many accidents fall out fatally that can have no second cause ordinatly assigned to them much less prospected in them but must be referred meerly to divine will and pleasure unless you will have accidentall instruments that interven inordinately to be such 13. The Physicall fate they will have to be a series of pure naturall causes c. viz. betwixt the stars the elements the temperament the inclination the manners the action and the issue or event now where are all these causes knit together in the efficient the form the matter or the end How are they worthy to be called causes or so proved How are they pure naturall and necessary causes when some of them are voluntary and contingent what connexion of them is that which carrys on prime and second causes naturall and voluntary necessary and contingent with one fatall force or inevitable agitation what series is that which as hath been said is so often interrupted what copulation betwixt the first and the last when as by their own confession the stars are not the causes of all events neither doe all those effects fall out necessarily whereof they are the cause How are they fatall then or their complement of fate 14. Whether in the series both of fate and of fortune although two contraries Astrologers have not delivered the same order and connexion of causes as the stars tempers manners actions events or else what difference doe they make between them Nay wherefore doe the same Authors speak of fate and fortune so promiscuously and indiscriminately especially in their prognosticating or predicting way Is it not because they are not able to distinguish them Or is it not because they are conscious of a fortuitousness of event even in their strictest fatality 15. Whether in the series of fatall causes the effect doth follow the universall indefinite equivocall and remote or else the univocall proximate specificall and particular cause And which of these is that which doth determine and distinguish the effect Does not a man generate a man and a Beast a Beast what ever the position of the stars be Those that have been borne in the same region at the same moment under the same position have they all been the same nay how divers have they been for all that in their ingenies their fortunes and fates And why so but because they have taken their severall affections and inclinations from their particular causes 16. As for second causes means agents instruments seeing God Almighty makes use of them to bring his own purposes to pass not out of any defect or necessity but to make his own efficiency the more perceptible Yee seeing he oft-times renders the most noble and convenient means ineffectuall and uses the meanest and unaptest of them to the producing of very eminent effects Why then should we be bound to lurke at that order which God himself observes not why should our faith be taught to respect or rest upon the middle things in a prejudice to that providence which is the absolute beginning and end of all 17. Whether the second causes be not ordained as the remedies rather than as the means of fate or fortune providence it self that has determined such an accident or event has it not also ordained second means to help and relieve in such a case wherfore are the creatures and their offices created to such ends if they be not to be used to such ends for which they were created what ever the fate or fortune be is there not a naturall Law imprest in every creature to labour for the conservation of it self both in its being and well being To what end hath God given men a mind will reason affections counsell deliberation science art observation experiment means instruments c. but as well prudently and diligently to discern procure fortify prevent remedy as thankfully to accept or humbly to submit Hath not the Spirit of God secretly and sweetly suggested to his dearest children in their sudden and extraordinary perils and perplexities even present advices and succours besides the inward consolations and confirmations of his grace yea is not this one cause why men are kept so ignorant of future accidents and of their utmost issues after that they are already happened that men might not only prepare for them but make use of such means as God himself hath prepared against them Otherwise should they not tempt God in a neglect of them 18. Whether there be not in the whole course of nature in the universall world and especially throughout the whole Church of Christ farre more effectuall causes means orders connexions rules guides guards helpes of life of health peace libertie society c. for counsell actions passions accidents events than the coelestiall bodies can possibly be ought these then to be respected more than all they or yet in comparison to them 19. Who is able to bring into one series or can reconcile to truth the old Philosophicall opinions about the exercise or execution of Fate by second causes As whether by Angels Spirits Geniusses Demons Devills by the Soul of the world by the Souls of men by the totall subservience of Nature by the motions and influences of the Starres and caelestiall bodies by sensible agents by artificiall instruments yea and by very accidents and casualties Christians know and acknowledge all these creatures to be the ministers or instruments of providence The Angells doing his will are the more eminent ministers both of his mercies and judgements administring not only in temporalls and in spiritualls but likewise to eternalls And if it be so as Philosophie sayes that they are the Intelligencies that move the caelestiall orbes then have they an ordination over the administration of the Starres The Devills are not only permitted but wisely and justly used in the execution of temptations tryalls judgements But how comes in Fate and Fortune who can tell unlesse they intrude among the Devills and be indeed of their foysting in As for the heavenly bodyes they are to be confest as of Gods ordination and employment in their order light motions and prodigious appearances But he makes speciall use of mens reason understanding wills affections memories counsells deliberations policies vocations societies arts artifices Lawes Customes actions and experiments in the government of the world and yet more especially their gifts graces duties offices services in the governing of his Church Last of all come in the whole hoste of creatures to act here as he hath ordained Now what fatation or fatall necessitation to man among all these Angels or Devills can but inject into the mind they cannot compell no nor yet incline the will That 's only for the infinite power of God himself to doe men as to naturall civill and morall acts are still actors in their own liberty As for bodyes Coelestiall or terrestriall they work directly but upon bodyes only and the terrestriall are held and found to be the more proximately particularly and sensibly disposing Besides
we must doe contrarywise and those which wee place here fortunate must there be infortunate by raising malignant stars Also for the destroying or prejudicing any let there be made an Image under the ascension of that man whom thou wouldst destroy and prejudice and thou shalt make unfortunate the Lord of the House of his life the Lord of the ascending and the Moon and the Lord of the house of the Moon and the Lord of the house of the Lord ascending and the tenth house and the Lord thereof c. 23 The youth to be initiated to Diaination by magick spells ought to be chosen sound without sicknesse ingenious comely perfect in his members of a quick spirit eloquent in speech that in him the divine power might be conversant as in the good houses that the minde of the youth having quickly attained experience may be restored to its divinity If therefore thou shalt be a man perfect in the sound understanding of Religion and piously and most constantly meditatest on it and without doubting believest and art such an one on whom the authority of holy Rites and Nature hath conferred dignity above others and one whom the divine powers contemn not thou shalt be able by praying consecrating sacrificing invocating to attract spiritual and coelestial Poems and to imprint them on those things thou pleasest and by it to vivifie every magical work 24. Sacred words have not their power in Magical operations from themselves as they are words but from the occult divine powers working by them in the mindes of those who by faith adhere to them by which words the secret power of God as it were through Conduit pipes is transmitted into them who have eares purged by Faith and by most pure conversation and invocation of the divine Names are made the habitation of God and capable of these divine influences whosoever therefore useth rightly these words or Names of God with that purity of minde in that manner and order as they were delivered shall both obtain and do many wonderful things 25. To work Miracles by divine names words seales characters all must be done in most pure gold or virgin parchment pure clean and unspotted also with Inke made for this purpose of the smoak of consecrated waxe lights or incense and holy water The actor also must be purifyed and cleansed by sacrifice and have an infallible hope a constant Faith and his minde lifted up to the most high God if he would surely obtain this divine power 26. There are four kinds of divine phrenzy proceeding from several Deities viz. from the Muses from Dyonisius from Apollo and from Venus The first phrenzy therefore proceeding from the Muses stirs up and tempers the minde and makes it divine by drawing superiour things to inferiour things by things natural Of which there are nine degrees c. The second phrenzie proceeds from Dionysius this doth by expiations exteriour and interiour and by conjurations by mysteries by solemnities rites temples and observations divert the soul into the minde the supreme part of it self and makes it a fit and pure temple of the Gods in which the divine spirits may dwell which the soul then possessing as the associate of life is filled by them with felicity wisdome and oracles not in signes and marks and in conjectures but in a certain concitation of the minde and free motion c. The third kinde of phrenzy proceeds from Apollo viz. From the minde of the world this doth by certain sacred mysteries vowes sacrifices adorations invocations and certain sacred Arts or certain secret confections by which the spirit of their God did infuse vertue make the soul rise above the minde by joyning it with Deities and Daemons c. The fourth kind of phrenzie proceeds from Venus and it doth by a fervent love convert and trans-unite the minde to God and makes it altogether like to God as it were the proper image of God The soul therefore being converted and made like to God is so formed of God that it doth above all intellect know all things by a certain essential contract of divinity Doth besides that it hath by its integrity obtained the spirit of prophecy sometimes work wonderful things and greater then the nature of the world can do which works are called Miracles 27. It was a custome amongst the Ancients that they who should receive Answers certain expiations and sacrifices being first celebrated and divine worship ended did religiously lye down even in a consecrated chamber or at least on the shrines of sacrifices c. 28. Whosoever would receive divine Dreams let him be well disposed in body his brain free from vapours and his mind from perturbations and let him that day abstain from supper neither let him drink that which will inâ—briaâ—â— let him have a clean and neat ehamber also exâ—rcized or consecrated in the which a perfume being made his temples annointed things causing dreams being put on his fingers and the representation of the heavens being put under his head and paper being consecrated his Prayers being said let him go to bed earnestly meditating on that thing which he desireth to know so shall he see most true and certain dreams with the true illumination of his intellect c. 29. Every one that works by Lots must go about it with a minde well disposed not troubled not distracted and with a strong desire firm deliberation and constant intention of knowing that which shall be desired Moreover he must being qualified with purity chastity and holinesse towards God and the coelestials with an undoubted hope firm faith and sacred Orations invocate them that he may be made worthy of receiving the divine spirits and knowing the divine pleasre For if thou shalt be qualified they will discover to thee most great secrets by vertue of Lots and thou shalt become a true Prophet and able to speak truth concerning things past present and to come of which thou shalt be demanded 30. Whosoever being desirous to come to the supreme state of the soul goeth to receive Oracles must go to them being chastely and devoutly disposed being pure and clean to go to them so that his soul be polluted with no filthinesse and free from all guilt He must also so purifie his Minde and Body as much as he may from all diseases and passions and all irrational conditions which adhere to it as rust to iron by rightly composing and disposing those things which belong to the tranquility of the minde for by this means he shall receive the truer and more efficacious Oracles 31 We must therefore first observe cleanness in food in works in affections and to put away all filthinesse and perturbations of the minde and whatsoever sense or spirit that offends and whatsoever things are in the mind unlike to the heavens not only if they be in minde and spirit but also if they be in the body or about the body for such an external cleannesse is believed not to help
