Part 26

“The third word in the text is ‏מנחש‎ menachesh, which our English translation renders, an enchanter. And, with Mr. Webster’s leave, (who insulteth so over their supposed ignorance) I think they have translated it very learnedly and judiciously; for charming and enchanting, as Webster himself acknowledges, and the words intimate, being all one, the word, ‏מנחש‎ menachesh, here, may very well signify enchanters, or charmers; but such properly as kill serpents by their charming, from ‏נחש‎ nachash, which signifies a serpent, from whence comes ‏נחש‎ nichesh, to kill serpents, or make away with them. For a verb in pihel, sometimes (especially when it is formed from a noun) has a contrary signification. Thus from ‏שרש‎ radix is ‏שרש‎ radices evulsit, from ‏דשן‎ cinis ‏דשן‎ removit cineres, from ‏חטא‎ peccavit ‏חטא‎ expiavit à peccato; and so lastly from ‏נחש‎ serpens, is made ‏נחש‎ liberavit â serpentibus, nempe occidendo vel fugando per incantationem. And therefore there seems to have been a great deal of skill and depth of judgment in our English translators that rendered ‏מנחש‎ menachesh, an enchanter, especially when that of augur or soothsayer, which the Septuagint call Ὀιωνιζόμενον (there being so many harmless kinds of it) might seem less suitable with this black list: for there is no such abomination in adventuring to tell, when the wild geese fly high in great companies, and cackle much, that hard weather is at hand, but to rid serpents by a charm is above the power of nature; and therefore an indication of one that has the assistance of some invisible spirit to help him in this exploit, as it happens in several others; and therefore this is another name of one that is really a witch.

“The fourth word is ‏מכשף‎ mecasseph, which our English translators render, a witch; for which I have no quarrel with them, unless they should so understand it that it must exclude others from being so in that sense I have defined, which is impossible they should. But this, as the foregoing, is but another term of the same thing; that is, of a witch in general, but so called here from the prestigious imposing on the sight of beholders. Buxtorf tells us, that Aben Ezra defines those to be ‏מכשפים‎ [mecassephim] qui mutant et transformant res naturales ad aspectum oculi. Not as jugglers and hocus-pocusses, as Webster would ridiculously insinuate, but so as I understood the thing in the second name; for these are but several names of a witch, who may have several more properties than one name intimates. Whence it is no wonder that translators render not them always alike. But so many names are reckoned up here in this clause of the law of Moses, that, as in our common law, the sense may be more sure, and leave no room to evasion. And that here this name is not from any tricks of legerdemain as in common jugglers that delude the sight of the people at a market or fair, but that it is the name of such as raise magical spectres to deceive men’s sight, and so are most certainly witches, is plain from Exod. chap. xxii, v. 18, ‘Thou shalt not suffer,’ ‏מכשפה‎ mecassephah, that is, ‘a witch, to live.’ Which would be a law of extreme severity, or rather cruelty, against a poor hocus-pocus for his tricks of legerdemain.

