CHAP.V.
That these things now in question are but barely supposed, and were yet never rationally nor sufficiently proved: And that the Allegations brought to prove them by are weak, frivolous, and absolutely invalid. With a full Confutation of all the four Particulars.
Pag.5, 6.
Bodin. Dæmonoman. ubiq; of evil Spirits,pag.304.
Having in the preceding Chapter proved that the Scriptures and sound Reason, are the proper Mediums to decide these difficulties by, and also laid down the necessary qualifications requisite in an Author or Witness that would evidence these things as matters of fact: We shall here once again repeat the four Particulars, which we are about to confute, which are these. 1. That the Devil doth not make a visible or corporeal League and Covenant with the supposed Witches. 2. That he doth not suck upon their bodies. 3. That he hath not carnal Copulation with them. 4. That they are not really changed into Cats, Dogs, Wolves, or the like. And these four Particulars we affirm were never matters of fact, nor ever had a being, except only in the fancy as meer Chimera’s, nor that they ever were or can be proved to have been brought to pass or acted; andde non apparentibus, & non existentibus eadem est ratio, saith the great Maxime of our Law. But in the first place let us hear what the Patrons of this wretched and execrable opinion have to say to prove that they are matters of fact, or were ever acted or performed. And first we have Mr.Glanvilarguing at this rate: “All Histories are full of the exploits of those instruments of darkness; and the testimony of all ages, not only of the rude and barbarous, but of the most civilized and polisht World, brings tidings of their strange performances. We have the attestation of thousands of eye and ear-witnesses, and those not of the easily deceivable vulgar only, but of grave and wise discerners; and that when no interest could oblige them to agree together in a common lye: I say we have the light of all these circumstances to confirm us in the belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge, beyond the reach of Art and ordinary Nature. Standing publick Records have been kept of these well attested Relations, and Epocha’s made of those unwonted events. Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile practices; those among the Jews and our own are notorious; such Cases have been often determined near us, by wise and reverend Judges, upon clear convictive Evidence, and thousands in our own Nation have suffered death for their vile compacts with Apostate Spirits.” And a little after he saith: “And I think those that can believe all Histories are Romances;that all the wiser World have agreed together to juggle Mankind into a common belief of ungrounded Fables; that the sound senses of multitudes together may deceive them, and Laws are built upon Chimera’s; that the gravest and wisest Judges have been Murderers, and the sagest persons Fools or designing Impostors.” BishopHallmaketh the like Objection, saying: “Neither can I make question of the authentick Records of the Examinations and Confessions of Witches and Sorcerers in several Regions of the World, agreeing in the truth of their horrible pacts with Satan, of their set Meetings with evil Spirits, their beastly Homages and Conversations. I should hate to be guilty of so much incredulity, as to charge so many grave Judges and credible Historians with lyes.”
These Objections at the first view seem very plausible, and to carry with them a great splendour and weight of truth and reason; but if they be looked into, and narrowly weighed in the balance of sound reason, and unbiassed judgment, they will be found too light, and will soon vanish into Rhetorical fumes and frothy vapours: which that it may be more clearly performed, we shall rank them into the number of three, in which all their seeming strength lyes, and these are they.
1. They pretend that these things are sufficiently proved by Historians of unquestionable credit and reputation.
2. That the Confessions of Witches themselves, in divers Regions, at several times and places, who have all acknowledged these particulars, are sufficient evidence of the truth of these performances.
3. That so many wise and grave Judges and honest Juries could not have been deceived, to put to death such great numbers of these kind of people, called or accounted Witches, without sufficient proof of the matters of fact. To all which we shall give a full response, in respect of the four particulars, mentioned in the beginning of this Chapter, and shall commix and adjoyn such positive Arguments as will be cogent to all rational persons, whose corrupt wills have not perverted their judgments.
1. It is much to be admired, that Mr.Glanvil(but especially BishopHall, a very Reverend and Learned person) should lye any great stress upon such a weak foundation: For there is none of these three Objections that will amount to a necessary Proposition, but only to a contingent one, which will infer no certain and necessary Conclusion, nor bring forth any certitude or science, but only bare opinion and probability.Propositio contingens est, quæ sic vera est, ut falsa esse possit: and at the best the strength of all these are buttestimonia humana, which are but weak, and no sufficient ground for a rational man to believe them to be true, becausehumanum est errare. And the weight of these matters is not a contentionde lana caprina, vel de umbra asini, sed de pelle humana, for the lives and estates of many poor Creatures, and theyprofessed Christians too, and therefore doth require stronger Arguments than contingent Propositions, to establish a firm ground for the belief of this opinion.