contingent if it once be plainly foreseen or certainly foretold Because the nature and property of a meer contingent is to be so both in respect of the active and of the passive power viz. unknown sudden indeterminate incogitate rare seldome alike potentiall not actuall not necessary from no naturall or necessary cause And all this yet more especially when the externall contingent or accident depends upon the internall contingent the arbitrariness or liberty of the will and actions 28. How can a contingent be foreknown or foreseen that is seen before it be seen In as much as the knowledge of such a thing is primarily and directly to the senses and but secondarily and accidentally to the understanding 29. How the positions and motions of the stars can either cause or sign a future contingent when as divine providence disposes of both these after a quite contrary manner For the positions and motions of the stars are disposed of according to a necessity that they must needs so be but future contingents are disposed of according to a contingency that they may be otherwise or may not be at all The Stars as they are so they work Now what congruity betwixt a necessary cause and a contingent effect 30. Are not Fate and Fortune two contraries and respectively two inconsistencies how then are the Stars the mistresses both of Fate and Fortune in one and the same effect And how can there be one way of predicting a thing of absolute necessity and of meer contingency 31. For as much as the same Starres or Planets have not the same aspects or conjunctions in all places and some starres are to be discerned in one place and not in another Now then must not the judiciall Astrologer make his judgement either from one place and not from another or else must he not be in many places at once to make his observation compleat Or else what judgement can he make 32. Seeing the heavens and starres are so distant the eye-sight so infirm and the senses so oft deceived in the proper object and the Artists observation tyed up to one single and weak sense Is it not now with starre-gazers peeping at the Planets as with Saylors to whom the Earth Castles Woods and Mountains doe seem to move and as things single afarre off seem double and black things white or white things black and as a straight oar part in the water and part out of it appears crooked and broaken what certain judgement then can here be to reason from a solitary sense so easily and oft deceived 33. Since things inanimate or livelesse are naturally subordinate and subject to things of life things lively to things sensible things sensible to things reasonable and things reasonable to things spirituall how comes it to passe that men should be bound and constrained by the starres and Devills through the starres bound and compelled by Men What reason can the Magician give for this binding of devills and Spirits and the Astrologer for this binding of men and wills For to me it seems unreasonable rhat unreasonable creatures such as the starres are should have the Dominion and power assigned over reasonable Souls 34. Whether both the swiftness and the slowness of the starres motions hinder not their influences and impressions upon inferior and sublunary matters at leastwise inhibit not the observation above all forbid not the prognostication thereupon For if as themselves have sayd the heavenly bodyes move with such concitation and celerity as to change their face ten thousand times a day how is it possible there should either be any impression on the starres part or observation on the Artists and art in a transiency so imperceptible 35. In as much as the starres move so rapidly as in a poynt or moment of time and every point or moment of time makes an immense alteration in the heavens and every point of alteration is of moment to alter the Constellation and the least altering of the Constellation occasions a vast aberration to the Calculator Adde to all these how hard it is to observe and compare the points and moments of the Childs birth What point of discretion was it then to make any matter of moment of a Genethliacks calculation 36. What naturall reason is to be rendred why the starres should be more notable for influentially operating and efficaciously inclining at the point of the edition parturition or birth and not rather in the generation conception formation delineation animation besides the whole course of life and conservation Since not in that but in these is the great operation of the vitall spirits the disposition mixture and temper of the Elements the composition constitution union and perfection of the whole Will they have their Planets to respect more an extrinsecall act than the intrinsecall more an accidentall and adventitiall than the essentiall and substantiall more a lesse principall than the more principall acts Is not this somewhat semblable to that superstitious observation for a man to measure his fortune or successe that day by his first setting his foot over the threshold or stepping forth of his own doors 37. Whether doe those starres bear more sway that rule at the beginning or those that rule at the end of a business would not one impute most to them that are in force at the making up of the match Wherefore then doe they teach men not only so superstitiously but so preposterously to look only to those starres that reign at the undertaking of an enterprize and not to heed those rather that have the dominion at the dispatch 38. Are the starres only signing things future and not designing things present And doe the ruling Planets enact decrees and make lawes contrary to all other Rulers only to be in force or take effect after their own deposition or decease Else how is it that the conjunction or constellation at the Birth should be so powerfull at the death it self being past and as it were decreast long before Suppose there be a malign and exitiall aspect at the Birth and a benign and auspicious in the life and so at the death why may not the fortunateness of the latter prevail so farre as to prevent the infortunity of the former Unless it be so that these Planetary dominations I mean Aspects Positions Conjunctions Constellations govern not by their present power but by the lawes of their predecessors 39. Whether the life and being of one mans nativity be depending not upon his own but upon the Constellation of another mans Nativity For if it be not so how then can the Caloulator or Birth-caster tell that such a man shall have so many wives or that such woman shall have so many husbands but that the very lives of the one must needs be subordinate and subjected to the fortunes of the other 40. Whether the Horoscope or the Ascendant in the birth of one particular person doth comprehend the judgement of the whole disposition of a Country Kingdome or
in like manner obnoxious to vices 44. That the Stars are numerable and the number of them is 1600. saith one 1022. saith another 800. saith another more and less say others 44. That the least Star in the Heavens or the least visible is eighteen times bigger than the earth 45. That the Stars of the first honour and magnitude are bigger than the earth 107. times of the second 86. or 90. times of the third 72. times of the fourth 54. times of the fift 31. or 36. times of the sixt 18. times Have not they judged these old dimensions to be errors that have since altered them and whether theirs be not errors too let others judge or let them judge one another by their various opinions in this kind 46. That the Planets when they are lowest or are nearest the earth yet are they so many Semidameters distant from it viz. the moon 53. Mercury 65. Venus 167. The Sun 1122. or as some say 1124. Mars 1216. Jupiter 8854. Saturn 14378. 47. That when they are highest or most remote then are they thus distant viz. the Moon 64. Mercury 167. Venus 1070. the Sun 1210. Mars 8022. Jupiter 14369. Saturne 18500. 48. That the sphear of the fixed Stars is 14000. Semidameters distant from the earth others say 19000. others say 20081½ 49. That a Semidameter is 913. German miles 50. That the Moon is distant from the center of the earth 33. Semidameters or 30129. German miles so that the singular regions of the ayr have 11. Semidameters or 10043. German miles if the distance be computed from the center of the earth Likewise Mercury 64. Semidiameters or 58584. Germane miles Venus 167. semidiameters 152471. German miles the Sun 1120. semidameters 1022560. German miles Mars 1220. semidameters 1113860. German miles Jupiter 6678. semidameters 8103788. German miles Saturn 20100. semidameters or 18360430. German miles The eighth sphear 40220. semimidameters 36720860. German miles 51. That Saturn is 22. times bigger then the whole earth Jupiter 14. Mars lesser 13. The Sun greater 139 2 8. Venus lesse 6 1 â— Mercury 19. the moon 42. And again Saturn greater 91 1 â— Jupiter 95½ Mars 1â…“ The Sun 162. and 166 Venus lesse 37. Mercury 22. the Moon 1900. 52. That it is from the earth to the Moon 15150. miles From the Moon to Mercury 12812. miles From Mercury to Venus as many From Venus to the Sun 23438. miles From the Sun to Mars 15425. miles From Mars to Jupiter 68721. miles From Jupiter to Saturn as many From Saturn to the firmament 120485. miles 53. That for the order and placing of the Stars and Planets the Sun is in the midst of the Seaven and above that Mars and above that Jupiter and above that Saturn but beneath the Sun Venus and beneath that Mercury and beneath that the Moon 54. That Mercury follows next to Mars and next it Venus and next it the Sun and next it the Moon 55. That the Sun is in the last place but one or two and Venus above it and next after Mars 56. That Mercury is next to the Sun and under that Venus 56. That both Sun and Moon are above the fixed Stars 57. That the Sun is the Center of the world 58. That the Light of the Stars is materiall is a body is void of matter is a spirituall substance 59. That the Light of the Stars is of a middle nature betwixt corporeall and incorporeall 60. Is a substantiall form 61. Is a manifestation of colour 62. Is a fire 63. Is an accident reall or intentionall either or both 64. That the Light of the Stars is proper is mutuatitious is partly one partly another 65. That the Heavens are unmoveable 66. That the lower world turns round 67. That the moving Intelligences or Angles are the assisting forms of Stars 68. That the Stars fly like Birds in the ayr 69. That the Stars make a melodious harmony in their motion or revolution 70. That the celestiall bodies not only move with an insensible Musick but are moved by a sensible musick 71. That there is in sounds a vertue to receive the heavenly gifts and that the Heavens doe consist by an harmonicall composition and doe rule and cause all things by harmonicall tones and motions 72. That there are two half Orbes carryed about the earth the one all fire the other most ayr and they two as they wheel about make the day and the night 73. That the Stars erratile are some male some female yea sometimes male and sometimes female 74. That the Heavens and celestiall bodies are animated and have souls and souls properly so called 75 That the world the Heavens the Stars and the elements have a soul with which they cause a soul in these inferior and mixed bodies 76. That they have also a spirit which by the mediating of the soul is united to the body 78. That the souls of the Stars are not created together with their bodies but are extrinsecally added to them 79. That the world lives hath a soul and sense 80. That the above named souls have reason 81. That the soul of the world is placed chiefly in the Sun 8â— That the â—oul of the earth is not to be thought as it were the soul of some contemptible body but to be rationall and also intelligent yea and to be a 〈◊〉 83 That the souls of creatures and men are infuâ—ed into their bodies by the Stars 84 That Comets are the souls of famous 〈◊〉 triumphing in heaven 85. That Comets be fiery animals walking upon the superficies of the Elements 80. That the first principle of all things is water from which all things proceed and into which all are resolved 87. That all things are generated through the condensation and rarefaction of the ayr 88. That the Sun Moon and Stars have their originall from the earth 89. That the Sun and the Stars are begotten of clouds 90. That the whole body of nature hath the originall from the Sun and the Moon That the Sun makes Stars out of clean Chrystalline water 91. That the Heavens are a book in which the manners actions fortunes and fates of all are singularly written 92. That by the Mathematicall we receive the caelestiall vertues as motion sense life speech c. 93. That amongst all Mathematicall things Numbers as they have more of forme in them so also are more efficacious by which the next access to prophecying is had 94. That in Gestures there lyes the reason of numbers and great vertues c. 95. That the very elements of Letters have some divine numbers by which collected from the proper names of things we may draw conjectures concerning occult things to come 96. That by the number of Letters we may find out the ruling Stars of any one that is born and whether the husband or wife shall dye first and know the prosperous or unlucky events of the rest of our works 97. That the child cannot be long-lived that is born under the horned moon
