against Prophecies Apparitions and Miracles though of the highest nature insomuch that they will allow the History of Christ his Resurrection and Appearance after Death the Prophecies concerning him and what not But they have forsooth this witty subterfuge to save themselves from receiving any good therefrom in imagining that there is no such particular Providence as we would infer from hence because all this may be done by the Influence of the Coelestial Bodies actuated by the Intelligences appertaining to each Sphere and deriving in a natural way from him that sits on the highest of the Orbs such Influences as according to certain Periodical Courses of Nature will produce new Law-givers induing them with a power of working Miracles assisting them by Apparitions and Visions of Angels making them seem to be where they are not and appear after they cease to be namely after their Death when in the mean-time there be neither Angels nor Souls separate but all these things are the transient Effects of the power of the Heavens and Configurations of the Celestial Bodies which slacks by degrees and so the influence of the Stars failing one Religion decays and another gets up Thus Iudaism hath given place to Christianity and Christianity in a great part of the World to Mahometism being Establishments resulting from the mutable course of Nature not by the immediate finger of God who keeps his Throne in the eighth Sphere and intermeddles not with humane Affairs in any particular way but aloof off hands down by the help and mediation of the Celestial Intelligences and power of the Stars some general casts of Providence upon the Generations of the Earth 3. * A goodly speculation indeed and well befitting such two witty Fools in Philosophy as Pomponatius and Vaninus the latter of which seem not to give himself up to this fine figment altogether fully and conformably to the ancient Doctrine of Aristotle but having a great pique against Incorporeal Beings is desirous to lessen their number as much as he can and seems pleased that he has found out That one only Soul of the Heavens will serve as effectually to do all these things as the Aristotelean Intelligences and therefore ever and anon doubts of those and establisheth this as the only Intellectual or Immaterial Principle and highest Deity but such as acts no otherwise than in a natural way by Periodical Influences of the Heavenly Bodies Where you may observe the craft and subtilty of the man what a care he has of his own safety and how he has imprisoned the Divinity in those upper rooms for fear of the worst that he may be as far out of his reach as the Earth is from the Moon So cautious a Counsellor in these matters is an evil and degenerate Conscience 4. This is the chiefest Arcanum that the Amphitheatrum and famed Dialogues of this stupendious Wit will afford who was so tickled and transported with a conceit of his own parts that in that latter Book he cannot refrain from writing down himself a very God for Wisdom and Knowledge When as assuredly * There was never any mans Pride and Conceitedness exceeded the proportion of his wit and parts so much as his For there is nothing considerable in him but what * that odd and crooked Writer Hieronymus Cardanus had though more modestly vented to the World before only Vaninus added thereto a more express tast of bold Impiety and Prophaness 5. I have elsewhere intimated how the attributing such noble Events to the Power of the Stars is * nothing but a rotten relique of the ancient Pagan superstition and have in my Book of the Immortality of the Soul plainly enough demonstrated that there is no such inherent Divinity in the Celestial Bodies as that ancient superstition has avouched or modern Philosophasters would imagine And I shall evidently prove against this great Pretender That his removal of the Deity at that distance from the Earth is impossible For there are scarce any now that have the face to profess themselves Philosophers but do as readily acknowledge the motion of the Earth as they do the reality of the Antipodes or the Circulation of the Blood I would ask then Vaninus but this one question whether he will not admit that the Sun is in that Heaven where he imagines his Anima Coeli and whether this Heaven be not spread far beyond the Sun and be not also the residence of this Celestial Goddess of his There is none will stick to answer for him that it is doubtlesly so Wherefore I shall forthwith infer that let his unskilful phansy conceit us at this moment in as low a part of the Universe as he will within the space of six months we shall be as far above or beyond the Sun as we are beneath him now and yet then phansy our selves as much beneath him as before Which plainly implies that our Earth and Moon swim in the liquid Heavens which being every where this Deity of Vaninus must be every where though his degenerate Spirit was afraid of so holy a Neighbourhood nor could abide the belief of so present a Numen Thus has the Annual course of the Earth dashed off all that superstitious power and sanctity that ancient Paganism has given and the Aristotelean Atheist would now give to the Sun Planets and Stars and we are forced even by the light of Nature and humane reason to acknowledge the true Principle from whence all Miraculous things come that is a God every where present in whom we live and move and have our being 6. Besides this suppose that all Prodigies Apparitions and Prophecies were from the intermediate influence of the Celestial Bodies these Intelligences or that Anima Coeli working thereby upon the persons of men to inspire them and turning the Air into representations and Visions to converse with them This covering is too scant to hide the folly of this sorry Sophist his supposition plainly ruinating it self For he does acknowledge that those inspirations and Prophecies are true that are thus derived from those Sidereal Powers But it is evident that those that have been the most illustrious Prophets have had converse with Angels and talked with them and have so recorded the matter to the World As for Example the Prophet Daniel who discoursed with the Angel Gabriel Christ also discoursed with Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor and Moses with the Angel of God on Mount Sinai Besides Christ who was so highly inspired and assisted from Heaven has over and over again pronounced a future happiness after this life All which allowing them for a while to be the Dictates or Representations of the Astral Influences I demand of Vaninus how he comes to be wiser than those who were so miraculously assisted That these Visions of Angels should not be so as they that saw them have related That Moses and Elias should not be the Spirits of Moses and Elias but only transient Figurations of the Air raised by
