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
to false ends Deut. 13. 1 2 3. Mat. 24. 24. 2 Thâ—s 2. 9 10. 11. If Magick or Astrologie be in accurate speaking a Science as they contend then let them see with the Schoolmen how the same thing can be at once the object of Science and of Faith And if they agree with some of them to say that the clearer part may be of Science and the obscurer of faith Then as the clear part must both be true and revealed by God so the obscure must be answerable to the first and not repugnant to the last But how prove they that 12. Whether a thing Contingent can be the object of Faith save only so farre forth as something necessary is included and supposed in it For a thing meerly contingent is indifferent to either part and not only so but uncertain to both it may be and it may not be And what faith can there be Indeed an Hypothesis of the divine ordination may make it to be necessary immutable inevâ—â—able and in that relation only it pertains to Faith And therefore that remains to be proved ere it ought to be believed 13. Contingents especially singular contingents are directly known to the senses and but indirectly to the understanding but how fall they under faith 14. Is not this Faiths order in apprehending and assenting to the truth of things future and fortuitous 1 To believe that it is God sole property to know all things simply in himself whether past present or to come 2. That the blessed Angels which alwayes behold his face notwithstanding have not a perfect prescience even of naturall things whether in the heavens or in the earth much lesse of singular accidents and effects but so as God is pleased at the instant to reveal it to them 3 That the revevelation of things future to the Prophets and men of God was extraordinary temporary singular 4. Though the Devils by their experimentalâ— sagacity and busie curiosity may presume to ghesse at many things altogether hidden to us yet they are for the most part deceived as well as deceiving in their presaging or predictory suggestions Because God many times does many things besides the ordinary way of his providence and contrary to the common order of Nature And much more disposes things contrarily in his speciall conversions of men to Grace Neither yet doth he permit the Devill a power over men free-wills to act necessarily or produce effects according to the Devils predictions 6. That God hath taught Men to look after things future no otherwise than temporally by a solid providence and eternally though a sound faith 7. That the Creatures in heaven or earth may be signes either naturall or prodigious and so tokens either of his mercies or judgements which although they may be particularly intended yet are not to be before-hand but universally apprehended 8. That no such Art is of Gods institution which teaches men to pry into his Secrets and to pronounce upon them otherwise than he hath revealed in his Word 15. How can a Faith in astrologicall Predictions be true and right when as by how much they are propounded or attended with more peremptoriness or confidence by so much they are the more superstitious and unlawfull For an indifferent opinion and a moderate suspicion in these things is nothing so inordinate as an anxious fear or vehemently affected expectation 16. With what faith or conscience can we believe their Astrologicall predictions In as much as God hath resumed the fore-knowledge and fore-shewing of things future to himself and hath discharged Angels Devills and Men from all such curiosities and presumptions and hath expresly forbidden us so often both the consulting with and assenting to them Levit. 26. 31. Isa 41. 22 23. Jer. 27. 9. Dan. 2. 27 28. Prov. 27. 1. Eccles 8. 7. Mat. 24. 23 24. Act. 1. 7. 17. How can we be perswaded that Divining Magicians or Astrologians are either profitable to the Church or tolerable in a Christian Common-wealth In that God himself hath not only given the expresse Law or Precept for their non admission but made it a peculiar promise to his Church for their utter exclusion even in all the kinds of them Numb 23. 23. Deut. 18. 10. 2 King 23. 24 Ezek 1â— 24. Mich. 5. 12. Yea and hath made that to be the mark of separation and note of distinction betwixt his own people and other Nations Deut. 18. 14. Jer. 10. 2. Isa 2. 6. 18. Should we once but admit of Astrologicall Predictions to come into our Creed would they not infinitely prejudice the Prophecies and promises of the Word Would they not seduce us from destiny to predestination by the starres And from naturall inclinations to propensions to Grace as depending upon Constellations Would they not perswade us that the Miracles of Christ his Mysteries and Ordinances have all of them a reference to the Starres And the infusions of the Spirit to respect the influxes of the Planets Would they not make our Wills servile while their decrees are taught to inforce a necessitation to Good or Evill And then what praise what punishment either for one or other Yea how careless should we be in the one and how excusing in the other Nay would they not make us believe our very Souls to be mortall because thus acted by materialls and made passive under them and so what should Conscience of Religion be thought but a meer imagination or hope of slavation eternall but a vain dream 19. Whether it be lawfull for a Christian man to study for the attainment of that which his faith dares not pray for And how can he there pray with faith where he hath not a promise And if it be a tempting of God to invoke or desire the revelation of future accidents what is it then to seek to wrest the same from him by a conjuring at least by an over-inquisitive Art and over-daring practice thereupon 20. Whether God may not work by a speciall grace of illumination and sanctification even in the forming of Nature as in John the Baptist and then what have the qualitative influxes of the Planets or their dominion there to doe But ordinarily whether the forming of the new Creature be not alwayes wrought by speciall inspirations and immediate infusions How shall it then be believed that a mans religion or religious qualities may be genethliacally prognosticated from the Starres and their influentiall Constellations 21. Is the observation of the Sarres because of their force or their force because of their observation Is mens faith because of their vertue or their vertue because of mens faith For it hath antiently been doubted whether any such power as is ascribed to them or any such effects as are pretended from them would ever have followed but for mens superstitious observations affectations perswasions and expectations 22. For what cause are Magicians and Astrologers so earnest to require Faith as principall both in the Agent and Patient Is it not to help out
