had seen two of the one of which he saith This person he saith having formerly known me did one day meet me when he was holden with this distemper but I truly fearing went aside and he looking at me a little went away There was with him a multitude of men and he did bear upon his shoulders a whole thigh and a leg of a dead man At last being cured he was well who afterwards when he met me again did ask me if I had not been afraid when he found me in such a place when he was mad by which it is manifest that in him the memory was not vitiated Another take from that able Physician of Delfe Petrus Forestus in English thus A certain Country-man was in the Spring-time seen at Alcmaria with an horrid look and mad to stay about the Church-yard and after to enter the Church and did leap upon a Seat or Plank as we have seen him only climbing upwards and another while downwards with great fury and never resting in one place He carried a long staff in his hand but did strike no body but did with it beat off the Dogs for he had his thighs and legs black and ulcered with black crusts or scurff by the biting of Dogs His whole body did appear squalid very black and melancholick but pale in the face and his eyes exceeding hollow From the foresaid signs he saith I did judge the man affected with the Lycanthropia or wolfish Melancholy He never used any Physician that I know of And this both this Author Schenckius and Sennertus do sufficiently confirm from Paulus Aetius Avicen and the like From all which it is clear and manifest that Nebuchadnezzars distemper was but as some kind of Melancholy whereby the imagination was corrupted and the use of reason and right understanding for the time taken quite away as saith the Text Let his heart be changed from mans and let a beasts heart be given unto him That is let his thoughts desires and affections be made brutish for by the heart in Scriptures the cogitations will and affections are understood as my son give me thy heart that is the love and affections of thy soul and heart So that when it is said Let a beasts heart be given him that is let his mind thoughts and affections be made bestial and so there was a change of the conditions and qualities of his mind and heart but no real or essential change of his natural heart at all And in this sense Tremellius doth take it saying Obbrutescat nihil humanum sapiat and so doth Polanus Rollock and others understand it for Polanus saith Debuisse animum ejus prorsus obbrutescere mentem judiciúmque animi humani amittere non enim intelligendum hoc de metamorphosi aliqua in corpore facta sed de animo tantùm obbrutescente So that from these examples it appeareth that many persons by reason of Melancholy in its several kinds have been mentally and internally as they thought being depraved in their imaginations changed into Wolves and other kind of Creatures and have acted their parts as though they had been really so when the change was only in the qualities and conditions of the mind and not otherwise And so only was the change of Nebuchadnezzar which notwithstanding Bodinus the Popish Writers and Witchmongers have falsely and ignorantly taken it to be a real transubstantiation when it was only mental so apt are men to mistake and urge things amiss when it lyes for their own gain or interest But if these persons that thought themselves really changed into Wolves had been covered with a Wolfes skin sitted to their bodies and gone upon all four and so have acted the parts of Wolves then it might in all likehihood have more strongly induced them to have believed a real transmutation indeed though that way neither had there been any change of substance but only a counterfeit and cunning disguisement of which we shall here insert for diversion sake a pleasant story from the Pen of Vincent le Blanc of Marseilles and leave it to be judged of according to the credit of the Author which runs thus As concerning the Anthropolychi I have not heard he saith of any thing so strange as that the Governor of Bagaris related once to me He told me that going with some of his Company from Lionac to Montpelier they overtook an old man with a Sack on his shoulders going a great pace towards the same Town a Gentleman of the Company out of charity told him if he would one of his Servants to ease him should carry his burden for him at first he seemed unwilling to be troublesom but at length accepted the offer and a Servant of the Commanders Chamber called Nicholas took the burden and being late every one doubled his pace that they might get in in good time telling the good old man they would go before and he should find them at the White Horse The Servant of the Chamber coming in with the first had a curiosity to see what was in the Sack where he found a Wolfes skin so properly accommodated for the purpose that he had a strong fancy to disguise himself in it whereupon he got it upon his back and put his head within the Head-piece of the Skin as 't were to shew his Masters a Masquerade but immediately a fury seized him that in the Hall where they supped he made straight to the Company at Table and falling on them with teeth and nails made a dangerous rude havock and hurt two or three of them so as the Servants and others fled to their Swords and so plyed the Wolf with wounds that they laid him on the ground and hurt in several places But as they looked upon him they were amazed when they saw under the Skin a poor Youth wallowing in blood They were fain to lay him presently on a Bed taking order for his wounds and hurts whereof he was recovered and was long before he could be cured But this cured him of the like curiosity against another time The Company by this means had but a bad seasoned Supper and many of them were sick either of hurt or apprehension For the old man Wolf 't was not known what became of him but 't is probable that hearing of this tidy accident he was cautious to appear Now if this relation be true as there is nothing in it that seems either impossible or improbable but that it might then from it we may observe these two things 1. To consider for what end the skin of the Wolf was so fitted and prepared which might be to act some part of a Tragedy or Comedy in or in sport to fright some persons withal but then it is not likely but that the old man would have appeared and sought for it again which he might have done without fear or danger But I rather conjecture it was for some more pernicious purpose as in
explained That many of the Ephesians being of those who had exercised curious Arts had brought their Books and burned them openly c. She forthwith he saith came unto me with a mind plainly troubled and with tears pouring forth into my bosom the secrets of her breast did receive Christian instruction and when she had understood by the blessing of God the vanity of Diabolical Impostures and perceived them with opened eyes she was easily converted to the light of truth the smoak of lyes being laid aside She truth being once received hath most constantly confessed that it did appear to her more clear than the light at noon day that Satan did only deceive and blind the eyes of his Vassals and that there was nothing done in verity and this she declared with a detestation of her Diabolical Art And so concludes it in these words Uno verbo dicam me satis experientiâ didicisse bonam partem incantationum mera esse insomnia And whosoever shall read and seriously consider the Epistle of that excellent and learned Divine will find the most of those vain illusions laid open and confuted so that in all or the most of the things attributed unto Witches we shall find no more of Diabolical operation in them than an internal mental and spiritual delusion in making the Witches to believe and to draw on others to the same opinion that the Devil hath a kind of omnipotent Power and Soveraignty Therefore did Aristotle well conclude Incantamenta esse muliercularum figmenta 4. A fourth Reason of the meer falsity and incredibility of these Confessions is this Is it possibly credible to a rational and unbiassed judgment that the Witches though never so many at several times and places having made themselves the Slaves and Vassals of the Devil both in soul and body and being led by his lying and deceitful Spirit though making large and voluntary confessions can be conceived to have any touch of truth in them at all Surely no more truth in these confessions than there is in the Devil who was a Lyar from the beginning and therefore we argue thus Such kind of will affections and inclinations as are in the Devil himself such kind are in his Children But the will and affections of the Devil are against God his Truth and against all Gods people and his inclinations tend to continual lying Therefore the will affections and inclinations of his Children such as the Witches are and are granted to be are against God his Truth and against all Gods people and their inclinations tend to continual lying The proof of the major and minor Proposition is the plain words of our Saviour Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father the devil ye will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he was a murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it And again St. John tells us He that committeth sin is of the devil for the devil sinneth from the beginning So that it may truly be said of them They delight in lyes and their confessions are nothing but lyes And if they object and say that here we confess a League with the Devil and the Witch otherwise the Witches could not be his Children Vassals and Bond-slaves which elsewhere we deny we answer it is a gross mistake in not observing the distinction we make betwixt a mental and spiritual League such as the Devil and Judas made and such as all wicked men make with him and under this League we acknowledge all Witches to be but a visible and corporeal League we positively deny and so the objection is of no validity And thus we suppose we have sufficiently proved that there ought no credit at all to be given to the Confessions of Witches no more than to Devils who are all lyars Now let us proceed to their third main Objection That so many wise and grave Judges and honest Juries could not have been deceived to put to death such great numbers of those kind of people without sufficient proof of the matters of fact Against which we oppose these following Reasons 1. It is but an Argument at the best to drive the other Party into an absurdity which is not of any such dangerous consequence as may be supposed for it would but conclude that many grave and wise Judges and Juries have been imposed upon and deceived which is but argumentum ad homines and doubtless many might and have been And do not we Christians hold that the gravest and wisest Judges amongst the Turks and Persians have been and are deceived and have done unjustly in persecuting and putting Christians to death because they would not submit to the Religion of Mahomet and yet we account it no absurdity or injustice to pass that censure upon them And do not the Idolaters in all those large Empires and Kingdoms of Tartary China the Moguls Country and the rest of those Countries in the East of Asia persecute and put many to death for not worshipping their Idols or embracing their Religion and do we think it absurd to censure and condemn them of injustice though in their own Countries they be accounted grave and wise Judges Surely we do not and there is the parity of reason in both the Arguments for all are but men and so may erre 2. But as for the grave learned and wise Judges and understanding and honest Juries within His Majesties Dominions we affirm they are clear and innocent from these imputations and that for divers and sundry sound reasons 1. Our Judges and Juries have no such sinister and corrupt ends to wrest the Laws or wring forth and extort feigned and false Confessions because they have no such ends as to uphold and maintain idolatrous and superstitious Tenents as praying to Saints magnifying of Holy-water or setting up of Purgatory as had the Popish Inquisitors and the Demonographers and Witchmongers that writ for those ends And therefore it is no absurdity to say or think that they dealt unjustly in their proceedings which our learned and pious Judges are not nor can be guilty of 2. The Inquisitors and their Agents had benefit by the death of Witches having a share in their Goods and therefore no absurdity to conclude that their proceedings were unjust partial and corrupt of which our Judges and Juries are clear as having no profit at all by the death of these wretched and deluded people 3. Our Judges are but sworn to the due execution of the Laws made and the Juries sworn to bring in their Verdicts according to their best evidence now if the Witnesses forth of malice envy ignorance or mistake swear to matters of fact for which death or other punishments are allotted by the Law both the Judges and the Jury are absolutely excusable and if there be any
