all To Chaos backe returne then all the starres shall be Blended together then those burning lights on high In sea shall drench earth then her shores will not extend But to the waues giue way the moone her course shall bend Crosse to her brothers and disdaining still to driue Her chariot wheels athward the heavenly orbe shall striue To rule the day this frame to discord wholy bent The worlds peace shall disturbe and all in sunder rent SECT 3. That the world shall haue an end by fire proved likewise by the testimony of the Gentiles ANd as they held that the world should haue an end so likewise that this end should come to passe by fire Exustionis hujus odor quidam etiam ad Gentes manauit sayth Ludovicus Vives speaking of the generall combustion of the world some sent of this burning hath spread it selfe even to the Gentiles And Saint Hierome in his comment on the 51 of I say Quae quidem Philosophorum mundi opinio est omnia quae cernimus igni peretura which is also the opinion of the Philosophers of this world that all which we behold shall perish by fire Eusebius is more particular affirming it to be the doctrine of the Stoicks and namely of Zeno Cleanthes Chrysippus the most ancient among them Certaine it is that Seneca a principall Scholler or rather Master of that sect both thought it taught it Et Sydera Syderibus incurrent omni flagrante materia vnâ—… igne quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit The starres shall make inrodes one vpon another and all the whole world being in a flame whatsoever now shines in comely and decent order shall burne together in one fire Panaetius likewise the Stoick feared as witnesseth Cicero ne ad extremum mundus ignesceret least the world at last should be burnt vp with fire And with the Stoicks heerein Pliny agrees Consumente vbertatem seminum exustione in cujus vices nunc vergat aevum the heate burning vp the plentifull moisture of all seedes to which the world is now hastening Numeâ—…us also saith good soules continue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vntill the dissolution of all things by fire And with the Philosophers their Poets accord Lucan as hee held that the world should haue an end so in speciall by fire where speaking of those whom Caesar left vnburned at the battle of Pharsalia hee thus goes on Hos Caesar populos si nunc non vsserit ignis Vret cum terris vret cum gurgite ponti Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Misturus If fire may not these corpes to ashes turne O Caesar now when earth and seas shall burne It shall a common fire the world shall end And with these bones those heau'nly bodies blend As for Ovia he deduces it from their propheticall records Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare quo tellus convexaque regia coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laborat Besides he calls to minde how by decree Of fates a time shall come when earth and sea And Heavens high Throne shall faint and the whole frame Of this great world shall be consum'd in flame Which he borrowed saith Ludovicus Vives ex fatis indubiè Sybillinis vndoubtedly from the Oracles of Sybilla And indeed verses there are which goe vnder the name of Sybilla to the very same purpose Tunc ardens fluvius coelo manabit ab alto Igneus atque locos consumâ—…t funditus omnes Terramque Oceanumque ingentem caerula ponti Stagnaque tum fluvios fontes ditemque Severum Coelestemque polum coeli quoque lumina in unum Fluxa ruent formâ deletâ prorsus eorum Astra cadent etenim de coelo cuncta revulsa Then shall a burning floud flow from the Heavens on high And with its fiery streames all places vtterly Destroy earth ocean lakes rivers fountaines hell And heavenly poles the Lights in firmament that dwell Loosing their beauteous forme shall be obscur'd and all Raught from their places down from heaven to earth shall fall He that yet desires farther satisfaction in this point may reade Eugubinus his tenth booke de Perenni Philosophia Magius de exustione Mundi And so I passe to my third and last point proposed in the beginning of this Chapter which is that the whole world by fire shall totally and intirely be consumed SECT 4. That the world shall be by fire totally and finally dissolved and annihilated prooved by Scripture I Am not ignorant that the opinions of Divines touching the manner of the Consummation of the world haue beene as different as the greatest part of them are strange and improbable some imagining that all the Creatures which by Almighty God were made at the first beginning shall againe be restored to that perfection which they injoyed before the fall of man Others that the Heauens and Elements shall onely be so restored others that the Heauens and onely two of the Elements the Aire and the Earth others againe that the old world shall be wholly abolished and a new created in steed thereof and lastly others which I must confesse to me seemes the most likely opinion and most agreeable to scripture and reason that the whole world with all the parts and workes thereof onely men and Angels and Divels and the third Heauens the mansion-house of the Saints and blessed Angels and the place and instruments appointed for the tormenting of the damned excepted shall be totally and finally dissolued and annihilated As they were made out of nothing so into nothing shall they returne againe In the prooving whereof I will first produce mine owne arguments and then shew the weakenes of the adverse Man lieth downe and riseth not saith Iob till the heauens be no more Of old hast thou laide the foundation of the earth and the heauens are the worke of thy hands They shall perish but thou shalt endure saith the Psalmist which the Apostle in the first to the Hebrewes and the 10. and the 11. repeates almost in the same words Lift vp your eyes to the heauens and looke vpon the earth beneath for the heauens shall vanish away like smoake and the earth shall waxe old as doth a garment saith the Prophet Esay and in another place all the host of heauen shal be dissolved the heauen shal be rolled together as a scroll all their host shall fall downe as the leafe falleth off from the vine and as a falling fig from the figge tree To the former of which wordes S. Iohn seemes to allude And the heauen departed as a scroll which is rolled together Heauen earth shall passe away but my word shall not passe away saith our Saviour The day of the Lord will come as a theefe in the night in the which the Heauens shall passe away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heate The earth
a miracle shall they be suspended from a mutuall intercourse of working one vpon another and a production of Meteors mixt bodies And how shall the Earth disvested of the vegetables which apparelled her and appearing with her naked and dustie face be sayd to be more amiable then before Finally if the heavens according to their Essence shall remaine how shall they naturally without a miracle stand still being now naturally inclined to a circular motion Or how without a miracle shall the light be increased and yet the warmth springing from thence be abated nay wholy abolished Or if the warmth shall remaine how can it choose but burne vp those parts of the Earth vpon which it never ceases to dart perpendicular beames Or how can the Sunne stand still and yet inlighten both the Hemespheres or the starres of that Hemesphere which it inlightens at all appeare To these demaunds Pererius makes a short answere and in my judgement a very strange one and vnworthy the penne of so great a Clarke that some of these things God hath already done that we might be induced the more readily to beleeue that they both may and shall be done againe And for instance he alleageth the standing still of the Sunne Moone at the prayer of Iosuah the restrayning of the burning force of the fire in the Babylonian furnace but withall foreseing that those were miracles for satisfaction therevnto he concludes Non agere autem inter se qualitates elementorum nec lu em Syderum calefacere quamvis nunc ingens esset miraculum tunc tamen posita semel mundi renovatione non erunt miracula It were now a great miracle that the qualities of the Elements should not mutually worke each vpon other or that the light of the starres should not produce warmth but then the world being renewed they shall be no miracles Indeed if the world were so to be renewed as the former essence of it were to be destroyed or the former qualities to be entinguished then should I happily allow of his reason as probable passable but now granting that the same Identicall forme and matter shal still continue that the former qualities shall not be abandoned but perfected not altered in kinde but only in degree I cannot see how it should be held tearmed a great miracle heeretofore which shall not be so heereafter And whereas it is said that the bodies of the Saints shall then naturally liue without meate which now without a miracle they cannot doe we must consider that though the substance of their bodies shall remaine yet the qualities of them shall be intirely changed so farre as the Apostle is bold to call it a spirituall bodie And besides we may be bold to challenge a speciall priviledge vnto the bodies of the Saints the temples of the holy Ghost which without speciall warrant cannot be yeelded to any other Corporeall substance And withall we must remember that for the resurrection of the bodie wee haue an Article in our Creede most cleere proofes from Scripture but for the restitution of the Creatures no one such sufficient proofe as the mind of a Christian desirous to be truly informed can rest fully satisfied therein Such as they are I will not conceale them These places then are to that purpose commonly alleaged SECT 6. The arguments commonly alleadged from the Scriptures for the renovation of the world answered WHom the heavens must containe till the times of the Restitution of all things He layed the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever sayth David And Solomon one generation passeth and another commeth but the earth abideth for ever Behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into mind To which words of the Prophet S. Iohn seemes to allude And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there was no more Sea And for the increase of the light of the Planets and other starres that passage of the same Prophet is vsually alleadged The light of the Moone shall be as the light of the Sunne and the light of the Sunne seaven fold But the pretended proofes most stood vpon are drawne from S. Paules Epistles The fashion of this world passeth away the fashion not the substance And againe The Creature it selfe also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sonnes of God And lastly heerevnto they adde the words of the Psalmist Thou shalt change them and they shall be changed not abolished but chaunged Which words are againe by the Apostle taken vp and repeated Heb. 1. 12. These are I am sure the strongest if not all the pretented proofes that are commonly drawne from the holy Scripture and pressed for the maintenance of the adverse opinion the strength of which I thinke I shall so put backe as it shall appeare to any indifferent Iudge that it is in truth but forced and wrested The passages I will consider in order as they are alleaged severally examine their validitie to the purpose they are vrged First then whereas wee out of the Greeke reade the Restitution of all things the Syriake Interpreter hath it vsque ad Complementum temporum omnium to the end of all times whereby none other thing can be vnderstood then the finall consummation of the world but to take the words as we finde them The times of restitution are vndoubtedly the same which Saint Peter in the next verse saue one going before had tearmed times of refreshing and by them is meant the actuall fulnesse and perfection of our redemption quoniam restitutio illa adhuc in cursu est adeoque redemptio quando adhuc sub onere servitutis gemimus sayth Calvin because our restitution and consequently our redemption as yet is but imperfect whiles we groane vnder the burden of servitude To the second it may be sayd that in the course of nature the earth should remaine for ever without decay or diminution had not the Creator of it decreed by his almighty power to abolish it But I rather chuse to answere with Iunius who vpon the first place taken out of the Psalme giues this note tantisper dum saeculum duraturum est as long as time shall endure and vpon the second this hominis vani comparatione in comparison of the vanishing estate of man The earth then is sayd to remaine for ever as Circumcision and the Leviticall Law are sayed to be perpetuall not absolutely but comparatiuely Now for the new heavens and the new earth it should seeme by the places alleaged that if it be litterally to be vnderstood of the materiall heavens they shall not be renewed as the common opinion is but new Created creation being a production of some new thing out of nothing So as it shall not be a restitution of the old but
