49. lib. 18. c. 23. lib 30. c. 1 2. Picus Lord of Mirandula a Man of high Birth and great Learning whom Scaliger call'd the Monster of his Age and Naudaeus the Phoenix of all great Wits wrote 200 Years since 12 such Invincible Books against Astrology as not only purchased him the Name of Flagellum Astrologorum but so muzled them all that not one hath appeared able to Answer him He proves Astrology to be an Art invented by the Devil abolisheth all Religion Philosophy Physick Law c. of great mischief to Mankind destroys the use of Faith lessens the Reverence of Miracles destroyes Divine Providence Patronizeth Sin excuseth Vice as coming from Heaven defiles and subverts all good Arts translating the causes of things from Reason to Fables abrogating all Rules of Human Providence c. Page 183. Sir Tho. More makes his Eutopians despise and laugh at them R. Ã Castro tells us he was the Author of that Lampoon against them Astratibi AEthereo pandunt c. C. Agrippa treats them with great Scorn and Derision and exposeth their Art as a Delusion and great Cheat. My Lord Bacon Chancellour of England not inferior to the best of these for Learning saith That Astrology hath no grounds Inslaur Mag. lib. 3. c. 4. page 3. and Essay 35. Essay l. 1. c. 4. nor soundness and such as Practise it no Honesty or Sense Their Persons are despicable saith he but their Practices dangerous They are Impostors who have done great Mischief and therefore so many Laws have been made to suppress them M. Montaigne that Noble French Author tells us The Art ought to be abhorred by all good Christians having done much Mischief though in it self as insignificant as a Dream The Learned K. James saith Daemonolog l. 1. c. 5. Verit. Relig l. 4. Judicial Astrology is learnt in the Devil's School An Art not lawful to Practise or be trusted in by Christians having no ground of Natural Reason Both the Scaligers Prodigies of Learning writ against it The Father against Cardan and the Son calls it a Practice without Foundation contrary to Religion and Philosophy c. Praef. Molin Argenis l. 2. So saith the Famous J. Barclay H. Grotius whose greatest Enemies Mr. Baxter and Dr. Owen allowed to be Wise above the pitch of Human Nature and incomparable in all Human Learning derides Astrology as an Art without agreeing Rules having nothing in it certain but uncertainty Ludovicus Vives on St. August Civit. Dei our Learned Savil in his Notes on Tacitus and others call it an Art that teacheth Knaves to cheat Honest Men. And J. Milton in his Figure-Caster Ridicules it with much Wit and Confutes it with no less Reason Astrology saith he is an Art that teacheth Astrologers to Lye as often as they speak Our Ingenious Learned Feliham wonders Astrologers can for bear laughing when they meet Resoâ—ve 96. to think how they gull the People with such a Fallacy and Delusion as is impossible to be true And Mr. Freke the Astrologer calls it Madness Folly Delusion an Irrational groundless Imposture impossible to be true Essay p. â—3 c. And by Experience found to be the Devil's Lure to draw Men into Neoromancy What shall I say more The Noble Picus in his two first Books against them hath shown at large how much the Learned Writers to his time decryed and wrote against this Wicked Senseless Art And I have proved that the most Eminent Authors since of all sorts have done the same and hiss'd it off the Stage to whom may be added Des Cartes Rohault and all the new French Philosophers beside our Learned Athenians I might teaze them with Lucian Juvenal Quevedo Hudebrass Poor Robin Mr. Wilson's Witty Play called the Cheats and others who with sharp Wit and keen Satyr expose them in their true Shapes and Colours â—ee Sir Roger L'Strange's Fables and the Turkish Spye But I must hasten the Matter off my Hands and will shut up my Evidence against them with one of their own Advocates Ramsey who was like Sidrophel a busy Scribler an Empty Physician and an Ignorant Star-Cazer This Man tells the King That the Common Practicers of Astrology deceived his People of their Money Lives and Loyalty and that London abounded with such Ideots Cheats and Illiterate Impostors as himself was and Sidrophel continueth to be There is much more to be said against this vain Art to prove it false and built on nothing As the want of knowing the exact Longitude of the Place which is both necessary and imposis ible So is the moment of the Genesis Question or Action to be judged of and consequently leave their Erections to meer Chance and then it 's 10000 to one as Dr. More saith but that it prove false Gassendus affirms That if there be any thing to be judged by Astrology the Artist must know the precise moment of the Sun 's being in a Cardinal Sign Tom. 1. p. 728. Yet sure I am saith he that there are no Tables or Ephemerides extant that can teach the Time by six hours Those of Tycho come nearest Truth and yet are wide from it My last Argument