N00531:58
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.
Answer; It must be owned that by such ⟨p. 35⟩things as these Witchcrafts and Witches have been discovered more then once or twice. And that an ill Fame or other Circumstances attending the suspected Party, this may be a ground for Examination; but this alone does not afford sufficient matter for Conviction. As Spectres or Devils appearing in the Shapes of men that have been murdered, declaring that they were murdered by such persons and in such a Place, may give just Occasion to the Magistrate for Enquiry into the matter. One great Witch-Advocate (d)confesseth that by this means Murders have been brought to Light; yet that alone, if other Circumstances did not concur, would not by the Law of God take away the Life of any man. If my Reader pleaseth, he shall hear what old Mr. Bernard of Batcomb faith to a Case not unlike to this, and the former. His words are these. (e)The naming of the suspected in their Fits, and also where they have been, and what they have done here or there, as Mr. Throgmortons Children could do, and that often and ever found true, This is a great Presumption; yet is this but a Presumption, because this is only the Devils Testimony, who can lye and that more often than speak Truth. Christ would not allow his witness of him in a point ⟨p. 36⟩most true. Nor St. Paul in the due praises of him and Silas. His witness then […] be received as sufficient […] life. […] may accuse an Innocent, as I showed before in Mr. Edmunds giving over his practice to find Stolen Goods. And Satan we read would accuse Job to God Himself to be an Hypocrite, and to be ready to be a Blasphemer. And he is called the Accuser of the Brethren. Albeit I cannot deny but this has very often proved true, yet seeing the Devil is such an one as you heard, Christian men should not take his witness, to give in Verdict upon Oath, and so swear that the Devil has therein spoken the Truth. Be it far from good men to confirm any word of the Devil by Oath, if it be not an evident Truth without the Devils Testimony, who in speaking the truth has a lying Intent, and speaks some truths of things done, which may be found to be so, that he may wrap with them some pernicious Lye, which cannot be tried to be true, but must rest upon his own Testimony to ensnare the Blood of the Innocent. Thus Mr. Bernard resolved the Case above sixty years ago;