Valentines and to draw them out of boxes hats or aprons by which it often happened that men drew verses which contained that which was agreeable either to their present fortune or future condition as it happened in Alexander Severus being then but a youth or stripling and far from any hopes of aspiring to a Monarchal Diadem who being amongst divers of his associates at this interlude and pastime extracted out of the box or scrutiny some Verses of that illustrious Poet Publius Virgilius Maro contained in the sixth book of his Aeneids which predicted the Command of the whole Romane Empire Be carfull how to rule the Romane State 'T will be thy charge allotted out by Fate The humble cherish and the proud cast down Cut Traytors off and thou shalt keep thy Crown And it is no wonder that such things now and then come to passe through the permission of God moving the mindes moderating the tongue and sorting and mingling the lots according as he will have things to evene and fall out for not onely Balaam the South-sayer and false Prophet but his Asse also foretold most certain veracities and future events By the permission of God those who so earnestly gape after the knowledge of future things are catcht in Satans nets and toyles and intangled in many pernicious errours WE must not in this place omit the grave good and Christian admonition of St. Augustine in his book of Christian Doctrine chap. 22 23. wherein he averts That now and then even by the permission of our heavenly Creator it is so brought about that the devils by the help of man forelleth many things which prove true whereby many seduced by a various superstition destructive perswasion and impious curiosity in believing those vain Divinations being left to themselves or as it were by God forsaken through the demerit of their fore past sins and transgressions run head-long into most dangerous and execrable villanies and enormities let us take St. Augustine along with us Hence it is saith he that through a hidden and occult divine judgement men thirsting after the knowledge of unlawful things are delivered over as their want on voluptuousness hath deserved to be deluded and deceived by the fraud and deceit of the prevaricating Angels unto whom the lowest part of the world according to the admirable order of things by Institute of Divine Providence is subjected by which deceptions and delusions it falls out that through the most damnable and superstitious divinations many as well future as present contingents are discovered and happen accordingly as by them predicted and many things fall out through their observations of the adorers of this art that being intangled they become daily more and more curious and so ensnare and involve themselves in the traps and tacklings of most pernicious errour this kinde of soul-fornication the sacred Scripture discovers and also addes if they fore-tell you things which really so fall out yet give no faith or belief unto them for though the Image of dead Samuel foretold unto Saul veracities yet was the sacriledge by which that Image was effected the more to be execrated and detested The woman in the Acts of the Apostles told things which were true and certain did St. Paul therefore connive at that wicked spirit no he chastized him and dispossessing and casting him forth delivered and freed the poor creature from that vexation and thraldom then needs must all these Apotelesmatical Arts and obnoxious superstitions begotten and brought forth by pestiferous combination betwixt man and the devill be odious and hateful to knowing mortals and to be avoided and abhorted by all good Christians Thus this great light of Gods Church To these may be added two causes more and although not so probable yet as much in use and practice Many foretell future Events rather out of a prudence and experience in humane things then by Astrological Art The third Cause MAny there are who foretell future things not so much by their skill in Astrology and Apotelesmaticals as by a deep and searching reach of a pregnant intellect and by a long knowledge in the practice of humane affaires from whence they divine strange things to their Clients from the observation and insight in their affairs and negotiations employments studies and conditions for some there are who taking a survey of the temper affections and inclinations of other mens bodies and constitutions and observing what kinde of course of life they lead whether vertuously or viciously inclined what company they frequent what exercises they delight in they imagine and intimate what is likely to befall them and from hence with a great deal of audacity and impudent confidence predict what ensuing events shall befall them And according to this rule and score when they see a Prince to tyrannize over his Subjects and rack them with Contributions Excize Free quarter and such like other extortions presently they divine that this Potentate shall be murthered or unking'd If any man spend his time in robbing by the high way breaking up of houses or the like Oh he shall be hang'd a blasphemer of God and Religion a broacher of damnable Heresies a murderesse