A26888:178
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls…
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadducees and infidels, by Richard Baxter.The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadduces and infidels, by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1691
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.
I could tell you an ancienter Story before my time, in the House of one Burnet, in the North of Scotland, where strange things were seen, which I can get sufficiently attested. Also in the Southwest Border of Scotland, in Annandale there is a House called Powdine, belonging to a Gentleman called Johnston, that House hath been haunted these 50 or 60 Years. At my coming to Worcester 1651 I spoke with the Gentleman (being my self quartered within two Miles of the House) he told me many extraordinary Relations consisting in his own Knowledge: And I carried him to my Master, to whom he made the same Relations: Noises and Apparitions, Drums and Trumpets heard before the last War; yea, he said, some English Soldiers quartering in his House, were soundly beaten by that then irresistible Inhabitant: (This last I wondered at, for I rather expected he should have ⟨p. 88⟩been a Remonstrator, and opposed the Resistance:) And within this Fortnight Mr. James Sharp was with me (him you know, and he is now at London) he tells me, that Spirit now speaks, and appears frequently in the shape of a Naked Arm; But other Discourse took me off from further inquiry. These things I tell you in obedience to your desire, but as I said before, I desire them not to be Printed. Atheists are not to be convinced by Stories: Their own Senses will no more convert them than Sense will convert a Papist from Transubstantiation; and Scottish Stories would make the disaffected jeer Scotland, which is the object of Scorn enough already.
I could tell you an ancienter Story before my time, in the House of one Burnet, in the North of Scotland, where strange things were seen, which I can get sufficiently attested. Also in the Southwest Border of Scotland, in Annandale there is a House called Powdine, belonging to a Gentleman called Iohnston, that House hath been haunted these 50 or 60 Years. At my coming to Worcester 1651 I spoke with the Gentleman (being my self quartered within two Miles of the House) he told me many extraordinary Relations consisting in his own Knowledge: And I carried him to my Master, to whom he made the same Relations: Noises and Apparitions, Drums and Trumpets heard before the last War; yea, he said, some English Soldiers quartering in his House, were soundly beaten by that then irresistible Inhabitant: (This last I wonder'd at, for I rather expected he should have ⟨p. 88⟩been a Remonstrator, and opposed the Resistance:) And within this Fortnight Mr. Iames Sharp was with me (him you know, and he is now at London) he tells me, that Spirit now speaks, and appears frequently in the shape of a Naked Arm; But other Discourse took me off from further inquiry. These things I tell you in obedience to your desire, but as I said before, I desire them not to be Printed. Atheists are not to be convinced by Stories: Their own Sences will no more convert them than Sence will convert a Papist from Transubstantiation; and Scottish Stories would make the disaffected jeer Scotland, which is the object of Scorn enough already.