Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	age_n	time_n	write_v	2,053	5	5.4074	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95921	The Count of Gabalis, or, Conferences about secret sciences rendered out of French into English by A.L. ...; Comte de Gabalis. English	Villars, abbé de (Nicolas-Pierre-Henri), 1635-1673.	1680 (1680)	Wing V386B; ESTC R226487	50,429	145

right Men believe this Hood more than their own Eyes There hath been a memorable instance of this Popular Infatuation in your own France The Famous Cabalist Zedechias had a mind in the Reign of your King Pepin to convince the World that the Elements were inhabited by all those People whose Nature I have already described to you The Expedient he conceited was to advise the Sylphs to shew themselves publickly in the Air they did it with great Pomp and Magnificence These admirable Creatures were seen in the Air in Humane Shape sometimes in Battel Array marching in good Order standing to their Arms or encamped under rich Pavillions sometimes in a Fleet of Aereal Ships of an admirable Build which sailed with gentle Zephirs What became of it Do you think that the ignorant Age fell to reason on the Nature of those marvellous Spectacles No such matter The People believed at first that they were Sorcerers who had got into the Air to raise Tempests there and to showre down Hail upon their Crops The Learned Divines and Lawyers were quickly of the Opinion of the People the Emperour believed it also and that ridiculous Notion prevailed so far that the Wise Charlemaigne and after him Lewis the Debonaire imposed heavy punishments upon all those pretended Tyrants of the Air. This you may see in the First Chapter of the Capitular Decrees of those two Emperours The Sylphs perceiving that the People Pedants and the Crowned Heads themselves conspired thus against them resolved that they might make them lose the bad Opinion which they had of their innocent Fleet to carry away men from all parts to shew them their Fair Women their Republick Government and then to drop them in several places of the World They did as they projected the People seeing Men descend came running from all parts possessed with an Opinion that they were Sorcerers who detached themselves from their Companions that they might poison the Fruits and the Waters and according to the rage that is inspired by such imaginations they dragged the poor innocent men to punishment It is incredible what a vast number of them perished by Fire and Water in this Kingdom One day amongst the rest it happened at Lyons that three Men and a Woman descended in those Aereal Ships the whole City gather about them cry they are Magicians and that Grimoald 〈◊〉 of Benevent the Enemy of Charlemaigne sent them to destroy the Crops of France It was to no purpose for the four Innocents to say for their justification that they were of the same Countrey that they were lately carried way by miraculous men who shewed them unheard of Wonders and prayed them to relate them The infatuated People will not hear their Defence but was going to throw them into the Fire when the good man Agobard Bishop of Lyons who whil'st he was a Monk had obtained great Authority in that City came running upon the News and having heard the Peoples Accusation and the Defence of the Accused gravely pronounced that both were false That it was not true that these Men came down out of the Air and that what they affirmed to have seen there was absolutely impossible The People believed what good Father Agobard said better than their own Eyes was pacified set at liberty the four Ambassadors of the Sylphs and received with admiration the Book which Agobard wrote to confirm the Sentence he had pronounced Thus was the Testimony of these four Witnesses made frivolous In the mean time seeing they escaped punishment they were free to relate what they had seen which was not altogether fruitless for if you remember the Age of Charlemaigne abounded in Heroick Men. And this is a sign that the Woman who had been with the Sylphs obtained Credit amongst the Ladies of those Times and that by the grace of God many Sylphs were immortalized many Sylphides became likewise Immortal by the relation that these three Men gave of their Beauty which obliged the people of that Age to apply themselves a little to Philosophy and from thence have come all the Stories of Fairies which you find in the amorous Legends of the Age of Charlemaigne and the succeeding And these pretended Fairies were nothing else but Sylphides and Nymphs Have you read the Stories of those Heroes and Fairies No Sir said I. I am sorry for that replied he for they would have given you some Notion of the State to which the Sages are resolved one day to reduce the World Those Heroick Men those Loves of Nymphs those Journeys to the Earthly Paradice those Palaces and Inchanted Groves and all those Charming Adventures are but a weak Emblem of the Life that the Sages leads and what the World shall be when Wisdom by their means shall reign therein There shall be none but Heroes in it the least of our Children shall have the might of Z●roaster Apollonius or Melchsedec and most part of them shall be accomplished as the Children that Adam would have begotten on Eve had he not sinned with her Did you not tell me Sir said I interrupting him that it was not the will of God that Adam and Eve should have had Children and that Eve should have given her self only to Sylphs or Salamanders It is true said the Count they should not have procreated the way they did Your Cabal Sir continued I furnishes Man and Woman then with an Invention of Begetting Children after another manner than the common Method Assuredly replied he Good now pray teach me that Sir answered I. You shall not know it too day if you please said he laughing I 'll revenge the Quarrel of the people of the Elements because you have made so much difficulty to undeceive your self of their pretended Devilry I make no question but your pannick fears are now over I leave you therefore that you may have time to meditate and deliberate in the presence of God to which kind of Elementary Substances it will be most for his glory and your honour that you bestow a share of your Immortality In the mean time I 'll go recollect my self a little for the Discourse that you have put me upon making this night to the Gnomes Go said I explain to them some Chapter of Averroes I believe said the Count I may very well have a little touch at that for I have a Design to preach to them the Excellency of Man that I may work upon them to court our Alliance And after Aristotle Averroes holds two things which it is fit I should illustrate the one concerning the Nature of the Mind and the other about the Chief Good He says That there is but one created Mind which is the Image of the uncreated and that that Mind alone is sufficient for all Men. And as to the Chief Good Averroes says It consists in the Conversation with Angels which is not Cabalistick enough For Man even in this life is created for the Enjoyment of God as you shall one day know