of her Husband questionlesse you shall be told such an one must be bound at a stake and round about it fire and fagots and so be burnt to death This kinde of divining crafty Hannibal made use of who perceiving the temerity rashnesse and ignorance in the Martial Discipline of the Romane Consuls and General Terentius Varro and C. Flaminius foretold and prophesied unto his Africans a glorious victory and to the Romans an ignominious overthrow and dismal slaughter which confident assertion of Hannibal the immediate overthrow of the Romane Army and destruction of the souldiers made current and good The too much confidence and credulity of such as run after Astrologers oft times is the cause of their speaking truth The fourth Cause OFt times the predictions of Astrologers prove true through the foolish and light credulity of their Clients for men for the most part give credit and belief unto such things as are foretold them either concerning the results they most vehemently desire and thirst after or such as they most extreamly fear and abhor for this vain and sottish credulity of persons gaping after that preknowledge of their fortunes doth distill and infuse into their thoughts either a grand hope of the good which the Star-gazers promise or contrariwise an inavoidable fear and sadnesse abhorring the deplorable and fatall events which they are made believe shall shortly fall upon them These two passions of the minde Hope and Fear have such dominion and power over man that they work strangely upon him and oft are the efficients that Contingents come so to passe as predicted by Astrologers for a vehement and ardent hope and desire of the promised good fortunes doth ofttimes so stir up and induce man to make himself fit to receive them that he employeth all his endeavours and useth his
little and little will wither away In no case therefore have recourse unto those men to be satisfied in the curiosity of knowing future Contingents How vain a thing it is to believe that Astrologers can tell any man that he shall be chose chief Bishop or Pontifex THis thing amongst many others discovers the vanity of this Art Astrologers for example will perswade some one that he shall be elected chief Bishop but the promotion of any one to this high degree of honour depends not upon the will and power of the party himself or any other particular person but upon the decree and suffrages of the whole Conclave whose charge it is to elect the chief Bishop and therefore it is not onely necessary suppose I affirme Peter to be the man to know the constellation of his Nativity but I must also know exactly the Constellations and Position of the Stars in the several births of all those whose joynt suffrages vote and elect Peter to that high preferment If it be true which Swetonius relates concerning Augustus that Nigidius Figulus a man eminent amongst the Romans for his rare knowedge in Astrology having taken the hour of his Nativity and rightly considered the stars predominant at his birth cry'd out aloud The Lord of the whole world is now born We must conclude that this was not spoken by Art and grounded upon Reason but casually and rashly and that it was meer chance that it came to pass as he had foretold For the advancement of Augustus to that height of Command and Monarchy was effected by rising unto several degrees of honour and depended upon the favour study and procurement of many men so that to know and pronounce the advancement of Augustus to so eminent a degree of Sovereignty and Empire it was not sufficient to Calculate the Nativity of him alone for the stars which were prevalent at his birth could not have power upon the nativities of others who were his Abettors Sticklers and Coadjutors to obtain the Imperiall Diadem and Dignity of whom many were born before and many severall years after Augustus That the Art and Science of Astrology is none or not considerable The sixth Reason EVery Art and Science is versant in things which alwayes or for the most part fall out as that Art teacheth and yet it is manifest that things shewed by Astrology very seldom rarely come to pass as she foretelleth as having no stable or grounded foundation and therefore cannot constitute a formal Art or Science Being therefore as it is most certainly true that Astrological Predictions are most commonly false and very seldom true and veridical it is most clear that they proceed not from any Art or certain observations but are spoken temerariously and at randome For which cause Phavorinus gives us a Caveat not to be over confiding in Chaldeans though at some times by great chance they stumble upon a truth and verity and his reason is because they speak not things certain defined and known but fallible and grounded onely upon ambiguous conjectures and so betwixt truth and falshood they steal hood-winkt along poco poco in a mist of obscurity and so trying many conclusions by hap hazzard and before they be aware they unknowingly stumble upon a truth and sometimes also by the credulity and informations of those who come foolishly to ask their counsel they seem to meet with a verity and this presently cries them