use not in their preternaturall abuse In their works as obedient creatures not by their words as if they were intelligent creatures By clear and dilucide manifestations not by obscure and aequivocall predictions By Miracles and prodigies from the wise and powerfull God not by Oracles and prestigiousnesse from blind vain and prodigious men By the ministry of Divines Prophets and Apostles not by the magistry of Diviners Speculators Circulators Prognosticators Calculators c. By their proper natures numbers qualities quantities efficacies not by their Planetarian and genethliacall numbrings figurings erectings themes schemes tables and fables c. By admonishing the hearts and consciences not by enforcing the wills and reasons of men By orderly producing their effects from naturall causes not by confusedly ominating of future contingencies from arbitrary actions In a word all creatures in heaven and earth are declarations of Gods glory in themselves yet are they not so to us but as we are enlightened and sanctified so to apprehend and use them Isa 34. 4. The heavens shall be rolled together as a scroul What kind of scroul or book are the heavens said to be Are they a very book because of the comparison why then are they not also as really a Curtain Psal 144. 2. Isa 40. 22. a Garment Psal 101. 26. and Smoak Isa 51. 6. And why more really a book than a leaf a fig or a tree Since all are used here in a joynt comparison And what kind of book will they have them to be A book wherein are written all the contingent events that have been are or shall be in the world From the beginning to the end of it And so written in letters and legible characters that a man may fore-spell and fore-read them and all mens fates and fortunes in them Now in what kind of character or language is all this to be read In Hebrew Chaldee Arabick Syriack Aegyptian Greek or Latin c. And how are these coelestial or sydereal letters to be read backward or forward from the right hand or the left from the East West North or South If all this Magic-astrologicall reading be no more as it appears by the character but drawing a line or a circle or a square or a triangle from one Star to another what hindereth but that the characters of any language may be imagined or fancied to any purpose as they please Nay is it not as easie and arbitrary to imagine letters among the starres as for children and fools to fancie faces and figures in the clouds But to bring this their arrogated Text a little neerer to their refutation Doe we not well and aptly translate it a Scroul In as much as the antient books were like to extended skinnes or Parchments And then may not the comparison well be from the matter not from the form of their shrivelling like a skin or parchment before the fire How ever is not this Scroul or Book here said to be complicated or rolled up or together What 's here then for the magicall or astrologicall Lecturer to peep or pore upon whereby to spell or spie mens fates or fortunes Moreover are not the heavens here compar'd or described as passive and not as active And what Magician will account of them so in his way of lection or Astrologer in his way of configuration Furthermore if they will adde to this that place Revel 6. 14. then let them see and say whether that be to be understood of the materiall or of the mysticall starrs and heavens Lastly is not the Prophecy here a judgement Now though we may grant their judicious vaticinations to be grounded upon such a thing yet one would think they should not seek to ground them upon such a place Gen. 44. 5. Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine Whether Joseph was such a Diviner as he seemed Nay the second question is whether he seemed to be such If he now pretended to augurising divination or soothsaying for the dissembling or concealing of himself from his Brethren this was not to be approved in him Much less can it countenance the pretenders hereunto who would dissemble with all the world so long as they can possibly conceal their jugling and prestigious unpostures Yet he sayes not I can divine but such a man as I he can divine Wherein he discovers the pravity not of his person but of those in place It being great like with the Egyptians as with the Persians the greater men the greater Magicians the greater Personages the greater Planetarians And why should he say Wott ye not if this very thing were not too notorious who can imagine that Joseph Would vainly boast himself in such a superstitious faculty that had so modestly denied himself in a true divine gift Chap. 4. vers 16. And therefore why may wee not accept the word in a good sense not for a superstitious and sorcerous but for a prudent and politick conjectation It is so taken Chap. 30. vers 27. and 1 King 20. 33. and why not so here rather than there Admit the same word from his own mouth be taken in an ill sense vers 5. yet is there not a difference betwixt the persons spoken of an heathenish Prince and an holy Patriark Likewise in the act and usage of Divination and an allegation As also in the thing it self and the manner of it a superstitious and sorcerous divining in or by a Cup and a prudent policy in making triall or sifting and searching to find out a Cup lost or missing Men of conscience taking Josephs practice and example here at the best think it not ordinarily imitable what conscience then are those men of that would make it worse than it was and yet make it imitable too Dan. 4. 9. O Belteshazzar Master of the Magicians c. Whether Daniel was a master in Magick and Astrologie Is a Name or appellation heathenishly and superstitiously imposed any argument of a thing The King here calls Daniel Belteshazzar after the name of his God vers 8. was he therefore a God So the King here calls him a Magician was he therefore so But does he call him simply a Magician nay but the Master of the Magicians Because he had committed to him a civill power over them as chap. 2. 48. and 5. 11. how does that prove that he was one of the same religious profession Doe not the King and the Queen chap. 15. 11 12. proclame him to be of a more excellent spirit than all the other Magicians Astrologers Chaldeans and Sooth-sayers And Chap. 1. 17. was not that the speciall gift of God And such a gift as he himself distinguishes and opposes to all the skill and power of Wise-men Magicians Astrologers and Sooth-sayers whatsoever Chap. 2. 27 28. Nay and the King himself so experiencing and accounting of it chap. 1. 20. After all this preferring and distinguishing who can now be so sensless as to compare and conjoyn them Say that he
in disposing the creature neither ought men so to do beyond the great Law of using the creature aright and to those very ends for which God ordained it For it can never be lawful or warrantable so to transgresse natures order as to abuse the creature in any kinde Now do they not know that the creature may as well be spiritually and speculatively abused by superstition and curiosity as practically and carnally by violence or sensuality 9. Why amongst all the Miracles that Christ wrought against the Devils among men and in the other creatures he did work none at all from or by the heavenly bodies the stars Besides the reason above mentioned why he refused to shew a signe from heaven this may now be added above all the rest It was because there now was a greater Miracle wrought upon the earth then ever was wrought in the Heavens Even the mysterious Miracle or miraculous Mystery of God and Man Doing such works upon earth as whereat the Angels and whole powers of heaven might well stand amazed with admiration Indeed there was a wonder in Heaven a star a new star at his birth and another wonder in Heaven an Eclipse of the Sun a new Eclipse at his death Such a star and such an Eclipse as were miracles in their nature site motion portent to all other stars and Eclipses Such a star and such an Eclipse as were the mysteries of all other stars and Eclipses Set apart to signifie his power in Heaven at the greatest instants of his infirmity upon earth Thus they testified of him and yet was not among these Miracles nor mighty works that were wrought by him 10 Whether Miracles may be wrought out of the Church Although we make not the power of working miracles to be the perpetual note of Gods Church yet we determine the Church to be the proper seat of them And in determining we do thus distinguish That God may be pleased to work miracles all the world over and that by his Angels as his Ministers in the Government thereof but employs not men to that purpose sâ—ve onely within his Church And do distinguish again that privative miracles or those of wrath and judgment may be wrought out of the Church but not positive or those of Grace and mercy And our reasons are 1. Because the main end of working Miracles is for the plantation and confirmation of the Gospel the truth of Gods word and that cannot be without the Church 2. The power of working Miracles is from a promise and that belongs to the Church alone 3. In a Miracle is considerable not so much the evident effect as the secret intent and this consideration is onely for the faithful in the Church 4. The truth of the word is not to be measured by miracles but the truth of miracles by the Word and where is that but in the Church 5. Miracles tend as to the glory of God so to the edification of the Godly and who looks for that or them out of Gods Church 6. Satans stupendous prodigies are mostly wrought out of the Church but Gods wonderful miracles within it 7. Though it hath been said that miracles were intended for Infidels yet were they not effected but by believers and by believers either to convince or to convert those Infidels 11. Whether wicked men and reprobates may be workers of miracles Not by Angelical assistance not by diabolical confederation not by the secret of Nature not by the study of Art but by divine dispensation they may 1. Because God may be pleased to employ them to this purpose and yet give them no more but a faith of miracles which is common to reprobates 2. Because that of miracles is a gift not simply making accepted but may be given onely for others sakes 3. God hath wrought miracles by dead instruments and why not by men of a dead faith and dead in trespasses and sinnes 4. Wicked men may be used in the working of miracles for a testimony of Gods truth yet not in a manifestation of their own graces 5. Bad men have been imployed in working of miracles that good men might not be proud or overweening of common gifts 6. The working of miracles is not appropriated to godly men lest ordinary Graces might be undervalued and weak Christians might take scandal and despair in their defect of the extraordinary gift 12. Wherein differ true and false miracles or divine and diabolical Theological and magical 1. The one kind are wrought by God by Angels Prophets Apostles and sometimes by the Saints the other not but by devils magicians Juglers ungodly men 2. The one are solid and real in effect the other are phantasmatical and praestigiously deceiveing the sense 3. The one God freely calls to do the other are not done but by tempting both God and the Devil 4. The one are serious and upon occasions of importance the other are ludicrous and serve to make vain men sport 5. The one tend to confirm the Church the other to seduce from it 6. The one are liberal the other mercenary 7. The one profitable the other pernicious 8. The one make humble and modest the other arrogant and full of ostentation 9. The one serves to instruct the other onely to astonish 10. The one are wrought with devout Prayer Supplication Thanksgiving the other by superstitious imprecation adjuration incantation with many ridiculous signes and execrable ceremonies nothing pertaining to the producing of the effect And thus they differ in their Authors instruments dignity quality duration utility end and effect 13. Whether Magicians Conjurers Inchanters Witches c work not their miracles or rather signes wonders prodigies portents by the devils means It is affirmed that they do so for these reasons 1. Because they do them not by God Angels Nature or Art as appears sufficiently by what hath been said already and therefore they must needs do them by the devil 2. Because they operate upon a compact which is evident in that invocation adoration sacrifice immolation c. is hereunto required 3. Because they operate by idolatrous superstitious sorcerous execrable ridiculous signes rites and ceremonies 4. Because they secretly invoke although they outwardly would seem to command which imploration and imperiousnesse yea and dissimulation between both these is to God and good Angels abominable 5. Because their Prayers and preparations are blaspheming railing execrating threatning prophane superstitious absurd ridiculous which neither God nor good Angel can indure 6. Because they seek either to allure or compel their operating power by things sensible 7. Because the fact exceeding Natures order and Arts efficacy yet there can be no reasonable cause why such an effect should be ascribed either to God or good Angels 8. Because the effect is by them ascribed to times places figures characters rites ceremonies c. 9. Because there are used hereunto words besides names of God and Angels barbarous unknown insignificant incoherent apocryphal superstitious sorcerous detorted absurd
