the elements shall melt with fervent heat Nevertheless we acccording to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness Wherefore beloved seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless And account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you As also in all his Epistles speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction Ye therefore beloved seeing ye know these things before beware lest ye also being led away with the errour of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Of the Influence between a Planet or Comet and Men. FRom a wild discourse of the end of the world we are led into an account of the Influence that this Comet may have upon Men who do as much fear their own end from it as they did before the World as if it were a Torch onely lighted to lead to Funeralls Comets have no other Influence then that natural one we spake of elsewhere besides the vertue of their respective Planets nor the Planets any but in Conjunction with the Elements nor they but in their predominancie in every particular man whence this usual Table of Operation is made whence we may gather what we are to look in our particular capacities from this famous Meteor The sympathy of the twelve Signes with the four Elements ♈ Fiery Hot and dry Cholerick ♉ Earthly Cold and dry Melancholy ♊ Aerial Hot and moist Sanguine ♋ Watery Cold and moist Phlegmatick ♌ Fiery Hot and dry Cholerick ♠Earthly Cold and dry Melancholy ♎ Aerial Hot and moist Sanguine ♠Watery Cold and moist Phlegmatick ♠Fiery Hot and dry Cholerick ♑ Earthly Cold and dry Melancholy ♒ Aerial Hot and moist Sanguine ♓ Watery Cold and moist Phlegmatick The nature and qualities of the seven Planets in union with the four Elements ♄ Earthly Cold and dry Melancholy ♃ Airy Hot and moist Sanguine ♂ ☉ Fiery Hot and dry Cholerick ♀ ☽ Watery Cold and moist Phlegmatick Some influence no man will deny the Stars and those Exhalations that depend upon them that considereth Sir Walter Raleigh's words who would say that it could not be doubted but the Stars were instruments of some greater use than to give an obscure light and for men to gaze on after the Sun set it being probable that the same goodness that endued the meanest being with some virtue denyed not a bodies proportionable power to those glorious bodies which are created without question to the same end in heaven that plants flowers c. are in the earth not only to adorn but to serve it according to this Stanza I 'le never believe that the Arch-architect With all these fires the heavenly arches deck'd Only for shew and with these glistering shields To amaze poor shepherds watching in the fields I 'le ne're believe that the light flower that pranks Our garden borders or the common banks And the least stone that in her warming lap Our kind nurse Earth doth courteously wrap Hath some peculiar virtue of its own And that the glorious Stars of heaven have none But shine in vain and have no charge precise But to be walking in heavens galleries And through that Palace up and down to clamber As golden gulls about a Princes chamber But if the true and uttermost virtues of herbs and plants which our selves sow and set under our foot cannot be comprehended by us Hardly do we guess aright the things that are upon the earth and with labour do we find the things that are before us but the things which are in heaven who hath searched out Wisd 9.10 much less can reach the farthest power of these Stars of whose effects upon natural things skilful Astronomers may give a good account but for the things that rest in the liberty of mans will the Stars saith an excellent person have doubtless no power over them except the will be led by the sensitive appetite and that again stirred up by the constitution and complexion of the body as too often it is especially where the humours of the body are strong to assault and the virtues of the mind too weak to resist Incline a man they may force him they cannot reason and Religion may so alter the inclination of the first whereof Socrates was an eminent instance of old and Cardinal Pool was such of late the firsts nativity being calculated the Astrologer was laughed at for saying he was deboist and an ill-natured man till Socrates defended him saying He was such a one before education had changed him the other being certified by an acquaintance who pretended skill in the favours of the Stars that he should be raised and advanced to a great calling in the world made answer That whatever was portended by the figure of his birth or natural generation was cancelled and altered by the grace of his second birth or regeneration in the blood of his Redeemer The natural conclusion whereof is that in Buchanans words De Sphaera Quanquam moles omni sibi parte coherens Una sit nexis per mutua vincula membris Conspiret positusque semel Rectore sub uno Observet Leges c. Though there is some coherence in the series of things yet is it not so fatal and necessary but that Gods power our education or grace may change it and though guilty men fear where there is no fear and by that fear fall into what they feared that passion betraying the succor of teason yet good men knowing that the Stars are made to serve and not to rule them men were not made for Stars but Stars for men and that their prayers as did Eliahs Hezekiahs who were men subject to their infirmities can avail much against the heavens their influence and Stars settle themselves upon providential Principles against all events chusing rather a modest ignorance then a curious inquisition following the pithy counsel of Phavorinus apud A. G. l. 14. c. 1. with which we shall conclude Either they portend thee bad or good luck if good and they deceive thou wilt become miserable by a vain expectation if bad and they lye thou wilt be miserable by vain fear if they foretel true but unfortunate events thou wilt be miserable in mind before thou art by destiny if they promise fortunate success which shall indeed come to pass these two inconveniences will follow thereupon both expectation by hope shall hold thee in suspence and hope will devour and deflower the fruit of thy content This Discourse raised such expectations concerning this strange thing that we were
