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CHAPTER II.
What Magic Is, What Are the Parts Thereof, and How the Professors Thereof Must Be Qualified.
Magic is a faculty of
wonderful virtue, full of most high mysteries, containing the most
profound contemplation of most secret things, together with the nature,
power, quality, substance and virtues thereof, as also the knowledge of
whole Nature, and it doth instruct us concerning the differing and agreement of things amongst
themselves, whence it produceth its wonderful effects, by uniting the
virtues of things through the application of them one to the other, and
to their inferior suitable subjects, joining and knitting them together
thoroughly by the powers and virtues of the superior Bodies. This is the
most perfect and chief Science, that sacred and sublimer kind of
Philosophy, and lastly the most absolute perfection of all most
excellent Philosophy. For seeing that all regulative Philosophy is
divided into Natural, Mathematical and Theological: (Natural Philosophy
teacheth the nature of those things which are in the world, searching
and inquiring into their causes, effects, times, places, fashions,
events, their whole and parts, also
Called Elements—what Fire, Earth, Aire forth brings;
From whence the Heavens their beginnings had;
Whence Tide, whence Rainbow, in gay colors clad.
What makes the Clouds that gathered are, and black,
To send forth Lightnings, and a Thund’ring crack;
What doth the Nightly Flames, and Comets make;
What makes the Earth to swell, and then to quake;
What is the Seed of Metals, and of Gold;
What Virtues, Wealth, Both Nature's Coffer hold.
All these things doth Natural Philosophy, the viewer of Nature, contain, teaching us, according to Virgil's Muse:
Whence Mankind, Beast; whence Fire, whence Rain and Snow;
Whence Earthquakes are; why the whole Ocean beats
Over its banks and then again retreats;
Whence strength of Herbs, whence Courage, rage of Brutes
All kinds of Stone, of creeping Things, and Fruits.
But Mathematical Philosophy teacheth us to know the quantity of
natural bodies, as extended into three dimensions, as also to conceive
of the motion and course of celestial bodies.
What makes the golden Stars to march so fast?
What makes the Moon sometimes to mask her face,
The Sun also, as if in some disgrace?
And, as Virgil sings:
The Orb that's measur’d round about with Lines—
It doth the Heavens' Starry Way make known,
And strange Eclipses of the Sun and Moon;
The Seven Stars likewise, and Charles, his wain;
Why Winter Suns make tow’rds the West so fast;
What makes the Nights so long ere they be past?
All which are understood by Mathematical Philosophy.
The Seasons all; times for to reap and sow,
And when 'tis fit to launch into the deep,
And when to war, and when in peace to sleep;
And when to dig up trees, and them again
To set, that they may bring forth amain.
Now Theological Philosophy, or Divinity, teacheth what God is, what
the Mind, what an Intelligence, what an Angel, what a Devil, what the
Soul, what Religion, what sacred Institutions, Rites, Temples,
Observations, and sacred Mysteries are. It instructs us also concerning
Faith, Miracles, the virtues of Words and Figures, the secret operations and mysteries of Seals;
and, as Apuleius saith, it teacheth us rightly to understand and to be
skilled in the Ceremonial Laws, the equity of Holy things and rule of
Religions. But to recollect myself.)
These three principal faculties *
Magic comprehends, unites and actuates; deservedly, therefore, was it
by the Ancients esteemed as the highest and most sacred Philosophy. It
was, as we find, brought to light by most sage authors and most famous writers, *
amongst which principally Zamolxis and Zoroaster were so famous that
many believed they were the inventors of this Science. Their track
Abbaris the Hyperborean, Charmondas, Danigeron, Eudoxus, Hermippus
followed. There were also other eminent, choice men, as Mercurius
Tresmegistus, Porphyrius, Iamblicus, Plotinus, Proclus, Dardanus,
Orpheus the Thracian, Gog the Grecian, Germa the Babylonian, Apollonius
of Tyana. Osthanes also wrote excellently of this Art, whose books being
as it were lost, Democritus of Abdera recovered, and set them forth
with his own Commentaries. Besides, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus,
Plato, and many other renowned Philosophers travelled far by sea to
learn this Art; and being returned, published it with wonderful
devoutness, esteeming of it as a great secret. Also it is well known
that Pythagoras and Plato went to the Prophets of Memphis to learn it,
and travelled through almost all Syria, Egypt, Judea, and the Schools of
the Chaldeans that they might not be ignorant of the most sacred
Memorials and Records of Magic, as also that they might be furnished
with Divine things. Whosoever, therefore, is desirous to study in this
Faculty, if he be not skilled in Natural Philosophy, wherein are
discovered the qualities of things, and in which are found the occult
properties of every Being, and if he be not skillful in the Mathematics,
and in the Aspects, and Figures of the Stars, upon which depend the
sublime virtue and property of everything; and if he be not learned in
Theology, wherein are manifested those immaterial substances, which
dispense and minister all things, he cannot be possibly able to
understand the rationalities of Magic. For there is no work that is done by mere Magic, nor any
work that is merely Magical, that doth not comprehend these three
Faculties.
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