Position Second.—­That it must be witches that are put to death, and not innocent persons:  “Thou shalt not condemn the innocent nor the righteous” (Ex. xxiii. 7).

Query.—­Which premised, it brings to this query,—­namely, how a witch may be known to be a witch.

Answer.—­First, By the mouth of two or three witnesses (Deut xix. 15; Matt. xviii. 16; Deut. xvii. 6).  Secondly, They may be known by their own confession, being compos mentis, and not under horrid temptation to self-murther (2 Sam. xvi.; Josh. vii. 16).

Query Second.—­What is it that those two or three witnesses must swear?  Must they swear that such a person is a witch?  Will that do the thing, as is vulgarly supposed?

Answer.—­I think that is too unsafe to go by, as well as hard to be done by the advised:  First, because it would expose the lives of all alike to the pleasure or passion of those that are minded to take them away; secondly, because that, in such a testimony, the witnesses are not only informers in matter of fact, but sole judges of the crime,—­which is the proper work of the judges, and not of witnesses.

Query Third.—­What is it that the witnesses must testify in the case, to prove one to be a witch?

Answer.—­They must witness the person did put forth some act which, if true, was an act of witchcraft, or familiarity with the Devil, the witness attest the fact to be upon his certain knowledge, and the judges to judge that fact to be such a crime.

Query Fourth.—­What acts are they which must be proved to be committed by a person, that shall be counted legal proof of witchcraft, or familiarity with the Devil?

Answer.—­This I do profess to be so hard a question, for want of light from the Word of God and laws of men, that I do not know what to say to it; and therefore humbly conceive, that, in such a difficulty, it may be more safe, for the present, to let a guilty person live till further discovery, than to put an innocent person to death.

First, Because a guilty person may afterward be discovered, and so put to death; but an innocent person to be put to death cannot be brought again to life when once dead.

Secondly, Because secret things belong to God only, but revealed things to us and to our children.  And though it be so difficult sometimes, yet witches there are, and may be known by some acts or other put forth by them, that may render them such; for Scripture examples, I can remember but few in the Old Testament, besides Balaam (Num. xxii. 6, xxxi. 16).

First, The sorcerers of Egypt could not tell the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream, though he told them his dream (Gen. xli. 8):  his successors afterwards had sorcerers, that by enchantments did, first, turn their rods into serpents (Exod. vii. 11, 12); second, turned water into blood; thirdly, brought frogs upon the land of Egypt (Exod. viii. 7).