| | |
| Miracles of Witchcraft CHAP. 4 | | |
| | |
| | | |
| promotion, welth, worship, pleasure, honor, knowledge, learning, or anie other | | |
| benefit whatsoever, | | |
| It falleth out many times, that neither their necessities, nor their expectation | | |
| is answered or served, in those places where they beg or borrowe; but rather | | |
| their lewdnesse* is by their neighbors reprooved. And further, in tract of time | | |
| the witch waxeth odious and tedious to hir neighbors; and they againe are | | |
| despised and despited of hir: so as sometimes she cursseth one, and sometimes | | |
| another; and that from the maister of the house, his wife, children, cattell, &c. | | |
| to the little pig that lieth in the stie. Thus in processe of time they have all dis- | | |
| pleased hir, and she hath wished evill lucke unto them all; perhaps with cursses | | |
| and imprecations made in forme.* Doubtlesse (at length) some of hir neighbors | | |
| die, or fall sicke; or some of their children are visited with diseases that vex | | |
| them strangelie: as apoplexies, epilepsies, convulsions, hot fevers, wormes, &c. | | |
| Which by ignorant parents are supposed to be the vengeance of witches. Yea | | |
| and their opinions and conceits* are confirmed and maintained by unskilfull | | |
| physicians: according to the common saieng; Inscitiæ pallium maleficium & incan- | | |
| tatio, Witchcraft and inchantment is the cloke of ignorance: whereas indeed evill | | |
| humors,* & not strange words, witches, or spirits are the causes of such diseases. | | |
| Also some of their cattell perish, either by disease or mischance. Then they, | | |
| upon whom such adversities fall, weighing the fame that goeth upon this woman | | |
| (hir words, displeasure, and cursses meeting so justlie with their misfortune) doo | | |
| not onelie conceive, but also are resolved, that all their mishaps are brought | | |
| to passe by hir onelie meanes. | | |
| The witch on the other side exspecting hir neighbours mischances, and seeing | | |
| things sometimes come to passe according to hir wishes, cursses, and incanta- | | |
| tions (for Bodin* himselfe confesseth, that not above two in a hundred of their | | I. Bodin. li. 2. |
| witchings or wishings take effect) being called before a justice, by due examina- | | de dæmono: |
| tion of the circumstances is driven to see hir imprecations and desires and hir | | cap. 8. |
| neighbors harmes and losses to concurre, and as it were to take effect: and so | | |
| confesseth that she (as a goddes) hath brought such things to passe. Wherein, | | |
| not onelie she, but the accuser, and also the justice are fowlie deceived and | | |
| abused; as being thorough hir confession and other circumstances persuaded | | |
| (to the injurie of Gods glorie) that she hath doone, or can doo that which is | | |
| proper onelie to God himselfe. | | |
| Another sort of witches there are, which be absolutelie cooseners.* These take | | |
| upon them, either for glorie, fame, or gaine, to doo anie thing, which God or the | | |
| divell can doo: either for foretelling of things to come, bewraieng of secrets, | | |
| curing of maladies, or working of miracles. But of these I will talke more at | | |
| large heereafter. | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | | |
| CHAPTER IV. | | |
| | |
| What miraculous actions are imputed to witches by witchmongers, papists, and poets. | | |
| | |
| ALTHOUGH it be quite against the haire, and contrarie to the divels | | |
| will, contrarie to the witches oth, promise, and homage, and contrarie to | | |
| all reason, that witches should helpe anie thing that is bewitched; but | | |
| rather set forward their maisters businesse: yet we read In malleo maleficarum, of | | Mal. Malef. |
| three sorts of witches; and the same is affirmed by all the writers heereupon, | | par. 2. quæst |
| new and old. One sort (they say) can hurt and not helpe, the second can helpe | | I. cap. 2. |
| and not hurt, the third can both helpe and hurt. And among the hurtfull | | |
| witches he saith there is one sort more beastlie than any kind of beasts, saving | | |
| woolves: for these usuallie devoure and eate yong children and infants of their | | |
| owne kind. These be they (saith he) that raise haile, tempests, and hurtfull | | |
| | 5 | |