travell toyl plow sow obey submit c 32. Whether the prediction or prenotion of things future makes not men more careless and slothfull both in publick affairs and in the works of private callings For if they be evill does not the fear of them make men saint and if they be good does not the presumption of them make men secure How many have let goe the present substance with looking after the future shadow 33. Whether Physick or Medicine the ordinary means of health being applyed according to art hath not been greatly dishonoured yea and infected by the charming cures of words syllables sounds numbers characters configurations ligatures suspensions c And whether these have not provoked God to suspend his blessing and the naturall vertues of vegetables and minerals And what Magicall practitioner in Physick but tempted God tyred nature deluded minds bewitched bodies and endangered souls 34. What Husbandmen that regarded the Astrologicall Ephemerides in his rurall occupation of plowing sowing c. ever reapt the inward satisfaction of his conscience or an outward harvest answerable to his expectation but in stead of filling either his hand or his bosome sat down empty of them both 35. Whether the Magicall Astrologicall Daemoniacall Atheisticall abuse of the stars against nature and providence be not the most fearfull sign and prognostication that divâ—ne providence is putting an end even to the naturall use of the stars And that he is near about to shake the powers of heaven to make the stars fall from heaven to cause the Sun to be darkned and the Moon no more to give her light and to shorten these dayes and to bring to appearance the sign of the Son of man that the elect may not be deceived as the world hath been with the lying signs of the Sons of men CHAP. XVII 17. From the propension to manners 1. IF this be the order of Astrologicall judgement to proceed from the Planets to the temper from the temper to manners from manners to actions from actions to events Now say that this calculatory chain be not only crackt in every linck but quite broken in the midst must not then the way of genethliacall conjectation needs be totally interrupted 2. Is not the Probleme in Physicks become a sophism in Astrologie sc Whether the manners of the mind doe follow the temper of the body Which way doe they determine it in the most moderate science Naturally necessarily principally immediatly directly particularly effectually or else accidentally occasionally mediatly indirectly generally instrumentally potentially dispositively or how else Though something might be admitted as concerning rude sensuall appetites meer animal affections and inconsult or passions in their prime motions relishing altogether of the inferiour part and not yet brought within the power of reason But as for manners properly and exactly which are the elections habits customs acts operations of the rationall soul may not the morose judiciaries be thus urged If manners proceed from or depend upon the elementary temper or constitution Then are they not naturall principles both good and bad In things innate have we not the faculty before the function but in manners is not the act before the habit Doe not manners by their severall actions oppose their severall kinds Who sees not that the good actions correct the bad manners and the bad actions corrupt the good manners Now things that are generated and corrupted by extrinsecall actions how can they be intrinsecall and naturall Should not nature thus work to confound it self Should not men have innate and inâ—ite causes of vertues and vices which Grace institution education assuefaction c. could not alter till the naturall temper be altered A mans manners may oft times be contrary in the very extreams is his temper so too His manners may change with his age condition private preferment publick state of times in a day in an hour is his temper changed withall or else must not his morall disposition be contrary to his naturall constitution Must not the body consisting of an influentiall and elementary mixtion be the principall subject of ethicks or morality and not the soul that consists of an Understanding and a will Must not a man now be made and said capable of and prone to manners one or other more or less from sensible constitution not reasonable institution What need or use of exhortation dehortation praise dispraise reward punishment If manners grow wild and out of the nature of the soyl and be of no good culture what hope or credit can there be of such What labour of vertuous manners what struggle against the vitious Are not manners then most laudable and illustrious when they are clean contrary to a mans naturall temper or humour Are not the worst of manners thus made necessary violent involuntary ignorantly acted and so excusable Nay is not the principall cause of nature and naturall disposition thus accused And hath not the soul of man been thus thought materiall corporeall drawn out of the power of the matter living in and dâ—ing together with the body yea have not the souls of beasts been thus concluded for iâ—dewed with manners as well as the souls of men In a word have not the Physiognomists hereupon been bold to make their morall judgement not only from tempers but of statures figures features colours c. 3. If the elementary temperature were admitted for one of the generall remote imperfect and infirm causes of manners yet are there not many much more potent to correct and prevent both it and them As God Grace Religion conscience natures Law reason will Parents nutrition education institution care exercise custome company example humane Laws ayr climate soyl Physick some adde Musick and make it prevalent for the exciting or remitting of affections and manners above the modulation or harmony of the sphears to their efficacy upon blood choler plague melancholy and the like 4. Although there might be some generall operation of the heavenly bodies upon elementary tempers and humours and so some hability to passions and affections and so some proclivity to manners and actions yet how know they particularly and wherefore so pronounce they that it is Saturne that makes men sullen c. Jupiter merry c. Mars angry c. Mercury subtle c. Venus wanton c. 5. If there be a temperamentall consecution of inordinate passions and affections and so a naturall disposition or proness to bad manners that flow mainly from the sensuall appetite yet how can that be said of good manners which proceed from a rectitude of reason Neither doe bad manners arise properly from the appetite of the animal but from the assent of the rationall part So that good or bad what ever they be from the body or sense manners they are not but from the will and mind 6. Whether the naturall semination or insition of a propensity or inclination to manners good or evill be with a subordination unto mans liberty or freewill either
to prosecute or a verse If not then is all morall operation necessitated if so then is all Astrogicall prediction evacuated 7. Whether a mans will may not give himself over to other and worie manners than the Stars and his naturall temperature incline him to And whether a mans corrupt will be not excuseable yea and the Devill himself idle in tempting to wicked manners when as a mans stars and his elementary constitution are sufficiently disposing him thereunto 8. Whether frequent and repeated acts may not beget an habit of manners and accordingly produce effects without besides against all potentiall influxes influentiall proclivities seminall dispositions elementary inclinations naturall faculties c. 9. Whether manners may not be both intrinsecally corrected and extrinsecally diverted ere they produce actions and actions likewise ere they incur the events especially the prognosticated events And whether the same manners alwaies produce the same actions and the same actions the same events in all places and at all times and to all persons and among all Nations And why are vitious manners oft times fortunate and prosperous and the vertuous for the most part unfortunate and afflicted To see a man well morate so seldome applauded promoted rewarded c. and a man wickedly morose so seldom reproved restrained punished yea to see a man well mannered so commonly caluminated disgraced persecuted and a man ill-mannered so usually justified preferred honoured Surely this cross custome of the world in all ages and among all nations is enough to make us believe that either the stars benefick in manners are malefick in events or the malefick in manners are benefick in events or else that there is no prognosticating by the stars from the manners to the events 10. Wherefore are the Philosophers even the Magicall and Astrologicall Philosophers so divided about the causes of manners good and bad As whether naturall or preternaturall intrinsecall or extrinsecall innate or adventitious infused or acquisite c If they cannot determine upon the cause why pronounce they upon the effect At the most of their agreement since the stars work but generally and indefinitely to tempers and so they to manners and they to actions and they to events what particular determination can here be made from the first to the last 11. Whether the starry influences and by them the corporall tempers incline to good manners as good and to the bad as bad If so then the formality of morall vertues or vices must be accepted from the matter not the form If not so but only under the suggestion of some sensible and seeming good then is such a propension or disposition not simple reall direct but only apparent accidentall indirect 12. Whether the stars acting upon the elementary temperature incline more strongly and powerfully to good or to bad manners If to bad how agrees that with their Philosophy if to good how agrees that with our divinity If to good why are most mens manners so bad if to bad how are the stars themselves to be excused 13. From the equality or inequality of the elementary mixtion or from the felicity or infelicity of naturall temperament may be hoped or feared either health or sickness longer or shorter life without the help of a prognosticating art But what physicall causes can they make hence of manners when as the experience of all places and ages tell us that the more valetudinary have commonly been the more vertuous and the more valid the more vitious 14. What 's the reason that children in manners doe for the most part assimulate their Nurses more than their mothers Is there a constellation more intimately tempering and forcibly inclining from the Nurses milk than from the mothers blood 15. What vertue have the ordinary influences of the Stars upon heroicall tempers and manners And whether heroicall manners or actions were never exercised by any but those of heroicall tempers 16. Whether all are born under the same stars and constellations and are of the same naturall tempers and constitutions that have the like propensity to manners or morall qualities and actions Etâ—e contra 17. If a man may judge of the manners by the Planets may he not likewise ghess at the Planets by the manners Now by their manners under what Planets would one judge the Planetarians themselves a many of them to be born but under a conjunction of all the Maleficks that are named in their Art 18. Whether for manners we may not universally measure Magicians Astrologers Diviners Sooth-sayers c. by such marks of Infidelity Idolatry superstition atheisin profaness hypocrisy wherewith they are sufficiently as well as deservedly branded by the Holy Ghost himself Deut. 18 14. 2 Kings 17. 17. Jer. 10. 2. 3. 14. 14. 29. 89. Ezek. 13. 7. 21. 21. Mich. 3. 11. Acts 8. 21 22 23. 13. 10. 19. Whether covetousness or desire of filthy lucre be not as it hath alwaies been the cause or end of setting up the divining or predicting trade Mich. 3. 11. Acts 8 19 20. 16. 16. 19. 13 14 24 25. 1 Pet. 2. 15. 20. If Gods counsels for his gubernation of the world be written in the heavens or to be read in the stars how chance then that he chose Pagans Infidels Idolaters Atheists Apostates Hereticks Impostors all his enemies to be his privy Counsellours and made them to be the chief masters and doctours of that kind of skill whereas he concealed such his secrets from his Servants the prophets neither once imployed them his Prophets Apostles faithfull Ministers about the revealing of his pleasure to his Church or children from thence or after that way 21. With what indelible characters of infamy have the Historians and even the profane Poets branded them of this way And whether they have not justly inured them and with what sponges will they wipe those blots away 22. How agree these two together the austere and rigid abstinence spoken of and the incestuous and filthy congression practised by some of the old Magicians And in which of the twayn have they been imitated by a many of the new 23. Why have the more sober of the antient Philosophers observed such a difference and made such distinction betwixt the morall and the magicall Philosophie Theologie Religion if there be the least of laudable morality suitable with such an art 24. Whether a maker of predictions or prognostications makes any conscience of speaking more than truth For how easily doe men then prophecy or presage and that with peremptoriness and confidence after they are once past the fear or shame of lying or have taken to themselves a liberty of ghessing suspecting promising threatning warning encouraging c. And whether such an arrogated liberty or licentiousnes hath not alwaies proceeded from certain corrupt affections passions properties manners customs habits As pride and vain glory to be thought discovering and foreseeing ambition to be consulted by States and Potentates since they can consult with Stars and