of the Planets to the 12. Signes of the Zodiaek to the whole host of heaven and so to the troop of Starres And what of that place Isa 64. 11. Let it according the Septuagint the Chaldee Paraphrase the Fathers and others be interpreted of Idolls or of Devils of Fortune or of Fate or of their Epicurizing or their sacrificing to the Sarres in an auspication of the years fertility Is it not now most fitly applied for the confirmation of a Patriarks constellated nativitie If after ages more corrupt and idolatrous might invent an Idoll or a Daemon or a Paganish Planet of that name must it therefore be known to and approved by the Fathers in the Primitive times of their purer simplicity Judg 5 20. They fought from heaven the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera How the Stars are said to fight for or against Why may not the Stars here be metaphorically understood for Angels Howbeit who can deny but their fighting was metaphoricall For how fought they by a naturall influx and not rather by a supernaturall direction By their common position and not indeed by their speciall imposition Ordinarily nay but extraordinarily Formally nay but rather effectively Even so far forth as it pleased the Lord of Hosts to use them as his instruments for the prodigious producing of thunder lightning wind hayl rain storm or tempest c. So then the Stars fought externally by their own proper weapons in generating and producing of disturbing and distracting meteors not by their influences working internally upon the minds wils consciences counsels and courages of men In this generall muster or great conjunction which of them was the leader in chief or predominant Lord All those that perished in this slaughter did the Stars agree to design that in their births which they now executed at their deaths This fighting of theirs such as it was who foresaw it who foretold it was not the Prophetess her self ignorant of it save only after the event And when she understood the manner of it was she instructed by an arted speculation or by a divine revelation only Deborah is now ascribing the victory to the Lord of Hosts for his praise and worship and not unto the Stars For it is a Canticle and not an incantation So much is to be collected from them which way soever we point her words They fought from heaven so The whole Trinity as efficients or the holy Angels as instruments Take the clause so distinct and then it is easy to observe that there were others above them who fought first and not the Stars but secondarily at their command Their Commanders went before in the front and these the common Souldiers of Gods Hoste follow after in the rear And if we read thus the Stars from heaven fought That ntoes not only their place where it is but their power whence it is And then those following words they fought in their courses or in their orders paths degrees elevations exaltations mounts banks c. Doe note both their limitation and direction in their place and power Yet not that power from their naturall place or position but from a divine disposition and imposition at that present In short was not this case singular and extraordinary betwixt the Isralites and the Cananites wherefore then should it be drawn to any common and ordinary much less vain observation Job 38. 31 32 33. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons Knowest thou the Ordinances of heaven canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth Whether this portion of Scripture be a proof of the Stars potency and not rather of the Star-gazers impotency Is the naming of them a sufficient proof and approofe of their power and dominion on the one part and not rather the comparing of them or objecting of them the only scope and argument to prove the ignorance and inability on the other part who is it that speaks here and to whom speaks he Is it not God to Job the Holy Spirit to a just man advising and convincing him of his ignorance and imbecillity not only as touching celestiall but also terrestriall matters If it had been a Daemon to a Magician or a Familiar to a Sooth-sayer would he not have soothed him up in a flattering conceit of his art skill sufficiency vertue and power in these things But the Good Spirit free from the others fallacie and ambiguity expostulates plainly Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades That is canst thou make the seaven Stars to appear so in a knot together as if they were all bound in one band Or are they beholden to thee for that sweet delightfull harmonious concord or collection Or canst thou bind restrain or forbid their sweet influences their delights and pleasant vertues of flowers and fruits in Gardens and Fields from the opening of the Spring all Summer long Or canst thou so conjoyn them or observe any such conjunction in them as to cause or discern them to be nearer to one another at one time than they are at anorher On the contrary canst thou loose the bonds of Orâ—on that is cause or discern them to be further off one another at one time than they are at another Or canst thou dissipate the contractâ—ons of those Stars either by transposing their orders or inlarging their border or else dissolve the contractions of the Winter Stars and so make the earth to open her self in a flourishing way when she is now as it were bound up Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season Or make the twelve signs of the Zodiack each one of them to appear in his appointed time Or the remote Stars to shine at noon day Or Lucifer sometimes to preceed the Sun-rising and again to follow the Sun-setting Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons sâ— Instruct or direct the whole generation or congregation of the Northern Stars Or canst thou lead the great Bear with all his Whelps to make them devour as thou prognosticatest Or lead him over his sons the sons of God yea or the common sons of men to devast according to the praedictions of vain humane art Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven thou by thy naturall reason as they by their arted skill either according to what Laws and Statutes they are governed by God or govern the world Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth That is determine what power and vertue those Superiors have over these Inferiors in generall much less terminate it to particulars Now let the greatest Proselytes of the East consider well these words spoken to a great son of the East which although they were directed to his person yet they concern those of his kind I mean our orientall Artists and tell us what they can here directly observe in proof of the Stars influences upon souls wils actions and fortunes
and all such singular events as are contingent to humane state and affairs Are not the whole words a plain reproof of all such arrogance and a proof not so much of the Stars as of Gods own incomparable and incomprehensible power and providence as also of mans wretched ignorance and ignorant wretchedness while in this and divers other following Chapters he teaches Job to consider and that not only as touching the heavens but the earth the Sea and all that in them is Psal 8. 3. When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast created What difference betwixt a divine contemplation and a Diviners speculation of the Heavens Are not these the main differences and most of them to be here observed 1. One reads them with the pure glass of Gods word the other by his own false and fallacious perspicils And must not he be blear eyed and weak sighted that undertakes to read the Heavens and Heavenly bodyes not with the eyes of his soul nor yet with his eyes in his head but with his eyes in or through a case 2. One beholds them as Gods Heavens the other as dame Natures Heavens 3. One sees and considers the other neither sees nor considers but gazes only and so conjectures 4. One looks upon them as a work an ordinary work the other pores upon them as working and extraordinarily working 5. One contemplates them devoutly and constantly at any time or all times whensoever the other speculates them superstitiously at stated planetary hours and moments 6. One considers them as the work of Gods fingers the other conceives them as working by his own figures 7. One doth it to meditate within himself the other doth it to presage and predict upon others 8. One regards them as Gods ordinance the other respects them as giving laws and ordinances to men 9. One takes occasion hereby to meditate both of mans frailty and his dignity as in some respects inferior yet in some respect superior to the heavenly bodyes the other feigns and muses upon the Stars superiority and domination and mans inferiority and subjection altogether 10. One admires the mercy of God in exalting man above the Stars the other at most but vaunts of his judgements in depressing him under them 11. One hereupon argues mans state to be little lower than that of Angels the other hereupon would make mans condition to be far worse than that of beasts 12. One so directs his meditation as that it is not without an expresse invocation of the Lord the other so directs his speculation as that very often it is not without some implicite invocation of the Devill 13. One magnifies God for so visiting man in mercy as to crown him with the glory and honour of a reasonable and a gracious soul the other dishonours him even in the visitations of his judgments in that he would rob man of this his crown and set it upon the Stars head making them to be rationall creatures nay and little less than God and man to be awed wholly under their irrationall and fatall necessity 14 One nevertheless concludes that God hath so made man as to have the dominion over the works of his hands the other concludes that the work of his fingers have nevertheless the inevitable and ineluctable dominion over him But it would not be unmentioned why no mention is here made of the Sun as is of the Moon and of the Stars was it because David composed this Psalme in the night time and is he therefore silent of it because it was now set Surely spirituall meditations require not the presence or appearance of sensible objects If he did compose it in the night season yet undoubtedly it was done in his Chamber and not on the top of a Tower This nightly meditation was clean another thing to their nightly speculation He could as they cannot perfect his consideration without any relation of or to the Sun Or therefore speaks he not of the Sun but of the Moon and the Stars only because these shine together Well then it is evident that he lookt not at such Aspects and Conjunctions as are fain to refer all chiefly to the Sun Or calls he the Sun his Heavens inclusively Why that in a peculiar manner is no more his creature than are all the other obscurer and inferior Stars they are all but the same work of his fingers But if he speak of the Sun thus involvedly it is not to countenance their involutions but reprove their involved praedictions who study to be ambiguons because they prognosticate from such things they plainly perceive not Or speaks he not of the Sun Because he speaks of seeing and that 's a thing cannot suffer it self to be over broadly gazed on Goe to if it doe indeed dazle the sensible eyes for whose naturall use it was intended how then will it dazle those curious eyes that are prying and searching into it not only for the supernaturall but preternaturall abuse of it and of all under it But to let pass these levities of conjecture save only that they have their weight against their lighter conjectures doth not the Psalmist in very deed therefore here passes over the Sun in silence because he is not now prognosticating but prophesying of the Sun of righteousness to whose brightness and glory the Sun in the firmament is but obscure darkness prophesying of his Birth and Death for which the Prince of the Planets hand no motion and hath therefore here no mention What sorcerous prophaness and wizzardly blasphemy then is that for Star-gazers to conclude our Saviour Christs Nativity Passion Resurrection and consequently the whole mysterie and work of our Redemption within the revolutions positions conjunctions aspects calculations configurations and prognostications of the Stars Psal 19. 1. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work How doe the heavens declare the glory of God Shall we believe the Rabbines or any magicall Reciter that the heavens declare the glory of God not as other inanimate creatures doe but that they doe it as things that have souls and prognosticating souls too Since they have no reason for their assertion but this because say they the word which here signifies to declare is never attributed in all the Scripture to things inanimate Say it were not so elsewhere is it not enough that it is so here Must we for the more common usage of the phrase change the proper nature of the thing In Job 12 7 8. that very word with others as rationall is attributed to the irrationall creatures shall we therefore say they are rationall creatures and so make a metamorphosis for a metaphors sake But wee believe the heavens do so declare the glory of God as the firmament sheweth his handy-work viz. after their own kind and way and not after ours In the simplicity of their nature not in the curiositie of an Art In their naturall end and
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
