not plainly and plentifully discovered and acknowledged the vanity and impiety of Magick and Astrology And whether it be not an Argument irrefragable against an Art or operation whenas the Arch-Artists are so far convinc't as to confesse the pravity and obliquity thereof themselves For who can more truly and fully set them forth then they that have given themselves over to study and practise them How many things of old and of late have been spoken either through a spirit of recantation a conscience of conviction or a sury of exclamation by magicians against Magick and by Astrologers against Astrology Hear what one of them saith both against himself and all the rest of what kind or sort soever Whatsoever things have here already and shall afterward be said by me I would not have any one assent to them nor shal I my self any further then they shall be approved of by the unit versal Church and the Congregation of the faithful Magicians and those who were the authors of this Art amongst the Antients have been Chaldeans Aegyptians Assyrians Persians and Arabians all whose Religion was perverse and polluted idolatry We must very much take heed lest we should permit their errors to war against the grounds of the Catholike Religion For this was blasphemous and subject to the curse and I also should be a blasphemer if I should not admonish you of these things in this science Wheresoever therefore you shall find these things written by us know that these things are onely related out of other Authors and not put down by us for truth but for a probable conjecture which is allyed to truth and an instruction for imitation in those things that are true Of Magick I wrote whilst I was very young three large books which I called Of Occult Philosophie in which what was then through the curiosity of my youth erroneous I now being more advised am willing to have retracted by this Recantation For I have heretofore spent very much time and cost in these vanities At length I grew so wise as to understand how and by what reasons I was bound to dehort others from this destruction For whosoever do not in the truth nor in the power of God but in the delusions of Devils according to the operation of theevil spirits presume to divine and prophecy and by magical vanilies exorcisms inchantments love-potions allurements and other devilish works and deceits of Idolatry exorcising prestigious things and making ostentation of phantasms boasting themselves to work miracles presently vanishing all these with Jannes and Iambres and Simon Magus shall be destinated to the torments of eternal fire The antient Philosophers teach us to know the nature of the genius of every man by stars their influx and aspects which are potent in the nativity of any one but with instructions so diverse and differing amongst themselves that it is much disficult to understand the mysteries of the Heavens by their directions c. Cicers following the stoicks affirms that the foreknowing of future things belongs onely to the Gods And Ptolomie the Astrologer saith that they onely that are inspired with a deity foretel particular things To them Peter the Apostle consents saying Prophesying is not made according to the will of man but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Take heed that you be not deceived by them that are deceived Neither can the great reading of books direct you here since they are but as riddles How great writings are there made of the irresistible power of magical Art of the Prodigious Images of Astrologers of the monstrous transmutations of Alchimists of the blessed stone by which Mydas-like all mettals that were touched were presently transmuted into Gold or Silver All which are found vain fictitious and false c. Whatsoever the monstrous Mathematicians the prodigious magicians the envious Alchymists and bewitching Necremancers can do by spirits See where their Faith is placed where their hope is reposed who endeavour to subject the Elements Heavens Fate Nature Providence God and all things to the command of one Magician and seek for the preservation of a kingdom from Devils the enemies of publike preservation Saying in their heart with Ochozias there is not a God in Israel let us go and consult Beelzebub the God of Achron c. Are they not delivered over to a reprobate sense who desire the certainty of secret counsels from the Devil the father of lies and hope for victory elsewhere then from the Lord of Hosts All these ungodly follies are wont to bring destruction to the admirers thereof to which truly they who especially confide are made the most unfortunate of all men Surely it is unknown to these Fools and Slaves of the Devil for to finde out things to come and to pronounce truth concerning those things which hang over our heads and are occult and from heaven portended unto men and to effect things which exceed the common course of Nature c. O Fools and wicked Who by these Arts