Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	authority_n	church_n	person_n	1,479	5	5.0691	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86055	Natura prodigiorum or, a discourse touching the nature of prodigies. Together with the kinds, causes and effects, of comets, eclipses, and earthquakes. With an appendix touching the imposturism of the commonly-received doctrine of prophecies, spirits, images, sigils, lamens, the christal, &c. and the propugners of such opinions. / By John Gadbury philomathēmatikos.	Gadbury, John, 1627-1704.	1660 (1660)	Wing G91; Thomason E2131_3; ESTC R202414	80,331	276

great Monarchy pretty enthusiastical delusions the greatest and last that ever will be Vide Blag Ephem 1659. p. 1. Again if there were any verity or reason in this high-towring doctrine they pretend unto may we nor with much reason conclude both these Angel-mongers mistaken for according to the Principles of their Patron Trithemius neither Gabriel nor Hanael but Samael the Angel or Spirit of Mars to cope with them in their own canting dialect should have ruled this present Age of the world For he acquaints us that under Mars's rule or dominion wars were all over the world what peace have we in this age had I pray you infinite thousands of men perished Is our age behind hand with any age for that also Sundry Battels fought Doth not this age of ours by experience woful enough prove the same Kingdoms lost their former bounds How conspicuous is this truth to us also Now if Mercury had governed at this time the world had then been busi●d about novel fancies and opinions secret plottings and privy clandestine conspiracies and not apted or fitted for any such publick or notorious actions And had Venus by her Angel raigned as was urged we should then have been blessed with concord pleasure tranquillity peace and quietude Ergo it roundly follows that were we willing to suppose a truth in the doctrine neither Venus or Mercury or their Angels for them could at this time govern the world But when rash Assertors want arguments of reason to make good the things they so ignorantly obtrude upon mens understandings it is no wonder that they are found guilty of such gross absurdities I appeal to the whole world whether our scarlet Times have not more resembled Mars and his fury then either the changeable fancies or witty conceits of Mercury or the serenity and smiles of Venus Blood death and tragique stories Mars doth yeild A Golgotha of graves whose purple field Dy'd Crimson with his fatal Massacres Ant. Philos Sat. 5. Craves bloody Inke and scarlet Characters A pen that like a bullets force would reel A marble conscience By this short Annotation you may judge of what worth and excellency the whole is although so prodigiously boasted of For you see plainly Trithemius owns not the doctrine and it is plainly to be seen also that his disciples understand it not nor indeed do they know how to make use thereof except only to gild over their ignorance in honest and demonstrable Arts they pretend to the knowledg of It seemeth as cleer to me as the Sun in his Meridian glory that Trithemius his design and aim was to get himself fame and honor and to fix the Image of his ambition in the beliefs and understandings of the ignorant and credulous sort of people in the world so to perpetuate his name and memory for ever by such an undertaking For you must know that the world is not half so barren of persons ignorant as ingenious and really I account it a providence that God and Nature have given to wit and ingenuity wings that the Heavenly part of the ingeniously learned may bear them up above the dunstable resolutions of the rustick or unlearned otherwise they would be most sure to be voted out of their knowledge as reason it self too often is at a Grand-Jury It is not to be doubted but Trithemius knew the vanity and fictitiousness of this pretended Angel-skill But had not Trithemius done something above the ordinary level how should he have now been talked of among us he alas hath passed away and would have been remembred no more or at least but a little while among the sons of men but for such an undertaking Now the better to obtrude this his fancy upon the spirit of the world he dedicates the story to Caesar submitting to his judgment and the censure of the Church therein And hence it is come to pass that the learning of Trithemius and the authority and greatness of Caesar his Patron hath born down as well the reason and judgment of some persons very learned as the yeilding brains of the ignorant And thus much for Trithemius 2. Of Agrippa Henry Cornelius Agrippa is the second person in my triumvirate who beyond all thoughts of doubt was a most eminently learned man or else surely he had never been admitted Councellor to Charls the fifth Emperor of Germany nor yet judge of his Prerogative Court both which honors Cornelius was possessed of This learned person being strangely possessed with the vanity of what we have now under examination wrote three books De occulta Philosophia of occult Philosophy and therein to the skie as we use to speak magnified the Doctrine of Angels Spirits Characters Seals and Images c. and thereby set the fancies of divers persons at work expecting to be acquainted with their genius or at least so far with the vertue of a Sigil that thereby they might work wonders who have indeed after much pains and expence of money and time returned as wife from the search thereof as they came first to it Some it is true that I know will talk largely of their skill and cunning abilities and report with much confidence what they are able to do but alas they only act the part of Vangoose in the Play viz. pretend much when they can do nothing but talke Van Vill yow see somting Ick sall bring in de Turkschen met all Zin Bashawes Zin dirty towsand Yanitsaryes met all Zin whooren Eunuken all met an auder de Sofie van Persia de Tartar Cham met de groat king of Mogul and make deir men and deir horse deir Elephanten bee seen fight in de ayre and bee all killen and aliven noe such ting And all dis met d● Ars van de Catropricks by de refleshie van de glassen Such indeed is the skill that many pretenders have arrived at by their being credulous of things impossible to be performed and while they have twatled of raising spirits and of shewing faces in a Glass and other such like counterfeit cozening stories they have layd their reputations and honesty low enough in the esteem of all I remember to have heard a story of what hapned between that excellent Philosopher and great naturalist Sir K. Digbie and that Arch-pretender Dr. Lamb. This Dr. Lamb would needs be thought a person able to converse with Spirits command Devils and what not which the learned Sir K. hearing of and desirous to be confirmed of either the truth or falshood of the relation repaired to the Dr. who presently meeting the Knights request supposing him ignorant in his craft begins to shew him some shapes by the reflection of some Optical Glasses upon a wall which the Knight readily perceiving found him a cheat in his pretences for that there was nothing more in that knack of his of rarity then what an ordinary capacity might honestly arrive unto by the Optiques and took him by the collar of his doublet demanding of

