N00531:45
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.
There is newly Published a Book (mentioned in the Acta Eruditorum) wherein the Author ⟨p. 26⟩(s)(Wiechard Valvassor) relates that a Venetian Jew instructed him (only he would not attend his Instructions) how to make a Magical Glass which should represent any person or thing according as he should desire. If a Magician by an Enchanted Glass can do this, he may as well by the help of a Daemon cause false Ideas of Persons and Things to be Impressed on the Imaginations of bewitched Persons. The Blood and Spirits of a Man, that is bitten with a Mad Dog, are so envenomed, as that strange Impressions are thereby made on his Imagination. Let him be brought into a Room where there is a Looking-Glass, and he will (if put upon it) not only say but swear that he sees a Dog tho' in truth there is no Dog it may be within 20 Miles of him. And is it not then possible, for the Dogs of Hell to pey•on the Imaginations of miserable Creatures, so as that they shall believe & swear that such Persons hurt them as never did so? I have heard of an Enchanted Pin, that has caused the Condemnation and Death of many scores of Innocent persons. There was a Notorious Witchfinder in Scotland, that undertook by a Pin, to make an Infallible discovery of suspected persons, whether they were Witches or not If when the Pin was run an Inch or two into into the Body of the Accused party, no blood appeared, nor any sense of Pain, then he declared them to be Witches. By means hereof my Author tells me no less then 300 persons were ⟨p. 27⟩condemned for witches in that Kingdom. This Bloody Juggler after he had done enough in Scotland, came to the Town of Berwick upon Tweed. An honest man now living in New-England assureth me that he saw the man thrust a great Bras•e Pin two inches into the body of one that some would in that way try whether there was Witchcraft in the case or no. The Accused Party was not in the least sensible of what was done, and therefore in danger of receiving the Punishment justly due for Witchcraft. Only it so happened, that Colonel Fenwick (that worthy Gentleman, who many years since lived in New England) was then the Military Governor in that Town. He sent for the Mayor and Magistrates, advising them to be careful and cautious in their Proceedings. For he told them, it might be an Enchanted Pin, which the Witch-finder made use of.