is in Leo shall live long and after his death shall go to heaven presently And so is this of Allumazar who saith that whosoever prayeth to God when the Moon is in Capite Draconis shall be heard and obtain his Prayer Furthermore to play the cold Prophet as to recount it good or bad luck when Salt or Wine falleth on the table or is shed c. or to prognosticate that guests approach to your house upon the chattering of Pies or Haggisters whereof there can be yielded no probable reason is altogether vanity and superstition as hereafter shall be more largely shewed But to make simple people believe that a Man or Woman can foretel good or evil fortune is meer Witchcraft or Cosenage for God is the only searcher of the heart and delivereth not his counsel to so lewd reprobates I know divers writers affirm that Witches foretel things as prompted by a real Devil and that he again learneth it out of the Prophesies written in the Scriptures and by other nimble sleights wherein he passeth any other earthly creature and that the same Devil or some of his fellows runs or flies as far as Rochester to Mother Bungie or to Canterbury to M.T. or to Delphos to Apollo or to Aesculapius in Pergamo or to some other Idol or Witch and there by way of Oracle answers all Questions through his understanding of the Prophesies contained in the Old Testament especially in Daniel and Isaiah whereby the Devil knew of the translation of the Monarchy from Babylon to Graecia c. But either they have learned this of some Oracle or Witch or else I know not where the Devil they find it Marry certain it is that herein they shew themselves to be Witches and fond Diviners for they find no such thing written in Gods Word Of the Idol called Apollo I have somewhat already spoken in the former title of Ob or Pytho and some occasion I shall have to speak thereof hereafter and therefore at this time it shall suffice to tell you that the credit gained thereunto was by the craft and cunning of the Priests which tended thereupon who with their counterfeit miracles so bewitched the people as they thought such vertue to have been contained in the bodies of those Idols as God hath not promised to any his Angels or elect people For it is said that if Apollo were in a chafe he would sweat if he had remorse to the afflicted and could not help them he would shed tears which I believe might have been wiped away with that handkerchief that wiped and dryed the Rood of Graces face being in the like perplexities Even as another sort of Witching Priests called Aruspices prophesied victory to Alexander because an Eagle lighted on his head which Eagle might I believe be cooped or caged with Mahomets Dove that picked peason out of his ear CHAP. IV. The predictions of Soothsayers and lewd Priests the prognostications of Astronomers and Physitians allowable Divine Prophesie holy and good THe cosening tricks of Oracling Priests and Monks are and have been specially most abominable The superstitious observations of senceless Augurers and Soothsayers contrary to Philosophy and without authority of Scripture are very ungodly and ridiculous Howbeit I reject not the Prognostications of Astronomers nor the conjectures or forewarnings of Physitians nor yet the interpretations of Philosophers although in respect of the Divine Prophesies contained in holy Scriptures they are not to be weighed or regarded For the end of these and the other is not only far differing but whereas these contain only the words and will of God with the other are mingled most horrible lyes and cosenages for though there be many of them learned and godly yet lurk there in corners of the same profession a great number of counterfeits and coseners J. Bodin putteth this difference between Divine Prophets and Inchanters to wit the one saith alwayes true the others words proceeding from the Devil are alwayes false or for one truth they tell a hundred lyes And then why may not every Witch be thought as cunning as Apollo and why not every counterfeit cosener as good a Witch as Mother Bungie For it is odds but they will hit the truth once in a hundred Divinations as well as the best CHAP. V. The diversity of true Prophets of Urim and of the Prophetical use of the twelve precious stones contained therein of the divine voyce called Eccho IT should appear that even of holy Prophets there were divers sorts for David and Solomon although in their Psalms and Parables are contained most excellent Mysteries and notable Allegories yet they were not indued with that degree of Prophesie that Ely and Elisha were c. For as often as it is said that God spake to David or Solomon it is meant to be done by the Prophets for NATHAN or GAD were the Messengers and Prophets to reveal Gods will to David And Ahiam the Shilonite was sent from God to Solomon Item the spirit of Prophesied which Elias had was doubled upon Elisha Also some Prophets prophesied all their lives some had but one vision and some had more according to Gods pleasure yea some prophesied unto the people of such things as came not to pass and that was where Gods wrath was pacified by Repentance But these Prophets were alwayes reputed among the people to be wise and godly whereas the Heathen Prophets were evermore known and said to be mad and foolish as it is written both of the Prophets of Sibylla and also of Apollo and at this day also in the Indies c. But that any of these extraordinary gifts remain at this day Bodin nor any Witchmonger in the World shall never be able to prove though he in his book of Devilish madness would make men believe it for these were miraculously maintained by God among the Jews who were instructed by them of all such things as should come to pass or else informed by Urim so as the Priest by the brightness of the twelve pretious stones contained therein could Prognosticate or expound any thing Which brightness and vertue ceased as Josephus reporteth two hundred years before he was born So as since that time no answers were yielded thereby of Gods will and pleasure Nevertheless the Hebrews write That there hath been ever since that time a Divine voyce heard among them which
of great antiquity and at this day for ought I can read to the contrary in use It is written That every year ordinarily upon Ascension day the Duke of Venice accompanyed with the States goeth with great solemnity to the Sea and after certain ceremonies ended casteth thereinto a gold ring of great value and estimation for a Pacificatory oblation wherewithal their predecessors supposed that the wrath of the Sea was asswaged But this action as a late writer saith they do Desponsare sibi mare that is espouse the Sea unto themselves c. Let us therefore according to the Prophets advice Ask rain of the Lord in the hours of the latter time and he shall send white clouds and give us rain c. for surely the Idols as the same Prophet saith have spoken vanity the Soothsayers have seen a lye and the Dreamers have told a vain thing they comfort in vain and therefore they went awaey like sheep c. If any Sheepbiter or Witchmonger will follow them they shall gone alone for me BOOK XII CHAP. I. The Hebrew word Habar expounded where also the supposed secret force of Charms and Inchantments is shewed and the Efficacy of Words is divers wayes declared THe Hebrew word Habar being in Greek Epathin and in Latine Incantare is in English to Inchant or if you had rather have it so to Bewitch In these Inchantments certain Words Verses or Charms c. are secretly uttered wherein there is thought to be miraculous efficacy There is great variety hereof but whether it be by Charms Voices Images Characters Stones Plants Metals Herbs c. there must herewithal a special form of words be always used either Divine Diabolical Insensible or Papistical whereupon all the vertue of the work is supposed to depend This word is specially used in the 58. Psalm which place though it be taken up for mine Adversaries strongest argument against me yet me thinks it maketh so with me as they can never be able to answer it For there it plainly appeareth That the Adder heareth not the voice of the Charmer charm he never so cunningly contrary to the Poets fabling Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis Englished by Araham Fleming The coldish Snake in Meadows green With Charms is burst in pieces clean But hereof more shall be said hereafter in due place I grant that words sometimes have singular vertue and efficacy either in perswasion or disswasion as also divers other wayes so as thereby some are converted from the way of perdition to the estate of Salvation and so contrariwise according to the saying of Solomon Death and life are in the Instrument of the tongue but even therein God worketh all in all as well in framing the heart of the one as in directing the tongue of the other as appeareth in many places of the holy Scriptures CHAP. II. What is forbidden in Scriptures concerning Witchcraft of the operation of words the Superstition of the Cabalists and Papists who createth Substances to imitate God in some cases is presumption words of Sanctification THat which is forbidden in the Scriptures touching inchantment or Witchcraft is not the wonderful working with words For where words have had miraculous operation there hath been alwayes the special Providence power and grace of God uttered to the strengthening of the faith of Gods people and to the furtherance of the Gospel as when the Apostle with a word slue Ananias and Saphira But the prophanation of Gods Name the seducing abusing and cosening of the people and mans presumption is hereby prohibited as whereby many take upon them after the recital of such names as God in the Scripture seemeth to appropriate to himself to foreshew things to come to work miracles to