altogether unskilful to return an answer how then can any man with reason think it possible or worthy belief that men who know not such things as are more obvious and triviall should give an account or judgement of things more remote and hidden from the knowledge of mortals After this let them instruct and teach us the defluxions and effects which flow and have Influence over the several and dissipated Regions of the world and then perchance we may believe them when they sooth us up with the future effects of the stars for who knows not that it is far more easie to apprehend and know things present then those which are to come and future especially things subject to mutability where the Contingents are various and therefore uncertain Let them likewise make manifest and express unto us the occult properties and power which sublunary things have which we rather admire then understand in Stones Herbs and Animals for these seeing they are in a manner obvious and conjunct unto us and subjected almost to all our senses and which by daily experiments may be found out and discovered certainly must have a more express motion and plain discovery But the intelligence of heavenly things must needs be of a far greater difficulty and labour Heaven being so far remote and distant from us and onely discoverable by the sole sense of the eye which ofttimes is deceived and brought into errour through the longinquity of Intervals or the violent and swift whirling about of the Heavens the depraved and indisposed affection of the medium or of the sight the fault and imperfection of the Astrolabe Tables or other Astronomical Instruments and this we finde attested in the sacred Scripture Wisdom Chap. 9. For the body that is corrupted burtheneth the soul and the earthly habitation presseth down the understanding that thinketh many things and we do hardly conjecture the things that are in the earth and the things that are in sight we finde with labour but the things that are in the Heavens who shall search out and thy sense who shall know unless thou give wisdom and send thine holy Spirit from on high This sufficiently confutes Astrologers who pretend to discover all humane events of which most have their dependency upon the most inscrutible will and councel of the most High and Mighty God Against the fictitious Antiquity which these men vainly boast to have concerning observations ABove all our Astrologers boast and brag that they have observations attested and confirmed by their events of I know not how many yea innumerable years beyond the limits of computation almost out of which their art hath its radix original and perfection for seeing that in the revolution of time elapsed divers things have been produced and come to pass the same signs preceding by the due minding and observation whereof their Art was conflate and compleated and therefore they endeavour to perswade us that the Chaldeans through their diligent Astrological observations during the space of four hundred and seventy thousand years have brought forth this admirable birth I mean the profound Art of Divination to its full maturity and perfection But how childish fictitious and improbable this is is thus easily discovered Astrologers let them brag what they please could not so many thousand times collect and gather no not twice or thrice those observations and experiments for the face and aspect of the Heavens and the position of all the Celestial Signs which was once shall scarcely or never or at least not till immense revolutions of years return and be the same For the eighth Orbe in which the wandering Stars have their being compleats and finisheth not its course before the expiration of thirty and six thousand years and the most learned Mathematicians demonstrate by convincing arguments that the motions of the Heavens are incommensurable and therefore the same Aspect of the Heavens and position of the Stars cannot frequently happen The Philosopher Phavorinus in his fourteenth Book Apud Gellium and first Chapter confirms this reason with admirable perspicuity eloquence and clearness If saith this learned Authour the Chaldeans observations were grounded after this manner to wit to make a strict observation under what habit form and posture of Stars a childe should be born and then from his non-age and very cradle even to the Catastrophe and last period of his life to register and record his fortunes condition qualities and inclinations together with the circumstances of his affairs and transactions and then as they suppose the manner was put all those collections upon a File and enrol them upon Record and afterwards when the same Stars should meet in the same manner and have the same position questionless they must needs tell the same fortune to any one born under such a constellation If this was the way and out of this principle they grounded the foundation of that Discipline it is altogether weak and slippery for let them tell me in how many years nay ages this Orbe or Circle of Observation may be perfected there is no Astrologer but must know that those Stars which are called erratical or wandering and the fatal efficients of all those things do not unless in an innumerable and almost infinite number of years return to the same posture and with the same habit from whence they wheeled and wandered so that no order or tenor of observation no memory whatsoever no nor the very character of such Letters and Monuments could be preserved or endure so long a time Thus Phavorinus And if it should be granted that Astrologers should dive into the secret force and defluxion of every Star seperately and alone by it self what force and power Stars have when they meet and conjoyn and are mingled either in the Heaven Air Earth