cap. 2. Arnoldus, Marcellus Empyricus, I. Pistorius,
Paracelsus Apodix. Magic. Agrippa lib.
2. de occult. Philos. cap. 36. 69. 71. 72. et
l. 3, c. 23, et 10. Marcilius Ficinus de vit.
coelit. compar. cap. 13. 15. 18. 21. &c. Galeottus
de promiscua doct. cap. 24. Jovianus Pontanus
Tom. 2. Plin. lib. 28, c. 2. Strabo, lib.
15. Geog. Leo Suavius: Goclenius de
ung. armar. Oswoldus Crollius, Ernestus Burgravius,
Dr. Flud, &c. Cardan de subt. brings many
proofs out of Ars Notoria, and Solomon’s decayed
works, old Hermes, Artefius, Costaben Luca, Picatrix,
&c. that such cures may be done. They can make
fire it shall not burn, fetch back thieves or stolen
goods, show their absent faces in a glass, make serpents
lie still, stanch blood, salve gouts, epilepsies,
biting of mad dogs, toothache, melancholy, et omnia
mundi mala, make men immortal, young again as the
[2791]Spanish marquis is said to have done by one
of his slaves, and some, which jugglers in [2792]China
maintain still (as Tragaltius writes) that they can
do by their extraordinary skill in physic, and some
of our modern chemists by their strange limbecks,
by their spells, philosopher’s stones and charms.
[2793]"Many doubt,” saith Nicholas Taurellus,
“whether the devil can cure such diseases he
hath not made, and some flatly deny it, howsoever common
experience confirms to our astonishment, that magicians
can work such feats, and that the devil without impediment
can penetrate through all the parts of our bodies,
and cure such maladies by means to us unknown.”
Daneus in his tract de Sortiariis subscribes
to this of Taurellus; Erastus de lamiis, maintaineth
as much, and so do most divines, out of their excellent
knowledge and long experience they can commit [2794]_agentes
cum patientibus, colligere semina rerum, eaque materiae
applicare_, as Austin infers de Civ. Dei et
de Trinit. lib. 3. cap. 7. et 8. they can work
stupendous and admirable conclusions; we see the effects
only, but not the causes of them. Nothing so
familiar as to hear of such cures. Sorcerers are
too common; cunning men, wizards, and white-witches,
as they call them, in every village, which if they
be sought unto, will help almost all infirmities of
body and mind, Servatores in Latin, and they
have commonly St. Catherine’s wheel printed
in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part
about them, resistunt incantatorum praestigiis
([2795]Boissardus writes) morbos a sagis motos
propulsant &c., that to doubt of it any longer,
[2796]"or not to believe, were to run into that other
sceptical extreme of incredulity,” saith Taurellus.
Leo Suavius in his comment upon Paracelsus seems to
make it an art, which ought to be approved; Pistorius
and others stiffly maintain the use of charms, words,
characters, &c. Ars vera est, sed pauci artifices
reperiuntur; the art is true, but there be but
a few that have skill in it. Marcellius Donatus