the contrary and therefore it could not be either the true Samuel nor his Soul 8. It is manifest that the Lord had before withdrawn his good Spirit from Saul and an evil one from the Lord was come upon him and therefore it was no way probable that the Lord would in a miraculous manner answer such a wicked person whom he had utterly rejected as a reprobate Neither is it like that God would shew him an extraordinary favour by a dead Prophet that would not vouchsafe him his Spirit in an ordinary way And Samuel that came not at him for a long time though but a little distance asunder while he lived was not like to make so long a journey in a Divine errand to visit him after his death 9. And if Abraham at the request of the rich Man would not send Lazarus to warn his brethren lest they should come into that place of torment which bore with it a fair shew both of Charity and Piety much less would God give way or Samuel be desirous to come to send a blessed Soul from its rest for such a frivolous matter and in no wise to connive at the wickedness of both Saul and the Witch and never move either of them to the amendment of their lives 10. Where doth Mr. Glanvil find it mentioned in any part of Scripture or where is it recorded in the writings of any reformed or Orthodoxal Divines or where in any of their works is it declared that ever any blessed Soul after death was either sent or did come upon a Divine errand to any here below Is it not monstrous confidence not to say impudence to utter such groundless assertions without any proof reason or authority at all Let all learned and judicious persons consider and judge 3. That the Devil assumed the shape of Samuel and acted the whole business is the opinion of all or the most of the learned Divines of the reformed Churches of whom we shall crave pardon if we dissent from them it being no fundamental of Religion nor any Article of the Faith And this we profess is not done out of the spirit of contradiction nor for singularity but only because as we conceive the Tenent hath no sufficient grounds neither from Scripture nor sound reason to support it and therefore we shall labour its confutation by these ensuing arguments 1. Because this opinion that the Devil should perform this apparition doth beg two suppositions never yet sufficiently proved and that have in them no certain truth For first they take for an Hypothesis that Devils are meerly and simply incorporeal Spirits which we shall prove hereafter to be false Secondly they take for another Hypothesis that Spirits and Devils can assume what bodies they please and appear in any figure or shape which is a meer figment invented by the doating Schoolmen as we shall sufficiently make good hereafter 2. We are not of their opinion that think that the Devils do move and rove up and down in this elementary world at their pleasure to act what they list and appear when how and in what shapes they please for then the World would be full of nothing almost but apparitions and every corner replenished with their ludicrous tricks as formerly in the times of blind Popery and ignorance there was no discourse almost but of Fairies Hobgoblins apparitions Spirits Devils and Souls ranting in every house and playing feats in every Town and Village when it was nothing but the superstitious credulity and ignorant fancies of the people joined with the Impostures of the Priests and Monks And if this were true then how should Men know a true natural substance or body from these fictitious apparitions Nay how could a Man have known his Father or Mother his Brethren or Sisters his Kinsmen or Neighbours might they not as well have believed them to be Phantasms and assumed bodies as real and true creatures 3. But though faln Angels in respect of their malice wicked wills and envious desires whereby they seek as much as in them lies the ruine of all mankind both in Soul and Body may in that particular end and regard be said to be like roaring Lions going about and seeking whom they may devour and compassing the earth and walking to and fro in it yet we must affirm that in respect of executing their wicked envious and malicious wills and desires they are restrained nay kept in the chains of everlasting darkness from which fetters and chains they go not out but when and so far as they are sent ordered licensed or as some would have it worded permitted by the purpose and decree of the Divine and Almighties providence So that it is most certain that the faln Spirits cannot go forth of their chains when they list to act what mischief they would contrary to the will of the Almighty who hath fettered and still keeps them in those chains but when they are at any time let loose it is only by the will decree licence and order of Jehovah who sends them forth to accomplish his will either for punishment to the wicked to inflict upon them his just judgments for which they are the appointed ministers and executioners and in the performance of these offices of his wrath they are limited and bounded how far they shall proceed and no further or else they are sent forth to tempt or afflict the godly for the trial of their faith and herein they are so restrained and bounded by the power of the Almighty as they cannot act one jot beyond the limit of his commands or Commissions as is manifest in the case of David who was tempted by Satan to number the people and in the affliction of Job wherein he was bounded how far he should act and no further And when the evil Angels are thus sent forth and limited by God what and how far they shall act it is always for just and righteous ends as in the case of Ahab when a lying Spirit was sent by God into the mouths of his Prophets that he might be persuaded to go up to Ramath Gilead that he might be slain there or as it was for a judgment and destruction upon Sennacheribs Army that Jerusalem might be saved and freed and he sent back with shame and confusion into his own countrey or it is to manifest his glory goodness and mercy to his Saints so David was moved to number the people that falling under that temptation and he and the people therefore plagued might be brought to a greater degree of repentance and to know that their defence stood not in the multitude of men but in the benignity of Jehovah who was their strength and their defender and so Job was so sore afflicted that his Faith and Patience might be made manifest and remain for an example to all succeeding posterities But it is utterly irrational and incredible that God would send the Devil without whose mission he could not have done it to
appear in the shape of Samuel either to magnifie the skil or practice of a lewd wicked and Idolatrous Woman which thing he had forbidden by his plain and open law nor to gratifie the curiosity of a wretched Reprobate such as was Saul whom he had denied to answer by living Prophets and therefore would not answer him by the apparition of a Devil to have committed a counterfeit Imposture in the shape of holy Samuel And therefore we conclude that it was no apparition of the Devil but meerly the Imposture of the Woman either alone or with a Confederate There is also a fourth opinion concerning the transaction of this Woman of Endor that holds that it was neither the Body or Soul of Samuel that was raised up neither the Devil that appeared in his shape nor that it was the Imposture of the Witch alone or with a Confederate but that it was the Sydereal or Astral Spirit as they are pleased to term it of Samuel that was made to appear and speak by the art and skill of the Woman But because this Tenent is not of much Antiquity nor hath many assertors of it as also because it taketh that for an Hypothesis to wit that there are three parts in Man the Body Soul and Spirit and that the Soul goeth immediately after death either to Heaven or Hell the Body to the grave and that the Spirit doth for a certain time after death wander in the air and may be by a certain kind of art brought to appear visibly and to give answers of all things that it knew living which as yet hath never been sufficiently proved therefore we shall pass it over here having perhaps occasion to speak of it more largely hereafter We shall now come to mention some places in the New Testament that are produced by some thereby to prove the great power of Devils and Witches in transferring and carrying bodies in the air as is that of our Saviours temptation where it is said that the Devil took him into an exceeding high Mountain and that he set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem from whence they thus argue That if the Devil had power to carry our most blessed Saviour in the air into an high mountain and to set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple that much more hath he power to carry the bodies of Witches who are his sworn vassals in the air whither he pleaseth or they desire To annul the force of which objection we give these reasons 1. If it were granted that the Devil did transport our Saviour in the air yet it will not follow that he can at any time when he pleaseth carry the Bodies of Men or Women so likewise for no particular proposition will according to the rules of art infer a general or universal conclusion nor one example or instance inductively prove a general practice one Swallow doth not make a Summer For though once when our blessed Saviour was baptized the Holy Ghost did descend like a Dove and light upon him it will not follow that in all other of his actions of preaching or working of miracles the holy Spirit should appear also in the form of a Dove nor when otheâ— Saints are Baptized will it follow that it doth or should alwaies appear in the same form And though Samson did once slay a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Aâ—s it doth not follow that either he did so in like manner in every battel or that every Man may do the like 2. If it were granted that the Devil did carry Christs Body in the air it will not follow that he can do so at any other times when he pleaseth because in the temptation of Christ there was an extraordinary dispensation of God for the same which cannot be presupposed in the ordinary transportation of Witches and therefore the argument falls quite to the ground 3. In the actions of Satan especially in elementary things for we speak not of the acts of his will the will order and licence of God is chiefly to be considered because his power in respect of execution is under the power of the Almighty so that he can do nothing in this respect but what he is ordered and commanded to do And therefore the end of the action is principally to be regarded for if God should have given way that Christ should be carried by Satan in the air it was for a glorious and good end that the obedience of his will to the Father might be shown and that his victory over the Devil might be made manifest but in carrying the Bodies of Witches in the air there can be no good just or pious end wherefore the Devil should be licensed or permitted to carry them in the air except it were to promote filthiness and abominable wickedness which were absurd and blasphemous to imagine And therefore we may rationally and plainly conclude that the carrying of the Bodies of Witches in the air by the power of the Devil is a false wicked and impious opinion 4. Some are of opinion that this whole transaction was visible sensible and corporeal as Theophylact and many others Some are of opinion that it was wholly in a Vision And some take a middle way that it was partly sensible and visible and partly mental and by way of vision Of which opinion the great Cameron seems to be who compares it with that of Ezekiel who saith And the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem And sheweth that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth agree with the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as applicable to lifting up or carrying in a vision as to bodily transportation And that it was either altogether or partly in a vision the learned Beza gives us this note Hoc videtur satis ostendere haec omnia per visionem quandam non corporali transvectione ostensione esse gesta quomodo nempe humanitus videre potuisset omnia regna orbis gloriam eorum in momento But though it be the more sound and rational opinion that the whole transaction was mental and in a vision yet we shall not altogether stand upon that but if it be granted that it was corporeal and visible yet it doth not appear that our Saviour was in his Body carried by the power of the Devil in the air either to the top of an high mountain nor set upon the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and that for these reasons 1. Our Saviour did not go to undertake this combat with Satan unwillingly that he need be constrained or carried to try the utmost power and malice of the Devil but readily and willingly by the conduct and leading of the holy Spirit for the Text saith in Matthew Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil
that Antichrist is nothing else but Gods Executioner by whom he punisheth those by his just judgment who have not received the love of the truth but have contemned the Gospel which is so far forth true that if there had not been and now were a contempt of the truth then altogether Antichrist had not been that is the Executioner had not been whom God sendeth to execute his just judgment upon those that despise the truth of his Gospel So that it is manifest that God doth make a just and good use of the very malice and lying nature of Devils in punishing those that did not receive the love of the truth but deceiving them by strong delusions that they might believe a lie and this he doth as sent and commanded of God and so cannot go one jot further than his Commission or as far as he is limited by God 2. We may observe that how great soever these signs and wonders be yet they are but lying ones both in regard of the end for which they are done and in respect of their substance And therefore how great soever the signs and wonders be that evil Angels do perform yet they are totally different from true miracles those being alwayes wrought for the confirming of the true Doctrine and Worship of God but these have their end only to establish false doctrine lies and erroneous opinions or Idolatrous Worships So they differ in their substance for those miracles that God sheweth for the confirmation of his truth are alwayes true and real being against and above the whole power and course of nature but those wonders wrought by Satan are but delusions cheats juglings and impostures which though they may seem strange to those that are ignorant of their causes yet do but all arise from natural causes or from artificial cunning confederacy and the like And therefore we may conclude that what miracles soever are wrought by a Divine Power tend to the overthrow of Satans power in the world but all false miracles are wrought to uphold the power of Satans Kingdom in the world and following delusions lies and false doctrines 3. Therefore what signs and wonders soever Satan doth work they are no real and true miracles for as Dr. Stillingfleet saith God alone can really alter the course of nature I speak not he saith of such things which are apt to raise admiration in us because of our unacquaintedness with the causes of them or manner of their production which are thence called Wonders much less of meer juggles and impostures whereby the eyes of Men are deceived but I speak of such things as are in themselves either contrary to or above the course of nature i. e. that order which is established in the universe And this cannot be altered by any diabolical power but only by that which is Divine and Omnipotent which never doth it but for considerable ends and important causes as may be manifest from these unshaken grounds 1. That Devils can work no true miracles is manifest from the definition of a miracle which is this Verum miraculum est opus quod fit praeter contra naturam secundas causas cujus nulla Physica ratio potest reddi But Satan cannot alter or change the order and course of nature Therefore Satan cannot work or effect a true miracle The proposition may be illustrated by an induction made of many great miracles of which there is mention made in the Old and New Testament all which are of that sort that are repugnant to the order and course of nature and