The Phantom World

n people among them-believe that there were people who had intercourse with the Divinity, or with good and bad angels, to predict the future, explain dreams, devote their enemies to the direst mis

oncerning things hidden and to come. The Israelites might consult the idol of Micha, and Beelzebub the god of Ekron; but the sensible and enlightened people of those days, lik

ignorant to enrich themselves at their expense, and turned away the people from the worship of the true

nfidence in the creature, in prejudice to the right of the Creator; inspiring them with vain terrors where there is nothing to fear, and maintaining their minds in the most dangerous errors. If, amongst an infinite number of false predictions, or vain interpretations of dreams, some of them are fulfilled, either thi

agic, charms, and spells, only employ their art, their secret, and their power to corrupt and mi

lights, and mathematical secrets! How much knavery is now well known in the priests of idols, and in those of Babylon, who made the people believe that the god Bel drank and ate; that a large living dragon was a divinity; that the god Anubis desired to have certain women, who were thus de

on-for instance, in the affair of Gofredi, a priest of Marseilles, who was condemned by the Parliament of Aix to be torn with hot pincers, and burnt alive. The heads of that company, in the account which they render to the chancellor of this their sentence, test