121.For the ceasing of the knaveries and cousening devises of preests, I see no authoritie of scripture or ancient father, but rather the contrarie; to wit, that there shall be strange illusions shewed by them, even till the end. And truelie, whosoever knoweth and noteth the order and devises of and in popish pilgrimages, shall see both the oracles & their conclusions remaining, and as it were transferred from Delphos to Rome, where that adulterous generation continuallie seeketh a signe, though they have Moses & the prophets, yea even Christ & his apostles also, &c.
The sixt Chapter.
Where and wherein couseners, witches, and preests were woont to give oracles, and to worke their feats.
HESE cousening oracles, or rather oraclers used (I saie) to exercise their feats and to doo their miracles most commonly in maids, in beasts, in images, in dens, in cloisters, in darke holes, in trees, in churches or churchyards, &c: where preests, moonks, and friers had laid their plots, and made their confederacies aforehand, to beguile the world, to gaine monie, and to adde credit to their profession. This practise began in the okes of Dodona,Strabo Geog. lib 16.
J. Wier. li. 1. de præs. dæm. cap. 12. in the which was a wood, the trees thereof (they saie) could speake. And this was doone by a knave in a hollowe tree, that seemed sound unto the simple people. This wood was in Molossus a part of Greece, called Epyrus, and it was named Dodonas oracles. There were manie oracles in Aegypt; namelie, of Hercules, of Apollo, of Minerva, of Diana, of Mars, of Jupiter, and of the oxe Apys, who was the sonne of Jupiter, but his image was worshipped in the likenesse of an oxe. Latona, who was the mother of Apollo, was an oracle in the citie of Bute. The preests of Apollo, who alwaies counterfaited furie and madnesse, gave oracles in the temple called Clarius, within the citie of Colophon in Greece. At Thebes in Bœotia and also in Læbadia, Trophonius was the cheefe oracle. At Memphis a cow, at Corinth an oxe called Mineus, in Arsinoe a crocodile, in Athens a prophet called Amphiaraus, who/166. indeed died at Thebes, where they saie the earth opened, & swallowed him up quicke. At Delphos was the great temple of Apollo, where divels gave oracles by maides (as some saie) though indeed it was doone by preests. It was built upon Parnassus hill in Greece. And the defenders of oracles saie, that even as rivers oftentimes are diverted to another course; so likewise the spirit, which inspired the cheefe prophets, may for a time be silent, and revive againe by revolution.
Demetrius saith, that the spirits, which attended on oracles, waxed wearie of the peoples curiositie and importunitie, and for shame forsooke the temple. But as *one* H. Haw. in his defensative against prophesies. that of late hath written against prophesies saith; It is no marvell, that when the familiars that speake in trunks were repelled from their harbour for feare of discoverie, the blocks almightie lost their senses. For these are all gone now, and their knaverie is espied; so as they can no longer abuse the world with such bables. But whereas/122. these great doctors suppose, that the cause of their dispatch was the comming of Christ; if they meane that the divell died, so soone as he was borne, or that then he gave over his occupation: they are deceived. For the popish church hath made a continuall practise hereof, partlie for their owne private profit, lucre, and gaine; and partly to be had in estimation of the world, and in admiration among the simple. But indeed, men that have learned Christ, and beene conversant in his word, have discovered and shaken off the vanitie and abhomination heereof. But if those doctors had lived till this daie, they would have said and written, that oracles had ceased, or rather beene driven out of EnglandIn whose daies oracles ceased in England in the time of K. Henrie the eight, and of Queene Elizabeth his daughter; who have doone so much in that behalfe, as at this houre they are not onlie all gone, but forgotten here in this English nation, where they swarmed as thicke as they did in Bœotia, or in any other place in the world. But the credit they had, depended not upon their desart, but upon the credulitie of others. Now there- fore I will conclude and make an end of this matter, with the opinion and saieng of the prophet;Zach. 10.
Isai. 44. Vaine is the answer of idols. For they have eies and see not, eares and heare not, mouthes and speake not, &c: and let them shew what is to come, and I will saie they are gods indeed.//
