he commanded that they should hoyse up sail and be gone about their intended expedition But this of Pericles was surely an overbold presumption as by the event appeared For the effects of this Eclipse brought not onely misery upon his own Country and dishonor upon himself but did put even all Greece under the sad calamities of a long lasting War Which story I have mentioned to shew that they are in as great an error who contemn the Signs of Heaven as they who are dismayed at them or as they who think it an unlawful and forbidden thing to search into the significations of them To whom I say especially to the last Purge away the dross and keep the Gold wash away the filth and keep the Cloth fan out the chaff and keep the Corn for it proceedeth either from ignorance or from an over-nice scrupulosity and no way sorteth with wise and learned men promiscuously and without difference and distinction to confound lawful and praise-worthy knowledge with that which is impious and Diabolical as * Sir Walter Ralegh one in his History of the World hath gallantly observed For though as I said before the Devil shuffels in many corruptions and superstitions into lawful Arts whereby wicked knaves have done abomination yet are not the Arts therefore to be condemned in the right use of them For as the said Author speaketh if we confound Arts with the abuse of them we shall not onely condemn all honest Trades and enterchange among men for there are that deceive in all professions but shall in a short time obscure and bury all kinde of good learning whatsoever and that 's just as the Devil would have it For if he could but drown the World in ignorance he might then work his will and lead about men which way he pleaseth Furthermore it is a thing well worth the noting that by understanding the uttermost activity of Natural agents we are assisted to know the Divinity of Christ and may thereupon the better confute those Heretiques that deny it for the terms or limits of natural power and vertue not understood we may stand in doubt whether those very works which Christ did may not be done by natural means But knowing how far nature can go and finding Christs miracles to be above that we conclude that what he wrought was by the Finger of God And as for Divination which the Scriptures cry against Is it that by which a wise man may with probability conjecture of some things to come before they are grounding his prediction upon the influences of the Stars and natural operation of the Heavens which work upon things below Surely no it is not that For what the Scripture forbiddeth is certainly of another kinde by which the Devil taught the Heathen vainly to put confidence in the flying feeding chattering and chirping of Birds as also in what they saw at their Sacrifices in the opening and viewing the bowels and livers of Beasts For it is without question that the Devil was never ignorant how that both the wise and simple observe when the Sea-birds forsake the Shores and fly unto the Land that then some great storm commonly followeth that the high flying of the Kite and Swallow betoken fair weather that the crying of Crowes and bathing of Ducks foreshew Rain for they feel the Aire moistned in their Quils Now hereupon the enemy of Mankind working upon these as upon the rest of Gods creatures long time abused the Heathen by teaching them to observe the flying of Fowls and thereby to judge of good or evil success in the Wars and withal to look into the entrails of Beasts for the same as if God had written the secrets of his Providence in the livers and bowels of those creatures The prohibition therefore in Scripture to mark the flying of Fowls as signs of good or evil success hath no reference at all to the crying of Crows against Rain or to any observation not superstitious and whereof a reason or cause may be given By which it may be concluded that there is a kinde of Divination to which a wise man may attain and seek after without any offence to God or harm to Piety and true Religion For though superstitious and Diabolical Divination be abominable and not to be tolerated among Christians yet that which is natural is granted lawful so long as it keeps within it's own bounds Divinum scilicet genus Divinationis non est impium nec prohibitum Diabolicum superstitiosum impium est vetium Naturale vero si suas metas servet concessum est as saith Goclenius in the end of the fifteenth Chapter of his Physical Disputations that whole Chapter treating of Divination and the kinds thereof The like may be said concerning the observing of times for which some men in the height of their zeal do also much blame Astrology but cannot truly do it as it is pure and unabused For pure Astrology and undefiled will observe no such times as may bring any dishonor unto God Eccles 3.1.2 and yet it may observe times too For as Solomon speaketh in Ecclesiastes there is a time for every thing and a season for every purpose under Heaven which prudentially observed and not superstitiously sought after and doted on may conduce much to the benefit of Mankinde This I grant But is it therefore probable that every day in the week hath a several Planet to govern it or is there any reason for it seeing the Stars were all made upon one and the same day no more I think then to assign a several Planet to every hour called by the name of Planetary hours which in my judgement is no better then folly and superstition and therefore in this respect to make choice of good or bad days or of lucky and unlucky hours deserves to be exploded and not to be harbored under the harmless shelter of Astrology There be times indeed when the Planets according to their aspects motions or places in the Heavens are either more or less powerful in their operations To observe therefore such times and apply them onely to such things as are agreeable to their natural working is no superstition but a well grounded observation grounded upon a natural cause to bottom and uphold it If the Heathen whose ways we are not to learn had observed times no otherwise I beleeve for that they never had been cast out nor the Jews forbidden to observe times as they did For even afterward the Children of Issachar are spoken of as men of eminency in regard that they had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do As it is in the first Book of the Chronicles the 12. Chapter at the 32. Verse If therefore the Hebrew word Menonen or Megnonen in Deut. 18.10 be to be rendred An observer of times it is to be understood of such an observer of times as makes his Elections by Witchcraft and Southsaying or by some such like Devillish