Prov. 12. 22.
2. It is one thing barely to affirm, and another thing to prove sufficiently and fully: For though they boldly alledge, that these things are sufficiently proved by Authors of unquestionable credit and verity, we must return a flat negative, and that for these reasons. 1. Let them shew us any one Author of credible veracity, that ever was ear or eye-witness of the Devils making of a visible and corporeal League or Bargain with the Witches, or that he ever suckt upon their bodies, or that he had carnal Copulation with them, or that by the experience of his senses ever certainly knew a man really transubstantiated and transformed into a Wolf, or a Wolf into a man, and we will yield the whole Cause. But we must assert and truly affirm, that this pretence of theirs, that these things are sufficiently proved by Historians of good credit, is a meer falsity, and a lying flourish of vain words. There are (we confess) a multitude of vain and lying stories, amassed up together in the Writings of Demonographers and Witchmongers of strange and odd Apparitions, Feats, Confessions, and such like; but never any one positive proof of any of these four particulars by any Authors of credit and reputation: and this we dare boldly aver to the world. 2. Let them produce any two Witnesses that were of honesty and integrity, sound understandings and ability, that ever were present, and ear and eye-witnesses of a visible, vocal, and corporeal League made betwixt the Devil and the Witch; or let them tell us who was by, and watched, and really and truly saw the Devil suck upon some part of the Witches body; or who were the Chamberlains, Pimps or Panders, when the Devil and the Witch committed carnal Copulation; or who were ever present when a Witch was changed into a Cat, a Dog, an Hare, or a Wolf. If they can but bring forth any two credible Witnesses to prove these things by, then we shall believe them, but we must assert that never any such two could be produced yet: and therefore cannot but wonder at the shameless impudence of such persons, that dare affirm these things that never were, nor can be proved, and yet have not blushed to vent and trumpet forth such execrable and abominable lyes to the World. Mr.Glanvilconfidently affirms these things to be matters of fact, andaffirmanti incumbit probatio, let him produce his Witnesses, and if they be persons of judgment, veracity, and impartiality, then we shall accept their proof; but it is not figments, supposals, weak presumptions, or apparent falsities that will perform it; for that which never was acted, can never truly be proved, and things that appear not, are as though they were not; therefore he must produce his testimonies, or lose both his cause and credit, and must be taken for an Assertor of never-proved Fables.Lying lips are abomination unto the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.
Now we know they use to do in this case, as Souldiers use, who when they are beaten forth of some Out-work or Trench, they then retreat into another that they think more strong and safe. And being driven from their weak Hold of a bare affirmation without proof, that these things are verified to have been matters of fact, and really performed, both by authority and the evidence of sense, which are both utterly false, then they flye to this assertion: That the Confessions of so many Witches in all Ages, in several Countries, at divers times and places, all agreeing in these particulars, are sufficient evidence of the truth of these matters. To which we shall rejoyn, that the Confessions of Witches, however considered, are not of credit and validity to prove these things; but are in themselves null and void, as false, impossible, and forged lyes, which we shall make good by these following Reasons.
Reas. 1.
1. The Witch must be taken to be either a personinsanæ, vel sanæ mentis; and if they beinsanæ mentis, their Confessions are no sufficient evidence, nor worthy of any credit; because there is neither Reason, Law, nor Equity that allows the testimony or confession of an Idiot, Lunatick, mad or doting person, because they are not of a right and sound understanding, and are not to be accounted ascompotes mentis, nor governed by rationability. For as by the Civil Law mad Folks, Idiots, and Old men childish, Bond-slaves, and Villains are not capable of making a Will to dispose of Goods, Lands, or Chattels: so much more are all these sorts of persons excepted for giving evidence by confessions, or otherwise in matters concerning life and death, which are of far greater weight and concernment. And that these persons are of unsound understandings, is manifest in all the points that they confess, and therefore are no proof, nor ought to be credited: and that for these reasons. 1. Because the things they confess are not attested by any other persons of integrity and sound judgment, and they must of necessity be lyars, because the Bond-slaves of the Devil, whose works they will do, and he was a lyar from the beginning. 2. Because they confess things that are impossible (as we shall prove anon) andconfiteri impossibilia insanientis est. 3. There is no good end wherefore they make these Confessions, neither do they receive any benefit by them, either spiritual or temporal, internal nor external. And this doth sufficiently shew, that they are deluded, melancholy, and mad persons, and so their Confessions of no credit, truth, or validity.