experimenting Augur And is not that such a Prognosticating Sooth-sayer or Sooth-saying Prognosticator as doth it only from his own conjecture and hath nothing to proove it but meerly the experiment 4. Who is a Witch Not only he that acts by a diabolicall compact and power but he that acts praestigiously and delusively upon any part of nature whatsoever Such were the Magicians of Egypt Exod 7. 11. And if they will rest with the Rabbinicall description of the word and the man that is meant by it it signifies such an one as professeth the art of the Stars to deduce a Genius down from heaven and inâ—ice it by certain characters and figures fabricated at certain hours and under certain courses of the Stars and so using or imploying it to any mans commodity or discommodity as he listeth yea and for the presagition and praediction of things hidden absent and future 5. Who is a Charmer He that useth spels figures characters ligatures suspensions conjurations or as the word it self speaketh conjoyneth conjunctions Now if you aske what kind of conjunctions I answer besides that with the Devill in a compacted confederacy and that with those of their own society why not those also amongâ—t the Starrs and Planets Seeing those also are conjunctions of mens own conjoyning that is made to conspire to those significations and events to which themselves were never yet agreed 6. Who is a consulter with familiar spirits What he that hath consociation with a wretched Imp or confariation with a petty Maisterell or that mutters and mumbles from a Spirit in a bottle in a bag or in his own belly or he that interrogates such a Familiar either mediately by consulting and assenting or immediatly by tempting and provoking Yea and he too that can whisper if not with the Spirits that rule in the ayr yet with those spirits which he sayes not only move but animate the celestiall bodyes And then proclame you a pleasing presage if you will but fill either his bottle or his belly or his bag For he tells you the Spirit will not speak to your advantage if these be empty 7. Who is a Wizzard A cunning man a wise-man a Magician an Artist or in truth a Sciolist That is one whose idle speculation of vain curiosities makes him arrogantly to presume or superstitiously to be presumed to know and foreknow that which in good earnest he knows not neither is well and throughly able to judge of it after it is now not unknown to all For saving the sagacâ—ty of Satans suggestions he knows as much by the understanding of a reasonable man as he doth by the corner of a Chimera-beast Ask the Rabbinicall Magician and he has so much understanding as to tell you what is meant by that I count the Jewish wizzardly fable not here worth the relating no though the wizzard himself be translated from it 8. who is a Necromancer He that takes upon him to Presage or Divine to the living from the dead idest Dead corps dead sacrifices dead idols dead pictures dead figures yea and dead or liveless Signes and Planets too The Holy Ghost uses other words plain enough expressing both their votes and feats or arts and acts Exod. 7. 11. Isay 47. 13. Ezek. 21. 21 22. Hos 4. 12. Dan. 5 11. to let them understand it is not in all their evasion to escape his comprehension yea and that in some such words as were otherwise of honest signification and laudable use To let them know again that it is not the arrogation or attribution of a good name or tearm that can make it a good art or lawfull profession And therefore they have small cause to glory in usurping to themselves such an appellation as the Scripture sometimes retains in a middle acception But have I not said enough both to include them according to the scope of the place as also to exclude them according to the tenour of the case I have here handled Isa 41. 21 22 23 24. Produce your cause saith the Lord bring forth your strong reasons saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth and shew us what shall happen Let them shew the former things what they be that we may consider them and know the latter end of them or declare us things for to come Shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that ye are Gods yea doe good or doe evill that we may be dismayed and behold it together Behold ye are of nothing and you work of nought an abomination is he that chooseth you Whether the Devill and his prognosticating Divines be able to indure the disquisition and examination of God and of his divine Prophets Produce your cause make manifest if you can your whole art and profession Wherefore doe ye adjure one another to Sorcerie in your half-hinted mysteries are neither God nor good men capable of them nor worthy to receive them Come produce your causes let us hear what naturall causes there can be for your so peremptory predictions upon arbitrary notions and fortuitous events Bring forth your strong men your Artists and your strong reasons the true Demonstrations of your Art Let them the Idols their Oracles Augurs and all the aruspicate Presagers bring forth into reall art or effect and shew us by true propositions what shall happen by way of contingent or meer accident Let them shew the former things what they be For if they be ignorant of things past heretofore how can they be intelligent of things future or that shall be hereafter And if things past be not yet present to them doubtless things to come are farre absent from them But let them shew the former things that we may consider them How recollect them as if out of our mind and memory Nay that we may see whether their recollection of them be worth our consideration Or set our heart upon them to give credit or assent unto them And know the latter end of them For if they can recall things from the first they are the better able to inform us what shall become of them to the very last And if things be present to them from the beginning we may the rather believe them that things are not absent or hidden from them as touching their latter end Or declare us things for to come If they be blind behind so that they cannot look back but have only their eyes in their foreheads to see before them then let them even as concerning those things make us to hear sc both infuse a faith and bind a conscience to believe them as touching the futures which they take upon them to foretell What talk ye of some immediate and imminent probables such as even sense may ghesse at or present hopes or fears easily suggest Shew the things that are to come hereafter Manifest your prescience of things aâ—ar off as well as your present sense of things neer at hand But alas ye are not able certainly to
them which Moses himself in Deuteronomie calleth Gods of the earth To the which all Nations were attributed not signifying others than the heavenly starrs and their souls That the heavens and the heavenly bodies are animated with certain divine souls is not only the opinion of Poets and Philosophers but also the assertion of the Sacred Scriptures and of the Catholicks For Ecclesiastes also describeth the soul of heaven Coelestiall bodies are animated because they are said to receive commands from God which is only agreeable to a reasonable nature for it is written I have injoyned a command on all the stars Moreover Job seemeth to have fully granted that the starâ—s are not free from the stain of sin for there we read The stars also are not clean in his sight Which cannot verily be referred to the brightnesse of their bodyes The Masters of the Hebrews think that the names of Angells were imposed on them by Adam according to that which is written he Lord brought all things which he had made unto Adam that he should name them and as he called any thing so the name of it was Hence the Hebrew Meculiabs think together with the Magicians that it is in the power of man to impose names upon Spirits Many prophecying Spirits were wont to shew themselves and be associats with the souls of them that were purified examples whereof there are many in sacred writ As in Abraham and his bond-mayd Hagar in Jacob Gedâ—on Elias Tobias Daniel and many more So Adam had familiarity with the Angell Raziel Shem the Son of Noah with Tophiel Abraham with Zadkiel Isaac and Iacob with Peliel Ioseph Joshua and Daniel with Gabrâ—el Moses with Metattron Elias with Malhiel Tobias the younger with Raphael David with Cerniel Mannoah with Phadaâ—l Cenez with Cerrel Ezekiel with Hasmael Esaras with Uriel Solomon with Michael There is a kind of frenzy which proceeds from the mind of the world This doth by certain sacred mysteries vows sacrifices adorations innovations and certain sacred arts or certain secret confections by which the Spirit of their God did infuse vertue make the soul rise above the mind by joyning it with deities and Daemons So we read concerning the Ephod which being applyed they did presently prophesy Rabbi Levi affirmeth that no propheticall dream can be kept back from his effect longer than twenty two years So Joseph dreamed in the seventeenth year of his age and it was accomplished in the 39. year of his age A humane soul when it shall be rightly purged and expiated doth then being loosed from all impurity break forth with a liberall motion ascends upwards receives divine things instructs it self when happily it seems to be instructed elsewhere neither doth it then need any remembrance or demonstration by reason of the industry of it self as by its mind which is the head and Pilot of the Soul it doth imitating by its own nature the Angels attain to what it desires not by succession or time but in a moment For David when he had not learning was of a Sheepheard made a Prophet and most expert of divine things Salomon in the dream of one night was filled with the knowledge of all things above and below So Isaiah Ezekiel Daniel and the other Prophets and Apostles were taught If there be a deprecation a magicall deprecation made for the destruction of enemies let it be commemorated that God destroyed the Gyants in the Deluge of waters and the builders of Babel in the confusion of tongues Sodome and Gomorah in the rayning of fire the hoste of Pharaoh in the Red Sea and the like adding to these some maledictions out of the Psalms or such as may be gathered out of other places of Scripture In like manner when we are to deprecate still magically deprecate against dangers of waters let us commemorate the saving of Noah in the flood the passing of the children of Israel thorough the Red Sea and Christ walking dry shod upon the waters and saving a Ship from shipwrack commanding the winds and waves and lifting up Peter sinking in the waters of the Sea and such like But if a prayer be necessary for obtaining oracles or dreams whether it be to God Angels or Hero's there are many places offer themselves out of the old Testament where God is said to talk with men promising in very many places presages and revelations besides the propheticall dreams of Jacob Joseph Pharoah Daniel Nebuchadnezzar in the old Testament and the Revelation of John and Paul in the new In consecrations magicall consecrations of Fire Water Oyl Books Swords c. Read holy Writ and thence apply such attributes names words phrases examples as are suitable c. We call Daemonâ— holy because in them God dwels whose name they are often said to bear whence it is read in Exodus I will send my Angell who shall goe before thee observe him neither think that he is to be despised for my name is in him In like manner certain confections magicall confections are called holy into which God hath put the speciall beam of his vertue as we read in Exodus of the sweet perfume and Oyl of annointing We reverence the image of a Lamb because it representeth Christ and the picture of a Dove because it signifieth the Holy Ghost and the forms of a Lynn Oxe Eagle and a Man signifying the Evangelists and such things which we find expressed in the Revelations of the Prophets and in divers places of the holy Scripture Moreover these things confer to the like Revelations and dreams and therefore are called sacred pictures Amongst the Jews black dayes are the 17. day of June because on that day Moses brake the â—ables Manasses erected an Idoll in the Sanctum Sanctorum and the walls of Jerusalem are supposed to have been pulled down by their enemies Likewise the 9. of July is a black day with them because on that day the destruction of both the Temples happened And every nation by this way may easily make the like calculation of dayes fortunate or unfortunate to them And the Magicians command that these holy and religious dayes be observed no less than the Planetary dayes and the celestiall dispositions c. Whosoever rhou art who desirest to operate in this faculâ—y in the first place implore God the Father being one that thou mayst be one worthy of his favour be clean within and without in a clean place because it is written in Leviticus Every man which shall approach those things which are consecrated in whom there is uncleanness shall perish before the Lord. God accepteth for a most sweet odour those things which are offered to him by a man purified and well disposed and together with that perfume condescendeth to your prayer and oblation as the Psalmist singeth Let my prayer O Lord be directed to thee as incense in thy sight Moreover the soul being the off-spring and image of God himself is delighted in these perfumes and odours receiving them by
