and at last the most Potent Rome This Art writ with much more Blood than the Laws of Draco teaches ye how advantageously and neatly to order a Battle to Assail the Enemy to use Stratagems to move Vigorously forward to Retreat to maintain a Shock to strike to purpose to avoid the stroaks to handle nimbly all manner of Arms to pursue when to leave Pursuing when to Pursue far when not too far when to fall to the Spoil to rally make good Breaches defend Forts and Towns It teaches ye also how to prepare and Rig out great Navies build Castles fortifie Towns place fit Garrisons to Encamp cast Trenches Mine Countermine make Engines Assault Ramplers provide Provision necessary for the Army to place and avoid Ambushments and the like also to Besiege Cities plant Batteries advance the Trenches dig down the Walls shake down the Towers scale Walls to burn and demolish Towns and Castles to spoil Temples plunder Cities depopulate Countries abolish Laws adulterate Matrons vitiate Widdows ravish Virgins to Wound take Prisoners Captivate and Kill So that the whole Art studies nothing else but the subversion of Mankind transforming Men into Beasts and Monsters So that War is nothing but a general Homicide and Robbery by mutual Consent Neither are Soldiers other than stipendiary Theeves arm'd to the subversion of the Commonwealth Now the Events of War being always uncertain and that Fortune not Skill affords Victory to what purpose serve all the Stratagems Ambuscades and Rules of War Yet the Divine Plato praises this Art Teaches it to his Scholars and commands them to be enroll'd as soon as fit for service and the Famous Cyrus affirm'd That War was as necessary as Agriculture Nay St. Austin and St. Bernard Catholick Doctors of the Church have approved thereof neither do the Pontifical Decretals at all impugne it though Christ and his Apostles teach quite another Doctrine So that contrary to the Doctrine of Christ it has obtain'd no small Honour in the Church by reason of the many Orders of Holy Soldiers all whose Religion consists in Blood Slaughter Rapine and Pyracy under pretence of defending and enlarging the Christian Faith as if the Intention of Christ had been to spread his Gospel not by Preaching but by force of Arms not by Confession and simpleness of Heart but by Menaces and high Threats of Ruine and Destruction strength of Arms Slaughter and Massacres of Mankind Nor is it enough for these Soldiers to bear their Arms against the Turks Saracens and Pagans unless they Fight also for Christians against Christians War and Warfare have begot many Bishops and it is not seldome that they Fight stiffly for the Popedome which made the Holy Bishop of Camora Affirm That seldom any Pope ascends the Chair without the Blood of the Saints and it is call'd constancy of Martrydome in those that dye Fighting desperately for the Papal Seat Concerning the Art of War Zenophon Zenocrates Onozander Cato Censorius Cornelius Celsus Iginius Vegetius Frontinus Helianus Modestus and many of the Ancients among the Moderns Volturius Nicholas the Florentine James Earl of Porcia and some few others These are great Doctors in the Art but Speculative and therefore not so dangerous as the Practisers Now as to the Titles Dignities and Degrees of the Scholars there are neither Batchelors Masters nor Doctors Neither are they as they are vulgarly to be call'd Emperors Dukes Earls Marquesses Knights Captains Centurions Lieutenants Ensignes names begotten by injury and Ambition but Thieves House-breakers Robbers Murderers Sacrilegious Fencers Adulterers Panders Whoremongers Traitors Gamesters Blasphemers Parricides Incendiaries Pirates and Tyrants All which who ever would express in one Word let him call 'um Soldiers that is to say the most barbarous dregs of Wicked Men whom their own wicked Natures and Desires carry headlong to all Villany among whom the Name of Dignity and Liberty takes the freedome to commit all sorts of Enormity and Cruelty seeking all occasions of Mischief looking upon Innocency to be a kind of likeness of Death all of 'um being one body of their Father the Devil Like the Leviathan of whom thus speaketh Job They are a body Arm'd with scales like strong shields and which is sure Seal'd One is set to another that no wind can come between them One is set to another they stick together that they cannot be sundred Job 41. They assist one another and are assembled together against the Lord and against his Christ Psa. 2 Neither are Purple Chains of Gold Garlands Crowns the Ensignes of War but wounded breasts and bodies deformed with scarrs An Exercise which is never perform'd but with the ruine and mischief of many the destruction of Good Manners Laws and Piety diametrically at Enmity with Christ with Happiness with Peace with Charity with Innocency and Patience The Rewards thereof are Glory got by the Effusion of humane Blood Enlargement of Dominion out of a greedy desire of Rule and Possession obtain'd with the Damnation of many Souls For seeing that Victory is the End whereat all War drives no man can be a Conqueror but he must be a Murtherer neither can any one be overcome but he must wickedly Perish Therefore the