SECT. XV.
The Evasion of Mr. Reginald Scot, concerning the Witches Closet proposed and confuted.
Mr. Reginald Scot, the Father of the modern Witch-Advocates, orders the matter thus. When Saul, saith he, had told her that he would have Samuel brought up to him, she departed from his Presence into her Closet, where doubtless she had her Familiar, to wit, some lewd crafty Priest, and made Saul stand at the Door like a Fool, (as it were with his Finger in a hole) to hear the couzening Answers, but not to see the couzening Handling thereof, and the counterfeiting of the matter. And so goeth she to work, using ordinary Words of Conjuration, &c. so belike, after many such Words spoken, she saith to her self; Lo! now the matter is brought to pass: I see wonderful things: So as Saul hearing these Words longed to know all, and askt her what she saw; whereby you know that Saul saw nothing, but stood without like a Mome, whil'st she plaid her part in her Closet, as may most evidently appear by the 21 Verse of this Chapter, where it is said, Then the Woman came out to Saul, &c. Scot, p. 108.
Now this is not Interpreting a Story, but making one; for we read nothing of her Closet, or her going from Saul into it, nothing of the crafty Priest she had there, or of Saul's standing at the Door like a Fool, like a drowned Puppy, as Mr. Webster has it, (very respected Language for a Prince in distress) nothing of the Words of Conjuration or of the Womans talk to her self, but all this is Whimsie and Fiction.
And according to this way of Interpreting, a Man may make what he will of all the Histories in the Bible, yea in the World. If one may supply, and put in what he pleaseth, any thing may be made any thing.
But Mr. Scot saith, it evidently appears, that Saul saw nothing, but stayed without like a Mome, whilst she played her Part in her Closet. It evidently appears by the 21 Verse of this Chapter, where 'tis said, Then the Woman came out unto Saul. Is it not evident from hence, that she had a Closet, how else should she come out? But the mischief of it is, there is nothing of coming out in the Text, or any Version of it: Our Translation
