Demonstrations not so much as in Naturals but deduce them all out of the Precepts of Aristotle or some other that went before him whose Authority they preserve and make use of for all their Principles of Demonstration Now Aristotle affirms that for true Demonstration which Creates a Science which is made by Quiddities as the Logicians call them and by the proper differences of things to us unknown and hidden He saith farther that Demonstration is made by the Causes which Causes proceed either De per or secundum quod ipsum Which parts of Speech being convertible and relating back one to another yet saith he no circular Demonstration can be granted out of the Causes for all that If therefore the Principles of Demonstration are unknown and that Circulation be not admitted certainly little or no knowledg can be thence concluded For we believe things demonstrated through certain very weak Principles to which we assent either through the preceding authority of the wise or else approve by experience of our Sences And indeed all Knowledge hath its original from the Sences And it is a certain experiment of the Truth of Speech as Averroes saith when the words agree with the things thought And that is most truly known to the Knowledge of which most Sences concur Out of sensibles we are by the knowledge thereof led to all those things that fall within the compass of our Knowledge But now when all the Sences are subject to be deceived they can surely produce to us no real experience Wherefore seeing that the Sences cannot attain to an Intellectual Nature and that the causes of inferior things out of which the Natures Properties Effects and Passions of those things ought to be discovered and demonstrated are by the consent of all Men altogether unknown to our Sences doth it not hence appear that the way of Truth is wholly shut up and obscured from our Sences So that all those deductions and seeming Sciences deeply rooted in the Sences themselves must of necessity be altohgther erronious uncertain and fallacious Where is then the benefit of Logick where is the fruit of this Scientifical Demonstration from Principles and Experiments which when we must be forced to consent to as to known Terms will not those Principles and Experiments be rather things perfectly known than demonstrated But let us consider this Art a little more remotely Logicians reckon up ten Predicaments which they call most general Genus's Those are Substance Quantity Quality Relation When Where Scituation Habit Action Passion By which they hope to comprehend and understand all things whatever are contain'd within the round circumference of the World They add moreover five Predicables so call'd because they are predicated of themselves and of their parts that is to say Genus Species Difference Proper Accident Then they assigne four Causes of every thing the Material Formal Efficient and Final by which they believe themselves able to discover the Truth or Falshood of all things by a certain infallible Demonstration Now they compound every Syllogism oâ— Demonstration of three Terms the first is the Subject of the Question and is called the Major the next the Predicate of the Question the third is the Middle participating between both with these terms they form two Propositions which they call the Prâ—mises out of which at length springs the Conclusion This is that egregious Engine and these the Terms and Parts thereof whereby they undertake to joyn divide and conclude all things by the help of certain Axiomes which they dream impossible to be refuted These are the deep and profound Mysteries of Artificial Logick invented with so much care by these fallacious Doctors which being such great and secret Mysteries are not to be exposed or learnt by any other than they who are able to give great rewards for the same and to be at large expences to purchase Authority among the Schoolmen These are the Nets and these are the Hounds with which they hunt the Truth of all things whether natural as in Physicks or supernatural as in Metaphysicks but according to the Proverb of Clodius and Varro can never overtake by reason of their bawling and brawling one with another CHAP. VIII Of Sophistry BUt the late Schools of Sophistry have made an addition of far greater and more Monstrous Prodigies such a Scroll of Infinituâ—s Comparatives Superlatives Incipits and Desinits Formalities Haecceities Instances Ampliatioâ—s Restrictions Districtions Intentions Suppositions Appellations Obligations Consequences Indissolubles Exponibils Replications Exclusives Instances Cases Particularizations Supposits Mediates Immediates Completes Incompletes Complexes Incomplexes with many more vain and intolerable Barbarisms which are thick sown in their Logical Systemes whereby they endeavour to make all those things to appear Truths which are in themselves absolutely false and impossible and those things which are really true like furies breaking out of the Trojan Horse they seek to ruine and destroy with the Flames of their barbarous words Others there are who will admit of no more than three Predicaments not but two Figures of Syllogisms and of them but eight Moods laughing to scorn all Modal Compositions together with concrete and abstract Terms Others are not wanting who have found out the eleventh Predicament and a fourth Figure of Syllogisms Increasing the number likewise of Predicables and Causes and have moreover invented so many invincible Stoical subtleties that the Niceties of Cleanthes and Chrysippus together with the little conceits of Daphita Euthydemus and Dionysiodorus seem dull and meer rustical when compared with the new devices of our Modern Sophisters in the Study whereof the whole fray of our Sophisters are so stupidly employ'd that their whole business seems to be to learn to erre and with perpetual Skirmishes to render more obscure if not quite to obliterate the Truth which they pretend to explain so that the great Art which they profess is but a Gallimaufry of depraved and barbarous words by nice and froward Cavilling perverting the use of Speech offering violence to the poor Tongue that is scarce able to manage them the glory whereof consists only in noise and reproach the professors themselves coveting Combate rather than Victory and seeking all occasions rather of Contest than to find out the Truth So that he is the best Man among them who is most impudent and fullest of Clamour of whom Petrarch writeth that whether it be the modesty of their Stile or a confession of their Ignorance they are implacable in their Language yet dare not abide a true Challenge and are unwilling to appear in publick knowing what frivolous Ornaments they are attir'd withal and therefore like the Parthians they exercise a flying Fight and darting their volatile words up into the Air may be said to commit their Sails to the Wind. These are they who as Quintilian says are extraordinary subtile in Disputing but take them from their impertinent Cavilling and they are no more able to endure the blows of right Reason like little Buggs that
Behold the figure of that man of Parts who dive'd into the Secrets of all Arts A Second Solomon the mighty Hee That try'de them all and found them Vanity THE VANITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES BY Henry Cornelius Agrippa Knight Doctor of both Laws Judge of the Prerogative-Court AND Counsellour to Charles the Fifth Emperour of Germany ECCLES Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity LONDON Printed by J. C. for Samuel Speed and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1676. TO THE READER Studious Reader WIlt thou not look upon this Labour of mine to be a most bold and almost Herculean attempt to wage War against the Giant-like Opposition of all the Arts and Sciences And thus to challenge the stoutest Hunters of Nature Doctors will knit their enraged brows upon me the Authority of Masters the endeavours of the Batchelors of Art the heat of the Schoolmen the sedition of the Mechanicks will be all up in arms against me All which if I stab at one blow will it not be a greater work than Hercules in the accomplishment of all his Labours was ever guilty of Shall I not have performed a nobler Task if with no less danger and labour I overcome these Monsters of Schools Universities and Pulpits For I am not ignorant how bloody a Battle I must fight or how hazardous and difficult the War will be being to meet with such an Army of potent Enemies Wo is me with what Engins will they seek to destroy me With what weight will they not endeavour to crush me What reproaches will they not endeavour to throw upon me The Grammarians will rail at me the Etymologists will derive my name from the Gout the mad Poets will call me Goat and Momus the frivolous Historians will profane me beyond Pausanias or Herostratus the obstreperous Rhetoricians will plague me with their big Words and mimical Gestures the quarrelsome Logicians will confound me with their Syllogismes The nimble Sophisters will sawe my jawes with the snaffles of their subtle Questions The barbarous Lullist will make me mad with his absurd Soloecisms The Atome-numbring Arithmeticians will set an host of Vsurers upon me The Gamesters will curse me The Musicians will sing Ballads of me The proud Matrons will expel me their Meetings The Wenches will deny to kiss me The giggling Girls will laugh and cry I dance like a Camel The lewd Players will kill me in a Tragedy The intricate Geometrician will imprison me in his Triangles and Tetragonals The vain Painter will make me more ugly than an Ape or Thersites himself The Cosmographer will banish me amongst the Bears into Greenland The Astrologer will erect some wicked Scheme or other for me The Physiognomist will defame me for being impotent The Epicures will bespew me to death The Tyrant will crucifie me in Phalaris's Bull. Hypocrites will declaim against me in their Pulpits The Whores will pox me The Priests will excommunicate me The blasphemous Marriner will throw me over-board The yawling Hunter will set his Dogs upon me The Souldier will plunder me The Ordure-tasting Physicians will throw their Vrinal at my Head The Chyrurgeons will anatomize me The Lawyers will accuse me of Treason The Judges will condemn me Thus though I omit for brevities sake many others dost thou not see Reader what dangers I am like to run through But I am in hopes to avoid their fury provided that thou patient to hear the Truth and laying all Prepossession and Obstinacy aside wilt but give thy mind candidly and without passion to read what I have writ I have moreover the Word of God to defend me which with an undaunted Courage I intend to make use of for my Buckler I would have thee moreover to know that I have not writ these things either out of Hatred Envy Ambition or vain Errour nor did Arrogance prompt me to it but of all Causes the most just and truest because I see that so many men pufft up with Humane Knowledge and Learning not only contemn and despise the Oracles of the Sacred Scripture but also prosecute and deride it with the same contempt Others we see though to themselves they seem to be more holy who endeavour to confirm and approve the Lawes of Christ yet attribute more Authority to the Maximes of Philosophers than to the holy Prophets of God the Evangelists or Apostles though there be so vast a difference between them Moreover we finde that a most detestable Custome has invaded all or most Schools of Learning to swear their Disciples never to contradict Aristotle Boethius Thomas Albertus or some such like School-Deity From whom if there be any that differ so much as a nails breadth him they proclaim a scandalous Heretick a Criminal against the Holy Sciences fit only to be consumed in Fire and Flames Therefore these and â—cious Giants these Enemies of Scripture are to be set upon their Bulwarks and Castles are to be stormed And it behoves us to shew how intolerable the blindness of Men is to wander from the truth misguided by so many Sciences and Arts and by so many Authors and Doctors thereof For how great a boldness is it what an arrogant presumption to prefer the Schools of Philosophers before the Church of Christ and to extol or equal the Opinions of Men to the Word of God Lastly how impious a piece of Tyranny it is to captivate the Wits of Students to prefixed Authors and to deprive their Disciples of the liberty of searching after and following the Truth All which things being so manifest that they cannot be denied I may be the more easily pardoned if I seem to have more freely and bitterly inveighed against some sorts of Sciences and their Professors Farewel The LIFE of Henry Cornelius Agrippa Knight AND Judge of the Prerogative Court HEnry Cornelius Agrippa descended from a Noble Family of Nettesheim in Belgia was by his Parents so educated that he became Doctor of the Laws and Physick Master of the Rolls and Judge of the Spiritual Court He was naturally inclined to study making it his Recreation from his Youth to learn Nor was his Labour spent in vain for by his Ingenuity he obtained wonderful Skill and Knowledge in the several various Arts and Sciences Notwithstanding which his Fancy guided him to attend or accompany the Army of the Princes with whom he so prudently behaved himself that he gained the affections of all that knew him and for his singular Valour was created Knight in the Field It was about the year 1530 that his Merits grew great and he became the Subject of every 〈◊〉 Wonder and Discourse some admiring his Learning others his Valour and all with a reverend adoration applauding him In his Studies he grew expert in Occult Philosophy and composed four Books thereof whose incomparable Worth is beyond the reach of an Encomium Not long after that he published this his Satyrical Invective or Cynical Declamation against the Vanity of Arts and Sciences informing and affirming with
