A brief answer to six syllogistical arguments brought by Mr. Clark, minister of Bennet-Finck, London: against astrologers, and astrologie.

Gassendus's Arguments Against ASTROLOGIE, answered.

PAge 66. How many Apertiones Porta∣rum, not onely in every year, but also in every week, nay, day? O foelicem Ar∣tem si desa Soli judicarent artificus! But here Mounsieur Gassendus his Epianogass Caudo Charl. Translators shewed they were none; and not onely ignorant of the Nature, but of the time and terms of things. They knew neither what Apertiones Portarum were, nor when they happen: they do certainly appre∣hend there are Flood-gates and Sluces in Heaven, from whence water is poured down by Buckets full. Thus those that say Astrologers Axiomes are Arbitrary and Imaginary, that there are no such things in Nature as Aspects, do imagine

the vainest Phantosmes and Chimaera's in the world; for I would fain know of them, what Apertiones Portarum those are every day: but they cannot tell. In∣deed, the Astrologers tell us, what A∣pertiones Portarum are; the Geometer al Positions or Distances of those Planets whose Houses are opposite, which are not so frequent as they imagine: for be∣sides those of the Moon and Saturn, sometimes there happen none six weeks or two moneths together; and then those of the prodigious or superiour Planets, are more powerful to operate on these Terrestrial Bodies; but those of the inferiour, less considerable, as ex∣perience doth sufficiently testifie to any, but those that are not to be perswaded, though they are convinced; and though they see, will not understand.

I think no man can be so unreason∣able, as to suppose that any one will be so irrational, as to justifie all the Pleas of Astrologers, that many times might accept (like Gassendus) of some things to be Causes, that are not so; and Gassendus himself, or his learned Translator and Transcriber, who desire that their Cock∣brain'd

Disciples should always Jurare in Verba Magistra, and justifie their ri∣diculous impertinences in all the idle follies of this Book, and others of their Philosophy. — But to answer his Question by another: (Why Mars should not rather repress and abate, then extimu∣late and highten Watry Influence of the Pleiades; and the Moon, Mercury and Ve∣nus, rather excite and encrease it?) We demand why Water poured into Water, and Fire put into Fire, do not produce more dissentaneous effects, then each o∣ther confronted with its Antagonists? or because Gassendus his Ape is perhaps a more famous Physitian then a Philoso∣pher, having been Leech, as he professes, to the late King (which he may as law∣fully pretend to, as any quacking Chirur∣geon that followed any of his ragged Re∣giments) we ask why twenty Grains of Diagredium does not restrain a Diar∣rhaea, more then Milk, being hot and dry, the other cool and moist? So I see no reason why Mars may not cause Showres by Antipathy and Dissimilitude of Natures, being in Conjunction with the Pleiades, & yet not lose his own Ver∣tue

of heat; for we see, if he meet with any considerable Aspect at that time, he produces often Thunder, Lightning and Rain, an effect of both Natures: for great Mutations and Disturbances of the Air, may as well be caused by Antipathy as Sympathy; and Mars may as well cause Rain as Saturn, though not upon the same reason, as well as a Flux proceed from Choler as Flegme; or why his Worship hath given a Purge, that works more then his little prescience could foresee, or perhaps his prescription pre∣vent.

But whereas he talks, That there is variety of weather upon the same Aspects in England and France: I answer, That the Stars operate in every Country ac∣cording to the variety and Nature of the Clymate; for the same effect is not like to proceed from the Conjunction of Saturn and Sol in Aegypt, that does in England; for to predict Rain there, where is but little or seldom any, (from the Nature of the Solum as well as Coe∣lum) were ridiculous: but where there is Conjunction of Saturn & Sol, and great store of Rain in England, I aver that it

shall be colder in Egypt, much more then ordinary, at the same time; and so in e∣very Country, according to its Nature, the Planets have their effects, accord∣ing to that not more trite then true say∣ing, The Sun hardens Clay, and softens Wax.

Pag. 126. But to shew more and more his skill, or rather his ignorance in Astro∣logie, he goes on, and says, Nor are we to say such an Infant was born infected with a foul and contageous Disease, because the sixth house was his Horoscope, but because his Mothers lower house was impure and infectious.

Is this the famous Gassendus! the Scribbler of those Voluminous Atomes! how many impertinences are those Vo∣lumns stuffed with, when these few Pages are nothing else but a Dunghil of those Vanities that he hath raked up to throw in the Faces of the Astrologers, and the wind blows back into his own. Is this that famous Astronomer, that pretends to have made so many Obser∣vations? this very passage shews his ig∣norance and impudence, and makes it apparent to all men, that he is but a

meer Impostor, and goes about to delude the world with the opinion of his gene∣ral learning, and great skill in Astrono∣my; when as it is more clear then the light of those glorious bodies, (whose Vertue he would obscure) that he under∣stands nothing in that Divine Study, but that by some chance he stumbled upon those Observations he hath published to the world as his own: for could any man that understands the Astronomy of the Primum Mobile, or indeed sence, say, That the sixth house was the Horo∣scope? Where is the Sagacity of the Probastical Translator, that leaves out, and puts in what he pleases? VVas it possible that thou couldest be trap∣pan'd by Gassendus, in these Fooleries? couldst thou be over-reached by one in thine own Trade? but the truth is, there was nothing (next to their ignorance) that brought in this gross conceit, but onely that witty quibbling (as they thought it) upon the Houses, The sixth House and the lower House; and it was a witty one indeed, and well became the mouth of a Church-man, and the Ob∣scenity of such an Epicure, as the person