likewise of observation imagination affectation investigation invocation adjuration temptation Signs empty and delusory Feats jugling and prestigious wonders wrought without the command and approof of God creatures abused contrary to their nature and institution art pretended without any true principles words invented and muttered and they barbarous insignificant false absurd apocryphall yea though Canonicall and sacred yet applyed to such acts ends for which they were never ordained admirable efficacy attributed to syllables sounds numbers rites solemnities ceremonies circumstances of time place and person Fabrications of images statues figures characters circles rings seals c. Confections of herbs minerals waters oyls juyces spirits c. acting and effecting at an improportionate distance and without convenient means spectrous Phantasmes or apparitions to affright men into a credulity ludibrious pranks only to make sport and so feed mans curiosity and divining predictions of things lost absent future without either calling or cause 6. Whether Magicall feats be wrought by things corporeall or spiritual Not by things corporeal because of improportionate matter form cause effect means instruments distance c. How can a body work upon a body to make it sign and signify things hidden lost absent future to make a dead body walk speak c. To make a living body walk invisible transform its proper shape c. And if by things spirituall then whether by spirits good or bad Not by the good neither of Angels nor men for where 's the true and good cause Minister means object and end of Magicall operation Nay which of all these is not evill 7. Is it not the known property of God to know things future absolutely and exactly Wherefore then did the Devill arrogate to himself divination but in an emulation of Divinity Now whether of these two doe the Diviners imitate God or the Devill It cannot be God because they have no command to imitate him in these his powerfull properties no promise upon the imitation It must be the Devill then and to imitate him must needs be maleficall And they may imitate him many ways for he hath used himself to divination by spirits by men by living men by dead men by the celestiall bodies by the elements by things naturall by things artificiall yea and by things sacred and religious and may not they then be like him in all these 8. How easy is it for the Devill to predict those things which he intends to act himself As suppose he intendeth by Gods permission to practise the sickness death destruction of man or Beast is it not easy for him to suggest such his intention to his instruments and Ministers and so make them to predict the same Yea though it be done from him is it not easy for him and them to pretend it from some other cause albeit abused besides the naturall end thereof Is it a matter of much artifice for veâ—eficks or witches to forespeak their own purposed and laboured malefice How readily may he presage anothers death or ruin that hath him in his own power and so hath already determined that such a day it shall be done In like manner how many have perished according to wizzardly predictions and that only because of wizzardly purposes and perpetrations And therefore it may not unjustly be doubted whether many of those prognosticated evill fates and fortunes against Princes Magistrates Ministers and other Christians especialy such as opposed them in their fatidicall way were not besides the Astrologicall speculation practised by goeticall Magick as by charms curses poysons treachery violence or by making maleficall images pictures figures constellated under the ascension of that man whom they would maliciously destroy or prejudice And why may not this be justly suspected of them since it is a thing not only of their own practising but of their teaching And it being so how can they themselves deny and what understanding man would not pronounce upon them for the most arrant inchanters sorcerers veneficks maleficks wizzards and witches in the world 9. Whether there may not be an effascination or bewitching by inspecting the stars as by imagination by breathing on by looking on by touching by fabricating of images c. We know none of these acts are malevolent or maleficall in their own nature but that any one of these as well as another may be abused to sorcery and witchcraft through a Satanicall stipulation or suffrage who can deny 10. What practice of sorcery or malefice more superstitious than the fabricating of Astrologicall and of magicall images pictures statues figures c. For as a tacite compact hath been suspected as touching the Astrologicall so hath an express one been concluded and confessed as concerning the magicall configurations And what is the one or the other of these but the making of an image or figure either of man or beast in gold silver brass copper wax wood stone clay under such a conjunction or constellation For the inviting and alluring of Angels for the expelling and ejecting of Devils for the procuring of love for the provoking of hatred for the atchieving of victory for the effecting of death for the raising or allaying of storms or tempests for the causing or preventing of pestilencies for the driving away of Serpents and vermine c. Now in such a compact what vertue or efficacy besides that of a compact only what similitude or resemblance betwixt the figure of a round star or Planet and a monstruous many-shap't magicall configuration The vertue of the celestials are but universall and indeterminate as to the producing of this or that effect neither but by naturall and particular causes And who will say that any such particular figures are either causes or naturall what preparation can there be of such a matter for the receiving and retaining such constellatory influences And what such kind of efficacies can it have thereby for the admitting of such effects The heavenly bodies operate no way but naturally these figures or fabrications operate no way but artificially being the artifices of humane invention and used arbitrarily how then should these modify and determine those How come their vast influences to be restrained only to such a figure and that only for such operations How come the stars and Planets so to neglect the matter and its disposition and so to respect the figure and its composition as accordingly to dart in their influences for the figures sake let the matter be what it will what vertue can there be for all the celestiall influences more than the matter is disposed unto what efficacy or aptitude of an artificiall form more than accidentall and instrumentall what principles of life and action from artificiall forms Is not the vertue of the matter still the same although of divers forms or figures why should artificiall figures be more apt to receive the starry influences than are naturall figures In all such configurations must not the efficacy of the Stars rather attend or depend upon
nay more not so much as admit to know and not only so but forbid it But by their leaves there may be a sufficient knowledge of the truth and integrity of an art or a thing although a man be not so precisely and pedantically versed in the obliquity and vanity thereof Learned and Godly men though they be not altogether acquainted with the maleficall formalities and ceremonies of witch-crafts yet can they discern of such better than the most expert can doe of themselves A prudent Magistrate knows well enough how to judge of a jugling gypsie or prestigious impostors albeit he cannot tell how to cant with him exactly in his own foysting gibborish But I return to you Judicious Readers and what I present you I submit unto you judge both of me and of the Judiciary Astrologers And fear not the signs of heaven as heathens but as Christians fear God believe in his Son and apply to his Spirit and so magre all their fatall or fortuitous previsions or predictions Fare ye well Yours JOHN GAULE To the sober and skilfull Astronomers Learned Gentlemen YOu may be pleased to take notice all along this Disquisition how that I had alwaies an eye to some wary moderation in distinguishing betwixt you and Astrologers who are no more able to distinguish themselves really from Magicians than Magicians can from Sorcerors I doe verily believe this name of Mag-astro-mancer cannot disgust you because it hath no intent to inure upon you whose Astrall consideration is so pure and moderate as that it abhors to enter upon any thing that is Magicall or to end with any thing that is Manticall As for those other you are not ignorant what Authors antient and modern ours and their own have recorded and confessed that Magick and Astrologie are so mingled or confounded together as that they cannot be consisting no nor operating one without another It is not undiscerned by you how frivolously and fruitlesly some of them have gone about to discern Astrologie from Magick and both from Sorcery nay how impiously and blasphemously some have sought to reconcile the Divinations of them all to Divinity But let the Divines alone to commonstrate the impossibility of communion with their old enemies the Diviners As for your part in the name of truth doe both your selves and your science that right as to pluck off your feathers from those ominating Night-birds Why should they borrow or rather purloign your principles Hypotheses notions terms that altogether neglect or exceed your ends When the Apostle gives the caveat against the spoyling Philosophie what other means he but the Mercenary the sacrilegious the curious the fallacious the prestigious the superstitious the contentious the oraculous I am perswaded better things of your Philosophie That it praetends not to Divination but contents it self to attend on Divinity And then let the Hand-maid on Gods name be still entertained yea and respected in her place since she so wel knows her distance and so modestly keeps her bounds as she is bound to doe Believe me I love and honour Nature that is not adverse to Grace and Reason that is not opposite to Faith and Art that is not contrary to the gift and the studious speculation of all these so farr forth as it may be conducing to devout contemplation Wherefore as I measure you by your Science I pray you measure me by my Conscience and accordingly for I must not pass much upon the others account conceive me to be Yours John Gaule Πῦς-μαντία THE MAG-ASTRO-MANCER OR THE Magicall-Astrologicall-Diviner Posed and Puzzled Chap. 1. FRom the spirit of the Scriptures 2. From the truth of Faith 3. From the temptings of curiosity 4. From the testimony of Authority 5. From the vanity of Science 6. From the obscurity of Originall 7. From the Law of Nature 8. From the order of causes 9. From the strength of Reason 10. From the prestigiousness of experiment 11. From the pooreness of Supposition 12. From the consciousness of Caveats 13. From the contrariety of Opinions 14. From the absurdity of Errours 15. From the abhomination of Heresies 16. From the cursedness of Consequents 17. From the propension to manners 18. From the Fatuity of Fate 19. From the affinity to Witchoraft 20. From the ominating of vain observation 21. From the singularity of Prophecy 22. From the variety of Miracles 23. From the fables of Mirables 24. From the ceremonies of Preparation 25. From the folly of Interrogations and Elections 26. From the conviction of Confession 27. From observation upon Story Πῦς-μαντία THE MAG-ASTRO-MANCER OR THE Magicall-Astrologicall-Diviner posed and puzzled CHAP. I. 1. From the Spirit of the Scriptures SECT I. 1. Whether those places of Scripture which the Astrologers pretend to make for them make not according to the mind of the Holy Ghost altogether against them As Gen. 1. 14 15. And God sayd Let there be Lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signes and for seasons and for dayes and years And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth WHat Signes Prodigious and ominous signes How can that be believed seeing now in the Creation it was not the terrour and astonishment but the perfection integrity beauty and felicity of the pure and spotlesse Universe which God intended What signes Artificiall and fantasticall signes Shall wee dare to obtrude mens chimericall fancies upon Gods incomprehensible Idaea Were his thoughts now like to our thoughts that the starres must be purposely set up for signes and Significators of whatsoever prophane men in a vain art should afterwards imagin Doubtless it was not mans imaginary art which he now intended but his own reall artifice for Natures wholsome and harmless use What Signes Magisteriall fatall necessitating Signes Ah! then wete they not signes only but Causes And yet not sole causes because necessited to necessitate Indeed we read of their rule or dominion vers 16. Psal 136. 8 9. Jer. 31. 35. if we may call it theirs because they were made for it and it given to them and that by a superior Ordinance And therefore all their prefecture and power but derivative subordinate ministeriall And not only derived but limited and determined expresly to be of by and over Time and the distinctions and vicissitude of time but not therefore over every thing and act in time with their distinctions and vicissitudes What Signes Indefinite indeterminate signes That is because signes of some things therefore signes of every thing Because signes of some things naturall as in Physick Navigation Husbandry therefore signes of all things rationall arbitrary morall politicall and religious Is it not sufficiently here expressed to what ends and uses they are said to be Signes To divide between the day and between the night That by such a signall distinction men might discern what part or division of time is fittest for labour and what for rest And to be
experimenting Augur And is not that such a Prognosticating Sooth-sayer or Sooth-saying Prognosticator as doth it only from his own conjecture and hath nothing to proove it but meerly the experiment 4. Who is a Witch Not only he that acts by a diabolicall compact and power but he that acts praestigiously and delusively upon any part of nature whatsoever Such were the Magicians of Egypt Exod 7. 11. And if they will rest with the Rabbinicall description of the word and the man that is meant by it it signifies such an one as professeth the art of the Stars to deduce a Genius down from heaven and inâ—ice it by certain characters and figures fabricated at certain hours and under certain courses of the Stars and so using or imploying it to any mans commodity or discommodity as he listeth yea and for the presagition and praediction of things hidden absent and future 5. Who is a Charmer He that useth spels figures characters ligatures suspensions conjurations or as the word it self speaketh conjoyneth conjunctions Now if you aske what kind of conjunctions I answer besides that with the Devill in a compacted confederacy and that with those of their own society why not those also amongâ—t the Starrs and Planets Seeing those also are conjunctions of mens own conjoyning that is made to conspire to those significations and events to which themselves were never yet agreed 6. Who is a consulter with familiar spirits What he that hath consociation with a wretched Imp or confariation with a petty Maisterell or that mutters and mumbles from a Spirit in a bottle in a bag or in his own belly or he that interrogates such a Familiar either mediately by consulting and assenting or immediatly by tempting and provoking Yea and he too that can whisper if not with the Spirits that rule in the ayr yet with those spirits which he sayes not only move but animate the celestiall bodyes And then proclame you a pleasing presage if you will but fill either his bottle or his belly or his bag For he tells you the Spirit will not speak to your advantage if these be empty 7. Who is a Wizzard A cunning man a wise-man a Magician an Artist or in truth a Sciolist That is one whose idle speculation of vain curiosities makes him arrogantly to presume or superstitiously to be presumed to know and foreknow that which in good earnest he knows not neither is well and throughly able to judge of it after it is now not unknown to all For saving the sagacâ—ty of Satans suggestions he knows as much by the understanding of a reasonable man as he doth by the corner of a Chimera-beast Ask the Rabbinicall Magician and he has so much understanding as to tell you what is meant by that I count the Jewish wizzardly fable not here worth the relating no though the wizzard himself be translated from it 8. who is a Necromancer He that takes upon him to Presage or Divine to the living from the dead idest Dead corps dead sacrifices dead idols dead pictures dead figures yea and dead or liveless Signes and Planets too The Holy Ghost uses other words plain enough expressing both their votes and feats or arts and acts Exod. 7. 11. Isay 47. 13. Ezek. 21. 21 22. Hos 4. 