“The fifth name is ‏חובר חבר‎ chobher chebher, which our English translators render charmer, which is the same with enchanter. Webster upon this name is very tedious and flat, a many words and small weight in them. I shall dispatch the meaning briefly thus: this ‏חובר חבר‎, chobher chebher, that is to say, socians societatem, is another name of a witch, so called specially either from the consociating together serpents by a charm, which has made men usually turn it (from the example of the Septuagint, ἐπάδων ἐπαοιδὴν,) a charmer, or an enchanter, or else from the society or compact of the witch with some evil spirits; which Webster acknowledges to have been the opinion of two very learned men, Martin Luther and Perkins, and I will add a third, Aben Ezra, (as Martinius hath noted,) who gives this reason of the word ‏חובר‎ chobher, an enchanter, which signifies socians or jungens, viz. Quòd malignos spiritus sibi associat. And certainly one may charm long enough, even till his heart aches, ere he make one serpent assemble near him, unless helped by this confederacy of spirits that drive them to the charmer. He keeps a pudder with the sixth verse of the fifty-eighth Psalm to no purpose; whereas from the Hebrew, ‏אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר חברים מחכם‎, if you repeat ἀπὸ κοινoῦ ‏לקול‎ before ‏חובר‎, you may with ease and exactness render it thus: ‘That hears not the voice of muttering charmers, no not the voice of a confederate wizzard, or charmer that is skilful.’ But seeing charms, unless with them that are very shallow and sillily credulous, can have no such effects of themselves, there is all the reason in the world (according as the very word intimates, and as Aben Ezra has declared,) to ascribe the effect to the assistance, confederacy, and co-operation of evil spirits, and so ‏חובר חברים‎, chobher chabharim, or ‏חובר חבר‎ chobher chebher, will plainly signify a witch or wizzard according to the true definition of them. But for J. Webster’s rendering this verse, p. 119, thus, Quæ non audiet vocem mussitantium incantationes docti incantantis, (which he saith is doubtless the most genuine rendering of the place) let any skilful man apply it to the Hebrew text, and he will presently find it grammatical nonsense. If that had been the sense, it should have been ‏חברי חובר מחכם‎.

“The sixth word is ‏שואל אוב‎, shoel obh, which our English translation renders, ‘a consulter with familiar spirits;’ but the Septuagint Ἐγγαστρίμυθος. Which therefore must needs signifie him that has this familiar spirit: and therefore ‏שואל אוב‎ shoel obh, I conceive, (considering the rest of the words are so to be understood) is to be understood of the witch or wizzard himself that asks counsel of his familiar, and does by virtue of him give answers unto others. The reason of the name of ‏אוב‎ obh, it is likely was taken first from that spirit that was in the body of the party, and swelled it to a protuberancy like the side of a bottle. But after, without any relation to that circumstance, OBH signifies as much as pytho; as pytho also, though at first it took its name from the pythii vates, signifies no more than spiritum divinationis, in general, a spirit that tells hidden things, or things to come. And OBH and pytho also agree in this, that they both signify either the divinatory spirit itself, or the party that has that spirit. But here in ‏שואל אוב‎, shoel obh, it being rendered by the Septuagint Ἐγγαςείμυθος, OBH is necessarily understood of the spirit itself, as pytho is, Acts xvi. 16, if you read πνεῦμα πύδωνα, with Isaac Casaubon; but if πύθωνος, it may be understood either way. Of this πνεύμα πύθων, it is recorded in that place, that ‘Paul being grieved, turned and said to that spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her, and he came out at the same hour;’ which signifies as plainly as any thing can be signified, that this pytho or spirit of divination, that this OBH was in her: for nothing can come out of the sack that was not in the sack, as the Spanish proverb has it; nor could this pytho come out of her unless it was a spirit distinct from her; wherefore I am amazed at the profane impudence of J. Webster, that makes this pytho in the maid there mentioned, nothing but a wicked humour of cheating and cozening divination: and adds, that this spirit was no more cast out of that maid than the seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, which he would have understood only of her several vices; which foolish familistical conceit he puts upon Beza as well as Adie. Wherein as he is most unjust to Beza, so he is most grossly impious and blasphemous against the spirit of Christ in St. Paul and St. Luke, who makes them both such fools as to believe that there was a spirit or divining devil in the maid, when according to him there is no such thing. Can any thing be more frantic or ridiculous than this passage of St. Paul, if there was no spirit or devil in the damsel? But what will this profane shuffler stick to do in a dear regard to his beloved hags, of whom he is sworn advocate, and resolved patron right or wrong?

