A50139:33
Memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions a faithful account of many wonderful and…
Memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions a faithful account of many wonderful and surprising things that have befallen several bewitched and possessed person in New-England, particularly a narrative of the marvellous trouble and relief experienced by a pious family in Boston, very lately and sadly molested with evil spirits : whereunto is added a discourse delivered unto a congregation in Boston on the occasion of that illustrious providence : as also a discourse delivered unto the same congregation on the occasion of an horrible self-murder committed in the town : with an appendix in vindication of a chapter in a late book of remarkable providences from the calumnies of a Quaker at Pen-silvania / written by Cotton Mather ... and recommended by the ministers of Boston and Charleston.Memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions a faithful account of many wonderful and surprising things that have befallen several bewitched and possesed person in New-England, particularly a narrative of the marvellous trouble and releef experienced by a pious family in Boston, very lately and sadly molested with evil spirits : whereunto is added a discourse delivered unto a congregation in Boston on the occasion of that illustrious providence : as also a discourse delivered unto the same congregation on the occasion of an horrible self-murder committed in the town : with an appendix in vindication of a chapter in a late book of remarkable providences from the calumnies of a Quaker at Pen-silvania / written by Cotton Mather ... and recommended by the ministers of Boston and Charleston.
Boston: printed by R.P., 1689
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.
SECT. II. The four Children (whereof the Eldest was about Thirteen, and the youngest was perhaps about a third part so many years of age) had enjoyed a Religious Education, and answered it with a very towardly Ingenuity. They had an observable Affection unto Divine and Sacred things; and those of them that were capable of it, seemed to have such a Resentment of their eternal Concernments as is not altogether usual. Their Parents also kept them to a continual Employment, which did more than deliver them from the Temptations of Idleness, and as young as they were, they took a delight in it; It may be as much as they should have done. In a word, Such was the whole Temper and Carrings of the Children, that there cannot easily be any thing more unreasonable, than to imagine that a Design to Dissemble could cause them to fall into any of their odd Fits; though there should not have happened, as there did, & thousand Things, wherein it was perfectly impossible for any Dissimulation of theirs to produce what scores of spectators were amazed at.
SECT. II. The four Children (whereof the Eldest was about Thirteen, and the youngest was perhaps about a third part so many years of age) had enjoy'd a Religious Education, and answered it with a very towardly Ingenuity. They had an observable Affection unto Divine and Sacred things; and those of them that were capable of it, seem'd to have such a Resentment of their eternal Concernments as is not altogether usual. Their Parents also kept them to a continual Employment, which did more than deliver them from the Temptations of Idleness, and as young as they were, they took a delight in it; It may be as much as they should have done. In a word, Such was the whole Temper and Carrings of the Children, that there cannot easily be any thing more unreasonable, than to imagine that a Design to Dissemble could cause them to fall into any of their odd Fits; though there should not have happened, as there did, & thousand Things, wherein it was perfectly impossible for any Dissimulation of theirs to produce what scores of spectators were amazed at.
SECT. III. About Midsummer, in the year 1688. the Eldest of these Children, who is a Daughter, saw cause to examine their Washerwoman, upon their missing of some Linen, which twas feared she had stolen from them; and of what use this Linen might be to serve the Witchcraft intended, the Thief's Tempter knows. This