of which no natural or physical reason can be rendered and given Such were the taking of Enoch and Elias into Heaven the conserving of Noah and his Family in the Ark the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel the fecundity of Sarah being old and barren the passage of the children of Israel over the red Sea and over Jordan the standing still of the Sun in the battel of Joshuah its going back in the dial of Ahaz its eclipse at our Saviours suffering the preservation of Daniel in the Den of the Lions and of the three companions of Daniel in the fiery furnace the preserving Jonas in the belly of the Whale the raising up of the dead and the curing of the Man born blind and all the rest of those most true and wonderful miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles 2. The assumption of the Syllogism is thus proved It is the part of the same power to change the order of nature and to create things that were not existent and so the mutation of the order of nature is a certain kind of new creation But Satan hath not power by which he can create things that as yet had no existence as all persons of reason must needs confess From whence it must follow that Satan hath not power to change the order of nature and consequently that he cannot work true and real miracles 3. The working of true miracles is only a proper attribute of God and incommunicable to any creaturely power for the Text saith Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things And again thou art the God that dost wonders And these two things the changing of the order of nature and creation S. Paul attributeth to God as only proper to him God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things that be not as though they were Upon which Beza gives this note Eo qui vitae restituit Apud quem jam sint quae alioqui reipsa non sunt ut qui vel uno verbo quidvis possit ex nihilo efficere But if it be objected that though Satan and his Angels of themselves and by their own proper power do not work true miracles yet may not God work real miracles by them as he did by the Prophets Apostles and his Ministers It is answered That the wonders which are wrought by Satan do tend to that end that they might confirm lies against God and his glory But God doth not accommodate his power to confirm lies contrary to his glory and against himself Therefore Satan by the power of God as his Minister doth not work true miracles for God doth use the faln Angels as executioners of his wrath and judgments for the afflicting and punishing of men but when God worketh any thing for the good of mankind either in Soul or Body he doth not use Devils as his Ministers but the good and blessed Angels who are ministring spirits sent forth for the good of those that shall be heirs of Salvation And if it be queried what things and of what sort and kind are those wonders that are wrought by Satan and Antichrist I answer that either they are indeed nothing but prestigious juglings and illusions or if they be any thing they are not brought to pass contrary to the order of nature and second causes although they may seem so
wrist do appease the Hemicrany and swimming of the head which comes again if they be laid away as he saith the most illustrious Nobleman Cassianus à Puteo most worthy of Roman Purple hath told me The same Noble Puteus he saith hath shewed me the picture of a Meirmaid in his Closet which not many years before was driven to the shore of Malta A certain Spaniard he saith told me that Meirmaids were seen in India having the Genital members of Women like those of humane kind so that the Fishers do bind themselves with an Oath to the Magistrate that they have no copulation with them Bernardinus Ginnarus lib. 1. c. 9. de Indico itinere edit Neap. 1641. doth relate that Meirmaids are seen in the vast River Cuama near the head of Good hope which in the middle superior part are like to the form of men that is with round head but immediately joyned to the breast without a neck with ears altogether like ours and so their eyes lips and teeth And that their dugs being pressed do send forth most white milk Therefore he concludeth There is he saith so great difference of the form of Meirmaids with the Ancients and Moderns that it is no wonder that some do account them figments We have he saith the hands to be seen with eyes and we shew the Meirmaids to be such as in truth they are seen to be Neither do the hands and ribs deceive whose Pictures we have given framed according to the truth of nature 5. But besides these there are other Fishes or Sea-monsters that in all parts resembled Men and Women as these examples make manifest Alexander ab Alexandro a person of great learning and experience relateth That in Epirus a Triton or Sea-Man was found who forth of the Sea did ravish Women being alone upon the shore But being taken by cunning he did resemble a Man with all his members but did refuse meat being offered so that he died with hunger and wasting as being in a strange element 6. Also Ludovicus Vives doth tell us this story In our age he saith with the Hollanders a Sea-Man was seen of many who also was kept there above two years he was mute and then begun to speak But being twice smitten with the Plague he is let loose to the Sea rejoicing and leaping 7. In the year of our Lord 1403. there was taken a Sea-woman in a lake of Holland thrown thither forth of the Sea and was carried into the City of Haerlem she suffered her self to have garments put upon her and admitted the use of bread milk and such like things Also she learned to spin and to do many other things after the manner of Women also she did devoutly bend her knees to the image of Christ crucified being docible to all things which she was commanded by her Master but living there many years she alwayes remained mute 8. To these we shall conclusively add one story of sufficient credit from our own English Annals which is this In the year 1187. being the 33th year of the Reign of Henry the second near unto Oreford in Suffolk certain Fishers of the Sea took in their nets a fish having the shape of a man in all points which fish was kept by Bartholomew de Glanvile Custos of the Castle of Oreford in the same Castle by the space of six months and more for a wonder he spake not a word All manner of meats hâ— did gladly eat but most greedily raw fish after he had crushed out all the moisture Oftentimes he was brought to the Church where he shewed no tokens of adoration At length when he was not well looked to he stole away to the Sea and never after appeared The learned Antiquary Mr. Camden tells this same story from Radulphus Coggeshall an ancient writer and that Capillos habebat barbam prolixam pineatam circa pectus nimium pilosus erat hispidus and concludeth Quicquid nascatur in parte naturae ulla in mari esse non omninò commentitium est By all which examples we may be rationally satisfied that though these creatures have a real existence in nature yet because of their strange natures shapes and properties or by reason of their being rarely seen they have been and often are not only by the common people but even by the learned taken to be Devils Spirits or the effects of Inchantment and Witchcraft And therefore men that would judge aright must take heed that they be not deceived and imposed upon by relations of this nature and also of all such things as may be acted by Imposture and confederacy and those other Physical things that are brought to pass by natural causes divers sorts of which are recited by Ludovicus Lavaterus very largely to which I recommend those that desire further satisfaction in those particulars CHAP. XVI Of Apparitions in general and of some unquestionable stories that seem to prove some such things Of those apparitions pretended to be made in Beryls and Crystals and of the Astral or Sydereal Spirit IN this Treatise we have before sufficiently proved that the denying of the existence of such a Witch as doth make a visible contract with the Devil or upon whose body he sucketh or that hath carnal copulation with a Demon and that is transubstantiated into a Cat or a Dog or that flyeth in the air doth not inferr the denial of Spirits either good or bad nor utterly overthrow the truth of apparitions or of such things as seem to manifest some supernatural operations And therefore here we shall fully handle the question of Apparitions and things that seem to be of that nature and that in this order 1. We shall not meddle with Apparitions in the large extent of the word for so it may comprehend the appearing of new Stars Comets Meteors and other Portents and Prodigies which though unusual and wonderous have yet their production from natural causes But only here we shall treat of such apparitions as are taken to be performed by supernatural creatures or in such a way and by such creatures as we commonly account to be different from if not above the power of ordinary and visible nature as of Angels good or bad the Souls of men departed or their Astral Spirits or of some oâ—her creatures that are or may be of a middle nature 2. As for the apparitions of good Angels sent by God in times past both in sleep and otherwise the Scriptures do give us most full and ample assurance as these few instances may undeniably demonstrate 1. That an Angel of the Lord that is a good Angel did appear visibly unto Manoah and his wife and did vocally and audibly talk and discourse with them both and did after in both their sights openly and visibly ascend in the flame that did arise from the altar Now a more plain and indubitable apparition visibly seen and audibly heard than this
Dunghill in a Cow-house and upon declaring his dream search being made by the Constable the dead body was found as he had dreamed and thereupon the Wife was apprehended and upon examination confessing the fact was burned But we shall give it more at large as it was taken from the mouths of Thomas Haworths Wife her Husband being the dreamer and discoverer and from his Son who together with many more who both remember and can affirm every particular thereof the Narrative was taken April the 17th 1663. and is this In the year abovesaid John Waters of Lower Darwen in the County of Lancaster Gardiner by reason of his calling was much absent from his Family In which his absence his Wife not without cause was suspected of incontinency with one Gyles Haworth of the same Town this Gyles Haworth and Waters Wife conspired and contrived the death of Waters in this manner They contracted with one Ribchester a poor man to kill this Waters As soon as Waters came home and went to bed Gyles Haworth and Waters Wife conducted the hired Executioner to the said Waters Who seeing him so innocently laid betwixt his two small Children in Bed repented of his enterprize and totally refused to kill him Gyles Haworth displeased with the faint-heartedness of Ribchester takes the Axe into his own hand and dashed out his brains The Murderers buried him in a Cow house Waters being long missing the Neighbourhood asked his Wife for him she denied that she knew where he was Thereupon publick search was made for him in all pits round about lest he should have casually fallen into any of them One Thomas Haworth of the said Town Yeoman was for many nights together much troubled with broken sleeps and dreams of the murder he revealed his dreams to his Wife but she laboured the concealment of them a long time This Thomas Haworth had occasion to pass by the House every day where the murder was done and did call and inquire for Waters as often as he went near the House One day he went into the House to ask for him and there was a Neighbour who said to Thomas Haworth It 's said that Waters lies under this stone pointing to the Hearth-stone to which Thomas Haworth replied And I have dreamed that he is under a stone not far distant The Constable of the said Town being accidentally in the said House his name Myles Aspinall urged Thomas Haworth to make known more at large what he had dreamed which he relateth thus I have quoth he many a time within this eight weeks for so long it was since the murder dreamed very restlesly that Waters was murdered and buried under a broad stone in the Cow-house I have told my troubled dreams to my Wife alone but she refuses to let me make it known But I am not able to conceal my dreams any longer my sleep departs from me I am pressed and troubled with fearful dreams which I cannot bear any longer and they increase upon me The Constable hearing this made search immediately upon it and found as he had dreamed the murdered body eight weeks buried under a flat stone in the Cow-house Ribchester and Gyles Haworth fled and never came again Anne Waters for so was Waters Wifes name being apprehended confessed the murder and was burned From whence we may observe this 1. That this is the full and punctual relation of this bloody and execrable murder from Haworths Wife who then was a very old Woman and the Son and differs not a jot from what Sir Richard Baker writes but only they say his brains were dashed out with an Axe and he saith he was strangled which is only a circumstance of the manner but in the matter they both agree that it was a certain truth that Waters was murdered and Sir Richard Bakers information might fail in that particular of the manner of it And if it be thought strange that the two little Children did know nothing of it it is certain that they were much too young and said that they were twins not above half a year old But the only matter that we have brought it for is the extraordinary way of its discovery by Thomas Haworths dreaming in which point both the relations closely agree and was the chief and only reason why Sir Richard Baker put it in his Chronicle And the same also more at large Stow hath recorded in his Chronicle Now what should the cause be that Thomas Haworth should be hindred of his sleep and have restless dreams and that his dream should hit so punctually of the place where he was buried more than any other person in the same Town certainly it cannot be referred to fortune and chance for they have no causality at all and are but only names that we impose upon certain effects and accidents Te facimus fortuna Deum coeloque locamus as said the Poet. Neither can it rationally be thought to be melancholy because that though it be a subtil humour and render those that are affected therewith very imaginative and thoughtful yet supposing Thomas Haworth to be of that temperament and disposition it might make him more deeply to think and meditate upon the rumour of Waters being awanting or upon suspicion of his murder but could not in dreams inform him to know precisely the place where he was buried And if some should imagine it to be the Soul of the murthered person Waters as doubtless a Papist would be ready to affirm yet is that opinion directly contrary to the Scriptures and sufficiently confuted by the reformed Divines And if it should be referred to the operation of the Astral or Sydereal spirit that is an opinion but imbraced by few and is hard to prove to be a certain verity of which we shall speak largely anon Neither can it by any sound reason be thought to be the Devil because it is manifest that God doth not use the ministry of evil Angels for any good end as for the discovery of murther and the bringing of the guilty persons to condign punishment but on the contrary he useth their service for to tempt seduce deceive punish and torment Therefore we conceive that it was brought to pass by the finger of God who either immediately by himself or by the ministry of a good Angel did represent those dreams to Thomas Haworth and revealed the precise place of Waters burial 3. About the year of our Lord 1623 or 24 one Fletcher of Rascal a Town in the North Riding of Yorkshire near unto the Forest of Gantress a Yeoman of good Estate did marry a young lusty Woman from Thornton Brigs who had been formerly kind with one Ralph Raynard who kept an Inn within half a mile from Rascall in the high road way betwixt York and Thuske his Sister living with him This Raynard continued in unlawful lust with the said Fletchers Wife who not content therewith conspired the death of Fletcher one Mark Dunn being made privy