God before and above all others They are the more principall parts of the whole universe to which the less principall are but subserving as intended for their sakes and working for their ends Intellectuall natures have more asfinity with the whole as apprehending all things else besides themselves whereas every other creature is but a part and capable of no more but a bare participation of its own particular entity Now it is not for the inapprehending part to have an ordaining power over the apprehensive whole By the course of nature the rationall creature uses all other things for it self as either for the perfection of its intellect the explication of its science the exercise of its vertue or else the sustentation of its body to which the intellectuall nature is united And therefore it is not for them to dispose rule govern impell necessitate him him but for him to observe rule govern dispence moderate and make use of them 34. Whether any thing can be sayd to be fatall with respect to us till it have taken effect For a fatality before it be is but a contingency to us and to us a concingency after it is is a fatality Why then should we be bound to believe the prognosticated things of Fate or Fortune before hand yea though they may have some naturall cause remotely necessary or of some indefinite probability yet is not all this sufficient for our faith in particular because as concerning many such naturall causes there is in us nevertheless besides the supreme a liberty and power to prevent 35. Suppose the Fates have destinated one man to be hangd or kill'd by another why should not that be prognosticated from another mans nativity as well as his own seeing he also comes necessarily into the series of second causes Indeed some of the old genethliacks have boasted to foresee or foretell a mans fate or fortune from the nativity of his parents Brethren children c. But have not others of them held it for a foolish fancy that the fate or fortune of one man should lye involved not only in his own but in the constellations of so many mens nativities 36. Whether they that suffer the same fate have the same starres coupling or compacting thereunto Et è contra Suppose them suffring and suffring to death the last line of Fate for Christ the Gospeâ—l religion and conscience Is this fatall destiny also from the starry order and connexion who ever heard that the starres made Martyrs or necessitated unto martyrdome How then hath it come to passe that young old men women of severall ages sexes nations and therefore not of the same constellations have all agreed to undergoe the same event 37. Whether that be true Fate which they would mingle together with providence and how can divine providence and Pagan Fate agree For Providence is the beginning and continuation of all things Fate is the end or utter confusion of them Providence is in the ordering of casuals as well as fatals Fate is opposing all things fortuitous and therefore not disposing them Providence is an act in God their Fate is no more but an event upon the creature Providence is a disposition impendent or out of the thing Fate is a disposition inherent or in the thing Providence comprehends all things past present and to come so does not Fate in her connexion of Causes Providence is in and over all things from the greatest to the least good evill celestialls terrestrialls spiritualls corporealls universalls singulars naturalls rationalls voluntaries necessaries contingents so is not Fate Providence is more speciall to one than to another but Fate is a necessity to all alike Providence can work immediately without and against means Fate can operate nothing but according to her series or connexion Providence can act with every creature reserving to it its own motion as with free agents freely with contingents contingently c. whereas Fate hath no way to work but fatally that is necessarily forcibly inexorably immutably inevitably The rules order successe of divine providence are either written in his own book or in his own breast and not in the Starres and Planets as Fate is The wisedome justice power goodnesse of his providence all this is written in his own book the particular successes issues events thereof all these are written in his own breast Even wise Providence it self is not herein to be discerned or determined before-hand what satuous thing is Fate then that is so obvious and triviall as for the Faticanes to foretell Is not this difference enough between them and never to be reconciled Providence is a prudent counsellor and will have the particular issues kept secret Fate is a silly babbler and will have them commonly foretold 38. Whether had it not been for the fictions of Fate and Fortune there had ever been hatcht opinions and heresies so prejudiciall to divine providence and that even amongst Pagans themselves that had experience sufficient to convince them of the truth and power of it and of the justice yea and goodnesse of it in great part Had the divine providence ever been denyed if Fate and fortune had not been held for Gods Had God himself been implanted under Fate or made subject to the decrees of it or slandered for a sloathfull careless spectator of humane things and terrene if they had not confined and limited God to content himself with the reiglement of the heavens as if it had veen beneath his dignitie and majestie to vouchsafe to look down to small things or once to take notice of of what was done here below but to commit the care and rule of all sublunary and inferiour things to the starres and celestiall bodyes as his substitutes and their superiours Had prophane and wicked men ever accused providence and excused their impieties had they not heard of fatall starres necessitating and inforcing both their wills and actions 39. Was not the constitution of Fate and Fortune first invented in a derogation to God and his divine providence and that through a paganish and infidelious scandall at good things happening to bad men here and evill things to good men which had never been excogitated or had soon vanished had they been thus Christianly instructed viz. That the all provident Creator dispenses these middle things with an indifferent hand as unto creatures That the best men upon earth are not worthy of the least of goods things may deserve to be involved in the utmost of evill things that can here befall them That the wise Disposer knows how to turn these outward good things to the evill of evill men and these outward evill things to the good of good men That this present world is no time of full punishing or rewarding but these two precisely pertain to the world that is to come 40. Admit that either Fate or fortune was so indeed as they presage or much more than they can imagine yet how is the best of them both
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
the temerity of calculating numbers given boldness to the impiety of canting or enchanting numbers by which they have pretended and boasted of force and power even over the Starres themselves And what a frivolous distinction is it in ascribing efficacy to distinguish betwixt sensible and rationall numbers Can sense judge of numbers or any thing else but reason only And so betwixt materiall and formall numbers What 's a formall but a meerâ—aery notion if there be no materiall or thing numbred neither is there more than one simple formality of all numbers and that 's a recess from unity or rather excesse of it And if one formality why therefore not one efficacy 53. VVhether the Jewish and Paganish Astrologers have been exact in the computations of times And if time be not exactly computed where will the Planetarian Prognosticator and the Genethliacall Presager begin his Calculation But indeed hath not God therefore concealed the exact computation of time from the beginning of the Creation and reserved it solely to himself that so he may put all audacious Calculators and Prognosticators to silence and confusion 54. VVhether the motions mensurations computations especially the mutations of time and things in time and yet more especially their significations and Predictions are to be disputed and discoursed Astrologically and not rather Theologically since Thelogie teaches the right use and Astrologie but the vile abuse of them all 55. VVhether Astrologie so much of it as may be lawfull or usefull viz. in the observing of times and seasons for Navigation Medicine Husbandry and such like occupations and actions be not really a part of Physicks or naturall Philosophie rather than Astronomie And therefore why doe they not rather seek to inform our understanding and confirm our judgement by sound and plain Physicall reasons than only impose upon our faiths and conjure and charm it by strange and not pure Astronomicall termes 56. Whether all their signall Prognostications even in Physick and Husbandry