up to have knowledge in things both past and future but such truths as they discover either hab nab or covered with the cloak of subtle knavery compared with their lyes and falsities amount not to the thousand pan thereof Cicero in his 2. book of Divination hath these words what need we desire more The Chaldeans are daily confuted how many things have these Chaldeans told Pompey Crassus and Cesar himself as that they should die in their own habitations aged and full of years and in the very height and top of honour and renown It seems strange to me that any man will follow and give credit to these Fellows whose Predictions and Prognostications which daily experience make manifest to be meer leasings and fopperies Seneca in a small Pamphlet which he entitles Ludus in mortem Claudii Caesaris brings Mercury upon the stage negotiating with the fatal sisters the procurement of Claudius his death and by the way to put a jear and frump upon the Chaldeans amongst other his Patheticall and Rhetoricall Arguments that Astrologers may not alwayes be taxt with lying Be pleased quoth Mercury most dread and powerful Ladies that Fortune-tellers may sometime speak the truth who have so often told us that this or that year this or the next moneth Claudius should be taken out of this world And is not the like done in these our present times do not our Astrologers prognosticate the death of Potentates as they finde the Peoples affections to wish their lives prosperities and preservation or death overthrow and utter confusion St. Ambrose in his fourth book in Hexem ch 7. hath these words Some few dayes since when we fell into discourse how welcome and grateful rain would be one in the company made answer fear not Neomenia will send some truly though we wish for rain yet wish we not such affections verified for my part I am much pleased that no rain fall till we obtain it by the prayers and supplications of the Church Whereby it is manifest that an hope and confidence is not to confide in Changes and Moons but to depend upon the providence and mercy of our most gracious and Omnipotent Creator By which the vanity of Astrology is confuted the efficacy of Christian Piety and power of religious and godly prayers made manifest The vanity and falsity of Astrological Predictions ALbumazar a prime Ring-leader of Superstitious Astrology or Astrological Superstition through the observation and precepts of this Art divined that Christian Religion should continue onely 1460. years but the years which have elapsed-since that prediction prove the Predictor a liar Abraham a Jew out of his Astrologicall observation calculated that the Messias should be born 1464. after our Saviouâ—s Nativity because I know not what the same Constellation and Position of the stars should then happen and be as when Moses brought the Hebrew People out of Egypt but how true this Prediction was time hath discovered Petrus de Aliaco hath left recorded that the Astrologers of that time when the general Council of Constance was call'd to extirpate and root out Heresie and Schism which so much troubled and disquieted the Church fore-told that the Church should enjoy no tranquility but the Heavens threatned dissention and discord even to the ruine and overthrow of Christian Religion and yet notwithstanding by that very Council that long continued and pernicious Scisme was extinguished and a settled peace and quietnesse established in the Church And this happy event so contrary to their vain Predictions might have moved honest Peter
which tickles their fancy men credulous and itching to hear novelties are much taken with these chymera's and give confident belief to such fopperies and many shallow and giddy brain'd fools are taken with this vanity rather for lucre sake then truth Amongst Schollars there is a self-conceited Pack who like nothing be it never so profitable and commodious that is familiarly known to all men they commonly are haunted with the spirit of contradiction and rather then not be contentious and in opposition with the greatest masters of wisdom they beat their brains to be delivered of strange Novelties and Incomprehensibilities the height of the ambition of these Opinionists is not so much to know verity as to seem to the vulgar to know that which the ablest of Philosophers confess they could never attain unto I will put a period to this discourse with a notable saying of St. Ambrose in his fourth book of Hexam c. 4. The wisdom of the Chaldeans is rightly compared to the spiders web in which if a flye chance to be entrapped there is no evasion or enlargement but if a Creature of validity and limbs pass that way it dissipateth and beareth away all those slender machins and infirm and feeble gins Such are the nets and tacklings of Astrologers in which fools and weak judgements are entangled and captived but men of strong sense and reason pass by them without any retention or impediment Thou therefore whosoever thou art when thou beholdest these feignments of Astrologers tell them their frail gins and spiders webs have no power to ensnare thee unlesse like a feeble and silly flye through thy own imbecillity