and hired to assist in the murther Which Raynard and Dunn accomplished upon the May-day by drowning Fletcher as they came all three together from a Town called Huby and acquainting the wife with the deed she gave them a Sack therein to convey his body which they did and buried it in Raynards backside or Crost where an old Oak-root had been stubbed up and sowed Mustard-seed upon the place thereby to hide it So they continued their wicked course of lust and drunkenness and the neighbours did much wonder at Fletchers absence but his wife did excuse it and said that he was but gone aside for fear of some Writs being served upon him And so it continued until about the seventh day of July when Raynard going to Topcliffe Fair and setting up his Horse in the Stable the spirit of Fletcher in his usual shape and habit did appear unto him and said Oh Raph repent repent for my revenge is at hand and ever after until he was put in the Goal it seemed to stand before him whereby he became sad and restless And his own Sister over hearing his confession and relation of it to another person did through fear of losing her own life immediately reveal it to Sir William Sheffield who lived in Rascall and was a Justice of Peace Whereupon they were all three apprehended and sent to the Gaol at York where they were all three condemned and so executed accordingly near to the place where Raynard lived and where Fletcher was buried the two men being hung up in irons and the woman buried under the Gallows I have recited this story punctually as a thing that hath been very much fixed in my memory being then but young and as a certain truth I being with many more an ear-witness of their confessions and an eye-witness of their Executions and likewise saw Fletcher when he was taken up where they had buried him in his cloaths which were a green fustian doublet pinkt upon white gray breeches and his walking boots and brass spurrs without rowels Some will say there was no extrinsick apparition to Raynard at all but that all this did only arise from the guilt of his own conscience which represented the shape of Fletcher in his fancy But then why was it precisely done at that time and not at any others it being far from the place of the murder or the place where they had buried Fletcher and nothing there that might bring it to his remembrance more than at another time and if it had only arisen from within and appeared so in his fancy it had been more likely to have been moved when he was in or near his backside where the murthered body of Fletcher lay But certain it is that he affirmed that it was the shape and voice of Fletcher as assuredly to his eyes and ears as ever he had seen or heard him in his life And if it were granted that it was only intrinsick yet that will not exclude the Divine Power which doubtless at that time did labour to make him sensible of the cruel murther and to mind him of the revenge approaching And it could not be brought to pass either by the Devil or Fletchers Soul as we have proved before and therefore in reason we conclude that either it was wrought by the Divine Power to shew his detestation of murther or that it was the Astral or Sydereal Spirit of Fletcher seeking revenge for the murther of which more anon 4. About the year of our Lord 1632. as near as I can remember having lost my notes and the copy of the Letter to Serjeant Hutton but am sure that I do most perfectly remember the substance of the story near unto Chester in the street there lived one Walker a Yeoman-man of good Estate and a Widower who had a young Woman to his Kinswoman that kept his House who was by the Neighbours suspected to be with child and was towards the dark of the evening one night sent away with one Mark Sharp who was a Collier or one that digged coals under ground and one that had been born in Blakeburn Hundred in Lancashire and so she was not heard of a long time and no noise or little was made about it In the winter time after one James Graham or Grime for so in that Country they call them being a Miller and living about two miles from the place where Walker lived was one night alone very late in the Mill grinding Corn and as about twelve or one a clock at night he came down the stairs from having been putting Corn in the Hopper the Mill doors being shut there stood a Woman upon the midst of the floor with her hair about her head hanging down and all bloody with five large wounds in her head He being much affrighted and amazed begun to bless him and at last asked her who she was and what she wanted to which she said I am the Spirit of such a Woman who lived with Walker and being got with child by him he promised me to send me to a private place where I should be well lookt to until I was brought in bed and well again and then I should come again and keep his house And accordingly said the apparition I was one night late sent away with one Mark Sharp who upon a Moor naming a place that the Miller knew slew me with a pick such as men dig coals withal and gave me these five wounds and after threw my body into a coal-pit hard by and hid the pick under a bank and his shoos and stockings being bloody he endeavoured to wash but seeing the blood would not wash forth he hid them there And the apparition further told the Miller that he must be the Man to reveal it or else that she must still appear and haunt him The Miller returned home very sad and heavy but spoke not one word of what he had seen but eschewed as much as he could to stay in the Mill within night without company thinking thereby to escape the seeing again of that frightful apparition But notwithstanding one night when it begun to be dark the apparition met him again and seemed very fierce and cruel and threatned him that if he did not reveal the murder she would continually pursue and haunt him Yet for all this he still concealed it until S. Thomas Eve before Christmas when being soon after Sun-set walking in his Garden she appeared again and then so threatned and affrighted him that he faithfully promised to reveal it next morning In the morning he went to a Magistrate and made the whole matter known with all the circumstances and diligent search being made the body was found in a coal pit with five wounds in the head and the pick and shooes and stockings yet bloody in every circumstance as the apparition had related unto the Miller Whereupon Walker and Mark Sharp were both apprehended but would confess nothing At the Assizes following I think
it was at Durham they were arraigned found guilty condemned and executed but I could never hear that they confessed the fact There were some that reported that the apparition did appear to the Judge or the Foreman of the Jury who was alive in Chester in the street about ten years aâ—go as I have been credibly informed but of that I know no certainty There are many persons yet alive that can remember this strange murder and the discovery of it for it was and sometimes yet is as much discoursed of in the North Countrey as any thing that almost hath ever been heard of and the relation printed though now not to be gotten I relate this with the greater confidence though I may fail in some of the circumstances because I saw and read the Letter that was sent to Serjeant Hutton who then lived at Goldsbrugh in Yorkshire from the Judge before whom Walker and Mark Sharp were tried and by whom they were condemned and had a Copy of it until about the year 1658. when I had it and many other books and papers taken from me And this I confess to be one of the most convincing stories being of undoubted verity that ever I read heard or knew of and carrieth with it the most evident force to make the most incredulous spirit to be satisfied that there are really sometimes such things as apparitions And though it be not easy to assign the true and proper cause of such a strange effect yet must we not measure all things to be or not to be to be true or false according to the extent of our understandings for if there be many of the magnalia naturae that yet lie hidden from the wisest of men then much more may the magnalia Dei be unknown unto us whose judgments are unsearchable and his wayes past finding out And as in the rest we cannot ascribe this strange apparition to any diabolical operation nor to the Soul of the Woman murthered so we must conclude that either it was meerly wrought by the Divine Power or by the Astral spirit of the murthered Woman which last doth seem most rational as we shall shew hereafter 5. To these though it be not altogether of the same nature we shall add one both for the oddness and strangeness of it as also because it happened in my time and I was both an eye and ear-witness of the trial of the person accused And first take a hint of it from the pen of Durant Hotham in his learned Epistle to the Mysterium magnum of Jacob Behemen upon Genesis in these words There was he saith as I have heard the story credibly reported in this Country a Man apprehended for suspicion of Witchcraft he was of that sort we call white Witches which are such as do cures beyond the ordinary reasons and deductions of our usual practitioners and are supposed and most part of them truly to do the same by the ministration of spirits from whence under their noble favours most Sciences at first grew and therefore are by good reason provided against by our Civil Laws as being ways full of danger and deceit and scarce ever otherwise obtained than by a devillish compact of the exchange of ones Soul to that assistant spirit for the honour of its Mountebankery What this man did was with a white powder which he said he received from the Fairies and that going to a Hill he knocked three times and the Hill opened and he had access to and converse with a visible people and offered that if any Gentleman present would either go himself in person or send his servant he would conduct them thither and shew them the place and persons from whom he had his skill To this I shall only add thus much that the man was accused for invoking and calling upon evil spirits and was a very simple and illiterate person to any mans judgment and had been formerly very poor but had gotten some pretty little meanes to maintain himself his Wife and diverse small children by his cures done with this white powder of which there were sufficient proofs and the Judge asking him how he came by the powder he told a story to this effect That one night before day was gone as he was going home from his labour being very sad and full of heavy thoughts not knowing how to get meat and drink for his Wife and Children he met a fair Woman in fine cloaths who asked him why he was so sad and he told her that it was by reason of his poverty to which she said that if he would follow her counsel she would help him to that which would serve to get him a good living to which he said he would consent with all his heart so it were not by unlawful ways she told him that it should not be by any such ways but by doing of good and curing of sick people and so warning him strictly to meet her there the next night at the same time she departed from him and he went home And the next night at the time appointed he duly waited and she according to promise came and told him that it was well that he came so duly otherwise he had missed of that benefit that she intended to do unto him and so bade him follow her and not be afraid Thereupon she led him to a little Hill and she knocked three times and the Hill opened and they went in and came to a fair hall wherein was a Queen sitting in great state and many people about her and the Gentlewoman that brought him presented him to the Queen and she said he was welcom and bid the Gentlewoman give him some of the white powder and teach him how to use it which she did and gave him a little wood box full of the white powder and bad him give 2 or 3 grains of it to any that were sick and it would heal them and so she brought him forth of the Hill and so they parted And being asked by the Judge whether the place within the Hill which he called a Hall were light or dark he said indifferent as it is with us in the twilight and being asked how he got more powder he said when he wanted he went to that Hill and knocked three times and said every time I am coming I am coming whereupon it opened and he going in was conducted by the aforesaid Woman to the Queen and so had more powder given him This was the plain and simple story however it may be judged of that he told before the Judge the whole Court and the Jury and there being no proof but what cures he had done to very many the Jury did acquit him and I remember the Judge said when all the evidence was heard that if he were to assign his punishment he should be whipped from thence to Fairyhall and did seem to judge it to be a delusion or an Imposture From whence we may take
