The general scepticism which
his work promoted among the French people did much to produce an
atmosphere in which the belief in witchcraft and demoniacal
possession must inevitably wither. But this process, though real,
was hidden, and the victory still seemed on the theological side.
The development of the new truth and its struggle against
the old error still went on. In Holland, Balthazar Bekker wrote
his book against the worst forms of the superstition, and
attempted to help the scientific side by a text from the Second
Epistle of St. Peter, showing that the devils had been confined
by the Almighty, and therefore could not be doing on earth the
work which was imputed to them. But Bekker's Protestant brethren
drove him from his pulpit, and he narrowly escaped with his life.
The last struggles of a great superstition are very
frequently the worst. So it proved in this case. In the first
half of the seventeenth century the cruelties arising from the
old doctrine were more numerous and severe than ever before.
Pages:
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945