the same by a law, as by the words of prohibition, y aut narrandis somniis occultam aliquam artem divinandi, it may appear. Likewise by the law of God in Deuteronomy xiii. seducing dreamers were ordered to be slain. Yet it is not to be contemned that Marcus Antonius was told a remedy in his dream for two grievous diseases that oppressed him; nor that of Alexander Macedon for the cure of Ptolemy's poisoned wound; nor that which z St. Augustine reporteth of a Millanois, whose son (the father dead) being demanded a debt already paid, was told by his father in a dream where the acquittance lay to discharge it; nor that of Astyages of his daughter, and many others of like naOf the reason of all which, forasmuch as the cause is not in ourselves, this place denieth dispute.

ture.

SECT. IV.

That Daniel's misliking Nabuchodonosor's condemning of the magicians doth not justify all their practices.

BUT it may be objected, that if such divinations as the heathens commonly used were to be condemned in them, who took on them very many and strange revelations; how came it to pass that Daniel both condemned the hasty sentence of Nabuchodonosor against the magicians of Chaldea, and in a sort forbade it? especially considering that such kind of people a God himself commanded to be slain. To this divers answers may be given. First, It seemeth that Daniel had respect to those Chaldeans, because they acknowledged that the dream of the king, which himself had forgotten, could not be known to any man by any art, either natural or diabolical: "For there is no other," said the Chaldeans," that can declare it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh :" and herein they confessed the power of the ever-living God.

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Secondly, It may be conjectured, and that with good reason, that among so many learned men, some of them did not exercise themselves in any evil or unlawful arts, but were merely magicians and naturalists; and therefore when

y Codex de Malefic. et Mathemat. leg. et si accepta.

z Aug. de cura pro mortuis agenda.

a Deut. xiii. and xviii. Levit. xx.

the king commanded to kill all, Daniel persuaded the contrary, and called it a hasty judgment, which proceeded with fury without examination. And that some of those men's studies and professions were lawful, it may be gathered by Daniel's instruction, for himself had been taught by them, and was called chief of the enchanters; of which some were termed soothsayers, others astrologians, others Chaldeans, others magi or wise men; and therefore of distinct professions.

Thirdly, Daniel misliked and forbade the execution of that judgment, because it was unjust. For howsoever those men might deserve punishment for the practice of unlawful arts, (though not unlawful according to the law of that state,) yet herein they were altogether guiltless. For it exceeded human power to pierce the king's thought, which the Devil himself could not know. So then in Daniel's dislike, and hindering of the execution of sentence of death pronounced against the magicians, there is no absolute justifying of their practice and profession.

SECT. V.

The abuse of things which may be found in all kinds, is not to condemn the right use of them.

NOTWITHSTANDING this mixture every where of good with evil, of falsehood with truth, of corruption with cleanness and purity; the good, the truth, the purity in every kind may well be embraced; as in the ancient worshipping of God by sacrifice, there was no man knowing God among the elders, that therefore forbare to offer sacrifice to the God of all power, because the Devil in the image of Baal, Astaroth, Chemoth, Jupiter, Apollo, and the like, was so adored.

Neither did the abuse of astrology terrify Abraham (if we may believe the most ancient and religious historians) from observing the motions and natures of heavenly bodies; neither can it dehort wise and learned men in these days from attributing those virtues, influences, and inclinations to the stars and other lights of heaven, which God hath given to those his glorious creatures.

Euseb. ex Artapan, et Polyhist.

The sympathetical and antipathetical working of herbs, plants, stones, minerals, with their other utmost virtues sometimes taught by the Devil, and applied by his ministers to harmful and uncharitable ends, can never terrify the honest and learned physician or magician from the using of them to the help and comfort of mankind; neither can the illusions whereby the Devil betrayeth such men as are fallen from God, make other men reject the observation of dreams, so far as with a good faith and a religious caution they may make use of them.

Lastly, The prohibition to mark flying of fowls (as signs of good or evil success) hath no reference at all to the crying of crows against rain, or to any observation not superstitious, and whereof a reason or cause may be given. For if we confound arts with the abuse of them, we shall not only condemn all honest trades and interchange among men, (for there are that deceive in all professions,) but we shall in a short time bury in forgetfulness all excellent knowledge and all learning, or obscure and cover it over with a most scornful and beggarly ignorance; and, as Pliny teacheth, we should shew ourselves ingratos erga eos, qui labore curaque lucem nobis aperuerunt in hac luce; "unthankful we "should shew ourselves toward those, who with pains and "care have discovered unto us light in this light."

