A new and complete illustration of the occult sciences / [E. Sibly].

  • Ebenezer Sibly
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new and complete illustration of the occult sciences / [E. Sibly]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1175/1190 page 1121
    where, inftead of natural medicaments, magical charadters, incantations, and nodturnal ceremonies, conftitute the component parts. A very wife and learned author, who has written largely upon this fubjedt, afferts, that in thofe very charms and fignatures compacts themfelves are virtually contained, which evil fpirits at firft lubtilly deviled or invented to blind men’s eyes, that thereby they might lead them let's fcrupu.loufly into the ihares of the devil. And hence we have good ground to believe, that none are able abfolutely, and bona fide, to call up any Ipirits, without feme fuch compadl lirft formed ; and that whofoever has fo far ventured in the art of magic or conjuration, hath, though to himfelf perhaps unknown, compadted with and worfhipped the devil, under fome luch form of myftical words and charadters wherewith infernal charms and amulets are compofed ; neither is it to be thought a matter of furprife, that luch a compadl diould unwittingly be made through the medium of thofe myftical charadlers, which, with the devil’s aid, have in themfelves a power to enchant, infedl, allure, preferve, or deftroy. And to fhow, in frriking colours, the danger of being drawn away by fuch allurements, I Rail inllance the extraordinary cafe of a very harmlefs and well-mean- ing young man, which was publilhed to the world at the commencement of the prelent century, by the Bilhop of Glouceller, in the following well-authenticated letter to that prelate. Authentic Copy of a Letter fent to the Bifiop oj Gloucefler, by the Reverend Mr. Arthur BedfordMinifer of Temple Church, in Brifiol. My Lord, Brifiol, Auguf 2, T703. Being informed by Mr. Shute of your lordlhip’s defire that I Ihould communicate to you what I had known concerning a certain perfon, who was acquainted with fpirits to his own deflrudlion, I have made bold to give you the trouble of this letter, hoping my defire to gratify your lordlhip in every particular may be an apology for the length thereof. I had formerly given an account to the late Bilhop of Hereford, in which there are probably fome things contained, which I do not now remember, which, if your lordlhip could procure from his lady, (who now lives near Gloucefter,j would be more authentic. About thirteen years ago, whiHd I was curate to Dr. Read, redlor of St. Nicholas in this city, I began to be acquainted with one Thomas Perks, a man about twenty years of age, who lived with his father at Mongatsfield, a gunfmith ; and contradled an intimacy with him, he being not only a very good-natured man, but extremely lkilled in mathe- matical liudies, which were his conlhmt delight, viz. arithmetic, geo- metry,.
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