these observations 1. Though Mr. Hotham seem to judge that this person accused had the white powder from some Spirit and that one also of the evil sort and upon a contract by the ingaging of his Soul we have before sufficiently proved the nullity of a visible and corporeal contract with the Devil neither was it yet ever proved that the Devil did any good either real or apparent but is the sworn enemy of all mankind both in their Souls and in their Bodies but this powder wrought that which was really good namely the curing of diseases and therefore rationally cannot be thought to be given from an evil spirit 2. Some there were that thought that the simple man told a plain and true story and that he had the powder from those people we call Fairies and there are many that do believe and affirm that there are such people of whom Paracelsus hath a Treatise of purpose holding that they are not of the seed of Adam and therefore he calls them non-Adamicks and that they have flesh and bones and so differ from spirits and yet that they can glide through walls and rocks which he calleth their Chaos as easily as we through the air and that they get children and are mortal like those that Hieronynus Cardanus relateth that appeared to his Father Facius Cardanus and these he calleth Pygmaei Silvestres Gnomi and Umbratiles but his proof of their existence to me doth not seem satisfactory what others may think of it I leave to their demonstrations if they have any 3. Some there were and those not of the meer ignorant sort that did judge that though the Man was simple yet that the story that he told was but framed and taught him the better to conceal the person from whom he received the white powder For they thought that some notable Chymist or rather an Adeptist had in charity bestowed that powder upon him for the relief of himself and family as we know it hath often happened to other persons at other times and places And this last opinion seems most consonant to reason and I the rather believe it because not many years after it was certainly known that there was an Adeptist in that Countrey and we ought not to fetch in supernatural causes to solve effects when natural causes may serve the turn 6. The last thing of this strange nature that we shall instance in is concerning the bleeding or cruentation of the bodies of those that have been murthered I mean of such as have been murthered by prepense malice and upon premeditated purpose for the bodies of others that are killed by chance-medley and by man-slaughter we do not read nor find any examples that ever their bodies did bleed And though we have not been ocular witness of any such bleeding yet are there records of such accidents given us by many learned and credible authors that a man might almost be accounted an Infidel not to give credit to them and that both of those that have bled when the murtherer hath not been present and also of those that have bled the murtherer being present And first of those bodies that have issued blood when the murtherer was not by Gregorius Horstius a Physician of great experience and learning and of no less integrity recordeth this story thus Englished In the year of our Lord 1604. the twenty sixth day of December a young Nobleman of twenty five years old was shot at with a Gun in the night time about nine a clock from an high window of an house in the Town of Blindmarck in lower Austria and the bullet entring his left breast went forth at his right side and so forthwith died in the place The dead body being viewed again and the wound considered the same quantity or bigness both of the entrance and out-going are found with great plenty of blood issuing The following day being the twenty seventh of December in the morning the body of the murthered young man hath other cloaths put upon it and so is kept quiet for the space of two days Furthermore upon the thirtieth of December he is laid upon the Bier and kept in the Church and that without any further motion where nevertheless from the upper wound the fresh blood did daily flow until the eighth of January 1605. from which time the Hemorrhage ceased But again the thirteenth of February about noon the flux of blood by the lower wound for an hour or two was observed to issue as though the slaughter had been newly done In the mean time the habit of the whole body was such as did most easily agree to what it was living the colour of his face remained even unto his burial ruddy and florid the vein appearing in his forehead filled with good blood no sign of an incipient putrefaction appearing for so many weeks no stink or ungrateful odour which otherwise doth accompany dead bodies within a few days was here found at all The fingers of the hands remained soft moveable or flexible without any wast the natural colour being not very much changed except that in process of time about the last week before burial they begun in a certain manner to wax livid in the extremities 7. This following he giveth to prove that as cold constringeth and shuteth up the veins so heat doth open them and cause the blood to flow and saith This is proved a few years since by experience in an infant slain by a most wicked Mother forthwith after it was born and thrown from the Tower of a Noble Baron of upper Austria into a ditch that was full with water which after five weeks by good fortune was found and taken out And forthwith he saith the Mother not present it being then not known who was the Mother when it felt the force of the external air it begun to distil forth very fresh blood because the pores which by reason of the cold were shut that the blood could not flow were then unlockt and opened by the heat of the ambient air And thus much of those that have bled the murtherers not being present 8. Next we shall give some examples of those that have bled when the murtherers have been brought into the presence of the body murthered or caused to touch it and this Franciscus Valeriola doth attest with an ample faith that he himself saw When he saith James of Aqueria a Senator of Arles was found dead of a wound that he that gave that wound was apprehended by the Magistrate and brought into the view of the dead body that he might acknowledge the person murthered and confess the fact by and by the bubling blood all the by standers looking on begun to come forth with much fervour and bubbles from the wound and the nostrils 9. Take this other as it is cited by Gothofredus Voigtius in this manner In the year 1607 the 25. of April a certain Shepherd in Spain
beginning to be stagnant to motion and ebullition and may exert so much force upon the organs as for some small time to move the whole body the hands or the lips and nostrils So that all that is to be done is but to prove that the person murthered is not absolutely dead and that the Soul is not totally separated or departed forth of the Body and this we shall do by undeniable proofs as are these that follow in this order 1. Though we generally take death to be a perfect separation of the Soul from the Body which is most certainly a great truth yet when this is certainly brought to pass is a most difficult point to ascertain because that when the Soul ceases to operate in the Body so as to be perceived by our Senses it will not follow that therefore the Soul is absolutely departed and separated 2. It is manifest that many persons through this mistake have in the times of the Plague been buried quick and so have some Women been dealt withal that lay but in fits of the suffocation of the Womb and yet were taken to be dead So that from the judgment of our Senses no certain conclusion can be made that the Soul is totally departed because it goeth away invisibly for many that not only to the judgment of the vulgar but even in the opinion of learned Physicians have been accounted dead yet have revived as learned Schenckius hath furnished us with this story from Georgius Pictorius that a certain Woman lay in a fit of the Strangulation of the Womb for six continual days without sense or motion the arteries being grown hard ready to be buried and yet revived again and from Paraeus of some that have lain three days in Hysterical suffocations and yet have recovered and of divers others that may be seen in the place quoted in the Margent 3. So that though the organs of the Body may by divers means either natural or violent be rendered so unfit that the Soul cannot perform its accustomed functions in them or by them so as they may be perceptible to our senses or judgments yet will not that at all conclude that the Soul is separated and departed quite from the Body much less can we be able to define or set down the precise time of the Souls aboad in the Body nor the ultimate period when it must depart for the union may be and doubtless is more strong in some than in others and the Lamp of life far sooner and more easily to be quenched in some than in others And the Soul may have a far greater amorosity to stay in some Body that is lively sweet and young than in others that are already decaying and beginning to putrifie and it may in all probability both have power and desire to stay longer in that lovesome habitation from whence it is driven away by force especially that it may satisfie it self in discovering of the murderer the most cruel and inhumane disjoyner of that loving pair that God had divinely coupled together and to see it self before its final departure in a hopeful way to be revenged 4. If we physically consider the union of the Soul with the Body by the mediation of the Spirit then we cannot rationally conceive that the Soul doth utterly forsake that union untill by putrefaction tending to an absolute mutation it be forced to bid farewel to its beloved Tabernacle for it s not operating ad extra to our senses doth not necessarily inferr its total absence And it may be that there is more in that of Abels blood crying unto the Lord from the ground in a Physical sense than is commonly conceived and God may in his just judgment suffer the Soul to stay longer in the murthered Body that the cry of blood may make known the murtherer or may not so soon for the same reason call it totally away There is another kind of supposed Apparitions that are believed to be done in Beryls and clear Crystals and therefore called by Paracelsus Ars Beryllistica and which he also calls Nigromancy because it is practised in the dark by the inspection of a Boy or a Maid that are Virgins and this he strongly affirmeth to be natural and lawful and only brought to pass by the Sydereal influence and not at all Diabolical nor stands in need of any Conjuration Invocations or Ceremonies but is performed by a strong faith or imagination And of this he saith thus Sed ante omnia ait notate proprietatem Beryllorum Hisunt in quibus spectantur praeterita praesentiae futura Quod nemini admirationi esse debet ideò quia sydus influentiae imaginem similitudinem in Crystallum imprimit similem ei de quo quaeritur And a little after he saith Praeterea syderibus nota sunt omnia quae in natura existunt Cumque Astra homini subjecta sint potest is utique illa in subjectum ita cogere ut voluntati ejus ipsa obsecundent What truth there may be in this his assertion I have yet met with no reasons or experiments that can give me satisfaction and therefore I leave it to every Man to censure as he pleaseth The only story that seems to carry any credit with it touching the truth of Apparitions in Crystals is that which is related of that great and learned Physician Joachimus Camerarius in his Preface before Plutarchs Book De Defectu Oraculorum from the mouth of Lassarus Spenglerus a person excellent both for Piety and Prudence and is in effect this Spengler said that there was one person of a chief family in Norimberge an honest and grave Man whom he thought not fit to name That one time he came unto him and brought wrapt in a piece of Silk a Crystalline Gemm of a round figure and said that it was given unto him of a certain stranger whom many years before having desired of him entertainment meeting him in the Market he took home and kept him three days with him And that this gift when he departed was left him as a sign of a grateful mind having taught such an use of the Crystal as this If he desired to be made more certain of any thing that he should draw forth the glass and will a male chast Boy to look in it and should ask of him what he did see For it should come to pass that all things that he required should be shewed to the Boy and seen in the Apparition And this Man did affirm that he was never deceived in any one thing and that he had understood wonderful things by the boys indication when none of all the rest did by looking into it see it to be any thing else but a neat and pure Gemm He tells a great deal more of it and that doubtful questions being asked an answer would appear to be read in the Crystal but the Man being weary of the use of it did give it to Spengler who being a