those nostrils by the which it self also entred into this corporeall man And by the which as Job testifieth the most lively spirits are sometimes sent forth which cannot be retained in mans heart A fortunate place conduceth much to favour Neither without cause did the Lord speak to Abraham that he should come into the land which he would shew him and Abraham arose and journyed towards the South In like manner Isaac went to Gerarah where he sowed and gathered an hundred fold and waxed very rich Make elections also of hours and dayes for thy operations magicall operations for not without cause our Saviour spake are there not twelve hours in the day Concerning that Phiolsophie which you require to know I would have you know that it is to know God himself the worker of all things and to passe into him by a whole image of likeness as by an essentiall contract and bond whereby thou mayst bee transformed and made as God as the Lord spake concerning Moses saying Behold I have made thee the God of Pharaoh This is that true high occult Philosophie of wonderfull vertues We must dye I say dye to the world and to the flesh and all senses and to the whole man animal who would enter into these closets of secrets occult Philosophicall Magicall secrets not because the body is separated from the soul but because the soul leaves the body Of which death Paul wrote to the Colossians Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ And elsewhere he speaks more clearly of himself I knew a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knows caught up into the third Heaven By this their theomancy they suppose that Moses did shew so many Signs and turned the rod into a Serpent and the waters into blood and that he sent Frogs Flys Lice Locusts Caterpillers fire with Hail botches and boyles on the Egyptians c. By this art of miracles Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still Elisah called down fire from Heaven upon his enemies restored a dead child to life Daniel stopt the mouths of the Lyons the three children sang songs in the fiery furnace Moreover by this art the incredulous Jews affirm that even Christ did so many miracles Salomon also very well knew this art and delivered charms against Devils and their bonds and the manner of conjurations and against diseases This is that Alphabetary and Arithmeticall Theologie which Christ in private manifested to his Apostles and which Paul speaketh to the perfect only 1 Cor. 2. 6 7. John 37. 7. He sealeth up the hand of every man that all men may know his work This place the Chirosophers or Câ—iromancers abuse to proove their Palmistry and their jugling Prognostications by the fictitious lines and mounts in the hand Isa 1. 16. Wash ye make you clean all this they apply to the ceremoniall emundations or purifactions which they prescribe as requisite to the operations of Theurgicall Magick 1 Kings 4. 33. Hereupon they believe that King Salomon exceeded in Magicall skill and that all those things here spoken of doe bear before them certain powers of naturall Magick Dan 4. 33. Nebuchadnezzar being driven from among men and eating grasse as Oxen c. This they urge as a proof of the possibillity of veneficall and metamorphosing or transforming Magick That the Brazen Serpent set up by Moses in the wildernesse was but a meer Talisman which drove away Serpents and healed the bitings of them And that the Iews made the Golden Calf to no other end than to serve as a â—alisman as their Astrologers think to aucupate the favour of Venus and the Moon against the influences of Scorpio and Mars which are adverse unto them I know not whether or no by the very same vertue of Resemblance which is found betwixt God and man Let us make man in our image after our likenesse it hath not rightly been affirmed by some Divines that the Son of God would nevertheless have become man yet without suffering death though Adam had not fallen The art of Divination of Dreams is grounded upon resemblance as may appear out of the holy Bible where Joseph foretold the Cup-bearer that within three dayes he should be restored to his office because he had dreamed that he pressed three clusters of Grapes into Pharaohs Cup c. So at the seven years of plenty and dearth by the seven fat and lean kine Eccles 1. 16 17. 7. 25. By the words spoken in the good sense sayes R. Salomon we understand Sciences divine under which he comprehends Astrologie and by the other words in the bad sense those that are unlawfull in which number he reckons the Magick of the Aegyptians to which some will also intitle Moses They the later Rabines say that Moses who was a learned Astrologer making use of his knowledge in these secrets gave the Jewes those Lawes which he grounded upon the harmony of the Planetary Zepheros As for example he instituted the fourth Commandement Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day because this day was governed by Saturn who might cause those works that were undertaken on this day to be unprosperous and that Moses therefore thought it fit that the people should rest on this day The fifth Commandement Honour thy father and thy mother hath reference to the Sphere of Jupiter which is benign The sixth thou halt not kill to Mars who hath the government of Wars and Murders The seventh thou shalt not commit adultery to Venus who rules over concupiscentiall motions and so of all the rest That our Saviour Christ Saturn having part in his Nativity and so rendring him sad and pensive seemed to be older than he was Whereupon the Jewes took occasion to say unto him Thou art not yet fifty years old c. Abarbanel saith that Sol was the chiefest from whom they the Rabbinicall Astrologers took their Omens of good and this was the reason saith the same Authour that when God caused King Hezekiah to be born again as it were the second time hee made choyse of the Sun to be the sign by which this miracle should be wrought Psal 19. 4. Their line is gone out through all the earth We may understand it spoken of the starrs which are ranged in the heavens after the manner of letters in a book or upon a sheet of Parchment Ier. 1. 14. Out of the North an evill shall break forth c. or shall be opened We may render this Prophecie in these words all evills shall be described or written from the northward And if written then certainly to be read from this side Most properly therefore doe wee in this coelestiall writing begin to read disasters and misfortunes from the Northern part Iesus Christ when he was on earth with the dust of that earth he made the blind to see and of meer water he made wâ—ne These were the visible elemenrs of his Physick or rather so the notion offend you not of
water of silver Mercury of the Sun secret water water of the Sea of life miraculous white water permanent water the spirit of the body the unctuous vapour the blessed water the vertuous water the water of the wisemen the Philosophers vinacre the minerall water the dew of heavenly grace the seed of divine benediction heaven of earth earth of heaven stone salt fire caement balsome venerable nature our Philosophicall Chaos first matter matrix mother mother of the Chaos quintessence Nothing And yet the waters upon whose face the spirit of God moved must needs be understood of this chymicall chimericall fancy and foppery This earth to earth is just the doctrine of the Magi. Metals say they and all things may be reduced into that whereof they are made They speak the very truth it is Gods own principle and he first taught it Adam Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return And so let all vain arts and vile adulteratings of holy Scripture But I am weary with writing and have nauseated the Christian Reader yet had I not troubled my self or them with these collections had I not found them dispersed in English to the great dishonour of our Church and danger of our people Nor would I have added a word of reply to the confidence of asserting there 's enough in that to overthrow it self but for the impudence of challenging And for that cause I could willingly have said more but that I had an eye to the question and that part of it whether the recitation be not refutation enough I am not altogether ignorant or unaware that these are but the scatterings and sprinklings in comparison of those wherewith the Rabbinizing and Christianizing Magicians and Astrologers yea and Chymists too seek to stuff out their portentous volumes yea to fraight their very fragments and paint their very Pamphlets glad to snatch at and crowd in any place of Scripture upon any occasion that so they might pretend some consistency nay and convenience of their imposturous Arts and Artifices with the pure word of God But let all those depravations perish in their own dung for any further raving of mine who am loath to rake further into them unforced CHAP. II. 2. From the truth of Faith 1. WHether it be not the sole property of the prime verity to require simply a Faith or belief unto himself and to the Doctrine of his divine authority and revelation and therfore not belonging to any humane art science discipline or institution whatsoever much lesse to be arrogated to any that is diabolicall and prestigious yea vain unnecessary and unprofitable Wherefore then should Faith pure Faith be so precisely required and severely exacted above all other helps and means to the study and profession proficiency and successe of Magick and magicall operations 2. Whether Magick and Astrologie as indeed all ascititious and commentitious errours and heresies of any art study or profession whatsoever have not proceeded from a false and superstitious Faith and such as is no whit analogall either to the object or to the end of true religious Faith and not only so but altogether excessive and repugnant thereunto 3. For as much as Almighty God requires not a Faith in those things which he hath not revealed Why then should Magicians exact it to their mysteries which they so often check at themselves and one another for revealing nay professe or pretend themselves whether through envy or ignorance as adjured not to reveal 4. All Faith is not only in the Intellect but also in the Will And therefore ere it be believed how prove they that Magick ought either to be assented to as true and demonstrable or yet to be affected as good and lawfull 5. Whether all that can be supposed to those they call the Mathematicall arts and sciences be sufficient to acquire unto them an assent of Faith properly so called suppose some probable truth is not an assent of opinion enough to that Suppose some necessary truth is not an assent of reason sufficient for that Suppose some reall effect will not assent of experiment now serve the turn Is nothing answerable to all or the best of these but only a Faith which properly is either in God or of the things of God or at least to those things which are directly in order to God But suppose there be none of those must now this prime assent be allowed where all the other are justly to be denied 6. Right and pure Faith is neither of a bare proposition although true nor yet of a meer prediction although probable but of a divine promise only and that not only because certain and infallible but because good and beneficiall neither is there in either of the other the substance or evidence of things hoped for but in this last alone And therefore if Magicians and Astrologers cannot afford us such a promise ought we not justly to disclaim an adherence acquiescence affiance or confidence in any of their propositions or predictions whatsoever 7. Faith is properly in the heavenly mysteries of divine revelation such as cannot be otherwise attained unless they be infused nor otherwise comprehended but by faith alone Now as for the Secrets of Philosopâ—…e are they not acquisite and such as may be attained by industrie study discourse reading observation art science experience yea and sufficiently assented to by the light of nature lense reason opinion perswasion And though peradventure some Secrets of Philosophie such as are true and usefull may be divinely revealed or infused yet for as much as that is but to the common light of Nature Sense or Reason which for assent considers not the authority of God revealing but the evidence of the thing revealed How then can this be of Faith which is speciall and supernaturall altogether 8. A divine supernaturall infused theologicall Faith is given not because of the appearance or evâ—dence of the thing propounded but because of the authority and infallibility of the proposer And daâ—e they arrogate thus much to their Art or excuse their defect of evidence through a presumption of infallibility But if it be a naturall acquisite humane or civill faith or assent which they expect then we ask where the evidence proof demonstration reason For though reason follows the first yet it precedes the second kind of faith 9. Whether a miraculous faith or the faith of Miracles such as must needs be the faith of Magicall miracles and Astrologicall Predictions abovt suâ—uâ—e contingents as it is defective in Theologie so it be not excessive to Philosophie That is although it be very incompleat in relation to divine doctrine yet whether it be not too transcendent for any humane discipline to exact 10 Whether it may be verily called a faith of Miracles to give credit unto Magick or Astrologie because of some mirandous or stupendious things either effected or foretold in as much as we are taught to believe that such things may be done both by false arts and
