foresee what may come to passe within an hour how much lesse are ye able to foretell what shall come to passe after an age Doe either this or that infallibly That we may know that yee are Gods Not Devills not Idols not Diviners not Sooth-sayers not Prognosticators Nâ—y not Angels not Prophets nor Apostles no but very Gods For to foreknow and foretell things to come this is the sole property of a true God and of none else but one worthy to be so known confessed honoured and adored Yea doe good or doe evill Not Morally for so evill indeed ye may do so farre as ye are permitted yet good ye cannot doe because not thereunto endowed But Remuneratively let your Starres and Planets not onely signe but cause good fortune or reward to good men and bad fortune or punishment to evill men That we may be dismayed This benignity and severity of theirs would indeed strike us with some astonishment either of terrours or admiration But tell 's not of their indiscriminate and confused benefices or malefices to our vain hopes or fears unless you can order them so as that we may behold them together sc God as well as man to approve them and we as well as you to prove and experiment them Otherwise why should wee believe you can foresee see such things as none can see but your selves But since you are not able to let us behold your Art together with you this we can behold without you and so can all that are wise beside you Behold ye are of nothing Is not there the vanity of your persons And your works of nought is not there the invalidity of your Art An abomination is he that chooseth you Is not there the guilt and plague of every proselyte and client of yours And now think not easily to evade it is God that thus discepts with you sayth the Lord. Yea sayth the King of Jacob It is God that not only disputes against your cause but pleads the cause of his Church against you Isa 44. 25. That frustrateth the tokens of the lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish How God dealeth not only with Astrologers but with their Art He frustrateth depriving that of a due end to which he never vouchsafed a true cause the tokens fancied and feigned signes from calculated and prognosticating Aspects and Conjunctions of the lyars commonly expounded of feigning and falsifying Astrologers that Predict and presage neither from the truth of nature reason nor saith And maketh Diviners mad Mad in giving them over to break their own brains about needless curiosities and abstruse vanities Mad in a proud and insolent conceit and boasting of their own art and learning above all other mad in their phrenetick suggestions sublime investigations confused apprehensions obscure expressions ambiguous presagitions superstitious Ceremonies and prestigious practices Mad at the frustration of their own bold Predictions Mad at wise mens discovery of them and consequently at the worlds derision and contempt Mad with envy at the truth of God Church and Ministry And mad in the horrour and distractions of their own hellish hearts and consciences And turneth wise men backward Such as account themselves the onely wisemen and yet while they pretend to make progresse in knowledge and vertue are themselves become retrograde and turned backward into Idolatry Superstition Atheism Prophanesse Sorcery c. Turned backward while they read the Stars now backward now forward now for a fortune now for an infortune now for this side now for that Turned backward when they find rebuke and reprehension where they lookt for praise and promotion And maketh their knowledge foolish From their own conviction confession retractation by the infallible judgement of Gods word and truth in the clear discerning of all wise-hearted Christians and to the palpable experiment of all rationall men What not only the Artists fools but the Art it self folly Away then with that excuse from the folly errour and ungroundedness of the Artsmen since there is so little ground besides errour and folly for the Art it self Isa 57 12 13 14. Stand now with thine inchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth if so be thou shalt be able to profit if so be thou mayst prevail Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsells Let now the Astrologers the Starre-gazers the monethly Prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee Behold they shall be as stubble the fire shall burn them they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame there shall not be a coal to warm at nor fire to sit before What use and end of Astrologers in times of extreme and imminent dangers Can there be any help or hope in that Art or power which the Holy Ghost thus rebukingly derides Stand now he speaks to Babylon the mother of Magick Astrologie and Witchcraft and that in an admonition to all Nations Now that divine vengeance and common calamity is at hand Now indeed is the usuall time for these Arts and Artists to be boldly and busily standing up or starting out but can they upon such exigents stand up with Faith and Fortitude and Patience Alas the wretched Magicians were not able to stand before the plague of a boyle how then can they stand up in a greater judgement And if not stand up themselves how should they now stand others in stead why then should others stand with them Oh! let all take heed how they stand with such by crediting confiding countenancing or conniving lest God give them all over to fall together What more dreadfull token of judgement inevitable and ineluctable than whan God desists from his gracious and serious dehorting and ironically invites to persist one with another in evill and unlawfull wayes Stand now with thine inchantments or conjunctions Lo there may be Inchantments in Conjunctions And lo maleficall and sorcerous sinnes are not only appopriated to the actors only but to them also that consult assent credit confide countenance connive excuse justifie or in any way stand with them And with the multitude of thy sorceries Lo again how one kind of malefice induces to another and how they all agree to multiply through countenance or connivance Wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth O tedious labour in an abstruse art O vile labour in a vitious art O impious labour in a prophane art O fruitless labour in an unprofitable art O horrid labour in execrable immolation O sordid labour in loathsome inspection O ridiculous labour in vain observation O servile labour in superstitious attendance O toylsome labour in prestigious fabrefaction O lost labour and time to be instituted and educated to such a practice or profession O endless labour to begin it in youth and not to desist from it in old age But were all they of Babylon solely and wholly trained up to this sortilegious trade
the directions which are not only inobservable by the Attenders but in explicable and so confest by the propounders themselves But wee l take them at their word let wisedome be pursued to some purpose and then all their other cautions or conditions will prove to no purpose 17. Whether the confused cautions of dayes hours minutes points numbers measures degrees orders harmonies similitudes congruities dispositions compositions elections preparations observations fabrications c. argue not their art or artifice a difficult vanity an unprobable fiction an imposible operation 18. What fickle tickle fallible arts are Magick Astrologie Alchymie to have so many cautious directions ceremonies circumstances and they so difficult to be apprehended more difficult to be observed and yet the ignorance as they say neglect or miscarriage of the least circumstance enough to frustrate the whole substance or effect 19. Upon what pretexet is it that ther are such caveats in Magick Astrologie Alchymie yea and Sorcery it self for fasting abstinence cleanness of affections members garments habitation instruments c. since the arts themselves are unclean and the best of them by their own confession not throughly purged therefrom 20. Is it not well known that the Devill even in the most execrable arts and acts of conjuration inchantment sorcery witch-craft hath cautioned admonished and exhorted to fasting prayer chastity charity justice forbearing of certain sins frequenting of divine ordinances Now will any say these arts or acts were any whit the better or safer for those cautionings and conditionatings so pâ—erequired 21. What good end else can there be of their own counselling and warning that an Astrologer be a man both expertly Ethicall and Physicall Save that as he should not exercise his own so he should not Prognosticate of others manners beyond all grounds of morality And that he should correct or rather prevent his Astrologicall Prognostications by true physicall principles 22. Whether this be not a proper caution for all Astrologers to forewarn one another of gazing so long upon the stars till they fall as one of them did into the ditch 23. Whether it be not the best caveat that can be given to an Astrologer and so confest by some of them to account it most safe and sure after all inspection of the stars to look to the Parents for the constitution to the temper for qualities to the will for actions to industry and externall means for acquisitions and to divine providence for events 24. VVhether any sound Orthodox Christian ever did write in the approof of judiciary and predicting Astrologie And if any such have treated