Their book was answered by John Wier, physician to the Duke of Cleves, in 1563.[[540]] He refuted many of the grosser superstitions prevailing, and also suggested that the devil deceived people and made many confess to impossible practices;[[541]] likewise, that the witches did not really occasion the illnesses and calamities which they were accused of causing and even admitted having brought about.[[542]]
At first the work awakened only controversy and condemnation—a stage in advance, however, since the most wronged are generally undefended, and pass to their doom in silence and with no one to speak for them.
In 1580 Bodin, a French writer, published a most furious attack on Dr. Wier, declaring him to have been the pupil of a sorcerer and that he wrote inspired by the devil. He reiterated all the old fantastic stories as being true, and in the hideous procedure of investigation which he set forth, applied such diverse and such agonising torments as could not have been surpassed by any of the earlier inquisitors.
Bodin in turn was answered, from England, by Reginald Scot, in 1584, who wrote a long and powerful review of the witch persecutions, in which he quotes extensively from Sprenger, Bodin, and the Continental tormentors. Full of wise saws and modern instances, he cast doubts on the rationale of the witchcraft tests and trials.
But although just a century had gone by since Innocent launched his Bull from the Papal throne, many poor people, some at that time unborn, were destined still to suffer trial and torture. And more than another century had to pass before the law would leave “witches” alone; before afflicted, half-mad, or unpopular old women could throw crumbs to the sparrows upon the snow, or keep a cat, without danger of death. King James, as a young man, fell foul of both Scot and Wier in 1597. Speaking of them he said: “One called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed in publicke print to deny that there can be such a thing as witchcraft, and so he maintains the old error of the Sadducees in denying spirits. The other called Wierus, a German phisition, sets out a publick apologie for al these craftes-folkes—whereby procuring for their impunitie he plainly betrayes himselfe to have been one of their profession”; and six years later came his grotesque law already alluded to, sanctioned with all the weight of Parliament.[[543]] The trials in Germany were severely criticised in 1631 by Father Spee, who published his book at first anonymously,[[544]] and checked the ardour and the cruelty of the courts.
But they were defended again by Joseph Glanvil,[[545]] chaplain to the king, in 1681. About this time Dr. Bekker, a clergyman, living in Holland, compiled four lengthy volumes about witchcraft,[[546]] in which he contended that neither devils nor spirits could act on mankind. In England, ten years later, wrote Richard Baxter,[[547]] author of The Saints’ Rest and other evangelical works which were widely read, supporting the weird beliefs of the witchcraft schoolmen.
By this time the persecutions, which were waning in England, had broken out at Salem in America; and we find Cotton Mather (like Glanvil, a divine, and F.R.S.) writing a little book[[548]] to justify their existence[[549]] (and his own conduct, for many were sceptical), upon that continent where, as he quaintly says, the Pilgrim Fathers “imagined that they should leave their posterity in a place where they should never see the inroads of Profanity or Superstition.” The records of the nineteen executions in this neighbourhood, of one poor creature who was pressed to death, and of the crowd of unhappy suspects who were cast into the prison,[[550]] show how the frenzy of this murderous “revival” swept like an epidemic down upon the settlement,[[551]] so that for fifteen months the air seemed charged and laden with hysteria, and are a grim commentary. But evolution operates even on taboos and superstitions, and this was probably the last general persecution, and Bishop Hutchinson called his learned work An Historical Essay,[[552]] for it was dealing mainly with the past. The law lagged behind, however, as it generally does, the statute of James I. (1603) being, when Hutchinson wrote, “now in force” in 1718.
And so it continued for eighteen years longer, until repealed in 1736.[[553]] In Ireland the law lasted until 1821. Witchcraft was clearly kept alive by theology. People who really believed in a personal devil (and even those who questioned the witch convictions assumed the devil to be very much alive), designing mischief and disguised everywhere, could easily accept tales of familiar spirits.[[554]]
Those who received the Hebrew and Christian records as altogether inspired, could not ignore possession and sorcery.[[555]] “Après que Dieu a parlé,” says de l’Ancre, “de sa propre bouche des magiciens et sorciers, qui est l’incrédule qui en peut justement douter?”[[556]] And Sir Matthew Hale said in his summing up: “That there were such creatures as witches, he made no doubt at all. For, first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much; secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.”[[557]]
Speaking of a particular case, Mr. H. L. Stephen[[558]] quotes Campbell as follows: “... During the trial the imposture practised by the prosecutors was detected and exposed. Hales’ motives were most laudable; but he furnished a memorable instance of the mischief originating from superstition. He was afraid of an acquittal or a pardon, lest countenance should be given to a disbelief in witchcraft, which he considered tantamount to disbelief in Christianity.” Glanvil[[559]] follows on the same side, arguing with great ingenuity from the scriptural point of view (for instance, in dealing with certain doctrines as to the fate of unbaptized children, p. 22). “The question whether there are witches or not,” he begins in Part ii., “is not a matter of vain speculation or of indifferent moment, but an inquiry of very great and weighty importance. For on the resolution of it depends the authority of our laws, and, which is more, our religion, in its main doctrines, is nearly concerned.”