irming the reality of
diabolical interposition. Nor can the most favourable criticism
exonerate them from the reproach at least of having witnessed
without protestation the barbarous cruelties practised in the
name of heaven; and the eminent names of Bishop Jewell, the great
apologist of the English Church, and of the author of the
'Ecclesiastical Polity,' among others less eminent, may be
claimed by the advocates of witchcraft as respectable authorities
in the Established Church. The 'judicious' Hooker affirms that
the evil spirits are dispersed, some in the air, some on the
earth, some in the waters, some among the minerals, in dens and
caves that are under the earth, labouring to obstruct and, if
possible, to destroy the works of God. They were the _dii
inferi_ [the old persuasion] of the heathen worshipped in
oracles, in idols, &c.[141] The privilege of 'casting out devils'
was much cherished and long retained in the Established Church.

[141] Quoted in Howitt's _History of the Supernatural_. The
author has collected a mass of evidence 'demonstrating an
universal faith,' a curious collection of various
superstition. He is indignant at the colder faith of the
Anglican Church of later times.

During the ascendency of the Presbyterian party from 1640 to the
assumption of the Protectorship by Cromwell, witches and
witch-trials increased more than ever; and they sensibly
decreased only when the Independents obtained a superiority.
The adherents of Cromwell, whatever may have been their own
fanatical excesses, were at least exempt from the intolerant
spirit which characterised alike their Anglican enemies and
their old Presbyterian allies. The astute and vigorous intellect
of the great revolutionary leader, the champion of the people
in its struggles for civil and religious liberty, however
much he might affect the forms of the prevailing religious
sentiment, was too sagacious not to be able to penetrate,
with the aid of the counsels of the author of the 'Treatise
of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes,' who so triumphantly
upheld the fundamental principle of Protestantism,[142]
somewhat beneath the surface. In what manner the Presbyterian
Parliament issued commissions for inquiring into the crimes
of sorcery, how zealously they were supported by the clergy
and people, how Matthew Hopkins--immortal in the annals of
English witchcraft--exercised his talents as witchfinder-general,
are facts well known.[143