detect fellonies c. as the Cabalists in times past took upon them by the ten Names of God and his Angels expressed in the Scriptures to work wonders and as the Papists at this day by the like names by Crosses by Gospels hanged about their necks by Masses by Exorcisms by Holy-water and a thousand consecrated or rather execrated things promise unto themselves and others both health of body and soul But as herein we are nor to imitate the Papists so in such things as are the peculiar actions of God we ought not to take upon us to counterfeit or resemble him which with his word created all things For we neither all the Conjurers Cabalists Papists Soothsayers Inchanters Witches nor Charmers in the world neither any other humane or yet diabolical cunning can add any such strength to Gods workmanship as to make any thing anew or else to exchange one thing into another New qualities may be added by humane Art but no new substance can be made or created by man And seeing that Art faileth herein doubtless neither the illusions of Devils nor the cunning of Witches can bring any such thing truly to pass For by the sound of the words nothing cometh nothing goeth otherwise than God in Nature hath ordained to be done by ordinary speech or else by his special Ordinance Indeed words of sanctification are necessary and commendable according to S. Paul's rule Let your meat be sanctified with the Word of God and by Prayer But sanctification doth not here signifie either change of substance of the meat or the adding of any new strength thereunto but it is sanctified in that it is received with Thanks-giving and Prayers that our bodies may be refreshed and our souls thereby made the apter to glorifie God CHAP. III. What Effect and Offence Witches Charms bring how unapt Witches are and how unlikely to work those things which they are thought to do what would follow if those things were true which are laid to their charge THe words and other the Illusions of Witches Charmers and Conjurers though they be not such in operation and effect as they are commonly taken to be yet they are offensive to the Majesty and Name of God obscuring the truth of Divinity and also of Philosophy For if God only give life and being to all creatures who can put any such vertue or lively feeling into a body of Gold Silver Bread or Wax as is imagined If either Priests Devils or Witches could so do the Divine Power should be cheked and outfaced by Magical cunning and Gods creatures made fervile to a Witches pleasure What is not to be brought to pass by these Incantations if that be true which is attributed to Witches and yet they are women that never went to school in their lives nor had any teachers and therefore without art or learning poor and therefore not able to make any provision of metals or stones c. whereby to bring to pass strange matters by natural Magick old and stiffe and therefore not nimble-handed to deceive your eye with legierdemain heavy and commonly lame and therefore unapt to flie in the Air or to dance with the Fairies sad melancholike sullen and
be poured into their mouths And yet he and also Nider say that it is lawful to bless and sanctifie beasts as well as men both by Charms written and also by holy words spoken For saith Nider if your Cow be bewitched three Crosses three Pater-nosters and three Aves will certainly cure her and likewise all other Ceremonies Ecclesiastical And this is a sure Maxime that they which are delivered from Witchcraft by shrift are ever after in the night much molested I believe by their ghostly Fathers Also they lose their Money out of their Purses and Caskets as M. Mal. saith he knoweth by experience Also one general Rule is given by M. Mal. to all Butter-wives and dairy Maids that they neither give nor lend any Butter Milk or Cheese to any Witches which always use to beg thereof when they mean to work mischief to their Kine or white-meats Whereas indeed there are in Milk three substances commixed to wit Butter Cheese and Whey if the same be kept too long or in an evil place or be sluttishly used so as it be stale and sower which happeneth sometimes in the Winter but oftner in the Summer when it is over the fire the Cheese and Butter runneth together and congealeth so as it will rope like Birdlime that you may wind it about a stick and in short space it will be so dry as you may beat it to powder Which alteration being strange is wondered at and imputed to Witches And herehence sometimes proceedeth the cause why Butter cometh not which when the countrey people see that it cometh not then get they out of the suspected Witches house a little Butter whereof must be made three Balls in the Name of the holy Trinity and so if they be put into the Chern the Butter will presently come and the Witchcraft will cease Sic ars deluditur arte But if you put a little Sugar or Sope into the Chern among the Cream the Butter will never come which is plain Witchcraft if it be closely cleanly and privily handled There be twenty several ways to make your Butter come which for brevity I omit as to bind your Chern with a Rope to thrust thereinto a red hot Spit c. but your best remedy and surest way is to look well to your Dairy-maid or Wife that she neither eat up the Cream nor sell away your Butter A Charm to find her that bewitched your Kine PUt a pair of Breeches upon the Cows head and beat her out of the pasture with a good Cudgel upon a fryday and she will run right to the Witches door and strike thereat with her horns Another for all that have bewitched any kind of Cattel WHen any of your Cattel are killed with Witchcraft haste you to the place where the carcase lieth and trail the bowels of the beast unto your house and draw them not in at the door but under the threshold of the house into the Kitchin and there make a fire and set over the same a grediron and thereupon lay the inwards or the bowels and as they wax hot so shall the Witches entrails be molested with extreme heat and pain But then must you make fast your doors left the Witch come and fetch away a cole of your fire for then ceaseth her torments And we have known saith M. Mal. when the Witch could not come in that the whole house hath been so darkned and the air round about the lame so troubled with such horrible noise and Earth-quakes that except the door had been opened we had thought the house would have fallen on our heads Thomas Aquinas a principal treater herein alloweth Conjurations against the changlings and in divers other cases whereof I will say more in the word Jidoni A special Charm to preserve all Cattel from Witchcraft AT Easter you must take certain drops that lie uppermost of the holy Paschal Candle and make a little Wax-candle thereof and upon some Sunday morning rathe light it and hold it so as it may drop upon and between the horns and ears of the Beast saying In Nomine Patris Filii duplex ss and burn the Beast a little between the horns on the ears with the same Wax and that which is left thereof stick it in cross-wise about the stable or stall or upon the threshold or over the door where the Cattel use to go in and out and for all that year your Cattel shall never be bewitched Otherwise Jacobus de Chusa Carthusiannus sheweth how bread water and salt is conjured and saith that if either man or beast receive holy bread and holy water nine days together with three Pater-nosters and three Aves in the honour of the Trinity and of S. Hubert it preserveth that man or beast from all diseases and defendeth them against all assaults of Witchcraft of Satan or of a mad Dog c. Lo this is their stuffe maintained to be at the least effectual if not wholesom by all Papists and Witchmongers and specially of the last and proudest writers But to prove these things to be effectual God knoweth their seasons are base and absurd For they write so as they take the matter in question as granted and by that means go away therewith For L. Vairus saith in the beginning of his Book that there is no doubt of this supernatural matter because a number of Writers agree herein and a number of stories confirm it and many Poets handle the same argument and in the twelve Tables there is a law against it and because the consent of the common people is fully with it and because immoderate praise is to be approved a kind of Witchcraft and because old women have such Charms and superstitious means as preserve themselves from it and because they are mocked that take away the credit of such miracles and because Solomon saith Fascinatio malignitatis obscurat bona and because the Apostle saith O insensati Galatae quis vos fascinavit And because it is written Qui timent te videbunt me And finally he saith lest you should seem to distrust and detract any thing from the credit of so many grave men from Histories and common opinion of all men he meaneth in no wise to prove that there is miraculous working by Witchcraft and fascination and proceedeth so according to his promise CHAP. XXII Lawful Charms or rather medicinable Cures for diseased Cattel The charm of Charms and the power thereof BUt if you desire to learn true and lawful Charms to cure diseased Cattel even such as seeme to have extraordinary sickness or to be bewitched or as they say strangely taken look in B. Googe his third Book treating of Cattel and happily you shall find some good medicine or cure for them or if you list to see more antient stuffe read Vegetius his four Books thereupon or if you be unlearned seek some cunning Bullock-leech If all this will not serve then set Jobs Patience before your eyes
