forth Mazzaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arctiorus with his sons Knowest thou the Ordinances of heaven canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth In Arithmetick who can number the clouds in wisdom In Natural History knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth c. God will have some things in Nature unsearchable to hide pride from man and to discover himself to him for it must needs be presumed that all these mysteries came forth from and are comprehended by some First Mind and mighty Wisdom We are urg'd next with the words of the Prophet Ioel. chap. 2. 30 31. I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the Earth bloud and fire and pillars of smoak The sun shall be turned into darkness and the â—oon into bloud before the great and terrible day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is near the Sun and the Moon shall be darkned and the Stars shall withâ—raw their shineing From which words those Act. 2. 19 20. are borrowed To which may be added because of a likeness of expression that place Luk. 21. 25 26. And there shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon upon Earth distress of Nations with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken In which former scripture by the Day of the Lord we are to understand some special day of vengeance it being usual in sacred Writ as some of the Hebrew Doctours observe to intitle days eminent for any unusual expressions of Divine favour or displeasure Days of the Lord whereas we find this day prefac'd and foretold by such prodigious occurrences as easily resolve themselves into causes natural I answer First Learned expositors generally understand those places not in any literal sense but receive them all as so many prophetical schemes of speech instances whereof are of most familiar occurrence in the Prophets expressive of some wonderfull evils shortly to afflict the world as they do also on the contrary the promises of a new heaven and a new earth the increase of the light of the sun and of the moon c. but as so many figurative expressions of some white and gladsom days shortly to succeed Particularly the learned Grotius is so secure of a figurative sense of such places that he tells us they are never to be expounded in all scripture to any other And indeed should we expound them literally we should soon honour the falls of great men or destruction of cities with greater or as great wonders as attended the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour Besides what Histories ever mention any such astonishing alterations in the frame of Nature as the literal sense of these places would introduce a faith of Now the Prophets chose thus to deliver themselves for some or all of these Reasons 1. Because it was the custom of the Eastern Nations to describe great and mighty storms and troubles in a state in such phrases as these the darkning of the heavens falling of the stars shaking of the earth flying away of the Mountains c. 2. Because these being the most remarkable and glorious bodies in the world terrible alterations in them seem the most proper representatives of mighty changes and alterations in kingdoms 3. Because the terrible judgements of God upon the Babylonians Egyptians Iews and obstinate Gentiles set forth in such expressions were but supremi judicii specimina little images and types of the last and dreadfull judgement and therefore not unfitly character'd by the terrours and horrours which shall usher that last and great Day 4. Because these are expressions mighty and vehement and so very expressive of and sutable unto that hot and vigorous impression which the Spirit of Prophecy made upon the minds and imaginations of those holy men which were acted by it 5. Because that anxiety and perplexity of mind which should attend the plagues coming on men should be as great almost as if they saw the eye of heaven the sun put out and the earth to tremble under them c. Now in this figurative sense the words were accomplished in their first and original intention when that great misery was brought upon the earth by Nabuchodonosor and they receiv'd a further degree of accomplishment as S. Peter intimates Act. 2. 19. under the Romanes when the land which was but shaven before by Gods hired Razor had an utter baldness brought upon it to use the expression of the Prophet and it shall have its fulfilling in the outmost latitude of its sense at the day of judgment of which some Interpreters solely understand it Propecies have their Gradus Scalus compleâ—enti as the Lord Bacon speaks the last day only is that true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fulness of time wherein they shall be completely fulfilled God often draws similar and parallel lines of confusion over different times and places whips many stubborn children with the same rod and therefore prophesies of the same vengeance may have their repeated accomplishments Secondly Some learned men understand in these places a real and literal darkning of these great bodies of light though arising not from any common and natural but an extraordinary and supernatural cause The reasons of which exposition I shall remit to their proper place which if they appear satisfactory nothing can be thence concluded in favour of presages by these Prodigies which are but some more unusual effects lying hid in the powers of natural Agents and sometimes exerting themselves There is one place of Scripture more which may seem to some to require perhaps to refuse an answer viz. that Luke 21. 