he is confident of it and again where he gives us in his Imagerie work of it such as was before shewed he saith If he shal further expatiate his mind concerning the greatnesse of this Eclipse he beleives he shall go very neer to hit the mark aright in what he shal there deliver And yet compare what concerning the present State in relation to this Eclipse the man saith in these places with what in his New Ephemeris for the next yeer he speaks at large as confidently the other way and that with threatening terms too If after this opposition of Saturn and Jupiter who think we Christned those two Stars thus this Autoritie under which we groan the bodie of its fabrik standing upon a very tottering foundation shal inforce us to some new or illegal Assesment or by way of raising money the coherence of his context here is beyond my skill upon any pretence whatsoever except against the slovenly Dutch I am confident we of the Commonaltie joyning with the Souldierie shal assume so much liberty to our selves as to choose and elect such Members hereafter c. and we shal endevor so strictly to call unto account each Member of this Parliament who have fingred out Treasure that we shall leav many of them as naked as when they came out of their Mothers womb If any I say shal collate these his former and latter predictions together he will I suppose easily guesse tho he be no Wizard that the man since he writ the former is for some cause whatsoever it be fallen out with the State and genus irritabile vatum these cole-Prophets are a very waspish generation they have as wel shrewd stings in their tails to strike those that displease them as honey of glossings and flatteries in their mouthes to sooth up and stroke those whome they desire to fawn upon and to please for habent vespae favos suos wasps have their honey-combs as wel as bees saith Tertullian But it may justly be suspected there is a pad in the straw there is some mysterie in it which shalow capacities such as he saith our poor Preists are are not able to understand that this terra filius this son of the earth dare prate in so high a strain like brag in the by-word the little parlor puppie that he and the hounds would pul down the deer I will not stand to dispute with him whether the Celestial Edicts or the Oracles that he telleth us he reads in the Book of Heaven go with such Ifs and And 's or no. But suppose some poor Presbyterian or some prick-eard Preist as he scoffingly styles them had writ ought in this manner We the Presbyterie or Ministerie calling into us the Communalty and joyning with the Souldierie wil cal you Parliament men to an account unlesse you take better courses then some of you have done would not this man think ye have set up his bristles and ben ready to cry out that here these seditious Preists and Presbyterians shew themselvs in their colors and seek to domineer not over Gentry and Commonalty onely but over the Parliament it self But these Wizards it seems are priviledged persons it is safer for them to lay all level before tnem then for some poor Presbyter but to peep over the fence In his Preface to his spik and span New Ephemeris he makes his Entrance with a greivous complaint of a multitude of scandalous libels two dozen of vineger Pamphlets and two dozen and an half thirty at least of thumping Presbyterian Preists that belcht out somewhat of non-sense against Anglicus and Astrologie for they write and speak all non-sense that offer to deal with him his freehold and to encite the Parliament to passe an Act for the suppressing of such irregular Libellers he tels them he holds it no dishonor for himself to be abused in print having seen the worthy Members of Parliament served in the same kind the base cheater that makes Fortune-telling his trade would fain go in eqipage with those of the highest rank in the present State and that unlesse they do so that is unlesse they stop mens mouthes and stay mens pens from further preaching or printing ought against him and his trade if the State suffer more in this kind they may thank themselvs for it Surely the Man accounts himself a priviledged person he hath belike gotten a patent not ad imprimendum but ad traducendum conviciandum solum he may by virtu of his priviledge in the basest satyrical and sarcastical terms tax and traduce whom he list the main body of Christs Ministerie among us under the style of Prick-eard Preists Pulpit-Praters Black-coats and the like and yet no man may presume to give him a crosse word or to return him his own again and the truth is his Merlins are not so much Astrological predictions as Satyres and Pasqils to play upon whom he pleaseth the Ministery especially which in the most of them he makes ever and anon the main burden of his song because his hate and spight is most against them But may not some other indifferent and wel-minded make qestion tho with such puzzeling qestions Mr. L. professeth that he desires not to be troubled whether it may not be with as good ground said M. L. with a ful and foul mouth belcheth out much base language at large against the main body of Christs Ministerie among us such as in no Christian State would be indured and is so bold as to present his scurrilous and satyrical rabblements of this nature to the Body of the State wherein to incite the people to refuse to pay Tithes to their Ministers to which by the Lawes of the Land unrepealed they have as good right as any in the State to any just debt or rents whatsoever withal enforming them that God himself tels them by the late Eclipse and other aspects that it is his wil and he hath so disposed of it that they be enclined thereunto and this since that the State hath seemed to connive at if he shal proceed in like maner to be as bold and saucie with them and to encite people likewise to refuse to pay any more taxes and shal read them a lesson out of the same Book of God that he hath in his providence so disposed it and by Mr. L. one of his Prophets who is wel read in this Book which few of those that are falsly called Divines understand ought at all in doth acqaint them with it that if such taxes be continued they shal joyn with the Souldierie and make hed against those that do impose them if I say he shal so deal also with them or rather for that he hath already so delt with them they may thank themselvs that have hitherto suffred him in this manner to rant and rail upon those whom they ought by their power and place to protect against such professed enemies and traducers of those whom God hath
