Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	earth_n	heaven_n	word_n	6,641	5	4.7023	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42469	Thomas Gataker B.D. his vindication of the annotations by him published upon these words, Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signes of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them, Jer. 10. 2 against the scurrilous aspersions of that grand imposter Mr. William Lillie : as also against the various expositions of two of his advocates, Mr. John Swan, and another by him cited, but not named : together with the annotations themselvs : wherein the pretended grounds of judiciary astrologie, and the Scripture-proofes produced for it are discussed and refuted.; Vindication of the annotations by him published	Gataker, Thomas, 1574-1654.	1653 (1653)	Wing G330; ESTC R7339	172,651	208

time of the yeer with us for distemper of heat and infirmities in mens bodies proceeding from the same whereas yet that affection ariseth not from any power of the Dog-star of which that great Mathematician M. H. Brigges sometime occasionally in conference averred unto me that in the ancientest times it had risen in the spring and if the world should continue for a certain number of yeers the Dog-days as we term them would be in the very heart of winter as they also in some part of the world are at this day but the excesse of heat in those dayes is from the continuance of the sun augmenting the heat of the ayer tho upon his recesse at that time of the yeer as in the same manner and by the like proportion enhancing the heat of the day for some time an hower or two after noon tho then entred upon and having made some progresse in his declination from the highest pitch of his exaltation with us And I encline therefore to the Judgment of that lerned Scholiast who thus expoundeth those words in Moses concerning the Sun Moon and Stars Let them be for signes to admonish men of the Seasons of of the yeer and to direct them in their affaires and employments concerning matter of voyage and tillage yea and use of physick also and for set times for so the word properly signifies Gen. 21.2 2 Sam. 24.15 Jer. 8.7 as are months and for dayes and yeers signifying or giving notice of those but producing these as the Moon by her proper motion doth the Months the Sun by his diurnal and common course the day by his annual and peculiar cours the yeer So that M. Swans argument from the word influence is of no force being not at all in the Text nor were it there would it be of any validity to infer such strange malignant influences as he and his Clients for whom he pleads would groundlesly fasten upon the Stars But if all this wil not serve which is all as light as a little thistle down or a feather to infer or enforce ought that Mr. S. should proov and would have you shall have a convincing place that wil hit the nail on the hed and strike all ded and that out of the same Book Job 9.7 where God is said to seal up the Stars And here indeed Mr. S. gives us the words of the Text aright but with such an exposition as neither he is able to prove nor would at all avail him albeit he could make it good The sense of the place is as plain and familiar so as ready at hand as is rain-water in a shower Let the simplest man almost of any the meanest understanding read but the whole verse To the Sun he saith to wit arise not or he speaketh and it ariseth not he also sealeth up the Stars and he wil easily and readily at the very first sight see that clouding and darkning withholding or withdrawing of light is intended as well concerning the Stars in the one branch as concerning the Sun in the other It is a plain parallel to those places Esay 13.10 The Stars of Heaven and its Cesilim the brightest of them shal not give their light the Sun shal be darkned in his seting out nor shal the Moon cause her light to shine forth Ezek. 37.7 8. I will cover the heavens and make the Stars thereof dark I wil cover the Sun with a cloud nor shall the Moon give her light all the lightsome lights of Heaven wil I darken over thee that I may set darknesse upon thy land and Joel 3.11 The Sun and the Moon shal be darkned and the Stars shal withdraw their shining It was to the very letter so in Pauls voyage from Jewrie to Italie wherein neither Sun nor Stars for so many dayes appeered Act. 27.20 To cite for this Interpretation a multitude of writers which otherwise were not difficult would be but a great deal of lost labor as much as to set up a torch or taper at cleer noon-day light and to cast some good store of water into the Sea But let us hear M. Swans exposition God saith he seals up the Stars when he keeps back the rain from the watering the earth I will not presse Mr. S. to produce some Autors of note that in this his exposition concur with him which yet if either the course of the context did back or other Parallel passages of Scripture did second I should not in that regard refuse to admit and embrace But I desire to be enformed from Mr. S. where the giving of rain is attributed to the Stars and the restraint thereof to the obsignation or cohibition