Whittier.
[91] Doctor Mather.
[92] See Remarkable Providences, 128, by Dr. I. Mather.
[93] See Volume [I], Pages [39-41].
[94] See concluding Part of Note [84].
[95] If not a mythical Character, he is surrounded with much Mystery. There, however, seems to have been, at some remote Period, a Man named Ambrose Merlin, living in Carmarthenshire, in Wales; and it will pay the Reader well to turn to Thomas Fuller, and see what he says about him in his Worthies, Vol. III, 524. Among other things he says: "His Extraction is very Incredible, reported to have an Incubus to his Father, pretending to a Pedigree older than Adam, even from the Serpent himself. But a learned Pen demonstrateth the Impossibility of such Conjunctions. And let us not load Satan with groundless Sins, whom I believe the Father of Lies, but no Father of Bastards." A witty Conceit, but ruinous to the Theory of Witchcraft.
[96] See Vol. [I], Introduction, Page [xv]. The Executions in Scotland were but few Years before those in New England.
[97] The same Gentleman mentioned in Note [86], Page [157].
[98] Thomas Hobbes, a Native of Malmsbury in Wiltshire, England, born in 1588, and died in 1679. He has been stigmatized as an Unbeliever in Divine Revelation; was a Man of extensive learning, published Works on Philosophy, and translated Homer.
[99] Finding themselves in this Dilemma (many of the Believers in Witchcraft never having thought of it, it would seem,) the Advocates must have been sadly puzzled. Nor is it easy to see how, by turning to Locke, Le Clerc, or Cudworth, they are helped at all.