The xx. Chapter.
A comparison betwixt Pharaos magicians and our witches, and how their cunning consisted in juggling knacks.
HUS you see that it hath pleased GOD to shew unto men that seeke for knowledge, such cunning in finding out, compounding, and framing of strange and secret things, as thereby he seemeth to have bestowed upon man, some part of his divinitie. Howbeit, God (of nothing, with his word) hath created all things, and dooth at his will, beyond the power and also the reach of man, accomplish whatsoever he list. And such miracles in times past he wrought by the hands of his prophets, as here he did by MosesAn apish imitation in Jannes and Jambres of working woonders. in the presence of Pharao, which Jannes and Jambres apishlie followed. But to affirme that they by themselves, or by all the divels in hell, could doo indeed as Moses did by the power of the Holie-ghost, is woorsse than infidelitie. If anie object and saie, that our witches can doo such feats with words and charms, as Pharaos magicians did by their art, I denie it; and all the world will never be able to shew it.Jo. Calvine, lib. institut. 1. cap. 8.
Cle. recog. 3. That which they did, was openlie done; as our witches and conjurors never doo anie/224. thing: so as these cannot doo as they did. And yet (as Calvine saith of them) they were but jugglers. Neither could they doo, as manie/318. suppose. For as Clemens saith; These magicians did rather seeme to doo these woonders, than worke them indeed. And if they made but prestigious shewes of things, I saie it was more than our witches can doo. For witchcrafts (as ErastusErast. in disputat. de lamiis. himselfe confesseth in drift of argument) are but old wives fables. If the magicians serpent had beene a verie serpent, it must needs have beene transformed out of the rod. And therein had beene a double worke of God; to wit, the qualifieng and extinguishment of one substance, and the creation of another. Which areActions unpossible to divels: Ergo to witches conjurors, &c. actions beyond the divels power, for he can neither make a bodie to be no bodie, nor yet no bodie to be a bodie; as to make something nothing, and nothing something; and contrarie things, one: naie, they cannot make one haire either white or blacke.*[* Matt. 5, 36] If Pharaos magicians had made verie frogs upon a sudden, whie could they not drive them awaie againe? If they could not hurt the frogs, whie should we thinke that they could make them? Or that our witches, which cannot doo so much as counterfet them, can kill cattell and other creatures with words or wishes? And therefore I saie with Jamblichus, Jamb. de mysteriis.Quæ fascinati imaginamur, præter imaginamenta nullā habent actionis & essentiæ veritatem; Such things as we being bewitched doo imagine, have no truth at all either of action or essence, beside the bare imagination.