would establish a kingdom by which formerly most potent Empires have fallen and have been utterly overthrown It is now time to speak of the Mathematical disciplines which are reputed to be the most certain of all other and yet they all consist not but in the opinions of their own Doctors to whom much faith is given who also have erred in them not a little Which Alhumasar one of them attests to us saying that the Antients even since Aristotles time have not plainly known the Mathematicks For seeing all these Arts are chiefly conversant about the spherical or round whether figure or number or motion they are forced at length to confesse that a perfect round or spherical is no where to be found neither according to Art nor according to Nature And these disciplines although they have caused heresies in the Church few or none yet as Augustine saith they nothing pertain to salvation but rather induce to errour and recall from God and as Hierome saith are not sciences of piety This Arithmetick vaine and superstitious hath brought forth Geomancy and divination and cogging dicing or chancing and whatsoever is of that sort of sortilegious numerals Although almost all doe adopt Geomancy to Astrologie because of the like judiciall way and because they draw the power thereof not so much from number as motion Of this there have written among the Antients Haly among the moderne Gerardus Cremonensis Bartholomeus Parmensis and one Tundinus I also have written a certaine Geomancy farre different from that of others and yet not lesse superstitions and fallacious or if you will let me say not lesse lying then all the rest Neither do I think that to be passed over which the Pythagoricks did assert and which others think that Aristotle himselfe believed sc that the elements of Letters doe possesse their certain numbers out of which they did divine by the proper names of men the numbers of the letters of every one being collected
is Zabulus reported to invent who was given to unlawfull Arts then Barnabas a certain Cyprian And now in these daies there are carried about books with feined titles under the names of Adam Abel Enoch Abraham Solomon also Paul Honorius Cyprianus Albertus Thomas Hierome and of a certain man of Yorke whose toyes Alphonsus King of Castile Rohert an Englishman Bacon and Apponus and many other men of deplored wit have foolishly followed Moreover they have not made Men onely and Saints and Patriarks and the Angels of God the Authours of such execrable opinions but they boast also that these books were delivered by Raziel and Raphael the angels of Adam and Tobias which books openly betray themselves to him that looks narrowly into them c. Peter in Glement deduces this art from the prevaricating Angels proving how they taught men that the Divels doe obey mortall men according to certaine arts and may be compelled thereunto that is by magicall invocations C ham the sonne of Noah delivered the ill found out discipline of Magick art to a certaine sonne of his called Misraim from whom is derived the race of the Aegyptians Babylonians and Persians him the Nations that then were called Zoroaster the first author of the admired magicall art His master in this vanity was Ayovax or Azovax c. Methodius writeth that in the 340 yeere of Jared there arose the inventors of the evil art men full of all wickedness of the sonnes of Cain as Iabeth and Tholuscoll the sonnes of Lamech who was blind in the time of whose dominion the divel perverted them to all kind of Magicall arts Zabulus and Zamolxis addicted to unlawfull arts first invented or rather propagated it so as that without doubt it might be determined for issuing from their father the Divel There followed their steps Almadal Alchiudus and Hipochus from the root of the Arabians Apuschierus Zaratus and Cobares among the Medes Marmaridius among the Babylonians Zarmocemdas among the Assyrians Abbaris among the Hyperboreant Thespetion among the Aethiopians Arunphis among the Aegyptians Julian among the Chaldaeans called the Thaurgists c. Besides the spurious fictitious and ascriptitious books of Adam Abel Enoch Abraham Moses Aaron Daniel Solomon Zacharias Paul c. St. Augustine oh horrour of blasphemy reports certaine foolish wretched Pagans affected themselves to magicall art to have boasted that they had seen and read books of Magicall art written by Christ himselfe and by an epistolary title directed to Peter and Paul affirming that by the arts therein contained he did all those miracles for which he was so famous But the Father bids shew those books they spake of and askes if they by them can learn to doe as he did and withall proves against them That Christ himselfe wrote no booke at all that he need not write to Peter because he was alwaies with him that he could not write to Paul because he was not called till after his passion and that he would not write of Magick because it was contrary to his doctrine and that