12. Dan. 5 11. to let them understand it is not in all their evasion to escape his comprehension yea and that in some such words as were otherwise of honest signification and laudable use To let them know again that it is not the arrogation or attribution of a good name or tearm that can make it a good art or lawfull profession And therefore they have small cause to glory in usurping to themselves such an appellation as the Scripture sometimes retains in a middle acception But have I not said enough both to include them according to the scope of the place as also to exclude them according to the tenour of the case I have here handled Isa 41. 21 22 23 24. Produce your cause saith the Lord bring forth your strong reasons saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth and shew us what shall happen Let them shew the former things what they be that we may consider them and know the latter end of them or declare us things for to come Shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that ye are Gods yea doe good or doe evill that we may be dismayed and behold it together Behold ye are of nothing and you work of nought an abomination is he that chooseth you Whether the Devill and his prognosticating Divines be able to indure the disquisition and examination of God and of his divine Prophets Produce your cause make manifest if you can your whole art and profession Wherefore doe ye adjure one another to Sorcerie in your half-hinted mysteries are neither God nor good men capable of them nor worthy to receive them Come produce your causes let us hear what naturall causes there can be for your so peremptory predictions upon arbitrary notions and fortuitous events Bring forth your strong men your Artists and your strong reasons the true Demonstrations of your Art Let them the Idols their Oracles Augurs and all the aruspicate Presagers bring forth into reall art or effect and shew us by true propositions what shall happen by way of contingent or meer accident Let them shew the former things what they be For if they be ignorant of things past heretofore how can they be intelligent of things future or that shall be hereafter And if things past be not yet present to them doubtless things to come are farre absent from them But let them shew the former things that we may consider them How recollect them as if out of our mind and memory Nay that we may see whether their recollection of them be worth our consideration Or set our heart upon them to give credit or assent unto them And know the latter end of them For if they can recall things from the first they are the better able to inform us what shall become of them to the very last And if things be present to them from the beginning we may the rather believe them that things are not absent or hidden from them as touching their latter end Or declare us things for to come If they be blind behind so that they cannot look back but have only their eyes in their foreheads to see before them then let them even as concerning those things make us to hear sc both infuse a faith and bind a conscience to believe them as touching the futures which they take upon them to foretell What talk ye of some immediate and imminent probables such as even sense may ghesse at or present hopes or fears easily suggest Shew the things that are to come hereafter Manifest your prescience of things aâ—ar off as well as your present sense of things neer at hand But alas ye are not able certainly to
foresee what may come to passe within an hour how much lesse are ye able to foretell what shall come to passe after an age Doe either this or that infallibly That we may know that yee are Gods Not Devills not Idols not Diviners not Sooth-sayers not Prognosticators Nâ—y not Angels not Prophets nor Apostles no but very Gods For to foreknow and foretell things to come this is the sole property of a true God and of none else but one worthy to be so known confessed honoured and adored Yea doe good or doe evill Not Morally for so evill indeed ye may do so farre as ye are permitted yet good ye cannot doe because not thereunto endowed But Remuneratively let your Starres and Planets not onely signe but cause good fortune or reward to good men and bad fortune or punishment to evill men That we may be dismayed This benignity and severity of theirs would indeed strike us with some astonishment either of terrours or admiration But tell 's not of their indiscriminate and confused benefices or malefices to our vain hopes or fears unless you can order them so as that we may behold them together sc God as well as man to approve them and we as well as you to prove and experiment them Otherwise why should wee believe you can foresee see such things as none can see but your selves But since you are not able to let us behold your Art together with you this we can behold without you and so can all that are wise beside you Behold ye are of nothing Is not there the vanity of your persons And your works of nought is not there the invalidity of your Art An abomination is he that chooseth you Is not there the guilt and plague of every proselyte and client of yours And now think not easily to evade it is God that thus discepts with you sayth the Lord. Yea sayth the King of Jacob It is God that not only disputes against your cause but pleads the cause of his Church against you Isa 44. 25. That frustrateth the tokens of the lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish How God dealeth not only with Astrologers but with their Art He frustrateth depriving that of a due end to which he never vouchsafed a true cause the tokens fancied and feigned signes from calculated and prognosticating Aspects and Conjunctions of the lyars commonly expounded of feigning and falsifying Astrologers that Predict and presage neither from the truth of nature reason nor saith And maketh Diviners mad Mad in giving them over to break their own brains about needless curiosities and abstruse vanities Mad in a proud and insolent conceit and boasting of their own art and learning above all other mad in their phrenetick suggestions sublime investigations confused apprehensions obscure expressions ambiguous presagitions superstitious Ceremonies and prestigious practices Mad at the frustration of their own bold Predictions Mad at wise mens discovery of them and consequently at the worlds derision and contempt Mad with envy at the truth of God Church and Ministry And mad in the horrour and distractions of their own hellish hearts and consciences And turneth wise men backward Such as account themselves the onely wisemen and yet while they pretend to make progresse in knowledge and vertue are themselves become retrograde and turned backward into Idolatry Superstition Atheism Prophanesse Sorcery c. Turned backward while they read the Stars now backward now forward now for a fortune now for an infortune now for this side now for that Turned backward when they find rebuke and reprehension where they lookt for praise and promotion And maketh their knowledge foolish From their own conviction confession retractation by the infallible judgement of Gods word and truth in the clear discerning of all wise-hearted Christians and to the palpable experiment of all rationall men What not only the Artists fools but the Art it self folly Away then with that excuse from the folly errour and ungroundedness of the Artsmen since there is so little ground besides errour and folly for the Art it self Isa 57 12 13 14. Stand now with thine inchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth if so be thou shalt be able to profit if so be thou mayst prevail Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsells Let now the Astrologers the Starre-gazers the monethly Prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee Behold they shall be as stubble the fire shall burn them they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame there shall not be a coal to warm at nor fire to sit before What use and end of Astrologers in times of extreme and imminent dangers Can there be any help or hope in that Art or power which the Holy Ghost thus rebukingly derides Stand now he speaks to Babylon the mother of Magick Astrologie and Witchcraft and that in an admonition to all Nations Now that divine vengeance and common calamity is at hand Now indeed is the usuall time for these Arts and Artists to be boldly and busily standing up or starting out but can they upon such exigents stand up with Faith and Fortitude and Patience Alas the wretched Magicians were not able to stand before the plague of a boyle how then can they stand up in a greater judgement And if not stand up themselves how should they now stand others in stead why then should others stand with them Oh! let all take heed how they stand with such by crediting confiding countenancing or conniving lest God give them all over to fall together What more dreadfull token of judgement inevitable and ineluctable than whan God desists from his gracious and serious dehorting and ironically invites to persist one with another in evill and unlawfull wayes Stand now with thine inchantments or conjunctions Lo there may be Inchantments in Conjunctions And lo maleficall and sorcerous sinnes are not only appopriated to the actors only but to them also that consult assent credit confide countenance connive excuse justifie or in any way stand with them And with the multitude of thy sorceries Lo again how one kind of malefice induces to another and how they all agree to multiply through countenance or connivance Wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth O tedious labour in an abstruse art O vile labour in a vitious art O impious labour in a prophane art O fruitless labour in an unprofitable art O horrid labour in execrable immolation O sordid labour in loathsome inspection O ridiculous labour in vain observation O servile labour in superstitious attendance O toylsome labour in prestigious fabrefaction O lost labour and time to be instituted and educated to such a practice or profession O endless labour to begin it in youth and not to desist from it in old age But were all they of Babylon solely and wholly trained up to this sortilegious trade
besides the Scriptures but besides all that God hath been pleased to reveal 5 In deserting of Gods known way to invent or prescribe their own way for the cognition acquisition or effection of any thing 6. In tempting the Devill to tempt God 7. In consulting diabolically yea and compacting with the Devill either explicitly or implicitly 8. Interrogating Angels Devils Daemons Spirits Geniuses Souls Dead men Planets Prodigies Sacrifices Carcasses Entrayls Beasts Birds Fishes Serpents Idols Images Figures Characters c. and so making them their tutours and instructers as concerning these things to which they themselves were never instituted by God 9. In assimilating and comparing men to God so mainly for such things as belong to no part of the image and similitude of God in man or else have but the least and most imperfect foot-steps thereof 10. In pretending those arts and acts to manifest and make known God yea and in peculiar manner to conduce and direct to him which in truth serve but to obscure him alien him and utterly seduce from him 11. In pretending to religion devotion conscience even in matters of more impiety and profanesse 12. In being irreverent in the exercise of a true and superstitious in that of a false religion 13. In asserting a true and due religion or adoration as well among Jews and Pagans as among Christian professors 14. In acting without faith or out of a presumption by placing faith upon a wrong object or to a wrong end 15. In having a faith in such things as God hath neither proposed nor revealed 16. In trusting to and being more affected with humane predictions and presages than divine promises and providence 17. In wavering in a truth and doubting of a thing most certain and yet being peremptory in a falsehood and making themselves most certain in things very doubtfull 18. In presuming to have such a knowledge extraordinarily infused which is ordinarily acquisite 19. In placing the deepest knowledge and boasting the highest learning to be in the lowest and meanest matters 20. In neglecting the acquisition of the greater truth and gift through a studious inquisition after a lesse 21. In prying or diving into profound sublime abstruse occult speculations without due application or true relation unto life practice state calling manners vertue conscience religion the Gospell or God himself 22. In seeking only that they may know to know or else for pride ambition vain glory faction contention policy covetousnesse or other sinister ends 23. In not referring the knowledge of the Creatures to their due and necessary ends 24. In referring the information of the intellect chiefly to the indulging and promoting of the sense 25. In being busily inquisitive after thing improper and impertinent and such as directly concern not Gods glory their own sanctification and the edification of others 26. In making professions of such arts and artifices as are neither necessary nor usefull either to Church or Common-wealth 27. In making it their main studies to know those things whereof a man may be innocently ignorant and can hardly be profitably instructed 28. In attributing much or all to those kind of sciences disciplines arts occupations which good men are little acquainted with and in which they that are most versed and occupyed are not good 29. In arrogating to themselves a knowledge above their proper ingenie capacitie facultie education office and so easily putting truth for error and error for truth Insetting up and admiring their own inventions and fancies for the secret gifts and peculiar inspirations of Gods spirit 31. In proclaming themselves for admitted unto Gods counsels ere they can endeavour themselves to be entred into his Court 32. In setting after the book of the Scriptures to the book of nature and of the Heavens 32. In thinking to imitate God and nature in those things for which they have neither precept nor liberty 34. In pretending a search and examination of nature where nature hath really neither being cause effect signes means nor end 35. In elevating and extolling nature as a soveraign deity or else in pressing and torturing her as a servile slave 36. In abusing the creatures to such end and uses as God never ordained them their own nature never inclined them neither is a power extraordinary working or consenting to apply them 37. In asking or requiring a singular sign without any singular inspiration or instinct or any just cause reason or necessity 38. In setting up their own signes and making them to signifie according to their own imaginations 39 In attempting to proove approove purge clear ratify conform find and find out by inordinate and undue explorations and tryals 40. In labouring long and much to make an experiment of those things whose utmost use and profit ends in the experiment 41. In still nothing but making experiment of what they have had already vain experiment enough 42. In making experiment a proof where experiment serves for no use In wasting or hazzarding the losse of time health substance credit conscience for the gaining an experiment of that which is no way reparable or proportionable 44. In expecting answerable effects from unapt and unlikely causes 45. In being sloathfull and impatient of Gods time and means 46. In presuming to attain to the end without the use of ordinary and lawfull means 47. In using inordinate and undue means 48. In looking for extraordinary and miraculous satisfaction where the ordinary means are sufficiently afforded 49. In applying grave and serious means to light trifling intents and purposes 50. In admitting and approving of such means and wayes as they cannot but be convinced must needs be of a diabolicall introduction 51. In acting out of their proper and laudable callings 52 In exposing themselves to Satans temptations 53. In not avoyding the occasion nay urging and exposing to it and neverthelesse presuming to escape the danger temptation infection participation 54. In being superstitiously affected with vulgar and vain observations 55. In attributing vertue and efficacy corporeall or spirituall to bare ceremonies circumstances forms figures words characters ligations suspensions circumgestations c. 56. In imagining discoursing practising against the light of nature sense reason conscience and the Scriptures 57. In an impiety or at least temerity of invoking provoking voting devoting imprecating deprecating execrating consecrating adjuring conjuring perjuring c. 58. In prying into what peradventure may befall others and never looking into what may worthily happen unto themselves 59. In making long discursations to learn strange tongues strange characters strange doctrines strange manners strange habits and then returning home to make long and strange discourses of them 60. In publishing studies and works of a light subject unprofitable use and dangerous consequence and that especially in times of publike calamity and judgments to take up mens minds with vanities when they ought every day to meditate upon and expect their deaths Now let them or any one else that can but read what hath lately been compiled