the validitie of their art by the vertue of a vehement and strong imagination For will not a strong imagination and a superstitious faith work as well without a magicall fibrication or Astrologicall configuration as with them Nay are they not in themselves such a kind of art and can they not invent or erect to themselves such a kind of operation and that every whit as effectuall as those already invented and erected 23. Is it not one and the same kind of Faith in a magicall Operator and Astrologicall or genethliacall Calculator a maleficall Sorcerer a prestigious Juggler and a superstitious Consulter or Assentor If not it s their part who would discriminate themselves to shew us the differences that are between them 24. Whether Astrologers as touching their way of Predicting and Presaging ought to be believed although they speak true and it come to passe accordingly In regard that truth is spoken ignorantly unwittingly conjecturally out of uncertain grounds out of multiplicity of words out of ambiguous equivocation by accident and not only by a divine permission but by a Satanicall suggestion and all this with purpose to delude with greater untruths Doe we not use to mistrust many truths in others for the telling of one lye why then should we believe many lyes in These for the telling of one truth 25. If this be a thing credible that there is an ordinary and perpetuall sufficiency and efficiency whereby to foretell of future events generall and particular in Starrs and Planets wherefore then did God still raise up his own Prophets to foretell what should befall and them extraordinary called and but temporally inlightened to that purpose 26. How can Christians have a faith in Magick or Astrologie which since the time of Christ have occasioned so many idolatrous superstitious sacrilegious atheisticall prophane and dissolute Heresies and all of them so utterly repugnant to the faith 27. Whether the magisteriall Dictates of a Jewish Rabbine or a Pagan Philosopher or a Christianizer compact of them both be sufficient either to ground or move a rationall credence much lesse a religious Creed or belief 28. Whether a faith in the contrary hath not prevailed to evacuate the vertue and annihilate the efficacy of a magicall operation and Astrologicall Prediction And what reason else is there why their arts and abilities have so often failed them and they failed in them before the face and presence of faithfull and pious men 29. What faithfull Christian professor sometimes peradventure addicted to the study and practice of Magick and Astrologie whose very Faith upon his conversion moved him not to repent recant reprove reject both his presaging arts books and Societie 30. Whether Magicians and Astrologers have verely and indeed a faith in their own arts and artifices If so wherefore then use they so manifold ambiguities amphibologies equivocations obscurities insignificancies reticencies restrictions cautions fallacies and evasions CHAP. III. 3. From the temptings of Curiosity 1. HAth not the Scripture sufficiently forbidden to tempt God by a curious scrutinie after all such things as pertain to his secret Will Deut. 29. 29. Prov. 25. 27. Eccles 3. 22. Psal 131. 1. Eccles 7. 16. Job 21. 21 22. Act. 1. 7. 19. 19. Coloss 1. 18. 1 Thess 5. 1. 2 Tim. 1. 4. Deut. 6. 16. Psal 78. 8. 19. Mat 16. 1. Luk. 1â— 16. 2. Are there not many naturall things imperscrutable to humane curiosity and therefore not to be attempted without a tempting of God Psal 139. 6. Eccles 11. 6. Prov. 304. Job 38. per tot â—9 per tot 41. 1 2 c. Joh. 3. 8. 3. If it behoves a Christian man to be wise according to sobrietie even in divine things how much more then in things humane Exod. 19. 21 Exod. 33. 23. Job 11. 7 8 9. Iob 26. 13 14. Psal 131. 1. Eccles 7. 16. 23 24 25. Rom. 12. 3. 4. Whether a curious indagation of things hidden absent future be not a strong argument of an ignorant mind an impatient spirit and a discontented heart a guilty conscience a sensuall concupiscence and an idle life As not capable of what he inquires not submitting to his own condition not satisfied with the present not pacified as concerning his own deserts and feares not leaving his own soul but his body only and not occupyed in any true vocation 5. Whether all such curious inquisitions and supervacaneous investigations as are above tearmed toyes obstruse vanities difficult follies studious impertinencies unquiet sloaths or lazy businesses pertain any whit to the perfection of the understanding and be not rather the distemper and disease of the fansie and the very phrenzy and madness of the mind 6. To what end is a curious prying into or interrogating after future accidents Of whose ignorance there 's no unhappinesse punishment reproach and of whose knowledge there 's no glory reward comfort That makes a man neglect the present certain in looking after the uncertain future and so lose the substance in gaping after the shadow Whose Prediction or precognition if of good and true forestalls a man so in his expectation that it wholly takes off the edge of the fruition if of good and false it nourishes only with vain hopes and makes but more unhappy in their frustration if of bad and true it makes a man miserable in his own apprehension before he be so in the event if of bad and false it makes him make himself miserable whereas otherwise he needed not 7. What arguments are these so old so oft repeated to urge or invite men to a curious investigation of things future and fortuitous Because it likens men to the Gods it argues the diviness of the Soul it prefers men to Beasts And doth it so indeed Nay rather hath not his curiosity brought men to be like the Devill What was the first depravation of the divine Image in the soul but that And have not beasts by their own confession a more perfect presagition by their senses than men with all their reason can attain unto 8. Wherefore are Astrologers and especially the Genethliacks so curious in inquiring into others fates and fortunes and yet of all men most incurious in looking into their own 9. Whether the speculation and whole practice of Magick and Astrologie besides the superstition and sorcery be not a very tempting of God at least through vain curiosity 10. Whether the curious Artists doe not indeed tempt God in his present power perfection truth wisedome goodnesse holinesse mercy justice prescience and providence and that according to one or other or many or most if not all of these ensuing particulars 1. In presuming of or pretending to Gods knowledge approbation power and assistance without nay and against his word and will 2. In prescribing and circumscribing him to circumstances and especially such as are their own superstitious ceremonies 3. In labouring to allure God unto their own wils rather than submitting theirs to his 4. In searching not only
besides the Scriptures but besides all that God hath been pleased to reveal 5 In deserting of Gods known way to invent or prescribe their own way for the cognition acquisition or effection of any thing 6. In tempting the Devill to tempt God 7. In consulting diabolically yea and compacting with the Devill either explicitly or implicitly 8. Interrogating Angels Devils Daemons Spirits Geniuses Souls Dead men Planets Prodigies Sacrifices Carcasses Entrayls Beasts Birds Fishes Serpents Idols Images Figures Characters c. and so making them their tutours and instructers as concerning these things to which they themselves were never instituted by God 9. In assimilating and comparing men to God so mainly for such things as belong to no part of the image and similitude of God in man or else have but the least and most imperfect foot-steps thereof 10. In pretending those arts and acts to manifest and make known God yea and in peculiar manner to conduce and direct to him which in truth serve but to obscure him alien him and utterly seduce from him 11. In pretending to religion devotion conscience even in matters of more impiety and profanesse 12. In being irreverent in the exercise of a true and superstitious in that of a false religion 13. In asserting a true and due religion or adoration as well among Jews and Pagans as among Christian professors 14. In acting without faith or out of a presumption by placing faith upon a wrong object or to a wrong end 15. In having a faith in such things as God hath neither proposed nor revealed 16. In trusting to and being more affected with humane predictions and presages than divine promises and providence 17. In wavering in a truth and doubting of a thing most certain and yet being peremptory in a falsehood and making themselves most certain in things very doubtfull 18. In presuming to have such a knowledge extraordinarily infused which is ordinarily acquisite 19. In placing the deepest knowledge and boasting the highest learning to be in the lowest and meanest matters 20. In neglecting the acquisition of the greater truth and gift through a studious inquisition after a lesse 21. In prying or diving into profound sublime abstruse occult speculations without due application or true relation unto life practice state calling manners vertue conscience religion the Gospell or God himself 22. In seeking only that they may know to know or else for pride ambition vain glory faction contention policy covetousnesse or other sinister ends 23. In not referring the knowledge of the Creatures to their due and necessary ends 24. In referring the information of the intellect chiefly to the indulging and promoting of the sense 25. In being busily inquisitive after thing improper and impertinent and such as directly concern not Gods glory their own sanctification and the edification of others 26. In making professions of such arts and artifices as are neither necessary nor usefull either to Church or Common-wealth 27. In making it their main studies to know those things whereof a man may be innocently ignorant and can hardly be profitably instructed 28. In attributing much or all to those kind of sciences disciplines arts occupations which good men are little acquainted with and in which they that are most versed and occupyed are not good 29. In arrogating to themselves a knowledge above their proper ingenie capacitie facultie education office and so easily putting truth for error and error for truth Insetting up and admiring their own inventions and fancies for the secret gifts and peculiar inspirations of Gods spirit 31. In proclaming themselves for admitted unto Gods counsels ere they can endeavour themselves to be entred into his Court 32. In setting after the book of the Scriptures to the book of nature and of the Heavens 32. In thinking to imitate God and nature in those things for which they have neither precept nor liberty 34. In pretending a search and examination of nature where nature hath really neither being cause effect signes means nor end 35. In elevating and extolling nature as a soveraign deity or else in pressing and torturing her as a servile slave 36. In abusing the creatures to such end and uses as God never ordained them their own nature never inclined them neither is a power extraordinary working or consenting to apply them 37. In asking or requiring a singular sign without any singular inspiration or instinct or any just cause reason or necessity 38. In setting up their own signes