The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England, to which is added A Farther Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches — John Shaqi
The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England, to which is added A Farther Account of the Tryals of the New-England WitchesMather, Cotton
History
The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England, to which is added A Farther Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches
Mather, Cotton
Witchcraft -- New England -- Early works to 1800
Magical Tricks often used in the World, may not insensibly oblige
_Devils_ to wait upon the Superstitious Users of them. A Witty Writer
against _Sadducism_ has this Observation, That persons who never made
any express Contract with _Apostate Spirits_, yet may Act strange Things
by _Diabolick Aids_, which they procure by the use of those wicked
_Forms_ and _Arts_, that the Devil first imparted unto his Confederates.
And he adds, _We know not but the Laws of the Dark Kingdom may Enjoyn a
particular Attendance upon all those that practice their Mysteries,
whether they know them to be theirs or no._ Some of them that have been
cry'd out upon as imploying _Evil Spirits_ to hurt our Land, have been
known to be most bloody _Fortune-Tellers_; and some of them have
confessed, That when they told _Fortunes_, they would pretend the Rules
of _Chiromancy_ and the like Ignorant Sciences, but indeed they had no
Rule (they said) but this, _The things were then Darted into their
minds._ _Darted!_ Ye Wretches; By whom, I pray? Surely by none but the
_Devils_; who, tho' perhaps they did not exactly _Foreknow_ all the thus
Predicted Contingencies; yet having once _Foretold_ them, they stood
bound in Honour now to use their Interest, which alas, in _This World_,
is very great, for the Accomplishment of their own Predictions. There
are others, that have used most wicked _Sorceries_ to gratifie their
unlawful Curiosities, or to prevent Inconveniencies in Man and Beast;
_Sorceries_, which I will not _Name_, lest I should by Naming, _Teach_
them. Now, some _Devil_ is evermore Invited into the Service of the
Person that shall Practise these _Witchcrafts_; and if they have gone on
Impenitently in these Communions with any _Devil_, the _Devil_ may
perhaps become at last a _Familiar_ to them, and so assume their
_Livery_, that they cannot shake him off in any way, but that One, which
I would most heartily prescribe unto them, Namely, That of a deep and
long _Repentance_. Should these _Impieties_ have been committed in such
a place as _New-England_, for my part I should not wonder, if when
_Devils_ are Exposing the _Grosser_ Witches among us, God permit them to
bring in these _Lesser_ ones with the rest for their perpetual
Humiliation. In the Issue therefore, may it not be found, that
_New-England_ is not so stock'd with _Rattle Snakes_, as was imagined.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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