of the speculation if their recantation followed not after it then with what moderation and reiterated caution yea and that so severe so sincere as that a Christian Reader might easily perceive it was the caution which he intended through the main of the discourse and not the Institution CHAP. XIII 13. From the contrariety of opinions IF that be not worthy to be called a Science which consists only in opinion what then shall we call that which is nothing else almost but a contrariety of opinions A contrariety about the grounds of the art about the operation upon those grounds and about the effects of those operations Such a contrariety as is irreconcilable the Opinors or Opinionists old and new each of them contending to plant his own and supplant the others opinions And such a variety of contrarieties that were all their Authors at hand it might be inquired if a glancing eye might not soon observe and a running hand transcribe about every point and particular of their art almost ten for one of these that are here set down 1. About the nature and office of the Gods Spirits Angels Demons and Heroes 2. About the principles of good and evill 3. About the originall and defect of oracles 4. About the first Author and inventors of Magick and Astrologie 5. About the causes in vaticinating good and bad 6. About the figure and durance of the world 7. About the principles of all things especially of the celestiall bodies 8. About the number and site of the celestiall orbes 9. About the solidity of the celestiall orbes 10. About the order of the orbs or sphears 11. About the motions of the eighth sphear 12. About the revolution of the ninth sphear 13. About the magnitude of the Stars 14. About their number 15. About their form 16 About their order 17. About their light 18. About their distance both one from another and from the earth 19. About their scintillation or their trepidation 20. About their fixation and volitation 21. About the motion of the fixed Stars 22. About the variation of the latitude of the fixed Stars 23. About the antick and postick the right hand and left hand of Stars 24 About the time or space of the Stars fulfilling their degrees or courses 25. About the names numbers and order of the Planets 26. About the magnitude and distance of the planets 27. About the influences of the Planets 28. About the prime generation and ultimate resolution of those influences 29. About the benevolence and malevolence of Planets generall and particular corporall and mentall 30. About the proper Houses of the Planets and their efficacities there 31. About the fabrefaction of the twelve Houses 32. About the Suns being the center of the visible world 33. About the latitude of the Moon 34. About the Semidameters of the Sun Moon and shadow of the earth 35. About the proportion and magnitude of the three great bodies the Sun the Moon and the Earth 36. About the tearms limits bounds or ends of the Planets 37. About the new Stars 38. About Comets their nature substance site figure portent 39. About the appellations and the operations of the twelve Signs 40. About the assigning of the severall parts of the body to severall Planets and Signs 41. About the subjecting of such and such Cities and Countries to such and such Stars and Planets and parts of the Zodiack 42. About the visible and invisible Sun and Moon 43. About the motion and quiescency of the Earth 44. About the Earths being a meer Star one of the Planets and having her annuall motion round about the Sun 45. About the propriety and inconstancy of the Moons light 46. About the more powerfull acting of the Stars whether from their light or motion 47. About the Galaxia or milkie way 48. About the number of the zones the torrid the frigid and their habitableness 49. About the elevation of the Pole and its investigation 50. About the Meridian the constitution elevation and the difference thereof from divers Cities and places 51. About the circumference of the sensible Horizon 52. About the computation of times 53. About the Kalendar and its reformation or correction 54. About the beginning and end of the year 55. About the Solar year and the quantity thereof 56. About the beginning of the naturall day 57. About the equation of civill dayes 58.
the body is there not a medicine and meat to cure it but if it could intend any evill upon the soul or mind yet is there not education and discipline to prevent it Many things may be effected besides nature may they not much more then besides Fate If every man may fabricate his own Fortune why not also contrive his own Fate If Fate had never had name or nature or power would things have fallen out otherwise than they doe fall out why then should Fate be inculcated since without Fate there is Nature and Fortune to which all things necessary or casuall may be aptly referred In this old Philosophicall dispute what easie Moderator would not give this censure That either side hath said sufficient to overthrow his Adversaries opinion but neither of them enough to establish his own 7. Hath not the constellatory Fatation introduced so many starry Gods into the world Yea made so many providentiall and tutelary Gods and Goddesses some Select others Ascriptitious to have a hand in the whole administration of the Universe But particularly so many Geniall or Genitall Gods and Goddesses and their sundry ordinations and offices at every mans geniture As of Janus Jupiter Saturn Genius Mercury Apollo Mars Vulcan Neptune Sol Orcus Liber Pater Tellus Ceres Juno Lucina Fluona Luna Diana Minerva Venus Vesta Moreover Vitumnus Sentinus Mens Mena Iterduca Domiduca Abaona Adeona and Dea Fatua too not of the least ordination and operation either in the birth or life or death And no marvell that they make so many Consent-Gods goe to the fate of a Man when they will have so many to be busie about the fate of an herb As Seia fatally president of the sowing Segetia or Segesta at the comming up of the Corn Nodotus or Nodinus at the knitting or knotting Volutina at the involving of the leaves Batellina or Datellea at the opening of the blade Proserpina at the budding Hostilina at the equall shaping of the eare Flora at the flourishing Lasturtia at the nourishing Tutilina in the keeping Matuta or Matura at the ripening Messia at the mowing and Runcina not only at the weeding but at the plucking up by the roots 8. Whether Fate be one or many If it be one simply then what needs any reduction if it many why is it not reduced to one And then in vain is that done by many which may be done by one and it is prophane l to ascribe that to many which ought to be a scribed to one If it be one truly then is it undivided in it self and divided from all others which how can that which is a series or connexion of so many things be especially having its inherence in movables or mutables If it be but one accident why should it imply all under a necessity If it be but one by aggregation collection connexion so are things fortuitous as well as fatall Besides such an unity is in the meanest degree of entity Wherefore then should it order and subordinate things of a more perfect degree then it self If it be many or a multiplicity then is it unequall indeterminate uncertain and next to a nullity If it be one why then so they make it do diverse according to divers conjuctions and constellations If it be many how can they make any certain and particular pronouncing upon it 9. Whether that they call Fate be in the first or among the second Causes If in the first that is as much as to make it equall unto God If among the second then is it inferiour unto man For among second causes and especially in involuntary actions and all such as fall under humane counsell and deliberation the intellectuall mind and rationall will hath no superiour And what more contrary to the order of nature and creatures than that the lesse noble should be disposing and governing those more noble than themselves 10. Whether there be a fatall necessity upon all acts or events If upon all acts where 's Liberty if upon all events where 's contingency And whether upon these both good and evill and that whether naturall civill or spirituall If upon naturall acts and events good or evill then what use of means either to preserve or to prevent If upon acts civill and good what merit what praise if upon acts civill and evill what laws what punishments If upon events civill and good what thanks if upon events civill and evill what hopes If upon acts spirituall and good what free grace if upon acts spirituall and evill what free will If upon events spirituall and good what free bounty If upon events spirituall and evill what free mercy 11. How can there or why should there be such a thing as Fate imposing a necessity upon actions and events when as divine providence it self doth it not so as to exclude liberty contingency or casualty from things But works with second causes according to their own motion and manner Permitting sometimes their exuberancy sometimes their deficiency preserving to them their sundry orders offices and degrees of efficiency Suffering the remoter causes or agents to be impedited by the more proximate that all effects might not be taken for naturall and necessary but that his own free disposing might appear Although nature and every naturall agent be of it self and ordinarily determinated to one effect and to the