and making them to signifie according to their own imaginations 39 In attempting to proove approove purge clear ratify conform find and find out by inordinate and undue explorations and tryals 40. In labouring long and much to make an experiment of those things whose utmost use and profit ends in the experiment 41. In still nothing but making experiment of what they have had already vain experiment enough 42. In making experiment a proof where experiment serves for no use In wasting or hazzarding the losse of time health substance credit conscience for the gaining an experiment of that which is no way reparable or proportionable 44. In expecting answerable effects from unapt and unlikely causes 45. In being sloathfull and impatient of Gods time and means 46. In presuming to attain to the end without the use of ordinary and lawfull means 47. In using inordinate and undue means 48. In looking for extraordinary and miraculous satisfaction where the ordinary means are sufficiently afforded 49. In applying grave and serious means to light trifling intents and purposes 50. In admitting and approving of such means and wayes as they cannot but be convinced must needs be of a diabolicall introduction 51. In acting out of their proper and laudable callings 52 In exposing themselves to Satans temptations 53. In not avoyding the occasion nay urging and exposing to it and neverthelesse presuming to escape the danger temptation infection participation 54. In being superstitiously affected with vulgar and vain observations 55. In attributing vertue and efficacy corporeall or spirituall to bare ceremonies circumstances forms figures words characters ligations suspensions circumgestations c. 56. In imagining discoursing practising against the light of nature sense reason conscience and the Scriptures 57. In an impiety or at least temerity of invoking provoking voting devoting imprecating deprecating execrating consecrating adjuring conjuring perjuring c. 58. In prying into what peradventure may befall others and never looking into what may worthily happen unto themselves 59. In making long discursations to learn strange tongues strange characters strange doctrines strange manners strange habits and then returning home to make long and strange discourses of them 60. In publishing studies and works of a light subject unprofitable use and dangerous consequence and that especially in times of publike calamity and judgments to take up mens minds with vanities when they ought every day to meditate upon and expect their deaths Now let them or any one else that can but read what hath lately been compiled
the temerity of calculating numbers given boldness to the impiety of canting or enchanting numbers by which they have pretended and boasted of force and power even over the Starres themselves And what a frivolous distinction is it in ascribing efficacy to distinguish betwixt sensible and rationall numbers Can sense judge of numbers or any thing else but reason only And so betwixt materiall and formall numbers What 's a formall but a meerâ—aery notion if there be no materiall or thing numbred neither is there more than one simple formality of all numbers and that 's a recess from unity or rather excesse of it And if one formality why therefore not one efficacy 53. VVhether the Jewish and Paganish Astrologers have been exact in the computations of times And if time be not exactly computed where will the Planetarian Prognosticator and the Genethliacall Presager begin his Calculation But indeed hath not God therefore concealed the exact computation of time from the beginning of the Creation and reserved it solely to himself that so he may put all audacious Calculators and Prognosticators to silence and confusion 54. VVhether the motions mensurations computations especially the mutations of time and things in time and yet more especially their significations and Predictions are to be disputed and discoursed Astrologically and not rather Theologically since Thelogie teaches the right use and Astrologie but the vile abuse of them all 55. VVhether Astrologie so much of it as may be lawfull or usefull viz. in the observing of times and seasons for Navigation Medicine Husbandry and such like occupations and actions be not really a part of Physicks or naturall Philosophie rather than Astronomie And therefore why doe they not rather seek to inform our understanding and confirm our judgement by sound and plain Physicall reasons than only impose upon our faiths and conjure and charm it by strange and not pure Astronomicall termes 56. Whether all their signall Prognostications even in Physick and Husbandry as blood-letting in such a Sign gelding cattell in such sowing and planting the Moon being so and so be true necessary and advantagious 57. If their Prognosticks so often fail them and abuse the world about the changes of weathers and seasons hot cold dry rainy windy c. for which there may be some naturall cause and probable conjecture who will believe them in Divining and Predicting such accidents and events as belong not to their art 58. Whether the proper matter subject or object of divining Astrologie be the celestiall Spheres and orbs yea or no In as much as the Soothsaying artifice is presuming to act upon Angells Spirits Souls Religions States rationalls animalls vegetables inanimates mineralls artificialls yea and busies it self with superstitious and supercilious observations and conclusions about actions and accidents from the most excellent to the most ignoble of them Is not an Artist then a John of all trades For surely the art must either be all arts or else no art at all 59. Whether a Rabinicall tradition Cabbalisticall fancy a Platonicall idea a Paganish superstition a Phreneticall Enthusiasm a presumptuous faith a legendary authority a prentices Arithmetick an illogicall Rethorick a vain speculation a paradoxall assertion a depraving adulteration a sacrilegious detorsion a catachresticall hyperbolicall ratiocination ambiguous equivocation affected decurtation or sophistication of expression a prophane asseveration an arrogant boasting of their own learning and an odious undervaluing of all others be powerfull and sufficient to make Magick and Astrologie arted and arrant magick and astrologie not only of prime-materiall non-entities aenigmaticall oracles obstruse hieroglyphicks chimicall and chimericall sperm and chaos preternaturall mirables occult antipathies impertinent curiosities diabolicall injections prestigious impostures and sorcerous practices but also of Divine operations Angelicall offices coelestiall influences naturall instincts intellectuall notions rationall faculties artificiall experiments casuall accidents extraordinary revelations sacred inspirations spirituall illuminations propheticall predictions parabolicall significations dogmaticall sentences gracious promises legall types evangelicall mysteries religious services morall manners politick affaires arbitrary actions heroick motions common conversations and indeed what not 60. Whether all the presaging Science let them make never so much of it be any more than a meer conjecturall imagination And such an imagination of a Diviner whose efficacy oft-times depends more upon anothers imagination than upon his own For what can he out of all his art inquire of concerning thee unlesse thou out of thy curiosity inquirest of him first And what is he able to effect for thee unless thou believest If thou proposest it not can he tell for what particular cause thou commest to him which way can our secret intentions be made known to others but either by our own information Gods revelation or the Devills suggestion 61. Whether an humane prudence that I may say nothing of an illuminated discretion I say an humane prudence studying men expert in affaires observant of times and manners mindfull of providence in the gubernation of the world and fearfull of impending judgements and just deserts may not make a more probable conjecture and utter a more likely omination of mutations and future events both publike and private than the Sciolist or the Artist with all his Magick and Astrologie 62. What difference betwixt some of the Artists Almanacks and Ephimerides and an Erra Pater or the Sheepheards Kalender and in which of them is more superstition and futility to be found 93. Whether the Mathematicall masters Proselytes and Parasites so immoderatly and immodestly idolatrously and blasphemously extolling preferring admiring and adoring their own art have not the rather betrayed it to censure infamy derision and contempt not only in the judgement of all good and wise but of all moderate and indifferent men Wherefore then doe they so â—insolently inveigh against the ignorance and stupidity of all such as they say detract from it when it is confest among themselves that he is of all most ignorant of it that attributes most to it and that indeed their own arrogance and temerity have exposed it to more contumely and detestation than all others envy and detraction 64. How many Arch-magicians and Astrologers have either ingeniously or anxiously confessed and condemned their own art or Science for worse than the Vanity thereof CHAP. VI. 6. From the obscurity of Originall 1. WHether the vertue or viciousness profit or perniciousness dignity or obscurity lawfulness or unlawfulness of an Art or Science may not well be argued from the primordiall cause Infuser Suggester Inventer Institutor and Author of it 2. Whence ariseth the very name of a Magician whether from these or those Nations Cities Towns Countries Languages Professours Sects Religions Derivations interpretations Who of the Magicians themselves is able precisely to define 3. Whether the name of a Magician be derived from Latine Greek Hebrew Syriack Arabick Chaldaean Aegyptian Persian c. and whether those derivations that seem to be accepted in the good part and to import any
dignity be not contorted jejune frigid absurd ridiculous and those accepted in the bad sense and signifying malefice be not more proper apt orthodox genuine and generally received among knowing Christians and the other left to Pagans and Parasites alone 4. Whether Divination simply was ever taken in the good part or approved by any good and approved Author However is it not in sacred Scripture taken in the bad part altogether 5. Whether it be not a Jewish blasphemy although an heathenish glory to father the Magicall art of Starre-divining upon Adam Seth Enoch Noah Abraham Jacob Joseph Moses Job Salomon Daniel And not only so but upon Christ himself 6. Whether it be not of all other the most probable opinion that the black art of Astrologicall Magick or Magicall Astrologie had its first Professours and Practisers in Cain and in his posterity before the Flood and after that in Cham and his posterity And that those Pillars if indeed there were any such as they traditionally talk of were of Chams setting up rather than Seths 7. Whether the Astro-magicall divining was not antiquely founded and grounded upon the idolatrous Oracles of the Pagans for they pretended to make their answers or predictions from the Starres And these once silenced after it ceased to be a religion was it not then wholly taken up as an art 8. With what execrable blasphemy do they affirm their Primitive magick to be in God eternall a notion of the divine wisedome an operation of the divine Spirit c How much more evident is it to be from the Devill from his fall a notion of his prevaricating knowledge since the depravation of his will and an operation of that same Spirit working now in the children of darknesse and disobedience 9. From whence else but from the Devill can the Magicall arts and operations come originally who the first of creatures that abused himself seeks ever since to abuse the creatures caelestiall terrestriall infernall against their own nature and institution Did not he himself first excogitate and invent this metamorphosing and prestigious Magick in first turning himself into an Angell of darkness and again into an Angell of light Did he not first teach it in the deception and prevarication of our first Parents Gen. 3. First practice it in abusing the Serpent to his purpose First communicate it in telling them they should bee as Gods knowing good and evill For what was that ambition of knowledge which he then suggested to them but a vain curiosity tempting God by being inquisitive after things and measures altogether beyond the creatures naturall inclination proper condition and present perfection 10. Whether the Devill did not institute and ordain Augurs vaticinators Diviners Presagers Predictors Sooth sayers Prognosticators Fortune-tellers c. in an apish emulation and prestigious imitation of Gods Prophets and Christs Apostles 11. Whether those Angells to which they impose names of their own inventions Spirits good Daemons and Souls of the Blessed c. which the Magicians make to flye in the