Varro a grave Author testifieth that the vanities of all superstitions have issued from the bosome of Astrologie There was in Alexandria a Tribute which the Astrologers used to pay called Blacenominon for the folly of it because by an ingenuous folly they got their gain and because that none but fooles and rash men used to consult them For if from the Stars be mens lives and fortunes why feare we why are we troubled Rather let us leave these to God and the Heavens who neither can erre nor doe evill And since we are but men let us not be over wise in high matters and more then is meet and above our powers but only so far forth as behooveth humane creatures And moreover in as much as we are Christians let us leave to Christ the houres and to God the Father the moments which he hath put in his own power But if our life and fortune be not from the Starres then doth not every Astrologer run in vaine But there is a kind of men so timerous and credulous which like as children doe their Goblin tales more believe and are more affraid of those things that are not then those that are and by how much a thing is lesse possible they feare it the more and by how much it is lesse like to truth so much the more firmly doe they believe it who truely if there were no Astrologers and Diviners would die for hunger And the foolish credulity of these men forgetfull of things past and negligent of things present and head-strong upon things future doth so favour these deceivers that whereas in other men the faith of the speaker is rendred or suspected by one lie that all the rest of truths are thereby obscured on the contrary as concerning these lying Masters one fortuitous truth must get credit even to notorious lies To which truely they who trust most are rendred of all men the most unhappy As these superstitious vanities are wont to bring destruction to their observers which antiquity witnesseth in Zoroastes Pharaoh Nebuchadonosor Caesar Crassus Pompey Diotherus Nero and Julian the Apostate who as they were most addicted to these toyes so they perished most miserably in the confidence of them And to whom the Astrologers had promised all things fortunate and joyfull all things fell out most dolefull and unfortunate as to Pompey Crassus and Caesar to none of whom they promised other then that they should die old at home and with glory and yet every one of them perished miserably and untimely Verily this is a pertinacious and preposterous kind of men who professe themselves to foreknow things future and yet are ignorant of things past and present and while they professe themselves to all men that they can declare all things although most occult yet very often they know not what is done in their own houses in their own beds Such an Astrologer More the Englishman taxes in this handsome Epigram Thou aery Prophet to whom every Starre Opens it selfe and straight way makes a warre Of each mans future Fate Thou hast a wife That ope's herselfe to all she is so rife This the Sunne sees and all the Stars and yet Not one of them forewarneth thee of it Saturn's aloofe as blind as e're nor can Though nigh discerne betwixt a stone and a man The beauteous Moon can with her bashful eye Being a virgin a virgin onely spie Jove heeds Europa Mars Venus Venus Mars Sol looks to Daphne and Mercury to Heres Hence thy wifes Loves to thee they make not known They have enough to do to tend their own Moreover it is known to all how the Jewes Chaldeans Aegyptians Persians Arabians do dissent in the very rules of the Judiciary way and how Ptolomie rejecteth the whole Astrologie of the Antients and as Avenrodam defends him so Albumasar inveighs against him And all these doth Abraham Avenezra the Hebrew lash To conclude Dorothaeus Paulus Alexandrinus Ephestion Maternus Homer Tebith Alchiudus Zahel Messahalla and almost all the rest conceive and think otherwise And since what they say they cannot prove to be true they only defend themselves by way of experiment neither do they all of â—â—em unanimously agree even about that Neither do they differ lesse about the proprieties of the houses out of which they prole the predictions of all events which Ptolomie assignes one way Heliodorus another Paulus another Manlius another Maternus another Porphyrius another Abentagel another the Egyptians another the Arabians another the Greeks and Latines another the Antients another the Modern another And for as much as it is not evident amongst them after what manner they ought to constitute the beginnings and the ends of those houses since the Antients fabricate them after one fashion Ptolomie after another Campanus after another Johannes Regiomontanus after another whence it comes to pass that they themselves by their own observations do diminish all faith and credit to themselves in that divers of them do ascribe divers properties to the same places and not only so but beginnings also and ends An impious kind of men who attribute those things to the stars the stars that are belonging to God alone and do make us free-born to be the stars born slaves And whereas we know that God created all things good they deliver that there are certain stars malevolous and authors of wickednesses and of evil influxes not without the greatest injury of God and the heavens that may be defining that in those coelestials and in that divine Senate evils and wickednesses are decreed to be done And impute wholly to the stars whatsoever is