Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A42821
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Dies novissimus, or, Dooms-day not so near as dreaded together with something touching the present invasion of the Turk into the German Empire and the probable success thereof / by John Gadbury ...
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Gadbury, John, 1627-1704.
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1664
(1664)
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Wing G82; ESTC R11481
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35,221
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60
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hath pleased God to restore his Majesty to his Kingdoms and the Kingdoms to their pristine Government these persons cannot be content to have their Rebellions and Treasons defaced with a Royal Deleatur but because they have not the power to reign in their insatiable pleasures which they took in Ruine and Destruction as before they take upon them with the greatest ingratitude imaginable maliciously to doom that to death which gave and yet continues unto them Life 4. These Persons use this their Engine of Villany and Politique way of mischief for the discomfiting and terrifying this Kingdome as may be reasonably presumed for this Reason In that they were many of them men of eminent Grandeur and great Estate which in our late times of confusion they had by Rapine War and Bloodshed acquired and being now in some respects forced to refund and part with much of their ill-gotten Goods they labour with the Dragon or Devil in the Revelations and struggle hard that they may not fall from the Heaven of their once not thought of happiness without pulling thence a third part of the Stars with them Could they but have the power as they have the stomach to lay Englands Peace and Glory in the dust and once more embrue us in another Civil War setting us all in a flame they would then be contented though by the light thereof they should read the Bills of their own Losses But that they may assure themselves that neither their Designes or their forged Revelations shall either have effect or signification of this Kingdomes Ruine the onely thing they seem so zealously to thirst after I assert That the happiness of this Nation is built upon a Rock too mighty for them to attempt and too powerful for any Enemies to impugn And this I have demonstrated at large in my Treatise entituled Britains Royal Star unto which I refer the Reader What hath been said of those that thus thunder of Visions and Revelations may equally be referred to them that pretend to lay such great weight upon Prodigies Howbeit I would not have any to suppose me so irrational as to deny Prodigies for I acknowledge that God Almighty oftentimes giveth forth his Premonitions by Prodigies especially when he hath an intention of punishment either to Nations or Persons according to that true saying of Herodotus Cum Deus puniturus est gentem vel orbem prodigiis id solet prius significare i. e. When God intends to punish a Nation Country or City he is first wont to give them notice thereof by Prodigies It is this onely that I contend against viz. That many things said and pretended to be Prodigies by the Enthusiasts and Discontents of this Age are neither Properly or Really such For if a Rainbow or two or three Suns or Moons or a Hyatus appear in the Clouds or if a River abate but of its common Quantity of Water these things I say are immediately bruted about for Prodigies when in truth they are none at all for there is hardly a moneth in the year a moneth did I say nay a week perhaps a day but in some place of this earthy Globe some if not all of these things happen And should we conceive these to be Prodigies we must necessarily believe that the whole world consists of nothing but wonders and that there is not any thing natural therein of which a sober account can be rendred but it is equally erroneous to conceive the first as to conclude the latter I do allow that Prodigies have eminent wonderful and astonishing significations but that these things are either such or have such significations may be reasonably denyed upon the former ground urged It is true that the apparition of them to the eyes of Vulgar men and such that are illiterate whose ears before having been abused with strange stories beget amazement whereas indeed they would be less terrified and affrighted thereat very probably nothing at all were it not for the forged significations that the subtile and knavish Reporter maketh of them Now that I may the better evince to the Readers hereof that these several things have a real and proper cause in Nature and therefore not properly at all to be esteemed as Prodigies I will consider them briefly apart in manner and form following 1. Of the Rainbow THe Rainbow is an apparition of many colours Bow-fashion in a dark waterish and hollow cloud reflected by the Sun-beams in opposition unto it as most Philosophers and Naturalists urge For your Luminous Bodies do cause bright Images and Colours at a distance upon any clean and thin object and the Sun of all Bodies being the most lucid and the water thin and clear is the reason why by the Suns reflexion upon a waterish Cloud a Rainbow is begotten And this apparition is commonly to be seen yet never hath any other signification but of Rain or Fair Weather Of Rain because it cannot appear but in a waterish Cloud which is so prepared that it is ready to fall into drops Of Fair Weather because when the Sun-beams are strong and the heat is grown so great that the moisture of the Cloud is thereby dryed up and the drops attenuated into thin Air. These are not onely naturally the common significations but the natural significations of Rainbows Other significations hereof besides that which Divines urge as That it is a signe of the Covenant between God and his people whence say they it hath its Name and is called Iris from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Latine is Dico signifying I say declare or publish as if God intended by this signe never to drown the world again I am I acknowledge fully ignorant of and would be glad of further information hereof and satisfaction herein from any man 2. Of many Suns seen at once NOr is it miraculous and prodigious for more Suns then one to appear seemingly at one time For when a smooth Watry Cloud of equal thickness is placed on either side of the Sun there will be an appearance of three Suns whereas in truth there is but one and the other two are onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Peucer calls them Solis imagines the images or shadows of the true Sun caused onely by reflection or refraction of the Sun upon the cloud on either side and if at any time there be more pieces of such a cloud then one set at a convenient distance on either side then may there be many Suns seen to appear These being the proper causes of the Parelii or Mock-Suns I cannot see any reason why they should when they do appear have any more signification then other common clouds who always loose their significations with their disappearing 3. Of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or many Moons HAving before treated of the Parelii or Mock-Suns it is not very difficult for any ordinary capacity without further instruction to arrive at the knowledge of the causes of the
