A42469:295
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.
Yea, but the Effects of this Eclipse, whether they lighted so upon Pericles or no, brought misery upon Athens, and calamity by a long and grievous War to all Greece.
Yea, but the Effects of this Eclipse, whether they lighted so upon Pericles or no, brought miserie upon Athens, and calamitie by a long and grievous War to all Greece.
Of the Original of that war we have said somewhat before; & showed that it was on foot before that Eclipse, having ben also some good space of time in brewing and breeding ere it brake out, as Thucydides declares at large throughout his whole first Book, the Preface introductory to it only excepted. Nor was Thucydides so silly as these men would make him, as to ascribe either the War it self, or the continuance thereof unto such occurrents as were but the concomitants thereof. Yea suppose we, that that violent earthquake, and that terrible Eclipse, had both fallen out before that war was begun. as it had ben absurd to say of such an Earthquake, or of any Earthquake whatsoever, that it had by an innate efficacy produced that War that then ensued; or that any earthquake hath an inbred faculty, by virtue whereof it is able to produce Wars, as drought doth dearth, yea and necessarily in the course of nature so doth: In like manner is it no less absurd for any man to attribute the like efficacy to that, or to any other Eclipse, unless he be able to render some reason as well for the one as for the other. And he that shall consider the occurrences of those times, as they concern the Athenian State, looking on them, not with an Astrological, but a Theological eye, as it behooved Mr. S. to have done; when he shall have read in Thucydides, an eye witness of what he wrote, how far that heavy visitation, that seized on them at Athens, and from thence overspread their whole Country, not much afflicting any other part of Greece, a strange contagious disease never known the like before, that weakened them more then the war it self had done; how far, I say, it had ben from working any good upon them,1 that the greatest part among them took occasion thereby to break forth into all manner of wickedness, looseness, and licentiousness, spoiling of others, and rioting with what they gat from others, without fear of divine vengeance or legal penalties: