Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	according_a	day_n	time_n	2,017	5	3.5546	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62021	Signa coeli: the signs of heaven, or, A sermon on a text in the tenth chapter of the prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah, at the second verse preached on ... the nine and twentieth day of March ... 1652 ... by John Swan ...	Swan, John, d. 1671.	1652 (1652)	Wing S6237; ESTC R33890	16,877	30

he commanded that they should hoyse up sail and be gone about their intended expedition But this of Pericles was surely an overbold presumption as by the event appeared For the effects of this Eclipse brought not onely misery upon his own Country and dishonor upon himself but did put even all Greece under the sad calamities of a long lasting War Which story I have mentioned to shew that they are in as great an error who contemn the Signs of Heaven as they who are dismayed at them or as they who think it an unlawful and forbidden thing to search into the significations of them To whom I say especially to the last Purge away the dross and keep the Gold wash away the filth and keep the Cloth fan out the chaff and keep the Corn for it proceedeth either from ignorance or from an over-nice scrupulosity and no way sorteth with wise and learned men promiscuously and without difference and distinction to confound lawful and praise-worthy knowledge with that which is impious and Diabolical as * Sir Walter Ralegh one in his History of the World hath gallantly observed For though as I said before the Devil shuffels in many corruptions and superstitions into lawful Arts whereby wicked knaves have done abomination yet are not the Arts therefore to be condemned in the right use of them For as the said Author speaketh if we confound Arts with the abuse of them we shall not onely condemn all honest Trades and enterchange among men for there are that deceive in all professions but shall in a short time obscure and bury all kinde of good learning whatsoever and that 's just as the Devil would have it For if he could but drown the World in ignorance he might then work his will and lead about men which way he pleaseth Furthermore it is a thing well worth the noting that by understanding the uttermost activity of Natural agents we are assisted to know the Divinity of Christ and may thereupon the better confute those Heretiques that deny it for the terms or limits of natural power and vertue not understood we may stand in doubt whether those very works which Christ did may not be done by natural means But knowing how far nature can go and finding Christs miracles to be above that we conclude that what he wrought was by the Finger of God And as for Divination which the Scriptures cry against Is it that by which a wise man may with probability conjecture of some things to come before they are grounding his prediction upon the influences of the Stars and natural operation of the Heavens which work upon things below Surely no it is not that For what the Scripture forbiddeth is certainly of another kinde by which the Devil taught the Heathen vainly to put confidence in the flying feeding chattering and chirping of Birds as also in what they saw at their Sacrifices in the opening and viewing the bowels and livers of Beasts For it is without question that the Devil was never ignorant how that both the wise and simple observe when the Sea-birds forsake the Shores and fly unto the Land that then some great storm commonly followeth that the high flying of the Kite and Swallow betoken fair weather that the crying of Crowes and bathing of Ducks foreshew Rain for they feel the Aire moistned in their Quils Now hereupon the enemy of Mankind working upon these as upon the rest of Gods creatures long time abused the Heathen by teaching them to observe the flying of Fowls and thereby to judge of good or evil success in the Wars and withal to look into the entrails of Beasts for the same as if God had written the secrets of his Providence in the livers and bowels of those creatures The prohibition therefore in Scripture to mark the flying of Fowls as signs of good or evil success hath no reference at all to the crying of Crows against Rain or to any observation not superstitious and whereof a reason or cause may be given By which it may be concluded that there is a kinde of Divination to which a wise man may attain and seek after without any offence to God or harm to Piety and true Religion For though superstitious and Diabolical Divination be abominable and not to be tolerated among Christians yet that which is natural is granted lawful so long as it keeps within it's own bounds Divinum scilicet genus Divinationis non est impium nec prohibitum Diabolicum superstitiosum impium est vetium Naturale vero si suas metas servet concessum est as saith Goclenius in the end of the fifteenth Chapter of his Physical Disputations that whole Chapter treating of Divination and the kinds thereof The like may be said concerning the observing of times for which some men in the height of their zeal do also much blame Astrology but cannot truly do it as it is pure and unabused For pure Astrology and undefiled will observe no such times as may bring any dishonor unto God Eccles 3.1.2 and yet it may observe times too For as Solomon speaketh in Ecclesiastes there is a time for every thing and a season for every purpose under Heaven which prudentially observed and not superstitiously sought after and doted on may conduce much to the benefit of Mankinde This I grant But is it therefore probable that every day in the week hath a several Planet to govern it or is there any reason for it seeing the Stars were all made upon one and the same day no more I think then to assign a several Planet to every hour called by the name of Planetary hours which in my judgement is no better then folly and superstition and therefore in this respect to make choice of good or bad days or of lucky and unlucky hours deserves to be exploded and not to be harbored under the harmless shelter of Astrology There be times indeed when the Planets according to their aspects motions or places in the Heavens are either more or less powerful in their operations To observe therefore such times and apply them onely to such things as are agreeable to their natural working is no superstition but a well grounded observation grounded upon a natural cause to bottom and uphold it If the Heathen whose ways we are not to learn had observed times no otherwise I beleeve for that they never had been cast out nor the Jews forbidden to observe times as they did For even afterward the Children of Issachar are spoken of as men of eminency in regard that they had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do As it is in the first Book of the Chronicles the 12. Chapter at the 32. Verse If therefore the Hebrew word Menonen or Megnonen in Deut. 18.10 be to be rendred An observer of times it is to be understood of such an observer of times as makes his Elections by Witchcraft and Southsaying or by some such like Devillish