A Treatise of Witchcraft

[Footnote g: _De hac ligatione & solutione Diaboli plenissimè August. de Ciuitate Dei, lib. 20 cap. 8._]

_The first Proposition._

It is a _Quære_, though needlesse, whether there be any Witches: for they[a] haue some Proctors who plead a nullitie in this case, perswade themselues, and would induce others to be of the same minde, that there be no Witches at all: but a sort of melancholique, aged, and ignorant Women, deluded in their imagination; and acknowledge such things to be effected by them, which are vnpossible, vnlikely, and they neuer did; and therefore Magistrates who inflict any punishment vpon them, be vnmercifull and cruell Butchers. Yet by the way, and their good leaue, who take vpon them this Apology, all who are conuented vpon these vnlawfull action, are not strucken in yeares; but some euen in the flower of their youth be nuzled vp in the same, and convicted to be practisers