THERE is, Egregious Sir, a Quack Astrologer in your House, who some Years since Publish'd a Scan­dalous Reflection on me, without either Reason, or Provocation, so to do; which a Friend of mine im­parting to me, (for I used not to mispend Time, or Money, in such empty Stuff, with which his Pen hath surfeited the World.) I expostulated the Matter with him, by Letter; and demand­ed his Authority, or Reason for the Reproach; or an Acknow­ledgment of the Fault, or Mistake, if it were such; but in­stead of giving me any manner of Satisfaction, He, in the next Publick Effort of his fertil Pen, falls a railing, and chat­tering, like an obnoxious Criminal; and attempted, by dint of Scolding, to Huff me out of those Resentments, which he had great reason to fear, would be severe upon him.

Indeed, at first, I was so little displeas'd to see my self treat­ed in a manner, so much to his own Shame, and Opprobrium, more than mine; that I slighted the Bawling Brain-sick, till I found him at me again: And for want of new Matter, giving the People twice Sodden Cabbage: the same fulsom Stuff in a second Almanack, which he had done in that, wherein he first put that Falshood on Crato and me.

The Repetition of this groundless Affront, (after I had charged him with the Falshood thereof, and he had tacitly al­lowed it himself) made me steal a few Hours from other Avo­cations, to do my self right, and stop the Carreer of his Scurri­lous Pen. But since he denied to take notice of my Private Challenge, I could not readily think of a better way to gain that Point, that by this Publick Address, and Appeal to you, who are so much alike and so near of kin to him.

But before we engage in so rough and unpleasant a way, as a close and serious Discourse of this Matter will carry us to, It [Page 2]may not be amiss to sweeten our Humours by some divertive Entertainment, in the beginning of our Course; and because some of his Quack Postures afforded me such Pleasure, that I felt little of the pinching part of his Bum-fodder; I will make you merry with a Specimen of his Worship's Wit, both in Verse and Prose.

I begin with the former, not only because the Pamphlet a­bounds therewith, but for the excellency of it; being the very quintessence of Helicon, and Heart Blood and Guts of the Mu­ses. Homer, Pindar, Virgil, or Cowley were meer Fools to Sidrophel, or Watchum, his Journeyman Poetaster; not one of them ever made such bold strokes, or can show such Flowers, as I can, out of his doggrel and fastidious Rhyme.

There's a Bird for the King, against whose Father's Tyranny and Arbitrary Actions, he had just before bent his doughty Song: and now He comes to admonish his Majesty to the same Practice. Where is the Liberty and Property of Subjects, so much talk'd of? If they be governed by a Prince, whose Will, like the Decrees of Heaven, is Absolute and Irresistible? For so the Assembly in their Confession and Catechisms define Pre­destination, or God's Decrees to be, viz. destining, or de­termining from all Eternity, such to Heaven, such to Hell, ( L. Du Moulin allows scarce One in a Million to the for­mer) without foresight, or respect had, to Good, or Evil in them; but merely to show his Power, and for his Glory. To imi­tate this, must be very Arbitrary, and Tyrannical! And like the Grand Louis his declared Reasons for making his last War on the Netherlands, and spilling the Blood of so many Thou­sands, not for their Fault, but his Glory. Thus in a roaring Song against Arbitrary Power, which had tumbled King James out of his Throne, He recommends to King William a Walk on the same dangerous Precipice.

This is a whole Nosegay for his Majesty, made up of as much Nonsense, as ever was in so little Meeter. He had rea­son to scorn assistance from the Muses in his first Poetical Sally in January; he hath a Furnassus in his own Breast.

He hath a peculiar sort of Poetry; a Specimen of which may be thus Paraphras'd in Prose. Your Sword made the living dead, i. e. the Stupid feel, cujus Contrarium—

I know not whether he intended this for Prophecy, or Hi­story; I am sure it's neither Sence, nor Truth. The French have not shown themselves such Cowards of late, as to lose their Courage at the sight of an Enemy. But the Jest is, their fury vanished, and yet stood trembling: There is a sort of a Con­tradiction in that; vanishing, and standing; fury, and trem­bling, are different things. — This was in June. It seems the hot Weather made the Monsieurs cold, and the cool Weather heated them; for in September, he tells us they became brisk;

This was verified at the Siege of Namur; where our new Observator affirms, That, the Confederates, in seeing the Town lost before their Faces, won more Glory, 1692. than the sneaking French, who took it in despight, and in sight of such Puissance as the Confederate Army, Headed by so great an Heroe, and Renowned Prince.

But his choicest Flowers are at the end of this Gallymawfry, where he ingeniously mingles Poetry and Prophecy, and both of so true a stamp, as if Apollo had made him an Oracle, as well as a Poet. For my part, I don't know which to admire most, the Prediction, or the Rhyme.

Both these are for Rhyme, neither of them for Sense, and may be thus Travestee'd.

With this scrap of my Muse, we will pass by his Poetry, and taste a bit of his Prose; of which he gives us a most delightful Morsel, in the third Paragraph of that Nonsense, his Geneth­liacal Considerations; the whole of it is a sort of Cant and [Page 4]Banter, which no Man can reconcile to Sence, Reason, Letters, or Truth: or make Intelligible to the most apprehensive Mor­tal; much less the Vulgar, whom he design'd to captivate and amuse by them. Pray take it.

This Proposition (quoth he) is to be considered, and by Experience to be observed, whether it be true, or false; and if true! how near it comes to truth: or wherein, or in what parts it may vary from it. This sensless Stuff may be thus Paraphras'd. Is W. S—n in Bedlam, or not? If he be there, pray tell me how near he is to it, or how far from it? Risum teneatis—

With a whole Gorge full of the like Stuff, he crams his Rea­der, in his Physical Advertisement for August.

Crato saith, That Oyl of Cloves being presently put into a Wound, causeth Pain to cease immediately, without Inflammation; and brings sordid Ʋlcers to a Cicatrice, and cleanseth them; and stops Blood so admirably, that nothing doth it more, or better. If Oyl of Cloves which is so hot, doth this so absolutely, and so safely? (Mark him, good Sir!) much more safely may it be sup­posed to be done with Oyl of Turpentine, or any other Chymical Oyl: which is cheap, and wants some degrees of the heat of Oyl of Cloves. And possibly from this it might be that Turpentine Yonge might receive his Notion of stopping Bleeding with Oyl of Turpentine. Crato, it seems was the Author; though he is pleas­ed to attribute the whole Invention to himself; which a Man of Can­dor would have abhorred to have done. Yet it is said, the French, and others used it in the same case before him.

Before I expose the Falshood of this senseless Reflection, I must inform you that Seventeen Years since, I was prevailed on by such as I could not refuse, to Publish some Notions con­cerning the Vertues of Oyl of Turpentine: Particularly, its wonderful Power to restrain the Bleeding of Wounds.

This Discovery met with various Fortunes, some disparaged it as a fallible and uncertain Remedy; others contemn'd it as an Old one; but many Ingenious Men honoured me with thankful Letters, together with Observations, confirming what I had writ concerning it; and which is Invaluable, the Famous, Ho­norable Mr. Boyle, not only said to Dr. R. H. and my self, such kind things of it, as I am too Modest to repeat; but He was like­wise pleased to honour it with Publick Approbation, in his Book of Specifiques. p 160

I found more Envy, or Carelesness, than Truth, in such as charged it with uncertainty, and failure; and from any of the few, who pretended they knew it before me, I could never wrest any proof; and I do here profess, That in all my Read­ing, Conversation, and Travels, (which are not the least) I never met it directly, or indirectly in any Circumstance; nor had other Direction to it, than what I frankly owned, and avowed in my Preface to that Discourse.

I am not the only Man, whose Labours have met such diver­sity of Fate. The Great Harvey's Discovery of the Circulation, was at first decried as a false Novelty by some; other invidi­ous Men said, the Glory of the Invention was due to Caesalpi­nus; some, to Hippocrates; and one more Retrospective than the rest, espied it in the Writings of Solomon.

How unjustly Sidrophel hath charged me with stealing away the Honour due to Crato, I will now evince; and leave you to wonder, as much as I do, at the Impudence and Folly of the Reproacher.

Crato saith, &c. This is like those Preachers, who quote St. Au­stin, and never read a Father. I have perused all Crato's Works, without being able to discover such a Passage: nor could I reasonably hope to find it there, knowing him to be a Man wiser than to write such Stuff. And surely, if Sidrophel had known where to find it, I had not been to seek it, and yet I must do him the right to confess, that he wanted not an Author for what he said; but it's such a Third-hand one; as he will be ashamed of, if he hath any Modesty in him? The Author I mean, is the Anonymous Translator of Bonetus his Index, who saith, Page 660. Oyl of Cloves makes Wounds, that if it be put in presently, their Pain imme­diately ceaseth without Inflammation: And it brings sordid Ʋlcers to a Cicatrice; and cleanseth them. It stops Bleeding nothing more.— And for this he quotes Crato in the Margin, without naming Book, Chapter or Page.

There is nothing of this originally in Bonetus; but added with many other things by the Translator, taken, as he de­clares in his Preface, out of J. G. Waltherus his Sylva Medica. Walther Sylva Med. p. 1601. To him I had recourse, and in page 1601. of that laboured Work, I found these words, Joh. Crato l. sing. Obs. Med. in Ep. Ep. 97. Ol. Caryoph. praestat vuln. ut illorum dolor. si mox in­datur, statim sedet & abs (que) inflamm. ad cicatr. perducat sordida Ʋlc. mund. flux. & vir. sistet adeo ut nih. supr.— I have put them [Page 6]down to a Letter, pointed, and abbreviated exactly as it's in the Book; that you may see the Insincerity and Wickedness of my Antagonist, how little ground he had for quoting Crato, or affirming that Oyl of Cloves stops Bleeding, and at so won­derful a rate; so absolutely, that nothing doth it more or bet­ter; when Crato, Waltherus, or whoever were the Author of these words, mean nothing of it. They speak of the flux of Humours to sordid Ulcers, not one word of the Haemorrhages from Wounds.

Moreover, I am well assured, Crato hath no such Epistles ex­tant as those Waltherus referrs to; because in three several Edi­tions of that Work, which I have examined, they are not to be found: nor is there any mention made of them by Vander Lin­den, or in G. Merklin's Account of the Labours of that Author, nor is there reason to think so good a Physician, so well Skilled in Natural Philosophy, and the Materia Medica, as Crato was, could fall into so gross an Error, as to think that the Chymical Oyl of an Aromatick Vegetative, hot in the third degree, as Cloves are; could cause such sudden, prodigious Cessation of Pain, in recent Wounds, and not inflame them.

I know many famous Authors account it very balsamick, viz. Beguinus, Weicker, Renodeus, Gluckstrad, Barthius, Ernestus, Hoff­man, Woodal, &c. Some of them equal it with natural Balm, and there are three or four Writers of good Reputation a­mong us, who speak highly of its healing Vertue, and of its faculty to restrain the Haemorrhages of Wounds too, which Si­drophel, had he known them, might have alledged more to his purpose and credit, than this Third-hand Quotation, as from Crato.

J. Ernestus much admires it, De ol. Chym. p. m. 410. Exterius omnia recentia vulnera, punctim vel caesim inflicta, sanat, humiditates nervorum in iis & haemorrhagias compescit.

J. J. Weickerus, writes thus of it— Omnes virtutes habet bal­sami. Extrinsecus vulnera recentia sanat, Antidot. l. 2 p. m. 655. vulnerum sanguinem fluentem & aquam sistit.

J. Barthius directs a way of distilling an Oyl from Cloves, In Ty­roc. Begui­ni. l. 2. c. 6. to drops of which being mingled with 4 grains of Sacchar. Saturni, ulcera, & vulnera mirabiliter consolidat.

And A. Libavius saith, Prax. Chym. 136. Balsamus est praestantissimus, vulnera omnia fundentia, sanguinem & serum, quod supprimit.

The truth of all which, I readily credit; declaring at the same time, that I derived not my Notion from Crato, or either of them; nor obtained it any other way, than what I declared in my Preface: Nor can Oyl of Cloves pretend to those many ad­ventitious Benefits, which accrew to Wounds, by the use of Oleum Terebinthinae; much less will it allay Pain in recent ones, and not heat them. To affirm that, is so senseless, Dispens. l. 1. Cap. 3. Sect. 7. p. 145. and void of all reason, that Sidrophel himself, methinks, should not have been guilty of it, after you had told him so learnedly, That Cloves yield much Oyl, because they have much of Sulphur and Salt in them, and that by reason of the Salt, the Oyl is sharp, caustick, and biting. Very much so, saith M. Thybaut, from whom you stole the whole.

If Cloves be hot in the third degree, as is by all hands allowed, Theat. Bot. I. H. p 429. Hist. Plant. Tom. 2. l. 26. cap. 2. the Chymical Oyl must be more so; as J. Bauhinus, and our excellent Mr. Ray do alike observe.— E caryophyllis qu [...]que distilla­tur oleum.— Est preculdubiò calidius multo. And consequently must accend, and inflame newly divided Flesh; unless we are such Children to believe, that a very hot oily Sulphur will cool: and a very hot, Corrosive sharp Salt ease Pain in tender Wounds. That would make us as ridiculous Naturalists as the old Woman, who said, Pepper was hot in Operation, but cold in Working. And such a one is Sidrophel, if he believe such Para­doxes; as he will find to his Pain, if ever he be so silly when he hath occasion to experiment it on himself.

It brings sordid Ʋlcers to a Cicatrice, and cleanseth them.

Here he puts the Cart before the Horse; for by the Rules of Surgery, sordid Ʋlcers must be cleansed before they be cicatriced. But I perceive he is a Stranger to those things: else he would neither have written so preposterously, nor believed (though he had had an Author for it) so erroneously as he hath done by asserting, [...]at an anodyne Medicine is detergent. We know that all Mundifiers, especially such as are po [...]ent enough to cleanse sordid Ulcers, are sharp, and frettin [...]; and consequently pain­ful: Such are precipitate, Mercury, V [...]tri [...]l, Verdigrease, &c. and without doubt the Oyl now in dispute, will appear sensibly so, when applied to Ulcers, much more to Wound [...] that are not senseless.

It stops Bleeding, so admirably, that nothing [...]th i [...] more, or better,

Here he transcends his Authors, for they do not make its Operation such an admirable thing. But I know [...]e stretcht it, [Page 8]to make it tally with Oyl of Turpentine: but that won't do! though to carry on the Metaphor, he commits a most horrid blunder in these words,

If Oyl of Cloves, which is so hot, doth this so absolutely? And so safely? Much more safely may it be supposed to be done with Oyl of Turpentine, &c. which wants some degrees of the heat of Oyl of Cloves.