do in Tom. 1. fol. 29. of his Ephemerides where he shews that the Sun and all the Planets are vast distances from the Firmament yea many millions of miles Yet I suppose I may modestly demand of any holding this opinion If the Orbs of the Erratique stars be so vast a distance from the Firmament as Argol averreth Why should not the eighth Sphear viz. the Sphear of the fixed stars be at full as great a distance if not greater then them unless they conclude the eighth sphear to be the firmament which I presume they do not because it is contrary to the rules of Astronomy And if hence it shall be supposed that the fixed stars are any space be it little or much distant from the firmament why then should any be so ridiculous as to affirm that they may or do fall from or out of the firmament But I shall pass this over and leave the discussion to abler Pens and conclude with the divine Poet. That shooting stars those some do fondly call As if those heavenly Lamps from heaven could fall 8. Of Illuminations or scattering fire This scattering fire or illuminations appearing in the uppermost part of the lowest Region is caused when many exhalations hot and dry are drawn up into the middle Region of the air and there meeting with many cold clouds are sent back again Which violent and forcible motions backward and forward are the occasion of its being set on fire And the parts thereof being not equally thick or joyned together seemeth to the beholders as if fire were scattered or spread in the air Yea sometimes the whole air seemeth to burn and all the Heavens do appear on fire as they did in the year 1574. on the fifteenth day of March as is recorded by Stow in his Abridgment Dr Fulks saith At such an apparition as this the whole Air seemeth to burn as though it would rain fire from Heaven and so saith he it hath come to pass that whole Cities and Towns have been fired 9. Of the Ignis fatuus or foolish fire This foolish fire is so called saith Dr. Swan not that it hurteth any but only feareth or scareth fools and is generated of a fat and oyly exhalation which is heavie in regard of the glutinous matter of which it consists by reason of which quality the cold of the night beats it back again when it striveth to ascend upward through which strife and violent motion or tossing it is set on fire and falls downward according to that of Dubart in Sec. days work If th'exhalation hot and oyly prove And yet as feeble giveth light above To th' airy regions everlasting frost Incessantly th' apt tinding flame is tost Till it inflame then like a squib it falls Or fire-wing'd shafts or sulph'ry powder-balls And being thus fired it passeth forward and backward upward and downward according to the motion of the Air in a silent night by gentle gales not going or moving exactly toward one point Note that if the wind be high or any way sharply stirring this Apparition or Meteor cannot appear at all For the wind disperses the matter whereof it is made and will not suffer it to be conjoyned This kind of light is often seen in hot and fenny Countreys and in such places where there is abundance of fat and unctious matter as in Church-yards c. where through the corruption and putrefaction of many dead bodies there buryed the earth is full of such substance as also in places where many battles have been fought And this Meteor appearing in these places as indeed there is most re●son it should the ignorant and superstitious people have thought them to be the souls and spirits of men departed and accordingly have stood in a kind of slavish fear of them Henry Cornelius Agrippa li. 4. de occult Philos prope sinem augmenteth to this error very much and endeavours to render pobable reasons of the souls mourning as he calls it over his quondam partner the body thus Usually where people are buryed you shall see many nocturnal Visions Monsters and other hideous shapes to appear and this is the reason that walking over such places in the night time it is the more terrible And more especially where executed bodies are buryed and where dead souldiers that have lost their li●es in battel are buryed by heaps for saith he the sacred rites of buryal being denied to dead bodies hinder the souls going further admirable and right occult Philosophy sure that the soul should be thus sensible without an organical body ●●t ●●epes them there untill the day of Judgment But such fancies as these with most ingenious persons have been and are deemed no other then Delirious Dotages and Ridiculous Assertions altogether unbecoming the tongue or pen of a Philosopher And Noble Cornelius in his book de vanitate Scientiarum ingenuously acknowledgeth as much Object But saith the vulgar humorist If these lights and apparitions be not walking spirits how come they to lead men out of their way as it is more commonly then truly reported I answer The main cause why they lead men out of their way if the phrase be proper is because those silly wretches that see them and pretend to be led by them being sore amazed and aff●ighted at them not knowing their true cause you may be sure do look so earnestly after them that they forget their way And then being never so little out of their road and frighted withall they wander they know not whither sometimes to Pits Rivers and other very dangerous and dismal places And when at the last they happen into their road again and get home with their hair an end and themselves sweating and staring they fall a telling their friends strange and incredible stories how that some devil or spirit in the likeness of fire hath led them out of their way I cannot nor they neither very well or truly tell how far or how long time and that it came so neer them it would have done them hurt had not their prayers or some heavenly cogitations such no doubt as amazed men are capable of diverted it When notwithstanding all this while the great dangers those poor ignorant wretches dread is in the depravedness of their own senses for there is none to them outward at all Now the chief cause that this apparition seemeth to follow or go before men is by reason of the motion of the Air by the going or motion of the man before or after whom it thus goes Which Air being moved drives it forward or backward as it is either placed before or behind the person Whence it will rationally follow that it is not the fire that leads or drives the fool but the fool the fire but when this fire happens to be at a greater distance the mans eye and the air moving maketh the man to think the fire moves These lights appear also oftentimes at Sea as well as at land sometimes one alone sometimes