whereby they uphold that every Science addeth so much of a sublime Nature to Man himself according to the Capacity and Worth of every Person aâ— many times enables them to Translate themselves beyond the Limits of Humanity even to the Celestial Seats of the Blessed From hence have proceeded those various and innumerable Encomiums of the Sciences whereby every one hath endeavour'd in accurate as well as long Orations to prefer and as it were to extol beyond the Heavens themselves those Arts and Mysteries wherein with continual Labour he hath exercised the strength and vigour of his Ingenuity or Invention But I perswaded by reasons of another nature do verily believe that there is nothing more pernicious nothing more destructive to the well-being of Men or to the Salvation of our Souls than the Arts and Sciences themselves And therefore quite contrary to what has been hitherto practized my Opinion is That these Arts and Sciences are so far from being to be extoll'd with such high applauses and Panegyricks that they are rather for the most part to be disprais'd and vilifi'd And that indeed there is none which does not merit just cause of Reproof and Censure nor any one which of it self deserves any praise or commendation unless what it may borrow from the Ingenuity and Virtue of the first possessor However I would have you take this Opinion of mine in that modest Construction which may imagine that I neither go about to reprehend those who are of a contrary judgment or that I intend to arrogate any thing singly singular to my â—elf above others Therefore I shall entreat you to suspend your Censure of me differing in this one thing from all others so long as you find me laying an auspicious Foundation of proof not upon Vulgar Arguments drawn from the Superficies and out-side of things but upon the most firm reasons deduc'd from the most hidden bowels of secret Knowledge and this not in the sharp stile of Demosthenes or Chrysippus which may not so well beseem a Professor of Christianity but would rather shew me to be a vain pursuer of flattery and ostentation while I endeavour to varnish my Speech with the Fucus's of Eloquence For to speak Properly not Rhetorically to intend the truth of the Matter not the ornament of Language is the duâ—â— of one Professing Sacred Literature For the seat of Truth is not in the Tongue but in the Heart Neither is it of importance what Language we use in the Relation of Truth seeing that falshood only wants Eloquence and the trappings of Words whereby to insinuate into the minds of Men but the language of Truth as Euripides writeth is plain and simple not seeking the graces of Art or painted Flourishes Therefore if this great Work of ours undertaken without any Flowers of Eloquence which in the series of our Discourse we have not so much flighted as condemned do prove offensive to your more delicate ears we entreat you to bear it with the same patience as once one of the Roman Emperours made use of when he stood still with his whole Army to hear the tittle-tattle of an impertinent Woman and with the same humour that King Archelaus was wont to hear Persons that were Hoarse and of an unpleasant Utterance that thereby afterwards he might take the more delight in the pleasing sounds of Eloquent Rhetoricians and Tuneful Voices Remember that saying of Theophrastus That the most Illiterate were able to speak in the presence of the most Elegant Persons while they spake nothing but Truth and Reason And now that I may no longer keep ye in suspence through what Tracts and By-ways I have as it were hinted out this Opinion of mine it is time that I declare unto ye But first I must admonish ye That all Sciences are as well evil as good and that they bring us no other advantage to excel as Deities more than what the Serpent promis'd of old when he said Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil Let him therefore glory in this Serpent who boasts himself in knowledge which we read the Heresie of the Ophites not a little unbeseemingly to have done who Worship'd a Serpent among the rest of their Superstitions as being the Creature that first introduc'd the knowledge of Virtue into Paradise To this agrees that Platonick Fable which feigns That one Theutus being offended with Mankind was the first raiser of that Devil call'd the Sciences not less hurtful than profitable as Thamus King of Aegypt wisely discourses writing of the Inventors of Arts Letters Hence most Grammarians Expound and Interpret the word Damons as much as to say Artists But leaving these Fables to their Poets and Philosophers suppose there were no other Inventors of Arts than Men themselves yet were they the Sons of the worst Generation even the Sons of Cain of whom it is truly said The sons of this world are wiseâ— than the sons of light in this generation If men be therefore the Inventors of Arts is it not said Every man is a Lyer neither is there one that doth good But grant on the other side that there may be some good men yet follows it not that the Sciences themselves have any thing of vertue any thing of truth in them but what they reap and borrow from the Inventors and possessors thereof For if they light upon any evil Person they are hurtful as a perverse Grammarian an Ostentatious Poet a lying Historian a flattering Rhetorician a litigious Logician a turbulent Sophister a loquacions Lullist a Lotterist Arithmetician a lascivious Musician a shameless Dancing-master a boasting Geometrician a wandring Cosmographer a pernicious Architect a Pirat-Navigator a fallacious Astrologer a wicked Magician a perfidious Cabalist a dreaming Naturalist a Wonder-faigning Metaphysician a morose Ethic a treacherous Polititian a tyrannical Prince an oppressing Magistrate a seditious People a Schismatical Priest a superstitious Monk a prodigal Husband a bargain-breaking Merchant a pilling Customer a sloathful Husbandman a careless Shepherd an envious Fisherman a bawling Hunter a plundering Souldier an exacting Landlord a murderous Physician a poysoning Apothecary a glutton-Cook a deceitful Alchymist a jugling Lawyer a perfidious Notary a Bribe-taking Judge and a heretical and seducing Divine So that there is nothing more ominous than Art and Knowledge guarded with impiety seeing that every man becomes a ready Inventor and learned Author of evil things If it light upon a person that is not so evil as foolish there is nothing more insolent or Dogmatical having besides its own headstrong obstinacie the authority of Learning and the weapons of Argument to defend its own fury which other fools wanting are more tame and quietly mad As Plato saith of the Rhetorician That the more simple and illiterate he is the more he will take upon him to declaim will imitate all things and think himself not unworthy of any undertaking So that there is nothing more deadly than to be as it were rationally mad But
mind of the story of the Priest who having many Hosts at one Elevation for fear of committing a Grammar-absurdity cry'd out These are my Bodies Whence arose that execrable Heresie of the Antidicomarianites and the Elvidians denying the perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin but from that one word until where it is said Because Joseph did not know her until she had brought forth her first-born What strife and contention have those two Syllables from and through rais'd between the Latin and Greek Church The Latines asserting the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and from the Son the Greeks denying him to proceed from the Son but from the Father through the Son How many Tragedies has the word Nisi been the occasion of in the Council of Basil the Bohemians asserting the Lords Supper to be necessary in both kinds because it is written Vnless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye shall not have life in ye Whence that Opinion of the Waldenses and others their followers concerning the Eucharist but from the word is which they will have Symbolically understood which the Roman Church would have meant Essentially There are other pernicious Heresies of the Grammarians but so nice so subtile that unless the Oxonians the most acute Divines of England or the Sorbonists of Paris had discovered them with their Lynx's eyes and condemned 'um under their great Seals it would be difficult to shun them of this nature are those subtleties which is best said Christ thou Preachest Christ Preacheth I Believest thou Believeth Believing am I also that the Word the permanent Word may be depriv'd of all its accidents also that there is no name of the Third Person and the like which if they be Heretical then are Isaias and Malachy in the first place to be accompted Hereticks who both introduce God speaking of himself in the Third Person the first when God speaks to Ezechiel saying Ego addet not addam super dies tuos The other is this Et Domini Ego ubi est timor meus In which place he makes God giving himself the appellation of Dominos in the plural Number Much rather ought they to be accompted Hereticks who are now esteem'd the chief Divines in the Roman World amusing and clouding the whole Doctrine of the Orthodox Church with noveltie of Pronunciation contrary to all the rules and maximes of Grammar with far-strain'd words new-made Vocabularies and abstruse Sophisms teaching moreover That the Doctrine of Theology cannot be truly delivered in neat and genuine Language And a miserable thing it is to consider what Debates what Errors these obstinate Grammarians and proud Sophists are the occasion of by means of their perverse and imperious Interpretations of Words while some out of words gather Sentences others out of Sentences gather Words Hence in Physick in both Laws in Philosophy in Theology infinite Arguments and Errors arise For Grammarians demonstrate nothing but solely lean upon Authorities which are oft-times so various and discordant among themselves that of necessity the most of them must be false insomuch that they who most confide in their Precepts must be thought to utter least of all to the purpose For all the Laws of Speech abide not with the Grammarians but with the People that by continual custom attain the use and habit of well-speaking Now the vigor of the Latine Tongue after it ceased among the People through the Invasion of barbarous Nations the true substance thereof is not to be sought among the Grammarians but among the most Authentick and Learned Authors as Cicero Cato Vâ—rro both Plinies Quintilian Seneca Suetonius Quintus Curtius Livie Salust and such-like in whose Writings only remain the delights of the Latine Language and the Custom of well-Speaking not in the scribblements of Grammatical Letter-mongers who by their starch'd Rules concerning declining of Verbs and Cases Compounds and Deponents impose more upon the Latine Tongue and oftentimes frame to themselves stranger words than is fit for the Latine Language to own Though it be apparent to the World that there is no faith to be given to these Grammarians touching the truth of the Latine Tongue yet these impertinent Scriblers arrogate to themselves to be the only Censurers of other Mens Writings their Judges and Interpreters and all Books and Authors to reduce into Method and to allow or reject at their pleasures Never was any Author of so sublime a wit whatever extant which has scap'd their malicious slanders or whom they have not tax'd and calumniated as they thought good They accuse Plato of Confusion of whose faults George Trapâ—zund hath put forth several Books who as Crinitus declares is therefore by others call'd the Parent of Truth and Verity They seek perspicuity in Aristotle condemn him of Obscurity giving him the nickname of Sepiâ— or Cuttle-fish Vergil they condemn for little Wit and for being a Plaâ—arie and an Usurper of other mens Works Demosthenes displeases Tully On the otâ—â—r side Tully that great Rhetorician of the Latines is accus'd of Bribery reproach'd for being Fearful superfluous in Repetitions cold in his Joking tedious in his Exordiums idle in his Digressions seldome growing Warm slowly Swelling yea reprehended by those even of our Age and by Capella tax'd for his disorderly Stile but more by Apollinaris branded for being Flat and Insipid Trogus condemns Livies Orations for Fictions Plautus and Horace cannot agree Lucilius is damn'd for the rustickness of his hobling Verse Pliny like a Rapid Stream is said to grasp and overflow with too much Matter Ovid is complain'd of for too much Indulging his own Fancy Salust is accus'd of affectation by Assinius Pollio Terence could do little without the assistance of Labeo and Scipio Seneca is adjudg'd to be Lime without Sand whom Quintilian taxed in these words If he had not contemn'd his Equals had he not been Covetuous had he not too much lov'd and admir'd his own things if he had not injur'd weighty Matters with trivial Sentences he then might have been esteemed more in the judgment of Learned Men than in the Love of Children Marcus Varro is call'd a Hog Macrobius a most Learned man degraded as one of an impudent and ungrateful Genius neither is there any that ever wrote in Latine whom Laurentius Valla the Learnedest of all the Grammarians hath spar'd in his Anger and yet him hath Mancinellus most cruelly butchered Servius of old was thought to have well deserved of the Latine Tongue yet hath Beroâ—ldus most furiouâ—ly oppos'd him and our later Grammarians altogether shun him as a Barbarian Thus all the Grammarians rage one against another but lastly by their means it comes to pass that the Translation of the Holy Scriptures under pretence of Correction hath been so often chang'd that now it seems altogether to differ from it self Through their devices and censures those doubts now raigning have been rais'd concerning the Revelation the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews the
