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
shape of _Samuel_, either to magnifie the skil, or practice of a lewd,
wicked, and Idolatrous Woman, which thing he had forbidden by his plain
and open law, nor to gratifie the curiosity of a wretched Reprobate,
such as was _Saul_, whom he had denied to answer by living Prophets, and
therefore would not answer him by the apparition of a Devil, to have
committed a counterfeit Imposture, in the shape of holy _Samuel_. And
therefore we conclude, that it was no apparition of the Devil, but
meerly the Imposture of the Woman, either alone, or with a Confederate.
There is also a fourth opinion concerning the transaction of this Woman
of _Endor_, that holds, that it was neither the Body, or Soul of
_Samuel_ that was raised up, neither the Devil that appeared in his
shape, nor that it was the Imposture of the Witch alone, or with a
Confederate, but that it was the Sydereal, or Astral Spirit (as they are
pleased to term it) of _Samuel_ that was made to appear, and speak by
the art and skill of the Woman. But because this Tenent is not of much
Antiquity, nor hath many assertors of it, as also because it taketh that
for an Hypothesis, to wit, that there are three parts in Man, the Body,
Soul, and Spirit; and that the Soul goeth immediately after death either
to Heaven or Hell, the Body to the grave, and that the Spirit doth for a
certain time after death wander in the air, and may be (by a certain
kind of art) brought to appear visibly, and to give answers of all
things that it knew living, which as yet hath never been sufficiently
proved, therefore we shall pass it over here, having (perhaps) occasion
to speak of it more largely hereafter.
We shall now come to mention some places in the New Testament that are
produced by some, thereby to prove the great power of Devils and Witches
in transferring and carrying bodies in the air, as is that of our
Saviours temptation, where it is said that the Devil took him into an
exceeding high Mountain, and that he set him upon the pinnacle of the
Temple in _Jerusalem_, from whence they thus argue: That if the Devil
had power to carry our most blessed Saviour in the air into an high
mountain, and to set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, that much more
hath he power to carry the bodies of Witches who are his sworn vassals
in the air, whither he pleaseth, or they desire. To annul the force of
which objection we give these reasons.
[Sidenote: _Reas. 1._]
[Sidenote: Matth. 3. 16.]
[Sidenote: Luke 3. 22.]
[Sidenote: Judg. 15. 15.]
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