A30241:1863
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, or, Christs prayer before his passion explicated, and both practically and polemically improved by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1 If the Heavens were true and proper causes or necessary Signs, yet no man could prognostic certainly by them, because no man knoweth the number of the Stars, nor the virtue and efficacy of them; The Scripture giveth it as peculiar to God, that he only knoweth the Stars, and calls them by their Names, but if any man could certainly divine by them, he must know both the number of the Stars, and their peculiar activity or influence, and the degree of that activity, without which they may grossly err:
1 If the Heavens were true and proper causes or necessary Signs, yet no man could prognostique certainly by them, because no man knoweth the number of the Stars, nor the vertue and efficacy of them; The Scripture giveth it as peculiar to God, that he only knoweth the Stars, and cals them by their Names, but if any man could certainly divine by them, he must know both the number of the Stars, and their peculiar activity or influence, and the degree of that activity, without which they may grosly erre:
Again, If the Heavens be causes they are only Universal Causes, now from an Universal indeterminate cause there cannot be any special particular effect foretold; For besides Universal Causes, all particular interior Causes, which are many and uncertain, must be known also.
Again, If the Heavens be causes they are only Universal Causes, now from an Ʋniversal indeterminate cause there cannot be any special particular effect foretold; For besides Universal Causes, all particular interiour Causes, which are many and uncertain, must be known also.
Lastly, This would bring a Contempt of God, and mere Atheism into the world; The Scripture carrieth us out to God in all things, to his Wisdom, to his Power, to his Justice, but these would bind us to the Planets, yea, by these means the Scripture also will be despised and laid aside, so that all profaneness will thereby be introduced, yea, and excuses for all Vice will be pleaded how could they help it? Seeing they were born under such a Star, as Austin reports of an Astrologer handsomely reproved by his Servant, He had a Servant that stole from him, and this Astrologer his Master going to correct him, he crieth out, I could not help it, I was born under Mercury (They say, those born under that Planet are given to stealing;)