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
Once more, why may not _Storms_ be reckoned among those _Woes_, with
which the Devil does disturb us? It is not improbable that _Natural
Storms_ on the World are often of the Devils raising. We are told in
_Job 1.11, 12, 19._ that the Devil made a _Storm_, which hurricano'd the
House of _Job_, upon the Heads of them that were Feasting in it.
_Paracelsus_ could have informed the Devil, if he had not been informed,
as besure he was before, That if much _Aluminious_ matter, with _Salt
Petre_ not throughly prepared, be mixed, they will send up a cloud of
Smoke, which _will_ come down in Rain. But undoubtedly the _Devil_
understands as _well_ the way to make a _Tempest_ as to turn the _Winds_
at the _Solicitation_ of a _Laplander_; whence perhaps it is, that
Thunders are observed oftner to break upon _Churches_ than upon any
other _Buildings_; and besides many a Man, yea many a Ship, yea, many a
Town has miscarried, when the Devil has been permitted from above to
make an horrible Tempest. However that the Devil has raised many
_Metaphorical Storms_ upon the Church, is a thing, than which there is
nothing more notorious. It was said unto Believers in _Rev. 2.10._ _The
Devil shall cast some of you into Prison._ The Devil was he that at
first set _Cain upon Abel_ to butcher him, as the Apostle seems to
suggest, for his Faith in God, as a _Rewarder_. And in how many
_Persecutions_, as well as _Heresies_ has the Devil been ever since
Engaging all the Children of _Cain_! That Serpent the Devil has acted
his cursed Seed in unwearied endeavours to have them, _Of whom the World
is not worthy_, treated as those who are _not worthy to live in the
World_. By the impulse of the Devil, 'tis that first the old _Heathens_,
and then the mad _Arians_ were _pricking Briars_ to the true Servants of
God; and that the _Papists_ that came after them, have out done them all
for Slaughters, upon those that have been _accounted as the Sheep for
the Slaughters_. The late _French_ Persecution is perhaps the horriblest
that ever was in the World: And as the Devil of _Mascon_ seems before to
have meant it in his out-cries upon _the Miseries preparing for the poor
Hugonots_! Thus it has been all acted by a singular Fury of the old
Dragon inspiring of his Emissaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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