of them We read in this very Book of Job in Elihues discourse Chap. 36.27 28. Drops of water the clouds do dril distil and pour down abundantly And Chap. 27.10 11. God in watering the earth wearies the thick cloud and scatters the lightsome or lightning cloud as also in Gods own words to Job Chap. 38.34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds that abundance of water may cover thee So Psal 77.17 The clouds poured down water and Psal 147.8 who covereth the heaven with clouds and prepareth rain for the earth and Eccles 11.3 When the clouds be full of water they empty themselvs upon the earth and Esay 5.6 I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it But I no where find it said that the Stars pour down rain or that the Stars are forbidden to give it or said to be restrained from yeelding of it This Interpretation therefore having no strength at all either from the tenor of the context or other passages of holy writ cannot in reason be urged for ground of an argument Nor again were it admitted would it help Mr. S. or those whose Advocate he is For what manner of argument wil this be God seals up the Stars by keeping back the rain from watering the earth Ergò the Stars have a power to work upon the sons of men to dispose them in their genitures some to one vice and some to another to expose them to casualties of divers kinds and to design them unto sundry sorts of ill ends Would it not be as they use to say to reason a baculo ad angulum from the cudgel to the corner What can from hence be averred of the Stars that may not as wel thence be concluded of the clouds And indeed this place of Job is just in the like manner abused wronged and wrested by them to confirm their Astromancie as is another in the same book to assert their Chiromancie or Palmestrie which Mr. L. so much magnifies and of which Goclein the prints of whose footsteps are in Mr. S. freqent tels us it hath great concent with Astrologie and the predictions of it are more firm then those of Astrologie are I rather beleiv both alike The place alledged in defence of it is Job 37.7 which Goclein reading according to the

the onely men that understand the Stars language as Mr. Swan informs us 4. That they should not be signes unles they should foreshew somewhat and much more unles they should portend some sad matter is a very weak and sandy conseqence as by instances not a few bath evidently ben shewed already 5. If the Sun Moon and Stars be Signes doth it thence follow that all their particular motions meetings configurations aspects conjunctions oppositions risings settings c. be significant and portend some new matter The Tabernacle was a sign as was also the Temple Heb. 10 1. but can it thence follow that every loop or tach or pin or stake or socket or cord or curtaine and the length and bredth and depth of each or coupling of them one to another or distance of them one from another or situation of them one against another or taking of each down and folding of it up when they were to remov or unfolding of each again and setting it up when they were to make some stay were all therefore significant also and mysterious that men should imploy their wanton wits as it were to be wished that some did not in picking strange matters and deep mysteries out of each of them Or because the Paschal Lamb was a sign and represented Christ 1 Cor. 5.7 doth it thence folow that its fleece signified one thing and its hoofs an other and its ears a third and its eyes a fourth and its purtenance a fifth and its posture in the dish a sixth and so forward with fore leg and him leg and right and left eye and ear and nostril and legs and the like What we find in Scripture noted as symbolical in it that with good ground we deem significant And what we find in Gods Word noted as significant in these celestial creatures that may we warrantably conclude to be such and so far forth significant as it informs us or strength of reason thereupon grounded shall lead us As for configurations being meer contrivances of mans fancie to what end soever at first framed or to what other good purpose soever still retained for the better observation of the motions rising and setting of each of them and the distinguishing of them one from another to mak mysterious signes of them or attribute ought to them in regard of such Figures as mans fancy hath framed them unto what can it be les then meer superstition and a palpable abuse of them Can not the Sun Moon and Stars speak unto us unles they speak unto us by al these particulars Lastly do not the Stars speak at all unto us unless they speak to us in the Wizards language This is just like to the Patrones of Popish superstitions and of that monster more particularly of Transubstantiation who because they find the Sacrament of Christs body and blood oft termed a Mysterie and a great Mysterie in the writings of the Ancient Fathers would thence conclude it to be a Miracle or a miraculous Mysterie such a Mysterie as they would have it to be For so doth Mr. Swan reason and Mr. Lilie before him The Sun Moon and Stars ar signes therefore Fortune-telling signs