ayr and to be the Authors of their arts be not very Devils Else why talk they of their veneration as the Tutors of their arts and sometimes again of their coaction as the ministers thereunto 12. Whether many professors and practitioners of Magicall arts in all kinds although while they have flourished and been favoured they have pretended and vaunted them to be innocent lawfull commodious nay divine yet when they have been brought to severe examination and execution by Magistrates have they not then been Convicted and confessed all was proceeding from the Devill and tending to them 13. Whether such an art may not without injustice be imputed to and from the Devill where at least an occult secret tacite implicit compact or covenant is more than to be suspected from a curiosity temerity superstition of believing assenting hoping expecting inquiring requiring conjuring adjuring pretending promising endevouring and attempting and all this concerning such events or effects as can neither religiously nor reasonably be expected from God or Nature nor yet from orderly and sober Art it self 14. Whether judiciary Astrologie was first founded upon diligent observation or palpable event and not rather upon diabolicall suggestion and superstitious imagination For how can they say it was grounded upon observation or experiment When as by their own rules the very same face of the heavens and positure of the starres seldome or never happens Because innumerable starres shall not have absolved their circuit and return to the same habit if the world should last more than six times six thousand years 15. Was ever heard a more sensless shameless fable That the Chaldaeans have had the Monuments of Astrologicall observation for four hundred and seventy thousand years How long is it then according to that account since the world began Nay how long before the starres began was Astrologie on foot The next lye is not altogether so lowd but a great deal too big for truth and credibility That the Aegyptians have profest Astrologie for this hundred thousand years 16. Whether the Magicians and Astrologers after all their search among Jewes Aegyptians Chaldaeans Phoenicians Persians Syrians Graecians Romans c. are able to find out exactly the true originall of their own art or precisely set it forth as touching the first professors of it Doth it not require a brighter and safer Spirit of divining than ever was in Astromagicall Diviners to divine when Astrologicall Magick had its first profession among men and by whom 17. Whether Magick and Astrologie was invented by oâ—e person or many one Nation or many in one place or many one Age or many And whether those many Authors so uncertain so obscure are worth the reciting or the asking after Nay whether the sundry names numbers and operations of the Starres themselves were not invented and divulged some by one man some by another some at one time and some at another and whether wee have not new inventions still broached and vented and those condemning and despising the former for fictitious and ridiculous 18. Whether the first Inventors and professors of Magick and Astrologie were not men Heathenish Idolatrous superstitious impious profane hereticall hypocriticall And how far their followers came short of them in all or most of these 19. If Magick was at first as some say no more but a morall kind of divinity or disciplinary institution how grew it then into an Idolatrous Religion superstitious speculation and prestigious operation 20. Whether Star-gazing Sooth saying prognosticating presaging c. began first within the Church or without it If within why are Gods people admonished against it as the way and custome of other nations If without then was it not a doctrine of Gods gracious instituting neither yet necessary nor usefull to his Church Let them tell us who brought it first into the Church of what note he or they were by what warrant they did so and to what fruit or edification Nay can they
upon so many and contrary causes and considerations Namely of Stars erratick and fixt and they more efficacious than these of rayes manifest and occult of influxes simple and mixt of light cognate and mutuatitious of motions proper and common and the proper more active than the common of Planets amicall bâ—nevolous auspicious fortunate and â—nimicall maleficall unfortunate exitiall as also ancipitous and indifferent to both and all these sometimes roborated and holpen sometimes infirmed and hindred one by another of Planets masculine feminine androgynous and these again now strengthning now weakning one another of Stars auc't and dimiâ—ute diurnall nocturnall and ambiguous ascending and descending slow swift and â—ean direct Stationary and retrograde Of the Signs of the Zodiack their Quadrants and Trigons and how they are masculine or feminine imperant or obedient right or crooked humane brute reptile vocall and without voyce fruitfull or barren beautifull or deformed happy-witted or unhappy conjunct or distinct of the essentiall dignities of the Planets or increments with their contrary dejections or detriments their houses exaltations triplicities tearms thrones decurions faces joys of the accidentall dignities of Planets in respect of motion positure aspect sc combust peregrine captive afflicted oppressed c. sextile quadrate triangular c. partile platick solitary ferall applicate defluent c. of the celestiall houses their number opposition representation and in every house the order nomenclature signification joy consignificator colour condition and temperament of the severall wayes of erecting Theams Scheams Figures c. All these generals considered besides infinite more particulars to be added what a wild wood or imaginary mist is here to find out a future contingent or fortuitous event For so clearly doe even the exactest of them make their grounds and means whereby to passe with great peremptoriness their prognosticating judgements upon all accidents Nay for as much as some of them say there are 120. divers conjunctions of the 7. Planets and moreover of them generally 13092. Considerations besides innumerable myriads of them in particular are not these direct to use their own word directions not only to ghesse at but conclude upon things future and fortuitous 21. Whether this order of arguing be with probability much lesse infer any causall necessity viz. From the constellation of the Nativity of a child to the naturall constitution from the naturall temperament to the humours of vegetation and growth from the humours of the body to the manners of the mind from the manners or naturall dispositions to the politick morall yea and religious actions and from the manners and actions to such and such determinate fortunes and events Seeing all these may bee quite otherwise altered by the constitution of the Parents by natures work different to both their constitutions by the complexion of the Nurse by adventitious nutriments by education by Art by Discipline by freewill and reason by grace and conscience by the wisdome power and goodness of Gods providence yea and by externall accidents or occurrents 22. If this way of argument were admitted in some part and probability that the Starres may have their vertue and efficacy upon this sublunary orb and so upon the inferior Elements and so upon Bodyes compounded of those elements and so upon the humours in those bodyes and so upon certain passions and affections of the mind that follow those humours or tempers would it therefore follow that they have the like though not as efficients yet but as instruments upon the Soul Spirit Understanding Will Conscience not only not to compell or enforce but so much as to incline or dispose them to actions rationall voluntary politick morall or religious and so bring them to reach the end or runne into the events of all those actions good or evill What rationall man can be perswaded that it is in the influences of the Starres to beget in a propension either to vertues or to vices and that it is in those vertues or vices as so begotten to hasten or prevent the hoped or feared effect However what Christian man will be brought to believe that wicked men and godly men their temporall prosperity or adversity is from their auspicious or their unfortunate starres how much lesse then their spirituall endowments or defects together with their eternall rewards or punishments 23. Whether in all Planetary Constellations Aspects Cojunctions there be a necessary conjunction betwixt all causes and all effects Though we may grant much of these in the Eclipses themselves yet what necessity of all these may move us to admit so much as touching the portents of those Eclipses And therefore I demand further of Eclipses as I doe of Comets also if they have no more but naturall causes and common apparitions whether have they then more than naturall significations and common effects If the significations and effects be to be thus doubted of in the eminent and visible what may we doubt of concerning the invisible or else but imaginable conjunctions 24. Why are the daily effects of the same starres as touching the weather so different in divers Horizons And why are the prognosticks of them so different although within the same Horizon Now if Prognosticators have so often hallucinated or deceiving been deceived about naturall effects or consequences of heat cold fair weather rain wind snow haâ—l thunder c. how can they be credited in their Predictions upon arbitrary actions and fortuitous events 25. Whether there be not a sufficient end and use of the starres substance and motion in the ornament of the Universe the beauty of the heavens their rising and setting in their own order their light and heat upon inferiors their distinctions of times and seasons with other their unknown motions actions services all tending to the glory of the Creator and benefit of the creature although their Astrologicall and Genethliacall yea and magicall benevolences and malevolencies had never been excogitated or invented CHAP. IX 9. From the strength of Reason 1. ALthough some certain demonstrations or demonstrative reasons borrowed from Arithmetick Geometry and Opticks may be conceded to Astronomie because it is a Science that keeps it self to naturall motions and measures ends and uses yet whether all they ought to be usurped by or allowed to Astrologie in as much as it transgresses all these 2. Whether besides the exaction of a blind and implicite Faith the rejection and derision of sound and explicite reason and demonstration done by Magicians and Astrologers be not a necessary demonstration of the vacuity or want of reason to the Artists or their Art 3. Whether Reason be not superiour and predominant to the power of the Starres For say after their own order the starres may have their influences upon tempers and humours and so upon passions and affections and so upon manners and actions and so upon issues and events yet Reason is not destitute of such means and succours as may temper those humours moderate those passions prevent those
