A70086:60
A further account of the trials of the New-England witches with the observations of…A further account of the tryals of the New-England witches with the observations of…
A further account of the trials of the New-England witches with the observations of a person who was upon the place several days when the suspected witches were first taken into examination : to which is added, Cases of conscience concerning witchcrafts and evil spirits personating men / written at the request of the ministers of New-England by Increase Mather ...A further account of the tryals of the New-England witches with the observations of a person who was upon the place several days when the suspected witches were first taken into examination : to which is added, Cases of conscience concerning witchcrafts and evil spirits personating men / written at the request of the ministers of New-England by Increase Mather ...
London: printed for J. Dunton, 1693
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.
And that evil Angels have sometimes appeared in the likeness of living absent persons, is a thing abundantly confirmed by History.
†Austin tells us of one that went for resolution in some intricate Questions to a Philosopher, of whom he could get no Answer; but in the Night the Philosopher comes to him, and resolves all his Doubts. Not long after, he demanded the reason ⟨p. 3⟩why he could not answer him in the Day as well as in the Night; The Philosopher professed he was not with him in the Night, only acknowledged that he dreamed of his having such conversation of his Friend, but he was all the time at home, and asleep. Paulus and Palladius did both of them profess to Austin, that one in his shape, had divers times, and in divers places appeared to them†: Thyreus mentions several Apparitions of absent living persons, which happened in his time, and which he had the certain knowledge of. A Man that is in one place cannot (Autoprosopos) at the same time be in another. It remains then that such Spectres are Prodigious and Supernatural, and not without Diabolical Operation. It has been Controverted among Learned Men, whether innocent Persons may not by the malice and deluding Power of the Devil be represented as present amongst Witches at their dark Assemblies. The mentioned Thyreus says, that the Devil may, and often does represent the forms of Innocent Persons out of those Conventions, and that there is no Question to be made of it, but as to his natural Power and Art he is able to make their shapes appear amongst his own Servants, but he supposeth the Providence of God will not suffer such an Injury to be done to an Innocent Person. With him bDelrio, and Spineus concur. But Cumanus in his Lucerna Inquisitorum (a Book which I have not yet seen) defends the Affirmative in this Question. Bins Fieldius in his Treatise, concerning the Confession of Witches, inclines to the Negative, only