against Astrologers and their pretended Art is That in all Ages and most Governments they have been pernicious to the Commonwealth and Enemies to the Publick Peace And for that Reason so many Laws have been made against them not only abroad as Historians tell us but in our own Nation Hen. 8.14 33.5 Eliz. 15.23 Eliz. 2.3.4 Edw. 6.15 as may be seen in the Statute Book Beside their Frauds and Cozening Practices saith Aggrippa Montaigne and Bacon on the Common People they are Authors of much mischief to the State drawing Credulous People to their ruin and causing among Nations most cruel Wars and Sedition No sort of Men being more pernicious to a Commonwealth than those who undertake to Prognosticate by the Stars or any other way of Divination and scatter their Prophecies about I urge this last of all because it 's so pat to the great Objection I have against Sidrophel For he seems to verify this Censure and to be designing by his false Art to subvert the present Frame of our English Government in Church and State by making the People believe Heaven hath decreed it shall be changed into that of a Neighbouring Country That such effects have been the consequents of such Fanatick Enthusiastick Dreams I will prove by a few out of many Instances Socrat. lib. 7. Sozom. lib. 8. Niceph. lib. 13. Isdegerdes the Persian King was so disturbed by the Contrivances of Astrologers that he decimated them Valerius Maximinus being overthrown by Licinius contrary to the Predictions of the Star-Diviners who had betrayed him with false assurances of Success He put them all to death Thus they deluded Pompey Caesar and Crassus Thucydides Plutarcâ— Nicias the Athenian was persuaded by them to keep his Fleet in the Haven the same Night the Syracusians surprized
Did not our great Reformers use This Sidrophel to foreboad News And hath he not alway foretold Whate'er the close Committee would Made Mars and Saturn for the Cause The Moon for Fundamental Laws c. ERRATA PAge 4. line 38. for He read But p. 7. Marg. for L. H. r. lib. 4. p. 8. l. 17. r. many degrees better p. 9. l. 19. r. discoverer p. 12. Marg. r. 1652. p. 19. l. 33. for professor r. possessor p. 20. l. 2. r. 20. p. 29. l. 21.22 for Impostor r. Prophet p. 41. Marg. r. Tom. 2. p. 46. Marg. r. de Peste Some Literal Mistakes are left to the Readers Candor To W S n. THERE is Egregious Sir a Quack Astrologer in your House who some Years since Publish'd a Scandalous Reflection on me without either Reason or Provocation so to do which a Friend of mine imparting to me for I used not to mispend Time or Money in such empty Stuff with which his Pen hath surfeited the World I expostulated the Matter with him by Letter and demanded his Authority or Reason for the Reproach or an Acknowledgment of the Fault or Mistake if it were such but instead of giving me any manner of Satisfaction He in the next Publick Effort of his fertil Pen falls a railing and chattering like an obnoxious Criminal and attempted by dint of Scolding to Huff me out of those Resentments which he had great reason to fear would be severe upon him Nihil est audacius illis Reprehensis iram atque animos à crimine sumunt Indeed at first I was so little displeas'd to see my self treated in a manner so much to his own Shame and Opprobrium more than mine that I slighted the Bawling Brain-sick till I found him at me again And for want of new Matter giving the People twice Sodden Cabbage the same fulsom Stuff in a second Almanack which he had done in that wherein he first put that Falshood on Crato and me The Repetition of this groundless Affront after I had charged him with the Falshood thereof and he had tacitly allowed it himself made me steal a few Hours from other Avocations to do my self right and stop the Carreer of his Scurrilous Pen. But since he denied to take notice of my Private Challenge I could not readily think of a better way to gain that Point that by this Publick Address and Appeal to you who are so much alike and so near of kin to him But before we engage in so rough and unpleasant a way as a close and serious Discourse of this Matter will carry us to It may not be amiss to sweeten our Humours by some divertive Entertainment in the beginning of our Course and because some of his Quack Postures afforded me such Pleasure that I felt little of the pinching part of his Bum-fodder I will make you merry with a Specimen of his Worship's Wit both in Verse and Prose I begin with the former not only because the Pamphlet abounds therewith but for the excellency of it being the very quintessence of Helicon and Heart Blood and Guts of the Muses Homer Pindar Virgil or Cowley were meer Fools to Sidrophel or Watchum his Journeyman Poetaster not one of them ever made such bold strokes or can show such Flowers as I can out of his doggrel and fastidious Rhyme Renowned Prince Prevail and Prosper still And make like God's Decrees your Royal Will There 's a Bird