committed by us through the fault of our own will and what may fall out against order in nature through the fault of the matter Yea they fear not to teach most pernicious heresies and infidelities namely while they prophesse with impious temerity that the gift of Prophecy the power of Religion the secrets of Conscience the command over devils the vertue of miracles the efficacy of supplications and the state of the life to come do all depend upon the stars are vouchsafed by them and may be known from them For they say that the star of the Twins ascending with Saturn and Mercury joyned under Aquarius in the ninth coast of heaven a Prophet must be born and that therfore the Lord Christ was excellent in so many mighty works because in the same place he had Saturn in Gemini Also the sects of Religion over which they place Jupiter as chief patron they distribute by commixtion of other stars so as Jupiter with Saturn should make the Religion of the Jews with Mars of the Chaldeans with Sol of the Egyptians with Venus of the Saracens with Mercury of the Christians with Luna that of Antichrist which they say is yet to come And that Moses from Astrological rules and reasons instituted the Sabbath of the Jews to be observed as a Religious day and that the Christians therefore do erre in not resting from
whom they please neither are they accused for it by their husbands nor called therefore adulteresses though they mingle indifferently with all and especially with strangers Also their women contemne all persumes neither weare they dyed garments but goe bare footed On the contrary their men delight in vestures and odours and various colours yet doe they it not out of effeminacy for they are valiant and warlike above other Nations Neverthelesse all the women that are born among them had not Venus ill affected in Capricorne or Aquarius nor were all the men born under Venus constituted with Mars in Aries which the fopperies of the Caldaeans can claim makes men both valiant and delicate at once Among the Bactrians the women use gallant ornaments and precious oyntments and are more reverenced by their handmayds and servants then their husbands are and ride abroad in a singular pompe their horses adorned with trappings of gold and precious stones neither doe they live chastly but mingle with servants as well as strangers nor are they accused by their husbands because they Lord it over them Notwithstanding the nativity of every Bactrian woman had not Venus with Iupiter and Mars in the midst of heaven and termes of Venus Amongst the Arabians all adulteresses are put to death and those punished that are onely but suspected In Parthia and Armenia homicides are executed sometimes by the Judges sometimes by the kindred of him that was murdered but he that shall kil a wife a sonne or a daughter or a brother or sister unmarried is not so much as accused for it for so is the law Contrarily we see among the Grecians and Romans parricide is not expiated but by the greater penalty Among the Atrians or Adroams he that stole the least thing was stoned but among the Bactrians he that stole but petty things was onely spit upon yet among the Romans such an one was beaten and wounded From the river Euphrates to the orientall Ocean he to whom murder or theft was objected was not much aggrieved or tormented but if he had abused himselfe with a masculine and that come to light he was forced through paine to kill himselfe And yet the wise men of Greece were not ashamed to pursue specious boyes In the same orientall coast the parents and kindred if they had known their sonnes and kinsfolks subjecting themselves to turpitude they both killed them and would not vouchsafe so much as to bury them Amongst the Gaules the children marry publikly and by the law are noted with no reproach for it and yet truly it is not possible that all they among the Gaules who betray the flower of their youth should have Venus and Mercury in the house of Saturne and of Mars tearmes occident Among the Britaines many men have but one wife Among the Parthians many women on the contrary have but one husband and yet they all live chastely and obedient to lawes The Amazons have no men but at spring time they goe into other Countries and couple with their bordering neighbours and thus by a naturall law they all bring forth about one time and the males they slay the females they cherish and are all warlike women Mercury in his house with Venus is said by the Chaldaeans to make man covetous and money mongers and devisers and paynters but in the house of Venus to make them unguentaries or perfumers and such as exercise their voyces as Stage players and actors of fables And yet among the Saracens and Moores and in upper Lybia and in nether Germany and among the Sarmatians and the Scythians and other Nations that inhabit the Northern parts of the Sea Pontus in Alania also and Albania and Othene and Saunia and Aurea there is found no money hoorder no paynter no Architect no Geometrician no exerciser of his voyce no actor of fables but such a conjunction of Mercury and Venus is found to be altogether ineffectuall and vaine in so many and great parts of the world All the Medes nourish Dogges with no little cost and care to which they cast men dying and yet gasping notwithstanding all of them had not in a diurnall nativity the Moon with Mars under the earth in Cancer The Indians burn their dead with whom their wives are willingly