even his enemies were thus convinc't how venerable and vertuous the name of Christ was in that they thought and sought to winne the waight of authority to such their execrable arts by commentitiously prefixing his most glorious name Cassandra desperately loved by Apollo and importunately solicited by him would not consent unlesse he would first bestow upon her the gift of Divination Which the credulous lover soon granted but she having already obtained her desire refused to stand to her promise for the satisfaction of his This the divining God could not foresee yet indigning to finde himselfe so deluded because he could not recall such his fatall gift he laid this curse upon it That whatsoever she vaticinated she should not be believed Let it be a curse to the predictors not to be believed surely it is a blessing to Christians not to believe them And believe them who list whose originall endowment was from a lust The first man that themselves confesse to have attained to the skill of a Prophet in Tharsus was a silly Shepheard having only so much wit as taught him to take advantage of the follies of his Countreymen Others say the first Prophet of this kind was found by chance in an old vault in Hetruria without knowledge either of his name his dwelling or the mean that conveyed him thither When began the motions of the Starres and accordingly the genethliacall way to be known was it not after Theatis the Aegyptian or else as some say after Atlas the prop and supporter of the heavens The Originall and foundation of Magicall and Astrologicall arts is yet more dubious and fabulous from the false opinions and impossible about the time of the worlds beginning and computation of the yeeres thereof Apuleius was of opinion that the world and men and arts therein were from eternity And being destroyed by flouds and conflagrations in some parts but not all were repaired but not created The Indians boasted of men living long before Adam and that they could name who was Adams father and master The Aegyptians fained that they had a story in letters comprehending thirteen thousand yeeres The Chaldaeans dotingly gloried that they had monuments of Astrology containing foure hundred and seventy thousand yeeres Plato accounts many thousands of ages to have been past since the existence of the world and induces an Aegyptian Priest talking with Solon and affirming that Athens of the Greekes and Sais of the Aegyptians were built one nine the other eight thousand yeeres before their time The Aegyptians fained that the Starres from their first originall had four times runne their courses and the Stars doe not once absolve their course but in 36000 yeeres and that the Sunne had twice set where it now rises and that their Kings to Ptolomy had raigned there above seventy thousand yeeres and that for more then an hundred thousand yeeres Aegypt had been skilfull in comprehending the way of the Starres The Indians bragd of their historicall monuments that from the time of Liber Pater to Alexander the great there were an hundred fifty and three Indian Kings through the space of six thousand foure hundred and two yeeres and three moneths The Chaldaeans from their first observation of the Starres to Alexanders time number foure hundred thousand yeeres Pliny reports from Eudoxus that Zoroaster lived six thousand yeeres before Platoes death Hernippus saith the same man was five thousand yeeres before the Trojane warre Betwixt Vulcan the sonne of Nilus the Aegyptian and Alexander of Macedon were they say forty eight thousand eight hundred sixty three yeeres in which time there hapned three hundred seventy three Defects or Ecclipses of the Sunne and eight hundred thirty two of the Moon The Aegyptians record in their annals above thirteen thousand ages of yeeres and three hundred and thirty Kings before Amesis Betwixt Osiris and Isis and Alexander of Macedon some reckon ten thousand others twenty three thousand yeers
carried it of their own accord And in the extremity of his death besought that his hands and tongue might be cut out by which he had blasphemed God and sacrificed to divels Trithemius retracted his opinion concerning the seven spirits in the seven Planets governing the world in their course by 354 yeeres apiece and four moneths protesting after this manner in the conclusion that of all these he believed and admitted nothing but as the Catholick Church believed and for the rest he refuted and contemned all as vaine fained and superstitious And as he disclaimed this to Maximilian the Emperour so he exclaimed against the Artists to Another Away with these rash men vayne men lying Astrologers deceivers of minds and pratlers of frivolous things For the disposition of the Stars makes nothing to the immortall soule to naturall science to supercelestiall wisdome A body hath power onely over a body The mind is free and not subject to Stars and neither receives their influences nor