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
_Ramoth Gilead_, and prosper, yet there was he slain. And as they never
truly foretel things to come, so neither can the Idols do good or evil:
all that is, or ever was done, was performed only by the cunning,
confederacy, and juggling of the knavish and deceitful Priests; and
therefore the Prophet admonisheth Gods people not to be afraid of them;
_For they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good_.
[Sidenote: Deut. 13. 1, 2, 3.]
4. We are to note, that if a Sign or Wonder foretold do come to pass, we
have no Warrant to ascribe the bringing of it to pass either to Devil or
Witch, for the Lord telleth us this: _If there arise among you a Prophet
or a Dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder. And the sign
or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee, saying; Let us
go after other Gods (which thou hast not known) and let us serve them:
Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of
dreams: For the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul._ So that what
Divinations or Predictions soever be foretold by any, or what signs or
wonders soever be brought to pass, if the persons that work or foretel
them, perswade us to serve other Gods, or go to seduce us to Idolatry,
we are not to follow them, but are to know that by them the Lord doth
prove us, to try if we love him with all our heart, or not. And if there
were no other means to distinguish a true Miracle from a false, yet were
this infallibly sufficient to instruct and direct us.
5. We may note, that of all the several sorts of Divinations pretended,
and of all the acceptations of this Hebrew word in all the Bible, there
is nothing that doth imply any such kind of killing Witch, as is
commonly imagined, nor none such as make a visible League with the
Devil, nor upon whose bodies he sucketh, or hath carnal copulation with
them, nor no such as are really changed into Cats, Hares, Wolves, or
Dogs; which was the thing we undertook to prove.
3. The next word we are to consider, is עֹנֵן, which _Avenarius_,
_Schindlerus_, _Buxtorsius_, and Mr. _Goodwin_ do derive from עֹנֵן
_obnubilavit, nubem obduxit, item præstigiis usus est_. From whence we
may note these things.
[Sidenote: _Vid. Polyglot. in loc._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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