a substitution of new in asmuch as the Prophet Esay addes the former shall not be remembred nor come into minde And Saint Iohn the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there was no more Sea And Saint Peter The heavens shall passe away with a noise and the elements shall melt with heate and the earth with the workes that are therein shall be burnt vp And of this opinion Beza in one place seemes to haue beene Promittuntur novi Coeli ac nova terra non priorum restitutio sive in eundem sive in meliorem statum nec ijs possum assentiri qui hanc dissolutionem ad solas qualitates referendam censent There are promised new heavens and a new earth not the restitution of the old either vnto their former or a better state neither can I assent vnto them who referre this dissolution to the qualities alone But seing belike the singularity and absurditie of this opinion he recalls himselfe in his annotations vpon the very next verse But the truth is that by new heavens and a new earth is to be vnderstood in the Prophet Esay the state of the Church during the kingdome of Christ and in Saint Peter and S. Iohn the state of the Saints in the heavenly Ierusalem For the Prophet that which I affirme will easily appeare to any vnderstanding Reader that pleaseth to pervse that Chapter specially if therevnto we adde the latter part of the next touching the same point For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remaine before me sayth the Lord so shall your seed and your name continue and from moneth to moneth and from sabbaoth to sabbaoth shall all flesh come to worship before me saith the Lord. Vpon the alleaged passage of the former chapter Iunius Tremelius giue this note Omnia instauraturus sum in Christo I will restore all things in Christ Referring vs for the farther illustration thereof to that of the same Prophet in his 25 chapter at the 8 verse And for the exposition of the latter passage in the 66 chapter referres vs to that in the 65 going before So that aswell by the drift and coherence of the text as by the judgement of sound Interpreters materiall heavens and earth are not there vnderstood Which some of our English Translatours well perceiving haue to the first passage affixed this note I will so alter and change the state of the Church that it shall seeme to dwell in a new world And to the second this Heereby he signifieth the kingdome of Christ wherein his Church shall be renewed Yet I will not deny but that the Prophet may in those words likewise allude to the state of the Saints in the heavenly Ierusalem To which purpose S. Peter seemes to apply them according to his promise sayth he we looke for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousnes that is by the consent of the best expositours righteous and just men who after the day of judgement shall dwell no longer vpon the Earth but in the heavenly Ierusalem Which Saint Iohn more liuely describes in the 21 of the Revelation for having sayd in the first verse And I saw a new heaven and a new earth he presently addes in the second as it were by way of Exposition of the former And I Iohn saw the holy Citty new Ierusalem comming downe from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and by the sequele of that Chapter and the latter part of the precedent it cleerely appeares whatsoever Bright-man dreame to the contrary that he there describes the state of the Saints after the day of judgement and the glory of that place which they are eternally to inhabite being such that it had no need of the Sunne nor of the Moone to shine in it the glory of God inlightning it and the Lambe being the light thereof And Iunius thus begins his Annotations on that chapter Nunc sequitur historiae propheticae pars secunda de statu futuro Ecclesiae coelestis post Iudicium vltimum Now followes the second part of this propheticall history of the future state of the Church triumphant after the day of Iudgement And with him therein accord the greatest part of the soundest and most judicious Interpreters The other passage alleaged of the Prophet Esay touching the increase of light in the Sunne and Moone is likewise vndoubtedly to be vnderstood of the restauration of his Church according to the tenour of the chapter and the annotation of Iunius annexed therevnto Illustrissima erunt gloriosissima omnia in restitutione Ecclesiae all things shall then be more beautifulll and glorious in the restitution of the Church And with him fully accord our English notes when the Church shall be restored the glory thereof shall passe seaven times the brightnesse of the Sunne For by the Sunne and Moone which are two excellent Creatures he sheweth what shall bee the glory of the Children of God in the kingdome of Christ. Now for the words of the Apostle The fashion of this world passeth away what other thing intends he but that in these wordly things there is nothing durable and solide elegantly thereby expressing the vanitie of them in which exposition both Iunius Calvin agree That of the same Apostle in the 8 to the Romans touching the delivering of the Creature from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sonnes of God is I confesse in appearance more pressing But this passage the great wit of Saint Augustine found to be very obscure and perplexed in somuch as not a few vnderstand those words of Saint Peter of this particular that in Saint Paules Epistles some things are hard to be vnderstood It were then in my judgement no small presumption vpon a place so intricate and difficult peremptorily to build so vncertaine a doctrine But because it is so hotly vrged as a testimony vnanswereable let vs a little examine the parts and sense thereof First then it is cleere that the Creature may be delivered from the bondage of corruption and yet not restored to a more perfect and beautifull estate in asmuch as being annihilated it is thereby freed from that abuse of wicked and vngratefull men which heere it is of necessity still subject vnto But all the doubt is how the Creature shall be made partaker of the glorious liberty of the Sonnes of God I hope no man will dare to affirme that they shall be with them Coheires of eternall blessednes as the words seem to import how then are they made partakers of this glorious liberty But in asmuch as when the sonnes of God shall be made partakers thereof the Creature shall be altogether freed from the bondage of corruption So as that into the liberty of the sonnes of God is no more then together with the liberty of the Sons of God or by reason of
tempus eam debilitavit Dost not thou see the heavens how faire how spacious they are how bee-spangled with diverse constellations how long now haue they lasted fiue thousand yeares or more are past and yet this long duration of time hath brought no old age vpon them But as a body new and fresh flourisheth in youth So the heavens still retaine their beauty which at first they had neither hath time any thing abated it Some errour or mistake doubtlesse there is in Chrisostomes computation in as much as he lived aboue 1200 yeares since yet tels vs that the world had then lasted aboue 5000 yeares but for the trueth of the matter he is therein seconded by all the schoole divines and among those of the reformed churches none hath written in this point more clearely and fully then Alstedius in his preface to his naturall divinity Tanta est hujus palatij diuturnitas atque firmitas vt ad hodiernum vsque diem supra annos quinquies mille sexcentos ita perstet vt in eo nihil immutatum diminâ—…tum aut vetustate diuturnitate temporis vitiatum conspiciamus Such saith hee and so lasting is the duration and immoveable stability of this palace that being created aboue 5600 yeares agoe yet it so continues to this day that wee can espie nothing in it changed or wasted or disordered by age and tract of time SECT 4. Another obiection taken from Psalme the 102 answered ANother text is commmonly and hotly vrged by the Adverse part to like purpose as the former and is in truth the onely argument of weight drawne from Scripture in this present question touching the heavens decay in regard of their Substance In which consideration wee shall bee inforced to examine it somewhat the more fully Taken it is from the hundred and second Psalme and the wordes of the Prophet are these Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth the heavens are the worke of thine handes They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall waxe old as doth a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy yeares shall haue no end To which very place vndoubtedly the Apostle alludes in the first to the Hebrewes where he thus renders it Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the workes of thine hands They shall perish but thou remainest and they shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them vp and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy yeares shall not faile In which passages the words which are most stood vpon and pressed are those of the growing old of the heavens like a garment which by degrees growes bare till it bee torne in peeces and brought to ragges S. Augustine in his Enarration vpon this Psame according to his wont betakes him to an Allegoricall Exposition interpreting the heavens to bee the Saints and their bodies to bee their garments wherewith the soule is cloathed And these garments of theirs saith hee waxe old and perish but shall be changed in the resurrection and made comformable to the glorious body of Iesus Christ. Which exposition of his is pious I confesse but surely not proper since the Prophet speakes of the heavens which had their beginning together with the earth and were both principall peeces in the great worke of the Creation Neither can the regions of the aire be here well vnderstood though in some other places they bee stiled by the name of the heavens since they are subiect to continuall variation and change and our Prophets meaning was as it should seeme to compare the Almighties vnchangeable eternity with that which of all the visible Creatures was most stable and stedfast And besides though the aire bee indeed the worke of Gods hands as are all the other Creatures yet that phrase is in a speciall manner applied to the starry heavens as being indeed the most exquisite and excellent peece of workemanship that ever his hands fram'd It remaines then that by heavens heere wee vnderstand the lights of heaven thought by Philosophers to bee the thicker parts of the spheres together with the spheres themselues in which those lights are fixed and wheeled about For that such spheres and orbes there are I take it as granted neither will I dispute it though I am not ignorant that some latter writers thinke otherwise and those neither few in number nor for their knowledge vnlearned But for the true sense of the