producing of it after the same way yet he suffers it to be impedited by one debility and indisposition or another either to come to pass otherwise or else to be altogether prevented that so he might preserve a contingency in all naturall causes to the intent nothing might be thought absolutely necessitating but his own will and pleasure above Much more doth he confirm a freedom to the rationall will not only that good may the more chearfully be done and accepted but the evill also that is done or suffered may not unjustly be imputed to providence because of a necessity imposed 12. If fate be as they define it the Series order nexure ligation complication constitution disposition of second causes c. what feeble things are all those seconds put together without the first what can their own motion work to without his speciall concurrence what if he work not with them what if without them what if against them Leave them to themselves and what knot in a rope of Sand Can there be a perpetuall series or indissoluble connexion betwixt causes so disparate yea so adverse as naturall internall necessary and arbitrary adventitious accidentall yet after this order is fate oftentimes finished A languishing man not only consumes away within himself but the ayr meats drinks poyson act the fatall consummation To an ordinated destiny of an unfortunate end comes in inordinately fire water a fall a gun a sword an unlucky hand c. and hath not this necessitating fate now the complement by accident and is there not a casuall intervention of more force to the fatall effect than all the causall connexion How
the friendship and hatred the complyance and adversness of men is not the service or disservice of the brute creature the vertue or venome of an herb or minerall yea the defence or offence of a sword a knife a spear a gun a club c. are not all these more sensibly apprehended to be more neerly advantagious or prejudiciall to health or sicknesse riches or poverty honour or disgrace prosperity and adversity life or death than are all the joynt benevolences or malevolencies of the fatall Starres If therefore a fatidicall prognostication may be made from the Caelestiall why not rather from the terrestriall motions 20. Whether Fate be above the Starres as their governour or else under them as their minister If above them why make they the starres to be the causes of fate For so they must needs be superiour to it If under them how then are the starres themselves subject to fate for so they must needs be inferiour How then should the starres dispose of others fate that are not able to dispose of their own Is it for creatures terrestriall or caelestiall to perform that to others which they are not able to preserve to themselves Ought not therefore such a disposition to be referred solely to him that hath the ordination and gubernation of all things both in heaven and earth simply freely eternally and immutably in himself 21. How can the fatall series of causes be from the starres when as the starres themselves are not causes as in humane and arbitrary actions Not causes where they may be signes as of things already done and past Yea God himself may signifie many things whereof he is not the cause as in evill and sinfull actions Nay have not the fatidicall Vaticinators themselves made many fatall signes which could never be causes nor yet once come into any series or necessary connexion As in their aruspicies and anguries from the entrailes of beasts flight and noise of birds c. as also from lots dreams prodigies casualties yea and physiognomies c. 22. How can the starres be the first in the fatall series of second causes When as of all creatures the spirituall intellectuall or rationall are the supreme and the corporeall animate or inanimate their inferiours Now the starres are both corporeall and inanimate Spirits and souls as they have more similitude to so they participate more vertue of divine providence than all other creatures For they are both the cognoscitive and the operative instruments of providence which the other are not For these being but the executive only may either be directed or diverted by the iutellectuall and ordinative As acting of themselves with liberty deliberation discretion observation of right rules application of fit means and intention to a due end And therefore are the more eminent ministers of providence than all things else in heaven or earth 23. Whether any such cut as fatation may be properly sayd to be in or from the starres For fatation imports a primordiall law or decree not an influence only or effect what sacrilege is it then to ascribe that to the instrument which is only peculiar to the principall agent Since it is for instruments especially the inanimate not to ordain but execute only Yea it is a question whether there be any fatation even in fate it self it being accepted and discerned not for a seminall disposition but for an ultimate execution and that inherent in the moveable or mutable subject Wherefore seeing fatation is neither in the starres nor in fate it self whether can any thing be sayd to be fatall with respect to the starres For the starres are but second causes And with respect to all such some things may be sayd to be naturall some things arbitrary some things indifferent some things contingent some things uncertain some things casuall but few or none fatall 24 Whether it be in the power and validity of the celestiall bodyes to impose a fatall necessity either upon humane actions or yet upon naturall things For if the starres be any such causes then must they cause principally of themselâ—es intentionally directly immutably Now how can they be principall causes when providence is above them how of themselves when they work not upon humane actions but by accident how intentionally since they want a mind or soul how directly when they operate upon humane actions but indirectly how immutably when their ordination or disposition may be impedited Again were they thus acting then should there be no contingents or accidents no libertie or free actions nor prevention of any events or issues no particular causes should be defective nor distance of place nor indisposition of the mean no neglect of the means no endeavour to the contrary or opposition should be available nay not only the understanding but the will should be tyed to corporall organs and matter yea and the starres should not only be of sufficient but of infinite power 25. How doe the celestiall bodyes work so fatally upon these inferiours when as they here operate not upon a necessity as to the producing of the effect For albeit their impressions be naturall yet are they not received but according to the manner of the receivers which are fluxible and not having themselves still after the same way Because of the matter that is in a potentiality to many yea and to contrary formes The matter also is movable and corruptable and may easily defect of it self may be intrinsecally indisposed and extrinsecally impedited And the starres themselves are but indefinite and remote causes to which the effect can never follow determinatly and necessarily unless the middle causes be necessary and then they follow them and not the other But in the foresaid series the middle causes are most of them contingent and from many contingent causes can come no effect of necessity because any one of them and all of them together may be defective and not attain unto their end 26. Seeing the heavenly bodyes act not upon these inferiours but by their light and motion and so communicate nothing to the matter they work upon but light motion and heat Now why may not all these flow from all the starres in generall And why then should such and such fatall inclinations be attributed to such or such positions or conjunctions And if there be any particular vertues of the light and motion of some stars contrary to the vertues of the light and motion of other starres how is that demonstrated And how comes it to passe that they should be operative and effectuall one way in their simple natures or qualities and yet another way in their relative aspects and positions Is an imaginary relation or respect of more validity than a reall substance or propriety 27. They seem to define fate more acurately that make it to be the â—eries or connext order of naturall causes Now till they can directly and successively deduce those naturall causes down from the starres to those fatall events what
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
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
