A42469:207
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.
For, (to let pas that our Wizards themselves forbear not the term of Fate) if we shall take the word Fate, or▪ Fatum, in a large ⟨p. 104⟩sense, according to the Latin notation of the word. Fatum à fando; Qid aliud est Fatum, qam qod de unoqoqe nostrum fatus est Deus?1 saith Minutius in Octavio. What is Fate else, but what God hath spoken concerning every one of us? whence one of our own Poets; Fatur, & est fatum. What God speaks, is Fate. And do not our Wizards hold, and these also their Patrons, that God by these Eclipses, Conjunctions and Aspects speaks to us, and foretells us such sad and dismal matters, as they affirm them to portend?2 So Mr. Lily, in his Black-Book; When any memorable Eclipse happens in Aries, God acquaints us with what good or evil he intends us near upon those times. And in his New Diurnal, such and such Conjunctions and Eclipses, are styled Messengers of Gods wrath. 3Nor doth Mr. Swan herein desert his Client, where out of an unnamed Author he tells us, that God speaks with men, not with tongues of men only, 4by Prophets and Apostles and Teachers; but sometimes also by the very Elements composed and wrought into divers forms and shapes: and thence infers; If by the Elements, then by the stars and lights. 5in such manner, ye must believe, as his Clients inform him; to wit, by their Motions, Configurations, Conjunctions, Aspects, Eclipser, &c. As ye heard him of late before, and this he proves from Psalm. 19.1, 3. of which also more hereafter. So that what these Wizards tell us, as his Client Mr. Lily of himself, that he reads all his predictions in the Book of the Heavens, is not Astrology as we commonly have taken it, a company of dull-pated dunces, that is, [Greek or Hebrew], a consideration or discourse, or doctrine concerning the stars; but it is [Greek or Hebrew], the speech or language of the stars;