PREFACE.
who should be found guilty. But my business at present is not with these but the other, WTTCHCRAFT, which I am sure was a Sin of elder times; and how comes it about that our Age, which so much out-does them in all other kinds of wickedness, should be wholly innocent in this? That there MAY be WITCHES and Apparitions in our Days, notwithstanding the Objections of the modern Sadduce, I believe I have made appear in the CONSIDERATION following; in which I did not primarily intend direct Proof, but DEFENCE, as the Title of the first Edition, which is restor'd in these later mentioned.
And if it should be objected, That I have for the most part used only Supposals and Conjectural things in the Vindication of the common belief, and speak with no point-blanck assurance in my particular Answers, as I do in the general Conclusion, I need only say, That the Proportion I defend is matter of Fact, which the dis-believers impugne by alledging that it cannot be, or it is not likely: In return to which, if I shew how those things may be, and probably, notwithstanding their Allegations, though I say not down right that they are in the particular way I offer, yet 'tis enough for the design of Defence, though not for that of Proof: For when one saith a thing cannot be, and I tell him how possibly it may, though I hit not the just manner of it, I yet defeat the Objection against it, and make way for the evidence of the thing de Facto; which now I have added from the divine Oracles, and two modern Relations that are clear and unexceptionable.