them as if there were no way to escape them To which purpose is also added that the Chaldean Astrologers held that such things came to passe by a kind of fatality which ours do not and Osiander therefore sayes that Astrological Predictions are not to be condemned if they be esteemed but as conjectures not as certain Prophecies But first are these things the les to be feared of Gods People because God hath an hand in them and they come by his appointment for ar they not tokens then of his wrath and doth he not then by them preach as much to the Sonnes of men and more specially to his people It is most tru that Augustine wel observes that Signa verba visibilia verba signa avdibilia Signs ar as wel visible words as words audible signs and unto signs therefore is a Voice ascribed Exod. 4.8 and by the rod is God said to speak as wel as by the word to the understandings of those that are spiritually wise Mic. 6.9 Jer. 9.12 When the Lion roares who feors not saith Amos c. 3.8 and shal God then roar from heaven Amos. 1.2 and men not fear yea not exceedingly fear end be dismaied here on earth Psal 76.8 Yea but Gods people must not fear so much tho others so do And do we not find it in Gods Book made a note of Gods children such as fear God and even tremble at his word Ezr. 10.3 Esay 66 2. The difference is very observable noted in Jehoiakims time between the Princes of Juda that were not yet so obstinate in evil and the King with his Courtiers wholy abandoned thereunto upon the reading of those dreadful denunciations by Jeremie delivered and compiled by Baruc penned and published in the hearing of either it is said of the former they were afraid as wel the one as the other as wel the better as the wors sort of them Jer. 36.16 but of the latter t is related that they were not afraid nor did rent their garments as was expected they should have done vers 24. And its tru therefore that Bernard saith Soli filii irae iram non timent It s a note of a child of wrath not to fear Gods wrath not to stand in aw of his Fathers Rod not to tremble when he hears his Father threaten as by these signs these men say he doth or when he seeth him about to take the rod in his hand ready therewith to lay about him Yea the truth is when judgements ar by God or from God denounced and threatned they usually fear most that have least cause to fear When God threatned by a deluge to drown the whole world it is said Noah feared who was to be saved Heb. 11.7 but likely it is as one of the Ancients saith that the wicked of the world who were thereby to be destroyed scoffed at him and his sonnes that laboured with him in the building of the Ark noted as an effect of his faith and fear imagining and it may be telling them to their faces that they should sooner come to see them by toiling so drownd in their own sweat then they to see them drownd in such a deluge as they feared David a man after Gods own heart 1. Sam. 13.14 says to God of himself When thou takest away the wicked of the world like dros tho I love thy testimonies yet my flesh trembles for dread of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements Psal 119.119.120 I might ad religious Josias his vest rent and heart qailed at the hearing onely of the menaces out of Gods Book therein recorded by Moses 2. King 22.11 19. But I shall with a lively representation of a dread accompanied with a strange consternation of spirit as by the symptomes of it may appeer close up this passage Upon a dreadful Vision of future events represented to the Prophet Habakkuk when I heard it saith he My bellie qaked my lips qiverd rottennes seized upon my bones and I trembled as if the ground had shooke under me Hab. 3.16 Was not this think we a dismaying fear or was it not such as might well have ben expressed by the word used here in the Text Yet neither is the Prophet reproved for this his so great fear nor can any man justly be condemned if on the like occasion he be so affected as he was Nor is such a measure or manner of fear inconsistent with a firme constant relieng upon God for a never fayling stay and a gratious issu nor doth necessarilie implie or import a diffidence and distrust of Gods providence or promises concerning such succor and safetie or such protection and provision as God hath by his Word engaged himself for unto those that be his as in Habakkuk by his own sincere and ample profession there subjoyned it doth evidently appeer Vers 18. Neither therefore doth the term here used infer any necessitie of diffidence and distrust Nor ar the places fitlie produced as parallel to this so taken as themselves would expound it wherein Gods people are incited not to fear death when they are called to give testimonie to Gods cause and to seal the truth of it with their blood Matth. 10.28 There is a vast difference between death threatned by man for our sticking close to God and death denounced by God for our slipping aside from God in whole or in part there is matter of worth valor grace honor joy and gloriation in the one 2. Thes 1.5 Rev. 12.11 Phil. 1.29 Act. 5.41 Phil. 2.17 Rom. 5.3 matter of wrath disgrace shame grief horror and confusion of face and spirit in the other 2. Sam. 24.1 1. Sam. 2.30 Psal 44.13 Ezr. 9.6 Jer. 9.1 and 4.29 Ezr. 9.15 Jer. 23.9 Dan. 9.7 8. David was afraid of the sword of the destroying Angel and it had ben an height of impietie far above the sin committed by him in numbring of the people not to have ben sorely afraid of it knowing whose sword it was and for what cause it was unsheathed 1. Chron. 21.16 30. Nor ar the signs foreshewing the neer approach of the last day Luk. 21.28 no more then such as gave assurance of the speedie ruine of Babylon Jer. 51.46 the ful redemption of Gods people depending upon the one as their temporal deliverance out of captivitie on the other to be paralleled with such signs as give warning of Gods wrath here to be executed upon people for their wicked cariages whether in way of vengeance and judgement or of correction and chastisement and that upon Gods people sometimes as wel as upon others Amos. 3.2 yea even upon good and bad together Ezek. 21.3 It s no reason therefore to imagine that God should forbid his people to be affrighted with such signs of Heaven as do from Heaven denounce such dismal judgements ready to be inflicted upon people for their sins Yea t is rather to be expected as a thing justly reqired that if nations more remote from God as wel in
