Secondly, God doth as straitly prohibit them, and seuerely punish the practisers thereof, as others offending in any exercise of vnlawfull arts, Deut. 18. 10.11.  There shall not be found among you (instructing the Israelites his people) a charmer, &c. for these are abhomination vnto the Lord, &c.  And this is recorded in the Catalogue of those sinnes of Manasses, by which hee sought to prouoke God vnto anger, 2.  Kin. 21. 8. 2.  Chronicles 33. 6.

Thirdly, words haue no vertue,[ee] but either to signifie and expresse the conceits of the minde, or to affect the eares of the Auditors, so that they can worke nothing but in these two respects:  first of the matter which is vttered by them, which vnderstood of the hearers, affect the mind diuersly, and that especially when there is ioyned with it a comelinesse of action and pronunciation, as wee we see oftentimes in the speeches of the Ministers of the Word, and in the pleadings of Orators.  As when Paul reasoned before F[oe]lix and Drusilla his wife, of Temperance, Righteousnesse, and Iudgement to come, hee trembled, Acts 24. 25. [ff]being guilty to himselfe of fraudulent and cruell dealing, of lasciuiousnesse and a filthy life, and therefore might iustly feare vengeance for the same.

    [Footnote ee:  +rhemata Blastemata noematon, & phone+ Etymologicis
    dicitur quasi +to phos tou nou+. De hac materia eruditissime
    disputat Franciscus Valesius de sacra Philosophia, cap. 3.]

[Footnote ff:  Pr[e,]fectus Iud[e,]ae impositus cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus est, &c.  Tacitus Annalium lib. 12. & historiae lib. 5. per omnem saeuitiam ac libidinem ius regium seruili ingenio exercuit.]

A like example to this is that in King Agrippa, though working vpon a better subject, Act. 26. 28.  And if I may conioyne Diuine eloquence with Humane, it is memorable, that while [gg]_Tully_ pleaded before Caesar for Ligarius, accused by Tubero, to haue beene confederate with Pompey, purposing to put him to death, as an enemy, when the Orator altered, and in Rhetoricall manner inforced his speech, the other changed accordingly his countenance, and bewrayed the piercing words to be so affecting, that the supplications, when he came once to vrge and mention the battell of Pharsalia, (trembling and dismayed) did fall from his hands, hauing the passions of his minde extraordinarily moued, and absolued the offender.  Or else when by their pleasantnesse, with delight they slide into the hearts of men, and rauish their affections:  and thus it was with [hh]_Augustine,_ as he acknowledgeth of himselfe, that being at Milaine where he was baptized by S.  Ambrose, when he heard the harmony which was in singing of the Psalmes, the words pierced his eares, the truth melted his heart, his passions were moued, and showers of teares with