Certeine generall councels, by their decrees, have condemned the confessions and erronious credulitie of witches, to be vaine, fantasticall and fabulous. And even those, which are parcell of their league, wherupon our witchmongers doo so build, to wit; their night walkings and meetings with _Herodias_, and the _Pagan_ gods: at which time they should passe so farre in so little a space on cockhorsse; their transubstantiation, their eating of children, and their pulling of them from their mothers sides, their entring into mens houses, through chinks and little holes, where a flie can scarselie wring out, and the disquieting of the inhabitants, &c: all which are not onelie said by a generall councell to be meere fantasticall, and imaginations in dreames; but so affirmed by the ancient writers. The words of the councell are these; It may not be omitted, that certeine wicked women following sathans provocations, being seduced by the illusion of divels, beleeve and professe, that in the night times ride abroad with _Diana_, the goddesse of the _Pagans_, or else with _Herodias_, with an innumerable multitude, upon certeine beasts, and passe over manie countries and nations, in the silence of the night, and doo whatsoever those fairies or ladies command, &c. And it followeth even there; Let all ministers therefore in their severall cures, preach to Gods people, so as they may knowe all these things to be false, &c. It followeth in the same councell; Therefore, whosoever beleeveth that any creature may be either created by them, or else changed into better or worsse, or be any way transformed into any other kind or likenes of any, but of the creator himselfe, is assuredlie an infidell, and woorsse than a _Pagan_. ♦_Concil. Acquirens in decret. 26. quæ. 5. can. episcopi._ _August. de spiritu & anima cap. 8._ _Franc. Ponzivib. tract de lam. numero 49._ _Grillandus de sort. numero. 6._♦ And if this be credible, then all these their bargaines and assemblies, &c: are incredible, which are onelie ratified by certeine foolish and extorted confessions; and by a fable of S. _Germane_, who watched the fairies or witches, being at a reere banket, and through his holinesse staied them, till he sent to the houses of those neighbours, which seemed to be there, and found them all in bed; and so tried, that these were divels in the likenesse of those women. Which if it were as true, as it is false, it might serve well to confute this their meeting and night-walking. For if the divels be onlie present in the likenesse of witches, then is that false, which is attributed to witches in this behalfe. ♦_In histor. vel vita sancti Germani._♦