as blood-letting in such a Sign gelding cattell in such sowing and planting the Moon being so and so be true necessary and advantagious 57. If their Prognosticks so often fail them and abuse the world about the changes of weathers and seasons hot cold dry rainy windy c. for which there may be some naturall cause and probable conjecture who will believe them in Divining and Predicting such accidents and events as belong not to their art 58. Whether the proper matter subject or object of divining Astrologie be the celestiall Spheres and orbs yea or no In as much as the Soothsaying artifice is presuming to act upon Angells Spirits Souls Religions States rationalls animalls vegetables inanimates mineralls artificialls yea and busies it self with superstitious and supercilious observations and conclusions about actions and accidents from the most excellent to the most ignoble of them Is not an Artist then a John of all trades For surely the art must either be all arts or else no art at all 59. Whether a Rabinicall tradition Cabbalisticall fancy a Platonicall idea a Paganish superstition a Phreneticall Enthusiasm a presumptuous faith a legendary authority a prentices Arithmetick an illogicall Rethorick a vain speculation a paradoxall assertion a depraving adulteration a sacrilegious detorsion a catachresticall hyperbolicall ratiocination ambiguous equivocation affected decurtation or sophistication of expression a prophane asseveration an arrogant boasting of their own learning and an odious undervaluing of all others be powerfull and sufficient to make Magick and Astrologie arted and arrant magick and astrologie not only of prime-materiall non-entities aenigmaticall oracles obstruse hieroglyphicks chimicall and chimericall sperm and chaos preternaturall mirables occult antipathies impertinent curiosities diabolicall injections prestigious impostures and sorcerous practices but also of Divine operations Angelicall offices coelestiall influences naturall instincts intellectuall notions rationall faculties artificiall experiments casuall accidents extraordinary revelations sacred inspirations spirituall illuminations propheticall predictions parabolicall significations dogmaticall sentences gracious promises legall types evangelicall mysteries religious services morall manners politick affaires arbitrary actions heroick motions common conversations and indeed what not 60. Whether all the presaging Science let them make never so much of it be any more than a meer conjecturall imagination And such an imagination of a Diviner whose efficacy oft-times depends more upon anothers imagination than upon his own For what can he out of all his art inquire of concerning thee unlesse thou out of thy curiosity inquirest of him first And what is he able to effect for thee unless thou believest If thou proposest it not can he tell for what particular cause thou commest to him which way can our secret intentions be made known to others but either by our own information Gods revelation or the Devills suggestion 61. Whether an humane prudence that I may say nothing of an illuminated discretion I say an humane prudence studying men expert in affaires observant of times and manners mindfull of providence in the gubernation of the world and fearfull of impending judgements and just deserts may not make a more probable conjecture and utter a more likely omination of mutations and future events both publike and private than the Sciolist or the Artist with all his Magick and Astrologie 62. What difference betwixt some of the Artists Almanacks and Ephimerides and an Erra Pater or the Sheepheards Kalender and in which of them is more superstition and futility to be found 93. Whether the Mathematicall masters Proselytes and Parasites so immoderatly and immodestly idolatrously and blasphemously extolling preferring admiring and adoring their own art have not the rather betrayed it to censure infamy derision and contempt not only in the judgement of all good and wise but of all moderate and indifferent men Wherefore then doe they so â—insolently inveigh against the ignorance and stupidity of all such as they say detract from it when it is confest among themselves that he is of all most ignorant of it that attributes most to it and that indeed their own arrogance and temerity have exposed it to more contumely and detestation than all others envy and detraction 64. How many Arch-magicians and Astrologers have either ingeniously or anxiously confessed and condemned their own art or Science for worse than the Vanity thereof CHAP. VI. 6. From the obscurity of Originall 1. WHether the vertue or viciousness profit or perniciousness dignity or obscurity lawfulness or unlawfulness of an Art or Science may not well be argued from the primordiall cause Infuser Suggester Inventer Institutor and Author of it 2. Whence ariseth the very name of a Magician whether from these or those Nations Cities Towns Countries Languages Professours Sects Religions Derivations interpretations Who of the Magicians themselves is able precisely to define 3. Whether the name of a Magician be derived from Latine Greek Hebrew Syriack Arabick Chaldaean Aegyptian Persian c. and whether those derivations that seem to be accepted in the good part and to import any
head of the child that is born another upon the neck and so of the shoulders the breast the belly the thighs the legs the feet and they all as different in themselves so also in their significations 21. How comes it to pass that Twins as Jacob and Esau Proclus and Euristhenes are of different natures or constitutions conditions fortunes fates or ends although born under one constellation or conjunction If they have got Nigidius Figulus his device and so can allege that the swift motion of the heavenly bobies may alter the constellation and cause the variation May not the birth of one oft-times be as slow as the birth of twain and why not then the like variation also If it be from the delay that is between the birth of the Twins then whether is that delay alwayes alike and the difference accordingly or if it be sometimes in their birth whether is it likewise in their conception Nay how can there be any exact observation although it be but in the birth of one if the swiftnesse on the one part and the slowness on the other be well examined If they say the difference betwixt the Twins may be by reason of the difference in their conception why then doe they never bring that into their calculation Is not the moment of the conception more considerable for naturall impressions than the birth But how shall they know that since she that bears knows it not Or how pretend they to ghesse at it from the Nativity since that may fall out from the conception seven eight nine moneths more or less 22 Whether Astrologie be of any naturall use so much as to Physick especially according to the Magicall application of it by Periapts Amulets Charms Characters Words Figures Alligations suspensions c Likewise to cure the diseases of old or young by choosing a Planet convenient to their age As for the old men Saturn for young men Mercurie c. Likewise in choosing Signs convenient to the part affected As for the diseases in the head Aries for those in the feet Pisces c. As also in the superstitious observation of Criticall dayes in which such a Planet governs as may be most apt to repell the disease c. Concerning all which let them see to the refutations of learned Physicians CHAP. VIII 8. From the order of Causes 1. VVHether because Astronomicall observations and Predictions may be true and lawfull being Physicall and having their naturall causes therefore the Astrologicall must be so too Being as is their own word anaitiologicall or not having any naturall cause at all 2. Of all the causes of humane actions and accidents God Angells Devills the will