place alleadged wee are to know that the word there vsed to wax old both in Hebrew Greeke Latin doth not necessarily imply a decay or impairing in the subject so waxing old but somtimes doth only signifie a farther step accesse to a finall period in regard of duration Wee haue read of some who being well striken in yeares haue renewed their teeth and changed the white colour of their haire and so growne yong againe Of such it might truly be sayd that they grew elder in regard of their neerer approch to the determinate end of their race though they were yonger in regard of their constitution and state of their bodies And thus do I take the Apostle to be vnderstood that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away where hee speakes of the Ceremoniall law which did not grow old by degrees at least before the incarnation of Christ but stood in its full force and vigour vntill it was by him abrogated and disanulled To which purpose Aquinas hath not vnfitly observed vpon the place Quod dicitur vetus significat quod sit prope cessationem the tearming of a thing old implies that it hastens to an end This then as I take it may truly be affirmed of the signification of the word in generall and at large and may justly seeme to haue been the Prophets meaning in as much as he addeth But thou art the same and thine yeares shall haue no end From whence may be collected that as God cannot grow old because his yeares shall haue no end so the heavens because they shall haue an end may be therefore sayd to grow old But whereas it is added not only by the Psalmist but by the Apostle in precise tearmes They shall wax old as doth a garment and againe as a Vesture shalt thou change them the doubt still remaines whether by that addition the sense of the word bee not restrained to a graduall and sensible decay I know it may be sayd that a garment waxing old not only looses his freshnesse but part of his quantitie and weight it is not only soyled but wasted either in lying or wearing so in continuance of time becomes vtterly vnserviceable which no man I think will ascribe to the heavens I meane that their quantity is any way diminished All agree then that the Similitude may be strained too
which the first founder of the world blessed with perpetuall fruitfullnesse is affected with barrennesse as a kind of disease neither is it the part of a wise man to think that the Earth which being indued with a divine and aeternall youth is deservedly tearmed the Common Parent of all things inasmuch as it both doth and hereafter shall bring all things forth is now waxen old like a man so as that which hath befalne vs I should rather impute it to our owne default then to the vnseasonablenesse of the weather inasmuch as wee commit the charg of our husbandry to the basest of our slaues as it were to a publique executioner whereas the very best of our ancestours with most happy successe vnderwent that charge themselues and performed that worke with their owne hands Now Sylvinus to whom he dedicated his workes having received and read this resolute assertion by reason he knew it to be against the common tenet and specially of one Tremellius vpon whose judgment it seemed he much relyed made a Quaere thereof sent it to Columella to which in the very first chapter of his second booke he returnes answer with this title title prefixed Terram nec senescere nec fatigari si stercoretur That the earth is neither wearied nor waxeth old if it be made And then thus goes on Queris à me Publi Sylvine quod ego sine cunctatione non recuso docere cur priori libro veterem opinionem fere omnium qui de cultu agrorum loquuti sunt à principio confestim repulerim falsamque sententiam repudiaverim censentium longo aevi situ longique jam temporis exercitatione fatigatam effoetam humum consenuisse You demaund a question of mee Sylvinus which I will endevour to answer without delay which is why in my former booke presently in the very entrance I haue rejected the ancient opiniō almost of all who haue written of husbandry haue cast of their imagination as false who conceiue that the earth by long tracte of time and much vsage is growne old and fruitles where he is so farre from recalling his assertion or making any doubt of the certaine truth thereof that hee labours farther to strengthen it with new supplies of reasons and at length concludes Non igitur fatigatione quemadmodum plurimi crediderunt nec senio sed nosta scilicet inertia minus benignè nobis arva respondent licet enim maiorem fructum percipere si frequenti tempestiva modica stercoratione terra refoveatur It is not through the tirednesse or age of the earth as many haue beleeued but through our owne negligence that it hath not satisfied vs so bountifully as it hath done For we might receiue more profit from it if it were cherished with frequent and moderate and seasonable dressing And with Columella agrees Pliny in the eighteenth booke of his Naturall History third Chapter where discoursing of the great abundance and plenty in fore-going ages and demaunding the reason thereof he therevnto shapes this reply Surely saith he the cause was this and nothing else Great Lords and Generals of the field as it should seeme tilled themselues their grounds with their own hands And the Earth again for her part taking no small pleasure as it were to be aired and broken vp Laureato vomere triumphali aratore with ploughs laureat ploughmē triumphant strained her self to yeeld increase to the vttermost Like it is also that these braue men and worthy Personages were as curious in sowing a ground with corne as in setting a battle in aray as diligent in disposing and ordering of their lands as in pitching a field And commonly euery thing that commeth vnder good hands the more neat cleane that the vsage thereof is and the greater paines that is taken about it the better it thriueth and prospereth afterwards And hauing instanced in Attilius Serranus and Quintius Cincinnatus he goes on in this maner But now see how the times be changed they that doe this businesse in the field what are they but bond-slaues fettered condemned malefactors and in a word noted persons such as are branded and marked in their visage with an hot yron yet we forsooth marvaile that the labour of these contemptible slaues and abject villaines doth not render the like profit as that trauell in former ages of great Captaines and Generals of Armies By which it appeares that Columella and Pliny imputed the barrennes of the Earth in regard of former ages if any such were not to any deficiency in the Earth it selfe but to the vnskilfulnes or negligence of such as manured it To which purpose Aelian reports a pretty story of one Mises who presented the Great King Artaxerxes as hee rode through Persia with a Pomegranate of wonderfull bignesse which the King admiring demaunded out of what Paradise he had gotten it who answered that he gathered it from his owne garden the King seemed therewith to bee marvailous well content gracing him with royall gifts swore by the Sunne this man with like diligence and care might aswell in my judgment of a little City make a great one Videtur autem hic sermo innuere saith the Author omnes res curâ continuâ sollicitudine indefesso labore meliores praestantiores quà m Natura producat effici posse It seemes by this that all things by labour and industry may bee made better then Nature produces them And it is certaine that God so ordained it that the industry of man should in all things concurre with the workes of Nature both for the bringing of them to their perfection and for the keeping of them therein being brought vnto it As the Poet speaking of the degenerating of seedes hath truly expressed it Vidi lecta diu multo spectata labore Degenerare tamen ni vis humana quotannis Maxima quaeque manu legeret Oft haue I seene choice seedes and with much labour tryed Eftsoones degenerate vnlesse mans industry Yearely by hand did lease the greatest carefully And this I take to bee the true reason as before hath beene touched why neither so good nor so great store of wine is at this day made in this kingdome as by records seemes to haue beene in former ages the neglect I meane of planting dressing our vines as they might be and at this present are in forraine countreyes and with vs formerly haue beene this neglect hath perchance arisen from hence that we the French being often and long at defiance all friendly commerce ceasing betwixt vs partly to crosse them in the venting of their commodities partly to inrich themselues men were either by publique authority set on worke or they set themselues on worke to try the vtmost of their endeavour in the making of wines but since peace and trade hath beene setled betwixt both kingdomes that practise hath by degrees growne out of vse for that men found by experience that both better wines
in Heauen as all things vnder the cope of heauen vary and change so doth the militant heere on earth it hath its times and turnes sometimes flowing and againe ebbing with the sea sometimes waxing and againe waning with the Moone which great light it seemes the Almighty therefore set the lowest in the heavens and nearest the Earth that it might dayly put vs in minde of the constancy of the one and inconstancy of the other her selfe in some sort partaking of both though in a different manner of the one in her substance of the other in her visage And if the Moone thus change and all things vnder the Moone why should we wonder at the chaunge of Monarchies and Kingdomes much lesse petty states and private families they rise and fall and rise again and fall againe that no man might either too confidently presume because they are subject to continuall alteration or cast away all hope and fall to despaire because they haue their seasons and appointed times of returning againe Nemo confidat nimium secundis Nemo desperet meliora lapsus Miscet haec illis prohibetque Clotho Stare fortunam Let him that stands take heed lest that he fall Let him that 's falne hope he may rise againe The providence divine that mixeth all Chaines joy to griefe by turnes losse to gaine I must confesse that sometimes looking stedfastly vpon the present face of things both at home and abroad I haue beene often put to a stand and staggered in mine opinion whither I were in the right or no and perchaunce the state of my body and present condition in regard of those faire hopes I sometimes had served as false perspectiue glasses to looke through but when againe I abstracted and raised my thoughts to an higher pitch and as from a vantage ground tooke a larger view comparing time with time and thing with thing and place with place and considered my selfe as a member of the Vniverse and a Citizen of the World I found that what was lost to one part was gained to another and what was lost in one time was to the same part recouered in another and so the ballance by the divine providence over-ruling all kept vpright But comonly it fares with men in this case as with one who lookes onely vpon some libbet or end of a peece of Arras he happily conceiues an hand or head which he sees to be very vnartificially made but vnfolding the whole soone findes that it carries a due and just proportion to the body so qui de pauca respâ—…cit de facili pronuntiat saith Aristotle he that is so narrow eyed as he lockes onely to his owne person or family to his owne corporation or nation or the age wherein himselfe liues will peradventure quickly conceiue and as some pronounce that all things decay and goe backward which makes men murmure and repine against Ged vnder the names of Fortune and Destinie whereas he that as a part of mankinde in generall takes a view of the vniversall compares person with person family with family corporation with corporation nation with nation age with age suspends his judgement and vpon examination clearely findes that all things worke together for the best to them that loue God and that though some