Indeed not only these natural knowledges are condemned by those that are ignorant, but the mathematics also and professors thereof; though those that are excellently learned judge of it in this sort: In speculo mathematico verum illud, quod in omni scibili quæritur, relucet; non modo remota similitudine, sed fulgida quadam propinquitate; “In "the glass of the mathematics that truth doth shine, which "is sought in every kind of knowledge; not in an obscure "image, but in a near and manifest representation."

SECT. VI.

Of the divers kinds of unlawful magic.

IT is true that there are many arts, if we may so call d Cusan. Comp. Theolog. c. 1.

• Deut. xviii. 10.

them, which are covered with the name of magic, and esteemed abusively to be as branches of that tree on whose root they never grew. The first of these hath the name of necromancy or goetia; and of this again there are divers kinds. The one is an invocation at the graves of the dead, to whom the Devil himself gives answer instead of those that seem to appear. For certain it is, that the immortal souls of men do not inhabit the dust and dead bodies, but they give motion and understanding to the living; death being nothing else but a separation of the body and soul; and therefore the soul is not to be found in the graves.

de

A second practice of those men who pay tribute, or are in league with Satan, is that of conjuring or of raising up vils, of whom they hope to learn what they list. These men are so distract, as they believe that by terrible words they make the Devil to tremble; that being once impaled in a circle (a circle which cannot keep out a mouse) they therein, as they suppose, ensconce themselves against that great monster. Doubtless they forget that the Devil is not terrified from doing ill, and all that is contrary to God and goodness; no, not by the fearful word of the Almighty; and that he feared not to offer to sit in God's seat; that he made no scruple to tempt our Saviour Christ, whom himself called the Son of God. So, forgetting these proud parts of his, an unworthy wretch will yet resolve himself, that he can draw the Devil out of hell, and terrify him with a phrase; whereas in very truth, the obedience which devils seem to use, is but thereby to possess themselves of the bodies and souls of those which raise them up; as his majesty in his book aforenamed hath excellently taught, That the Devil's obedience is only secundum quid, scilicet, ex pacto; respective, that is, upon bargain.”

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I cannot tell what they can do upon those simple and ignorant devils, which inhabit e Jamblicus's imagination; but sure I am, the rest are apt enough to come uncalled; and

e Sunt in mundo genus quoddam potestatum valde divisum, indiscretum et inconsideratum; et quod ne

que verum a falso, neque possibile discernit ab impossibili. L. Vives in cap. 11. 1. 10.

always attending the cogitations of their servants and vassals, do no way need any such enforcement.

Or it may be that these conjurers deal altogether with Cardan's mortal devils, following the opinion of f Rabbi Avornathan and of Porphyrius, who taught that these kind of devils lived not above a thousand years; which Plutarch, in his treatise De Oraculorum Defectu, confirmeth, making example of the great god Pan. For were it true, that the devils were in awe of wicked men, or could be compelled by them, then would they always fear those words and threats, by which at other times they are willingly mastered. But the & familiar of Simon Magus, when he had lifted him up in the air, cast him headlong out of his claws, when he was sure he should perish with the fall. If this perhaps were done by St. Peter's prayers, (of which St. Peter no where vaunteth,) yet the same prank at other times upon his own accord the Devil played with h Theodotus; who transported (as Simon Magus was supposed to have been,) had the same mortal fall that he had. The like success had Budas, a principal pillar of the Manichean heresy, as i Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History witnesseth; and for a manifest proof hereof, we see it every day, that the Devil leaves all witches and sorcerers at the gallows, for whom at other times he maketh himself a Pegasus, to convey them in haste to places far distant, or at least makes them so think: k For to those that received not the truth, saith St. Paul, God shall send them strong illusions. Of these their supposed transportations, (yet agreeing with their confessions,) his majesty, in the 2d book and the 4th chapter of the Dæmonology, hath confirmed by unanswerable reasons, that they are merely illusive. Another sort there are who take on them to include spirits in glasses and crystals; of whom Cusanus: 1 Fatui sunt incantatores, qui in ungue et vitro volunt spiritum includere: quia spiritus non clauditur corpore; "They are "foolish enchanters which will shut up their spirits within

f Aug. de Civit. Dei, 1. 10.

g Cusan. Exer. 1. 2.

h Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. 5. c. 16.

i Lib. I. c. 21.

k 2 Thess. ii. 19, 11.

1 Exercit. 1. 2.