Medium to be found between those terms which are purely contradictory Nor is there any more of Art herein or certainty of the truth pretended hereby then in the throwing up Half a Crown by which action we certainly conclude that either Cross or Pile shall be uppermost The same Author in the next Leaf comes to deliver another kinde of Judgement upon this Great Conjunction viz. A firm Establishment of new-acquired Dominions or new Families or new Leagues and this in many places of Europe Now you see in this persons Judgement by this Conjunction men will sometimes intend to settle and unsettle Governments Kingdomes and Commonwealths c. and at other times intend onely a firm Establishment of new-acquired Dominions c. And this onely in many places of Europe And in the same breath almost he urges another passage like to the first we examined viz. It secondly intends a Confirmation or Extinguishment of ancient Church-matters Discipline or Ceremonies Which Terms every one may see are directly opposite as the former How ridiculous contradictory idle and vain such Predictions are I need not take pains to illustrate but leave them to be judged of by Persons able to distinguish of Terms and discern the Imposture and ignorant juggling of the Predictor who rather then he will not be seen to be some-body adventures to make an Enthusiastique noise though it be Groundless Artless Senceless I come in the next place having briefly examined the substance of his Predictions to demand his Reason why he calls this Conjunction A Little or Minor Conjunction for as I can perceive he hath rendred no account wherefore it should be so esteemed There seems to me two things essentially to be considered in the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter which makes their Congress to be called great viz. 1. The Regality of the Triplicity they conjoyn in 2. The Beginning of their Conjunctions for their whole circuit in that Trigon And both these concur to make this a great Conjunction For 1. it is the Fiery Trigon in which this Coelestial Congress is celebrated the most Noble of all the rest even as Fire is the most eminent among the Elements 2. Albeit it so happened that there were two Conjunctions of these Planets in the same Triplicity viz. anno 1603. Dec. 7. and anno 1623. June 8. yet these Planets not continuing their several Conjunctions in that Trigon till they had naturally ended their circuit there they could not be called great Conjunctions but rather mean or middle Conjunctions But this Conjunction now in Sagittary so begins the Fiery Triplicity that for many Ages these Planets will make their Conjunctions in the same Trigon and this without any alteration or mutation into any other Triplicity Ergo this must be not a little or minor Conjunction but a great Conjunction Nay the Gentleman that hath been pleased to call this a Minor Conjunction hath been also pleased to call that in 1603. December 7. not onely a Great but the greatest Conjunction which how truly it may be so termed I freely confess I understand not Perhaps he may have learnt a secret way to demonstrate unto us impossibilities viz. why that Conjunction in 1603. should be called a Great or the greatest Conjunction and this in 1663. though greater then that shall be esteemed and termed a Minor or Little one Astrologers consent that there are three manner of ways how Saturn and Jupiter make their Conjunctions whence they have their several Denominations 1. They make their Conjunctions in any of the Trigons in the space of nineteen years three hundred and sixteen days and this is called a Minor Conjunction 2. They make their Conjunctions from one Trigon to another according to the order of the Signes as out of the Fiery into the Earthy in an hundred ninety and nine years and three hundred sixty six days and this is called a middle or mean Conjunction 3. They make their Conjunctions in seven hundred ninety five years two hundred and twelve days as from Aries to Aries or Sagittarius to Sagittarius with respect to the mutation of the Triplicity c. and this is called a great or the greatest Conjunction that can be But of this subject let the ingenious Reader apply himself to Cardan in his Commentary upon Ptolomy fol. 362. that I mean printed a Lyons anno 1555. where he may receive exacter satisfaction then my present occasions will permit me to afford him There is another Person who pretends to be well acquainted with the Calculations and Effects of Conjunctions and he saith in one place of his Book anno 1663. this Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter happens on Octob. 10. near high Noon it may be as neer Midnight for ought he or any man else knoweth yet in another place of the same Book he telleth us it happeneth the 12 day neer 7 a Clock in the morning This I know these two Planets will be in Conjunction at the least ten days perhaps more before and after the tenth day of October but the precise day according to the best Astronomical Tables they will make their exact Conjunction will be on October the tenth anno 1663. but their Orbs touch many days both before and after But this pitiful Judger of Conjunctions commits a greater errour then this immediately following it in these words There hath been six Trigonical Revolutions past before this last entrance of the Planets into Aries 1603. In 1603. these Planets were in Sagittarius and as far from Aries as a Trine is distant from a Conjunction viz. 120 Degrees and so far is this strange Astrologer distant from the truth I should willingly have conceived this to have been the Printers errour as not willing to believe any man pretending Astrologie so ignorant and subject to errour but meeting it in his Book in words at length and no way corrected I cannot do less then suppose it to be a part of its Authors remarkable property Ignorance and that which confirms me so much the more is A most egregious mistake by him committed in the moneth of January in his Almanack He saith there The 28 day ♂ ☉ ♀ and ☿ viz. Mars Sol Venus and Mercury are all Combust Certainly his Brains and Skill likewise must needs be in combustion that shall say or write the Sun which combures all the Planets can himself be combust But he proceeds Observe the two Superiours conjoyn 23 day and all the rest the 28 day Expect great and prodigions Effects On the twenty third day there is no such Conjunction of the superiour Planets as this idle fellow ignorantly twattles of nor are the other five in exact Conjunction that day neither Although I grant the Moon is applying to the Conjunctions of the Sun Mars Mercury and Venus but meets with the Sextiles of Saturn and Jupiter by the way I perceive this forward Astrologer understandeth not what Frustration in an Astrological sence meaneth Now therefore if Persons