_Her Arms thrice turns about, thrice wets her crown With gather'd dew, thrice yawns, and kneeling down; Oh Night! thou friend to secrets you clear fires, That with the Moon succeed when day retires. Great_ Hecate, _thou know'st and aid Imparts, To our design, your Charms and Magick Arts: And thou, oh Earth, that to Magicians yields Thy powerful simples: Airs, Winds, Mountains, Fields, Soft murmuring Springs, still Lakes and Rivers clear, You Gods of Woods, you Gods of night appear; By you at will, I make swift Streams retire, To their first Fountain, while their Banks admire. Seas toss and smooth; clear Clouds with Clouds deform, Storms turn to Calms, and make a Calm a Storm, With Spells and Charms, I break the Vipers Jaws, Cleave solid Rocks, Oaks from their fisures draw; Whole Woods remove, the Airy Mountains shake; Earth forc'd to groan, and Ghosts from Graves awake. ---- her Journey takes,_ [Lib. 14.] _To_ Rhegium _opposite to_ Zanle's _shore, And treads the troubled Waves, that loudly roar; Running with unwet Feet on that profound, As if Sh' had trod upon the solid ground._ [47] _This with portentous poyson she pollutes, Besprinkled with the juice of wicked roots, In words dark, and perplext nine times thrice, Inchantments mutters with her wicked voice, &c._ These Fables of the Heathens (tho' in themselves of no more validity than the idle Tales of an _Indian_, or the Discourses of a known Romancer) are become the School-learning, not to say the Faith of Christians, and are the Scriptures brought (instead of that most sure Word) if not to prove Doctrine, yet as illustrations thereof. Cases of Conscience concerning Witch _pag._ 25. Remarkable Providences _pag._ 250. (This perhaps might be the cause that in _England_ a people otherways sober and Religious) have for some Ages (in a manner wholly) refused admitting those so educated to the work of the Ministry. Such education and practice, have so far prevailed that it has been a means of corrupting the Christian world, almost to that degree as to be ungainsayable; for tho' there is Reason to hope that these Diabolical principles have not so prevail'd (with multitudes of Christians) as that they ascribe to a Witch and a Devil the Attributes peculiar to the Almighty; yet how few are willing to be found opposing such a torrent, as knowing that in so doing they shall be sure to meet with opposition to the utmost, from the many, both of Magistrates, Ministers and People; and the name of _Sadducee_, _Atheist_, and perhaps Witch too cast upon them most liberally, by men of the highest profession in Godliness. And if not so learned as some of themselves, then accounted only fit to be trampled on, and their Arguments (tho both Rational and Scriptural) as fit only for contempt. But tho this be the deplorable