in sublunary things or their actions this is not to be discovered Reader observe what Origen writes upon Genesis cited by Eusebius towards the end of his sixth Book of Evang. Prep Such things as they affirm Astrologers to come to pass by the commixture composition and temperature of several Aspects this very thing shews their ignorance for who can tell the harm pretended by a malign Aspect the Constellation of the benign and propitious concurring and whether the malign detards that which the benign bestows because it points at the others location and whether it change or rechange or what commixture is made what man can judge or perceive he whosoever shall seriously penetrate into those mysteries shall finde that they are not to be comprehended by humane wit and capacity whosoever shall make experiment oâ— these things shall finde Fortune-tellers and Nativity-casters oftner to erre then speak the truth wherefore Isaiah as if these things were totally impossible hath this saying to the daughter of the Chaldeans the grand professors of this mystery Let the Astrologers come and make thee whole let the Southsayers tell what is to betide thee by which we are admonished that even the most
several aspects and conjunctions they might presignifie unto us what things in future times whether universal or particular shall happen but not be the causes thereof and therefore he compares the Heavens unto a book in which the great God as with a pencil hath delineated and drawn forth all the contingents which shall happen in future ages so long as this fading world shall last and to strengthen this assertion he citeth a certain book entituled Josephs Narration formerly highly esteemed where the Patriarch Jacob is brought upon the stage thus speaking to his sons I have read in the tables of heaven whatsoever shall befall to you and your sons Plotinus a Coetanean and School-fellow of Origen was of the same opinion and asserts it in a Book which he entitles Whether or no the Stars have any power and in another book concerning Fate in the sixth chapter he saith that this is the use and benefit of the stars that whosoever beholds them and contemplates as books and letters and is skilful in this kind of literature shall know future things from those figures if with a kind of anologicall comparison he diligently search out their mysteries and signification and Porphirius affirms that being fully bent to kill and make away himself he was diverted from that wicked resolution by the means of Plotinus who fore-saw the danger by the vertue of the stars This opinion Julius Severus in his ninth book of Fate will not have to be exploded or condemned and that he may make it appear probable and plausible he bringeth some sentences out of holy Writ to trim and deck it up withall for saith he to grace the matter Isaiah chap. 34. not obscurely tells us And the heavens shall be folded together like a book by which it is meant that after the day of judgement the heavens like a book shall be claspt and fast shut up which now are laid open and exposed for us to read and meditate and to the same effect and purpose that of Psalm 21. The Heavens shall declare his justice and in Psalm 18. The Heavens shew forth the glory of God and in the first book of Genesis speaking of the stars And they shall be for signs and in Psalm 88. The Heavens shall confesse thy marvellous works O Lord. Neither quoth Origin doth this opinion take away free-will in man no more then formerly did the Prophesies of the ancient Prophets or the prescience of all future things which is in Almighty God and resteth in his divine bosome Plotinus opinionates that this power and skill to predict future things by vertue of the stars is given to man either by the singular favour of Almighty God or through the excellent knowledge in Astrology for the obtaining whereof we use all possible diligence and acurate study And Julius Severus perswades himself that St. Augustine was not much averse or alienated from this opinion by reason that in his second book against the Manicheans cap. 21. speaking of man who whilst he is invested with mortallity hath these words Neither is it to be thought that in the Celestial Bodies our thoughts are so concealed as in these our bodies but as certain motions of the minde appear in the countenance especially in the eyes so in the perspicuity and pureness of the Celestial Bodies our motions of the minde cannot be concealed as I imagine Whether according to St. Augustine the Stars are Signs of all humane affairs IF any man peruse attentively this place of St. Augustine by these words Gelestial Bodies he shall finde him not to understand the Celestiall Orbes but the bodies of the blessed who after the Resurrection shall be invested with celestiall glory and immortality making a grand distinction betwixt men encaged in this fragile and perishing body and the beautified who enjoy the fruition of Almighty God and live a life Angelical and whereas here on earth we can palliate and cloak our thoughts and cunning dissemblings and thereby make our neighbours believe that which we never intend in Heaven all thoughts are mutually discovered all glossing couzening and dissembling utterly laid aside and cast off And that this is the meaning of that great Doctor these his ensuing words demonstrate These therefore deserve that blessed habitation and happy change into Angelical forms and brightness who when they had power in this mortal pilgrimage under homely habits to palliate leasings and untruths detested it and onely with a most flagrant and ardent zeal of truth and verity shunned whatsoever might scandalize the hearer abhorring upon what account soever to tell a lye for the time will come when nothing will be hid and whatsoever