ine and iuggling
are deciphered: and many other things opened, which haue long lien
hidden, howbeit verie necessarie to be knowne. Heerevnto is added a
treatise vpon the nature and substance of spirits and diuels, &c: all
latelie written by Reginald Scot Esquire._ 1 John, 4, 1. _Beleeue not
euerie spirit but trie the spirits, whether they are of God; for many
false prophets are gone out into the world, &c._ 1584."

[Footnote 14: Reginald Scot.]

[Footnote 15: Sir R. Filmer.]

[Footnote 16: John Wagstaffe.]

[Footnote 17: John Webster.]

This title is sufficient to show that he gives no quarter to the
delusion he undertakes to expose, and though he does not deny that
there may be witches in the abstract, (to have done so would have left
him a preacher without an audience,) yet he guards so cautiously
against any practical application of that principle, and battles so
vigorously against the error which assimilated the witches of modern
times to the witches of Scripture, and, denying the validity of the
confessions of those convicted, throws such discredit and ridicule
upon the whole system, that the popular belief cannot but have
received a severe shock from the publication of his work.[18] By an
extraordinary elevation of good sense, he managed, not only to see
through the absurdities of witchcraft, but likewise of other errors
which long maintained their hold upon the learned as well as the
vulgar. Indeed, if not generally more enlightened, he was, in some
respects, more emancipated from delusion than even his great
successor, the learned and sagacious Webster, who, a century after,
clung still to alchemy which Reginald Scot had ridiculed and exposed.
Yet with all its strong points and broad humour, it is undeniable that
_The Discoverie of Witchcraft_ only scotched the snake instead of
killing it; and that its effect was any thing but final and complete.
Inveterate error is seldom prostrated by a blow from one hand, and
truth seems to be a tree which cannot be forced by planting it before
its time. There was something, too, in the book itself which militated
against its entire acceptance by the public. It is intended to form a
little Encyclopaedia of the different arts of imposition practised in
Scot's time; and in order to illustrate the various tricks and modes
of cozenage, he gives us so many charms and diagrams and conjurations,
to say nothing of an inventory of seventy-nine devils and spirits, and
their seve