Reas. 2.
2 Thess. 2. 10, 11, 12.
2 Tim. 2. 26.
Joh. 8. 44.
2. Their Confessions will be found null and false, if we consider the impulsive cause that moves them to make them, and the end wherefore they declare such false and lying matters, and that in these particulars. 1. The moving cause is not, nor can be the Spirit of God, which is a Spirit of truth and righteousness, nor any motion of true remorse for their sins, or any thing flowing from repentant hearts, because they are persons forsaken of God and his Grace, and given over to reprobate minds and senses, and thereforethe truth of the Word of God is fulfilled in them:Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, therefore God shall send them strong delusion, that they might believe a lye. That they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.2. Neither is the end for the glory of God, or their own Salvation, because they are the Vassals and Bond-slaves of Satan, being kept Captive at his will, and are Rebels and Traitors against God and Christ, his Church and Truth, having renounced the Faith, and become Apostata’s to the truth. 3. The impulsive cause and chief end wherefore they make these and such like confessions, is sometimes, and in some persons meerly to eschew torture and bodily pains, and sometimes the quite contrary solely to escape the present miseries of a poor, wretched, and troublesom life; and therefore these confessions not at all to be credited, as being vain and feigned. 4. Sometimes they are by force, waking, craft, and cunning, in hope of pardon and life, to make such confessions as the base ends and corrupt intentions of the Inquisitors themselves, or their Agents, have infused into them, for the advancement of false Doctrine, Superstition, and Idolatry: such were the most (if not all) recorded byDelrio Bodinus, and the rest of the Witchmongers, to which no credit can be given at all. 5. But the chief end that Satan hath (who is the Forger, Contriver, and Deviser of these Confessions, if voluntarily and freely made, the principal Agent in all these matters) is to set forth the power and glory of his own Kingdom, thereby to lead men into, and continue them in lyes and errors;for when he speaketh a lye, he speaketh of his own, for he is a lyar, and the father of it, and the Witches are his Children, and the works of their Father the Devil they will do, and he was, and is a Murtherer and Lyar from the beginning. And thus far we acknowledge a spiritual and mental League betwixt the Witch and the Devil, by virtue of which they confess these horrible and abominable lyes, of the glory of him and his Kingdom; but other League or Covenant there is none, neither is there any the least spark of truth in all that they say or confess, because their sole end in making of these confessions, is to advance the credit and power of Satan. 6. The impulsive cause that often makes them to utter such confessions of strange and impossible things, is the strong passive delusion, that they lye under, contracted by ignorant, unchristian, and superstitious education, which they have suckt in with their milk, heightned with an atrabilarious temper and constitution, and confirmed by the wicked lyes, and teaching of others, which makes them confess these execrable things, which they in their depraved and vitiated imaginations, do think and believe they have done and suffered, when there was never truly acted any such matterad extrà, but only in their mad and deluded Phantasies: and so no more credit to be given to them, than to the maddest Melancholist that ever was read or heard of.
Reas. 3.
Lib.1. of Prognost.
Hist. meditat.lib.4.cap.13.pag.280.
History 1.
Hist. nat.l.7.c.52.pag.103.
Doctor. Epist.pag.641.
History 2.
Histor. Animal.lib.8.cap.24.