is hid shall be made manifest So that we see St. Augustine speaketh clearly and perspicuously of glorified bodies and not of Celestial Orbes Heavens or Stars so that I am in admiration that Julius Severus should so inconsiderately and rashly read over this place and through misunderstanding brand so eminent a man with an opinion which he is so far from maintaining that in the fifth book of the City of God he utterly opposeth and confuteth Of the nature and variety of Signs THat the stars are signs of future events I conceive not onely contradictory to solid Philosophy but also opposite and repugnant to holy Scripture and although the reasons which I have alledged in the premises be sufficient to convince this infirm doctrine yet in this place I will produce other forcible arguments to corroborate what formerly I have maintained First therefore whatsoever is a natural sign of another thing that upon necessity must be either its cause or effect or both and proceed from the superior and common cause for besides these what fourth member can be imagined to have the sign upon necessity joyned with the cause by it signified this is no way distinct from the third Member for such a connexion and conjunction can no other wayes have a being then that the cause should produce that out of it self which is the Sign and then that which is the thing signified as the same thing which moves the cause to action and excites it must also applicate and apply that which is presignified but each of these must necessarily be referred to the common cause from whence this argument may be framed If the Heavens and Stars be signs of all sublunary things they are either their causes which this opinion allows not or the effects which no man in his wits will grant or presume to affirm or else which is all that can be said as well celestial as sublunary things proceed from the common cause as the Rain-bow is sign of fair weather not that it is the cause or effect thereof but one and the same is the common cause of both upon necessity the common cause of celestiall and sublunary bodies must either be corporeal or incorporeal I do not think they will say it is corporeal for above the Heavens there is no body at all therefore they must grant
he in former time a man whose name was Oenomaus famous amongst the Grecians both for his singular Eloquence and prosound Philosophy who often deceived and abused by the Delphine Oracle with great curiosity gathered together all the Oracles he could gleane and lay hands on and with exquisite knowledge and skill confuted them as falacious ridiculous and vain Why the Devils in foretelling future things so often erre THere are four reasons why the Devils in foretelling future events so often and much mistake First they positively and peremptorily affirm things which have their sole dependance upon mans free will which being both mutable and flexible unto all things as really free doth sometimes operate after a certain extraordinary manner and again being other while divinely inspired we do and act things contrary to what we formerly had intended and by our own judgement and imagination thought expedient Nay ofttimes it falls out that what the Devil had foretold and determined to bring to pass Almighty God forbidding and hindering it he cannot make it his desired Catastrophe To conclude the supreme Deity not unfrequently useth to effect things in a way different from the common course and ordinary providence and by this means the Devil is very many times deceived and mistaken And pray then what rational soul will believe Astrologers infallibly to speak truth when we see the Devil himself cannot do it what do I thus trouble my self with this infernal fiend when the most learned Divines and School-men affirm that the Beatified Spirits and Celestial Intelligences who clearly and face to face behold the Divine Essence know the nature of the Stars and Heaven and all other Natural causes yet cannot prophesie of things to come which have their dependency upon mans free-will unless it shall please the Heavenly Majesty to give unto them a particular revelation thereof if it be not ridiculous to give more power to Star-gazing Astrologers then Beatified Spirits and Celestial Intelligences I know not what we shall call madness The Truth and Verity of Christian Religion cannot cohere with the Truth of Judicial Astrology THis discourse and argumentation questionless is most valid and convincing if Christian Discipline and Religion be exact perfect and true as no doubt but it is then of necessity must that vain and impertinent Astrological Science or Prognostication be false and erroneous as having been several times taxed censured and condemned of vanity and falsity by that Religion but if Christian Faith be false and deceitful which is spread in a manner over the superficies of the whole universe and hath brought almost all Nations under its sweet yoke and obedience and hath now flourished and been resplendent these 1661 years compleat if all the actions of mortal and humane creatures proceed from the motions of the heavens then must it undeniably follow that the great study and propension which men have to imbrace maintain and defend the Law and Faith of Christ must have its dependency upon some unresistible and most powerfull constellation and therefore the heavens should encline and induce men to evil for if the Faith of Christ should be false questionless it would be more false and detestable then any other sect or opinion whatsoever for it teacheth informeth and illuminateth our souls concerning God and Divine Affairs which should they be false would palliate and contain of necessity most damnable superstition and execrable impiety but seeing that that life which is