If the precedents have been moderate in their censure; others have been more severe in delivering their opinion, accusing him to have kept acquaintance with the Devil, as the Negromancers and other Prestigiators of the ancient times did.
The reason that made them think so is, that seeing so many things come to pass, just as the Author had foretold; they could not attribute it to the knowledge of judicial Astrology, nor to Divine Revelation, and consequently concluded, that it must of necessity come from Satan.
They could not attribute it to judicial Astrology, either because they had no opinion of it, or that the greatest defensors of that Astrology do agree among themselves, that it cannot reach so far as to foretell a thousand peculiar circumstances, which depend purely from the freedom of Men, such as proper names are, and the like, which nevertheless our Author did foretell.
They could neither attribute it to Divine Revelation, for the reasons alledged in the first objection; moreover, because he was accused of a thousand falsities and fopperies, Printed in those Almanacks that went falsly under his name, whence they concluded that it could not come by Divine Revelation, seeing that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth.
It followeth then (say they) that it must come from the Devil, by the help of the Black Art; the Lord Florimond de Raimond a very considerable Author, was of that opinion in his Book of the Birth of Heresies, Chap. 3.
CHAP. V.
The fourth Objection maketh him the Head of those Seductors and Impostors, which are dangerous in a Common-wealth.
As Fame doth increase by continuation of time, so doth calumny increase by the multiplicity of opinions, she was not contented to deflour slightly the Authors reputation, by making him pass for some sottish Dreamer, and to rank him amongst the false Prophets, by accusing him to meddle with the black Art, but must needs also sacrifice him to the infernal Furies, by making him the Prince of Seductors and Impostors, that ought to be banished out of every Common-wealth. The fondamental reason of this was the obscurity of his Stanza’s, where there was neither rime nor reason; the obscurity did proceed of abundance of gross faults, which the Copisters and Printers have inserted in them, from the omission of several words, from the changing and altering of others, and from the addition of some others, which did destroy the sense.
From this great obscurity, calumny draweth this argument, to ruine utterly the Author, charging him to be all at once a false Prophet, a dotish Dreamer, a Magician, and an infamous Seductor of people.
If God had inspired him what he hath written, he would have done it for the good of his Church and true Believers, seeing he never granteth this Prophetical Grace to any, but to that end as it appeareth in the Holy Scriptures.
This being so, what profit can any body draw from him, if the sense of his Stanza’s be so obscure, as not to be understood? and although it should be granted, that some accidents that have happened in Christendom, may sometimes be found in his Prophecies, what fruit hath the Church reaped of it, seeing that those accidents that were foretold, were never known, till they had come to pass, and that there was no avoiding of them?