ry for the first transgression, the legislature probably regarded
those who might be brought to trial as impostors rather than wizards.
There are instances of individuals tried and convicted as impostors and
cheats, and who acknowledged themselves such before the court and
people; but in their articles of visitation the prelates directed
enquiry to be made after those who should use enchantments, witchcraft,
sorcery, or any like craft, _invented by the devil_.

But it is here proper to make a pause for the purpose of enquiring in
what manner the religious disputes which occupied all Europe about this
time influenced the proceedings of the rival sects in relation to
Demonology.

The Papal Church had long reigned by the proud and absolute humour which
she had assumed, of maintaining every doctrine which her rulers had
adopted in dark ages; but this pertinacity at length made her citadel
too large to be defended at every point by a garrison whom prudence
would have required to abandon positions which had been taken in times
of darkness, and were unsuited to the warfare of a more enlightened age.
The sacred motto of the Vatican was, "_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_;" and
this rendered it impossible to comply with the more wise and moderate of
her own party, who would otherwise have desired to make liberal
concessions to the Protestants, and thus prevent, in its commencement, a
formidable schism in the Christian world.

To the system of Rome the Calvinists offered the most determined
opposition, affecting upon every occasion and on all points to observe
an order of church-government, as well as of worship, expressly in the
teeth of its enactments;--in a word, to be a good Protestant, they held
it almost essential to be in all things diametrically opposite to the
Catholic form and faith. As the foundation of this sect was laid in
republican states, as its clerical discipline was settled on a
democratic basis, and as the countries which adopted that form of
government were chiefly poor, the preachers having lost the rank and
opulence enjoyed by the Roman Church, were gradually thrown on the
support of the people. Insensibly they became occupied with the ideas
and tenets natural to the common people, which, if they have usually the
merit of being honestly conceived and boldly expressed, are not the less
often adopted with credulity and precipitation, and carried into effect
with unhesitating harshness and severity.

Betwixt thes