coloured and clear Glasses for you may have Glasses so made as what image or favour soever you print in your imagination you shall think you see the same therein Others are so framed as therein one may see what others do in places far distant others whereby you shall see men hanging in the Air others whereby you may perceive men flying in the Air others wherein you may see one coming and another going others where one Image shall seem to be one hundred c. There be Glasses also wherein one man may see another mans image and not his own others to make many similitudes others to make none at all Others contrary to the use of all Glasses make the right side turn to the right and the left side to the left others that burn before and behind others that represent not the Images received within them but cast them far off in the Air appearing like aiery Images and by the collection of the Sun-beams with great force set fire very far off on every thing that may be burned There be clear Glasses that make great things seem little things far off to be at hand and that which is near to be far off such things as are over us to seem under us and those that are under us to be above us There are some Glasses also that represent things in divers colours and them most gorgeous specially any white thing Finally the thing most worthy of admiration concerning these Glasses is that the lesser Glass doth lessen their shape but how big soever it be it maketh the shape no bigger then it is And therefore Augustine thinketh some hidden mystery to be therein Vitellius and J. Bap. Neap. write largely hereof These I have for the most part seen and have the receipt how to make them which if desire of brevity had not forbidden me I would here have set down But I think not but Pharaohs Magicians had better experience then I for those and such like devices And as Pompanatius saith it is most true that some for these feats have been accounted Saints some other Witches And therefore I say that the Pope maketh rich Witches Saints and burneth the poor Witches CHAP. XX. A Comparison betwixt Pharoahs Magicians and our Witches and how their Cunning consisted in juggling Knacks THus you see that it hath pleased God to shew unto men that seek for knowledge such cunning in finding out compounding and framing of strange and secret things as thereby he seemeth to have bestowed upon man some part of his Divinity Howbeit God of nothing with his Word hath created all things and doth at his will beyond the power and also the reach of man accomplish whatsoever he lists And such miracles in times past he wrought by the hands of his Prophets as here he did by Moses in the presence of Pharaoh which Jannes and Jambres apishly followed But to affirm that they by themselves or by all the Devils in Hell could do indeed as Moses did by the power of the Holy Ghost is worse then infidelity If any object and say that our Witches can do such feats with Words and Charms as Pharaohs Magicians did by their Art I deny it and all the world will never be able to shew it That which they did was openly done as our Witches and Conjurers never do any thing so as these cannot do as they did And yet as Calvin saith of them they were but Juglers Neither could they do as many suppose For as Clemens saith These Magicians did rather seem to do these wonders than work them indeed And if they made but prestigious shews of things I say it was more than our Witches can do For Witchcrafts as Erastus himself confesseth in drift of argument are but old wives Fables If the Magicians Serpent had been a very Serpent it must needs have been transformed out of the Rod. And therein had been a double work of God to wit the qualifying and extinguishment of one substance and the creation of another Which are actions beyond the Devils power for he can neither make a body to be no body nor yet no body to be a body as to make something nothing and nothing something and contrary things one nay they cannot make one hair either white or black If Pharaohs Magicians had made very Frogs upon a sudden why could they not drive them away again If they could not hurt the Frogs why should we think that they could make them Or that our Witches which cannot do so much as counterfeit them can kill cattel and other creatures with words or wishes And therefore I say with Jamblicus Quae fascinati imaginamur praeter imaginamenta nullam habent actionis essentiae veritatem Such things as we being bewitched do imagine have no truth at all either of action or essence beside the bare imagination CHAP. XXI That the Serpents and Frogs mere truly presented and the Water poysoned indeed by Jannes and Jambres of false Prophets and of their miracles of Balams Ass TRuly I think there were no inconvenience granted though I should admit that the Serpents and Frogs were truly presented and the Water truly poysoned by Jannes and Jambres not that they could execute such Miracles of themselves or by their Familiars or Devils but that God by the hands of those counterfeit Coseners contrary to their own expectations overtook them and compelled them in their ridiculous wickedness to be instruments of his will and vengeance upon their Master Pharaoh so as by their hands God shewed some Miracles which he himself wrought as appeareth in Exodus For God did put the Spirit of Truth into Baalams mouth who was hired to curse his People And although he were a corrupt and false Prophet and went about a mischievous enterprise yet God made him an instrument against his will to the confusion of the wicked Which if it pleased God to to do here as a speciall work whereby to shew his Omnipotency to the confirmation of his peoples Faith in the doctrine of their Messias delivered unto them by the Prophet Moses then was it miraculous and extraordinary and not to be looked for now And as some suppose there were then a consort or crew of false Prophets which could also foretell things to come and work miracles I answer it was extraordinary and miraculous and that it pleased God so to try his people but he worketh not so in these dayes for the working of miracle is ceased Likewise in this case it might well stand with Gods glory to use the hands of Pharaohs Magicians towards the hardening of their Masters heart and to make their illusions and ridiculous conceits to become effectual For God had promised and determined to harden the heart of Pharaoh As for the miracles which Moses did they mollified it so as he alwayes relented upon the sight of the same For unto the greatness of his miracles were added
I do not now well remember Spes fortuna valete Hope and good hap adieu No marvell then though Alchymistry allure men so sweetly and intangle them in snares of folly sith the baits which it useth is the hope of gold the hunger whereof is by the poet termed Sacra which some do English Holy not understanding that it is rather to be interpreted Cursed or detestable by the figure Acyron when a word of an unproper signification is cast in a clause as it were a cloud or by the figure Antiphrasis when a word importeth a contrary meaning to that which it commonly hath For what reason can there be that the hunger of gold should be counted holy the same having as depending upon it so many millions of mischiefs and miseries as treasons thefts adulteries manslaughters truce-breakings perjuries cousenages and a great troop of other enormities which were here too long to rehearse And if the nature of every action be determinable by the end thereof then cannot this hunger be holy but rather accursed which pulleth after it as it were with iron chains such a band of outrages and enormities as of all their labour charge care and cost c. they have nothing else left them in lieu of lucre but only some few burned bricks of a ruinous furnace a peck or two of ashes and such light stuffe which they are forced peradventure in fine to sell when beggery hath arrested and laid his mace on their shoulders As for all their gold it is resolved In primam materiam or rather In levem quendam fumulum into a light smoke or fumigation of vapors than the which nothing is more light nothing less substantial spirits only excepted out of whose nature and number these are not to be exempted CHAP. VIII A continuation of the former matter with a conclusion of the same THat which I have declared before by reasons examples and authorities I will now prosecute and conclude by one other example to the end that we as others in former ages may judge of vain hope accordingly and be no less circumspect to avoid the inconveniences thereof than Ulysses was wary to escape the incantations of Circes that old transforming witch Which example of mine is drawn from Lewis the French King the eleventh of that name who being on a time at Burgundy fell acquainted by occasion of hunting with one Conon a clownish but yet an honest and hearty good fellow For Princes and great men delight much in such plain clubhutchens The King oftentimes by means of his game used the Countrymans house for his refreshing and as noble men sometimes take pleasure in homely and course things so the King did not refuse to eat turneps and rape roots in Conons cottage Shortly after King Lewes being at his palace void of troubles and disquietness Conons wife will'd him to repair to the Court to shew himself to the King to put him in minde of the old entertainment which he had at his house and to present him with some of the fairest and choisest rape roots that she had in store Conon seemed loth alledging that he should but lose his labour for princes saith he have other matters in hand than to intend to think of such trifling courtesies But Conons wife overcame him and perswaded him in the end choosing a certain number of the best and goodlyest Rape-roots that she had which when she had given her husband to carry to the Court he set forward on his journey a good trudging pace But Conon being tempted by the way partly with the desire of eating and partly