sore notwithstanding the fence of his Plaster I cannot tell I have heard of a story of an Hector-like Wit who hearing this descant of J. B.'s on our Saviours Nativity-Scheme that Mercury in such a posture inclined him to theft rapt out a great Oath and said it was very likely and that his sending his Disciples for another mans Colt Luk. 19. to bring him to him was an effect of that Aspect of Mercury Which notwithstanding was very ignorantly as well as impiously appli'd the Colt being brought away not without the Owners consent besides that Christ was true Owner and Lord of all The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof as the Psalmist speaks Not to add that Cabbalistical Notion that the Soul of the Messias is Domina quatuor Mundorum And to this in all likelihood might our Saviour allude when he bad his Disciples say The Lord hath need of him See Psalm 24. But to hold on And now will not others be as prone to impute his high zeal in whipping the buyers and sellers out of the Temple to the influence of Mars infusing nothing but choler and fury into the Natives head as J. B. phrases it And his declaring himself to be the Son of God and that his Father works hitherto and he works and that he is said Hebr. 12. for the joy that was set before him to have endured the Cross and to have despised the shame and to have sat down at the right hand of the throne of God will they not be prone to impute all this to the Sun 's looking upon the Cusp ascending with an evil Quadrature and such as renders the Native more proud and ambitious than either good-natured or wise For such certainly would be his beloved Vaninus's descant upon this last point who suggests in his Dialogues that Christ offered himself to be crucified ad comparandam apud posteros aeterni nominis gloriam which if that had been all had proved him indeed more ambitious than wise to cut himself off in the midst of his days for an empty name And in the same Dialogues he sayes Great Conjunctions of the Stars happening and by their influences Miracles here appearing upon Earth some cunning man observing this and being thirsty after eternal Fame gives himself out for a Prophet and one sent from God and ascribing these Miracles to his own fictitious Omnipotency they being indeed done by the Stars is admired and adored by the deluded People And thus Vaninus will accommodate the Aspect of Mercury not only to Theft but also to Lies and all that Christ assumed to himself or did or suffered that made way to his Exaltation he will apply to the evil Quadrature of the Sun so looking upon the Cusp ascending Insomuch that considering the wound and the Plaister that J. B. has given our Saviour as touching his Nativity I must confess though I am loth to speak any thing harsh or grating that his venting of such strange stuff is too apparent an Argument of either gross Imprudence or deep Hypocrisy the thing being so abusable by wicked and Atheistical men such as Vaninus and his Crue notwithstanding the whole business of Astrology is a mere imposture and if there were any thing in it that J. B. is quite out not only in the hour or minute but in the year of Christs Nativity as I shall show in its due place and that our Saviours zeal in whipping the buyers and sellers out of the Temple was out of a deep love and pity to the Gentiles despised by the Iews not out of rage and malice which Mars is pretended to infuse in his Nativity nor the joy set before him the gratifying any ambition that the evil Quadrature of the Sun might signify but his desire of being in an universal capacity of saving the Souls of men Nor lastly was it suggested to him by Mercury to give out that he was a Prophet and the Son of God but a voice from Heaven witnessed so in audience of the people and his own sense and Conscience illuminated by the Holy Ghost and answered by the perpetual assistances and operations of him that sent him assured him thereof But notwithstanding I say all these most certain truths the Vaninian Atheists will click at and stick to what they would have and will be gaily gratified by this extravagant immodest and imprudent Essay of J. B. for I would be loth to charge him of so deep Hypocrisy as he would lie obnoxious to if he had been aware of these grand inconveniencies And therefore I hope by this time he is so sensible of his mistake that he could wish he had employed his time better than in such a mischievous and scandalous Curiosity and that he will think more favourably of my just though sharp reprehensions of Cardan and Vaninus than either to deem it or term it Railing or Reviling CHAP. XV. 1. The general plausibilities for the Art of Astrology propounded 2. The first rudiments of the said Art The Qualities of the Planets and their penetrancy through the Earth 3. That the Earth is as pervious to them as the Air and of their division of the Zodiack into Trigons c. 4. The Essential Dignities of the Planets 5. Their Accidental Dignities 6. Of the twelve Celestial Houses and the five ways of erecting a Scheme 7. The requisiteness of the exact knowledge of the moment of time and of the true longitude and latitude of the place 8. Direction what it is and which the chiefest Directors or Significators 9. Of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Apheta and Anaereta and the time when the Anaereta gives the fatal stroke 1. I Shall therefore make this short digression to expose to your view the extreme folly and frivolousness of the whole pretended Art of Astrology whose main general Reasons and particular Principles are in brief as followeth First they alledge that it is a thing beyond all belief that such an innumerable Company of Stars whose light is not considerable nor their position so exact for ornament should be made for nothing else but to look upon Therefore say they there is some other mystery in it and that they are endued with certain hidden influences and have their several peculiar virtues as distinct as the Herbs and Flowers of the Field and it is their Art of Astrology that professeth the knowledge thereof Again The Earth and Water being such simple Bodies as they are the various productions in Nature could not be were it not for that infinite variety of those Celestial Bodies the Stars and their several influences upon the Earth This their great Champion Sir Christopher Heydon urges as a principal Argument for them Thirdly That it is plain that the Moon hath a moist Influence and that at her full the Brains of Beasts generally the Eyes of Cats and the meat of Shell-fishes are swell'd to a greater bigness and that they are lessened in the Change
sense tell us that the Sun is the most hot and drying Planet that is His heat it is and not that of Mars that withers the Grass and Flowers and parches the tops of Mountains and even roasts the Inhabitants of the Earth when they expose their Bodies to his more direct rays But what faculty could ever inform us that Mars was such a parching and heating Planet and Saturn so cold Assuredly he that will expose his head to their Acronycal Rays which are most potent and profess he feels more cold from one and heat from the other than he does from the other parts of Heaven will approve himself as mad as that old Dotard that pretended that he could as often as he listened plainly hear the Harmony of the Celestial Spheres * All the Planets are opaque Bodies and whatever their colour is are as cold as Earth For neither yellow nor red clay cast any more heat than white nor has any soil any sensible influence but what is drawn in by the nose which sometimes proves wholesome and savory and sometimes offensive But how our Star-gazers Proboscides should be drawn out to that length as to smell out the different virtues of the Planets I can no way understand Wherefore the pronouncing of Mars hot and dry and Saturn cold and dry c. is a shameless Foolery and a demonstration of the vanity of the rest of their allotments of the first Qualities to the Planets * And since from these they are reputed Malign or Benign Masculine or Feminine and the like all this part of their pretended Science is but a Rhapsody of Fooleries also 9. To the second of the Earths being so pervious