N00531:41
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.
Let me further add here; It has very seldom been known that Satan has personated Innocent ⟨p. 21⟩Men doing an ill thing, but Providence has found out some way for their vindication; Either they have been able to prove that they were in another Place when that Fact was done, or the like. So that perhaps there never was an Instance of any Innocent Person Condemned in any Court of Judicature on Earth, only through Satan's deluding and imposing on the Imaginations of men, when nevertheless, the Witnesses, Juries, and Judges were all to be excused from blame.
Let me further add here; It has very seldome been known that Satan has personated Innocent ⟨p. 21⟩Men doing an ill thing, but Providence has found out some way for their vindication; Either they have been able to prove that they were in another Place when that Fact was done, or the like. So that perhaps there never was an Instance of any Innocent Person Condemned in any Court of Judicature on Earth, only through Satans deluding and imposing on the Imaginations of men, when nevertheless, the Witnesses, Juries, and Judges were all to be excused from blame.
Arg: 4. It is certain both from Scripture and History that Magicians by their Enchantments and Hellish Conjuriati••s may cause a false Representation of persons, & things. An enchanted eye shall see such things as others cannot discern. It is a thing too well known to be denied that some by rubbing there eyes with a Bewitched water have immediately thereupon seen that which others could not discern. And there are persons in the World, who have a strange spectral sight. MrGlanvil (f)speaks of a Dutch-man that could see Ghosts which others could perceive nothing of. There are in Spain a sort of men whom they call Zahurs; these can see into the Bowels of the Earth. They are able to discover Minerals & hidden Treasures. nevertheless, they have their extraordinary sight only on Tuesdays and fridays; and not on the other days of the week.