with the toothsomness of the meat which he bare that by little and little he devoured up all the roots saving one which was a very fair and a goodly great one indeed Now when Conon was come to the Court it was his luck to stand in such a place as the King passing by and spying the man did well remember him and commanded that he should be brought in Conon very cheerily followed his guide hard at the heels and no sooner saw the King but bluntly coming to him reached out his hand and presented the gift to his Majesty The King received it with more cheerfulness than it was offered and bad one of those that stood next him to take it and lay it up among those things which he esteemed most and had in greatest accompt Then he bad Conon to dine with him and after dinner gave the Country-man great thanks for his Rape-root who made no bones of the matter but boldly made challenge and claim to the Kings promised courtesie Whereupon the King commanded that a thousand Crowns should be given him in recompence for his Root The report of this bountifulness was spread in short space over all the Kings houshold insomuch as one of his Courtiers in hope of the like or a larger reward gave the King a very proper Gennet Whose drift the King perceiving and judging that his former liberality to the Clown provoked the Courtier to this covetous attempt took the Gennet very thankfully and calling some of his Noble men about him began to consult with them what mends he might make his servant for his Horse Whiles this was a doing the Courtier conceived passing good hope of some Princely Largess calculating and casting his Cards in this manner If his Majesty rewarded a silly Clown so bountifully for a simple Rape-root what will he do to a jolly Courtier for a gallant Gennet Whiles the King was debating the matter and one said this another that and the Courtier travelled all the while in vain hope at last saith the King even upon the sudden I have now bethought me what to bestow upon him and calling one of his Nobles to him whispered him in the ear and willed him to fetch a thing which he should finde in his Chamber wrapped up in silk The Root is brought wrapped in silk which the King with his own hands gave to the Courtier using these words therewithall that he sped well insomuch as it was his good hap to have for his Horse a Jewel that cost him a thousand Crowns The Courtier was a glad man and at his departing longed to be looking what it was and his heart danced for joy In due time therefore he unwrapped the silk a sort of his fellow-Courtiers flocking about him to testifie his good luck and having unfolded it he found therein a dry and withered Rape-root Which spectacle though it set the standers about in a loud laughter yet it quailed the Courtiers courage and cast him into a shrewd fit of pensiveness Thus was the confidence of this Courtier turned to vanity who upon hope of good speed was willing to part from his Horse for had I wist This story doth teach us into what folly and madness vain hope may drive undiscreet and unexpert men And therefore no marvell though Alchymisters dream and dote after double advantage faring like
the Circle into seven parts and write these seven names at the seven divisions setting at every Name a Candle lighted in a brazen Candlestick in the space betwixt the Circles The names are these Cados ✚ Escherie 🜂 Anick ✚ Sabbac Sagun ✚ ✚ Aba ✚ Abalidoth When the Candles are lighted let the Magician being in the midst of the Circle and supporting himself with two drawn Swords say with a low and submissive voyce I do by the vertue of these seven holy Names which are the Lamps of the living God Consecrate unto my use this inclosed Circle and exterminate out of it all evill Spirits and their power that beyond the limit of their circumference they enter not on pain of torments to be doubled Yah Agion Helior Heligah Amen When this Consecration is ended Let him sprinkle the Circle with consecrated Water and with a Chasing-dish of Charcole perfume it with Frankincense and Cinamon laying the Swords a cross the Circle and standing over them then whilest the fumigation burneth let him begin to call these three Spirits in this following manner I Conjure and Exorcize you the three Gentle and Noble Spirits of the power of the North by the great and dreadful name of Peolphan your King and by the silence of the night and by the holy rites of Magick and by the number of the Infernal Legions I adjure and invocate you That without delay ye present your selves here before the Northern quarter of this Circle all of you or any one of you and answer my demands by the force of the words contained in this Book This must be thrice repeated and at the third repetition the three Spirits will either all appear or one by lot if the other be already somewhere else imployed at their appearance they will send before them three fleet Hounds opening after a Hare who will run round the Circle for the space of half a quarter of an hour after that more hounds will come in and after all a little ugly Aethiop who will take the Hare from their ravenous mouths and together with the Hounds vanish at last the Magician shall hear the winding of a Hunts-mans horn and a Herald on Horseback shall come galloping with three Hunters behind upon black Horses who will compass the Circle seven times and at the seventh time will make a stand at the Northern quarter dismissing the Herald that came up before them and turning their Horses towards the Magician will stand all a brest before him saying Gil pragma burthon machatan dennah to which the Magician must boldly answer Beral Beroald Corath Kermiel By the sacred rites of Magick ye are welcome ye three famous Hunters of the North and my command is that by the power of these Ceremonies ye be obedient and faithful unto my summons unto which I conjure you by the holy Names of God Yah Gian Soter Yah Iehovah Immanuel Letragrammaton Yah Adonay Sabray Seraphin Binding and obliging you to answer plainly faithfully and truly by all these holy names and by the awful name of your mighty King Peolphon Which when the Magician hath said the middle Hunter named Paymon will answer Gil pragma burthon machatan dennah We are the three mighty Hunters of the North in the Kingdom of Fiacim and are come hither by the sound of thy Conjurations to which we swear by him that liveth to yield obedience if Judas that betrayed him be not named Then shall the Magician swear By him that liveth and by all that is contained in this holy Book I swear unto you this night and by the mysteries of this action I swear unto you this night and by the bonds of darkness I swear unto you this night That Judas the Traitor shall not be named and that blood shall not be offered unto you but that truce and equal terms shall be observed betwixt us Which being said the Spirits will bow down their heads to the Horses crests and then alighting down will call their Herald to withdraw their Horses which done The Magician may begin to bargain with all or any one of them as a familiar invisibly to attend him or to answer all difficulties that he propoundeth Then may he begin to ask them of the frame of the World and the Kingdoms therein contained which are unknown unto Geographers He may also be informed of all Physical processes and operations also how to go invisible and fly through the airy Region They can likewise give unto him the powerful Girdle of Victory teaching him how to compose and consecrate the same which hath the force being tyed about him to make him conquer Armies and all men whatsoever Besides there is not any King or Emperour throughout the world but if he desires it they will engage to bring him the most pretious of their Jewels and Riches in twenty four hours discovering also unto him the way of finding hidden treasures and the richest mines And after the Conjurer hath fulfilled his desires he shall dismiss the aforesaid Spirits in this following form I charge you ye three officious Spirits to depart unto the place whence ye were called without injury to either man or Beast leaving the tender Corn untouched and the seed unbruised I dismiss you and licence you to go back untill I call you and to be alwayes ready at my desire especially thou nimble Bathin whom I have chosen to attend me that thou be alwayes ready when I ring a little Bell to present thy self without any Magical Ceremonies performed and so depart ye from hence and peace be betwixt you and us In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen When the Magician hath repeated this last form of dismission he will hear immediately a horn winding after which the Herald with the jet black Horses and the three Spirits will mount upon them compassing the Circle seven times with the Herald winding his horn before them and at every Candle they will bow towards the Horses crest till coming towards the Northern quarter they will with great obeysance seem to march away out through the solid wall as through a City gate CHAP. IV. How to Consecrate all manner of Circles Fumigations Fire Magical Garments and Utensills COnsecrations are related either to the person or the thing consecrated The person is the Magitian himself whose consecration consisteth in Abstinence Temperance and holy Garments The things consecrated are the Oyl the Fire the Water The Fumigations consisting of oriental Gums and Spices the magical Sword Pensils Pens and Compasses the measuring Rule and waxen Tapers the Pentacles Periapts Lamins and Sigils Vests Caps and Priestly Garments these are the materials to be consecrated The sacred Pentacles are as signs and charms for the binding of Evil Daemons consisting of Characters and Names of the Superior order of the good Spirits opposite unto those evils ones whom the Magitian is about to Invocate And of sacred Pictures Images and