Club of Hercules the chast Tree the Letters of the Hyacinth the daughters of Niobe the Tree under which Latona brought forth as also concerning the Country of Homer and his Sepulcher Which was eldest in time Homer or Hesiod Whether Patroclus were before Achilles In what Attire Anacharsis the Scythian slept Why Homer did not honour Palamedes whether Lucan be to be placed among the Poets or Hereticks Also concerning the thefts of Vergil and what time of the year he dyed Who was the Author of the little Epigrams is a great Contest among the Grammarians and hitherto undecided To say truth all the Verses of the Poets are full of Impostures and Fables invented for the delight of Fools under pretence of Flattery or detraction of the worst of Men. Whatever Poets do whether they relate praise or invoke 't is all but in flattery of their own Fables again whether they inveigh satyrize or accuse they do it in applause of their own Fables acting always the parts of Mad-men Rightly therefore did Democritus call Poesie not an Art but Madness Therefore Plato said that he never knockt at a Poets Doors being in his Wits Then are Poets said to express most admirable lines when they are either Mad or Drunk For this cause St. Austin calls Poesie the Wine of Error quaft only by drunken Doctors St. Jerome also calls Poesie the Meat of the Devils An Art of it self thin and naked which is in reality a meer insipid thing unless it be clad and season'd with some other learning An Art always hungry always starving and like Mice feeding on stollen Cates yet I know not with what boldness in the midst of their trifles and fables like Tithonus Grashoppers the Lycian Frogs the Myrmidons Emmets promising to themselves immortal Fame and Glory Live happy then such Charms my numbers boast No day shall see ye in Oblivion lost Which indeed is no Fame or Reward at all or at most very little profitable Neither is it the Office of a Poet but of a Historian to prolong the life of Reputation CHAP. VI. Of History NOw History is a Narration of Actions either with praise or dispraise which declares and sets forth the conduct and event of great things the Actions of Kings and Illustrious Men according to the order of Time and Place Therefore most Men think this to be the Mistress of well-living and most useful for the instruction thereof for that by the examples of great things it both incites the best of Men out of a desire of Immortal Glory to undertake great and noble Actions and also for fear of perpetual Infamy it deters wicked Men from Vice But it often falls out contrary and many as Livie relatâ— of Manlius Capitolinus had rather purchase great than good Fame and when they cannot obtain their desired greatness by vertuous means will endeavour to atchieve it by Acts of Impiety as Justin out of Trogus relates of Pausanias the young Macedonian famous for the Murder of King Philip and is also justifyed of Herostratus who burnt the Temple of Diana the most famous Structure in the World which had been two hundred years in building at the expence of all Asia as Gellius Valerius and Solinus report And although it was enacted under most severe Penalties that no Man should so much as make mention of his name either by Word or Writing yet he attain'd the end which spurr'd him on to commit so great a Villany his name being still remembred and yet living to this our present Age. But let us return to History Which being a thing that above all things promises Order Fidelity Coherence and Truth is yet defective in every one For Historians are at such variance among themselves delivering several Tales of one and the same Story that it is impossible but that most of them must be the greatest Lyers in the World For to omit the beginning of the World the Universal Deluge the Building of Rome or of any other great City from whence they generally commence the first beginnings of all their huge Narratives of which they are all altogether ignorant of the other generally very incredulous and of the third very uncertain what to determine For these things being the most remote in time more easily gain Pardon for vulgar Error But as to what concerns later times and Ages within the memory of our Ancestors there is no excuse that can be admitted for their Lying Now the causes why they so much differ among themselves are many For the most of Historians because they were not living at the same time or were not present at the Actions or conversant with the persons taking their Relations upon trust at the second hand mist the chief scope of Truth and Certainty Of which Vice Eratostâ—enes Metrodorus Speptius Possidonius and Patrocles the Geographer are accused by Strabo Others there are who having seen by halves as in a March or as Mendicant Travellers to perform Vows viewing many Provinces undertake to compile Histories such as formerly Onosicritus and Aristobulus set forth concerning India Some others to please their own Fancies will feign upon true History and sometimes for the Fables sake omit the whole Truth as Diodorus Siculus notes of Herodotus Liberianus and Vopiscus of Trebellius Tertullian and Orosius of Tacitus among which you may likewise reckon Danudes and Philostratus Others convert the whole Story into Fables as Guidius Câ—esias Haecateus and many other of the Ancient Historiographers Others there are who impudently arrogating to themselves the Name and Title of Historians lest they should seem to be ignorant of any thing or to have borrowed from others presume to write strange and wonderful Relations of unknown Places and inaccessible Provinces Of which nature are those Figments of the Arimaspi Gryphons Pigmies Cranes People with Dogs Heads the Astromori People with Horses Feet the Phanissii and the Trogladytes a-kin to which are those Relations that aveâ— the Northern Seas to be frozen all over However they find Fools and Men without Wit or Judgment who believe these things and take 'um for Oracles In the number of these idle Writers is Ephorus to be reckoned who related that there was but one City in Ireland as also Stephen the Graecian who said the Franks were a People of Italy and that Vienna was a City of Galilee together with Arianus that affirm'd the Germans to be Borderers upon Ionia and Dionysius so notorious for his tales of the Pyrenaean Hills For further confirmation we find that what Tacitus Marcellus Orosius and Blondus discourse concerning many places of Germany is for the most part very unagreeable to Truth Falsly doth Strabo affirm that Ister which is the Donaw rises not far from the Adriatick Sea Falsly doth Herodotus affirm the same River to flow from the West that it rises among the Celtae the farthest people of all Europe and disgorges it self among the Scythians Again falsly doth Strabo relate that the Rivers Lapus and Visurgus flow as
great occasion of the utter subversion of the Roman Liberty In like manner did Cicero provoke Antony to the great mischief of the Empire and Demosthenes incensed Philip to the ruine of the Athenians so that there is no State of Government but has been highly injur'd by this wicked Art no society of men that ever lent their Ears to the Charms of Eloquence that has not been extreamly mischiefed thereby Moreover a confident Eloquence prevails much in Judicature Eloquence being the Patroness bad Causes are defended the guilty are sav'd from the punishment of the Law and the innocent are Condemned Marcus Cato the most prudent among the Romans forbad those three Athenian Orators Carneades Critholaus and Diogenes to be admitted to publick Audience in the City being men endu'd with such acuteness of Wit and Eloquence of speech that they could with great ease make evil good and good evil And Demosthenes was wont to boast among his friends That he could sway the Opinions of the Judges by vertue of his Eloquence which way soever he pleased and that according to his will and pleasure Philip and the Athenians either made War or Peace Such is the force of Eloquence either to allay or incite the Affections of men having as it were Supream Dominion over Nations to make them follow her Perswasions For this reason Câ—cero was at Rome call'd King because he Rul'd and guided the Senate by his Orations which way he pleas'd Hence it appears that Rhetorick is nothing else but the Art of moving and stirring the Affections by subtile Language exquisite varnishings of neat Phrase and cunning insinuation ravishing the minds of heedless People leading them into the Captivity of Error and subverting the sense and meaning of Truth So that if by the benefit of Nature there is nothing but may be express'd in proper Language what can be more pestilent than the fucus and varnishes of fallacious words The Language of Truth is simple but quick and penetrating a discerner of the intentions of the Heart and like a Sword easily cuts in sunder the difficult Enthymems and Gordion-knots of Rhetorick This made Demosthenes though he contemn'd all other the fine and Eloquent speakers of his time nevertheless to stand in awe of one Phocion who also spoke pithily short plainly and to the purpose and was therefore wont to call him the Hatchet of his Orations Perchance the Ancient Romans were not ignorant of these things who as Suetonius witnesses Twice Expell'd Rhetoricians by Publick Edict out of the City once when Faunius Strabo and Valerius Messala were Consuls and the second time in the Consulships of Domitius Aenobarbus and Licinius Crassus and a third time in the Raigne of Domitian the Emperor by an unanimous Decree of the Senate they were not only expell'd out of Rome but also out of all Italy The Athenians forbad them to come near the Seat of Judicature as being perverters of Justice they also put to Death Timagoras for flattering Darius according to the custom of the Persians in too high and obsequious a manner The Lacedaemonians exil'd Tesiphone only because he bragg'd That he could talk a whole day upon any Subject For there was nothing which they hated more than this curious Artifice of the Tongue appertaining to men that nothing regarded the speaking of Truth but whatever work they propose to themselves that to polish with high-flown and bigg words and only intending to deceive the minds of their Auditors and to boast of their leading them by the Noses And now it is evident That never any men were made better by this Art but many worse who though they sometimes speak handsomely of Vertue and Honest things yet are far more Polite Elegant and Ingenious in the defence of Error to sow Sedition to stir up Factions to heap Slanders and Reproaches and Calumnies than in the reconciling of differences making peace maintaining amity or in the commendation of Love Faith or Religion Moreover many men presuming too far upon this Art have revolted from the Orthodox Faith From this Art flow those numberless Sects Heresies and Superstitions that contaminate Religion while some so contemn the Scripture because it abounds not in Ciceronian Phrases that many times they take part with the quaint and fallacious Arguments of the Heathen against the Catholick Truth which is manifest from the Tatian Hereticks and from those whom Libanius the Sophist and Symmachus the Orator great Champions of Idolatry together with Celsus Africanus and Julian the Apostate seduced from the true Religion insulting over Christianity with their flashes of Rhetorick From whose pernicious and Blasphemous Oratory Hereticks have drawn many perswasive Arguments to seduce simple People from the true Faith And do we not now adays see the most Eminent and Learned most Elegant and Subtile Doctors and Disputants in the World to be the greatest heads of Heresies and Factions So are men affected with the Charms of Eloquence that rather than not be Ciceronians they will turn Pagans These becoming Impious while those that are more zealously devoted to Aristotle and Plato become altogether superstitious But all these vain Bablers that so fill the ears of their Auditors with their empty and idle Orations shall one day stand before the great Tribunal to give an account of those Errors which they have so vainly feigned and invented against the Truth of God CHAP. VII Of Logick LOgick succeeds in aid of the foregoing Arts being it self also the Mystery of contention and darkness by which the other Sciences are rendered more obscure and difficult to be understood and this Logick forsooth they call the Art of Reasoning A most miserable and brutish sort of people surely that are not able to reason or discourse without the Assistance of this Art However Servius Sulpitius extols this for the greatest of all Sciences and as it were a Light to those things which are taught by others as being that which as Cicero saith distributes the whole matter into parts and by definition explains the hidden sence of things explains obscurity distinguishes between things doubtful and points out the certain Rule to distinguish Truth from Falshood Furthermore the Logicians promise to find-out the Essential definition of every thing yet are not able to render themselves Masters of their own word in making things so clear but that they may be asked why they could not as well call Man a Man as Animal Rationale or a Mortal Rational Creature More of this you shall find in Boetius whose Works are not esteemed but are beyond all the Predicaments Topicks Analyticks and other trifles of Aristotle whom the Peripateticks following believe that nothing can stand or be known unless what is prov'd by Syllogism that very Syllogism which is set forth by Aristotle who never observed in all his Maximes how all his Arguments are deduced from suppositions or things granted before whose rule those other great boasters following have hitherto as yet made out no true or real
a large Treatise Entituled De Machinis Metallicis Though how out of the Metallick Oar to consolidate and purifie the true Metal by fire or if mixt how to separate them few or none have hitherto taken the pains to teach perhaps because that being an Art too Mechanick and Servile learned and ingenious Men have thought it beneath their Studies However being my self some years since made Overseer of some certain Mines by his Imperial Majesty searching diligently into the Nature of all those things I began to write a special Treatise thereof which I have yet in my hands continually adding and correcting the same as my Experience and Knowledge encreased intending to omit nothing that may serve to further the Invention and Knowledge thereof whether in relation to the searching and discerning of the Vein melting the Oar under-propping of Mines framing all manner oâ— Engines and whatever else belongs thereto Mysteries hitherto altogether hidden before By means of this Art we come to be Possessors of all Humane Wealth the eager desire whereof hath so invaded Mortals that they make their approaches to Hell and seek Riches in the very mansions of the Infernal Ghosts as Ovid elegantly describes it Deep in the Bowels of the Earth they toyl There what she strove neer Stygian shades to hide They dig up Wealth the baneful Root of Pride Now fatal Steel but far more fatal Gold With gain bewitch'd did Mortals first behold Desire of gain that Truth and Vertue chas'd And in their room Deceit and Treason plac'd Or as another Poet doth express himself Now Truth is driven out by Gold By Gold our Laws are bought and sold. Certainly therefore he first found out the greatest plague of Humane life that first found out Mynes of Gold and other Veins of Metal These men have made the very ground the more hurtful and pestiferous by how much they are mâ—re rash and venturous than they that hazard themselves in the deep to dive for Pearl Concerning the places where these Metals are found Authors do very much vary Lead they say was first found in the Islands called Cassiterides not far from Spain Brass in Cyprus Iron in Crete Gold and Silver in Pangaeus a Mountain of Thracia At length they infected the whole world onely the Scythians as Soline relates