N00296:300
An essay for the recording of illustrious providences
An essay for the recording of illustrious providences: wherein, an account is given of many remarkable and very memorable events, which have happened in this last age; especially in New-England. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by Samuel Green, 1684
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.
2. Experience hath proved this to be a fallacious way of trying Witches, therefore it ought not to be practised. Thereby guilty persons may happen to be acquitted, and the innocent to be condemned. The Devil may have power to cause supernatation on the water in a person that never made any compact with him. And many times known and convicted Wizards have sunk under the water when thrown thereon. In the Bohemian History mention is made of several Witches, who being tried by cold water were as much subject to submersion as any other persons. Delrio reports the like of another Witch. And Godelmannus speaks of six Witches in whom this way of trial failed. Malderus saith It has been known that the very same persons being often brought to this probation by Water, did at one time swim and another time sink; and this difference has sometimes happened according to the different persons making the experiment upon them; in which respect one might with greater reason conclude that the persons who used the experiment were Witches, then that the persons tried were so.
2. Experience hath proved this to be a fallacious way of trying Witches, therefore it ought not to be practised. Thereby guilty persons may happen to be acquitted, and the innocent to be condemned. The Devil may have power to cause supernatation on the water in a person that never made any compact with him. And many times known and convicted Wizards have sunk under the water when thrown thereon. In the Bohemian History mention is made of several Witches, who being tried by cold water were as much subject to submersion as any other persons. Delrio reports the like of another Witch. And Godelmannus speaks of six Witches in whom this way of trial failed. Malderus saith It has been known that the very same persons being often brought to this probation by Water, did at one time swim and another time sink; and this difference has sometimes hapned according to the different persons making the experiment upon them; in which respect one might with greater reason conclude that the persons who used the experiment were Witches, then that the persons tried were so.
3. This way of purgation is to be accounted