The life of S. Augustine. The first part: Written by himself in the first ten books of his Confessions faithfully translated.

CHAP. III.

Yet addicted to Astrology, and by a learned Physician disswa∣ded from it.

BUt on the other side those Planet-gazers, whom they stile Mathematicians, were freely and unscrupulous∣ly consulted by me; because, in their divination forsooth no sacrifice, no prayers, were made to any spirit; which art (notwithstanding) Christian and true piety, by con∣sequence renounces and condemns. For, since it is a good thing to confess unto thee O Lord; and to say; Have mer∣cy upon me, and heal my soul for I have sinned against thee, And then to take heed of not abusing the indulgency of thy forgiveness to a further licence of sinning; but to remember the saying of our Lord; Behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee. The whole life of this salutary advice they seek to destroy; when they say; The cause of thy sinning is from heaven, and inevitable, upon thee: And; this thing Venus caused; or Saturn; or Mars; That man (forsooth) might be without fault; Man, flesh and blood, and proud putre∣faction; and blameable the Creator, and wise disposer of the heavens and of the Stars And who is this but our God; but the sweetness, and the fountain of all Justice? by whom shall be rendred to every man a••cording to his work; yet an humble and contrite heart, with him, shall not be despised.

There was at that time a sharp-witted man, very ex∣pert in the Art of Physick, and one of the noblest of that profession; who, being then Proconsul, with his own hand set the Agonistical Garland upon my sick head; but not as its Physician. For that disease which it then had, 'tis thou only that curest; thou; who resistest the proud, and givest thy grace unto the humble. Yet also by this old Man thou wert not altogether deficient unto me; nor didst forbear to administer Physick unto my soul. For, afterward grown well-acquainted with him, and daily af∣fectionately frequenting his discourse (which was grave and delightsome for vivacity of the sence, though without much ornament of words) when he had perceived by my talk, that I was much addicted to the books of Nativity-ca∣sters, he kindly and fatherly advised me, to throw them a∣way,

and not idly to bestow my care and pains, useful for more necessary studies, upon those fruitless vanities. Telling me, that himself in his yonger years had so studied them, that he intended wholly to have owed his maintenance to that profession; & that he, who well understood Hippocra∣tes, surely was not uncapable of that kind of learning; yet that afterward, quitting it, he had betaken himself to Phy∣sick, only out of a discovery of the falsity thereof; and so, an unwillingness to sustain himself by deceits and cheating: But you, said he, have the profession of Rhetorick, where∣by to subsist; and do pursue this fallacious study, not out of necessity, but choice; by how much the more you ought in this point to give me credit; who endeavoured to attain perfection in it, with design to get my living by it.

Of whom I demanded what then was the reason, that so many things by this art were so truly foretold? He answered as he could, being no Christian, that this was done by the power of a soveraign chance, every where diffused through the whole body of nature. For if out of a page of a poet dipt-into at hap-hazard, a verse often appears strangly conso∣nant to our present business; whereas the poets device and intention was farr different, 'tis less to be admired (said he) if out of the soul of a man, from a superior instinct (it self being nothing conscious thereof) by hap, not art, something is delivered which closely sutes to the condition and affairs of the enquirer.—And so much that man, or thou by his in∣strumency, conveyedst unto me; and registredst in my me∣mory what I should afterward by my self further examine. But as then, neither he, nor my dearest Nebridius (a youth excellently good, and singularly cautious, deriding all this kind of Divination) could perswade me to desert these stu∣dies; swayed as yet more by those Authors, than by these mens, authority; and discovering no demonstration certain (such as I sought for) whereby it might, without all ambi∣guity, appear to me, that the things that were by these men (when consulted) truly foretold, were answered by hap-hazard and chance, and not by the art of the Astrologer.

Notes

• Psal. 41.••
• Jo. 5.14.
• Mat. 16. Psal. 51.