Here he seems sensible of the heat of Clove Oyl. It's strange therefore, that Crato, or any Man, should persuade him, that its Anodyne to recent Wounds, and won't heat them. But who can be surprised at the Inconsistencies and Incongruities of a Man, who hath so little regard to Sense, Truth, Coherence, or good Man­ners? And commits such blunders in one breath, as he hath done in this single Period. Oyl of Cloves stops Bleeding so wonder­fully, that nothing doth it more, or better; it doth it abso­lutely, safely, &c. and yet after all that superlative Character, he supposeth it may be done a degree better by Oyl of Turpen­tine; for that will stop Blood more safely, than what doth it absolutely, and safely. Oyl of Cloves is not to be exceeded, but Oyl of Turpentine is most excellent. If this be not Teague all over, I know not what is? What, Dear Joye! Doth Oyl of Turpentine exceed an absolute, safe, incomparable Remedy? Will it stop Blood better than what doth it best of all? Can it excel that, which is not to be excelled? This is pure Mounte­bank Rhetorick, common with Sidrophel, who hath recommen­ded to the World above an hundred Remedies, every one of which is the best.

And possibly from this it might be, that Turpentine Yonge, might receive his Notion of stopping Bleeding with Oyl of Turpentine. Crato it seems was the Author, though he is pleased to attribute the whole Invention to himself: which a Man of Candor would have abhorred to have done.

In this senseless, and irrational Rallery, I shall pass over his Nick-naming me, and his most Illiterate way of expressing himself, as no strange thing from one over Head and Ears in the Bogs of Blunder, and Nonsence; and proceed to show you the Iniquity, and ill Consequence of his way of Inference, or concluding à Posse ad Esse, for that's his Logick; and by the same Rule I will undertake to prove Sidrophel to be the Son of a Whore: for it's possible: Ergo He is so. By this way of ar­guing, he accuseth me of being Plagiary from Crato: But how [Page 9]Absurdly and Illogically is too apparent; for by it, any thing may be made good: Conclusions may be made not only repugnant to Logick, and the Rules of Persuasion, but to Truth it self; and all things that can exist, are actually now in being, if his Rule be good.

Beside, the inartificial Deduction, the Inference is very un­true: It was impossible I could steal that from Crato, which was never in him. If it were, why doth he not show it me, when demanded? Though if he could produce it in him, it would not prove that I stole it thence; because I never knew or heard it was there, till Waltherus, the Englisher of Bonetus, and Sidrophel have falsly told me so, long since my Book was Published.

But if I had been led by Crato to those Thoughts I had of Ol. Te­reb. Sidrophel confesseth mine exceeds his in divers particulars; and consequently, all that advantage is owing to me; and Crato no more the Author of my Notions than the Inventor of Pro­spective Glasses was the Author of Tellescopes; The Pilot at Helvia, the Discover of America: Or he that enquired of Dr. Harvey what became of all the Blood yelpt from the left Ven­tricle of the Heart into the great Artery, was the Discoverer of Circulation.

Hints may lead to Discoveries, but do not make them; one thing gives light to another; and the Glory of those Achiev­ments attempted from those lesser Intimations, remain to Ga­lileo, Columbus, and Harvey, while the Names of those first Luminaries, are sunk and lost.

Furthermore! If any such thing was in Crato? Why must I steal it from him, rather than Ernestus, Wickerus, or Libavius? How comes he to be the Author of the Invention, more than they, who had said it before him: And from whom, if ever he said any such thing, he probably took it? There is an Edi­tion of Ernestus Printed, when Crato was but 23 Years old, and R. Moreau saith that Wicker flourish'd in Basil 1562. which was 23 Years before Crato died, about which time also Libavius was Professor of History, and Poetry, as Merklin tell us.

But after all; It's manifest, that I was so far from arrogat­ing the Invention, or assuming more than belonged to me, that in my Preface to that Book, I not only inveighed warmly a­gainst such, as Plume themselves with others Feathers; but re­nounced [Page 10]any Claim to that particular Invention; and not only so, but told my Reader how the first Discoverer found it, and named the Person who handed it from him to me. This is so plain, and clear in the four first Pages of that Preface, that I am astonisht at the Forehead of this most notorious and most infamous Plagiary! Surely no Man without Opium, could accuse me publickly for arrogating the whole Invention, when the World knows not an Author less guilty of such Piracy than my self, or more than my Accuser, who concludes as he began, with Falshood and Slander.

It's said the French, and others used it in the same Case before him.

If he hath any Author for this Report, it's just such another as he had for Crato: Such as he is ashamed to own; for I am sure, the French mention it not in any of their Writings, nor ever used it in their Practice, till they had it from me: Nor have any other ever pretended to it, that I know. There are many Men apt to arrogate more to themselves than belongs to them, witness Sidrophel; but where's he, who will suffer ano­ther to carry away his Laurels? I will therefore presume (after so many Years enjoyment of the Honour which I won, by Pub­lishing, and Improving this Discovery) to claim it by Pre­scription, as my due; in despight of this invidious Gainsayer, who, fearing his fathering it on Crato would not deprive me, attempts by a second Lye to give it the French. I have demand­ed his ground for this Suggestion also, but his guilt still keeps him silent: so that I conclude this also to be a Chimera of his own Brain, as all the rest of his Affirmations are.

Now, if there be nothing in Crato, which could beget in me, such an Opinion of Ol. Tereb. as I Published; or if there were, and I ignorant of it, and consequently not led by it; if I not only exclaimed against Plagiaries in general, but disclaimed any Title to that Exploration in particular, All which are most cer­tain; What an injury hath he done me, thus to Libel and Ex­pose my Name, and Reputation, without any manner of Cause to justifie it, or Foundation to support it.

But alas! All this is nothing compared with what the next Sally of his Pen bestows on me. Here his Choler is only mov­ed, there his Gall overflows with so much rancour, and bitter­ness, as if one of Billingsgate, broke loose from Bedlam, had raked Holbourn-Ditch, or the filthiest Shore of the Town, for [Page 11]Dirt to cast upon me. He resolved, if false Reflections, and groundless Calumnies would not blacken me, to try what Smut­ty scolding would do. Transported he was with fear of being Chastized for his Fault, and cunningly thought to prevent me by throwing Dust in my Eyes, and crying Murther! like a Thief pursued by the Constable.

This he attempts in a rude, and savage Epistle, to the Rea­der of Seplasium, (Forica, or Sterquilinum had been a fitter Name for it;) but how much it blackens himself more than me, every Man of sober Sence shall judge.

I must own, that he honoured me with very good Company, by railing in the same Libel against the College of Physicians, and Men of the greatest Reputation in Physick, for imposing on the Publick, by not providing such Physicians, and Remedies for Ser­vice of the Army, as he could have done; whereby great numbers in the Irish Expedition might have been saved. As much as to say, Why had not your Majesty made Sidrophel Physician, and Apothe­cary-General to your Forces? He by his Skill, and Fidelity, would have saved the lives of many thousands of your poor Subjects, who died for want of both, in the hands of such ig­norant Knaves, as the Murthering College appointed for that Service.

It was my turn next, and accordingly Sect. 11. of his Preface to the same Libel, he falls on me; but after another manner. He doth not lay spilling the Blood of Men to my charge, but the Credit of Quacks, and Mountebanks. I had not been guilty of the death of thousands (thank my Stars) as the College were: but my fault was, That I had reflected on the Ignorance of such Fools, and Knaves as would be thought Physicians too, and so engross to themselves only, what the Proverb divides among all Mankind; and for that he falls heavily on me after this manner.

It may be (quoth he) such an ignorant Fellow as the Nasty Au­thor of an Impertinent Pamphlet called Medicaster, may bedaub me, as he hath done honest Culpeper, who hath been at rest these Forty Years.

All Men are Ignorant, Socrates. though not all alike so. He was no small Philosopher, who after long Study, confest that he was come to know that he knew nothing. If the Book which so Scared, and Provoked Sidrophel, or what else I have written, will not convince him that I am not the most Ignorant Man in Nature, I [Page 12]hope this will: and if that fail, I dare Appeal to the most competent Judges in the Nation, the College of Physicians, and Society of Surgeons, who are the great Tribunals of our Faculty, and to whom, I have Dedicated my self and This.

But to call that Book a worthless Scribble, and its Author an Impertinent, was much out of the way: Nothing being more valuable, more proper, or more noble than to rescue Men from Errors, and Mistakes; and to scourge such out of Apollo's or Aesculapius's Temple, as attempt to put Falsities on Mankind, that are of such danger to their lives, and the useful Art of Healing. This, This was the whole drift of that Book, and so effectually done, that I knew none it displeased; except the Quacks, who, alarmed by the design, I seemed to have, of exposing the whole Herd of Scribbling Medicasters, cryed out Fire! Murther! &c. before they were hurt. Indeed I pointed at Sidrophel, and his Father Culpeper; at Thompson, Harvey, and others of that Tribe; but that was all the harm I did these honest Men; and perhaps, if he had not given me this Provocation, I had said no more of them. In the List I hinted of that sort of Cattle, he could pick out but three to vindicate, by which he allows my Censure of the rest: And I'll prove that these select Friends of his, are not the best in the Pack: Or as bad as the worst of them, whom he left to themselves.

Culpeper was an Impudent Quack Astrologer, and a Rebel. He Libelled the learned King James, and that most Pious Prince, and Martyr, his Son, and damn'd them both to Hell, together with the whole College who Compiled the London Dispensatory. Among whom were our Immortal Harvey, Glisson, Jordan, Mayern, &c. Men of more Worth and Learning, than all the Quack Astrologers in Europe. These famous Worthies are by Sidrophel's Honest Culpeper, treated as if they were (like them) Scounderils, Dispensa­tory, Ed. 1652. on Man. Chri­sti. and pernicious Vermin. In one Page he calls them Lubbers, Blasphemous, Ʋnskilful, Dishonest, Impudent in Sin, Sodo­mites, Idolaters, Ranters, Men that Worship'd Old Jemmy for God, and his Son for Christ: But their Tutelar Gods (quoth he) being apud inferos, gives me some hope they will follow them quickly, and so all the Tyrants go together. Thus inhumanly, and in a fashion as far from Honesty, and Christianity, as it was from Charity, or good Manners, doth this Wretch (celebrated by Sidrophel) treat the Sacred and Pious Memories of the most Lear­ned and best of Men, and most uncharitably and wickedly Sen­tence [Page 13]their Souls to no less than Eternal Flames, a piece of Impudence never to be parallell'd but by Sidrophel himself.

But you shall have another Evidence of Culpeper's Honesty, given to the World by W. Prynne, who was one of the most active Instruments to promote the Rebellion against King Charles the Martyr, and a violent Enemy to the Protestant Epis­copal Fathers, not sparing the Pious, and Learned Bishop Ʋsher. He tells us, That those two Jesuitical Prognosticators, Lilly, True and perfect Narrative. &c. p. 60. and Culpeper, were so confident, A. D. 1652. of the total Subversion of the Law, and Gospel Ministry, That in their Scurrilous Prog­nostications, they Predicted the Downfal of both. And in January 1654. They Foretold that the Law should be pulled down to the ground, the great Charter, and all our Liberties destroyed, as not suiting with English Men in these Blessed Times. That the Crab-Tree of the Law should be pulled up by the Roots, and grow no more: There be­ing no reason we should now be governed by them.

A. D. 1652. Sidrophel's Honest Culpeper Published a Libel called, Catastrophe Magnatum containing Treason enough to hang all the Empiricks, and Astrologers in the three Kingdoms, Railing at the Crown, Mitre, and Long Robe; inveighing a­gainst the Law, and Lawful Government of England; pre­dicting the utter Subversion of it, both in Church and State; Praising, and Extolling the Villanies of those Execrable Tray­tors, and Barbarous Regicides, who stand proscribed in our Statutes, and in our Laws declared to be Sons of Belial, 12 Car. 2.30. Men hardened in Impiety; neither true Subjects, nor true Christians. And so much for the honesty of Sidrophel's admired Culpeper. As to his other two Brethren whom he defends, and applauds, you shall have their Character too by and bye, as they come in my way.

My Name he thinks not worthy to live in his Work; and I thank him for it. I had rather have it in an House of Office, than his Confectioners Shop. Had he used it any other way than he doth, he had injured me; it being better to be reviled with the College, than praised among such infamous Fellows as Culpeper, Thomson, &c. And more Reputation to be ill spoken of, than commended by such a Scandalous Plagiary; whose good word can be no Credit to any Man on whom he bestows it.

I am alive (quoth angry Sidrophel) to castigate his Insolence, at least to trample upon his Contumelies; which I shall do by slighting his Ignorance and Malice, and not resenting the Injury.

Here's another touch at Irish! And such a Teague-land Blun­der-buss as the former.— What, Dear Joy! Castigate his Inso­lence, and trample upon his Contumelies, without resenting the In­jury? What! Slight his Contumelies, and yet all the while scold like any Fish-woman at Bilingsgate at the Author of them? These things don't consist; unless he wisely thinks a Man may be in a Rage without Anger: Beat an Enemy without taking any notice of him: Revile, and Quarrel in pure Love: Or, to use his own Words, Castigate Insolence, and trample on Contume­lies, by slighting them.

He hath no luck at all at Satyr; Therefore, good Sir, if you can't persuade him to leave off Translating, This I de­sire may be observ­ed by such as mistake his Rant for good Satyr, e­specially a little Gly­sterpipe Fellow, who lives within a mile of the Gallows, and is to die with­in a Ropes length on't. (i. e. Cobling) Phy­sick Books, and Scribling Almanacks, (his two chief Talents) yet beg him to desist from Satyr; for he can make none but on himself. He hath here attempted to be Satyrical on me, but you see he is like one who spits into the Sky; it rebounds on his own Face. They say a little Wit, and a great deal of ill Nature make a good Satyrist. He hath enough of the latter; but he wants even that Modicum of the former, to compleat him. He is but an Infant Satyr, he hath Nails, but no Teeth. He can scratch but can't bite. In short he is a Scold, not a Satyr. A Zoilus, or a Momus, not a Juvenal, or a Persius.

