A discourse concerning prodigies: wherein the vanity of presages by them is reprehended. And their true and proper ends asserted and vindicated / By John Spencer, B.D.

  • John Spencer
Date:
1663
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse concerning prodigies: wherein the vanity of presages by them is reprehended. And their true and proper ends asserted and vindicated / By John Spencer, B.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    106/150 (page 84)
    $4 To <&>?:• ptov ^[xctvice- cf\s (J.duf]djV- vdw ttdAAbjj Gray iV'teyjlQ- yj 'd'V^t) y{uc- >y vw^a- &C. Plut-de. def. Orac. Remedies againjt Prodigies Signal. Chap. 5, the Worlds that it hath beenfo prone in all times to receive pretended divination and preicience> with more facred regards then laws and wife men ; and yet at the fame time hive given the glory of the gift thereof to the Weakeft underflandings. Madmen, Ferfons transported, by the heats oj afeaver* their prophets when in a fury j Star-gazers, Fortune¬ tellers, Women, (for fuch were the Sibylline Oracles deliver’d by) critical obfervers of omens andprodigies> perfons that declaim hotly againjt fwhat they underftand not) humane learning, and fuch as (like old men) fee and know leal! of things near and prefent, have been often thought to fee things at fome diftance and in futurity, molt exactly anddiftin&ly. But we {hall finde God in Scripture fo far fecuring the honour of true Divination, as to confer the gift thereof (generally) upon mem and thofe of a pious and learned education^ and all the ftiadows thereof which may be yet found in the world Solomon tells us dwell in a wife and underftanding Soul [Prov. 22.3. A prudent man fore¬ teeth the evil, and hideth htmfelf j and that not by confulting of Pro¬ digies, but obferving the feeds and caufes in which it lies hid.] As all other gifts and abilities, once miraculous and extra ordinary ^ thofe of healing, of [peaking with tongues% of interpreting the Scripturesj of dif- cerning of Spirits* fo this alfo of forefeeing events future (io far as they remain yet in the worlds are referv’d folely as the reward and honour of the diligent, obfervant, and underftanding perfon. To difmifsthis particular: Times and Seafons are efpecially referv d in Gods power, and ’tis our wifdom to ftudy rather how We may redeem the prefent time* then underftand the future. As for that threed-bare Argument therefore (Signs of future times) I could wifti it might be worn no longer in writings and difeourfes, not onely be- caufe things Chew of colour, but according to the light men ftand im but becaufe the men whom they are deligned to deterr from any courfeoffin, ftartatthem poflibly at firft, fas birds doe at the ima¬ ges of a man in the fields) but afterward fit down upon them and negleftthem, perceiving (in the iflue of thingsj that they are de- voyd of [life and motion] truth and certainty: and fo thefe falle fears in religion may chance to diferedit the true, as the adventitious heat in bodies oft-tfinesfiipplants and betrays the natural: befides, all fuch figns of times doe but tender the fhort and narrow thoughts of man, as the ftandard of Gods: and tend to detain peoplealways in a gazing and expecting pofture, fo that they compofe not to the work and duty of the day. And to encourage ralh and unwarranta¬ ble purpofes, and therefore perhaps the wifdom of the State may in time fee reafon to interdict the publication of prodigies and Aftro- logical predictions, under as fevere a penalty as it hath old prophe¬ cies 3 all being but the ignesfatui leading to the boggsof feditiom byamuzingmenwitha falfe light, (the pretended knowledge of the figns and ftate of future times.)