contingent if it once be plainly foreseen or certainly foretold Because the nature and property of a meer contingent is to be so both in respect of the active and of the passive power viz. unknown sudden indeterminate incogitate rare seldome alike potentiall not actuall not necessary from no naturall or necessary cause And all this yet more especially when the externall contingent or accident depends upon the internall contingent the arbitrariness or liberty of the will and actions 28. How can a contingent be foreknown or foreseen that is seen before it be seen In as much as the knowledge of such a thing is primarily and directly to the senses and but secondarily and accidentally to the understanding 29. How the positions and motions of the stars can either cause or sign a future contingent when as divine providence disposes of both these after a quite contrary manner For the positions and motions of the stars are disposed of according to a necessity that they must needs so be but future contingents are disposed of according to a contingency that they may be otherwise or may not be at all The Stars as they are so they work Now what congruity betwixt a necessary cause and a contingent effect 30. Are not Fate and Fortune two contraries and respectively two inconsistencies how then are the Stars the mistresses both of Fate and Fortune in one and the same effect And how can there be one way of predicting a thing of absolute necessity and of meer contingency 31. For as much as the same Starres or Planets have not the same aspects or conjunctions in all places and some starres are to be discerned in one place and not in another Now then must not the judiciall Astrologer make his judgement either from one place and not from another or else must he not be in many places at once to make his observation compleat Or else what judgement can he make 32. Seeing the heavens and starres are so distant the eye-sight so infirm and the senses so oft deceived in the proper object and the Artists observation tyed up to one single and weak sense Is it not now with starre-gazers peeping at the Planets as with Saylors to whom the Earth Castles Woods and Mountains doe seem to move and as things single afarre off seem double and black things white or white things black and as a straight oar part in the water and part out of it appears crooked and broaken what certain judgement then can here be to reason from a solitary sense so easily and oft deceived 33. Since things inanimate or livelesse are naturally subordinate and subject to things of life things lively to things sensible things sensible to things reasonable and things reasonable to things spirituall how comes it to passe that men should be bound and constrained by the starres and Devills through the starres bound and compelled by Men What reason can the Magician give for this binding of devills and Spirits and the Astrologer for this binding of men and wills For to me it seems unreasonable rhat unreasonable creatures such as the starres are should have the Dominion and power assigned over reasonable Souls 34. Whether both the swiftness and the slowness of the starres motions hinder not their influences and impressions upon inferior and sublunary matters at leastwise inhibit not the observation above all forbid not the prognostication thereupon For if as themselves have sayd the heavenly bodyes move with such concitation and celerity as to change their face ten thousand times a day how is it possible there should either be any impression on the starres part or observation on the Artists and art in a transiency so imperceptible 35. In as much as the starres move so rapidly as in a poynt or moment of time and every point or moment of time makes an immense alteration in the heavens and every point of alteration is of moment to alter the Constellation and the least altering of the Constellation occasions a vast aberration to the Calculator Adde to all these how hard it is to observe and compare the points and moments of the Childs birth What point of discretion was it then to make any matter of moment of a Genethliacks calculation 36. What naturall reason is to be rendred why the starres should be more notable for influentially operating and efficaciously inclining at the point of the edition parturition or birth and not rather in the generation conception formation delineation animation besides the whole course of life and conservation Since not in that but in these is the great operation of the vitall spirits the disposition mixture and temper of the Elements the composition constitution union and perfection of the whole Will they have their Planets to respect more an extrinsecall act than the intrinsecall more an accidentall and adventitiall than the essentiall and substantiall more a lesse principall than the more principall acts Is not this somewhat semblable to that superstitious observation for a man to measure his fortune or successe that day by his first setting his foot over the threshold or stepping forth of his own doors 37. Whether doe those starres bear more sway that rule at the beginning or those that rule at the end of a business would not one impute most to them that are in force at the making up of the match Wherefore then doe they teach men not only so superstitiously but so preposterously to look only to those starres that reign at the undertaking of an enterprize and not to heed those rather that have the dominion at the dispatch 38. Are the starres only signing things future and not designing things present And doe the ruling Planets enact decrees and make lawes contrary to all other Rulers only to be in force or take effect after their own deposition or decease Else how is it that the conjunction or constellation at the Birth should be so powerfull at the death it self being past and as it were decreast long before Suppose there be a malign and exitiall aspect at the Birth and a benign and auspicious in the life and so at the death why may not the fortunateness of the latter prevail so farre as to prevent the infortunity of the former Unless it be so that these Planetary dominations I mean Aspects Positions Conjunctions Constellations govern not by their present power but by the lawes of their predecessors 39. Whether the life and being of one mans nativity be depending not upon his own but upon the Constellation of another mans Nativity For if it be not so how then can the Caloulator or Birth-caster tell that such a man shall have so many wives or that such woman shall have so many husbands but that the very lives of the one must needs be subordinate and subjected to the fortunes of the other 40. Whether the Horoscope or the Ascendant in the birth of one particular person doth comprehend the judgement of the whole disposition of a Country Kingdome or
many accidents fall out fatally that can have no second cause ordinatly assigned to them much less prospected in them but must be referred meerly to divine will and pleasure unless you will have accidentall instruments that interven inordinately to be such 13. The Physicall fate they will have to be a series of pure naturall causes c. viz. betwixt the stars the elements the temperament the inclination the manners the action and the issue or event now where are all these causes knit together in the efficient the form the matter or the end How are they worthy to be called causes or so proved How are they pure naturall and necessary causes when some of them are voluntary and contingent what connexion of them is that which carrys on prime and second causes naturall and voluntary necessary and contingent with one fatall force or inevitable agitation what series is that which as hath been said is so often interrupted what copulation betwixt the first and the last when as by their own confession the stars are not the causes of all events neither doe all those effects fall out necessarily whereof they are the cause How are they fatall then or their complement of fate 14. Whether in the series both of fate and of fortune although two contraries Astrologers have not delivered the same order and connexion of causes as the stars tempers manners actions events or else what difference doe they make between them Nay wherefore doe the same Authors speak of fate and fortune so promiscuously and indiscriminately especially in their prognosticating or predicting way Is it not because they are not able to distinguish them Or is it not because they are conscious of a fortuitousness of event even in their strictest fatality 15. Whether in the series of fatall causes the effect doth follow the universall indefinite equivocall and remote or else the univocall proximate specificall and particular cause And which of these is that which doth determine and distinguish the effect Does not a man generate a man and a Beast a Beast what ever the position of the stars be Those that have been borne in the same region at the same moment under the same position have they all been the same nay how divers have they been for all that in their ingenies their fortunes and fates And why so but because they have taken their severall affections and inclinations from their particular causes 16. As for second causes means agents instruments seeing God Almighty makes use of them to bring his own purposes to pass not out of any defect or necessity but to make his own efficiency the more perceptible Yee seeing he oft-times renders the most noble and convenient means ineffectuall and uses the meanest and unaptest of them to the producing of very eminent effects Why then should we be bound to lurke at that order which God himself observes not why should our faith be taught to respect or rest upon the middle things in a prejudice to that providence which is the absolute beginning and end of all 17. Whether the second causes be not ordained as the remedies rather than as the means of fate or fortune providence it self that has determined such an accident or event has it not also ordained second means to help and relieve in such a case wherfore are the creatures and their offices created to such ends if they be not to be used to such ends for which they were created what ever the