is the proximate cause in all arbitrary actions how can they prejudge of that Unless they take upon them to know the heart with its intentions and affections And if they could know it for the present yet how can they doe so for the future And indeed how is it possible for them to determine upon that which is indifferent and indeterminate in it self 9. Whether the causes of meer accidents and contingents be internall or externall If internall then either in a mans rationall will or in his naturall temper If in his will how come the Stars to necessitate that free faculty If in his temper such a disposition is easie to be foreseen without a Planetary Prognostication If externall it is either God or the Creature If God he is free to work both without the starres and against them If the creature how comes it to be comprehended in a particular constellation and so as prognostication may be made thereby 10. Whether the Stars work upon mans body mediatly or immediatly If immediatly how doe they that without a divine and infinite power If mediatly or by means sc of the ayr c. then whether the affections of the Stars be not varyed through the various affection of the ayr or means and whether the dis-affection or indisposition of the ayr or means may not hinder and prevent both the operation of the Stars and the discerning thereof 11. Whether the Planets be imperiall or ministeriall operators and effectors If they command necessitate enforce us absolutely universally what is become of our naturall liberty and free-will in all humane actions what praise have we for our well-doing and deserving among men what excuses have we not for our errors and offences both against God and men If they serve us why go they about to proclame us destinated to their fatall slavery 12. Whether there be any kind of necessity as touching the astrologicall predictions of sydereall effects If an absolute necessity how can a divine power prevent them If a Physicall necessity how are they so the naturall and ordinate causes of voluntary and free actions If a necessity of consequence By what certain causes and reasons doe they argue demonstrate and conclude it to follow 13. Whether the Planetary influences doe cause and rule nature and temper or else doe they only work upon it as they find it and so follow it If the first how can they be exempted or excused from being the Authors of their spoken-of Malefices and malignities Or how can they put off these to the disposition of the matter they work upon 14. Whether any thing can be determinatly prognosticated or predicted from the Stars being but universall causes at most the particular causes not considered Nay may not a truer and safer prediction be made from the particular causes the universall not considered Doe not severall creatures and severall seeds bring forth severall things for all the same conjunction or constellation 15. Whether the remote causes the most that the celestiall bodies can be may not in naturall generation constitutions complexions tempers humours both be directed and succoured and also corrected and prevented by the proximate causes yea and in other matters by externall and adventitiall causes by rationall and voluntary causes how much more by the prime cause of all 16. Whether the Planets have either actually and formally in themselves or virtually and effectively upon others those prime elementary qualities of hot cold dry moyst especially in such different measures and unequall degrees as to make some of them benign others of them malign in their influences and operations For all the Planets are but of one kind of substance and one kind of light all of them as they say themselves borrowing their light from the Sun why therefore should they not all be of one kind of influence and one kind of operation Since they have the same light in which is their main efficacy albeit in severall degrees why should they not have the same effects albeit in severall degrees 17. What are those influences of the Stars motion light or elementary qualities or else some occult insensible vertues sympathies antipathies c. And how operate they upon these inferior bodyes Generally or particularly simply or mixtly solitarily or conjunctly actually or potentially formally or virtually mediatly or immediatly instantly or successively partially or totally who can directly tell 18. Whether such Influences as Astrologers ascribe to the Stars be not contrary to the nature and understanding of causes viz. Such influences as proceed not from their naturall substance nor inherent quality but from their imagined aspects and supposed if not feigned conjunctions Such virtuall influences as must be made to operate clean contrary to their formall qualities Such influences as they make to be efficacious from the fictitious figure of the Planets Such influences as the antient pure Philsophers and Astronomers once dream't not of but are the dreams of later Planetarians or Magicall Astrologians Such influences as wherby they would pretend to deep insight and profound learning but in truth make no other advantage of them than as a painted plea of blind and lazy ignorance I say ignorance as indeed inhibiting the strict inquiry of all proper causes For aske them how come the Stars to work thus and thus upon inferiour bodies why say they by their influences And what are these influences Nay if you cannot conceive them in the grosse they cannot precisely discover them Unlesse you will be contented to have an obscure thing described by a thing more obscure Are not the true causes in occult qualities and in natures mirables all put off to more occult influences Why doth the load-stone draw the Iron why by reason of some Starry influence Why doth the little Remora stay the massy Ship Why by reason of some Starry influence Why are there such antipathies betwixt creatures such vertues of minerals and herbs plants stones such colours figures resemblances c Why all is by reason of some Starry influence And if you aske after any other cause or reason for these and many the like you may for them go seek it out your self 19. Whether the Magicall Astrologer make not himself to be the chief cause of the Stars influencies and their efficacies For if he hath not a power to compose them so as they may bee most suitable to his own purpose why then both practises and teaches he to make such a Sign or Image under such a Constellation to such intents To make choice of such a Star Sign Ascendant Aspect c. and then the Figure thus disposed the Stars impress streight-way and operate by resemblance to the desired end How shall we beleive it now that the Stars have a power over our wils when thus they make their own wils to have a power over the Stars 20. What certain effects or Prognosticks of those effects are to be made from the Stars in as much as their strengths and validities depend
actions what then becomes of those events Whom then will they make their Astrologicall Prognostications to be powerfull over but sensuall men or knaves or perswasive to but unreasonable men or Fooles For rationall men will still be arguing seeing the starres are not powerfull upon-reason nor above it how can their power stand against it 4. If reason be predominant to Divination nay if it be made conducible to divining Predictions why then have the most bruitish and barbarous people of all the world been alwayes most addicted thereunto Why durst it never peep forth among knowing Christians save only in times of greatest ignorance and superstition or else upon occasion of the discontinuance or discountenance of good learning And further why are they reputed and recorded to be most apt as well as most frequent in Divinings and Prophesyings when Reason is most suspended obscured and debarred as in sleeps dreams abalienations distractions phrenzies furies Nay why are they mostly observed when breaking forth from the mouths of children fools mad-men melancholy fanatick distraught dying c 5. Whether the New Astrologers are able to give better reasons for their divining or predicting art or faculty than the old ones did All which are either so false as that they make nothing for them or else so contrary as that they make altogether against them As consider them in those their arguments If there be no presignification of things future then there are no Gods Were there many Gods indeed they might be too many to keep counsell but there is one God who will admit no creature here to be his Counsellour Again then are they ignorant of future things Peradventure such Gods may not know one anothers minds or intentions or yet actions but a God knows all things past present future and is only known to himself and it is sufficient for the being of any thing that he himself alone knows it to be Again it is then because they are not able to declare them In one God his pleasure of revealing is his power to reveal Again then they love not men Gods love is to communicate himself to the creature according to his will and according to its kind Again else it is because they envy us this knowledge Envy is at anothers good and therefore not in him that can see no good which is not his own Again or else it is because they think it pertains not to men to fore-know things to come or that it befits not their divine Majesty to preacquaint humane creatures with then These latter indeed are true assertions of the true God and irrefragable argumentations against any truth of a predicting or presaging art 6. How will they answer an Heathen Philosopher thus questioning them or reasoning against them shall we attend to the praefation of irrationals and inanimate and not rest our selves satisfied with the confariation of reasonable men what reason can more move to think all their divination to be nothing than that they can give no reason for it what reason can the Aruspex give why the inspection of the liver or lights should design times and actions for lucky or unlucky What can the Augur why a bird flying on the righthand or on the left should presage this or that for fortunate or unfortunate What can the Astrologer why the starre of Jupiter and Venus conjoyned with the Moon should be so benign to the birth of a child and on the contrary that of Saturn and Mars so malignant Wherefore should they make God to be so busie to instruct men sleeping and so carelesly as it were to neglect men waking And what reason is there for this that Cassandra in a distracted fury should foresee things future which Priamus with all his collected prudence and deliberate cannot doe 7. Whether this be a sufficient reason to bear sway with reasonable men That therefore so little reason is it to be rendred for the Mysteries of Magick and Astrologie as they call them lest men might so slight them as common things and not value them as rarities or unheard-of curiosities Nay because they want Reason which is the main of every humane art is it not therefore that they so universally and earnestly exact Faith and such a faith as is proper only to a divine Faith 8. Whether an Astrologers formall affirmation be as good as an infallible demonstration Else why prove they it not by Reason divine morall naturall yea or artificiall when they say that such or such a conjunction of the Planets signifies innovation of Religion removall of Churches mutation of States translation of Kingdomes transmigration of Nations deposition of Princes alteration of Magistrates persecution of Ministers ruine of Families dissension of Lawyers losse of Merchants wrack of Mariners breaking of Tradesmen undoing of Farmers desolation of Cities depopulation of Countries mortality of Men murrain of Cattell dearth of Corn c. And all these through heresies sects factions blasphemies profanations impieties hypocrisies pride ambition covetousnesse lusts treacheries conspiracies seditions tumults contentions warres battells murders thefts robberies oppression fraud dissimulation hatred envy hunger diseases fires waters tempests c. And all these by Superiours Inferiours Neighbours Servants Children Wives Husbands Kindred Friends Enemies Strangers c. We know there may be innumerable such consequences or casualties in the world and that by such means or instruments but how prove they that the Starres are either the Signs or Causes of them If they put us off with this only That the Disciples and Auditors in Astrologie must be believers Let them tell us from what necessity they impose this duty otherwise they say nothing or nothing but say and so leave both our faith reason and senses unsatisfied 9. Since as they say themselves the Influences of the Starres are ineffectuall as neither apt nor convenient to produce agreeable effects in the matter of Sublunary things unless there be a proportionable equall or just measure and mixture in their irradiations and that without either excesse or defect How then shall we believe them in their prognosticated effects if such a proportion as they speak of be not first demonstrated unto us 10. Whether all such Astronomicall demonstrations as are of pure Astronomicall effects from the staries as of hot cold dry and moyst be any reall proofes in Astrologie of beneficall and maleficall influences of vertuous and vitious efficacies of fortunate or unfortunate events For as much as these differ as naturall and preternaturall as necessary and arbitrary as consequentiall and casuall c. 11. Where are the influences of the starres received and how How can they by fair experience prove they are present in the elements Must we trust the four corners of a Figure is this all their evidence thus we are taught to examine them by one of their own neighbours And therefore they shall give me leave to question with them a little further That Caelestiall vertue or efficacy which either Causes or Signes such terrestriall