3. That there is not any jot of truth in these Confessions, is manifest, if we consider the subjective matter of them, as is plain by these ensuing grounds. 1. For the most of them are not credible, by reason of their obscenity and filthiness; for chast ears would tingle to hear such bawdy and immodest lyes; and what pure and sober minds would not nauseate and startle to understand such unclean stories, as of the carnal Copulation of the Devil with a Witch, or of his sucking the Teat or Wart of an old stinking and rotten Carkass? surely even the impurity of it may be sufficient to overthrow the credibility of it, especially amongst Christians. 2. There are many things that have no verity in them at all, that notwithstanding have verisimilitude; but these are not only void of truth, but also of truth-likeliness: for it is neither truth, nor hath any likelihood of it, to believe it for a truth, that the Devil should carry an old Witch in the Air into foraign Regions, that can hardly crawl with a staff, to dancing and banqueting, and yet to return with an empty belly, and the next day to be forced, like oldDembdikeorElizabeth Sothernes, andAlizon Denice, to go a begging with the sowr-milk Can: is this either probable or likely? would it not much more have advantaged the Devils interest and his Kingdom, to have furnished them with good and true meat and drink, and not with such imaginary Cates, which would neither fill the stomach, nor satisfie the appetite? Had it not been more for the Devils benefit to have furnished them with plenty of gold and silver, than to let them go ragged and tattered, begging their bread from door to door? 3. As these confessions have no truth-likeliness in them, so they are things that are simply impossible to be performed by any created power, and therefore must needs be false and fictitious relations; for no Creature can perform any thing but that for which by Creation it was ordered and designed to; but the Devils by Creation have no generative power given them, nor members or organs to perform the act of copulation withal; and therefore their having carnal copulation with the Witches, is a most monstrous fiction, and an absolute impossibility, and can have nothing in it more than the stirring up of the imaginative faculty, and thereby to move titillation in the members fitted for the act of generation, which is a thing that happens to many both men and women, that are of hot constitutions, and abound with seed, which we callnocturnæ prolutiones, of which the Divines and Casuists make that great question,An nocturnæ prolutiones sint peccatum?And it is as simply impossible for either the Devil or Witches to change or alter the course that God hath set in Nature, as to transubstantiate a man or woman into a Cat, a Dog, or a Wolf; and therefore are these confessions meer impossibilities and monstrous lyes. 4. There can in sound and right reason no credit at all be given to these confessions, because divers of them have been proved to be utterly false, as is plain in the man that did confidently affirm, that he was a true Wolf, and that he had hair under his skin,the woful tryal of which was his death, though a pregnant and undeniable proof, that the delusion was in the Phantasie, and that there was no real change of the mans body into a Wolf; and therefore doth flatly overthrow the credibility of these vain and lying confessions. To the same purpose is the story related byCamerariusfromJohannes Baptista Porta, a great Naturalist, and a person of competent veracity, which is this. “Once (saith he) I met an old Witch, one of those that are said to enter houses in the night time, and there to suck the blood of little children lying in their Cradles. Having asked her a question of something, she promised forthwith, that within a while she would give me answer. She puts forth of her Chamber all those that went in with me to be witnesses of that which should pass. Having shut us out, she strips her self stark naked, and rubs over all her body with a certain Oyntment, which we saw through the chinks of the door. The operation of the soporiferous juyces, whereof this Oyntment was compounded, made her fall to the ground, and brought her into a deep sleep. Upon this we open the door, and some of us begin to strike and knock her well-favour’dly; but she was so soundly asleep, that to strike her body and a stone, it was all one. Forth we go again, in the mean time the Oyntment had ended his working, and the old Trot being awaked, and having put on her cloaths, begins to tell tales ofRobin Hood, saying, That she had passed over Seas and Mountains, and then gives us false answers. We tell her, that her body had never stir’d out of the Chamber; she maintains the contrary: we shew her the blows we had given her, she persisteth the more stifly in her opinion.” By the testimony of this Author, who was an ear and eye-witness of this passage, and other persons with him, which manifests it to be good and sufficient evidence, it appeareth, that the Witches are under a melancholy and passive delusion, promoted by the help of soporiforous Oyntments, whereby they fancy and think they are carried into far remote places, where they hear and see strange things, and do and suffer that which is not at all performed, but only as in a dream, their bodies in the mean time lying immoveable, and so do but relate falsities and lyes, which is an unanswerable proof of the absolute falsity of their confessions, the thing that here we undertook to make good. And some late Learned men (with Mr.Glanvilhimself) giving too much credit to the things related by the Witches in their confessions, to be true stories of things really performed at a great distance, have been forced to revive that old Platonical Whimsie, of the Souls real egression forth of the body into far distant places, and its return again, with the certain knowledge of things there done or said, according to the relation thatPlinygives us in these words:Reperimus (inquit) interempla, Hermotimi Clazomenii animam relicto corpore errare solitam, vagámq; è longinquo multa annuntiare, quæ nisi à præsenti nosci non possent, corpore interim semianimi: donec crematoeo inimici (qui Cantharidæ vocabantur) remeanti animæ velut vaginam ademerint. To which notwithstanding he doth not seem to give credence. But these Relations of the Witches are meer lyes and forgeries, and are but taught them by the spiritual craft of the Devil, thereby to pretend