Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	foundation_n	prophet_n	2,558	5	7.1113	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54321	The astrologer anatomiz'd, or, The vanity of star-gazing art discovered by Benedictus Pererius ; and rendered into English by Percy Enderbie, Gent.; Adversus fallaces et superstitiosas artes. English	Pererius, Benedictus, 1535-1610.; Enderbie, Percy, d. 1670.	1661 (1661)	Wing P1465A; ESTC R40059	54,756	134

hate fear hope and the like making the impetuousness and violence of our passions a rule to guide our actions so should we in a most high degree undervalue our selves if we should propose the motion and influences celestial to ourselves as a rule to order and regulate our actions by for they are bodies and incline us according to the sway and inclination of our own passions St Luke in the Acts of the Apostles chap. 19 tells us that many who were converted at Ephesus by the preaching and Sermons of St. Paul and formerly had followed curious Arts brought their books and burnt them in publick St. Augustine a profound and grave Authour averres that those books treated of Astrology and matters belonging to Divination Neither did St. Paul reconcile a certain Mathematician that is one who addicted himself to the study of this kinde of Astrology nor receive him into the bosome of the Church although repenting himself of his former profession till first he had performed most solemn penance For as much as concerns this matter I will set down compendiously and succinctly the words of St. Augustine therefore after the enarration or explanation of the sixty Psalm when that Mathematician publickly desiring pardon was brought before the publick assembly thus writes that holy Doctor This man became a good Christian and a zealous Penitent affrighted at the power of our Lord humbly threw himself prostrate before his mercies for being seduced by the Enemy during the time of his seducement he seduced others being himself deceived he deceived others inticed and cunningly drew them on speaking many falsities and untruths against God giving power to men to do good but not power of not doing evil he affirmed that to commit adultery was not done by mans own proper will but by the power of Venus that our own proper will committed not murther but Mars that Jupiter made man just and not God these besides many other detestable and sacrilegious Tenets by this means from how many Christians think you did he worm and screw forth money how many simple fools bought lies and forgeries of him of whom it is said Ye sons of men how long are you of heavy heart and seek after lies and love vanity We may now believe that this man abhorred lying and the ruine and destruction of so many and perceiving him seduced misled and couzened by the Fiend being humbly penitent and contrite is ingratiated and reconciled unto Almighty God You are not ignorant that it is written in the Acts of the Apostles Chap. 19. that many lost and forlorn persons viz. men confiding in such vain Arts and followers of that pestiferous Doctrine brought all their books unto the Apostles and so many were burnt before the open assembly and they cast up the accompts of them and found the price to be fifty thousand pieces of silver and was all done for the greate●● glory of God lest such men esteeming themselve● lost and cast away should despair of his mercy who knows how to reduce and bring back what soever is gone astray This man had as it were perished was sought after was found was reclaimed was reduc'd he brings with him now his Books whose doctrine if he had followed would have cast him into the flames of eternal destruction these he casts into the devouring flames obtaining himself a most sweet refreshment of grace and mercy Before the high and solemn Feast o● the Pasche which we commonly call Easter thi● penitent sought a remedy for his wounded soul from the indulgent Spouse and Church of Christ but because the Art in which he was so delighted and lulled up was fallacious lying and destructive he was put off and remitted to another time but at length after trial he was reconciled lest he might be more dangerously tempted How severe the Church hath been in former times in her censure against this kinde of Astrologers IN the Primitive Church this kinde of Astrology was reproved forbidden and condemned as much as Art-Magick or Necromancy it self Epiphanius in his Book of Weights and Measures tells us that Aquilla Ponticus an expositer of Scripture was rejected and cast out of the Church for that he spent great part of his time in casting and observation of Nativities and other like Astrological observations It is not to be passed over in silence in this discourse it being worthy our