N00531:68
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.
That the Gift of healing the Sick and Possessed was a special Grace and Favour of God, for the Confirmation of the Truth of the Gospel, but that such a Gift should be annexed to the Touch of Wicked Witches, as an infallible sign of their Guilt, is not easy to be believed. It is a thing well known, that if a Person possessed by an Evil Spirit, is (as oft it so happens) never so outrageous whilst a good man is Praying with, and for the Afflicted, let him lay his hand on them, and the Evil Spirit is quiet. I hope this is no evidence of any Covenant, or voluntary Communion between the Good man that is Praying and the Evil Spirit. No more does the Case before us, Evince any such thing.
That the Gift of healing the Sick and Possessed was a special Grace and Favour of God, for the Confirmation of the Truth of the Gospel, but that such a Gift should be annexed to the Tonch of Wicked Witches, as an infallible sign of their Guilt, is not easy to be believed. It is a thing well known, that if a Person possessed by an Evil Spirit, is (as oft it so happens) never so outragious whilst a good man is Praying with, and for the Afflicted, let him lay his hand on them, and the Evil Spirit is quiet. I hope this is no evidence of any Covenant, or voluntary Communion between the Good man that is Praying and the Evil Spirit. No more does the Case before us, Evince any such thing.
4. There are that Question the Lawfulness of the Experiment. For it this healing power in the Witch is not a Divine but a Diabolical Gift, it may be dangerous to meddle too much with it. If the Witch may be ordered to Touch Afflicted Persons in order to their healing or recovery, out of a sick Fit, why may not the Diseased person be as well ordered to Touch the Witch for the same cause? And if to touch him, why not to scratch him and fetch Blood out of him, which is but an harder kind of Touch? But as for this Mr. Perkins doubts not to call it, a Practice of Witchcraft, It is not safe to meddle with any of the Devils Sacraments or Institutions. For My own part, I should be loath ⟨p. 47⟩to say to a man, that I knew or thought was a Witch, do you lock on such a Person, and see if you can Witch them into a Fit. And there is such an Afflicted Person do you take them by the Hand, and see if you can Witch them well again. If it is by virtue of some Contract with the Devil, that Witches have power to do such things it is hard to conceive how they can be bid to do them, without being too much concerned in that Hellish Covenant. I take it to be (as elsewhere