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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51317	Tetractys anti-astrologica, or, The four chapters in the explanation of the grand mystery of holiness which contain a brief but solid confutation of judiciary astrology, with annotations upon each chapter : wherein the wondrous weaknesses of John Butler, ... his answer called A vindication of astrology, &c. are laid open ... / by Hen. More.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.; J. B. (John Butler). Most sacred and divine science of astrology.	1681 (1681)	Wing M2679; ESTC R32960	105,093	181

against Prophecies Apparitions and Miracles though of the highest nature insomuch that they will allow the History of Christ his Resurrection and Appearance after Death the Prophecies concerning him and what not But they have forsooth this witty subterfuge to save themselves from receiving any good therefrom in imagining that there is no such particular Providence as we would infer from hence because all this may be done by the Influence of the Coelestial Bodies actuated by the Intelligences appertaining to each Sphere and deriving in a natural way from him that sits on the highest of the Orbs such Influences as according to certain Periodical Courses of Nature will produce new Law-givers induing them with a power of working Miracles assisting them by Apparitions and Visions of Angels making them seem to be where they are not and appear after they cease to be namely after their Death when in the mean-time there be neither Angels nor Souls separate but all these things are the transient Effects of the power of the Heavens and Configurations of the Celestial Bodies which slacks by degrees and so the influence of the Stars failing one Religion decays and another gets up Thus Iudaism hath given place to Christianity and Christianity in a great part of the World to Mahometism being Establishments resulting from the mutable course of Nature not by the immediate finger of God who keeps his Throne in the eighth Sphere and intermeddles not with humane Affairs in any particular way but aloof off hands down by the help and mediation of the Celestial Intelligences and power of the Stars some general casts of Providence upon the Generations of the Earth 3. * A goodly speculation indeed and well befitting such two witty Fools in Philosophy as Pomponatius and Vaninus the latter of which seem not to give himself up to this fine figment altogether fully and conformably to the ancient Doctrine of Aristotle but having a great pique against Incorporeal Beings is desirous to lessen their number as much as he can and seems pleased that he has found out That one only Soul of the Heavens will serve as effectually to do all these things as the Aristotelean Intelligences and therefore ever and anon doubts of those and establisheth this as the only Intellectual or Immaterial Principle and highest Deity but such as acts no otherwise than in a natural way by Periodical Influences of the Heavenly Bodies Where you may observe the craft and subtilty of the man what a care he has of his own safety and how he has imprisoned the Divinity in those upper rooms for fear of the worst that he may be as far out of his reach as the Earth is from the Moon So cautious a Counsellor in these matters is an evil and degenerate Conscience 4. This is the chiefest Arcanum that the Amphitheatrum and famed Dialogues of this stupendious Wit will afford who was so tickled and transported with a conceit of his own parts that in that latter Book he cannot refrain from writing down himself a very God for Wisdom and Knowledge When as assuredly * There was never any mans Pride and Conceitedness exceeded the proportion of his wit and parts so much as his For there is nothing considerable in him but what * that odd and crooked Writer Hieronymus Cardanus had though more modestly vented to the World before only Vaninus added thereto a more express tast of bold Impiety and Prophaness 5. I have elsewhere intimated how the attributing such noble Events to the Power of the Stars is * nothing but a rotten relique of the ancient Pagan superstition and have in my Book of the Immortality of the Soul plainly enough demonstrated that there is no such inherent Divinity in the Celestial Bodies as that ancient superstition has avouched or modern Philosophasters would imagine And I shall evidently prove against this great Pretender That his removal of the Deity at that distance from the Earth is impossible For there are scarce any now that have the face to profess themselves Philosophers but do as readily acknowledge the motion of the Earth as they do the reality of the Antipodes or the Circulation of the Blood I would ask then Vaninus but this one question whether he will not admit that the Sun is in that Heaven where he imagines his Anima Coeli and whether this Heaven be not spread far beyond the Sun and be not also the residence of this Celestial Goddess of his There is none will stick to answer for him that it is doubtlesly so Wherefore I shall forthwith infer that let his unskilful phansy conceit us at this moment in as low a part of the Universe as he will within the space of six months