I, but besides himself, and his dear Father Culpeper, the Silly Wretch, and Impertinent Fool that wrote Medicaster Medicatus, hath assaulted the Reputation of the Learned Dr. Thomson, and Worthy Ingenious Dr. G. Harvey: Both which had more Learning in their Little Fingers, than that Conceited Impertinent hath in his whole nasty Body, and that provoketh him to piss upon the Puppy.

Pray take notice, Sir, how he scorns to resent the Injury my Book did his Party. Observe with what Civility, Calmness, and Polisht Manners, he acts the Philosopher, or the Christian, un­der all the Affronts I put upon him and his Friends. See how Meekly he turns the other Cheek, and gives me his Cloak also. Poor Saint! I pity him, that he so soon discovers himself to be quite contrary to his Pretensions, and after all his Meekness, Patience, and Passive Valour, rails, and throws about him like a Thrasher, or Kettle-Drummer.

Ay, but his two Darling Friends were affronted by me, and that transported him; nothing else would have moved his Ire, and stirred up his Wrath against me. I confess I do not won­der [Page 15]at his fond Concern for his two learned Friends, because I know them cast in one Mold, They are Birds of a Feather.

Thomson I shall say the less of, because he is dead: And be­cause while living, he was sufficiently proved to be no Doctor, but an Illiterate Dunce; by one of the most Learned Physicians of the Age. And indeed he was obviously so to all Understan­ding Readers of his Pamphlets: Stubbs a­gainst Thompson. &c. For excepting a few hard words, the Cant and Jargon of Helmont, and an Arcanum or two, that he boasts of, more famous for the Death, than Cure of his Patients, there is nothing at all in them: His Notions are untintelligible: His Opinions, as far as they can be under­stood, very Erroneous: his Language Bombast, Affected, and very Silly: And his Assertions Heterodox, and Wrong. Take a few Specimens. The time is at hand (quoth he) that a Phleboto­mist will be look'd upon no better than a Bronchotomist or Cut-throat. Preface. Blood is the immediate Instrument of the Soul, in which it shines, Thomp­son's true way of preserving the Blood, p. 2. p. 4. displaying its Radiant Beams every way; that Sensation, Motion, Nutrition, and all other Functions may be performed.

The Blood of Man is graduated to the highest Perfection, fitting to be a Receptacle of so Divine a Guest, the Immortal Soul, which as long as it is here incarcerated, lying couched in the Sensitive, being bound to act by Corporeal Organs, suffers many Obscurations, Defections, and E­clipses, through variety of Meteors arising in the Horizon of this Mi­crocosm, from the Blood degenerate and depraved.

Blood is an Ʋniversal Substance divisible only by some external, p. 6. ac­cidental means, as the Air or Fire, which causes a various Texture and different Position of its Atoms, &c.— Both of these do strange­ly larvate and disguise this puniteous Balsom, &c.

Did they rightly understand how Blood like Mercury might be Polymor­phised, p. 6. &c. these Dogmatists would never be so forward to pierce poor Mans Skin, rashly let out, and throw away the substantial support of Life, &c.

The efficient Cause or Agent of Blood is the innate Archeus or Vi­tal Spirit, p. 9. which chiefly makes this formal transmutation of what­ever is nourishable. This works by his principal Instrument, the Fer­ments in the Duumvirate, and in the rest of the Digestions. For this Primum Mobile, moving sine Motore alieno, sets all the other Wheels in Motion, till being exantlated, and its Vital Power exhau­sted, all the inferiour Orbs forthwith subsist, are at a stand and fail. This Autokineton is the Seat or Subject of the Sensitive Soul, where it is emicant and translucent in the same manner as the Beams of the Sun received in by the Air in a serene, clear Sky, are effulgent and bright; [Page 16]but in a cloudy dusky Heaven are offuscated and opacous.

If timely prevention be not made, either by potent strength of Body, p. 12. or a prevalent Art, the Man decays in his Faculties, the Archeus be­comes aculeated, extimulated, and becomes exorbitant, framing va­riety of Exotick, Morbifick Idaeas, causing a Syndrom of Hetero­clite Symptoms.

The next notable Cause that makes great alteration for the worse in this Vital Juice, p. 14. are the extravagant Perturbations, Storms and Tempests that arise in this Microcosin, raised through misapprehen­sions, misapplications, and misinterpretations of things obvious to our Sense, contrived by a luxated or dislocated imagination.

This feral Brat of Hell, Melancholy, doth disturb the Oeconomy of the Soul's residence, p. 15. and is the Original of a black fuliginous Ar­cheus, &c.

Anger intoxicates, pourtraying the perfect Idea of Madness, which sometimes is so graduated, that no Poyson in this part of the World seems to be more active, for a few Atoms of this venomous Gore penetrating the cutaneous Membrane, hath infected the whole ruddy Mass, introducing most truculent Symptoms.

If we be not Master of our unruly Passions, it is impossible there should be an Eutomie, an Eucrasie, and Eumetry in this Solar Juice.

Diseases are first embryonated and characterized in the Vital Spirit, p.27. residing in the Hypocondries, Stomach, and Spleen, &c.

An inveterate pain of the Head takes its first beginning from the enormon of the Duumvirate, where the seminal Rudiments and Idea of this Disease were abumbrated or shadowed forth by the sensitive Soul, excited to Passion upon the apprehension of something disagree­ing and injurious to Vitality. Afterward the same is perfectly de­lineated in the Archeus of the Brain in which the Scene laid below is now brought to light above. Now is to be seen a Syndrom of many Symptoms, which plainly shew the Nature of the Disease suitable to the part afflicted. Here the Latex and Vital Juice apostalize by de­grees from their purity, the Ferments, &c.

As the Soul inhabits the Archeus, p. 28. so this is permanent in the Blood, and all three take up for their Metropolitan or chief place of Residence, the Stomach and Spleen, in which the Soul by means of the Duumvirate, acts freely.

An Epispastick of Cantharides being laid on, p. 39. where there is Vi­tality, the Skin in a short space is separated from the Flesh by an acrimonious Ichor, which the Archeus fabricated, being put into a fretting condition upon the apprehension of this virulent I laister.

Nothing is more congenerous, symbolizing with the Animal Gas of Life, than highly exalted Spirit of Wine, being forthwith im­braced, p. 44. united, and identified one with another, by reason of their Affinity and Congruity.

Physicians do not truly understand the energy of Zymosis, what a powerful alterity is made by it, and how the sulphureous Particles of the Vegetables becomes Ʋrinous like the Spirit of the Animal, whereby it is enabled to profligate the Morbifick Matter through all the Emunc­tories, Sluces, and secret Passages of the Body; This is the direct way of curing Fevers fundamentally, though they conclude the Fate of such must needs be sad, when such Presumptuous Phaeton- like Pyrotechnists, drive the Mettlesom Horses of the Sun of this Microcosm so furiously.

And yet with all this Ignorance, he had such a stock of Con­fidence, as to encounter that Prodigy of Learning above­named: But his Heart was too big for his Head. It was such an Impar congressus, that I pitied to see the poor forward Creature so overmatcht, and baffled; so publickly exposed, and charg­ed with Ignorance in the Writings of Hippocrates, or Galen, and all the very Rudiments of Physick, without one word to say in his own behalf, which did not confirm the Imputation his Antagonist publickly laid on him.

As to his surviving Friend G. H. — y, He, like himself, hath been many Years a busie Scribbler of Heterodox Opinions and Principles in Philosophy and Physick; prostituting the Noble Art of Healing, and Libelling the most Famous Practicers, and Eminent Professors of it, in this Age and Nation; viz. Such as Sir Th. Brown, Dr. Charlton, Cox, Willis, Lower, Short; not sparing the most Learned College of Physicians, London. Men, whose Books he was not worthy to carry after them: If you would see the Philosophy and Learning that was in the Head of him (I meddle not with that in his little Finger, because Sidro­phel writtily saith, there is too much for me) read his Archiolo­gia Philosophica nova: If his Manners, Civility, and good Breed­ing, you need not go so far, as he did for it, it's abundantly expressed in his Casus Med. Chir. and his Conclaves: If his Skill, you may have a lumping Penniworth in the rest of his Fastidious Scribbles; and if in all of them put together, you do not see the true shapes of a Scholar, a Gentleman, and a Physician drawn by his own hand, (Painters seldom hit their own Faces, nor Astrologers their Fates) behold him done to the Life by ano­ther in a Dialogue between Philiater and Momus, printed in 12 ^o Anno 1687.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum, is a Rule, quoth he, our little Pro­sligate is unacquainted with: And why? Because I said Culpeper was one of the Scribbling Medicasters of the Age. Was he not so? Did he deserve to be well spoken of when dead, who had done so much mischief when alive; and was so uncharitable to the Souls of his deceased Sovereigns, as to place them in Hell? Besides reproaching Their Names, and blackening Their Reputations without Truth, or Humanity, after they were laid in their Sepulchers? It seems, he was not acquainted with this Rule, nor Sidrophel with the other part of it, Nil nisi ve­rum de vivis.

I have been told that a Scholar once complaining to the But­ler, that his Drink was dead, had the same Reprimand from the cunning Ale-tap, which I had from Sidrophel: Nil nisi bo­num de mortuis. Now either the Wag was in the right, or I not in the wrong: Take your choice.

But to be more close and serious with him in this matter, I must tell him, his Rule is not general; it's in many cases a fault to follow it, and our Duty to say evil of such dead, as were notorious for committing it when alive. For this we have many Examples in Scripture, the Writings of the Fathers, the Anathema's and Censures of the Church against Hereticks, and Heterodox Men. In our Statutes, instances of it often occur against Traytors, Rebels, and pernicious Men, such as Crom­well, Bradshaw, and Ireton, who stand branded with very evil Characters, after they had been long dead, and their Heads on Westminster-Hall, as you may see 12. Car. 2.30.

Had he minded Ludlow, and other late Libellers of King Charles the Martyr, of this Adage, it had been pertinent. For they, contrary to all the Rules of Christianity, Humanity, good Manners, and Truth it self, have reproacht the Reputation of that most Pious Protestant Prince, who stands celebrated in many of our Statute Laws, and is Yearly by our Parliaments, and biggest part of the Nation, recognized, and solemnly de­clared to be a Righteous, Pious, Innocent Prince, and Martyr; whom yet their venomous Pens call, Tyrant, Pharaoh, Nimrod, Nero, &c.

But I cannot forbear wondering with what Face Sidrophel could affirm, in the midst of all this horrid Billingsgate, and such a storm of Fury and Scolding, That it was unchristian, and un­manlike, to sling Dirt upon any one. Doth he not by an ore tenus [Page 19]confess himself inhumane, and unchristian? Or doth he think that to call a Man in the Face of the whole World, Ignorant, Malicious, Nasty, Impertinent, Scurrilous, Insolent, Senseless, Fool, Dog, Wretch, Whiffling Cur, Snarling Puppy, Profligate, Delin­quent, &c. and to crowd all this stuff into one Page of an Octavo Book, was not flinging Dirt on a Man, but giving him Sugar Plumbs? One of them must be his Belief, and I don't much care which it is.

To cast Dirt upon the Dead, is an Incivility not to be forgiven, quoth he; and he is the first that ever made exposing Quacks to be the sin against the Holy Ghost. If what he saith be true, every Grave-maker is daily guilty of it in a literal, and every Controvertist, and Opposer of Heresie, in a Moral Sence. And nothing is more common in the scribbles of those Chymiasters, and Star Doctors themselves, than to rail at all the Physicians, except a few Maggoty Helmontians, and Astrological Quacks, that have been in the World these Sixteen hundred Years; as Men who have acted by mischievous Rules, and killed their Patients by ill Methods, and Medicaments. Cap. 3. His Freind Thomson in particular speaks it in plain English. And his Father Culpeper in Latin.

But did I abuse the dead by placing Culpeper ( Thompson was then alive) among the empty Scribblers in Physick? No, all the Learned Physicians in England are of my Mind, and can think no otherwise of so Ignorant, so Rude, so Pragmatical a Traytor, as he was.

Sidrophel concludes this huffing Paragraph, with pronouncing me Senseless, and Nothing.

As to the first, I do not, as he and some other vaunting Em­piricks do, pretend to more Sence than comes to my dividend; nor will I own him so much in the right, as to think that I am wholly destitute of any at all: That Scandal is notorious to all that know me, or have seen what I have written: And even by this Reproof, it will appear, that I am Professor of Sence enough, to show that he hath less than he pretends to: and that all he hath, amounts to little more than none at all. And as to the Subject of our Contest, I have referred the Matter to a Tribunal, at whose Bar he dares not Appear, nor Appeal.

Nor am I so little, as to justifie his accounting me Nothing. I have the Honour to be in the Friendship, Esteem, and Corre­spondence of the most Eminent of the College, and Surgeons Hall; and had a Freedom in the Latter conferred on me Gratis, without [Page 20]Examination, or any way of Purchase. I have been Physician, and Surgeon to a publick Hospital near 21 Years; and much longer served my King, and Country, in all the Military Offices my Profession could Capacitate me. I have served in the Navy, in the Army, in a great Garrison, and Dock-Yard. And besides all this, I preside in the Civil Government of one of the biggest Corporations in England. And if notwithstanding all this, I am Nothing, Sidrophel is much less than nothing: That is, an Almanack maker, and one who Scribbles for Bread, or to a worse purpose.

What that is, will appear in the Remarks I am next to make: Which will as fully detect his Knavery to the Publick, as the former doth his Folly to me. He out-doth the Proverb, and is both Fool, Knave, and Physician too. And that you may be sure to see him all over, and know him in which of those shapes soe­ver he appears, I will take off his Fools Coat, and put on him that of W. Lilly; which fits him so exactly, that it's hard to know the one from the other. Their Resemblance in Art, and the use they make of it, is the same: Their Contempt, and Affront of King Charles the Martyr, is alike: One affirms him justly Executed; the other thought the Anniversary enjoyned by Law for that Excerable Murder, not worth a place in his Calendar; nor his Name fit to stand in the noble List of Saints and Martyrs; [...]ne 7. while yet he obtrudes ill Company on that Glorious Army, and thrusts among them such odious, and despicable Celebrations, as that of a Quack's Nativity.

But their greatest similitude lyeth in a Hieroglyphical Prophecy against the Throne and Church of England, published many Years since by the one, and now inculcated to the World by the other. It's true that since he heard how his contempt of the Royal Martyr in his former Almanacks, and those Prophetick Emblems, were two faulty things I took notice of, He hath laboured to put a sham Interpretation upon the one, and amend the other, by noting on the 30th of January K. Ch. I. Dec. that is, beheaded, or Executed, as Lilly, and the rest of that Tribe used to word it, which is next to saying nothing, or worse.