to the influence of the Stars and Planets I say first that it is a Principle without proof as I have already evinced and then secondly if I give them it they will be fain to vomit it up again it being destructive to their whole Art For if the rayes and influence of the Stars and Planets have free passage through the body of the Earth the whole Ceremony of erecting a Scheme for such a Longitude and Latitude is needless nay as to the Heavens the fates of all men would be alike * For that hidden influence which governs all would reach to all points from all parts of Heaven at once 10. Thirdly Concerning the division of their Signs into Mobilia Fixa and Bicorporea The mobilia are the Aequinoctial and Solstitial Signs The latter whereof might deserve better the name of Fixa than Mobilia And in my apprehension the tempers of the Year might as well be said to be begun suppose the cold in Sagittarius and fixed in Capricorn and the heat in Gemini and fixed in Cancer as begun in Capricorn and fixed in Aquarius c. But we will wink at small matters * That of the Fiery Aery Earthy and watry Trigons is more notorious and I cannot but smile when I read the effects of them As for Example in Physick as Dariot has set down the Moon and Ascendent in the Fiery Signs comfort the virtue attractive in the Earthy signs the retentive the Aery the digestive and the watery the expulsive Would any man dare to administer Physick then without consulting the Precepts of Astrology Also in Husbandry that 's a notable one of Sir Christophers who tells us how we may cause a plant to shoot deep into the Earth or higher into the Air by setting of it at such an Aspect of the Moon namely if the Moon be in the Earthy Triplicity the root will shoot more downward into the Earth if in the Airy more upward into the Air. Which is a rare secret Now to omit the groundless and arbitrarious division of the Zodiack into these four Trigons of which there is only this one hint that I can imagine namely the fitness of Leo for one part of the Fiery Trigon the Sun being most hot in that Sign from which little inlet all the four Elements flew up into Heaven and took their places in their respective Triplicities in the Zodiack with great nimbleness and agility playing at leap Frog and skipping over one anothers backs in such sort that dividing themselves into three equal parts every Triental of an Element found it self a Fellow-member of a Trine Aspect The best jest of all is * that there is no such Zodiack in Heaven or if you will no Heaven for such a Zodiack as these Artists attribute these Triplicities to For this Heaven and this Zodiack we speak of is only an old error of Ptolemie's and his followers who not understanding the true Systeme of the World and the motion of the Earth in which in salv'd the Anticipation of the Aequinoxes have phansied a Heaven above the Coelum stellatum and a Zodiack that did not recede from West to East as the Starry Zodiack does And this figment which later Ages have laughed off of the Stage is the only subject of these renouned Trigons and Triplicities which therefore are justly laughed off of the Stage with it Which discovery is a demonstration that the whole Art of Astrology is but upon frivolous and mere imaginary Principles as we shall further make manifest And therefore Physicians proclaim themselves either Cheats or Fools that would recommend their skill from such vain observations 11. Fourthly Now for the essential Dignities of the Planets sith it is nothing but the increase of their innate virtue by being in such or such a sign and these being the Signs of that Zodiack which has no Heaven nor is any thing it is manifest that the whole Doctrine of Essential Dignities falls to the ground But we will also cast our Eye upon the distinct parts of this vain Figment And therefore as to the first Essential Dignity the House of the Planet there is no sagacious person but can easily smell out the meaning of making Leo the House of the Sun namely not that that Sign has any virtue to increase heat but that the Sun then has been long near the Tropick of Cancer and so has more than ordinarily heated the Earth by so long a stay in so advantageous a posture And this is it not the being in his House then that makes the heat so great for those beyond the other Tropick sure are cold enough The same may be said of Cancer the Moons House that it is posture not the nature of the place that makes her virtue more then to us but less to our Antoeci From this small hint from sense and mistakes of Reason have they without all reason and sense bestowed Houses on the rest of the Planets * guiding themselves by the conceit of the malignity and benignity of Aspects Which to be a mere figment I have noted already it having no ground but that rash joining together of Critical days with the Aspects of the Moon What a small preferment Astrological Exaltation is you may understand from Albumazar's liberality who amongst the Planets has advanced
the head and tail of the Dragon to the same Dignity which yet are * nothing else but intersections of the imaginary Circles of the course of the Moon and the Ecliptick But of this Dignity I have spoke enough already and therefore I pass to the next As for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lords of the Trigons what great pity it was there were not just eight Planets * that each Trigon might have had its two Consuls and Mars not rule solitarily in his watery one But the foolery of the Trigons being already confuted I need add nothing further concerning this Dignity * The Prerogative of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is destroyed by that first general Argument the parts of the Signs being as fictitious as the whole And as for the Carpentum or Royal Seat or Throne it being a compound Dignity compacted of the former the parts being but imaginary it is evident that the whole is a mere nothing And that Persona Planetae or Almugea is as little appears from hence in that Aspect is an empty conceit raised upon no solid ground as I have more than once already intimated And that the Lords of the Decanats have but imaginary Provinces is again plain For that their whole Zodiack wherein all those Fripperies are lodged is but imaginary and their Order also of assignation upon a false Hypothesis viz. according to that rangeing of the Planets that is in Ptolemie's System And lastly Gaudium the last of the Essential Dignities supposes two falsities that there are Houses in this fictitious Zodiack and that Planets are Masculine and Feminine which supposition has been confuted already So that all these Essential Dignities are devoid of all substance and reality and the numbering of their particular fortitudes is the telling out so many nullities to no purpose 12. Nor can you hope for a better account of their Accidental Dignities Cazimi Combustion and Freeness from Combustion How fond and inconsistent conceits are they For first it is unreasonable if they know the nature of the Planets of the Sun and of the Celestial Vortex to make a Planet in Cazimi to gain five fortitudes * For beyond the Sun the Planet is at the furthest distance it can be from us and Saturn Iupiter and Mars a whole Diameter of the Suns Orbit more distant than when they are in Opposition to the Sun and Venus and Mercury half of their own * Besides how can their virtue pass the body of the Sun * or the bearing of the Vortex against the Planet and against us and all the attempts of influence from