the Queen went withall upon this they without delay layd the Crown upon the Queens belly and proclaimed the child scarce conceived to be their King according to their Countries rites and laws Augustus and Marke Anthony were playing together and what a businesse of caution a mathematicall Aegyptian presager made upon it advising the one as concerning their after earnest to take heed of the other as whose genius was too strong for him or his daemon afraid of his As Pope Eugenius sung Masse in the Church of Rheimes some drops of the consecrated wine chanced to be spilt and what prognosticating was upon it And no lesse was there upon Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury his singing a Requiem the same day he was reconciled to the King 27. Of the treasons treacheries conspiracies seditious ambitions usurpations turbulencies and busie medlings of Magicall and Astrologicall diviners against Princes Magistrates Kingdomes and States CAmbyses having added Aegypt to his fathers Kingdomes could not endure their magicall religion but abominating their superstitious ceremonies caused the Oraculous Temples of Apis and others to be pulled down At length he was murdered by means of two Magicians who concealed his death and usurping upon his Kingdome raigned in his stead and name But their boldnesse being detected they were apprehended and suppressed by Darius who therefore by the consent of all was chosen King Cobares a man of magick art if an art it be and not a vaine mans deceit yet what ever it be he was more notable for his profession of it then for his knowledge in it He at a feast would needs be counselling Bessus the weaker to yield to Alexander the stronger which medling of his was so ill taken that he hardly escaped his throat cutting and he likewise took so ill the rejection of his counsell that he defected and fled to the contrary part Now what unhappy politicians are such as these both to themselves and others that if they may not be accepted for busie counsellors turn malecontented â—ugitives Alexander being about to scale the walls of a City Demopâ—on the diviner would needs disswade him from some apparition of unfortunate signs Of whom the King demanded if it would not trouble him to be interrupted in his Science which he acknowledging the King replyed upon him again avouching that in his greatest affairs he found alwaies no greater distraction and disturbance then that of a superstitious pragmaticall Soothsayer Nicius the Athenian Captain kept a Soothsayer continually in his house pretending it was to consult with him about the great affaires of the Commonwealth when as it was onely to inquire about his own businesse or to promote his owne ambition Alcibiades to promote his own ambitions suborned certain predicting Soothsayers to presage happy successe and honour to the Athenians in their Sicilian warre although his end served it fell out clean contrary Meton the Astronomer very politickly feined himselfe mad and fired his own house pretending a mislike of the celestiall signes as touching the common successe in that warre but his end was to himself sc to release his sonne engaged in that voyage and so to ease himselfe let the Commonwealth sinke or swim of the charge of maintaining him there While Fadus governed the Province of Iudaea a certaine Magician Theudas by name perswaded the people to follow him to the River Iordane taking their substance along with them and he would divide the waters as heretofore and so work their deliverance But Fadus pursued them dispersed the seduced multitude took the Magician and cut off his head Another time an Aegyptian comming to Ierusalem feined himselfe to be a Prophet but was a Magician he perswaded the popular multitude to goe along with him to Mount Olivet and he would there shew them strange things for their freedome but Faelix followed upon them and slew hundreds of them onely the Aegyptian escaped by vanishing out of sight Another Mâ—gician seduced the people leading them out into the Wildernesse promising them safety and rest from their evils but Festus followed streight after them and slew both the Seducer and many of those whom he had seduced Many Soothsaying Astrologers grudging at the least increase or ease of the Church had gathered themselves together to consult about the praenotion of Valens his successor and having tryed all kind of divination at length they made a wooden Treuet of Lawrell and used such execrable and diabolicall incantation that they observed a conjunction of these letters THEOD which they expounded of one Theodorus a Pagan and usefull to their purpose presuming on the power of their constellation or constellated figure to depose or set up whom they thought good But Valens understanding it slew both the diviners and the party they had divined upon Yea his fury was so implacable that it extended to all either of that sect or name Eugenius a Schoolmaster by the means of Arbogustes a treacherous officer and of Hyparchus a politick presager having strangled young Valentinian usurped the Empire presuming he should attain to what he went about being thereunto induced by the word of those that took upon them to predict things future from the immolation of victimes inspection of entrailes and observation of the Stars Thrasyllus the Mathematician having predicted certain joyfull things to Nero and they falling out quite contrary he determined to cast him headlong into the sea as a falsarie and rash intruder into his secrets