witches are "puffed up with nothing but ignorance,
vanity, and stupid infidelity." Ralph Cudworth, one of the greatest
scholars of the latter part of the seventeenth century, said that they
who denied the possibility of satanic intercourse "can hardly escape the
suspicion of some hankering towards atheism."[198] Writing nearly a
century later, when the English law merely prosecuted as rogues and
vagabonds those who pretended to witchcraft, Blackstone thought it
necessary to point out that this alteration did not deny the possibility
of the offence, and added:--

"To deny this would be to contradict the revealed word of God in various
passages both of the Old and New Testaments; and the thing itself is a
truth in which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne
testimony; either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory
laws which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil
spirits."[199]

About the same time Wesley gave the world his famous declaration on the
subject:--

"It is true likewise that the English in general, and indeed most of the
men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and
apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it, and I
willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against
this violent compliment which so many who believe the Bible pay to those
who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge
that these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised and
with such insolence spread through the land in direct opposition, not
only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in
all ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not)
that the giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving up the Bible."[200]

The evidence upon which the convictions for witchcraft rested were
almost incredibly stupid, as the punishments were almost unbelievably
brutal. If the crops failed, or the milk turned sour; if the head of a
local magnate ached, or a minister of the gospel fell sick; if a woman
was childless, or a child taken with a fit; if a cow sickened, or sheep
died suddenly, some poor woman was pretty certain to be seized, and
tortured until she confessed her alleged crime. A mole or wart on any
part of the body was a sure sign of commerce with the devil. It was
believed that on the body of every witch was a spot insensible to pain.
To discover this she was stripped, pi