for the King against whose Father's Tyranny and Arbitrary Actions he had just before bent his doughty Song and now He comes to admonish his Majesty to the same Practice Where is the Liberty and Property of Subjects so much talk'd of If they be governed by a Prince whose Will like the Decrees of Heaven is Absolute and Irresistible For so the Assembly in their Confession and Catechisms define Predestination or God's Decrees to be viz. destining or determining from all Eternity such to Heaven such to Hell L. Du Moulin allows scarce One in a Million to the former without foresight or respect had to Good or Evil in them but merely to show his Power and for his Glory To imitate this must be very Arbitrary and Tyrannical And like the Grand Louis his declared Reasons for making his last War on the Netherlands and spilling the Blood of so many Thousands not for their Fault but his Glory Thus in a roaring Song against Arbitrary Power which had tumbled King James out of his Throne He recommends to King William a Walk on the same dangerous Precipice You by your lightning Steel Give to the stupid Foe a sense to feel This is a whole Nosegay for his Majesty made up of as much Nonsense as ever was in so little Meeter He had reason to scorn assistance from the Muses in his first Poetical Sally in January he hath a Furnassus in his own Breast Excludit sanos Helicone Poetas Democritus He hath a peculiar sort of Poetry a Specimen of which may be thus Paraphras'd in Prose Your Sword made the living dead i. e. the Stupid feel cujus Contrarium The Gallick fury vanish'd like a Ghost And trembling stood before your Mighty Host I know not whether he intended this for Prophecy or History I am sure it 's neither Sence nor Truth The French have not shown themselves such Cowards of late as to lose their Courage at the sight of an Enemy But the Jest is their fury vanished and yet stood trembling There is a sort of a Contradiction in that vanishing and standing fury and trembling are different things This was in June It seems the hot Weather made the Monsieurs cold and the cool Weather heated them for in September he tells us they became brisk Threatned Revenge and boldly swore They valiant are when that no Foe is near But always sneak when Enemies appear This was verified at the Siege of Namur where our new Observator affirms That the Confederates in seeing the Town lost before their Faces won more Glory 1692. than the sneaking French who took it in despight and in sight of such Puissance as the Confederate Army Headed by so great an Heroe and Renowned Prince But his choicest Flowers are at the end of this Gallymawfry where he ingeniously mingles Poetry and Prophecy and both of so true a stamp as if Apollo had made him an Oracle as well as a Poet. For my part I don't know which to admire most the Prediction or the Rhyme Deceit 's the Line which some great Men do tread Death reigns among the Living not the Dead Both these are for Rhyme neither of them for Sense and may be thus Travestee'd There dwells no sense within the Poet's head For Death can't reign where 't hath not conquered No more than Life can do 't among the Dead With this scrap of my Muse we will pass by his Poetry and taste a bit of his Prose of which he gives us a most delightful Morsel in the third Paragraph of that Nonsense his
the times of Tiberius Vitellius Constantine Gratian Theodosius c. Justinian as appears in his Code made it a Crime Capital to Practise it And Constantius another Christian Emperor of great Fame as soon as He came to the Throne made it loss of Life to Consult Astrologers By our own Laws it hath been Fellony to Practise that Hellish Art And it 's still punishable by Fine and Imprisonment See 33 Hen. VIII c. 8.14 c. 5 Eliz. 15. And indeed considering the fatal Experience we have had of those vile Men and their wicked Practices the Tools they have been to the Factions their notorious Cheats how they have been forbidden by God himself and exploded by Men of all Ages Nations and Faculties it 's a wonder they are permitted to live among us To conclude If Astrologers err in their Fundamentals and are mistaken in the first Elements of their Art If the late discovery in Astronomy have given the Heavens a new Face hid to the Inventors of Astrology and to all before this Age If they differ among themselves have no Accord but contradict and Prognosticate contrary to one another and to Truth If the Presages of the most Famous among them commonly prove false and contrary to Event If they are ignorant of the most remarkable Occurrences in the World before they happen and of their own Fates till they come to pass If Men of one Genesis and Commencement have various Fortunes and multitudes of different Horoscopes one punctual Period If the recurrence of Constellations do not again produce the same Men or Effects If Customs and Circumstances of whole Regions continue unvaried under daily Changes