October 1483⸻when the moon was in the twelfth house, Jupiter , Mars , and Venus in the third, the Sun , Saturn , and Mercury , all got together in the fourth—that he must in course, and unavoidably, be a damn’d man—and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be damn’d doctrines too.
By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio (in reading this my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, which the Arabians allotted to religion—it appeared that Martin Luther did not care one stiver about the matter⸻and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars —they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blaspheming⸺with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) sailed before the wind, in the lake of hellfire.
The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born Oct. 22, 83, which was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner—inasmuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben in the county of Mansfelt , that Luther was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the 22nd day of October , but on the 10th of November , the eve of Martinmas day, from whence he had the name of Martin .
[⸺I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess of Quedlingberg ⸺It is to tell the reader, that my father never read this passage of Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby , but with triumph⸻not over my uncle Toby , for he never opposed him in it⸺but over the whole world.
—Now you see, brother Toby , he would say, looking up, “that christian names are not such indifferent things;”⸻had Luther here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d