Death of Souldiers is the most desperate sin writing but a bad Epitaph upon their Graves They that kill are wicked though the War be just For Souldiers consider not the justness of the War but what Plunder and Booty they shall get from those that they kill If there are any who are justly slain yet they that claim Honour by doing the Fact make themselves but a kind of Butchers or Hangmen who while the Laws are so strict against Thieves Incendiaries Robbers Homicides and Murtherers yet presume under the Title and Pretence of being Warriors to be accompted Noble and Virtuous CHAP. LXXX Of Nobility THus we find the Original of Nobility to spring from War a Dignity obtain'd by Butchery out of the blood and slaughter of the Enemy and adorn'd with Ensigns of Publick Honour This was the reason of so many sorts of Crowns among the Romans Civil Mural Obsidional Naval so many Military largesses of Bracelets Spears Trappings Chains Rings Statues and Images from whence the Pedegrees of Nobility took their first rise Among the Carthaginians they had so many Rings given 'um as they had been present in Fights the Iberians rais'd about the Sepulchre of the Dead so many Obelisques as he had slain Enemies Among the Scythians at their Publick Festivals it was Lawful for none to receive the Cup that was openly carried about but they who had slain an Adversary Among the Macedonians there was a Law That he that had not slain an Enemy should be girt with a Headstal or Capistrum in deâ—ision of his Cowardise Among the Germans no man was to Marry a Wife till he had brought the Head of a slain Enemy before the King And many times the Indignity which many Persons have thought has been put upon 'um in not being rewarded
moderate Banquet unless he were mad Dancing being always the Companion and Attendant upon immoderate Feasts and inordinate Plays We must therefore necessarily conclude that Dancing brings up the rere of all Vices Neither is it hard to tell what evils come many times to pass through idle Discourse and Toying At such time as Youth in the heat of Dancing uses antick Gestures and makes a hideous stamping noise skipping to wanton Tunes and the sound of obscene Airs then are Virgins and Matrons handled with shameless hands tempted with immodest Kisses and lustful Embraces then what Nature hides and Modesty vails Wantonness discovers and civil sport becomes the pretence of wickedness An Exercise not sprung from Heaven but invented by the Devil in defiance of Divinity so that when the Children of Israel had erected themselves a Calf in the Wilderness they sacrific'd thereto eating and drinking and afterwards rising up to play they fell to Singing and Dancing CHAP. XIX Of Gladiatory Dancing NEither must I here omit to tell ye that there are many other sorts of Dancing the greatest part whereof are now laid aside others still in use for example Dancing in Arms proper onely to Gladiators and Souldiers a Tragical invention to kill the Innocent in sport making it a great infamy for a man to receive his deaths wound for want of Agility A hateful Invention Folly and Impiety mix'd together And indeed all sorts of Dancing as they are full of vanity and shamelesness are not onely to be disprais'd but utterly abominated seeing they teach nothing but a wonderful mystery how to run mad CHAP. XX. Of Stage-Dancing STage-dancing was design'd for Imitation and Demonstration whereby to explain things conceiv'd in the minde by the gestures of the body so cleerly and perspicuously representing manners and affections that the Spectator shall understand the Player by the motion of his body though he say not a word So far the excellency of this Art appears that without the help of an Interpreter while the Actors by motion represent an Old Man a Young Man a Woman a Servant a Drunkard an angry Person or of any other condition or affection whatsoever the Spectator at a distance hearing nothing of the story shall be able to understand the subject of the Play This brought Stage-players into great request as Macrobius witnesseth so that Cicero was wont to contend with Roscius who was also very intimate with Sylla the Dictator who should plainest and soonest and with most variety express the same Sentence whether the one by Gesticulation or the other in set Language which encourag'd Roscius to write a Treatise wherein he compares Stagemotion or Action with Eloquence But the Massilienses great preservers of serious Gravity would not endure a Stage-player among them for that most of their Arguments consisting in the repetition of Rapes and Adulteries they thought the often seeing thereof would accustom men to the practise of such things In fine it is not onely a dishonest and wicked Calling to exercise Stage-playing but also a matter of great dishonour to behold them for the pleasure of lascivious minds often degenerates into wickedness So that of old there was no name so ignominious as that of a Stage-player who by the Laws was made incapable of all Honour and honourable Society CHAP. XXI Of Rhetorism THere was also a Rhetorical Gesticulation not much differing from Stage-action but more careless which Socrates Plato Cicero Quintilian