“But to proceed, that ‏אוב‎, obh, signifies the spirit itself that divines, not only he that has it, is manifest from Levit. xx. 27, Vir autem sive mulier cùm fuerit [‏בהם אוב‎] in eis pytho. And 1 Sam. xxviii. 8, Divina quæso mihi [‏באוב‎] per pythonem. In the Septuagint it is ἐν τῶν Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ, that is, by that spirit that sometimes goes into the body of the party, and thence gives answers; but here it only signifies a familiar spirit. And lastly, ‏בעלת אוב‎, bagnalath obh, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, Quæ habit pythonem; there OBH must needs signify the spirit itself, of which she of Endor was the owner or possessor; that is to say, it was her familiar spirit. But see what brazen and stupid impudence will do here, ‏בעלת אוב‎, bagnalath obh, with Webster must not signify one that has a familiar spirit, but the mistress of the bottle. Who but the master of the bottle, or rather of whom the bottle had become master, and by guzzling had made his wits excessively muddy and frothy, could ever stumble upon such a foolish interpretation? But because ‏אוב‎ obh, in one place of the Scripture signifies a bottle, it must signify so here, and it must be the instrument forsooth, out of which this cheating quean of Endor does ‘whisper, peep, or chirp like a chicken coming out of the shell,’ p. 129, 165. And does she not, I beseech you, put her nib also into it sometimes, as into a reed, as it is said of that bird, and cries like a butter-bump? certainly he might as well have interpreted ‏בעלת אוב‎ bagnalath obh, of the great tun of Heidelberg, that Tom. Coriat takes such special notice of, as of the bottle.

“And truly so far as I see, it must be some such huge tun at length rather than the bottle, that is, such a spacious tub as he in his deviceful imagination fancies Manasses to have built; a μανείον forsooth, or oracular edifice for ‘cheating rogues and queans to play their cozening tricks in;’ from that place 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6, ‏ועשה אוב‎, Et fecit pythonem. Now, says he, how could Manasses make a familiar spirit? or make one that had a familiar spirit? Therefore he made a bottle a tun, or a large tub, a μαντεῖον, or oracular edifice ‘for cheating rogues or queans to play their cozening tricks in.’ Very wisely argued, and out of the very depth of his ignorance of the Hebrew tongue, whereas if he had looked into Buxtorf’s Dictionary he might have understood that ‏עשה‎ signifies not only fecit but also paravit, comparavit, acquisivit, magni fecit, none of which words imply the making of OBH in his sense, but the only appointing them to be got, and countenancing them. For in Webster’s sense he did not make ‏ידעני‎ jidegnoni neither, that is wizzards, and yet Manasses is said to make them both alike. ‏יעשה אוב וידעני‎, Et fecit pythonem et magos. So plain is it that ‏אוב‎, obh, signifies pytho, and that adequately in the same sense that pytho does, either a familiar spirit, or him that has that spirit of divination. But in ‏בעלת אוב‎, bagnalath obh, it necessarily signifies the familiar spirit itself, which assisted the witch of Endor; whereby it is manifest she is rightly called a witch. As for his stories of counterfeit ventriloquists, (and who knows but some of his counterfeit ventriloquists may prove true ones,) that is but the threadbare sophistry of Sadducees and Atheists to elude the faith of all true stories by those that are of counterfeits or feigned.

“The seventh word is ‏ידעוני‎, jidegnoni, which our English translators render a wizzard. And Webster is so kind as to allow them to have translated this word aright. Wizzards, then, Webster will allow, that is to say, he-witches, but not she-witches. How tender the man is of that sex! But the word invites him to it ‏ידעוני‎, jidegnoni, coming from scire, and answering exactly to wizzard or wise man. And does not witch from wit and weet signify as well a wise woman, as I noted above? And as to the sense of those words from whence they are derived, there is no hurt herein; and therefore if that were all, ‏ידעוני‎, jidegnoni, had not been in this black list. Wherefore it is here understood in that more restrict and worse sense: so as we understand usually now-a-days witch and wizzard, such wise men and women whose skill is from the confederacy of evil spirits, and therefore are real wizzards and witches. In what a bad sense ‏ידעוני‎, jidegnoni, is understood, we may learn, from Levit. xx. 27, ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizzard, jidegnoni, shall be put to death, they shall stone them with stones,’ &c.