the friendship and hatred the complyance and adversness of men is not the service or disservice of the brute creature the vertue or venome of an herb or minerall yea the defence or offence of a sword a knife a spear a gun a club c. are not all these more sensibly apprehended to be more neerly advantagious or prejudiciall to health or sicknesse riches or poverty honour or disgrace prosperity and adversity life or death than are all the joynt benevolences or malevolencies of the fatall Starres If therefore a fatidicall prognostication may be made from the Caelestiall why not rather from the terrestriall motions 20. Whether Fate be above the Starres as their governour or else under them as their minister If above them why make they the starres to be the causes of fate For so they must needs be superiour to it If under them how then are the starres themselves subject to fate for so they must needs be inferiour How then should the starres dispose of others fate that are not able to dispose of their own Is it for creatures terrestriall or caelestiall to perform that to others which they are not able to preserve to themselves Ought not therefore such a disposition to be referred solely to him that hath the ordination and gubernation of all things both in heaven and earth simply freely eternally and immutably in himself 21. How can the fatall series of causes be from the starres when as the starres themselves are not causes as in humane and arbitrary actions Not causes where they may be signes as of things already done and past Yea God himself may signifie many things whereof he is not the cause as in evill and sinfull actions Nay have not the fatidicall Vaticinators themselves made many fatall signes which could never be causes nor yet once come into any series or necessary connexion As in their aruspicies and anguries from the entrailes of beasts flight and noise of birds c. as also from lots dreams prodigies casualties yea and physiognomies c. 22. How can the starres be the first in the fatall series of second causes When as of all creatures the spirituall intellectuall or rationall are the supreme and the corporeall animate or inanimate their inferiours Now the starres are both corporeall and inanimate Spirits and souls as they have more similitude to so they participate more vertue of divine providence than all other creatures For they are both the cognoscitive and the operative instruments of providence which the other are not For these being but the executive only may either be directed or diverted by the iutellectuall and ordinative As acting of themselves with liberty deliberation discretion observation of right rules application of fit means and intention to a due end And therefore are the more eminent ministers of providence than all things else in heaven or earth 23. Whether any such cut as fatation may be properly sayd to be in or from the starres For fatation imports a primordiall law or decree not an influence only or effect what sacrilege is it then to ascribe that to the instrument which is only peculiar to the principall agent Since it is for instruments especially the inanimate not to ordain but execute only Yea it is a question whether there be any fatation even in fate it self it being accepted and discerned not for a seminall disposition but for an ultimate execution and that inherent in the moveable or mutable subject Wherefore seeing fatation is neither in the starres nor in fate it self whether can any thing be sayd to be fatall with respect to the starres For the starres are but second causes And with respect to all such some things may be sayd to be naturall some things arbitrary some things indifferent some things contingent some things uncertain some things casuall but few or none fatall 24 Whether it be in the power and validity of the celestiall bodyes to impose a fatall necessity either upon humane actions or yet upon naturall things For if the starres be any such causes then must they cause principally of themselâ—es intentionally directly immutably Now how can they be principall causes when providence is above them how of themselves when they work not upon humane actions but by accident how intentionally since they want a mind or soul how directly when they operate upon humane actions but indirectly how immutably when their ordination or disposition may be impedited Again were they thus acting then should there be no contingents or accidents no libertie or free actions nor prevention of any events or issues no particular causes should be defective nor distance of place nor indisposition of the mean no neglect of the means no endeavour to the contrary or opposition should be available nay not only the understanding but the will should be tyed to corporall organs and matter yea and the starres should not only be of sufficient but of infinite power 25. How doe the celestiall bodyes work so fatally upon these inferiours when as they here operate not upon a necessity as to the producing of the effect For albeit their impressions be naturall yet are they not received but according to the manner of the receivers which are fluxible and not having themselves still after the same way Because of the matter that is in a potentiality to many yea and to contrary formes The matter also is movable and corruptable and may easily defect of it self may be intrinsecally indisposed and extrinsecally impedited And the starres themselves are but indefinite and remote causes to which the effect can never follow determinatly and necessarily unless the middle causes be necessary and then they follow them and not the other But in the foresaid series the middle causes are most of them contingent and from many contingent causes can come no effect of necessity because any one of them and all of them together may be defective and not attain unto their end 26. Seeing the heavenly bodyes act not upon these inferiours but by their light and motion and so communicate nothing to the matter they work upon but light motion and heat Now why may not all these flow from all the starres in generall And why then should such and such fatall inclinations be attributed to such or such positions or conjunctions And if there be any particular vertues of the light and motion of some stars contrary to the vertues of the light and motion of other starres how is that demonstrated And how comes it to passe that they should be operative and effectuall one way in their simple natures or qualities and yet another way in their relative aspects and positions Is an imaginary relation or respect of more validity than a reall substance or propriety 27. They seem to define fate more acurately that make it to be the â—eries or connext order of naturall causes Now till they can directly and successively deduce those naturall causes down from the starres to those fatall events what
sufficient to moderate all fond hopes and fears Or what is able to doe that but a lively faith voyd of these heathenish superstitions and assuredly believing That there is an all-provident God that only foresees all things necessarie and to whom nothing is contingent or casuall That can will and doth work for the best of his both with second causes and exteriour means as also without them yea and against them That binds not the world much lesse tyes his Church unto them That hath written his childrens names in the book of life and much more then they may be assured hath numbred the hairs of their heads as concerning all earthly accidents That shines and moves in the Sun and Moon and starres and makes their generall influxes more or lesse effectuall as he is pleased to adde or abstract his speciall motion or oppose his immediate administration or interpose the office of his more excellent Ministers Angells and reasonable Souls CHAP. XIX 19. From the affinity to Witch-craft 1. WHat difference betwixt Astromancy Magomancy or Magastromancy as touching a sorcerous both superstition and operation and all these after-named viz. Stareomancy or divining by the Elements Aeromancy or divining by the ayr Pyromancy by fire Hydromancy by water Geomancy by earth Theomancy pretending to divine by the revelation of the Spirit and by the Scriptures or word of God Daemonomancy by the suggestions of evill Daemons or Devills Idolomancy by Idolls Images Figures Psychomancy by mens souls affections wills religious or morall dispositions Antinopomancy by the entrails of men women and children Theriomancy by Beasts Ornithomancy by Birds Icthyomancy by Fishes Botanomancy by herbs Lithomancy by stones Cleromancy by lotts Oniromancy by dreams Onomatomancy by names Arithmancy by numbers Logarithmancy by Logarithmes Sternomancy from the breast to the belly Gastromancy by the sound of or signes upon the belly Omphelomancy by the navell Chiromancy by the hands Paedomancy by the feet Onychomancy by the nayles Cephaleonomancy by brayling of an Asses head â—uphramancy by ashes Capnomancy by smoak Livanomancy by burning of Frankincence Carromancy by melting of Wax Lecanomancy by a basin of water Catoxtromancy by looking glasses Chartomancy by writing in papers Macharomonâ—y by knives or swords Chrystallomancy by glasses Dactylomancy by rings Coseinomancy by seives Axinomancy by Sawes Cattabomancy by vessells of brasse or other metall Roadomancy by starrs Spatalamancy by skins bones excrements Sciomancy by shadowes Astragalomancy by dice Otnomancy by Wine Sycomancy by Figgs Typomancy by the coagulation of cheese Alphitomancy by meal flower or branne Crithomancy by grain or corn Alectromancy by Cooks or Pâ—llen Gyromancy by rounds or circles Lampadomancy by candles and lamps And in one word for all Nagomancy or Necromancy by inspecting consulting and divining by with or from the dead The question is not about the difference of all these from the first to the last in matter instruments ceremonies or circumstances but whether they be not of like maleficall sorcery for main substance and formality And whether divining by the Starres and Planets be not a cause enclining and disposing at least an occasion inviting and encouraging what through imitation estimation toleration to all these sorts of sorcerous divination and the like 2. Whether there be any kind of Magick simply so naturall or laudably so arted as many serve to abstract it from the maleficall and diabolicall For though there be many occult qualities and miracles of nature and actives and passives there which perfectly known and fitly applyed might help to work wonders without either tempting of God or the Devill yet because of the difficulty of such things and not that alone but their uselessnesse and because of mens ignorance and for all that their curiosity and because of the Arts insufficiencie and besides that the fallacie and chiefly because of Satans privie suggestions and delusory seducements the study and search after these things proves very confused indiscerned unsafe and pernicious And because of all these the abuse of this astro-magicall art is as palpable as the practice but the use as occult as the Art it self But especially as touching the practice of this art if there be an artifice of doing wholly separate from malefice why then are the same things done by those that are altogether ignorant of the art so they have but a faith and why without such a faith is nothing to be done by the Art it self How many things have been done by all manner of Magicians that can have no naturall causes no true rules of art no power or comprobation from God and therefore must needs be acted by a confederation and familiarity with some evill spirit How many things have they presumed to predict or foretell which neither divine wisdome is pleased to reveal neither is it ordinarily for humane reason or art to find out but must only be done by a demoniacall sagacity or suggestion what sounds and syllables and words and sentences doe they murmure or pronounce and that to the very inanimates whom words can in no wise effect or move or else are so barbarous and insignificant as that if they were uttered to the intelligent they cannot conceive them their extent or use Now by whose invention is it that such words should be most operative in magick art that are operative upon no understanding How many rites solemnities ceremonies preparations doe they use which have naturally no force or vertue to the producing of the effect not yet can any way prepare the matter to the receiving thereof What sacrifices iâ—molations consecrations prostrations adorations invocations execrations imprecations attestations comminations exorcisms adjurations c. And none of all these commanded by God and therefore not done to him how easy is it then to suspect by whom all these are suggested and for whom they are intended 3. Whether if be in Magick and Astrologie that the art hath power over the heavenly bodies or the heavenly bodies power over the art not the first because for the Art to have power over the heavenly bodies so as to stop or turn the course of the stars or by odes and incantations to fetch down the moon from her orb as the old Magicians have boasted this is beyond the power of a Devill or an Angell and were not only against the particular order of nature but would utterly confound the whole course of it And by conjurations or confections so to prepare the matter as to allure or force down influences and to make it by art capable and sufficient both to receive and retain them this were to mingle heaven and earth to subjugate the superiour bodies to their inferiors to preferre accidents to substances and turn the whole universe upside down Not the second for not only the speculations but also the practicks of their art a many of them are meerly intellectuaâ—l rationall arbitrary over which theâ— stars and planets can have no power The stars are corporall things arts or sciences are mentall how come
