A09402:81
A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft so far forth as it is…A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft so farre forth as it is…
A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft so far forth as it is revealed in the Scriptures, and manifest by true experience. Framed and delivered by M. William Perkins, in his ordinary course of preaching, and now published by Tho. Pickering Bachelor of Divinity, and minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Whereunto is adjoined a twofold table; one of the order and heads of the treatise; another of the texts of Scripture explained, or vindicated from the corrupt interpretation of the adversary.A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft so farre forth as it is reuealed in the Scriptures, and manifest by true experience. Framed and deliuered by M. William Perkins, in his ordinarie course of preaching, and now published by Tho. Pickering Batchelour of Diuinitie, and minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Whereunto is adioyned a twofold table; one of the order and heades of the treatise; another of the texts of Scripture explaned, or vindicated from the corrupt interpretation of the aduersarie.
Cambridge: printed by Cantrell Legge, 1610Cambridge: printed by Cantrel Legge, 1610
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Thus again the devil by the Witch of Endor deceived Saul in the appearance ⟨p. 24⟩of Samuel, •. Sam. 28. making him believe that it had been Samuel indeed, whereas it was but a mere counterfeit of him, as shall appear hereafter. Again, the devil knowing the constitutions of men, and the particular diseases whereunto they are inclined, takes the vantage of some, and secondeth the nature of the disease by the concurrence of his own delusion, thereby corrupting the imagination, and working in the mind a strong persuasion, that they are become, that which in truth they are not. This is apparent in that disease▪ which is termed Lycanthropia, where some, having their brains possessed and distempered with melancholy, have verily thought themselves to be wolves, and so behaved themselves. And the Histories of men in former ages, have recorded strange testimonies of some, that have been thus turned into wolves, lions, dogs birds, and other creatures, which could not be really in substance, but only in appearance, and fantasy corrupted, and so these records are true. For God in his ⟨p. 25⟩just judgement, may suffer some men so to be bewitched by the devil, that to their conceit th•y may seem to be like these brute beast, though indeed they remain true […] still. For it i• a work surmounting the devils power, to change the substance of any one creature, into the substance of another. By this kind of delusion the Church of Rome, in the times of blindness and ignorance, hath taken great advantage, and much increased her riches and honour. For there be three points of the religion of that Church, to wi••e, Rurgatorie, Invocation of […] Saints, and honouring of Relics, whereby she hath notably enriched her self, all which had their first foundation from these and such like Satanical impostures. For the only way, whereby they have brought the common sort to yield unto them, both for belief and practise, hath been by deluding their outward sense•, with false apparitions of ghosts and souls of men, walking and ranging abroad after their departure, and such like• whereby simple persons, ignorant of their fetches