condemn'd the use of Gold and Silver resolving to keep themselves eternally free from publick avarice There was an antient Law among the Romans against the superfluity of Gold And indeed it were to be wish'd that mâ—n would aspire with the same eagerness to Heaven that they descend into the Bowels of the Earth allur'd with that vein of Riches which are so far from making a man happy that many repent too often of their time and labour so ill bestow'd CHAP. XXX Of Astronomy IN the next place Astrology offers it self otherwise called Astronomy an Art altogether fallacious and more to be derided than the Fables of the Poets whose Professors are a sort of confident persons Authors of Prodigies who with an impious Confidence and Curiosity at their own peasures beyond humane ability undertake to erect Celestial Orbs and to describe the measures motions figures shapes number and reciprocal harmony of the Stars as if they had long convers'd in Heaven and were but newly descended thence however among themselves of most different and dissenting Opinions even concerning those things by which they say all things are kept up and subsist that I may well say with Pliny that the incertainty and inconstancy of this Art plainly argues it to be no Art at all of whose very Fundamentals the Indians think one thing the Egyptians another the Moors another the Caldeans another the Jews another the Arabians another the Latins another the Antients another the Moderns another For Plato Proclus Aristotle Averroes and almost all the Astrologers before Alphonsus treating of the number of the Spheres reckon up but onely eight Spheres though Averroes and Rabbi Isaac aver that one Hermes and some Babylonians did adde a ninth to which Opinion Azarcheles the Moore adheres with whom Albertus Teutonicus agreed in his time for what notorious fact I know not called the Great and all those that approve the accesses and recesses of the Spherical Motions But the later Astrologers have constituted and appointed ten Orbs which Opinion the same Albertus believes that Ptolomy also held But Alphonsus following the judgment of Rabbi Isaac sirnamed Bazam held onely nine Spheres but four years after in an Edition of his Tables adhering to the Opinions of Albuhassen the Moore and Albategnus he reduc'd them to the number of eight Rabbi Abraham Avenezra Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Abraham Zacutus believe no moveable Orb above the eighth Sphere But they differ very much about the motion of the eighth Orb and of the fixed Stars For the Caldeans and Egyptians are of opinion that it is mov'd by onely one motion with whom Alpetragus and among the Modern Writers Alexander Aquilinus agree but all the other Astronomers from Hipparchus even unto these times affirm the same to be turn'd with various motions The Jewish Talmudists assigne thereunto a double motion Azarcheles Tebeth and Johannes Regiomontanus added the motion of Trepidation which they call approachings and recedings upon two little Circles about the heads of Aries and Libra but in this differing one from another for that Azarcheles affirms that the moveable head is distant from the fix'd not more than ten parts Tebith asserts them to be distant one from the other not above four parts with some minutes Johannes Regiomontanus makes them distant more than eight parts which is the reason given that the fixed Stars do not always incline to the same part of the Sky but sometimes they return to the place where they began But Ptolomy Albategni Rabbi Levi Avenezra Zacutus and among the later Authors Paul the Florentine and Austin Ritius my familiar Acquaintance in Italy affirm that the Stars do always move according to the successions of the Signes The later Astrologers make a threefold motion of the eighth Sphere the one which is most proper and is the motion of Trepidation which is finished once in seven thousand years the second they call the motion of Circumvolution being the motion of the ninth Sphere and is finished in forty nine years The last is made by the tenth Orb and is called the motion of the Primum mobile or the rapid and diurnal motion which turns round in the Compass of one natural day However among them that give a double motion to the eighth Sphere there is great diversity of Opinions for all the Modern Authors and they who admit the motion of Trepidation say that the Sphere is carried about by a superior Sphere But Albategni Albuhassen Alfraganus Averroes Rabbi Levi Abraham Zacutus and Austin Ritius say that the Diurnal motion which they call the Rapid motion is not proper to any Sphere but that it is made by the whole Heaven Averroes also confirms it that
above Humane Reason The Aethiopians and Indians were the greatest admirers of Magick where there was a great supply of variety of Stones and Herbs conducing thereto Of this some think that St. Jerome to Paulinus makes mention where he saith That Apollonius Tyaneus was a Magician or Philosopher Of the same sort were those Magi who bringing Gifts to Christ did first adore him which the Expositors of the Evangels call the Philosophers of the Caldaeans Such were the Hiarchs among the Brachmans Tespion among the Gymnosophists Budda among the Babylonians Numa Pompilius among the Romans Zamolxides among the Thracians Abbas among the Hyperboreans Hermes among the Egyptians Zorastes the Son of Ormasus among the Persians for the Indians Aethiopians and Persians always had the pre-eminence in Magick wherein as Plato in his Alcibiades testifies the Children of the Persian Emperours were always instructed that they might learn to govern the Kingdom by the Pattern of the Grand and Universal Order And Cicero in his Book of Divinations asserts That no Persian could enjoy the Scepter of that Empire if he were not skill'd in Magick Natural Magick therefore is that which considering well the strength and force of Natural and Celestial beings and with great curiosity labouring to discover their affections produces into open Act the hidden and concealed powers of Nature so cupoling inferiour with superior faculties by a mutual application thereof that from thence many times great and marvelous Miracles have been effected not so much by Art as Nature to whom Art onely shews her self a Hand-maid and Assistant in her operations For Magicians as the most accurate inquirers into Nature taking along those things which are prepared by Nature and applying Actives to Passives oftentimes produce effects before the time ordained by Nature which therefore the Vulgar take for Miracles when they are notwithstanding onely natural Operations as if any person should in March produce Roses ripe Figs or Garden-beans or should cause Parsly to spring from the Seed into a perfect Plant in few hours and greater things than these as to cause Thunder Clouds Rain Animals of divers sorts and several transmutations and transigurations of living beings such as Roger Bacon is said to have done by pure natural Magick Of these Operations sundry have written as Zoroastes Hermes Evantes King of the Arabians Zachary of Babylon Joseph the Jew Bocus Aaron Zenotenus Kirannides Almadal Thedel Alchindus Abel Ptolomy Geber Zahel Nazaharub Tebith Erith Salomo Astropho Hipparchus Alcmeon Apollonius Tryphon and many others of which Writings there are many whole and entire some imperfect which have come to my hands Of Modern Writers there have been but few who have treated of Natuâ—â—l Magick nor have they left many Writings behinde them that is to say Albertus Arnoldus de Villa nova Raymund Lully Bacon and Aponus and the Author of the Book dedicated to Alphonsus which mingles abundance of Superstition with Natural Magick which many others have also done CHAP. XLIII Of Mathematical Magick THere are besides these many other imitators of Nature wise inquirers into hidden things who without the help of natural Virtues and Efficacies confidently undertake onely by Mathematical learning and the help of Celestial influences to produce many miraculous Works as walking and speaking Bodies which notwithstanding are not the real Animal such was the wooden Dove of Archytas which flew the Statues of Mercury that talk'd and the Brazen Head made by Albertus Magnus which is said to have spoken In these things Boetius excell'd a man of a large Ingenuity and manifold Learning to whom Cassiodorus writing upon this Subject Thou saith he hast propounded to thy self to do great things and to know the most difficult by thy ingenious skill Metals are heard to roar Brazen Diomed sounds a Trumpet a Brazen Serpent hisses Birds are counterfeited and they that are incapable of a voice of their own yet are heard to make a sweet noise We relate but small things of thee that hast so great a power to imitate Heaven Of these delusory Sciences may be said that which we read in Plato's tenth Book of Laws Art is given to Mortals which enables them to produce certain posterior and succeeding Inventioâ—s neither pertaking of Truth or Divinity but ceâ—tain Imitations somewhat akin thereto Wherein Magicians have adventured to proceed so far by the help of that ancient and subtile Serpent the great promiser of knowledge that Aping him they become imitators of God and Nature CHAP. XLIV Of Witchcraft THere is a sort of Natural Magick which they call Witchcraft the effects whereof are wrought by Potions Philters and other compositions of Medicaments such as Democritus is said to have made for the begetting of good happy and fortunate Children and that other by which we should be able to understand the Language of Birds which Philostratus and Porphyrius relate Apollonius to have made Virgil also speaking of certain Pontick herbs Such Herbs as these when Meris us'd Streight as a Wolf unto the Woods did flee And by their powerful Charms dead bodies rear'd From out their Graves in open Air appear'd And Crops of Corn to ripeness were improv'd Streight have I seen to other Fields remov'd And Pliny declares that one Demarchus Parrasius at a Sacrifice which the Arcadians made to Jupiter Lycaeus wherein they offered Humane Bodies tasted the Entrails of a Boy and streight changed himself into a Wolf by reason of which transmutation into Wolves Austin believes the name of Lycaeus was attributed to Jupiter and Pan. St. Austin declares also That when he was in Italy certain Female Witches like Circe giving to certain Travellers a kind of Enchanting Medicament in Cheese turn'd them into Cattle and when they had made them to carry what burthens they thought fitting they restor'd them again to their former shape which thing as he affirms happen'd to one Father Prestantius Now lest any person should believe these things to be meer Chimaera's and Fictions let him remember how Sacred Scripture testifies of Nebuchadnezzar's being chang'd into an Ox and that he liv'd upon Fodder seven years together though at length by the mercie of God he was restored to his former shape whose body his son Evilmerodach after he was dead caus'd to be thrown to the Vultures to feed on lest he should rise from the dead that had been chang'd from a Beast into a Man And concerning Pharaoh's Magicians many more things are related in Exodus But of these Magicians or Witches the Wise man speaketh but a hard Sentence when he cries Thou hast abhorr'd them O God because they work abominable works by Medicaments I would have you also farther to understand that these Magicians do not onely pry into Natural things but also those things which accompany Nature and do almost shake off all Relation to her as Numbers Figures Sounds Voice Lights Affections of the mind and words So the Psylli and Marsi called Serpents together which others with other Charms put to flight
containing several Charms against Devils and their Possessings as also against Diseases as Josephus writes As for my part as I do not doubt but that God Revealed many things to Moses and the Prophets which were contained under the Covert of the words of the Law which were not to be communicated to the prophane Vulgar so for this Art which the Jews so much boast of which I have with great Labour and diligence sâ—arch'd into I must acknowledge it to be a meer Rhapsodie of superstition and nothing but a kind of Theurgick Magick before spoken of For if as the Jews contend coming from God it did any way conduce to perfection of Life Salvation of Men Truth of Understanding certainly that Spirit of Truth which having forsaken the Synagogue is now come to teach us all Truth had never concealed it all this while from the Church which certainly knows all those things that are of God whose Grace Baptism and other Sacraments of Salvation are perfectly Reveal'd to all Languages For every Language is alike so that there be the same Piety neither is there any other Name in Heaven or on Earth by which we can be Sav'd but only the Name of Jesus Wherefore the Jews most skilful in Divine Names after the coming of Christ were able to do nothing in comparison of their Forefathers But by that which we have common Experience of we see that oft-times wonderful Sentences of very great Mysteries are wrested from the Sacred Text that is nothing but a certain playing with Allegories which some slothful Persons imploy'd only in the consideration of particular Points Letters or Figures which this Language and manner of Writing easily admit of take occasion to fancy which many times make a noise as if they were very great Mysteries but are able to prove or evince nothing but that according to the words of St. Gregory they may be contemned with the same easiness as they are Asserted Rabanus the Monk has invented several of these but in Latine Characters and Verses inserting sundry Pictures which being to be read which way soever you turn the Letters declare some Sacred Mysterie representing the Painted History which no man denies but that they may be extorted out of prophane Authors no person is ignorant especially he that hath read the Centones upon Christ compos'd out of Virgil by Valeria Proba all which things and all of this Nature are but the speculations of Idle People But as to what pertains to the working of Miracles surely there is no man can be so stupid as to believe there is any force in this Art to accomplish any such thing The Cabala of the Jews therefore is nothing else but a most pernicious Superstition the which by Collecting Dividing and Changing several Words Names and Letters dispersed up and down in the Bible at their own good will and pleasure and making one thing out of another they dissolve the Members of Truth raysing up sentences Inductions and Parables of