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A prime minister of real life, however, could scarcely be seriously recommended to shape his policy upon a due consideration of the possible allegoric meaning of a passage in Isaiah, to say nothing of the obvious objection that this kind of appeal to Sortes Biblicae is dangerously liable to be turned against those who recommend it.
Accident co-operated; a promise to be fulfilled at Northampton, in a certain contingency, fell due at the instant; the doctor was detained, this detention gave time for further representations; new motives arose, old difficulties were removed, and finally the doctor saw, in all this succession of steps, the first of which, however, lay in the Sortes Biblicae, clear indications of a providential guidance.
A well-known variety of augury, conducted upon this principle, lay in the "Sortes Biblicae," where the Bible was the oracular book consulted, and far more extensively at a later period in the "Sortes Virgilianae," where the Aeneid was the oracle consulted. But I notice the latest case before the others, as it connected itself with a great epoch in the movement of my intellect.
And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical Sortes Biblicae which you have heard. They amused him a good deal. 'Well, he said, 'my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of advice Cut it down. If that stands for the ash-tree, he may rest assured I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of catarrhs and agues was never seen.
Ovid tells, that when he prayed for the soul of Anchises, the custom was strange in Italy. 'Hunc morem Aeneas, pietatis idoneus auctor Attulit in terras, juste Latine, tuas. The 'Biblicae' Sortes, which I have seen consulted on the altar, are a parody on the 'Sortes Virgilianae. Our numerous altars in one church are heathen: the Jews, who are monotheists, have but one altar in a church.
Accident co-operated; a promise to be fulfilled at Northampton, in a certain contingency, fell due at the instant; the doctor was detained, this detention gave time for further representations; new motives arose, old difficulties were removed, and finally the doctor saw, in all this succession of steps, the first of which, however, lay in the Sortes Biblicae, clear indications of a providential guidance.
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