Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/38

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piter is no other than the Jehovah of the Hebrews, anciently wrote Jovis, which is a greek termination of the heb. word. Hezekiah being ill, the Lord sent Isiah the prophet to him to apply a lump of figs for a plaister to his boyl, and he recover'd. II Kings XX. 7. Isaiah XXXVIII. 21. The devil in his oracles personated Jehovah, whence we read in the holy Scriptures, II Kings I. 2. Ahaziah king of Israel sent to enquire of the oracle of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, whether he should recover of his disease. Hippocrates de prisca med. says the art of Physick ought to be refer'd to God, for its original. Celsus in his preface says, diseases in the most antient times were thought owing to the anger of the immortal gods, and from them they ask'd relief. In imitation of this method of God almighty's, the heathen by the Devil's encouragement set up their oracles, and at first they were chiefly consulted for remedys in diseases, says Pliny nat. hist. L. 29. And no doubt but that cunning spirit, who could see farther into the powers of nature than man, kept up the credit of these places of enquiry, by now and then performing a cure. And it was the method of people to write a tablet and hang it up in the temple, of the remedy by which they were cured. And by means of these, Hippocrates (who was a most excel-

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