Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain…

Now upon a Deliberate Review of these Things, His Excellency first Reprieved, and then Pardoned many of them that had been Condemned; and there fell out several strange Things, that caused the Spirit of the Country to run, as vehemently upon the acquitting of all the Accused, as it by mistake ran at first upon the Condemning of them. Some that had been zealously of the Mind, that the Devil's could not in the Shapes of good Men, afflict other Men, were terribly Confuted, by having their own Shapes and the Shapes of their most intimate and valued Friends thus Abused. And though more than twice Twenty, had made such voluntary, and harmonious, and uncontrollable Confessions, that if they were all Sham, there was therein the greatest Violation made by the Efficacy of the Invisible World, upon the Rules of Understanding Humane Affairs, that was ever seen since God made Man upon the Earth, yet they did so recede from their Confessions, that it was every clear, some of them had been hitherto, in a sort of a Preternatural Dream, ⟨p. 80⟩wherein, they had said of themselves, they knew not what themselves.

Now upon a Deliberate Review of these Things, His Excellency first Reprieved, and then Pardoned many of them that had been Condemned; and there fell out several strange Things, that caused the Spirit of the Country to run, as vehemently upon the acquitting of all the Accused, as it by mistake ran at first upon the Condem•ing of them. Some that had been zealously of the Mind, that the Devil's could not in the Shapes of good Men, afflict other Men, were terribly Confuted, by having their own Shapes and the Shapes of their most intimate and valued Friends thus Abused. And though more than twice Twenty, had made such voluntary, and harmonious, and uncontrolable Confessions, that if they were all Sham, there was therein the greatest Violation made by the Efficacy of the Invisible World, upon the Rules of Ʋnderstanding Humane Affairs, that was ever seen since God made Man upon the Earth, yet they did so recede from their Confessions, that it was every clear, some of them had been hitherto, in a sort of a Praeternatural Dream, ⟨p. 80⟩wherein, they had said of themselves, they knew not what themselves.