His Democratical Hieroglyphick pretends to contain the fu­ture State of England for an Hundred Years, beginning 1650. half of which being past, and gone, his future Tense is become Preterimperfect; and he fatum post fata canebat, foretels things already come to pass, which every Fool can do. But Folly [Page 21]apart! Let us examine the Knavery of this Emblematical Withcraft; and I think the expired part, will make a Key to that which is yet unfulfilled. Mark then!

It begins with an Executioner, and his Sword bloody; others cutting down Royal Oak Trees, and a Crown over (not on) a Man's Head, another lying dead, as in State; and upon him a Scepter, Sword, and three Crowns; then comes a Crowned Drag­gon with a Scepter in his right Claw— It's easie to unriddle the meaning of all this, being in plain Hieroglyphical English, the Murther of King Charles, and Cromwell the Dragon assuming the Government— What follows resembles the Transactions, and Accidents of those Times. But the Sting is in the Tail, and doth not yet appear; although a Man with half an Eye may see the meaning of it, Mauger the Varnish he would gloss it, and delude us withal.

The Catastrophe, or part to come of this Tragical Business, is a Magnificent Palace, before whose Gates lie several dead Dogs, Wolves, and other Beasts of Prey, with their Heads separated from their Bodies. These I take to be Courtiers turn'd out of White-Hall, and Murthered at its Gate, as King Charles was. Then appears an Assembly of Men sitting in an House like a State-House; three of them in long Robes; over the Head of one written PAX; of another LEX; and of the third GREX; not a word of REX. Then appear Men undermining the Foundations of many Fa­mous Churches; some of which fall, others are falling: Then ap­pears a Man pulling a Surplice over a Bishop's Ears. There's Episcopacy, and the Church gone at a dash. Then you see a great Imperial Crown broken into pieces, and with it many other little Crowns and Coronets; there's Monarchy, and Nobility mumbled. Then the Swords are beaten into Plow-Shears, and the Spears into Pruning-Hooks, and all ends with Victory, and Triumph over Monarchy, Episcopacy, and Nobility: And then Hey Boys up go we!

For to what purpose else can it be, that this is so Yearly published, and repeated, but to Influence Peoples Minds in this Nation (so long famous for being deluded by Prophecies) with an Opinion that the Crown, Mitre, and Coronet, are by Hea­ven destin'd to Destruction; and consequently must be sub­mitted to, if not promoted? That the People of this Nation have been often drawn into Rebellion by such bantering De­vices, and Dreams of Astrologers, is abundantly reported by [Page 22]our Historians; out of whom anon you shall have numerous In­stances. It was to these Deluders, that Wales owed that La­mentable Ruin it suffered in the days of Hen. IV. and to them we are not a little indebted for the Miseries this Kingdom hath suffered within few Years before the Date, or Commence­ment of this Prophetick Emblem, by which Sidrophel seems to be carrying on the Tragedy his Predecessors began. The fall of Churches, the divesting of Bishops, and breaking in pieces the Im­perial Crown of England (for there's the Scene), too plainly tell us what he would be at. And to make the unfulfilled part the more credible, he cunningly orders it so, that the first is already verified, and come to pass. This Device, or Banter he borrowed from, or wrote in imitation of that Arch-Impostor and false Fortune-teller, W. Lilly, who at the end of a Pestilent Pamphlet, which he calls, Monarchy or no Monarchy in England, written 1651. gives such Prognosticating Pictures as those pub­lished by Sidrophel. There's the Mob Assassinating Gown-Men, some Bishops, and Episcopal Clergy tumbling down Pulpits and all. Others of them lying prostrate on the ground; there are three Crowus and a Coronet turn'd upside down; there are his Twins and Dragons, flaming Towns, Fleets, Graves, dead Corps, lean Cattle, Streams of Blood, a red Sea of green Blood, and all the Scare-crow, Bug­bear Emblems of future Vengeance on the Church, Throne, and Nobility; which he had Predicted in that lying Book, af­ter the thing had come to pass.

I call it a lying Book, on many accounts: One of which is ve­ry notorious, and remarkable, for though it were written to Predict the final Extirpation of Monarchy, from the Murther of King Charles the Martyr; P. 62. there is a Prophecy in it, that within Fifty Years of that time, a King Henry of this Nation, should Conquer France, and that he should be twice Crowned. This Merlinus Liberatus takes notice of in his Almanack 1692. as a Prophecy to be perform'd by K. William. Be that true, I am sure the Prophet was false. For how could there be no more Kings in England? and yet a King of this Nation, within Fifty Years after the fatal Period of Monarchy among us, atchieve so mighty a thing? But his Pen was like his Name, nothing but Lyes; and so is Sidrophel's too. Their Hieroglyphicks are alike, their Designs seem to have the like Tendency, Date, Com­mencement, and Catastrophe. And the Authors alike, a cou­ple of Canting Deluders, and false Prophets; who I hope and [Page 23]pray may be alike mistaken, and confounded, and our Govern­ment in Church, and State, abide for ever. Amen.

Although an Astrologer, or an Almanack-maker be a thing odious enough to the wise part of the Nation, by the Falsities and Delusions they yearly put upon them; yet forasmuch as all Men are not enough sensible thereof, and many that are so, do yet encourage the Cheat to wicked purposes, I will undertake to undeceive the one, and expose the other, by a brief Censure of Astrology, and setting it in such a Light, as any Man with half an Eye may see through it, and discern the Vanity, and Falseness thereof, and the Wickedness of those who Practise, and Profess it; particularly Sidrophel, whom I will here expose as an Astrologer, and hereafter as a Quack, in a second part of Medicaster Medicatus.

In doing which, I shall not meddle with all the trifling, and sottish Fancies, which the Brains of Astrologers (fertil in Fiction) have conceived of the Stars, and those Spacious Nothings, the 12 Houses, or Castles in the Air; being things, which ought rather to be laught at, as the Whimsies of Men, who have gi­ven their Imaginations liberty to commit the greatest Extrava­gancies in Bedlam; or the Crotchets of such Crafty Pates, as laugh at all those who do not laugh at them: But offer against it these weighty unanswerable Objections.

1. If Astrology were true, there is yet no true Astrologer, because they have no certain Foundation at all: The Ephemerides, and Astronomical Tables by which they Calculate, being by their own Confession false, and consequently there Schemes no better than Poor Robins. Morinus, Agrippa, P. Cavino, Gassendus, Astrol. Gal. Che­rubin, Hevelius, Ricciolus, and many other learned Astrono­mers do affirm this. And besides, the better sort of Astrologers themselves, such as Morinus the French-Man, who pretends to have made all new Rules of Astrology, because the former were all of them false, and foolish; the most Illiterate of those Impostors say the same thing. Partridge chargeth all the Tables before his own, with falshood; and you, sweet Sir, sensible that all extant are uncertain, and erroneous, promise to publish New and Correct ones. Rob. God­son writes Altrologia Reforma­ta A.D. 1696.

2. In the Nature, Property, and Influence of the Stars, Divi­sion of the Zodiack, Twelve Houses, and first Elements of their Art, they do not agree. So that all their Judgments are as false, and uncertain, as their Calculations; much more so, if there be no [Page 24] Zodiack in the Heaven, nor an Heaven for such a Zodiack; but that all their noise of Trigons, Merc. Vol. 1. n. 6. Triplicities, &c. be as the Athe­nians call them, a fardle of Gibberish Nullities, invented on pur­pose to abuse the credulity of Children, and Fools. Their dividing the Heaven into 12 parts, Dr. More's Myst. of Iniquity p. 349.355. also his Answ. to Butler, 105. Gassend. c. 8. p. 722. Vol. 1. is without Reason, or Mathematicks: Their qualification of the Stars, without Philosophy: and both mere imagination, as vain as Vanity it self, saith the greatest Mathematician of this Age.

3. The new, and approved System of Copernicus, the Myriads of Stars unknown to former Ages, quite confound all the old Astro­logy.

4. Their Mutual Railing at one anothers Ignorance, Error, and Knavery; even to the heighth of Billingsgate, like Gadbury and Partridge, yearly, if we must believe them all, proves them all such. Augur ridet Augurem.

Gassendus tells us, That their Art contains no one Fundamental, Op. Refor. Praef. which is not oppugned by some one or more of its Professors. And Partridge himself speaks out pat to the point, He that would laugh at Astrology (quoth he) need not read Heminga, &c. but our own Authors; our Rules are so deficient, that they are not to be relied on, they thwart one another; our Aphorisms are false, and involve us into a Labyrinth, which makes us Ridiculous.

5. Their different Opinions, in Prognosticating and Predicting counter to one another, according to the Times, or the Interest they are of, shews their Ignorance, or Knavery, and the Vanity of their Art. The Instances of their contradictory Presagings, are very numerous. The most famous of late are to be found in Wharton, and Lilly, Gadbury, and Partridge.

6. Nor are they more divided among themselves than they are from Truth. The falseness of their Prognostications in former Ages, are remarkt by Cicero, Pliny, St. Augustine, and others: Those since, by the noble Picus, Heminga, Angelis, Gassendus, and many more. For it's not only those little mean Fellows, who now-a-days make Almanacks, that prove the truth of this Reflection every Year: But such Masters as Albumazer, Cardan, Gaurichius, Nostradamus, and Lilly; they have convin­ced the World, that the Art is not able to help them to the Knowledge of any Accident before hand. They ha'n't so much foresight of Weather as a Shepherd, or a Sinner that car­rieth an Almanack in his Bones; or an old Woman with Corns on her Toes. Perhaps they'll tell you (as they do every Year) [Page 25]at such a time as this; That great Preparations for War, and Consultations will be made next Winter; That Fleets, and Armies will be abroad next Summer, and some Battel fought, or a Town taken or besieged: That about next December, (as Merlinus Liberatus lately foretold) There will be business at the Old Baily, and that several aged People will die, in and about London. At such a ridiculons rate, who may not turn Prognosticator?

I have read all Lilly's Almanacks from 40 to 60, in the Holy time of that great Rebellion, to which he was accessary; and find him always the whole breadth of Heaven wide from Truth. Scarce one of his Predictions verified, but a Thousand contrariwise. It's hard that a Man shooting at Rovers so ma­ny Years together, should never hit the right Mark. In one of his Almanacks Dedicated to the Long Parliament, a very few Months before the Army (those Legions of their own raising) tore them in pieces to the very Rump, He told them their Duration would be long, in Settlement and Peace, and that they should do much good to the Kingdom, and accord with the King; Who was then closely confined by the Votes of Non-Addresses to Carisbrook-Castle. And but four Months before the Execra­ble Murther of that Pious Prince, He wrote, That the King should be restored to his former Dignity: That the Parliament, full of Honourable, and Loyal Intentions, would end all things in a general Agreement, and Reconciliation. But no sooner was that Black Tragedy acted, and the Sword assumed the Crown, but he chang­ed his Tune. Then we were to have no more Kings in Eng­land, and Charles the Second should die before he was 38 Years old: That the Ottoman should ruin the Emperor, and Venetians, a­bout the Year 70. With abundance more of such Lying Stuff were his Almanacks filled, till the Restauration, of which he foretold not one syllable.

John Gadbury, deceived by Lilly, or some such lying Spirit as led him, foretold also in an Almanack near 75. that about 80. the Turks would make a mighty inrode to Germany; That Vienna should be taken by them, and they push their Victory home to the Belgick Shore. When contrariwise, about that time, the Germans and Venetians made such Monstrous, and incredible Impressions on the Turks, as recovered all the Morea, Hungary, and a great part of Greece.

In former Ages, when Astrology was more used, and better understood, they were guilty of the same Mistakes, and Falsi­ties. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, whose Fates were Violent, Immature, and Tragical, were promised by those Diviners, that they should die aged, at their own Houses, in Peace and Honour.

J. Picus Mirandula saith he examined many of their Cal­culations, and found scarce one in twenty prove true. Praefac. Molin. Joseph Scaliger tells us that Albumazer predicted that Christianity would last but 1460 Years. Ab. Judaeus foretold the coming of the Messias should be A. D. 1464. Arnoldus, That Antichrist would appear 1345. and that A. D. 1174. the Arabian, Jewish, and Christian Astrologers all agreed, that the utmost Desolation of the World by Tempest, would happen A. D. 1186. How false these Predictions were, time hath shewn the World.

Sextus ab Heminga collected thirty Eminent Nativities, Cal­culated by the best Rules of this lying Art, and they proved all false by Experience, sad Events happening to those on whom the Heavens by the Rules of Astrology smiled; and happiness to such as they frowned upon.

Cardan and Gaurichius both Calculated the Nativity of Hen. 2. who was slain in his fortieth Year, Causin Ho­ly Court, p. 360. by a Splinter of Mongome­ry's Launce; though one of them said, He should live to an happy old age: and the other, that if he survived the great Climaterick Year, he should live gloriously to 70.

Both did the like with Luther, and were both alike mistaken.

Cardan, who (as Gassendus saith) was a Man of the best Wit, Brains, and Learning of any Astrologer, spent an hundred hours on the Birth of our Edward 6th; and after all that Industry, was scandalously mistaken in his Fate; Gassend. p 748. lib. 1 de quad. c. 2. Sect. 13. for He died in his 16th Year, who by the Astrologer's Calculation, should not be sick till his 25th, and after that die of a Flux, and a Fever. Si vis divinare, contrarium ei ad unguem dicito, quod Astrologi aut polli­centur, aut minitantur, was the saying of Martianus, not only commended, but verified by Cardan: Who after all his Skill, confest that scarce one of their Predictions in forty proved true: Lib. de Ju­dic. cap. 6. D [...]. More Myst. p. 356. So that the best of them can't forbear owning themselves no Wizards; they all seem Infatuated, and more under the Power of Witchcraft than above it.

J. R. Camerarius, was as much out in his Judgment upon the Nativity of Henry 4th; and Gassendus relates how much Nostra­damus [Page 27]was mistaken in his Genethliacs on the Scheme of Suffre­dus his Nativity. For to him all things happened quite con­trary to the Lying Predictions of that famous Astrologer.

Now if such Masters in the Art, had not Skill enough to avoid such gross Mistakes, What can be expected from such half witted Astrologers as Merlinus Liberatus, and Sidrophel who every Year expose themselves to this Censure? And as for Friend John, the humble Servant of Ʋrania, all the many Calculations in his Collect. Genet. are accused of Falshood by his Brother Partridge. Opus Reformatum.

