N00531:61
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.
And whereas some say that the Persons in Question are only bewitched and not possessed, let it be Considered that possessed persons are called Energumens from EPJOMAI Agitor. They whose Bodies are Preternaturally agitated, so as to be in danger of being thrown into the Fire or into the Water, though they may be bewitched, are undoubtedly possessed with Daemons. Mark 9. 22, 25. Learned men (a)give it as a most ⟨p. 41⟩certain sign of possession, when the Afflicted party can see and hear that which no one else can discern any thing of, and when they can discover (†)secret things. Acts 16. 16. past, or future, (b)as a possessed person in Germany foretold the War which broke out in the year 1546. And when the Limbs of miserable Creatures are bent and dis•••ted so as could not possible be without a Luxation of Joints, were it not done by a preternatural hand, and yet no hurt, caused thereby, that argueth Possession. Also, when persons are by the Devil cast into Fits, in the which they speak of things, that afterwards they have no remembrance of (c)or, if they are by cruel Devils tortured, so as to cause horrendous Clamours in the Distressed Sufferers, that's another sign of Obsession by evil Spirits. If all these things concur in the persons concerning where the Question is, we may conclude them to be Demoniacs. And if so, no Juror can with a safe Conscience look on the Testimony of such, as sufficient to take away the Life of any man.
And whereas some say that the Persons in Question are only bewitched and not possessed, let it be Considered that possessed persons are called Energumens from EPJOMAI Agitor. They whose Bodys are Preternaturally agitated, so as to be in danger of being thrown into the Fire or into the Water, though they may be bewitched, are undoubtedly possessed with Doemons.