a great he cometh forth like a Souldier riding on a great Horse he hath a Lyons face very red and with flaming eyes he speaketh with a big voyce he maketh a man wonderful in Astronomy and in all the liberal Sciences he bringeth good familiars and ruleth Thirty six Legions Saleos is a great Earl he appeareth as a gallant Souldier riding on a Crocodile and weareth a Dukes crown peaceable c. Vuall is a great Duke and a strong he is seen as a great and terrible Dromedary but in humane form he soundeth out in a base voyce the Aegyptian tongue This man above all other procureth especial love of Women and knoweth things present past and to come procuring the love of friends and foes he was of the order of Potestates and governeth Thirty seven Legions Haagenti is a great President appearing like a great Bull having the wings of a Griffin but when he taketh humane shape he maketh a man wise in every thing he changeth all metals into gold and changeth Wine and Water the one into the other and commandeth as many Legions as Zagan Phoenix is a great Marquess appearing like the bird Phoenix having a childs voyce but berore he standeth still before the Conjuror he singeth many sweet notes Then the Exorcist with his companions must beware he give no ear to the melody but must by and by bid him put on humane shape then will he speak marvellously of all wonderful Sciences He is an excellent Poet and obedient he hopeth to return to the seventh Throne after a thousand two hundred years and governeth Twenty Legions Stolas is a great Prince appearing in the form of a Night-raven before the Exorcist he taketh the image and shape of a man and teacheth Astronomy absolutely understanding the vertues of herbs and pretious stones there are under him Twenty six legions Note that a Legion is 6666. and now by Multiplication count how many Legions do arise out of every particular ✚ Secretum secretorum The secret of secrets Tu operans sis secretus horum Thou that workest them be secret in them CHAP. XII The hours wherein principal Devils may be bound to wit raised and restrained from doing of hurt AMaymon King of the East Corson King of the South Zimimar King of the North Goap King and Prince of the West may be bound from the third hour till noon and from the ninth hour till evening Marquesses may be bound from the ninth hour till compline and from compline to the end of the day Dukes may be bound from the first hour till noon and clear weather is to be observed Prelates may be bound in any hour of the day Knights from day dawning till Sun rising or from evensong till the Sun set A President may not be bound in any hour of the day except the King whom he obeyeth be invocated nor in the shutting of the evening Counties or Earls may be bound at any hour of the day so it be in the woods or fields where men resort not CHAP. XIII The form of adjuring or citing of the Spirits aforesaid to arise and appear WHen you will have any Spirit you must know his Name and Office you must also fast and be clean from all pollution three or four days before so will the Spirit be the more obedient unto you Then make a Circle and call up the Spirit with great intention and holding a ring in your hand rehearse in your own name and your companions for one must alwayes be with you this Prayer following and so no Spirit shall annoy you and your purpose shall take effect And note how this agreeth with Popish Charmes and Conjurations In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ the ✚ Father ✚ and the Son ✚ and the Holy Ghost ✚ holy Trinity and unspeakable Unity I call upon thee that thou mayst be my salvation and defence and the protection of my body and soul and of all my goods through the virtue of thy holy Cross and through the vertue of thy passion I beseech thee O Lord Jesus Christ by the merits of thy blessed Mother S. Mary and of all thy Saints That thou give me Grace and Divine power over all the wicked Spirits so as which of them soever I do call by name they may come by and by from every coast and accomplish my will that they neither be hurtful nor fearful unto me but rather obedient and diligent about me And through thy virtue streightly commanding them let them fufil my commandements Amen Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbaoth which wilt come to judge the quick and the dead thou which art Α and Ω first and last King of Kings and Lord of Lords Ioth Aglanabrath El Abiel Anathiel Amazim Sedomel Grayes Heli Messias Tolimi Elias Ischiros Athanatos Imas By these thy holy Names and by all other I do call upon thee and beseech thee O Lord Jesus Christ by thy Nativity and Baptism by thy Cross and Passion by thine Ascension and by the coming of the Holy Ghost by the bitterness of thy soul when it departed from the body by thy five wounds by the blood and water which went out of thy body by thy virtue by the Sacrament which thou gavest thy Disciples the day before thou sufferedst by the holy Trinity and the inseparable Unity by blessed Mary thy Mother by thine Angels Arch-Angels Prophets Patriarchs and by all thy Saints and by all the Sacraments which are made in thine honour I do worship and beseech thee to accept these prayers Conjurations and words of my mouth which I will use I require thee O Lord Jesus Christ that thou give me thy virtue and power over all thine Angels which were thrown down from heaven to deceive mankind to draw them to me to tie and bind them and also to loose them to gather them together before me and to command them to do all that they can and that by no means they contemn my voyce or the words of my mouth but that they obey me and my sayings and fear me I beseech thee by thine Humanity Mercy and Grace and I require thee Adony Amay Horta Vegedora Mitai Hel Suranat Yston Ysesy and by all thy holy Names and by all thine holy He-Saints and She-Saints by all thine Angels and Archangels Powers Dominions and Virtues and by that name that Solomon did bind the Devils and shut them up Elbrach Evanher Agle Goth Ioth Othie Venoch Nabrat and by all thine holy Names which are written in this book and by the virtue of them all that thou enable me to congregate all thy Spirits thrown down from heaven that they may give me a true answer of all my demands and that they satisfie all my requests without the hurt of my body or soul or any thing else that is mine through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son which liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost one God world without end
a Glass and thou shalt not see thy self And when thou wilt go invisible put it on thy finger the same finger that they did put it on and every new ☽ renew it again For after the first time thou shalt ever have it and ever begin this work in the new of the ☽ and in the hour of ♃ and the ♋ ♠♓ CHAP. XX. An Experiment following of Citrael c. Angeli diei Dominici Michael ☉ Gabriel ☽ Samael ♂ Raphael ☿ Sachiel ♃ Anael ♀ Cassiel ♄ SAy first the Prayers of the Angels every day for the space of seaven dayes O ye glorious Angels written in this square be you my coadjutors and helpers in all questions and demands in all my business and other causes by him which shall come to judge both the quick and the dead and the world by fire O Angeli gloriosi in hac quadra scripti estote coadjutores auxiliatores in omnibus quaestionibus interrogationibus in omnibus negotiis caeterisque causis per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos mundum per ignem Say this Prayer fasting called Regina linguae ✚ Lemae ✚ Solmaac ✚ Elmay ✚ Gezagra ✚ Raamaasin ✚ Ezierego ✚ Mial ✚ Egziephiaz ✚ Iosamin ✚ Sahach ✚ ha ✚ aem ✚ re ✚ he ✚ esapha ✚ Sephar ✚ Ramar ✚ Semoit ✚ Lamajo ✚ Pheralon ✚ Amic ✚ Phin ✚ Gergain ✚ Letos ✚ Amin ✚ Amin ✚ In the Name of the most pitifulliest and mercifulliest God of Israel and of Paradise of Heaven and of Earth of the Seas and of the Infernals by thine Omnipotent help I may perform this work which livest and reignest ever one God world without end Amen O most strongest and mightiest God without beginning or ending by thy clemency and knowledge I desire that my questions work and labour may be fully and truly accomplished through thy worthyness good Lord which livest and reignest ever one God world without end Amen O holy patient and merciful great God and to be worshipped the Lord of all wisdom clear and just I most heartily desire thy holiness and clemency to fulfil perform and accomplish this my whole work through thy worthiness and blessed power which livest and reignest ever one God Per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen CHAP. XXI Howw to inclose a Spirit in a Crystal-stone THis operation following is to have a Spirit inclosed into a Crystal-stone or Beryl-glass or into any other like instrument c. First thou in the new of the ☽ being cloathed with all new and fresh and clean aray and shaven and that day to fast with bread and water and being clean confessed say the seven Psalms and the Letany for the space of two days with this Prayer following I desire thee O Lord God my merciful and most loving God the giver of all graces the giver of all Sciences grant that I thy wel-beloved N. although unworthy may know thy grace and power against all the deceits and craftiness of Devils And grant to me thy power good Lord to constrain them by this Art for thou art the true and lively and eternal God which livest and reignest ever one God through all Amen Thou must do this five dayes and the sixt day have in a readiness five bright Swords and in some secret place make one circle with one of the said Swords And then write this name Sitrael which done standing in the circle thrust in thy Sword into that name And write again Malanthon with another