11. where our Blessed Saviour foretelling that large line of confusion to be stretched out upon the Holy City and whole nation of the Jews as as a precedent signe thereof tells his Disciples Great earthquakes shall be in divers places and famines and pestilences c. now earthquakes have been numbred with Prodigies natural I answer First When God hath once sealed them by his sanction and institution Prodigies natural may be regarded as the signs of events arbitrary and supernatural Gods bow without a string in the heavens is to us a signe that the world need never fear perishing by any such fatal arrow as once was shot out of the clouds A universal deluge although it be owing to a natural and necessary cause as being by Gods institution advanc'd to the dignity of a signe of grace and favour Thus when God had told the people that as an expression of his great displeasure against them for asking of a king He would send thunder and rain things in themselves natural except it be said that the peculiar condition of that season and climate made them approach to a miracle it was a religious fear with which the people
not happen some terrible Vulcanos and fiery eruptions we should not awaken into a sense of that mighty Power which keeps all that natural tinder in the bowels of the earth from catching fire before its appointed time Did there not new springs break forth sometimes from the usually driest breasts of our common Mother deserts and wildernesses we could not with the Psalmist adore the power of God discover'd in turning the Wilderness into a standing water and dry grounds into water springs Besides the exorbitances of Natural causes at sometimes and their running like unruly horses out of that way those lines which common Nature hath prescrib'd them resolve us that their general stillness and order is owing to Him who rideth upon the Heavens whose Wisdom and power moderates all their blind and impetuous forces A truth which the ancients coucht in their fable of the Gyant Typhon which signifies swelling out bidding battel to their most ancient Deity Pan or Nature but bound up and restrain'd by him in Nets as 't were of Adamant 3. Of his admirable greatness Upon the occurrence of any matters strange and extraordinary Nature hath taught us to cast up our eyes and hands to heaven in a kind of tacit acknowledgement that matters rare and wounderfull oâ— themselves to Him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great wonder worker who is accordingly to be acknowledg'd in them all And therefore though we fear not a Comet or an Earthquake yet may we thence take occasion to quicken our selves to a Reverence and fear of that greatness which appointed them The true spirit of Religion will not receive Metum a fear of distrust though the Earth remove and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea but yet readily entertains timorâ—m a fear of reverence when it perceives the earth to be but shaken by an Earthquake or the Mountains to break forth into a flame As we must not loose our Philosophy in Religion by a total neglect of second causes and turning Superstitious so neither must we loose our Religion in Philosophy by dwelling on second causes till we quite forget the First and become profane To cure Superstition by profaneness is to burn an Idol with fire taken from the Altar Secondly Some of these petty alterations in Nature serve as a kind of types Essays Assurances of that Greater and more universal alteration thereof at the consummation of the world That we might not distrust a Resurrection God hath vouchsaft us as Theodoret notes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many pretty imitations and natural Sermons thereof as the rising again of decay'd plants from their roots in the spring the return of herbs and trees from their dying seeds into life again Thus the frightfull eruptions of fire from the earth wonderfully eclipses of the lights of heaven the strange fires sometimes discovered in the air the mighty tremblings of the earth may serve like Hierusalem pourtra'd by the Prophet upon a tile as little maps and imitations of that more dreadfull confusion which shall cover the whole face of Nature at the last day and as a kind of praeludia to that time when the Sun shall be cloth'd with darkness the heavens shall be on fire the elements shall melt with servent heat and the Earth with all the works therein shall be burnt up Caecilius the Heathen derided the Christian doctrine of a final dissolution of the works of Nature at the last day with his quasi Naturae divinis legibus constitutus ordo aeternus turbetur as if ever the perpetual order of Nature which hath received its seal and sanction from the counsels of heaven can ever be ruffled and disturb'd Now these strange alterations in nature are but prefaces to much stranger and the breakings forth of mighty fires out of the earth sometimes give assurance that like Uriah it carries its own fate about it such fiery materials as will quickly reduce it to a condition beneath its first Chaos in that day of vengeance wherein God will destroy the murderers and abusers of his servants and burn up their polluted city Thirdly God in them supplies the soul with such objects as He made it most apt to contemplate and admire In a work of Art as Longiniâ— observes man admires the curiosity and accurateness in a work of Nature the vastness and magnificence thereof because in the former He looks for but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat like man the measure subject of art but in the latter somewhat worthy of God and further that if any thing occurre which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strange vasâ— and in comparison with our selves bigg with