usiness that
will not be shammed, without plunging us into sore plagues, and of long
continuance. But then we are to unite in such methods for this
deliverance, as may be unquestionably safe, lest the latter end be worse
than the beginning. And here, what shall I say? I will venture to say
thus much. That we are safe, when we make just as much use of all advice
from the invisible world, as God sends it for. It is a safe principle,
that when God Almighty permits any spirits, from the unseen regions, to
visit us with surprising informations, there is then something to be
enquired after; we are then to enquire of one another, what cause there
is for such things? The peculiar government of God, over the unbodied
Intelligences, is a sufficient foundation for this principle. When there
has been a murder committed, an apparition of the slain party accusing
of any man, although such apparitions have oftener spoke true than
false, is not enough to convict the man as guilty of that murder; but
yet it is a sufficient occasion for Magistrates to make a particular
enquiry whether such a man have afforded any ground for such an
accusation."--_Page 13._

He goes on to apply this principle to the spectres of accused persons,
seen by the "afflicted," as constituting sufficient ground to institute
proceedings against the persons thus accused. After modifying,
apparently, this position, although in language so obscure as to leave
his meaning quite uncertain, he says: "I was going to make one venture
more; that is, to offer some safe rules, for the finding out of the
witches, which are to this day our accursed troublers: but this were a
venture too presumptuous and Icarian for me to make. I leave that unto
those Excellent and Judicious persons with whom I am not worthy to be
numbered: All that I shall do, shall be to lay before my readers, a
brief synopsis of what has been written on that subject, by a
Triumvirate of as eminent persons as have ever handled it."--_Page 14._

From neither of them, Perkins, Gaule and Bernard, as he cites them, can
specific authority be obtained for the admission of spectral testimony,
as offered by accusing witnesses, not themselves confessing witches. The
third Rule, attributed to Perkins, and the fifth of Bernard, apply to
persons confessing the crime of witchcraft, and, after confession,
giving evidence affecting another person--the former considering such
evidence "not sufficient for condemnation, but a