and most of the Stoicks have deem'd most necessary and commendable in a Rhetorician and an Orator as teaching a graceful gesture of the Body and composure of the Countenance seeing that the vigour of the Eye the sound of the Voice accommodated to the signification of Words and Sentences together with a decent motion of the Body and managment of the Countenance adde much to the force and efficacy of Oration But this Histrionical-Rhetorical Gesticulation began at length to be little us'd while Tiberius admonishes Augustus That he should speak with his Mouth and not with his Fingers and is now quite laid aside unless it be among some Mimmick Friers whom you â—hall see now adays with a strange labour of the Voice making a thousand faces looking with their Eyes like men distracted throwing their Arms about dancing with their Feet lasciviously shaking their Loyns with a thousand sundry sorts of wreathings wrestings turnings this way and that way of the whole Body proclaiming in their Pulpits their frothy Declamations to the People mindful perhaps of that Answer of Deâ—nosthenes reported in Valerius Maximus who being ask'd what was most efficacious in speaking reply'd Hypocrisie and Counterfeiting and being asked over and over again still made the same Answer as before testiâ—ying thereby that the whole force of Perswasion lay therein But that we may not digress too far from the Mathematicks let us return to Geometry CHAP. XXII Of Geometry THis is that Geometry which Philo the Jew calls the Principle and Mother of all Arts and has this Excellency above the rest that whereas there are manifold Contentions among the Professors of all other Arts the Masters of this Science generally agree in their Problems neither is there any great matter of debate among them but only as to Points Lines and Superficies whether they be divisible or no but they differ not from one another either in Doctrine or Tradition only every one strives to excel the other in the Invention of new Subtilties and in making additions to what is already found out Yet there is no Geometrician that could ever find out the right Quadrature of a Circle or the Line truly Equal to the side though Archimedes of Syracuse and after him many even to our times pretended to have found the same out This we may say That there are very few or none that do acquiesce in the Traditions and Axioms of their Predecessors and therefore while they go about to be still adding something which their Masters left Imperfect they run themselves into such an extremity of Madness which all the Hellebore in the World is not able to Purge away To this Geometry which instructs us in Lineaments Forms Intervals Magnitudes Bodies Dimensions Weights belongs the Art of making all Mechanick Engines and Instruments appertaining to the Mechanick Arts all Engines of War and Architecture as Battering Rams Tortoises Catapults Scaling-Ladders moving Towers Ships Gallies Bridges Carts Carriages Wheels Bars together with all those Engines by which great and massie Weights are moved and lifted up with little help and much ease Besides these all those pieces of Art that move by the assistance of Weight Wind Water Ropes or Lines as Clocks Hydraulick Organs By this Art Mercury is said to have made certain Idols among the Egyptians that made an Articulate noise with their Tongues and could walk several Paces Architas the Tarentine is also said to have made a Dove so exactly by rules of Geometry that the Figure would move and fly of it self And Archimedes is
and Prince of this World in Leviticus nam'd the Prince of the Deserts to whom it was said in Genesis Thou shalt eat the dust all the days of thy life And in Isaiah The Dust is thy bread that is our Corporeal Body Created out of the dust of the Earth so long as it remains unsanctifi'd and not chang'd for the better to be no longer then at the disposal of the Serpent but of God according to the word of St. Paul It is sow'd corporal but shall rise spiritual And in another place All shall rise but all shall not be chang'd for that many shall remain perpetual food for the Serpent This foul and detestable matter of the Flesh the food of the Serpent lies in the Grave in hopes of a better Lot and spiritual Transmutation which is already come to pass in those that have already tasted the first-Fruits of Redemption and some have attain'd it by vertue of the Deifick Spirit as Elias and Enoch and as some are of opinion Moses whose bodies being chang'd into the nature of Spirits never saw corruption nor as other Carcasses were left to the power of the Serpent And something to this purpose it was thought was the great dispute of Michael with the Devil about the body of Moses which St. Jude mentions in his Epistle Thus much concerning Conjuring and Necromancy CHAP. XLVI Of Theurgy MAny there are that believe Theurgy not to be unlawful which pretends to have to do with none but good Angels and the Divine Numen himself though under the names of God and Angels it proves to be onely the delusion and mockery of evil Spirits It pretends no natural Power but to make use of Celestial Ceremonies by which they think to attract and reconcile