Part 16

This will all be found verified (if the Reader can command sufficient Credulity) in a curious little Work entitled England's Warning Pieces, printed in 1642, and fully illustrated by Engravings. Among Prodigies related, the Writer says: "I remember our Brethren in New England, not long since, made use of another most prodigious and mishapen and monstrous Birth, brought foorth by a Gentlewoman of that New Plantation, who had beene a maine Fautrix, if not originall Broacher of very many most wicked, dangerous and damnable Opinions in their Church." Page 27. For further Particulars see Savage's Winthrop's Journal, i, 261-3.

This has Reference to the then late Persecution of the Huguenots in France. They had been protected by the Edict of Henry the Fourth (Nantes, 1598), which was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV; by which Revocation about 50,000 Protestants were forced to fly the Kingdom. Some fled to Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, and some even took Refuge in New England, where their Posterity are yet well known, respected and honored.

If, according to our Author, there is anything good or bad, that the Devil does not do, and is not the Author of, one might not unreasonably inquire what it is? Certainly in his Charges against the Devil every Accusation imaginable is exhausted, not one left even to father upon a Witch. Erratic Brains thus overdo themselves.

Rome was built on seven Hills. It is to that he alludes.

Ray refers to the Subject of the Earth having been once nearer the Sun than at present. See Physico-Theological Discourses, P. 381; also Dr. John Woodward's Natural History of the Earth, 245, Edition 1695, 8vo. Other Authors might be referred to.

So far as the Annotator's Reading goes he has not found the Devil charged with making Earthquakes previous to our Author's Time. He certainly was in Advance of all Philosophers, ancient and modern, as respects that Discovery.

Claudius Nero Tiberius died A. D. 37, aged 78.

On the 7th of June, 1692, Jamaica was partly destroyd. Some 1500 People perished. Why Jamaica or its Capitol is compared to the ancient Tyros or Tyrus it is not easy to understand, as it might be difficult to find two Places differing wider in most Respects. See Ray's Discourses, 258, where may be seen a particular Account of this Earthquake.

The Annotator is very greatly out in his Reckoning if the Reader does not decide that the Author was of all Men the most "bedeviled" of any ever heard or read of by him. This is the Editor's Corollary.

This is related by one Mr. Balsom. See Clarke's Martyrology, ii, 179. The Devil had Possession of the Body of the Man, and uttered the Language italicized in the Text, making Use of the Man's Organs of Speech.

It may not be easy for the Reader to discern how the whole Earth and the infinite Realms of Space about it can be much of a Gaol, especially with such a liberal Yard. The Doctor's Imagination is singularly at random sometimes.

A noted Puritan of the Time of Cromwell. In such of his Books as have come under my Notice, his Name is uniformly Burroughs. His Rare Jewell, 410, 1648, was formerly very popular, and there is a handsome Edition of it as late as 1845.

One has indeed a very "easie Time of it" in prophecying, and it is quite as easy to be laughed at for such Folly by those who come after such shallow-pated Soothsayers. The Author felt very sure that by the Year 1697, only five Years from the Time he was writing, that the Devil would have "his Wings so singed that he should no more set the Affairs of this World on Fire." That is to say--the Millenium would then begin!

The Turks had not received their greatest Check until after our Author wrote. Mahomet IV commenced with renewed Vigor the War against Germany in 1663. It was continued with alternate Success and Disaster, until 1683, when John Sobieski, King of Poland, raised the Siege of Vienna; but it was not till 1699 that the Turks were driven out of Transylvania.

The reported Utterance of Queen Mary (Consort of William the Third) at an Interview between her and the Author's Father, at Whitehall, April 9th, 1691. See Parentator, p. 130.

This refers to the coming in of the Prince of Orange, and the Overthrow of James the Second's Government.

On the 15th of March, 1691, Louis the XIV captured Nice in Piedmont, defended by the Duke of Savoy. But in the following Year the French lost the Supremacy of the Sea in the terrible Battle off La Hogue. That Supremacy they have never yet obtained.