of mans mind the temperature of his body externall violences accidentall occurrences and the starres influences whether these last of all the rest be not the most remote and feeble in their operation 3. Whether the Artists in their Predictions ought not to moderate themselves if the Art may admit of moderation according to this known order and received distinction of causes 1. Some Causes produce their effects necessarily and alwayes and those Causes being understood and discerned the effect may certainly be pronounced and prenuntiated as in Eclipses 2. Some Causes again produce their effects though not necessarily and alwayes yet for the most part and seldome faill and such may be Prognosticated only conjecturally but not peremptorily as the changes or alterations of Weather 3. Some Causes are only generall remote indefinite indeterminate partiall accidentall whose effects follow neither necessarily nor alwayes nor for the most part nor indeed scare at all as in tempers and manners and such as they cannot be foreknown so they are not to be foretold But as for more rationall and arbitrary actions and future contingents meerly fortuitous these can have no Causes all but in the secret and hidden will of God or else in the indiscernable will of man and therefore are in Gods power alone and not in mans art either to forknow or foresee 4. Whether the starres be not only Signes but Causes or whether Signes where they are ordinarily no Causes or Causes where they are no Signes or as they ask of Comets whether they be either causing or signing from their matter or from their form Especially to our purpose whethrr they be both Causes and Signes of things future and fortuitous Causes they cannot be but of naturall things and they generall only and indefinite And therefore cannot be Signes of determinate and particular effects For if they signe not the causes in particular how can they sign the effects in particular Again Signes naturall they cannot be but either as Causes or effects or else as proceeding from the same common cause and superiour to both And that common cause cannot bee corporeall because there is no bodily thing superiour to the heavenly bodyes That superiour Cause therefore upon which they both depend must needs be incorporeall even God not Angells because Angels have no such transient action common to them both If therefore they be so much as Signes they are only so according to divine ordinance and institution and not according to any humane art or invention 5. How the Stars can signifie such an effect whereof they are not the cause And especially whose speciall causes they signifie not at all And for as much as such astrall effects as have their naturall causes can be forecold but conjecturally and indefinitely upon what grounds then doe they particularly define and determine upon casualties and voluntaries whose events are not so much as probable as not having any such causes as aforesaid 6. Whether the Causes namely the second and particular causes of meer accidents and contingents are to be foreseen and foreknown by mortall men For how can things by accident be foreseen in their naturall causes when as Philosophie concludes there can be no naturall causes of things by accident 7. Whether the Starres are the causes or signes of any kind of Contingent as well those that follow from arbitrarious actions as those that depend upon more stated matters Nay whether those that have their ordinate cauâ—es and revealed signes can properly be called Contingents 8. Upon what grounds doe the Astrologers undertake to predict or foretell of future Contingents since they can no way fore-see them neither in themselves nor yet in their causes Not in themselves because they yet are not Nor in their causes for they are either God or the heavens or mans free will And first how are they able to foreknow those things that depend upon the prime cause Gods secret will and absolute pleasure without his speciall revelation Next how can they see any such things in the heavens which are but generall and remote causes and so neiâ—her cause nor signe any thing determinatly and particularly Yea are but materiall causes at most and therefore betoken or effect nothing of the actions of the mind or Soul Then for the will of Man which
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
upon so many and contrary causes and considerations Namely of Stars erratick and fixt and they more efficacious than these of rayes manifest and occult of influxes simple and mixt of light cognate and mutuatitious of motions proper and common and the proper more active than the common of Planets amicall bâ—nevolous auspicious fortunate and â—nimicall maleficall unfortunate exitiall as also ancipitous and indifferent to both and all these sometimes roborated and holpen sometimes infirmed and hindred one by another of Planets masculine feminine androgynous and these again now strengthning now weakning one another of Stars auc't and dimiâ—ute diurnall nocturnall and ambiguous ascending and descending slow swift and â—ean direct Stationary and retrograde Of the Signs of the Zodiack their Quadrants and Trigons and how they are masculine or feminine imperant or obedient right or crooked humane brute reptile vocall and without voyce fruitfull or barren beautifull or deformed happy-witted or unhappy conjunct or distinct of the essentiall dignities of the Planets or increments with their contrary dejections or detriments their houses exaltations triplicities tearms thrones decurions faces joys of the accidentall dignities of Planets in respect of motion positure aspect sc combust peregrine captive afflicted oppressed c. sextile quadrate triangular c. partile platick solitary ferall applicate defluent c. of the celestiall houses their number opposition representation and in every house the order nomenclature signification joy consignificator colour condition and temperament of the severall wayes of erecting Theams Scheams Figures c. All these generals considered besides infinite more particulars to be added what a wild wood or imaginary mist is here to find out a future contingent or fortuitous event For so clearly doe even the exactest of them make their grounds and means whereby to passe with great peremptoriness their prognosticating judgements upon all accidents Nay for as much as some of them say there are 120. divers conjunctions of the 7. Planets and moreover of them generally 13092. Considerations besides innumerable myriads of them in particular are not these direct to use their own word directions not only to ghesse at but conclude upon things future and fortuitous 21. Whether this order of arguing be with probability much lesse infer any causall necessity viz. From the constellation of the Nativity of a child to the naturall constitution from the naturall temperament to the humours of vegetation and growth from the humours of the body to the manners of the mind from the manners or naturall dispositions to the politick morall yea and religious actions and from the manners and actions to such and such determinate fortunes and events Seeing all these may bee quite otherwise altered by the constitution of the Parents by natures work different to both their constitutions by the complexion of the Nurse by adventitious nutriments by education by Art by Discipline by freewill and reason by grace and conscience by the wisdome power and goodness of Gods providence yea and by externall accidents or occurrents 22. If this way of argument were admitted in some part and probability that the Starres may have their vertue and efficacy upon this sublunary orb and so upon the inferior Elements and so upon Bodyes compounded of those elements and so upon the humours in those bodyes and so upon certain passions and affections of the mind that follow those humours or