thou suffer thy self to be entangled therein whereas a strong judgement like a Sparrow or swift flying Dove breaketh through and carrieth all before it An Argument against three Fundamentals of Astrology Judiciary THe basis and foundation of this Art is either very weak and infirm or none at all then by necessary consequence so is the fabrick raised and constructed thereupon and therefore ought not to gain any repute and credit amongst men of reason and capacity There first principle would make us believe that the Stars have all the same proprieties and qualities of the Elements they are partly cold and partly humid and dry if not formally at least virtually that is not in act but in effect if not by having the qualities themselves yet by having the efficient faculties of those qualities Saturn by their opinion is too frigid the Moon humid Mars dry But this both reason and experience confutes Reason thus if all the stars be lucid and cast forth light they must be all hot and produce heat let us grant their Adage that the Moon and the rest of the Stars shine by a light borrowed from the Sun if then the reason and origin of the light and brightness of all the stars be one and the same how then can the reason of acting and operating by them be so discrepant unlike and different Experience gives this a check for when it is full Moon and that Planet most resplendent and replenished with light and lustre Aristotle and experience tells us that the nights are warmer then either before or after Our Star-gazers besides this luminosity or light have discovered in the Heavens and Stars strange power and vertue differing both from the light and jarring among themselves yet causes of strange and wonderous effects and these to the great credit of the business they stile Influences an invention so modern and modish that the Ancient and learned Philosophers were never acquainted with any such nomenclation nay the Astrologers as much as may be gathered out of their writings in ancient time were altogether unacquainted with these niceties But this Monster-influences begotten by Fortune-tellers of a later brood nurst by their Abettors and defended by their followers have at all times been hist out of the Schools and Academies of Learning as spurious and abortive and one amongst the more accurate sort of Philosophers calls them the Sanctuary and refuge of ignorance and fools Paradice And to these prodigious Influences the baffled Astrologer betakes himself as to his last lurking hole being an Ambuscado to entrap Simpletons and cast a mist before their eyes who are not grounded in the true principles of Philosophy and this they do when and as oft as they cannot shew the proper and natural causes of the wonderous effects of those things call'd Influences which if they be admitted farewell all Philosophy her glory is eclipst authority anihilated and her high esteem quite abolished What need great Wits and eminent Philosophers puzzle and trouble themselves to finde out and discover the occult and hidden causes of things if in a trice and as it were twinkling of an eye by means of the Omnipotent Influences the obstruse and hidden secrets of nature may so easily be attained unto ask by what undiscovered power the Load-stone attracts Iron you shall not stay long for an answer for you shall quickly hear an Oracle tell you that its proper Celestiall Influence hath invested it with that vertue from whence hath the little Fish call'd Remora such singular power as for to retard and stop a ship under sail in her full career and height of speed Oh the proper Celestial influence of that poor and silly fish hath given it that power What needs more to be said no probleme nothing so reserv'd by nature from mans knowledge nothing so full of the difficulty which Philosophers have laboured to discover but these ignorant Pedants and vagabond Gipsies will quickly resolve and enode by telling you of the Celestiall Influences But to come a little closer to these youngsters if Saturn because he is lucid by his light produceth heat how can the same by his Influence produce cold is it not absurd that in the same star there should be two contrary faculties the one of producing heat the other cold not onely divers but opposite and contrary We see that nature hath so provided that in all things where there are two differencies and proprieties as Philosophers say the one general which is common to one thing with many others The other special which is proper to a thing as in man to be knowing and rational so that the specificall and proper difference and propriety is more noble and perfect then the general as being that which doth contract and determine it giving it a reason and degree of new perfection as in the example of man it is more noble to be rational then to be knowing but this happens quite contrary in this strange Doctrine of the Astrologers for they teach for instance sake that in Saturn there are two proprieties or faculties of operating the one general and common to him with the rest of the stars which is a power of Illuminating and by that Illumination to produce heat another special and proper to Saturn in respect of which he differs from other starres which is a faculty of producing