SIGNA COELI The Signs of Heaven OR A SERMON On a TEXT in the Tenth Chapter of the Prophecy of the Prophet JEREMIAH at the Second Verse Preached on the day before that great Eclipse of the Sun which was on the Nine and twentieth day of March in this Year of our LORD GOD 1652. And Year of the World 5656. By John Swan Minister of Gods Word Pauci intelligunt multi reprehendunt Non ait Jeremias Nihil esse Signa Coeli imò cum nominat Signa portendi aliquid adfirmat Melancth Praefat. in Joh. Schoneri Libros London Printed for John Williams dwelling at the Sign of the Crown in Paul's Church-yard 1652. JEREMIAH 10.2 Thus saith the Lord Learn not the way of the Heathen and be not dismayed at the Signs of Heaven for the Heathen are dismayed at them THat which hath caused me to make choice of this Text at this time is the great noise which I have heard among the common people concerning that Eclipse of the Sun which to morrow in the Forenoon will present it self unto us It is indeed an Eclipse that will be very great and may therefore have some sad effects which will in time shew themselves among us Yet should not this so trouble perplex or cast down the mindes of Christians as if they had no God to stay upon For what is it but the way of the Heathen to be afraid of the Signs of Heaven which way we must not learn For thus saith the Lord Learn not the way of the Heathen and be not dismayed at the Signs of Heaven for the Heathen are dismayed at them I have read the words according as I finde them rendred in our last Translation agreeing therein to the Original and to others who have repeated it in another Tongue Melancthon saith Nolite timere à signis Coeli quae timent Gentes Be not afraid of the Signs of Heaven which the Gentiles or the Heathen fear And Junius or Tremelius thus A Signis Coelorum ne consternemini quia consternantur Gentes ab illis That is Be not astonished or sore troubled in minde at the Signs of Heaven for the Heathen are amazed at them As if he should say The thought of what the Signs may signifie hath taken away their heart hath cast them down astonished them made them afraid amazed and sore troubled in minde But be not so You that have the Lord for your God For thus saith the Lord Learn not the way of the Heathen and be not dismayed at the Signs of Heaven for the Heathen are dismayed at them In which Text I finde a Prohibition wherein the people of God are prohibited from learning the way of the Heathen One particular whereof is this namely That they feared or were dismayed at the Signs of Heaven beside which they had other ways wherein they offended as I shall afterward shew you Some I know by the word fear in this place understand a Religious reverence or fear such as is pertinent to Divine Worship and thereupon they do not read the Text Be not afraid of the Signs of Heaven but Fear not the Signs of Heaven In which reading the sence or meaning is very different For by saying Fear not the Signs of Heaven they conclude that the Prohibition in the simple meaning thereof is no more then worship not it being here the intent of the Prophet to keep back the Jews from worshipping the Heavenly Bodies called in the Text by the name of the Signs of Heaven For that the word fear is often taken so in Scripture cannot be denied As for example in the Nine and twentieth Chapter of Isaiah at the thirteenth Verse we have these words And their fear toward me was taught by the precept of men Which words when our Saviour Christ expounded in Matth. 15.9 he took the word fear for worship saying In vain they worship me teaching for Doctrines mens Traditions So also in another place when the Children of Israel had sinned it is said They feared other gods as is written in the Second Book of the Kings the Seventeenth Chapter at the seventh Verse They feared other gods that is They worshipped other gods And in more particular that it must be taken so here in this place the words following at the Fifth Verse do make more evident for there the Prophet speaking of the Images of the Heathen which they made erected and worshipped saith thus Fear them not for they stand up as the Palm-tree but they speak not c. By all which a man would think that such indeed were the signification of the word fear in this very place and that it were needless to seek any other interpretation thereof But I shall shew the contrary and evidently declare that it is not so For first in justification of that reading which renders the Text Be not afraid of the Signs of Heaven or Be not dismayed at them It is a reading which is exactly suitable to the Hebrew word here used which doth certainly signifie a passive surprisal or possession with fear and not an active as doth that aforesaid in Isai 29.13 And can therefore in it self import nothing that is pertinent to such a fear as simply hath relation to Adoration For though both the Heathen and Jews also were guilty of worshipping the Host of Heaven for which they are elsewhere reproved as I shall shew you by and by yet the word here used imployes no such thing nor is ever so to be taken except as some think the object of fear when it is named be either put for the true God or for some Idol to be worshiped in the stead of God Then Secondly For that also at the Fifth Verse of this Chapter before mentioned where idolatrous fear of worship of Images is forbidden the phrase is not the same for the phrase is altered and is there no passive surprisal or possession with fear of astonishment as in the former word at the second Verse but is there an active fear such as is pertinent to adoration as the word there used hath declared The word therefore not being the same in both places causeth the sence and meaning not to be the same in one place that it is in the other but that the one differeth from the other even as far as doing is from suffering Howbeit I neither can nor will deny but that passive fear drives superstitious men many times to that active fear of adoration For though it be certainly true That God Almighty made the Sun Moon and other Stars yet such is the folly of some among men to make them gods which they do by their vain wicked practises of worshipping of them And so the greatest Lights are by them abused to the greatest darkness and by deifying of them they damnifie themselves by being as blinde and as superstitiously addicted as were the Heathen Gentiles This the Jews even in this Prophets time as also in some times before were guilty of which