squared directed and guided by the modal frame and rule of Christian Faith deserveth all praise and admiration hence it would necessarily follow that from the self-same Constellation both good and bad should be produced bad in respect of Christian Doctrine its falsity and good for the admirableness and excellent perfection of that life which is directed and conformable to the rule and dictamen in that Doctrine Adde also that the greatest proof of our Chrian Faith is and the most perspicuous and clear argument of Divine Providence that whatsoever hath hapned either concerning our Lord and Saviour or his Church all that I say whatsoever hath many ages since been predicted and foretold by the holy Prophets uniformly exactly distinctly and most clearly but if such a prediction could possibly be made by Astrology that most sound and firm foundation of our Religion would utterly be shaken totally ruined and brought to nothing and infallibly this Doctrine of Astrolological divination is not onely destructive to moral Philosophy but verily even strikes at the root of sacred Scripture and all Theology as much as lieth in its power for he who holds all the acts and transactions of men to depend on the Heavens the events chances and the like to be foreseen foretold and made manifest by the observation of the Stars or Heaven this man must also without question think mans soul to be mortal and material and that there is neither free will nor any such providence in Almighty God as our Faith teacheth us and also that the mysteries of our Christian Faith have their dependence and being from the Heavens and that all the miracles as well in the old as new Testament although they have been ever esteemed as indeed really they are supernatural must notwithstanding be reduced to Celestial causes vertues and influences This dangerous opinion begets a more dangerous effect viz. neglect and pretermission of good works a freedom and liberty to all lusts appetites and sensuality an excusing and palliating of all vices whatsoever taxing both humane and divine Laws of severity and cruelty Cajetan in his Summula where he treats of the observation of Stars though not altogether in so eloquent and polite a phrase yet most pithily and truly thus writes The observation of Stars concerning nativities of men and humane occurances may three wayes come into the compass of sin First if we reduce such things as are mysteries of Christian Faith to that pass as to be subject to Celestial causes and constellations Secondly if we look after future contingents as things certain by reason of Celestial causes Thirdly if any one tye his elections or intentions so to the law and guidance of Celestial influences that he regulate and conform his life and actions according to the position of the heavens or influences thereof each of these three is a mortal sin First because it is against the spiritualness or spirituality of Christian Religion which mounts above the Heavens and is of power to change the course and motions thereof according as it is written in the 148. Psalm The confession of him above heaven and earth which is manifest by experience Secondly because it is against the verity of Christian Religion and free will whereby we become controlers and masters over all our actions Thirdly it is against the dignity of Grace and divine Law and humane Understanding whereby we are elevated and placed above things corporeal and as we should much mistake and erre to make our selves subject to the passion of
Planets Concerning many most false and evidently impious Assertions BUt that it may the more manifestly appear how impious and execrable this doctrine is I will here set before your eyes some Assertions and Decrees of those men whereby the impiety and wickedness of that Art may the more easily be discovered Some of those subtil Doctors affirm that Mars being seated benignly and prosperously in the ninth Region of the Heavens he is of such power that by his very presence there we may cast out devils from bodies possessed others as wise or rather prophane as the former make their boasts and brags that by this their adored Art they can infallibly lay open the most obstruse and hidden secrets of the conscience of any mortal creature breathing but this is a vulgate and common assertion I do not say a Mathematical conclusion that there are two Planets which are the authours and procurers of all humane felicity Venus of what is here present Jupiter of what is to follow in the life future or world to come Maternus a man higly confident and curious and a great Patron of those lies and feignments after he had disgorged himself of many things which happen to mortals when Saturn is constitute in Leo he addes what follows Men born under such a constellation shall be long-liv'd and after their passage out of this sublunary universe by the application and additional help of wings shall soar and mount aloft to the highest heaven And his reason is for that Saturn being placed in Leo reduceth souls from the bodies of persons so born uncaged from innumerable cares and troubles in this mortal being to the very Empyrium the fountain of their origen Albumazar will needs perswade us that he whosoever shall ask any thing of Almighty God the Essence of all goodness when the Moon is conjoyned with Jupiter in the Dragons head questionless his Orations and Supplications obtain not onely audience but a full and plenary grant and confirmation of whatsoever he imploreth and this honest Petrus Aponensis averreth that he found experimentally true in himself because that he when that conjunction was in its full power and vigour had humbly supplicated to the highest for the gift and spirit of science and knowledge of things and from that very