several aspects and conjunctions they might presignifie unto us what things in future times whether universal or particular shall happen but not be the causes thereof and therefore he compares the Heavens unto a book in which the great God as with a pencil hath delineated and drawn forth all the contingents which shall happen in future ages so long as this fading world shall last and to strengthen this assertion he citeth a certain book entituled Josephs Narration formerly highly esteemed where the Patriarch Jacob is brought upon the stage thus speaking to his sons I have read in the tables of heaven whatsoever shall befall to you and your sons Plotinus a Coetanean and School-fellow of Origen was of the same opinion and asserts it in a Book which he entitles Whether or no the Stars have any power and in another book concerning Fate in the sixth chapter he saith that this is the use and benefit of the stars that whosoever beholds them and contemplates as books and letters and is skilful in this kind of literature shall know future things from those figures if with a kind of anologicall comparison he diligently search out their mysteries and signification and Porphirius affirms that being fully bent to kill and make away himself he was diverted from that wicked resolution by the means of Plotinus who fore-saw the danger by the vertue of the stars This opinion Julius Severus in his ninth book of Fate will not have to be exploded or condemned and that he may make it appear probable and plausible he bringeth some sentences out of holy Writ to trim and deck it up withall for saith he to grace the matter Isaiah chap. 34. not obscurely tells us And the heavens shall be folded together like a book by which it is meant that after the day of judgement the heavens like a book shall be claspt and fast shut up which now are laid open and exposed for us to read and meditate and to the same effect and purpose that of Psalm 21. The Heavens shall declare his justice and in Psalm 18. The Heavens shew forth the glory of God and in the first book of Genesis speaking of the stars And they shall be for signs and in Psalm 88. The Heavens shall confesse thy marvellous works O Lord. Neither quoth Origin doth this opinion take away free-will in man no more then formerly did the Prophesies of the ancient Prophets or the prescience of all future things which is in Almighty God and resteth in his divine bosome Plotinus opinionates that this power and skill to predict future things by vertue of the stars is given to man either by the singular favour of Almighty God or through the excellent knowledge in Astrology for the obtaining whereof we use all possible diligence and acurate study And Julius Severus perswades himself that St. Augustine was not much averse or alienated from this opinion by reason that in his second book against the Manicheans cap. 21. speaking of man who whilst he is invested with mortallity hath these words Neither is it to be thought that in the Celestial Bodies our thoughts are so concealed as in these our bodies but as certain motions of the minde appear in the countenance especially in the eyes so in the perspicuity and pureness of the Celestial Bodies our motions of the minde cannot be concealed as I imagine Whether according to St. Augustine the Stars are Signs of all humane affairs IF any man peruse attentively this place of St. Augustine by these words Gelestial Bodies he shall finde him not to understand the Celestiall Orbes but the bodies of the blessed who after the Resurrection shall be invested with celestiall glory and immortality making a grand distinction betwixt men encaged in this fragile and perishing body and the beautified who enjoy the fruition of Almighty God and live a life Angelical and whereas here on earth we can palliate and cloak our thoughts and cunning dissemblings and thereby make our neighbours believe that which we never intend in Heaven all thoughts are mutually discovered all glossing couzening and dissembling utterly laid aside and cast off And that this is the meaning of that great Doctor these his ensuing words demonstrate These therefore deserve that blessed habitation and happy change into Angelical forms and brightness who when they had power in this mortal pilgrimage under homely habits to palliate leasings and untruths detested it and onely with a most flagrant and ardent zeal of truth and verity shunned whatsoever might scandalize the hearer abhorring upon what account soever to tell a lye for the time will come when nothing will be hid and whatsoever is hid shall be made manifest So that we see St. Augustine speaketh clearly and perspicuously of glorified bodies and not of Celestial Orbes Heavens or Stars so that I am in admiration that Julius Severus should so inconsiderately and rashly read over this place and through misunderstanding brand so eminent a man with an opinion which he is so far from maintaining that in the fifth book of the City of God he utterly opposeth and confuteth Of the nature and variety of Signs THat the