About the election of dayes to such and such actions 59. About the planetary hours and the divisions of them 60. About the inherency and efficiency of the first qualities heat cold drought and moysture 61. About the effectualness of Symmetricall and harmonicall proportions 62. About the way of constituting the figures of Heaven 63. About the erecting and the correcting of theams and scheams 64. About the best and truest way of calculating 65. About the Astrologicall Tables 66. About inequalities 67. About elections 68. About rectifications 69 About the number of aspects 70. About the Lord of the geniture and his election 71. About the making choice of significators 72. About the deducing of the space of life 73. About judging of the morall disposition of the mind 74. About judging of the configuration or stature of the body 75. About the way of judging upon fortune and riches 76. About the reserving their yearly judgement to the true or apparent rising or setting of the Stars 77. About the searching out the Genius of a man by the Stars 78. About matters to be more or lesse regarded and esteemed in astrological judgement 79. About the reading of the Stars by hieroglyphicks characters letters syllables words sentences aspects conjunctions constellations oppositions configurations resemblances c. 80. About the portents of prodigies celestiall or terrestriall 81. About the vertue and power of contract sight sound voice breath numbers characters rings seals images c. 82. About the force of imagination 83. About the causes much more the interpretation of dreams 84. About the use and verâ—ue of lots 85. About the authentiqueness of their own authors old and new out of whom might be collected many a century of contrary and contradictory opinions Now since they themselves are not agreed upon the grounds and means of their art why should they expect that we should consent to such effects and issues of it as they pretend Is it not just and meet that they should first reconcile one another to truth ere they require our faith who will believe a certain or probable prognostication or prediction by such means and wayes as they themselves believe not but contradict and impugn not only as uncertain and improbable but as vain and false While some of them are so modest as to plead only for a probability what is this but to confesse that this art or science is nothing else but an opinion or conjecture But while there are such varieties diversities contrarieties and contradictions of opinions what does this prove but that all their conjecturings and opinings are but opinions against opinions or but opinions upon opinions or else nothing at all CHAP. XIV 14. From the absurdity of Errours VVHether the grosse errours that have been and are and ever will be some or others of them in Magick and Astrologie arise from the evill disposition of the Authors or of the Arts And in the Arts whether from the misapplyed circumstances or ceremonies and not rather from the misimagined substance and scope For from some accidentall mistakes only how can it be credible or possible that such puerile hallucinations and anile delirations should once have sprung or spread in the world as touching the nature originall matter form quantity quality site orders numbers figures motions and effects of the celestiall bodies As namely 1. That the Sun is nothing else but an Oven or hollow furnace full of fire 2. That the Sun is a golden turf or clod 3. That the Sun is made either of burning stone or iron 4. That the matter of the Sun is glassey or made of glasse 5. That the sun is the compact of severall flames 6. That there are two suns in the firmament one archetypall and invisible and the other sun which we see but the image or shadow of that which we see not 7. That the sun rising out of the Sea and setting in the Sea is kindled in the East and quenched in the West 8. That the sun is no bigger than it seems 9. That the sun is of the same breadth as is the earth 10. That the sun is bipedall or hath two feet 11. That the sun is not above a foot broad 12. That the sun is sometimes bigger sometimes lesser 13. That the sun stands still and the earth moves round about it 14. That the sun was at first a mortall man and first reigned in Egypt and because of his common benefits was translated into Heaven and immortalized there 15. That the moon is in magnitude equall to the sun 16. That the moon is bigger than the earth about nineteen times bigger than it 17. That the moon is an earthy substance covered over with a mist 18. That it is inhabited by many huge living creatures 19. That it is planted in a much more flourishing manner with trees and herbs than is the earth in its prime 20. That there are in it Fields and groves and mountains and vallys c. 21. That the moon consists of an unequall constitution earthy and frigid 22. That it is of an hot and fiery constitution 23. That it is partly conspicuous partly obscure 24. That the moon is endowed with an intellectuall mind 25. That it is an half fiery sphear a fiery compacted cloud 26. That it is mingled of ayr and fire 27. That it is an ascension or rather an accession collected from the vapours of sweet waters 28. That it attracts to it earthly dregs 29. That in the globe of the moon as in a glasse the received species of mountains are represented 30. That the inequality of the moon is caused because of some bodies interjected betwixt it and the sun 31. That the moon sometimes leaves the heavens 32. That an Asse once dranke up the moon That a great Dragon devoured it 33. That the moon dyes when she is in the Eclipse 34. That there is another earth within the concave of the moon and that men live there after the same manner as they doe here 35. That the moon is made of green Cheese and that there is a man in the moon with a bush at his back this I adde from the vulgar which doubtless took it up from such authours and urge it with like authority 36. That the Stars are made of an earthy porish matter much like to that of a pumice stone 37. That every Star is a world by it self containing in it both ayr and earth 38. That the Stars are composed of fiery clouds which like coals are quencht all the day time and kindled again at night 39. That the Stars are formed of ayr and are turned about like wheels and being full of fire spit out flames 40. That the Stars are fiery stones and the Sun the great burning stone amongst them 41. That the Stars are nourished by vapours abstracted and ascending from the ayr and the earth 42. That the Stars are animate sensible rationall and intelligent creatures 43. That the Stars are capable of vertues morall vertues and
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
98. That men ought not to lye with their Wives but under good Stars and happy Constellations that the child born may by their Government prove fortunate 99. That the severall formes and features of mens faces are wrought by the Stars 100. That the stature of a child is to be judged by the Light of the Stars and so of his colour motion qualities c. 101. That the Lyons Bears Dogs Buls Scorpions Fishes c. Upon earth are governed by those in Heaven 102. That Cottons and Wools and Ships and Buildings doe last the longer if they be wrought and framed under certain constellations 103. That so great is the power and efficacy of the celestiall bodies that not only naturall things but also artificiall when they are justly exposed to those above doe presently suffer by that most potent agent and obtain a wonderfull life which oftentimes gives them admirable celestiall vertue 104. That not only by the mixture and application of naturall things but also in Images Seals Rings Glasses and some other instruments being opportunely framed under a certain constellation some celestiall illustration may be taken and some wonderfull thing may be received 105. That inferior things doe obey their celestials and not only them but also even their Images But what is a matter of an hundred to more than a thousand paradoxall and phantasticall errors of Paganish Rabbinish and other Magicians and Astrologers Only this serves to inform us the more error the lesser truth and therefore the less to be believed or regarded nay more to be derided and despised CHAP. XV. 15. From the abhomination of Heresies WHether Magicians and Astrologers have not been the most abhominable and detestable Hereticks of all ages And their Heresies most Blasphemous Idolatrous Superstitious Atheisticall Impious Profane Perversly and Obstinately impugning the great truth of God and main fundamentals of Christian Religion Witness these few that follow in comparison of the many that might be collected especially out of their Rabbins and apostate Authors 1. That God himself is the chief Mathematician and teaches Mathematicall things to the souls of men making them capable of the science before they flit into bodies which otherwise could not be unless they had seen God acting the Mathematician in Heaven 2. That not only nature but God himself is subject to Chaldaicall or Astrologicall fate 3. That Heaven is the body of God and the Stars are his eyes 4. That God is assisted and holpen by the Stars in the prediction of effects upon things sublunary 5. That it is not God that make men just but Jupiter 6. That the Stars both fixt and errant are Gods 7. That the Messiah expected by the Jews should come in the year 1464. after Christs nativity Because then would be the same constellation of the Stars as was when Moses brought the Hebrews out of Egypt 8. That it is lawfull and necessary to calculate the Horoscope of Christ 9. That from some sinister aspects in Christs nativity his fortune and fate might easily have been predicted 10. That Christ therefore was eminent in so many vertues because Saturn was in Gemini ascendent For Gemini ascending together with Saturn and Mercury signifies the birth of some great Prophet 11. That the death of Christ was from the configuration of Mars 12. That as the nativity or first comming of Christ was prefigured by a great wonderfull Planetary conjunction so shall his second comming or the day of judgement likewise 13. That Saturn having part in Christs geniture rendred him so sad and pensive as that he was often seen to weep never to laugh 13. And that also made him seem older than he was so that they took him to be near fifty when he was not but about thirty years of age 14. That Saturn meeting with Venus was the cause of his having certain red specks in his face 15. And that because of those specks all his parts were not from God 16. That all the miracles of the prophets and of Christ were wrought by the vertue of the Hebrew Letters 17. That Christs hanging upon the cross might have been foreseen and foretold from his natalitiall stars 18 That the star which happened at Christs nativity had the dominion and regulation of his life manners actions miracles wisedom doctrine c. 19. That Jesus Christ being a man perfectly solary was therefore raised again upon the day assigned to the Sun 20. That the Sun is the true light and the most exact image of God himself whose essence resembles the Father light the Son and heat the Holy Ghost called the conspicuous Son of God the divine image of divine intelligences the perspicuous statue of God 21 That the vertue of resemblance betwixt Christ and an image a Talismanicall or constellationall image did not only invite him to his naturall but now also doth to his spirituall presence amongst us 22. That Magick is Primitively in God Derivatively in the Creature 23. That it was in Adam from the creation and in him as a great part of that Image or similitude according to which he was created 24. That Magick is nothing else but the will of the Creator revealed to and planted in the Creature 25 That the spots in the Moon and about the Sun succeeded upon Adams transgression and fall 26. That the Deluge or universall Flood was from the conjunction of Planets in Aquarius 27. That the patefaction or giving of the Law by Moses did depend upon certain configurations 28. That the brazen Serpent as also the Golden Calf yea and the Teraphim were nothing else but Talismans or figures made under certain constellations 29. That Moses commanded to rest the Sabbath day and to doe no work thereon because Saturn who governs that day might make the work unprosperous 30. That Jacob blessed his Sons by what he had read in a book of Astrologie as concerning their severall fortunes 31. That the Urim and Thummim whereby it was consulted about the success of difficult affairs had to that end the figures of an Astrolabe 32. That the Jews from the disposition of the stars were born to Religion 33. That the Jews Religion was unprosperous because it was founded upon a malevolent star 34. That the Jews Religion is governed by Saturn the Turkes by Venus and the Christians by Sol which is the reason of their severall Sabbath dayes 35. That a mixture of Religions is governed by a mixture of stars and Planets 36. That Mahomet and his Alcoran hath a greater Dominion than Christ and his Gospell because the aspect of the stars is more favourable to the one than to the other 37. That the Christian Law according to astrologicall prediction should not last above 1460. years at most 38 That Magick did afford the first professors of Christianity 39. That it may be judged by the stars whether a mans Religion be true or false 40. That a man may judge by the stars whether he shall abide in the faith or not 41.
