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HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
because we love De Quincey, and we have a thin streak of
kindly feeling for his alchemical proUg^ so we recommend
him as an antidote to Mr Hargrave Jennings, who has
doubtless never read him, and seems only to have heard by
report of such documents as the Fame and Confession of
the meritorious order of the Brethren R. C.
Though he disbelieved in the universal reformation,
Libavius did not reject the signs of the times.
" No one
doubts that we are in the last age of the world, by reason
of the signs which have preceded nearly every important
event, and are still at this day repeatedly appearing." He
takes exception to the philosophical peregrination of the
high illuminated C. R. C. in Arabia, because it was super-
fluous to seek magicians in the east when they abounded at
home. Some of his objections are, however, sufficiently
pertinent.
"
If the society hath been ordained and com-
missioned of God, it ought to be in a position to prove its
vocation in some conclusive manner." Incidentally he de-
"
nounces astrology. We have heard and read innumerable
astrological theories,
but we have not discovered their
rational basis. On the contrary, we are daily deceived by
lying predictions." With regard to the secrecy of the
Order, he flings at it the following text Omnis qui male agil,
odit lucem et non venit ad lucem, ne arguantur opera ejus.
Condemning their anonymous mystery,
he asks
" Is their
danger greater than Luther's, threatened by the proscrip-
tion of the Pope and the Ernperor
both ? "
Representing
the Rosicrucians as promising a new Theologia, Physica,
and Mathematica, he asks
" What manner] of new
theology is this, seeing there is nothing new under the sun 1
Again, where is its novelty, if it be that of the primitive
Church ? Is it of the Gentile, Mahometan, Jew, Papist,