3. That many great and abstruse things may be lawfully done by Natural Magick, is well known to the best Naturalists, and how great Feats may be performed by the Mathematicks and Mechanical Arts, are well known to the Learned; and that there is and may be a lawful use of Astrology, and many things may be foretold by it, few that are judicious are ignorant; that the Prognosticks in the Art of Medicine are necessary, and of much use and certainty, all learned Physicians know very well; that observing of times, and many other such like things may for divers respects be lawfully practised. But if all or any of these be used to draw people to Idolatry, and their strange effects ascribed unto dumb and dead Idols, then what horrible sin and abomination were this, and no punishment could be too heavy for it. And so it is in the case of these sort of people called Witches or Diviners, they perswaded the multitude, that their false Gods (or rather Devils) in their Idols, could foretel life or death, and so led the people a whoring after them, as _Ahaziah_ sent to inquire of the god of _Ekron_, whether he should recover or not, and therefore he had that sharp judgment, _That he should not come down from that bed whither he was gone up, but should surely dye_. And did not the Priests of _Baal_ (which were the same rabble named _Deut._ 18. 10, 11, 12, 13, &c.) obstinately labour to make _Ahab_ and all the people believe, that the Gods (or Devils) that they worshipped in their Idols, could and would answer by fire, and pertinaciously persisted in their obstinacy, _cutting themselves with knives and lancets from morning until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice_, and yet nothing was effected? so that they were justly guilty of that punishment which they received, which was death, for ascribing that to a dead Idol, that none could perform, but the only true God of _Israel_, and yet in the meantime could neither by their own skill, nor the skill of their Idols foresee that sudden death that fell upon them: which punishment fell deservedly upon them, for labouring to deceive the people, and confirm them in Idolatry, in ascribing that unto a dead stock, which was only in the power of the Almighty to perform. So if all those fine Knacks and neat Tricks that _Athanasius Kircher_ performed at _Rome_ by the help and means of the Loadstone, and mentioned in his Book _de Arte Magnetica_, had been by him ascribed unto some Saint, thereby to have drawn the people to the adoration of that Saint, and so to Idolatry, it had been active imposture, deceit, and knavery in him, and he might justly have been inrolled in the Catalogue of these Witches or Diviners, and had really been an active Impostor, as they were, and so had deserved the same punishment: when on the contrary for ascribing effects unto their true and proper causes, and clearly shewing the manner and means of producing those effects, he hath justly deserved the title of a learned and honest man.