members suffer yet the whole is no way thereby indammaged at any time and at other times those same members are againe relieued as the Sunne when it sets to vs it rises to our Antipodes and when it remooues from the Northerne parts of the world it cherishes the Southerne yet stayes not there but returnes againe with his comfortable beames to those very parts which for a time it seemed to haue forsaken O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodnesse and declare the wonders that he hath done for the children of men or at leastwise cry out in admiration with the Apostle O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of our God how vnsearchable are his pathes and his wayes past finding out Yet the next way in some measure to finde them out so farre as is possible for vs poore wormes heere crawling in a mist vpon the face of the Earth is next the sacred Oracles of supernatutall and revealed Truth to study the great Volume of the Creature and the Histories not onely of our owne but of forraigne Countreyes and those not onely of the present but more auncient times Enquire I pray thee of the former age and prepare thy selfe to the search of their Fathers for wee are but of yesterday and know nothing because our dayes vpon earth are but a shadow If then to make my party good and to waite vpon Divinity I haue called in subsidiary aydes from Philosophers Historiographers Mathematitians Grammarians Logicians Poets Oratours Souldiers Travellers Lawyers Physitians and if I haue in imitation of Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Augustine Lactantius Arnobius Minutius endeavoured to cut the throates of the Paynims with their owne swords and pierced them with their owne quills I hope no learned man or louer of Learning will censure me for this Philosophie and the Arts I must account a part of mine owne profession and for Physicke and the Lawes I haue therein consulted the chiefe as well in this Vniversity as out of it of mine owne acquaintance nay in History the Mathematiques and Divinity it selfe I haue not onely had the approbation of the publique professours therein for the maine points in my booke which concerne their severall professions but some peeces I must acknowledge as receiued from them which I haue made bold to insert into the body of my discourse let no man think then that I maintaine a paradoxe for ostentation of wit or haue written out of spleene to gall any man in particular nor yet to humour the present times the times themselues mine indisposition that way and resolution to sit downe content with my present fortunes if they serue not to giue others satisfaction therein yet doe they fully to cleare mee to my selfe from any such aspersion yet thus much I hope I safely may say without suspition of flattery that by the goodnesse of GOD and our gratious Soveraigne vnder GOD wee yet enjoy many great blessings which former ages did not and were wee thankfull for these as we ought and truely penitent for our excesse in all kinde of monstrous sinnes which aboue all threatens our ruine I nothing doubt but vpon our returne to our God by humiliation and newnesse of life he would soone dissolue the cloud which hangs ouer vs and returne vnto vs with the comfortable beames of his favour and make vs to returne each to other with mutuall imbracements of affection and duety and our Armies and Fleetes to returne with spoyle and victory and reduce againe as golden and happy times as euer wee or our fore-fathers saw but if we still goe on with an high hand and a stiffe necke in our prophanesse our pride
the day it selfe or the quality of the Iudge by whom they are to be tryed p. 456. Sect. 3 Or the nature and number of their accusers p. 459. Sect. 4 Or lastly the dreadfulnes of the sentence which shall then be pronounced vpon them p. 461. Sect. 5 Secondly the consideration of this day may serue for a speciall comfort to the godly whether they meditate vpon the name and nature of t'c day it selfe in regard of them or the assurance of Gods loue and favour towards them and the gracious promises made vnto them p. 464. Sect. 6 Or the quality condition of the Iudge in respect of them by whom they are to be tryed or lastly the sweetnes of the sentence which shall then be pronounced on their behalfe p. 467. Sect. 7 Thirdly the consideration of this day may serue for admonition to all p. 470. Sect. 8 As likewise for instruction p. 471 OF THE VALVE OF THE ROMAN SESTERCE Compared with our English coyne now in vse BEcause in the fourth and last booke of this ensuing treatise in discovering of the Romane luxuâ—…ie frequent mention is made of their excessiue expences and the ordinary computation of their Authors whose testimonies I vse is by Sesterces I held it requisite for the better vnderstanding of those summes by such who are not acquainted with the Romane coynes in this table to expresse the value of the Sesterce and withall to reduce some of their most noted summes to our sterling that so the Reader desirous to know any particular summe may either finde it expressed in this Table or easily find it out by proportioning the summe he desires to know with the neerest vnto it either aboue or vnder The Sestertius was among the Romans a coyne so common that nummus and Sestertius came at length to be vsed promiscuously the one for the other so called it was quasi Semistertius because of three asses it wanted halfe a one and is thus commonly expressed â—…S or thus HS by which is vnderstood two asses and an halfe For the value os it ten asses make a denarius or Roman pennie so tearmed because it contained denaaera which were the same with their asses so as the Sesterce containing two asses and an halfe must oâ—… necessity be founâ—… in the denarius foure times now the denarius being the eighâ—… part of an ounce and an ounce of silver being now with vs valued at fiue shillings it followes from thence that the value of the denarius is seaven pence halfepenny consequently of the Sesterce being the fourth part thereof pennie halfe pennie farthing halfe farthing Touching their manner of counting by Sesterces a controversie there is betwixt Budaeus and Agricola whether Sestertius in the masculine and Sestertium in the neuter be to bee valued alike which Agricola affirmes Budaeus vpon better reason in my iudgement denies and to him I incline holding with him that Sestertium in the neuter containes a thousand Sestertios But heere two things are specially to be noted first that if the numerall or word that denoteth the number being an adictinâ—… and of a different caâ—…e be joyned with Sestertiûm by an abbreviatioÌ„ put for Sestertiorum in the genitiue case plurall then doth it note so many thousand Sesterty for example decem Sestertiûm signifieth decem millia tenne thousand Sesterces Secondly if the numerall joyned with Sestertiûm be an adverb then it designeth so many hundred thousand ex grâ—… decies Sestertiûm signifies decies contena millia ten hundred thousand or a million of Sesterces and sometimes the substantiue Sestertiûm is omitted but necessarily vnderstood the adjectiue then or adverbe set alone being of the same value as if the substantiue were expressed as thuâ—… decem standing by it selfe is fully as much as decem Sestertium decies in like case as if it were decies Sestertiûm which I haue premised that the reason of my rendring the Latin summes might the better be conceived now to the table Sesterces Are worth In English monies Twenty 0l-3 -3s-1 -1d-0b A hundred 0-15-7-0b Fiue hundred 3-18-1-0b A thousand 7-16-3-0 Fiue thousand 39-1-3-0 Ten thousand 78 2 6-0 Twenty thousand 156-5-0-0 Fiftie thousand 390-12-6-0 A hundred thousand 781-5-0-0 Fiue hundred thousand 3906-5-0-0 A Million 7812-10 0-0 Fiue Millions 39062-10-0-0 Ten Millions 78125-0-0-0 Twenty Millions 156250-0-0-0 Fiftie Millions 390625-0-0-0 A hundred Millions 781250-0-0-0 Two hundred Millions 1562500-0-0-0 Fiue hundred Millions 3906250-0-0-0 A thousand Millions 7812500-0-0-0 A Talent is 750 ounces of silver which after fiue shillings the ounce is 187 pounds Boethius Lib. 3. Metro 9. O Qui perpetua mundâ—…m ratione gubernas Terrarum Coelique Sator qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes stabilisque manens das cuncta moveri Da Pater augustam menti conscendere sedem Da fontem lustrare boni da luce reperta In te conspicuos animae defigere visus Disijce terrenae nebulas pondera molis Atque tuo splendore mica Ta namque serenum Tu requies tranquilla pijs Te cernere finis Principium vector dux semita terminus idem THou that madest heaven earth whose wisedome still doth guide The world by whose commaund time euermore doth slide Thou that vnmov'd thy selfe causest all things to moue Graunt Father I may climbe these sacred seates aboue Graunt I of good may view the spring that finding light My minde perpetually on thee may fixe her sight Dispell these cloudes discharge this loade of lumpish clay And spread thy beames for thou to Saints the clearest day The calmest quiet art and thee to comtemplate Port passage leader way beginning is and date AN APOLOGIE OF THE POWER AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD OR An Examination and Censure of the common errour touching Natures perpetuall and vniversall decay LIB I. Which treates of this pretended decay in generall together with some preparatiues thereunto CAP. I. Of diuerse other opinions justly suspected if not rejected though commonly receiued SECT I. In Divinitie THE opinion of the Worlds decay is so generally receiued not onely among the Vulgar but of the Learned both Diuines and others that the very commonnes of it makes it currant with many without any further examination That which is held not onely by the multitude but by the Learned passing smoothly for the most part without any checke or controle Nec alius pronior fidei lapsus quà m ubi rei falsae gravis author extitit saith Pliny Men doe not any-where more easily erre then where they follow a guide whom they presume they may safely trust They cannot quickly be perswaded that he who is in reputation for knowledge and wisdome and whose doctrine is admired in weighty matters should mistake in points of laesser consequence and the greatest part of the World is rather led with the names of their Masters and with the reverend respect they beare their persons or memories then with the soundnesse and truth of the things they
