N00531:85
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.
3. This way of Purgation is of the same nature with the old Ordeals of the Pagans If men were accused with any crime, to clear their innocency they were to take an hot Iron into their hands, or to suffer sc•lding water to be poured down their throats, & if they received no hurt thereby they were acquitted. This was the Devils invention, and many times (as the Devil Would have it) they that submitted to these Trials, suffered no Inconvenience. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to think what innocent Blood has been shed in the World by means of this Satanical Device. Witches have often (as (e)Sprenger observes) desired that they might stand or fall by this Trial by hot Iron, and sometimes come off well. Indeed, this Ordeal was used in other Cases and not in Cases of Witchcraft only. And so was the Vulgar Probation by casting into the Water practiced upon persons accused (f)with other Crimes as well as that of Witchcraft. How it came to be restrained to that of Witchcraft, I cannot tell. It is as Supernatural for a Body whose hands and feet are tied to Swim above the Water, as it is for their hands not to feel a red hot Iron. If the one of these Ordeals is lawful ⟨p. 56⟩to be used, then so is the other too. But as for the fiery Ordeal it is rejected and exploded out of the World; for the same reason then the Trial by Water should be so.
3. This way of Purgation is of the same nature with the old Ordeals of the Pagans If men were accused with any crime, to clear their innocency they were to take an hot Iron into their hands, or to suffer sc•lding water to be poured down their throats, & if they received no hurt thereby they were acquitted. This was the Devils invention, and many times (as the Devil Would have it) they that submitted to these Trials, suffered no Inconvenience. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to think what innocent Blood has been shed in the World by means of this Satanical Device. Witches have often (as (e)Sprenger observes) desired that they might stand or fall by this Tryal by hot Iron, and sometimes come off well. Indeed, this Ordeal was used in other Cases and not in Cases of Witchcraft only. And so was the Vulgar Probation by casting into the Water practiced upon persons accused