Opening the text

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

Name: 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
Author: Webster, John

Webster, John

Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800

quodammodò immediatè se habet ad omnes effectus, in quantum omnes causæ
mediæ agunt in virtute causæ primæ, ut quodammodo ipse in omnibus agere
videatur, & omnia opera secundarum causarum ei possunt attribui, sicut
artifici attribuitur opus instrumenti_. Therefore we will conclude this
with that of S. _Augustine_: _Proculdubio nullus est locùs ab ejus
præsentia absens; super omnem creaturam quippè præsidet regendo, subtus
est omnia sustinendo, non pondere laboris, sed infatigabili virtute,
quoniam nulla creatura ab eo condita per se subsistere valet, nisi ab
illo sustentetur, qui eam creavit. Extra omnia est, sed non exclusus,
intra omnia, sed non conclusus._ And these places need no fiction of an
Hebraism to expound them, nor no device of a verb of an active
termination, and a permissive signification to evade the pressure of
this truth. And therefore in respect of Physical agency we are bold with
_Bradwardine_ to assert these three Corollaries.

  1. _Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere, sine Deo._

  2. _Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere, nisi Deus per se & immediate
       facit illud idem._

  3. _Quod nulla res potest facere aliquid, nisi Deus faciat illud idem
       immediatiùs quolibet alio faciente._

[Sidenote: Amos 3. 6.]

4. So that however permission may be understood, it must properly relate
to intellectual and rational creatures, and that only and especially in
respect of those actions which we call moral, that is, in regard of sin,
evil or _malum culpæ_; for whatsoever is _malum pœnæ_, God is the
author, causer and inflicter of, according to the Text: _Shall there be
evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it?_ To understand aright the
nature of permission, we are to consider the affections, properties and
adjuncts of it, both in regard of the person permitting, the creature
permitted to act, and the thing permitted to be done, with all the
circumstances about them, and these we shall take from their Ring-leader
and great Champion _Arminius_ himself in these points.

[Sidenote: _Vid. Twisse Vindic. grat. de permiss._ _p._ 341.]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.