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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65369	The displaying of supposed witchcraft wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy, but that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the Devil and the witch ... is utterly denied and disproved : wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth of apparitions, the nature of astral and sydereal spirits, the force of charms, and philters, with other abstruse matters / by John Webster ...	Webster, John, 1610-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing W1230; ESTC R12517	396,606	368

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

dispersed in this caliginous air or Atmosphere for the Devil is called the Prince of the air if that be literally to be understood and he compasseth the earth and walketh to and fro in it and goeth about seeking whom he may devour and therefore by their agility of body and celerity of motion may easily know what is done and spoken and may so very quickly convey it one to another and so may most readily communicate things that are acted or spoken at an incredible distance one from another but yet all this no further than Divine Providence will permit and allow of 6. The Witchmongers and others do attribute a kind of omnisciency to Devils in respect of their acquired knowledge which we by no means can allow them and that for these reasons 1. Though it be granted that they do grow and increase in the knowledge of sin evil and wickedness therewith to hurt devour and destroy or gain more skill and craft to lie cheat delude and deceive yet that they either gain or gather any knowledge that is good or for any good end is absolutely false for they abode not in the truth neither are they lovers of truth but are utter Enemies to all good knowledge and verity 2. That they may be Masters of all the arts or wayes of deceit lying cheating and delusion is no way to be denied but that they should as many suppose by reason of their longevity and duration learn and be perfect in any or all of the good Arts or Sciences is to me utterly incredible because they are the Corruptors of all but the perfectors of none else should they be the greatest Philosophers in the World which is false And therefore most Christian and pious was that Sentence of that unjustly censured Person Paracelsus in these words Et licèt Diabolus quidem plurima machinetur hoc tamen cum omnibus suis legionibus praestare minimè potest ut vel abjectam ollam frangat nedum eandem faciat multò is minùs quenquam occidere aut jugulare potest nisi id mandato permissu jussuque ac vi divina faciat The other main point that we undertake to handle in this Chapter is touching the power of the faln Angels and that is to be considered in these three particulars 1. In general in respect of their power either in spiritual and moral things or in things natural 2. Or in respect of spiritual and moral things in particular 3. Or in respect of Physical and sublunary things 1. And for the first it must of necessity be granted that their power since their fall is much diminished or at least restrained and chained and fettered up For they becoming Rebels against the Almighty and not keeping their first Estate but having left their own habitation it was most agreeable to the wisdom and justice of God to take away from them the greatest part of that power and authority that he formerly had given them and so to imprison and chain them up that they might never be able to attempt or perform the like Rebellion again otherwise the Almighty should not have used that wisdom that is ordinary with earthly Princes who haveing overcome those that rebelled against them do not only disarm them but also confine or imprison them And to this very thing do the Scriptures allude when they say that they are delivered into chains of darkness and that they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day So that though the Devils still retain their cruel wicked and devouring will and mind yet they are but like the Lyon within the Bars of Iron or Bajazet in the Cage of Iron led about by Tamberlan and so though they be never so cruelly bent to do mischief yet they are under the Chains and cooped up in the Grates of Darkness and kept in Everlasting Chains that they are never able to break or unloose And though he be called the God of this World and the Prince of it yet that is not to be understood that he is the Prince and Ruler of the Creatures of the World or that he giveth riches health honour or the like for those are the gift of God only and not of the Devil but he is the God and Prince of the evil and wickedness that is in the World for in that and by that he reigneth and ruleth and to this purpose saith Rollock Damnatio est Satanae qui peccati author est Nam vit a hujus mundi est secundum principem cui potestas est aeris c. Dicitur autem Princeps hujus mundi quia per peccatum mortem regnat in mundo ut enim teste Paulo Regnum Dei positum est in justitiâ pace gaudio per spiritum sanctum sic regnum Satanae positum est in injustitia morte Unde ipse propter peccatum per quod regnat dicitur rector tenebrarum Propter mortem per quam regnat dicitur imperium mortis habere And upon this place St. Augustin saith thus Nunc Princeps hujus mundi ejicietur foras absit ut Diabolum principem mundi it a dictum existimemus ut eum Coeli terrae dominari posse credamus sed mundus appellatur in malis hominibus qui toto orbe terrarum diffusisunt Sic ergò dictum est Princeps hujus mundi id est princeps malor um hominum qui habitant in mundo Appellatur etiam mundus in bonis qui similiter per totum orbem terrarum diffusi sunt Ideò dicit Apostolus Deus erat in Christo mundum reconcilians sibi Hi sunt ex quorum cordibus principes mundi ejicientur foras And whereas also Satan is called the Prince of the power of the air that worketh in the Children of disobedience it is not literally so to be understood as though he had the natural power of ruling the air and causing of winds hail snow frost rain thunder and lightning for these are all ordered according to the will of divine providence and the causes that he hath established in the Elements So David speaking of the Heavens the Earth and the Elements doth conclude thus They continue this day according to thine ordinances for all thy servants And it is he that ordereth all these as saith the Text Who covereth the Heavens with Clouds who prepareth rain for the earth who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains He giveth snow like wool he scattereth the hoary frost like ashes He casteth forth his ice like morsels Who can stand before his Cold He sendeth forth his word and melteth them he causeth his wind to blow and the waters flow And all these fulfil the will and command of God and not the will of the faln Angels for the Text saith Fire and hail snow and vapour stormy wind fulfilling his word so that if they have any thing to do in the sublunary changes or motions of

