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A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft, AND How Persons Guilty of that Crime may be Convicted: And the means used for their Discovery Discussed, both Negatively and Affirmatively, according to SCRIPTURE and EXPERIENCE. By John Dale, Pastor of the Church of Christ in Beverley, Anno Domini 1697. When they say unto you, seek unto them that have Familiar Spirits and unto Wizzards, that peep, and c To the Law and to the Testimony; if they speak not according, to this word, it is because there is no light in them, Isaiah VIII. 19, 20. That which I see not teach thou me, Job 34. 32. BOSTON in N. E. Printed by B. Green, and J. Alten, for Benjamin Eliot under the Town House. 1702.
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Any general Custom against the Law of God is void. St. Germans Abridgment of Common Law. Lib. 1. C. 6. Omnium legum est inanis censura nisi Divin legis imaginem gerat. Finch of Common Law. Lib. 4. C. 3. Where a Law is grounded upon a Presumption, if the Presumption fail the Law is not to be holden in Conscience. Abridgment of C. Law. Lib. 1. C. 19.
To the Reader
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An Epistle to the READER. It hath been said of Old, That Time is the Mother of Truth, and Truth is the Daughter of Time. It is the Prerogative of the God of Truth, to know all the truth in all things at once and together: It is also his Glory to conceal a matter, Prov. 25. 2. And to bring the truth to light in that manner and measure, and the times appointed, as it pleaseth him; it is our duty in all humility, and with fear and trembling to search after truth, knowing that secret things belong to God, and only things revealed belong to us, and so far as they are revealed; for in many things it may be said what God is doing we know not now; but we, or others that succeed us; shall know hereafter. Omitting other Examples, I shall Instance only in the matter of Witchcraft, which on the Humane side, is one of the most hidden Works of Darkness, managed by the Rulers of the darkness of this World, to the doing of great spoil amongst the Children of men: And on the Divine side, it is one of the most awful and tremendous