notice what Euseb in his sixth Book of Evangelical Preperation Chap. 9. relates out of Origen in his Commentaries upon Genesis of this kinde of Astrology The Gentiles from the Aspects and Conjunction of the Stars believe all things upon earth by urgent necessity to chance and fall out which strange force and power they stile Fate yea and many among the faithful stagger hereat thinking it almost impossible that things should otherwayes happen then as decreed by the constellations of the Planets from whence it followeth that there is no liberty or freedom in us no act of ours can either merit praise or dispraise and consequently the just judgement of Almighty God foretold in the Scripture whereby some are predestinated to everlasting and endless torments others to eternal and perpetual felicity and beatitude should be predicated as false what needs more faith it self the coming of our Saviour all the travel and labour of the Prophets the Apostles preaching and laying the foundation of the Church should all be vain unless we should say that Christ himself by the constellation of the Planets was necessitated and impell'd by their power and force to do those thing which he did far be it from any Christian to harbour such a thought much more to utter such blasphemy and that what he suffered was not by the potency and power of his deity or divinity but by the force and vertue of the Stars and out of this impious ground and fundamental it also must be concluded that the faithful are forced by fate to believe in Christ that no distinction can be made betwixt good and bad that God must be the authour of sin that no reward is due to men for what they have done whether good or evil to conclude by this unsavory Doctrine there is no need of prayers obsecrations or vows to implore the aid and assistance of Almighty God Thus Origen Let Peter Destliaco hug himself in his conceit of the by him so admired Astrology let him Idolize it and defend it tooth and nail let him beat his working brain to yoke it and make it walk hand in hand with Philosophy and yea forsooth which Theology also all which he shall never bring to pass unless he can familiarize and make a league betwixt Falsity and Truth Light and Darkness God and the Devil and his impudency blusheth not to assert that the Deluge or as we call it Noahs Flood the Incarnation and Birth of our Saviour and other high and admirable mysteries and miracles might have been prognosticated and foretold by the constellations and conjunctions of the Stars and

THE ASTROLOGER ANATOMIZ'D Or the Vanity of Star-Gazing Art DISCOVERED BY Benedictus Pererius And rendered into English by Percy Enderbie Gent. London Printed by Ralph Wood and are to be sold by M. Wright at the Kings Head in the Old Bailey 1661. To the Honourably Extracted and truly Noble Sir FRANCIS PETRE Baronet SIR SVch hath been the sad Distractions of these our unfortunate times that Learning hath in a manner been trodden under foot Arts and Liberal Sciences contemned and villified amongst the rest Astrology hath had a grand Ecclipse many Scioli and illiterate persons like mushroms have sprung up and arm'd with Ignorance and Impudence mistake themselves for great Rabbies in that most profound Science And this scum of the many undertakes to tell Fortunes predict future Contingents inform silly Girles who shall be their Husbands with thousands of such like fopperies This Grave Judicious and Learned Author Benedictus Pererius comming by accident into my hands after I had seriously perused him I esteemed it not amiss to dress him in English habit and teach him to speak our Language to undeceive such as have been inveigled and misled by pernicious Star gazers I know there will not be wanting those who will carp at my Labours and therefore Noble Sir knowing your Education to be above the ordinary strain even of Persons of Quality your Judgement excellent your Skill in Mathematicall Conclusions transcendent your knowledge in Tongues and Sciences admirable and your Extraction Honourable I humbly beseech you to patronize these my weak Endeavours and give them leave to appear in Publick under the Wings of your auspicious Protection which if you vouchsafe I shall neither fear Momus nor Aristarchus but rest secure and subscribe my self SIR Your most Humble and Faithful Servant Percy Enderbie The Preface SO great is the impudency and madness of those whom fools call Judgement-giving or Judiciary Astrologers that they will needs perswade the vulgar and illiterate that the most holy and sacred Scripture as they boast and brag it not onely winks at but gives full power and authority to their Art of Astronomy and therefore forsooth God created the great Lights and Luminaries of the Heavens the