7. Their not foreseeing the most remarkable Events, sufficiently shows the Vanity of their Art, and their own Ignorance. This is manifest in the great Accidents of the last Thirty Years; the Reslauration of King Charles II. the Plague and Fire of London; the treble War 1666. Oates 's Plot; the great Snow 1681. and the Frost 1683. the Death of King Charles, and the Fate of his Brother; the Stupendous Revolution 1688. the Death of Pope Innocent XI. the Dukes of Newburgh, and Lorrain, who were the grand Pillars of the Confederacy, and died in one Year; the great, and Marvellous turn of Affairs in Austria, Hungaria, and the Morea; the many terrible Earthquakes in Jamaica, Sicilia, Naples, Flanders, and London, and the Death of Queen Mary, were things our Astrologers foreknew no more, than Lilly could Divine who shit at his Door. Think you that Sidrophel, so cunning a Conjurer as he would be thought, if he had foreseen the time of that great Ladies Death, would have placed Lawrels on her Brow, and told her of their being always green, but the Year before they withered?

Against this Reflection, I know but one Instance they have to object: and that is the Hints Mene-Tekel gave of King James's Death, a little before the Abdication.

Suppose, but not granting that to be true too, it doth not follow, because once in an Age, among a thousand false Pro­phecies, one is fulfilled, that they are true Prophets; more than that the Devil is not a Lyer, because he once spake truth. The veracity of them both is the same, in despight of a single Instance each have to the contrary. One Swallow doth not make a Summer. When Astrologers, like the Father of Lyes, com­monly fail, and err in their Predictions, it's to be supposed that Chance, or some other Intelligence, not the Stars, put them so rarely into the right. Children, and Fools speak truth, [Page 28]saith the Proverb: And the Scriptures tell us, that the Devil himself, by the Miraculous Power of Christ, had such a force put upon his Nature, as to do it once, when he acknowledged our Saviour to be the Son of God. Astrologers may therefore be allowed to resemble them in this, as they do in all things else; though like common Lyers, they are not to be believed, till their Truth becomes apparent by experience, and that (God wot) will be but seldom. If it be a good Argument to prove the Truth of Astrology, that some Predictions have been ve­rified, by the same sort of Logick it's to be proved false, because their Divinations are oftener so than otherwise; as is confessed by Cardan, and proved by Picus, Heminga, Gassendus, Cham­bers, and many others.

Mene-Tekel not only got the Author a great Name, but patcht up the decayed Credit of Astrology among the Popu­lace, because they could not see the Spirit by which he Divin'd. But wiser Men knew he Predicted by Intelligence with the Contrivers, not the Planets. The Stars that presignified it to him, dwelt on Earth, not in the Twelve Houses of Heaven. And they perhaps did not err, who lookt on the whole thing as a Political Device to dispose the Minds of People to that great Change: We all know that he fail'd in the Death of King James, the Employment of his Gallows, and many other particulars: And he that knew the great, and universal discontent in the Nation, at the Management of Affairs under that unfortunate Prince, and how many were engaged to dethrone him, might without Astrology foresee as much as he. I know a Great Man who (although no Conjurer) told me as much, and as soon, as Mene-Tekel did, of that business.

The Laplanders may easily foretel a Storm they are about to raise, and he that is the Instrument of Mischief, is best able to Predict the consequence of his Design: Like those Skilful Poy­soners Naturalists Theophr. Hist Plant. l. 9 c. 6. Boyl Nat. Phil. p. 264. Medela Medie p. 103. Ramsey of Poyson p. 10. and Travellers tell us of, who contrive the fa­tal Dose so, that the Victim shall not die in many Years after taking it, and then not miss an hour. Such a Pandora may easily turn Astrologer, as well as Poysoner; and foretel the time of the Patient's Exit, more certainly than any Genethliac by the Nativity.

We are told that the Indians have, and Caesar Borgia had this pernicious Skill: and it's suspected that there were in England some, who, without Astrology, knew, many days before King [Page 29] Charles was sick, when he should die. By the same way Dr. Bates, Cromwell's Physician, became a truer Prophet than Tho­mas Goodwin his Chaplain; the Dose the one gave being too hard for the Prayers the other made for that Ʋsurper. Though they were alike confident, the one of his Death, the other of his Re­covery; yet the former went on the surest grounds, as appeared in the Event.

Thuanus, Scaliger, and Gassendus say that Cardan lost his Life to save his Credit; for having Predicted the time of his own Death, he starved himself to verifie it; Maga­strom. p. 173. Dr. More Myst. p. 358. or else being sure of his Art, He took that to be his fatal day, and by those appre­hensions made it so. And I do not want a learned Author to back my belief, that great men have untimely died by some Ar­tifice of the Astrologers, for the same reason.

Domitian having Decreed to banish all the Astrologers, they conspired his Death; and one of them, Ascletarion, Sueton. lib. 12. Sect. 15. told him when it should be. The time appointed happening while Apol­lonius Tyanaeus was Disputing in the Schools at Ephesus, he sud­denly stopt, and cryed out, well done Stephanus! Kill the Ty­rant! And then told the Audience that the Emperor was wounded. This contributed highly to the Fame of that Im­postor, although it prov'd him such no more than the Duke of Braganza, or one of the Priests who contrived and managed the Revolt of Portugal, if they had foretold it.

A Son of Nostradamus told the Men of Friuli, that he was sent by his Father to premonish them of the ruin of their City by Fire such a Night: They believing the Oracle, and watch­ing narrowly to prevent the Conflagration, found him, and his Accomplices, scattering Fire-Balls in divers parts of the Town.

Pope Hildebrand was one who Studied, and Practised this Art: and yet had so little Skill, or Confidence in it, that he hired several Ruffians to Murther the Emperor Hen. 4. at the time he Predicted his Death. Acts and Mon. Vol. 1. p. 199. Vol. 2. p. 170. This we are told by Cardinal Beno, of his own Religion. Beside Fox and others of ours, Ollerius Barcinonensis, foretold the Assassination of Hen. 4. of France by Ravaillac, from a secret Intimation of the Design, known to some Grandees of Spain, and others of the Court of Rome who were no Astrologers. The Author of the Turkish Spy tells us, that Fr. Corvinus the famous Italian Astrologer, the Night before that Murther, said on the top of his House in [Page 30] Florence, That to morrow the greatest King in Europe would be kill'd: But says, the Intelligence he had was from Earth, not Heaven, or the Stars. And Merlinus Liberatus will not allow his Friend John to have any other foresight of the Prince of Wales his Birth, than by the Transactors of that Mysterious Affair, that is by the same way and means himself knew what he Pub­lished in his Mene-Tekel: For without the help of Satan, or the Stars, any one may Predict Events, if they are in the Con­trivance, or have Intelligence with those that are so.

8. Their Ignorance of their own Affairs, Misfortunes, and Fates before they happen, proves them unable to foretell that of other Men. Astrologers, saith Agrippa, while they gaze on the Stars for direction, &c. fall into Ditches, Wells, and Gaols, and like Thales, become the Sport, and Derision of silly Women, and Slaves.

was an Epigram made by Sir Tho. More; R. Castro Med. Polit. l. 2. c. 2. and I fancy our witty Hudibras was as sharp upon Sidrophel, and Wachum in English, as the other was in Latin.

The Learned Mr. Purchas tells us that the Death of Hagag a Sarazen King, Pilgrim, p. 226. was foretold by an Astrologer, who did not foresee his own; for as soon as he made his Prognostick of the King, his own Head was struck off.

Sir John Chardin in the History of his Persian Voyage, Page 40. 131. 132. Appen. 25. tells us, That Astrologers are in very great esteem among that Peo­ple: And that they alway crown their Kings in the minute they direct. And if after that the King be unhappy, he is crowned again on a new chosen time, Causin Ho­ly Court. as Solyman the Third was so crowned while he was in that Country. But the Astrolo­gers often mistake, and are as often put to Death.

King Hen. 7. understanding, that an Astrologer had fore­told the punctual time of his Death, sent for him, and enquired [Page 31]where he, the Conjurer, should keep his next Christmas? He an­swered, that he knew not. Then quoth the King I do without Astrology tell you, it shall be in Gaol. And thither he sent, and kept him long enough to see by Experience, that the King was a truer Prognosticator than himself.

J. Galeazus, Duke of Milan, treated another Impudent A­strologer with more severity; for having Predicted that he should long survive that Prince, he Ordered the Wretch to be immediately hanged. Such another Story is in the Anthologia of Diophantes the great Astrologer, Gassend. done in Verse.

Gaurichius did not foresee by the Stars, that he was to suffer on the Rack; nor Cardan that his Son was to be hanged for Poysoning his Wife.

I was personally acquainted with Dr. W. Ramsey, who pub­lickly boasted of Skill enough in Astrology to foreknow a Mans Fate; particularly whether he were born to die rich, Chr. Astro­logy cap. 6. Sect. 6 be for­tunate in Marriage, &c. and depended so much on it, as to assure himself of great Wealth, and happy Nuptials; who yet died poor, in a Gaol, after he had Marry'd such a Wife as provoked him to write that Satyr against Matrimony, called Conjugium Conjurgium.

That Beelzebub of Astrologers, W. Lilly, was wholly Ignorant of the Restauration, when he wrote those Trayterous Libels, which forfeited his Neck to the Gallows.

Friend John was so certain that Popery would prevail, Opus Re­form. p. 85. and eradicate the Northern Heresy, and so Ignorant of the late Re­volution, that he not only persuaded a Gentleman to turn Pa­pist for these Reasons, but embarkt himself in that Interest; and thereby drew such a Storm on his Head, as he would have avoided, if his Art had given him the least Prospect of the right way, or had not led him into the wrong.

Would Sidrophel, think you, have undergone the hazard, and trouble of a Voyage to America, to repair a broken Fortune, if the Stars had let him see, that he should have returned no wiser, nor richer than he went out? Pray ask that Lying Astrologer, (who so often writes as if Conscience, and Religion, not Debt and Beggary drove him thither) whether it was not he that raised so many Devils, as during his abode there, and since, have possest the choicest Saints in New-England? To conclude, All that pack of Fools, and Knaves, who pretend by Judicial Astro­logy, to foresee good and bad fortune, to hit opportunities, and nick [Page 32]lucky minutes, for making things happy, confute themselves; being, for the most part, hated, scandalous, little, needy fellows; the very abjects of that fortune, whose favours they pretend to foresee, and manage.

9. Astrology cannot be true, because Men born at one time, and in one Horoscope, and Constellation, meet divers, often contrary Fates: Kings and Slaves, Lords and Beggars have been born in one minute; Twins begotten at one Coition, and yet of different See ma­ny singular Instances of the dif­ferent Fates and Dispositi­ons of ma­ny famous Twins, in Mr. Cham­bers, p. 53. &c. Dr. More 's Myst. Iniq. p. 357. Heyden, p. 252. Sexes, Humours and Fortunes. Of Seed thrown into the Ground in one moment, some have taken root, some been eaten by Birds and Worms, and some proved fruitless. A Man born at once, by the Rules of Astrology, should die all toge­ther: But contrariwise, some Men survive their Ears, Noses, Hands, Feet, Legs, and Arms, many Years. Nor is it so in Genethliacs only, but in Judicial, and Horary Astrology also. Ships commencing Voyages in one minute, and Mens Journeys in one moment, have had different success. If two Men, or more, about to fight a Duel, or run a Race, come in one mo­ment to enquire of the Astrologer their success; by the Rules of that Art, both must win, or lose; conquer, or be conquer­ed; because they both put the Question together. So if two, or three Men ride, or run a Race, and in one moment start forth, if Astrology were true, they must both win, or both lose; which cannot be.

10. The death of Multitudes of Men, in one minute, some in one moment, in one place, by one cause, cannot happen by the Rules of Astrology: Because the Stars never concur to such an Iden­tical Fate in so many thousand Nativities, Sir W. Ra­leigh p. 153. as theirs who fell in the Battel between Semiramis, and Stourobates, where Four Millions were slain on one side, besides the many Thousands which fell on the other. The Army of Xerxes, when they pass'd the Hellespont, consisted of Seventeen Hundred Thou­sand Men, Idem l. 3. cap. 6. the greater part of which fell in the Battels of Pla­tea, and Mycale.

In the Scripture we read of 320000 slain at one time, Joshua cap. 11. Chron. 2.16. on one side; and 500000 at another; beside the many who perished on the side of the Vanquishers: 180000 Assyrians died by the hand of an Angel, at one time, in the days of Hezekiah. Are these things accountable by the Rules of Genethliacal Astrology? If the small distance that might be between their Fates, be an Evasion, What think you of vaster numbers, who have pe­rished [Page 33]together in a moment, by one accident? The Hundreds blown up with Opdam; the Thousands swallowed by the Earth with Corah, &c. in the Wilderness; and of late in Jamaica, Sicilia, &c. or the Inundations of Deucalion, Holland, &c. or the Flood of Noah? Can their Fates be found Predicted by so long a Conspiracy of the Stars, as must be in the many days, in which those Multitudes of Nations were born? Can the dif­ferent Births of so many Myriads of Men, have in the compass of an Hundred Years, such conspiring Horoscopes, as shall de­termine them all to one sort of Death, and puncto of dying? Can the Heaven for so many millions of minutes, as these Mul­titudes were Born in, have so constant and agreeable an Aspect, Dr. More 's Myst. p. 357. as there must be, if Astrology be true, to determine the Fate of such infinite Numbers, to the same Numerical time, and Identical manner of Death? I call them infinite Numbers, believing, with Sir Tho. Brown, Pseud. Ep. l. 6. c 6. that the World was then as full of People as now.

11. If the Stars Influence, or Coelestial Constellations beget such Accidents as occur on Earth; How comes it, that when the like Ho­roscopes recurr, as were at the Genesis of Alexander, Caesar, or Judas, Men most famous for Piety, Art, Valour, Poetry, &c. or infamous for Wickedness, have not been again produced?

12. If Human Actions be directed by the Stars, Whence is it that National Customs of Food, Cloathes, Religion, Marriages, Diseases, Languages, Laws, Tempers, Colours, Constitutions, &c. come to be peculiar, and constant to each Kingdom, when the Influence of Heaven on them, is so various? The Heavens change, but the People do not. The People of the greatest part of the Earth are black, the Wind blows constantly one way for Eleven Months of the Year; and the Weather, du­ring that time, Serene, without Rain, or Storms: And in that Month varieth, with Tempests, and great Showers, or Floods from the Sky. This cannot be from the Stars.