the Planet not be eluded * Again if Cazimi on this side the Sun be good why should not beyond the Sun be bad And if Venus or Mercury in the body of the Sun be so considerable * how much more are the Spots of the Sun that are far greater which their ignorance could never reckon in the compute of their Dignities Besides what wild and disproportionable jumps are these * That Cazimi should be five fortitudes and yet combustion which is to be but a little distance from the Sun should be five debilities and yet to be free from Combustion that is further removed from the body of the Sun should be again five Fortitudes Things so arbitrarious and groundless that none but sick-brain'd persons can ever believe them That also is notoriously foolish * That Saturn Iupiter and Mars from their Conjunction with the Sun to their Opposition should have two fortitudes and from their Opposition to Conjunction should have two debilities For in a great part of that Semi-Circle that carries from Opposition to Conjunction they are far nearer and therefore much stronger than in the beginning of that Semi-Circle that leads from their Conjunction to Opposition Moreover those Dignities and Debilities that are cast upon Planets from Direction Station and Retrogradation the thing is mainly grounded upon a mistake of the System of the World and ignorance of the Earths Annual motion and from an Idiotick application of accidents or phrases amongst men And therefore because when things succeed ill they are said to go backwards and when we are weary we go more slow or stand still to breath us or when we are most vigorous we run swiftest therefore must Station be two debilities Retrogradation no less than five but Direction must be five fortitudes whereas in reason * Station should rather seal on the effect of the Planet more sure But the truth is a * Planet is neither Stationary nor Retrograde truly but in appearance and therefore these Debilities no true ones but imaginary The last Accidental Dignity is Configuration or Aspect the vain grounds whereof have been already taxed To which I add that it is utterly unreasonable to conceive * that Sextile and Trine should be good and yet Quartile that is betwixt both be stark naught Nay it were far more reasonable to conceive that if Conjunction and Sextile were good * that Quartile should be better than Trine as being further from Opposition and because * the Planets thus aspected are in better capacity both of them to strike with more direct raies on the Earth than if they were in a Trine Aspect And therefore I know no reason imaginable that could move them to have so ill a conceit of Quartile Aspect but because of the great unquietness of acute Diseases that happens about every seventh day which is the time also of the Quartile Aspect of the Moon and therefore the whole mystery of Aspects is to be resolved into this rash misapplication You have seen now how little worth all the Astrological Dignities are and yet out of these huge Nothings of their fictitious Art is the whole Fabrick built of whatever predictions they pretend to So that we may be assured that all is vain and ridiculous 13. Concerning their twelve Houses of the Nativity the Division is arbitrarious * and their erecting of a Scheme so many ways and that with like success an evidence that the success is not upon Art but fortuitous * The Configuration also of the Houses and those Septennial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Alfridarii do intimate that the whole business is but a figment going upon that false Hypothesis of Ptolemy That the Planets and the Earth have not the Sun to their Centre But this is not all we have to say against these Celestial Tenements * For either the Earth is pervious to all the raies of the Planets and Stars as well beneath as above the Horizon or only they above the Horizon shed their virtue on the Child If the former be true all Nativities are alike If the latter why have they any more than six Houses and why any at all under the Horizon And in good sadness what is the meaning that their Horoscope and the sixth House being Houses of so great concernment should be under the Horizon especially when they are pleased at other times to pronounce * that
probable and that 's the utmost of his Argument sayes J. B. p. 56. and yet how confidently he concludes That this first general pretense is utterly enervated Repl. What a vain Insultation is here over the modesty of an expression though backed with little less than a Demonstration from the proof and acknowledgment that our Earth is a Planet as well as those other so called And the Earth being habitable and created to that end unless Nature be defective what less can be surmised of the rest of the Planets especially those that are called Primary Planets And if the Secondary Planets as the Moon which the Pythagoreans called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as Terra ex opposito sita and the spots in it shew that there is Water or Sea there as well as Land be habitable as some contend she is much more the Primary These things are highly rational to them that have reason but men of phancy phancie things as it happens But J. B. goes on But what says he if the Earth were certainly a Planet and the Planets Saturn Jupiter c. were all Mothers of living Creatures as well as the Earth what is all this to the purpose God made the Stars for us and to influence us c. Repl. But if they be Mothers of living Creatures it is manifest they were not made for us alone Nor does it follow they being made also for us that they were made in an Astrological sense to influence us but to be marks of time and serviceable to Chronology and to exercise the wit of man in making Observations touching their courses which is the Art of Astronomy So that it is manifest that they have manifold uses partly in regard of others and partly in regard of our selves without Astrological Influence and that therefore the force of this first general pretense of the Astrologians is defeated Sect. 2. Yet because all this variety reaches every point of the Earth the product would be the same c. Ans. The Doctor knoweth saith he p. 60. that the Weapon-salve points meerly at one wound viz. that which the Weapon made besmeared now with that salve and be there ten thousand wounds between yet it misseth them all And so may he as well conceive that the influence of every star and of every part of Heaven does not like Water scatter it self into all pores of the Earth as it flies along but though one Star may have more than Millions of Influences which if they have what need so many Stars going at once yet as the Weapon salve sends it forth each unto its proper object and all this without diversifying the Earth or any part thereof Repl. This is very pretty in good sooth but altogether as impertinent It does not reach the case nor the defence of Sir Christopher Heydon's Argument which is the thing in hand He would prove the necessity of variety of Influence of the Stars from the Non-variety Simplicity or Homogeneity of the parts of the Water and Earth Wherefore J. B. his reasoning is upon a quite contrary supposition to Sir Christopher's whose Argument yet he pretends to defend And then releasing him from his obligation to Sir Christopher whom he has served such a slippery trick as to slide quite from the concern of his cause what is this instance of the Weapon-salve which I mention in my Immortality of the Soul Book 2. Ch. 10. Sect. 7. to the Influence