The eleventh Chapter.
Of the Cabalisticall art, consisting of traditions and unwritten verities learned without booke, and of the division thereof.
ERE is place also for the Cabalisticall art, consisting of unwritten verities, which the Jewes doo beleeve and brag that God himselfe gave to Moses in the mount Sinai; and afterwards was taught/199. onelie with livelie voice, by degrees of succession, without writing, untill the time of Esdras: even as the scholers of Archippus did use wit and memorie in steed of bookes. The art Cabalisticall divided.They divide this in twaine; the one expoundeth with philosophicall reason the secrets of the lawe and the bible, wherein (they saie) that Salomon was verie cunning; bicause it is written in the Hebrew stories, that he disputed from the Cedar of Libanus, even to the Hisop, and also of birds, beasts, &c. The other is as it were a symbolicall divinitie of the highest contemplation, of the divine and angelike vertues, of holie names and signes; wherein the letters, numbers, figures, things and armes, the prickes over the letters, the lines, the points, and the accents doo all signifie verie profound things and great secrets. By these arts the Atheists suppose Moses wrote all his miracles, and that hereby they have power over angels and divels, as also to doo miracles: yea and that hereby all the miracles that either anie of the prophets, or Christ himselfe wrought, were accomplished.
But C. AgrippaC. Agrippa lib. de vanit. scient. having searched to the bottome of this art, saith it is nothing but superstition and follie. Otherwise you maie be sure Christ would not have hidden it from his church. For this cause the Jewes/145. were so skilfull in the names of God. But there is none other name in heaven or earth, in which we might be saved, but Jesus: neither is that meant by his bare name, but by his vertue and goodnes towards us.The blasphemie of the Cabalists. These Cabalists doo further brag, that they are able hereby, not onelie to find out and know the unspeakeable mysteries of God; but also the secrets which are above scripture; whereby also they take upon them to prophesie, and to worke miracles: yea hereby they can make what they list to be scripture; as Valeria Proba did picke certeine verses out of Virgil alluding them to Christ. And therefore these their revolutions are nothing but allegoricall games, which idle men busied in letters, points, and numbers (which the Hebrew toong easilie suffereth) devise, to delude and cousen the simple and ignorant. And this they call Alphabetarie or Arythmanticall divinitie, which Christ shewed to his apostles onelie, and which Paule saith he speaketh but among perfect men; and being high mysteries are not to be committed unto writing, and so made popular. There is no man that readeth anie thing of/200. this Cabalisticall art, but must needs think upon the popes cunning practises in this behalfe, who hath In scrinio pectoris,In concil. Trident. not onelie the exposition of all lawes, both divine and humane, but also authoritie to adde thereunto, or to drawe backe therefrom at his pleasure: and this may he lawfullie doo even with the scriptures, either by addition or substraction, after his owne pontificall liking. As for example: he hath added the Apocrypha (whereunto he might as well have joined S. Augustines[C. of Trent 1550] works, or the course of the civill lawe, &c:) Againe, he hath diminished from the decalog or ten commandements, not one or two words, but a whole precept, namelie the second, which it hath pleased him to dash out with his pen: and trulie he might as well by the same authoritie have rased out of the testament S. Markes gospell.