stars are signs of future events I conceive not onely contradictory to solid Philosophy but also opposite and repugnant to holy Scripture and although the reasons which I have alledged in the premises be sufficient to convince this infirm doctrine yet in this place I will produce other forcible arguments to corroborate what formerly I have maintained First therefore whatsoever is a natural sign of another thing that upon necessity must be either its cause or effect or both and proceed from the superior and common cause for besides these what fourth member can be imagined to have the sign upon necessity joyned with the cause by it signified this is no way distinct from the third Member for such a connexion and conjunction can no other wayes have a being then that the cause should produce that out of it self which is the Sign and then that which is the thing signified as the same thing which moves the cause to action and excites it must also applicate and apply that which is presignified but each of these must necessarily be referred to the common cause from whence this argument may be framed If the Heavens and Stars be signs of all sublunary things they are either their causes which this opinion allows not or the effects which no man in his wits will grant or presume to affirm or else which is all that can be said as well celestial as sublunary things proceed from the common cause as the Rain-bow is sign of fair weather not that it is the cause or effect thereof but one and the same is the common cause of both upon necessity the common cause of celestiall and sublunary bodies must either be corporeal or incorporeal I do not think they will say it is corporeal for above the Heavens there is no body at all therefore they must grant
that all things must be referred to an incorporeal cause that is either to God himself or Angels who moves the Heavens so that whilst Angels move the Heavens in the very state habit position and conformation of those Heavens as it were by certain nods and becks of theirs like notes and signs described therein they should point out and predict the events and contingents of humane affairs but this in many respects is not credible for whosoever grounds upon this foundation must needs grant and say that Angels induce mortals unto all and whatsoever even the greatest and most horrid fins and villanies In this point Philosophy doth inform us and also Theology doth the like that there is no action of Angels as they call it transeant which immediately proceeds from them other then local motion and that the Angels who do circumvolve and wheel about the Celestial Orbes these I say those great masters averre to have no other operation concerning humane affairs then what proceeds from motion and the light of the Heavens For those I know not what insluences distinct from light I have formerly sufficiently made null and there is no man so brain-sick who will affirm if he will speak things probable and likely that motion and the light of heaven can infallibly clearly and distinctly premonstrate all future effects of sublunary things and again when two effects of the same cause necessarily shew one the other as they must proceed from the same cause so must they also proceed after one and the same manner otherwise it cannot be that they should indicate one another Such things as are broughâ— to pass by God and his Angels in Celestial bodies must have their beings necessarily and invariably whereas those which are beneath the Moon have their contingency very mutably and I may say defectively In like manner other arguments may be framed if the stars who are confined to a set and certain number and of a like condition can be signs of future things which are almost infinite both in number and variety and in themselves discrepant and differing How can the same positure and conformity of stars under which Twins and many others are born in in the same moment of time be a certain sign properly and distinctly to presignifie so many several and distinct dispositions casualties and events as we daily discover in them therefore if we grant the stars to be signs of future things we must also affirm them to be their causes and if we deny them to be Causes we must also deny them to be Signs Whether Comets or Blazing Stars be signs of humane affairs THou wilt perhaps avouch that Comets which are generated in the high and sublime air are signs which predict strange and wonderfull events to ensue and of those Contingents the Comets are neither the causes nor effects and therefore probable it is that the stars are in the like condition in respect of sublunary affairs for my part I shall never grant Comets to be signs of humane chances and events though this is as much believed amongst the vulgar as exploded by wise men Should I walk hand in hand with the vulgar in this errour and say that the Stars produced the Comets as Poasts or Curriours to go before them to foretell future events if I should I say grant this yet concerning the stars another account is to be given for that they have no corporeal cause superiour unto them Whether those men who make the Stars signs