to imitate the true Visions that the Prophets had from God. And though there may be some peculiar persons that have the way to fall into ecstasies, (asHelmontwitnesseth of himself) and may thereby understand many mystical matters, yet in it there is no real egression of the Soul forth of the body, but a freeing or withdrawing of it from the Phantasie and Senses, and then (as the Cabbalists and mystical Authors say) it is joyned to the intelligible World, and beholds things as present, and though there may be something of truth in it, yet few Authors of credit and veracity, have attested it upon their own experience, and there may be much fallacy and danger in it, and therefore we leave it to further search and inquiry. Another apparent ground of the nullity of the truth or credit of these confessions, is that which a learned Divine in his Letter to Dr.Wierusgives us, the substance of which we shall give in English, which is this: “I have known (he saith) the year foregoing (he writ his EpistleAnno1565.) many foolish things from the private confession of a certain old Woman, an Inchanter, who when she had heard in my Sermon the place in the 19. Chapter of theActsexplained,That many of the Ephesians, being of those who had exercised curious Arts, had brought their Books, and burned them openly, &c.She forthwith (he saith) came unto me with a mind plainly troubled; and with tears pouring forth into my bosom the secrets of her breast, did receive Christian instruction; and when she had understood, by the blessing of God, the vanity of Diabolical Impostures, and perceived them with opened eyes, she was easily converted to the light of truth, the smoak of lyes being laid aside. She, truth being once received, hath most constantly confessed, that it did appear to her more clear than the light at noon day, that Satan did only deceive and blind the eyes of his Vassals, and that there was nothing done in verity, and this she declared with a detestation of her Diabolical Art.” And so concludes it in these words:Vno verbo dicam, me satis experientiâ didicisse, bonam partem incantationum mera esse insomnia. And whosoever shall read, and seriously consider the Epistle of that excellent and learned Divine, will find the most of those vain illusions laid open and confuted: so that in all (or the most) of the things attributed unto Witches, we shall find no more of Diabolical operation in them, than an internal, mental, and spiritual delusion, in making the Witches to believe, and to draw on others to the same opinion that the Devil hath a kind omnipotent Power and Soveraignty. Therefore didAristotlewell conclude:Incantamenta esse muliercularum figmenta.
Reas. 4.
Joh. 8. 44.
1 Joh. 3. 8.
Psal. 62. 4.
4. A fourth Reason of the meer falsity and incredibility of theseConfessions is this: Is it possibly credible to a rational and unbiassed judgment, that the Witches (though never so many, at several times and places) having made themselves the Slaves and Vassals of the Devil, both in soul and body, and being led by his lying and deceitful Spirit (though making large and voluntary confessions) can be conceived to have any touch of truth in them at all? Surely no more truth in these confessions, than there is in the Devil, who was a Lyar from the beginning; and therefore we argue thus. Such kind of will, affections and inclinations as are in the Devil himself, such kind are in his Children. But the will and affections of the Devil are against God, his Truth, and against all Gods people, and his inclinations tend to continual lying. Therefore the will, affections, and inclinations of his Children (such as the Witches are, and are granted to be) are against God, his Truth, and against all Gods people, and their inclinations tend to continual lying. The proof of the major and minor Proposition is the plain words of our Saviour,Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father the devil ye will do,θέλετε ποιεῖν,and he was a murtherer from the beginnings and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lye, he speaketh of his own: for he is a lyar, and the father of it.And again St.Johntells us:He that committeth sin, is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. So that it may truly be said of them,They delight in lyes, and their confessions are nothing but lyes. And if they object and say, that here we confess a League with the Devil and the Witch, otherwise the Witches could not be his Children, Vassals, and Bond-slaves, which elsewhere we deny; we answer, it is a gross mistake, in not observing the distinction we make betwixt a mental and spiritual League, such as the Devil andJudasmade, and such as all wicked men make with him, and under this League we acknowledge all Witches to be; but a visible and corporeal League we positively deny, and so the objection is of no validity. And thus we suppose we have sufficiently proved, that there ought no credit at all to be given to the Confessions of Witches, no more than to Devils, who are all lyars.
Now let us proceed to their third main Objection: That so many wise and grave Judges and honest Juries could not have been deceived, to put to death such great numbers of those kind of people, without sufficient proof of the matters of fact. Against which we oppose these following Reasons.
Reas. 1.
1. It is but an Argument at the best to drive the other Party into an absurdity, which is not of any such dangerous consequence, as may be supposed; for it would but conclude, that many grave and wise Judges and Juries have been imposed upon, and deceived, which is butargumentum ad homines, and doubtless many might, and have been. And do not we Christians hold, that the gravest and wisest Judges amongst theTurksandPersianshave been, and are deceived, and have done unjustly in persecuting andputting Christians to death, because they would not submit to the Religion ofMahomet, and yet we account it no absurdity or injustice to pass that censure upon them? And do not the Idolaters in all those large Empires and Kingdoms ofTartary,China, theMogulsCountry, and the rest of those Countries in the East ofAsiapersecute and put many to death, for not worshipping their Idols, or embracing their Religion; and do we think it absurd to censure and condemn them of injustice, though in their own Countries they be accounted grave and wise Judges? Surely we do not, and there is the parity of reason in both the Arguments, for all are but men, and so may erre.