13. The Astronomancers talk much of the untimely death of Picus, and other Writers against their Art, as if it were a Revenge the Stars took on such as derogated from their Dominion: But have they not as much Power to Prevent, as to Revenge such Injuries done their Sovereignties? If all our Actions, or those only of Importance be directed by the Stars; Is it not absurd to suppose they should inspire so many great Fathers, Philoso­phers, [Page 34]Divines, and the most Learned Men the World hath owned, with Disposition, or Ability to write against them; and single out one or two of them to punish; and suffer so many others, who have as much, or more, affronted their Deities, to escape, and prosper?

14. The Exclamations made by Men Great, Learned, and Good, some of which have studied your Art to the bottom, gives great reason to think it Fallacious, and Wicked. St. Augustin, Calvin, Perkins, Briggs, Heminga, Dr. Humes, Angelis, and other Divines: Picus Mirandula, J. Scaliger, C. Agrippa, Mr. Freke, and many Philosophers, who were Famous Astrologers, call it Fallacious, Fabulous, Ridiculous, and Vain; and its Professors Cheats, Impious, Factious, and Dangerous in a Commonwealth; Beside, Multitudes of the most Famous Men of all Learned Professions, who have decryed it as a Delusion, and exposed the Vanity, Falsity, and Wickedness of such as pretend to Prognosticate by it.

Among the Fathers not one of them was for it, but Origen. Tertullian said that it was invented by the Devil, and he banish'd Heaven for it. St. Ambrose calls it wicked, and vain. St. Ba­sil, St. Jerom, and Epiphanius call it foolish Madness, invented by Satan. So doth St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, Eusebius, Lactantius, St. Gregory; and almost all the Fathers wrote against it. Aqui­nas calls it a Devilish Art. Luther, Junius, Melancton, P. Mar­tyr, Gualterus, Willit, Causin, B. Charlton, M. Chambers, Mr. Purchas, Bishop Taylor, Stillingfleet, Dr. More, Mr. Giree, Row­land, Gattaker, Gale, Crow, have all exploded it, as contrary to Truth, Religion, and the Commonwealth.

15. Being invented by the Devil, and practised by his Disciples, in opposition to Religion, and Godliness, it disposeth the Minds of Men to Idolatry, and Atheism; attributing to the Creature, the Power of the Creator; or believing them really Gods, as the Heathens did. It takes off our dependance on God; ren­ders Prayer useless; destroyeth Free Will; makes us of free Agents, passive Patients.

Tertullian saith more than once, that it came from Heaven, but was brought from thence by the Fallen Angels; and we all know what the greatest Assertors of it in former Ages were: Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Nero, Julian, Manasses, Maxi­minus the Tyrant, Jannes, and Jambres, Elymas the Sorcerer, Albumazer, Caracalla, Menander, Saturninus, Hildebrand, Car­pocrates, Priscillianus, Porphyry, &c. who were all of them Dis­ciples [Page 35]of Hell, and Lovers of Astrology. It must needs be so; Vaninus, the great Advocate for Astro­logy, died a profess'd Atheist. Vide Par­ker, Tent. de deo Disp. 1. Sect. 26. for the Devil is the Guardian Angel of their Art; and I'll tell you how they came by him. In the Pontificate of some such Holy Father as Gregory 7. a Lover of this Black Art, one of the Tribe craved of his Holiness a Protector or Patron Saint for Astrologers, like as other Arts had. The Good Pontiff willing to oblige a Faculty he loved well, gave him the Choice of all in St. Peters. The humble Servant of Ʋrania, depending upon the Direction of good Stars to a good Angel, went to the Choice hoodwinkt; and groping among the Images, the first he laid hand on, was that of the Devil in Combat with St. Michael. Had he chosen with open Eyes he could not have met a sitter Protector for so Diabolical an Art.

It's asserted by Mr. Calvin, that it leads Christians to Idola­try, On Isaiah 47. and Jerem. 10. by attributing Divine Power to Planets, making them not only the occasion of Good, and Evil in general, but extenu­ates, and subjects the Power of Religion, Miracles, Efficacy of Prayer, all Piety, and the state of future Life, to depend on the Stars.

Venus, they say, gives the Felicities of this Life, and Jupi­ter, of that to come: for when he reigns, the Native shall be eternally happy. When Saturn is placed in Leo, Lex Judai­ca est à Saturno; Christiana à Jove & Mercurio; Mahome­tica à Sole & Marte, & Idololatria, à Luna & Marte. Card. the Body shall live long, and the Soul for ever. He that prayeth to God when the Moon with the Head of the Dragon is joyned to Jupiter, shall obtain whatever he asketh. He that's placed under Mars in the ninth House, &c. shall be able to cast out Devils. A Pro­phet must be born, if in Gemini, &c. In short, The Gift of Prophecy, Power of Religion, Secrets of Conscience, Command over Devils, Vertue of Miracles, Efficacy of Prayer, Future State, &c. are all made by these Men to depend on the Stars; Vouchsafed by them, and to be known from them. The Flood, Moses's Law, Christ's Birth and Death are said to be the Effects of their Influences, by those Blasphemous Astrologers, saith that Great Protestant Father. These, and such horrible Opinions do they hold, who pretend to Christianity: But how unworthy of that Name, let all sober Men of that Religion judge.

Some of them have been so daringly Blasphemous, as to write, That Christ was famous for so many Miracles, Dr. More's Myst. God­lyness, p. 337. because He was born while Saturn and Gemini, &c. That He Disputed with the Doctors so Young, because Jupiter, &c. His many Travels, often Weeping, never Laughing, the prevalency of [Page 36]his Gospel, are all attributed to the Position of the Planets at his Birth, Dr. More. against J. B. p 158 Notes c. 34. p. 148. Myst God­lyness p. 338. Page 49. by such pretended Christian Astrologers, as Mater­nus, Cardan, R. Bacon, A. Villa Nova, Vaninus, Card. Alliacensis, Priscillianus, and many others. But Mr. Gregory and Dr. More show, that they cannot agree in what Sign he was born: It's true, that an extraordinary Star led the Magi to the place where he lay; and our Star-gazers don't spare to tell us of it; and endeavour to persuade us, that those Wise Men were Astrologers: But that's confuted over, and over, by Mr. Gregory, who hath pub­lished a Scheme of that Great Nativity.

But besides those Powers which they so Blasphemously attri­bute to the Stars, over the Actions, and Passion of Christ him­self, they ruin the true Notion of God's Providence, whol­ly destroy Free Will, in the most minute things; and leave us not so much liberty of Choice, as the most rigid Predestinators have done; but six us under such a fatal Necessity, as the Hobbists and Atheists do.

Sir Chr. Heyden, the Great Advocate of Astrology, affirms, That the Efficacy of the Stars cannot be frustrate without a Miracle: Row and against W. R. p. 136. Where is then the Providence of God, and Free Will? To what end is Prayer, and second means, if there be such an absolute Destiny, and irresistible Influence? We are not free Agents, but, like Bartholomew Puppits, act and speak as Jupi­ter, or Mars please to constrain us: De Civit. De [...] lib. 5. Or (as the Astrologer spoken of by St. Augustin) It's not we that Lusted, but Venus: Not we that Slew, but Mars: Not we that Stole, but Mercury: Not God that helpt, but Jupiter: And so Free-born Man is made a Star-born Slave.

In excuse of these Consequences, the Astrologers, when put to it, are sometimes so senseless, J. B. a­gainst Dr. More, p. 93. More's Re­ply, p. 122, 123. as to confound Fortune, which is Chance; and Fate, which is determined, and inevitable. And to help their Cause from those pressing Difficulties, which incumber it, with worse: For to avoid the foresaid Imputa­tions, they deny the Stars Necessitate, and allow them only to Dispose. They Incline, but do not Force: Therefore Wise Men rule the Stars. Sapiens do­minabitur Astris. But what is Astrology, if that be true? How can he Predict that, which every Wise Man may defeat, and none but Fools are sure to verifie? Can he tell what will come to pass, if every Wise Man hath Power to frustrate the Pre­diction?

Beside all this mischief Astrology doth to Religion and Christianity, it's an Art not only near of Kin to Witchcraft, August. Civit. Dei lib. 5. c. 7. Dr. More ubi sup. p 358. Vind. a­gainst Chambers cap. 19. and Magick, but leads Men into it, as divers, who have escaped the Snare, acknowledge. Sir Ch. Heyden (their Zealous Advocate) confesseth that Necromancy is often palliated under the pretence of Astrology. And Mr. Butler the Astrologer, in the Preface to his Hagiastrologia, page 24. confesseth, That without the Heavenly and Supernatural Wisdom, Astrological Skill would become rank Poyson to the Astrologer, as being such a thing as would lead him to the Devil, sooner than to God; and draw him into Sorcery, and other evil Arts, whereby they would be entangled with Diabolical Familiarities ere they are aware, even as are Witches and Conjurers. See more the like in the Book it self, p. 35. and 38.

When Men become greedy of knowing things before hand, they bind themselves Apprentices to the Devil's Black Art: For he, who is never wanting to gratifie wicked desires, helps them to foresee by a worse Art than Astrology, though that be bad enough, what they desire to know. Thus Julian, Hil­debrand, and many more, proceeded from Astrology to Necro­mancy, and such abominable Diabolical Practices, as would make a Man tremble to read. After the death of the Apostate, there were found in Antioch sundry Heads, and Carcasses of Men, Women, and Children, barbarously slain for Divination, and Sacrificed to the informing Daemon. In one Temple he acted such execrable things, as he strove to conceal, forbiding any one to open it beside himself: But after his death, they found among many other cruel Effects of his hellish Curiosity, a Woman hanging by the Hair of her Head, her Hands cut off, her Belly ript up, &c. to vaticinate his Persian Victory. This not only shows the danger of those unreasonable Desires, which put Men on use of Astrology; but the defect of it: For if the Stars could foretel Men things to come, they would not go to the De­vil for more Skill.

Now this Art being of so Devilish an Original, so hurtful to Religion, Providence, Dependance on God, and all Chri­stian Duties; leading Men to Atheism, Idolatry, Blasphemy, Witchcraft, Magick, Murther, and cruel Butchery; Picus Mir. p. 434. Against Dr Humes. cap. 31. how great is the Impudence of those Men, who publickly call it an Art useful to Religion? As R. Bacon, Cardinal Alliacensis, and others have done. A Divine Study, as Ramsey calls it; the only Way, and Path that leads to God, as others say; an Art near [Page 38]of Kin to Divinity, as Preface to Sir G. W. Works, and in his Excellency of Astrolo­gy, p. 15. J. Butler against Dr. More. J. Gadbury hath the confidence more than once to affirm; and a most Sacred and Divine Study, as one who calls himself a Minister of the Gospel saith; when nothing is more destructive thereof, and different from it, less like it, less a Friend, or of less Affinity to it than that? To false Prophets, and lying Spirits, the Relation and Resem­blance of those Deluders cannot be deny'd; we saw them but the other day in these miserable Nations: James Naylor, O. Sedge­wick, Mary Cary, Hannab Tapnel, and other Enthusiastick, Hysterical Millennaries, who Prophesy'd, as Lilly and Culpeper Prognosticated; as Goodwin, Bond, and H. Peters Preacht, or Scribled; and all as far from Truth, as the Infernal Author of the Black Art is from an Angel of Light.

16. They have the boldness to affirm, that their Art is of such absolute necessity in curing Diseases, that not a Plant can be gathered; a Medicine compounded, or administred; an Operation made, or a Judgment given without it. But this pretence is also vain, like all the rest, being an old Maggot, bred in some ancient Physicians Brains, and would have long since died, if it had not been nourish'd by a few Modern Luna­ticks — A Purge, say they, is not to be given while the Moon is in Aries, or Taurus, because they being Signs of such Creatures as chew the Cudd, the Patient will therefore Nause­ate, and Vomit it up again. Such sottish, and ridiculous Rea­sons do they give for the use of Astrology in the Art of Healing.

But all the most Famous, and Learned Physicians of later Ages, from sounder Principles of Philosophy, understand bet­ter; and either explode this vain Art, and reject it, or take no notice of it in their approved Writings, nor in their Practice.

Vanit. cap. 30, 31. Cornelius Agrippa was a Physician, and had been an Astrolo­ger: He tells us, it's so far from being useful in Physick, that it renders useless all the endeavours of the Physician, and excuseth the mischievous doings of Quacks, and Empiricks, which probably is the chief Reason why it's so much in esteem among them. It depriveth an able Doctor of the Credit due to his successful Skill, by attributing the fate of the Sick, &c. to Coelestial Influences. In short, he calls it a ridiculous, and groundless figment: And its Pro­fessors Cheats, Knaves, Fools, Rebels, Doctors of Falshood, Ly­ing, &c.

G. Fallosius, Erastus, Lemnius, Gesner, Ficinius, Valleriolus, Fuchsius, Monardus, Fr. Valesius, R. à Castro. Helmont, Diemer­broek, [Page 39]Dr. Brown, Witty, Sydenham, Trew, have written against it Some of them say, That neither Men nor Devils can foretel any thing by the Stars. All of them decry its use in Physick. And Sidrophel himself (pardon me for naming him among such Wor­thies) in the Preface to his Translation of Dolaeus's System, not only leaves it out from among the needful Qualifications of a Physician, but hath lately put a French Author of the Pox into English, Page 123. Probl. 8. who explodes, and ridicules it as much as any Man.

In Practice, the most Eminent for Skill, business and success, slight and disregard it. And they who have observed its Rules, have been convinced by Experience that it signifieth nothing. We find no notice of it in the Methods of Sennertus, Riverius, Willis, Sydenham, or the most Celebrated Practicers now alive. And were there nothing to show it a Nullity in the Art of Cur­ing; the Infamy, Poverty, unsuccessful attempts of such as pretend to act by it, is demonstration enough.

17. Astrology, and Prognosticating by the Stars, is condemned in Scripture, and forbidden by the Mouth of God. See Deuteron. XVIII. 10, 14, 15. &c. Isaiah XLIV. 25. XLVII. 13, 14. Jeremiah X. 2. Acts XIX. 19. Add to them Psalm CXXXIV. Isaiah XLI. 23. Ecclesiastes VIII. 7. X. 14. 1. Corinth. II. 11. and consider the II. IV. and V. Chapters of Daniel, how the King of Babylon relying on these cheating Astrologers, had been deluded by them, and upbraids their Ignorance and Frauds.