moment if you will believe him he felt an incredible exuberance and superabundant accession of knowledge By these and many such like fopperies wicked detestable and pernicious to Christian Religion which although they would gladly seem to elevate and extol yet do they absolutely take away the faith and belief of those things which the holy Scripture teacheth to be done supernaturally immediately and miraculously by God himself There is no man so very much a blocus or stupid in his intellectual part but may very well undeceive himself if his judgement have gone astray and erred herein He that desires more accurate satisfaction in this point let him read Picus Mirandulanus who largely and learnedly handleth this subject in several places especially Lib. 2. Cap. 5. and in the fifth Book Chap. the 11. and so to the end thereof Chap. 2. Judiciary Astrology Arraigned and Convinc't by Philosophy and the Professors proved altogether ignorant of Celestial Things CRave and learned Philosophers to demonstrate Astrological Divination to be ridiculous and grounded upon no firm and solid basis or foundation assert their Theses and Conclusions after this manner Astrologers cannot certainly know the vigour power defluxions or effects of the Stars nay had they that knowledge which they have not yet were it not sufficient for a full and certain foretelling of things hereafter to be contingent and therefore it follows by necessary consequence and evidently that Astrological predictions are frivolous vain and fallacious Two things are included in this argument which are to be more at large elucidated and explained before further progress herein The first is that Astrologers are ignorant of Celestial things The other that although they were really and undeniably most expert and skilful yet were not that sufficient to divine infallibly of future events we will speak of the first in this ensuing Paragraph Judiciary Astrologers ignorant of Celestial things Out of this which I shall now produce before your eyes I will plainly make it manifest that Judiciary Astrologers are ignornt of heavenly things and causes first therefore it is very intricate hard and laborious to know those things perfectly concerning the Heavens which to us seem more obvious and facile as for instance The Nature of the Heavens the Magnitude the Number of the Orbs the order within themselves the difference of dignity the variety of motions and to proceed a little further the number of the Stars the comparison of them amongst themselves concerning their greatnesse brightnesse power and effects The grand discrepance and variety of opinions of the best Philosophers herein which we finde gives a most clear and perfect notion of this difficulty Aristotle whom the world acknowledgeth the Prince of Philosophers candidly and ingenuously confessed that concerning many Celestial things he had no certain or exquisite knowledge but onely an imaginary and conjectural skill and being destitute of real and manifest reasons he was compelled to make use of probable arguments and conjectures peruse and read over Aristotle himself in his second Book de Coelo Text 17. 34. 60 61. which if it be so who will give credit unto Astrologers who as all must grant being as perspicuous as the fun at noon-day are not to be compared with those great Masters in Philosophy that those things in the Heavens by the judgement of Philosophers are most obstruse and to mortals incomprehensible I say the vertue and foretelling certainly of things to come should be so clear and experimentally known Let us now a little make bold with these all-divining Astrologers and something entrench upon their patience that they will be pleased out of their profound knowledge to enucleate and enode unto us some of the more easie questions and doubts concerning the Heavens As first whether the Heavens be of a simple and uncompounded or a compounded matter and form and then whether the matter of the Heavens be such as is that of sublunary things or different and divers from it whether Heaven be animate or inanimate whether it be moved by its own proper strength and by it self or extrinsically by an Angel by what means the dignity and excellency of the Heavens one from another shall be estimated judged and made manifest What the reason may be why all the Orbes are not circumagitated and wheeled about by one onely motion but that some are forced by one some by more and others by fewer motions Let these Grandees discover unto us what force and power properly belonging unto it each star hath upon Mettals Vegitables and such as have fruition of vital spirits and life Put these Questions and Interrogatories unto them or such like and we shall finde these Astrologers ignorant weak and
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
that all things must be referred to an incorporeal cause that is either to God himself or Angels who moves the Heavens so that whilst Angels move the Heavens in the very state habit position and conformation of those Heavens as it were by certain nods and becks of theirs like notes and signs described therein they should point out and predict the events and contingents of humane affairs but this in many respects is not credible for whosoever grounds upon this foundation must needs grant and say that Angels induce mortals unto all and whatsoever even the greatest and most horrid fins and villanies In this point Philosophy doth inform us and also Theology doth the like that there is no action of Angels as they call it transeant which immediately proceeds from them other then local motion and that the Angels who do circumvolve and wheel about the Celestial Orbes these I say those great masters averre to have no other operation concerning humane affairs