Yea the same Nero had an odde way of exploring his Magicall predictors and if there were found the least suspition of vanity or fraud in them he would cast them as they walked upon a precipice headlong into the Sea and many times would doe it lest they might be the bewrayers of his secrets for he who knew their treacheries durst trust none of them The ancient Brittains deeply drencht in superstition by their magicall Druides were so enslaved to them as that they usurped the determining of all controversies publique or private concerning all matters or causes criminall or reall so that they took upon them to award recompences or penalties as they pleased and who ever he or they were that refused to stand to their judgement him or them they presently interdicted forbidding all commerce with them It is recorded that in France the Magicians Astrologers Sortiaries Sorcerers Wizzards and Witches were so numerous that they began to boast themselves not only for a society but for an Army and to professe that if they could but get some one in authority to be their Commander or leader they durst wage warre with any King or State and doubted not of the victory through the vertue and power of their art Like as the Hunnes by those very means had formerly done against Sigebert King of France Peter of Pomfreit that hermeticall Wizzard by buzzing his prophecies into the peoples eares sought to make the commotion against King Iohn And in Ketts commotion one main promotion of it was upon the false prophecies that
Πῦς-μαντία THE MAG-ASTRO-MANCER OR THE Magicall-Astrologicall-Diviner Posed and Puzzled Isaiah 44. 24 25 26. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer and he that formed thee from the womb I am the Lord that maketh all things that stretcheth forth the heavens above that spreadeth abroad the carth by my self That frustrateth the tokens of the Lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wisemen backward and maketh their knowledge foolish That confirmeth the word of his servant and performeth the counsels of his messengers Aug. De Doctrina Christiana Lib. 2. Superstitiosum est quicquid institutum est ab hominibus ad facienda colenda Idola pertinens vel ad colendam sicui Deum creaturam partemve ullam creaturae vel ad consultationes pacta quaedam significationum cum Daemonibus placita atque foederata Qualia sunt molimina Magicarum artium Noque illi ab hoc genere perniciosae superstitionis segregandi sunt qui Genethliaci propter natalium dierum considerationes nunc autem vulgo Mathematici vocantur Nam ipsi quamvis veram stellarum positionem cum quisque nascitur consectentur aliquando etiam pervestigent tamen quod inde conatur vel actiones nostras vel actionum eventa praedicere nimis errant vondunt imperitis hominibus miserabilem servitutem Omnes igitur artes hujusmod vel nugatoriae vel noxiae superstitionis ex quadam pestifera societate hominum Daemonum quasi pacta infidelis dolosae amicitiae constituta ponitus sunt repudianda fugienda Christiano By John Gaule Minister of Great Staughton in the County of Huntingdon LONDON Printed for Joshua Kirton at the Kings Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1652. To his Excellency the Lord Generall CROMWELL SIR BEcause I have found your immerited and superabounding favours for these sundry years past therefore it is that I have now presumed in dedicating this Book to your name to the intent that I might ingenuously make some acknowledgment of my humble thankfulness before the world It is known to some and hoped by all that you love the Truth The truth not only of divine mysteries but even of humane Sciences And withall hate falshood The falshood not in Religion only but of Arts also Especially of all such arts as are utterly inconsistent with the very fundamental truths of Religion Of which sort I dare boldly aver is this fictitious art of Magicall Astrologie And whether I have by Gods mercifull enablement here so proved it that I humbly refer to be judged of by your own prudence and the most truly discerning among Christian professours First it began as a Religion amongst the vilest of Heathenish Idolatours Then the Jewish Apostates Idolized with it and by it to the unredeemable prejudice of their own Religion But after the Christian Religion came to be graciously promulged this Darkness durst not now set up it self for a Religion before that Light only then it pretended to an art and under that masked notion through some kind of Christianizers sought craftily to insinuate into the Church as lawfull Till Christian Conventions of Councils Synods Senates and Parliaments truly examined it and so justly condemned it for unlawfull Since that this Black Aart lurkt only in obscure corners and durst never appear in publick Save only in troubled times to their further distraction Because it then presumed Religion and Laws to be at a loss or at least not at leasure to examine and suppress it And so it took confidence to ominate alwaies most enviously against the Church For that being clouded it then presumed that Planetarian Edicts might the more easily be imposed upon a people yea and Starry Laws and Ordinances soon after that given even to a State it self And in truth Sir it was the imposing upon the peoples faiths by them of this way late start up amongst us with unsufferable peremptoriness and impudence that urged me not a little to employ some spare time from my other studies upon this enterprize For it was notorious both in City and Country