great hater of superstition did cause it to be broken into small pieces and so with the Silk in which it was wrapped threw it into the sink of the House I confess I have heard strange stories of things that have been revealed by these supposed apparitions from persons both of great worth and learning but seeking more narrowly into the matter I found them all to be superstitious delusions fancies mistakes cheats and impostures For the most part the child tells any thing that comes into his fancy or doth frame and invent things upon purpose that he never seeth at all and the inquirers do presently assimilate them to their own thoughts and suspicions Some that pretended to shew and foretel strange things thereby to get money have been discovered to have had confederates that conveied away mens goods into secret places and gave the cunning Man notice where they were hid and then was the child taught a straight framed tale to describe what a like Man took them away and where they were which being found brought credit enough to the couzeners and this I knew was practised by one Brooke and Bolton Some have had artificial glasses whereinto they would convey little pictures as Dr. Lambe had It being manifest by what we have laid down that there are apparitions and some such other strange effects whereby murthers are often made known and discovered and also having mentioned that it may be most rationally probable that they are caused by the Astral or Sydereal Spirit it will be necessary to open and explain that point and to shew what grounds it hath upon which it may be settled which we shall do in this order 1. There are many especially Popish Authors thereby to uphold their Doctrine of Purgatory that maintain that they are the Souls of the persons murthered and deceased and this opinion though unanswerably confuted by the whole company of reformed Divines is notwithstanding revived by Dr. Henry Moore but by no arguments either brought from Scripture or grounded upon any solid reasons but only some weak conjectures seeming absurdities and Platonick whimsies which indeed merit no responsion And we have by positive and unwrested Scriptures in this Treatise afore proved that the Souls of the righteous are in Abrahams bosom with Christ at peace and rest and that the Souls of the wicked are in Hell in torments so that neither of them do wander here or make any apparitions for as S. Augustine taught us Duo sunt habitacula unum in igne aeterno alterum in regno aeterno And in another place Nec est ulli ullus medius locus ut possit esse nisi cum Diabolo qui non est cum Christo. And Tertullian and Justin Martyr two most ancient writers do tell us That Souls being separated from their Bodies do not stay or linger upon the earth And after they be descended into the infernal pit they do neither wander here upon their own accord nor by the power and command of others But that wicked spirits may counterfeit by craft that they are the Souls of the dead Vid. Lavaterum de Spectris secunda parte c. 5. 2. We have also shewed that these apparitions that discover murther and murtherers and brings them to condign punishment cannot be the evil Angels because they are only Ministers of torture sin horror and punishment but are not Authors of any good either Corporeal or Spiritual apparent or real So that it must of necessity be left either to be acted by a Divine Power and that either by the immediate power of the Almighty for which we have no proof but only may acknowledge the possibility of it or mediate by the ministery of good Angels which is hard to prove there being no one instance or the least intimation of any such matter in all the Scriptures and therefore in most rational probability either relations of matters of fact of this nature are utterly false or they are effected by the Astral spirit 3. Concerning the description of this Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body for though it be as a spirit or the image in the looking-glass yet it is truly corporeal we shall give the sum of it as Paracelsus in his magisterial way without proof doth lay down He positively holdeth that there are three essential parts in Man which he calleth the three great substances and that at death every one of these being separated doth return into or unto the Womb from whence it came as The Soul that was breathed in by God doth at death return unto God that gave it And that the Body that is to say that gross part that seems to be composed of the two inferior Elements of Earth and Water doth return unto the Earth and there in time consume away some bodies in a longer time some in a shorter But the third part which he calleth the Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body as being firmamental and consisting of the two superior Elements of Air and Fire it he saith returneth into its Sepulcher of the Air where in time it is also consumed but requireth a longer time than the body in regard it consisteth of more pure Elements than the other and that one of these Astral Spirits or Bodies doth consume sooner than another as they are more impure or pure And that it is this spirit that carrieth along with it the thoughts cogitations desires and imaginations that were impressed upon the mind at the time of death with the sensitive faculties of concupiscibility and irascibility And that it is this spirit or body and not the Soul that resteth in the hands of the Lord that appeareth and is most usually conversant in those places and those negotiations that the mind of the person living whose spirit it was did most earnestly follow and especially those things that at the very point of death were most strongly impressed upon this spirit as in the case of the person murthered whose mind in the very minute of the murther receiveth a most deep impression of detestation and revenge against the murtherer which this spirit bearing with it doth by all means possible seek the accomplishment of that revenge and therefore doth cause dreams of discovery bleedings and strange motions of the body murthered and sometimes plain apparitions of the persons murthered in their usual shape and habit and doth vocally and audibly reveal the murther with all the circumstances as is apparent in the two forementioned Histories of the apparition of Fletcher to Raynard and of the Woman murthered by Mark Sharp to the Miller Grimes 4. And this Astral Spirit is no more than that part in Man that is commonly called the sensitive Soul and by the Schools is commonly defined thus Anima sentiens est vis quae apprehendit percipit ea quae extra ipsam sunt And this is corporeal and as Dr. Willis holdeth mortal and coextended with the Body and that it hath the power of imagination appetite desire and
aversion and the like and in a manner a sensitive way of ratiocination and yet is distinct from the ratinal Soul or Mens that is incorporeal immortal and far more excellent And perspicacious Helmont holding this sensitive Soul to be distinct from the mens or immortal and rational Soul saith thus Est ergo anima sensitiva caduca mortalis mera lux vitalis data à patre luminum nec alio modo verboque explicabilis But of the rational Soul he saith Ipsa autem mens immortalis est substantia lucida incorporea immediate Dei sui imaginem referens quia eandem in creando sive in ipso Empsychosis instanti sibi insculptam suscepit So that both these late and learned Authors hold that in every Man there are two distinct Souls the sensitive that is mortal corporeal and coextended with the Body and the rational that is immortal and absolutely incorporeal so that though in words and terms they seem to differ yet in substance they agree For the Hermetick School the Platonists Paracelsus Jacob Behemen and others do hold three parts in Man which they call Soul Spirit and Body and these two last Authors do hold the body to be one part in Man and two Souls besides the sensitive and rational that are two distinct parts the one corporeal and mortal and the other incorporeal and immortal and so they do but nominally differ And now our task must be to prove that first there are such three parts in Man and that after death they do separately exist which we shall attempt in this order 1. Though arguments taken à notatione nominis do not necessarily prove yet they illustrate and render the case plain and intelligible and we shall find that the Hebrews have three distinct appellations for these three parts As for the Soul either rational or sensitive or vital spirit they use Nephesh which is common to brutes and reptiles as well as to Man as saith the Text And to every beast of the earth and to every sowl of the air and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth in which there is a living soul Nephesh Haiah And therefore to distinguish the rational and immortal Soul from this which is sensitive mortal and common with brutes the Text saith And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Upon which Tremellius gives us this note Ut clarins appareret discrimen quod est inter animam hominis reliquorum animantium Horum enim animae ex eadem materia provenerunt unde corpora habebant illius verò anima spiritale quiddam est Divinum And upon the words Sic fuit homo Id est ait hac ratione factum est ut terrea illa statua animata viveret Another word they use which is Ruah and this is also generally attributed to Men and Beasts as the words of Solomon do witness Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upwards and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth And in both these touching both Man and Beast the word Ruah is used as common to them both and sometimes it is taken specially for the rational immortal Soul as And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it Also they have the word Niblah and Basar that is corpus caro or cadaver and by these three they set forth or distinguish these three parts And the Grecians have likewise their three several names for these parts as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 anima vita which is taken promiscuously sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul as in this place And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell And it is taken for the life in that of the Acts And Paul said Trouble not your selves his life is in him Also they have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus ventus spiritus vitae being variously taken yet sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul as Father into thy hands I commend my spirit So they have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corpus the body or gross and fleshly part And to these accord the three Latine terms for these three distinct parts Anima Spiritus and Corpus 2. This opinion of these three parts in Man to wit Body Soul and Spirit is neither new nor wants Authors of sufficient credit and learning to be its Patrons For Hermes Trismegistus an Author almost of the greatest Antiquity saith thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is God is in the mind the mind in the soul and the soul in matter But Marsilius Ficinns gives it thus Beatus Deus Daemon bonus animam esse in corpore mentem in anima in mente verbum pronunciavit And further addeth Deus verò circa omnia simul atque per omnia mens circa animam anima circa aërem aër circa materiam And some give it more fully thus God is in the mind the mind in the Soul the Soul in the Spirit the Spirit in the blood and the blood in the Body But besides this ancient testimony it is apparent that the whole School of the Platonists both the elder and later were of this opinion and also the most of the Cabalists For Ficinus from the Doctrine of of Plato tells us this Humanae cogitationis domicilium anima ipsa est Animae domicilium spiritus Domicilium spiritus hujus est corpus But omitting multitudes of others that are strong Champions for this Tenent we think for authorities to acquiesce in that of our most learned Physician and Anatomist Dr. Willis and in those that he hath quoted which we shall give in the English First he saith Lest I be tedious in rehearsing many it pleaseth me here only to cite two Authors but either of which is a Troop for the confutation of the contrary opinion The one he saith is the most famous Philosopher Petrus Gassendus who Physic. Sect. 3. lib. 9. c. 11. doth divide toto Coelo as is said the mind of man from the other sensitive power as much as is possible to be done by many and most signal notes of discrimination yea disjoining of them as it is said in the Schools by specific differences Because when he had shewed this to be corporeal extended nascible and corruptible he saith the other is an incorporeal substance and therefore immortal which is immediately created and infused into the body by God to which opinion he sheweth Pythagoras Plato Aristotle and for the most part all the ancient Philosophers except Epicurus did much agree excepting notwithstanding that they did hold as not knowing the origin of the Soul which they judged to be immortal that it being cropt off from the soul of the world did slide into the body
and that it was poured again into the Soul of the world either immediately or at the last mediately after its transmigration into other bodies The other suffrage he saith upon this matter is of the most learned Divine Dr. Hamond our Countryman who opening the Text Epist. Thessalo 1. c. 5. v. 23. to wit your whole spirit and soul and body c. He saith that Man is divided into three parts 1. To wit into the body by which is denoted the flesh and the members 2. Into the vital soul which in like manner being animal and sensitive is common to man with the bruits 3. Into the spirit by which the rational soul that was first created of God is signified which also being immortal doth return unto God Annot. in Nov. Testam lib. p. 711. This his exposition he confirmeth by Testimonies brought from Ethnick Authors and also from the ancient Fathers From all which the learned Dr. doth make this conclusion And from the things above he saith it is most evidently manifest that man being as it were an Amphibious animal or of a middle nature and order betwixt the Angels and bruits with these he doth communicate by a corporeal soul framed of the vital blood and the stock of animal spirit joyned likewise in one and with the other he communicates by an intelligent soul immaterial and immortal And thus much for arguments brought from humane authority which are prevalent if they be brought affirmatively as these are from learned men or Artificers and so we shall proceed to further kind of proofs 3. But an argument arising from Divine Authority is of the most force of all and therefore let us a little survey the Text it self which in our English Translation is thus And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly And I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle having given the believing Thessalonians all the spiritual counsel that could be necessary to bring them to the perfection of sanctification doth pray for them that the God of peace would sanctifie them wholly or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth as Arias Montanus hath rendered it omninò persectos altogether perfect And that the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the whole part portion or lot for so the word properly signifieth which he nameth by Spirit Soul and Body to be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore to this doth learned Beza add this note Tum demùm igitur ait homo integer sanctificatus fuerit quum nihil cogitabit spiritus nihil appetet anima nihil exequetur corpus quod cum Dei voluntate non consentiat And before he had said Therefore Paul by the appellation of spirit doth signifie the mind in which the principal stain lieth and by the Soul the rest of the inferior faculties and by the body the domicile of the Soul And in another place he saith The mind is become vain the cogitation obscured the appetite hardened And to the same purpose doth learned Rollock upon the place say thus much Sanctification or transformation is not of any one part but of all the parts and of the whole man For there is no part or particle in man which was not deformed in that first fall and made as it were monstrous Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or transformation ought to be of the whole man and of every singular part of him And further he saith For the whole man the Apostle hath here the enumeration of his principal parts And they are three in number Spirit Soul and Body By the spirit he saith I understand the mind which the Apostle Eph. 4. 