Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions

The Introduction.

IT was once the Mistake of one gone to the Congregation of the Dead, concerning the Survivers, If one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. The blessed God hath made some to come from the Damned, for the Conviction (may it also be for the Conversion) of us that are yet alive. The Devils themselves are by Compulsion come to consute the Atheism and Sadducism, and to reprove the Madness of ungodly men. Those condemned prisoners of our Atmosphaere, have not really sent Letters of Thanks from Hell, to those that are on Earth, promoting of their Interest; yet they have been forced, as of old, To confess that Iesus was the Holy one of God, so of late, to declare that Sin & Vice are the things which they are delighted in. But should one of those hideous Wights appear visibly with fiery chains upon him, & utter audibly his roarings & his warnings in one of our Congregations it would not produce new Hearts in those whom the Scriptures handled in our Ministry do not affect. However it becomes the Embassadors of the L. Iesus to leave no stroke untouch't that may conduce to bring men from the power of Satan unto God; and for this cause it is, that I have permitted the ensuing Histories to be published. They contain Things of undoubted Certainly, and they suggest Things of Importance unconceivable. Indeed they are only one Head of Collections which in my little time of Obserservation I have made of Memorable Providences, with Reflections thereupon, to be reserved among other effects of my Diversion from my more stated & more weary Studies. But I can with a Contentment beyond meer Patience, give these rescinded Sheets unto the Stationer, when I see what pains Mr. Baxter, Mr. Glanvil, Dr. More, and several other Great Names have taken to publish Histories of Witchcrafts & Possessions unto the world. I said Let me also run after them; and this with the more Alacrity because, I have tidings ready. Go then, my little book, as a Lackey to the more elaborate Essayes of those learned men. Go tell Mankind, that there are Devils & Witches; & that tho those night-birds least appear where the Day-light of the Gospel comes, yet New-Engl. has had Exemples of their Existence & Operation; and that not only the Wigwams of Indians, where the pagan Powaws often raise their masters, in the shapes of Bears & Snakes & Fires, but the Houses of Christians, where our God has had His constant Worship, have undergone the Annoyance of Evil spirits. Go tell the world, What Prayers can do beyond all Devils & Witches, and What it is that these Monsters love to do; and though the Daemons in the Audience of several standers by threatned much Disgrace to thy Author, if he let thee come abroad, yet venture That, and in this way seek a just Revenge on Them for the Disturbance they have given to such as have called on the Name of GOD.

p. 1The First EXEMPLE.

Section I. THere dwell at his time, in the south part of Boston, a sober & pious man, whose Name is Iohn Goodwin, whose Trade is that of a Mason, and whose Wife (to which a Good Report gives a share with him in all the Characters of Vertue) has made him the Father of six (now living) Children. Of these Children, all but the Eldest, who works with his Father at his Calling, and the Youngest, who lives yet upon the Breast of its mother, have laboured under the direful effects of a (no less palpable than) stupendous WITCHCRAFT. Indeed that exempted Son had also, as was thought, some lighter touches of it, in unaccountable stabbs and pains now & then upon him; as indeed every person in the Family at some time or other had, except the godly Father, and the sucking Infant, who never felt any impressions of it. But these Four Children mentioned, were handled in so sad & strange a manner, as has given matter of Discourse and Wonder to all the Countrey, and of History not unworthy to be considered by more than all the serious of the curious Readers in this New-English World.

p. 2SECT. II. The four Children (whereof the Eldest was about Thirteen, and the youngest was perhaps about a third part so many years of age) had enjoy'd a Religious Education, and answered it with a very towardly Ingenuity. They had an observable Affection unto Divine and Sacred things; and those of them that were capable of it, seem'd to have such a Resentment of their eternal Concernments as is not altogether usual. Their Parents also kept them to a continual Employment, which did more than deliver them from the Temptations of Idleness, and as young as they were, they took a delight in it; It may be as much as they should have done. In a word, Such was the whole Temper and Carrings of the Children, that there cannot easily be any thing more unreasonable, than to imagine that a Design to Dissemble could cause them to fall into any of their odd Fits; though there should not have happened, as there did, & thousand Things, wherein it was perfectly impossible for any Dissimulation of theirs to produce what scores of spectators were amazed at.

p. 2SECT. III. About Midsummer, in the year 1688. the Eldest of these Children, who is a Daughter, saw cause to examine their Washerwoman, upon their missing of some Linnen, which twas fear'd she had stollen from them; and of what use this Linnen might bee to serve the Witchcraft intended, the Theef's Tempter knows. This p. 3Laundress was the Daughter of an ignorant and a scandalous old Woman in the Neighbourhood; whose miserable Husband before he died, had sometimes complained of her, that she was undoubtedly a Witch, and that whenever his Head was laid, she would quickly arrive unto the punishments due to such an one. This Woman in her daughters Defence bestow'd very had Language upon the Girl that put her to the question; immediately upon which, the poor child became variously indisposed in her health, and visited with strange Fits, beyond those that attend an Epilepsy, or a Catalepsy, or those that they call The Diseases of Astonishment.