and not only so but greatly scandalous how that they began to look into and commune of their Almanacks before the Bible and to make themselves more infallibly assured of a Prognostication as touching the government of the world and of the Church also than either of a prophecy or a promise Only their gross hallucinating in their prodigious portending upon the last Eclipse hath proved not a little to Eclipse their credit with them And I hope all true measuring and sober Astronomers will detest Distinguish and detect these mad ominating Astrologers which none indeed can doe so exactly as concerning their pedanticall cantings and mysterious juglings as can they For my part I know I must expect the utmost of their malice and malignity else it would fare better with me than with others that have opposed them in all ages But I heartily believe that God will bless me from their imprecating malefice And I humbly beseech you to bless me from their conspiring violence And the Church I trust will bless me against their cursed calumny And then let me alone to bless my self against the fallacie of their art or artifice So maugre all their malice I shall live by Gods grace and blessing a Minister of Christ a Preacher of the word a teacher of truth a pursuer of peace a refeller of falshood minding herein the glory of my God and the edification of my Brethren In all which I shall greatly rejoyce to be approved Your Excellencies most humble Servant John Gaule To the Readers Intelligent and Orthodox HAving neither had the hap to see two Magicall or Astrologicall writers old or new worthy to be called Authours save only in some few fragments of theirs nor yet the happiness to peruse twice two just Treatises of all that have been written against them except only of some certain Godly and learned men that have occasionally and dispersedly toucht upon them in brief and as it were by the way In regard hereof I could neither plenarily confute them from themselves which otherwise might have been done with no great difficulty nor yet sufficiently argue against them from others a thing of much facility Now seeing their Sun hath been shrouded from me or but appeared to me only in some kind of twilight I have ventured to light my lesser candle by which I have waded through much of their black darkness and not only so but have been bold to set it up in a candlestick that others also may thereby take a view either of my progress or my slips and faylings therein In which as I refer my self to their judgment so I implore their charity First neither these kind of men nor any else ought to stumble at the new coynd name I have here prefixt since the thing it self is so old For who hath read the Fathers the Philosophers the Historians the Poets or but some of the Magicians and Astrologers themselves but must observe and acknowledge Magick
and project for me a prison and sorrow The Fatall Astrologers will threaten any hanging and by a slippery turning of the heavens inhibit my ascent to the Gods above The menacing Diviner will ominate all manner of evill to me The importunate Physiognomist will defame me for frigide and insufficient The doting Metoposcopist will pronounce me for a brainsick Asse The fatidicall Chiromantist will divine all things sinisterly of me The presaging Aruspex will exaugurate me with all manner of ill luck The portentous Speculator wil send revengefull flames of Iupiter and fires of presaging thunder The dusky Oniropolist or Dream-teller will affright me with nocturnall Ghosts and Goblins The furious Vaticinator wil deceive me with an ambiguous Oracle The prodigious Magicians wil transform me as another Apuleius or Lucian not into a golden but peradventure into a dirty Asse The black Goeticke wil persecute me with Spectres and Spirits The sacrilegious Theurgist wil consecrate my head to the Crows or perhaps to the Jakes The circumcised Cabalists wil imprecate their curse upon me The old doting praestigator will represent me as an headlesse Eunuch c. To conclude therefore in a word since this is the suspition of one of their own what then must another expect from them But God be blessed we are taugh to discover their madnesse and despise their malice by a better light and strength then all their own confessions can afford us CHAP. XXVII 27. From observation upon Story WHether besides these irrefragable conclusions in generall That all Histories make mention of Magicians Astrologers Mathematitians Diviners Sooth-sayers c. doe it seldome without some brand of infamy both upon them and their Arts. That these kind of Artists were more rife in Heathenish then in Christian in Popish then in Protestant in former then in latter times and stories That they were alwaies most busie in turbulent and distracted times and affaires as in warres domestick and forraine in seditions factions schismes c. That when or where their divinations and presagings were most received it was no little presage of the decay of Religion and of a declining Church That those Emperours Kings Princes Magistrates people that most credited or favoured them were most unfortunate in the end That the proper fruits of their Schooles Colledges Societies Religion profession practice were the nourishing of Nations in Idolatry superstition sorcery impiety c. That the causes of mens seeking after or consulting with any such have been alwaies some depraved passion and corrupt affection That alwaies men of the greatest learning wisdome valor vertue conscience