A26888:34
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.
§ 3. I confess, it is very difficult to expound the Causes of all mentioned in these Histories: But prove• Matters of fact must not be denied, but improved as well as we can. And I confess, very many Cheats of pretended Possessions have been discovered, which hath made •ome weak, injudicious Men think that all are such. Two sorts of ⟨p. 3⟩Persons have oft been found Deceivers: 1. Persons prepared and trained up purposely by Papists Priests, to honour their Exorcisms. You may find in print the Story of the Boy of Bilson (Petrius, who afterwards I heard turned Quaker at Bristol) detected and shamed by Bp. Morton himself. Many such abroad are recorded. 2. Lustful, Rank, Girls and young Widows, that plot for some amorous, procacious Design, or have Imaginations conquered by Lust: Though, I think, when they come to a Furor uterinus, Satan oft sets in.
But he forfeiteth the Benefit of his own Eye-sight, who thinks that none see, because some Beggars counterfeit Blindness.
§ 4. The Instances tell us, 1. That the State, Converse, Policy, Laws of the Aerial World, or Regions, are much thought not wholly) unknown to us here. 2. And so is the Natural State of the departed Souls of wicked Men, as to their having Bodies, or no Bodies, their Power, their Wits, their Motions, and Passions. 3. And also whether they be proper Devils when joined with them, or of another Species. 4. And 'tis hard to know by their Words or Signs, when it is a Devil, and when it is a Humane Soul that appeareth. 5. Yea, it is oft hard to know whether it be the Soul of a good Person, or a bad. 6. And consequently, what distance ⟨p. 4⟩