follows their motions c. Cornelius Agrippa in his youth wrote a Magicall book of occult Philosophy but in his sager yeeres wrote another of the vanity of Sciences wherein he confutes and condemns Magick Astrology and all kind of divination and cals the latter his recantation of the former But if towards his death he said indeed to his black Dog Away wicked beast thou hast utterly undone me without all doubt and notwithstanding all apologie his recantation was truer then his repentance For that was sufficient to convince others whereas this was not sufficient to convert himselfe Rodaick of Toledo hoping to finde treasures caused a Palace to be opened that had been kept shut for many yeeres there he found nothing but a coffer and in it a sheet and in it written a prophecy that after the opening thereof men like those painted in the sheet should invade Spaine and subdue it The King was therefore sorry and caused the coffer and castle to be shut again Phanias an Hierosolymitane servant by the advice of certain Magicians had emancipated himselfe to the divel in his hand writing for the obtaining of his masters daughter by vertue of their art But at length repenting he was converted by the prayer of St. Basil and the divel casting in the chirograph he was publiquely received into the bosome of the Church Cyprian a Magician while he sought by Magicall arts to inchant and dementate Iustina the Virgin was by her means converted to Christ For whose truth they both suffered Martyrdome Socrates offended at the bold and blind vagations of men in their disputations about the measures of the Sunne and of the Moon and other Stars wherein they laboured more in babling words then solid arguments undertaking to comprehend the whole circuit of the world with all the events therein from the beginning to the end Hereupon he withdrew his mind from these unlearned errours and applyed it wholy to consider mans fraile condition and the vitiousnesse and vertuousnesse of affections and to teach such manners as most pertained to honest and happy life A Priest of an oraculous Temple who had perceived that his divining divell had receded at the presence of Gregory Theametargus at the first calumniating but afterwards admiring his power desired to learn of him that mystery of commanding divels He taught him therefore the mysterie of godlinesse and confirmed it by a miracle whereupon he was converted forsaking his praestigious Idolatry yea wife children goods and all to follow him and so became an excellent servant in the Church and a great opposer of satan himselfe Marcellus and Apuleius two martyrs who first adhering to Simon Magus but seeing the miracles that were wrought by the Apostles converted from the Magicians praestigiousnesse and gave themselves wholy to believe and follow the Apostolicall doctrine for which they were martyred afterwards Hermogenes a magician disliking his own art brought a many of his magicall books and offered them to Iames the Apostle to be burnt 16. Of Magicians and Astrologers idolatrous account and other vain confident and servile superstitions they wrought in simple and credulous men THere was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same City used Magick or sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that himself was some great one To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying This man is the great power of God And to him they had regard because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries or magick Act. 8 9 10 11. To the same Simon a Statue was set up at Rome with this inscription To Simon the Holy God These Magicians and Astrologers in their generations were numbred among the Gods and had their Statues Images Oracles Temples Altars Sacrifices and Services viz. Zoroaster Trismegistus Mopsus Amphiaraus Apollonius Tyanaeus Amphilocus Accius Nanius Porphyrius Diodorus Thor Ollerus All these Mag-astro-mancers and many more arrogated a divinity to themselves from their divinations and had it attributed unto them by the superstitious people of several Nations Theagenes was so superstitious that he had in his house the Image of Hecate and durst at no time offer to stir out of doors till he had first consulted it For which his slavish superstition he grew into a Proverb among the very heathens themselves Archimedes the Geometrician by his art alone drawing out a massy ship which whole multitudes could not once move hereupon Hiero the King was so transported with admiration that he concluded Archimedes ought to be believed in whatsoever he said yea though he should say give him but footing and he would remove the whole earth Augustus together with Agrippa coming to the chamber of Theogenes the Mathematician and he predicting great and almost incredible things to Agrippa who first consulted him Augustus resolved to conceale his own geniture and would by no means have it calculated lest that lesse things might