Reas. 2.
2. But as for the grave, learned, and wise Judges, and understanding and honest Juries within His Majesties Dominions, we affirm they are clear and innocent from these imputations, and that for divers and sundry sound reasons. 1. Our Judges and Juries have no such sinister and corrupt ends, to wrest the Laws, or wring forth and extort feigned and false Confessions, because they have no such ends as to uphold and maintain idolatrous and superstitious Tenents, as praying to Saints, magnifying of Holy water, or setting up of Purgatory, as had the Popish Inquisitors, and the Demonographers, and Witchmongers that writ for those ends. And therefore it is no absurdity to say or think, that they dealt unjustly in their proceedings, which our learned and pious Judges are not, nor can be guilty of. 2. The Inquisitors and their Agents had benefit by the death of Witches, having a share in their Goods, and therefore no absurdity to conclude, that their proceedings were unjust, partial, and corrupt, of which our judges and Juries are clear, as having no profit at all by the death of these wretched and deluded people. 3. Our Judges are but sworn to the due execution of the Laws made, and the Juries sworn to bring in their Verdicts according to their best evidence: now if the Witnesses forth of malice, envy, ignorance, or mistake swear to matters of fact, for which death or other punishments are allotted by the Law, both the Judges and the Jury are absolutely excusable; and if there be any guilt in the Witnesses, or falsity in their Evidences, it lyes at their own doors, and upon their own consciences, and the Judges and Jurors are clear, and not to be blamed, for no humane prudence can altogether prevent, that Witnesses may not erre or swear falsely.
Reas. 3.
3. Have there not been many thousands of true and faithful Martyrs, that have suffered and been condemned in many Ages, in many and several Countries, at many different and distinct times? And some of these have been condemned by such as were called and accounted General Councils, Parliaments, High-Courts of Justice, and other places of great Judicature, before Judges that were accounted wise, grave, and learned, and by Juries of honesty and understanding: were there therefore no true Martyrs, and were they all justly condemned and put to death? or is it absurd to be guilty of such incredulity, as to think and hold, that so many graveand wise Judges, and knowing Juries were deceived, and did unjustly? Let Mr.Glanvilor any other solve this Argument; and carry the cause; or else we must necessarily conclude, thatopinio quæ à se non propellit absurda, per absurda non premit adversarium.
Now having given a full and satisfactory Answer to their main and strongest Objections, and defeated the whole force of their first and most furious Charge, we shall proceed to overthrow their main Battel, in proving the four Particulars mentioned in the beginning of the Chapter, to be false and impossible. And in doing of this, we shall handle the three first promiscuously and all together, and the fourth about Transubstantiations or Change of Witches into Cats, Hares, Dogs, Wolves, or the like, we shall handle by it self.
Eph. 2. 2.
2 Thess. 2. 4.
Luk. 22. 2.
Chrys. in Luc.22. 3.
Joh. 13. 2.
1. And first we acknowledge an internal, mental, and spiritual League or Covenant betwixt the Devil and all wicked persons, such as are Thieves, Robbers, Murtherers, Impostors, and the like, whereby the temptations, suggestions, and allurements of Satan, spiritually darted, and cast into the mind, the persons so wrought upon, and prevailed withal, do assent and consent unto the motions and counsels of the evil Spirit, and so do make a League and Covenant with the said evil Spirit, as saith the Text:According to the Prince of the power of the air, that now worketh in the children of disobedience. He doth not only rule over them, but also worketh in them; for men are either the Temples of God, or the Temples of Satan and Antichrist,who sitteth in the Temple of God, and opposeth and exalteth himself above all that it called God or worshipped. Such a spiritual League or Covenant as this didJudasmake with the Devil, whereby he agreed to betray his Master Christ.Then entred Satan into Judas: not that essentially or personally he entred intoJudas, but that he put it into his heart,βεβληκότος, to betray him: which wrought so effectively in him in a spiritual manner, that he took up that Diabolical resolution to betray his innocent Master: and this was entring into a spiritual League with the Devil. For asTheophylactsaith upon the place.Hoc enim significat, spospondit, hoc est, perfectam promissionem & pactum fecit.And another saith:In Judam Satanas intravit, non impellens, sed patulum inveniens ostium: nam oblitus omnium quæ viderat, ad solam avaritiam dirigebat intuitum. And again:Missio ista spiritualis suggestio est, & non fit per aurem, sed per cogitationem: diabolicæ enim suggestiones immittuntur, & humanis cogitationibus immiscentur.