fate or fortune be is there not a naturall Law imprest in every creature to labour for the conservation of it self both in its being and well being To what end hath God given men a mind will reason affections counsell deliberation science art observation experiment means instruments c. but as well prudently and diligently to discern procure fortify prevent remedy as thankfully to accept or humbly to submit Hath not the Spirit of God secretly and sweetly suggested to his dearest children in their sudden and extraordinary perils and perplexities even present advices and succours besides the inward consolations and confirmations of his grace yea is not this one cause why men are kept so ignorant of future accidents and of their utmost issues after that they are already happened that men might not only prepare for them but make use of such means as God himself hath prepared against them Otherwise should they not tempt God in a neglect of them 18. Whether there be not in the whole course of nature in the universall world and especially throughout the whole Church of Christ farre more effectuall causes means orders connexions rules guides guards helpes of life of health peace libertie society c. for counsell actions passions accidents events than the coelestiall bodies can possibly be ought these then to be respected more than all they or yet in comparison to them 19. Who is able to bring into one series or can reconcile to truth the old Philosophicall opinions about the exercise or execution of Fate by second causes As whether by Angels Spirits Geniusses Demons Devills by the Soul of the world by the Souls of men by the totall subservience of Nature by the motions and influences of the Starres and caelestiall bodies by sensible agents by artificiall instruments yea and by very accidents and casualties Christians know and acknowledge all these creatures to be the ministers or instruments of providence The Angells doing his will are the more eminent ministers both of his mercies and judgements administring not only in temporalls and in spiritualls but likewise to eternalls And if it be so as Philosophie sayes that they are the Intelligencies that move the caelestiall orbes then have they an ordination over the administration of the Starres The Devills are not only permitted but wisely and justly used in the execution of temptations tryalls judgements But how comes in Fate and Fortune who can tell unlesse they intrude among the Devills and be indeed of their foysting in As for the heavenly bodyes they are to be confest as of Gods ordination and employment in their order light motions and prodigious appearances But he makes speciall use of mens reason understanding wills affections memories counsells deliberations policies vocations societies arts artifices Lawes Customes actions and experiments in the government of the world and yet more especially their gifts graces duties offices services in the governing of his Church Last of all come in the whole hoste of creatures to act here as he hath ordained Now what fatation or fatall necessitation to man among all these Angels or Devills can but inject into the mind they cannot compell no nor yet incline the will That 's only for the infinite power of God himself to doe men as to naturall civill and morall acts are still actors in their own liberty As for bodyes Coelestiall or terrestriall they work directly but upon bodyes only and the terrestriall are held and found to be the more proximately particularly and sensibly disposing Besides
reason is there to credit their proposition much lesse their prognostication They likewise will have fate in the best sense they can take it to digest and distribute all things according to certain motions successions orders forms places times Now if their fate cannot be well understood or discerned without these same astrictions why are they so confounded at the inexplicableness of the circumstances Otherwise why doe they not predict usually the very times and places together with the fates themselves Moreover the first definers of fate held it to be not in the superiors but in the inferiors themselves Namely a disposition inherent in the moveable thing and that urging to an immoveable event If indeed it be such ought not every mans fate to be collected from himself rather than from his Stars 28. How should the things of fate and fortune be foretold when it is not yet with one consent told what things they are themselves Some have gone so high as to say that they are Deities or Gods others are fallen so low as to make them vanities and nothing Some confound these two together some set them so opposite as that they make them confound one another Some admit many things of both as they say at the fore-gate and exclude all again at the back door Some place them in the beginning in the middle in the end of a business Some make us to be in their power Some them in our power Some would have us believe both but inquire neither But if they would no inquiry after their nature and properties why make they such inquiry into their operations and effects 29. Whether fate be mutable or immutable If mutable how is it fate Is there not then a contingency of fate as well as a fate of contingencies If immutable what hope what colour what means what remedy Nay if immoveable how moves it as they say according to the nature and order of all moveable things That is to say with naturall things naturally with necessary necessarily with voluntary voluntarily with contingent contingently with violent violently with remiss remissely And all this not as a prime and free but as a second and necessary cause Why may we not as well say with rationall things â—…tionally with brute brutishly with sensuall sensually with â—…tuous vertuously with vitious vitiously with prosperous pâ—oâ—perously with adverse adversely with uncertain uncertainly 〈◊〉 And then what irrefragable law of fate is that which is fain to conform to and comply with every ones manners and manner of working 30. Whether fate be absolute in decree or conditionate If absolute then can it not be otherwise and what remedy Nay then is it infinite omnipotent eternall and with superiority If conditionate and that not from a liberall dispensation of its own but a naturall ordination from another what fatation is that then that comes upon condition that depends upon others actions not its own determination If it be absolute then is it cruell and unjust in many things if it be conditionate then is it variable and certain in nothing Set aside the first act which is the eternall decree and the last act which is death these indeed may be said to be both absolute and conditionate but Christians are not taught to call these fate But take it as they doe for the middle act then can they make it to be neither absolute nor conditionate 31. Whether fate and fatall events follow the body or the mind If the body what difference betwixt the fate of a man and of a beast In events good or evill who is worthy who is guilty And how follow they the mind seeing the stars necessarily and directly make no impression there Because it is superiour according to the order of nature and not subject to matter time or place but united to an intellectuall and spirituall substance and therefore cannot suffer from corporeall things although celestiall Nor can they so exceed their own sphear and species as to act directly upon it And if not upon the intellective faculty which acts necessarily much less upon the elective power which is free and never acts but freely nor is subject to fatality or fatall necessity For then should the election of the will be no more but a meer naturall instinct should be determined to one thing should act but one way should have the like motions in all upon the like representations should not have any thing in its own power to discern deliberate choose refuse c. but must be carryed on either naturally or violently as the Stars doe incline or enforce 32. Whether fate or fortune be either in good or evill actions If fate be iâ— good actions are they not necessitated and inforced if fortune 〈◊〉 there are they not fortuitous and accidentall And so what â—…e of them what reward The like may be affirmed of evill actions and if likewise thus inferred what shame what punishment In vitious actions either fate offers violence to a mans will or leaves to its own liberty If the first is not a mans will to be excused in evill and if the last is not every mans will the cause of his own fate yea and of the hardest and heaviest fates For they are such which follow sin and wickedness 33. Wherefore should man or his actions be made the subject yea the slave of fate when as indeed man as man is superiour thereto For fate being but a sydereall service of second causes must be reduced to the providence of the first cause and in that reduction man himself hath place or preferment before all the stars of heaven Because the divine providence receives to it self or extends it self in a more speciall way to intellectuall or rationall than it doth to all other creatures else In as much as they excell all others both in the perfection of nature and in the dignity of end In the perfection of nature Because the rationall creature hath the dominion over his own actions and operates voluntarily whereas the other act not so much as are acted In the dignity of the end because the intellectuall creature only by his operation reaches to the ultimate end of the universe sc to know and love God But the other creatures touch not that end by an inspired intention but only according to some participated similitude Furthermore God provides for the intellectuall nature principally and as it were for selfs sake and but for all other crtatures secondarily and in order to it The rationall creature is Gods agent the other are but his instrumens Now God cares more for his agents than he doth for his instruments Yea they are the instruments of this very agent and he makes use of them either in his practice or contemplation God hath more regard to the free and liberall than to the necessitated and servile acts of his creatures The rationall creatures are the more noble in themselves and of more neer accession to the divine similitude and therefore tendred by