be prognosticated of him then were of Agrippa at last he yeilded to it by much importunity and Theogenes leaping at it and adoring him prognosticating his greatnesse because born under Capricorn for whosoever hath his horoscope in the first part of Capricorn shall be a King or an Emperour Augustus had forthwith such a confidence in this fatidical praesagitian that he divulged his natalitial Theme and caused the signe of the star Capricorn under which he was born to be impressed on his Coyn and placed in his Arms. Maximinus a great Tyrant and persecutor was so superstitiously fearful that he would do nothing without divination neither would by any means be drawn to transgresse an augurie or an Oracle no not a nayls breadth Frederick the second the Emperour having married Isabel sister to the King of England forbare her company till a certain hour that his Astrologers or wizzards had assigned for that purpose that so he might beget a son famous from the constellation But mark the fruits of this constellatory copulation poor Isabel dyed in
the charge or the shame of it would thus restrain if not reform it Augustus gathered up here and there all the fatidicall books he could and those that were spread abroad under none or no apt authors he caused them to be all burnt to the number of two thousand and onely retained the Sibylline books and them too with choice commanding that even they should not be lookt into by any others but the Quindecemvirs onely In the too long protraction of the second Punick warre their religion became so distracted by the turbulencies of the times that all sexes ages and degrees of people turned sacrificers and vaticinators Complaint hereof was brought to the Senate and they laid the blame on the inferior Magistrates for not inhibiting them At length the businesse was committed by the Senate to M. Aemilius the Vrbane Praetor who made proclamation that whosoever had any books of vaticination or written Orisons or arts of sacrificing letters c. that they should bring them all to him within such a day And thus he freed them from such confusions as were crept into their religion As they were plowing in the field of L. Petilius the Scribe certain books of Numa were there found in a chest of stone Which Q. Petilius the Vrbane Praetor hearing of sent for them and reading onely the summe or contents of them and observing that they tended to the utter dissolving of religion told L. Petilius that he intended to burn them The Scribe appealed to the Tribunes of the people they referred it to the Senate where it was decreed that the Pretor should keep his vow or resolution and so they were burned by the victimaries or sacrificers themselves in the sight of all the people It being related to the Fathers by Quintilian a Tribune of the people concerning a book of the Sybils which Caninius Gallus a Quindecemvir would have received among the rest of the prophecies Tiberius hereupon sent letters to the Senate severely checking at Caninius who being versed in the ceremonies would admit of an ode or a charm whose authour was uncertain which the masters had not read nor the Colledge approved putting the Fathers in mind of Augustus his edict to carry all such to the Vrbane Praetor and that the Sibylline verses belonged to the care of the Priests to discern which were true and which false And that they should especially acquaint the Quindecemvirs therewith and not transact any thing rashly in a cause of religion Under Valentinian one Hilarius a Car-man was brought before Apronius the praefect of the City because he had committed his sonne to a venefick necromancer or sorcerer to be brought up or traded in such arts as were interdicted by the laws and was therefore condemned Amantius an aruspick was solicited by Hymetius to sacrifice for depraved and maleficall intents which being proved by papers found in his house the consulter was banished and the practitioner condemned Lollianus a very young magician being accused that he had written a book of pernicious arts for feare that Maximinus would banish him appealed to Valentinian who more grievously punished him Palladius a veneficke and Heliodorus a genethliacke or one that interpreted fate by genitures were therefore accused before Modestus the praetorian praefect Palladius impeached Fidustius Praesidatis Irenaeus and Pergamius for their abhominable charms Fidustius confesses his vaticinating malefice and joyns with him Hilarius and Patricius Pergamius accuses many thousands as conscious of the same arts Hilarius and Patricius confesse the sortilegious fact with all the circumstances Wherefore all these and many other Philosophers are punished with fire and sword as Pasiphilus Diogenes Alypius Simonides and others And last of all that no mention might be found of these unlawfull arts innumerable books and volumes are all heaped together and burnt in the Judges sight Under Manuel Commenus one Araon was