2. We acknowledge that this spiritual League in some respects and in some persons may be, and is an explicit League, that is, the persons that enter into it, are or may be conscious of it, and know it to be so; for when a person resolves to murther, he cannot but know that he then maketh a League with the Devil, who was a Murtherer from the beginning. And it is manifest, that in thisLeague, and in no other, were all the Priests that belonged to the Oracles, who knew well enough that the Idols or false Gods they worshipped, did give no answers at all, but the responsions given were only of their own devising and framing, to uphold their credit; and more colourably to cozen and deceive the people, they did pretend that they had answers from their Gods or Idols, and thus far the Devil was in all their impostures and jugglings. And so all the several sorts of the Diviners or Witches mentioned in the Old Testament, were under a spiritual League with the Devil, and did very well know, that what they did, was not by the finger of God, but either by the help of Art, Nature, Leger-de-main, Confederacy, or such like impostures and cheats: and yet they pretended, as didSimon Magus, and gave out that they were some great men, thereby to deceive others, when explicitly they plainly knew that themselves were but dissemblers and lyars, and that for gain, credit, and vain-glory they pretended to do those things, which they could never truly perform. And under this spiritual League, explicitly considered, are all our Figure-flingers contained, who take upon them (far beyond the Rules of the true Art) to declare where stollen Goods are, and to cause them to be brought back again, and many other such vain and lying matters, which they well know they have no power to perform, but that they willingly and knowingly take upon them to pretend to do these things for vain-glory and filthy lucre sake. And of this sort are all our pretending Conjurers, Diviners, Wizards, and those that take upon them to reveal things by looking in Crystals, Beryls, and the like, (of which we may perhaps speak more largely hereafter) that indeed know well enough they do but deceive and cheat others: of all which we could recite very lepid and apposite stories, certainly known unto us, or discovered by us; but Mr.Glanvilwould account them but silly Legends and old Wives Fables, and therefore we shall supersede here, and leave them to a fitter place.
Isa. 8. 19, 20.
Calvin in loc.
3. There are others that are under this spiritual League, though implicitly, as are all those that we have granted to be passively deluded Witches, those that by ignorant and irreligious education, joyned with a melancholy temper and disposition, to which they have added Charms, Pictures, and other superstitious Ceremonies, which they learned by Tradition. By all which they become so deluded and besotted in their Phantasies, that they believe the Devil doth visibly appear unto them, suck upon them, have carnal copulation with them, that they are carried in the Air to feastings, dancings, and such like Night-revellings; and that they can raise tempests, kill men or beasts, and an hundred such like fopperies and impossibilities, when they do nor suffer any thing at all, but in their depraved and deceived imaginations. And so do blindly and implicitly believe that the Devil doth perform all these things for them, when indeed and truth he doth nothing but dart and cast in these filthy and fond cogitations into their minds agreeable totheir wicked wills and corrupted desires, and so are fast bound in this spiritual and implicit League. And under this spiritual implicit League are also comprehended all those that are Witchmongers, and believe the verity and performance of these things, and think that the Devil can both hurt and also help, and that there is a bad and a good Witch, or with Mr.Perkins, a black and a white one, by which wicked opinion, the seeking unto Witches, Wizards, Mutterers, Murmurers, Charmers, South-sayers, Conjurers, Cunning-men and women (as we speak here in the North) and such like, is still upholden by the Authors and Favourers of this opinion, contrary to the direct counsel of the Holy Ghost, who saith:And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar Spirits, and unto Wizards that peep and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.And therefore saith one:Admonet etiam, nos adversus impios cultus & superstitiones tutos fore, si in lege Domini acquiescamus. The League or Covenant betwixt the Devil and the Witch, is that which is visible and corporeal, where he is supposed to appear in some bodily shape unto the Witch, and to have oral and audible conference with him or her, and so to make a League or Covenant; and this is the thing that we deny, and the consequents thereof, that he doth not suck upon their bodies, nor hath carnal copulation with them, nor carries them in the Air, nor for them, nor by them doth destroy or kill man or beast, raise tempests, or change them into Cats, Hares, Wolves, Dogs, or the like; and this we oppose with these following Reasons.