in the Heavens If multitudes of Men learned even in Astrology exclaim against it as vain and wicked and affront the Stars in spight of their Power or rather in conformity to their Influence If it be an Enemy to Providence and Free Will If it advance Principles destructive of Religion and promoting Idolatry destroy Philosophy and the force of natural Remedies If Astrologers and their Art be no less pernicious to the Publick Welfare are the Authors of Heresie and Rebellion and as such have been not only proscrib'd by the wisest Governments but forbidden by Scripture exploded by Fathers eminent Divines States-men Politicians Philosophers and the most learned Wise Men which have been in the World and by them all accounted a Cheat and dangerous Impostors we have cause enough to renounce it I thought to have ended with this Summary See Diemerbroek de pect cap. 8. but remembring that among the many trifling Arguments urged in behalf of Astrology and to prove the Influence of Heavenly on Sublunary Bodies they urge one which they call manifest and demonstrative viz. the Power of the Moon on the Sea causing the Flux and Reflux thereof by its pressure Tr. Phys page 4. as M. Rohault expresseth it I will shew this infallible Argument to be a Vulgar Error and that the Moon hath no more force to move the Waters than the Waters have to move the Moon or make it into a green Cheese but that both are independant from each other Their Motions indeed are concurrent in some few places of the World But without relation as Cause to Effect or any Influence See Mr. Philips's Letter to Dr. Wallis Pâ—il Tr. 34. or Operation at all one on the other 1. This seems manifest by all Tide Tables published Yearly by those Almanack-Makers themselves For they tell you That different degrees of Tides happen in places of this Nation and parts adjacent at the same time Now if the Moon move the Water let them tell us how a Full Moon makes high Water at one place and half Tide at another not far distant If the Moon move the Water surely it would make the Tides alike or near so at all places especially neighbouring ones when it 's in the same Age and Station But the contrary is told us by themselves And there are others assure us that in some places of the World the highest Tides are at the Quadratures of the Moon when it 's lowest with us 2. If the Moon cause the ebbing and flowing how comes the Sea to keep so regular and exact to the Laws of its Motion when the Moon is in the other Hemisphere as when in this To think that the Moon which they say is cold can operate through so remote opaque and bulky a Body as the Earth Dr. More ubi supra p. 339. 340 345 349 353 c. when we are sensible that so piercing and hot a Planet as the Sun cannot do it seems the Opinion of a Lunatick or an Astrologer rather than a Philosopher or Man of Sence 3. If the Moon c. How is it that the Spring-Tides happen as at Plimouth two days after the New Moon and as many after the Full The Refraction of the Sun's Rays which is supposed cannot be the Cause nor is it consistent with any other of the many Hypothesis by which the Phaenomena have been formerly solved 4. If the Moon be the Cause c. How comes it that there are not Tides at least regular ones all the World over For since the Cause is universal one would expect the Effect should be so too But that failing gives us cause to suspect we are mistaken in imputing it to the Moon In the Mediterranean and those Parts of America of our own Latitude where the Moon encreaseth and wanes riseth shines and sets exactly as with us there is no regular motion of the Sea What little ebbing and flowing there is is most manifestly occasioned by Winds and Land-floods So in Denmark and the Soundt there are no Tides Molsworth's Account p. 14. but a small Current of the Waters made by the Winds blowing in or out as we are told by an observing Man lately Resident at Copenhagen At the Cape-verd Islands W. India Seas and many other Places of the World where Cynthia is as powerful as here P. 148. Eâ— ult she hath no such Operation or Influence at all Nor is there any discernible change in the Sea Wind or Weather The Caspian Sea which is an hundred and twenty German Leagues long and ninety broad is salt as the Ocean and hath multitudes of Rivers falling into it but neither Ebbs nor Flows as the Holstein Ambassadors observed in their Travels p. 148. 5. If the Moon c. Whence is it that in so many Places of the World the Current of the Sea runs always one way and that so swiftly as is scarce credible From the Gulph of Florida to the Latitude of forty degrees it runs North-East many hundred of Leagues In the Streights of Gibralter it runs alway so strongly Eastward as to force a Ship in against a fierce Levant-wind In the Frâ—tum Magellanicum its force is such that no wind is strong enough to carry a Ship against it 6. If the Moon Heylin Cos lib. 2. p. 615. c. How is it that