their own apply thereto the Oracles of Divine Scripture to them defaming the Scriptures and affirming their Figments to consist of them Blaspheme the Word of God by their wrested suppositions of Words Syllables Letters and Numbers endeavouring to prop up their Villanous Inventions by Arguments drawn from their own Delusions And being blown and puft up with these Trifles boast themselves to have found out and to know those ineffable Mysteries of God which are not Reveal'd in Scripture by means whereof they are able to Prophesie Work Miracles all which they blush not with confidence to aver But it happens to them as it did to Aesops Dog who leaving the substance and catching after the shadow lost his Food who being alwayes busied in the shadows of the Scripture and laborious in the study of their own Fictions their Superstitious Cabala snatching at they know not what they loose the Bread of Eternal Life and feeding upon empty Notions loose the Word of Truth From this Judaical ferment of Cabalistical Superstition I verily believe the Ophites Gnosticks and Valentinians came Hereticks that with the help of their Disciples invented a Cabala corrupting the Mysteries of the Christian Faith and by a Heretical Artifice drawing and patching together the Greek Letters and Numbers and framing out of them a thing which they call The Body of Truth they teach that without the help of those Letters and Numbers the Truth of the Gospel cannot be found out being so various and repugnant one to another and full of Parables written so that those that have Eyes should not see and those that have Ears should not hear but propounded to the Blind and wandring according to their weak capacities so that the hidden Truth is not to be understood by Writing but by successive Tradition delivered Viva Voce which they say was that Alphabetary and Arithmantick Theology secretly delivered to his Apostles by Christ himself and which St. Paul saith He only speaks among those that are perfect For these being most high Mysteries therefore they are not written nor to be written but to be kept in silence among the Wise Men who are to reserve them in the most secret parts of their Hearts CHAP. XLVIII Of Witchcraft BUt to return to Magick a part of which is the delusion of Witchcraft that is to say of delusions that are onely made in outward appearance such as are the Phantasms and Miracles dayly wrought by common Juglers which is not so much perform'd by Geotick Inchantments and Imprecations and Fallacies of Spirits but by Fumigations Lights Philters Collyries binding and hanging of Phylacteries and Charms to the parts of the body Rings Images Glasses and like devices of Magick Arts. Many things are perform'd by Agility and slight of hand as we see done by Players and Juglers which are therefore by some call'd Hand-philosophers or Chirosophi Of this Jugling Art there are many Treatises extant written by Hermes and others We read of one Pasâ—tes a Jugler that was wont to shew a great Banquet to an abundance of Guests sitting thereat which when he pleas'd he caus'd to vanish again out of sight leaving all the Guests a-dry and hungry Numa Pompilius also made use of these kinde of Prestiges or Witchcrafts And we read how that the most learned Pythagoras did once ridiculously act an odd business which was this That which came into his minde he wrote in a Glass with his Blood which being held against the Full Moon whatever was written appear'd to him that stood behinde as if it had been in the body of the Moon To this whatsoever is written of the changing of Mens shapes either believ'd by Poets related by Historians or credited by some of our Divines Thus some men seem to have the shape of Asses or Horses or other Animals the Medium Air being disturb'd or else the Eyes by some Incantation fascinated such things as these sometimes seem to be done by good and evil Spirits or else upon the Prayers of good
men to God as we read of Elisha when Dothan was besieg'd by the Army of the King of Assyria but the pure and open sight of God cannot be deceived Thus the woman which the people thought to have been a Cow to Hilarion appear'd to be what she was indeed a woman Thus those things which are said to be done by deception of the sight are called Praestigia But the transmutation of shape as of Nebuchâ—donozor or of place and when the Crop of Corn was remov'd into another field of these we have spoken before Now of this Art of Witchcraft Iamblichus thus writes As to what those persons who are bewitch'd imagine they have no other certainty of the truth of the essence of the action but what is barely imaginative for the end of this Craft is not to do things simply but to extend imagination to appearance and then on a sudden to remove all signe of any thing Out of all that hath been said we must resolve that Magick is but a mixture of Idolatry Astrology and superstitious Physick And indeed there are a great croud of Hereticks that dayly increase in the Church who with their first arguments and foundations from these Magitians who as Jannes and Jambres contradicted Moses so do they resist the truth The Ringleader of these was Simon the Samaritan who at Rome under Claudius Caesar was honour'd with a Statue for his excellency in this Art with this Inscription To Simon the Holy God Whose Blasphemies are sufficiently related by Clement Eusebius and Irenaeus From the Positions of this Simon as from a Seminary of all Heresie sprung those monstrous Ophites those shameful Gnosticks Cerdonians Martionists Montanians and many other Hereticks for gain and vain-glories sake lying before God yet bringing neither profit nor advantage to Men but leading them into Error and Perdition whose believers and admirers the Judgment of God shall overtake 'T is true that being young I wrote three Books of Magick my self which I Entitled Of Occult Philosophy in which what Errors soever I then committed in my Youth now grown more wary I do publickly Recant as having formerly spent too much time in those Vanities This advantage I got that now I know by what Reasons to Convince others of the Ruine which those Vanities will lead them into For while they presume to Prophesie and Divine not in the Truth of God but according to the Operations of Evil Spirits and boast themselves the Workers of Miracles not ceasing while they live and Act by the means of Magick Vanities Exorcisms Incantations Love-potions and other Demoniacal Operations they are all with Jannes and Jambres and Simon Magus Destin'd to the Eternal Torments of Hell-Fire CHAP. XLIX Of Natural Philosophy BUT let us now come to things that far surpass all these the very Maximes of Philosophy it self which dive into Nature it self and inquire into the Principles of things by the means of subtle Syllogisms Which what Truth they have more than what they borrow from the Credit of their first divulgers and defenders there is no man that very well understands The Poets were the first Professors thereof among which were Prometheus Linus Musaeus and Orpheusâ—s among which Homer may be numbred Now what Truth can that Philosophy afford us which had its beginning out of the Fables and Gewgawes of the Poets Which that it is so Plutarch doth prove by manifest Arguments for that all the sects of Philosophers took their Original from Homer and Aristotle confesses That the Philosophers are by Nature Philomythi that is to say Admirers or Lovers of Fables The Sects of Philosophers some have divided into Nine some into Ten But Varro into a far greater Number So that should one man Assemble all the Philosophers together it were impossible to find out among them which Opinion were first to be chosen or what Sect to follow So repugnant and differing they are among themselves about every particular maintaining a perpetual War one against another and as Firmianus saith One Sect labours to subvert another to establish themselves and their own Opinions neither will either grant the other to be wise lest he should acknowledge himself to be Mad. He that disputes of particular Philosophers delivers nothing of certainty concerning any one which makes me at a stand whether to reckon Philosophers in the number of Men or of Brutes for indeed they seem to excel Beasts in that they have Reason and Understanding but how they should come to be Men whose Reason is so uncertain so unconstant and alwayes staggering upon various and slippery Opinions whose Understanding cannot find out any thing fixed either to hold by or follow is a very great Quere The Truth whereof we shall now shew you more at large CHAP. L. Of the beginning of Natural things FOR first as concerning the Principles of Natural things upon which the whole Foundation of this Art lies there is a most deadly Combat among the greatest and wisest Philosophers and the Contention is yet undecided which hath determined best Most perswasive Reasons are urg'd on both sides For Thales Milesius accompted by the Oracle the chief wise Man was of Opinion That all things had their beginning from Water His Scholar and Successor in his School Anaximander said That the beginnings of things were Infinite but his Disciple Anaximenes held the Infinite Body of Air to be the beginning of all things Hipparchus and Heraclitus the Ephesian held Fire to be the first Principle to whom Archelaus the Athenian agrees Anaxagoras the Clazomenian makes Infinite Principles at first small and confus'd Particles but afterwards by the Divine Creator reduc'd into Order Xenophanes said that there was but one beginning of all things and that Mutable Parmenides upheld Hot and Cold Heat being the Fire that mov'd and Cold the Earth that form'd Leucippus Diodorus and Democritus were all for Full and Empty Diogenes Laertius was altogether for the Air which he made capable of Divine Reason Pythagoras the Samiâ—â— set up Number for the beginning of all things to whom Alcmeon the Crotoniate adher'd Empedocles the Agrigentine Discord and Concord and the four Elements Epicurus Atomes and Vacuum or Emptiness Plato and Socrates God Idea and Matter Aristotle raises up Matter coveting Form by privation which he makes the Third Principle contrary to what he has taught in another place that Equivocals are not to be reckon'd for Principles Wherefore some later Peripateticks have set up a kind of impulsive Motion in the stead of Privation which being an accident how can it be the Principle of Substance Or what shall be the mover of this Motion And therefore the Hebrew Philosophers admit of no other Principles than Matter Form and Spirit CHAP. LI. Of the Plurality of the World and of its Continuance IN their Disputations concerning the World they are very various Thales was of Opinion There was but one World and that it was the Structure of God himself Empedocles was of the same Opinion as
Principal Part of the substance of the Soul Aristotle believes the Intellect to be present only Potentially in the Soul and that Actually it works from without neither that it conduces to the Essence or Nature of Man but only to the Perfection of Knowledge and Contemplation Therefore he affirms That few Men and those only Philosophers are endu'd with Actual Understanding And indeed there is a great Dispute among Divines whether according to the Opinion of Plato the Souls of Men after they are Departed from the Body do retain any Memory of things done while the Body was alive or whether they altogether want the Knowledge thereof which the Tomists together with their mighty Aristotle firmly assert And the Carthusians confirm it from the Testimony of a certain Parisian Divine returning from Hell who being ask'd what Knowledge he had left him return'd Answer That he understood nothing but Pain and then citing the words of Solomon There is no understanding no knowledge no wealth in Hell he seem'd to them to make it out that after Death there was no Knowledge of any thing which notwithstanding is not only manifestly against the Opinion of the Platonicks but repugnant to the Authority and Truth of the Scripture it self also which teaches That the wicked shall see and know that he is God and that they shall give an account not only of aâ—l their Deeds but of all their idle Words and Thoughts Moreover there are some that have adventur'd to write and report many things concerning the Apparition of separated Souls and those oft-times repugnant both to the Doctrine of the Gospel and the sacred Text. For whereas the Apostle teaches us That we ought not to believe the Angels from heaven if they should preach otherwise than what is delivered yet the Gospel is so much out of date with them that they will rather believe one come from the Dead than the Prophets Moses Apostles or Evangelists Of this Opinion was the Rich Man in the Gospel who believed that his Brothers and Kindred living would give credit to any one that were sent from the Dead To whom so vainly Conjecturing Abraham made answer If they will not believe Moses and the Prophets neither will they believe any one that should be sent from the dead However I do not absolutely deny some Holy Apparitions Admonitions and Revelations of the Dead but yet I admonish ye to be very wary knowing how easie it is for Satan to Transform himself into an Angel of Light Therefore they are not absolutely to be believ'd but to be entertain'd as things which are Apocryphal and without the Rule of the Scripture There are many Fabulous stories to this purpose written by one Tundal in his Consolation of Souls and also by some others of which your Cunning Priests and Friars make use to terrifie the Vulgar sort and get Mony A certain French Notary hath also lately put forth a Relation of a Spirit walking at Lyons a Person of no Credit and less Learning But the most approved Authors that write of these things is Cassianus and James of Paradise a Carthusian But there is nothing in them of solid Truth or secret Wisdome tending to the encrease of Charity or edifying of the Soul only they thereby perswade people to Alms Pilgrimages Prayers Fastings and such other Practical Works of Piety which the Scripture nevertheless with far greater Reason and Authority enjoyns But of these Apparitions we have discours'd at large in a Dialogue which we have Written of Man as also in our Occult Philosophy But now let us return to the Philosophers All the Heathen who affirm the Soul to be Immortal by common consent also uphold the Transmigration of the Soul and farther That rational Souls do sometimes Transmigrate into Plants and Creatures void of Reason Of this Opinion of Transmigration Pythagoras is said to be the first Author