“The last word is ‏דורש המתים‎, doresh hammethim, which our translators rightly render necromancers; that is, those that either upon their own account, or desired by others, do raise the ghosts of the deceased to consult with; which is a more particular term than ‏בעל אוב‎, bagnal obh: but he that is bagnal obh, may be also doresh hammethim, a necromancer, as appears in the witch of Endor. Here Webster by ‏המתים‎, hammethim, the dead, would understand dead statues; but let him, if he can, any where shew in all the Scripture where the word ‏המתים‎, hammethim, is used of what was not once alive. He thinks he hits the nail on the head in that place of Isaiah, viii. 19, ‘And when they say unto you, seek unto [‏האבות‎, that is, to ‏בעליה אוב‎, such as the witch of Endor was,] them that have familiar spirits, and to wizzards that peep and that mutter; [the Hebrew has it ‏המהגים‎ and ‏המצפצפים‎; that is, speak with a querulous murmurant or mussitant voice, when they either conjure up the spirit, or give responses. If this be to ‘peep like a chicken,’ Isaiah himself peeped like a chicken, xxxviii. 14,] should not a people seek unto their God? for the living, (‏אל המתים‎,) to the dead?’ Where hammethim is so far from signifying dead statues, that it must needs be understood of the ghosts of dead men, as here in Deuteronomy. None but one that had either stupidly or wilfully forgot the story of Samuel’s being raised by that ‏בעלת אוב‎, bagnalath obh, the witch of Endor, could ever have the face to affirm that ‏המתים‎, hammethim, here in Isaiah, is to be understood of dead statues, when wizzards or necromancers were so immediately mentioned before, especially not Webster, who acknowledges that ‏שואל אוב‎, shoel obh, signifies a necromancer in this Deuteronomical list of names. And therefore, forsooth, would have it a tautology that doresh hammethim should signify so too. But I say it is no tautology, this last being more express and restrict. And besides, this enumeration is not intended as an accurate logical division of witches or witchcraft, into so many distinct kinds, but a reciting of several names of that ill trade, though they will interfere one with another, and have no significations so precisely distinct. But as I said before, this fuller recounting of them is made that the prohibition in this form might be the surer fence against the sin. And now therefore what will J. Webster get by this, if doresh hammethim will not signify a witch of Endor, when it must necessarily signify a necromancer, which is as much against his tooth as the other? Nay indeed this necromancer is also a witch or wizzard, according to the definition produced above.

“The rest of the chapter being so inconsiderable, and I having been so long already upon it, I shall pass to the next, after I have desired you to take notice how weak and childish, or wild and impudent, Mr. Webster has been in the interpretation of Scripture hitherto, in the belief of his sage dames, to fence off the reproach of being termed witches; whereas there is scarce one word in this place of Deuteronomy that does not imply a witch or wizzard, according to the real definition thereof. And truly he seems himself to be conscious of the weakness of his own performance, when after all this ado, the sum at last amounts but to this, that there are no names in all the Old Testament that signifies such a witch that destroy men or beasts, that make a visible compact with the devil, or on whose body he sucketh, or with whom he hath carnal copulation, or that is really changed into a cat, hare, dog, or such like. And to shew it amounts to no more than so, was the task we undertook in this chapter.

“But assure yourself, if you peruse his book carefully, you shall plainly find that the main drift thereof is to prove, as I above noted, that there is no such witch as with whom the devil has any thing more to do than with any other sinner, which, notwithstanding this conclusion of his a little before recited, comes infinitely short of: and therefore this sixth chapter, consisting of about thirty pages in folio, is a meer piece of impertinency. And there will be witches for all this, whether these particulars be noted in them or no; for it was sufficient for Moses to name those ill sounding terms in general, which imply a witch according to that general notion I have above delivered; which if it be prohibited, namely, the having any thing to do with evil spirits, their being suckt by them, or their having any lustful or venerous transactions with them, is much more prohibited.

