A42469:308
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.
This Interpretation therefore having no strength at all, either from the tenor of the context, or other passages of holy writ, cannot in reason be urged for ground of an argument. Nor again were it admitted, would it help Mr. S. or those whose Advocate he is. For what manner of argument will this be? God seals up the Stars, by keeping back the rain, from watering the earth: Ergò the Stars have a power to work upon the sons of men, to dispose them in their genitures, some to one vice, and some to another, to expose them to casualties of divers kinds, and to design them unto sundry sorts of ill ends. Would it not be, as they use to say, to reason a baculo ad angulum, from the cudgel to the corner? What can from hence be averred of the Stars, that may not as well thence be concluded of the clouds?
This Interpretation therefore having no strength at all, either from the tenor of the context, or other passages of holy writ, cannot in reason be urged for ground of an argument. Nor again were it admitted, would it help Mr. S. or those whose Advocate he is. For what manner of argument wil this be? God seals up the Stars, by keeping back the rain, from watering the earth: Ergò the Stars have a power to work upon the sons of men, to dispose them in their genitures, some to one vice, and some to another, to expose them to casualties of divers kinds, and to design them unto sundry sorts of ill ends. Would it not be, as they use to say, to reason a baculo ad angulum, from the cudgel to the corner? What can from hence be averred of the Stars, that may not as wel thence be concluded of the clouds?
And indeed this place of Job is just in the like manner abused, wronged and wrested by them to confirm their Astromancy, as is another in the same book to assert their Chiromancy or Palmistry, which Mr. L. so much magnifies, and of which Goclein (the prints of whose footsteps are in Mr. S. frequent) tells us, it hath great consent with Astrology, and the predictions of it are more firm then those of Astrology are. I rather believe both alike. The place alleged in defence of it, is Job 37.7. which Goclein reading according to the vicious Vulgar Latin thus renders; Qi signat in manu omnium hominum, ut singuli noverint opera sua. Who signeth in the hand of all men, that each one may know his works. Now howsoever Gocl. acknowledgeth that the place is diversly expounded as well by ancient as later Divines, (and that by those of them also who admit the Vulgar Version) especially, saith he, by those that set light by Chiromancy, (as if any Divine of note, old or new, Jew or Christian, Papist or Protestant, commenting on the Text made it look that way) yet if we look to the Original in the Holy tongue, as divers very