have derided and despised but they have been men of the contrary disposition that have most believed or feared their prognostications or predictions That after a Kingdom or land had smarted in a long delusion of their divinations and impostures they themselves smarted at last by severe edicts and executions I say besides these generals whether these particular observations or the stories they are grounded upon be to be denied as not true or to be avoyded as not concerning them in one kind or another And yet they are not the tenth part of those that might be collected and thus ordered 1. Of the fabulous erections and appellations of Starres and celestiall Signes such as the Mag-astro-mancers doe make use of in their erecting of Theames or Scheames for their divining prognostications and predictions PHrixus had a Golden Sheep or a Ramme with a Golden Fleece given him by his father or else by his mother this Ramme nourished him and speaking with mans voyce advised him of sundry perils and to helpe him in his flight flew with him in the ayre carrying him over Hellespont to Colchos then was this Ramme sacrificed to Iupiter or to Mars or to Mercury and the skinne or fleece hang'd upon an Oake or an Elme in the Wood Grove or Temple of Iupiter or of Mercury And in memoriall of all this it was by prayer obtained of Iupiter that the Signe Aries or the Ramme should be placed among the Starres All that can here be credible is that this Phrixus was an Astrologer now the Astrologer gave an occasion to the Fable and the Fable to the setting up of the first Signe of the Zodiack Iupiter infinitely taken with the excellent beauty of Europa turn'd himselfe into a dainty white Bull and was feeding by the Sea side where Europa with her fellow Virgins used to walk she observing and admiring the unusuall comelinesse of this beast went aside to behold it fell more freely to stroke it gat upon the back of it and by this wile was carried over Sea into Crete and there ravished Then for an everlasting memoriall of this fact Iupiter placed the image of Taurus among the Starres and Europa obtained that one part of the world might be called after her name Orion arrogantly boasting of his cunning and power to kill any beast Tellus Latona Diana indigning this insolency raised up a Scorpion that slew him Scorpius for this memorable fact was taken up and set among the Starres and in pitty Orion was thither referred also and placed next to Taurus Ganymedes a beautifull Boy inordinately loved by Iupiter he caused an Eagle to snatch him up into heaven and so translated him among the Starres to make that Signe which they call Aquarius Such stories of Star-making there are in the Poeticall Fables of the Pleiades the Hyades the Dolphin the Eagle the Swan the Goat of Castor and Pollux of Cassiope and Andromeda of Ariadnes crown of Orpheus his Harp of the Argonauts ship of Silenus his Asse and the Asses Cribbe c. 2. Of the Mythologicall significations of Planets which are not onely made to signifie mens morals or their manners but their fatals also or their lives and fortunes SAturne was the sonne of Coelus and Rbea which signifies that Time began with the agitation and motion of beames and the Starres Saturne cut off his fathers genitals This signifies time consuming her selfe or forgetting her own beginning rather Iupiter cuts off Saturnes genitals because he tempers his malice or maligne influence Saturne covenants with his brother Titan to slay all his sonnes to note that it is conspired betweed the Sunne and Time that all that are born shall haste to an end Saturne devoures his own sonnes to note that few live who when they are born have Saturne dominant in their horoscope But Saturne did onely eate up his male-children not his females is he therefore not so malignant in the birth of women as of men And Saturne was couzened by his wives shifts who kept some of his male children from his greedy tooth yea and was made to devoure a stone instead of a man does not this signifie that a Planet may be prevented by that which is no Planet Saturne vomited up again all that he did eate shewing that nature repaires that by generation which she impaires by corruption Saturne turn'd himselfe into a horse to obtaine his love or indeed his
of his own wife but it would not doe and of many others more and at last he light of one whereby he recovered his sight And forthwith called all those other women together and burnt them and married that one himselfe whose water was so soveraigne The Dictators Emperours and people of Rome were taught by their augurizing and aruspicall Diviners certaine devotory odes or formes of direfull execration full of barbarismes and prophanenesse that so the imprecating of the one added to the others vaticinating might make the ominating much more forcible and effectuall Erasmus having in familiarity one Bibliopegus a Dane they two being pleasantly disposed together Erasmus jestingly bad him take a knife and open any leafe of Homers Iliads and choose any verse on the right side of the leafe and he would thence undertake to tell him his fortune Bibliopegus having observed all circumstances very strictly Erasmus began to predict that he should marry a wife very rich but so ill conditioned that he should be forced to desert her And the event of this jest fell out in good earnest Hemingius while he was a young Student in a Logick Lecture recited these verses used in the Schooles Fecane cageti Daphenes gebare Gedaco Gebali stant sed