24. calleth the spirit of the mind and this is no other thing than the faculty of the rational mind which is discerned in invention and in judging of things found out By the name of soul he saith I understand all those inferior faculties of the mind as are the animal which are also called natural The body doth follow these parts to wit that gross part which is the instrument by which the spirit and soul do exert their functions and operations By all which it is most clear that though they call them faculties yet they are distinct essential parts of the whole man which is most manifest in that the body though one of these three cannot be a faculty but a meer instrument and yet is one of the essential parts that doth integrate the whole man But whosoever shall seriously consider how little satisfaction the definition of a faculty given by either Philosophers or Physicians will bring to a clear understanding may easily perceive that distinct parts are commonly taken to be faculties 4. The first argument that this learned Physician urgeth to prove that there are two Souls in man the one sensitive and corporeal the other rational immortal and incorporeal is in this order But he saith whereas it is said that the rational soul doth by it self exercise every of the animal faculties it is most of all improbable because the actions and passions of all the animal senses and motions are corporeal divided and extended to various parts to perform which immediately the incorporeal and indivisible soul if so be it be finite seemeth unfit or unable Further he saith what belongeth unto that vulgar opinion that the sensitive soul is subordinate to the rational and as it were swallowed up of it that that which is the soul in brutes in man becomes a meer power these are the trifles of the Schools For how should the sensitive soul of man which before hath been in act a subsistent material and extended substance losing its essence at the advent of the rational soul degenerate into a meer qualitie But if it be asserted that the rational soul by its advent also doth introduce life and sensation then man doth not generate an animated man but only a formless body or a rude heap of flesh 5. Another argument he useth to prove these two souls in man is this Therefore he saith it being supposed that the rational soul doth come to the body before animated of the other corporeal soul we may inquire by what band or tye seeing it is a pure spirit can it be united to this seeing it hath not parts by which it might be tied or adhere to the whole or any of the parts And therefore he thinketh that concerning this point it is to be said with most learned Gassendus That the corporeal soul is the immediate subject of the rational soul of which seeing it is the act perfection complement and form also by it the rational soul is made or becometh the form and act of the humane body But seeing that it doth scarce seem like or necessary that the whole corporeal soul should be possessed of the whole rational soul Therefore it is lawful to determine that this rational
soul being purely spiritual should reside as in its Throne in the principal part or faculty of it to wit in the imagination framed of a small portion of the animal spirits being most subtile and seated in the very middle or center of the brain 6. Another chief argument that he useth to prove these two souls in man is the strife and disagreements that are within man Because he saith the intellect and imagination are not wont to agree in so many things but that also the sensitive appetite doth dissent in more things From whose litigations moreover it shall be lawful to argue that the moodes of the aforesaid souls both in respect of subsisting and operating are distinct For as there is in man a double cognitive power to wit the intellect and imagination so there is a double appetite the Will proceeding from the Intellect which is the Page or servant of the rational soul and the sensitive Appetite which cohering to the imagination is said to be the hands or procuratrix of the corporeal soul. 7. To these we shall add that when the understanding is truly enlightened with the spirit of God and led by the true light of the Gospel in the ways of Christ then is man said to be spiritual because the carnal mind and the sensitive appetite are subdued and brought under to the obedience of Christ by his grace So also when the understanding is darkned as saith the Apostle Having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God thorow the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts Then man becomes wholly led with the carnal and sensual appetite and is therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural animal or soully man And in both these conditions the organical body is led and acted according to the ruling power either of the Spirit of God and so it is yielded up a living sacrifice to God or of the spirit of darkness corruption and the sensitive appetite and so is an instrument of all unrighteousness By all which it is most manifest that there are in man these three parts of Body Soul and Spirit which was the thing undertaken to be proved 8. Lastly as to this point it is a certain truth that two extreams cannot be joined or coupled together but by some middle thing that participateth or cometh near to the nature of both So the Soul which by the unanimous consent of all men is a spiritual and pure immaterial and incorporeal substance cannot be united to the body which is a most gross thick and corporeal substance without the intervention of some middle nature fit to conjoin and unite those extreams together which is this sensitive and corporeal Soul or Astral Spirit which is respect of the one extream is corporeal yet of the most pure sort of bodies that are in nature and that which approacheth most near to a spiritual and immaterial substance and therefore most fit to be the immediate receptacle of the incorporeal Soul And also it being truly body doth easily join with the gross body as indeed being congenerate with it and so becomes vinculum nexus of the immaterial Soul and the more gross body that without it could not be united Now having as we conceive sufficiently proved that there are in man these three distinct parts of Body Soul and Spirit in the next place we are to shew that these three may and do separately exist and that we shall endeavour by these reasons 1. It is manifest by Divine Authority that the spirit that is the rational immortal and incorporeal soul doth return to God that gave it That is not to be annihilated or to vanish into nothing but to abide and remain for ever or eviternally For the Apostle saith For we know that if our earthly tabernacle or house were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens By which it is manifest that the immaterial Soul doth exist eternally ex parte post as the Schools say and also the gross body being separated from the immortal Soul doth by it self exist until it be consumed in the grave or by corruption be changed into earth or some other things or that the Atomes be dispersed and joined unto or figurated into some other bodies So it is most highly rational that this sensitive Soul or Astral Spirit which is corporeal should also exist by it self for some time until it be dissipated and wasted in which time it may and doubtlesly doth make these apparitions motions and bleedings of the murthered bodies 2. Upon the supposition that the rational Soul be not ex traduce but be infused after the bodily organs be fitted and prepared which is the firm Tenent of all Divines Ancient middle and Modern and must upon the granting of it to be simply and absolutely immaterial and incorporeal which is indisputable of necessity be infused because no immaterial substance can be produced or generated by the motion of any agent that is meerly material or forth of any material substance whatsoever And therefore I say that the Soul being infused it must of necessity follow the organized body that could not exist except as a lump of flesh without the corporeal sensitive soul which must of necessity demonstrate that as they did separately exist before the union of the Soul and Body so they also do exist distinctly after their separation by death and so the Astral Spirit may effect the things we have asserted 3. And if the experiment be certainly true that is averred by Borellus Kircher Gaffarel and others who might be ashamed to affirm it as their own trial or as ocular witnesses if not true that the figures and colours of a plant may be perfectly represented and seen in glasses being by a little heat raised forth of the ashes Then if this be true it is not only possible but rational that animals as well as plants have their Ideas or Figures existing after the gross body or parts be destroyed and so these apparitions are but only those Astral shapes and figures But also there are shapes and apparitions of Men that must of necessity prove that these corporeal Souls or Astral Spirits do exist apart and attend upon or are near the blood or bodies of which Borellus Physician to the King of France gives us these two relations 1. N. de Richier a Soap-maker he saith and Beruardus Germanus from the relation of the Lord of Gerzan and others distilling mans blood at Paris which they thought to be the true matter of the Philosophers-stone they saw in the cucurbit or glass body the Phantasm or shape of a Man from whom bloody rayes did seem to proceed and the glass being broken they found the figure as though of a skull in the remaining faeces 2. There were three curious persons also at Paris that taking the Church earth-mould from S. Innocents Church
supposing it to be the matter of the stone did distill it and work upon it and in the glasses they did perceive certain Phantasms or Shapes of Men of which they were no little afraid 3. Our Countryman Dr. Flud a person of much learning and great sincerity doth tell us this well attested story That a certain Chymical Operator by name La Pierre near that place in Paris called Le Temple received blood from the hands of a certain Bishop to operate upon Which he setting to work upon the Saturday did continue it for a week with divers degrees of fire and that about midnight the Friday following this Artificer lying in a Chamber next to his Laboratory betwixt sleeping and waking heard an horrible noise like unto the lowing of Kine or the roaring of a Lion and continuing quiet after the ceasing of the sound in the Laboratory the Moon being at the full by shining enlightening the Chamber suddenly betwixt himself and the Window he saw a thick little cloud condensed into an oval form which after by little and little did seem compleatly to put on the shape of a Man and making another and a sharp clamour did suddenly vanish And that not only some Noble Persons in the next Chambers but also the Host with his Wife lying in a lower room of the house and also the neighbors dwelling in the opposite side of the street did distinctly hear as well the bellowing as the voice and some of them were awaked with the vehemency thereof But the Artificer said that in this he found solace because the Bishop of whom he had it did admonish him that if any of them from whom the blood was extracted should die in the time of its putrefaction his Spirit was wont often to appear to the sight of the Artificer with perturbation Also forthwith upon Saturday following he took the retort from the Furnace and broke it with the light stroak of a little key and there in the remaining blood found the perfect representation of an humane head agreeable in face eyes nostrils mouth and hairs that were somewhat thin and of a golden colour And of this last there were many ocular witnesses as the Noble Person Lord of Bourdalone the Chief Secretary to the Duke of Guise and that h ehad this relation from the Lord of Menanton living in that house at the same time from a certain Doctor of Physick from the owner of the house and many others So that it is most evident that there are not only three essential and distinct parts in Man as the gross body consisting of Earth and Water which at death returns to the earth again the sensitive and corporeal Soul or Astral Spirit consisting of Fire and Air that at death wandereth in the air or near the body and the immortal and incorporeal Soul that immediately returns to God that gave it But also that after death they all three exist separately the Soul in immortality and the body in the earth though soon consuming and the Astral spirit that wanders in the air and without doubt doth make these strange apparitions motions and bleedings and so we conclude this tedious discourse with the Chapter CHAP. XVII Of the sorce and efficacy of Words or Charms whether they effect any thing at all or not and if they do whether it be by Natural or Diabolical virtue and force THere is nothing almost so common not only in the Poets who have been the chief disseminators of many such things but in most of other Authors as the mention of the force of Charms and Incantations And yet if we narrowly search into the bottom of the matter there is nothing more difficult than to find out any truth of the effects of them in matters of fact and therefore that we may more clearly manifest what we have proposed in this Chapter we shall first premise these few things 1. Those that take the effects of them to be great as many Divines Philosophers and Physicians do suppose no efficacy in them solely holding that quantitates rerum nullius sunt efficaciae but that they are only signs from the Devil to delude the minds of those that use them and in the mean time that the Devil doth produce the effects But it had been well if those that are of this opinion had shewed us the ways and means how the Devil doth operate such things seeing he can do nothing in corporeal matter but by natural means So that either we must confess that there is no force at all in Charms or that the effects produced are by natural means 2. Neither can we assent fully to those that hold that the force of imagination can work strange things upon other bodies distinct and separate from the body imaginant upon which it is not denied to have power to operate very wonderful things and that for the reason given by the most learned Lord Verulam which is this Experimenta quae vim imaginationis in corpora aliena solidè probent pauca aut nulla prorsus sunt cum fascini exempla huc non faciant quod Daemonum interventu fortasse non careant 3. I said not assent fully because there are some reasons that incline me to believe the possibility of it though there be hardly found any experiments that solidly prove it For as the said Lord Verulam saith again Movendi sunt homines ne fidem detrahant operationibus ex transmissione spirituum vi imaginationis quia eventus quandoque fallit And there are so many learned Authors though Dr. Casaubon according to his scurrilous manner stiles them Enthusiastical Arabs of all sorts that do stifly maintain the power of the imagination upon extraneous bodies with such strength of argument that I much stagger concerning the point and therefore dare not say my assent is fully to either For learned Dr. Willis having as we conceive unanswerably proved that there is a twofold Soul in Man and that the one which is the sensitive is corporeal though much approaching to the nature of spirit how far the force of imagination which is its instrument may reach or what it may work at distance is not easy to determine And if the Soul as Helmont laboureth to prove by the Prerogative of its creation can when suscitated by strong desire and exalted phantasie operate per nutum then it must needs follow that it may work upon other bodies than its own and so using Words Charms Characters and Images may bring to pass strange things But if these three conclusions be certain and true written by the pen of a most learned though less vulgarly known Author to wit 1. The Soul is not only in its proper visible body but also without it neither is it circumscribed in an organical body 2. The Soul worketh without or beyond its proper body commonly so called 3. From every body flow corporeal beams by which the Soul worketh by its presence and giveth them energie
