Of Ghostes and Spirites, Walking by Night: And of Straunge Noyses, Crackes, and Sundrie Forewarnings, Which Commonly Happen Before the Death of Men: Great Slaughters, and Alterations of KingdomsLavater, Ludwig
Religion
Of Ghostes and Spirites, Walking by Night: And of Straunge Noyses, Crackes, and Sundrie Forewarnings, Which Commonly Happen Before the Death of Men: Great Slaughters, and Alterations of Kingdoms
Lavater, Ludwig
Apparitions -- Early works to 1800
Contrariwise, euill angels are hurtfull and enemies vnto men, they
followe them euery where, to the ende they may withdrawe them from
true worshipping of God, and from faith in his onely sonne Iesu
Christ, vnto sundry other things. These appeare in diuers shapes:
for in the diuell (as =Paule= doth witnesse) transformeth himselfe
into an Angell of light, no lesse may he take the shape of a Prophet,
an Apostle, Euangelist, Bishop, and Martyr, and appeare in their
likenesse: or to bewitch vs, that we verily suppose we heare or sée
them in very déede. He taketh on him to tell of thinges to come,
whether hée hit them right or wrong. Hée affirmeth that hée is this
or that soule, that he may bee deliuered by this or that meanes, that
by these meanes he may purchase credite and authoritie, vnto those
things which haue no ground of scripture.
By meanes of false myracles, he decreeth new Hollydayes, Pilgrimages,
Chappels, and Aultars: by Coniurations, blessings, enchauntments, he
attempteth to cure the sicke, to make his doings haue authoritie.
You shall reade maruellous straunge things in =Arnobius=,
=Lactantius=, and other holie Fathers, who wrote against the Gentiles
and their superstition, after what sorte Diuels haue deluded the
miserable Gentiles, and haue entrapped them in many errors. He
ioyned and hid himselfe in their Idolles, he spake through them from
one place to an other, he made them to moue, and did such straunge
myracles, that verie lame men leauing their stilts whereon they
leaned in the Temples of their Idols, returned home to their houses,
without any helpe or stay of them, but especially in the temple of
=Æsculapius= (who was counted the Patron of Phisicke) many of these
kinde of miracles are reported to haue happened. Wherefore there is
no cause, why the Papistes at this day, shoulde so insolently glorie
of the like myracles, by the which they goe about to proue their
intercession of Saints, and such lyke trumperie.
CHAP. XVI.
Of wondrous Monsters, and such like.
Nowe as concerning other straunge things, we must hereafter search
what nature they are of: as when one dieth that there is somewhat
séene, or some great noyse is sodeinly heard, but especially that
many signes and wonders happen before the death of great Princes. It
is well knowne by Histories, what signes went before the death of
=Iulius Cæsar=, amongst the which, a great noyse was heard in the
night time, in very many places farre and neare.
As concerning other Emperors, and Kings, and other great mens
deathes, we reade that some certaine forewarnings were heard or
séene, we must also consider what those straunge things are, which
for the most part happen before the innouations of kingdomes, before
battailes, seditions, and subuersions of Cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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