tempers would it therefore follow that they have the like though not as efficients yet but as instruments upon the Soul Spirit Understanding Will Conscience not only not to compell or enforce but so much as to incline or dispose them to actions rationall voluntary politick morall or religious and so bring them to reach the end or runne into the events of all those actions good or evill What rationall man can be perswaded that it is in the influences of the Starres to beget in a propension either to vertues or to vices and that it is in those vertues or vices as so begotten to hasten or prevent the hoped or feared effect However what Christian man will be brought to believe that wicked men and godly men their temporall prosperity or adversity is from their auspicious or their unfortunate starres how much lesse then their spirituall endowments or defects together with their eternall rewards or punishments 23. Whether in all Planetary Constellations Aspects Cojunctions there be a necessary conjunction betwixt all causes and all effects Though we may grant much of these in the Eclipses themselves yet what necessity of all these may move us to admit so much as touching the portents of those Eclipses And therefore I demand further of Eclipses as I doe of Comets also if they have no more but naturall causes and common apparitions whether have they then more than naturall significations and common effects If the significations and effects be to be thus doubted of in the eminent and visible what may we doubt of concerning the invisible or else but imaginable conjunctions 24. Why are the daily effects of the same starres as touching the weather so different in divers Horizons And why are the prognosticks of them so different although within the same Horizon Now if Prognosticators have so often hallucinated or deceiving been deceived about naturall effects or consequences of heat cold fair weather rain wind snow haâ—l thunder c. how can they be credited in their Predictions upon arbitrary actions and fortuitous events 25. Whether there be not a sufficient end and use of the starres substance and motion in the ornament of the Universe the beauty of the heavens their rising and setting in their own order their light and heat upon inferiors their distinctions of times and seasons with other their unknown motions actions services all tending to the glory of the Creator and benefit of the creature although their Astrologicall and Genethliacall yea and magicall benevolences and malevolencies had never been excogitated or invented CHAP. IX 9. From the strength of Reason 1. ALthough some certain demonstrations or demonstrative reasons borrowed from Arithmetick Geometry and Opticks may be conceded to Astronomie because it is a Science that keeps it self to naturall motions and measures ends and uses yet whether all they ought to be usurped by or allowed to Astrologie in as much as it transgresses all these 2. Whether besides the exaction of a blind and implicite Faith the rejection and derision of sound and explicite reason and demonstration done by Magicians and Astrologers be not a necessary demonstration of the vacuity or want of reason to the Artists or their Art 3. Whether Reason be not superiour and predominant to the power of the Starres For say after their own order the starres may have their influences upon tempers and humours and so upon passions and affections and so upon manners and actions and so upon issues and events yet Reason is not destitute of such means and succours as may temper those humours moderate those passions prevent those
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
frequently to be observed from the same cause by the same means and to the same end 11. Whether it be good and safe to gather an universall proposition or make a generall conclusion of experiment from examples of a particular event Especially when those examples are extraordinary singular rare accidentall obscure fabulous c. Likewise when the causes are uncertain and the effects unanswerable and the ends contrary 12. Whether the truth and reality of an experiment be sufficient to justify the goodness and lawfulness of the art Who will say because the effect was palpable therefore the means are laudable Because some Astrologicall predictions have proved experimentally true peradventure will any one therefore argue that the principles and practices of it are therefore morally good Who can deny that even diabolicall predictions have too often come to passe 13. Whether of one Magicall divination or Astrologicall prediction that hath had any reality of effect morethan ten of them have not been found to have been as false in the intention so fayling in the execution And wherefore doe they so vauntingly proclame those few that have by chance taken effect and so cunningly conceal those many that have proved false and frustrate And why should one or two fortuitous and casuall events win credit to the Art and yet not ten nor an hundred false and frustrate predictions prevail to disparage it Since one lye may make many truths to be suspected why should one accidentall truth be taken for a confirmation or covert of many lyes 14 May not the peremptory prediction of Magicall Astrologers that swear upon their own Prognostications prove so to dementate and bewitch people as that they can now dream of nothing else and if Good so elevate them with transported hopes as that they cannot now choose but goe on with uncontrollable confidence in the attempt But if bad so distract them with confounding despayrs as that they cannot but carelesly give them-themselves over to such wayes and means as must necessarily bring them to such fearfull ends 15. Doe we not know the force of Imagination that it may very often produce reall and palpable effects and yet the imagination not less vain and absurd for all that In like manner why may not the strong imaginations that are here betwixt the Actors and Assenters be effectuall to the producing of some such notable experiment or event 16. Whether an experiment in Magick and Astrologie may not be like unto an experiment in Physick or Medicine sc brought to effect many times Empirically Quack-salvingly ignorantly blindly upon a rash adventure and without yea against all rules of art 19. Whether the complement of some prognosticated effects even naturall as well as accidentall may not fitly be thus compared viz. To many arrows shot at rovers and one now and then hitting the mark To many small bullets shot out of a great Guns mouth and one or so among all doing execution To a Dice-player that in often throwing sometimes names his cast before-hand To the many words of a loquacious babler whereof some may prove true although without his understanding and against his intention To a man stumbling upon that by chance and in the dark which with all his light and diligence he could hardly have found out 18. Have not dreams ordinary dreams very often proved true Is there therefore any certainty to be had of such dreams Have not conjurations and enchantments wrought stupendious effects Are these arts therefore to be approved because of such proofs as these 49. Whether the Prognosticators themselves are not very doubtfull of the event or experiment Seeing that they studiously deliver their predictions either with such cautions or equivocations as whether they fall out or not or whether this way or that yet something however may be pretended to have been foretold 20. What 's the reason that none of the Diviners or calculating predictors dare once scarcely so much as offer to tast of their own drugs or dregs which they propine to all the world and would willingly make the whole earth drunken withall that they might see mens nakedness Nor yet wage their own law wherewith they seek to set all others in a contention I mean scarce