“But for some of these particularities also they may seem to be in some manner hinted at in some of the words, especially as they are rendered sometimes by skilful interpreters: for ‏מכשף‎ (Mecasseph,) is translated by Vatablus, and the vulgar Latin Maleficus, by the Septuagint φαρμακός, that is Veneficus: which word signifies mischievously enough both to man and beast. Besides that Mecasseph carries along with it the signification of transformation also; and haply this may be the difference betwixt ‏מכשף‎ Mecasseph, and ‏מעונן‎ Megnonen, that the former uses prestigious transformations to some great mischief, as where Olaus Magnus tells of those that have transformed themselves into wolves, to men’s thinking, and have presently fallen upon worrying of sheep. Others transformed in their astral spirit, into various shapes, get into houses and do mischief to men and children, as I remember Remegius reports. And therefore it is less wonder that that sharp law of Moses is against the ‏מכשפה‎ Mecassephah; such a witch as this is, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;’ this may be a more peculiar signification of that word. And now for making a compact with the devil, how naturally does that name ‏חובר חבר‎ Chobber Chebber, signifie that feat also? But for sucking and copulation, though rightly stated it may be true, yet I confess there is nothing hinted towards that so far as I see, as indeed it was neither necessary that the other should be. But these are the very dregs, the fex magorum et sagarum, that sink in those abominations, against which a sufficient bar is put already by this prohibition in general by so many names. And the other is filthy, base, and nasty, that the mention thereof was neither fit for the sacred style of Moses’s law, nor for the years of the people.

In my passing to the eight chapter I will only take notice by the way of the shameless impudence of J. Webster, who in favour to his beloved hags, that they may be never thought to do any thing by the assistance of the devil, makes the victory of Moses, with whom the mighty hand of God was, or of Christ, (who was the angel that appeared first to Moses in the bush, and conducted the children of Israel out of Egypt to the promised land) to be the victory only over so many hocus-pocusses, so many jugglers that were, as it seems, old and excellent at the tricks of Legerdemain; which is the basest derogation to the glory of that victory, and the vilest reproach against the God of Israel, and the person of Moses, that either the malicious wit of any devil can invent, or the dulness of any sunk soul can stumble upon. Assuredly there was a real conflict here betwixt the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and the evil spirits thereof, which assisted the ‏חרטמים‎ Hartummim, the Magicians of Egypt; who before that name is named, that no man may mistake, are called ‏מכשפים‎, Mecassaphim, such kind of magicians as can exhibit to the sight manifold prestigious transformations through diabolical assistance, and are rendered Malificia by good interpreters, as I noted above; that is, they were wizzards, or he-witches. The self same word being used in that severe law of Moses, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Are not these magicians then examples plain enough that there are witches; that is to say, such wretched wights as do strange miraculous things by the assistance or consociation of the evil spirits?

“O no, says Mr. Webster, these are only ‏חכמים‎ Chacamim, wise men and great naturalists, who all what they did, they did ‏בלהטיהם‎, by their bright glittering laminæ, for so ‏להטם‎ forsooth must signifie. But what necessity thereof that ‏להט‎ should signifie lamina? there is only the presence of that one place, Gen. iii, 24. ‏להט חרב‎, where it is ‏חרב‎ only that signifies the lamina, and that of a long form, scarce usual in those magical laminæ with signatures celestial upon them, which J. Webster would be at; but ‏הטם‎ signifies merely flamma; so that ‏בלהטיהם‎ by this account must signifie by their flames, if it be from ‏להט‎ ardere, flammare: and therefore Buxtorfius judiciously places the word under ‏בלהטיהם‎ abscondit, obvolvit, reading not ‏בלאטיהם‎ but ‏בלאטיהם‎, which is as much as to say, occultis suis rationibus Magicis, which is briefly rendered in English, ‘by their enchantments;’ which agrees marvellously well with ‏מכשפים‎ Mecassephim, which is as much as Præstigiatores Magici, or such as do strange wonderous things in an hidden way, by the help of evil spirits. But that the Egyptian magicians should do those things that are there recorded of them in Exodus, by virtue of any lamels, or plates of metals, with certain sculptures or figures, under such or such a constellation, is a thing so sottish and foolish that no man that is not himself bewitched by some old hag or hobgobling, can ever take sanctuary here to save himself or his old dames from being in a capacity, from this history in Exodus, of being accounted witches. For if there may be he-witches, that is magicians, such as these of Egypt were, I leave J. Webster to scratch his head to find out any reason why there may not be she-witches also.

