now to be made of so tremendous a
dispensation? We are engaged in a _Fast_ this day; but shall we try to
fetch _Meat out of the Eater_, and make the _Lion_ to afford some _Hony_
for our _Souls_?

That the Devil is _come down unto us with great Wrath_, we find, we
feel, we now deplore. In many ways, for many years hath the Devil been
assaying to Extirpate the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus here. _New-England_
may complain of the Devil, as in _Psal. 129.1, 2._ _Many a time have they
afflicted me, from my Youth, may +New-England+ now say; many a time have
they afflicted me from my Youth; yet they have not prevailed against
me._ But now there is a more than ordinary _affliction_, with which the
_Devil_ is Galling of us: and such an one as is indeed Unparallelable.
The things confessed by _Witches_, and the things endured by _Others_,
laid together, amount unto this account of our _Affliction_. The
_Devil_, Exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small _Black man_, has
decoy'd a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and
malicious creatures, to lift themselves in his horrid Service, by
entring their Names in a _Book_ by him tendred unto them. These
_Witches_, whereof above a Score have now _Confessed, and shown their
Deeds_, and some are now tormented by the Devils, for _Confessing_, have
met in Hellish _Randezvouzes_, wherein the Confessors do say, they have
had their diabolical Sacraments, imitating the _Baptism_ and the
_Supper_ of our Lord. In these hellish meetings, these Monsters have
associated themselves to do no less a thing than, _To destroy the
Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in these parts of the World;_ and in
order hereunto, First they each of them have their _Spectres_, or
Devils, commission'd by them, & representing of them, to be the Engines
of their Malice. By these wicked _Spectres_, they seize poor people
about the Country, with various & bloudy _Torments_; and of those
evidently Preternatural torments there are some have dy'd. They have
bewitched some, even so far as to make _Self-destroyers_: and others
are in many Towns here and there languishing under their _Evil hands_.
The people thus afflicted, are miserably scratched and bitten, so that
the Marks are most visible to all the World, but the causes utterly
invisible; and the same Invisible Furies do most visibly stick Pins into
the bodies of the afflicted, and _scale_ them, and hideously distort,
and disjoint all their members, besides a thousand