or mention the Presbyterians or their Proselytes and yet so great is his spleen against those poor Presbyterians and their Proselytes that he could not forbear to vent it not long after in expres terms against them withal abusing most wickedly and wretchedly the name of as worthy an Instrument and venerable a servant of God as any that these later ages have produced whose memory is to this day and stil shal be blessed and his renowm remain as a pretious odor of fragrant smel and sweet savor in the minds of the godly whereas the name of himself and of such as he is shal stink above ground in the nostrils of those that sincerely fear God while they yet live and their memory rot as their carcases in the grave under ground when they be ded For This Eclips saith this our Fortune-teller finds all Sacerdotes which because it ever did shal pas for Preists in much sorrow and anguish of mind the influence of it crossing their designs now fearing the downfal of their tithes and a general â—â—â—giversation of the people against them in many places the people who begin to see without spectacles generally declining their spurious and seditious doctrines against Parlament and State whether derived from John Calvin or the babling of a sillie Scottish Presbyterie and again anon after Much trouble and affliction wil arise unto the whole Hierarchie this wil generally fall upon them every where wheresoever they reside And for my part I make no doubt indeed but that he would be right glad as wel as his grand-Master the Divel to see the Ministerie rooted out it so crosseth their designs As Haman the whole Jewish race for Mordecays neglect of him in all places where in any power it yet abides either with us or elswhere Mean while you may here observ how the old Proverb is verified in our modern Prognosticators 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rebus peractis est Cleo Prometheus they can tel us what wil be when the thing is done already This no more now blind buzzard as I sometime out of ignorance termed him but as herein he hath evinced himself to be a marveilous sharpsighted Stargazer and most skilful Fortuneteller can from the posture of the Stars at one of the late Eclipses foretel us what the people wil do hereafter when he seeth what they ar doing and have in part done already For when he perceivs apparently by Petitions and Proposals in print and other the like addresses unto the Parlament divers of them long before this his Black Book came abroad he can now after long poring and staring upon the Stars by the situation and aspects of the celestial bodies foretel us that which no man living without help of his skil had ever ben able to make out that People wil have no mind to pay their tithes to their Ministers Again the understanding Reader may hence take notice how cunningly this man can here comply with the people For as those of the Levelling party for such I suppose they were that were the cheif Ringleaders in that Bedfordshire insurrection before-mentioned to draw the multitude after them promised a freedome from tithes and taxes to all that would joyn with them so these cunning wizards to insinuate themselvs into the peoples affections can attemper their predictions unto their humours and tel them such tales and stories as they think wil take most with them and best please them and they perceiv them by their innate disposition expressed and appeering in their practise to be strongly bent unto apparent enough it is that it is not any spurious or seditious doctrine in their Teachers by this foul-mouthed Sycophant so falsly fathered upon Calvin the splendent lustre of whose repute the snarlings of such Helhounds can no more impair then the yalpings by night of maungie whelps and mungrel curs barking at the moon or the imaginary man in the Moon can in any sort impeach or impair her light but their own covetous disposition and earthly-minded affection as falsly as frivolously ascribed to the celestial aspects that makes people to grutch Gods Ministers the means of their maintenance to the foul shame and scandal of their Christian profession And this skilful Fortune-teller had he pleased to speak out and had ben disposed so to say might from his own principles have concluded that people would grumble as wel at the payment of taxes as at the payment of tithes which himself also long since greivously complained of as being much oppressed with taxes and assessements as Bellantius was with fear of the approach of his enemies when he was writing against Picus For mark I beseech you his argument A Jove praelatura Prelature is from Jove tho the sacred Oracles tel us from the tru not the fabulous Jehovah and his Christ Psal 75.6 7. Prov. 8.15 16. but God belike hath resigned his right to their Jove or to the Divel whome they deal with and who was adored in him 1 Cor. 10.20 and laid claim thereunto sometime as of right now belonging to him Luk. 4.6 and sub Jove principes Ecclesiastici Politici Sacerdotes Vnder Jove or Jupiter ar Princes Ecclesiastical Political Preists c. for so speaks the Autor whome he cites and as in Latin he cites him tho that he may not offend the State and yet might apply it to the poor Preists whome he hates more then he does the Divel see what jugling here is he thus renders it Vnder Jupiter we signifie Princes Cardinals all Ecclesiastical Potentates Policy but Sr your Autor says as Prelacie in general before so here Princes that is cheif Governors and those as wel Political or Civil as Ecclesiastical and it may wel be demanded how the poor Preists come into the same rank with Princes and such as have relation to Jupiter of whome I have read that he was sometime a civil Potentate but never a Preist And now make we up this wise mans subtil argument The Ecclesiastical Potentates and their affairs ar under Jupiter but in this Eclips we find him out of all strength and dignity Ergò the people wil be loath to pay Ministers their Tithes and would not the Argument folow as forcibly Al Civil Governors ar under Jupiter But he was out of all strength and dignity in the late Eclips Ergò the common people wil be unwilling to pay the Taxes imposed upon them by their Superiours And I suppose there can hardly be found any man so simple altho he had but as they use to say his guts in his hed and his brains in his belly but could easily without help of Mr. Lilies skil or use of his spectacles his curious calculations and far fetcht observations both see and foresee that people ar and wil be unwilling to pay as wel taxes as tithes save that they know they may be enforced to the one which they hope they shal not be for the other and they ar more regardful of their worldly gain