“And indeed that of the witch of Endor, to pass at length to the eighth chapter, is as plain a proof thereof as can be desired by any man whose mind is not blinded with prejudices. But here J. Webster, not impertinently, I confess, for the general, (abating him the many tedious particular impertinences that he has clogg’d his discourse with) betakes himself to these two ways, to shew there was nothing of a witch in all that whole narration. First, by pretending that all the transaction on the woman of Endor’s part was nothing but collusion and a cheat, Saul not being in the same room with her, or at least seeing nothing if he was. And then in the next place, that Samuel that is said to appear, could neither be Samuel appearing in his body out of the grave, nor in his soul; nor that it was a devil that appeared; and therefore it must be some colluding knave, suborned by the witch. For the discovering the weakness of his former allegation, we need but appeal to the text, which is this, 1 Sam. xxviii, v. 8.

‘And Saul said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee,’ ‏קסומי־נא לי‎ that is, do the office of a divineress, or a wise woman, ‘I pray thee unto me, ‏באוב‎ Beobh, by virtue of the familiar spirit, whose assistance thou hast, not by virtue of the bottle, as Mr. Webster would have it. Does he think that damsel in the Acts, which is said to have had πνεῦμα πύθωνος, that is to have had ‏אוב‎ Obh, carried an aqua-vitæ bottle about with her, hung at her girdle, whereby she might divine and mutter, chirp, or peep out of it, as a chicken out of an egg-shell, or put her neb into it to cry like a bittern, or take a dram of the bottle, to make her wits more quick and divinatory. Who but one who had taken too many drams of the bottle could ever fall into such a fond conceit? Wherefore ‏אוב‎ Obh, in this place does not, as indeed no where else, signifie an oracular bottle, or μαντεῖον, into which Saul might desire the woman of Endor to retire into, and himself expect answers in the next room; but signifies that familiar spirits by virtue of whose assistance she was conceived to perform all those wond’rous offices of a wise woman. But we proceed to verse 11.

“‘Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, bring me up Samuel.’ Surely as yet Saul and the woman are in the same room, seeing the woman askt, ‘Whom shall I bring up unto thee?’ and he answering, ‘Bring up unto me Samuel,’ it implies, that Samuel was so brought up that Saul might see him, and not the witch only. But we go on, verse 12.

“‘And when the woman saw Samuel, she cryed with a loud voice; and the woman spake to Saul, saying, why hast thou deceived, for thou art Saul? Tho’ the woman might have some suspicions before that it was Saul, yet she now seeing Samuel did appear, and in another kind of way than her spirits used to do, and in another hue, as it is most likely so holy a soul did, she presently cryed out with a loud voice, ‘not muttered, chirpt, and peept as a chicken coming out of the shell,’ that now she was sure it was Saul, for she was not such a fool, as to think her art could call up real Samuel, but that the presence of Saul was the cause thereof: and Josephus writes expressly, Ὅτι θεασάμενον τὸ γύναιον ἄνδρα σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται, καὶ πρὸς την ὄψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ σύ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σαοῦλος; i. e. ‘The woman seeing a grave god-like man is startled at it, and thus astonished at the vision, turned herself to the king, and said, art not thou king Saul?’ Verse 13.