burned together yet all those women that thus willingly endured the sire of their husbands had not in a nocturnall nativity the Sunne with Mars in the tearm of Mars in Leo. Many of the Germans use strangling yet is it not possible that all they who so hang themselves should have the Moone intercepted of Saturne and Mars Among all Nations men are born at all houres and we see laws and manners prevaile every where from the power of a mans free will Neither doth any mans nativity enforce him to doe any thing against it Neither doth it compell the Serans to homicide nor the Brachmans to the eating of flesh nor are the Persians thereby restrained from unlawfull marriages nor the Indians kept from the fire nor the Medes from the dogges nor the Parthians from marrying many wives nor are the Mesopotamian women debarred from chastity nor the Graecians from their exercises nor the Romans from their rule nor the French from their muliebriousnesse nor can all the Nations which we call Barbarians be thus brought to approve the learning of the Muses All the Iewes by the Mosaicall law doe circumcise their children on the eight day yet are they not compelled to it by the force of any Starre nor are they impelled thereunto by the time of the region nor are they induced to doe otherwise by the custome or manners of any other Nation for wheresoever they are whether in Syria Galatia Italy Greece Parthia they still keep their Law which could not at all be done by any necessity of their Nativity For it is not possible that all the Iewes should have the same Nativity Futhermore one of the seven daies where ever they are they cease from all manner of work nor goe a journey nor use any fire yet doth not any genethliacall reason restraine a Iew from building or pulling down a house from buying or selling on that day but many of them are born many are sicke and healed and many die on that day The sect of the Christians which are found in every part of the world and in every City if the Parthians after they once become such they marry not many wives neither doe the Medes after that cast their dead unto the dogs nor the Persians marry their daughters nor the Pactrians and Gaules corrupt matrimony nor the Aegyptians worship Apis or a dogge or a Goat or a Cat but wheresoever they are they live after others laws and customes nor can they be compelled either by any genethliacall reason or by their own or by the principles of any to think any thing fit to be done which their master hath not counted fit to be spoken 9. Of Magicians and Astrologers the most perverse and
upon a body to make it sign and signify things hidden lost absent future to make a dead body walk speak c. To make a living body walk invisible transform its proper shape c. And if by things spirituall then whether by spirits good or bad Not by the good neither of Angels nor men for where 's the true and good cause Minister means object and end of Magicall operation Nay which of all these is not evill 7. Is it not the known property of God to know things future absolutely and exactly Wherefore then did the Devill arrogate to himself divination but in an emulation of Divinity Now whether of these two doe the Diviners imitate God or the Devill It cannot be God because they have no command to imitate him in these his powerfull properties no promise upon the imitation It must be the Devill then and to imitate him must needs be maleficall And they may imitate him many ways for he hath used himself to divination by spirits by men by living men by dead men by the celestiall bodies by the elements by things naturall by things artificiall yea and by things sacred and religious and may not they then be like him in all these 8. How easy is it for the Devill to predict those things which he intends to act himself As suppose he intendeth by Gods permission to practise the sickness death destruction of man or Beast is it not easy for him to suggest such his intention to his instruments and Ministers and so make them to predict the same Yea though it be done from him is it not easy for him and them to pretend it from some other cause albeit abused besides the naturall end thereof Is it a matter of much artifice for veneficks or witches to forespeak their own purposed and laboured malefice How readily may he presage anothers death or ruin that hath him in his own power and so hath already determined that such a day it shall be done In like manner how many have perished according to wizzardly predictions and that only because of wizzardly purposes and perpetrations And therefore it may not unjustly be doubted whether many of those prognosticated evill fates and fortunes against Princes Magistrates Ministers and other Christians especialy such as opposed them in their fatidicall way were not besides the Astrologicall speculation practised by goeticall Magick as by charms curses poysons treachery violence or by making maleficall images pictures figures constellated under the ascension of that man whom they would maliciously destroy or prejudice And why may not this be justly suspected of them since it is a thing not only of their own practising but of their teaching And it being so how can they themselves deny and what understanding man would not pronounce upon them for the most arrant inchanters sorcerers veneficks maleficks wizzards and witches in the world 9. Whether there may not be an effascination or bewitching by inspecting