els-where sure he is that what he hath on Jerem. 10.2 concerning the vanitie and impietie of your trade is neither contrary to the current of Antiqitie nor to reason nor to the genuine sense of the words of the Text but consonant to the doctrine of the Ancient Fathers the sounder and greater number of lerned writers both of former times and later dayes as wel Papists as Protestants the setled discipline in the Christian Churches the Decrees and Sanctions of Christian Emperors and the Canons and Constitutions of whole Councels not a few even to that of Trent it self as hath formerly ben shewed And for this puddle of non-sense as you ar pleased to style it from whence you should have done wel to have related some few at least particular passages or sentences of non-sense picked out of the whole puddle it hath it seems so puzzeld you and disturbed all your senses that you have not so much as one wise word to return in way of defence unto any peice of the Exceptions therein taken to your own Assertions related out of your own writings onely the very sight of it seems so to have troubled your stomack that it hath made you bring up much gall and spit out a great deal of venome which being unaccustomed to such scurrilous language I shal pas by and leav to you to resume if you please as dogs sometime do their vomit and to reserv it by you until you have further use of it Mean while that the Autor of that Annotation which you ar pleased so to bespatter is not ashamed of his work but is willing to have it pas the more general trial whether it be such a puddle of non-sense or no in regard that the whole work whereof his labors ar but a parcel consists of two great volumes and the price conseqently correspondent not every mans money and in fewer hands therefore in consideration hereof he hath caused that Annotation excerpted from the rest to be printed apart together with this that the more eyes of all sorts may readily see what it is whether it be such as you say and how nothing a few scurrilous terms onely excepted you have in your own defence returned thereunto One thing I had overpast which I deem not amisse to give some touch of before I conclude Besides the aspersions of non-sense incapacity and ignorance wherewith Mr. L. chargeth our English Preists and the Annotater among the rest there is another Imputation and charge of a more hainous nature to wit Envie the Divels most peculiar sin for of the Annotation on Jer. 10.2 he saith it is a puddle of Envy and Non-sense Of which former branch I had said nothing because I understood not the Mysterie wanting some Delian Diver to unfold it to me that I might know what the Mans meaning should be which now Mr. L. himself hath done for me For in an Epistle prefixed to his Worlds Catastrophe which came lately to my hands he tels his Reader that the Fraternity of the Clergie ar an Envious generation and this disease of envie is with them hereditarie And what is the ground think we of this grievous charge which he enters upon with such a passionate Exclamation Oh men of Envie forsooth they have for so many ages envied mankind the knowledge of lerning that have cloistered up books and suffered them to perish in their closets unopened because all should be ignorant but themselvs and had not some Gentlemen of divine Souls and many worthy and gallant Physitians preserved Arts and published their admirable conceptions he is confident to this very day the Fraternity of Clergie-men would have kept us at a distance and without the knowledge of many lernings we now know for which at sometimes these malevolent churlish and envious Clergiemen snarl at the Autors But what ar the Books that these men made of envie have thus mured up of set purpose to keep men in ignorance Is it Gods Word think we and the Divine Oracles or the Law and the Gospel or the writings of the Prophets and Apostles these indeed under the Papacie were locked up and sealed up and men inhibited from looking into them But these ar not the Books Mr. L. speaks of these rather he could be content should be concealed they speak no good of him and his trade tho the Planets and Aspects of them as we have elswhere observed portend no ill at all to Wizards whatsoever to others they do yet these denounce much evil both to them and to those that ar deluded by them But what ar they then such as treat of Mr. Ls. trade such as the professors and practisers of such arts when they turned tru Christians burnt at Ephesus Act. 19.19 Ah what an envious man was Paul that would suffer them so to do But more particularly that by some instances we may know what books he means There ar books saith he from the Lord of Marchistone writing on the Revelation among the Jews containing doctrines as they alledge proceeding from the mouthes of the Patriarks affirming every great Angel of seven to rule the world 490 yeers and in particular a Book of the Government of the VVorld by Angels which M. L. himself hath Englished whereof he purposes to write a special Treatise wherein from the beginning of the World to these times and some hundreds of yeers succeeding he shal endevor to manifest such Mysteries involved in this lerning as yet have not appeered wherein he shal go neer to give every Common VVealth of Europe a smart conjecture of the continuance or destruction of their State and Government having gotten forsooth the tru Key or Caâ—ala as elswhere he terms it to unlock these Mysteries which others for want thereof understand not he should have done wel to have added Mother Shiptons Prophesies which he sayes were never qestioned for antiqitie and veritie And the rest of the rabble of old wives tales as the Apostle speaks 1 Tim. 4.7 whereof he tels us there ar many more in the North. And what is all this but to do as Satan did with God to our first Parents who charged him with envieng man divine knowledge because he inhibited him the forbidden fruit For therefore saith Mr. L. these Clergie men keep these Books out of mens sight because out of envie they would keep people in ignorance and withhold them from attaining such deep and profound knowledge as himself by reading of them hath attained unto As for the Lord Napeir and his Countryman Robert Ponts their Calculations by Jubilees from the Worlds beginning to the Worlds end the time whereof both of them contrary to our Saviors avouchment take upon them to determine the one Propos 15. the other Cap. 19. they ar so groundles that few or none that I have seen do accord with either and for Tritemius his Treatise of the seven Planetary Angels that should in cours govern the whole World by those seven Planets which Mr. L. to make our
