Chapter XXVIII: Witchcraft
Mr. Blackwell, who was the leading spirit in this conflict with “Satan's Kingdom,” duly gave intimation of the fast in the Abbey, according to the above injunction. Being full of the subject, he added to the announcement certain utterances of his own, which were deemed so weighty and important that they were published, and so have come down to us. He was evidently full of the idea that a great struggle was going on between the Church and the Devil.
“My friends,” he said, “we have been preaching of Christ to you, we are now about to speak of the Devil to you—the greatest enemy that our Lord and his kingdom hath in the world. The thing I am about to intimate to you is this,—the members of the Presbytery having taken into consideration how much Satan doth rage in these bounds, and which is indeed very lamentable in our bounds, and in ours only, they have thought to appoint a day of fasting and humiliation, that so He who is the lion of the tribe of Judah may appear with power against him who is the angel of the bottomless pit, and throw him down who is now come out in great wrath. O I that it may be because his time is short.”
After this fervent aspiration, Mr. Blackwell went on to “hint” a few things as to the causes of the fast, the chief being “the mysteriousness and difficulty of the process of witchcraft, requiring much of the presence of God to guide the judges, that the truth may be found out and judgment execute,” and he concluded his exhortation with the alarming suggestion, “Who knows but in this congregation there be many who have these many years hence been under vows to Satan, so it is the ministers' and the people of God's duty and interest to pray not only that God would find out the guilty among those that are apprehended, but that God would discover all others that are guilty and who are not apprehended, that the kingdom of Christ may run and be glorified, and the kingdom of Satan destroyed.”
It is to be hoped the suggestion that any of his congregation were under vows to Satan was but an “arrow shot at a venture.” If any such were in the Abbey that day, they must have been filled with fear as they listened to the exhortation of the minister. He was clearly one who would keep a sharp eye on their practices. His efforts in the trial of the tormentors of Bargarren's daughter were crowned with success. The judges proceeded to the trial with the text they had heard from the pulpit of the Abbey, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” ringing in their ears. The confessants, after their residence in the manses of the ministers, were most pertinent in their evidence. [5] Meetings with the devil, a “black, grim man,” whose hand was “very cold,” whom they called their lord; their contrivances with that person for the destruction and torment of Christian Shaw, some being for “stabbing her with a touch, others for hanging her with a cord, a third sort for choking;” their receiving from Satan a piece of an unchristened child's liver to eat ; their being carried through the air by the devil ; their murdering of children, and many other wonderful things were all sworn to. The accused had no chance of escape when it was found that they had on them the “insensible marks.” The advocate for the prosecution loudly declared to the jury that, if they should acquit the prisoners, “they would be accessory to all the blasphemies, apostacies, murders, listures, and seductions whereof these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be guilty.” The jury had no intention of running any such risks. Seven of these miserable creatures were found guilty as libelled, and condemned to the flames.
During the whole trial the Presbytery met constantly, waiting on the commissioners, and giving them “their thoughts of the affair,” and when sentence was passed, they appointed some of their number to converse with the seven persons that were condemned to die. Two of them were appointed to preach to the miserable wretches in the tolbooth on the day previous to their execution: During their last night the whole of the members of Presbytery were instructed to spend some time with the condemned persons, and did allot to each one of the sentenced persons to be dealt with by them and waited on to the fire.
[5] A full report of the trial is given in the interesting volume, “The Witches of Renfrewshire.” Paisley, 1877.