Reas. 1.
2 Pet. 5. 8, 9.
Rev. 12. 9.
2 Cor. 2. 11.
Eph. 6. 11.
Mat. 24. 24.
2 Tim. 2. 25, 26.
1. Whatsoever the Devil worketh, it is to bring advantage to his own Kingdom, or otherwise he should act in vain. But whatsoever he worketh by a visible Covenant, is not for the advantage of his own Kingdom: and therefore it is in vain. The major is plain from the Text:Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist stedfast in the faith. The minor is manifest in these two particulars. 1.Satan is that old Serpent, that was, and is more subtile than any beast of the field, which the Lord God hath created: which notwithstanding the vain Cavils, and seeming Arguments ofPererius, must be understood of Satan the Adversary of Mankind, and not of the natural Serpent, which is not the most subtile beast that God hath created, there being many others more subtile than the Serpent; and the Scripture tells us of his cunning and wiliness: for the Apostle saith,We are not ignorant of his wiles or devicesνοήματα. And the Apostle in another place calls themμεθοδείας,his wiles, which are so great,that if it were possible, they might deceive the very elect. So that he wants no cunning nor subtilty to know how to bring a sinner into his snare, and to hold him fast, and when he is fast, he knows he need do no more,and therefore acts not in vain. 2. Before he need attempt a visible apparition to the Witch (if any such thing could be) he knows that the Witch is sure and fast in his snare by a spiritual Covenant already entred into, and therefore knows he need do no more, and he is too cunning to act to no purpose, and therefore doth St.PaulwarnTimothy,That a Bishop must have a good report, lest he fall into the snare of the devil, all sins being the snares of the Devil, and when men are fast taken in them, they are in Satans fetters, and he labours no more but to keep them there. And so the same Apostle speaketh of those that oppose the Gospel,that they must be instructed in meekness, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. So that sins keep men in the spiritual snare of the Devil, and so are all those that are accounted Witches, in that spiritual snare, holden fast enough by their own consents and corrupt wills, and need no bodily apparition to make them surer: and so this visible League falls to the ground, as having no ground nor end why it should be made. And for the Devil to appear like a Dog or a Cat, and speak, would sure not only fright and startle an old Witch, but even the boldest and most stout-hearted person.
Reas. 2.
2. The Witches by visible apparitions of the Devil (if any such thing could be) in any shape, could have no more assurance of Satans performances, than they have already, by mental perswasion, and the dominion of him in their hearts,who is the Prince of the air, and worketh in the children of disobedience, because by that visible appearance there is not brought any Hostages or Witnesses, which are absolutely necessary to confirm such a League or Covenant. And these representations being made in their imaginations and fancies, wherein they think they see, do, and suffer these delusive Visions, they are most firmly and pertinaciously confirmed in the belief of them, that any Apparition externally must needs be vain and superfluous.
Reas. 3.
3. If the Witches be not superlatively mad (and if so, then so to be judged of, and all that in this point is believed of them either in doing, suffering, or otherwise, must be judged extreme folly and madness) they will not make a League with the Devil, knowing him to be the Devil, because they cannot but know that he was and is a Lyar and a Murtherer from the beginning, and hath deceived many before them, that were of the same way and profession. And a visible appearance can afford them no certain security, but that he may and will deceive them still, and that he continueth a lyar and a deceiver. But while the delusion is internal, and the imagination depraved, and led by the suggestions and motions of Satan, they then are so blinded, that they see not, nor understand the danger they run into, nor the certainty of the deceit they lye under, which a visible Apparition would sooner shake and overthrow, than any way confirm, and therefore is false and needless.
Reas. 4.
4. But how come the Witches certainly to know that the Devilcan perform such things as they would have done? Surely by no means, but either by traditional hear-say or inward delusion; the one they know not, but that it is a lye, and the other concludeth their passive delusion, to neither of which a visible Apparition like a Cat or a Dog, and speaking unto them, can bring any confirmation, except the Devil should bring them good store of gold or silver, or work some strange feat before their eyes, as to kill some men or beasts, or the like; but none of these things are ever proved to be performed. And therefore it is not rational to believe that Witches do make a visible and corporeal League with the Devil, because by it they can have no certain knowledge, that he either can or will accomplish such things for them, as they desire.
Reas. 5.
1 Sam. 16. 14.
Mat. 8. 31, 32.
Job 1. 10, 11.