The displaying of supposed witchcraft

by John Webster

Whether faln Angels be Corporeal or simply Incorporeal, and the absurdity of the assuming of Bodies, and the like consequents.

I am not insensible what great censure I may incurr for entring upon such a ticklish and nice point as the corporeity or incorporeity of Angels, seeing it hath exercised and crucified the wits of the most learned in all ages, especially being but an obscure person, and not heightned with those lofty titles that usually elevate Mens fames, more by those attributes than by the weight and strength of their arguments. Yet it being no necessary Article of the Christian Faith, but that a Man may lawfully defend either, it cannot rationally be judged by understanding Readers either to be pride or just offence for me to handle this subject. For seeing that most of the Christian and Learned Fathers for the space of four hundred years after Christ, were of the opinion that they were corporeal, it can be no novelty in me to revive or assert that opinion, and therefore I shall labour to make it manifest in this ensuing order.

The immort. of the Soul, p. 7, 8.

Nov. Organ. lib. 1. p. 49.

Ibid. p. 21.

1. There is a late way of arguing taken up by Dr. Moore and others, that they will undertake to prove a thing to be so or so, or else to make Man to deny his own faculties. And so the said Doctor doth undertake to prove the existence of immaterial and incorporeal beings, or else he thinketh he bringeth Men to deny their own faculties: And these faculties he maketh to be, common notions, external sense, and evident and undeniable deductions of reason. And concludeth that, what is not consonant to all or some of these is meer fancy, and is of no moment for the evincing of truth or falshood, by either its vigour or perplexiveness. But this will not accomplish the business he intends, for these reasons. 1. Because there is not the common notion of a spiritual and immaterial being in all or any Man, neither is it (to use his own words) true at first sight to all men in their wits upon a clear perception of the terms, without any further discourse or reasoning, but is only a bare supposition without any proof or evidence at all. 2. The being of an immaterial and spiritual substance can no way incurr into the senses nor affect them, because it is manifest (as Des Cartes hath sufficiently proved) that all sensation is procured by corporeal contact, and not otherwise. And though we deny not that there have been, are and may be apparitions, that cannot be rationally supposed to be the ordinary Phænomena of corporeal matter, yet affecting the senses, there must be something in them that performeth that effect, that is corporeal, or else the senses could not be wrought upon, for immateriale non agit in materiale, nisi eminenter ut Deus. 3. No right deductions can possibly be drawn from the highest power of ratiocination, where the understanding hath no cognoscibility of the things that reason would draw its conclusions from, for as the same Doctor frameth his Axiome which is this: Whatsoever things are in themselves, they are nothing to us, but so far forth as they become known to our faculties or cognitive powers. But we assert (which we shall make good anon) that our faculties or cognitive powers (how far soever some would vainly magnifie and extol them) have not the power of understanding beings that are simply and absolutely immaterial and incorporeal. 4. There is nothing that is more undoubtedly true than what the Lord Verulam hath told us in these words: Causa vero & radix ferè omnium malorum in scientiis ea una est: quod dum mentis humanæ vires falso miramur & extollimus, vera ejus auxilia non quæramus. And again: Subtilitas naturæ subtilitatem sensûs & intellectûs multis partibus superat, the which may be proved from many undeniable instances, which need not here be mentioned, only we shall add what the aforesaid learned Lord speaks to the same purpose which is this: “The fault of sense is twofold: For it either forsaketh or deceiveth us. For first there are many things that escape the sense, though rightly disposed, and no way impeded either by the subtilty of the whole body or by the minuteness of the parts, or by the distance of place, or tardity and velocity of motion, or by the familiarity of the object, or by reason of other causes. Neither again, where the sense doth apprehend the thing, are those apprehensions sufficiently firm. For the testimony and information of sense is always from the Analogie of Man, not from the Analogie of the Universe.” And it is altogether asserted with great error, that sense is the measure of things. Neither can these notions the Doctor would make so clear, be had or gathered, without some intimation from some of the senses.

An Antidot. &c. p. 12.

Immortal. p. 21.

2. Further the Doctor tells us that the Idea of a Spirit is as easie a notion, as of any other substance whatsoever. And he also saith: “Nevertheless I shall not at all stick to affirm, that his Idea or notion (speaking of God) is as easy as any notion else whatsoever, and that we may know as much of him as of any thing else in the World.” This later he speaketh concerning God. But that these assertions are unsound, these following reasons will sufficiently evince.

Reas. 1.