any one of them not once begun to try an experiment of their own Theams and Scheams upon themselves Think they we would envy their foreseen felicity Or are they conscious and affraid of their so often experienced infortunity which their very art without such precise erection hath justly made them obnoxious unto So that no marvell they had rather pretend an experiment of their art upon others than find it in themselves 20. Whether those Theams and Scheams they tell us of concerning so many famous mens deaths sicknesses victories advancements liberties captivities learnings errors c. were not most of them erected by them after the events And then what a rare art is this to make a man a prophesier à posteriori And though he can hardly deduce the event from the presignification of the stars yet he can easily which is all one extoll to the Stars the presignification of the event 22. Whether mens fortunes or successes especially for the constant yea and ultimate experiments of them doe not more follow their manners than depend upon their Stars For let them resolve us if a man according to his manners may not either live a happier life than his Stars promise or dye a dreadfuller death than his stars threaten 23. Whether this be not a true conclusion That all experiments pretended from sydereall positures and effluxes besides some certain distinctions of times some naturall temperaments some medicinall operations some nauticall arts and some seasonable observations about husbandry are nothing else but prestigious impostures jugling leiger de mains or prodigious illusions CHAP. XI XI From the pooreness of Suppositions 1. IS not that a poor Art whose very principles run a begging being nothing else but bare Hypotheses Suppositions Postulates Petitions craved Concessions implored admissions bargained beliefs and to use the Apostles phrase weak and beggarly elements or rudiments Yea I may say further not only in his phrase but according to his scope Philosophie and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the Elements or rudiments of the world and not after Christ Col. 2. 8. 2. Whether such Hypotheses or suppositions as may be conceded to Astronomie for necessary and usefull intents ought to be indulged or licensed to Astrologie for unnecessary vain and vile ends 3. Why may we not say of the Astrologers as they say of the Alchymists That they take true or probable Hypotheses from other Arts and make false and impossible inferences uâ—â—n them in their own 4. Whether that saying may not more aptly be spoken of Magicall Astrologie than of any other art besides One absurdity being supposed or granted a thousand absurdieies will â—ollow upon it And as every peradventure yea may be answered with a peradventure nay so why
whether are not their intermingled negations and affirmations disclaimings and acclaimings vowings and disavowings cautions and concessions distinctions and confusions an Argument of a consciousnesse or conviction of something in this kinde to be greatly suspected and censured 18. How many of them that have pretended nothing but nature and natural causes and boasted Art altogether and principles of mysterious Art yet when the mystery of delusion and iniquity hath been discovered and themselves straightly examined by prudent and careful Magistrates or the day of their disastrous and unfortunate ends or execution approaching I say how many of them have then confest and cryed out upon compacts confederacies Devils delusions perdition damnation 19. Whether the superstitions of Sorcery and Witchcraft be not taught and promoted countenanced and encouraged by the Printing and permitting such multitudes of Magical books Especially the translating of them by way of Vindication and Apologie into the vulgar tongue 20 Whether such books may be read unlesse with an inimical Science not a social Conscience not with an invitatory operation but an expugnatory refutation And whether their signes and ceremonies may be used or assented to by any either ignorantly or affectedly without great danger of being seduced and infected if not with the Sorcery yet with the superstition of the Art Let a man but well examine himself and observe others and he needs no Oedipus his own observation and experiment will soon teach him to resolve the case CHAP. XX. From the Ominatings of vain observation 1. WHether the superstition of vain observation and the more superstitious ominations thereupon have not been occasioned and increased by the prognostications predictions and divinations of Magick and Astrologie For besides the suggestions of Satan himself where is the source and root of all such vanity and su-perstition at least the imitation and example to be found save in those Arts and speculations that teach to observe creatures images figures signes and accidents for constellational and as they call them second stars and so to ominate and presage upon them either as touching themselves or others As namely to observe dayes for lucky or unlucky either to travail sail fight build marry plant sow buy sell or begin any businesse in to bode good or bad luck fortune successe from the rising up on the right or left side from lifting the left leg over the threshold at first going out of doors From putting on the hose uneven or a crosse and the shooe upon the wrong foot Item The Band standing awry the going abroad without his girdle on the bursting of the shooe latchet the tingling of the ear the itching of the eye the glowing of the cheek the bleeding of the nose the stammering in the beginning of a speech the stumbling at first going about an enterprise the meeting a begger or a Priest the first in a morning the meeting of a Virgin or a Harlot first the running in of a child betwixt two friends the justling one another at unawares one treading upon anothers toes to meet one fasting that is lame or defective in any member to wash in the same water after another to be over merry on a suddain to be given to sighing and know no cause why from the dreaming of gold silver eggs gardens weddings dead men dung c. From the snorting in sleep from the sneezing at meat the spilling of the wine the overturning of the salt the dogs howling the cats licking themselves the swine grunting the cocks crowing unseasonably the pyes chattering about the house the owles scritching the swallows falling down the chymney the crickets chirping behind the chimney stock or creeping upon the foot-pace A hare crossing the way a crow lighting on the right hand or on the left To collect or predict mens manners and fortunes by their names or the Anagram upon the name or the allusion to the name or the numbers in the name c. Who can reckon up all the vain observations and superstitious ominations of several Nations persons sexes ages conditions and occupations of men And what hope is there it should be otherwise while such artifices and practises are tolerated which teach to observe them from signal constellations and Magical operations 2. Whether the vain observation of vain dreams proceed not from the vain dream and phantastical of the coelestial influences upon the phantastick spirit For do they not say That as the coelestial influxes upon corporal matter produce diverse forms so from the same influxes upon the phantastical power which is organical phantasms are impressed by a coelestial disposition consentaneous to the producing of any effect especially in dreams because the minde is then more freed from corporeal and external cares or troubles and so more freely receives those divine influxes Whence it comes to passe that many things are made known to sleeping men in dreams which are hid to the waking And if this be their chief reason whereby they would reconcile an opinion of truth to Dreams why are they not agreed among themselves of the causes yea of the sydereal