the Elements but upon all things else that are made thereof For that they work upon the inferior World is an Axiome so firmly grounded upon experience that all the World will never be able to confute it Aristotle therefore in the opinion of Melancthon spoke the truth when he said That this inferior World is governed of the superior and that the superior Bodies are the cause of motion in the inferior These virtues or powers by which they work were at the first divinely stamped in them and are called in Job 38.31 by the name of influences the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Super fluo that is To flow into or upon Which derivation employes thus much namely That they must have some Object to flow into or work upon it would else be non-sence to use that name of influence Thus then they work And as they work so by their working they speak even to all those who will but lend an ear to hear them When therefore David in the Nineteenth Psalm had said The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work Then this he also added namely That there is neither Speech nor Language but their voice is heard among them Whose voice doth he mean there but the voice of the Heavens which at the first verse he had said declared the glory of God And indeed in a right consideration of all this there is a double speaking to be observed the one for God at the first verse the Heavens declaring his glory in such a glorious piece of work as they are the other to men at the third verse in regard there is neither Speech nor Language but their voice is heard among them All which is true For though both these voices strictly taken are spoken unto men as well the one as the other yet the last upon occasion may be said to be spoken to them in more particular And thereupon it is that Moses in the first of Genesis at the fourteenth Verse speaking of the Creation of the Heavenly Bodies saith God made the Stars for Signs as well as for Seasons Days and Years which could not be if they signified foreshewed or spake nothing by being Signs to us who are here below For to whom should they be Signs if not to us who inhabit here in this dull dark Globe of Mortality over whose Heads they hang that casting our eyes upon them we may not onely behold them but according to that wisdom which God hath given us look into their significations by considering their Motions Configurations Risings Settings Aspects Occultations Eclipses Conjunctions and the like This we may do nay rather should do according to those abilities that God hath given us Why else hath he hanged up those Signs in open view to those that dwell in the face of the Earth Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri jussit Man looks not downwards as do the Beasts that perish but God hath given to man a lofty countenance and by that doth as it were command though not to be afraid yet to look up to the Signs of Heaven Nor is this offensive unto Piety or prejudicial to true Religion more then those other parts of natural knowledge which Christians study as not repugnant to Divinity For as the other parts of natural knowledge bring no harm at all to Christian Religion so neither doth this Nam hanc quoque partem Physices esse sentimus as saith Melancthon For this we also take to be a part of the Physicks as he affirmeth not in one but many places I know indeed that the Devil hath been always busie to sow his Tares among the Wheat and into the * So Sir Walter Rawleigh calls it in his History of the World profitable knowledge of the Celestial Influences hath had an envious endeavor to shuffle in his damned superstitions poysoning some with his doctrine of Characterical devices making of Images under such or such a Constellation and to the knowledge of the secret Vertues of Nature hath fastned his doctrine of Numbers Charms Inchantments Incantations and the like Teaching men to believe in the strength of words and letters thereby either to equal his own with the All-powerful Word of God or to diminish the glory of Gods creating Word by whom are all things yet should not this scare or terrifie the discerning Christian from searching with sobriety into the works of God For as David saith in the 111 Psalm at the second Verse The works of the Lord are great sought out of all those who have pleasure therein And as this was Davids Doctrine so was it King Solomons practise For as the Scripture telleth us in the First Book of the Kings the Fourth Chapter at the 31. Verse and so on He was wiser then all men Then Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman and Chalcol and Darda the Sons of Mahol and his fame was in all Nations round about He spake of Trees from the Sedar Tree that is in Lebanon even to the Hyssop that springeth out of the Wall he spake also of Beasts and of Fowl and of creeping things and of Fishes And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all Kings of the Earth which had heard of his wisdom Thus there in that Scripture and in the Book of Wisdom whose title is The Wisdom of Solomon at the 17. Verse of the Seventh Chapter and so on I know saith he how the World was made and the operation of the Elements the beginning and the end and the midst of times The alterations of the turning of the Sun and the change of the Seasons The circuits of years and the possessions of Stars The natures of living things and the furiousness of Beasts The power of the Winds and the imaginations of men The diversities of Plants and the virtues of Roots And all such things as are either secret or manifest them I know for Wisdom the Worker of all things hath taught me All this Solomon knew God gave him this Wisdom which had it been Diabolical and vain he should never have had But because it was not he prayed for it and had it in a measure more then ordinary To which full measure though every own cannot attain yet so far as by all good means he can he may lawfully seek it for the making up of what was lost in Adams fall For before Adam fell he knew the nature of every thing insomuch that he gave names to all the living Creatures Gen. 2.19 7 8 and whatsoever Adam called every living Creature that was the name thereof But now what is Man or what depth of knowledge is it that he can have but by great pains and industry His natural knowledge is not great nor at any time so much but that it may be bettered by acquired skill Seeing then this breach came into the World through Adams fall we