Title page, dedication, and the publisher to the reader

Saducismus Triumphatus: OR, Full and Plain EVIDENCE Concerning WITCHES AND APPARITIONS.

In TWO PARTS.

The First treating of their POSSIBILITY, The Second of their Real EXISTENCE.

By Joseph Glanvil late Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal Society.

With a Letter of Dr. HENRY MORE on the same Subject.

And an Authentick, but wonderful story of certain Swedish Witches; done into English by Anth. Horneck Preacher at the Savoy.

LONDON: Printed for J. Collins at his Shop under the Temple-Church, and S. Lownds at his Shop by the Savoy-gate, 1681.

[Figure: And Saul perceiued that it was Samuel, and he stouped with his face to the ground. and bowed himself. 1st Samuel. Chap: 28: […]. 14. W. Faith orne. fecit]

TO THE Right Reverend Father in God SETH Lord Bishop of SARUM, Chancellor of the GARTER.

This New and Compleated EDITION OF Saducismus Triumphatus Is most humbly Dedicated to your Lordship, By,

My Lord, Your Lordships most Obliged and Humble Servant (The PUBLISHER) James Collins.

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

Reader,

THat thou hast no sooner enjoyed this long-expected Edition, thou canst not justly blame either the Author or my self. Not my self, for I could not publish the book before I had it; nor the Author, because many unexpected occasions drove off his mind to other matters, and interrupted him in his present design, insomuch that he was snatcht away by Death before he had quite finished it. But though the learned World may very well lament the loss of so able and ingenious a Writer, yet as to this present point, if that may mitigate thy sorrow, in all likelihood this Book had not seen the light so soon if he had lived, so many emergent occasions giving him new interruptions, and offering him new temptations to further delay.

Indeed it had been desirable that it might have had the polishing of his last hand, as the peruser of his Papers signifies in his last Advertisement. But to compensate this loss, the said Peruser, a friend as well to his Design as to his Person, as digested those Materials he left, into that order and distinctness, and has so tied things together, and supplied them in his Advertisements, that, to the judicious Reader, nothing can seem wanting that may serve the ends of his intended Treatise. Not to intimate what considerable things are added, more than it is likely had been, if he had finished it himself: For, besides the Advertisements of the careful Peruser of his Papers, and that notable late Story of the Swedish Witches translated out of German into the English Tongue, there is also added a short Treatise of the true and genuine Notion of a Spirit, taken out of Dr. More's Enchiridion Metaphysicum, to entertain those that are more curious searchers into the nature of these things.

The Number also of the Stories are much increased above what was designed by Mr. Glanvil, though none admitted, but such as seemed very well attested and highly credible to his abovesaid Friend, and such, as rightly understood, contain nothing but what is consonant to right Reason and sound Philosophy, as I have heard him earnestly avouch, though it had been too tedious to have explained all; and it may be more grateful to the Reader to be left to exercise his own wit and ingeny upon the rest. These are the advantages this Edition of Mr. Glanvil's Daemon of Tedworth, and his Considerations about Witchcraft have, above any Edition before, though the last of them was so bought up, that there was not a Copy of them to be had in all London and Cambridge, but the Peruser of his Papers was fain to break his own to serve the Press with; If these intimations may move thy Appetite to the reading so pleasant and useful a Treatise.

And yet I can add one thing more touching the story of the Daemon of Tedworth which is very considerable. It is not for me indeed to take notice of that meanness of spirit in the Exploders of Apparitions and Witches, which very strangely betrayed it self in the decrying of that well-attested Narrative touching the Stirrs in Mr. Mompesson's house. Where, although they that came to be Spectators of the marvelous things there done by some invisible Agents, had all the liberty imaginable (even to the ripping of the Bolsters open) to search and try if they could discover any natural cause or cunning Artifice whereby such strange feats were done; and numbers that had free access from day to day, were abundantly satisfied of the reality of the thing, that the house was haunted and disturbed by Daemons or Spirits; yet some few years after the Stirrs had ceased, the truth of this story lying so uneasie in the minds of the disgusters of such things, they raised a Report, (when none of them, no not the most diligent and curious could detect any trick or fraud themselves in the matter) that both Mr. Glanvil himself, who published the Narrative, and Mr. Mompesson, in whose house these wonderful things happened, had confessed the whole matter to be a Cheat and Imposture. And they were so diligent in spreading abroad this gross untruth, that it went currant in all the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. An egregious discovery of what kind of Spirit this sort of men are! which, as I said, though it be not for me to take notice of, yet I will not stick to signifie (it being both for mine own Interest and the Interest of Truth) that those Reports raised touching Mr. Glanvil and Mr. Mompesson, are by the present Edition of this Book demonstrated to be false to all the world. That concerning Mr. Glanvil, by his Preface to the second Part of the Book; That touching Mr. Mompesson, by two Letters of his own, the one to Mr. Glanvil, the other to my self, which are subjoyned to the said Preface: Which thing alone may justly be deemed to add a very great weight to the value, as of that Story, so of this present Edition.

But I will not, upon pretence of exciting thy Appetite, keep thee from the satisfying it by an overlong Preface: which yet if it may seem to be defective in any thing, the Doctors Letter (where amongst other things you shall meet with that famous and wellattested story of the Apparition of Anne Walker's Ghost to the Miller) will, I hope make an abundant supply. I shall add nothing more my self, but that I am

Your humble Servant J. C.