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
3. There are others that are under this spiritual League, though
implicitly, as are all those that we have granted to be passively
deluded Witches, those that by ignorant and irreligious education,
joyned with a melancholy temper and disposition, to which they have
added Charms, Pictures, and other superstitious Ceremonies, which they
learned by Tradition. By all which they become so deluded and besotted
in their Phantasies, that they believe the Devil doth visibly appear
unto them, suck upon them, have carnal copulation with them, that they
are carried in the Air to feastings, dancings, and such like
Night-revellings; and that they can raise tempests, kill men or beasts,
and an hundred such like fopperies and impossibilities, when they do nor
suffer any thing at all, but in their depraved and deceived
imaginations. And so do blindly and implicitly believe that the Devil
doth perform all these things for them, when indeed and truth he doth
nothing but dart and cast in these filthy and fond cogitations into
their minds agreeable to their wicked wills and corrupted desires, and
so are fast bound in this spiritual and implicit League. And under this
spiritual implicit League are also comprehended all those that are
Witchmongers, and believe the verity and performance of these things,
and think that the Devil can both hurt and also help, and that there is
a bad and a good Witch, or with Mr. _Perkins_, a black and a white one,
by which wicked opinion, the seeking unto Witches, Wizards, Mutterers,
Murmurers, Charmers, South-sayers, Conjurers, Cunning-men and women (as
we speak here in the North) and such like, is still upholden by the
Authors and Favourers of this opinion, contrary to the direct counsel of
the Holy Ghost, who saith: _And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto
them that have familiar Spirits, and unto Wizards that peep and that
mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the
dead. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them._ And therefore saith
one: _Admonet etiam, nos adversus impios cultus & superstitiones tutos
fore, si in lege Domini acquiescamus_. The League or Covenant betwixt
the Devil and the Witch, is that which is visible and corporeal, where
he is supposed to appear in some bodily shape unto the Witch, and to
have oral and audible conference with him or her, and so to make a
League or Covenant; and this is the thing that we deny, and the
consequents thereof, that he doth not suck upon their bodies, nor hath
carnal copulation with them, nor carries them in the Air, nor for them,
nor by them doth destroy or kill man or beast, raise tempests, or change
them into Cats, Hares, Wolves, Dogs, or the like; and this we oppose
with these following Reasons.
[Sidenote: _Reas. 1._]
[Sidenote: 2 Pet. 5. 8, 9.]
[Sidenote: Rev. 12. 9.]
[Sidenote: 2 Cor. 2. 11.]
[Sidenote: Eph. 6. 11.]
[Sidenote: Mat. 24. 24.]
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