See Morton's Memorial, P. 38, Edition 16º. Edition 1721. Mather's Relation, 110, Ed. 4º, 1864. Johnson's Wonderworking Providence, 51.

Having Reference, probably, to the Antinomians, as the more liberal Christians were called.

The Difficulties with the Episcopalians.

The absurd Notion that the Devil's Time was very short in 1693, was generally entertained by Christians. This Matter has already been referred to. When the World and its Affairs can go on without antagonistic Forces it is pretty certain the Devil's Time will be about out.

Although the Affairs of the French King had begun to decline when the Author wrote the above, his Opponents were not without great Fear from him, as he achieved several considerable Victories on the Land after the signal Defeat of his Fleet mentioned in a previous Note.

This Paragraph, though bracketed, is in the original Edition, Page 47.

AN HORTATORY AND NECESSARY ADDRESS, TO A COUNTRY NOW EXTRAORDINARILY ALARUM'D BY THE WRATH OF THE DEVIL. TIS THIS,

LET us now make a good and a right use of the prodigious descent which the Devil in Great Wrath is at this day making upon our Land. Upon the Death of a Great Man once, an Orator call'd the Town together, crying out, Concurrite Cives, Dilapsa sunt vestra Mœnia! that is, Come together, Neighbours, your Town-Walls are fallen down! But such is the descent of the Devil at this day upon our selves, that I may truly tell you, The Walls of the whole World are broken down! The usual Walls of defence about mankind have such a Gap made in them, that the very Devils are broke in upon us, to seduce the Souls, torment the Bodies, sully the Credits, and consume the Estates of our Neighbours, with Impressions both as real and as furious, as if the Invisible World were becoming Incarnate, on purpose for the vexing of us. And what use ought now to be made of so tremendous a dispensation? We are engaged in a Fast this day; but shall we try to fetch Meat out of the Eater, and make the Lion to afford some Hony for our Souls?

