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
[Sidenote: Acts 8. 39, 40.]
1. Upon the supposition granted that the faln Angels have permission, he
holdeth that by their own proper created natural power, they can as they
please move in place: as to lift a Body up from the earth on high, and
then to let it fall or throw it down to the earth; that they can
transfer or carry a body from one City to another in a very short space
of time: Lastly, that they can move and agitate bodies with every kind
of local motion that none can resist them. And that therefore all those
strange transportations of Witches in the air into forraign and far
distant places (he holdeth) need not be thought strange or impossible,
and that they may be done with great celerity, and in a short time. And
this he thinketh he proveth by the example of _Philip, who when he had
instructed the Eunuch in the faith and baptized him, was caught away by
the spirit of the Lord, that the Eunuch saw him no more, and that he was
found at Azotus_. Upon which we must make these animadversions. 1. That
upon the supposition or ground that faln Angels are simply and meerly
incorporeal, this must be false, for then they cannot move in place, nor
agitate any bodies, as we have sufficiently proved before. 2. And though
upon the supposition that they are corporeal, they may move in place,
and may move and agitate other bodies, yet that must be understood in a
proportionable measure, according to their power and strength, and not
in an infinite, or indefinite respect; for though one Devil may be
supposed to move or lift up that which would load an Horse, yet it will
not follow that he can move or lift up as much as would load a Ship of a
thousand Tun; and though one Devil might remove a Millstone by his own
created power, yet it will not follow that he can remove the greatest
mountain that is to be found. 3. And whatsoever motion Devils may have
here in the air, or power to remove and agitate bodies, yet the least of
these cannot be performed but by licence and permission from God, which
licence and permission is always for ends agreeable to his Wisdom and
Justice; but for God to license or permit Devils to appear to Witches in
the shape of Cats, Dogs, Squirrels or the like, to the end to suck upon
their bodies or to have carnal copulation with them, or to transport
them in the air to places far distant, to dance, revel, feast and to do
homage to the Devil (as the Witchmongers alledge) is for so impure,
filthy, horrid and abominable ends, as can no way agree with the Wisdom
or Justice of the Almighty, and therefore must needs be false and
frivolous. 4. And that which the faln Angels are in the Scriptures
recorded to have performed, may be considered, whether they accomplished
those things by their own created power, or by the power of God granted
to them when they are sent forth to perform such or such an act: For as
it may not be rationally granted that the two Angels that were
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