of future things do thereby upon necessity establish that thing call'd Fate WE will make no great business of this the Authors of this opinion although unwillingly engage themselves in a necessity of Fate far more then those who will have the stars to be the causes of sublunary effects for grant that the stars should be the causes of all things which are produced beneath the moon yet for all this there is no necessity of bugg-bear fate for what is to be done and effected upon earth by the influences and defluxions of the stars that may be impeded and crost by contrary affections of the matter or by the intervening of particular causes as obstructions thereunto But if stars be naturally the signs of future Contingents then upon necessity whatsoever they signifie must come to pass otherwise they are signs fallacious and deceitfull and seeing that our great God hath ordained and instituted them to signifie and give notice of things and hath engraven them in heaven as in some voluminous Tome to point out and be as it were Indexes of things to come to pass if the event of these things which they signifie should not prove answerable you must either make God their author ignorant or a great impostor and deceiver If you say the starres presignific what is to be done in some particular causes and onely in some and not in all this is extreamly improbable and fable like for why should the stars foretell the future chances and effects of some particular effects rather then of others and not rather of all alike the reason being indifferent and like in all or else you must say that the stars are the future effects of all particular causes If this be so it must needs follow that there will be no causes left remaining to impede obstruct or hinder whatsoever is by the stars predicted and it will necessarily come to pass that whatsoever is sublunary must be tied to an absolute fate and necessity which the defenders of this opinion will not allow of or should they it were most wicked and impious As concerning that Text of Isaiah 54. The Heavens like a book shall be folded up which amongst all the places of Scripture formerly set down seems to have the most of difficulty in it I finde it diversly and by divers and severall Expositors glossed and interpreted yet no exposition if it be of an approved Authour or at least probable which makes for or sides with that opinion Justinus Martyr answering to the forty ninth interrogatory of the Orthodoxes wherein the Querie was how that place of Isaias was to be understood when he saith That the Heavens like a book shall be folded up saith as the divine word sometimes by a similitude compares heaven to a skin extended saying who extends the heaven like a skin other times to smoak other times to a chamber and so on the contrary speaking of the dissolution of the heavens it is compared to a book and other things and by David in his Psalms to a garment waxing old St. Hierom upon the same words saith we must observe that he saith not the heavens to perish but to be wrapped up like a book that after all sins were detected and made manifest and read they should no more be opened never more to have the sins of men written in them In the Scripture the Heavens are said to shew the justice of God to reveal his anger to prove and give testimony of mans wickedness St.
divine revelation disclosed unto him by a good Angel for sometimes Almighty God to bring things to their allotted end useth the ministery of the devil Other times the same Chapman will discover to man that which he himself is resolved to put in execution and by reason of the incomparable celerity of his motion he informs his friends in a trice and moment of the transactions of the most remote Regions in the world yet more this cunning enemy of our hop't for felicity from cabinet councells private conferences letters writ in never so concealed and unknown cyphers and characters from private marks which are either interiorly inherent or exteriorly in mans body By a too too vigilant and sollicitous investigation will shrewdly guesse at and discover mans occult and hidden cogitations and inclinings and those discover to his best beloved favourites Another way he goes to work which is by the causes which necessarily must concurr to produce such an effect and lastly by reason of the extream subtlety and diligence of his understanding his long experience of so many thousand years his great and exact knowledge in all naturall things he must needs have a strong advantage to search out and manifest future events The very thing of which we have now discoursed is by St. Augustine in his book upon Gen. chap. 7. most exactly and candily demonstrated and therefore I judge it not amisse to set down his words Concerning fates and subtil quirks of the stars and documental experiments drawn as it were from the art of demonstrating or Mathesis her self which they call Apotelesmes we utterly reject as being incoherent and opposite to Catholick and Christian Faith for by such like disputations the force and necessity of prayer is taken away Sin which ought to be corrected bolster'd up the fault is rather laid