the flattering fictions and fables of such as he hath forbidden his people to seek to or to be advised by in cases of this kind Yet if it be so as he tels us elswhere that the Sun is the significator of Princes Emperors and men of great Autority and from the Eclipses of it therefore we can expect no lesse then great changes in Kingdomes Common Wealths and great Families what reason can it be why the obscuring of this Stately Planet should stoop so low as by Mr. Lilies reports it should to vent all its malignity against the poor pratling Preists affording mean while all honourable issu and glorious successes to our Common Wealth affaires or why his deficiency should proov so prejudicial to those that have no reference to him rather then to those that are signified by him But as King James said sometime the Lawes were his and who should expound his Laws but himself so the Text being their own they deem it seems they may do with their own what they will make explications of it and raise observations from it as they list and form applications from either so framed when they have so done at their own pleasure The best is their Text and their Glosses being both of one stamp we may justly credit as well the one as the other and have as litle cause to regard or fear as to beleiv either Mean while we may observ how as the Pythian Prophetesse could comply with such Kings States and Commanders as repaired by her to the Divel under the Title of Apollo for Oracles by returning them such answers as she knew would well please them and give them content as to Philodemus a Commander that her God gave him leave to do what he liked and her returns to King Philip the Macedonians demands were so palpably and constantly such as might seem to conduce much to his designs what ever they were that it was grown to a common by-word in those times that Pythia did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Philippise and Zedekias with the whole troop of Baals Prophets could prophesie to Achab what he would have them to say 1 King 22. and those counterfaits Ananias at Jerusalem and Achab the upstart with another Zedekias of the same stamp with the former and Semajas the dream-teller at Babylon could sing such songs as would please King Zedekias in the one place and the Jewish Captives in the other and the people either bond or free in either Jer. 28.4 29.15 21 23 31. so these men as apt Schollers of such Masters have thoroughly lerned and taken out the same lesson to comply with State and people to tell what they suppose will be acceptable to either and from Eclipses which they affirm to be of so direful a nature and dismal conseqence yet to extract matter of much felicity and succesful designation to such States Peoples and Persons as they please and whome their desire and ambition is to please and to work themselvs into grace and favor with But to give further assurance that the Effects of this Eclips shal be very benign and favorable to the present State with us howsoever he had told us before that the Effects of the Eclipses falling in the midheaven are more vehement as occupieng a great part of the Sphear and those most wonderful when they ar in a fiery and regal sign as this also is and therefore also the more vigorous because its greatest obscurity is very neer the heart and Center of the tenth house of all the Houses that these cunning Architects have erected in the Heavens the most valide from whence also he infers for a certainty that qestionles those people that are intended to be made most sensible of this Eclipses influence are Magistrates of the highest rank and qalitie in every Nation of Europe and the alterations therefore thence proceeding shall be so great so glorious so conspicuous and apparent that there is no Nation or people of Europe Asia or Africa but they shall stand amazed and wonder at the eminencie of them Yet to free us and our State from those fears that he would affright the whole world with save that America was forgotten and so scaped his Black Book as if England were no member of Europe or any part of the world formerly known as some anciently esteemed us he doth by certain Magical Pictures and Symbolical Images ascertain us of the truth of that which from the influence of this Eclips tho so hideous to all other yet to us very favorable he had formerly promised For in the next place he tels us the Ancients did represent the shape and form of the effect of an Eclips falling out as this did under such an ensuing Image and then further enforms us that this Image presents represents I suppose he ment the English Common-Wealth as it wil be for three yeers or thereabouts for so long and no longer as you heard from him before the Effects of the Eclips last in great Majestie and Glory But let us crave leav of him to parlie a litle with him about his Pictures He saith The Ancients but what Ancients he tels ut not and I mervail not a litle in what Antiquitie he stumbled upon that Long Robe that he presents us with in this his Magical Imagerie for it is observed by that lerned Noble man the Lord Howard who hath long since delt elaborately and accurately in this Argument that the pretended Antiqitie of such kind of Imagerie does oft bewray its Noveltie by those garments and garnishments wherewith it is set out Nor can I find such a Vest as we are here encountred with by Mr. L. in any of the Greek or Latine ancient Monuments or mention thereof in the writings of any of our Critiks or Antiqaries that have made diligent search into the wonted garb of either And I have as I conceiv very just cause to doubt whether such a Garment as his picture here gives us were in fashion among the old Britons in the time of his great grandfather Merlin whose name he so much affects and bears by himself assumed as one either of his natural or adopted sons which honor and title whither way of the two he lay claim to it none that I know need or wil envie him or in the daies before him of the Incubus of whome they say he was begotten and endued him it seems with such prophetical skill as from the Satyrist ye heard Tiresias of old had and M. L. succeeds him in as his rightful heir and a genuine bird of that kind But it may wel be as some other would have it that that Incubus of which his Ancester Merlin was bred was no other then such an one as our old Poet Chaucer in his Canterburie Tales saith in his days were so rise and ready at hand in most places that for loose creatures such as belike Merlins mother was no other Incubus then such then