That it may be judged by the stars of a mans conscience of the most secret scruples and inward feelings of it 42. That by the stars it may be judged of mans love towards God and of Gods again towards him 43. That Astrologicall predictions may be made infallibly as concerning life everlasting 44. That every kind of Divination is to be received and honoured as a token of Gods benign providence 45. That Magicall and Astrologicall prediction is a gift of that nature as was the gift of healing and speaking with tongues 46. That prophecy the divine inspired prophecy is to be attributed to the influences of the stars 47. That that which in nature first exerciseth Magicall efficacy is the voice of God 48. That the Hebrew Letters are the most efficacious of all to Magicall and Astrologicall operation because they have the greatest similitude with celestials and the world and because of the vertues of their numbers which he that shall know shall be able in every language to draw forth wonderfull misterys by their Letters as also to tell what things have been past and foretell things to come 49. That the sign of the Cross hath very great power and that is the most firm receptacle of all the celestiall powers and intelligences and is inspired with the fortitude of the celestials 50. That the stars are most potent when they make a cross by the projection of their rayes mutually 51. That God ordained it so that men should live so long in the beginning of the world on purpose that they might perfect their Astrologicall observations and transmit them to posterity 52. That the Heavens are a Book wherein is written in legible Characters all things that shall happen in the world from the beginning to the end and not only so but that the names of good children and elect are there and thus written 53. That in the seaven Planets there are seaven Spirits governing the world by turns 354 years and four months a piece from the first creation to the last dissolution And those seven Spirits in those seven Planets working all changes and chances in the world 54. That mens sins and iniquities doe proceed necessarily from the stars for they not only signify but cause the same 55. That it is not mans will that commits adultery but Venus nor that commits murder but Mars nor that commits theft but Mercury 56. That all mens actions good or bad and the events of either doe by an indissoluble bond depend necessarily upon the motions of the stars as the Lords of fate and are therefore to be worshipped 57. That there are Angels or Spirits which have their residence in the stars and may not amiss be prayed unto 58. That the stars being prayed unto doe hear our prayers and bestow celestiall gifts not so much by any naturall agreement as of their own free will 59. That he who shall make any prayer the Moon conjoyned with Jupiter in Leo shall be sure to obtain of God whatsoever he askes 60. That the direfull and malignant Planets are to be appeased and made propitious by Sacrifices 61. That it is lawfull to conjure up Devils seeing they are ordained to be ministring spirits for the service of the Faithfull 62. That Mars being happily constituted in the ninth heaven gives power to expell Devils 63. That a man who hath Mars happily posited in a new Housâ—â— may by his sole presence expell the Devill out of the obsessed 64. That a man cannot overcome the Devils temptations but by Magicall experiments 65. That conjunctions and influxes of the stars are potent not only to raise dead bodies but to make their souls appear visible 66. That by Magicall and Mathematicall vertue the same body and the same soul are united together again in 440. years 67. That there be two Planets the authors of all humane felicity Venus of this present life and Jupiter of the life to come 68. That Saturn placed in Leo frees mens souls from afflictions here on earth and brings them to Heaven where they had their first beginning Now what naturall truth of a divining art that hath begotten and broached such Heresies and Blasphemies against the supernaturall and divine truth it self CHAP. XVI 16. From the Cursedness of Consequents 1. WHo dares deny but that as all manner of impieties and iniquities are the vile adjuncts and attendants so all manner of Plagues and judgments are the just consequents and issues not only upon those that profess and practise Divination but those also that assent and attend thereto Levit. 19. 31. Deut. 13. 12 〈◊〉 18. 12. Levit. 20. 6. Isa 19. 34. Jer. 27 15. 50. 35 36. Ezek. 13. 8. 9. 2. Whether through Magick and Astrologie the stars became not the first objects of Idolatry and consequently whether Idolatrous worship came not to be terminated upon other inferior creatures at first by the means of their constellated fabrication Nay whether Astrologicall Divination and Magicall Fabrication be not guilty of causing a double Idolatry both in making stars Idols and making Idols stars 3. Whether it was not the main end upon often record in profane Authors that the vaticinators and Soothsayers took upon them as it were a Religious office of interpreting prodigies and portents found or feigned in heaven or earth on purpose to injoyn and promote Idolatrous Sacrifices and Supplications 4. Whether the Mythologie or fabulous fictions of Poets the Paganish Theologie arose not meerly by the means of Magick and Astrologie and mens fanaticall opinions and commentations thereupon As of Saturn devouring his own children c. Of Atlas bearing the heavens with his shoulders c. It were long to instance particularly in all the fables of Saturn Jupiter Mars Apollo Mercury Venus Diana Orion Orpheus Tyresias Atreus Thyestes Daedalus Icarus Phaeton Endymion Pasiphae Castor Pollux Calisto Arcas Andromeda Aquila Ganymedes c. How numberless are the Poeticall fables that have risen from Astrologie or else Astrologie from those fables yea and the Astrologers stars themselves Else besides those of Aries Taurus Scorpio Aquarius c. Let them say if those be not most egregious ones of Orion Cassiope the Pleiades Hyades the Dolphin Eagle Swan the Goat that nourisht Jupiter Aridne's Crown Orpheus his harp Phrixus his fleece the Argonautes ship Silenus Ass and the Asses Crib all taken up to be stars 5. Whether more and greater superstitions have been begotten in mens minds by any things else than by Magick and Astrologie Making men so superstitious in marrying eating drinking buying selling sleeping rising riding giving comming besides believing assenting hoping presuming consulting fearing distrusting desparing c. 6. Whether Magâ—ck and Astrologie tend not utterly to rob and spoyl men of all Christian Liberty Rendring their very consciences scrupulous in the free and moderate use of the creature perplexed in naturall morall civill prudentiall and artificiall actions and timorous of fate destiny fortune casualty and the like 7. Whether fatidicall Astrologie work
the imagination and fancy of the artist or artificer than either upon the matter or form it self why should the inscription of characters letters words numbers make the figure or image more efficacious why should not the constellated vertue last so long as the substantiall matter lasts but only so long as the accidentall form or figure lasts Seeing therefore there is neither vertue nor efficacy in such fabrications or figurations from God Angels nature art stars matter form or figure whence then if an effect follow must all the efficacy be but from the sign the sign of a diabolicall and maleficall contract Sacrament suggestion suffragation operation and delusion Who can think otherwise even of a materiall image or figure that cannot be operative or efficacious beyond its proper species and form how much more then of that which is only fantasticall painted or ingraven 11. Whether of such kinde of configuration were not the Jewish Teraphim especially according to the Rabbinical use and account likewise the Talismanical sculptures of the Persians together with these French toyes Gamalies which setâ— this fabrication aside are but the Games of Nature as our English word sounds aptest or her apish and accidental sports by confusedly shadowing one kinde of creature in another And causing them to rise and fall in their own mud like the imperfect animals in Nilus without any further hurt or help to the whole universe save that men may consider that He who made all things of nothing can make any thing resemble every thing and that Christians might learn to blesse their Creator for their more perfect formation But idle-witted and fantastical men have fancied figures and faces in stones and â—oots like as we have done of late on Tobacco-box lids and therewith have fraught their studies as Papists have done their Sacraries with Reliques or as women have deckt their closets with shells Neither is the vanity all but they have superstitiously nay and sorcerously made these umbrages of creatures to be the tutilaries of Kingdoms Nations Countries Cities persons from devils thunders tempests shipwracks pestilences poysons serpents vermine and who knows what 12. Whether a diabolical compact and familiarity may not justly be there suspected where praestigious things are apparent and yet miracles are denyed the Law affords no precept the Gospel hath made no promise Nature hath no power Art hath no principles the means have no warrant and the end hath no profit no profit neither to Church nor Common-wealth 13. What is the difference betwixt those that call themselves Magicians Mathematicians Astrologers Prognosticators Diviners and those that are called Soothsayers Necromancers Conjurers Inchanters Sorcerers Wizzards and Witches Is this all the difference that the one is guilty of a compact or covenant the other not Why there is an implicite covenant as well as an explicite and one leading to the other and by how many of both parties hath even an explicite covenant been confessed Or that one is arted the other unlearned What good of an art without a gift the m or learned in an evil art the more to be abhorred Let them both see to it whether the main of their learning be not of a delusive suggestion rather then of a diligent acquisition Or that one is imperious over the Devil wheras the other is his supplyant The Devil smiles alike at the pride and at the humility of a superstition And can no more be enjoyned then he can be entreated And will yield that either of them shall openly command so they will but secretly implore Or that the one operates by the celestial the other by terrestrial imps Hath not idolatry and superstition and why not witchcraft been committed by things in Heaven as well as things on earth Me thinks a Magician operates by the baser imp of the two For a Witch works by a living dog cat mouse rat c. But he by a dead one configured constellated written painted ingraven Or that Witches are for the most part female but they male Oh! the nobler sexe abusing it self is alwayes the viler Or that Witches are poor and envious to the infesting of women children cattel c How proud are they then that dare do the like to Nations Kingdoms Princes Magistrates c. Or that Witches are violent and revengeful in their practices but Magicians are pleasant and merry in their pranks Certainly it is good neither to play with Saints nor Devils such their sports are Satans earnest Doth not the one thus act with more reluctancy and the other with more complacency For such passions may have more of enforcement and such pleasures more of assent 14. Whether the appellations of Magicians Mathematicians Astrologers Genethliaks Planetarians to say nothing of the old Chaldeans Aegyptians Gazarens Samanâ—ans Hierophants Brachmans Gymnosophists Thessalians Hetrurians the Cabalistical Rabbins the Greek Arithmeticks the Roman Augurizers the French Druids the English Bards c. as also Necromancers Conjurers Inchanters Charmers Wizzards Witches Sorcerers Soothsayers Sophisters Impostors Circulators loculators Juglers Gipsies Physiognomists Fortune-tellers Prognosticators Praedictors Diviners c. be not terms of a promiscuous usage And whether the community of words argue not some community of things Nay have not the holy Scriptures condemned them under these tearms or names indifferently Do not the Fathers Councells Schoolemen Casuists Divines Historians and Poets thus speak of them indiscriminately Have not the Ecclesiastical Imperial Provincial Municipal Lawes under these mixt notions and nominations decreed and doomed them alike to penalty 15. Why the Devil chuseth to have both his most solemn confederation as also the most stupendious operations that follow thereupon to be made and done under certain constellations Is it not because he would have the Starres worshipped for Gods who himself is worshipped in any thing that is not God Or that he would thus have all the malefice devolved upon heavenly bodies For what mischief he is permitted to do upon earth he would make men believe it comes from Heaven Or indeed that he would thus delude the Sorcerers themselves in perswading them that what they do they do not by fraud but by an innocent nay an exquisite Planetary Art For how many rank wharficks have laboured to excuse their execrable Arts by accusing the malefick Stars 16. How many Magicians Astrologers and Planetary Prognosticators have had their Paredrials their Assessors and Obsessors their Consiliaries and Auxiliaries their Martinists Maisterels and Ministrels their Imps and Familiars as well as other Witches And whether have not they made the same use and employment of them as the other have done 17. Whether the Artists in Magick and Astrology denying exclaiming and cautioning against Idolatry Superstition Sorcery Witchcraft be sufficient to purge their Art and quit themselves of the same When as their very speculations are expressely coinquinated with much in all these and their practises palpably guilty of much more and that to all mens judgements but theirs that use them Therefore rather