causes of them One will have the Intelligence that moves the Moon to cause them by the means of its light whereby mens phantasies are irradiated while they sleep Others refer them to the influxes of the superiors yet by the means of certain species whereby they continually flow from Heaven Another will have them to depend upon the powers of the soule the influxes of the Heavens together with certain images or resemblances whether of fantasie or configuration Others will have them wholly caused by their constellations And if they would bring in the Devil among the rest as some of them have confest he is not to be kept out they should finde him to be the greatest cause of all especially of the vain observation of them and superstitious omination upon them Who will deny that there may be some observation of some dreams and some interpretation made upon them as touching either the health or sicknesse of the body the vertuous or vitious inclinations and affections of the minde yea and though rarely and extraordinarily for the caution and encouragement as touching some special actions and events But I demand of Magical and Astrological men not so much whether there be one common rule to all for the interpretation of dreams As whether this taught by themselves be either a second cause of dreams or a safe rule to interpret them viz. That dreams are more efficacious when the Moon over-runs that signe which was in the ninth number of the Nativity or revolution of that yeer or in the ninth signe from the signe of perfection For it is a most true and certain divination neither doth it proceed from nature or humane arts but from purified minds by divine inspiration They shall do well not onely by true reason to resolve us fully of the truth they speak but also in good sense of the terms they speak withal 3. Whether the vain
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
of Faunia for safeguard set up his Asse and gave him Provender which he refused to eate but got out and went into the water and that made him to ruminate that there was no safe abiding for him in any house or countrey but he must get him to sea Pompey being routed by Caesar fled for safety to the Isle of Cyprus and spying there a stately building asked the name of it it was answered that it was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this he sighing interpreted as portending ill to him touching the Empire or Kingdom They of Perianna imploring the ayd of the Samians against their adversaries of Cerra they to deride them sent them a Sybill in a little Bark which they interpreted as a good omination So they of Apollonia being in distresse and sending to the Epidamnians for succour they returned them answer that they would send the river Aeas for their reliefe which they accepted as a good omen and making the river Captaine in chiefe got the victory and afterwards sacrificed to it as a God The old Druides gathered a Serpents egge at a certaine time of the Moon according to certaine rites and ceremonies and so reserved it for omination of victory and prevalency in warres strifes contentions And such an one a Noble man of Rome is said to have hatched in his bosome in a controversie that he had with the Emperour Claudius Of Zoroaster it is said that he laught at his birth and that his braines beat so hard that they beat off the hand that was laid upon his head and this must signifie his profound science Plato while an infant and asleep in his cradle there sate hony Bees upon his lips and this must signifie his Eloquence To Mydas in like manner there came pismires and carried graines of Wheat into his mouth this was a prediction of his riches Servius Tullius a mean child while he was sleeping a flame appeared to shine round about his head and this was made to presage a crown Roscius his nurse awaking observed by moon-light a Serpent as it were imbracing the child and this must prognosticate his eminent fame and glory although his height was a Stage-player If these occasions were not slight yet could there be slighter divinations or more worthy to be slighted Alexanders father dreamt that his mothers belly was sealed with the impresse of a Lyon upon it Hecuba when she was bringing forth Paris had a vision of a firebrand or burning Torch that should set on fire Troy and all Asia There appeared unto the mother of Phalaris the image of Mercury pouring forth blood upon the earth The mother of Dionysius dreamed that she brought forth a Satyr Adde to these and the like the prodigious birth of Zoroaster their Prince and master and then aske the Magastromancers what need such prodigies at births and such presagings upon them if the natalitiall conjunctions be sufficiently portending without them The Oracles themselves would give answers to any kind of questions were they never so triviall and would presage the erection and restauration of scenicall enterludes as parts of divine service though never so Iudicrous And would enjoyn and accept of divining means matters instruments rites ceremonies though never so ridiculous As among the Colophonians in Ionia there the Oracle would afford them the vertue of prophecying from the drinking of water Among the Branchides in the same Province from the sucking in of certaine vapours In another Oracle a woman sate upon a Trevet at the mouth of a cave and was filled with the fury of divination In another a glasse was let down into a fountaine by a slender thred and after sacrifices and imprecations the images of things future were seen in the glasse In another they descended into a fountaine and so vaticinated as they desired In another they consulting burnt lamps offered Incense gave gifts and put their eares to the mouth of the Image then stopping them they went out of the Temple and opening them again the first voyce they heard from any they met they took it for an Oraculous answer In another they judged of things future by casting of Dice c. Severall Countries had their severall waies of divining and all of them esteemed alike acceptable to the Gods and alike effectuall among themselves Tacitus writes thus of the manners of the Germans that they sing as they goe to warre and encourage each other by their Bardian odes acquiring the fortune of their fight by their singing and he that makes the harshest noise is thought to doe it best They take this to be much of providence in children especially females neither neglect they their counsels and answers Velleda the Prophetesse although she was a trouble to them they held for a Goddesse Auspicies and Lotteries they observe especially And for lots the custome is simple A bough cut off from a fruitfull tree they divide into lesser branches or slips and those distinguished by certain marks they cast carelesly upon a white garment and in publique consulting use the ministry of the Priest in private of the father of the family who looking up to heaven takes up every one of them thrice and interprets them according to the imprest markes If any forbid there 's no more consulting for that day if it be permitted then to answer the faith of the auspicies they goe on to interrogate the voyces and flights of birds It is also the property of that Nation to experience the presages and monitions of horses They are nourished publiquely in woods and groves white they are and touch no common work onely put into a sacred chariot they are accompanied by the Priest and the Prince and so they observe their neighing and sweating Neither is there more faith had in any other auspicie either by the common people the Nobles or the Priests For they conceive these to be the Secretaries of the Gods and themselves their ministers There is another way of auspicie whereby they explore the event of warre they get a captive by any means of that Nation with which they warre and commit him and one chosen out of their own common sort to try together in their own Country armes and the victory of the one or the other they make to be a great presage to either side They couple not unlesse some sudden thing chance but on certain daies when the Moon begins to be in the â—ull for that they believe to be a most auspicious beginning for the doing of businesse The mother of Sapor King of Persia being with child and it doubted whether it was a male or a female she went withall for if it proved a female it might not succeed in such dignity For this cause the Princes convented the Magicians to try their skill and pronounce upon the birth Therefore they brought a Mare ready to fole and the Magicians vaticinated upon it and it falling out according to their prediction they thereupon concluded it was a male child