accused in that there was found in his house the image of a Tortoise and with in it the picture of a man chained and pierced through the breast and that he carried about him the old conjuring book that was called Solomons which while he read it legions of divels would appeare and ask him wherefore he called them and would quickly execute his commands Of which being convicted he had his eyes put out the usual punishment of those times Sicidites about the same time was impeached for casting prestigious mists before mens eyes and for sending out his devils to terrifie and torment men The same man sitting by the water side with some of his companions askt them what they would give him and he would make the Boatman that then passed by with a load of earthen vessels to break all his own wares with his own Oare Something they promised him and he muttered a few words and it came to passe accordingly The man being askt after that why he was so mad as to break his wares answered he thought he saw before him an ugly great Serpent ready to devoure him which still crept neerer to him the more he struck at it and when all his pots were broken in pieces then it vanished For this and other ridiculous pernicious tricks he was served as Araon was sc had his eyes put out an apt punishment for all peepers and Star-gazers In vain was all the Pagan reformation of Magick and Astrologie For they put the Artists or practitioner away with one hand and pull'd them to them with another witnesse the edicts of Augustus Tiberius Nero Vitellius Domitian c. and their own repealing acts and especially the Senate that banished Martha the Syrian prophetesse and yet a little after retained and imbraced Batabacus a predicting diviner The Historian therefore said wel and truly on both parts This kind of men treacherous to Potentates and delusive to all consulters and confiders are alwaies inhibited our City and yet alwaies retained in it I say no more of Imperiall edicts nor of those after the Emperours became Christian nor of provinciall Lawes nor of municipall Statutes nor of generall Councels nor of Ecclesiasticall Canons nor of Fathers sentences c. All these are sufficiently collected against them I onely conclude with an animadversion to our own Countreymen PLiny writing of Magick saith that in his daies the Art thereof was highly honoured by the Britaines and the people of that Nation so deeply devoted thereunto and the practises of it performed with such complements of all ceremonies that a man would think the Persians had learned all their magick skill from them And in truth our own histories report that the first Rulers of this Land were Magicians Astrologers Diviners such as were Samothes Magus Sarron Druis Bardus and that under a colour to teach men the knowledge of the Stars they brought men to the worship of the Stars Yea that they thus begat here their sects of Samotheans Magicians In so much as the Persians have been thought to have borrowed their word magi from hence Sarronides Druides Barditaes or
is is a fatality Why then should we be bound to believe the prognosticated things of Fate or Fortune before hand yea though they may have some naturall cause remotely necessary or of some indefinite probability yet is not all this sufficient for our faith in particular because as concerning many such naturall causes there is in us nevertheless besides the supreme a liberty and power to prevent 35. Suppose the Fates have destinated one man to be hangd or kill'd by another why should not that be prognosticated from another mans nativity as well as his own seeing he also comes necessarily into the series of second causes Indeed some of the old genethliacks have boasted to foresee or foretell a mans fate or fortune from the nativity of his parents Brethren children c. But have not others of them held it for a foolish fancy that the fate or fortune of one man should lye involved not only in his own but in the constellations of so many mens nativities 36. Whether they that suffer the same fate have the same starres coupling or compacting thereunto Et è contra Suppose them suffring and suffring to death the last line of Fate for Christ the Gospell religion and conscience Is this fatall destiny also from the starry order and connexion who ever heard that the starres made Martyrs or necessitated unto martyrdome How then hath it come to passe that young old men women of severall ages sexes nations and therefore not of the same constellations have all agreed to undergoe the same event 37. Whether that be true Fate which they would mingle together with providence and how can divine providence and Pagan Fate agree For Providence is the beginning and continuation of all things Fate is the end or utter confusion of them Providence is in the ordering of casuals as well as fatals Fate is opposing all things fortuitous and therefore not disposing them Providence is an act in God their Fate is no