Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	day_n	keep_v	sabbath_n	798	5	10.4111	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54321	The astrologer anatomiz'd, or, The vanity of star-gazing art discovered by Benedictus Pererius ; and rendered into English by Percy Enderbie, Gent.; Adversus fallaces et superstitiosas artes. English	Pererius, Benedictus, 1535-1610.; Enderbie, Percy, d. 1670.	1661 (1661)	Wing P1465A; ESTC R40059	54,756	134

yet did Mars every day by necessity of his course come through the middle of that Heaven neither is it to be questioned but that children were born every hour in that so large a region or territory Amongst the Indians and Bactrians are many thousands of men called Brachmanes who as well by tradition os their Forethers as their laws and constitutions avoid the adoration of Idols eat not any thing animate neither drink they or ingurgitate wine or other strong liquors men free from all malignant indispositions imploying their whole time in the Service and Honour of the most High and Great God There are other Indians in the same Region who contaminate themselves with the adoration of false Gods with adulteries murders and drunkenness nay there is yet another sort of Indians inhabiting in the same Climate who assassinate men as they are at their sports of hunting or offering sacrifice and devour and feed upon them neither can any of those Stars which they esteem benign or propitious deterr or hinder those people from such like villanies nor yet the malignant enforce or compel the Brachmanes to act such black and hideous crimes Amongst the Persians there was a law whereby it was enacted that men might contract matrimony and cohibit with their Daughters Sisters or Mother and this Edict those people observed not onely in their own Countrey but in what Climate soever they inhabited or Regions colonized which they polluted with incestuous Nuptials and horrid Marriages which other Nations loathing and abhorring branded them with the nomenclation of Magussees and even at this day in the very heart and centre of Egypt Phrygia and Galatia are many of those Magussees who by a long continued practice from former ages commaculate and defile themselves with such obscene and detestable villanies and yet we cannot in positive terms affirm that those bruits rather then rational creatures were generated and produced under the house of Saturn Mars being an assisting spectator The Amazons lived without Husbands onely in Spring time they conglomerated and passed the bands and limits of their native soil made bold with their neighbours Husbands and such other lusty sparks as seemed to be active in propagation and as they all enjoyed the company of men and convenied so by necessary consequence they must be delivered and brought to bed at or much about the same time and instant The males they unnaturally murdered and destroyed reserving the females whom they trained up in Martial Discipline and they proved for the most part undaunted Virago's and the true Daughters of Belona yet it were ridiculous to opinionate that all these masculine females were born under the same natalitial Stars This verity is yet made more manifest by the example of the Jews who wheresoever they have their beings in what Region or Kingdome under what King Prince or Emperour or in what Climate soever they are born by an inviolable observation upon the eighth day they circumcise their Infants keep their Sabbath high and holy reverence and honour the Feast yet all Jews are not born under the same constellation neither can these pretended influences or vertues of the Celestial Bodies draw them from the Rites and Customs of their Progenitors much more may it be said of Christians who dispersed over the whole superficies of the Christian world observe the same tenour of doctrine and form of life yet neither by force fair words large promises glorious pretences nor thundering minaces torments almost insupportable Tortures Racks and other strange and unheard of punishments can or could be seduced or drawn one hairs breadth as the saying is from those principles which Christ our Lord and Saviour left unto them are or were all those Christians born under the same Planet These happy souls before the receiving of Christian Faith followed with an ardent Superstition the Laws and Precepts of their Ancestors but after the sacred Lavacre of sin-remitting Baptism they forsook all those soul destroying Ceremonies invested their better parts with a pure faith cloathed themselves with the new man and followed a perfect rule of living leading upon earth a life Angelical upon that score the baptized Parthians wedded not many wives the Medes cast not their dead bodies to the dogs the Indians committed not the corpses of their deceased to the consuming flames of fire The Persians contract not matrimony with their sisters daughters or mothers the Egyptians abhor the worship of their Apis Goat Dog or Cat but wheresoever they inhabit observe the same form of life and doctrine What needs more to be said each hour men are born in all Nations and we see that through free-will and power in man those Laws and Customs are punctually kept and observed neither can these all-powerful Stars as Astrologers dream compel and force the Seres to Homicide the Brachmanes to eat flesh neither can they hinder the Persians from their incestuous copulations the Medes from giving to their dogs their friends dead carkasses nor the Parthians from wedding many wives all nations when they will and how they will use the fredom of their Liberty obedient to their Laws and Customs Thus much out of Bardesanes against the vanity of Astrologers The fifth Reason The free-will of man and the immortality of the soul granted this Art cannot subsist for if the the one must stand the other must fall Judge then courteous Reader is not this Art highly to be disesteemed and slighted which cannot have an existence or shew any feats unless the liberty of mans will and immortality of the soul be overthrown and demolisht But if our soul be mortal and have not freedom in its actions yet Astrologicall Predictions cannot subsist as shall be concluded by these ensuing Arguments First of all Astrologers profess and brag that by the profundity of their Art and observations they can foretell future things and events future things which have their dependency upon free-will cannot possibly be discovered by these Artists for so they should know future things as they are in themselves or per se in act and a thing which is not in as much as it is not cannot be understood therefore it must be after some kinde of manner to wit in the powerfulness or potestaty in its causes neither can future things be known in their causes which are three God Heaven and humane will but such things as are to have their being from the decree counsel and absolute will of Almighty God what mortal Creature either by the Heavens or any other means can dive into them unless they be such unto whom the Almighty will have them by himself made known and revealed for who saith the holy Scripture knows the sense and meaning of God or who hath been of his counsel And as it is written in Wisdom 9. The things that are in sight we finde with labour but the things that are in heaven who shall search out and thy sense who shall know unless thou give wisdom and send