likewise of observation imagination affectation investigation invocation adjuration temptation Signs empty and delusory Feats jugling and prestigious wonders wrought without the command and approof of God creatures abused contrary to their nature and institution art pretended without any true principles words invented and muttered and they barbarous insignificant false absurd apocryphall yea though Canonicall and sacred yet applyed to such acts ends for which they were never ordained admirable efficacy attributed to syllables sounds numbers rites solemnities ceremonies circumstances of time place and person Fabrications of images statues figures characters circles rings seals c. Confections of herbs minerals waters oyls juyces spirits c. acting and effecting at an improportionate distance and without convenient means spectrous Phantasmes or apparitions to affright men into a credulity ludibrious pranks only to make sport and so feed mans curiosity and divining predictions of things lost absent future without either calling or cause 6. Whether Magicall feats be wrought by things corporeall or spiritual Not by things corporeal because of improportionate matter form cause effect means instruments distance c. How can a body work upon a body to make it sign and signify things hidden lost absent future to make a dead body walk speak c. To make a living body walk invisible transform its proper shape c. And if by things spirituall then whether by spirits good or bad Not by the good neither of Angels nor men for where 's the true and good cause Minister means object and end of Magicall operation Nay which of all these is not evill 7. Is it not the known property of God to know things future absolutely and exactly Wherefore then did the Devill arrogate to himself divination but in an emulation of Divinity Now whether of these two doe the Diviners imitate God or the Devill It cannot be God because they have no command to imitate him in these his powerfull properties no promise upon the imitation It must be the Devill then and to imitate him must needs be maleficall And they may imitate him many ways for he hath used himself to divination by spirits by men by living men by dead men by the celestiall bodies by the elements by things naturall by things artificiall yea and by things sacred and religious and may not they then be like him in all these 8. How easy is it for the Devill to predict those things which he intends to act himself As suppose he intendeth by Gods permission to practise the sickness death destruction of man or Beast is it not easy for him to suggest such his intention to his instruments and Ministers and so make them to predict the same Yea though it be done from him is it not easy for him and them to pretend it from some other cause albeit abused besides the naturall end thereof Is it a matter of much artifice for veâ—eficks or witches to forespeak their own purposed and laboured malefice How readily may he presage anothers death or ruin that hath him in his own power and so hath already determined that such a day it shall be done In like manner how many have perished according to wizzardly predictions and that only because of wizzardly purposes and perpetrations And therefore it may not unjustly be doubted whether many of those prognosticated evill fates and fortunes against Princes Magistrates Ministers and other Christians especialy such as opposed them in their fatidicall way were not besides the Astrologicall speculation practised by goeticall Magick as by charms curses poysons treachery violence or by making maleficall images pictures figures constellated under the ascension of that man whom they would maliciously destroy or prejudice And why may not this be justly suspected of them since it is a thing not only of their own practising but of their teaching And it being so how can they themselves deny and what understanding man would not pronounce upon them for the most arrant inchanters sorcerers veneficks maleficks wizzards and witches in the world 9. Whether there may not be an effascination or bewitching by inspecting the stars as by imagination by breathing on by looking on by touching by fabricating of images c. We know none of these acts are malevolent or maleficall in their own nature but that any one of these as well as another may be abused to sorcery and witchcraft through a Satanicall stipulation or suffrage who can deny 10. What practice of sorcery or malefice more superstitious than the fabricating of Astrologicall and of magicall images pictures statues figures c. For as a tacite compact hath been suspected as touching the Astrologicall so hath an express one been concluded and confessed as concerning the magicall configurations And what is the one or the other of these but the making of an image or figure either of man or beast in gold silver brass copper wax wood stone clay under such a conjunction or constellation For the inviting and alluring of Angels for the expelling and ejecting of Devils for the procuring of love for the provoking of hatred for the atchieving of victory for the effecting of death for the raising or allaying of storms or tempests for the causing or preventing of pestilencies for the driving away of Serpents and vermine c. Now in such a compact what vertue or efficacy besides that of a compact only what similitude or resemblance betwixt the figure of a round star or Planet and a monstruous many-shap't magicall configuration The vertue of the celestials are but universall and indeterminate as to the producing of this or that effect neither but by naturall and particular causes And who will say that any such particular figures are either causes or naturall what preparation can there be of such a matter for the receiving and retaining such constellatory influences And what such kind of efficacies can it have thereby for the admitting of such effects The heavenly bodies operate no way but naturally these figures or fabrications operate no way but artificially being the artifices of humane invention and used arbitrarily how then should these modify and determine those How come their vast influences to be restrained only to such a figure and that only for such operations How come the stars and Planets so to neglect the matter and its disposition and so to respect the figure and its composition as accordingly to dart in their influences for the figures sake let the matter be what it will what vertue can there be for all the celestiall influences more than the matter is disposed unto what efficacy or aptitude of an artificiall form more than accidentall and instrumentall what principles of life and action from artificiall forms Is not the vertue of the matter still the same although of divers forms or figures why should artificiall figures be more apt to receive the starry influences than are naturall figures In all such configurations must not the efficacy of the Stars rather attend or depend upon
a little to the purity of the minde c. 32 They that desire to have this spirit pure and potent 〈◊〉 them use dryer meats and extenuate this grosse body with fastings and they make it easily penetrable and lest by the weight thereof the spirit should either become thick or be suffocated let them preserve the body clean by Lotions Frictions exercises and cloathings and corroborate their spirits by lights and fumes and bring it to be a pure and thin finenesse 33. We must acquit and avert our mindes from all multitudes and such like passions that we may attain to the simple truth which indeed many Philosophers are said to have attained to in the solitude of a long time For the minde by solitude being loosed from all care of humane affairs is at leasure and prepared to receive the gifts of the coelestial deities 34. It is believed and it is delivered by them that are skilful in sacred things that the minde also may be expiated with certain institutions and sacraments ministred outwardly as by Sacrifices Baptisms and Adjurations Benedictions Consecrations sprinklings of Holy water by annointings and fumes not so much consecrated to this as having a natural power thus to do 35. Moreover the Magicians when they made any confection either natural or artificial belonging to any star this did they afterward religiously offer and sacrifice to the same star receiving not so much a natural vertue from the influence thereof being opportunely received as by that religious oblation receiving it divinely confirmed and stronger c. Moreover to the coelestial and aetherial Gods white sacrifices were offered but to the terrestrial or infernal black c. 36. Moreover we must petition for and to the effectors of the thing desired viz. Such an Angel Star or Heroe on whom the office lies but observing that our invocation on them must be made with due number weight and measure and according to the rules delivered concerning inchantments 37. Consecration is a lifting up of experiments by which a spiritual soul being drawn by proportion and conformity is infused into the matter of our works according to the tradition of Magical Art rightly and lawfully prepared and our â—ork is vivified by the spirit of understanding So in the consecration of water fire oyle places paper swords c. Let there be commemoration made c. 38. Whosoever therefore thou art who desirest to operate in this faculty in the first place implore God the Father being one that thou also maiest be one worthy of his favour bee cleane within and without in a cleane place Wash your selves oft and at the daies appointed according to the mysteries of number put on cleane cloaths and abstaine from all uncleannesse pollution and lust Be not thou coupled to a polluted or menstruous woman neither to her who hath the Hemachoides touch not an uncleane thing nor a carkase Thou shalt wash and annoint and perfume thy selfe and shalt offer sacrifices Further perfumes sacrifice and unction penetrate all things and open the gates of the elements and of the heavens that through them a man may see the secrets of God heavenly things and those things which are above the heavens and also those which descend from the heavens as Angels and Spirits of deep pits and profound places apparitions of desert places and doth make them to come to you to appeare visibly and obey you 39. Moreover whatsoever thou operatest do it with an earnest affection and hearty desire that the goodnesse of the heavens and heavenly bodies may favour thee whose favour that thou mayest the more easily obtaine the fitnesse of the place time profession or custome diet habit exercise and name also do wonderfully conduce for by these the power of nature is not onely changed but also overcome For a fortunate place conduceth much to favour What place is congruous to each one must be found out by his nativity c. 40. Make election also of houres daies for thy operations For not without cause our Saviour spake Are there not twelve houres in the day and so forth For the Astrologers teach that times can give a certaine fortune to our businesses The Magicians likewise have observed and to conclude all the antient verse men consent in this that it is of very great concernment that in what moment of time and disposition of the heavens every thing whether naturall or artificiall hath received its being in this world for they have delivered that the first moment hath so great power that all the course of fortune dependeth thereon and may be foretold thereby All these are not ashamed to shew themselves in English ere this I have onely now collected them here and there with a running hand to the intent that at one view it might be discerned at least by comparison examined whether these dignifications qualifications dispositions preparations of Magick and Astrologie be not onely so superstitious as for conscience and religion to abhor them but so ridiculous as for reason and sense to deride them And whether these their preparations be not meer pollutions in themselves and these their dignifications very vilifications to natural and moral men and these their consecrations be not utter abominations to God and all good men Nay and whether the most damnable witches have not been initiated by such kind of preparative solemnities and their most execrable witch-crafts operated by such effectual ceremonies as these yea and they more fair seeming then the fairest of them CHAP. XXV From the folly of Interrogations and Elections WHether besides the superstition and vain curiosity it be not extreme folly and madnesse to make observation inquisition election of dayes and hours from a mans geniture and the disposition of the stars wherein to auspicate a businesse be it greater or lesse Especially seeing the directing Art it self is not onely depraved commentitiously as themselves confesse by the arrogance ambition vainglory covetousnesse and deceitfulnesse of the Artists but how are they able to vindicate it from a more commentitious invention and idle speculation or inspection according to such numbers additions substractions such days hours minutes scruples c. of such a star or planet in such a positure or aspect such a conjunction constellation configuration such a house such a Lord of the Ascendant such a Lord of the Horoscope such a significator such a Promissor such a Peregrinator such an ambulator such a prerogator such a dispositor such an Emissary c. with such motions congressions profections fortifications oppositions corrections rectifications directions elections c. And how do they prove that such fictions not onely of things but of names at least such disorderly confusions of both should not onely be the Rulers ordaining and ordering but the rules of foreknowing and foretelling mens fates and fortunes manners actions businesses successes fortunate or unfortunate c. Is it not great imprudence then for any to be here enquiring And as great impudence for them to