more but an event upon the creature Providence is a disposition impendent or out of the thing Fate is a disposition inherent or in the thing Providence comprehends all things past present and to come so does not Fate in her connexion of Causes Providence is in and over all things from the greatest to the least good evill celestialls terrestrialls spiritualls corporealls universalls singulars naturalls rationalls voluntaries necessaries contingents so is not Fate Providence is more speciall to one than to another but Fate is a necessity to all alike Providence can work immediately without and against means Fate can operate nothing but according to her series or connexion Providence can act with every creature reserving to it its own motion as with free agents freely with contingents contingently c. whereas Fate hath no way to work but fatally that is necessarily forcibly inexorably immutably inevitably The rules order successe of divine providence are either written in his own book or in his own breast and not in the Starres and Planets as Fate is The wisedome justice power goodnesse of his providence all this is written in his own book the particular successes issues events thereof all these are written in his own breast Even wise Providence it self is not herein to be discerned or determined before-hand what satuous thing is Fate then that is so obvious and triviall as for the Faticanes to foretell Is not this difference enough between them and never to be reconciled Providence is a prudent counsellor and will have the particular issues kept secret Fate is a silly babbler and will have them commonly foretold 38. Whether had it not been for the fictions of Fate and Fortune there had ever been hatcht opinions and heresies so projudiciall to divine providence and that even amongst Pagans themselves that had experience sufficient to convince them of the truth and power of it and of the justice yea and goodnesse of it in great part Had the divine providence ever been denyed if Fate and fortune had not been held for Gods Had God himself been implanted under Fate or made subject to the decrees of it or slandered for a sloathfull careless spectator of humane things and terrene if they had not confined and limited God to content himself with the reiglement of the heavens as if it had veen beneath his dignitie and majestie to vouchsafe to look down to sinall things or once to take notice of of what was done here below but to commit the care and rule of all sublunary and inferiour things to the starres and celestiall bodyes as his substitutes and their superiours Had prophane and wicked men ever accused providence and excused their impieties had they not heard of fatall starres necessitating and inforcing both their wills and actions 39. Was not the constitution of Fate and Fortune first invented in a derogation to God and his divine providence and that through a paganish and infidelious scandall at good things happening to bad men here and evill things to good men which had never been excogitated or had soon vanished had they been thus Christianly instructed viz. That the all provident Creator dispenses these middle things with an indifferent hand as unto creatures That the best men upon earth are not worthy of the least of goods things may deserve to be involved in the utmost of evill things that can here befall them That the wise Disposer knows how to turn these outward good things to the evill of evill men and these outward evill things to the good of good men That this present world is no time of full punishing or rewarding but these two precisely pertain to the world that is to come 40. Admit that either Fate or fortune was so indeed as they presage or much more than they can imagine yet how is the best of them both sufficient to moderate all fond hopes and fears Or what is able to doe that but a lively faith voyd of these heathenish superstitions and assuredly believing That there is an all-provident God that only foresees all things necessarie and to whom nothing is contingent or casuall That can will and doth work for the best of his both with second causes and exteriour means as also without them yea and against them That binds not the world much lesse tyes his Church unto them That hath written his childrens names in the book of life and much more then they may be assured hath numbred the hairs of their heads as concerning all earthly accidents That shines and moves in the Sun and Moon and starres and makes their generall influxes more or lesse effectuall as he is pleased to adde or abstract his speciall motion or oppose his immediate administration or interpose the office of his more excellent Ministers Angells and reasonable Souls CHAP. XIX 19. From the affinity to Witch-craft 1. WHat difference betwixt Astromancy Magomancy or Magastromancy as touching a sorcerous both superstition and operation and all these after-named viz. Stareomancy or divining