the stars as by imagination by breathing on by looking on by touching by fabricating of images c. We know none of these acts are malevolent or maleficall in their own nature but that any one of these as well as another may be abused to sorcery and witchcraft through a Satanicall stipulation or suffrage who can deny 10. What practice of sorcery or malefice more superstitious than the fabricating of Astrologicall and of magicall images pictures statues figures c. For as a tacite compact hath been suspected as touching the Astrologicall so hath an express one been concluded and confessed as concerning the magicall configurations And what is the one on the other of these but the making of an image or figure either of man or beast in gold silver brass copper wax wood stone clay under such a conjunction or constellation For the inviting and alluring of Angels for the expelling and ejecting of Devils for the procuring of love for the provoking of hatred for the atchieving of victory for the effecting of death for the raising or allaying of storms or tempests for the causing or preventing of pestilencies for the driving away of Serpents and vermine c. Now in such a compact what vertue or efficacy besides that of a compact only what similitude or resemblance betwixt the figure of a round star or Planet and a monstruous many-shap't magicall configuration The vertue of the celestials are but universall and indeterminate as to the producing of this or that effect neither but by naturall and particular causes And who will say that any such particular figures are either causes or naturall what preparation can there be of such a matter for the receiving and retaining such constellatory influences And what such kind of efficacies can it have thereby for the admitting of such effects The heavenly bodies operate no way but naturally these figures or fabrications operate no way but artificially being the artifices of humane invention and used arbitrarily how then should these modify and determine those How come their vast influences to be restrained only to such a figure and that only for such operations How come the stars and Planets so to neglect the matter and its disposition and so to respect the figure and its composition as accordingly to dart in their influences for the figures sake let the matter be what it will what vertue can there be for all the celestiall influences more than the matter is disposed unto what efficacy or aptitude of an artificiall form more than accidentall and instrumentall what principles of life and action from artificiall forms Is not the vertue of the matter still the same although of divers forms or figures why should artificiall figures be more apt to receive the starry influences than are naturall figures In all such configurations must not the efficacy of the Stars rather attend or depend upon the imagination and fancy of the artist or artificer than either upon the matter or form it self why should the inscription of characters letters words numbers make the figure or image more efficacious why should not the constellated vertue last so long as the substantiall matter lasts but only so long as the accidentall form or figure lasts Seeing therefore there is neither vertue nor efficacy in such fabrications or figurations from God Angels nature art stars matter form or figure whence then if an effect follow must all the efficacy be but from the sign the sign of a diabolicall and maleficall contract Sacrament suggestion suffragation operation and delusion Who can think otherwise even of a materiall image or figure that cannot be operative or efficacious beyond its proper species and form how much more then of that which is only fantasticall painted or ingraven 11. Whether of such kinde of configuration were not the Jewish Teraphim especially according to the Rabbinical use and account likewise the Talismanical sculptures of the Persians together with these French toyes Gamalies which set this fabrication aside are but the Games of Nature
labour and keeping holy day on the Jewish Sabbath seeing it is Saturns day Also they think that the fidelity of every one towards men or towards God and profest Religion and secrets of Conscience may be deprehended from part of the Sun and from the third ninth and eleventh houses of heaven and they delivering many rules of foreknowing the thoughts and as they say the intentions of men And they set up the coelestial configurations as the causes of the very miraculous works of divine omnipotence as namely of the universal flood of the Law given by Moses and of the virgins child-birth and they fable that the death of Christ the Redeemer of man-kind was the work of Mars and that Christ himself in his miracles used the election of hours in which the Jews could not hurt him while he went up to Jerusalem and therefore he said to his Disciples diswading him are there not twelve hours of the day They say moreover that whosoever hath Mars happily placed in a new house of heaven he shall by his sole presence expel devils out of the possessed And he that shall make supplication to God the Moon and Jupiter with the Dragons head being conjoyned in the middle heaven shall obtain all things whatsoever he shall ask And further that the felicity of the life to come is bestowed by Jupiter and Saturn And that if any man in his geniture hath Saturn happily constituted in Leo his soul after this life being freed from