Black Booke he makes his Brags that they have leav now nudis Verbis in naked words or plain terms to say that which before save in dark riddles they durst not and elsewhere that the Land doth now begin to abound with Astrologers as Judea did with Soothsayers Esay 2.6 which made God to forsake his people He tels us in his late Merlin that this is Vox populi all over the Nation hath he that also by the Stars if so why is it not rather Vox coeli if not so he is out of his element that no good can be expected while Preists meddle with State-affairs or any of the Preisthood ye see whom his gal is most against the Preisthood as he terms it that is the Ministerie in general are directing and counselling the Parliament or Councel of State But I suppose it may much more truly be said that it is rather the general sense of those that are truly religious throughout the whole land and that this their sense is Vox Dei being grounded upon his wil revealed in his Word that litle good successe can be expected in State-affairs if the Governers thereof shal patronize such as these are whose courses are so repugnant to the rules of Gods Word or shal advise with them as Saul did with the she-wizard at Endor making use of them as Pilots to direct them what course to take in the steering of State affairs in these stormie and turbulent times I never heard or found it before either in Holy or Prophane Story unles it were in some professed enemies of Christianity that any Prince or State were taxed for advising with Gods Ministers in the settling of affairs for the publik good but for refusing to hearken to them and consulting with Witches and Wizards and Stargazers and Fortune-tellers and Magitians and Prognosticaters I find divers both in Holy Writ and other Writings reproved and condemned and their giving heed to such noted both as an occasion of their misgovernment and a main cause of their overthrow Now I make no doubt if ever this Debate with him have the luck good or bad I say not to light into his hands whether he shal have the patience to read it or no he wil in some one of his next Rabblements tel his Reader that it is nothing but an other puddle of malice and non-sense as the former was or if his last breath be once breathed out that sits on his lips when ought of his is got abroad as he doth of Mr. Chambers that the old worm-eaten Canon of VVindsore was killed with very greif upon such a Lesson as was returned him in answer of his follie for that is his usual manner of Refutation in dealing with all that write ought against him as ye may see in the Entrie of his late and last Birth Wherein he saith indeed that the good hand of God so litle regard hath he to take that dreadful name up in vain hath vindicated him from all the calumnies and aspersions cast upon him which how or what way the Lord had done when he wrote this is such a mysterie as for my part I must acknowledge my self ignorant of as wel as many more beside my self But when he shal make it appeer unto us that God hath so vindicated him from the charge of such things as have ben objected against him and his cheating trade as he vindicated his sincere servant Job sometime from the wrongful censures of his mistaken frends and his renowmed Prophets Esay and Jeremie against their adversaries and opposites and wil one day vindicate all his Elect all his faithful folowers those his Ministers and Messengers among the rest whom this wicked wretch hath so unworthily traduced and so undeservedly calumniated when I say he shal be able to make it appeer unto us that God in some such or the like manner hath vindicated and cleered him from the charges commenced against him which I beleiv he wil then be able to do when he shal be able to prove that some good Angel from God taught him and his great-great-grand-father Merlin their pretended skil and professed trade we shal then freely profes our selvs guilty of impiety unlesse we justifie him whom God hath so acqited but unles he shal so do we shal justly take liberty to charge him with a further impiety in presuming to father such an act without ground upon God and therein abusing his dreadful name Mean while how he hath there vindicated himself is as soon there seen as by him roundly and readily but frivolously and ridiculously done to wit to give you a tast of it tho enough to turn a strong stomach by telling his Reader only that thirty thumping Presbyterian Preists did all in one day in so many several Sermons belike he hard or read them all belch out somewhat of Nonsense against him and his trade that the Ghoast of John Vicars the Vicar of Fools came tumbling out in print for Tom dunghil that in 104. Verses of a codled Elders who so shal find half a line of sense shal be to him great Apollo c. that one of his adversaries hath stoln almost all his book out of Agrippa de vanitate scientiarum almost we say saves many a lie but I much doubt it wil not this that another steals all he hath from one Melton a most notorious untruth onely because he hath adjoyned to his own work Mr. John Miltons Figure-caster as he hath done also M. Perkins his Prognosticater and he might have done wel to remember that that second felow hath sufficiently confuted the main pith both of Sr. Chr. Heydons large discours and Wil. Ramsies reply in defence of Dr. Holms both which forsooth begin with Mr. L. to draw down their black Art not from the good Angels alone but in a farther fetcht frivolous and groundlesse descent by Adam Seth Enosh from God himself that a third is a Homely Sermon Dr. Homes is the man whom he is pleased thus to play upon a worthlesse sheet or two of paper fit to be patronized by my Lord Mayors horse Perkins a peevish peice Chambers as you heard before an old worm-eaten Canon the Lord Howards a work not worth an answer And ar not these think we very sound Vindications and solide refutations enough to stop any mans mouth from gaping any more over an ovens mouth or over an open grave rather that contains nothing but filthy Carion and sends out nothing but vile stench But thus you see how like the vapouring Souldier in the Scene as a second Pyrgopolinices the man can with one blast of his noysome breath blow away a whole legion of Antagonists Howbeit t is a very sory and selie conceit for him to imagine that a litle such rifraf or a few such scurrilous sqibs wil serv to vindicate his credit or wipe off any the least speck or spot of those foul aspersions that have deservedly taken hold of him and stick still fast by