of the Stars in a Conception or Nativity Which Conception is a pure Crystalline homogeneous liquor as Dr. Harvey describes it unvariegated of it self and to be variegated or modified by the Stars But the wound is modified already to cause a peculiar sympathy betwixt it and the Weapon-salve on the knife that made it Wherefore there being no premodification in the Conception but it being to be modified by the Stars and the Stars by reason of the simplicity of it reaching it by their Influence alike can give no peculiar modification unto it And so for the Nativity it self Forasmuch I say as it is supposed that whoever is born under such a precise Positure of the Heavens is impressed precisely by such an Influence it is plain that the difference of impression he is modified with is not at all from himself but from that particular Positure of the Heavens at his birth and therefore cannot be resolved into this Principle of distinctive sympathy And indeed if the difference of modification of the Birth came not from the Stars but from the Birth it self as the healing of the wound from being the wound of such a knife with salve upon it this would destroy the very pretense of Astrology which differenceth the Birth according to the difference of the Schemes of Heaven And therefore the distinction not being in the Birth it is liable to be imprest upon by all the Stars alike The Celestial Matter is every where and the Earth swims in it c. Ans. Neither the Earth says J. B. p. 58. nor the Air about it can be so situated as to swim all parts of it at once in the Celestial matter much less to apply every part of the Earth to its proper Instrument of nature so as to be wrought by it with an immediate Conjunction but these productions here below must necessarily be caused by the activity of remote Instruments and their Influences c. And these Instruments as remote as they are that they may send down their Influence to the Earth he would prove from the Polar Star which draws the Magnetical Needles pointing upon it self from the utmost Southern Coasts And from the working of the Weapon-salve at a great distance by Sympathy This is the main of what he alledges against this passage Repl. The former part whereof is from his being not skilled in the Cartesian Philosophy and his want of rightly conceiving what the Celestial matter is it being a substance so subtile that it will pass the very pores of glass much more of Air and Water and Earth so that all parts of this Terraqueous Globe together with its Atmosphere is easily understood to swim in the Celestial matter it penetrating throughout And this is the most immediate material Instrument of Nature that is to say of the Omniform Spirit of Nature that guides and modifies the gross matter according to certain vital Laws the Creator of all things hath indued it with So that we need not have recourse to those remote Instruments for the production of the varieties of things below and himself avows there is such a spirit of the World and acknowledges it to be Vegetative or Plastical but the delicacy of his phancy it seems carries him out to such remote Instruments of Generation according to the Proverb That far fetcht and dear bought is good for Ladies And for the mystery of the Load stone I will refer him to Gilbert and Des Cartes in whose Philosophy he will find rationally asserted that the
Argument looks the most handsomely of any As if the ancient Seers were Horary-Question-men because they told men where their lost goods were as our Figure-Flingers pretend to do in this Age and because they were mercenary and took an hire or reward for their pains But that these Seers were no such men but Prophets J. B. might have discovered out of the very Text if he had not overlooked it 1 Sam. 9.9 Before time in Israel when a man went to enquire of God thus he spake Come and let us go to the Seer For he that is now called a Prophet was before time called a Seer Wherefore it is manifest that these Seers were Prophets divinely inspired no Horary Astrologers as J. B. would have them Nor is Sauls solicitude for a Present to bring to Samuel the Seer as he is here called any Argument that these Seers were mercenary Figure-Flingers For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as our English Translation renders it a Present properly made to a great person in way of honour and respect Which these ancient Seers or Prophets might accept or refuse as they saw occasion See Grotius on the place and what he has written on Matth. 10.8 For it will satisfie any unprejudiced man To the eighth I say That there is nothing in the Book of Daniel whereby it is apparent that Daniel Shadrach Mesech and Abednego were students in Iudiciary Astrology under their Tutor Melzar but only learners of the Chaldee tongue that they might be fitted the better to serve the King and converse with him as occasion might be But as for the knowledge of things they are supposed to have it already ch 1. v. 3 4. where Ashpenaz the Master of the Eunuchs is ordered to bring of the Children of Israel well-favoured persons skilful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding science whom they might teach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be able to read and spake Chaldee Wherefore Melzar was a Tutor to them in nothing but this And when they got the ready use of the Chaldee tongue and communed with the King all his Magicians and Astrologers seemed but a Company of Idiots to him in comparison of them v. 20. He found them ten times better than all the Magicians and Astrologers that were in all his Realm But that Daniel was a Student in any Astrological Schools is as true as that Belus the Father of Nimrod built them after Abraham had taught Astrology in Babylon When as Belus reigned above two hundred years before Abraham was born And now in the ninth place As for those passages in Scripture To the first I answer That the pretious things of the Sun and of the Moon are the fruits of the Earth produced or helped on by the heat of the one and moisture from the other Of these Virgil speaks in his Georgicks Vestro si numine Tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit aristâ And to Deut. 4.19 I shall answer when I have brought into view the whole Context And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto Heaven and when thou seest the Sun and the Moon and Stars even all the Host of Heaven shouldest be driven to worship them and serve them which the Lord thy God has divided unto all Nations under the whole Heaven But the Lord hath taken you and brought you forth out of the Iron Furnace even out of Aegypt to be unto him a people of Inheritance as ye are this day He must have a strong imaginative faculty that can phancy an Argument for the sacredness and Divineness of Iudiciary Astrology from this place For whether we interpret the distributing the Stars to the Nations as Vatablus and others have done In ministerium omnium gentium creavit as they are palpably useful to them all by the enjoyment of their light and by the observation of their course for the knowing of times and seasons besides the comfortable heat of the Sun and the refreshing moistness of the air from the Moon to further the growth of Herbs and Plants But what is all this to the whimzies of Iudiciary Astrology Or if with St. Augustine and Grotius seems also thither inclined we conceive that this Host of Heaven Sun Moon and Stars are divided to the Nations and permitted by God for a time to be