we shall be as far above or beyond the Sun as we are beneath him now and yet then phansy our selves as much beneath him as before Which plainly implies that our Earth and Moon swim in the liquid Heavens which being every where this Deity of Vaninus must be every where though his degenerate Spirit was afraid of so holy a Neighbourhood nor could abide the belief of so present a Numen Thus has the Annual course of the Earth dashed off all that superstitious power and sanctity that ancient Paganism has given and the Aristotelean Atheist would now give to the Sun Planets and Stars and we are forced even by the light of Nature and humane reason to acknowledge the true Principle from whence all Miraculous things come that is a God every where present in whom we live and move and have our being 6. Besides this suppose that all Prodigies Apparitions and Prophecies were from the intermediate influence of the Celestial Bodies these Intelligences or that Anima Coeli working thereby upon the persons of men to inspire them and turning the Air into representations and Visions to converse with them This covering is too scant to hide the folly of this sorry Sophist his supposition plainly ruinating it self For he does acknowledge that those inspirations and Prophecies are true that are thus derived from those Sidereal Powers But it is evident that those that have been the most illustrious Prophets have had converse with Angels and talked with them and have so recorded the matter to the World As for Example the Prophet Daniel who discoursed with the Angel Gabriel Christ also discoursed with Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor and Moses with the Angel of God on Mount Sinai Besides Christ who was so highly inspired and assisted from Heaven has over and over again pronounced a future happiness after this life All which allowing them for a while to be the Dictates or Representations of the Astral Influences I demand of Vaninus how he comes to be wiser than those who were so miraculously assisted That these Visions of Angels should not be so as they that saw them have related That Moses and Elias should not be the Spirits of Moses and Elias but only transient Figurations of the Air raised by

same opinion of Vaninus that I profess And what freakish nay doltish conceits he has of Apparitions will appear to my one by what I have writ against him in my Immortality of the Soul Book 3. Chap. 16. and in my Enchiridium Metaphysicum Cap. 26. Now for his pride and conceitedness none can be greater he making himself a very Gold for Wisdom and Knowledge as I have observed in this Section And if any one would have a more full description of his excessive Pride let him either read Vaninus his own Dialogues or what Dr. Parker has transcribed thence in in the abovesaid Treatise and in the same place I named before That odd and crooked Writer Heironymus Cardanus c. Here J. B. p. 13. cries out He all to be calls him and yet gives no account why he was either the one or the other unless because he was a learned Astrologer Repl. This Character of Cardan is so notoriously known to them that are conversant in his Writings that it wanted no proof Of what an odd or if you will uneven temper and irregular he was he himself does freely confess and calls it Anomalam suae Naturae indolem Which makes him write of things off and on in so much that it is Thuanus his Elogium of him In quibusdam plus homine sapere in pluribus minus pueris intelligere videri And Dr. Parkers censure of him is with good judgment in that he esteems him rather a Fanatick or Madman than an Atheist But to descend to instances of these things would swell my Annotations too much Sect. 5. Nothing but a rotten Relique of the ancient Pagan Superstition c. Answ. To this J. B. answers p. 33. Lo in sacred times where we find Moses and Daniel famous Astrologers amongst the best of Jewish Writers and in Christian times we have Cardan Junctinus Philip Melancthon Pezelius Morinus and divers others famous Christian Astrologers and yet the Doctor blushes not to call it a rotten Relique of Pagan Superstition Repl. That there have been several good men amongst the Christians that have without any ill mind studied Astrology properly so called as some also nay many Myriads of Mortals out of ignorance have practised Idolatry I will easily grant But that Moses and Daniel were such Astrologers as Calculated Nativities and answered Horary Questions by casting of Figures I utterly deny As Theologia signifies the Doctrine or Learning touching the nature of God from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Astrologia from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify the doctrine of the nature of the Stars their situation distances and motion which now adays is more properly called Astronomia Of which Calculation of Eclipses is a part But Astrologia of it self signifies no more the Art of predicting or Divining touching the Fate and Affairs of men from the Stars than Theologia signifies the Art of predicting things from God But because J. B. is so far from thinking Astrology properly so called to be a Relique of Pagan Superstition that he pretends it to be a sacred and Divine Science I