foretelling the ruine of Kingdoms and States or such signes as we Wizards will have them to be But this is to reason a genere praedicato ad speciem statuendam A Mysterie and therefore a miraculous Mysterie A signe therefore a prodigious or portending signe as if one should thus reason A man is an animal and therefore a bruit or An asse is an animal and therefore a reasonable creature And as we therefore answer those Romish Factors that the Sacrament of Baptisme is a Mysterie and yet not a miracle the Element of water in it is mysterious yet no miraculous matter no such essential change in the one as from the word Mysterie they would infer in the other So may we justly return the like answer to these Wizards and their Factors that the Rainbow Circumcision the Passover the Sabbath divers other were and our Sacraments ar Signes and yet neither such prodigious or portending signes as from this term given them or office thereby assigned them they would conclude these to be But we will take Mr. Swans argument and trie what use we can make of it The Stars were not signes if they did not speak somewhat To which I ad that it is sufficient to proov them Signes if they do speak some what as it is enough to make letters and words signes if they signifie somewhat But the Psalmist saith they speak somewhat and telleth us withall what somewhat it is that they say the stars therefore may be signes tho they speak no more then what the Psalmist saith they do rho they speak not such a language as Mr. Swan and his Clients would have them to speak and rack Moses most unreasonably to make him say that they say Communi omnium idiomate idiotismo we may ad also loquntur saith Calvin speaking of this place They speak in a language that all may understand These mens Astrologie therefore is not as Mr. Swan before told us the stars language for Mr. Swan himself telleth us in the very Front of his Book that few understand that and yet hath the same man the boldnesse to say thus they work and by their working they speak to all those who will but lend an ear to hear them But these men tho they be not able to make out from this Text so much as they avow and would thence conclude concerning the Voice of these celestial Creatures as portending and threatning such dismal matter as they would have them to foreshew yet would they from hence infer and enforce upon us matters of an higher nature and greater concernment to wit that they do not onely portend such things as events but produce them as effects And here Mr. Swan to ty us fast hand and tongue that we may not once hiscere open or stir against what he propounds tels us that It is an axiome so firmly grounded upon experience that all the world will never be able to confute it that the Lights of Heaven work upon the inferior world and the vertues and powers by which they work were at first Divinely stamped in them where if not here by this Word of God in the Creation of them and are elsewhere called by the name of influences of which term in his du place and that even to the subversion of States change of Common-weals Translations of Kingdomes with change of Lawes and Religion But Sir let your Axiome be never so undeniable such as all the world can not refute yet qid dignum tanto hiatu your Argument thence drawn to conclude what it should proov is so sillie as that not some exqisite Sophister but any punie Sophumer may at first sight discover the feebleness of it For let your Argument be drawn into a syllogistical form and what will it be but this The Lights of

is superfluous omitted therefore Psal 106.35 Chap. 12.16 or else it may be rendred Accustome not your selves to the way of the heathen and so some render it do not imitate them See Chap. 9.5 their way that is their superstitious courses Lev. 18.3 20.23 and be not dismaied at the signes of heaven The first head of superstitions which he beginneth with is Astrologie a study and practice so rife among them in those parts Esay 47.13 that the professors and practisers of it not with them alone Dan. 2.2 5.7 but among other nations also are generally designed by the name of Chaldeans See Strabo l. 17. Cicero of divination l. 2. Pliny l. 6. c. 26. Astrologie I say not that which we commonly term Astronomie whereby the true nature and motion of the celestial bodies are by grounds of reason and rules of art thence taking their rise enqired into and discovered but that Judiciary Astrologie as it is usually styled whereby men take upon them from the postures and aspects of them to foretel the issu of humane affairs either publike or private and what casual events shall befal either persons or people a practice grown of late with us into great esteem being either countenanced or connived at by those in authority with us tho having entred themselves and caused others with them to enter into a religious bond of a solemn oath and covenant to endeavor the extirpation of all those things among us that are contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godlinesse whereof this is none of the least For the original whereof since it hath not nor can be shewed to have any ground from the