proper motion from South to North But so as if it had begun at the middle of Scorpio and had there cut the Ecliptick inclining to the West near 63. Degrees And whereas at first this motion was every day two Degrees and an eighth part it became about the Nones of December swifter by an whole Degree and afterwards which makes for my purpose and proves it but an Exhalation it did so decrease that at length it languished and also its Tayl which at the beginning was so long became by little and little so shortned that at last it vanished and became undistinguishable from the Head Insomuch that Kepler and he who were loath to confess it an Earthly Exhalation yet must needs say what is as bad that it was a Concretion of the liquid Heavens Touching the direction of the Tail of the Comet towards the quarter which was opposite to the Sun I need say nothing saith the Learned Gassendus especially seeing it belongs not to this place to shew the reason why it kept not a direct opposition but turned sometimes to the right hand and sometimes to the left by an unequal kind of deflection ☞ Nor need I speak of what it presaged seeing it is not the least argument of humane weakness to be afraid of those things which have nothing to doe with this world wherein we live At least it is a wonder as that learned man goeth on that Men will not believe God himself who commands that we should not be afraid of the signs of Heaven for as much as he makes not signs of those things as being unexpounded can give no warning and unless God makes a Comet to be the sign of Calamities ensuing how can the Comet either have knowledge of future things or a desire to discover them Doth not the Comet take its own course as all other natural being little concerned what a stirr the Nations of Mankind make one with another But this Comet was said to foreshew the Wars and Slaughters which followed as if before there had been no Wars Pestilence nor dearh of Kings As if no Tragedies were now in action twenty years since They referr all to the Comet and by the same reason they may referr all the Troubles that shall arise hereafter till a new Comet appear and make the former forgotten though it should not appear till an hundred years hence Thus farr Gassendus most pertinently as well to the Occasion as to this Discourse it self But this was a high Point and therefore I suddenly slipped out of it to a controversie about the times of its appearance of which it was said that as in the Spring there is too much moisture and too little heat to gather a Comet in Summer there is too much heat which will disperse and consume the matter that it cannot be joyned together which is the reason why no Comets can be seen on the other side of the Tropicks or within the Zodiack where the extreme heat dissolves the matter that should compose them So this season is clean contrary to the nature of a Comet which is hot and dry Winter being cold and moist But be it remembered what a moderate Winter this is and how extraordinary hot the last Summer and Autumn hath been in France where they were afraid of their Vintage and in Spain where they are in danger of Famine by reason of the extraordinary Drought and it will be confessed a greater wonder to the Learned that there had been no Comet this year at this time than it is to the ignorant that there is one You will wonder all this while that we discoursed not of the effects and influence of this strange exhalation you must know that was the thing in every bodies mouth But I avoided the resolution of that point as long as I durst either safely or civilly until at last being overprest by the ingenuous Mrs. T. whose knowledge is above most Womens and curiosity above most Mens who owns a Masculine Spirit and is the great argument I use to prove there is no sexe in the Soul I began my Lecture very gravely That the effects of these Comets 1. such as they had by their own influence and 2. such as they had by the influence of the Planets they lie under A Comet by its own operation and nature betokeneth three things 1. Drought 2. Barrenness 3. Pestilence 1. Drought because such an exhalation as a Comet cannot be generated without great heat and much moysture is consumed in the burning of it 2. Barrenness because the fatness of the Earth is drawn up whereof the Comet consisteth 3. Pestilence for so much as that kind of exhalation which maketh a Comet corrupteth the Air which infecteth the bodies of Men and Beasts To which I may add Tempests Inundations which the dispersion of these vapours round this wide world is so apt to produce that Manilius had good reason for his Verse Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus aether Claudian for his In Coelo nunquam