N00531:54
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.
It is an awful thing which the Lord has done to convince some amongst us of their error. This then I Declare and Testify, that to take away the life of any one, merely because a Spectre or Devil, in a Bewitched or Possessed person does accuse them, will bring the Guilt of Innocent Blood on the Land, where such a thing shall be done. Mercy forbid that it should, (and I trust that as it has not, it never will be so) in New-England. What does such an Evidence amount unto more then this. Either such an one did afflict such an one, or the Devil in his likeness, or his Eyes were bewitched.
It is an awful thing which the Lord has done to convince some amongst us of their error. This then I Declare and Testify, that to take away the life of any one, meerly because a Spectre or Devil, in a Bewitched or Possessed person does accuse them, will bring the Guilt of Innocent Blood on the Land, where such a thing shall be done. Mercy forbid that it should, (and I trust that as it has not, it never will be so) in New-England. What does such an Evidence amount unto more then this. Either such an one did afflict such an one, or the Devil in his likeness, or his Eyes were bewitched.
The things which have been mentioned make way for, and bring us unto the Second Case, which is to come under our Consideration,
Viz.