oportet nos uti magicis illusionibus cum potestas Philosophiæ doceat operari quod sufficit_. Therefore are those men that came from the East to worship Christ called Magicians, not because that great knowledge they had in the secrets of Nature was Diabolical or unlawful; for the name of a Magician was honourable and laudable, until Knaves and Impostors made use of it to cheat and couzen withal, and for wicked and ungodly ends; but because they had made use of it for the glory of God, and the good of mankind, therefore were they Magicians in the genuine, and best sense, as working by lawful and natural means, and to a good end: when the Magicians of _Pharaoh_ may be called Cacomagicians, because they used the good and excellent causes and agents of nature to a wicked and Diabolical end, namely to resist the truth: and so the only difference of Magick is from the end and uses, and not from the causes or agents, that are both natural. So what these Magicians of _Pharaoh_ did, though it were strange and wonderful, yet was it meerly by natural means and causes; and yet being for a wicked end was therefore Diabolical. So _Jacob_ when he _set the pilled rods with white streakes in them, before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs, that when the Rams and the Sheep came up to drink, and coupled together, they might conceive and bring forth ring-streaked, speckled and spotted young ones; It came so to pass_, and is confessed by _Pererius_ himself, and the most of learned Expositors upon that place, to be from natural causes, and was a strange feat of natural Magick; but not evil because not directed to a wicked end: but that of _Pharaohs_ though wrought likewise by a natural causes (for so it was whether ascribed to the Devil, that can but work by natural means, or not) was wicked and Diabolical; because they did it to resist _Moses_ and _Aaron_ the messengers of the Lord Jehovah. [Sidenote: _Argum. 3._]