This maketh sufferance of torments, and (as some saie)Aristotle de somnio. foresight of things to come, and preserveth health, as being cold and drie: it maketh men subject to leanenesse, and to the quartane ague. TH. Card. lib. 8 de var. rer.hey that are vexed therewith, are destroiers of themselves, stout to suffer injuries, fearefull to offer violence; except the humor be hot. They learne strange toongs with small industrie (as Aristotle and others affirme.)
If our witches phantasies were not corrupted, nor their wils confounded with this humor, they would not so voluntarilie and readilie confesse that which calleth their life in question; whereof they could never otherwise be convicted. J. BodinJo. Bod. contra Jo. Wierum. with his lawyers physicke reasoneth contrarilie; as though melancholie were furthest of all from those old women, whom we call witches: deriding the most famous and noble physician John Wier for his opinion in that behalfe. But bicause I am no physician, I will set a physician to him; namelie Erastus, who hath these words, to wit, that These witches, through their corrupt phantasie abounding with melancholike humors, by reason of their old age, doo dreame and imagine they hurt those things which they neither could nor doo hurt; and so thinke they knowe an art, which they neither have learned nor yet understand.
But whie should there be more credit given to witches, when they saie they have made a reall bargaine with the divell, killed a cow, bewitched butter, infeebled a child, forespoken hir neighbour, &c: than when she confesseth that she transubstantiateth hir selfe, maketh it raine or haile, flieth in the aire, goeth invisible, transferreth corne in the grasse from one field to another? &c. If you thinke that in the one their confessions be sound, whie should you saie that they are corrupt in the other; the confession of all these things being made at one instant, and affirmed with like constancie, or rather audacitie? But you see the one to be impossible, and therefore you thinke thereby, that their confessions are vaine and false. The other you thinke may be doone, and see them confesse it, and therefore you conclude, A posse ad esse; as being persuaded it is so, bicause you thinke it may be so. But I saie, both with the divines,August. lib. de Trinit. 3.
Idem. de civit. Dei.
Clemens. recogn. 3
Iamblichus.
Jo. Wierus.
Cardanus.
Pampia &c. and philosophers, that that which is imagined of witchcraft, hath no truth of action; or being besides their ima/gination,59. the which (for the most part) is occupied in false causes. For whosoever desireth to bring to passe an impossible thing, hath a vaine, an idle, and a childish persuasion, bred by an unsound mind: for Sanæ mentis voluntas, voluntas rei possibilis est; The will of a sound mind, is the desire of a possible thing./48.
The twelfe Chapter.
A confutation of witches confessions, especiallie concerning their league.
UT it is objected,An objection. that witches confesse they renounce the faith, The resolution. and as their confession must be true (or else they would not make it:) so must their fault be worthie of death, or else they should not be executed. Whereunto I answer as before; that their confessions are extorted, or else proceed from an unsound mind. Yea I saie further, that we our selves, which are sound of mind, and yet seeke anie other waie of salvation than Christ Jesus, or breake his commandements, or walke not in his steps with a livelie faith, &c: doo not onlie renounce the faith, but God himselfe: and therefore they (in confessing that they forsake God, and imbrace sathan) doo that which we all should doo. As touching that horrible part of their confession, in the league which tendeth to the killing of their owne and others children, the seething of them, and the making of their potion or pottage, and the effects thereof; their good fridaies meeting, being the daie of their deliverance, their incests, with their returne at the end of nine moneths, when commonlie women be neither able to go that journie, nor to returne, &c; it is so horrible, unnaturall, unlikelie, and unpossible; that if I should behold such things with mine eies, I should rather thinke my selfe dreaming, dronken, or some waie deprived of my senses; than give credit to so horrible and filthie matters.
How hath the oile or pottage of a sodden child such vertue, A forged miracle. as that a staffe annointed therewith, can carrie folke in the aire? Their potable liquor, which (they saie) maketh maisters of that fa/cultie,60. is it not ridiculous? And is it not, by the opinion of all philosophers, physicians, and divines, void of such vertue, as is imputed thereunto?
Their not fasting on fridaies, and their fasting on sundaies, their spetting at the time of elevation, their refusall of holie water, their despising of superstitious crosses, &c: which are all good steps to true christianitie, helpe me to confute the residue of their confessions.