sword and Thamaor with another and Falaor with another and Sitrami with another and do as ye did with the first All this done turn thee to Sitrael and kneeling say thus having the Crystal-stone in thine hands O Sitrael Malantha Lhamaor Falaur and Sitrami Written in these circles appointed to this work I do conjure and I do exorcise you by the Father by the Son and by the Holy Ghost by him which cast you out of Paradise and by him which spake the word and it was done and by him which shall come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire that all you five infernal Masters and Princes do come unto me to accomplish and to fulfil all my desire and request which I shall command you Also I conjure you Devils and command you I bid you and appoint you by the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the most highest God and by the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary and by all the Saints both of men and women of God and by all the Angels Archangels Patriarchs and Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs and Confessors Virgins and Widows and all the elect of God Also I conjure you and every of you ye infernal Kings by the Heaven by the Starrs by the ☉ and by thee ☽ and all the Planets by the Earth Fire Air and Water and by the terrestrial Paradise and by all things in them contained and by your Hell and by all the Devils in it and dwelling about it and by your vertue and power and by all whatsoever and with whatsoever it be which may constrain and bind you Therefore by all the aforesaid vertues and powers I do bind you and constrain you into my will and power that you being thus bound may come unto me in great humility and to appear in your circles before me visibly in fair form and shape of mankind Kings and to obey unto me all things whatsoever I shall desire and that you may not depart from me without my licence And if you do against my precepts I will promise unto you that you shall descend into the profound deepness of the Sea except that you do obey unto me in the part of the living Son of God which liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost by all world of worlds Amen Say this true Conjuration five courses and then shalt thou see come out of the North-part five Kings with a marvellous company which when they are come to the circle they will alight down off from their Horses and will kneel down before thee saying Master command us what thou wilt and we will out of hand be obedient unto thee Unto whom thou shalt say See that ye depart not from me without my licence anll that which I will command you to do let it be done truly surely faithfully and essentially And then they all will swear unto thee to do all thy will and after they have sworn say the Conjuration immediately following I conjure charge and command you and every of you Sitrael Malanthan Lhamaar Falaur and Sitrami you Infernal Kings to put into this Crystal-stone one spirit learned and expert in all Arts and Sciences by the vertue of this Name of God Tetragrammaton and by the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the blood of the innocent Lamb which redeemed all the world and by all their vertues and power I charge you ye noble Kings that the said spirit may
Conjuration that be written in this Book I conjure thee Bealphares by all Angels and Archangels Thrones Dominations Principates Potestates Virtutes Cherubim and Seraphim and by their vertues and powers I conjure and charge bind and constrain thee Bealphares by all the royal words aforesaid and by their vertues that thou be obedient unto me and to come and appear visibly unto me and that in all days hours and minutes wheresoever I be being called by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ the which words are written in this Book Look ready thou be to appear unto me and to give me good counsel how to come by treasures hidden in the earth or in the water and how to come to dignity and knowledge of all things that is to say of the Magick Art and of Grammar Dialectike Rhetorike Arithmetick Musick Geometry and of Astronomy and in all other things my will quickly to be fulfilled I charge upon pain of everlasting condemnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen When he is thus bound ask him what thing thou wilt and he will tell thee and give thee all things that thou wilt request of him without any Sacrifice doing to him and without forsaking thy God that is thy Maker And when the Spirit hath fulfilled thy will and intent give him license to depart as followeth A License for the Spirit to depart GO unto the place predestinated and appointed for thee where thy Lord God hath appointed thee until I shall call thee again Be thou ready unto me and to my call as often as I shall call thee upon pain of everlasting damnation And if thou wilt thou mayst recite two or three times the last Conjuration until thou do come to this term In throno if he will not depart and then say In throno That thou depart from this place without hurt or damage of any body or of any deed to be done that all creatures may know that our Lord is of all power most mightiest and that there is none other God but he which is three and one living for ever and ever And the malediction of God the Father Omnipotent the Son and the Holy Ghost descend upon thee and dwell alwayes with thee except thou do depart without damage of us or of any creature or any other evil deed to be done and thou to go to the predestinated And by our Lord Jesus Christ I do else send thee to the great pit of Hell except I say that thou depart to the place whereas thy Lord God hath appointed thee And see thou be ready to me and to my call at all times and places at mine own will and pleasure day or night without damage or hurt of me or of any creature upon pain of everlasting damnation Fiat fiat fiat Amen Amenl The peace of Jesus Christ be between us and you In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen Per crucis hoc ✚ signum c. Say In principio erat Verbum Verbum erat apud Deum In thee beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word and so forward as followeth in the first Chapter of Saint John's Gospel staying at these words Full of grace and truth to whom be all honour and glory world without end Amen The fashion or form of the Conjuring knife with the Names thereon to be graven or written AGLA And on the other side this name A Type or Figure of the Circle for the Master and his Fellows to sit in shewing how and after what fashion it should be made Agla eL ya panthon dextera dmÌ„i fecit virtutem ✚ dextera dmÌ„i exaltauit me ✚ dextera dmÌ„i fecit virtutem ✚ dextera dmÌ„i exaltauit me ✚ mellyas emanuel alpha et ω Tetragrammaton Iesus nazarenus Adonay Elfelbey Magister THis is the Circle for the Master to sit in and his fellow or fellows at the first calling sit back to back when he calleth the Spirit and for the Fairies make this circle with chalk on the ground as is said before This Spirit Bealphares being once called and found shall never have power to hurt thee Call him in the hour of ♃ or ♀ the ☽ increasing CHAP. XXIV The making of Holy Water EXorciso te creaturam salis per Deum vivum ✚ per Deum ✚ verum ✚ per Deum sanctum ✚ per Deum quite per Elizaeum Prophetâ—m in aquam miti jussit ut sanaretur sterilitas aquae ut efficiaris sal exorcisatus in salutem credentium ut sis omnibus te sumentibus sanitas animae corporis effugiat a que discedat ab eo loco qui aspersus fuerit omnis phantasia nequitia vel versutia Diabolicae fraudis omnisque spiritus adjuratus per cum qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos saeculum per igném Amen Oremus Immensam clementiam tuam Onmipotens aeterne Deus humiliter imploramus ut hanc creaturam salis quam in usum generis humani tribuisti bene ✚ dicere sancti ✚ ficare tua pietate digneris ut sit omnibus sumentibus salus mentis corporis ut quicquid ex eo tactum fuerit vel respersum careat omni immunditia omnique impugnatione spiritualis nequitiae per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum qui tecum vivit regnat in unitate spiritus sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen To the Water say as followeth EXorciso te creaturam aquae in nemine ✚ Patris ✚ Jesu Christi Filii ejus Domini nostri in virtute Spiritus ✚ Sancti ✚ ut fiat aqua exorcisata ad effugandani omnen potestatem inimici ipsum inimicum eradicare explantare valeas cum angelis suis Apostatis per virtutem ejusdem Domini nostri Jesu Christi qui venturus est judicare vivos mortuos seculum per ignem Amen Oremus Deus qui ad salutem humani generis maxima quaeque sacramenta in aquarum substantia condidisti adesto propitius invocationibus nostris elemento huic multimodis purificationibus praeparato virtutem tuea bene ✚ dictionis infunde ut creatura tua mysteriis tuis serviens ad abigendos Daemones morbosque pellendos divinae gratiae sumat effectum ut quicquid in domibus vel in locis fidelium haec unda resperserit careat omni immunditia liberetur à noxa non illic resideat spiritus pestilens non aura corrumpens discedant omnes insidiae latentis inimici si quid est quod aut incolumitati habitantium invidet aut quieti aspersione hujus aquae effugiat us salubritas per invocationem sancti tui nominis expetita ab omnibus fit impugnationibus defensa per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum qui tecum vivit regnat in unitate spiritus sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen Then take the Salt in thy
