Of the nature and use of lots a treatise historical and theologicalOf the nature and vse of lots a treatise historicall and theologicall

But to come nearer home, take we ^*example from the like: How vain and idle, how frivolous and ridiculous was the Heathens course of Divination, by opening the bellies of beasts and poring into their entrails, by observing the voices or the flight of souls, and their feeding or refusing of their food? in so much that ^fa grave Author and ⟨p. 343⟩one of great authority among them had wont to say that he wondered, how their Wizards and Soothsayers, that by such courses deluded the common sort of people, could forbear laughing when they looked one on an other: and ^gthe wiser sort among them did but scoff and flout at them: one affirming that ^hThese Wizards and Soothsayers, that can tell what the birds chirp, and whose wit and wisdom lieth buried in the bellies and bowels of beasts; may well be heard, but are in no wise to be hearkened unto. And another that, ⁱThe Marsian Enchanters and Spelmongers, and the common Sacrificers and Bowell-searchers, with the Star-gazers and Figure-casters; as also the Egyptian Fortunetellers, and Dream-readers; are not worth a button all of them. For that they are not such as have any divine Art or skill at all with them: but are either superstitious Wizards, or blind Buzzards, or idle-headed, or addle-brained, or arrant Beggars. That, like fools as they are, profess to tell other men their fortunes, when they are ignorant of their own; and promise to help them to hidden hoards of gold, whom they beg a grey groat of: which groat, saith he, they may do well first to take out of that hoard, and then return them the rest. Yet did not these also oftentimes prove true? yea did they not both prove alike true, both this and that other, when ^kby Nebuchadnezzar they were both used together? Heathen stories, we know, are stuffed full of the like events of them: ^l