Demonology -- Early works to 1800; Magic -- Early works to 1800; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800
I therefore (at this time) doo onelie desire you to consider of my
report, concerning the evidence that is commonlie brought before you
against them. See first whether the evidence be not frivolous, &
whether the proofs brought against them be not incredible, consisting
of ghesses, presumptions, & impossibilities contrarie to reason,
scripture, and nature. See also what persons complaine upon them,
whether they be not of the basest, the unwisest, & most faithles kind
of people. Also may it please you to waie what accusations and crimes
they laie to their charge, namelie: She was at my house of late, she
would have had a pot of milke, she departed in a chafe bicause she
had it not, she railed, she curssed, she mumbled and whispered, and
finallie she said she would be even with me: and soone after my child,
my cow, my sow, or my pullet died, or was strangelie taken. Naie (if it
please your Worship) I have further proofe: I was with a wise woman,
and she told me I had an ill neighbour, & that she would come to my
house yer it were long, and so did she; and that she had a marke above
hir waste, & so had she: and God forgive me, my stomach hath gone
against hir a great while. Hir mother before hir was counted a witch,
she hath beene beaten and scratched by the face till bloud was drawne
upon hir, bicause she hath beene suspected, & afterwards some of those
persons were said to amend. These are the certeinties that I heare in
their evidences.
Note also how easilie they may be brought to confesse that which
they never did, nor lieth in the power of man to doo: and then see
whether I have cause to write as I doo. Further, if you shall see that
infidelitie, poperie, and manie other manifest heresies be backed and
shouldered, and their professors animated and hartened, by yeelding
to creatures such infinit power as is wrested out of Gods hand, and
attributed to witches: finallie, if you shall perceive that I have
faithfullie and trulie delivered and set downe the condition and
state of the witch, and also of the witchmonger, and have confuted by
reason and lawe, and by the word of God it selfe, all mine adversaries
objections and arguments: then let me have your countenance against
them that maliciouslie oppose themselves against me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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