remedies it appeareth that there were not with Christ good and perfect men For the pillars of the faith to wit Peter James and John were absent Neither was there fasting and praying without the which that kind of Devils could not be cast out For the fourth point to wit the fault of the Exorcist in faith may appear for that afterwards the Disciples asked the cause of their impotency therein And Jesus answered it was for their incredulity saying Thut if they had as much faith as a grain of mustard seed they should move mountains c. The fift is proved by Vitas Patrum the lives of the Fathers where it appeareth that S. Anthony could not do that cure when his Scholar Paul could do it and did it For the proof of the sixth excuse it is said that though the fault be taken away thereby yet it followeth not that alwayes the punishment is released Last of all it is said That it is possible that the Devil was not conjured out of the party before Baptism by the Exorcist or the midwife hath not baptized him well but omitted some part of the Sacrament If any object There was no Exorcist in the primitive Church It is answered That the Church cannot now erre And S. Gregory would never have instituted it in vain And it is a general rule that who or whatsoever is newly exorcised must be rebaptized as also such as walk or talk in their sleep for say they call them by their names and presently they wake or fall if they climb whereby it is gathered that they are not truly name in Baptism Item they say It is somewhat more difficult to conjure the Devil out of one bewitched then out of one possessed because in the bewitched he is double in the other single They have a hundred such beggerly foolish and frivolous notes in this behalf CHAP. XXXV Other gross absurdities of Witchmongers in this matter of Conjurations SUrely I cannot see what difference or distinction the Witchmongers do put between the knowledge and power of God and the Devil but that they think if they pray or rather talk to God till their hearts ake he never heareth them but that the Devil doth know every thought and imagination of their minds and both can and also will do any thing for them For if any that meaneth good faith with the Devil read certain conjurations he cometh up they say at a trice Marry if another that hath no intent to raise him read or pronounce the words he will not stirr And yet J. Bodin confesseth That he is afraid to read such Conjurations as John Wierus reciteth lest belike the Devil would come up and scratch him with his foul long nails In which sort I wonder that the Devil dealeth with none other then Witches and Conjurors I for my part have read a number of their Conjurations but never could see any Devils of theirs except it were in a Play But the Devil belike knoweth my mind to wit that I would be loth to come within the compass of his claws But lo what reason such people have Bodin Bartholomeus Spineus Sprenger and Institor c. do constantly affirm that Witches are to be punished with more extremity than Conjurors and sometimes with death when the other are to be pardoned doing the same offence because say they the Witches make a league with the Devil and so do not Conjurors Now if Conjurors make no league by their own confession and Devils indeed know not our cogitations as I have sufficiently proved then would I weet of our Witchmongers the reason if I read the Conjuration and performe the Ceremony why the Devil will not come at my call But oh absurd credulity Even in this point many wise and learned men have been and are abused whereas if they would make experience or duly expend the cause they might be soon resolved specially when the whole Art and Circumstance is so contrary to Gods Word as it must be false if the other be true So as you may understand that the Papists do not only by their doctrin in Books and Sermons teach and publish Conjurations and the order thereof whereby they may induce men to bestow or rather cast away their money upon Masses and Suffrages for their souls but they make it also a parcel of their Sacrament of orders of the which number a Conjuror is one and insert many forms of Conjurations into their Divine Service and not only into their Pontificals but into their Masse-books yea into the very Canon of the Masse CHAP. XXXVI Certain Conjurations taken out of the Pontifical and out of the Missal BUt see yet a little more of Popish Conjurations and confer them with the other In the Pontifical you shall find this Conjuration which the other Conjurours use as solemnly as they I conjure thee thou creature of Water in the Name of the Fa ✚ ther of the So ✚ n and of the Holy ✚ Ghost that thou drive away the Devil from the bounds of the just that he remain not in the dark corners of this Church and Altar ✚ You shall find in the same title these words following to be used at the hollowing of Churches There must a cross of ashes be made upon the pavement from one end of the Church to the other one handful broad and one of the Priests must write on the one side thereof the Greek Alphabet and on the other side the Latin Alphabet Durandus yieldeth this reason thereof to wit It representeth the union in faith of the Jews and Gentiles And yet well agreeing to himself he saith even there That the Cross reaching from the one end to the other signifieth that the people which were in the head shall be made the tail A Conjuration written in the Masse-book Fol. 1. I Conjure thee O creature of Salt by God by the God ✚ that liveth by the true ✚ God by the holy ✚ God which by Elizacus the Prophet commanded that thou shouldest be thrown into the Water that it thereby might be made whole and sound that thou Salt here let the Priest look upon the Salt mayst be conjured for the health of all believers and that thou be to all that take thee health both of body and soul and let all phantasies and wickedness or Diabolical craft or deceipt depart from the place whereon it is sprinkled as also every unclean Spirit being conjured by him that judgeth both the quick and the dead by fire Resp Amen Then followeth a Prayer to be said without Dominus vobiscum but yet with Oremus as followeth Oremus ALmighty and everlasting God we humbly desire thy clemency here let the Priest look upon the Salt that thou wouldest vouchsafe through thy piety to bl ✚ ess and sanc ✚ tifie this creature of Salt which thou hast given for the use of mankind that it may be to all that receive it health of mind and body so as
Devil that possesseth their own souls Let me hear any of them all speak with new tongues let them drink but one dram of a potion which I will prepare for them let them cure the sick by laying on of hands though Witches take it upon them and Witchmongers believe it and then I will subscribe unto them But if they which repose such certainty in the actions of Witches and Conjurors would diligently note their deceit and how the scope whereat they shoot is Money I mean not such Witches as are falsly accused but such as take upon them to give answers c. as mother Bungie did they should apparently see the Cosenage For they are abused as are many beholders of Juglers which suppose they do miraculously that which is done by sleight and subtilty But in this matter of Witchcrafts and Conjurations if men would rather trust their own eyes then old Wives tales and lies I dare undertake this matter would soon be a ta perfect point as being easier to be perceived than Jugling But I must needs confess that it is no great marvel though the simple be abused therein when such lies concerning those matters are maintained by such persons of account and thrust into their Divine Service As for example It is written That S. Martin thrust his fingers into ones mouth that had a Divel within him and used to bite folk and then did bid him devour them if he could And because the Devil could not get out at his mouth being stopt with S. Martins fingers he was fain to run out at his fundament O stinking lye CHAP. XXXIX That it is ashame for Papists to believe other Conjurors doings their own being of so little force Hippocrates his opinion herein ANd still methinks Papists of all others which indeed are most credulous and do most maintain the force of Witches Charms and of Conjurors Cosenages should perceive and judge Conjurors doings to be void of effect For when they see their own stuffe as Holy-water Salt Candles c. conjured by their holy Bishop and Priests and that in the words of Consecration or Conjuration for so their own Doctors term them they adjure the water c. to heal not only the souls infirmity but also every malady hurt or ach of the body and do also command the Candles with the force of their authority and power and by the effect of all their holy words not to consume and yet neither soul nor body any thing recover nor the Candles last one minute the longer with what face can they defend the others miraculous workes as though the Witches and Conjurors actions were more effectual then their own Hippocrates being but a Heathen and not having the perfect knowledge of God could see and perceive their cosenage and knavery well enough who saith They which boast so that they can remove or help the infections of diseases with Sacrifices conjurations or other Magical Instruments or means are but needy fellows wanting living and therefore refer their words to the Devil because they would seem to know somewhat more than the common people It is marvel that Papists do affirm that their Holy-water Crosses or Bugs-words have such virtue and violence as to drive away Devils so as they dare not approach to any place or person besmeared with such stuffe when as it appeareth in the Gospel That the Devil presumed to assault and tempt Christ himself For the Devil indeed most earnestly busieth himself to seduce the godly as for the Wicked he maketh reckoning and just accompt of them as of his own already But let us go on forward in our Refutation CHAP. XL. How Conjurors have beguiled Witches what books they carry about to procure credit to their Art wicked assertions