thine Holy Spirit from on high Such things as depend upon mans free-will cannot by the Heavens be discovered because Heaven is an universal cause and future particular contingents cannot have their dependency on the Heavens or be known unless it be universally and indeterminately And again Heaven is a corporeall and materiall cause wherefore the soul which of it self is incorporeal not composed of matter and free in acting necessarily and directly cannot be subject to the efficiency and operation of the Heavens Again humane will is the very immedate cause of humane actions in respect of future events which are to be produced from thence which is of it self indifferent and indeterminate for we shall do things which we have not thought or deliberated how then can an indifferent and indeterminate cause produce a certain knowledge of a future effect and this may be thus confirmed The exterior actions of man depend upon the interior that is to say either by deliberation or choice and election and therefore the exterior future action of man cannot be foretold unless the election of his future will be known from whence it must necessarily proceed but the future election of man cannot be known to any other for if the resolves and deliberation of the minde and understanding which man hath in present cannot be discovered by another how can those purposes deliberations and decrees of mans understanding be manifested and made known by another which are to happen after the revolution of many years Whether it be easier to Prognosticate what a good or a bad man shall do MAn is to be looked upon and considered either as he leads a life and operates according to the dictamen of reason or according to sense and appetite if according to reason man hath no dependance upon the Heavens for the soul and intellectual part is immateriall and incorporeal and nothing corporate can by it self act upon a thing incorporate mans will is free and mistriss of all her own actions and can by her own instinct and disposition apply her self to do or not do this or that for although from the influence of the Heavens or composition and temper of the body man by the instigation and subtlety of the Devil or otherwise may be tempted and seduced to do evil yet may he by his own power assisted by Gods Grace anihilate all those temptations and overcomming and trampling them under his feet do the quite contrary to what he was provoked and allured and this is apparent in the very example of Socrates who by the natural constitution and composition of his body was both a bard and much addicted to women and the delights of Venus yet by the strength of his better part a vigilant watch over himself as chastising of evil propensions and nipping them in the bud he triumphed over his passions and was esteemed the most grave prudent chaste and continent man of all that age A man who spins out his time according to sensuality and carnal appetites leads a life so wandering and mutable that it is impossible to divine what will become of him and Solomon saith that amongst many things which he hardly understood he was altogether ignorant how youngsters in the flower of their youth steered their course for that age is so slippery inconstant fickle and wandering that it seldom abides any long time in the same state and condition to day disliking what yesterday extreamly pleased having no Analogy in its actions not squared by any dictamen of reason but rashly and headlong impelled and hurried away whithersoever cupidity and lust courts and invites it from whence it proceeds that with far less difficulty an Astrologer may prognosticate the actions of him who spends his dayes according to the model of Intelligence then his who neglecting both reason and vertue trifles away his time according to the vanity of his own affections and desires More facile it is by much to divine the transactions and events of a King who ruleth civilly and according to reasons behests and prescriptions then of a Tyrant whose will is his law how then can these seeming skilful Artists foretell events in which there is so much uncertainty and ambiguousness and where nothing can be had firm and certain The effects of contingents which befall man by celestial fate and power of the stars may or may not be hindered if the effect may be so hindered that it come not to pass then is it uncertain and consequently the Prediction cannot be certain and infallible If it cannot be hindered then free-will is taken away and our soul made mortal and material as being necessarily subjected to the power and influence of the stars If this be so what benefit can Astrological predictions bring to mankinde for what good will it be to know things so long before-hand if they cannot be declined and avoided nay rather it were an inconvenience to be by all means shunn'd for what can be more grievous then not onely to be oppressed with present calamities but also to be rackt and tormented with an inevitable expectation of miseries to fall upon us hereafter This Seneca lib. 3. epist 80. understood right well though he attribute almost if not altogether as much power and dominion to stars over men as do the Astrologers themselves These are his words I come to-him who boasts his great knowledge in the stars Whither cold Saturns Star it felf betakes Or in what Orbes Cyllenius progress makes What avails it to know this Forsooth to make me startle when Saturn and Mars stand in opposition or when Mercury declines Westward Saturn looking on I am rather of this opinion that wheresoever they are they are propitious and benign and not subject to change or mutability and this is brought to pass by the inevitable course and continuall order of the Fates They return at set times and the effects of all things are either moved or denoted by the stars if they absolutely cause the thing what will the immutable knowledge thereof profit thee if they onely signifie it what will it help thee to provide against that which thou canst not avoid for know thou or know thou not those things will come to pass Thus Seneca But Phavorinus handles this point in few words acutely and Philosophically Astrologers saith he foretell either good or bad fortunes if good and miss in their aim thou art deluded and made miserable by a long and frustrated expectation If bad and yet lye thou art also made sollicitous and afflicted by fearing in vain if they speak truth but foretell thee hard hap then even then in thy thoughts and imagination thou art tormented and vext before thy bad fortune fall upon thee if they promise that the things which they foretell shall be good and much to thy advantage notwithstanding two discommodities will follow first thy greedy expectation will weary thee being held so long in hope expectation and suspence and again the hope of thy future joy by