time of the yeer with us for distemper of heat and infirmities in mens bodies proceeding from the same whereas yet that affection ariseth not from any power of the Dog-star of which that great Mathematician M. H. Brigges sometime occasionally in conference averred unto me that in the ancientest times it had risen in the spring and if the world should continue for a certain number of yeers the Dog-days as we term them would be in the very heart of winter as they also in some part of the world are at this day but the excesse of heat in those dayes is from the continuance of the sun augmenting the heat of the ayer tho upon his recesse at that time of the yeer as in the same manner and by the like proportion enhancing the heat of the day for some time an hower or two after noon tho then entred upon and having made some progresse in his declination from the highest pitch of his exaltation with us And I encline therefore to the Judgment of that lerned Scholiast who thus expoundeth those words in Moses concerning the Sun Moon and Stars Let them be for signes to admonish men of the Seasons of of the yeer and to direct them in their affaires and employments concerning matter of voyage and tillage yea and use of physick also and for set times for so the word properly signifies Gen. 21.2 2 Sam. 24.15 Jer. 8.7 as are months and for dayes and yeers signifying or giving notice of those but producing these as the Moon by her proper motion doth the Months the Sun by his diurnal and common course the day by his annual and peculiar cours the yeer So that M. Swans argument from the word influence is of no force being not at all in the Text nor were it there would it be of any validity to infer such strange malignant influences as he and his Clients for whom he pleads would groundlesly fasten upon the Stars But if all this wil not serve which is all as light as a little thistle down or a feather to infer or enforce ought that Mr. S. should proov and would have you shall have a convincing place that wil hit the nail on the hed and strike all ded and that out of the same Book Job 9.7 where God is said to seal up the Stars And here indeed Mr. S. gives us the words of the Text aright but with such an exposition as neither he is able to prove nor would at all avail him albeit he could make it good The sense of the place is as plain and familiar so as ready at hand as is rain-water in a shower Let the simplest man almost of any the meanest understanding read but the whole verse To the Sun he saith to wit arise not or he speaketh and it ariseth not he also sealeth up the Stars and he wil easily and readily at the very first sight see that clouding and darkning withholding or withdrawing of light is intended as well concerning the Stars in the one branch as concerning the Sun in the other It is a plain parallel to those places Esay 13.10 The Stars of Heaven and its Cesilim the brightest of them shal not give their light the Sun shal be darkned in his seting out nor shal the Moon cause her light to shine forth Ezek. 37.7 8. I will cover the heavens and make the Stars thereof dark I wil cover the Sun with a cloud nor shall the Moon give her light all the lightsome lights of Heaven wil I darken over thee that I may set darknesse upon thy land and Joel 3.11 The Sun and the Moon shal be darkned and the Stars shal withdraw their shining It was to the very letter so in Pauls voyage from Jewrie to Italie wherein neither Sun nor Stars for so many dayes appeered Act. 27.20 To cite for this Interpretation a multitude of writers which otherwise were not difficult would be but a great deal of lost labor as much as to set up a torch or taper at cleer noon-day light and to cast some good store of water into the Sea But let us hear M. Swans exposition God saith he seals up the Stars when he keeps back the rain from the watering the earth I will not presse Mr. S. to produce some Autors of note that in this his exposition concur with him which yet if either the course of the context did back or other Parallel passages of Scripture did second I should not in that regard refuse to admit and embrace But I desire to be enformed from Mr. S. where the giving of rain is attributed to the Stars and the restraint thereof to the obsignation or cohibition of them We read in this very Book of Job in Elihues discourse Chap. 36.27 28. Drops of water the clouds do dril distil and pour down abundantly And Chap. 27.10 11. God in watering the earth wearies the thick cloud and scatters the lightsome or lightning cloud as also in Gods own words to Job Chap. 38.34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds that abundance of water may cover thee So Psal 77.17 The clouds poured down water and Psal 147.8 who covereth the heaven with clouds and prepareth rain for the earth and Eccles 11.3 When the clouds be full of water they empty themselvs upon the earth and Esay 5.6 I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it But I no where find it said that the Stars pour down rain or that the Stars are forbidden to give it or said to be restrained from yeelding of it This Interpretation therefore having no strength at all either from the tenor of the context or other passages of holy writ cannot in reason be urged for ground of an argument Nor again were it admitted would it help Mr. S. or those whose Advocate he is For what manner of argument wil this be God seals up the Stars by keeping back the rain from watering the earth Ergò the Stars have a power to work upon the sons of men to dispose them in their genitures some to one vice and some to another to expose them to casualties of divers kinds and to design them unto sundry sorts of ill ends Would it not be as they use to say to reason a baculo ad angulum from the cudgel to the corner What can from hence be averred of the Stars that may not as wel thence be concluded of the clouds And indeed this place of Job is just in the like manner abused wronged and wrested by them to confirm their Astromancie as is another in the same book to assert their Chiromancie or Palmestrie which Mr. L. so much magnifies and of which Goclein the prints of whose footsteps are in Mr. S. freqent tels us it hath great concent with Astrologie and the predictions of it are more firm then those of Astrologie are I rather beleiv both alike The place alledged in defence of it is Job 37.7 which Goclein reading according to the