wōderfull either to beget in vs an abilitie for the doing of that which we apprehēd we cā do or a disability for the not doing of that which we cōceiue we cānot do which was the reasō that the Wisards and Oracles of the Gentiles being cōsulted they ever returned either an hopefull answer or an ambiguous such as by a favourable cōstructiō might either include or at leastwise not vtterly exclude hope Agesilaus as I remēber clapping his hāds vpon the Al tar taking it off againe by a cūning divice shewed to his souldiers victory stāped vpon it whereby they were so encouraged and grew so cōfident that beyong all expectation they indeed effected that wherof by this sleight they were formerly assured Prognostications and Prophesies often helpe to further that which they foretell and to make men such as they beare thē in hand they shall be nay by an vnavoydable destinie must bee Francis Marquesse of Saluzze yeeldes vs a memorable example in this kind who being Lieuetenant Generall to Francis the first King of France over all his forces which hee then had beyond the mountaines in Italy a man highly favoured in all the Court and infinitly obliged to the King for his Marquesite which his brother had forfeited suffered himselfe to be so farr afrighted and deluded as it hath since been manifestly proued by Prognostications which then throughout all Europe were giuen out to the advantage of the Emperour Charles the fifth and to the prejudice of the French that hauing no occasiō offered yea his owne affections contradicting the same hee first began in secret to complaine to his private friends of the inevitable miseries which he foresaw prepared by the Fates against the Crowne of France And within a while after this impression still working into him he most vnkindly revolted from his Master and became a turne-coate to the Emperours side to the astonishment of all men his owne greate disgrace ond the no lesse disadvātage to the French enterprize on the other side I doubt not but that the prophesies of Sauanarola as much assisted Charles the eight to the conquest of Naples which he performed so speedily and happily as he seemed rather with chalke to marke out his lodgings then with his sword to winne them To like purpose was that Custome among the Heathen of deriving the pedegree of valiant men from the Gods as Varro the most learned of the Romanes hath well observed Ego huiusmodi à Dis repetitas origines vtiles esse lubens agnosco vt viri fortes etiamsi falsum sit se ex Dis genitos credant vt eo modo animus humanus veluti diuinae stirpis fiduciam gerens res magnas aggrediendas presumat audaciùs agat vehementiù ob haec impleat ipsa securitate foeliciùs I for my part sayth he judge those pedegrees drawne from the Gods not to be vnprofitable that valiant men though in truth it be not so beleeving themselues to be extracted from divine races might vpon the confidence thereof vndertake high attemps the more boldly intend them the more earnestly and accomplish them the more securely and successiuely And of the Druides Caesar hath noted that among other doctrines they taught the soules immortality by propagation because they taught hoc maximè ad virtutem excitari homines metu mortis neglecto that by meanes of this apprehension men were notablely spurred forward and whetted on to the adventuring and enterprising of commendable actions through the contempt of death Which same thing Lucan hath likewise remarked Vobis authoribus vmbrae Non tacitas Erebi sedes ditisque profundi Pallida regna petunt regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio longae conitis si cognita vitae Mors media est certè populi quos despicit Arctos foelices errore suo quos ille timorum Maximus haud vrget Lethi metus inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris animaeque capaces Mortis et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae Your doctrine is Our ghost's goe not to those pale realmes of Stygian Dis And silent Erebus the selfe same soules doth sway Bodyes else-where and death if certaine trueth you say Is but the mid'st of life Thrice happy in your error Yee Northerne wights whom Death the greatest Prince of terror Nothing affrights Hence are your Martiall hearts inclind To rush on point of sword hence that vndanted mind So capable of Death hence seemes it base and vaine To spare that life which will eft soones returne againe By all which wee see the admirable efficacy of the imagination either for the elevating or depressing of the mind for the making of it more abject and base or more actiue and generous and from thence infer that the doctrine of Natures necessary decay rather tends to make men worse then better rather cowardly then couragious rather to draw them downe to that they must be then to lift them vp to that they should and may bee rather to breed sloath then to quicken industry I will giue one instance for all and that home-bredde the reason why we haue at this day no Vineyards planted nor wine growne in England as heretofore is commonly ascribed to the decay of Nature either in regard of the heavens or Earth or both and men possessed with this opinion sit downe and try not what may be done whereas our great Antiquary imputes it to the Lazines of the Inhabitants rather then to any defect or distemper in the Climat and withall professes that he is no way of the mind of those grudging sloathfull husbandmen whom Columella censures who thinke that the earth is growne weary and barren with the excessiue plenty of former ages I haue somewhere read of a people so brutish and barbarous that they must first be taught and perswaded that they were not beasts but men and capable of reason before any serviceable or profitable vse could be made of them And surely there is no hope that ever wee shall attaine the heigth of the worthy acts and exploits of our Predecessours except first we be resolved that Gods Grace and our own endeavours concurring there is a possibility wee should rise to the same degree of worth Si hanc cogitationem homines habuissent vt nemo se meliorem fore eo qui optimus fuisset arbitraretur ij ipsi qui sunt optimi non fuissent if men had alwayes thus conceaved with themselues that no man could be better then he that then was best those that now are esteemed best had not so beene They be the words of Quintilian and therevpon hee inferres as doth the Apostle 1. Corinth 12. at the last verse Nitamur semper ad optima quod facientes aut evademus in summum aut certe multos infra nos videbimus Let vs covet earnestly the best gifts and propose to our selues the matching at least if not the passing of the most excellent patterns by which meanes we
the times are more Civill and men more given to luxury and ease which passe and returne by turnes Succession it selfe effects nothing therein alone in case it did the first man in reason should haue lived longest and the son should still come short of his fathers age so that whereas Moses tells vs that the dayes of mans age in his time were threescore yeares and tenne by this reckoning they might well enough by this time be brought to tenne or twenty or thirty at most It cannot be denied but that in the first ages of the world both before and after the floud men vsually lived longer then wee finde they haue done in latter ages But that I should rather choose to ascribe to some extraordinary priviledge then to the ordinary course of nature The world was then to be replenished with inhabitants which could not so speedily be done but by an extraordinary multiplication of mankinde neither could that be done but by the long liues of men And againe Arts and sciences were then to be planted for the better effecting whereof it was requisite that the same men should haue the experience and observation of many ages For as many Sensations breed an experiment so doe many experiments a Science Per varios vsus artem experimentia fecit Exemplo monstrante viam Through much experience Arts invented were Example shewing way Specially it was requisite men should liue long for the perfecting of Astronomy and the finding out of the severall motions of the heavenly bodies whereof some are so slow that they aske a long time precisely to obserue their periods and reuolutions It was the complaint of Hippocrates Ars longa vita brevis And therefore Almighty God in his wisedome then proportioned mens liues to the length of Arts and as God gaue them this speciall priviledge to liue long so in likelihood hee gaue them withall a temper constitution of body answereable therevnto As also the foode wherewith they were nourished specially before the floud may well bee thought to haue beene more wholesome and nutritiue and the plants more medicinall And happily the influence of the heavens was at that time in that clymate where the Patriarches liued more favourable and gratious Now such a revolution as there is in the manners wits and ages of men the like may well bee presumed in their strength and stature Videtur similis esse ratio in magnitudine corporum siue statura quae nec ipsa per successionem propaginis defluit There seemeth to be the like reason in the groweth bignesse of mens bodies which decreaseth not by succession of ofspring but men are sometimes in the same nation taller sometimes of a shorter stature sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker as the times wherein they liue are more temperate or luxurious more given to labour or exercise or to ease and idlenesse And for those narrations which are made of the Gyantlike statures of men in former ages many of them were doubtles merely poeticall and fabulous I deny not but such men haue beene who for their strength and stature haue beene the miracles of nature the worlds wonders whom God would therefore haue to bee saith S. Austine that hee might shew that as well the bignesse as the beautie of the body are not to be ranged in the number of things good in themselues as being common both to good and badde Yet may wee justly suspect that which Suetonius hath not spared to write that the bones of huge beasts or sea-monsters both haue and still doe passe currant for the bones of Gyants A very notable story to this purpose haue wee recorded by Camerarius who reports that Francis the first king of France who reigned about an hundred yeares since being desirous to know the truth of those things which were commonly spread touching the strength and stature of Rou'land nephew to Charlelamaine caused his sepulchre to be opened wherein his bones and bow were found rotten but his armour sound though couered with rust which the king commaunding to bee scoured off and putting it vpon his owne body found it so fit for him as thereby it appeared that Rouland exceeded him little in bignesse and stature of bodie though himselfe were not excessiue tall or bigge SECT 6. The precedents of this chapt summarily recollected and the methode observed in the ensuing treatise proposed NOw briefely and summarily to recollect and as it were to winde vp into one clue or bottome what hath more largely beene discoursed thorow this chapter I hold first that the heavenly bodies are not at all either in regard of their substance motion light warmth or influence in the course of nature at all impaired or subject to any impairing or decay Secondly that all individuals vnder the Cope of heaven mixed of the elements are subject to a naturall declination and dissolution Thirdly that the quantity of the Elements themselues is subject to impairing in regard of their parts though not of their intire bodies Fourthly that the ayre and earth and water and diverse seasons diversely affected sometime for the better sometime for the worse and that either by some speciall favour or judgement of God or by some cause in nature secret or apparent Fiftly that the severall kindes of beasts of plantes of fishes of birds of stones of mettalls are as many in number as at the Creation every way in Nature as vigorous as at any time since the floud Sixtly and lastly that the manners the wits the health the age the strength and stature of men daily vary but so as by a vicissitude and reuolution they returne againe to their former points from which they declined againe decline and againe returne by alternatiue and interchangeable courses Erit hic rerum in se remeantium orbis quamdiù erit ipse orbis This circle and ring of things returning alwayes to their principles will neuer cease as long as the world lasts Repetunt proprios cuncta recursus Redituque suo singula gaudent Nec manet vlli traditus ordo Nisi quod fini iunxerit ortum Stabilemque sui fecerit orbem To their first spring all things are backeward bound And every thing in its returne delighteth Th' order once setled can in nought be found But what the end vnto the birth vniteth And of its selfe doth make a constant round And consequently there is no such vniversall and perpetuall decay in the frame of the Creatures as is commonly imagined and by some strongly maintained The methode which I propose is first to treate heereof in generall that so a cleerer way and easier passage may be opened to the particulars then of the Heavens as being the highest in situation and the noblest in outward glory and duration as also in their efficacie and vniversality of operation and therefore doth the Prophet rightly place them next God himselfe in the order of Causes it shall come to passe in that day saith