a kind of Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are carried with a kind of native instinct to consider and attend unto it and he instances accordingly in the eclipses of heaven the vast oceaâ— the vulcanos of â— Etna as objects which command the mind to wonder and ecstacy The Soul hereby gives silent testimony to it self that it was made to contemplate and admire that God with whom all the first exemplars of greatness power glory beauty dwell together or whatsoever there is in the works of Art or Nature in which there appear any rude touches and shadows of wonderfull and admirable Now then as there are in Nature the Art of God those admirable curiosities appearing in the elegant fabrick of the creatures the mysterious anatomy of parts and those more subtile and cry ptick ways which Nature walks in toward her designed ends which affect not the duller and more heedless part of the world but supply the sons of Art with fresh and repeated wonders so in these prodigious instances the ruder sort of men which carry their Souls in their eyes find somewhat to engage them to contemplate and admire These works goe off from the common figures and measures of Nature are great and vehement and therefore prope objects to call forth the soul into contemplation and admiration which whilst it stands thus at gaze doth tacitly and interpretatively venerate that God who in all these strange Events appears wonderfull in counsel and mighty in working Fourthly Many of these Errata in the book of the Creature lead us to an understanding of the evil of sin which hath made the creatures thus subject to vanity and miscarriage Theophrastus hath noted that in the matter whereof natural things consist there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much of it which is unwieldly too stiffe and stuâ—born to be turned to the seal of Nature to receive those signatures and impresses which are best and primarily intended to be stampt upon it A defect which escapt not the notices of many contemplative Heathens who could not resolve themselves of the proper cause thereof Divine malediction layd upon the creatures for the sin of man Fifthly They serve to lead us into a more distinct knowledge of the works of Nature Nature is the best Interpreter of it self now
credited by Apostolical citation the writer of the book of Maccabees who speaking of Hierusalem thus delivers himself It happened that through all the city for the space of almost 40. days there were seen horsmen running in the ayr in cloth of gold and armed with lances like a band of Soldiers And troops of horsmen in array encountring one against another with shakeing of shields and multitude of pikes and drawing of swords and casting of darts and glittering of golden ornaments and harness of all sorts After the mention of which apparition we may read there what a scene of woes and tragedies the City was made by the Armies of Antiochus Now I think we may discover some probable and darker characters of divine signs upon these examples but especially the first And that 1. Because our Saviour prophesied that the desolation of that people should be prefac'd by fearfull fights and great signs from heaven Luk. 21. 11. a place which our expositours generally conceive fulfilled in that and other prodigious accidents related by Iosephus and subscrib'd unto by Eusebius as the atrati deformes nuncii of so fearfull a â—estrustruction as ensued 2. Because the destruction of Hierusalem was a kinde of visible prophecy and type of the final destruction of the world now that the sign and thing signified might the more exactly touch as at the last day the heavens shall be on fire and the earth with all its works be burnt up and the whole Creation feel its final and most dreadfull pangs and throws so the destruction of Hierusalem was usher'd by its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearfull sights mighty Earthquakes a fiery sword a flame in the Temple And as at the last day the Angels shall be the Ministers of his justice and increase the terrours of his coming by attending the Judge of quick and dead Mat. 25. 31. so this judgement upon Hierusalem came with observation and the solemnity of Angelical apparitions represented by chariots and armed companies suitably to the words of the Psalmist concerning them The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels In short some of the Prodigies preceding the fates of Hierusalem seem such equal and proportion'd representatives of those more terrible disguizes which the face of nature must put on at that last and great Day that the so call'd Sibylline Oracles make choice of many of them to describe the horrours of it by Cum visi fuerint coeli stellantis in Oris Nocturni gladii casus ad solis ortus Pulvis è coelo terram descendet in omnem Protinus medio câ—rsu lux aurea solem Deseret terram sulgenti lumine luna Sanguineis guttis stellantibus irradiabit Signaque saxa dabunt in alta praelia nube Cernetis peditumque equitumque sonantibus auris And lib. 4. Enses atque tubae simul sole Exoriente Terribilem sonitum mugitumque audiet omnis Mundus Of which and the like passages therein occurring some presuming upon the pretended antiquity of those Oracles conceive the strange Prodigies related by Ovid not as an Historian but a Poet lib. 15. Metamor to be but an imitation so great the agreement between them both in words and matter Thirdly We shall observe that Gods works of a more catholick concern have been ushered with some lighter essays to and representations of them thus the several appearances of God in the shape and figures of a Man are commonly receiv'd as the praeludia a Kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to that great mistery of the incarnation The general conversion of the Gentiles was as it were essay'd in the particular conversions now of a person and then of a family to the Jewish Church The universal conflagration of the world seems limn'd forth in the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah That mighty storm of vengeance which fell upon Hierusalem and the Jewish Politie was prefac'd by some lesser drops the many miseries which our Saviour stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of sorrows and those judgements of an unusual make and character which sometimes overtake more publick and notorious criminals seem a kinde of praejudicia judicii and assurances that God hath appointed one great Day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness Thus the relation of his going forth to his strange work indeed upon Hierusalem attended with the visible apparitions of Angels in armed troops in the ayr may be concluded probable that so there may be some slender draught of the solemnity of that day when the thrones of Iudgement shall be set and the Iudge attended with ten thousand times ten thousand ministring unto him proceed to his last Act of justice upon the unrighteous world These considerations incline me to receive this narration and the significancy thereof especially because not knowing where to fix the accomplishment of our Saviours prediction Luk. 21. 11. but in this and some other prodigies related by Iosephus with the favour of a great probability but not as an undoubted truth 1. Because the single credit of Iosephus Eusebius but relating the same things in his words seems scarce sufficient to venture the faith of such a story upon both because having much converst among the Gentiles he seems to smell a little of the Gentile superstition when he adds immediately after this relation It would seem a matter scarce credible but that there follow'd evils great enough for the solemnity of presages as also because it will appear upon a compare of the same Stories related in Scripture and Iosephus that he usually tunes his relations to the common humour both of Greek and Latine Historians making them to sound as much as much as might be to the glory and honour of his own Nation 2. Because he hath put in one fly the story of a Heifer which comeing to the Altar brought forth a Lamb which makes the whole relation of his other prodigies smell strongly of an imposture T is sufficiently known how much this resembles many other legends related in the Romane stories where the mention of prodigies occurrs Can any man think God would ever work so ludicrous so cheap so insignificant a miracle 3. Because whereas he there also relates the story of the Priests their going into the Temple about Pentecost to attend the Sacra Vespertina and hearing that voyce therein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us goe hence seconded with the rushing as of persons going out the whole matter seems but a fable originally invented by some superstitious heathen and a little disguis'd whose usual doctrine was that the Gods when their Temples and Altars were defil'd or taken us'd to take pett and adytis arisque relictis to betake themselves to some more hallow'd and magnificent shrines Sure I am Tacitus appears to understand this relation to some such sense as this But I think I need not much concern my self to throw out a relation which
Nations more argumentative under the Old Testament then the New Religious arguments to be managed with coolness and candour THe third Conclusion to direct to a right understanding in reference to Prodigies penal is this Iudgements singular and miraculous surprising persons in defence of a cause evidently devoted in Scripture to destruction may be regarded as partial testimonies from heaven against it It is readily acknowledg'd that there is light enough in Scripture to distinguish doctrines and causes by but yet where God hath been pleas'd by any such mighty judgements to open the eyes of men to a clearer perception of it and to hold them in a more serious attendance thereunto they are not to overlook it for fear they appear to seek a signe from heaven or to offer weak men an encouragement to wrest the darker works of Providence as they do the words of Scripture to the ends of superstition and some little interests and Opinions to which they engross the favours of Heaven To serve the more distinct understanding of this conclusion I shall propose these few examples 1. When the Jews in the assistance of Iulian the Emperour assayed the restoring of their ruin'd Temple and so to oppose Moses to Christ God miraculously determined the controversy for the fire which used before to come forth from him to consume the sacrifice now came and consum'd their intended Temple and Altars destroyed the workmen about it and their several instruments and the whole designe was blasted by such terrible appearances of God against it that many Jews were perswaded by that visible argument against Judaism to entertain the faith of Christ. 