Astro-meteorologica, or, Aphorisms and discourses of the bodies cœlestial, their natures and influences discovered from the variety of the alterations of the air ... and other secrets of nature / collected from the observation at leisure times, of above thirty years, by J. Goad.

CHAP. IV.

A certain Prescience attainable. Prognosticks vulgar. The Husbandman's Prognosticks.

§ 1. AS it is the Goodness of God to vouchsafe us Natural Prognosticks of Con∣stitutions, ordinary, and violent; so hath he pleased not to deny a more Noble Artificial Prognostick of the same.

§ 2. For though no finite Knowledge can be comprehensive of an Effect, great, or small, in every minute Intrigue of Nature, or Providence; yet so certainly hath God suspended the Constitutions of the Air upon the Heavens, that we must assert, there is more than a Conjectural fore-knowledge of the changes of the Air by Day, or Night, attainable upon Contemplation of Causes Celestial, and that without Va∣nity and Superstition, or the least shadow of either; rather attended with a pleropho∣ry of cogent Demonstration.

§ 3. This Kowledge may be exercised in fore-pronouncing the vicissitudes of the Constitution, yea and of the Winds also, I had almost said to an Hour.

§ 4. The same Knowledge may reach to the Perception of Comets, Earth-quakes, and Pestilences, as having all unquestionable dependance on the Heavenly Bodies, though these three last deserve Treatises by themselves.

§ 5. Prognosticks of Husbandmen, and others, from Birds and Beasts, before mentioned, as they are useful and delightful, so they do not supersede our Inquisition, seeing they pronounce from Arguments extrinsecal, Effects or Signs, and not from Causes.

§ 6. Prognosticks from Apparences in the Air, from the Halo, Iris, colours of the Sun-rising, &c. Clouds, and their differences, prognosticks from the Moon at three dayes old, from fiery Trajections, as they are not to be neglected, because of some ac∣cidental Connexion; so they ought not to be trusted upon their single report: yet some are more special, as fiery Trajections, when frequent 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, shooting of the Stars, Ptol. II. 14. do usually speak some Tempest at hand; or if not, excess of Heat.

§ 7. The Comet also signifieth infallibly some Excess, and that lasting; but whether that prove as to Wind, or Drought, or Wet, they do not determine; that Determination belongeth to no one Apparence.

§ 8. Nay Comets many times have nothing to do with Prognosticks, being a sign of Wet, or Drought, or Wind, and that a consequent sign, teaching us to look backward only on the antecedent past Excess.

§ 9. Vulgar Prognosticks, and those Other of a genuine Astrology, i. e. Art, and Experience, stand not on even Ground; for they reach only Constitutions imme∣diately subsequent, pronounce for to morrow, or next day: the Other pronounces at distance, at a large prospect, and that, if need be, concerning a whole Season. The most sagacious Birds can give no certain aim at a whole Winters Constitution, come they, or go they sooner or later. They come upon a natural Presumption of the Regularity of the Season, in which the Poor things are sometimes deceived; as Pliny quotes the year, where an After-winter destroy'd many: but the Theory of Art foretells both the irregular Interruptions of a Season, with the Restitutions, and that many Cycles of Years before the Arrival.

§ 10. Prognosis Astrological that is genuine, floteth not on uncertain Principles, but knoweth whereupon it ought to fix.

§ 11. Tempestatam, rerúmque quasdam statas esse causas manifestum est. Plin. II. 39. This is the Principle on which it fixeth: for certainly the Annual Revolu∣tion, or recurrence of the same Constitution, or Inclination thereto, doth uncontrol∣lably evince some Fixed Cause, which maketh the same Revolution to meet with the Effect.

§ 12. Wherefore to all Noble Prognostick, Experience must be premised, Ob∣servation being laid up in store for some years before hand, of the daily, and some∣times hourly Alterations.