the Lord that I will heare the heavens and they shall heare the earth and the earth shall heare the corne and the wine and the oile and they shall heare Israell From that we may descend to the foure Elements which as a musicall instrument of foure strings is both tuned and touched by the hand of heaven And in the next place those bodies which are mixed and tempered of these Elements offer themselues to our consideration whether they bee without life as stones and mettalls or haue the life of vegetation only as Plants or both of vegetation and sense as beasts and birds and fishes and in the last place man presents himselfe vpon this Theater as being created last though first intended the master of the whole family chiefe Commaunder in this great house nay the master-peece the abridgment the mappe and modell of the Vniuerse And in him wee will examine this pretended decay first in regard of age and length of yeares secondly in regard of strength and stature thirdly in regard of wits and Arts and fourthly and lastly in regard of manners and conditions to which all that is in man is or should bee finally referred as all that is in the world is vnder God finally referred to man And because it is not sufficient to possesse our owne fort without the dismantling and demolishing of our enimies a principall care shall bee had throughout the whole worke to answere if not all at least the principall of those obiections which I haue found to weigh most with the adverse part And in the last place least I should any way bee suspected to shake or vndermine the ground of our Christian religion or to weaken the article of our beliefe touching the consummation of the world by teaching that it decayes not to wipe off that aspertion I will endeavour to prooue the certainety thereof not so much by Scripture which no Christian can be ignorant of as by force of Reason and the testimony of Heathen writers and finally I will conclude with an exhortation grounded therevpon for the stirring of men vp to a preparation of themselues against that day which shall not only end the world but iudge their actions and dispose of the everlasting estate of their persons CAP. 4. Touching the worlds decay in generall SECT 1. The three first generall reasons that it decayes not THe same Almighty hand which created the worlds massie frame and gaue it a being out of nothing doth still support and maintaine it in that being which at first it gaue and should it with draw himselfe but for a moment the whole frame would instantly returne into that nothing which before the Creation it was as Gregorie hath righly observed Deus suo presentiali esse dat omnibus rebus esse ita quod si se rebus subtraheret sicut de nihilo facta sunt omnia sic in nihilum diffluerent vniversa God by his presentiall Essence giues vnto all things an Essence so that if hee should withdraw himselfe from them as out of nothing they were first made so into nothing they would be againe resolved In the preservation then of the Creature wee are not so much to consider the impotencie and weakenesse thereof as the goodnesse wisedome and power of the Creator in whom and by whom and for whom they liue and moue and haue their being The spirit of the Lord filleth the world saith the Authour of the wisedome of Solomon and the secret working of the spirit which thus pierceth through all things hath the Poet excellently exprest Principio caelum ac terr as camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The heauen the earth and all the liquide maine The Moones bright globe and starres Titanian A spirit within maintaines and their whole masse A minde which through each part infus'd doth passe Fashions and workes and wholly doth transpierce All this great Body of the Vniverse This Spirit the Platonists call the Soule of the World by it it is in some sort quickned and formaliz'd as the body of man is by its reasonable Soule There is no question then but this Soule of the World if wee may so speake being in truth none other then the immortall Spirit of the Creator is able to make the body of the World immortall and to preserue it from disolution as he doth the Angels and the spirits of men and were it not that he had determined to dissolue it by the same supernaturall and extraordinary power which at first gaue it existence I see not but by the ordinary concurrence of this spirit it might euerlastingly endure and that consequently to driue it home to our present purpose there is no such vniversall and perpetuall decay in the course of Nature as is imagined and this I take to be the meaning of Philo in that booke which he hath composed De Mundi incorruptibilitate of the Worlds incorruptibility there being some who haue made the World eternall without any beginning or ending as Aristotle and the Peripateticks others giue it a beginning but without ending as Plato and the Academicks whom Philo seemes to follow and lastly others both beginning ending as Christians and other Sects of Philosophers whom Aristotle therefore flouts at saying that he formerly feared his house might fall downe about his eares but that now he had a greater matter to feare which was the dissolution of the world But had this pretended vniversall perpetuall decay of the World beene so apparant as some would make it his flout had easily beene returned vpon himselfe his opinion by dayly sensible experience as easily confuted which wee may well wonder none of those Philosophers who disputed against him if they acknowledged and beleeued the trueth thereof should any where presse in defence of their owne opinions it being indeed the most vnanswerable and binding argument that possibly could be enforced against him were there that evident certaintie in it as is commonly imagined whereas he in the sharpnesse of his wit seeing the weakenesse thereof would not so much as vouchsafe it a serious answere but puts it off with a jeast For mine owne part I constantly beleeue that it had a beginning and shall haue an ending and hold him not worthy the name of a Christian who holds not as much yet so as I beleeue both to bee matter of faith through faith we vnderstand that the Worlds were framed by the word of God and through the same faith we likewise vnderstand that they shall be againe vnframed by the same word Reason may grope at this truth in the darke howbeit it can neuer cleerely apprehend it but inlightned by the beame of faith I deny not but probable though not demonstratiue and convincing arguments may be drawn from discourse of reason to proue either the one or the other
suffer death When it the forme forsakes as men their breath And though the counters be plac't lower or higher Yet still the totall summe doth stand entire SECT 2. Fourth reason for that such a decay as is supposed would in time point out the very day of the worlds expiration and consequently of the second comming of Christ. ANother speciall reason mouing me to beleeue that the Worlds supposed decay is but imaginary is that it would in time point out the very date of its expiration so that men should be able frō the extremity of the disorder cōfusion into which it would by degrees degenerate by the rule of proportion as it were by the euen decrease of sand or water in an houre-glasse prognosticate the instant beyond which it could no longer subsist whereas before the Vniversall Deluge which swept away euery liuing soule breathing vpon the face of the Earth except Noah his Family and the beasts which lodged with him vnder the roofe of the same Arke wee reade of no such fore-running declination which was the reason that men tooke no notice of it till it over tooke them and as it was then so shall it be at the sudden and vnexpected comming of the second deluge of fire For as in the d◅es which were before the floud they were eating and drinking marrying and giuing in marriage vntill the day that Noah entred into the Arke and knew not vntill the flood came and swept them all away So shall also the comming of the sonne of man bee it shall be like the comming of the theefe in the night when men shall say Peace and safety then sudden distruction shall come vpon them The more I wonder what should make the Authour of the Scholasticall history thus to write Tradunt Sancti quod quadraginta annis ante judicium non videbitur arcus coelestis id quod etiam naturaliter ostendet desiccationem aeris Holy men affirme that forty yeares before the day of ludgment no rainebow shall appeare which shall serue as a naturall signe of the drought in the ayre already begun Those Holy men he names not neither can I so much as conjecture who they should bee since no such opinion nor any mention thereof as I presume is to be found in the writings of any of the Ancient Fathers now extant neither in truth is it any way grounded either vpon Scripture or shew of reason drawne from thence And besides it assumes that as yeelded which is not onely vncertaine but certainely false that the conflagration of the world shall be wrought or at leastwise prepared by second and naturall causes whereas it shall doubtlesse be the supernaturall worke of Gods omnipotencie as was likewise the drowning of it Howbeit Henricus Mecliniensis scholer to Albertus Magnus in his Comentaries vpon the great Conjunctions of Albumazar seemes to referre it to the watery constellations then reigning as some others do the future generall conbustion to the predominance of fiery constellations whereas notwithstanding they ascribe the vniversall declination and dotage of nature to the want of that warmth which former ages enioyed So that according to their groundes following the course of nature the world should rather haue beene burned in Noahs time it being then in the prime and strength of naturall heate and reserved for a floud at the last day it being now accordig to their opinion seazed vpon with cold and waterish humours or at least their feined fiery constellations would better haue suted with those times and the waterish with ours But thus wee see how curiositie intangleth and errour ever crosseth and contradicteth it selfe Haec est mendaciorum natura vt cohaerere non possint sayth Lactantius Such is the property of falsehoods that they can never hang together At nulla est discordia veris Semper que sibi certa cohaerent In true things discord is there none They friendly still agree in one SECT 3. Fifth reason that vpon the supposition of such a decay the vigour of the world must needs long since haue beene exhausted and worne out A fifth reason which makes mee thinke that Nature neither hath nor doth degenerate and pine away in the severall kindes of Creatures in regard of their number dimensions faculties or operations is that in the course of so many ages allready past the vigour and strength of it must needes haue beene vtterly exausted and worne out If in every Centenary of yeares from the Creation or since the floud some small abatement onely should haue beene made which notwithstanding the Patrons of the adverse opinion hold to be greate as will appeare when wee come to the examination of the particulers and if wee should question a man of an hundred yeares of age about this point what a wonderfull change will he tell you of since his remembrance so that if wee should goe backward and proportionablely allow the like change within the like compasse of yeares since the beginning of the world it could not possiblely subsist at this day But put the case as I say that not so greate as is imagined but some small abatement should be made for every Centenary surely evē in that proportion nothing else could now be left vnto vs but the very refuse bran the drosse dregges of nature and as heavy things sinke in rivers but strawes and stickes are carried downe the streame so in this long current of time the kernell and pith of Nature must needes haue beene spent and wasted onely the rinde and shells should haue beene left to vs. The Heavens could not by their warmth and influence haue beene able sufficiently to cherish the earth nor the earth to keepe the plantes from staruing at her breasts nor the plants to nourish the beastes nor could the beastes haue beene serviceable for the vse of man nor man himselfe of abilitie to exercise the right of his dominion over the beastes and other Creatures The Sunne by this time would haue beene no brighter then the Moone or Starrs Cedars would haue beene no taller then shrubs Horses no bigger then Doggs Elephants then Oxen Oxen then Sheepe Eagles then Pigeons Pigeons then Sparrowes and then whole race of mankind must haue become Pigmies and mustered themselues to encounter with Cranes If we should allow but one inch of decrease in the growth of men for euery Centenary lesse cānot well be imagined there would at this present be abated allmost fiue foote in their ordinary stature which notwithstanding was held the competent height of a man aboue sixteene hundred yearers since so still continues so that the ordinary stature of the men of the first age should by this rule haue beene about tenne foote which exceeds that of Goliah by some inches Sir Walter Rauleigh who in sundry places positiuely defendes natures vniversall decay which I must confesse I somewhat marvell at in a man of that peirceing wit and cleare iudgment but that as others