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
hath not a natural and particular cause Nor yet what particular impediment may hinder that natural cause from effecting Now I would ask of Magicians and Astrologers whether they can foresee or foretel more then the devil himself can do Yet I would ask again whether the Magical and Astrological prescience and presagition be not much after the same manner as the diabolical is For the devil acquires his by long observation and often experience of things He knows well natural causes and can see their following effects as present in them He understands mens bodily temperaments and to what passions or affections they usual dispose and which way mens sensitive appetites may ordinarily prevail to incline their wills He can recollect the wickedness of Times and Nations and can guess by the multitude lawlesness and impunity of their iniquities among men how neâ—r they are to the judgements of God And accordingly can conjecture and predict the punishment of a people by war famine pestilence c. He can certainly foretel these things that depend upon necessary causes and have no other natural cause to hinder them as the motions of the stars Eclipses conjunctions c. But if they be not necessary although falling out for the most part but may have some other natural causes hindring them those he can foretel but probably and by conjecture as showers storms tempests c. He can certainly foretel those malefices which by Gods permission he intends to act either by himself or by his sworn instruments He can disclose such corrupt cogitations as himself hath injected especially so far forth as he observed them to take impression with complacency And for secret lusts manners and actions such as himself hath been an intimate witnesse of he can reveal them to his Magical instruments and make them if God will permit object them to mens faces and bewray them to the world He is continually so going to and fro in the earth that he can tel what is doing even in remotest places and such is his agility can suddenly convey it to his absent instruments or Artists and make them relate itas if they were present Hidden treasures lost goods thefts murders secretly committed these because done in his presence and kept in his remembrance he can disclose to and by his Agents if men will consult and God give leave Yea he can presage many things from the prophecies of the Word whose historicall part he understands better then men 5. Why God permits the devil and Diviners oft times to predict things future Is it not to distinguish betwixt his special spiritual and saving graces and his extraordinary temporary and transient gifts That none might presume of an inlightened minde or a conformed will because of such acts as may be without the least touch either of the one or the other Nor arrogate to themselves a likeness to Angels for such presagitions as wherein the beasts may surpass them Is it not that ungodly men and profane may thus so much the more be given over to their own superstitions and diabolical delusions And to teach the faithful and godly not to covet affect admire or undiscreetly approve of those gifts which are no perpetual and infallible tokens of Gods grace and favour Especially neither to be acting in nor attending to those vain curiosities which Satan may suggest and wicked men and infidels may attain unto 6. Whether the devil or divining predictors ought to be believed should they foretel truth The Devil abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it Joh. 8. 44. Eve ought not to have believed him because he spake of his own Gen. 3. Aâ—ab was not bound to be perswaded by him 1 King 22. 20 21 22. Because though he had a Commission or permission from God yet he exceeded it and spake of his own But I make a question whether Saul ought not to have believed him 1 Sam. 28. 19. Because he now spake not of his own God is to be believed even in the Devil himself But then it might be evident that he not onely speaks the things of God but from God that is both the truth and by a special warrant Otherwise there 's no accepting of his Testimony be it never so true if he take it up of his own Authority And therefore our Saviour Christ would neither assent to nor approve of the Devils although they spake the truth Mark 7. 24 25. 3. 11 12. No more did St. Paul to the truth that was spoken by the Spirit of Divination Act. 16. 16 17 18. We are taught that Satan may transform himself into an Angel of light and so may his Ministers like-wise And therefore we held our selves not obliged simply to believe either the one or the other even in the best they can say Because they may lye in telling truth may tell truth to deceive may prejudice a greater in uttering a lesser truth may usurp it of themselves may arrogate it to themselves When did God send the devil on a message to instruct his Church in the truth or to promise good unto his children If he be sent extraordinarily to pronuntiate to the wicked and reprobates their destinated judgements and deserts they may be so conscious within themselves as to have cause to believe them But as for holy men and elect if they be not tyed to believe their truth how much rather ought they to take heed of their strong delusions as not to believe their lyes 7. Whether a wicked man may prophesie or a godly man divine Although godly men are more subject to wicked mens sins then wicked men are capable of godly mens graces Yet godly men as godly men cannot be infected with wicked mens divining neither can wicked men as wicked men be endowed with godly mens prophecying Joseph is pretended to divine yet is it but a pretence of a pretence if it be taken in the worst sense as hath been said before Balaam took up his parable a dark saying which he himself understood not and God put a word in his mouth which never affected his heart But Balaam had no more the gift and spirit of prophesying then his Asse had the gift and spirit of speaking May we not then determine it thus God may be pleased so to dispense prophecying as sometimes to prompt a wicked man with the act sound or prolation of it but inspires or indues godly men alone with the gift sense and spirit of prophecy For the spirit of prophecy delights in sanctity and purity And to perfect prophecy is required not onely the illumination of the minde but the assent also of the will as to Gods revelation authority pleasure message truth glory which indeed cannot be in an ungodly man In Scripture a good man and a Prophet are Synonyma's and a man of God and a Prophet convertible terms And a bad
Moon and Mercury But Archimedes and the Chaldaeans place the Sunne the fourth in order Anaximander Metrodâ—rus Chius and Crates say that the Sunne is the supreame of all after which the Moon and beneath these the rest errant and inerrant Xenocrates thinks that all the Stars are moved in one and the same superficies and they discord no lesse about the magnitude and distance of the Sunne the Moon and the rest of the Stars Neither is there any constancy of opinion amongst them about the Celestials nor yet truth neither is that any marvell seeing the Heaven it selfe which they search is of all other most inconstant and most replenished with trifles and fables for the very Twelve signes and the rest of the Boreall and Australl images had never ascended up to heaven but by Fables And yet the Astrologers live by these Fables and impose them upon others and make a gain thereby But the Poats in the mean while the egregious inventors of them grow poore and hungry There remaines yet another species of Astrologie which they call the Divinatory or the Judiciary which treats of the revolutions of the yeers of the world of nativities of questions of elections of intentions and cogitations of vertues or powers for the foretelling casting up eschuing or repelling the events of all things future even of the secret dispositions of divine providence it selfe Hereupon the Astrologers doe mart or vent the effects of the Heavens and the Stars from yeers most remote and before all memory of things or the times of Prometheus or as they say from the great conjunctions before the Flood And they affirm that the effects forces motions of all living creatures stones metals herbs and whatsoever things in these inferiours doe flow from these same Heavens and Starres and doe altogether depend upon them and may be searched out by them Verely these are incredulous men and not lesse impious in not acknowledging