in this latter age towards their perfection and what his judgment was of these fopperies and fooleries ye heard before That Noble Lord Henrie Howard after Earl of Northhampton was he also a meer Wiseaker as well as all our Preists are He treading in the same steps which that renowmed Italian Count before him had tho undertaking a larger subject in his Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies grounded either upon the Warrant and Autoritie of old painted Books one of Mr. Lilies engins or gins Expositions of Dreams Oracles Revelations Invocation of damned spirits Judicials of Astrologie or any pretended knowledge de futuris contingentibus that have ben the causes of great disorder and cheifly among the simple and unlerned people c. He I say in that worthy Work of his for elegancie of phrase and fluencie of speech mixt with great variety of lerning and reading very delightful to any lerned reader as he hath evidently manifested how wel seen and versed he was in the writings of the grand-Masters of that Mysterie and how wel acqainted with their abstrusest Doctrines as also Picus before him was so he hath with that eagernesse and vehemencie of spirit together with such sinewie strength and force of reason pursued this pretended Art of Judiciarie Astrologie that none of its Professors or Patrones that ever I could yet hear of have had the heart by any just Replie to turn face again upon him or to make hed against him And it is but a sory Exception for Mr. L. to tell us that the Gentleman was lerned but never made it lesse appeer then in that discourse intending to confute that subject of which he knew very litle and his book therefore was never thought worthy of answer a very handsome and easie put off but any impartial lerned that shal read the discourse wil I doubt not conclude that Mr. L. for this his censure deservs as one of his Antagonists faith of him to ride blind Bayard Hereby then it may appeer that it is not our dul English Preists or Presbyterians onely that out of meer ignorance and incapacity find fault with their Astrologie but that other then they such as for skil as wel as for their rank otherwise would have scorned to have M L. one that lives by such cheating and makes a trade of it sit on the same form with them have as vehementlie opposed it and as deeplie damned it as anie of those do For my self I profes not to have any great insight into these depths of darknesse nor do I desire to pry over far into them Kepler assures me if I wast much precious time that way I shall but bonas horas male collocare spend good howers to ill purpose and M. L. himself hath much discouraged me from attempting further in this kind and made me utterly despair of doing ought therein with successe when in the very first of his worthie Astrological Aphorisms he intimates that a man shall not easilie give anie certain Judgment in these matters unlesse he be naturallie wel affected to Astrologie which to this of theirs I confes I never was Howbeit I was sometime an unprofitable hearer of M. Henrie Brigges when he was Mathematical Lecturer in St. Johns Colledge Cambridge and continued acquaintance there begun afterward with him when I was Preacher at Lincolns Inn and he Reader at Gresham Colledge during which time repairing now and then occasionally to him among other discours that passed between us I desired him ingenuouslie to impart to me his judgment concerning this kind of judiciall Astrologie whereunto he returned a verie rounde and readie answer that he conceived it to be a meer System of groundlesse conceits and as M. L. saith of Ficinus that excellent learned Preist in M. Ls. esteem so shal I say of M. Brigges that excellent lerned Mathematician not in mine alone but in the unanimous repute and report of persons of Prime note for Skil in those Sciences both at home with us and abroad I esteeme the opinion of M. Brigges more then of a thousand Lilies and Naworths and Bookers and the rest of that rank and rabble I shal conclude with the Verdict of M. Henrie Bullinger the rather to shew that they ar not the Presbyterians onely that have an ill opinion of Astrologie or ar ill affected thereunto He was a Minister of no smal note in the Helvetiâ—â— Churches who had not in his times admitted the Presbyterian Government nor do for ought I can hear or learn to this day His verdict which you may find in his Commentarie on Jer. 10.2 concerning this Kind of creatures is as sharp as short this in plain down right tearmes Astrologos Impostorum omnium maximos that these Astrologers ar of all Imposters the greatest And we may indeed say wel of the trade they professe and practise as Tullie of that of the Sortiaries whom he yoaks together with the Chaldees Tota res est inventa fallaciis aut ad qaestum aut ad superstitionem aut ad errorem It consists all of fallacies invented either for gain or for superstition or for maintainance of some error Nor can it choose but much sad the Spirits of those that trulie love and Sincerelie fear God to see the professed Practisers of such Impostures who in former times had wont to lurk skulk in corners like Bats and owls night birds shunning the light for fear of being called in question and undergoing such publik civil censures as some of them sometime did should in these pretended and professed times of reformation take that boldnes to themselves not onelie as some of them to past up papers upon posts therein professing to help people to goods lost again to tel if a servant be run away from his Master which way he is gone those that intend mariage whether their matches wil be succesful such as are bound to Sea whether their Voyage wil be advantagious those that have frends at Sea or beyond Sea where they are and in what condicion and when they wil return c. and all this by the Stars that which I since find M. L also to professe publickelie in print but to dedicate to the State it self as this man presumes to do writings stuft with the like stuf for the nature of them but soaring aloaft in an higher strain Fortelling the fortunes of whole Countries and Kingdomes and endevouring thereby to enduce if he may those that have the rains of Government in their hands to Patronize these his impious impostures and taking upon him to direct them what courses to take in the managing of State affairs Whereunto he may be thought to have ben the rather encouraged because he saw his elder Brother M. Booker whome yet he hath now got the start of so far forth countenanced by the State as to be inserted into the list of the Licencers of somewhat the like books and in some Verses therefore prefixed to this his