Four great liars, striving who shall win the silver whetstone Also, a resolution to…Foure great lyers, striuing who shall win the siluer whetstone Also, a resolution to…

The third reason impieties.

Besides all this the impious speeches and ungodly practises, which these men use, might move a christian man to loath their predictions. First, yearly some of them do foretell whether men shall study and embrace, or forget and neglect true Religion. What a filthy and devilish thing is this, not to be suffered in a common wealth where the Gospel of Christ is preached. Every man naturally is the child of wrath, the unprofitable servant, dead in all kind of sin, his understanding it is enmity against God, his affections are rebellious against his will: none doth good no not one: not one hath any faculty to receive or keep true religion: we are as ⟨image 50⟩saws in the hands of God, as the prophet Isaiah speaketh: how then become we religious? by the only work of God.¹ No man can come to me (saith Christ) except the father draw him. And as God draweth us first unto true religion, so he also maketh us continue in the professing of the same, as S. Paul saith, he which hath begun a good work in you, will finish the same &c. By what means doth God do this? by the outward preaching of the law and the Gospel, and by the inward working of his holy spirit: other means the scripture never mentioneth. On the contrary part, if any man refuse the grace of God, and will not embrace the true Religion, it proceedeth from the hardness of his own heart, and wilful rebellion. Seeing therefore the rebellion of man cometh from his own will,² and the embracing of true godliness from God alone: Why dare they presume without great impiety to adjoin the constellations as adjuvants either unto man or God in this divine work. Again these predictions are very ⟨image 50⟩perilous, for if a man be wickedly given, they hinder him from the acknowledging of his sin, because they make him lay part of his faults upon the stars, when as all indeed come from his own soul. And if a man be a penitent sinner and feel the grace of God: yet being weak in faith and con science, they make him not to put his whole trust in God, and to love him with all his soul, with all his strength but allure him in some part to attribute that unto the stars which is the only work of God and not of any creature. 2 They use to foretell what vices shall reign, as in these examples.