of his own art For is not the Devills main knowledge experimentall or gotten by long experience of times and men and things And glories he not in this that he may be permitted to set before mens eyes some externall experiment that so he may win their hearts to give credit to his prestigious delusions Yea may not the Devill be permitted to give an experiment in some things that so his disciples may become the more curious tempting credulous superstitious even in those things where there can be no experiment at all 3. Whether there can be any effect simply and purely reall wherein the Devill hath a hand I speak it not only of sinfull wayes in generall whereto he tempts men but of sinfull arts and artifices in speciall whereby men tempt him Because where he hath no power he is there forced to prestigious sleights to prevent the detection of his impotency and where he hath a power or permission yet there notwithstanding he chooses to be prestigious Because he loves to delude out of the prevarication of his own will but hates all reality as an imitation of Gods own acting 4. Whether a bare experiment be a good ground for a Christian mans Faith Not only because the Holy Ghost distinguishes betwixt Faith and sight but because even in this very particular he grants the experiment yet neverthelesse forbids the Faith Deut. 13. 1 2 3. Mat. 24 24 25 26. 2 Thes 29. to 13. 5. Whether such feats and pranks as Magicians call their experiments be not like to those playd or practised by Pharaohs Magicians Exod. 7. and 8. Wisd 17. 7. And what were all they but prestigious illusions and impostures or such Gypsy-tricks as gave the name to all the like feats for ever after For who will say although it seemed so that the Magicians of Egypt wrought really or experimentally in the production of Serpents Frogs c because that were verily to produce a thing in Nature which is not for an Angelicall much lesse for a Diabolicall power to perform God will not communicate this his power otherwise than as his instruments to those whom he hath called to imitate him and therefore not to those who set up themselves to counterfeit him Now then since the practices of these prime Magicians were not reall experiments but phantasticall illusions what then may we think of all the rest however they may seem or appear 6. Why should Magicians and Astrologians rejoyce and boast their art under this notion of Experiment rather than any other Seeing an effect is of a cause properly an Event is of a cause remotely A Consequent is of a cause indirectly an Accident is of a Cause unknown but an Experiment cannot be but of a known cause For an experiment properly is not so much of the thing as to the person And to the person as observing it comming to passe from a proper cause by proper means and to a proper end For if the proper cause be not observed then is it no experiment but an accident if the proper means be not observed then is it not an experiment but a consequent if the proper end be not observed then is it not an experiment but not an imposture Because it is the end that really denominates distinguishes and perfects rhe act or work Neither can he be sayd to have had experience of the end only because of the execution if he had it not first in his intention Now how much of all this is proper to them or their art 7. Whether as the grounds of their art are but bare suppositions so those they call the experiments of it be any thing else than meer accidents For of the many effects or experiments that were pretended what demonstration is there that all these or any of them were really and indeed from the influences and powers of the starres Because such mutations alterations casualties events followed after such not only aspects or conjunctions but even Comets and Eclipses does it therefore follow necessarily to conclude that they were the causes of them Nay how would they make it evident not only to a hard but to a wary faith that they were indeed so much as the prenuntiating signes of them 8. For as much as the most skilfull of them have ingenuously acknowledged that they have been greatly distracted and infinitely puzzled betwixt observation and experiment on the one part and cause or reason on the other So that that which hath been defective here hath made them difficult to assent and that redundant there ashamed to doubt Now how shall we assent or believe that can make no observation since they themselves can make no demonstration If we doe suppose them to be experiments or accidents or consequents at large yet how can we be vainly perswaded that they come from such causes or are signified by such signs which they themselves are not able to demonstrate 9. What a fond sophisticating fallacy is this so much in use among the historizing or exemplanizing Astrologers Who goe about to impose upon aâ—l men from former ages and events as if no man understood how to distinguish betwixt a causall and a consecutive I had almost said a casuall experiment For aske of themselves if this be not their way Anno Mundi Anno Domini c. viz. In such a year of the world of our Lord during such a Trigon Fiery Aery Watry Earthy there was such a conjunction of such and such Planets benefick malefick in such and such Houses and Signs of the Zodiack together with such Eclipses Comets and other prodigies or portents And there followed thereupon c. What in the name of God when where to whom and how Now marke them well what followed War and Peace discomfiture and victory captivity and liberty heresy and true doctrine prosperity and persecution innovation and reformation Sickness and recovery famine and plenty birth and death When followed they In the same year of the conjunction or the year following or else 3. 5. 7. years after nay and all these contraries oft times during the same conjunction or its effects Where followed they Here and there far and near so wide was the extent of the conjunction conjoyning severall Countries and Regions together To whom To Emperours Kings Princes Magistrates Noble-men Clergy-men Common people every body any body Lastly how why there followed or happened c. And that 's more properly plainly and truly spoken than all the rest And so let it rest from their own confession a conscientionall accidentall event and such it may be said in respect of any thing that preceded but no appropriate causate and observate experiment 10. What true and plain experience can the Planetaries possibly have or pretend when as themselves say the same conjunctions or constellations return not some in so many scores some in so many hundreds some in so many thousand years Now experience is properly of a thing frequently to be observed by the same man and
the heathenish termes out of their ashes and translate them into the Church of Christ Not that they are litigious about termes or scrupulour of titles But because the word of God hath not a word nor a syllable nor a sound nor a signification of either of them if it be rightly translated or understood And because neither of them can be of any edification to the Church of God but the use of them is a prophanation both of his Word and Church 3. Whether there be any such thing as Fate in nature or in the world And whether they that determine for it doe aptly distinguish it or in the determination abstract and exempt it from the very hethenish originall and acceptation And whether all their distinctions of Fate be able to discern it for a solide and sober truth in any part or respect The Theologicall fate is abusive for that 's not paganish fate but divine providence The Naturall fate is superfluous for that need be called no more but natures common order The Stoicall fate is superstitious for that binds all things persons actors in heaven or earth to an ineluctible necessitie The Chaldaicall Mathematicall or Genathliacall fate is worse than all the rest as adding to them all a sydereall or constellationall fancy But what kind of Fate call they that which they make to sit in the middle and as it were hover in the balance betwixt the desultory levity of an indifferent casualty and the presultory temerity of an urging and inevitable necessity 4. Whether Fate or Fortune doe not mutually take away one another For necessity and contingency have alwayes been held as contraries and inconsistents Else to what end were all those disputes betwixt the Stoicks and the Epicures But why then doe so many Authors speak of both these so promiscuously And why doe our Fataries and Fortunaries so confound them especially in their prognostications or predictions 5. Whether the Philosophers have been more serious than the Poets about the series of Fate As for the Poets what child smiles not to read the pretty fictious of the three Fates or fatall Sisters Clotho Lachesis and Atropos yea or of Nova Decima and Morta and of their names derivations progenie order and offices As for the Philosophers Stoicks and Epicures It were long to tell how featly they have tost both Fate and Fortune too and fro in their sundry argumentations assertions definitions descriptions opinions c. But better than all their earnest it is excellent sport which they make in their Mythologies Apologies Hieroglyphicks c. with Fortunes wheel and horn on the one hand and Fates Distaffe and Spindle on the other 6. Whether argue the more strongly the Stoicks against Fortune or the Epicures against Fate Me thinks the Stoicks for all their gravity doe but rayle when they call her the Goddess of fools an empty name a versatile wind a short Sunshine a sudden tempest a muddy torrent a fools paradise a labyrinth c. Reproaching her for blind deaf mad brutish instable treacherous envious cruell c. Querulously accusing her for playing with her own gifts and sporting her self with humane mortality and misery turning all things upside down corrupting her own nature or rushing upon her very self repenting of her good rejoycing at her evill taking the stronger part regarding not vertue but power answering those more that dare than that implore her carrying on things against reason prudence counsell vertue most deceiving where she is most trusted fooling all she fosters smiling and killing at once tampering her hony with poyson immoderate both in good and evill strangling at last her own nurselings exalting and depressing giviving and taking dealing indiscriminatly satisfying the greedy more than the needy giving unto many too much to none enough now a mother now a stepdame when most flourishing or flattering most feeble and making but the more unhappy for having been acquainted with her happiness But in my mind the Epicures for all their levity reason better For though they might return the many invectives against Fortune upon Fate yet they soberly argue thus If there be necessitating and enforcing fatation upon things must not such a thing be done by a man whether he be instructed or exhorted to it or no nay shall he not doe it whether he will himself or no Is not the destinating decree enough to bring all things about although there were neither command nor care to goe about it Does it not robb all rationall creatures of mind will counsell deliberation to tye them up to inevitable necessitie How then are their proper motions reserved not only to rationalls but to every moving creature What naturall series of causes can there be betwixt intellectualls rationalls spiritualls animals inanimates and artificialls Is it not ridiculous to make an indissoluble series or conjunction of causes where besides a deity reason and accident are ever and anon making an interruption Who will say that all things are concludedby and included under Fate Is there not much arbitrariness whether one man will beget another or no and much more whether one man will kill another or no How can there be so much as a naturall fate or necessity over men when we see they are not all carryed one way as things of one nature or kind beasts birds fishes flyes are but men although of one nature are carryed diversly as their wits and affections lead them Were people have sundry Lawes and they duly executed how are they led along by their convenient edicts rather than by the fatall decree of the Starres Are the lawes of men and fate repugnant and are these more prevalent than they If all things be necessarily bound under Fate what can be subject to reason will nature occasion time manners prudence counsell society contingency casualty Must not mens sins and vices be necessary also and inforced Why should he be punished for offending that is not able to resist an impelling force Is he to be blamed that is not of his own power we may commend vertue but what praise of the vertuous not so by labour and industry but by fate and necessity Doe not the Authors of Fate goe and come speak and keep silence offer and forbear consult and deliberate procure and prevent exhort and dehort praise and dispraise reward and punish and why should they doe all this if they did believe their own doctrine of Destiny Why should men study or labour if their fate be sufficient to make them both wise and rich How many things are not as the Fates will but as we will our selves Have the Fates determined that a man shall have children that will not marry nor once touch a woman that he shall be wise that will not learn that he shall be liberall that will not give that he shall be drowned that will not come neer the warer that he shall dye in a strange Country that will not travell If Fate have appointed a wound or a disease to
