Sir William Blackstone says: "To deny the possibility--nay, actual existence--of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testaments." Sir Matthew Hale says: "The Bible leaves no doubt as to the reality of witchcraft and the duty of putting its subjects to death." "I should have no compassion on these witches." said Luther; "I would burn them all" (Table Talk). "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ex. xxii, 18). "A man also or a woman that hath a familial spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death" (Lev. xx, 27). Oh, that I could bring to view the suffering and death these texts have caused! Millions have died because of them. One thousand were burned at Como in one year; 800 were burned at Würzburg in one year; 500 perished at Geneva in three months; 80 were burned in a single village of Savoy; nine women were burned in a single fire at Leith; sixty were hanged at Suffolk; 3,000 were legally executed during one session of Parliament, while thousands more were put to death by mobs; Remy, a Christian judge, executed 800; 600 were burned by one bishop at Bamburg; Boguet burned 600 at St. Cloud; thousands were put to death by the Lutherans of Norway and Sweden; Catholic Spain butchered thousands; Presbyterians were responsible for the death of 4,000 in Scotland; 50,000 were sentenced to death during the reign of Francis I.; 7,000 died at Treves; the number killed in Paris in a few months is declared to have been "almost infinite." Dr. Sprenger places the total number of executions for witchcraft in Europe at nine millions. For centuries witch fires burned in nearly every town of Europe, and this Bible text, "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live," was the torch that kindled them. Four hundred were burned at Toulouse in one day. Think of it! Four hundred women--guilty of no crime, save that which exists in the diseased imaginations of their accusers--four hundred mothers, wives, and daughters, taken out upon the public square, chained to posts, the fagots piled around them, and burned to death! See them writhing in the flames--listen to their piteous shrieks--four hundred voices raised in one wild chorus of agony! And all because the Bible says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."