SECT. XX.
That it was not the Witch her self that acted all, as Scot and Webster for another shift would suppose, putting her self into a Trance, and deluding Saul by Ventriloquy.
But was it not the Witch her self that acted all? Mr. Scot saith, that if the Exposition of the Confederate like us not; he can easily frame himself to the Opinion, That this Pythness being in a Ventriloque, that is, speaking as it were from the bottom of her Belly, did cast her self into a Trance, and so abased Saul, answering to Saul in Samuel's Name, in her counterfeit hollow Voice, p. 111. To the same purpose Mr. Webster also supposeth, That what she did or pretended to do, was only by Ventriloquy, or casting her self into a feigned Trance, lay groveling on the Earth, with her Face downwards, and so changing her Voice, did Mutter and Murmur, and Peep, and Chirp like a Bird coming forth of the shell, or that she spake in some hollow Cave or Vault, through some Pipe, or in a Bottle, and so amused and deceived poor timorous and despairing Saul, p. 165, 166.
What stuff is this, and how shall one deal with such Men, as set their Wits upon the rack to invent Evasions, and are ready to assert any Nonsense or Absurdity, to pervert the Sense of a plain and simple History? What I have already spoke against the Dream of a Confederate, viz. Saul's perceiving it was Samuel, his bowing himself upon it; his taking the Voice for the Prophet's, the suitableness and gravity of the Words, and the contrivance of the Prediction, and the Truth of it, are as strong against this Whim, as against the other idle Fancy, and in some particular of more force, as will appear to any one that considers the Matter duly.
For Ventriloquy, or speaking from the bottom of the Belly, 'tis a thing I think as strange and difficult to be conceived, as a thing in Witchcraft, nor can it, I believe, be performed in any distinctness of articulate sounds, without such assistance of the Spirits, that spoke out of the Dæmoniacks. I would fain have any of the Witch-Advocates shew how it is naturally possible: So that this that they suppose, will infer the thing they would avoid. It cannot certainly in any reason be thought,