That the Devil is come down unto us with great Wrath, we find, we feel, we now deplore. In many ways, for many years hath the Devil been assaying to Extirpate the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus here. New-England may complain of the Devil, as in Psal. 129. 1, 2. Many a time have they afflicted me, from my Youth, may New-England now say; many a time have they afflicted me from my Youth; yet they have not prevailed against me. But now there is a more than ordinary affliction, with which the Devil is Galling of us: and such an one as is indeed Unparallelable. The things confessed by Witches, and the things endured by Others, laid together, amount unto this account of our Affliction. The Devil, Exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small Black man, has decoy'd a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures, to lift themselves in his horrid Service, by entring their Names in a Book by him tendred unto them. These Witches, whereof above a Score have now Confessed and shown their Deeds, and some are now tormented by the Devils, for Confessing, have met in Hellish Randezvouzes, wherein the Confessors do say, they have had their diabolical Sacraments, imitating the Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. In these hellish meetings, these Monsters have associated themselves to do no less a thing than, To destroy the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in these parts of the World; and in order hereunto, First they each of them have their Spectres, or Devils, commission'd by them, & representing of them, to be the Engines of their Malice. By these wicked Spectres, they seize poor people about the Country, with various & bloudy Torments; and of those evidently Preternatural torments there are some have dy'd. They have bewitched some, even so far as to make Self-destroyers: and others are in many Towns here and there languishing under their Evil hands. The people thus afflicted, are miserably scratched and bitten, so that the Marks are most visible to all the World, but the causes utterly invisible; and the same Invisible Furies do most visibly stick Pins into the bodies of the afflicted, and scald them, and hideously distort, and disjoint all their members, besides a thousand other sorts of Plagues beyond these of any natural diseases which they give unto them. Yea, they sometimes drag the poor people out of their chambers, and carry them over Trees and Hills, for divers miles together. A large part of the persons tortured by these Diabolical Spectres, are horribly tempted by them, sometimes with fair promises, and sometimes with hard threatnings, but always with felt miseries, to sign the Devils Laws in a Spectral Book laid before them; which two or three of these poor Sufferers, being by their tiresome sufferings overcome to do, they have immediately been released from all their miseries and they appear'd in Spectre then to Torture those that were before their Fellow-Sufferers. The Witches which by their covenant with the Devil, are become Owners of Spectres, are oftentimes by their own Spectres required and compelled to give their consent, for the molestation of some, which they had no mind otherwise to fall upon; and cruel Depredations are then made upon the Vicinage. In the Prosecution of these Witchcrafts, among a thousand other unaccountable things, the Spectres have an odd faculty of cloathing the most substantial and corporeal Instruments of Torture, with Invisibility, while the wounds thereby given have been the most palpable things in the World; so that the Sufferers assaulted with Instruments of Iron, wholly unseen to the standers by, though, to their cost, seen by themselves, have, upon snatching, wrested the Instruments out of the Spectres hands, and every one has then immediately not only beheld, but handled, an Iron Instrument taken by a Devil from a Neighbour. These wicked Spectres have proceeded so far, as to steal several quantities of Mony from divers people, part of which Money, has, before sufficient Spectators, been dropt out of the Air into the Hands of the Sufferers, while the Spectres have been urging them to subscribe their Covenant with Death. In such extravagant ways have these Wretches propounded, the Dragooning of as many as they can, in their own Combination, and the Destroying of others, with lingring, spreading, deadly diseases; till our Countrey should at last become too hot for us. Among the Ghastly Instances of the success which those Bloody Witches have had, we have seen even some of their own Children, so dedicated unto the Devil, that in their Infancy, it is found, the Imps have sucked them, and rendred them Venemous to a Prodigy. We have also seen the Devils first batteries upon the Town, where the first Church of our Lord in this Colony was gathered, producing those distractions, which have almost ruin'd the Town. We have seen likewise the Plague reaching afterwards into other Towns far and near, where the Houses of good Men have the Devils filling of them with terrible Vexations!

This is the Descent, which, it seems, the Devil has now made upon us. But that which makes this Descent the more formidable, is; the multitude and quality of Persons accused of an interest in this Witchcraft, by the Efficacy of the Spectres which take their Name and shape upon them; causing very many good and wise Men to fear, That many innocent, yea, and some vertuous persons, are by the Devils in this matter, imposed upon; That the Devils have obtain'd the power, to take on them the likeness of harmless people, and in that likeness afflict other people, and be so abused by Præstigious Dæmons, that upon their look or touch, the afflicted shall be oddly affected. Arguments from the Providence of God, on the one side, and from our Charity towards Man on the other side, have made this now to become a most agitated Controversie among us. There is an Agony produced in the Minds of Men, lest the Devil should sham us with Devices, of perhaps a finer Thred, than was ever yet practised upon the World. The whole business is become hereupon so Snarled, and the determination of the Question one way or another, so dismal, that our Honourable Judges have a Room for Jehoshaphat's Exclamation, We know not what to do! They have used, as Judges have heretofore done, the Spectral Evidences, to introduce their further Enquiries into the Lives of the persons accused; and they have thereupon, by the wonderful Providence of God, been so strengthened with other evidences, that some of the Witch Gang have been fairly Executed. But what shall be done, as to those against whom the evidence is chiefly founded in the dark world? Here they do solemnly demand our Addresses to the Father of Lights, on their behalf. But in the mean time, the Devil improves the Darkness of this Affair, to push us into a Blind Mans Buffet, and we are even ready to be sinfully, yea, hotly, and madly, mauling one another in the dark.

The consequence of these things, every considerate Man trembles at; and the more, because the frequent cheats of Passion, and Rumour, do precipitate so many, that I wish I could say, The most were considerate.