of Richard Dugdale, the “Surey Demoniack,” or “Surey Impostor,”[1]—which occurred in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in England, and was a most notorious affair,—we have the testimony of nine dissenting clergymen, to prove his diabolical miracles, all of them familiar with the “Demoniack;” and also the depositions of many “credible persons,” sworn to before two magistrates, to confirm the wonder. Yet it turned out at last that there was no miracle in the case.[2] It it needless to mention the “miracles” wrought at the tomb of the Abbé de Paris, during the last century,[3] or, in our own time, those of father Matthews in Ireland, and the Mormonites in New England. A miracle is never looked for but it comes.[4]
- ↑ “The Surey Demoniack, or an Account of Satan's Strange and Dreadful Actings in and about the Body of Richard Dugdale,” &c. &c., London, 1697.
- ↑ See Taylor's “The Devil turned Casuist,” &c., London, 1697; “Lancashire Levite Rebuked,” 1698; and “The Surey Impostor.” The latter I copy from citations in “A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack,” &c., London, 1698. Such as wish to see melancholy specimens of human folly may consult also Barrows, “The Lords Arm stretched out,” &c. &c., London, 1664; “The Second Part of the Boy of Bilson,” &c. &c., London. 1698; “A Relation of the Diabolical Practices of above twenty Witches of Renfreu, &c., contained in their Tryals, &c., and for which several of them have been executed the present Year,” 1697, London, 1697; “Sadducismus Debellatus, Narrative of the Sorceries and Witchcraft of the Devil upon Mrs Christian Shaw, &c., of Renfreu,” &c., London, 1698. See Glanvill, a Blow at Modern Sadducism, in some considerations about Witchcraft, &c. &c., 4th ed., London, 1668; Essays, &c., London, 1676, Essay VI. Against Modern Sadducism in the matter of Witches and Apparitions; Sadducismus triumphatus, or Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions, &c., &c., 4th ed. London, 1726. Yet the Author was a highly intelligent man, who appreciated Bacon and applauded Descartes, and contended for free inquiry and against Superstition and Fanaticism, with wit and argument (see Essay VII.). Howell estimates that thirty thousand suffered death for Witchcraft, in England, during one hundred and fifty years. State Trials, Vol. II. p. 1051, as cited by Chandler, ubi sup. p. 69.
- ↑
See the celebrated work of M. de Montgéron, La Vérité des Miracles de M.
de Paris, demontrée, &c., Utrecht, 1737, 1 vol. 4to. The Author was a
Conseiller au Parlement, and himself converted by these miracles. See too the
Avertissement of this ed., and the “consequens qu'on doit tirer des Miracles,
&c.,” with the remarkable “Piéces justificatives,” at the end of the volume.
See Mosheim Dissert. on this subject, ubi sup. Vol. II. p. 309, et seq.
It is instructive to find Irenæus (II. 57) declaring that the true disciples of Christ could work miracles in his time, and that the Dead were raised and remained alive some years. Eusebius, H. E. IV. 3, cites Quadratus, who lived half a century before Irenæus, to prove that men miraculously raised from the dead lived a considerable time, ed. Heinichen, Vol. I. p. 292. See the curious papers on Folk-Lore, in the Athenæum (London) for 1846.
- ↑ Well says Livy, XXIV. 10, Quæ [Miracula] quo magis credebant simplices et religiosi homines, eo plura nunciabantur! See the remarkable literature