this one thing that God had already made the Herbs Plants and Trees even before the Heavens and Stars Moreover the most grave Philosophers as Pythagoras Democritus Bion Favorinus Panaetius Carneades Possidonius Timaeus Aristoteles Plato Plotinus Porphyrius Avicenna Averroes Hippocrates Galenus Alexander Aphrodisaeus Cicero Seneca Plutarch and many more who have searched the causes of things from every Art and Science yet never remit us to these Astrologicall causes which although they were causes yet because they plainly knew not the courses of the Stars and their forces which is a thing most known to all wise men they therefore cannot give a certain judgement of their effects Neither are there wanting among them as Eudoxus Archelaus Cassandrus Hoychilax Halicarnassaeus most skilfull Mathematicians and many other modern and most grave Authors which confesse that it is impossible that any thing certain should be found out concerning the science of such judgements both because of innumerable other causes cooperating together with the Heavens which must be attended together for so Ptolomy bids as also because very many occasions doe hinder them as namely customes manners education shame command place geniture blood meat liberty of mind and discipline seeing these influxes compell not as they say but incline Furthermore they who have prescribed the rules of judgements doe for the most part determine such diverse and repugnant things of the same matter that it is impossible for a prognosticator to pronounce any thing certaine from so many and so various and dissonant opinions unlesse there be in him some intrinsicall sense of things future and occult or some instinct of presage or rather occult and latent inspiration of the Devill by which among these he may be able to discerne or may be induced by some other way to adhere now to this now to that opinion which instinct whosoever wanteth he as Haly saith cannot be a Tel-troth in Astrologicall judgements Wherefore now Astrologicall prediction must consist not so much of Art as by a kind of obscure lot or chance of things And as in the books or games of Lottery sometimes such an one is drawn forth as speaks truth and hits right yet not by art but by chance so it is by chance and not by art that vaticinations come forth truely either from the mind or the mouth of an Astrologer To which Ptolomy attests saying the science of the Stars is from thee and from them meaning that the prediction of things future and occult is not so much from the observation of the Stars as from the affections of the mind Therefore is there no certainty of this Art but it is convertible to all things according to the opinion which is collected by conjectures or imagination or an imperceptible suggestion of Devils or some superstitious lot or chance This art therefore is no other then a fallacious conjecture of superstitious men who through the use of long time have made a science of uncertain things in which for the beguiling men of their money they may deceive the unskilfull and may also be deceived themselves And if the Art of these men be true and be understood by themselves whence then bubble out so many and so great errors in their prognostications But if it be not so doe they not vainly and foolishly and impiously to professe a science of things that are not or not understood But the more cautelous of them pronounce not upon futures save obscurely and such as may be applied to everything and time and Prince and Nation Out of a versatile artifice doe they feyne ambiguous prognosticks and after that any of them shall happen then doe they gather the causes thereof and after the fact or effect then doe they establish old vaticinations with new reasons to the intent they may seem to have foreseen Just as the interpreters of dreames who when they have a dream understand nothing of it for certain but after that something is hapned unto them then doe they adopt the dream to that which hapned Furthermore seeing it is impossible in such a variety of Stars but to finde some of them well some of them ill posited hereupon they take occasion of speaking what they please and to whom they will they predict life health honours riches power victory soundnesse off-spring marriage Priesthood Magistracy and the like but if they be ill affected to any to them they denounce deaths hangings reproaches destructions banishments barrennesse desolation calamities c. not so much out of a wicked art as out of wicked affections drawing on to destruction those men that are credulous to these impious curiosities and oft times committing among themselves both Princes and people in deadly seditions and warres Iâ— that Fortune fall in with their prognosticks and among so many ambiguous things if that one or other of them happen to be true it is a wonder then to behold how they bristle being crest-swolne and how most insolently they predicate their own predictions But though they lie daily and be convinced of lying then they excuse
lust which shews what furious lust they are prone to that are borne under this cold and dull Planet Saturne is old because of his slow motion and want of heat He hath a Sythe in his hand and a Serpent by him because he is a retrograde Planet Jupiter binds him deposes him casts him into hell and all this is but a figure of a conjunction depressing infringing or tempering his malignant influence But Iupiter does no such thing but rather frees and restores him and does that signifie nothing was not this benigne Planet now a meanes to help and forward his malignity But Saturne was foretold by an Oracle that his own sonne should depose him from his Kingdom What were divining Oracles before the Planets Or indeed are there not over the Starres that can foretell their fates as well as they can the fates of others In short the Golden age was under Saturnes raigne why then is he made so maleficall a Planet wheresoever he is predominant It would be long to note the like of Iupiter Mars Sol c. and after all such observation the question at last would return to this whether Mythology or Astrology the poeticall or the speculatory Fable serves most to make one another good or more significant 3. Of the strange uncouth improbable impossible ridiculous and superstitious causes grounds forms prescripts waies means and instruments whereby to acquire the Art procure the power and prepare unto the practice of Divinatory Magick and Astrologie MElampus Tirefias Thales and Apollonius Tyanaeus could understand the voyce or language of Birds The latter of them sitting among his friends seeing many Sparrowes upon a tree and another comming in chirping to the rest told them that it told its fellows that there was a sack of Wheat spilt in such a place neere the City and they going to see found it so But how learnt Appollonius this rare divining art why peradventure by Democritus his prescript who named the Birds whose blood being mingled together would produce a serpent of which whosoever would eate should understand the voyces of Birds Or else by that of Hermes who saith If any one shall goe forth to catch Birds on a certaine day of the Kalends of November and shall boyle the first bird that he catcheth with the heart of a Fox that all that shall eate of this bird shall understand the voyces of Birds and of all other animals Or else that of the Arabians who say that they shall understand the meaning of bruits who shall eate the heart and liver of Dragons The Sybils the Bacchides and Niceratus the Syracusan and Amon were by their naturall melancholy complexion Prophets and Poets Hesiod Ion Tynnichus Calcinensis Homer and Lucretius were on a sudden taken with a madnesse and became poets and prophecied wonderfull and divine things which they themselves scarce understood Cornelius Patarus his Priest did at that time when Cesar and Pompey were to fight in Thessalia being taken with madnesse foretell the time order and issue of the battle How great heats love stirres up in the liver and pulse Physitians know discerning by that kind of judgement the name of her that is beloved So Naustratus knew that Antiochus was taken with the love of Stratonica When a mayd at Rome died the same day that she was married and was presented to Apollonius he accurately enquired into her name which being known he pronounced some occult thing by which she revived It was an observation among the Romans in their holy rites that when they did besiege any City they did diligently enquire into the proper and true name of it and the name of that God under whose protection it was which being known they did then with some verse call forth the Gods that were the protectors of that City and did curse the inhabitants thereof and so at length their Gods being absent did overcome them Vsyche in Apuleius prayes thus to Ceres I beseech thee by thy fruitfull right hand I embrace thee by the joyfull ceremonies of harvests by the quiet silence of thy chests by the winged Chariot of Dragons thy servants by the furrows of the Sicilian earth the devouring wagon the clammy earth by the place of going down into cellars at the light nuptials of Proserpina and returnes of the last inventions of her daughter and other things which are concealed in her Temple in the City Eleusis in Attica The Aegyptians and Arabians confirme that the figure of the Crosse hath very great power and that it is