N00531:31
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.
From hence we infer that there is no outward Affliction whatsoever but may befall a Good Man; now to be represented by Satan as a Tormentor of Bewitched or Possessed Persons, is a sore affliction to a Good man. To be Tormented by Satan is a sore Affliction, yet nothing but what befell Job, and a Daughter of Abraham whom we read of in the Gospel. To be represented by Satan, as tormenting others, is an affliction like the former. The Lord may bring such extraordinary Temptations on his own Children, to Afflict and Humble them, for some sin they have been guilty of before him. A most wicked Person in St. Ives, got a Knife, and went with it to a Ministers House; designing to stab him, but was disappointed. Afterwards Conscience being awakened, the Devil appears to this Person in the Shape of that Minister, with a Knife in his hand exhorting to Self-murder. Was not here a punishment suitable to the sin which that Person had been Guilty of? Perhaps some of those, whom Satan has represented as committing Witchcrafts, have been tampering with some foolish and Wicked Sorceries, tho' not to that degree, which is Criminal and Capital by the Laws both of God, and ⟨p. 11⟩Men; for this Satan may be permitted so to scourge them. Or, it may be they have misrepresented & abused others, for which cause the Holy God may justly give Satan leave, falsely to represent them.
From hence we inferr that there is no outward Affliction whatsoever but may befal a Good Man; now to be represented by Satan as a Tormentor of Bewitched or Possessed Persons, is a sore affliction to a Good man. To be Tormented by Satan is a sore Affliction, yet nothing but what befel Job, and a Daughter of Abraham whom we read of in the Gospel. To be represented by Satan, as tormenting others, is an affliction like the former. The Lord may bring such extraordinary Temptations on his own Children, to Afflict and Humble them, for some sin they have been guilty of before him. A most wicked Person in St. Ives, got a Knife, and went with it to a Ministers House; designing to stab him, but was disappointed. Afterwards Conscience being awakened, the Devil appears to this Person in the Shape of that Minister, with a Knife in his hand exhorting to Self-murder. Was not here a punishment suitable to the sin which that Person had been Guilty of? Perhaps some of those, whom Satan has represented as committing Witchcrafts, have been tampering with some foolish and Wicked Sorceries, tho' not to that degree, which is Criminal and Capital by the Laws both of God, and