then what proceeds from motion and the light of the Heavens For those I know not what insluences distinct from light I have formerly sufficiently made null and there is no man so brain-sick who will affirm if he will speak things probable and likely that motion and the light of heaven can infallibly clearly and distinctly premonstrate all future effects of sublunary things and again when two effects of the same cause necessarily shew one the other as they must proceed from the same cause so must they also proceed after one and the same manner otherwise it cannot be that they should indicate one another Such things as are broughâ— to pass by God and his Angels in Celestial bodies must have their beings necessarily and invariably whereas those which are beneath the Moon have their contingency very mutably and I may say defectively In like manner other arguments may be framed if the stars who are confined to a set and certain number and of a like condition can be signs of future things which are almost infinite both in number and variety and in themselves discrepant and differing How can the same positure and conformity of stars under which Twins and many others are born in in the same moment of time be a certain sign properly and distinctly to presignifie so many several and distinct dispositions casualties and events as we daily discover in them therefore if we grant the stars to be signs of future things we must also affirm them to be their causes and if we deny them to be Causes we must also deny them to be Signs Whether Comets or Blazing Stars be signs of humane affairs THou wilt perhaps avouch that Comets which are generated in the high and sublime air are signs which predict strange and wonderfull events to ensue and of those Contingents the Comets are neither the causes nor effects and therefore probable it is that the stars are in the like condition in respect of sublunary affairs for my part I shall never grant Comets to be signs of humane chances and events though this is as much believed amongst the vulgar as exploded by wise men Should I walk hand in hand with the vulgar in this errour and say that the Stars produced the Comets as Poasts or Curriours to go before them to foretell future events if I should I say grant this yet concerning the stars another account is to be given for that they have no corporeal cause superiour unto them Whether those men who make the Stars signs of future things do thereby upon necessity establish that thing call'd Fate WE will make no great business of this the Authors of this opinion although unwillingly engage themselves in a necessity of Fate far more then those who will have the stars to be the causes of sublunary effects for grant that the stars should be the causes of all things which are produced beneath the moon yet for all this there is no necessity of bugg-bear fate for what is to be done and effected upon earth by the influences and defluxions of the stars that may be impeded and crost by contrary affections of the matter or by the intervening of particular causes as obstructions thereunto But if stars be naturally the signs of future Contingents then upon necessity whatsoever they signifie must come to pass otherwise they are signs fallacious and deceitfull and seeing that our great God hath ordained and instituted them to signifie and give notice of things and hath engraven them in heaven as in some voluminous Tome to point out and be as it were Indexes of things to come to pass if the event of these things which they signifie should not prove answerable you must either make God their author ignorant or a great impostor and deceiver If you say the starres presignific what is to be done in some particular causes and onely in some and not in all this is extreamly improbable and fable like for why should the stars foretell the future chances and effects of some particular effects rather then of others and not rather of all alike the reason being indifferent and like in all or else you must say that the stars are the future effects of all particular causes If this be so it must needs follow that there will be no causes left remaining to impede obstruct or hinder whatsoever is by the stars predicted and it will necessarily come to pass that whatsoever is sublunary must be tied to an absolute fate and necessity which the defenders of this opinion will not allow of or should they it were most wicked and impious As concerning that Text of Isaiah 54. The Heavens like a book shall be folded up which amongst all the places of Scripture formerly set down seems to have the most of difficulty in it I finde it diversly and by divers and severall Expositors glossed and interpreted yet no exposition if it be of an approved Authour or at least probable which makes for or sides with that opinion Justinus Martyr answering to the forty ninth interrogatory of the Orthodoxes wherein the Querie was how that place of Isaias was to be understood when he saith That the Heavens like a book shall be folded up saith as the divine word sometimes by a similitude compares heaven to a skin extended saying who extends the heaven like a skin other times to smoak other times to a chamber and so on the contrary speaking of the dissolution of the heavens it is compared to a book and other things and by David in his Psalms to a garment waxing old St. Hierom upon the same words saith we must observe that he saith not the heavens to perish but to be wrapped up like a book that after all sins were detected and made manifest and read they should no more be opened never more to have the sins of men written in them In the Scripture the Heavens are said to shew the justice of God to reveal his anger to prove and give testimony of mans wickedness St.