2. That terrible fire which issued out of the ground in the second year of Titus not long after the destruction of Ierusalem and the Jewish Temple and laid in ashes the Temples of Iupiter Capitolinus Neptune Isis Scrapis the Pantheon c. and their other devoted places was so strange an instance that the Ethnick Historian makes this judgement thereupon Malum id divinum potiùs quà m humanum videtur fuisse and was in all likelihood regarded by the Christians of that time as a signe that no cause or Religion Ethnick or Jewish should be able to stand before the Christian and that the day foretold wherein God would famish all the Gods of the earth and meâ— should worship him every one from his place even all the isles of the heathen was just now a dawning 3. That almost constant succession of Romane Emperours whose robes for the space of three hundred years were dy'd in their own bloud shed by the hand of violence seems an instantia monadica in Providence and to carry much of a miracle with it and may be receiv'd as an argument of Gods controversy with them for the butchering of so many of his innocent sheep under their bloudy government though perhaps some will entertain the example but with common thoughts because of the circumstances the Empire was then in 4. There is no Nation under heaven whose sins God hath visited upon them with a judgement of so private and reserv'd a condition as that of the Jews whether respect be had to the nature or season thereof 1. There is a singularity therein in regard of the nature of it Iew is become throughout the whole world rather nomen Odii quam Gentis They are now as much scatter'd over the World as before impal'd and distinguisht from it They alone live in banishment wheresoever they come Now their becoming thus like Cain vaga bonds and fugitives upon earth which no Nation besides is speaks them like him gone out of Gods presence and guilty of some horrible murder even no less then that of the Lord of life which the scripture chargeth upon them 2. There is a singularity in the judgement upon them in regard of the Season thereof For before they had stain'd their hands in the bloud of the Lord of the Temple their Temple though sometimes defac'd was never made vile and contemptible by any abomination of the heathen set up in the most Holy No war no sedition no captivity no vastation nor any other sad occasion whatsoever made so great a wast upon the religion and reverence of that place that an idol or image against the essential sanctity thereof should be tendered to worship therein as Agrippa in his Embassy to Caius the Emperour largely tells him for that the very heathens had been tutor'd into a reverence thereof by those fearful judgements which as he there tells him they had observed the King of heaven alway avenging any lesser indignities offer'd to that his chamber of special presence But no sooner had they committed that wonderfull and horrible thing but God delivers the place of his ancient habitation the desire of their eyes to the defilements and dishonour of an image that the Emperour erected in the Holy of Holies as a sign that place should no longer be his rest because it was polluted and that he had forsaken both it and them Moreover most constant were the judgements which at last befel the enemies of the Jewish Nation before their great sin of rejecting the son of God Israel was then holiness to the Lord and the first fruits of his increase all that devour'd him did offend evil came upon them from the Lord. Whereas afterward so constant their successes when attempting upon them as if to fight against that nation were the only way of obliging victory and the assistances of God Which singularity in the divine judgements was a sign that God had now put a period to the Jewish worship and that their putting of Christ to death lookt of a blacker colour in the eyes of Justice as procureing more dreadfull evils upon then all their other sins could ever doe I easily foresee how ready some persons may be to build hay and stubble upon this foundation and to conclude such a cause or party branded from heaven if any judgement like an executioner in a vizard frightfull as well as fatall befall the persons appearing in defence thereof And therefore I must here minde them how inconsequent any such reasonings can be not only because I more then doubt whether any of the judgements they can instance in touch in any points and angles of similitude those already mention'd and because they came not forth to decide causes collaterally but diametrically oppos'd not differences between Paul and Cephas but God and Bâ—lial but because Judaism and Gentilism were causes evidently devoted in sacred scripture and the judgements following them were but the accomplishments of its predictions and the executions of a scripture sentence upon them But we have now no better warrant to infer the goodness or badness of some lesser causes and opinions men espouse from the judgements which may sometimes overtake the assertors of them then to make judgement of the loyalty of a wife by a water of jealousie For as sometimes the Person may fall
te comitabuntur Which counsel he neglecting himself most of his Nobles and army fell in that fatal battel Hardly discovered For how easily may the Devil impose upon our simplicity in the livery of an Angel of light Though I think this negative signe of such an apparition faithfull enough viz. That these Sons of God never debase themselves to such antick shapes Iudicrous postures and actions monstrous forms weak rites which evil spirits designing to get to themselves the homage of a great fear from some men or to abuse their imaginations or to dishonour the image and figure of man whom they so much hate or to appear rather ridiculous then abominable usually doe Never to be expected because never promised besides converse with Angels is a blessing which our state of infirmity could not bear and our follies cannot well admit And this I suppose may suffice to tender concerning these second kind of Prodigies signal Stil'd so ex communi fide because vulgar faith hath prefer'd them to the repute of divine signs and intimations which I thought fit again to intimate