LET us now make a good and a right use of the prodigious _descent_ which the _Devil_ in _Great Wrath_ is at this day making upon our Land. Upon the Death of a Great Man once, an Orator call'd the Town together, crying out, _Concurrite Cives, Dilapsa sunt vestra Mœnia!_ that is, _Come together, Neighbours, your Town-Walls are fallen down!_ But such is the descent of the Devil at this day upon our selves, that I may truly tell you, _The Walls of the whole World are broken down!_ The usual _Walls_ of defence about mankind have such a Gap made in them, that the very _Devils_ are broke in upon us, to seduce the _Souls_, torment the _Bodies_, sully the _Credits_, and consume the _Estates_ of our Neighbours, [41] with Impressions both as _real_ and as _furious_, as if the _Invisible_ World were becoming _Incarnate_, on purpose for the vexing of us. And what use ought now to be made of so tremendous a dispensation? We are engaged in a _Fast_ this day;[113] but shall we try to fetch _Meat out of the Eater_, and make the _Lion_ to afford some _Hony_ for our _Souls?_ That the Devil is _come down unto us with great Wrath_, we find, we feel, we now deplore.[114] In many ways, for many years hath the Devil been assaying to Extirpate the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus here. _New-England_ may complain of the Devil, as in Psal. 129. 1, 2. _Many a time have they afflicted me, from my Youth, may_ New-England _now say; many a time have they afflicted me from my Youth; yet they have not prevailed against me._ But now there is a more than ordinary _affliction_, with which the _Devil_ is Galling of us: and such an one as is indeed Unparallelable. The things confessed by _Witches_, and the things endured by _Others_, laid together, amount unto this account of our Affliction. The _Devil_, Exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small _Black man_, has decoy'd a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures, to lift themselves in his horrid Service, by entring their Names in a _Book_ by him tendred unto them.[115] These _Witches_, whereof above a Score have now _Confessed and shown their Deeds_, and some are now tormented by the Devils, for _Confessing_, have met in Hellish _Randezvouzes_, wherein the Confessors do say, they have had their diabolical Sacraments, imitating the _Baptism_ and the _Supper_ of our Lord. In these hellish meetings, these Monsters have associated themselves to do no less a thing than, _To destroy the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in these parts of the World;_ and in order hereunto, First they each of them have their _Spectres_, or Devils, commission'd by them, & representing of them, to be the Engines of their Malice. By these wicked _Spectres_, they seize poor people about the Country, with various & bloudy _Torments;_ and of those evidently Preternatural torments there are some have dy'd. They have bewitched some, even so far as to make _Self-destroyers:_[116]