worshipped by them though strictly forbid to his own peculiar people see Drusius and Grotius upon the place what is this to the sacredness of Astrology but rather a Confirmation that it is a Rag of the old Pagan Idolatry And I have heard with mine own ears from them that have been addicted much to that Art that they have prayed to the Stars as Anne Bodenham the Witch confessed she prayed sometimes to the Planet Jupiter To the third I answer The Stars in their courses fighting against Sisera makes nothing for Astrology Stars there according to the Prophetick and Cabbalistick stile signifying Angels And it is a Song framed in the height of Prophetick and if you will of Poetick Eloquence And Vatablus likewise interprets it of the Angels as also Grotius who adds Angeli stellarum nomine appellantur ob coelestem naturam ac splendorem See my Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms And as for the last allegation the prognostick of weather from the Redness of the skie acknowledged by our Saviour though J. B. often mentions that instance I do not see how it makes more for Astrology than the Neat-herds brended Cow by whose frisking and gadding he could prognostick it would be rain or any of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Aratus recites in his Astronomical Poem These things are Meteorological not Astrological neither is that redness of the skie in the Heavens but in this lower part of our Atmosphere Thus I think I have sufficiently answered all his Arguments whereby he would prove Astrology a sacred and Divine Science And at most all these Allegations if they had any weight in them at all could but prove it is a lawful Science not sacred or Divine Because Joseph taught the Aegyptians Astrology therefore Astrology is a sacred or Divine Science You may as well argue Because he taught them the use of the Fiddle and of the Plough as Diodorus sayes Hermes did That Fidling and Ploughing are Divine Sciences But enough of this And that it is rather a Rag of old Paganism than a Divine Science appears from that of Deuteronomy above-cited the Pagans being worshippers of the Host of Heaven as Rulers and Disposers of all things here on Earth What then could be a greater accomplishment of a Pagan Priest than to know in what time and order and in what aspects one with another these Celestial Deities dispose things here below and what a Temptation to him to pretend he knew it whether he did or no and also to the vagrant Daemons of the air to further him in the entanglements of this vanity This I hope J. B. himself will think no rash conjecture especially if he consider
Fourthly That the Moon also to our wonderment guides the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea whose influence is equally seen when she is under the Horizon as when above when near our Nadir as when near our Zenith Whence say they it is plain that the Heavenly Bodies have not only a power or influence besides Light but more searching and penetrating than light it self as being able to make its way through the thickness of the Earth and to reach its effect on the further side thereof Both which wonders they further confirm from the Magnetical Needle that looks toward the Pole-Star though on the other side of the Tropick of Capricorn where the North Pole will be hidden twenty or thirty degrees below the Horizon Whence it is manifest say they that the influence of the Pole-Star pierces through the bowels of the Earth and is a notorious Argument of that secret and irresistible virtue of the rest of the Heavenly Bodies Fifthly The Station Direction and Repedation of the Planets is a thing so strange and mysterious that it is not likely they should make those odd motions unless those waglings this way and that way those goings backward and forward were a certain reeling or spinning the Fates and Fortunes of things or persons here below Sixthly and lastly Yearly experience teaches us that the approach of the Sun renews the World and makes an annual Resurrection of Plants and Insects and such living Creatures as are born of putrefaction and have no other Father than the fiery-bearded Sun If then this one Planet does such rare feats certainly the rest of the Planets and fixed Stars do not stand for Cyphers but have their virtues and operations as well as he whose efficacy and influence say these Star-gazers our Art does punctually and particularly define You may add if you will out of Origanus the heat of the Dog-Star and the moist influence of Arcturus and the Hyades * These are the general plausibilities that these Deceivers endeavour to countenance their profession by But we shall now set down the main particular Principles and Fundamental Rudiments of their so much-admired science as they would have it esteemed and then shall orderly answer to them both 2. According therefore to Origanus whom I shall chiefly follow in setting down these Astrological Principles I do not say all but what is sufficient nor will I set down any but what they acknowledge for Principles nor omit any that are so considerable as these I set down First It is thought by them that the Planets have the most influence upon Terrestrial Bodies but that the fixt Stars also as well as they have virtues so potent as to pierce the very penetrals of the Earth * That of the Planets the Sun is hot and moist rather than drying That Mars is hot and parchingly drying That Saturn hinders the warm influence of the other Stars and is in an high degree frigefactive as also exsiccative From these two Qualities contrary to the Principles of life Saturn is termed Infortuna major Mars Infortuna minor because heat is not contrary to life though driness be Iupiter is also deemed Fortuna major because he hath sufficient moisture well tempered with heat But Venus Fortuna minor because her moisture exceeds her warmth From this distinction of hot cold dry and moist the Planets are also divided into Masculine and Feminine Diurnal and Nocturnal c. So that if these conceits of driness moistness coldness and heat fail all the rest fail 3. But I think that principle more observable which is touched upon already That the influence of the Stars and Planets do pass freely through the Earth which is implied in that Aphorism of Ptolemy cited by Origanus Masculescere efficaciores dici Planetas qui ab Horizonte ortivo vel occiduo deducuntur ad Meridianum supra vel infra terram Effoeminari vero qui contrá Which plainly implies that their Influences pass as easily through the Earth as through the Air otherwise surely those Planets that tended from the Western Horizon toward the Meridian under the Earth would have the disadvantage of it That also goes upon the same Hypothesis that the Earth is no impediment namely that Iupiter being Consignificatour in the second House denotes riches and that by how many more Planets there be in the sixth House by so much more subject to Diseases the Child will be That the fixt Stars and Planets do most potently act in the Cardines of the Celestial Theme of which Imum Coeli is one Which supposes the Earth as pervious as the very Air to the Celestial Influences To omit other divisions of the Signs into Mobilia Fixa and Bicorporea into Masculine and Feminine c. I shall only set down that more noised division of them into Trigons viz. the Fiery Trigon Aries Leo Sagittarius the Earthly Taurus Virgo Capricorn Aerial Gemini Libra Aquarius Watery Cancer Scorpius Pisces 4. They teach us also fine things of the Dignities of the Planets which