the most sure receptacle of all the celestiall powers and intelligences because it is the rightest figure of all containing four right angles and it is the first description of the superficies having longitude and latitude and they said it is inspired with the fortitude of the Celestials Rabbi Israel made certaine cakes writ upon with certaine divine and angelicall names and so consecrated which they that did eate with faith hope and charity did presently breake forth with a spirit of Prophecy Rabbi Iohena the sonne of Iochabod did after that manner enlighten a certain rude Countreyman called Eleazar being altogether illiterate that being compassed about with sudden brightnesse did unexpectedly preach such high mysteries of the law to an assembly of wise men that he did even astonish all that were neere him A certain man called Heruiscus an Aegyptian was endued with such a divine nature that at the very sight of Images that had any deity in them he was forthwith stirred up with a kind of divine phrenzy The Sybil in Delphi was wont to receive God after two waies either by subtill spirit and fire which did break forth somewhat out of the mouth of the cave where she sitting in the entrance upon a brazen three-footed stoole dedicated to a Diety was divinely inspired and did utter prophecyings or a great fire flying out of the cave did surround this prophetesse stirring her up being filled with a Deity to prophecy which inspiration also she received as she sat upon a consecrated seat breaking forth presently into predictions There was a Prophetesse in Branchi which sate upon an Extree and either held a wand in her hand given to her by some Deity or washed her feet and sometimes the hem of her garment in the waters by all these she was filled with divine splendor and did unfold many Oracles In the Countrey of Thracia there was a certaine passage consecrated to Bacchus from whence Predictions and Oracles were wont to be given the Priors of whose Temples having dranke wine abundantly did doe strange things Amongst the Charians also where the Temple of Clâ—vius Apollo was to whom it was given to utter divine things they having dranke much Wine did strange things There was also a propheticall fountaine of Father Achaia constituted before the Temple of Ceres where they that did enquire of the event of the sick did let down a Glasse by degrees tied to a small cord to the top of the water and
Geometrician by his art alone drawing out a massy ship which whole multitudes could not once move hereupon Hiero the King was so transported with admiration that he concluded Archimedes ought to be believed in whatsoever he said yea though he should say give him but footing and he would remove the whole earth Augustus together with Agrippa coming to the chamber of Theogenes the Mathematician and he predicting great and almost incredible things to Agrippa who first consulted him Augustus resolved to conceale his own geniture and would by no means have it calculated lest that lesse things might be prognosticated of him then were of Agrippa at last he yeilded to it by much importunity and Theogenes leaping at it and adoring him prognosticating his greatnesse because born under Capricorn for whosoever hath his horoscope in the first part of Capricorn shall be a King or an Emperour Augustus had forthwith such a confidence in this fatidical praesagitian that he divulged his natalitial Theme and caused the signe of the star Capricorn under which he was born to be impressed on his Coyn and placed in his Arms. Maximinus a great Tyrant and persecutor was so superstitiously fearful that he would do nothing without divination neither would by any means be drawn to transgresse an augurie or an Oracle no not a nayls breadth Frederick the second the Emperour having married Isabe sister to the King of England forbare her company till a certain hour that his Astrologers or wizzards had assigned for that purpose that so he might beget a son famous from the constellation But mark the fruits of this constellatory copulation poor Isabel dyed in childbed Ludovicus Sfortia maintained an Astrologer at an excessive charge who in recompense thereof would insult over his credulity by his prognostications and make him oft times leave his dinner rise out of his bed and ride away in stormes and tempests through dirt and mire making him believe that this was the onely way to escape or prevent such and such eminent dangers which he foresaw were ready to betide him The Turks are so superstitiously addicted to observe the placits of the Astrologers that they willingly war not but at the beginning of the new Moon Once they sought to assault Vienna â—or no other cause but because they saw a gilded Moon placed upon the top of St. Stephens Tower St. Augustine tells Marcellinus how ridiculous it was in the Gentiles account of their Magicians to compare Apollonius and Apuleius and other skilful men in Magick to Christ yea and to prefer them before him Yet he takes the comparison to be more tolerable betwixt him and them rather then their adulterous Gods Yea and sayes that Scipi Nâ—sica their Priest was more worthy of divine honours â—then their Gods themselves Because they being consulted commanded scenical playes horrid and shamelesse spectacles for the sedating of the pestilence but he admonished the contrary accounting those cursed and filthy enterludes as the greatest plagues of the minde Scipio Affricane was so swayed with divining superstition that he would undertake no businesse publique or private till he had first stayed and consulted in the Cell of Jupiter Capitoline Lucius Scylla so often as he determined to wage any war he would first embrace the little Image of Apollo taken from Delphos and in the sight of his souldiers would pray it to hasten the promise or prediction Alexander sacrificing and a young boy holding the Censer a coal fell upon his arm and so burnt it that the standers by were troubled with the smell yet he so insensibly charmed he was not once shrinkt at it whereby he was put in minde to presage what manly invinciblenesse should be found in his souldiers against all perils when as he observed such undanted sufferance in a very childe As Aelius Praetor was pleading Law a certain bird came and sat upon his head which an Aruspick observed and thereupon predicted that it being saved the state of his own house would be happy but the Commonwealth miserable but the contrary if it dyed which the superstitious man hearing immediately bit off the birds neck before them all Codrus King of the Athenians upon an oraculous responsal that that side should get the victory whose King was slain in the battail in a superstitious rashnesse committed himself disguised to the danger of his enemies darts Oh the superstition of predictions that expose men not only to the toleration but election of utmost perils Gyges living in all kind of felicity would needs consult Pythian Apollo if any mortall man enjoyed more happinesse then himselfe it was answered of a poore Arcadian who lived contented in his own strait cottage that he was farre more happy then he At this he would needs throw away his enchanted Ring and after that fell into extream misery the end of all magicall felicity The earth gaping and thence an infectious ayre proceeding which caused a great pestilence among the Romans and they endeavouring to fill it up but could not upon consult it was answered by the vaticinators that nothing could fill that gulph and so remedy the plague but one that was most eminent amongst them whereupon Curtius taking himselfe to be the man presaged and to doe his countrey service rode headlong into the gulph and there perished Menecrates an Astrologicall Physician would needs account of himselfe as god Iupiter and thus wrote to Philip of Macedon Menecrates Iupiter to Philip health of body He to check his magicall arrogance wrote thus Philip to Menecrates soundnesse of mind Yet seeing he would not for all this out of that conceit nor be advertised of his proud and vaine presumption he commanded at a banquet to set nothing before him but Frankincense and such like fumes with the offering whereof the gods were pleased but not one bit of meat till at length for meere hunger he was forced to confesse himselfe to be no more but a mortall man 17. Of the severall waies that have been used whereby to direct dispose determine moderate remedy or prevent superstitious hopes or feares as concerning prodigies and prognostications SVlpitius Gallus being Lieutenant Generall of Lucius Paulus his army against King Porses it hapned on a cleare night that the Moon suddenly defected in an Ecclipse at which dire omen the souldiers stood amazed and had no heart to fight till he made a notable oration concerning the course of the Heavens and the force of the Stars as that such things have their naturall causes and ordinarily portend no more but naturall effects and not arbitrary actions and contingent events And so animated the Souldiers that they went on fearlesse and obtained the victory Which they ascribed to him as an effect of his rationally perswading art quite contrary to the other irrationally prognosticating The Athenians being terrified at the sudden obscuration or ecclipse of the Sunne taking it to be a celestiall denunciation of their destruction Thereupon stood forth Pericles and discoursed of the Sunne and