then I will examine the truth of this proposition whether every thing the farther it departs from its originall the more it looses of its perfection because vpon it the weight of the argument is grounded and secondly I will consider how iustly it is applied to this present purpose For the first whether wee behold the workes of Art or Nature or Grace wee shall finde that they all proceede by certaine steps from a more imperfect and vnpolished being to that which is more absolute and perfect To begin with the workes of Grace in the course of Christianity wee grow both in knowledge and vertue in illumination sanctification as the blind man in the Gospell having recovered his sight first saw men walking like trees confusedly and indistinctly but afterwards more cleerely in knowledge wee grow by leauing the principles of the doctrine of Christ and going on vnto perfection by leauing milke fitte for babes and vsing stronger meate belonging to them that are of full age who by reason of an habit haue their senses exercised to discerne both good and evill In vertue wee grow not only by adding vertue to vertue as it were linke to linke but by increasing in those vertues as it were by inlarging the links that the man of God may be made perfect thorowly furnished vnto every good worke For the workes of Arts wee see the Limmer to begin with a rude draught and the Painter to lay his grounds with shaddowes and darksome colours the weauer out of a small threed makes a rich and faire peece and the Architect vpon rubbish laies a goodly pile of building which at first consists of naked walles but at last is furnished with variety of houshold stuffe and garnished with hangings and pictures Lastly for the workes of Nature out of what a confused Chaos was the goodly frame of this world raised out of what vnworthy little seedes spring the tallest trees and most beautifull flowers nay what a base beginning at the first Creation had and still hath man himselfe the Lord of the Creatures so as himselfe euen blushes to mention it how impotent and vnable to helpe himselfe is he brought into the world how slowly doth hee come forward to the vse of his senses his strength his reason yet at length by degrees if hee liue and be of a sound constitution hee arriues vnto it By which it appeares that at leastwise individuals in the severall workes both of Grace and Art and Nature the farther they proceed from their originall the more perfect they are till they arriue to their state of perfection though heerein they differ that Art and Nature then decline but Grace is turned into Glory And for the species or kinds of things which is it that specially concernes our present question as I cannot affirme that by degrees they grow on still to greater perfection so neither can I finde that they daily grow more imperfect For Grace wee know it was more abundantly powred out by the incarnation and passion of the Sonne of God in this latter age of the world then at any time before since the first creation thereof And of Art it is commonly thought that neere about the same time the Romane empire was at the highest and Souldiers Poets Oratours Philosophers Historians Polititians never more excellent which withall should argue that Nature was at that time rather strengthned then enfeebled in as much as both Art and Grace are built vpon Nature I meane the naturall faculties of the soule which commonly follow the temper of the body the more vigorous they are the more happily are both Art and Grace exercised by them Now for the application of the proposition to the present purpose touching the worlds decay it is evident that if it were indeed of that force as is pretended it would therevpon follow that in the course of Nature Adam should haue beene the tallest and longest-liu'd man that euer breathed vpon the face of the earth whereas notwithstanding wee reade not of any Gyants till a little before the floud and Noah who liued after the floud saw twenty yeares more then Adam himselfe did the latter being nine hundred and fiftie and the former but nine hundred and thirtie yeares old when he died Nay Methusaleth the eight from Adam out stripped him by forty yeares wanting but one and wee see by daily experience that a weake or foolish father often begets a strong and a wise sonne and that the grandchild sometimes equalls the age of the father and grandfather both together If a thousand candles or torches should be successiuely lighted one from another it cannot be discerned by their dull or bright burning which was first or last lighted nay the last sometimes yeelds a brighter light then the first if it meete with matter accordingly prepared The water which runnes a thousand miles thorow cleane passages is euery whit as wholesome and sweete at its journeys end as when it first issued from the fountaine The seede that is cast into the earth seldome failes to bring forth as good as it selfe and sometimes better and if at any time it proue worse it is not because it is further distant from its originall which is the very point in controversie but because it meetes with a worse soyle or a worse season and the soile and season are worse perchance then in former times nor by reason of the revolution of so many ages since the Creation but either by reason of Gods Curse vpon sinne or some other accidentall cause which being removed they returne againe to their natiue and wonted properties For did they grow worse worse only by a farther distance from their first being then would the Creatures haue decayed in processe of time whether man had sinned or no and man himselfe should haue beene of lesse strength and stature and continuance though hee had not failed in the temperaâ—… vse of the creature or of any other meanes making for the preservation of his life and health 〈◊〉 I suppose the Patrons of the adverse part will not maintaine oâ—…ce I am sure that the common teâ—…et of Divâ—…es is that whatsoever defect or swarning is to be found in the nature either of man himselfe or the Creature made to serue him ariseth from the sin of man alone as being the only causâ—… of all the jarre and disorder in the world Now to impute it to sin and yet withall to affirme that 〈◊〉 is occasioned by â—…he â—…ll of the Creature from its 〈◊〉 exâ—…ce implies in my judgment a manifest and irreconciliable contradiction To conclude this answeare this axioâ—…e 〈◊〉 quo magis elongatur a suo principio eo magis defiâ—…it languâ—…scit Euery thing the farther it is remou'd from its originall the more faint and feeble it growes in violent motions is most true As an arrow shot out of a bow or a dart flung vpward from the hand of a man the higher they mount the slower
they moue and so I conceiue it to haue beene mâ—…nt by Aristotle but in naturall motions as the moving of a stone downeward and such is rather Naturâ—…s motion in the course of the world the contrary is vndoubtedly truâ—… Cresâ—…â—…undo the farther it moues the more strength it gathers and fortiâ—…ies it selfe in going Besides if the strength of the hand could goe along with the dart or if the bow with the arrow as the hand and power of God leades and preserues Nature in her course keeping â—…t a wâ—…king as the spring doth the wheels in a watch or Clocke thâ—…e is no question but their motions would proue as quicke and forcible in the end as at the beginning and not cease at all before the strength of the hand or bow which carry them forward were removed from them Finally if this axiome were not to be limited it should equally extend to the Angells and the soules of men and the first matter and the heavens as well as to the sublunary mixt bodies but the same power which vpholds and maintaines them in their originall state supports likewise the whole body of this inferiour world together withall the severall speâ—…ies or kindes thereof and did it not so doe all the absurdities already touched as impotency in that spirit which animates the world to support it anâ—…ihilation in the course of Nature defect and swarving in the Creaâ—… without the sin of man foreknowledge of the worlds end the end of it long before this time would infalliblely follow therevpon SECT 2. The second generall obiection answered which is that the seuerall parts of the World decaying it should argue a consumption in the whole ANother argument drawne from reason for the worlds decay is that all the parts of it decay and by degrees grow to dissolution which should likewise argue a wasting and lingring consumption in the whole since there seemes to be the same reason of the whole which is of all the parts where of it consists But the answere hereunto will easily appeare out of that which hath already beene deliuered and by taking a review of the seuerall parts of the Vniversall First then for the heauens vndoubtedly they feele no such decay either in substance quantity motion light warmth or influence as I hope I shall make it manifest in the next Chapter and for the Elements what they loose in regard of their quantity is againe made vp by equivalence or compensation and that in respect of their quality they decay not either by being of lesse efficacie or more malignant dispositions then in former ages remaines to be shewed in their proper place and lastly for the bodies mixed and tempered of the Elements though it be graunted that all individuals or particulars in time decay or perish yet doth it not follow that the same condition should likewise bee annexed to the species or kinde which is still preserued by a new supply and successiue propagation of particulars not alwayes inferiour to their predecessours which this argument presumes but sometimes excelling and commonly equalling them in goodnes as hath alwayes beene touched in part and shall hereafter by Gods helpe bee more fully and distinctly prooued SECTIO 3. The third generall obiection answered taken from the authority of S. Cyprian THe arguments drawne from authority are either humane or divine testimonies Among humane that of S. Cyprian is most famous as wel in regard of his great piety and learning as his approach to the pure and primitiue times of the Church of Christ. This holy Martyr then and venerable Bishop greeuing that the Christian Religion should be charged with these lamentable accidents wherewith the World at that time was pressed and shaken shapes this reply to Demetrianus their accuser Illud primo loco scire debes senuisse iam mundum non illis viribus stare quibus prius steterat nec vigore robore eo praevalere quo antea praevalebat hoc enim nobis tacentibus nulla de Scripturis sanctis praedicationibusque divinis documenta promentibus mundus ipse iam loquitur occasum sui rerum labentium probatione testatur Non hyeme nutriendis seminibus tanta imbrium copia est non frugibus aestate