N00531:84
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.
2 The Devil is in it.All Superstition is from him.And when secret things, or •atent Crimes, are discovered by Superstitious practices, some Compact and Communion with the Devil is the Cause of it, as Austin (c)has truly intimated. And so it is here. For if a Witch cannot be drowned, this must proceed either from some natural cause, which it doth not, for it is against nature for humane Bodies, when hands and feet are tied, not to sink under the water Besides, they that plead for this superstition, say that if Witches happen to be Condemned for some other Crime and not for Witchcraft, they will not swim like a Cork above Water, which showeth that the cause of this Natation is not Physical. And if not, then either it must proceed from a Divine Miracle to save a Witch from Drowning; or lastly, it must be a Diabolical Wonder. This superstitious Experiment is commonly known by the Name of, The Vulgar Probation, because it was never appointed by any lawful Authority, but from the Suggestion of the Devil taken up by the rude Rabble. And some (d)learned men are of Opinion, that the first Explorator (being a White Witch) did Explicitly covenant with the Devil, that he should discover •atent Crimes in this way: And that it is by virtue of that first Contract that the Devil goeth to work to keep his servants from sinking, when this Ceremony of his ordaining is used. Moreover, we know that Di•bolus est Dei Simia, the Devil seeks to ⟨p. 55⟩imitate Divine Miracles. We read in Ecclesiastical Story, that some of the Martyrs when they were by Persecutors ordered to be drowned, proved to be immersible. This Miracle would the Devil imitate in causing Witches, who are his Martyrs not to sink when they are cast into the Waters.
2 The Devil is in it.All Superstition is from him.And when secret things, or •atent Crimes, are discovered by Superstitious practices, some Compact and Communion with the Devil is the Cause of it, as Austin (c)