man is never so called but with some epithete betokening the abusive appellation Goodness of manners though it necessarily prepares not of it self to the acquisition of prophecy because it is a free sudden extraordinary insult or illapse Yet badnesse of manners is alwayes of it self an utter impediment Onely God may be pleased in such singular acts so to abalienate or suspend corruptions for the present as sometimes to make good use of ill instruments for others sakes but not often or for their own as he hath been been pleased to act with those whose hearts he hath changed and renewed 8. How chance the Prophets that prophecyed not onely by words but by Facts and by Signes also and by so many and ordinary Signes yet none of them once prophecyed from the stars or their constellations Was not that vertue in them Or was it not observed in them in their time Were they fain to make use of terrestrial signes because the coelestials were out of their reach Nay was it not to let us understand That God and his Prophets could make the meanest signes upon earth to confirm their Prophecies whereas the devil and diviners are not able to make the greatest signes in Heaven to confirm their Prognostications Why did Christ refuse to shew a signe from Heaven in proof of his Messiahship Matt. 16. 1 4. Because they sought it and sought it temptingly and sought it for themselves They would have signes among signes and miracles among miracles and such signes and miracles as they themselves fancyed and such as might assimilate their own prognosticating superstition and vain observation and such a signe as was not prophecyed that the Messiah should do and such as had neither just cause necessity nor end for which they should desire it Besides that the Prophets revealed nothing from the stars and Christ denyed to make any such demonstration of himself his doctrine and miracles because it was not prophecyed of him and therefore he refers them onely to a prophecyed sign the signe of the prophet Jonas enough to signifie of how little necessity all sydereal observation or operation is to pure Prophecy But I demand further if there were any congruity or consistency betwixt Prophecy and mag-astro-mancy why then was the one a singular extraordinary and temporary gift to Gods people and the other made a common Art or Trade o Idolators lnfidels and men prophane 9. Whether Prophecy be natural Or yet of any artificial preparation The Occult Philosophizers Magical Mirabilaries and astral Fabricators are for both yea besides the seed of the soul and the humours of the body they pretend the parts of beasts stones herbs and outward ceremonies all to be effectually disposing to Prophecie But the truth is for neither For Prophecy indeed is not natural but supernatural not artificial or acquisite but infused or inspired Prophecy is immediate sudden momentany the disposition at one instant infused together with the act yea and the very particular disposition ceasing when the particular act ceaseth It never finds it subject capable to receive it but makes it so neither leaves it in the least capacity to acquire or expect it presently again But if it please to return it still makes its own way oft times another a new way for it self What inclination of nature or preparation of Art doth it require when it can take the ignorant as well as the learned the Idiot as well as the Artist yea a corrupt heart and a false mouth and never thelesse make it forespeak its own infallible truth No nature or essence is prophetical of it self but that which is incomprehensible and comprehending all things If our nature had any such inclination in it self why should we not all prophesie And alwayes prophesie And prophesie when we please And prophesie of one thing as well as another And one prophesie as well as another To whom then should we prophesie And how should our pronuntiating be of those things which are hidden to the common sense and ordinary apprehension of men among whom we are conversant How should Prophecy be said to exceed all natural cognition if it may proceed from any natural inclination And how shall we distinguish betwixt Prophecie which hath revealed and reveals things as they are in themselves and prognostication which at most can but predict some things as they are in their natural causes and dispositions What praevious disposition to prophesie either naturally or artificially was there in Amos when he said I was no prophet neither was I a prophets son but I was an beardman and a gatherer of sycomore fruit And the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said unto me Go prophecy Amos 7. 14 15. As for Elisha's calling for a Minstrel 2 King 3. 15. This was not to procure or excite prophesie but to sedate passions and affections and so make himself fitter â—or contemplation and devotion Not as if according to the Rabbinical conceit the spirit of Prophecie had now made its recesse from him because of some perturbation of his in being so exasperated against Jehoram For that was a true zeal of God and that is never inordinate neither serves it to abate but promote Gods gifts But say he had been somewhat disquieted and distracted from the spirit of Prophecie how was it in the force and vertue of Musick to restore it Musick could do that neither naturally nor artificially if it did it at all it must do it miraculously The prophets very calling for Musick was a prophesie Signifying that the spirit of Prophecie rests not in turbulent distracted factious seditious minds but in harmonious unanimous appeased and peaceable hearts But let them contend Prophecie to be of natural disposition and artificial preparation that would so take off theirs from being though diabolical what need we do so that hold Prophecie to be wholly divine Nature and Art cannot so much credit the Astrological as they prejudice the Theological prophesie 10. Whether Prophesie be not now ceast It was never intended to be perpetual Even while it was it was an act not an habit not permanent but transient The Spirit now in the illapse and again upon the recesse It was a gift or grace not so much personal as vocational pertaining not to ordinary duty so much as extraordinary occasion Nor was it so necessary that men should be taught to look after things future as how to use the present time aright The prophets were but types of that great Prophet and all prophesie had its main end and completion in Christ It was therefore meet that the shadow should recede now that the substance came in place Prophecy was necessary for the Church of the Old-Testament because Christ was not yet come but not so in this of the New because Christ is come already We have an Evangelical prophesie abundantly recompencing that lack of the legal being a gift or grace not extraordinary but ordinary not temporary but perpetual not singular
but universal not vocational onely but personal not an act common to reprobates but an habit peculiar to the Saints Not of propounding things of future times but of expounding the future things of eternity Be it in heaven or earth Prophecies shall fail when that which is perfect is come 1 Cor. 13. 8. In heaven they must needs fail because there 's no future to be contemplated or expected all is an eternal present And in the Church of Christ they must needs fail because there is no future truth not another Gospel to be expected the present truth is eternal Prophecie failed in the Church as did the other extraordinary and temporary gifts viz. Working of miracles and speaking with Tongues Neverthelesse I conceive God hath absolutely denyed his Church none of all these but that the Spirit may be pleased to stir up some men at some times and to some particulars to act in any of them if just cause and necessity be Yet though a man should be raised to prophesie now and that by the same Spirit I cannot think it to be by the same degree or authority of the Spirit as the former Prophets were Because the authority of the Spirit in them was not onely prophetical or historical but sapiential and dogmatical And so their prophesies were recorded not onely for a particular and certain prediction of truth but for an universal and perpetual instruction of Faith And therefore either there must be no end of adding to the Scriptures or else none such must now be raised There may be some prudential predictings of good men and suspicious presagings of evil men and shrewd conjecturings of common men but what are all these to the prophesyings of holy men of God in old time Yet we say Gods hand is not shortned but that he can still raise up such but who can say that he will do it Or that there is just cause why he should so do We conclude therefore in the general that Prophecy is ceast And that of an extraordinary gift at first it is become more extraordinary to after ages What reason then have we to be so blind of Faith as to admit of a stated art of divination in its stead CHAP. XXII From the rarity of Miracles 1 WHether every thing that is affected above besides or against the course and order faculty and power hope and expectation of nature may truly be said to be miraculous Not every thing 1. Because it is not a thing effected against particular nature but against whole nature that makes a Miracle 2. Because in particular nature there are antipolliges or occult qualities of actives and passives naturally acting or disposed to act one against another 3. Because it is neither nature acting contrary to some part of her self nor is it Art urging or tempting Nature but it is God totally exceeding the law vertue and order of Nature that makes it to be a Miracle 4. Because many things may be done against Nature or natural propensity which notwithstanding are but ordinary and trivial as the causing of heavy things to ascend upwards c. 5. Because there are many sins and vices that are against Natures law and vertue which who will say that they are miraculous Therefore we conclude against Magical Mirabilaries that although every Miracle be an act or effect above Nature yet every act or effect besides or against Nature is not a Miracle 2. Whether that may absolutely be said to be a Miracle whose effect is manifest and whose cause is occult or unknown to us No. Except it be acted simply by the first cause and for causes onely known to him 2. Except it exceeds all mans exact knowledge indifferently one as well as another 3. Except the cause be altogether past such finding out even to sober and prudential observation art industry Otherwise it should not be a Miracle so as it is in itself but so as it appears to us Our ignorance should necessarily come into the cause of Miracles That should be miraculous to one man which is not so to another And a prophane curiosity of Art would boast of more light and experiment in divine works then indeed is vouchsafed to the perswasion of a pious faith 3. Whether the power of working Miracles be not proper to God alone This must be affirmed and cannot be denyed 1. Because He onely can work a Miracle of himself to whom nothing is a Miracle 2. Because He onely can work against the order of Nature and second causes whose will is sufficient to institute Order alter all things 3. Because God is a transcendent and is not under nor yet within the predicament of any part of the whole order of Nature as the creature is and therefore he onely can act that against and besides above the order of Nature which the creature cannot 4. Because a divine power requires not a subject to work upon for it is able to create all things of nothing neither looks it at the possibility or propensity of that subject to the producing of the effect as every created power doth 5. Because the proper cause of a Miracle must not onely be uncreated infinite omnipotent indeterminate c. But it must also be occult unsearchable incomprehensible now no cause is simply so but the hidden God himself 6. Because it cannot be a Miracle unless it be absolutely and universally wonderful or to be equally admired of all creatures of the same kinde Now it is onely for God and neither for Angels or men to do such things as shall be admirable to their fellows and not so to themselves 7. Because if any other could work Miracles but God or but by God then Miracles could not be the indubitable signes and proofs of a God nor of Gods Word and Truth 4. Whether the good Angels can do Miracles Ministerially and instrumentally they may but not principally and authoritatively For Angels are finite both in their nature apprehension and power And divine Miracles absolutely considered are as strange and wonderful to them as they are to us men Yet Angels out of the vertue and perspicuity of their own nature may know how to do many things that may seem miraculous or be marveilous to us Because they are a superior power or vertue unknown to us and may have a particular power over inferiours not known to us and therefore may act above besides against the particular order of Nature that is known to us But being part of whole created nature themselves they cannot act against it the main reason of a Miracle for so they should act against themselves 5. Whether Devils can do Miracles If not Angels much lesse devils Neither doth the Lord make use of the devils to be instruments of his mighty works as he doth of the Angels For Miracles were never intended or effected immediately or mediately but for the confirmation of the truth to which the devils are no apt instruments because all that they do is with
therefore in every work and application of things affect vehemently imagine hope and believe strongly for that will be a great help Therefore he that works in Magick must be of a constant belief be credulous and not doubt at all of the obtaining the effect 13. The Arabians say that mans minde when it is most intent upon any work through its passion and effects is joyned with the mind of the stars and intelligences and being so joyned is the cause that some wonderful vertue be infused into our works and things And according to this is verifyed the Art of Characters Images Inchantments and some speeches and many other wonderful experiments to every thing which the minde affects For all those things which the minde acts and dictates by characters figures words speeches gestures and the like help the appetite of the soul and acquire certain wonderful vertues as from the soul of the Operator in that hour when such a like appetite doth invade it so from the opportunity and coelestial influence moving the mind in that manner And it is a general rule in them that every minde that is more excellent in its desire and affections makes such like things more fit for it self as also more efficacious to that which it desires Every one therefore that iâ— willing to work in Magick must know the vertue measure order and degree of his own soul in the power of the universe 14. Those words are of greater efficacy then others which represent greater things as intellectual coelestial supernatural as more expresly so more mysteriously Also those that come from a more worthy tongue or from any of a more holy order for these as it were certain signes and representations receive a power of coelestial and supercoelestial things as from the vertue of things explained of which they are the vâ—hicula so from a power put into them by the vertue of the speaker 15. Proper Names of things are very necessary in magical operations Hence Magicians say that proper Names of things are certain rayes of things every where present at all times keeping the power of things as the essence of the thing signified rules and is discerned in them and know the things by them as by proper and living images According to the properties of the influences proper Names result to things Every voyce therefore that is significative first of all signifies by the influence of the coelestial harmony Secondly by the imposition of man although oftentimes otherwise by this then by that But when both significations meet in any voice or name which are put upon them by the said harmony or men then that name is with a double vertue viz. Natural and arbitrary made most efficacious to act as oft as it shall be uttered in due place and time and seriously with an intention exercised upon the matter rightly dispofed and that can naturally be acted upon by it 16. In compoâ—ing of verses and orations for the attracting the vertue of any star or Deity you must diligently consider what vertues any star containes as also what effects and operations and to infer them in verses by praysing extolling amplifying and setting forth those things which such a kind of star is wont to cause by way of its influence and by vilifying and dispraising those things which it is wont to destroy and hinder And by supplicating and begging for that which we desire to get and by condemning and detesting that which we would have destroyed and hindred And