the letters, figures, numbers, names, points, lines, accents, etc.
are esteemed to contain the significations of most profound things and
wonderful mysteries. This part again is twofold--_Authmantick_, handling
the nature of angels, the powers, names, characters of spirits and souls
departed--and _Theomantick_, which searches into the mysteries of the
Divine Majesty, his emanations, his names, and _Pentacula_, which he who
attains to is supposed to be endowed with most wonderful power. It was,
they say, by virtue of this art, that Moses wrought so many miracles;
that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still; that Elias called down
fire from heaven; that Daniel the prophet muzzled the lions' mouths; and
that the three children sang in the fiery furnace. And, what is more,
the perfidious and unbelieving Jews, did not stick to aver, that our
Saviour himself wrought all his miracles by virtue of this art, and that
he discovered several of its secrets, containing a variety of charms
against devils, and also, as Josephus writes, against diseases. "As for
my part," says Cornelius Agrippa, in allusion to this subject, "I do not
doubt but that God revealed many things to Moses and the prophets, which
were contained under the covert of the words of the law, which were not
to be communicated to the profane vulgar: so for this art, which the
Jews so much boast of, which I have with great labour and diligence
searched into, I must acknowledge it to be a mere rhapsody of
superstition, and nothing but a kind of theurgic magic before spoken of.
For if, as the Jews contend, coming from God, it did any way conduce to
perfection of life, salvation of men, truth of understanding, certainly
that spirit of truth, which having forsaken the synagogue, is now come
to teach us all truth, had never concealed it all this while from the
church, which certainly knows all those things that are of God; whose
grace, baptism, and other sacraments of salvation, are perfectly
revealed in all languages;--for every language is alike, so that there
be the same piety; neither is there any other name in heaven or on
earth, by which we can be saved, but only the name of Jesus. Therefore
the Jews, most skilful in divine names, after the coming of Christ, were
able to do nothing, in comparison of their forefathers:--the Cabala of
the Jews, therefore, is nothing else, but a most pernicious
superstition, the which by collecting, dividing, and changing several
names,