are either Essential or Accidental An Essential Dignity is nothing else but the encrease of the innate virtue of the Planet by being in such or such a sign of the Zodiack as Origanus hath defined The first Essential Dignity is the House of the Planet As for Example Leo is the House of the Sun Cancer of the Moon And because there are more signs than Planets it falls to the share of the rest to have two Houses a piece so aspected to the Houses of the Luminaries as becomes the Goodness or Malignity of their Natures As for Example Capricorn and Aquarius must be the Houses of unfortunate Saturn because their aspect is opposite to the Houses of the Luminaries Sagittarius and Pisces the Houses of Iupiter because the Aspect to the foresaid Houses of the Sun and Moon is a benign Aspect namely Trine But now Mars has Aries and Scorpius for his Houses because he forsooth himself being a malignant Planet may have his * Houses in a malignant posture to the Houses of the Sun and Moon namely in a Quartile Aspect c. And as to be in their own Houses is a dignity so to be in the sign opposite they call Exilium and account it a great detriment to the Planet The second Essential dignity is Exaltation as Aries is the Exaltation of the Sun because his Efficacy is so apparent in Spring and therefore his casus must be in Libra which must on the contrary be the exaltation of Saturn that Planet being of a cold temper contrary to the Sun The Dragon's Head also is exalted in Gemini as Albumasar out of Hermes has given us to understand and depressed in Sagittarius The third Essential Dignity is Triangularity or Triplicity whereby certain Planets are constituted the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their respective Trigons Sol and Iupiter of the Fiery Trigon The Moon and Venus of the Earthly Trigon Saturn and Mercury of the Aereal and because there are not eight
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judicare nisi ratione Directionis vel alterius violenti subiti casus vita Nati citius abrumpatur Origan Part. 3. de Affectibus cap. 2. These few things I thought worth the while to add for the more easy and full understanding of these brief Rudiments of Astrology rather than to seem to have said nothing on this Chapter As indeed there was very little to be said of it J. B. with other Astrologers being agreed on the Principles which I have laid down as theirs But now we are to see how well J. B. has defended them against my Objections or Confutation of them in the following Chapters Which we will do with what brevity and clearness we can CHAP. XVI 1. That the Stars and Planets are not useless though there be no truth in Astrology 2. That the Stars are not the causes of the variety of productions here below 3. That the sensible moistening power of the Moon is no Argument for the Influence of other Planets and Stars 4. Nor yet the Flux and Reflux of the Sea and Direction of the Needle to the North Pole 5. That the Station and Repedation of the Planets is an Argument against the Astrologers 6. That the Influence attributed to the Dog-Star the Hyades and Orion is not theirs but the Suns and that the Suns Influence is only heat 7. The slight occasions of their inventing of those Dignities of the Planets they call Exaltations and Houses as also that of Aspects 8. Their folly in preferring the Planets before the fixt Stars of the same appearing magnitude and of their fiction of the First Qualities of the Planets with those that rise therefrom 9. Their rashness in allowing to the influence of the Heavenly Bodies so free a passage through the Earth 10. Their groundless division of the signs into moveable and fixt and the ridiculous Effects they attribute to the Trigons together with a demonstration of the falsness of the Figment 11. A Confutation of their Essential Dignities 12. As also of their Accidental 13. A subversion of their Erection of Schemes and distributing of the Heavens into twelve Celestial Houses 14. Their fond pretences to the knowledge of the exact moment of the Infants Birth 15. A Confutation of their Animodar and Trutina Hermetis 16. As also of their method of rectifying a Nativity per Accidentia Nati 17. His appeal to the skilful if he has not fundamentally confuted the whole pretended Art of Astrology 1. WHerefore to their first general pretence That the very Being of the Stars and Planets would be useless if there be nothing in the Art of Astrology I answer That though there were certain Influences and virtues in every one of them yet it does not follow that they are discovered in their Art And then again That though there were none saving that of Light and Heat in the Fixt Stars it will not follow that they are useless * Because the later and wiser Philosophers have made them as so many Suns * which Hypothesis our Astrologers must confute before they can make good the force of their first Argument And for the Planets they have also suggested that they may have some such like use as our Earth has i. e. to be the Mother of living Creatures though they have defined nothing concerning the natures of them whereby their opinion becomes more harmless and unexceptionable * as it is in it self highly probable Forasmuch as the Earth as well as Saturn Iupiter and the rest moves about the Sun and is as much a Planet as any of them as the best Astronomers do not at all stick now adays to affirm Which does utterly enervate the force of this first general pretence of the Astrologians 2. To the second I answer That the Stars are but Lights of much the same nature as our Sun is only they are further removed so that their contribution is much-what the same And again nothing turns off their more subtil influence according to their own concession and therefore though there were this variety in them * yet because all this variety reaches every point of the Earth the product would be the same unless the particles of the Earth were diversified by some other cause which assuredly they are And thirdly That neither their own variety nor the Influences of the Heavens if they be merely material are sufficient causes of productions here below Fourthly * That the Celestial matter is every where and that the Earth swims in it as Wood doth in Water so that we need not have recourse to so remote unknown activities And lastly That that general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spirit of nature is also every where ready to contrive the matter into such shapes and virtues as its disposition makes toward And this is enough and more than enough to take off the edge of the Knights Argument 3. I do acknowledge that the Moon in her Full swells certain things with moisture which effect is both sensible and palpable and also reasonable by reason of her proximity and of the reflection of the Suns beams from her body which being but of a moderate power * melt the Air and vapours into an insinuating liquidness but do not dissipate them as his direct beams do by day Which feat I do not doubt but that any other of the Planets would perform * if they were so placed that their Discus would seem of equal bigness with the Moons and she were removed into their place * But it is an unsufferable folly to argue from such both reasonable and palpable effects of the Moon that the other Planets also and Fixt Stars have as powerful effects upon us which yet we can deprehend by neither Reason nor Experience 4. The like may be answered concerning the Flux and Reflux of the Sea the ground whereof is rational from what Des Cartes has set down in his Princip Philos. Part. 4. namely * That the Ellipsis of the Celestial matter is streightned by the Moons Body which makes the Aether flow more swift which is a plain and mechanical solution of the Phaenomenon And then we find by certain experience that this Flux and Reflux depends on the course of the Moon so that there can be no deceit in the business But when there is no reason nor sufficient experience that this is the cause of that to attribute the one to the other is no good Logick And to that of the Load-stone and Polar-Star I say again as I have said already that it does not follow because there are some sensible Effects from the Heavens certain and constant that therefore we may imagine what effects we please to proceed from this or that particular Star without due experience or reason for the same And then in the next place That it is not so much the Influence of the Heaven as the Magnetism of the Earth in which this Direction of the Needle toward the North consists For the Needle varies