pronounced for happy and the other for long liv'd Vespasian having obtained the Empire none more flattered by Soâ—trates Seleucus Basilides and other Mathematicall diviners but makes him believe he sees his advancement and victories in the entrayles Others by vaticinating instinct cause certaine antique vessels to be digged up in sacred places wherein they found they say the image of Vespasian perfectly engraven Another whatsoever he shall enterprise promises him the largest successe Alexander being ambitious to be thought of divine originall and solicitous to redeem the imputation of his mothers infamy sent before and suborned the divining Priests with faire promises and large gifts who thereupon made the Oracle to give answer even as he would himselfe which upon his first entrance into the Temple saluted him as the sonne of Iupiter Hammon The Locrians fewer in number being to warre with the Crotonians implored the Gods by sacrifice for successe which the Crotonians hearing sent presently to consult Apollo at Delphos and received this answer that enemies must be overcome first by vows and then by arms Whereupon they vowed the tenth part of the spoyle to Apollo The Locrians understanding both the answer and their vow vowed the ninth part and kept it secret lest their enemies should outvie them and so obtained the victory In the Milesian region one having bought the next draught of the Fishermen they drew up among other things a golden Table Great was the controversie whose this should be Delphick Apollo was consulted to decide it who answered it ought to be given to him that was wiser then all the rest Whereupon they gave it to Thales their own Country wiseman or Astrologer and he to Bias and he to Pittacus and so one to another till at last it came to Solon he gave it to Apollo himself And thus was it shuffled up betwixt the Astrologers and the Oraculists Strepsiades consulted a Thessalian Veneficke about pulling down the Moon from Heaven by magicall ends For at Athens they were wont to pay use rent taxes c. upon the first appearing of the new Moon Now if there were no Moon at all to appeare he thought this the onely way to prevent and defeat the creditors Macarius the Mitylenian a Priest of Bacchus bearing before him a face of justice and equity one committed to his trust a certain sum of money which in his presence he hid in a more safe and secret place of the Temple Afterwards the man calling upon him to restore what was deposited he called him into the Temple and there cut his throat Belesis a Babylonian Pâ—iest skilfull in Astrology and the art of divining had foretold to Aâ—baces the Mede that he should eject Sardanapalus out of the Assyrian Kingdome Which so falling out Arbaces made Belesis Governour of Babylon Now an Eunuch of Sardanapalus finding great store of treasure in his house brought it to Belesis who under a colour of carrying ashes transported it away it being the Kings due Which fact of his the Judges sentenced for capitall but that it was the Kings pleasure to pardon him The Romanes having spent much treasure in the Macedonian warre and their people greatly exhausted It was thought necessary that so much should be exacted of the pontificall Augures Aruspicks Diviners c. as might help to supply the present necessity for though they had praedicted faire for it yet had they themselves hitherto payd nothing to the warre This taxe made the predicting Priests so murmur and exclaime at the breach of their priviledges for that they could have wisht they had not been so forward in predicting and auspicating as they were 33. Of the infamy danger misery and ruine of such as have affectedly favoured or preferred and superstitiously credited or consulted Magicall and Astrologicall predictors OCtavius perswaded by certaine Chaldaean sacrifices or praedicting Soothsayers who had promised him that all should goe well with him stayd in Rome till he was there slain by Marcus his Souldiers that had entred the City And after he was dead a Chaldean prophesie was found in his bosome This man saith the Historian was as wise and just as any Roman of his time save that he had this great imperfection to frequent Soothsayers wise men and Astronomers more then men skilfull in arms government Midas was so superstitiously troubled and distracted about his own dreams that he poysoned himselfe by drinking of Buls blood Aristodemus King of the Messenians in his warre against the Lacedaemonians was so disturbed at the dogs barking like wolves and that the grasse grew in his fathers house or about his houshold Gods which the diviners feared for ominous that he desperately made himselfe away Nicias the Athenian Captain was so exceeding fearful of the portent of an ecclipse that he sate still and suffered himselfe to be environed by his enemies and so betrayed both himselfe and 40000. souldiers to destruction Pomeralius by his predictions was the cause of a great slaughter to Constantine the sonne of Irene and of his own death to boot Stethâ—tus accounted the chiefe Astrologer of his time by a foolish vaticination brought destruction both to Alexius and himselfe Emanuel Connuenus the Emperour much addicted to this madnesse timely besides the perpetuall infamy brought himselfe and a great Navy to utter confusion Peter Leonius a Physician by his vaine confidence of the Mathematicks gave occasion to the death of Laurence de Medices and his own after that Andronicus having made somewhat too severe an edict not onely against Conjurers and Necromancers but against all their relations to redeem the hatred of such severity he began to encourage and consult them himselfe And enquiring about his Successor the magicall diviner used his feats in water and there was seen written backward Si for Is the two first letters of his successors name Noting Isacius that slew him and raigned in his stead Didius Iulianus making the like inquisition by a glasse a child looking in it observed Iulians slaughter and the succession of Severus So was Iulian the Apoâ— state deluded by his diviners to his utter destruction Oâ—ho Sylvius was led on by his predicting Astrologers to usurpation and riot and to kill himselfe desperately at last Maxentius was so deluded by his prognosticators with assurance of victory that he went on confidently but was vanquisht and perished Licinius called together his Augurs Aegyptian diviners Necromancers Veneficks praestigious sacrificers and pseudopresagers to enquire what should be the successe of the warre against Constantine They all at once predicted victory without doubt The inchanters made odes and rimes the Augures presignified happy successe by the flight of birds so did the Aruspicall sacrificulists from the intrayles and thus they made him confident to his vanquishment flight and extream confusion Italicuâ— a Christian Governour having an accustomed hors-race with an aemulating neighbour a Pagan comes to Hilarion entreating his prayers because his Aemulator had used sorcerous imprecations whereby to disable his horses and