The displaying of supposed witchcraft : $b Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth Webster, John
Religion
The displaying of supposed witchcraft : $b Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth
Webster, John
Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800
3. He that conceals the truth that he knows, for fear of the censures of
others, must needs have little of Christianity in him, for we are
commanded to buy the truth, and not to sell it; but for a Christian to
conceal the truth, and not to dare to declare and defend it, for fear of
the vain and perishing censures of men, is to make absolute sale of the
truth, and that for the worst of all prises that can be. For what a
weightless and worthless prise are the judgments and opinions of vain
man, whose breath is in his nostrils, and whose life is but a vapor,
that a Christian should, for fear of such vain censures, be afraid to
declare or defend the truth? Therefore let the subtil Politicians and
_Machiavillians_ of this Age, who have in a manner turned the truth of
the Christian Religion, and the most certain Rules of Providence into
Atheism, and becom’d vain Idolaters, to sacrifice to the falsely adored
and deified fancies of their own craft and cunning, think or say what
they please, yet the rule of pious _Gregory_ will ever hold true: _Ille
veritatis defensor esse debet, qui quum rectè sentit, loqui non metuit,
nec erubescit_. And that of _Chrysostom_ ought never to be forgotten by
a good Christian, and one that fears God, who saith: _Non solùm proditor
est veritatis, qui mendacium pro veritate loquitur: sed qui non liberè
pronuntiat veritatem, quam pronuntiare oportet, aut non liberè defendit
veritatem, quam defendere oportet_. But as there have been some that
have been affrighted with the feigned Bugbears of malevolent mens
censures and scandals; so there have been others, to whom Nature hath
given greater Magnanimity, who were better principled in their Morals,
and better rudimented in the Christian Religion, that have scorned and
undervalued those censures as vanities and trifles, and these were those
——_Quos Jupiter æquus amavit,
Et meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan._
These were those that for the advancement of Truth and Learning, and the
benefit of Mankind durst undertake
_Ire per excubias, & se committere Parcis_.
And feared not the tempestuous storms of venemous tongues, or malicious
minds, of which we shall here enumerate a competent Catalogue.
[Sidenote: _Præf. in Harvæi Exerc. Anat._]
[Sidenote: Pag. 3.]
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