He believed, page 62, that "there are _witches, because the Scriptures plainly provide for their punishment_." The only known definition of _witchcraft_ that to him seemed based upon and fairly deduced from the Scriptures, was "a maligning and oppugning the word, work, or worship of God, and, _by any extraordinary sign_, seeking to seduce from it." He believed "that there are possessions, and that the bodies of the possest have hence been not only _afflicted_, but _strangely agitated_, if not _their tongues improved_ to foretell futurities; and why not _to accuse the innocent_ as bewitching them? having _pretense to divination_ ... this being reasonable to be expected from _him who is the father of lies_." This witchcraft assailant, therefore, was a protestant not against belief that the father of lies sometimes _possessed, afflicted, and strangely agitated human beings, and also controlled their tongues to prophesy, to accuse the innocent, and to pretend divination_. His protest was against unscriptural definition of witchcraft, and against those kinds of evidence, rules, and methods used for its detection, proof, and punishment which made his age pronounce guilty and execute many who could not possibly be found guilty of that crime, where its scriptural definition was adhered to. He was not a disbeliever in witchcraft of some kind, nor of action upon men by some invisible intelligences in his own day. He and Mather both were believers in witchcraft outwrought by supernals, but differed as to what might or might not constitute it, and therefore, also, as to the extent of the prevalence of the genuine article. Calef seemingly believed in _possessions_,--that is, in control by spirits of some quality,--but was unwilling to concede that such control was _witchcraft_, as many people at that day did, though Mather may not have been one among them _abidingly_. The pith of Calef's definition of witchcraft was, _seduction of men from the worship of God by manifestation of extraordinary signs_; while Mather said, _covenanting with the devil made one a witch_, and co-operative action with _him_ in harming men constituted _witchcraft_. The former demanded evidences of seduction of men away _from worship of God_, while the other could rest on evidences of _visible harm to man_; therefore Mather found cases of witchcraft much more abundant than Calef was required to or would. Another practically important item on which they differed was the immediate source of the devil's power to act upon visible man and matter. Calef claimed that "it is _only the Almighty_ that ... can commissionate him to hurt or destroy any;" while Mather said, "I am apt to think that the devils are seldom able to hurt us in any of our exterior concerns without a commission _from our fellow-worms_.... Permission from God for the devil to come down and break in upon mankind must oftentimes be accompanied with a commission from _some of mankind itself_."