the Divine Natures Concerning which the antient Magi have deliver'd several Rules in several Volumes But the chiefest part of their Ceremonies is in observing Cleanliness first of the Soul then of the Body then of those things about the Body as in the Skin the Garments the Dwelling Vessels Utensils Immolations and Sacrifices which cleanliness renders them capable of being the receptacles and fit for the entertainment of Divine Spirits and is very much encourag'd and commended in Sacred Scripture according to the words of Esay Be glad and be clean and take away the evil of your thoughts But uncleanness which often corrupts and defiles and infects man disturbs the most clean and pure Society of Celestial Beings and chases away the spotless Spirits and Angels of God It is true that many times unclean and delusive powers to the end they may be ador'd and worship'd for Gods do counterfeit this Purity and therefore great diligence and care is to be us'd for the avoiding thereof and therefore we have abundantly discours'd thereof in our Books of Occult Philosophy Now of this Theurgy or Divine Magick Porphyrius having delivered many things at length concludes that by Theurgick Operations the soul may be made fit to receive Spirits and Angels and to see and converse with them but that there can be any access to the Deity thereby he altogether denies His Rules and Directions are contain'd in his Art Almabel his Notorious Art his Art Pauline his Art of Revelations where are abundance of Superstitions to be found which are so much the more pernicious by how much they seem more Losty and Divine to the unskilful CHAP. XLVII Of the Cabalists HEre the words of Pliny come into my minde There is saith he another Sect of Magicians of which Moses and Latopea Jews were the first Authors which words bring to my remembrance the Cabala of the Jews which as the constant opinion among the Hebrews goes was delivered by God to Moses and thence through succession of Ages even to the times of Ezra preserv'd by Tradition onely without the help of writing As of old the Doctrine of Pythagoras was delivered by Archippus and Lysiades who kept School at Thebes in Greece where the Scholars learning all their Masters Precepts by heart made use onely of their Memories instead of Books So certain Jews despising Letters plac'd all their Learning in Memory Observation and verbal Tradition whence it was call'd by the Hebrews Cabala that is to say a receiving from one to another by the Ear An Art by report very antient though the name be but of later times known among the Christians Now this Cabala they divide into three parts the first contains the knowledge of Bresith which they call also Cosmology explaining and teaching the force and efficacie of things created Natural or Celestial expounding also the Laws and Mysteries of the Bible according to Philosophical reasons which for that cause differs little from Natural Magick wherein they say K. Solomon excell'd Therefore we finde in the Sacred Histories of the Jews that he was wont to discourse from the Cedar of Libanon to the low Hyssop as also of Cattle Birds Reptiles and Fish all which contain within themselves a certain kinde of Magical vertue Moses also the Egyptian in his Expositions upon the Pentateuch and most of the Talmudists have followed the Rules of this Art The other part thereof contains the knowledge of more sublime things as of Divine and Angelical Powers the contemplation of Sacred Names and Characters being a certain kinde of Symbolical Theology wherein the Letters Figures Numbers Names Points Lines Accents are esteemed to contain the significations of most profound things and great Mysteries This part again is twofold Arithmantick handling the nature of Angels the Powers Names Characters of Spirits and Souls departed and Theomantick which searches into the mysteries of the Divine Majesty his Emanations his Names and Pentacula which he that attains to they account endu'd with most admirable power By vertue of this Art they say Moses wrought so many Miracles changing his Rod into a Serpent the Water into Blood and plagu'd Egypt with Frogs Flyes Lice Locusts Emrodes and Pestilence slaying the first-born of Man and Beast By this Art he divided the Red-sea caus'd Water to flow out of the Rock brought the Qualls into the Wilderness sweeten'd the bitter Waters made Lightning by day and a Pillar of Fire by night to lead the March of his people call'd down the Voice of God among the people By this Art he punish'd the Arrogant with Fire the Murmurers with Leprosie Mutiners with sudden Destruction causing the Earth to swallow them up preserv'd the Clothes of the Israelites from wearing out and gave them Victory over their Enemies Lastly by means of this Art Josua commanded the Sun to stand still Elias call'd down Fire from Heaven and rais'd the dead Youth to life Daniel muzzled the Lions mouths and the three Children sang in the middle of the fiery Furnace Nay the perfidious and unbelieving Jews stick not to aver that Christ himself wrought all his Miracles by vertue of this Art Solomon as they say did excel in this Art and that he discovered several secrets thereof