of which thus Ovid Souls never die but in Immortal state From dead to living bodies transmigrate I now my self can call to minde how I When long since Troy the strength of Greece did try Was then Euphorbus that my life sold dear To crown the Conquest of Atrides Spear Which then my left hand bâ—re I knew the Shield Which late in Juno's Temple I beheld Much more has been written concerning this Pythagorical Transmigration by Timon Xenophanes Cratinus Aristophon Hermippus Lucianus and Diogenes Laertius But Iamblicus who has many other Abettors asserts That the Soul does not Transmigrate out of Man into Brutes nor return from Creatures Irrational into Men but that there are Transmigrations of Souls that is of the Souls of Beasts into Beasts and of the Souls of Men into Men he does not deny There are also Philosophers of which number Eâ—â—ripides is one a greatfollower of Anaxagoras together with Archelaus the Naturalist and after them Avicen who report the first Men to have sprung out of the Earth like Herbs in that not less ridiculous than the Poets who feign certain Men to have sprung from the Teeth of a Serpent sown in the Earth Some there are who deny that the Soul is Generated and others who deny that it has any Motion CHAP. LIII Of Metaphysicks BUT let us go a little farther and make it appear that these Philosophers are not only at a loss about those things that seem to have a Being in Nature but that they are also at great variance among themselves concerning such as have no Principle or Foundation at all it being altogether uncertain whether they be or no and which they believe to subsist without Body or Matter and which they call Separated forms which because they are not in Nature but thought to be above Nature therefore they are call'd Metaphysicks and said to be beyond Nature from thence sprang those Infinite every way contradictory and not less impious and unlearned Opinions concerning the Gods For Diagoras Milesius and Theodorus Cyrenaicus altogether deny that there was any God Epicurus held that there was a God but that he took no care of things below Protagoras said that whether they were or no they had little or no Power Anaximander thought that there were Gods Native of Countries some in the East and some in the West at great distances one from another Xenocrates held that there were Eight Gods Antisthenes that there were many popular Gods but one Supream the Creator of the rest Others have precipitated themselves into such a profundity of Madness as to make with their own hands the Gods which they intended to Worship such was the Image of Bell among the Assyrians which made and carved Gods Hermes Trismegistus does notwithstanding very much applaud in his Aesculapius But Thales Milesius discoursing of the Divine Essence asserted the Understanding to be God who Form'd all things out of Water Cleanthes and Anaximenes held the Air to be God Chrysippus Deified the Natural Ability endu'd with Reason or Divine Necessâ—â—y Zeno ascribes Divinity to the Divine Law of Nature Anaxagoras to
the Infinite Intellect moveable of it self Pythagoras would have a certain Soul diffus'd and passing through the Nature of all things from whom all things receive Life to be God Alcmaeon of Crotona Deified the Sun Moon and other Stars Zenophanes would have God to be All whatever had a Being Parmenides makes a certain Circumscrib'd Orb of Light which he calls a Crown to be God Aristotle as if a certain Knowledge of God could be collected from the Motion of the Heavens hath invented Fictitious Gods of the Nature of them and sometimes will have the Mind to be Divine and sometimes he calls the World iâ— self God sometimes he makes another God far more Supream and Superintendent over it whom Theophrastus imitates with the same inconstancy I omit what Strato Perseus Aristo the Disciple of Zeno Plato Xenophon Speusippus Democritus Heraclitus Diogenes the Babylonian Hermes Trismegistus Cicero Seneâ—a Pliny and many others have delivered whose Opinions notwithstanding are far different from the former not yet recited I might here run through all their Debates and Monstrosities of words concerning Idea's Incorporeals Atomes Hyle Matter Form Vacuum Infinity Eternity Fate introduction of Forms Matter of the Heavens whether the Stars consist of the Elements or of the Fifth Essence which Aristotle invented with many other such kind of Trifles that have afforded Men great cause of Dispute and Contention But I suppose I have made it sufficiently apparent how far Philosophers are from agreeing about the Truth it self to whom the nearer a man adheres the more remote he is from any certainty and the farther he wanders from right Religion Hence it is That we find John the Twenty second Pope in a very great Error who was of Opinion That the Souls of the Blessed should not see the Face of God before the day of Judgment We know also that Julian the Apostate did Abjure Christ for no other Cause than that because being much addicted to Philosophy he began to scorn and contemn the Humility of the Christian Faith For the same cause Celius Porphyrius Lucian Pelagius Arrius Manichaeus Averroes have with so much madness bark'd against Christ and his Church Hence that common Proverb among the Vulgar That the greatest Philosophers are the greated Hereticks St. Jerom therefore calls them the Patriarchs of Heresie the First-born of Aegypt seeing that all Heresie whatsoever hath had its first rise out of the Fountain of Philosophy By this Philosophy is all Divinity almost Adulterated so that instead of Evangelical Doctors and Teachers false Prophets and Heretical Philosophers have appear'd in the World who have adventur'd to Equalize the Divine Oracles with Humane Inventions polluting the same with strange Opinions of Men have Tranform'd true and simple Divinity as Gerson saith into swelling and Sophistical Loquacity and Mathematical Figments Which St. Paul the Apostle foreseeing with many timesâ—repeated admonitions commands us to beware left any person should prevail over us and seduce us through vain Philosophy St. Austin defends and fortifies his City of God against them All other Divines and Holy Fathers have condemned it to be wholly extirpated out of the Church Neither are there wanting Examples of the Heathen by which we find that they have done the same For the Athenians put Socrates to Death that was the Father of the Philosophers The Romans threw Philosophers out of their City The Messanians and Lacedemonians never admitted them and in the Raign of Domitian they were not only Expell'd the City but forbid through all Italy There was also a Decree of Antiochus the King against those young Men that durst take upon them to study Philosophy and more than that against their very Parents that permitted them Neither have Philosophers been only condemn'd and expell'd by Kings and Emperors but also exploded by most Learned Men in their several Writings Extant of which Number is Phliasius Timon who wrote a Treatise Entitled Sylli in derision of Philosophers and Aristophâ—nes who wrote a Play in Contempt of them which he call'd Nubes or the Clouds and Lastly Dion Prusaeus who made a most Eloquent Oration against them Aristides also made a most Learned Oration in the behalf of Four Noble Athenians against Plato and Hortensius a most Noble and Eloquent Roman hath with most strong and powerful Reasons most sharply oppugned the same CHAP. LIV. Of Moral Philosophy IT remains now that if there be any part of Philosophy that contains the Discipline of Manners to inquire whether the same do not rather consist in variety of use custom observation and perservation of life than in the little Rules of Philosophy which are changeable according to the times places and opininions of men and such as threats and fair words teach Children Laws and Punishments cause men to learn Of some things which cannot be taught natural Industry makes an addition in men for many things wax out of use through process of time and consent of the people Hence it comes to pass that that was then a Vice which is now accompted a Virtue and that which is here a Virtue in another place is compted a Vice what one man thinks honest another man thinks dishonest what some hold to be just others condemn as unjust as the Laws Opinions Times Places and Interests of Government vary Among the Athenians it was lawful for a man to marry his Couzen-german among the Romans it was altogether forbidden Formerly among the Jews and now among the Turks it is lawful to have plurality of Wives besides Curtisans and Concubines but among us Christians it is not onely forbid but accompted a most horrible sin Lastly that the women should go to Play-houses and be seen publickly by all persons was among those Nations accompted no dishonour and yet among the Romans so to do was held infamous and dishonest However the Romans were wont to take their Wives with them to great Entertainments where they went to appear in great Splendor and abide in the best parts of the house but in Greece no married wife was admitted to any Banquet or Feast unless it were among their neerest Relations nor was she to converse but in the most retir'd parts of the house where no man went but the nearest of Kin. Among the Lacedaemonians and Egyptians it was accompted an honourable thing to steal but among us Thieves are taken and hang'd Some Nations are so planted by Heaven that they appear eminent for the unity and singularity of their Customs The Seythians were always infamous for Savageness and Cruelty The Italians were always eminent for their Magnanimity The Gaules were reproach'd for Stupidity The Sicilians were always subtile The Asiaticks Luxurious the Spaniards Jealous and great Boasters Besides several Nations have some particular marks of distinction which are the more immediate marks of Heaven so that a man may easily discern of what Nation such or such a stranger may be by his Voice Speech Tone Designe Conversation Diet Love or Hatred Anger and Malice and the
and eat flesh for I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them when I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning sacrifices and burnt-offerings but this thing commanded I them saying Obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you that it may be well with you And Isaiah 43. 23. Thou hast not brought me faith the Lord the sheep of thy burnt-offerings neither hast thou honoured me with thy Sacrifices I have not caused thee to serve with an Offering nor wearied thee with Incense thou boughtest me no sweet savour with money neither hast thou made me drunk with the fat of thy Sacrifices but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and hast wearied me with thy iniquities And Chap. 66. v. 2. To him will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my words For it is not thy fat flesh that shall cleanse thee from thy iniquities For Chap. 58. v. 5. It is such a fast that I have chosen vers 6. to loose the bands of wickedness to take off the heavy burthens to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke vers 7. To deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that wandreth into thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and hide not thy self from thine own Flesh. Verse 8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thy health shall grow speedily thy righteousness shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall compass thee Verse 9. Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer Here am I. I will not deny but that as by Moses and Aaron formerly in the Synagogue and after him by the succeeding Priests Judges and Prophets even to the Scribes and Pharisees so also in the Christian Church it was the practise of the Apostles Evangelists Fathers Priests and Doctors to deck and adorn her with decent Rites Ceremonies and Institutions to render her a more amiable Bride to her Celestial Spouse To which later Ages have added many things too much savouring of Humane Weakness But as it often happens that that which is provided as a Remedy turns oftentimes to nourish the Disease so happens it now with the Ceremonies of the Church that through the folly of Popish Superstition Christians are now adays more clogged with continual innovations than were the Jews of old and which is worse though these Ceremonies are many of them neither good nor bad in themselves but things indifferent yet the superstitious people groping in the dark of Popery and Superstition place a greater belief in them and observe them more strictly than the Commands of God the Bishops Abbots Monks and Priests conniving all the while thereat and well providing thereby for their Bellies Now these Ceremonies though they have been the occasion of few Heresies against the Faith yet have they introduced innumerable Sects into the Church and have been the seed of many Schisms For from hence it came to pass that the Greek Church was separated from the Romans while the one Consecrated Vnleavened the other Leavened Bread when it matters not which so the Bread be consecrated Hence the Bohemian Church separated from the Roman that they might administer the Sacrament in both kinds but as St. Paul saith Gal. 6. 15. Neither circumcision availeth nor uncircumcision but the observance of the Commands of God which the same Author in the same place calls the new creature Therefore is it a most abominable piece of Iniquity for such slight causes and about things indifferent to disturb the Unity of the Church and divide the Body of Christ and as our Saviour objects to the Pharisees to Cleanse the outside of the Cup and swallow a Camel Therefore by the providence of God the Pope did himself little good when he was so stingy against the Leaven of the Greeks and the Bohemian Cup. CHAP. LXI Of the Magistrates and Superiours of the Church IN the Government of the Church it is necessary to make use of Ecclesiastical Magistrates and Officers for the avoiding confusion Now whatsoever is done in the Church either for Ornament or for the increase of Religion whether it be in the Election of Overseers or in the Institution of Ministers unless the same be done by the instinct of the Divine Spirit which is the Soul of the Church it is altogether impious and contrary to the Truth For whosoever is not call'd to the great Office of the Ministry and Dignity of Apostleship by the Spirit as was Aaron and whoever enters not in at the door which is Christ but gets another way into the Church through the window that is to say by the favour of men by purchasing Voices in Election or by superiour Power certainly such a one is no Vicar of Christ or of his Apostles but a Thief and an Impostor the Vicar of Judas Iscariot and Simon the Samaritan Therefore it was so streightly provided by the antient Fathers in the Election of Prelates which they therefore call the Sacrament of Nomination that the Prelates and Apostles who were to be Overseers of the Ministers of the Church should be men of most unspotted Integrity in their Lives and Conversations powerful in sound Doctrine able to give a reason of all their doings But the antient Constitutions falling from their Majesty and the late Pontifical Jurisdiction by damnable Custome getting a head such a sort of Popes and Prelates now adays ascend into the Throne of Christ such as were the Scribes and Pharisees in the Chair of Moses who talk and do nothing binding heavy burthens to the shoulders of the people to which they will not put the stress of a little finger Meer Hypocrites performing all their works to be seen of men making a shew of their Religion as it were in Scenes they covet the chief Seats at Feasts in Schools in the Synagogues the upper hands in the streets and to be saluted with the ponderous appellations of Rabbi and Doctors They barricado up the Gate of Heaven not onely not going in themselves but excluding others They devour Widows houses jabbering long Prayers traveling Land and Seas to seduce children and ignorant persons that having by the addition of one Proselyte encreased their forlorn number they may with a more numerous train enter the Regions of Fire prepared for them With their idle Legends and Traditions they corrupt the most Holy Laws of Christ and neglecting the true Temple of God the living Images of the Son of the Father and the Altars of the peoples Souls with a covetous eye seek after onely Gold and Gifts and minding the more profitable and sinister parts of the Law are very strict in their Decrees touching Tithes Oblations Collections and Alms Tithing Fruits Cattel Money not sparing also things of the smallest price as Mint Anise and Cumin for which
