N00531:24
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.
And that evil Angels have sometimes appeared in the likeness of living absent persons is a thing abundantly confirmed by History.
(I)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, resolve, all his Doubts. Not long after, he demanded the Reason 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 with his Friend, but he was all the time at home, and asleep. Pau••s and Palladius did both of them profess to Austin, that one in his Shape, had divers times, and in divers places appeared to them (k)Thyreus: mentions several Apparitions of, absent living persons, which happened in his time. ⟨p. 5⟩which he had the certain knowledge of A Man that is in one place cannot (Aut•pro•opos) at the same time be in another. It remains then that such spectres are Prodigious & Supernatural, & 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 ser••ants, but he supposeth the Providence of God will not suffer such an Injury to be done to an Innocent Person. With him (m)