against Moses and Joseph THus you see that Conjurors are no small fools For whereas Witches being poor and needy go from door to door for relief have they never so many Toads or Cats at home or never so much Hogs-dung and Charvil about them or never so many Charmes in stone these Conjurors I say have gotten them offices in the Church of Rome whereby they have obtained authority and great estimation And further to add credit to that Art these Conjurors carry about at this day books entituled under the names of Adam Abel Toby and Enoch which Enoch they repute the most divine fellow in such matters They have also among them books of Zachary Paul Honorius Cyprian Jerome Jeremy Albert and Thomas also of the Angels Riziel Razael and Raphael and doubtless these were such books as were said to have been burnt in the lesser Asia And for their further credit they boast that they must be and are skilful and learned in these Arts to wit ars Almadel ars Notoria ars Bulaphiae ars Arthephii ars Pomena ars Revelationis c. Yea these Conjurors in corners stick with Justine to report and affirm That Joseph who was a true figure of Christ that delivered and redeemed us was learned in these arts and thereby prophesied and expounded Dreams and that those arts came to him from Moses and finally from Moses to them which thing both Pliny and Tacitus affirm of Moses Also Strabo in his Cosmographie maketh the very like blasphemous report and likewise Apollonius Molon Possidonius Lysimachus and Appian term Moses both a Magician and a Conjuror whom Eusebius confuteth with many notable arguments For Moses differed as much from a Magician as truth from falshood and piety from vanity for in truth he confounded all Magick and made the world see and the cunningest Magicians of the earth confess That their own doings were but illusions and that his miracles where wrought by the finger of God But that the poor old Witches knowledge reacheth thus far as Danaus affirmeth it doth is untrue for their furthest fetches that I can comprehend are but to fetch a pot of milk c. from their neighbours house half a mile distant from them CHAP. XLI All Magical Arts confuted by an argument concerning Nero what Cornelius Agrippa and Carolus Gallus have written thereof and proved by experience SUrely Nero proved all these Magical Arts to be vain and fabulous lyes and nothing but Cosenage and Knavery He was a notable Prince having gifts of nature enough to have conceived such matters treasure enough to have imployed in the search thereof he made no conscience therein he had singular conferences thereabout he offered and would have given half his Kingdom to have learned those things which he heard might be wrought by Magicians he procured all the cunning Magicians in the world to come to Rome he searched for books also and all other things necessary for a Magician and never could find any thing in it but Cosenage and Legierdemain At length he met with one Tiridates the great Magician who having with him all his companions and fellow Magicians Witches Conjurors and Coseners invited Nero to certain
bonum Thou shalt not do evil that good may come thereof Lombertus saith that Witchcraft may be taken away by that means whereby it was brought But Gofridus inveyeth sore against the oppugners thereof Pope Nicholas the fifth gave indulgence and leave to Bishop Miraties who was so bewitched in his privities that he could not use the gift of Venery to seek remedy at Witches hands And this was the clause of his dispensation Ut ex duolus malis fugiatur majus that of two evils the greater should be avoided And so a Witch by taking his doublet cured him and killed the other Witch as the story saith which is to be seen in M. Mal. and divers other Writers CHAP. XX. Who are Priviledged from Witches what bodies are aptest to be bewitched or to be Witches why women are rather Witches than men and what they are NOw if you will know who and what persons are priviledged from Witches you must understand that they be even such as cannot be bewitched In the number of whom first be the Inquisitors and such as exercise publick justice upon them Howbeit a Justice in Essex whom for divers respects I have left unnamed not long since thought he was bewitched in the very instant whiles he examined the Witch so as his leg was broken thereby c. which either was false or else this rule untrue or both rather injurious unto Gods Providence Secondly such as observe duly the Rites and Ceremonies of the holy Church and worship them with reverence through the sprinkling of holy Water and receiving consecrated Salt by the lawful use of Candles hallowed on Candlemas-day and green leaves consecrated on Palm-sunday which things they say the Church useth for the qualifying of the Devils power are preserved from Witchcraft Thirdly some are preserved by their good Angels which attend and wait upon them But I may not omit here the reasons which they bring to prove what bodies are the more apt and effectual to execute the art of fascination And that is first they say the force of celestial bodies which indifferently communicated their vertues unto Men Beasts Trees Stones c. But this gift and natural influence of fascination may be increased in man according to his affections and perturbations as through anger fear love hate c. For by hate saith Varius entereth a fiery inflammation into the eye of man which being violently sent out by beams and streams c. infect and bewitch those bodies against whom they are opposed And therefore he saith in the favour of women that is the cause that women are oftner found to be Witches than men For saith he they have an unbridled force of fury and concupiscence naturally that by no means it is possible for them to temper or moderate the same So as upon every trifling occasion they like brute beast fix their furious eyes upon the party whom they bewitch Hereby it cometh to pass that whereas women having a marvellous sickle nature what grief soever happeneth unto them immediately all peaceableness of mind departeth and they are so troubled with evill humours that outgo their venemous exhalation ingendered through their ill-favoured dyet and increased by means of their pernicious excrements which they expel Women are also saith he monethly filled full of superfluous humors and with them the melancholike blood boileth whereof spring vapours and are carried up and conveyed through the nostrils and mouth c. to the bewitching of whatsoever it meeteth For they belch up a certain breath wherewith they bewitch whomsoever they list And of all other women lean hollow-eyed old beetle-browed women saith he are the most infectious Marry he saith that hot subtil and thin bodies are most subject to be bewitched if they be moist and all they generally whose veins pipes and passages of their bodies are open And finally he saith that all beautiful things whatsoever are soon subject to be bewitched as namely goodly young men fair women such as are naturally born to be rich goodly Beasts fair Horses rank Corn beautiful Trees c. Yea a friend of his told him that he saw one with his eye break a precious stone in pieces And all this he telleth as soberly as though it were true And if it were true honest women may be Witches in despight of all Inquisitors neither can any avoid being a Witch except she lock herself up in a chamber CHAP. XXI What Miracles Witchmongers report to have been done by Witches words c. Contradictions of Witchmongers among themselves how Beasts are cured hereby of bewitched Butter a Charm against Witches and a counter-Charm the effect of Charms and words proved by L. Varius to be wonderful IF I should go about to recite all Charms I should take an infinite work in hand For the Witching Writers hold opinion that any thing almost may be thereby brought to pass and that whether the words of the Charm be understandable or not it skilleth not so the Charmer have a steddy intention to bring his desire about And then what is it that cannot be done by words For L. Varius saith that old women have infeebled and killed Children with words and have made women with child miscarry they have made men pine away to death they have killed Horses deprived Sheep of their Milk transformed Men into Beasts flown in the air tamed and stayed wild Beasts driven all noisome Cattel and Vermine from Corn Vines and Herbs stayed Serpents c. and all with words Insomuch as he saith that with certain words spoken in a Bulls ear by a Witch the Bull hath fallen down to the ground as dead Yea some by vertue of words have gone upon a sharp sword and walked upon hot glowing coals without hurt with words saith he very heavy weights and burthens have been lifted up and with words wild Horses and wild Bulls have been tamed and also mad Dogs with words they have killed Worms and other Vermin and stayed all manner of Bleeding and Fluxes with words all the diseases in mans body are healed and wounds cured Arrows are with wonderful strangeness and cunning plucked out of mens bones Yea saith he there be many that can heal all bitings of Dogs or stingings of Serpents or any other poyson and all with nothing but words spoken And that which is most strange he saith that they can remedy any stranger and him that is absent with that very Sword wherewith they are wounded Yea and that which is beyond all admiration if they stroke the Sword upwards with their fingers the party shall feel no pain whereas if they draw their finger downwards thereupon the party wounded shall feel intolerable pain with a number of other cures done altogether by the vertue and force of words uttered and spoken Where by the way I may not omit this special note given by M. Mal. to wit that holy Water may not be sprinkled upon bewitched Beasts but must