A42469:104
Thomas Gataker B.D. his vindication of the annotations by him published upon these words,…
Thomas Gataker B.D. his vindication of the annotations by him published upon these words, Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them, Jer. 10. 2 against the scurrilous aspersions of that grand impostor Mr. William Lillie : as also against the various expositions of two of his advocates, Mr. John Swan, and another by him cited, but not named : together with the annotations themselves : wherein the pretended grounds of judiciary astrology, and the Scripture-proofs produced for it are discussed and refuted.Thomas Gataker B.D. his vindication of the annotations by him published upon these words, Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signes of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them, Jer. 10. 2 against the scurrilous aspersions of that grand imposter Mr. William Lillie : as also against the various expositions of two of his advocates, Mr. John Swan, and another by him cited, but not named : together with the annotations themselvs : wherein the pretended grounds of judiciary astrologie, and the Scripture-proofes produced for it are discussed and refuted.
London: printed by J.L. for Richard Thrayle, 1653
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.
To these of Dio and Miltas, we shall subjoin another Story, that doth yet more fully lay open the wicked slight of these Wizards, against their own conscience concealing the truth, and devising fables and fictions to delude people withal at their pleasure, as in that Miltas in part appeared. The very night before Alexander was to join battle with Darius, about the first watch fell out a Lunar Eclipse ▪ this struck a great terror into Alexander's Soldiers. Hereupon he sends for those of his Egyptian Wizards, whom he deemed most skilful in the Sidereal science. 1Now they, saith Curtius mine Author, tho they knew well enough, that the celestial orbs and bodies kept constantly their set courses, and that the Moon fails of her light, when she is surprised with the shadow of the Earth lightning full upon her from the Sun being in direct opposition unto her; Yet the reason hereof so well known unto them, they would not have the common people made acquainted with; that would make them, understanding that it came in a natural course only, to have their art in less repute of foretelling future events by it; but as the Persian Magicians had before told Xerxes marching against Greece upon a Solar Eclipse, 2that the Persians were under the Moon, the Greeks under the Sun; and the Eclipse of the Sun therefore did foreshow the defection of the Greeks Cities and States to him; so these Egyptian Wizards tell Alexander, that the Sun was the ⟨p. 49⟩Greeks, and the Moon the Persians Star; and the Moon eclipsed therefore did foreshow some great overthrow and slaughter of that Nation; withal telling many Stories of great defeats that had befallen the Persian forces upon such Eclipses▪ and this being divulged abroad in the Camp, put a great deal of life and courage again into Alexander's Soldiers, that were before much damped and even dead on the nest. And tho Alexander himself, as having learned it from his Master Aristotle, might understand as much concerning the general nature of Eclipses, as those Egyptian Wizards knew; yet was he as willing to entertain these their frivolous fancies so well fitted to his affairs, as the tale of Jupiters companying with his mother Olympias in the similitude of a Serpent;