will here in this very place before I go any further examine all his allegations where-ever they occur in either of his Books for the proveing it so sacred and Divine First then he pretends that Astrology came out from Paradise and that our Father Adam after the fall Communicated it out of his Memoires of the state of Innocency to his Son Seth and that Seth made Impressions of the same in certain permanent Pillars which were able to withstand both Fire and Water and that hence Enoch had it and Noah and from him Shem and so it came to Abraham who taught the Chaldeans and Aegyptians the principles thereof Pref. to Hagiastrolog p. 18. Again p. 27. of the same Book he contends that Moses that great man of God was an Astrologer as being learned in all the wisdom of the Aegyptians of which Astrology was a part which they were taught by Abraham when he was in Aegypt Thirdly That Moses was an Astrologer he sayes is apparent by his Predictions touching the Tribes as to what should betide them for the time to come Deuteron 33. which he not doing by Revelation nor Dream nor Vision for when it was so the Scripture was wont to say how it was so he must needs have done it by Astrology Fourthly The Patriarch Jacob was also an Astrologer by his Predictions to his Sons and that the Opinion of the learned Origen was that he was so indeed Fifthly That Joseph was also an Astrologer he being the very Hermes Trismegistus that Diodorus speaks of who taught Osiris and Isis many learned matters both concerning Religion and State and concerning things to come and who lived about the same time that Joseph and taught a Religion by himself contrary to all the ways of worship as was ever known amongst the Aegyptians before him he assisted Osiris in the Art of the Plough and counselled many things conducing to the benefit of mans life and was in great honour with King Osiris as Joseph with Pharaoh so that Osiris must be Pharaoh and Hermes Trismegistus Joseph And of this man sayes Diodore he was one of the first that was skilled in the Stars And the Astrological Aphorisms of Hermes Trismegistus are extant to this day Sixthly The Children of Issachar were Astrologers 1 Chron. 12.32 For so are they described Men that had understanding of the times to know what Israel had to do These were also among the number of the bands that were ready armed to war and came to David to Hebron to turn the Kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord These Issacharians therefore were learned Astrologers able to answer an Horary Question in such a Case as was now depending whether they should follow David or Saul Seventhly The Seers in Samuels time were Horary Question-men p. 47. who gave answers to them that enquired after lost goods what was become of them Which was not by any Divine Prophecy or extraordinary Revelation but by some industrious Art because it was mercenary as it appears 1 Sam. ch 9. v. 7. But behold if we go what shall we bring the man which is said concerning Samuel himself who v. 11. is called the Seer and of whom was enquired what was become of the lost Asses of Sauls Father Eighthly Daniel Shadrach Mesech and Abednego were Astrologers p. 30. Students of the Faculty under their Tutor Melzar Dan 1.11 and were accounted as members of some Schools in Babylon where the Science was taught by Abraham and after that Belus the Father of Nimrod built the School-House of Learning and much propagated the Art and in these Schools studied the learned Daniel c. Ninthly and lastly Several passages in Scripture favour Astrological Influences and Predictions As Deut. 33. concerning Joseph it is said by Moses That his blessing shall be of the pretious things

Argument looks the most handsomely of any As if the ancient Seers were Horary-Question-men because they told men where their lost goods were as our Figure-Flingers pretend to do in this Age and because they were mercenary and took an hire or reward for their pains But that these Seers were no such men but Prophets J. B. might have discovered out of the very Text if he had not overlooked it 1 Sam. 9.9 Before time in Israel when a man went to enquire of God thus he spake Come and let us go to the Seer For he that is now called a Prophet was before time called a Seer Wherefore it is manifest that these Seers were Prophets divinely inspired no Horary Astrologers as J. B. would have them Nor is Sauls solicitude for a Present to bring to Samuel the Seer as he is here called any Argument that these Seers were mercenary Figure-Flingers For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as our English Translation renders it a Present properly made to a great person in way of honour and respect Which these ancient Seers or Prophets might accept or refuse as they saw occasion See Grotius on the place and what he has written on Matth. 