spectatum impune Cometam and Camerarius for his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non sit Cometa quin malum secum adferat Which are all true in respect of the natural effects these Comets have upon the inanimate part of the World Though 2. Those political effects that are ascribed them by those that would amuse and deceive the World I find in reason no ground and nature no cohaerence for since if the dependence of mens bodies whether in publick or private capacities upon the Elements should be certain which yet is variable and the dependence of the Elements upon the Configurations of the Heavens should be constant which yet is alterable yet that of mens Souls upon their Bodies is so mutable by Grace exalting them as in Christ by Education altering them as in Socrates by occasions by assing them as in common Experience that there can be no more said of alterations in France or Great Britain where this Comet is seen than this All this time this Comet doth appear The Effects of this Comet no doubt but there are many dry and hot Exhalations in the Air which in dry men kindle heat whereby they are provoked to anger Of anger cometh brawling of brawling fighting and warr of warr victory of victory alteration in Common-wealths and now also the Air may be more infectious and Princes living as they have reason more delicately than other men may be more subject to infection than other men and so it may be dye too upon which account we may reason form this Accident all the Contingents of our Age. But then for those direful effects this Comet may pretend to from the present state of Heaven and the Configuration of the Planets First All our Astrologers confess the aspect of Heaven at this time most propitious to us Mars Culminant bespeaking our Undertakings in all humane probability happy Mercury our Counsells prosperous Saturn and Jupiter our Trade improved yea and Taurus to which
Here you see these several Princely parts are posited in the chief places of the Figure and the part of Nobility near the body of Venus besides they are all near eminent fixed Stars viz. the part of Fortune near Cor Scorpii in the fourth house and the part of Victory c. near Cor Leonis in the Ascendent or first house and the part of Nobility in Cancer nearly in Conjunction of Ras-Algense a splendid shining fixed Star in the eleventh house therefore I pronounce the Aphorism to take full effect It is no mean Argument of lasting honour and happiness in which the fixed stars are so eminently concerned For according to Ptolomy Stellae fixae mirabiles ultra rationem foelicitates tribuunt c. The fixed Stars do design most admirable Felicity and honour c. Ptol. Cent. Aphoris 29. To these particular Observations I may add this general one The former part of Taurus wherein this Comet is thought to be from the seventeenth Degree to the twenty seventh of ♉ the Stars are something turbulent cloudy but inauspicious to them who are troublesome by reason of the Pleiades contained within those Degrees and are of the nature of ♂ and ☽ the middle parts of ♉ from the twenty seventh Degree to the first of ♊ are temporarely hot and somewhat moist by reason of some â—â—sterishes in Perseus of the nature of ♄ and ♃ from the beginning of ♊ to the Hyades and the Horn of Taurus and by the approach of Orion causeth Thunder and Lightning the North part made temperate by Perseus the South variable and uncertain by reason of some Stars participating of ♂ commixed and others of the nature of ♄ and ☽ Thus much Good Sir is the substance of our apprehension of this Comet in its Nature Situation and Influence which its high time to put an end to since it s almost three a Clock in the morning and I am just called up to see it again only I must intreat your Worships pardon for the mistakes in this hasty Impertinence which I dare not correct since it is already so blotted that you can hardly read it God bless you and yours and be sure our fortune under God is in our own hands since Virtue and Vice our Duties and our Sins are the only Configurations that portend Woe or Weal to the VVorld God bless his Majesty whose care and prudence with his Peoples love and prayers have set him above Meteors yea and Stars themselves to fear nothing but the Star Wormwood I mean that Bitterness and those Murmurings that may forfeit the greatest Blessings of Mankind From Andover this 12th I think I may say 13th of December 1664. 5. Your Worships Most humble and most obedient Servant FINIS AN Advertisement OF BOOKS Lately Printed ACtions upon the Case for Deeds by William Shepheard Esq in Folio PHARAMOND or the History of France a New Romance by the Author of Cassandra and Cleopatra in Folio A Discourse concerning the Precedency of Kings with a Treatise of Ambassadours by James Howell Esq in Folio The Statesmen and Favourites of England since the Reformation their Prudence and Policies Successes and Miscarriages Advancements and Falls by D. Lloyd in Octavo The Golden-Coast or a Description of Guinney in Quarto A Description of Tangier with the adjacent People and Country with an Account of the Person and Government of Gayland Usurper of the Kingdom of Fez in Quarto The Conduct and Character of Count Nicholas Serini lately Deceased Twelves The Villain a Tragedy by Tho. Porter Esq Quarto The Ungrateful Favourite a Tragedy by a Person of Honour Quarto Sold by Samuel Speed at the Rain-bow near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleet-street 1665. FINIS