An essay for the recording of illustrious providences

1. This practice has no Foundation in nature, nor in Scripture. If the Water will bear none but Witches, this must need proceed either from some natural or some supernatural cause. No natural cause is or can be assigned why the bodies of such persons ⟨p. 282⟩should swim rather than of any other. The Bodies of Witches have not lost their natural Properties, they have weight in them as well as others. Moral changes and viciousness of mind, make no alteration as to these natural proprieties which are inseparable from the body. Whereas some pretend that the Bodies of Witches are possessed with the Devil, and on that account are uncapable of sinking under the water; Malderus his reply is rational, viz. that the Allegation has no solidity in it, witness the Gadarenes Hogs, which were no sooner possessed with the Devil but they ran into the Water, and there perished. But if the experiment be supernatural, it must either be Divine or Diabolical. It is not divine; for the Scripture does no where appoint any such course to be taken to find out whether persons are in league with the Devil or no. It remains then that the experiment is Diabolical. If it be said, that the Devil has made a compact with Wizards, that they shall not be drowned, and by that means that Covenant is discovered; the Reply is, we may not in the least build upon the Devils word. By this Objection the matter is ultimately resolved into a Diabolical Faith. And shall that cast the scale, when the lives of men are concerned? Suppose ⟨p. 283⟩the Devil saith these persons are Witches, must the Judge therefore condemn them?

1. This practice has no Foundation in nature, nor in Scripture. If the Water will bear none but Witches, this must need proceed either from some natural or some supernatural cause. No natural cause is or can be assigned why the bodies of such persons ⟨p. 282⟩should swim rather than of any other. The Bodies of Witches have not lost their natural Properties, they have weight in them as well as others. Moral changes and viceousness of mind, make no alteration as to these natural proprieties which are inseparable from the body. Whereas some pretend that the Bodies of Witches are possessed with the Devil, and on that account are uncapable of sinking under the water; Malderus his reply is rational, viz. that the Allegation has no solidity in it, witness the Gadarens Hoggs, which were no sooner possessed with the Devil but they ran into the Water, and there perished. But if the experiment be supernatural, it must either be Divine or Diabolical. It is not divine; for the Scripture does no where appoint any such course to be taken to find out whether persons are in league with the Devil or no. It remains then that the experiment is Diabolical. If it be said, that the Devil has made a compact with Wizards, that they shall not be drowned, and by that means that Covenant is discovered; the Reply is, we may not in the least build upon the Devils word. By this Objection the matter is ultimately resolved into a Diabolical Faith. And shall that cast the scale, when the lives of men are concerned? Suppose