Sir Chr. Heyden, Ramsey, and others endeavour to elude the force of these Scriptures; but beside current Commentators, Dr. Holmes, Mr. Rowland, Mr. Gattaker, and many particular Divines, have proved them fully to the purpose.

18. Besides the Holy Oracles of God, the Venerable Writings of the Fathers, and the Learned Arguments of Physicians a­gainst Astrology; the most Eminent Politicians, Statesmen, Hi­storians, Lawyers, and Philosophers have writ of it with great Contempt and Detestation: Tacitus in his Annals and History, often speaks of the Mischiefs they did; and for which they were several times banished Italy, and Rome. They are, saith he, a sort of Men false to Government, and all that trust them. Seneca derides them, Plutarch censures them, Cicero wrote largely against them. Also Pliny in many places relates the Treachery of their Practices, and falsity of their Art. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. c. 49. lib. 18. c. 23. lib 30. c. 1, 2. Picus Lord of Mirandula, a Man [Page 40]of high Birth, and great Learning, whom Scaliger call'd the Monster of his Age; and Naudaeus the Phoenix of all great Wits, wrote 200 Years since 12 such Invincible Books against Astrology, as not only purchased him the Name of Flagellum Astrologorum, but so muzled them all, that not one hath ap­peared able to Answer him.

He proves Astrology to be an Art invented by the Devil, abo­lisheth all Religion, Philosophy, Physick, Law, &c. of great mischief to Mankind, destroys the use of Faith, lessens the Reverence of Mi­racles, destroyes Divine Providence, Patronizeth Sin, excuseth Vice as coming from Heaven, defiles and subverts all good Arts; trans­lating the causes of things from Reason, to Fables; abrogating all Rules of Human Providence, &c.

Page 183.Sir Tho. More makes his Eutopians despise and laugh at them. R. à Castro tells us he was the Author of that Lampoon against them, Astratibi AEthereo pandunt, &c. C. Agrippa treats them with great Scorn and Derision, and exposeth their Art as a Delusion, and great Cheat. My Lord Bacon, Chancellour of England, not inferior to the best of these for Learning, saith, That Astrology hath no grounds, Inslaur. Mag. lib. 3. c. 4. page 3. and Essay. 35.; Essay l. 1. c. 4. nor soundness, and such as Practise it, no Honesty, or Sense. Their Persons are despica­ble (saith he) but their Practices dangerous. They are Impo­stors, who have done great Mischief; and therefore so many Laws have been made to suppress them. M. Montaigne, that Noble French Author, tells us, The Art ought to be abhorred by all good Christians, having done much Mischief, though in it self as insignificant as a Dream.

The Learned K. James saith, Daemono­log. l. 1. c. 5. Verit. Re­lig. l. 4. Judicial Astrology is learnt in the Devil's School. An Art not lawful to Practise or be trusted in by Christians, having no ground of Natural Reason.

Both the Scaligers (Prodigies of Learning) writ against it. The Father against Cardan, and the Son calls it a Practice without Foundation, contrary to Religion, and Philosophy, &c. Praef. Molin. Argenis l. 2. So saith the Famous J. Barclay.

H. Grotius (whose greatest Enemies Mr. Baxter, and Dr. Owen) allowed to be Wise above the pitch of Human Nature, and incomparable in all Human Learning, derides Astrology as an Art without agreeing Rules, having nothing in it certain, but uncertainty.

Ludovicus Vives on St. August. Civit. Dei, our Learned Savil in his Notes on Tacitus, and others call it, an Art that teacheth [Page 41]Knaves to cheat Honest Men. And J. Milton in his Figure-Caster Ridicules it with much Wit, and Confutes it with no less Rea­son. Astrology, saith he, is an Art that teacheth Astrologers to Lye as often as they speak. Our Ingenious, Learned Feliham won­ders Astrologers can for bear laughing when they meet, Reso [...]ve 96. to think how they gull the People with such a Fallacy, and Delu­sion as is impossible to be true. And Mr. Freke the Astrologer, calls it Madness, Folly, Delusion, an Irrational, groundless Im­posture, impossible to be true. Essay p. [...]3. &c. And by Experience found to be the Devil's Lure, to draw Men into Neoromancy. What shall I say more! The Noble Picus in his two first Books against them, hath shown at large how much the Learned Writers to his time decryed and wrote against this Wicked, Senseless Art. And I have proved that the most Eminent Authors since, of all sorts, have done the same, and hiss'd it off the Stage; to whom may be added Des Cartes, Rohault, and all the new French Philosophers, beside our Learned Athenians. I might teaze them with Lucian Juvenal, Quevedo, Hudebrass, Poor Robin, Mr. Wilson's Witty Play called the Cheats, and others, who with sharp Wit and keen Satyr, expose them in their true Shapes and Colours. ( [...]ee Sir Roger L'Strange's Fables, and the Turkish Spye.) But I must hasten the Matter off my Hands, and will shut up my Evidence against them with one of their own Advocates, Ramsey, who was, like Sidrophel, a busy Scribler, an Empty Physician, and an Ignorant Star-Cazer. This Man tells the King, That the Com­mon Practicers of Astrology deceived his People of their Money, Lives, and Loyalty, and that London abounded with such Ideots, Cheats, and Illiterate Impostors, as himself was, and Sidrophel continueth to be.

There is much more to be said against this vain Art, to prove it false and built on nothing: As the want of knowing the exact Longitude of the Place, which is both neces­sary and imposis;ible: So is the moment of the Genesis, Question, or Action to be judged of, and consequently leave their Erections to meer Chance; and then it's 10000 to one, as Dr. More saith, but that it prove false. Gassendus affirms, That if there be any thing to be judged by Astrology, the Artist must know the pre­cise moment of the Sun's being in a Cardinal Sign; Tom. 1. p. 728. Yet sure I am, saith he, that there are no Tables, or Ephemerides extant that can teach the Time by six hours. Those of Tycho come nearest Truth, and yet are wide from it.

My last Argument against Astrologers, and their pretended Art is, That in all Ages, and most Governments, they have been pernicious to the Commonwealth, and Enemies to the Publick Peace. And for that Reason so many Laws have been made against them, not only abroad, as Historians tell us, but in our own Nation, Hen. 8.14 33.5 Eliz. 15.23. Eliz. 2.3.4. Edw. 6.15. as may be seen in the Statute Book, Beside their Frauds, and Cozening Practices (saith Aggrippa, Montaigne, and Bacon) on the Common People, they are Authors of much mischief to the State, drawing Credulous People to their ruin, and causing among Nations most cruel Wars and Sedition: No sort of Men being more pernicious to a Commonwealth, than those who undertake to Prognosticate by the Stars, or any other way of Divination, and scat­ter their Prophecies about.

I urge this last of all, because it's so pat to the great Ob­jection I have against Sidrophel. For he seems to verify this Censure, and to be designing by his false Art, to subvert the pre­sent Frame of our English Government in Church and State, by making the People believe Heaven hath decreed it shall be changed into that of a Neighbouring Country.

That such effects have been the consequents of such Fanatick Enthusiastick Dreams, I will prove by a few, out of many, Instan­ces.

Socrat. lib. 7. Sozom. lib. 8. Niceph. lib. 13. Isdegerdes the Persian King was so disturbed by the Contri­vances of Astrologers, that he decimated them. Valerius Maxi­minus being overthrown by Licinius, contrary to the Predictions of the Star-Diviners, who had betrayed him with false assuran­ces of Success, He put them all to death. Thus they deluded Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus.

Thucydides Plutarc [...]. Nicias the Athenian, was persuaded by them to keep his Fleet in the Haven; the same Night the Syracusians surprized them all. Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius, &c. say that Otho was induced to the Murther of Galba by the Astrologers, Magoma­ [...]. 346. who told him he was to succeed him in the Imperial Throne. And by the same way Stephanus was prompted to Assassinate Domitian. Cam­bysis was Murthered by two Astrologers. Plutarch. Alcibiades, to obtain his Ambitious aim, suborned them to encourage the Athenians to a fatal War with Sicily. Many Astrologers combined to dethrone Valens, and set up Theodorus a Pagan, Wieri prae­stig, c. 10. p. 2 [...]. by pretending they found his Name prenoted by the Stars; but the Emperor not only slew those Trayterous Diviners, but, as the Histori­ans say, all those whose Names began with Theod. that he [Page 43]might be sure to baffle their Prediction. By such Men, and encouragement from the Stars, it was that Valentinian the Younger was murthered. Libo Densius, encouraged by Fir­mius Catus, to make Insurrection against Tiberius, in confidence of success by Astrological Prediction, was defeated, and then slew himself; and such was the Foundation of Catiline's Con­spiracy.

The Story of Caracalla is very famous. He, while in Mesopota­mia, being Jealous of a Plot against him, sent to the Roman Astrologers to be informed. They accused Macrinus, his faithful Praefect, of a Conspiracy, which nothing but his Death could frustrate. This Answer coming while the Emperor was intent on some sport, [...] gave it Macrinus to read; and he finding his innocent Life in danger, by this trick of the Astrologers, se­cured it by the murther of Caracalla, of which he had not thought before.

Such Diviners had assured the Wife of Pheroras, that the Line of Herod would extinguish, Joseph. Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 3. and her Husband succeed to the Crown. They, to assist their Stars, and work out their own good Fortune, conspired against the King's Life, and lost all their own by the stroke of Justice.

Mahomet the III. had a Rebellion raised against him by the Astrologers, Purchas Pilgr. p. 276. Predicting that his Son should overcome and suc­ceed him: But all proved false, and the Son, Astrologers, and Rebels were slain.

The D. of Visco was by the Astrologers assured of his having the Crown of Portugal after the Death of Don Juan el Grandes: But impatient of gaining it, he Rebelled against him a first time, and was both Defeated, and Pardoned. Upon a second Attempt, he fell by the Hand he would have untimely ruined. Essay 11. lib. 1, M. Montaigne tells us, that the Marquess of Saluza, the French Ge­neral in Piedmont, in the Days of Francis the First, having all imaginable Advantage against the Enemy, was, notwithstand­ing so terrified by the Astrologers, who had Predicted the Success of Charles the Fifth, and the Ruin of France, that he basely Revolted, to his own perpetual Infamy and Ruin.

We will leave Foreign Instances of the mischief done by A­strologers to Princes, and Kingdoms; and now take a view of what hath been wrought by them in our own Country, so long famous for giving Credit to such Heathenish false Prophets, as will appear by the following History.

The Scots have been often thus betrayed into Rebellion, Speed p. 672. and the Murther of Kings. The Earl of Athol was prompted to Conspire against James I. by their assuring him, that he should be Crowned in that Kingdom: and true it was, for the King understanding what instigated him to Rebel, he caused a Crown of red hot Iron to be put on his Head, by which, and some other Tortures, he ended his wretched Life.

Fuller's Worthies of Wales, p. 19.The Welch have a Saying published by one of them, that be­side God, there is no Diviner; and yet so far pursued their hard Fate, that by the Instigations of those Astrological Bou­tefeaus, who had possess'd Prince Leolin, that He should wear the Crown of Brutus; he first refused to attend the Corona­tion of Edward I. then Rebell'd against him, and Invaded Eng­land, but was Vanquish'd and Slain, His whole Family extir­pated, His Title annexed to the Crown of England, and the Welch subjected to its Laws ever since.

Afterward in the Days of Henry IV. Owen Glyn Dower Dwy became inveigled by a Prophecy of Merlin's, Dr. Powel's Hist. p. 386. (whose Name Lilly and Partridge affect) that the time was come, wherein the Britains, by his Assistance, should recover their Ancient Freedom and Liberty; Rebelled, made War, and were overthrown, and curbed by such Laws, as Dr. Fuller compares to those of Draco, written in Blood.

In our part of this Isle, we find Peter Pomfret attempted to raise a Commotion against King John, by buzzing into the Peo­ples Ears certain Prophecies from the Stars: And in the Reign of Edward VI. by the same Device, Fox's Acts and Monu­ments in [...]d. 6. the People were made be­lieve, That there should no more Kings Reign in England; That all the Nobility should be destroyed, and the Govern­ment fall into the Hands of four Commoners. A Prophecy much like that of Sidrophel's, but express'd in plainer English: Upon which they Rebelled in Devonshire, Oxford, Buckingham, Norfolk, and York, to the great hazard of the unsettled Kingdom and Protestant Religion, then as young and weak as the Prince, who was Head of both.

In the Reign of his Famous Sister, and Successor, Sir W▪ Churchill's Div. Brit. p. 313. Q. Eliza­beth, they played the same Part with her; for the Papists, de­luded by Astrological Predictions of her short Reign, were easi­ly drawn into many desperate Conspiracies against Her, to the great Peril of that Renowned Life and Government.

How accessary they were to that grand Rebellion against Charles the Martyr, to the great Detriment and eternal Scan­dal of the Protestant Religion, as the Statue 12 Car. 2.30. most sensibly expresseth it, appeared by the Almanacks and other Fire-brand Libels, published and scattered about the Nation, by those two great Incendiaries, Lilly and Culpeper.

After the Restauration of his Son, they continued to Plot against the Government upon the same bottom: For if we may believe the Narratives of Dugdale and Smith, Page 26. the Astrologers having told the Jesuits that King Charles would outlive his Brother, they resolved to cross the Stars, and cut him off, that the Duke might Succeed to effect their long projected Design, of introducing Popery; and hence sprang that Plot, which caused so much noise and fear to this divided Kingdom.

The History of the late unhappy Duke of Monmouth, shews how much he was seduced by this wicked Art, and instigated to that Rebellion which ruined him, and endangered the well­fare of us all.

How much the like Design hath been agitated since by the like Men, I have sufficiently shown. Tacit Ann. 12. lib. 2. Dion. in vit. Dom. Ʋlpian de Offic. Proc. lib. 7. Sueton, lib. 9. C. Agrip. van. c. 31. Dr. Cave Eccl. Introd. p. 22. Indeed in all Ages and most Nations they have been so pernicious to the common Wellfare, that as I have proved, they were often driven out of Rome and Italy, in the times of Tiberius, Vitellius, Constantine, Gratian, Theodo­sius, &c. Justinian (as appears in his Code) made it a Crime Capital to Practise it. And Constantius (another Christian Emperor of great Fame) as soon as He came to the Throne, made it loss of Life to Consult Astrologers.