sufficient to moderate all fond hopes and fears Or what is able to doe that but a lively faith voyd of these heathenish superstitions and assuredly believing That there is an all-provident God that only foresees all things necessarie and to whom nothing is contingent or casuall That can will and doth work for the best of his both with second causes and exteriour means as also without them yea and against them That binds not the world much lesse tyes his Church unto them That hath written his childrens names in the book of life and much more then they may be assured hath numbred the hairs of their heads as concerning all earthly accidents That shines and moves in the Sun and Moon and starres and makes their generall influxes more or lesse effectuall as he is pleased to adde or abstract his speciall motion or oppose his immediate administration or interpose the office of his more excellent Ministers Angells and reasonable Souls CHAP. XIX 19. From the affinity to Witch-craft 1. WHat difference betwixt Astromancy Magomancy or Magastromancy as touching a sorcerous both superstition and operation and all these after-named viz. Stareomancy or divining by the Elements Aeromancy or divining by the ayr Pyromancy by fire Hydromancy by water Geomancy by earth Theomancy pretending to divine by the revelation of the Spirit and by the Scriptures or word of God Daemonomancy by the suggestions of evill Daemons or Devills Idolomancy by Idolls Images Figures Psychomancy by mens souls affections wills religious or morall dispositions Antinopomancy by the entrails of men women and children Theriomancy by Beasts Ornithomancy by Birds Icthyomancy by Fishes Botanomancy by herbs Lithomancy by stones Cleromancy by lotts Oniromancy by dreams Onomatomancy by names Arithmancy by numbers Logarithmancy by Logarithmes Sternomancy from the breast to the belly Gastromancy by the sound of or signes upon the belly Omphelomancy by the navell Chiromancy by the hands Paedomancy by the feet Onychomancy by the nayles Cephaleonomancy by brayling of an Asses head â—uphramancy by ashes Capnomancy by smoak Livanomancy by burning of Frankincence Carromancy by melting of Wax Lecanomancy by a basin of water Catoxtromancy by looking glasses Chartomancy by writing in papers Macharomonâ—y by knives or swords Chrystallomancy by glasses Dactylomancy by rings Coseinomancy by seives Axinomancy by Sawes Cattabomancy by vessells of brasse or other metall Roadomancy by starrs Spatalamancy by skins bones excrements Sciomancy by shadowes Astragalomancy by dice Otnomancy by Wine Sycomancy by Figgs Typomancy by the coagulation of cheese Alphitomancy by meal flower or branne Crithomancy by grain or corn Alectromancy by Cooks or Pâ—llen Gyromancy by rounds or circles Lampadomancy by candles and lamps And in one word for all Nagomancy or Necromancy by inspecting consulting and divining by with or from the dead The question is not about the difference of all these from the first to the last in matter instruments ceremonies or circumstances but whether they be not of like maleficall sorcery for main substance and formality And whether divining by the Starres and Planets be not a cause enclining and disposing at least an occasion inviting and encouraging what through imitation estimation toleration to all these sorts of sorcerous divination and the like 2. Whether there be any kind of Magick simply so naturall or laudably so arted as many serve to abstract it from the maleficall and diabolicall For though there be many occult qualities and miracles of nature and actives and passives there which perfectly known and fitly applyed might help to work wonders without either tempting of God or the Devill yet because of the difficulty of such things and not that alone but their uselessnesse and because of mens ignorance and for all that their curiosity and because of the Arts insufficiencie and besides that the fallacie and chiefly because of Satans privie suggestions and delusory seducements the study and search after these things proves very confused indiscerned unsafe and pernicious And because of all these the abuse of this astro-magicall art is as palpable as the practice but the use as occult as the Art it self But especially as touching the practice of this art if there be an artifice of doing wholly separate from malefice why then are the same things done by those that are altogether ignorant of the art so they have but a faith and why without such a faith is nothing to be done by the Art it self How many things have been done by all manner of Magicians that can have no naturall causes no true rules of art no power or comprobation from God and therefore must needs be acted by a confederation and familiarity with some evill spirit How many things have they presumed to predict or foretell which neither divine wisdome is pleased to reveal neither is it ordinarily for humane reason or art to find out but must only be done by a demoniacall sagacity or suggestion what sounds and syllables and words and sentences doe they murmure or pronounce and that to the very inanimates whom words can in no wise effect or move or else are so barbarous and insignificant as that if they were uttered to the intelligent they cannot conceive them their extent or use Now by whose invention is it that such words should be most operative in magick art that are operative upon no understanding How many rites solemnities ceremonies preparations doe they use which have naturally no force or vertue to the producing of the effect not yet can any way prepare the matter to the receiving thereof What sacrifices iâ—molations consecrations prostrations adorations invocations execrations imprecations attestations comminations exorcisms adjurations c. And none of all these commanded by God and therefore not done to him how easy is it then to suspect by whom all these are suggested and for whom they are intended 3. Whether if be in Magick and Astrologie that the art hath power over the heavenly bodies or the heavenly bodies power over the art not the first because for the Art to have power over the heavenly bodies so as to stop or turn the course of the stars or by odes and incantations to fetch down the moon from her orb as the old Magicians have boasted this is beyond the power of a Devill or an Angell and were not only against the particular order of nature but would utterly confound the whole course of it And by conjurations or confections so to prepare the matter as to allure or force down influences and to make it by art capable and sufficient both to receive and retain them this were to mingle heaven and earth to subjugate the superiour bodies to their inferiors to preferre accidents to substances and turn the whole universe upside down Not the second for not only the speculations but also the practicks of their art a many of them are meerly intellectuaâ—l rationall arbitrary over which theâ— stars and planets can have no power The stars are corporall things arts or sciences are mentall how come
but universal not vocational onely but personal not an act common to reprobates but an habit peculiar to the Saints Not of propounding things of future times but of expounding the future things of eternity Be it in heaven or earth Prophecies shall fail when that which is perfect is come 1 Cor. 13. 8. In heaven they must needs fail because there 's no future to be contemplated or expected all is an eternal present And in the Church of Christ they must needs fail because there is no future truth not another Gospel to be expected the present truth is eternal Prophecie failed in the Church as did the other extraordinary and temporary gifts viz. Working of miracles and speaking with Tongues Neverthelesse I conceive God hath absolutely denyed his Church none of all these but that the Spirit may be pleased to stir up some men at some times and to some particulars to act in any of them if just cause and necessity be Yet though a man should be raised to prophesie now and that by the same Spirit I cannot think it to be by the same degree or authority of the Spirit as the former Prophets were Because the authority of the Spirit in them was not onely prophetical or historical but sapiential and dogmatical And so their prophesies were recorded not onely for a particular and certain prediction of truth but for an universal and perpetual instruction of Faith And therefore either there must be no end of adding to the Scriptures or else none such must now be raised There may be some prudential predictings of good men and suspicious presagings of evil men and shrewd conjecturings of common men but what are all these to the prophesyings of holy men of God in old time Yet we say Gods hand is not shortned but that he can still raise up such but who can say that he will do it Or that there is just cause why he should so do We conclude therefore in the general that Prophecy is ceast And that of an extraordinary gift at first it is become more extraordinary to after ages What reason then have we to be so blind of Faith as to admit of a stated art of divination in its stead CHAP. XXII From the rarity of Miracles 1 WHether every thing that is affected above besides or against the course and order faculty and power hope and expectation of nature may truly be said to be miraculous Not every thing 1. Because it is not a thing effected against particular nature but against whole nature that makes a Miracle 2. Because in particular nature there are antipolliges or occult qualities of actives and passives naturally acting or disposed to act one against another 3. Because it is neither nature acting contrary to some part of her self nor is it Art urging or tempting Nature but it is God totally exceeding the law vertue and order of Nature that makes it to be a Miracle 4. Because many things may be done against Nature or natural propensity which notwithstanding are but ordinary and trivial as the causing of heavy things to ascend upwards c. 5. Because there are many sins and vices that are against Natures law and vertue which who will say that they are miraculous Therefore we conclude against Magical Mirabilaries that although every Miracle be an act or effect above Nature yet every act or effect besides or against Nature is not a Miracle 2. Whether that may absolutely be said to be a Miracle whose effect is manifest and whose cause is occult or unknown to us No. Except it be acted simply by the first cause and for causes onely known to him 2. Except it exceeds all mans exact knowledge indifferently one as well as another 3. Except the cause be altogether past such finding out even to sober and prudential observation art industry Otherwise it should not be a Miracle so as it is in itself but so as it appears to us Our ignorance should necessarily come into the cause of Miracles That should be miraculous to one man which is not so to another And a prophane curiosity of Art would boast of more light and experiment in divine works then indeed is vouchsafed to the perswasion of a pious faith 3. Whether the power of working Miracles be not proper to God alone This must be affirmed and cannot be denyed 1. Because He onely can work a Miracle of himself to whom nothing is a Miracle 2. Because He onely can work against the order of Nature and second causes whose will is sufficient to institute Order alter all things 3. Because God is a transcendent and is not under nor yet within the predicament of any part of the whole order of Nature as the creature is and therefore he onely can act that against and besides above the order of Nature which the creature cannot 4. Because a divine power requires not a subject to work upon for it is able to create all things of nothing neither looks it at the possibility or propensity of that subject to the producing of the effect as every created power doth 5. Because the proper cause of a Miracle must not onely be uncreated infinite omnipotent indeterminate c. But it must also be occult unsearchable incomprehensible now no cause is simply so but the hidden God himself 6. Because it cannot be a Miracle unless it be absolutely and universally wonderful or to be equally admired of all creatures of the same kinde Now it is onely for God and neither for Angels or men to do such things as shall be admirable to their fellows and not so to themselves 7. Because if any other could work Miracles but God or but by God then Miracles could not be the indubitable signes and proofs of a God nor of Gods Word and Truth 4. Whether the good Angels can do Miracles Ministerially and instrumentally they may but not principally and authoritatively For Angels are finite both in their nature apprehension and power And divine Miracles absolutely considered are as strange and wonderful to them as they are to us men Yet Angels out of the vertue and perspicuity of their own nature may know how to do many things that may seem miraculous or be marveilous to us Because they are a superior power or vertue unknown to us and may have a particular power over inferiours not known to us and therefore may act above besides against the particular order of Nature that is known to us But being part of whole created nature themselves they cannot act against it the main reason of a Miracle for so they should act against themselves 5. Whether Devils can do Miracles If not Angels much lesse devils Neither doth the Lord make use of the devils to be instruments of his mighty works as he doth of the Angels For Miracles were never intended or effected immediately or mediately but for the confirmation of the truth to which the devils are no apt instruments because all that they do is with
the stars will seem to justle and skirmish one against another 5. The Stone called Sylonites bred in an Indian Snail confers the prescience and presence of certain things future while a man hath it under his tongue let him bethink him of any businesse whether it ought to be done or may come to passe or not and if it may or ought it will cleave so fast to his heart as that it cannot be plucked thence if not the heart will leap back from it 6. If thou wouldst interpret dreams and Prophetize of things future take the stone which is called Esmundus or Asmadus and it will give Prophetization interpretation of all dreams and make to understand riddles 7. If thou wilt divine of things future take the stone called Celonytes of a purple and various colour and is found in the body of a Snayle if any man carry this stone under his tongue he shall Prophesie and foretell future things 8. By the stone called Elitropia or as the Nigromanticks the Babylonian Gemme with certain verses and Characters Princes have predicted by divining for which cause the Priests of the Temples made special use of this stone in the feasts of their Idols If thou wouldst foreknow any thing future take the stone called Bena and put it under thy tongue and so long as thou so holdest it thou shalt continually predict by divining things future and shalt not in any wise erre in divining 10. If thou wouldst judge of or declare the opinions and cogitations of others take the stone which is called Gerarides and is of a black colour and hold it in thy mouth 11. If thou wouldst whet the wit of any one or increase his wrath or foretel future things take the stone which is called Smaragdus c. For it carried about him makes a man to understand well confers a good memory increases the wealth of him that carries it about him and if any man hold it under his tongue he shall Prophecie forthwith 12. A Weasel is a creature sufficiently known if the heart of this creature be eaten while it is yet panting it maketh to know things to come 13. If thou wouldst as the great diviners have done understand the voices of Birds take with thee two companions on the first of the Kalends of November and go into the wood with dogs as if thou wentst an hunting and that beast thou first sindest carry it home with thee and prepare it with the heart of a Foxe and thou shalt straight understand the voices of Birds and Beasts and if thou wouldst that another should understand them do but kisse him and he shall understand them likewise 14. A Suffumigation made with the congealed blood of an Asse and the fat of a Wolfe and Storax c. will cause to foresee things future in sleep whether good or evil 15. If any one swallow the heart of a Lapwing or a Swallow or a Weasel or a Mole whilst it is yet warm with natural heat it shall be helpful to him for remembring understanding and foretelling 16. The stone that is bred in the apple of the eye of a Civet Cat held under the tongue of a man is said to make him to divine or prophecy The same is Selenites the Moon-stone reported to do Also there is an herb called Rheangelida which Magicians drinking of can Prophecy 17. They say also that a Tyke if it be pulled out of the left ear of a Dog and if it be altogether black hath great vertue in the Prognostick of life For