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death_n absolute_a act_n action_n 29 3 6.6245 4 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A42502 Pus-mantia the mag-astro-mancer, or, The magicall-astrologicall-diviner posed, and puzzled by John Gaule ...; Pys-mantia the mag-astro-mancer Gaule, John, 1604?-1687. 1652 (1652) Wing G377; ESTC R3643 314,873 418

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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 ●…tionally with brute brutishly with sensuall sensually with ●…tuous vertuously with vitious vitiously with prosperous p●o●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 i● good actions are they not necessitated and inforced if fortune 〈◊〉 there are they not fortuitous and accidentall And so what ●…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