as upon the Equity and Justice of the Judge CHAP. XCII Of the Canon-Law FRom the Civil flow'd the Canon or Pontificial Law which may to some seem a most holy Constitution so ingeniously does it hide and mask the precepts of Avarice and rules of Rapine under the pretences of Piety though it contain very few Decrees that regard either Religion the Worship of God oâ— the Ceremonies of the Sacraments I forbear to make it out that some are altogether repugnant to the Word of God all the rest are meer matters of Strife Contention Pride Pomp and Gain and onely Edicts of the Popes not contented with those already made by Holy men and Fathers unless they may adde new Decrees Chaffie extravagancies so that there is no end or limit of their Canons which onely proceed from the Pride and Ambition of the Popes whose Arrogancie has grown so bold as to command the Angels to rob Hell and lay violent hands upon the souls of the Dead tyrannizing over the Law of God with their Interpretations Declarations and Disputations left any thing should be wanting or diminisht from the fulness of their power Did not Pope Clement in a Bull which is kept to this day at Vienna and several other places command the Angel to free the soul of one that was going to Rome for Indulgences and dying by the way immediately out of Purgatory and carry him to Heaven adding It is our pleasure that the pains of hell be no farther inflicted on him granting also power to those that were signed with the Cross at their own pleasures to take three or four souls out of Purgatory Which erroneous and intolerable Boldness if I may not call it Heresie the Parisian School then utterly condemn'd and reprov'd repenting perhaps that they did not report that hyperbolical Zeal of Clement as a Fable that the Story might live rather than die seeing that for all their affirming or denying there is nothing of injury done to the Authority of the Pope whose Canons and Decrees have so pinion'd Theologie that the most Contentious Divine dares neither dispute or think contrary to the Popes Canons without leave and pardon as Martial says of Rusus What Rusus says Rusus has leave for all Although he laugh weep hold his tongue or braul He sups drinks asks denies yet still the brute Has your good leave without your leave he 's mute Out of these Canons also and Decrees we finde the Patrimony of Christ to be Kingdoms Donations Foundations Wealth and large Possessions and that the Priesthood of Christ is Soveraign power and Command that the Sword of Christ is Temporal Jurisdiction that the Rock on which the Church is founded is the Pope that the Bishops are not onely the Ministers but Heads of the Church that the Goods of the Church are not Evangelical Doctrine Constancy of Faith and contempt of the World but Taxes Tythes Oblations Collections Purple Mitres Gold Silver Gems Mannors and Money The power of the Pope is to wage War dissolve Leagues absolve Princes from their Oathes Subjects from their Obedience and to make the house of Prayer a den of Thieves Well therefore may the Pope depose Bishops who can give away other mens rights commit Simony dispense with his Oath and no man be able to say to him Why dost thou so Well may he for other weighty reasons dispense with all the New Testament and send above a third part of the souls of the faithful to hell But the Office of Bishops is not now-a-days to preach the Word but to confer Orders dedicate Temples baptize Bells consecrate Altars and Chalices bless Vestments and Images But they who are more ambitious than these if leaving those things to be performed by I know not what mean and titular Bishops they can procure themselves to be sent Kings Ambassadours to be their Chief Ministers of State or to attend upon the Queen such great causes may excuse um from serving God in the Temples if they can serve the King well at Court Out of the â—me Fountains arise those Equivocations and Shifts to avoid Simony in selling and buying Benefices daily in use or for whatever other Monopolies or Markets are made of Pardons Indulgences Dispensations and the like whereby they set a price upon remission of sins which God has so freely granted and have found out a way to gain by the very pains of Hell From this Law they borrow that feigned Donation of Constantine which is quite contrary to the Word of God seeing that neither Caesar can give away his own Right nor the Clergie usurp that which is Caesars To these we may adde so many ravenous Decrees under the known Titles of Indulgencies of Bulls of Confessions of Testaments of Dispensations of Priviledges of Elections of Dignities of Prebendaries of Religious houses of Sacred houses of The place of Judicature of Immunities of Judgements and the like Lastly the whole Canon-law is of all the most inconstant more various than Proteus more changeable than a Chameleon more full of perplexity than the Gordian-knot So that the Christian-Religion by the Institution of Christ intended to put an end to Ceremonies is now more clogg'd with Ceremonies than the Jewish Religion of old the weight whereof makes the easie and sweet Yoke of Christ more heavie and burthensome than that of the Law while Christians are compell'd to live more according to the Prescriptions of the Canon-law than the Rules of the Gospel To say truth the Learning of both Laws is wholly busied about frail empty and prophane matters Bargains and Quarrels of the common people about Murthers Thefts Robberies Pyracies Factions Conspiracies and Treasons Perjuries Knaveries of Scribes Abuses of Lawyers Corruptions of Judges whereby Widows are ruin'd Orphans destroyed the Poor oppressed the Innocent condemned and as it is said in Juvenal The Crows are pardon'd and the Doves condemn'd Thus blinde men run themselves into mischiefs which they thought to avoid by the assistance of the Canons and Pontifical Decretals because they are no Laws or Canons ordained by God or for the honour of God but onely invented by the corrupt Wit of men for Gain and the supply of covetous desires CHAP. XCIII Of Advocates THere is another Practice of the Law which they call the Art of Pleading of which they would pretend a very great Necessity an ancient but most deceitful Calling onely set out with the gaudy Trimming of Perswasion which is nothing else but to know how by Perswasion to over-rule the Judge and to turn him and winde him at pleasure to know how by false Interpretations and Comments to wrest or avoid the Law or prolong the Suit so to cite and repeat Decrees to pervert Equity and alter the sence of the Law and the intention of the Legislator in which Art there is nothing sooner prevails than Bauling and Confidence and he is accounted the best Advocate who intices most the people to go to Law putting um in hopes of recovering great
by the wit and help of Man Wine Oyl Bread and Cloth and other works of Nature are compleated by humane Arts so the Divine Oracles delivered to us obscure and hidden are to be explained by Interpretation not by the force of our own Wit or Invention but by the help of the Spirit who distributes his good things as he pleases and where he pleases making some Prophets and some Interpreters Therefore this Interpretative Divinity consists not in Compounding Dividing Defining after the manner of the Peripateticks neither of which belong to God who neither can be defined divided or compounded but leads to Knowledge by another way which is indifferent between this and Prophetical vision which is a kinde of discovery of the Truth to our purifi'd Intellect as a Key to a Lock and this as it is the most covetous of all Truth so it is the most susceptible of what things are to be understood and is therefore called Possible Intellect wherewith though we do not discover by a full light what the Prophets mean and those who beheld the Divine things themselves yet there is a door open to us that from the conformity of the Truth perceived to our Intellect and by the Light which illustrates us out of those open windows we gain more certainty than from the appearing Demonstrations Definitions Divisions and Compositions and we read and understand not with our outward eyes and ears but with our better senses and extract the Truth flowing from the sacred Scriptures which the other delivered in dark sayings and mysterious sentences and thereby see what is hidden from the wise and great Philosophers yet apprehend them not with so much certainty as that all perplexity may be removed And whereas there is a manifold Truth conceal'd in sacred Scripture holy men have gone about to try various and manifold Expositions of the same For some gently walking along the back of the Letter and expounding one place by another and one letter by another and making out the sence by the Order Etymologie and Propriety and Force of the signification of the words hunt out the truth of Scripture which is therefore call'd Literal Exposition Others refer all things written to the business of the Soul and works of Justice whose Expositions are therefore call'd Moral Others remit them by various Tropes and Figures to the Mysteries of the Church whose Exposition is call'd Tropological Others given to Contemplation refer all things to the Myitery of Celestia glory and this Exposition is call'd Anagogick And these are the four most usual sorts of Exposition besides which there are two more of which the one refers all things to vicissitude of Times Mutations of Kingdoms and Ages therefore call'd Typick Wherein among the Ancients Cyril Methodius and Joachim Abbas did most exel of Modern Authors Jeremy Savanarola of Ferrara The other enquires into the nature and qualities of the Universe the Sensible world and of the whole Fabrick of the World and Nature which Exposition is therefore call'd Physical or Natural wherein Rabbi Simeon ben Joachim excell'd who wrote a very large Volume upon Leviticus wherein discoursing of the natures of all things he shews how Moses according to the congruencie of the threefold World and nature of things ordain'd the Ark the Tabernacle the Vessels Garments Rites Sacrifices and other Mysteries for the appeasing and worshipping God Which Exposition the Cabalists follow especially those who treat of Beresith or the Creation For they who discoursing concerning the Judgement-seat of God by Numbers Figures Revolutions Symbolical reasons refers all things to the first Arch-type search for the Anagogical sence And these are the six most famous Senses or Meanings of the holy Scripture all whose Expositors or Interpreters are by a general word call'd Divines among whom we finde Dionysius Origen Polycarpus Eusebius Tertullian Ireneus Nazianzene Chrysostome Athanasius Basil Damascene Lactantins Cyprian Jerome Austin Ambrose Gregory Ruffinus Leo Cassianus Barnardus Anselm and many other holy Fathers which those ancient times brought forth and some of later years as Thomas Albertus Bonaventure Egidius Henricus Gandavensis Gerson and many others But now seeing that all these Interpretative Divines are but men they are subject to humane frailties sometimes they erre sometimes they write things contrary or repugnant sometimes they differ from one another in many things they are deceiv'd all of um not discerning all things for onely the Holy Ghost has the perfect knowledge of Divine things who distributes to all men according to a certain measure reserving many things to himself that we may be always learning of him for as S. Paul saith All of us know and preach by art onely Therefore all this Interpretative Theologie consists onely in liberty of speech and is a Knowledge separate from Scripture whereby every one has the liberty to abound in his own sence according to those various Expositions recited before which S. Paul in one word calls Mysteries or speaking of Mysteries when the Spirit speaks Mysteries whence Dionysius calls this Significative Theologie treated of by those holy Doctors in several Volumes Nor are we to believe all that they say seeing that many hold very Erroneous Opinions of Faith which are exploded by the Church as we may instance in Papias Bishop of Hierapolis Victorinus Pictoviensis Irenoeus Lugdunensis Cyprian Origen and Tertullian and many others who have err'd in the Faith and whose Tenets have been condemned as Heretical though they themselves are among the Canoniz'd Saints But this requires a deeper spirit of consideration to judge and discern which is not of men nor of flesh and bloud but granted from above by the Father of lights For no man can utter any thing rightly of God but by the light which comes from himself which light is the Word by whom all things were made and who illuminates every man coming into this world giving them power to become the sons of God whoever shall receive and believe Neither is there any who can declare the things of God but his own Word for who besides can know the minde of God or whoever was made of his council but the Son of God being the Word of the Father But of this we shall discourse no farther till we have perfected the next Chapter of Prophetick Theologie CHAP. XCIX of Prophetick Theologie AS Prophecie is the speech of the Prophets so is Theologie nothing but the Tradition of the Divines or men discoursing with God However not every one that can remember or repeat a Prophecie or interpret the meaning thereof is presently a Prophet but he that in divine things is endued with the knowledge of Piety Vertue and Sanctity who discourseth with God and meditates upon his Law day and night For so S. John Author of the Apocalypse in the Letters of Dionysius call'd The Divine testifies from holy Writing to whom the Truth it self has said He that hears you hears me and he that despises you despises me Which words are not
