A Guide to Grand-jury Men, Book 2 · Chapter 9
CHAP. IX. That none ought to goe to these Wizards, Witches, blessers, healers, cunning men or women, for helpe.
Delrio li. 6. Sect. 1. q. 2. pa.. 936.THat none ought to resort to these miscreants and cursed caitises, there be plenty of reasons.
1. The Charge and Cōmandement of God, forbidding the same expresly, Leuit. 19. 31.
2. It is a spirituall defilement and Whoredome, for the Scripture faith, they go a whoring, Leuit. 20.6. and are defiled by them, Leuit. 19.31.
3. It is a dealing with the Deuill, and seeking of helpe from him, as Ahaziah did:2. Kin. 1.3. Bodin. lib. 1. cap. 6. for you hauehave heard by the confession of a Witch, that such hauehave a Familiar, and some hauehave beene knowne to inuocate the Deuill to cure another: And surely their mumbled, and senselesse prayers, what are they, but watch words betweene the Deuill and them? I knew one, that hearing a little boy greatly tormented in the next roome where hee was, went out into a back-side, and staying sometime there, returnd in againe, but yet in a great sweate, the boy that had cryed a whole weeke, ceased presently his crying: the Wizard prescribed (if the child telt paine againe) a certaine medicine of diuers hearbes, which I had from the man himselfe: but ouer the head, and before hee beganne to prescribe the medicine, these words must bee written, as they were taken from his owne mouth. Onguint manera Iaiaanquintmanera, very senselesse; but in these words were hidden the power of the medicine, and were the watch-word betweene the Deuill and him, to effect the worke. Those therefore which goe to these Wizards, seeke helpe of the Deuill.
4 It is an heathenish practice, to seeke to such, I…a. 19. 3. & 65.4. 2. King. 17.17. Now wee should not be like the abominable heathen,Ie 10.2. in any euill, much lesse in these abominations.
5. They which seeke vntounto them, are commonly wicked, and euill people, haunted themselues by an euill spirit, who suggesteth this course into them, as hee did into Saul, 1. Sam. 28. yea, such as esteeme of these, and thinke they worke in Gods name, and by his power, are bewitched in so thinking, Act 8.9, 11.
6. It is found true by dayly experience, that those which most vse them, most neede them: for these VVitches either breede, or nourish diuelish and vncharitable conceits, in those that seeke v…to them: as that they dwell by ill neighbours; that when any ill happeneth vntounto them, to theirs, or to their Cartell, that they are blasted, taken with an ill planet, strucken, that some ill thing went ouer them, that they are ouer-looked, forspoken, and bewitched by some one or other, and therefore they must seeke for helpe, and this must be of them, or of such as be like them, Wizards and VVitches. By which speeches, and wicked counsell, they are continually kept on worke in daily seeking to them, when any, the vry least crosse happeneth vntounto them, because they are euer imagining VVitchcraft, and that the onelyonly remedy for helpe is, to seeke vntounto these.
7. Learned men of all sorts generally condemne this running to these Wizards: Saint Augustine, Lib. 10. de …u…t Dei. In p…. 45. In hom. 7. ad Colossenses K. Iames in Daemon. l. 3. c. 5. In his treatise of witch. p. 61. 62. See all that hauehave written on the Com. Exod. Leuit. Deut.Saint Busili and Saint Chrysostome. Hippocrates an heathen, calleth those Nebulones, which by Satannicall meanes, professe to cure diseases, and saith, (marke an Heathens words) That God which purgeth the most desperate euils, is our deliuerance. Some Schoolmen hold it to bee an Apostasie, to seeke and vse helpe of Witches: Aquinas, Bonanen. Albertus, Durand, Scot. b. 12. c. 18. & b. 16. c. 3. Bodin. l. 3. c. 2. & 5.cited by Bodin. Master Roberts citeth the Lawes of Emperours, and the decrees against such. All the godly and learned Diuines in our dayes doe condemne the same, the dead by writing, the liuing vina voce in their Sermons.
8. They often lose their labour, for sometimes the healer is but a Counterfeit Witch, (worthy seuere punishment for deluding people:) And though a Witch, yet can hee, or shee doe nothing, but by the Deuils helpe, and he himselfe hath confessed to the VVitch, that hee cannot cure that sometimes, which at the bad Witches instigation hee hath inflicted. Againe, Satan, though hee hath his healers, yet must they liue one by another: therefore he healeth for one VVitch, one or two diseases, for another more, not for one all, and this, as it happeneth by their conditions, in the bargaine-making with the Deuill, when they enter into league with the Deuill. Sometime this white VVitch cannot cure the bewitched, without the consent of the bad VVitch, which caused it, or (which is fearefull to thinke vponupon,) till the same disease be put vponupon some other, or that the Witch be bewitched to death, which hath inflicted the torment vponupon the diseased partie. All these Bodinus noteth, with examples cut of Sprangerus an Inquisitour that examined,See in Scot, booke 12 chap. 7. a notable coozening trick of such a W…tch, to make her speech true in accusing an honest woman, for a W…tch. had the confessions, and put to death great numbers of Witches.
These VVitches, to keepe their credit, often deliuer their medicines with an I… : If it doe no good, come againe. When they r…turne and finde that the Deuill hath not remoued the disease, or that God being displeased, will not let them; then the VVizards blame them, that they came not in time, or they applied not the meanes aright, or that they wanted faith to beleeue, or at least they acknowledged their power not great inough, and therefore they aduise them to goe to a more cunning man or woman, and so direct them vntounto another VVitch, or Deuill, for helpe, worse then themselues.
9. And lastly,Leuit. 20.6. the Lord threatneth to set his face against that soule, and to cut him off from amongst his people, that seeketh vntounto them.
Let these reasons disswade vsus therefore, from helping our selues by such detestable means so abhorred and hated of God.