.NDI.MjIzNzI

Imprisoned under ye name of a witch, my husband & friends disowned me, & seing no hope of ever being in credit againe Through ye Temptation of ye Devill I made yt confession to destroy my owne life, Being weary of it , & chusing rather to dy yn to live. This her lamentable speech did astonish all ye spectators, few of whom could refrain from Teares. The Truth of ys Relation (saith my Author) (n) is certainely asserted by a worthy Divine now Living who was an Eye & Ear wittness of ye whole matter. But thus did that miserable creature suffer death. And this was a just Execution. When the Amalekite confessed he had killed Saul whom [scratched out: he] he had no legall Authority to meddle withall, altho tis pro- bable that he belied himselfe, David gave order for his Execution & said to him, thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee. 2 Sam: 1:16. But as for ye testimony of Confessing witches against others, ye case is not so clean as against themselves. They are not such Credible wittnesses as in a case of Life or Death is to Be desired. It is beyond dispute yt the Devill makes his Witches to dream strange things of themselves & others wch are not so. There was (as Authors beyond Exception relate) in appearance a sumptuos feast prepared, the wine & meat set forth in Vessels of Gold. A certain person whom an Amorous Young man had fallen in love with was represented & suppo- -sed to be Really there, But Apollonius Tyanaeus (o) discovered ye witchery of ye buissnesse, & in an instant all Vanished & nothing but dirty coales were to be seen. The like is mentioned in the Arausican Council There were certain women yt imagined they road upon beasts in ye Night &, that they had besides a troop of other persons Diana & Herodias in Company wth ym. The Council giveth this sentance on it, Satanas qui se Transfigurat in Angelum Lucis, transformat se in diversarum personarum species, etc mentem quam cativam tenet in somnis de ludet. Satan transformes himselfe into ye likeness of divers persones & deludes their souls yt are his captives wth dreames & fancies. See Dr Willett. on 1 Sam[el] 28 - page 165

Margin note: (n) M[r] Sinclare Invisible World p. 45 And Burton History of Dæmons p. 122. (o) Boissard in Vita Apollonii