By our own Laws it hath been Fellony to Practise that Hellish Art: And it's still punishable by Fine, and Imprisonment. See 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8.14. &c. 5 Eliz. 15. And indeed consider­ing the fatal Experience we have had of those vile Men, and their wicked Practices, the Tools they have been to the Factions, their notorious Cheats, how they have been forbid­den by God himself, and exploded by Men of all Ages, Na­tions, and Faculties, it's a wonder they are permitted to live among us.

To conclude: If Astrologers err in their Fundamentals, and are mistaken in the first Elements of their Art: If the late discovery in Astronomy have given the Heavens a new Face, hid to the Inventors of Astrology, and to all before this Age: If they differ among themselves, have no Accord; but con­tradict [Page 46]and Prognosticate contrary to one another, and to Truth: If the Presages of the most Famous among them, commonly▪ prove false, and contrary to Event: If they are ignorant of the most remarkable Occurrences in the World be­fore they happen; and of their own Fates, till they come to pass: If Men of one Genesis and Commencement, have various Fortunes, and multitudes of different Horoscopes, one punctual Period: If the recurrence of Constellations do not again pro­duce the same Men or Effects: If Customs and Circumstances of whole Regions, continue unvaried under daily Changes in the Heavens: If multitudes of Men, learned even in Astrology, exclaim against it, as vain and wicked; and affront the Stars in spight of their Power; or rather in conformity to their Influence: If it be an Enemy to Providence and Free Will: If it advance Principles destructive of Religion, and promoting Idolatry, destroy Philosophy, and the force of natural Remedies: If Astrologers and their Art be no less pernicious to the Publick Welfare, are the Authors of Heresie, and Rebellion, and as such have been not only proscrib'd by the wisest Governments, but forbidden by Scripture, exploded by Fathers, eminent Di­vines, States-men, Politicians, Philosophers, and the most learned Wise Men which have been in the World; and by them all ac­counted a Cheat, and dangerous Impostors, we have cause enough to renounce it.

I thought to have ended with this Summary, See Die­merbroek de pect. cap. 8. but remembring that among the many trifling Arguments urged in behalf of Astrology, and to prove the Influence of Heavenly, on Sublu­nary Bodies, they urge one which they call manifest, and de­monstrative, viz. the Power of the Moon on the Sea, causing the Flux and Reflux thereof by its pressure, Tr. Phys. page 4. as M. Rohault ex­presseth it. I will shew this infallible Argument to be a Vul­gar Error, and that the Moon hath no more force to move the Waters, than the Waters have to move the Moon, or make it into a green Cheese; but that both are independant from each other. Their Motions indeed are concurrent in some few places of the World: But without relation, as Cause to Effect; or any Influence, See Mr. Philips's Letter to Dr. Wallis, P [...]il. Tr. 34. or Operation at all one on the other.

1. This seems manifest by all Tide Tables published Yearly by those Almanack-Makers themselves: For they tell you, That different degrees of Tides happen in places of this Nation, and parts adjacent at the same time: Now if the Moon move the [Page 47]Water, let them tell us how a Full Moon makes high Water at one place, and half Tide at another, not far distant. If the Moon move the Water, surely it would make the Tides a­like, or near so, at all places, especially neighbouring ones, when it's in the same Age and Station: But the contrary is told us by themselves: And there are others assure us, that in some places of the World, the highest Tides are at the Quadratures of the Moon, when it's lowest with us.

2. If the Moon cause the ebbing and flowing, how comes the Sea to keep so regular and exact to the Laws of its Motion, when the Moon is in the other Hemisphere, as when in this? To think that the Moon, which they say is cold, can operate through so remote, opaque, and bulky a Body as the Earth, Dr. More ubi supra, p. 339. 340, 345, 349, 353, &c. when we are sensible that so piercing, and hot a Planet, as the Sun, cannot do it, seems the Opinion of a Lunatick, or an Astro­loger, rather than a Philosopher, or Man of Sence.

3. If the Moon, &c. How is it that the Spring-Tides happen, as at Plimouth, two days after the New Moon, and as many after the Full? The Refraction of the Sun's Rays, which is supposed, cannot be the Cause; nor is it consistent with any other of the many Hypothesis by which the Phaenomena have been formerly solved.

4. If the Moon be the Cause, &c. How comes it, that there are not Tides (at least regular ones) all the World over? For since the Cause is universal, one would expect the Effect should be so too. But that failing gives us cause to suspect we are mistaken in imputing it to the Moon.

In the Mediterranean, and those Parts of America of our own Latitude, where the Moon encreaseth, and wanes, riseth, shines, and sets exactly as with us, there is no regular motion of the Sea. What little ebbing and flowing there is, is most manifestly occasioned by Winds, and Land-floods. So in Denmark and the Soundt, there are no Tides, Mols­worth's Account. p. 14. but a small Current of the Wa­ters made by the Winds blowing in or out, as we are told by an observing Man, lately Resident at Copenhagen. At the Cape­verd Islands, W. India Seas, and many other Places of the World, where Cynthia is as powerful as here, P. 148. E [...]. ult. she hath no such Operation, or Influence at all: Nor is there any discernible change in the Sea, Wind, or Weather. The Caspian Sea, which is an hundred and twenty German Leagues long, and nine­ty broad, is salt as the Ocean, and hath multitudes of Rivers falling [Page 48]into it, but neither Ebbs nor Flows, as the Holstein Ambassa­dors observed in their Travels, p. 148.

5. If the Moon, &c. Whence is it that in so many Places of the World, the Current of the Sea runs always one way, and that so swiftly, as is scarce credible? From the Gulph of Flo­rida, to the Latitude of forty degrees, it runs North-East ma­ny hundred of Leagues. In the Streights of Gibralter, it runs alway so strongly Eastward, as to force a Ship in against a fierce Levant-wind. In the Fr [...]tum Magellanicum, its force is such, that no wind is strong enough to carry a Ship against it.

6. If the Moon, Heylin. Cos. lib. 2. p. 615. &c. How is it that some very fierce ones are so irregular, variable, and uncertain? Like that of Euripus, which it's said so puzled Aristotle to comprehend, that He threw himself into it. Journal in­to Greece, p. 458. Si quidem ego non capio te, tu capias me.

Sir George Wheeler tells us, that its prodigious ebbing and flow­ing, hath been justly admired in all Ages for one of the greatest Wonders in the World. He, Father Jaques, Paul Babin, and Ignatius Bradi, Phil. Tr. 71. who visited this wonderful Gulph, s [...]y, that it commonly flows 7, or 9 times in a day; some [...] changeth its course 14 times in 24 hours. The [...] in an hour and half change its Motion 3 times. [...] of a Month it moves so regularly, as to be red [...] But in the other part of the Month, it's not [...], and changeth Motions from 7 to 14 times a day, [...] all that motion, riseth not above a Foot, ebbs toward the shore, and flows when its Motion seems ebbing towards the Sea.

These are the strange, and surprising Appearances in this miraculous Gulph of Negropont, Pseudod. Ep. lib. 7. c. 14. which Sir Tho. Bro [...], to save Aristotle's Credit, endeavours to diminish: But my Authors who examined things on the Spot, relate with great surprize the amazing Phaenomena they saw there. And if there were nothing prodigious in it, it's notwithstanding sufficient to my purpose, to prove that some Motions of the Sea are Anomalous, and therefore not governed by such a regular Cause, or Guide, as the Moon is; she is constant to her Motions, the Sea is not, but in the compass of one Year, is in one, or other of its diffe­rent Circumstances, at every hour of the Moon's Age. Be she full, or new, increasing or waning, the Sea of Euripus observes her not; but be full, or low, on this, or the contrary Motion, when the Moon is in every, or any of her Figures.

7. If the Moon, &c. how is it, that in contrary Positions the same Effect is produced, as in Plimouth, a N. N. E. and W. S. W. Moon, make High-Water, and Spring-Tide alike, when at each time scarce above the Horizon?

8. If the Moon be the Cause of the Seas Flux and Reflux, by its Pressure, Reflection, or Refraction; How is it possible that the Motion of the Sea shall run counter to that of the Moon? As it is on the Coast of Devon, and Cornwal; the strongest Flood runs opposite to, and against the Face of the Moon.

How absurd is it to affirm, that a bright and dark Moon shall have the same Effect? That a Body fourteen times less than the Earth, and at such a great distance from it, shall press the Ocean to such an ascent, and while it's in the like Situation, force it to retire; and this Influence to be in some Places only of the same Latitude, no more liable to it, than those where it begets no such Effect? That it shall move the Sea in this Hemisphere, when it's in the other? That the motion of the Sea in some places shall be ever one way, in others irregular, in others constant to Rules of Flux and Re­flux, and in some have no motion at all, in some move contrary to the motion of the Moon, and in others to all the degrees of Ebbing and Flowing at all times of the Moon's Age? These things plainly show that Planet hath no Operation on that Element; and gives us reason to think that in those few parts of the World, where their Motions conform to each other, it's from Concomitancy, Concurrence, or, as Isaac Vossius believes, De Mot. Ma [...]. cap. 16, 18. from an accidental Synchronism, without Physical dependance; or according to some other of those ways, by which Learn­ed Moderns have supposed it to be done.

Galileo, and after him Gassendus, De Aestu Mar. ascribe it to the great Ac­celeration and Retardation of the Earths Motion, compounded of the Annual and Diurnal, &c.

Dr. More saith, notes on Psychatha­nasia p. 391. Dial. Phys. p. 406. The Flux and Reflux of the Sea depends on the Motion of the Earth, and attempts to demonstrate it by divers Schemes of his own, Galileo's, and des Chartes.

The Learned H. Fabri endeavours to solve it by the Pressure of the Atmosphere, and that the Tides vary according to the inequality, or the different Circles of the Air's Pressure, and the several Tracts of those Pressures, in respect of their Situation and Extent.

Our Famous Dr. Wallis saith, Phil. Tr. 16.34.64. &c. That the whole difference of Tides, viz. Diurnal, Menstrual, and Annual, and all the Motions of the Sea which concurr with the Moon, depend on one Common Cause, viz. the Common Center of the Earth and Moon's gravity. This he endeavours to explain and prove, and answers all the Objections, and difficulties in, and against it. But as our Athenians say, If that were true, the many great Ponds of Water in England being thinner than the Sea, would have Tides in them.

R. Des Cartes ascribes it to the greater Pressure made upon the Air by the Moon, Princip. Phil. Part 4. Myst. p. 346. Phys. Me­chan. Exp. p. 65. and the intercurrent Aethereal Substances at certain times of the day, and Lunary Month, more than at others: But although Dr. More calls it a plain Solution of the Matter, Mr. Boyle and Sir Chr. Wren suppose, if that were true, it would have the same effect on the Quicksilver in a long Tube.

So that the Cause of this Motion seems as hidden, as that of the Heart, known only to him who made it. And the Athenians Opinion of it is the truest; Mere. Vol. 1.3. Vol. 8. c. 14.20 Vol. 9 c 8. That the Sea moveth not by the Moon, but the necessary Law of the Creation, or the first established Order of Nature, no more to be accounted for, than the Motion of the Sun, &c.

And after all, if their Hypothesis were true, and the Moon did move the Waters, it would not help them to prove the In­fluence of the Stars on other Earthly Bodies, so many times farther from us, more than the Light given by a Candle in my Chamber, would prove that it did Illuminate the whole Hemisphere.

The only sensible Operation any Heavenly Body hath on us, is light and heat, and both from the Sun; and yet we see how gloomy and frigid the Air is, when he is removed but so far as beyond the Aequator, and how the Life of Vegetables, and some Animals seem then wholly dampt and extinguish'd. How much more would it be so, if he were so remote as Sa­turn, and Jupiter? Now if because the Sun and Moon Operate senlibly on us, you will inferr, that those remote and undis­cernible Planets and Stars have Influence, of which we are not sensible; it is arguing from certainty, in behalf of uncertainty, which is no good Logick.

Another Instance which Astrologers give to prove the influ­ence of Stars on Sublunary Bodies, Gassend. c. 4. is the Dog Star, which they [Page 51]say is known to cause great heat; but I say it's no such matter. It's true, that the time of his appearance happening in the fervour of the Summer Solstice, in the Days of Aristotle (when it was first observed) gave occasion to the Mistake. But as now it appears a Month later than it did then, without any change in the Season; so when Ten Thousand Years hence (if the World last so long) it will rise Five Months later, and by the An­ticipation of the Equinoxes, his Kennel be as low as Capricorn; it will make no more alteration in it, but become then to us on this side the Aequator, what it is now to them so far on the other, viz. a Significator of Cold.

Add to this, That if the Canicular Star caused the Heat of the Dog-Days, why do we not feel it in February, and in the Night, the Star being then above our Horizon?

All this, and much more which I might urge, proves that the supposed heat of it comes from the Sun, who having accended the Air in his way to our Tropick, in his return meeting this Star, the Old Astronomers falsly attributed that fervour to the Dog-Star, which is wholly owing to the Sun, and would be, if no such Star appeared.

For a third Argument in behalf of Astrology, we are ask'd a Question sit only for the Mouth of those Men. What are the Stars made for, if not for Influence? By which they sug­gest that they are made for nothing else. But I will Answer them with another Question; Is any Man now so Ignorant of the Coelestial System, as not to know that those Millions of Stars visible to us, beside the many Millions more beyond our Ken, are Suns, Moons, Earths, habitable, and without doubt inhabit­ed Orbs, of vaster Magnitude than this Earth? Or will any but an Astrologer believe, or suppose those Myriads of vast Bo­dies were created to be the cause of Mens Vices, Miseries, and Ruin; to force, or incline them to all their detestible Villai­nies; to be the Instruments of fatal necessity, and force poor Mortals to those Actions, they would not otherwise be guilty of? Are Astrologers themselves ignorant, that they give Light and Direction in the Night, and in Navigation tell the Mariner his Latitude, when the Sun is obscured on the Meridian? Are they not reasonable grounds to admire the Power of the Great Creator, and the Beauty of Heaven? Is not the won­derful Regularity of their amazing Motions a great Conviction of Atheism, and a proof of the Deity?

John Gadbury, Almanack 1692. that Stale Bafled Advocate for Astrology, hath lately offered several other Ridiculous Things in defence of it, which the Athenian Philosophers have sufficiently Confuted and Exposed, to which I referr Sidrophel, and without Astrology can foretel him, that so Ignorant and Unlearned as I am, I have said more against his Art, than he is able to Answer.