Sun Moon and Stars and said to them Let them be for signs c. Which words they will needs wrest to speak thus that by Astrological divination and observing the motion of the Stars they can prognosticate things to come and future events This grand error hath caused St. Ambrose St. Basil and divers other Fathers upon the true exposition of those words to enlarge themselves and upon sound Fundamentals not onely to impugne and disprove but also to lay open the vanities and fopperies of Astrological Predictions By the example of which Fathers but more especially by the heavy and several Sentences in holy Scripture against those kinde of Astrologers being moved and also by a just hatred against them by reason of their fraudulent cheating and pernicious lyes and couzenage this Book is undertaken to confute and refell those fantastick Divinations which is hoped will be accepted by all as being for the utility and good of all Johannes Picus Mirandulanus hath written very largely and learnedly upon this subject but his prolixity retards his Readers from perusing his whole works therefore in this Tract though the field be large and spacious such method shall be used that nothing shall be brought upon the stage yet many curious Questions offer themselves but onely such as shall be succinct and most conducing to the purpose In this Treatise against the vanity of this sort of Astrologers I will reduce all into five Chapters In the first shall be demonstrated that Divination is opposite and contrary to Sacred and Ecclesiasticall Doctrine Secondly That Astrologers are totally ignorant of Celestiall and Heavenly things Thirdly That this Divining and Fore-telling Art is contrary to Reason and Philosophy Fourthly That the Stars are so far from being the Efficient Causes of things to come that they are not so much as evident Signs Lastly Reason shall make it appear that no Predictions of Astrologers can be infallible and true The Astrologer Anatomiz'd OR The vanity of Star-gazing c. Chap. 1. Astrologicall Divination contrary to Divine Scripture Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Theologicall Doctrine Astrologers confuted by Sentences and Texts of holy Scripture Examples and Institutions of the Church and Theological Reasons THe most holy and sacred Scripture cryes out and tells us that the certain prescience and prediction of things to come and happen belongs neither to Man nor Devils themselves but is onely and solely to Almighty God himself read the Prophet Isaiah chap. 41. and you shall hear him say Shew what things are to come hereafter and we shall know that ye are gods and in the 44. chap. I am the Lord that make the signs of Diviners void and turn the Southsayers into fury And in chap. 47. God deriding the Babylonians and Chaldaeans confiding in their Siderial and Astrological Predictions thus speaketh unto them Stand with thine Inchanters and with the multitude of thy Sorceries in which thou hast travelled from thy youth if perhaps it may profit thee any thing or if thou mayest become stronger thou hast failed in the multiude of thy councels let the Astrologers of Heaven stand and save thee which contemplate the stars and count the moneths that by them they might tell things that shall come to thee Isa 47. 12. And a little before he had said thy wisdom and thy science this hath deceived thee and Jeremiah in his tenth Chapter admonisheth the Jews to contemn and set light by Astrological Predictions and Observations for that by no influence of stars any thing was either to be feared or hoped for these are his words According to the wayes of the Gentiles learn not and the signs of the Heavens which the Heathen fear be not afraid because the laws of the people are vain And Solomon in Eccles 10. denieth man to have the knowledge and foresight of things to come or contingent A man is ignorant what hath been before him and what shall be after him who can tell c. A man is ignorant of things past and things to come he can know by no messenger Thus we may plainly perceive the vain Astrological Predictions in holy Writ to be contemned derided and opposed And with the sacred Text in this as in all things else the Judgement of the holy Church walks hand in hand for ever from the very infancy and first beginning she cryes out against detests and condemns Judicial Astrology and the vain fooleries thereof how many and several yea and those most severe and checking Decrees and Fulminations hath she enacted to that purpose against those brain-sick Fortune tellers and Calculators of future events read in thé second part of her Decrees throughout the first five Questions and you shall easily discover her just anger against her perverse if so I may call them children or if such