The Inanity and Mischief of Vulgar Superstitions
Four Sermons, Preached at All-Saint's Church, Huntington in the Years 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795

A collection of four sermons against witchcraft, published in 1795 by a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge.

Martin Joseph Naylor (Author)

9781108044240, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 June 2012

140 pages
21.6 x 14 x 0.8 cm, 0.19 kg

After the execution of the Samuels family - known as the Witches of Warboys - on charges of witchcraft in 1593, Sir Henry Cromwell (grandfather of Oliver Cromwell) used their confiscated property to fund an annual sermon against witchcraft to be given in Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire) by a divinity scholar from Queens' College, Cambridge. Although beliefs about witchery had changed by the eighteenth century, the tradition persisted. Martin J. Naylor (c.1762–1843), a Fellow of Queens' College and the holder of incumbencies in Yorkshire, gave four of the sermons, on 25 March each year from 1792 to 1795. Although he called the subject 'antiquated', he hoped his 'feeble effort, levelled against the gloomy gothic mansion of superstition, may not be entirely without a beneficial effect'. This collection of the four sermons was published in 1795, and appended with an account of the original events in Warboys.

Preface
Sermon I (I Sam. xxviii. 8)
Sermon II (I. Tim. iv. 7)
Sermon III (Eccles. i. 9)
Sermon IV (Psalm xxxi. 6)
The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three witches of Warboys.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]