upon God the authour and creatour of the Stars then upon sinful mans wickedness and therefore we must confess and say that when any truth or veracities are predicted it is done by an occult and inperceptible Instinct which our weak capacities unwittingly entertain which since it is done to deceive and seduce poor man into errour questionless it is no other then the work and operation of seducing spirits unto whom it is permitted to know some certain truth concerning temporal affairs partly by reason of the strong acumen of their most subtle intellect and partly by reason of their long and cunning experience proceeding from the vaste longitude and time of their being and continuance and lastly revelation from the holy Angels being appointed so to do by their Almighty Creator who distributes and disposeth humane merits according to the sincerity of his most secret and hidden justice and sometimes those wicked spirits ' predict some things which they themselves are resolved to bring to pass by the way of prophesie or divination and good Christians ought to avoid and flye this sort of Mathematicians or any other whosoever professing to tell Fortunes although sometimes they tell the truth lest they entangle and ensuare their deceived souls by some clandestine and implicite contract with this grand enemy the devill Thus St. Augustine How many severall wayes and how grievously men sin who either make use of the devil or help of his Servants the Fortune-tellers to know future things MAn plungeth himself in a gulf of sin whosoever he is that hath recourse to the Devil or Astrologers the Devils Instruments or Trapanners to dive into future contingents in this case many and several are the wayes of falling into sin first when he addresses himself to the devil or the Astrologer his decoy to know future events confiding that the devil for certain knows whatsoever shall happen for seeing that it is onely proper and peculiar to the highest and divine Majesty to know future contingents he who so impiously attributes that knowledge to the devil falls into the horrid sin of Impiety and Idolatry and if it be accounted a sin to consociate and keep company with one excommunicated by the holy Church how much more will it be to enter into league drive bargain and make contracts with the most malignant enemy of Gods Church a blasphemer of the Deity and most envious and implacable enemy of mankinde who God himself hath banished from the society both of men and Angels unto the dark and hideous shades and infernall cloisters and hath inflicted upon him eternall and everlasting plagues and torments and will man be so mad as to take and make use of such an accursed feind for his master friend and guide And whosoever he be that enters into this devillish familiarity and combination runs the extream hazzard of losing his soul being lull'd asleep with the sweet incantations and syrenicall allurements of these divining Prognostications which the devill layeth as an ambuscado to entrap and circumvent poor man He again highly offends the divine Majesty who consults with Astrologers to know the secret and hidden sins of his neighbour and lastly he is inexcusably to be blamed who runs after those Miscreants the Devil and Astronomancers his Disciples whereby to enable himself to perpetrate some horrid villany and mischief These kinde of Astrologers are for most part of a wicked life and conversation THese Quacks are Imps of the devil Familiars and Comrades of Satan for no better are our Fortune-tellers as may easily be demonstrated First by the impurity of their lives and brutishness of their conversation secondly by the contempt they have of Christian Religion and the true exercise of piety and practice of devotion thirdly as Owls they hate the light and shun the society of good and vertuous men seldom appear in publick but lurk in holes and private corners avoiding as much as in them lies any over-seer of their exorbitant and unlawfull proceedings of whose faith and religion and not without cause the wiser sort of men make a groat scruple and question And to conclude in Spain and where the Inquisition is in force many of this sort of fellows having been secured and put in durance and duly examined by the learned Judges of that Court and Tribunal have openly confest their unchristian-like commerce and familiarity with the Devil The second Cause THe second Cause why Astrologers sometimes divine truly happens through the occult and hidden disposing of Divine Providence which as St. Augustine in his fourth and seventh book of Confessions saith doth so agitate by a private and unperceptible instinct the blinde and wicked mindes of these Diviners that though they themselves be ignorant thereof yet they tell to their Clients and Customers such things as either through their own demerit or out of the inscrutible abysse of the just judgement of the Highest are most fit for them to hear Of the use of casting Lots amongst the Ancients to discover future things AMongst the Ancients was a solemn custom to select certain verses out of Poets and roll them up as we see in Lotteries of our age or chusing of