“‘And the king said unto her, be not afraid; for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw Gods ascending out of the earth.’ The king here assures the woman, that tho’ he was Saul, yet no hurt should come to her, and therefore bids her not be afraid. But she turning her face to Saul as she spake to him, and he to her, and so her sight being off from the object, Saul asked her, ‘What sawest thou?’ and she in like manner answered, ‘I saw Gods,’ &c. For Gods, I suppose any free translator in Greek, Latin, and English, would say, δαίμονας, genios, spirits. And ‏אלהים‎ signifies Angels as well as Gods; and it is likely these wise women take the spirits they converse with to be good angels, as Ann Bodenham the witch told a worthy and learned friend of mine, that these spirits, such as she had, were good spirits, and would do a man all good offices all the days of his life; and ’tis likely this woman of Endor had the same opinion of hers, and therefore we need not wonder that she calls them ‏אלהים‎ Elohim, especially Samuel appearing among them, to say nothing of the presence of Saul. And that more than one spirit appears at a time, there are repeated examples in Ann Bodenham’s magical evocations of them, whose history, I must confess, I take to be very true.

“The case stands therefore thus: The woman and Saul being in the same room, she turning her face from Saul, mutters to herself some magical form of evocation of spirits; where upon they beginning to appear and rise up, seemingly out of the earth, upon the sight of Samuel’s countenance, she cryed out to Saul, and turning her face towards him, spoke to him. Now that Saul hitherto saw nothing, though in the same room, might be either because the body of the woman was interposed betwixt his eyes and them, or the vehicles of those spirits were not yet attempered to that conspissation that they would strike the eyes of Saul, tho’ they did of the witch. And that some may see an object, others not seeing it, you have an instance in the child upon Walker’s shoulders, appearing to Mr. Fairhair, and it may be to the judge, but invisible to the rest of the Court; and many such examples there are. But I proceed to verse 14.

“‘And he said unto her, what form is he of? and she said, an old man cometh up, and is covered with a mantle.’ He asks here in the singular number, because, his mind was only fixt on Samuel. And the woman’s answer is exactly according to what the spirit appeared to her, when her eye was upon it, viz. ‏איש זקן עלה‎ ‘an old man coming up;’ for he was but coming up when she looked upon him, and accordingly describes him: For ‏עלה‎ there, is a particle of the present tense, and the woman describes Saul from his age, habit, and motion he was in, while her eye was upon him. So that the genuine and grammatical sense in this answer to ‘what form is he of?’ is this, an old man coming up, and the same covered with a mantle, this is his form and condition I saw him in. Wherefore Saul being so much concerned herein, either the woman or he changing their postures or standings, or Samuel by this having sufficiently conspissated his vehicle, and fitted it to Saul’s sight also, it follows in the text: ‘And Saul perceived it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself.’

“O the impudent profaneness and sottishness of perverse shufflers and whifflers! that upon the hearing of this passage can have the face to deny that Saul saw any thing, and meerly because the word ‘perceived’ is used, and not ‘saw,’ when the word ‘perceived,’ plainly implies that he saw Samuel, and something more, namely, that by his former familiar converse with him, he was assured it was he. So exquisitely did he appear, and over-comingly to his senses, that he could not but acknowledge (for so the Hebrew word ‏ידע‎ signifies) that it was he, or else why did he stoop with his face to the very ground to do him honour?

“No, no, says J. Webster, he saw nothing himself, but stood waiting like a drowned puppet (see of what a base rude spirit this squire of hags is, to use such language of a prince in his distress,) in another room to hear what would be the issue; for all that he understood, was from her cunning and lying relations. That this gallant of witches should dare to abuse a prince thus, and feign him as much foolisher and sottisher in his intellectuals, as he was taller in stature than the rest of the people, even by head and shoulders, and merely forsooth, to secure his old wives from being so much as in a capacity of ever being suspected for witches, is a thing extremely coarse and intolerably sordid. And indeed, upon the consideration of Saul’s being said to bow himself to Samuel, (which plainly implies, that there was there a Samuel that was the object of his sight, and of the reverence he made) his own heart misgives him in this mad adventure, and he shifts off from thence to a conceit that it was a confederate knave, that the woman of Endor turned out into the room where Saul was, to act the part of Samuel, having first put on him her own short cloak, which she used with her maund under her arm to ride to fairs or markets in. To this countryslouch in the woman’s mantle, must king Saul, stooping with his face to the very ground, make his profound obeysance. What was a market-woman’s cloak and Samuel’s mantle, which Josephus calls διπλοΐδα ἱερατικήν, a ‘sacerdotal habit,’ so like one another? Or if not, how came this woman, being so surpriz’d of a sudden, to provide herself of such a sacerdotal habit to cloak her confederate knave in? Was Saul as well a blind as a drowned puppet, that he could not discern so gross and bold an impostor as this? Was it possible that he should not perceive that it was not Samuel, when they came to confer together, as they did? How could that confederate knave change his own face into the same figure, look, and mien that Samuel had, which was exactly known to Saul? How could he imitate his voice thus of a sudden, and they discoursed a very considerable time together?