after the same manner he make an elegant oration and duely distinct by Articles with competent numbers and proportions 17. Moreover Magicians command that we call upon and pray by the names of the same star or name to them to whom such a verse belongs by their wonderfull things or miracles by their courses and waies in their sphere by their light by the dignity of their kingdome by the beauty and brightness that is in it by their strong and powerfull vertues and by such like as these Besides with the divers sorts of the names of the stars they command us to call upon them by the names of the Intelligences ruling over the starres themselves 18. Magicians command that in every worke there be imprecations and inscriptions made by which the Operator may expresse his affection That if hee gather an herbe or a stone he declare for what use he doth it if he make a picture he say and write to what end he maketh it 19. When thou art working any thing which belongs to any planet thou must place it in its Dignities fortunate and powerfull and ruling in the day houre and in the figure of the Heaven Neither shalt thou expect the signification of the worke to be powerfull but also thou must observe the Moon opoortunely directed to this for thou shâ—lt doe nothing without the assistance of the Moon And if thou hast more patternes of thy work observe them all c. 20. Thou shalt observe that the Angles of the Ascendant and a tenth and Seventh be fortunate as also the Lord of the Ascendent and place of the Sunne and Moon and the place of part of the Fortune and the Lord thereof and the Lord of the foregoing conjunction and prevention c. 21. Magicians advise us that in casting or in graving Images we would write upon it the name of the effect and this upon the back when evill as destruction on the belly when good as love Moreover in the forehead of the Image let be written the name of the species or individuum which the Image represents or for whom or against whom it is made Also on the breast let the name of the signe or face ascending and the Lord thereof be written also the names and characters of its Angles Moreover in making the Image they advise that prayer for the effect for which it is made bee used Now they use the Images being made diversly according to the vertues thereof Sometimes they hang them or bind them to the body sometimes they bury them under the earth or a River sometimes they hang them in a chimney over the smoak or upon a tree that they may be moved by the wind sometimes with the head upward and sometimes downward sometimes they put them into hot water or into the fire For they say as the workers of the Images do affect the Image it selfe so doth it bring the like passions upon those to whom it was ascribed as the mind of the Operator hath dictated it 22. To make one fortunate we make an image in which these are fortunate viz. the significator of the life thereof the givers of the life the signes and planets Moreover to the Ascendant the middle of the heaven and the Lords thereof be fortunate also the place of the Sunne and place of the Moon part of Fortune and Lord of conjunction or prevention made before their nativity by depressing the malignant planets But if we will make an Image to procure misery
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
of Gyration And Rabbi Levi saith he thinks with Averroes that the Diurnall motion is done by the whole Heavens Again they no more agree about the measure of the motion of the eighth Orbe and of the fixed Stars For Ptolomy thinks that the fixed Stars are moved one degree in an hundred yeers Albategni contends this to be done in sixty six Aegyptian yeers To whom assent Rabbi Levi Rabbi Zacutus and Alphontius in the correction of his Tables Azarcheles the Moore saith they are moved one degree in seventy foure yeeres Hipparchus in seventy and eight Many of the Hebrews as Rabbi Iosue Moyses Maymonides Rabbi Avenezra and after them Hay Benrodam in seventy yeeres Johannes Regiomontanus in eighty yeers Augustinus Ritius holds the middle betwixt the opinions of Albategni and the Hebrews thinking that the fixed Stars are not moved one part of the Heavens sooner then sixty yeeres nor slower then seventy yeers But Rabbi Abraham Zacutus as Ritius tels us testifieth out of the tradition of the Indians that there are yet in Heaven two Stars Diametrally opposite one to the other which contrary to the order of signes fulfill not their course in lesse then an hundred forty foure yeeres Also Alpetragus himselfe thinks that there are in the Heavens various motions yet unknown to man which if it be so there may be Stars and bodies there to which those motions may agree which either men cannot discerne by reason of the exceeding altitude or no Arts as yet have by observation found out To which Phavorinus the Philosopher in Gellius assents in his oration against the Genethliacks It therefore remaines to conclude that no Astronomer as yet hath descended from Heaven who could teach us the inerrant motion truely and certainly Neither hath the true motion of Mars hitherto been known which also Johannes Regiomontanus complaines of in a certain Epistle to Blanehinus Also one Gulielmus de sancto Clodoaldo an excellent Astrologer hath left written the errour of the same motion in his observations two hundred yeers since and more and none of the latter hath hitherto corrected either him or it Moreover it is unpossible to finde out the true ingresse of the Sunne into the aquinoctiall points which Rabbi Levi proveth by many reasons But what should we speake of those that are found out since how the former have erred about them For many with Tebith have thought the greatest declination of the Sunne to be continually varied when neverthelesse it is alwaies carried in one measure Yet Ptolomy thought otherwise of it and it wat otherwise found out by Rabbi Levi Avenezra and Alphonsus In like manner concerning the motion of the Sunne and measure of the yeere they have found it otherwise then Ptolomy and Hipparchus have delivered Likewise as touching the motion of the Stage of the Sunne Ptolomy conceives one thing but Albategni and the rest another Moreover of the images and considerations of the fixed Stars the Indians have delivered their opinions after one manner the Aegyptians after another the Chaldeans another the Hebrews another the Arabians another Timotheus another Arsatilis another Hipparchus another Ptolomy another and the moderne writers another I passe by here to tell how they befoole themselves about the right and the left principle of the heavens concerning which St. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus the Almaine two superstitious divines while they seriously endeavoured to say something could finde nothing to say neither could any man certainly ever finde out any thing Moreover the Galaxia or the milkie circle what it is the Astrologers are yet ignorant of I also forbeare to lengthen my speech about the excentricks concentricks apicyeles retrogradations trepidations accesses recesses raptures and other motions and circles of motions seeing all these are not are neither the workes of God nor of nature but monsters of the Mathematicians and trifles of Feigners derived from corrupt Philosophy and the Fables of Poets to which neverthelesse as it were to true things and created by God or established in nature these Masters are not ashamed to give so much Faith as to referre unto these trifling vanities as unto causes whatsoever things are done in these inferiours and say that those feined motions are the principles of all inferiour motions Such Astronomers as these Anaximenes his mayd hath opportunely castigated by a saying not to be despised for she using to walke abroad with her master Anaximenes who on a certain day going early out of his house to inspect the Starres while he was surely intent in looking up to the heavens he unmindfull of the places site fell suddenly into a ditch then said his mayd I wonder Master upon what reason you should perswade your selfe that you can foreknow such things as are in Heaven when as you cannot foresee those things that are before your own feet The same facetious passage is reported concerning Thales Milesius in like manner reproved by his hand-mayd Tressa And it is not unlike to these that Tully saith The Astrologers while they are searching after the coastes of Heaven none of them perceives what is before his own feet I my selfe of a child have taken in this Art from my parents and further I have lost much time and labour in it at length I have learned that this whole art and every part of it leaves you no other foundation but meere toyes and figments of imagination And it now irketh and repenteth me of my labour lost heretofore and I did desire to bereave my selfe of all memory and use of it and had long since cast it out of my mind nor would I ever have reassumed it but that the violent intreaties of some potent ones who are wont sometimes to abuse great good wits to unworthy artifices had compelled me to fall upon it again yea and my own domesticall utility did perswade me that I ought sometimes to enjoy their folly and to observe them with trifles that so greatly coveted after trifles I truly say trifles for what else hath Astrologie but meere trifles of Poets and Fables and portentous figments with which they faine the heavens to be fully stored Neither doe any kind of men agree more together then Astrologers and Poets doe excepting that they dissent about Lucifer and Vespâ—r the Poets affirming that on what day Lucifer appeares before the Sunne rising on the same day it followes the Sunne setting which almost all the Astrologers deny to be done besides those who place Venus above the Sunne because those Starres which are more remote from us they seem in their rising to rise sooner and in their setting to set later But this discord of Astrologers about the site of Stars and Planets had I not now remembred it I had passed it by in as much as it belongs not to Astrologers so much as Philosophers For Plato after the Moon places the second Sphere of the Sunne or the Sphere of the Sunne second c. the same doe the Aegyptians placing the Sunne betwixt the
Moon and Mercury But Archimedes and the Chaldaeans place the Sunne the fourth in order Anaximander Metrodâ—rus Chius and Crates say that the Sunne is the supreame of all after which the Moon and beneath these the rest errant and inerrant Xenocrates thinks that all the Stars are moved in one and the same superficies and they discord no lesse about the magnitude and distance of the Sunne the Moon and the rest of the Stars Neither is there any constancy of opinion amongst them about the Celestials nor yet truth neither is that any marvell seeing the Heaven it selfe which they search is of all other most inconstant and most replenished with trifles and fables for the very Twelve signes and the rest of the Boreall and Australl images had never ascended up to heaven but by Fables And yet the Astrologers live by these Fables and impose them upon others and make a gain thereby But the Poats in the mean while the egregious inventors of them grow poore and hungry There remaines yet another species of Astrologie which they call the Divinatory or the Judiciary which treats of the revolutions of the yeers of the world of nativities of questions of elections of intentions and cogitations of vertues or powers for the foretelling casting up eschuing or repelling the events of all things future even of the secret dispositions of divine providence it selfe Hereupon the Astrologers doe mart or vent the effects of the Heavens and the Stars from yeers most remote and before all memory of things or the times of Prometheus or as they say from the great conjunctions before the Flood And they affirm that the effects forces motions of all living creatures stones metals herbs and whatsoever things in these inferiours doe flow from these same Heavens and Starres and doe altogether depend upon them and may be searched out by them Verely these are incredulous men and not lesse impious in not acknowledging this one thing that God had already made the Herbs Plants and Trees even before the Heavens and Stars Moreover the most grave Philosophers as Pythagoras Democritus Bion Favorinus Panaetius Carneades Possidonius Timaeus Aristoteles Plato Plotinus Porphyrius Avicenna Averroes Hippocrates Galenus Alexander Aphrodisaeus Cicero Seneca Plutarch and many more who have searched the causes of things from every Art and Science yet never remit us to these Astrologicall causes which although they were causes yet because they plainly knew not the courses of the Stars and their forces which is a thing most known to all wise men they therefore cannot give a certain judgement of their effects Neither are there wanting among them as Eudoxus Archelaus Cassandrus Hoychilax Halicarnassaeus most skilfull Mathematicians and many other modern and most grave Authors which confesse that it is impossible that any thing certain should be found out concerning the science of such judgements both because of innumerable other causes cooperating together with the Heavens which must be attended together for so Ptolomy bids as also because very many occasions doe hinder them as namely customes manners education shame command place geniture blood meat liberty of mind and discipline seeing these influxes compell not as they say but incline Furthermore they who have prescribed the rules of judgements doe for the most part determine such diverse and repugnant things of the same matter that it is impossible for a prognosticator to pronounce any thing certaine from so many and so various and dissonant opinions unlesse there be in him some intrinsicall sense of things future and occult or some instinct of presage or rather occult and latent inspiration of the Devill by which among these he may be able to discerne or may be induced by some other way to adhere now to this now to that opinion which instinct whosoever wanteth he as Haly saith cannot be a Tel-troth in Astrologicall judgements Wherefore now Astrologicall prediction must consist not so much of Art as by a kind of obscure lot or chance of things And as in the books or games of Lottery sometimes such an one is drawn forth as speaks truth and hits right yet not by art but by chance so it is by chance and not by art that vaticinations come forth truely either from the mind or the mouth of an Astrologer To which Ptolomy attests saying the science of the Stars is from thee and from them meaning that the prediction of things future and occult is not so much from the observation of the Stars as from the affections of the mind Therefore is there no certainty of this Art but it is convertible to all things according to the opinion which is collected by conjectures or imagination or an imperceptible suggestion of Devils or some superstitious lot or chance This art therefore is no other then a fallacious conjecture of superstitious men who through the use of long time have made a science of uncertain things in which for the beguiling men of their money they may deceive the unskilfull and may also be deceived themselves And if the Art of these men be true and be understood by themselves whence then bubble out so many and so great errors in their prognostications But if it be not so doe they not vainly and foolishly and impiously to professe a science of things that are not or not understood But the more cautelous of them pronounce not upon futures save obscurely and such as may be applied to everything and time and Prince and Nation Out of a versatile artifice doe they feyne ambiguous prognosticks and after that any of them shall happen then doe they gather the causes thereof and after the fact or effect then doe they establish old vaticinations with new reasons to the intent they may seem to have foreseen Just as the interpreters of dreames who when they have a dream understand nothing of it for certain but after that something is hapned unto them then doe they adopt the dream to that which hapned Furthermore seeing it is impossible in such a variety of Stars but to finde some of them well some of them ill posited hereupon they take occasion of speaking what they please and to whom they will they predict life health honours riches power victory soundnesse off-spring marriage Priesthood Magistracy and the like but if they be ill affected to any to them they denounce deaths hangings reproaches destructions banishments barrennesse desolation calamities c. not so much out of a wicked art as out of wicked affections drawing on to destruction those men that are credulous to these impious curiosities and oft times committing among themselves both Princes and people in deadly seditions and warres Iâ— that Fortune fall in with their prognosticks and among so many ambiguous things if that one or other of them happen to be true it is a wonder then to behold how they bristle being crest-swolne and how most insolently they predicate their own predictions But though they lie daily and be convinced of lying then they excuse
