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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

2. The second thing that we proposed to handle, is, that the knowledge
that the faln Angels have is dark and confused, which is plain because
_they are reserved in chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the
great day_. Now those that are kept or reserved in darkness, must of
necessity have their knowledge dark, and consequently confused; and he
also that is the Prince of darkness, and the Father and Author of the
works of darkness, must needs like his children have his understanding
darkned also. And therefore we will conclude this point with the opinion
of S. _Augustine_ who speaking both of the Angels that stood, and those
that fell, saith thus: _Ante peccatum autem tam isti quam illi perfectè
omnia intelligebant. Accessit igitur istis propter peccatum aliquid
tenebrarum. Proindè etiam tenebræ appellantur, & in tenebris esse
dicuntur, cœlesti illa luce destituti, & in locum caliginosum
præcipitati. Ut indè intelligamus nonnihil tenebrarum naturali etiam
illorum menti accessisse, in pœnam admissi peccati in Deum, Deiq;
filium._ But we shall only here speak of their knowledge in reference to
things acted in this elementary and sublunary world, and that in these
particulars.

1. Though they retain the same faculty of understanding that they had
before their fall, of the generation, motion and mutation of natural
things here below, yet is it much darkned, and far inferior to the
knowledge of the good Angels in natural things, the one sort living and
abiding in light, and the other being shut up in darkness.

2. What knowledge soever they have by their natural faculties, or that
they may be supposed to gain by acquisition, is by them gotten or
learned for no other end, but for the hurt and destruction of mankind,
and not as the good Angels who make use of theirs for the benefit of
those that shall be heirs of Salvation. For as a good Physician labours
and studies to know the nature and virtues of Animals, Vegetables and
Minerals, and their parts and products, for the good and benefit of
mankind, but a Witch or poysoner laboureth to know their virtues thereby
to destroy and kill; even so do the evil Angels, and not otherwise.

[Sidenote: John 8.44.]

[Sidenote: 2 Thes. 2. 9, 10, 11.]

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