warm This he also poureth upon the Frogs whereupon they die After some time the servant of another Nobleman is afflicted with miserable torments and there is suspicion of a Philter given by a person of quality They exhibite Mares urine and she vomiteth up two Lizards and two Frogs By which it is manifest that such strange vomitings up of Frogs Lizards Askers and the like though attributed to Witchcraft and the operation of Satan do but proceed from natural causes And doubtless the sperme or ova ranarum were but conveyed into the Apple that so by the heat of the Stomach and the Chylus that is like warm milk they might grow and increase And this kind of witching or secret poysoning we grant to be too frequent and common because those persons commonly accounted Witches are extreamly malicious and envious and do secretly and by tradition learn strange poysons philters and receipts whereby they do much hurt and mischief Which most strange wayes of poysoning tormenting and breeding of unwonted things in the stomach and bellies of people have not been unknown unto many learned men and Philosophers but they respecting the good of mankind and the multitude of evil minded persons have altogether forborn openly to mention such dangerous receipts in their writings or at the best so to publish them that not one of a thousand could understand what they intended and so these secrets of mischief are for the most part kept in obscurity amongst old women superstitious ignorant and melancholy persons and by them delivered over from hand to hand and commonly one learns it of another according to the Proverb Popery and Witchcraft go by Tradition And to this very purpose I cannot but insert that remarkable passage of Paracelsus in these words Possent equident ait peculiarem de ipsis tractatum edere ut artes ac machinae illarum manifestarentur Sed propter malitiosos ista talia pennâ seu calamo minimè evulganda sunt multa enim ●agitiosa simul induci possent quae satius est reticeri And that strange productions may be brought to pass and stupendious effects brought into action from secret and hidden natural causes that are better known to those malicious persons that are accounted Witches than others may be made manifest by another observation set down by the forementioned Salmuth and is this Galen and others have recorded that the saliva or spittle of a mad dog if it touch an human body and be not forthwith washed off may cause madness But in the Hydrophobia there is so great force of the poyson that the persons that are bitten do also piss or void by urine little whelps or pieces of flesh like them as Avicenna lib. 3. Fen. 6. tr 4. c. 7. hath delivered though doubted of by others But he saith I certainly know notwithstanding that of such saliva or spittle only left in the Garment after biting have Worms been breed plainly resembling little Whelps with their heads For a mad Dog did meet a Servant Maid of an honest Matrons going to the Market and flies furiously and violently at her feet She that she might avoid the danger inclineth her self and a little bendeth her knees whereupon the Dog doth with his teeth catch hold of her Garment and especially the seam or low selvidge and did bark a little while and forthwith ran away Which being done the Maid remained terrified and at the first doubted whether the Dog was mad or not but having recollected her self she suspecteth his rabiousness because he had been very familiar even almost domestick with her Therefore she returneth home and hangeth the torn Garment upon a piece of wood in the House But afterwards upon the fourth day she goeth to it with an intent to mend it But oh a wonderful thing she findeth Worms altogether like little Whelps in the head to be bred in those places of the hem in which the Dog had fastned his teeth and those as a new Miracle as they did call it were shewed unto certain of the Neighbours being called together 4. Another instance to prove the strange effects that may be produced by natural Causes and yet are so occult stupendious and unusual that they are commonly fathered upon Devils when they have no more at all to do in or about them but only the mental perswading of the persons to use them to wicked and destructive ends as those wonderful compositions that produce the Plague and such like grievous Diseases and Symptoms For this kind of veneficium call it Witchcraft if you please is and hath been often practised by most horrible malevolent and wicked persons who by an art more than Diabolical especially in respect of the end and use have so framed and prepared and commixed things naturally that in the form of unguents have produced the Plague and divers other most pernicious and venefical Diseases which may be confirmed by undeniable examples of which we shall give some few Josephus Quercetanus that famous Chymist and Physician to Henry the Fourth of France tells us thus much The Contagion of the Plague is not only contracted by the mediation of the air and water things in a manner universal or from other things more particular as vestments linnen and other moveable things inquinated by the attraction of pestiferous Atomes But also by the detestable Crafts and Diabolical Arts of certain most wicked persons which we call poysoners or witches by means of which they contemperate and mix certain poysons into the form of an unguent and use to rub some of it upon the handle of doors so that those that do but lightly touch them are forthwith infected with the Plague this subtile poison forthwith creeping by the pores of the skin into the extremities of the veins is quickly communicated to the heart to which human industry can hardly administer any remedy Unto which the Lord Verulam gives this cautious attestation Pestem quoque excitavit januarum rimarum aliorumque inunctio non tam ex contactu quam quod homini in more positum si quid humidi adhaerescat digitis naso illud admovere Moneri sepatientur apud quos ea inolevit consuetudo ut praecaveant Johannes Wierus a learned Physician and a person of credit and veracity reciteth this History from Antonius Sabellicus Ennead 4. lib. 4. This strange venefice or witchcraft was practis'd at Casal in the City of Salassia a Region of Italy in the year of our Lord God 1536. About forty persons men and women amongst whom there was one Hangman had combined and sworn together That seeing the Plague had ceased that before did rage they would compound an unguent with which the handles of the doors being besmeared they should be infected that touched those handles They did also prepare a Powder which being secretly sprinkled in the Garments should produce the Plague The Villany lay hid for some certain time and many were taken away of such as were joined in

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