gan oracles, magicians, sorcerers, and
sorceresses, those who are inspired by the spirit of Python, the
obsession and possession of demons, those who pretend to predict the
future, and whose predictions are sometimes fulfilled; those who make
compacts with the devil to discover treasures and enrich themselves;
those who make use of charms; evocations by means of magic;
enchantment; the being devoted to death by a vow; the deceptions of
idolatrous priests, who feigned that their gods ate and drank and had
commerce with women--all these can only be the work of Satan, and must
be ranked with what the Scripture calls _the depths of Satan_.[114] We
shall say something on this subject in the course of the treatise.

Footnotes:

[88] Gen. iii. 1, 23.

[89] Rev. xii. 9.

[90] Bel and the Dragon.

[91] Wisd. xi. 16.

[92] Elian. Hist. Animal.

[93] Numb. xxi. 2 Kings xviii. 4.

[94] On this subject, see a work of profound learning, and as
interesting as profound, on "The Worship of the Serpent," by the Rev.
John Bathurst Deane, M. A. F. S. A.

[95] Aug. tom. viii. pp. 28, 284.

[96] _Ab-racha_, pater _mali_, or pater _malus_.

[97] August. de Gen. ad Lit. 1. ii. c. 18.

[98] Matt. iv. 9, 10, &c.

[99] Gen. xxxii. 24, 25.

[100] Sever. Sulpit. Hist. Sac.

[101] A small city or town of the Electorate of Cologne, situated on a
river of the same name.

[102] There were in all ten letters, the greater part of them Greek,
but which formed no (apparent) sense. They were to be seen at
Molsheim, in the tablet which bore a representation of this miracle.

[103] Lib. de Anima.

[104] 1 Pet. iii. 8.

[105] Eph. vi. 11. 1 Tim. iii. 7.

[106] Sulpit. Sever. Vit. St. Martin, b. xv.

[107] 2 Cor. xi. 14.

[108] Job i. 6-8.

[109] 1 Kings xxii. 21.

[110] Exod. ix. 6.

[111] Gen. xviii. 13, 14.

[112] Gen. xxxviii.

[113] Prov. xvii. 11.

[114] Rev. ii. 24.

CHAPTER VII.

OF MAGIC.

Many persons regard magic, magicians, witchcraft, and charms as fables
and illusions, the effects of imagination in weak minds, who,
foolishly persuaded of the excessive power possessed by the devil,
attribute to him a thousand things which are purely natural, but the
physical reasons for which are unknown to them, or which are the
effects of the art of certain charlatans, who make a trade of imposing
on the simple and ignorant. These opinions are supported by the
authority of the principal parliaments of the k