“Besides, knaves do not use to speak what things are true, but what things are pleasing. And moreover, this woman of Endor, though a Pythoness, yet she was of a very good nature and benign, which Josephus takes notice of, and extols her mightily for it, and therefore she could take no delight to lay further weight on the oppressed spirit of distressed king Saul; which is another sign that this scene was acted bonâ fide, and that there was no cozening in it. As also that it is another, that she spoke so magnificently of what appeared to her, that she saw Gods ascending. Could she then possibly adventure to turn out a countryslouch with a maund-woman’s cloak to act the part of so God-like and divine a personage of Samuel, who was Θεῷ τὴν μορφὴν ὅμοιος, as the woman describes him in Josephus Antiq. Judaic. lib. vii. c. 15, unto all which you may add, that the Scripture itself, which was written by inspiration, says expressly, verse 20, that it was Samuel. And the son of Sirach, chap xlvi. that Samuel himself prophesied after his death, referring to this story of the woman of Endor. But for our new inspired seers, or saints, S. Scot, S. Adie, and if you will, S. Webster, sworn advocate of the witches, who thus madly and boldly, against all sense and reason, against all antiquity, all interpreters, and against the inspired scripture itself, will have no Samuel in this scene, but a cunning confederate knave, whether the inspired scripture, or these inblown buffoons, puffed up with nothing but ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity, are to be believed, let any one judge.

“We come now to his other allegation, wherein we shall be brief, we having exceeded the measure of a postscript already. ‘It was neither Samuel’s soul,’ says he, ‘joined with his body, nor his soul out of his body, nor the devil; and therefore it must be some confederate knave suborned by that cunning, cheating quean of Endor.’ But I briefly answer, it was the soul of Samuel himself; and that it is the fruitfulness of the great ignorance of J. Webster in the sound principles of theosophy and true divinity, that has enabled him to heap together no less than ten arguments to disprove this assertion, and all little to the purpose: so little indeed, that I think it little to the purpose particularly to answer them, but shall hint only some few truths which will rout the whole band of them.

“I say therefore that departed souls, as other spirits, have an ἀυτεξούσιον in them, such as souls have in this life; and have both a faculty and a right to move of themselves, provided there be no express law against such or such a design to which their motion tends.

“Again, that they have a power of appearing in their own personal shapes to whom there is occasion, as Anne Walker’s soul did to the miller; and that this being a faculty of theirs either natural or acquirable, the doing so is no miracle. And,

“Thirdly, That it was the strong piercing desire, and deep distress and agony of mind in Saul, in his perplexed circumstances, and the great compassion and goodness of spirit in the holy soul of Samuel, that was the effectual magick that drew him to condescend to converse with Saul in the woman’s house at Endor, as a keen sense of justice and revenge made Anne Walker’s soul appear to the miller with her five wounds in her head.

“The ridged and harsh severity that Webster fancies Samuel’s ghost would have used against the woman, or sharp reproofs to Saul; as for the latter, it is somewhat expressed in the text, and Saul had his excuse in readiness, and the good soul of Samuel was sensible of his perplexed condition. And as for the former, sith the soul of Samuel might indeed have terrified the poor woman, and so unhinging her, that she had been fit for nothing after it, but not converted her, it is no wonder if he passed her by; goodness and forbearance more befitting an holy angelical soul than bluster and fury, such as is fancied by that rude goblin that actuates the body and pen of Webster.