10.8 For it will satisfie any unprejudiced man To the eighth I say That there is nothing in the Book of Daniel whereby it is apparent that Daniel Shadrach Mesech and Abednego were students in Iudiciary Astrology under their Tutor Melzar but only learners of the Chaldee tongue that they might be fitted the better to serve the King and converse with him as occasion might be But as for the knowledge of things they are supposed to have it already ch 1. v. 3 4. where Ashpenaz the Master of the Eunuchs is ordered to bring of the Children of Israel well-favoured persons skilful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding science whom they might teach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be able to read and spake Chaldee Wherefore Melzar was a Tutor to them in nothing but this And when they got the ready use of the Chaldee tongue and communed with the King all his Magicians and Astrologers seemed but a Company of Idiots to him in comparison of them v. 20. He found them ten times better than all the Magicians and Astrologers that were in all his Realm But that Daniel was a Student in any Astrological Schools is as true as that Belus the Father of Nimrod built them after Abraham had taught Astrology in Babylon When as Belus reigned above two hundred years before Abraham was born And now in the ninth place As for those passages in Scripture To the first I answer That the pretious things of the Sun and of the Moon are the fruits of the Earth produced or helped on by the heat of the one and moisture from the other Of these Virgil speaks in his Georgicks Vestro si numine Tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit aristâ And to Deut. 4.19 I shall answer when I have brought into view the whole Context And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto Heaven and when thou seest the Sun and the Moon and Stars even all the Host of Heaven shouldest be driven to worship them and serve them which the Lord thy God has divided unto all Nations under the whole Heaven But the Lord hath taken you and brought you forth out of the Iron Furnace even out of Aegypt to be unto him a people of Inheritance as ye are this day He must have a strong imaginative faculty that can phancy an Argument for the sacredness and Divineness of Iudiciary Astrology from this place For whether we interpret the distributing the Stars to the Nations as Vatablus and others have done In ministerium omnium gentium creavit as they are palpably useful to them all by the enjoyment of their light and by the observation of their course for the knowing of times and seasons besides the comfortable heat of the Sun and the refreshing moistness of the air from the Moon to further the growth of Herbs and Plants But what is all this to the whimzies of Iudiciary Astrology Or if with St. Augustine and Grotius seems also thither inclined we conceive that this Host of Heaven Sun Moon and Stars are divided to the Nations and permitted by God for a time to be worshipped by them though strictly forbid to his own peculiar people see Drusius and Grotius upon the place what is this to the sacredness of Astrology but rather a Confirmation that it is a Rag of the old Pagan Idolatry And I have heard with mine own ears from them that have been addicted much to that Art that they have prayed to the Stars as Anne Bodenham the Witch confessed she prayed sometimes to the Planet Jupiter To the third I answer The Stars in their courses fighting against Sisera makes nothing for Astrology Stars there according to the Prophetick and Cabbalistick stile signifying Angels And it is a Song framed in the height of Prophetick and if you will of Poetick Eloquence And Vatablus likewise interprets it of the Angels as also Grotius who adds Angeli stellarum nomine appellantur ob coelestem naturam ac splendorem See my Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms And as for the last allegation the prognostick of weather from the Redness of the skie acknowledged by our Saviour though J. B. often mentions that instance I do not see how it makes more for Astrology than the Neat-herds brended Cow by whose frisking and gadding he could prognostick it would be rain or any of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Aratus recites in his Astronomical Poem These things are Meteorological not Astrological neither is that redness of the skie in the Heavens but in this lower part of our Atmosphere Thus I think I have sufficiently answered all his Arguments whereby he would prove Astrology a sacred and Divine Science And at most all these Allegations if they had any weight in them at all could but prove it is a lawful Science not sacred or Divine Because Joseph taught the Aegyptians Astrology therefore Astrology is a sacred or Divine Science You may as well argue Because he taught them the use of the Fiddle and of the Plough as Diodorus sayes Hermes did That Fidling and Ploughing are Divine Sciences But enough of this And that it is rather a Rag of old Paganism than a Divine Science appears from that of Deuteronomy above-cited the Pagans being worshippers of the Host of Heaven as Rulers and Disposers of all things here on Earth What then could be a greater accomplishment of a Pagan Priest than to know in what time and order and in what aspects one with another these Celestial Deities dispose things here below and what a Temptation to him to pretend he knew it whether he did or no and also to the vagrant Daemons of the air to further him in the entanglements of this vanity This I hope J. B. himself will think no rash conjecture especially if he consider