unthink any thing than that his beloved Astrology should be thought a Foolery as it will undoubtedly be so thought by all wise men and considerate But he will at last allow them opaque p. 71. and yet pretends to gain by the bargain because they are thereby more nearly apt to sute with and make impression upon our bodies which are neither Light nor Air but rather Earth whence says he the Planets are the greatest Agents at least if not the noblest bodies Repl. As if opaque bodies at such a vast distance acted by virtue of their similitude No more than one bullet of lead at a distance acts upon another And what Influence more than a Bullet of lead has our Earth or any other Planet beyond their Atmospheres Besides that there is a great deal of Fire and Air in mens Constitutions or else they could not so nimbly weild their bodies of Earth Then that of the fixt Stars which shine not with borrowed but innate light c. To this J. B. answers p. 71. That is the Doctors think so touching the innate light of the Stars For he has no other proof Repl. And who I beseech you ever thought otherwise So that there was no need of any proof The light of the Planets we see depend of the Sun But no such discovery is made of the fixt Stars Nay it is impossible they should be illuminated by the Sun so far distant from them that if we were where they are the Sun would seem no bigger that an ordinary Star What light therefore could such a solitary Star afford when so many put together afford so little light in the night Besides it is a thing well known amongst the best Philosophers that the fixt Stars are so many Suns they being fixt as he is Wherefore if our Sun have innate light the fixt Stars have innate light also And lastly the Scintillation of the fixt Stars which is not observed in the Planets is another Argument of their innate Light And he must be blind in the mysteries of Philosophy that does not see the reasonableness of these things Define the Sun to be hot and moist rather than drying c. Ans. I will not say says he p. 72. the Doctor lies but I am sure it 's false that he says Astrologers holding no such thing as that either the Sun is hot and moist or that Mars is parchingly dry Repl. And yet that famous Astrologer David Origanus expresly declares that the Sun is not vehementer siccus quoniam quasi humido jungitur But that Mars does exsiccare arefacere in calefaciendo urere What in Latin can be more significant of what we have declared in English See what we have said upon Ch. 15. Sect. 2. All the Planets are opaque bodies and what ever their colour be are as cold as Earth c. Here again J. B. swaggeringly denies p. 83. the Planets to be opaque bodies but I have proved them already to be opaque so that I need insist no further thereon And whereas he would insinuate that in all the Planets I do imply the Sun 't is a mere cavil the Planets that move about the Sun being peculiarly called Planets and the Sun improperly as being fixt and having no Planetary motion at all And since from these they are reputed namely from the first qualities benign or malign masculine or feminine c. Ans. Here says J. B. p. 83. the consequence is unsufferable that if the Planets be opaque bodies they cannot be Male and Female Ash-Trees are opaque bodies without dispute and yet by all Herbarists are allowed to be Male and Female c. Repl. He makes here a foolish consequence of his own and then Tragically exclaims against it as if I were the Author of it I no where say if the Planets be opaque bodies they cannot be Male and Female but that since Astrologers account the Planets Male and Female from those first qualities phansied in them without any reason the grounds of this distinction into Male and Female failing the Astrological distinction it self necessarily fails So that all the course Buffoondry he uses in this page returns upon himself But p. 72. to repair the loss of the first qualities in the Planets he will not have Mars hot and dry as is the Sun or as Fire but as Pepper or Salt Repl. Certainly J. B. must have a long neck or a long tongue to reach a tast of the Planet Mars to perceive it has a smack of Salt or Pepper which is as true as that the Moon is made of green Cheese Which if it were the Salt or Pepper of Mars were excellent Correctives of the Phlegmatickness thereof that it may the easilier digest in an Astrologers Stomach But in good sadness how can we be more assured of this Salt or Pepper in Mars or internal cold in Saturn than of the Elemental heat or cold in either So evident is it that these are pitiful subterfuges and that the whole distinction of Planets into hot and cold and consequently into Masculine and Feminine is a meer phancie Sect. 9. For that hidden Influence which governs all would reach to all points c. Here J. B. has recourse again to the Weapon-salve p. 74. and to the Magnetical Particles But I have so sufficiently baffled this evasion upon Sect. 2. of this Chapter that I need say nothing here But by reason of the Anticipation of the Aequinoxes a Phaenomenon whose cause is to be resolved into the motion of the Earth the unskilful in Philosophy rashly collected these two things 1. That there was a motion of the Coelum stellatum from West to East 2. And then a Primum Mobile that had only a diurnal motion not any from West to East in which a fixt Zodiack was wherein the course of the Sun observed his Cardinal points and did not anticipate And this is the Astrologers Zodiack divided into Triplicities or Trigons the main Basis of their Art for Houses and Triplicities which if it had any truth in it when they used the real Signs of the Zodiack of the Coelum stellatum must now necessarily be judged vain and ridiculous For now for Example the Fiery Trigon is not the real Aries Leo Sagittarius in the Coelum stellatum DEF but the imaginary one ♈ ♌ ♠in the Figure above described and so of the rest Whence it is plain that when Dr. Dariot and Sir Christopher attribute such virtues to such a Triplicity they miss almost a whole Sign in their account pitching upon AD for DG and so of the rest if you respect the Coelum stellatum and so they put one Triplicity for another the Watery Trigon for the Fiery and suppose Aries the Horoscop when 't is Pisces And if you respect a Heaven distinct from the Coelum stellatum which was forged upon the ignorance of the true cause of the Anticipation of the Aequinoxes they do yet toto coelo errare that fictitious Heaven being a