the sole power of the phantasie of the person imaginant or using the charms and neither by the power of the Devil nor of the charms 3. The argument to prove these things by that they are brought to pass by the strength of imagination used by Cornelius Agrippa is this Non mediocri experientia ait comprobatum est insitam à natura homini quandam dominandi ligandi vim And that there is an active terror in man if it be rightly resuscitated in him and that he know how to direct and make use of it impressed in him by the Creator which is as it were a terrifical character and signacle of God instamped upon man by which all creatures do fear and reverence man as the image of his Creator and as by the law of creation to be Lord and to bear rule over them all And here I cannot but mention that lepid though tedious ludicrous tale that Dr. Casaubon gives us of an horse-rider called John Young that could tame the most fierce Bulls and unruly Horses as also by pipeing to make the most couragious and fierce Mastiff to lie close down and to be quiet by the force of his imagination and charms And this John Youngs Philosophy was agreeable to this of Agrippa's to wit That all creatures were made by God for the use of Man and to be subject unto him and that if men did use their power rightly any man might do what he did Fides sit apud anthorem 4. Avicenna Algazel Alkindus Marsilius Ficinus Jacobus de Forluio Pomponatius Paracelsus and others do sometimes hold that the Soul the sensitive and corporeal it must be understood not by a nude apprehension or meer impery but by the emission of spirits or corporeal beams as we have shewed before do work upon external bodies and so move and alter them Sometimes they hold that the whole Soul sensitive must be meant doth go quite forth of the Body and wander into far distant places and there not only see what things are done but also to act something it self And to this opinion only meaning of the immortal and immaterial Soul Dr. Moore and Mr. Glanvil do seem to agree namely that the Soul may for a time depart forth of its Body and return again And to prove this the argument of Avicen is this Superior things he saith have dominion over the inferior and the Intelligences do rule and change corporeal things And that the Soul is a spiritual and separable substance And therefore after the same manner may act in corporeal things and change them as may be seen at large with responsions in the book of Fienus Now we come to the third and last opinion of those that positively hold that there is a force in words and characters if rightly framed to effect strange things withal and this is as strongly denied by many Therefore we shall only offer the most convincing arguments that we meet withal and leave it to the censure of others and that in this order But before we enter upon the positive arguments we think it fit lest we be mistaken though in part we may have touched some ofthem before to lay down some few cautions and considerations which we shall do in this manner 1. It is to be taken for a certain truth that the greatest part of those pretended charms and characters that are in this our age used by ignorant superstitious and cheating impostors are utterly false and of no power or efficacy at all And this was understood by our learned Countreyman Roger Bacon who tells us thus much For without all doubt he saith all of this sort now a days are false or doubtful or irrational and therefore not at all to be trusted unto And to this doth Paracelsus fully agree saying All characters are not to be trusted to or any confidence to be placed in them nor in like manner in words For the Nigromancers and Poets being very laboriously imployed about them have filled all Books with comments proceeding forth of their brains wanting all truth and foundation of which some thousands are not worth one deaf nut 2. Yet for all this we are to consider that all of them are not totally to be rejected for Bacon tells us That there are certain deprecations of ancient times instituted of men or rather ordained of God and good Angels that are both true and efficacious and such like as these may retain their first virtue As in some Countreys he saith yet some certain prayers are made upon red hot iron and upon the water of the flood and likewise upon other things by which the innocent are tried and the guilty condemned And this was the trial that by the Saxons when used in England was called Drdeall Therefore Paracelsus saith thus Repeto ergo characteribus verbis non omnibus fidendum esse sed eligenda retinenda quae recta genuina ex fundamento veritatis deprompta ac multoties probata sint which is counsel good sound and profitable And somewhere he tells us that even those true and genuine characters and Gamahuis that were rightly fabricated under due constellations and were in old time efficacious may have now lost their virtue because the configurations of the Heavens are altered 3. Many of these strange characters or words were not by wise men inserted into their works that thereby any strange things might be wrought by them but were invented to conceal those grand secrets that they would not have to be made known unto the unworthy And therefore Bacon gives us this profound and honest counsel So therefore he saith there are very many things concealed in the books of the Philosophers by sundry ways In which a Wise Man ought to have this prudence that he pass by the charms and characters and make trial of the work of nature and art And so he shall see as well animate things as inanimate to concur together by reason of the conformity of nature not because of the virtue of the charm or character And so many secrets both of Nature and Art are of the unlearned esteemed to be magical And Magicians do foolishly confide in charms and characters judging virtue to be in them and because of their vain confidence in them they forsake the work of Nature and Art by reason of the error of charms and characters And so both these sort of Men are deprived of the benefit of wisdom their own foolishness so compelling them 3. The same most learned Countryman of ours Roger Bacon doth further give us this advice saying But those things that are contained in the books of Magicians ought by right to be banished although they have in them something of truth Because they are mixed with falsities that it cannot be discerned betwixt that which is true and that which is false And also Impostors and ignorant persons have feigned and forged divers writings under the
wounds and their symptoms to wit the Haemorrhage the Sinonia or sinew-water Convulsions and the Epilepsie But as in that age the use of these was frequent and the authority great so by little and little the sophistications of false Philosophers being increased they have come into desuetude and contempt and other childish things have been substituted in their places But these Stones because now the site and influx of the Heavens are plainly otherwise than they were in times past are no more so efficacious as they were then therefore it is convenient that they be prepared anew The Art Magick because it was more secret nor known to vulgar Philosophers both because it did ingenerate wonderful virtues not only to Stones but also to such like words begun to be called the prestigious Art by an odious term For men being unskilful of these things who notwithstanding did usurp the title of the Art unto themselves addicted themselves unto artificious operations crosses and exorcisms From thence the vulgar being unskilful of the Magical Art have begun to attribute this virtue to exorcisms characters short prayers signacles crosses and to other frivolous things But the matter he saith is quite otherwise for the constellation under which the stones and words are prepared doth induce the virtues not exorcisms And being entred upon this particular we shall add some things to this more fully as first this from the great Georgius Phaedro who saith after he had shewed the great virtue of some Roots and Herbs in curing wounds and ulcers But a Characteristical cure is that which exerciseth its natural power by words pronounced written or ingraven by the qualities celestial and various influences of the Stars being friendly to our bodies And to this doth fully agree what is written by Trallianus at large and Augerius Ferrerius in his Chapter de Homerica medicatione whither I referr the Reader and conclude this explication with that sentence of Paracelsus Praeterea syderibus nota sunt omnia quae in natura existunt Unde inquit sapiens dominabitur astris is sapiens qui virtutes illas ad sui obedientiam cogere potest 3. What is here fully explicated as also what we have formerly in this Treatise proved both by reasons authorities and examples doth sufficiently manifest the great power of Celestial Bodies upon inferior matter and that according to the aptitude and agreeableness of the matter prepared and the configuration of the Heavens at the time elected the powerful influence of the Stars and Planets is received into the subject according to the purpose it was intended for So that from hence it will clearly follow that if fit and agreeable words or charactes be framed and joined together when the Heavens are in a convenient site and configuration for the purpose intended those words and characters will receive a most powerful virtue for the purpose intended and will effectually operate to those ends by a just lawful and natural agency without any concurrence of Diabolical power superstition or ceremonies and this is that which was laboured to be proved 4. Thomas Bartholinus that most learned Physician and experienced Anatomist though his credit be laboured to be eclipsed by Dr. Casaubon who is always more ready to ascribe power unto Devils the worst of Gods creatures than either to God or Nature doth touching this point asserts this Notwithstanding he saith that words framed or shut up in a certain Rhythme may without any superstition work some such like thing as the curing of the Epilepsie For first the air is altered by the various prolation of words as well that air which doth enter into the little pores of the vessels ending in the skin by transpiration as that which is carried into the Ears Nostrils and Lungs 2. The state being different of the words uttered doth impress a different force which the unlike constitution of the rough Artery and of the rest of the instruments of speech whether that state be hot or cold it impresseth a virtue which doth either acuate or make grave 3. The breath is heated by the various prolation of words which either alone or bound up in the Rhythme doth califie cold things and discusseth flatulencies And these may have a great diversity in operation according as the air and breath and the several kinds of Atomes in them may be ordered in their site motion and contexture so that thereby the various effects may be produced without Cacodemons or vain superstition 5. And if we consider it seriously there is something more than ordinary in this place of Scripture And it came to pass that when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took an harp and played with his hand so Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him Upon which learned Tremellius gives us this note That evil spirit that is those phantastical pangs or that furious rage which did proceed from that evil spirit did cease So that it is manifest that it was the natural efficacy of the melodious sound made by Davids playing upon the Harp whereby the Atomes of the air were put into such a motion site and contexture that thereby they became repugnant and antipathetical to those contrary Atomes that were by the means of the evil spirit stirred up in the sensitive Soul of Saul by which he was terrified or tormented and by overcoming them and dissipating of them he came to be refreshed and for a time those effects wrought by that evil spirit ceased So that the argument lies plain thus If the melody of tunes or sounds modulated upon an Harp have power to refresh the mind and to cause the rage of an evil spirit to cease then may words rightly framed in agreeable Rhythmes which are but modulated tunes or sounds ease sick persons and remove diseases But the former is true by the testimony of this Scripture and so also is the later Neither is the objection of Hieronymus Jordanus against this of any force at all where he saith that the reason of sweet Harmony and magical words are very far different But it had been suitable for him to have shewed us wherein that difference doth lye and not to have put it off with such a pittiful shuffle as that it is obvious to Tyronists This is indeed a shift used by many that when they are not able to solve the argument they put it off with some impertinent diversion or passe by it with some ironical Sarcasm But I must tell him that tunes and sounds that are framed by art in the best ways that can be devised thereby by modulating of the air to cause it to have several effects upon the auditory organs differ not at all from right framed charms and characters that by disposing the atomes of the air several ways do produce various effects I say there is no difference except that constellated words may be more efficacious than Musick because they