if the sick party shall answer him that brought it in who standeth at his feet and shall ask of him concerning his disease there is certain hope of life and that he shall dye if he make no answer 18. They say that fumes made of Linseed and Fleabane seed and roots of Violets and Parsly doth make one to foresee things to come and doth conduce to prophecying They say also that if any one shall hold a Viper over a vapour with a staffe he shall prophecy So it is said that the stone Selenites id est the Moon-stone and the stone of the Civet Cat cause divination also vervaine and the herb Theangelis cause soothsaying 19. Melancholly men by reason of their earnestness do far better conjecture and fitly conceive a habit and most easily receive an impression of the celestials The Sybills and the Bacchides and Niceratus the Syracusan and Ancon were by their natural melancholy complexion Prophets Poets For this when it is stirred up burns and stirs up a madnesse conducing to knowledge and divination especially if it be helped by any celestial influxe especially of Saturn who seeing he is cold and dry as is a melancholy humour hath its influence upon it increaseth and preserveth it 20. The Rabbines say there is an Animal called Jedua having a humane shape in the middle of whose Navel comes forth a string by which it is fastned to the ground like a Gourd and as far as the length of that string reacheth it devoures all that is greene about it and deceiving the sight cannot be taken unlesse that string be cut off with the stroke of a dart which being cut off it presently dyes Now the bones of this Animal being after a certain manner laid upon the mouth presently he whose mouth they are laid upon is taken with a frenzie and soothsaying Now what a rare Mirable of Art is Magical Divination yea and Astrological Prediction that hath all these and many more if one would take the paines to collect them Mirables of Nature peculiarly subserving thereunto I say even Astrological Prediction For without a constellated fabrication or confection all these presaging Mirables and the like signifie nothing in effect And therefore for the manner of acting in and by such as these they caution straitly to observe the Planet benevolous or malevolous as they wolud presage upon the effect good or ill And not onely so but the dominion of the Planet and the day of that dominion and the houre of that day as they would have the predicted effect to be now or then So that to what end serve the feigned Mirables of Nature but to feigne the Mag-astro-mantick Art for the greatest Mirable CHAP. XXIV From the Ceremonies of preparation WHether these and the like rites and ceremonies taught and practised by themselves as preparing and conducing to magicall and astrologicall constellation configuration fabrication operation divination prediction omination presagition conjectation prognostication c. bee not the most blasphemous idolatrous superstitious heathenish hereticall hypocriticall atheisticall forcerous prestigious impostorous prophane and impious not onely to pure minds and consciences but even to common reason and sense viz. 1. He which knowes how to compare the divisions of Provinces according to the divisions of the stars with the ministry of the ruling Intelligences and blessings of the Tribes of Israel the lots of the Apostles and typicall seales of the sacred Scripture shall be able to
Moon and Mercury But Archimedes and the Chaldaeans place the Sunne the fourth in order Anaximander Metrodâ—rus Chius and Crates say that the Sunne is the supreame of all after which the Moon and beneath these the rest errant and inerrant Xenocrates thinks that all the Stars are moved in one and the same superficies and they discord no lesse about the magnitude and distance of the Sunne the Moon and the rest of the Stars Neither is there any constancy of opinion amongst them about the Celestials nor yet truth neither is that any marvell seeing the Heaven it selfe which they search is of all other most inconstant and most replenished with trifles and fables for the very Twelve signes and the rest of the Boreall and Australl images had never ascended up to heaven but by Fables And yet the Astrologers live by these Fables and impose them upon others and make a gain thereby But the Poats in the mean while the egregious inventors of them grow poore and hungry There remaines yet another species of Astrologie which they call the Divinatory or the Judiciary which treats of the revolutions of the yeers of the world of nativities of questions of elections of intentions and cogitations of vertues or powers for the foretelling casting up eschuing or repelling the events of all things future even of the secret dispositions of divine providence it selfe Hereupon the Astrologers doe mart or vent the effects of the Heavens and the Stars from yeers most remote and before all memory of things or the times of Prometheus or as they say from the great conjunctions before the Flood And they affirm that the effects forces motions of all living creatures stones metals herbs and whatsoever things in these inferiours doe flow from these same Heavens and Starres and doe altogether depend upon them and may be searched out by them Verely these are incredulous men and not lesse impious in not acknowledging this one thing that God had already made the Herbs Plants and Trees even before the Heavens and Stars Moreover the most grave Philosophers as Pythagoras Democritus Bion Favorinus Panaetius Carneades Possidonius Timaeus Aristoteles Plato Plotinus Porphyrius Avicenna Averroes Hippocrates Galenus Alexander Aphrodisaeus Cicero Seneca Plutarch and many more who have searched the causes of things from every Art and Science yet never remit us to these Astrologicall causes which although they were causes yet because they plainly knew not the courses of the Stars and their forces which is a thing most known to all wise men they therefore cannot give a certain judgement of their effects Neither are there wanting among them as Eudoxus Archelaus Cassandrus Hoychilax Halicarnassaeus most skilfull Mathematicians and many other modern and most grave Authors which confesse that it is impossible that any thing certain should be found out concerning the science of such judgements both because of innumerable other causes cooperating together with the Heavens which must be attended together for so Ptolomy bids as also because very many occasions doe hinder them as namely customes manners education shame command place geniture blood meat liberty of mind and discipline seeing these influxes compell not as they say but incline Furthermore they who have prescribed the rules of judgements doe for the most part determine such diverse and repugnant things of the same matter that it is impossible for a prognosticator to pronounce any thing certaine from so many and so various and dissonant opinions unlesse there be in him some intrinsicall sense of things future and occult or some instinct of presage or rather occult and latent inspiration of the Devill by which among these he may be able to discerne or may be induced by some other way to adhere now to this now to that opinion which instinct whosoever wanteth he as Haly saith cannot be a Tel-troth in Astrologicall judgements Wherefore now Astrologicall prediction must consist not so much of Art as by a kind of obscure lot or chance of things And as in the books or games of Lottery sometimes such an one is drawn forth as speaks truth and hits right yet not by art but by chance so it is by chance and not by art that vaticinations come forth truely either from the mind or the mouth of an Astrologer To which Ptolomy attests saying the science of the Stars is from thee and from them meaning that the prediction of things future and occult is not so much from the observation of the Stars as from the affections of the mind Therefore is there no certainty of this Art but it is convertible to all things according to the opinion which is collected by conjectures or imagination or an imperceptible suggestion of Devils or some superstitious lot or chance This art therefore is no other then a fallacious conjecture of superstitious men who through the use of long time have made a science of uncertain things in which for the beguiling men of their money they may deceive the unskilfull and may also be deceived themselves And if the Art of these men be true and be understood by themselves whence then bubble out so many and so great errors in their prognostications But if it be not so doe they not vainly and foolishly and impiously to professe a science of things that are not or not understood But the more cautelous of them pronounce not upon futures save obscurely and such as may be applied to everything and time and Prince and Nation Out of a versatile artifice doe they feyne ambiguous prognosticks and after that any of them shall happen then doe they gather the causes thereof and after the fact or effect then doe they establish old vaticinations with new reasons to the intent they may seem to have foreseen Just as the interpreters of dreames who when they have a dream understand nothing of it for certain but after that something is hapned unto them then doe they adopt the dream to that which hapned Furthermore seeing it is impossible in such a variety of Stars but to finde some of them well some of them ill posited hereupon they take occasion of speaking what they please and to whom they will they predict life health honours riches power victory soundnesse off-spring marriage Priesthood Magistracy and the like but if they be ill affected to any to them they denounce deaths hangings reproaches destructions banishments barrennesse desolation calamities c. not so much out of a wicked art as out of wicked affections drawing on to destruction those men that are credulous to these impious curiosities and oft times committing among themselves both Princes and people in deadly seditions and warres Iâ— that Fortune fall in with their prognosticks and among so many ambiguous things if that one or other of them happen to be true it is a wonder then to behold how they bristle being crest-swolne and how most insolently they predicate their own predictions But though they lie daily and be convinced of lying then they excuse
the gift of Prophecy the power of Religion the secrets of Conscience the command over devils the vertue of miracles the efficacy of supplications and the state of the life to come do all depend upon the stars are vouchsafed by them and may be known from them For they say that the star of the Twins ascending with Saturn and Mercury joyned under Aquarius in the ninth coast of heaven a Prophet must be born and that therfore the LordChrist was excellent in so many mighty works because in the same place he had Saturn in Gemini Also the sects of Religion over which they place Jupiter as chief patron they distribute by commixtion of other stars so as Jupiter with Saturn should make the Religion of the Jews with Mars of the Chaldeans with Sol of the Egyptians with Venus of the Saracens with Mercury of the Christians with Luna that of Antichrist which they say is yet to come And that Moses from Astrological rules and reasons instituted the Sabbath of the Jews to be observed as a Religious day and that the Christians therefore do erre in not resting from labour and keeping holy day on the Jewish Sabbath seeing it is Saturns day Also they think that the fidelity of every one towards men or towards God and profest Religion and secrets of Conscience may be deprehended from part of the Sun and from the third ninth and eleventh houses of heaven and they delivering many rules of foreknowing the thoughts and as they say the intentions of men And they set up the coelestial configurations as the causes of the very miraculous works of divine omnipotence as namely of the universal flood of the Law given by Moses and of the virgins child-birth and they fable that the death of Christ the Redeemer of man-kind was the work of Mars and that Christ himself in his miracles used the election of hours in which the Jews could not hurt him while he went up to Jerusalem and therefore he said to his Disciples diswading him are there not twelve hours of the day They say moreover that whosoever hath Mars happily placed in a new house of heaven he shall by his sole presence expel devils out of the possessed And he that shall make supplication to God the Moon and Jupiter with the Dragons head being conjoyned in the middle heaven shall obtain all things whatsoever he shall ask And further that the felicity of the life to come is bestowed by Jupiter and Saturn And that if any man in his geniture hath Saturn happily constituâ—ed in Leo his soul after this life being freed from innumerable miseries shall passe to heaven the first beginning of its original and be applyed to the Gods But for all this to these execrable fopperies and pernicious heresies Petrus Apponensis Roger Bacon Guido Bonatus Arnoldus de nova villa Philosophers and Alyanensis a Cardinal and a Theologue and divers other Doctors of a Christian name not without an infamy of heresie do subscribe yea and dare testifie and defend that they have experienced these for truth But Johannes Picus Mirandula of late yeers hath written against Astrologers in twelve Books and that in so great copiousnesse that scarce any argument hath escaped him as also with so great efficacy so that hitherto neither Lucius Balnutius an eager propugnator of Astrologie nor yet any other defender of this Art could save it from those reasons that Picus hath brought against it For he proveth by most strong arguments it to have been the invention not of men but of Devils Which self-same thing Firmianus saith by which they have endeavoured to abolish all Philosophie Medicine Laws and Religion to the utter extermination of man-kind For first it detracts from the faith of Religion it extenuates miracles it takes away providence while it teaches that all things come to passe by the force of constellations and that they doe depend by a fatal necessity upon the stars Moreover it patronizes vices excusing them as descending from heaven upon us It defiles and overthrows all good Arts especially Philosophie traducing causes from true reasons to fables and Medicine in like manner turning from natural and effectual remedies to vain observations and perverse superstitions destructive both to body and minde Further it utterly undoes Laws manners and whatsoever Arts of humane prudence while it would have Astrologie onely consulted at what time after what maner and by what means any thing is to be done as if it alone drawing its authority over all down from heaven did hold the scepter over life manners and all both publike and private matters and as if all other things were to be reputed vain that did not acknowledge it for patron Indeed an Art most worthy for devils to professe from the first to the deceit of man and dishonour of God Moreover the heresie of the Manichees wholly taking away all liberty of will flowed not elswhere then from the Astrologers false opinion and doctrine of Fate From the same fountain also sprung the heresie of Basilides who pronounced 365. heavens made of one another by succession and similitude and the ostension of these to be the number of the dayes of the yeer or the number of the days of the yeer to be the ostension of these assigning to every one of them certain principles and vertues and Angels and feigning names for them but the chief of them all is Abraxas which name according to the Greek letters containeth in it 365. which namely are the local positions of those heavens commentitiously divised by it These things are therefore shown that ye may know that Astrology is the begetter of hereticks Furthermore as all the most eminent Philosophers do explode this divinatory Astrologie so Moses Esaias Job Jeremias and all the other Prophets of the old Law do detest it And of the Catholike Doctors Augustin censures it as meet to be expelled Christian Religion Hierome disputes it to be a kinde of Idolatry Basil and Cypâ—ian do deride it Chrysostome Eusebius and Lactantius do refute it Gregory Ambrose and Severianus inveigh against it the holy Toletane Councel forbids and damns it also it was anathematized in the Synod of Martin and by Gregory the younger and by Alexander the third Popes and was punished by the civil Laws of the Emperours Among the antient Romans under Tiberius Vitellius Dioclesian Constantine Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius the Emperours it was prohibited the City ejected and punished and by Justinian himself condemned capitally as is manifest in his Code This place admonishes me to speak of the other Arts of divination which yield vaticinations not so much by observation of the coelestials as of inferiour things having a certain shadow or imitation of the coelestials that they being understood ye may the better know this Astrological Tree from which do falâ— such fruit and from which as a Lernaean Hydra a beast of many heads is generated Amongst the arts therefore that are hasty to divine for their own
