On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
rate , that bad a familiar spirit , whose help he used * to the disturbance of a lord , who had
withheld his titles , causing a terrible noise to be heard every night in his castle . " Such a willing believer in the marvellous- as my author could
easily receive from Jovius , that the celebrated " Cornelius Agrippa went always accompanied with an evil spirit , in the * similitude of a black dog , >? and that when the time of his death drew near , " he took off the enchanted collar from the Uog * s neck , and sent him away with these terms , * get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast utter * ly de&troved mef * neither was the
dog . ever seen after . " JorUn , in his life of Erasmus , with whom -Agrippa corresponded , ( Anno 3520 , ) observes , that " Paul Jovins was either foolish enough to ^ entertain , or disingenuous
enough to-pretend , a belief that Agrippa was a necromancer , and that his black dog , whom he used to call Monsieur , was a devil in masquerade , walking upon all fours / ' This scholar , of eminent
mental accomplishments , or in the words of Erasmus , " ardentis ingenii , variae lectionis et multae
memoriae , ' has been remarkably ill-used by his biographers . They have dwelt on his early roagical pretensions , but , so far as I have observed , have never recorded his later solemn recantation ^ It is now before me , at the end of the 48 th chapter ( De Praestigiis ) of bis last work , * ' De incertitudine et vanitate Sciential um , ' He regreis the vain occupations of his youth in his Three Books of 41 Occult Philosophy , ' * and warns others by his example from such injurious pursuits . 4 C V « ruih . d | e
Untitled Article
magicis scripsi ego , juvenis ad hue , libros tres , airjplo satis volumine , quos de occulta pbilosophia
nuncupavi , in quibus quicquid tune per curiosam adolescentiam erraturn est , nunc cautior hac palinodiam recant&tum volo ; permulturn enim temporis et rerum in his vanitatibus olkn contrivi .
Tandem hoc profeci , quod sciam , quern its rationibus oporteat alios ab hac pernicie dehortari . " He then goes on to threaten with
eternal fire , in the company of Jannes , Jambres , and Simon Magus , those who pretend to divine and prophecy , not according to the truth of God , but by the operation of evil spirits .
I shall close these extracts from the u Theater of God ' s Judgments , " with the following account of a contemporary , or rather immediate predecessor , of Shakespeare , one so eminent in
the same profession , that his works are just now reprinted among select specimens of the ancient English drama . The account in ch , xxiii * " On Epicures and Atheists , " is as fol « - lows :
" One of our own nation , of fresh and late memory , called Marlow , by profession a scholar , brought up from his youth in the University of Cambridge , but by practice a play . maker and a
poet of scurrility—fell to that outrage and extremity , that he denied Gad and his Son Christ , and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity , but also ( as it is ere *
dibly reported ) wrote books against it , affirming our Saviour to be but a deceiver , and Moses but a conjurer and seducer of the people , and the Holy Bible to be "but-vain and idle stories , and
Untitled Article
BaQk ^ Worrhm No * XII * 117
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1814, page 117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2437/page/45/
-