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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 — John Shaqi

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. _Another reason is, you have all fully known me, and the most of the
particulars of my life, both my follies and frailties, as also my other
endowments and abilities, and therefore in reference to these, I thought
none more fit than your selves, to whom I might tender this laborious
piece. For it is not unknown unto you, that (excepting my Physical
Practice, which age and infirmities will not suffer me very much to
attend) I have for many years last past lived a solitary, and sedentary
life, =mihi & Musis=, having had more converse with the dead than the
living, that is, more with Books than with Men. And therefore I present
this unto you, as being better able than most others to whom I am
unknown, to judge what I am like or able to perform in such a subject as
this is._

3. _Also it is not unknown unto you, that I have had a large portion of
Trouble and Persecution in this outward world, wherein you did not like
many others stand aloof off, as though you had not known me, but like
persons of Justice, and true Magnanimity, durst both look upon and
assist wronged innocency, though besmeered over with the envious dirt of
malicious scandals, and even in that very conjuncture of time, when the
whole giddy Troop of barking Dogs, and ravenous Wolves, did labour to
devour me. But then, even then did put to your helping hands, and were
free to declare, what you knew of mine innocency: which was so Generous,
Noble and Christian a kind of just commiseration, that I should for ever
account my self a wretched person, if I should not have deeply impressed
in my breast and memory, which no time, nor adversity can ever
obliterate. But being in a condition that I may truly say with the
Apostle =S. Peter=, Αργύειον κ χρυσίον ὐπάρχ μος, =Silver and Gold have
I none= (which I know you expect not) and therefore the greatest power I
have is my weak pen, thereby to testifie my thankfulness for your
unparallel’d kindness. And therefore I offer this Treatise as a
perpetual and monumental memorial to all Posterities, of my gratitude,
and your goodness._

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

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