of Quality. But to help the lame Dog over the stile, we will suppose they mean as they say, that the Stars are not causes of the Contagious Disease of a Child, nor of their ill or good Disposition; but the Complexion of their seed, their diet and course of life, &c. But if that were the cause, why are many Children pollu∣ted and sickly, whose Parents are very sound; and many Children are very healthful and strong, whose Parents are sickly? And of this there are examples in every Family. If these things were true, that Children were like their Pa∣rents, why was not Rehoboam as wise as Solomon; Hezekiah as wicked as Ahaz, or Manasseh as righteous as his Father? Was ever a more licentious Prince then K. Harry, or a more vertuous then his Son K. Edward? But it is consen∣taneous with the Doctrine of Epicuro Gassendus, to ascribe more to good Chear, then to the Stars; and to the pleasing of his Palate, then unto the Heavens. Now I see whence persons of quality proceed, from a polluted lower house, which makes a corrupted upper house; and that vents all these rotten Reasons: but

yet we deny not but that many times the Child is like the Parents: which pro∣ceeds from the similitude and harmony of Genitures, and not from the dyet. Al∣so, that the Mothers lower house adds much thereunto, provided it is like Ma∣dam Youngs, alias Madissons, Sir Pauls Ladies, Madam Drunkards, all the Trans∣lators Friends and Acquaintance.

But that you may see the Reasons of the rottenness of Gassendus his upper house and lower house, I will adjoyn his Geniture, given from himself to Mori∣nus.

Here you may see the Malignant Pla∣nets Saturn and Mars, have the chief Dominion in his Scheme; Saturn is the Lord of his Horoscope, (considering his Latitude, falling into the sixth house, though the sixth house be not his Horo∣scope) Peregrine, Retrograde, in his De∣triment, and unfortunate in Cancer; which made his Lungs much oppressed with Phlegme rotten and corrupt, of an ill habit of body, very sickly, subject to Catarrhes, &c. That for manners, Saturn in Quartile with Mars, both in the same Aspect with the Ascendent, made

him of an evil disposition; envious, sus∣pitious, revengeful; angry, peevish, con∣tentious, in jurious, frandulent; a Lyar, a Calumniator, an Impostor; covetous; a Robber of other Mens Honour; a false Friend; a pirfidious Traytor; a notorious Hypocrite; an Atheist; and to say no worse of him than he does of Mr. Des Cartes, though unjustly, a Toad swelled with Pride and mali∣cious Venome, as you may see in that Book against de Cartes, and others of his Works.

As he had Mercury in Sextile to Mars, and the house of Saturn; so had he a wit apt enough for mischiefs, quarrels and contentions; sharp in disputations: as in Quartile to the Moon, so was it turbulent enough; and had Mercury not applyed to a Sextile of Jupiter also, he had been so ill natured, that he had not been sociable: but that good Aspect gave him so much wit, as hypocritically to dissemble it, and cloak it under Zeal to Religion, and make that seem the se∣verity of his Devotion, that was the mo∣roseness of his Nature.

But if we go further, we shall finde it

agree with the Accidents of his life, as well as his Disposition.

About the time the Medium Coeli was directed to the Sextile of the Moon, we finde he had a Journey into Holland.

When the Sun was directed to the Trine of Jupiter, he was made Praepositus Diniensis; where for the most part he was non-Resident.

During the effects of the Sun to the Trine of Venus, and the Mid-heaven to Venus, he was made Mathematical Pro∣fessor. Upon the Direction of the Moon to the Quartile of Mars, he had an In∣flammation of the Lungs. Which also returned upon him again, when the Horo∣scope was directed to the body of ♂, and after to the Quartile of ♄; which pro∣duced a Consumption: in which Disease his Physitians (just such as his Transla∣tor) being over-free of his blood, at threescore and three, brought him to that excessive weakness, that he never reco∣vered, and dyed whining, that his too much obsequiousness to their prescripti∣ons, had snatcht him out of the world in viridi senectute. Take his Friend Bo∣rellus Relation, and his own words, Obs.

xi. Cent. 3. Possem hic viri semper lugendi mortem dolorosam toti Europae, imo mun∣do recensere, nimio illo remedio, sanguineo, & verba ab ejus ore deprompta referre quibus ante obitum fassus est se nimio ob∣sequio periisse, & cum heroe suo ad inferos cum viridi adhuc & stante senectute descendisse: by which you may perceive, that though a Church-man, he was very unwilling to leave this Terrestrial Para∣dise for one that was uncertain: And by his words indeed, I do not find he had much hopes of it.

Another thing I must desire you take notice of, that it is as possible to be kill'd as dead with a Launcet as a Poniard; and that he had some signification of vio∣lence in his Nativity: for the Lord of his Ascendent is in Quartile to Mars, and both behold the Ascendent with e∣vil Aspect: and whoever hath that Po∣sition, I advise him to beware of such a Physitian as Mr. Doctor.

FINIS.