R. BAXTER'S Certainty of the World of Spirits. "A gentleman, formerly
seemingly pious, of late years hath fallen into the sin of
drunkenness; and when he has been drunk, and slept himself sober,
something knocks at his beds-head, as if one knocked on a wainscot;
when they remove the bed, it follows him, besides loud noises on
other parts where he is, that all the house heareth".
" It poseth me to think what kind of spirit this is, that hath such a
care of this man's soul, (which makes me hope he will recover). Do
good spirits dwell so near us ? or, are they sent on such messages ?
or, is it his guardian Angel ? or, is it the soul of some dead friend,
that suffereth and yet retaining love to him, as Dives did to his
brethren, would have him saved ? God keepeth yet such things from us
in the dark."
Major John Morgan of Wells, did aver, that as he lay in bed with Mr.
Barlow (son of the Dean of Wells) they heard three distinct knocks
on the bed; Mr. Barlow shortly after fell sick and died.
Three or four days before my father died, as I was in my bed about
nine o'clock in the morning perfectly awake, I did hear three distinct
knocks on the beds-head, as if it had been with a ruler or ferula.
Mr. Hierome Banks, as he lay on his death bed, in Bell-yard, said,
three days before he died, that Mr. Jennings of the Inner-temple, (his
great acquaintance, dead a year or two before) gave three knocks,
looked in, and said, come away. He was as far from believing such
things as any man.
Mr. George Ent of the Middle-temple, told me, some days before he
died, that he had such a "Deceptio Visus", he called it.
" In Germany when one is to die out of one's family, or some friends,
there will sometimes likewise happen some token that signifieth the
death of one, e. g. some (or one) in the house heareth the noise, as
if a meal-sack fell down from on high upon the boards of the chamber;
they presently go up thither, where they thought it was done, and find
nothing; but all things in order".
" Also at Berlin, when one shall die out of the electoral house of
Brandenburgh, a woman drest in white linen appears always to several,
without speaking, or doing any harm, for several weeks before". This
from Jasper Belshazer Cranmer, a Saxon gentleman.