non stant Phebus hecâ—â— hedas Hereupon he added in jeasting manner that these verses were very effectuall against a Feaver if the severall words were inscribed upon a piece of bread and given to the sick man in order so as to eate every day a piece with the word inscribed Now there hapned to heare him a good honest simple man who not apprehending the jeast believed all to be spoken seriously And within a few daies after having a servant of his fallen sick of a Fevrr gave him a piece of bread the first day inscribed with the Fecane and so every day in order to the last word and then he was cured Others likewise seeing the efficacy of this amulet followed the example and obtained the like effect Till at length the jest of it came out and so the vertue of it ceased Gotschalâ—us and Wierus relate this story one from his own knowledge the other from anothers report and though they vary in circumstances yet they agree in the effect A certaine woman grievously troubled with sore eyes light upon a certaine knavish Scholler to whom she complained of her infirmity craved the help of his art and promised liberally to reward him He either to make sport or in hope of gaine promised to help her and to that end took a piece of paper wherein he wrote such kind of Characters as were never invented or seen before and underneath them wrote these words in great Letters The divel pull out thine eyes and stop up their holes with dung This he folds up and wraps it in a piece of cloth and ties it about her neck and bids her have an especiall care that it be not taken thence nor yet opened or read by any means All this she observes awfully and her watery eyes were cured About a yeere or two after either she let fall off through carelesnesse or else had a desire to see what was there contained the charm then being opened and read and the cursed contents thereof understood and abhorred it was cast into the fire which done her sore eyes returned in as grievous manner as before I have read it in an Orthodox divine that he knew a young Gentleman who by chance spilling the salt of the Table some that sate with him said merrily to him that it was an ill omen and wisht him take heed to himselfe that day of which the young man was so superstitiously credulous that it would not goe out of his mind and going abroad that day got a wound of which he died not long after Old Ennius fained many answers of the Pythian Apollo and delivered them in verse when as Apollo had long before left off his poeticall prophetizing and yet even these spake as true and was found as effectuall as any of the rest Numa Pompilius Scipio Affricanus Lucius Scylla Quintus Sertorius Minos King of Crete Pisistrates the Athenian Tyrant Lycurgus and Zaleucus are all noted for assimulating of religion or a faigning of divination and oraculous predictions and neverthelesse prevailed by this means and ruled both by Laws and arms Persia being oppressed with the sordid domination of the Magicians Darius the King with some adjutors of like dignity entred into a pact that they should ride to such a place before Sunne rising and whose horse neighed there first it should be taken as an omen to make him King Now Darius his Groom to effect it the more prosperously for his master had rubd his hand in the genitall parts of a Mare and when they came to the place strok't the horse over the nose which presently neighed upon the smell Whereupon all the rest alighted and as from a divine suffrage saluted him King Alexander Severus yet a youth and dreaming of nothing lesse then an Empire making as boyes used Virgilian lots light upon certain verses that seemed to portend or praesignifie the Romane Empire to him Yea many such verses both of Homer and of Virgil have been often used to that end and have proved as significant and effectual as any presaging Oracle of them all 23. Of the aenigmaticall obscure amphibolicall ambiguous and aequivocating sc so deluding speeches studiously and industriously delivered by oraculous magicall sorcerous and astrologicall predictors or diviners PYrrhus King of Epyre perceiving the power of the Romans against whom he went consulted the Oracle of Apollo and it gave him this doubtfull answer Aeacides I say The Romans conquer may Which he interpreted to himselfe in the best part but found the event as various as the words were dubious Craesus that rich King of Lydia consulting the Delphian Oracle which he himselfe had so mâ—nificently adorned to shew its gratitude it resolved him this Riddle If Craesus fearlesse shall passe Italy's river A Kingdom great wealth greater shall be shiver He now thought he should destroy anothers wealth and power and not his own But instead of bringing Persia within the power of Lydia Craesus himselfe fell into the hands of Cyrus And the Oracle gloried that which way soever it hapned it still spake true While Alexander was in a fight some that stood by him saw or imagined an Eagle fearlessely fluttering over his head then Aristander the onely diviner carrying a lawrell in his hand and shewed the souldiers a token of victory But it is uncertain of which he spake the Lawrell or the Eagle An Astrologer advised Epaminondas the Thebane to take heed of the Sea for that would be fatall to him Which he therefore carefully avoyded but found his death in a wood which was called by that name Another of them bad Philip of Macedon take heed of a Charret or Cart as a thing dismall or dangerous to his life whereupon he not only refrayned but