not the Opinions of Men not Custom nor the invented Fictions of the Wise not the Magnificent Decrees of Sects not Syllogisms Enthymems not Inductions not soluble Consequences but Divine Oracles consonant to one another received by the Universal Church with an unanimous and solid consent approved by Miracles Prodigies Wonders Holiness of life and testimony of Martyrdom The Doctors of this Prophetick Theologie were Moses Job David Solomon and many other Canonical Writers and Prophets The Teachers of the New Testament were the Apostles and Evangelists but all these notwithstanding they were fill'd with the Holy Ghost yet all at one time or other stray'd from the Truth and in some measure spake untruly not that they did so wittingly or craftily for to say so would be a greater Errour than that of Arius or Sabellicus subverting the whole Authority of the Scripture in which Errour notwithstanding the great and holy S. Jerome persisted disputing against S. Augustine about the reprehension of Peter for S. Paul said that S. Jerome told a lye craftily Which should it be granted and that such an untruth should be admitted in the Bible immediately as S. Austin saith the whole certainty of the Bible would fall to ruine But S. Jerome being thus admonisht after many Contradictions and defences at length acknowledged his Errour and confess'd the Truth But what I say that the holy Writers did secundum quid speak things not altogether true I would have to be understood so as that they did not willingly erre but onely stray through humane frailty Thus Moses failed in telling the people he would bring them out of Aegypt and carry them into the Land of Canaan for though he brought them out of Aegypt he did not carry them into the Land of promise Jonas failed in foretelling the destruction of Nineveh within forty days intended but delay'd Elijah failed in foretelling many things to come to pass in the days of Ahab which yet were not fulfill'd till after his death Isaiah failed foretelling the death of Hezekiah the next day when his life was prolonged fifteen years afterwards Many other Prophets also fail'd and their predictions are found either not to have come to pass at all or else to have been suspended The Apostles also and Evangelists fail'd Peter also fail'd when he was reprehended by S. Paul Matthew also fail'd when he wrote that Christ was not dead till the Launce had pierced his side But this defect was no defect of the Holy Ghost but either of the Prophet not rightly delivering what was suggested by the Holy Ghost or the Vision did declare or else proceeding from some alteration of the event of the Command the sentence of the Oracle being either alter'd or defer'd Hence it follows that all Prophets and Writers in some things seem to fail and erre according to the Scripture which saith All men are lyers Onely Christ both God and man never was nor shall be found to fail nor shall his words be altered or be defective who void of Errour divulged his Oracles most immutable as he said himself The heaven and the earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away Now because all Truth is through the Holy Ghost therefore onely Christ possesses this Truth firmly nor shall it ever depart from him but remains in him But it is not so with others for the Spirit was with Moses but when he strake the Rock it was departed It was with Aaron but departed when he made the Calf It was with Anna their sister but not when she murmured against Moses It was with Saul David Solomon Isaiah c. but rested not constantly with them Neither are Prophets always Prophets or Seers or foretellers of things to come nor is Prophecie a continual habit but a gift passion or transient spirit And whereas there is no man who doth not sin so there is no man from whom the Spirit doth not sometimes depart and leave him unless it be Christ the onely Son of God of whom it was therefore said to John He upon whom thou sawest the Spirit descending and remaining with him he is the Son of God who Baptizeth with the Holy Ghost being also able to impart the same to others Therefore as saith Simonides onely God hath this honour that he is onely Metaphysical so may we say of Christ that onely Christ hath this honour to be a Divine However let no man think that the Writings of the Old Testament since the Gospel of Christ had its divine birth from them are therefore obsolete and dead for they will ever live in high authority for by them have the Apostles proved their Tenets and without their testimony they have spoken nothing and Christ refers us to the search of them whose Gospel doth not at all abolish those Writings but fulfill'd the Law to the least tittle This is also to be noted that many Volumes of the Holy Scripture are lost which we may easily gather from the Scripture it self For Moses cites Books of The Wars of the Lord and Joshuah The Book of the Just Esther The Book of memorable things and Macchabees cites the holy Books of the Spartiatae and the Books of the Kings cite Books of Lamentations Books of Samuel the Seer Books and Writings of Nathan God Semeiah Haddo Ahia the Shilonite of Jehu the son of Ammon Jude also in his Canonical Epistle cites the Book of Enoch And some Authors of credit have cited a Book of Abraham the Patriarch All which are lost and never to be found Nor are these which we have received of equal Authority for Dionysius makes mention of A Gospel of S. Bartholomew and S. Jerome takes notice of A Gospel according to the Nazarenes and S. Luke in his Preface to his Gospel saith that many did undertake to write Gospels which are all lost And many others there are which are either corrupted with Heresie or set forth without Authority and so neither received by the holy Fathers nor approved by the Church I omit false Prophets who have come in by the by prophesying through vain-glory things which the holy Spirit never suggested but unheard-of lyes neither according to the Scripture nor tending either to unity of Spirit or the peace of the Church but for the introducing of Schism who rashly making themselves of Gods Privie Council dare presume to take the Word of God into their own mouthes and to write Scriptures and Prophecies altogether Heretical or Apocryphal Nor were the Canticles of Solomon inserted among the Canonical Books till they were corrected and approv'd by Isaiah From hence it appears how that Theologie it self that is to say the holy Scripture wants many of its Volumes and may in a manner seem defective and few of many that remain are true and certain really Books of life and Canonical CHAP. C. Of the Word of God YE have now heard how doubtful how uncertain how ambiguous all the Sciences are and how for any thing in them contained we
are generally ignorant where the Truth rests even in Divinity it self unless we could finde out any person who had the Key of Knowledge and Wisdom for the Armory of Truth is lockt and concealed under divers Mysteries and the way shut up from wise and holy men by which we might enter into so great and incomprehensible a Treasury Now this Key is nothing else but the Word of God This onely discerneth the force and vertue of all sors of words and what Disputes proceed meerly from the Cunning of Sophistry which discovers not the Truth but onely a meer shadow thereof and then distinctly shews you what communication sets forth the Truth not in outward appearance and counterfeit Colour but in effect and reason By this every Art of deceit and untruth is easily surmounted Neither Arguments nor Syllogisms nor any subtilties of Sophistry can stand against it He that is not satisfied therewith or is of an opinion contrary thereto as S. Paul saith is proud and knows nothing And there we are to try by the words of God all Doctrines and Opinions as Gold is try'd by the Touch-stone and in all difficulties to flee thither as to a Rock of most safety and out of that onely to search for the truth of all things and from thence to judge of the Doctrines Opinions and Expositions of men For as Gregory saith Whatsoever derives not its authority from thence is with the same ease rejected as approved Now as to the knowledge of this Word there is no School of Philosophers nor the subtilest Wits of the most subtil Sophisters that have been able to teach it us but onely God and Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost by means of those Scriptures which are Canonical to which according to the command of God nothing may be added and from which nothing may be diminish'd for whoever shall do it though he were an Angel of heaven he is abandoned to the devil and curs'd by the Law of God So great the Majesty so great is the Power of this Scripture that it admits no strange Expositions no Glosses of Men nor Angels nor suffers it self to be wrested according to the inventions of mens Wits nor does it permit it self to be chang'd and transform'd into variety of Sences after the manner of humane Fables as it were some Poetical Proteus but is sufficient to expound and interpret it self and judging of all men is judg'd by none For the Authority thereof is greater as Austin saith than all the florid Subtilties of humane Wit for it hath one plain constant and holy meaning in the strength whereof it both combats and overcomes All other Moral meanings besides this as Mystical Typical Anagogical Tropological and Allegorical by the help whereof many men do besmear and Fucus over the Truth with sundry strange Colours may rightly and truely perswade us something for the edification of the people but they can never prove or disprove any thing to confirm the Authority of the Word of God For let any person bring into controversie the opinion of any one of these let him quote any substantial Author thereupon or let him alleadge the Exposition of any of the holy Fathers none of those things are so binding to us but that we may contradict um but out of the letter of the holy Scriptures from the draught and order thereof such indissoluble Bands are made which no man can break nor no man escape through but breaking and shattering all Engines of Argumentation enforces him to say and confess That it is the finger of God That Man never spake in that manner That he speaketh not as the Scribes and Pharisees but like one that has power But the Authors thereof inspir'd from Heaven have by their authority ordain'd us a Canon the magnificence whereof is such that we ought to believe all things therein contained and whatever that Word hath pronounced and taught that without any retraction is to be accounted holy and inviolable Of which thus S. Austin hath spoken That he gave this honour to those Books which be call'd Canonical that he most constantly believ'd that none of the Writers of them did or could erre but to the others be would give no credit how much learning and holiness soever they had in them except it be proved with evident reason out of Gods Word that there is a probability for the truth thereof Unto these Christ sends us teaching us that we should search the Scriptures From hence the Apostle commands us to try all things and to stick to the things which are good as also to prove the spirits whether they be of God and by the help of them to be able to give an account of all things and to reprove them that shall vainly go about to contradict that so becoming spiritual we may judge all things and be judged of none Now the truth and understanding of the Canonical Scripture depends upon the onely authority of God revealing the same which cannot be comprehended by any judgement of the Senses by most over-reaching Reason by any Syllogism of demonstration by any Science by any Speculation by any Contemplation or by any humane force but onely by Faith in Jesus Christ poured out into the soul from God the Father by the Holy Ghost which is so much the more predominant and stable than the Credulity of humane knowledge by how much God himself is superiour to and truer than Men. But why do I say truer Nay rather God alone is true and every man a lyer So that whatever proceeds not from this Truth is Errour as that which is not of faith is sin For God himself hath in himself the fountains of Truth out of which it is necessary for him to draw it whoever desires perfect knowledge seeing there is no knowledge can be had either of the secrets of Nature of separated substances nor of God the Author of all unless it be reveal'd from above For things divine are not to be reacht by humane force and natural things oft-times keep at too great a distance from the inward thought whence it comes to pass that what we believe to be the knowledge of these things appears to be Falshood and Errour Which presumption in the Caldeans and other Heathen Philosophers Isaiah reproves where he says Thy wisdom and thy knowledg have deceived thee thou hast fail'd in the multitude of thy inventious The Grammarian is very wary that he offend not in talk and that he utter not a rude and barbarous word but in the mean while he has no regard to the dishonest courses and sinfulness of his life So likewise the Poet chuses rather to halt in his Life than in his Verse The Historian leaves to Memory and commits to Writing the deeds of Kings and Princes and the transactions of successive times yet mindes not his own behaviour or if he do is yet ashamed to confess his failings The Orator more abhors the rudeness of his Language than the deformity