Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	fix_a	motion_n	star_n	2,539	5	9.5176	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08456	A confutation of atheism from the structure and origin of human bodies. Part I a sermon preached at Saint Martin's in the Fields, May 2. 1692. Being the third of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by Richard Bentley.	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1693 (1693)	Wing B1921A; ESTC R175533	14,708	34

futility appears in their XII Signs of the Zodiack and their mutual Relations and Aspects Why no more Aspects than diametrically opposite and such as make aequlateral figures Why are the Masculine and Feminine the Fiery and Airy and Watry and Earthly Signs all placed at such regular distances Were the Virtues of the Stars disposed in that order and rank on purpose only to make a pretty Diagram upon Paper But the Atheistical Astrologer is doubly pressed with this absurdity For if there was no Counsel at the making of the world how came the Asterisms of the same nature and energies to be so harmoniously placed at regular intervals And how could all the Stars of one Asterism agree and conspire together to constitute an Universal Why does not every single Star shed a separate influence and have Aspects with other Stars of their own Constellation But what need there many words As if the late Discoveries of the Celestial Bodies had not plainly detected the imposture of Astrology The Planet Saturn is found to have a great Ring that encircles him and three lesser Planets that move about him as the Moon doth about the Earth and Jupiter hath four Satellites which by their Interposition between him and us make some hundreds of Eclipses every year Now the whole Tribe of Astrologers that never dream'd of these Planets have always declared that when Jupiter and Saturn come about again to any given Point they exert consider'd singly by themselves the same Influence as before But 't is now manifest that when either of them return to the same point the Planets about them that must make up an united Influence with them have a different situation in respect of us and each other from what they had the time before and consequently the joint Influence must be perpetually varied and never be reducible to any Rules and Observations Or if the Influences be conveyed hither distinct yet sometimes some of the Little Planets will eclipse the Great one at any given point and therefore intercept and obstruct the Influence I cannot now insist on many other Arguments deducible from the late Improvements of Astronomy For if the Earth be not the Centre of the Planetary Motions what must become then of the present Astrology which is wholly adapted to that vulgar Hypothesis And yet nevertheless when they lay under such wretched mistakes for many Myriads of Years if we are willing to believe them they would all along as now appeal to Experience and Event for the confirmation of their Doctrins That 's the invincible Demonstration so the Verity of the Science And indeed as to their Predictions I think our Astrologers may assume to themselves that infallible Oracle of Tiresias O Laertiade quicquid dico aut erit aut non There 's but a true and a false in any telling of Fortune and a man that never hits on the right side cannot be called a bad Guesser but must miss out of design and be notably skilfull at lighting on the wrong And were there not formerly as great pretensions to it from the superstitious observation of the Entrails of Cows of the flying of Vulturs and the pecking of Chickens Nay the old Augurs and Southsayers had better reason to profess the Art of Divining than the modern Astrological Atheist for They supposed there were some Daemons that directed the Indications So likewise the Chaldean and Aegyptian Astrologers were much more excusable than He. It was the Religion of their Countries to worship the Stars as we know from unquestionable Authority They believed them Ingelligent Beings and no other than very Gods Maimonides More Nevochim De Zabiis Chaldaeis Plato in Cratylo Diodorus lib. 1. c. 2. Eusebius Demonst Evangel lib. 1. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore had some Reason to suspect that they might govern Human Affairs The Influence of the Stars was in their apprehensions no less than Divine Power But an Atheist that believes the Planets to be dark solid and sensless Bodies like the brute Earth he treads on and the Fixt Stars and the Sun to be inanimate Balls of Fire what Reasons can He advance for the credit of such Influences He acknowledgeth nothing besides Matter and Motion so that all that he can conceive to be transmitted hither from the Stars must needs be perform'd either by Mechanism or Accident either of which is wholly unaccountable and the latter irreconcilable to any Art or System of Science But if both were allowed the Atheist yet as to any production of Mankind they will be again refuted in my following Discourse I can preserve a due esteem for some great Men of the last Age before the Mechanical Philosophy was revived though they were too much addicted to this nugatory Art When Occult Quality and Sympathy and Antipathy were admitted for satisfactory Explications of things even wise and vertuous Men might swallow down any Opinion that was countenanced by Antiquity But at this time of day when all the general powers and capacities of Matter are so clearly understood he must be very ridiculous himself that doth not deride and explode the antiquated Folly But we may see the miserable Shifts that some men are put to when that which was first founded upon and afterward supported by Idolatry is now become the tottering Sanctuary of Atheism If the Stars be no Deities Astrology is groundless and if the Stars be Deities why is the Astrologer an Atheist He may easily be no Christian and 't is difficult indeed to be both at once because as I have said before Idolatry is at the bottom and by submitting Human Actions and Inclinations to the Influence of the Stars they destroy the very Essence of Moral Vertue and the Efficacy of Divine Grace Concil Laod Can. 36. Conc. 6. in Trullo Can. 61. Cod. Just lib. 9. tit 18. Cod. Theodos l 9. tit 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 60. tit 39. and therefore Astrology was justly condemn'd by the Ancient Fathers and Christian Emperours An Astrologer I say may very easily be no Christian he may be an Idolater or a Pagan but I could hardly think Astrology to be compatible with rank Atheism if I could suppose any great gifts of Nature to be where either do reside But let him be what he will he is not able to do much hurt by his Reasons and Example For Religion it self according to his Principles is derived from the Stars And he owns 't is not any just Exceptions he hath taken against Christianity but 't is his Destiny and Fate 't is Saturn in the Ninth House and not Judgment and Deliberation that made him an Atheist FINIS

