THE ENGLISH ORACLE: OR, A Late PROPHECY OF THE MISERIES that will happen this Next Year, 1679.  
By A. C.  
Licenced, and Entered according to Order.  
LONDON, Printed for W. M. at the Acorn in S. Paul's Churchyard: where you may be furnished with most sorts of Bound or Stitched Books, etc. 1679.   

THE ENGLISH ORACLE, etc.  
HIstory the only Office of Intelligence, whereat we inform ourselves of the Transactions of former Ages, amongst other things that it hands down to posterity, relates, that before that Alexander the Great left the world (his Conquest) some Astronomers of that Age observed a new Congeries of Stars so placed in the Heavens, that they made exactly these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, To day dies Alexander. Whether we keep good correspondence with Antiquity or no; or whether this may not be a lie dressed up in the specious term of authentic History, I shall not dispute, though I cannot but give some credit to it. For since that Providence made Bonfires at his Birth, lighting the vast Temple of Ephesus as a Flambeau to light Alexander into the World, and so made use of an earthly Comet as a Phosphorus to usher the Rising-Sun into our lower Hemisphere: what wonder that the Heavens should publish his death, seeing his victorious life had made him so great, that no Action of his could be sufficiently solemnised by any Prodigy of his Vassal the Earth. But whether Alexander's Fate was thus written in the Heavens, or no, 'tis certain that there are many sick-brained and Fop-Astrologers that are continually poring in the Skies, as if the Destiny of all Mortals were written there. They hunt among the Stars for Prophecies, and News for future Ages, as if the Firmament were but a great Volume, or vast Sheet of Paper, and the Stars an Alphabet, in such manner disposed, as if God Allmighty had written therein the Destiny of Kings and Kingdoms for these silly men to read through a Jacob's-Staff. 'Tis strange how presumptuously these men will pretend to be able to read God almighty's hardest Hand, and understand his Secrets written in his abstrusest Characters, by finding strange Hieroglyphic Sense in the Planets; whereas in reality their Intellect is so dazzled by much contemplating those bright Orbs, that at last they understand just nothing, like those that look so long at the Sun, that they look themselves blind; or rather, it fares with them as it did with the ancient Astronomers, who by continually gazing at the Heavens, at last gazed themselves into a belief that they saw strange Forms, as Centaurs, Bears and Scorpions, whereas to every sound eye there appears no more than an azure ground studded with a few Celestial Gems. These Night-Philosophers that have an Intellect as dark as the time they study in, and a Brain as cloudy as the foggy Region they look through, are still looking through Tubes and Optics, as if those silly Instruments could assist mortal sight to see into future Ages, and discern things as far distant as the end of time; they are continually peeping in the Moon and Stars, as if they were so many Looking-Glasses that did represent every action, motion and gesture of men below; and those not only present and past, but future too. And indeed they are so desirous of seeing something, that oftentimes they fancy that they see strange things in earnest, as the Downfall of Kingdoms, Subversion of Empires, Civil Wars, raging Plagues, and a thousand such airy Phantoms; like Children, who by long looking on the Clouds, frame to themselves Men on Horseback, Chariots drawn by Lions, Armies in Battle-array, and the like, which, those that stand by and hear them tell their Vision, know to be no more than the delusions of a weak sight, and a weaker Brain. But yet the curiosity of man (who seldom expects with patience the natural Birth of things, but is still best pleased when nature by some extraordinary means miscarries, and is brought to Bed of an abortive Issue, before she is half out of her Reckoning) receives almost every Dream for a Prophecy, although the ginger can foretell no more of the thing he prophesies about, than only that it either will be, or will not. As I detest the practices of these impostors, so I shall impose no such lies upon the world: for my Predictions shall appear as infallible as theirs uncertain, and as impossible to be false, as 'tis that the Sun should run counter, Rivers slide back into their Springs, and the Moon lose her way, and instead of travelling from East to West, wander in the unknown paths of the North. For I do not draw my Consequences (as others do) from between the Horns of the Moon, nor pretend to have seen what I foretell, written in the Forehead of Mercury, or Venus; nor do I deduce any thing from the dark sentences of our English Sibyl, Mother Shipton, or from the equivocal Writings of our modern Gypsie-Prophets, but from the unvariable tenor of Providence, immutable nature of things, and convincing Axioms of Ethick Philosophy.  
