N00531:109
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in…
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in such as are accused with that crime. All considered according to the Scriptures, history, experience, and the judgment of many learned men. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, at Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Six lines of quotations]
Boston printed, : and sold by Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee-House., 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.
Postscript
THE Design of the Preceding Dis•••tation, is not to plead for Witchcrafts, or to appear as an Advocate for Witches. I have therefore written another Discourse, proving that there are such horrid Creatures as Witches in the World; and that they are to be extirpated and cut off from amongst the People of God, which I have Thoughts and inclinations in due time to Publish. And I am abundantly satisfied that there have been, and are still most cursed Witches in the Land. More then one or two of those now in Prison, have freely, and credibly acknowledged their Communion and Familiarity with the Spirits of Darkness, and have also declared unto me the Time and Occasion, with the particular circumstances of their Hellish Obligations and Abominations.
THE Design of the Preceeding Dis•••tation, is not to plead for Witchcrafts, or to appear as an Advocate for Witches. I have therefore written another Discourse, proving that there are such horrid Creatures as Witches in the World; and that they are to be extirpated and cut off from amongst the People of God, which I have Thoughts and inclinations in due time to Publish. And I am abundantly satisfied that there have been, and are still most cursed Witches in the Land. More then one or two of those now in Prison, have freely, and credibly acknowledged their Communion and Familiarity with the Spirits of Darkness, and have also declared unto me the Time and Occasion, with the particular c••cumstances of their Hellish Obligations and Abominations.
Nor is there designed any Reflection on those Worthy Persons who have been concerned in the late Proceedings at Salem. They are wise and good men, and have acted with all Fidelity according to their Light, and have out of tenderness declined the doing of some things, which in their own Judgments they were satisfied about. Having