to excuse the indecorum of my applying of the term without the reason thereof so frequently unto them CHAP. IV. Concerning Prodigies in appearance Supernatural Some Prodigies instanâ—'d in which seem Supernatural the truth in reference to them deliver'd in 4 Propositions Lying Oracles and Miracles of especial use to advance the Devils kingdome Strange events not to be easily judg'd miraculous and why The first fiery eruption of Vesuvius probably concluded a signe of judgement and the reasons of that assertion What to be thought of that fiery sword which hung over Hierusalem No prodigies in appearance Supernatural to be received now as signs and why THere are some events which the history of times presents us with of so peculiar and strange a make and character that they stand alone in Nature and their causes stand so much in the dark that they seem to enter a very fair and plausible plea for the repute of a miracle Such as are the turning of Ponds and lakes in appearance into bloud swords as of fire seen to hang over cities for several days together the removal of mountains or other parts of the Earth for several furlongs from their natural places some strange alterations observed in the motions and tempers of the birds and beasts or figures and colours of any of the heavenly bodies With these I reckon some suddain intercsions of the light of the sun occasioned not by the veil of an eclipse cast before it but some unaccountable passion of the luminous body it self Such a deliquium we read of immediately subsequent to the death of Caesar concluded by the Ethnick Poet a kinde of prodigious shrinking of the eye of heaven from the view of so black a wickedness as the assassination of so excellent a person who upon occasion thereof thus expresseth himself Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine tinxit Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem An example parallel whereunto is related by Lavater who reports that in the year 1585. Mar. 12. such a darkness suddainly cover'd the earth that the birds went to roost at noon and the guilty fears of men antedated the day of judgment A like instance whereunto in another kinde is the suddain torpor and standing still of great currents and the parting of their waters in so wonderfull a manner that they seem to carry some figures and imitations of those miraculous divisions of waters recorded in sacred Writ Such was that mention'd in our Chronicles which hapned Anno. 1399 when the river of Ouse in Bedfordshire parted asunder near Harold in that County the waters from the fountain standing stil and those towards the Sea giving way so that it was passable over on foot for 3 miles together To which I add that unparllel eruption of fire from the mountain Vesuvius first hapning in the second year of Titus of which it may be truly said that if all the characters of horrour enumerated by Historians were duly weighed it would be hard to finde its pattern but in Scripture where we read of a Mountain which quaked greatly and that burnt with fire to the midst of heaven with darkness clouds and thick darkness Now though I am far from giving to all these effects the repute of a miracle as may appear by my marshalling of some of them under other heads much less of a signe yet because Nature seems not in these as in other Prodigies to err by any known law and some of them at least are so wonderfull that to speak truth they stand in confinio miraculi I thought good to discourse them apart and as inclos'd under another name and notion And the rather because if our Adversaries should chance to call a knub a horn to stile these or some other of the foremention'd prodigies supernatural and miraculous they might seem like Proteus to avoyd all the knots they cannot unloose reasons they cannot answer by shifting forms and that event which they cannot advance a signe of the time sub nomine prodigii they may possibly assay to doe sub specie miraculi All therefore that I shall offer concerning Prodigies Supernatural whether in truth or pretence I shall not much enquire shall be coucht in these few ensuing propositions First It is a great example of rashness easily to intitle any strange effect whose cause stands not in a good light supernatural and miraculous and that upon a four-fold account 1. We understand not the just extent and compass of that sphear of activity assigned to bare natural powers nor how far they may in some circumstances exceed the lines of common and ordinary operation How many works of Art are there scarce the wonder of our days the performance whereof in the rudeness of former times would have prefer'd a man to the repute of Simon Magus the great power of God who would not two or three hundred years agoe have voucht the breaking down of mighty walls by the force and powers of a little black dust as great an impossibility as the Indians did the communicating by letters at so great a distance we understand not fully how far our notions of possible and impossible when we are amongst Agents natural are fixt and faithfull As for the miracles wrought by our Saviour least any shadow of natural power might seem to assist and so to disparage them he usually exerted his Divinity in raysing of the dead restoring of a man born blinde to sight in curing the woman whom Art had given for desperate Luk. 8. 43. in commanding the wave and storms into rest and silence with a word and such like works which evidently appear'd to lie extra vias naturae such whereof no magician ever attempted the counterfeit otherwise his miracles had left open a wide door for infidelity to break out at 2. We understand not fully how far the