innumerable miseries shall passe to heaven the first beginning of its original and be applyed to the Gods But for all this to these execrable fopperies and pernicious heresies Petrus Apponensis Roger Bacon Guido Bonatus Arnoldus de nova villa Philosophers and Alyanensis a Cardinal and a Theologue and divers other Doctors of a Christian name not without an infamy of heresie do subscribe yea and dare testifie and defend that they have experienced these for truth But Johannes Picus Mirandula of late yeers hath written against Astrologers in twelve Books and that in so great copiousnesse that scarce any argument hath escaped him as also with so great efficacy so that hitherto neither Lucius Balnutius an eager propugnator of Astrologie nor yet any other defender of this Art could save it from those reasons that Picus hath brought against it For he proveth by most strong arguments it to have been the invention not of men but of Devils Which self-same thing Firmianus saith by which they have endeavoured to abolish all Philosophie Medicine Laws and Religion to the utter extermination of man-kind For first it detracts from the faith of Religion it extenuates miracles it takes away providence while it teaches that all things come to passe by the force of constellations and that they doe depend by a fatal necessity upon the stars Moreover it patronizes vices excusing them as descending from heaven upon us It defiles and overthrows all good Arts especially Philosophie traducing causes from true reasons to fables and Medicine in like manner turning from natural and effectual remedies to vain observations and perverse superstitions destructive both to body and minde Further it utterly undoes Laws manners and whatsoever Arts of humane prudence while it would have Astrologie onely consulted at what time after what maner and by what means any thing is to be done as if it alone drawing its authority over all down from heaven did hold the scepter over life manners and all both publike and private matters and as if all other things were to be reputed vain that did not acknowledge it for patron Indeed an Art most worthy for devils to professe from the first to the deceit of man and dishonour of God Moreover the heresie of the Manichees wholly taking away all liberty of will flowed not elswhere then from the Astrologers false opinion and doctrine of Fate From the same fountain also sprung the heresie of Basilides who pronounced 365. heavens made of one another by succession and similitude and the oftension of these to be the number of the dayes of the yeer or the number of the days of the yeer to be the oftension of these assigning to every one of them certain principles and vertues and Angels and feigning names for them but the chief of them all is Abraxas which name according to the Greek letters containeth in it 365. which namely are the local positions of those heavens commentitiously divised by it These things are therefore shown that ye may know that Astrology is the begetter of hereticks Furthermore as all the most eminent Philosophers do explode this divinatory Astrologie so Moses Esaias Job Jeremias and all the other Prophets of the old Law do detest it And of the Catholike Doctors Augustin censures it as meet to be expelled Christian Religion Hierome disputes it to be a kinde of Idolatry Basil and Cyprian do deride it Chrysostome Eusebius and Lactantius do refute it Gregory Ambrose and Severianus inveigh against it the holy Toletane Councel forbids and damns it also it was anathematized in the Synod of Martin and by Gregory the younger and by Alexander the third Popes and was punished by the civil Laws of the Emperours Among the antient Romans under Tiberius Vitellius Dioclesian Constantine Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius the Emperours it was prohibited the City ejected and punished and by Justinian himself condemned capitally as is manifest in his Code This place admonishes me to speak of the other Arts of divination which yield vaticinations not so much by observation of the coelestials as of inferiour things having a certain shadow or imitation of the coelestials that they being understood ye may the better know this Astrological Tree from which do fall such fruit and from which as a Lernaean Hydra a beast of many heads is generated Amongst the arts therefore that are hasty to divine for their own gain Physiognomy Metoposcopy Chiromancy Aruspicy the Speculatory the Onirocritical which is the interpretation of dreams and the Oracles of the furious here challenge their seat Now all these artifices are of no solid doctrine neither do consist of any certain reasons but inquire of occult things either by fortuitous lot or agnition of spirit or certain appearing conjectures which are taken up from quotidian observations of long time For all these prodigious arts of divination are wont to defend themselves no other way but by the title of experience and to extricate themselves out of the bonds of objections so often as they teach or promise any thing above faith and beside reason Of all which it is thus commanded in the Law There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to passe through the fire or that useth divination or an observer of times or an inchanter or a witch or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizzard or a Necromancer For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. Physiognomy following from the