those that lead and incited the people to serve and sacrifice unto other strange Gods, were to be rooted out. 2. Is the word we have named before, to wit, ‏קֹסֵם קְסָמִים‎, _Kosem Kesamim, Divinans divinationes_: which, as we have shewed before, was taken _in bonam & malam partem_, and is by the Septuagint fitly rendred μαντευόμενος μαντειαν _vaticinans vaticinium_, and is almost with all Translators rendred in that sense and propriety: so that we need not complain, that it is one of them that is mis-translated; but concerning it, we may note these things. [Sidenote: 1 Sam. 6. 1, 2. 3, 7, 8, 9.] [Sidenote: Hos. 4. 12. Ezek. 21. 21.] 1. That there were and are almost innumerable ways, whereby men have undertaken to Divine and foretel things to come, some of which were by lawful means and ways, as all prudent, sagacious, and experienced men have done, and may do. Some by vain, trivial, foolish, and groundless ways, as by the flying of birds, their noise and motion, and so of beasts, by casting lots, dice, and the like, which have no causality or efficiency in them at all to declare things to come, but were meerly vain and superstitious, with which the Heathen World doth still abound, and they are not yet totally eradicated from amongst Christians. The most foolish of which was this, That when the Philistins had kept the Ark of the Lord seven months, they called the Priests and the Diviners, to know what to do with it, and they advised them not to send it away empty, but to send five golden Emerods and five golden Mice, and to take a new Cart and two Milch-kine, upon which there had com’d no yoke, and to tye them to the Cart, and to bring their Calves home from them, and to lay the Ark in the Cart, and the Jewels of Gold to be put in a Coffer by, thinking that if they went up towards _Beth-shemesh_ that was the Israelites Coast, that if they did so, then it was he that smote them, otherwise that it was but a chance that happened unto them. And this in respect of the Priests and Diviners was only a casual conjecture at Random, though God in his Providence did order it according to his Divine Wisdom for the best. Like unto this was that mentioned by the Prophet, a _Consulter with his staff_, as also that of _Ezekiel_: _For the King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, (Teraphim) he looked in the liver_. And besides these there were others that pretended Visions and Revelations from their Gods or Idols; but how far either Idols, or Devils, or their Priests could truly foretel things to come, is very doubtful and hard to determine, of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.