First therefore from these infallible Rules I draw that this following year 1679 will be infected with an universal Plague, a Disease which the Latins style morbus animi, and the English generally call Vice. This malignant Pest first began in the first year of the Creation of the Universe, and was brought into the world by the man that first received life, the protoplast Adam; and he got it from a surfeit. By eating too much of the fruit of Paradise he fell desperately sick of this Disease, and so infected his whole progeny; for the Fountain being once poisoned, the streams that run from it must needs be tainted: and this year this old Disease will be as rife as ever. No Country, Town, or Family will be free from its infection. You may go round London, as Diogenes went about Athens with a Lantern and Candle at Midnight, or Midday to seek for a sane man, and you find all either dangerously sick, or far gone of this Disease: nay, should one of the quick sighted Spirits of Heaven take the Moon in his hand for a Torch by night, and the Sun for a Light by day, and search the world in every corner, he would not find one single person free from all the symptoms of this Plague; the Species of which are infinite, and the effects various. For some it sieses with a desperate Melancholy, some with a choleric Frenzy, and some it turns all into proud flesh, and proud humours. Others it takes with a kind of a Dropsy, which the Moral Physician Seneca calls Avarice. This thirsty Disease and ravenous Distemper makes the greedy Patient still gape after precious Liquor; but the more he drinks the dryer he grows, and is never satisfied till he is choked, like Midas with liquid Gold. But with most this Epidemical Plague will turn to a malignant Fever, known to the Latin Doctors by the name of Lues Ven●rea. This lecherous Disease burns man quite up with the flames of Lust, and destroys the whole Fabric by firing it within, and rotting it without. Some of these are ashamed of their misfortune, and like the Egyptian Bird that buries her Excrement because she knows it noxious to other Beasts, conceal their Malady from the public eye, because they will not poison the whole Flock; but others glory in their condition, and publish their Distemper to the world, carrying their Leprosy with Ozias, in their very Foreheads; and to show that they have the malicious nature of those that are sick of the Plague, they endeavour to infect all they meet, esteeming themselves never worse than when they see others well, and so bear a malice equal to that of the Devil whose greatest Hell it is to see others in Heaven. I have said so much of this dreadful Pestilence, that I come later than I intended, to speak of the universal Slaughter that shall be committed upon all Sexes, and all Ages by that pale Monster which the Evangelist saw in the Apocalypse, armed with a sharp Sith, and mounted on a rawboned Horse, that went more swift than March Winds, or Summer Lightning. This merciless Tyrant, which the Greek Text calls Thanatos, and the English, Death, has been on Horseback some thousands of years, riding down through all Ages towards the end of time, and is now come within some few days of 79, and when he reaches it, he'll begin his Massacre from the very first moment of the year, and continue it to the last, upon men of all Degrees and Ages: he'll bear no respect to Nobility, no pity towards Youth or Beauty; the Rich shall find no Treasures to bribe him, the Stout no courage to resist him, the Eloquent no Rhetoric to move him, nor the Dextrous any Sleight to avoid his Stroke; for where he aims he hits, and where he hits he kills: no crowd of Clients shall defend the potent, no corner conceal the timorous, since the Mother's Womb shall not be able to hid her Infant from his Weapon. All this is nothing, compared to the Outrages and Villainies that shall be committed the same year. Young Virgins shall be deflowered almost in the very sight of their Parents, the Husband's sacred Bed-right shall be invaded, the Rich shall be designed upon by the needy, the abject trampled on by the proud, the poor shall starve at the prodigal's door, while the prodigals Dog eats from off the same Trencher, the lame and blind shall lie in the Streets as hoarse with begging, as if they had been bawling to the Clouds or Stars for an Alms, and yet shall have their Purses as empty, as if they had been begging from Marble Statues, and holding out their hands to Monuments of Brass.  
This, and much more shall happen, and if it fails, let the World cast the lie in my teeth in as opprobrious terms as it can, and let every understanding man tell me I prophesy no truer than a Poet, but let me tell you, if what I have foretold, happens not, you may expect that the next year the Heavens turn backwards, the Sun be blown out, the Rivers forget their way into the Sea, and run over the tops of Mountains, and all things put off their old nature, as Serpents do their cast-off Skins, and no longer remain the things they were.   
FINIS.  

There is lately Published a Catholic Pill to purge Popery, with a Preparatory Preface, obviating the growing Malignity of Popery against Catholic Christianity: By a true Son of the Catholic Apostolic Church. Useful for all private Families.