a Prodigy. We have
also seen the Devils first batteries upon the Town, where the first
Church of our Lord in this Colony was gathered, producing those
distractions, which have almost ruin'd the Town. We have seen likewise
the _Plague_ reaching afterwards into other Towns far and near, where
the Houses of good Men have the Devils filling of them with terrible
Vexations!

This is the Descent, which, it seems, the Devil has now made upon us.
But that which makes this Descent the more formidable, is; The
_multitude_ and _quality_ of Persons accused of an interest in this
_Witchcraft_, by the Efficacy of the _Spectres_ which take their Name
and shape upon them; causing very many good and wise Men to fear, That
many _innocent_, yea, and some _vertuous_ persons, are by the Devils in
this matter, imposed upon; That the Devils have obtain'd the power, to
take on them the likeness of harmless people, and in that likeness to
afflict other people, and be so abused by Praestigious _Daemons_, that
upon their look or touch, the afflicted shall be odly affected.
Arguments from the _Providence of God_, on the one side, and from our
_Charity_ towards _Man_ on the other side, have made this now to become
a most agitated Controversie among us. There is an _Agony_ produced in
the Minds of Men, lest the Devil should sham us with _Devices_, of
perhaps a finer Thred, than was ever yet practised upon the World. The
whole business is become hereupon so _Snarled_, and the determination of
the Question one way or another, so _dismal_, that our Honourable Judges
have a Room for _Jehoshaphat's_ Exclamation, _We know not what to do!_
They have used, as Judges have heretofore done, the _Spectral
Evidences_, to introduce their further Enquiries into the _Lives_ of the
persons accused; and they have thereupon, by the wonderful Providence of
God, been so strengthened with _other evidences_, that some of the
_Witch Gang_ have been fairly Executed. But what shall be done, as to
those against whom the _evidence_ is chiefly founded in the _dark
world_? Here they do solemnly demand our Addresses to the _Father of
Lights_, on their behalf. But in the mean time, the Devil improves the
_Darkness_ of this Affair, to push us into a _Blind Mans Buffet_, and we
are even ready to be _sinfully_, yea, hotly, and madly, mauling one
another in the _dark_.

The consequence of these things, every _considerate_ Man trembles at;
and the more, because the frequent cheats of