Page:Saducismus Triumphatus.djvu/44

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30
The Postscript.

I have hinted concerning the former Opinion, but I cannot farther particularize now.

For I have made my Postscript much longer than my Letter, before I was aware; and I need not enlarge to you, who are so well versed in these things already, and can by the quickness of your Parts presently collect the whole measures of Hercules by his Foot, and sufficiently understand by this time it is no rash Censure of mine in my Letter, That Webster's Book is but a weak impertinent piece of Work, the very Master-piece thereof being so weak and impertinent, and falling so short of the Scope he aims at, which was really to prove that there was no such thing as a Witch or Wizard, that is, not any mention thereof in Scripture, by any Name of one that had more to do with the Devil, or the Devil with him, than with other wicked Men; that is to say, of one who in virtue of Covenant, either implicit or explicit, did strange things by the help of evil Spirits, but that there are many sorts of Deceivers and Impostures, and divers Persons under a passive Delusion of Melancholy and Fancy, which is part of his very Title-page.

Whereby he does plainly insinuate, that there is nothing bun Couzenage or Melancholy in the whole Business of the Feats of Witches. But a little to mitigate or smother the grossness of this false Assertion, he adds, And that there is no corporeal League betwixt the Devil and the Witch; and that he does not suck on the Witches Body, nor has carnal Copulation with her, nor the Witches turned into Dogs or Cats, &c. All which things as you may see in his Book, he understands in the grossest imaginable, as-if the Imps of Witches had Mouths of Flesh to suck them, and Bodies of Flesh to lie with them, and at this rate he may understand a corporeal League, as if it were no League or Covenant, unless some Lawyer drew the Instrument, and Engrossed it in Vellum or thick Parchment, and there were so many Witnesses with the Hand and Seal of the Party: Nor any Transformation into Dogs or Cats, unless it were Real and Corporeal, or grosly Carnal; which none of his Witch mongers, as he rudely and slovenly calls that Learned and Serious Person, Dr. Casaubon and the rest, do believe. Only it is a disputable Case of their Bodily Transformation, betwixt Bodinus and Remigius; of which more in my Scholia. But that without this Carnal transmutation, a Woman might not be accounted a Witch, is so foolish a Supposition, that Webster himself certainly must be ashamed of it.

Where-