escape thither out of Villages and Cities and consequently against the Atheist Arts and Sciences and Histories may be preserved and derived to the succeeding World Thirdly Let us imagin the whole Terraqueous Globe with its Atmosphere about it What is there here that can naturally effect an Universal Deluge If you would drown one Country or Continent with Rains and Inundations you must borrow your Vapor and Water from some other part of the Globe You can never overflow all at a time If the Atmosphere it self was reduced into Water as some think it possible it would not make an O●b above 32 foot deep which would soon be swallowed up by the cavity of the Sea and the depressed parts of the Earth and be a very feeble attempt towards an Universal Deluge But then what immense Weight is there above that must overcome the expansive force of the Air and compress it into near the thousandth part of the room that it now takes up We that acknowledge a God Almighty can give an account of one Deluge by saying it was miraculous but it would be a little strange to see an Atheist have recourse to a Miracle and that not once only but upon infinite occasions But perhaps they may endeavour to prove the possibility of such a natural Deluge by borrowing an ingenious Notion and pretending That the face of Nature may be now quite changed from what it was and that formerly the whole Collection of Waters might be an orbicular Abyss arched over with an exterior Crust or Shell of Earth and that the breaking and fall of this Crust might naturally make a Deluge I 'll allow the Atheist all the fair play in the world Let us suppose the Fall of this imaginary Crust First It seems to be impossible but that all the Inhabitants of this Crust must be dash'd to pieces in its Ruins So that this very Notion brings us to the necessity of a new production of Men to evade which it is introduced by the Atheist Again If such a Crust naturally fell then it had in its own constitution a tendency towards a Fall that is it was more likely and inclinable to fall this thousand years suppose than the last But if the Crust was always gradually nearer and nearer to falling that plainly evinces that it had not endured eternally before its Fall For let them assign any imaginable period for its falling how could it have held out till then according to the supposition the unmeasurable duration of infinite Ages before And again such a Crust could fall but once for what Architect can an Atheist suppose to rebuild a new Arch out of the ruins of the other But I have shewn before that this Atheist hath need of infinite Deluges to effect his design and therefore I 'll leave him to contrive how to make infinite Crusts one upon the back of another and now proceed to examine in the second place The Astrological Explication of the Origin of Men. 2. If you ask one of this Party what Evidence he is able to produce for the truth of his Art he may perhaps offer some Physical Reasons for a general influence of the Stars upon terrestrial bodies but as Astrology is consider'd as a System of Rules and Propositions he will not pretend to give any reason of it à priori but resolves all that into Tradition from the Chaldeans and Aegyptians who first learnt it by long observation and transmitted it down to Posterity and that now it is daily confirmed by Events which are experienced to answer the Predictions This is all that can be said for Astrology as an Art So that the whole Credibility of this Planetary production of Mankind must depend upon Observation But are they able to shew among all the Remains of the Chaldaick Observations for Four hundred and seventy thousand years as they pretended any Tradition of such a Production So far from that that the Chaldeans believed the world and mankind to have been from everlasting which opinion I have refuted before Neither can the Aegyptian Wizards with their long Catalogue of Dynasties and Observations for innumerable Years supply the Atheists with one instance of such a Creation Where are the fragments of Petosiris and Necepso that may countenance this Assertion I believe if they had had any example of men born out of the Soil they would rather have ascribed it to the fruitfull Mud of the Nile as they did the breeding of Frogs So Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and Mice and Monsters than to the efficacy of Stars But with the leave of these Fortune-tellers did the Stars do this feat once only which gave beginning to Human Race or have they frequently done so and may do it again If frequently why is not this Rule deliver'd in Ptolemy and Albumasar If once only at the beginning then how came it to be discover'd Who were there then in the world to observe the Births of those First Men and calculate their Nativities as they sprawl'd out of Ditches Those Sons of Earth were very wise Children if they themselves knew that the Stars were their Fathers Unless we are to imagine that they understood the Planets and the Zodiack by instinct and fell to drawing Schemes of their own Horoscopes in the same Dust they sprung out of For my part I can have no great veneration for Chaldaick Antiquity Vitruvius lib. 9. c. 4. Lucret. lib. 5. Vt Babylonica Chaldaeum doctrina c. Apuleius de Deo Socratis Seu illa Luna proprio perpeti fulgore ut Chaldaei arbitrantur parte luminis compos parte altera cassa fulgoris when I see they could not discover in so many thousand years that the Moon was an opake Body and received her Light from the Sun But suppose their Observations had been never so accurate it could add no Authority to modern Astrology which is borrowed from the Greeks 'T is well known that Berosus or his Scholars new modelled and adapted the Babylonian Doctrines to the Grecian Mythology The supposed Influences of Aries and Taurus for example have a manifest relation to the Grecian Stories of the Ram that carried Phrixus and the Bull that carried Europa Now which of these is the Copy and which the Original Were the Fables taken from the Influences or the Influences from the Fables the Poetical Fables more ancient than all Records of History or the Astrological Influences that were not known to the Greeks till after Alexander the Great But without question those Fabulous Tales had been many a time told and sung to lull children asleep before ever Berosus set up his Intelligence-Office at Coos And the same may be said of all the other Constellations First Poetry had filled the Skies with Asterisms and Histories belong to them and then Astrology devises the feigned Virtues and Influences of each from some property of the Image or allusion to the Story And the same trifling