the gift of Prophecy the power of Religion the secrets of Conscience the command over devils the vertue of miracles the efficacy of supplications and the state of the life to come do all depend upon the stars are vouchsafed by them and may be known from them For they say that the star of the Twins ascending with Saturn and Mercury joyned under Aquarius in the ninth coast of heaven a Prophet must be born and that therfore the LordChrist was excellent in so many mighty works because in the same place he had Saturn in Gemini Also the sects of Religion over which they place Jupiter as chief patron they distribute by commixtion of other stars so as Jupiter with Saturn should make the Religion of the Jews with Mars of the Chaldeans with Sol of the Egyptians with Venus of the Saracens with Mercury of the Christians with Luna that of Antichrist which they say is yet to come And that Moses from Astrological rules and reasons instituted the Sabbath of the Jews to be observed as a Religious day and that the Christians therefore do erre in not resting from labour and keeping holy day on the Jewish Sabbath seeing it is Saturns day Also they think that the fidelity of every one towards men or towards God and profest Religion and secrets of Conscience may be deprehended from part of the Sun and from the third ninth and eleventh houses of heaven and they delivering many rules of foreknowing the thoughts and as they say the intentions of men And they set up the coelestial configurations as the causes of the very miraculous works of divine omnipotence as namely of the universal flood of the Law given by Moses and of the virgins child-birth and they fable that the death of Christ the Redeemer of man-kind was the work of Mars and that Christ himself in his miracles used the election of hours in which the Jews could not hurt him while he went up to Jerusalem and therefore he said to his Disciples diswading him are there not twelve hours of the day They say moreover that whosoever hath Mars happily placed in a new house of heaven he shall by his sole presence expel devils out of the possessed And he that shall make supplication to God the Moon and Jupiter with the Dragons head being conjoyned in the middle heaven shall obtain all things whatsoever he shall ask And further that the felicity of the life to come is bestowed by Jupiter and Saturn And that if any man in his geniture hath Saturn happily constituâ—ed in Leo his soul after this life being freed from innumerable miseries shall passe to heaven the first beginning of its original and be applyed to the Gods But for all this to these execrable fopperies and pernicious heresies Petrus Apponensis Roger Bacon Guido Bonatus Arnoldus de nova villa Philosophers and Alyanensis a Cardinal and a Theologue and divers other Doctors of a Christian name not without an infamy of heresie do subscribe yea and dare testifie and defend that they have experienced these for truth But Johannes Picus Mirandula of late yeers hath written against Astrologers in twelve Books and that in so great copiousnesse that scarce any argument hath escaped him as also with so great efficacy so that hitherto neither Lucius Balnutius an eager propugnator of Astrologie nor yet any other defender of this Art could save it from those reasons that Picus hath brought against it For he proveth by most strong arguments it to have been the invention not of men but of Devils Which self-same thing Firmianus saith by which they have endeavoured to abolish all Philosophie Medicine Laws and Religion to the utter extermination of man-kind For first it detracts from the faith of Religion it extenuates miracles it takes away providence while it teaches that all things come to passe by the force of constellations and that they doe depend by a fatal necessity upon the stars Moreover it patronizes vices excusing them as descending from heaven upon us It defiles and overthrows all good Arts especially Philosophie traducing causes from true reasons to fables and Medicine in like manner turning from natural and effectual remedies to vain observations and perverse superstitions destructive both to body and minde Further it utterly undoes Laws manners and whatsoever Arts of humane prudence while it would have Astrologie onely consulted at what time after what maner and by what means any thing is to be done as if it alone drawing its authority over all down from heaven did hold the scepter over life manners and all both publike and private matters and as if all other things were to be reputed vain that did not acknowledge it for patron Indeed an Art most worthy for devils to professe from the first to the deceit of man and dishonour of God Moreover the heresie of the Manichees wholly taking away all liberty of will flowed not elswhere then from the Astrologers false opinion and doctrine of Fate From the same fountain also sprung the heresie of Basilides who pronounced 365. heavens made of one another by succession and similitude and the ostension of these to be the number of the dayes of the yeer or the number of the days of the yeer to be the ostension of these assigning to every one of them certain principles and vertues and Angels and feigning names for them but the chief of them all is Abraxas which name according to the Greek letters containeth in it 365. which namely are the local positions of those heavens commentitiously divised by it These things are therefore shown that ye may know that Astrology is the begetter of hereticks Furthermore as all the most eminent Philosophers do explode this divinatory Astrologie so Moses Esaias Job Jeremias and all the other Prophets of the old Law do detest it And of the Catholike Doctors Augustin censures it as meet to be expelled Christian Religion Hierome disputes it to be a kinde of Idolatry Basil and Cypâ—ian do deride it Chrysostome Eusebius and Lactantius do refute it Gregory Ambrose and Severianus inveigh against it the holy Toletane Councel forbids and damns it also it was anathematized in the Synod of Martin and by Gregory the younger and by Alexander the third Popes and was punished by the civil Laws of the Emperours Among the antient Romans under Tiberius Vitellius Dioclesian Constantine Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius the Emperours it was prohibited the City ejected and punished and by Justinian himself condemned capitally as is manifest in his Code This place admonishes me to speak of the other Arts of divination which yield vaticinations not so much by observation of the coelestials as of inferiour things having a certain shadow or imitation of the coelestials that they being understood ye may the better know this Astrological Tree from which do falâ— such fruit and from which as a Lernaean Hydra a beast of many heads is generated Amongst the arts therefore that are hasty to divine for their own
naturall Magick sometimes enclined towards Goetie and Theurgie is insnared very osten in the wiles and errours of evill spirits Of ceremoniall Magick there are two parts Goetie and Theurgie Goetie unfortunately began by the commerce with unclean spirits compacted of the rites of wicked curiosity unlawfull charms and deprecations is exerated banished by the verdicts of all Lawes These are they who carry about them familiar spirits doe feigne themselves to prophecy Some of them study to call and compell evill spirits adjured by some certain powers especially of divine names c. Others most wicked and by mischiefe detestable and to be punished with all fires submit themselves to devils sacrifice to them and adore them and are become guilty of idolatry and the vilest abasements to which crimes if the former be not obnoxious yet they expose themselves to manifest dangers For even compelled divels doe watch to the intent they may alwaies deceive us in our errours From this Sect or rather sinke of the Goeticks have issued all these books of darknesse c. excogitated by men of deplored wits Which books to him that more acutely looks into them and into the canon of their precepts the custome of rites the kind of words and characters the order of extruction and the insulsate phrase doe openly bewray themselves to containe nothing else but mere toyes and impostures and to be pulcht up in latin Hims by the forlorne artificers of perdition ignorant of all ancient Magick out of certain profane observations mixt with the ceremonies of our religion many unknown names and seales inserted that they might terrifie the rude and simple and be an amazement to the sencelesse and such as know not good Letters But this is the reason why these Goeticks onely make use of evill spirits because good Angels will hardly appeare for they expect the command of God and assemble not but with men of clean heart and holy life but the evill ones easily exhibite themselves to be invoked falsly favouring and belying a divinity are alwaies at hand to deceive by their subtilty to the intent they may be worshipped and adored Many think that Theurgie is not unlawfull as if this were governed by good Angels and a divine power when as very often under the names of God and Angels it is obstringed with the fallacies of evill spirits Of this schoole are the art Almadel the art Noterie the Pauline art the art of Revelations and many more of the same superstition which are so much the more pernicious as to the unskilfull they seem the more divine The Cabalie is an art as is reported very ancient and yet the name hath not been known among Christians but of later times This art of Cabalie which the Hebrews so boast of I sometimes have searched with much labour and I finde and confesse it to be nothing else but a meer rapsodie of superstition a certain theurgicall magick but if proceeding from God as the Jews boast it any whit conduced to the perfection of life to the salvation of men to the worship of God to the understanding of the truth verily that Spirit of truth which the Synagogue rejected came unto us to teach us all truth would not have concealed it from his Church until these last times which truly knoweth all things that are of God But that we try and see that by the revolutions as they call them of this art wonderful sentences of great mysteries are wrested out of sacred Letters the whole is nothing else but a certain playing upon Allegories which idle men busied in every letter point and number which this tongue and the manner of writing easily suffer do feign refeigne at their pleasure Therefore this Cabalie of the Iewes is nothing else but a certaine pernicious superstition which collecteth divideth transferreth words and names and letters scatteringly placed in the Scripture and as they list making one thing of another they dissolve the parts of truth the speeches the inductions and making parables here and there of their own fictions they would adopt unto them the words of God defaming the Scriptures saying that their figments do consist of them they calumniate the Law of God by their impudently extorted supputations of dictions syllables letters numbers they attempt to inferre violent and blasphemous proofe of their perfidiousnesse Furthermore being puft up with these trifles they boast themselves to finde out and to know the ineffable mysteries of God and secrets that are above the Scriptures by which they are not ashamed to lie with great boldnesse and without blushing that they themselves can prophecy and work miracles and mighty works But let us return unto Magick parcell where of is the artifice of prestigious things that is of illusions which are only done according to appearance by which Magicians shew phantasms play many miracles by circulatory frauds and cause dreams which is done not so much by Goeticall incantations imprecations and deceits of devils as also by certain vapors of perfumes lights phyltres collyries alligations and suspensions and besides by rings images glasses and such like drugs and instruments of magicall art and by a naturall and celestiall vertue Also many things are done by a prompt subtlety and industry of hand of which sort we see some are done daily by Stageplayers and juglers which therefore we call Chirosophists that is slight-handed And now by what hath been said it is plaine that Magick is nothing else but a collection or compact of idolatry Astrologie and superstitious Medicine And now also there is by Magicians a great company of Hereticks risen up in the Church who as Iannes and Iambres resisted Moses so have they resisted the Apostolicall truth All this is uttered against them by one Arch magician I mean Cornelius Agrippa not a little to the like effect might be collected out of another of them namely Johannes Trithemius yea undoubtedly he that had but the opportunity to peruse their Authors old and of late needs for their confutation to urge them with no more then their own confession Onely I would aske of them this one thing what doe they think of this one Magician for this one act of his Whether doe they conceive him in charity to have thus confessed retracted recanted repented returned c. or doe they uncharitably account him for it to be humorous cynicall satyricall invective distracted mad male content c And whether for this one undertaking of his will they have him called a Philosopher a Daemon an Heroe a God all things or nothing Does not he himselfe tell us what kind of censure he suspects from all kinds of Mag-astro-mancers Alas quoth he with how many of their machinations will they oppugne me with how many devices will they assaile me with what ignominies will they persecute me The impious Mathematician will prescribe me both earth and heaven The sortilegious Pythagorist will suppute for me unlucky numbers The pointing Geomantick will cast unhappy figures