An essay for the recording of illustrious providences

It is no less Superstitious, when Men Endeavour by Characters, Words or Spells, to charm any Witches, Devils or Diseases. Such ⟨p. 255⟩Persons do (as Fuller speaks) fence them selves with the devils Shield against the devils Sword, Agrippa in his Books De occulta Phi•osophia has many of these impious curiosities. But in his Book of the vanity of Sciences, Chap. 48. he acknowledgeth that he wrote his other Book of Occult Philosophy, when he was a young Man, and bewails his iniquity therein, confessing that he had sinfully misspent precious time in those unprofitable Studies. There is also an horrid Book full of Conjurations and Magical Incantations, which the profane Author hath ventured to publish under the name of King Solomon: There cannot be a greater vanity than to imagine that devils are really frighted with Words and Syllables: such practices are likewise of diabolical and heathenish original. They that have read Subjects of this nature, are not ignorant of what is related concerning the strange things done by the Incantations of that famous Wizard Apollonius. The like has been also noted of the Brackmanes of old, who were much given to such unlawful Arts. It is still customary amongst the Heathenish Africans, by Incantations to charm Serpents; Which when they are in that way brought to them by the devil, they use with the blood of such Serpents to anoint their Weapons, that so ⟨p. 256⟩they may become the more mortiferous. And that the like Incantations were practised amongst the Gentiles of old is evident from that verse of Virgil, in his 8 Eclog. Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpiter anguis. As also by that of Ovid in Metam. Lib. 7.

It is no less Superstitious, when Men Endeavour by Characters, Words or Spells, to charm any Witches, Devils or Diseases. Such ⟨p. 255⟩Persons do (as Fuller speaks) fence them selves with the devils Shield against the devils Sword, Agrippa in his Books De occulta Phi•osophia has many of these impious curiosities. But in his Book of the vanity of Sciences, Chap. 48. he acknowledgeth that he wrote his other Book of Occult Philosophy, when he was a young Man, and bewails his iniquity therein, confessing that he had sinfully mispent precious time in those unprofitable Studies. There is also an horrid Book full of Conjurations and Magical Incantations, which the prophane Author hath ventured to publish under the name of King Solomon: There cannot be a greater vanity than to imagine that devils are really frighted with Words and Syllables: such practices are likewise of diabolical and heathenish original. They that have read Subjects of this nature, are not ignorant of what is related concerning the strange things done by the Incantations of that famous Wizard Apollonius. The like has been also noted of the Brackmanes of old, who were much given to such unlawful Arts. It is still customary amongst the Heathenish Africans, by Incantations to charm Serpents; Which when they are in that way brought to them by the devil, they use with the blood of such Serpents to anoint their Weapons, that so