the friendship and hatred the complyance and adversness of men is not the service or disservice of the brute creature the vertue or venome of an herb or minerall yea the defence or offence of a sword a knife a spear a gun a club c. are not all these more sensibly apprehended to be more neerly advantagious or prejudiciall to health or sicknesse riches or poverty honour or disgrace prosperity and adversity life or death than are all the joynt benevolences or malevolencies of the fatall Starres If therefore a fatidicall prognostication may be made from the Caelestiall why not rather from the terrestriall motions 20. Whether Fate be above the Starres as their governour or else under them as their minister If above them why make they the starres to be the causes of fate For so they must needs be superiour to it If under them how then are the starres themselves subject to fate for so they must needs be inferiour How then should the starres dispose of others fate that are not able to dispose of their own Is it for creatures terrestriall or caelestiall to perform that to others which they are not able to preserve to themselves Ought not therefore such a disposition to be referred solely to him that hath the ordination and gubernation of all things both in heaven and earth simply freely eternally and immutably in himself 21. How can the fatall series of causes be from the starres when as the starres themselves are not causes as in humane and arbitrary actions Not causes where they may be signes as of things already done and past Yea God himself may signifie many things whereof he is not the cause as in evill and sinfull actions Nay have not the fatidicall Vaticinators themselves made many fatall signes which could never be causes nor yet once come into any series or necessary connexion As in their aruspicies and anguries from the entrailes of beasts flight and noise of birds c. as also from lots dreams prodigies casualties yea and physiognomies c. 22. How can the starres be the first in the fatall series of second causes When as of all creatures the spirituall intellectuall or rationall are the supreme and the corporeall animate or inanimate their inferiours Now the starres are both corporeall and inanimate Spirits and souls as they have more similitude to so they participate more vertue of divine providence than all other creatures For they are both the cognoscitive and the operative instruments of providence which the other are not For these being but the executive only may either be directed or diverted by the iutellectuall and ordinative As acting of themselves with liberty deliberation discretion observation of right rules application of fit means and intention to a due end And therefore are the more eminent ministers of providence than all things else in heaven or earth 23. Whether any such cut as fatation may be properly sayd to be in or from the starres For fatation imports a primordiall law or decree not an influence only or effect what sacrilege is it then to ascribe that to the instrument which is only peculiar to the principall agent Since it is for instruments especially the inanimate not to ordain but execute only Yea it is a question whether there be any fatation even in fate it self it being accepted and discerned not for a seminall disposition but for an ultimate execution and that inherent in the moveable or mutable subject Wherefore seeing fatation is neither in the starres nor in fate it self whether can any thing be sayd to be fatall with respect to the starres For the starres are but second causes And with respect to all such some things may be sayd to be naturall some things arbitrary some things indifferent some things contingent some things uncertain some things casuall but few or none fatall 24 Whether it be in the power and validity of the celestiall bodyes to impose a fatall necessity either upon humane actions or yet upon naturall things For if the starres be any such causes then must they cause principally of themselâ—es intentionally directly immutably Now how can they be principall causes when providence is above them how of themselves when they work not upon humane actions but by accident how intentionally since they want a mind or soul how directly when they operate upon humane actions but indirectly how immutably when their ordination or disposition may be impedited Again were they thus acting then should there be no contingents or accidents no libertie or free actions nor prevention of any events or issues no particular causes should be defective nor distance of place nor indisposition of the mean no neglect of the means no endeavour to the contrary or opposition should be available nay not only the understanding but the will should be tyed to corporall organs and matter yea and the starres should not only be of sufficient but of infinite power 25. How doe the celestiall bodyes work so fatally upon these inferiours when as they here operate not upon a necessity as to the producing of the effect For albeit their impressions be naturall yet are they not received but according to the manner of the receivers which are fluxible and not having themselves still after the same way Because of the matter that is in a potentiality to many yea and to contrary formes The matter also is movable and corruptable and may easily defect of it self may be intrinsecally indisposed and extrinsecally impedited And the starres themselves are but indefinite and remote causes to which the effect can never follow determinatly and necessarily unless the middle causes be necessary and then they follow them and not the other But in the foresaid series the middle causes are most of them contingent and from many contingent causes can come no effect of necessity because any one of them and all of them together may be defective and not attain unto their end 26. Seeing the heavenly bodyes act not upon these inferiours but by their light and motion and so communicate nothing to the matter they work upon but light motion and heat Now why may not all these flow from all the starres in generall And why then should such and such fatall inclinations be attributed to such or such positions or conjunctions And if there be any particular vertues of the light and motion of some stars contrary to the vertues of the light and motion of other starres how is that demonstrated And how comes it to passe that they should be operative and effectuall one way in their simple natures or qualities and yet another way in their relative aspects and positions Is an imaginary relation or respect of more validity than a reall substance or propriety 27. They seem to define fate more acurately that make it to be the â—eries or connext order of naturall causes Now till they can directly and successively deduce those naturall causes down from the starres to those fatall events what
reason is there to credit their proposition much lesse their prognostication They likewise will have fate in the best sense they can take it to digest and distribute all things according to certain motions successions orders forms places times Now if their fate cannot be well understood or discerned without these same astrictions why are they so confounded at the inexplicableness of the circumstances Otherwise why doe they not predict usually the very times and places together with the fates themselves Moreover the first definers of fate held it to be not in the superiors but in the inferiors themselves Namely a disposition inherent in the moveable thing and that urging to an immoveable event If indeed it be such ought not every mans fate to be collected from himself rather than from his Stars 28. How should the things of fate and fortune be foretold when it is not yet with one consent told what things they are themselves Some have gone so high as to say that they are Deities or Gods others are fallen so low as to make them vanities and nothing Some confound these two together some set them so opposite as that they make them confound one another Some admit many things of both as they say at the fore-gate and exclude all again at the back door Some place them in the beginning in the middle in the end of a business Some make us to be in their power Some them in our power Some would have us believe both but inquire neither But if they would no inquiry after their nature and properties why make they such inquiry into their operations and effects 29. Whether fate be mutable or immutable If mutable how is it fate Is there not then a contingency of fate as well as a fate of contingencies If immutable what hope what colour what means what remedy Nay if immoveable how moves it as they say according to the nature and order of all moveable things That is to say with naturall things naturally with necessary necessarily with voluntary voluntarily with contingent contingently with violent violently with remiss remissely And all this not as a prime and free but as a second and necessary cause Why may we not as well say with rationall things â—…tionally with brute brutishly with sensuall sensually with â—…tuous vertuously with vitious vitiously with prosperous pâ—oâ—perously with adverse adversely with uncertain uncertainly 〈◊〉 And then what irrefragable law of fate is that which is fain to conform to and comply with every ones manners and manner of working 30. Whether fate be absolute in decree or conditionate If absolute then can it not be otherwise and what remedy Nay then is it infinite omnipotent eternall and with superiority If conditionate and that not from a liberall dispensation of its own but a naturall ordination from another what fatation is that then that comes upon condition that depends upon others actions not its own determination If it be absolute then is it cruell and unjust in many things if it be conditionate then is it variable and certain in nothing Set aside the first act which is the eternall decree and the last act which is death these indeed may be said to be both absolute and conditionate but Christians are not taught to call these fate But take it as they doe for the middle act then can they make it to be neither absolute nor conditionate 31. Whether fate and fatall events follow the body or the mind If the body what difference betwixt the fate of a man and of a beast In events good or evill who is worthy who is guilty And how follow they the mind seeing the stars necessarily and directly make no impression there Because it is superiour according to the order of nature and not subject to matter time or place but united to an intellectuall and spirituall substance and therefore cannot suffer from corporeall things although celestiall Nor can they so exceed their own sphear and species as to act directly upon it And if not upon the intellective faculty which acts necessarily much less upon the elective power which is free and never acts but freely nor is subject to fatality or fatall necessity For then should the election of the will be no more but a meer naturall instinct should be determined to one thing should act but one way should have the like motions in all upon the like representations should not have any thing in its own power to discern deliberate choose refuse c. but must be carryed on either naturally or violently as the Stars doe incline or enforce 32. Whether fate or fortune be either in good or evill actions If fate be iâ— good actions are they not necessitated and inforced if fortune 〈◊〉 there are they not fortuitous and accidentall And so what â—…e of them what reward The like may be affirmed of evill actions and if likewise thus inferred what shame what punishment In vitious actions either fate offers violence to a mans will or leaves to its own liberty If the first is not a mans will to be excused in evill and if the last is not every mans will the cause of his own fate yea and of the hardest and heaviest fates For they are such which follow sin and wickedness 33. Wherefore should man or his actions be made the subject yea the slave of fate when as indeed man as man is superiour thereto For fate being but a sydereall service of second causes must be reduced to the providence of the first cause and in that reduction man himself hath place or preferment before all the stars of heaven Because the divine providence receives to it self or extends it self in a more speciall way to intellectuall or rationall than it doth to all other creatures else In as much as they excell all others both in the perfection of nature and in the dignity of end In the perfection of nature Because the rationall creature hath the dominion over his own actions and operates voluntarily whereas the other act not so much as are acted In the dignity of the end because the intellectuall creature only by his operation reaches to the ultimate end of the universe sc to know and love God But the other creatures touch not that end by an inspired intention but only according to some participated similitude Furthermore God provides for the intellectuall nature principally and as it were for selfs sake and but for all other crtatures secondarily and in order to it The rationall creature is Gods agent the other are but his instrumens Now God cares more for his agents than he doth for his instruments Yea they are the instruments of this very agent and he makes use of them either in his practice or contemplation God hath more regard to the free and liberall than to the necessitated and servile acts of his creatures The rationall creatures are the more noble in themselves and of more neer accession to the divine similitude and therefore tendred by