t."--_Ed._]

359 [Bishop Hall quaintly remarks, that "No devil is so dangerous as the
religious devil." "Suppose the ends of this Engagement to be good,
(which they are not,) yet the meanes and ways of prosecution are
unlawful, because there is not an equall avoiding of rocks on both
hands, but a joyning with malignants to suppresse sectaries, a
joyning hands with a black devill to beat a white devill. They are
bad physicians who would so cure one disease as to breed another as
evil or worse." ("A Declaration of the Gen. Assembly concerning the
present dangers of Religion." Rec. of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 501.)
In the year 1649 the Scottish parliament passed an "Act against
Consulters with Devils and Familiar Spirits," &c. (Acts of the Parl.
of Scot. vol. vi. p. 359.) It was supposed that the power of some of
these was employed in particular instances for the benefit of
mankind. They were therefore distinguished from the others in the
same way that white witches or persons who used charms and
incantations for curing diseases, &c. were distinguished, but not in
the eye of the law, from black witches, or those who practised their
art for the purposes of mischief. (Whitelock's "Memorials," p. 550.
See also Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," vol. ii. p.
117.) If we look to the strange confessions of many of the
unfortunate creatures who were condemned to suffer death for
witchcraft in those days, without adverting to the cruel means that
were often resorted to with a view to extort from them such
confessions, the credulity of the age will not appear to have been
so extraordinary as it has been represented. It is impossible not to
admire the singular discretion of Dr. Grey, Rector of Houghton
Conquest when speaking on this subject: "Nothing," says he, "more
plainly discovers the iniquity of those times than the great numbers
of people executed in England and Scotland for witches, _if they
were guilty_, or the barbarous superstition of the times, _if they
were innocent_, which is the more probable."--"Impartial Examination
of the Fourth Volume of Mr. Daniel Neal's History of the Puritans,"
p. 96, Lond. 1739.--_Ed._]

360 [That is, openly persisting. See "The Answer of the Commission to
the Presbytery of Stirling," p.