light of nature or natural reason we shal not need to go far to find it out We have a blind but insolent buzzard I may wel so term him among us one that professeth himself no small Doctor in these impostures and dotages wherewith he hath bewitched not a few with us esteeming his predictions as no other then divine oracles and taketh upon him by the Stars to steer the affairs of our State pretending to read in the Book of Heaven all that he writes who will sufficiently inform us herein Now this man to justifie the warrantablenes of this his practice telleth us that the good Angels of God in former ages at first by personal conference acquainted the sons of men with this learning of the Stars and those holy men saith he so instructed living many years and in purer airs where they curiously observed the Planets and their motion brought this Art to some maturity without the least hint of superstition But as the sons of men fell from God in divine worship so in flitting and shifting their habitations they forgat the purer part of this art and in some Countries added superstitious conceptions The holy Angels then belike by this mans relation did at first inform those holy men which they could not otherwise have known of the nature of the Planets to wit that Saturn was a melancholick malignant planet Mars a cholerick and litigious one Mercury a theevish Venus a lascivious and wanton one and that they do accordingly affect and dispose such people or persons as are either bred under them or whom they have special relation unto For these and the like ridiculous fopperies and impious calumniations of those glorious creatures are with them as the Popish Purgatory with the Papists the main grounds and principles of their whole Art which being taken away the whole fabrick and frame of their superstitious superstructures will presently fail and fall flat to the ground as with those other all their masses dirges obites pardons and indulgences if you deny them their Purgatory which because they can produce no clear Scripture for they run with these men to their forged revelations But whence these frivolous conceits and irreligious surmises concerning those celestial bodies which if you question you shake the ground of all their conjectural skil had their original may wel be conjectured from the very names the heathen imposed upon them being borrowed from their counterfeit deities whom they deemed so qualified assure our selves we may that Gods holy Angels never raised any such foul aspersions and groundlesse defamations upon those pure and spotlesse creatures far from and wholy uncapable of any tincture of such vicious dispositions But all that this man relateth we may if we please and be so selie as so to do take upon his credit for he telleth us not what times those were wherein it was thus or who those holy men were unto whom the holy Angels at first revealed those things or out of what records he hath these relations concerning such pretended revelations And as litle reason have we to engage our faith to his Antagonist another fowl of the same feather that flieth yet somewhat higher then he and pretending his predictions to be grounded on Art and Nature telleth us that we may not mis-doubt or question his Art that this art was deduced from God to Adam to Seth to Abraham for proof whereof he referreth us to a Knight of note for his studies in this kind who in favour indeed of this Art which he was overmuch addicted to and besotted with affirmeth in part what he saith but bringing no better proof of it then a tale out of Joseph the Jew who in his Antiquities l. 1. c. 3. telleth us that those of Seths issue living long and without disturbance gave themselvs to the study of heavenly things and the constitution or administration of them and because Adam had foretold a twofold destruction of the world that should come the one by water the other by fire they left the summe of what they had of that kind of learning observed engraven on two pillars of brick the one of stone the other but neither is any word in the Jew of this their Judicial Astrologie nor of any skil in this kind or any other by God imparted unto Adam which they yet father upon him and the whole relation of the two pillars seems as tru as that which he addeth of the continuance of the latter of them in Syria unto his time And indeed if any sons of Adam ever had any such immediate communion either with God himself or his holy Angels it must be those Ancient Patriarks Abraham Isaak and Jacob and those Prophets of God among his people unto whom God used sometime immediately sometime by the Ministery of Angels to impart his mind concerning future events as well publike as private but no where in Scripture read we that God did this either by the natural course of the celestial signs or as from thence to be observed nor undoubtedly had any such art and skil been taught the godly ones among Gods people whether by God himself or his Angels would they either have concealed it from them or much-lesse committed it unto Paynims and Pagans and by such have transmitted it unto posterity for from such in corrupt