torrendis solis tanta flagrantia est nec sic verna de temperie sua laeta sata sunt nec adeò arbores foetibus autumno foecundae sunt minus de effossis fatigatis montibus eruuntur marmorum crustae minus argenti auri opes suggerunt exhausta iam metalla pauperes venae tenuantur in dies singulos decrescunt deficit in agris agricola in amicitijs concordia in artibus peritia in moribus disciplina Putasne tu posse tantam substantiam rei senescentis existere quantumprius potuit novella adhuc vegeta iuventute pollere Minuatur necesse est quicquid fine iam proximo in occidua extrema divergit sic sol in occasu suo radios minus claro igneo splendore iaculatur sic declinante iam cursu exoletis cornubus Luna tenuatur arbor quae fuerat ante viridis fertilis are scentibus ramis fit postmodum sterili senectute deformis fons qui exundantibus prius venis largiter profluebat vix modico sudore distillat Haec sententia mundo data est haec Dei lex est ut omnia orta occidant aucta senescant infirmentur fortia magna minuantur cùm infirmata diminuta fuerint fiâ—…iantur You ought first to haue knowne this that the World is now waxen old that it hath not those forces which formerly it had neither is endued with that vigour and strength wherewith it formerly was thus much though we held our peace and brought no proofe thereof from holy Scripture and divine Oracles the World it selfe proclaimes and testifies its declination by the experience of all things declining in it Wee haue not now so great store of showres for the nourishing of our seedes in Winter nor in Summer so much warmth of the Sunne for the ripening of our corne In the Spring our fields are not so fresh and pleasant nor in Autumne our trees so loaden with fruites lesse peeces of marble are hewed out of the exhausted and tired mountaines and the emptied Mines yeeld lesse quantity of gold and siluer theit veines daylie diminishing and decreasing The husbandman is defectiue in manuring the Earth concord failes in friendship skill in Arts and discipline in manners Can you imagine that the state of a thing waxing old should be so firme sound as when it flourished in its youth That must needes bee weakened which the finall period of it approaching hastens to the last end so the Sunne when it is setting darts not forth so fiery and cleare beames So the Moon drawing toward the end of her race drawes in her horns and growes lesse and the tree which formerly was greene and fruitfull her boughes withering becomes deformed by barren
therin he alludes to the opinion of the ancient Philosophers Poets perchance thereby intending Lucretius the great admirer and sectary of Epicurus who of all the Poets I haue met with hath written the most fully in this argument I am que adeo effa ta est aetas effoetaque tellus Vix animalia parva creat quae cuncta creavit Soecla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu Haud vt opinor enim mortalia soecla superne Aurea de coelo demisit funis in arva Nec marc nec fluctus plangentes saxa crearunt Sed genuit tellus eadem quae nunc alit ex se. Praeterea nâ—…idas fruges vinetaque laeta Sponte suà primum mortalibus ipsa creavit Ipsa dedit dulces foetus pabula laeta Quae nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore Conterimusque boves vires agricolarum Conficimus ferrum vix arvis suppeditati Vsque adeò parcunt faetus augentque labores Iamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator Crebrius in cassum magnum cecidisse laborem Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert Praeteritis laudat fortunas saepe parentis Et crepat antiquum genus vt pietate repletum Perfacile angnstis tolerârit finibus aevum Cum minor esset agri multo modus ante viritim Nec tenet omnia paulatim tabescere ire Adscopulum spaâ—…io aetatis defessa vetusto The world with age is broke the earth out worne And shee of whome what ever liues was borne And once brought forth huge bodied beasts with paine A small race now begets No golden chaine These mortalls downe from heaven to earth did let As I suppose nor sea nor waues that beat The rockes did they create t' was earth did breed All of herselfe which now all things doth feed The chearefull vine shee of her owne accord Shee corne to mortall wights did first afford Sweete fruites beside and food did she bestow Which now with labour great great hardly grow The plough-swanes strength wee spend our oxen weare When we our feildes haue sowne no crop they beare So wax our toyles so waneth our reliefe The husband shakes his head and sighs for griefe That all his travels frustrate are at last And when times present he compares with past Hee his Sires fortune raises to the skie And much doth talke of th' ancient pietie And how though every man lesse ground possest Yet better liu'd with greater plentie blest Nor markes how all things by degrees decay And tir'd with age towards the rocke make way But herein Lucretius likewise contradicted himselfe in other places of the same booke and had the world beene indeede so neare its last breathing as it were and giueing vp of the Ghost as Cyprian would make it in his time much more as Lucretius in his vndoubtedly it could never haue held out by the space of allmost fourteene hundred yeares since the one aboue sixtee ne hundred since the other how long it is yet to last he only knowes who hath put the times and seasons in his owne power SECT 4. The same authority of Cyprian farther answered by opposing against it the authority of Arnobius supported with ponderous and pressing reasons NOw because this authority of Cyprian is it which prevailes so much with so many it shall not bee amisse to oppose therevnto that of Arnobius not naked and standing vpon bare affirmation as doth that of Cyprian but backt with weighty forcible arguments a very renowned both Oratour and Philosopher he was the master of Lactantius and diverse other very notable and famous men and being pressed by the Gentiles of his time with the same objection against Christian religion as was Cyprian by Demetrianus hee shapes vnto it an answere cleane contrary by shewing that all the fundamentall and primordiall parts of the world as the heavens elements remained still entire since the profession of Christian religion as before they were for other calamities of famine and warres and pestilence and the like the common scourges of the world they had beene as great or greater in former ages and that before the name of Christianity was heard of in the world then at that time they were His Latine because the allegation is long and in some places it savours of the Affrican harshnes I will spare and onely set downe the English And first of all in faire and familiar speech this we demaund of these men since the name of Christian religion began to be in the world what vncouth what vnvsuall things what against the Lawes instituted at the beginning hath Nature as they terme call her either felt or suffered Those first Element whereof it is agreed that all things are compounded are they changed into contrary qualities Is the frame of this engine and fabricke which covereth and incloseth vs all in any part loosed or dissolved Hath this wheeling about of Heaven swarving from the rule of its primitiue motion either begun to creepe more slowly or to be carried with headlong volubilitie Doe the Stars begin to raise themselues vp in the West and the Signes to inâ—…line towards the East 〈◊〉 The Prinâ—…e of Stars the Sun whose light clotheth and heat quickneth all things doth hee cease to be hot is he waxen cooler and hath he corrupted the temper of his wonted moderation into contrary Habits Hath the Moone left off to repaire her selfe and by continuall restoring of new to transforme herselfe into her old shapes Are colds are heats are temperate warmths betweene them both by confusion of vnequall times gone Doth Winter beginne to haue long dayes and Summer nights to call backe the slowest lights Haue the winds breathed forth their spirits as having spent their blasts Is not the aire straitned into clowds and doth not the field being moistned with showres wax fruitfull Doth the Earth refuse to receiue the seeds cast into her Will not trees budde forth Haue fruites appointed for food by the burning vp of their moisture changed their tast Doe they presse gore bloud out of oliues Are lights quenched for want of supplie The Creatures enured to the land and that liue in waters doe they not gender and conceiue The young ones conceived in their wombs do they not after their owne manner and order conserue To conclude Men themselues whom their first and beginning nativitie dispersed through the vnhabited coasts of the Earth doe they not with solemne nuptiall rights couple themselues in wedlocke Doe they not beget most sweete ofsprings of children Doe they not manage publicke private and domesticall businesses Doe they not every one as he pleaseth by divers sorts of arts and disciplines direct their wits and studiouslie repay the vse of their nativitie Doe they not reigne do they not commaund to whom it is allotted Doe they not every day more increase in the like dignities and power Doe they not sit in iudgement to heare causes Do they not interpret lawes and
or begotten in old age are alwayes weaker then those in youth Whereas Isaak borne of Sarah when shee was now so old that shee was thought both by others and her selfe to be past conceiving and begotten of Abraham when his body was now dead was for any thing wee finde to the contrary of as strong healthfull a constitution as Iaacob borne in the strength of Isaack and Rebecca And Ioseph or Benjamin as able men as Reuben though Iaacob in his blessing call him The beginning of his strength and the excellencie of power as being his first begotten Nay often wee see that the youngest borne in age not equalls onely but excells both in wit and spirit and strength and stature the Eldest borne in youth So vnsure and sandie is this ground and for his inference drawne from thence it is no lesse vnwarrantable and insufficient There being in the resemblance betwixt a woman and the world as large a difference as is the dissimilitude betweene the fruite of the one and the generations of the other The one taking her beginning by the course of nature in weakenesse so growing to perfection and ripenesse shee quickely declines and hastens to dissolution Shee must necessarily expect the tearme of certaine yeares before she can conceiue her fruite and then againe at the end of certaine yeares shee leaues to conceiue Whereas the other being created immediatly by a supernaturall power was made in the very first moment that it was fully made in full perfection which except it bee for the sinne of man it never lost nor by any force of subordinate causes possiblely could or can loose The quickening efficacy of that word Crescite multiplicamini though deliuered many thousand yeares since is now as powerfull in beasts in plants in birds in fishes in men as at first it was And thus much this false Prophet seemes himselfe to acknowledge in the chapter following where he thus brings in the Lord speaking vnto him All these things were made by me alone and by none other by mee also they shall be ended and by none other And if they shall be ended immediatly by the hand of the Almighty as immediatly by it they were made then doubtles there is no such naturall decay in them which would at last without the concurrence of any such supernaturall power bring them to a naturall d◅ssolution no more then there was any naturall forerunning preparation to their Creation And thus wee see how this Goliah hath his head stricken off with his owne sword and this lying Prophet condemned out of his owne mouth I haue dwelt the longer vpon this examination because I finde that the testimony drawne from this Counterfeite was it that in appearance misledde Cyprian both their testimonies togeather that which hath yeelded the principall both confidence and countenance to the Adverse part SECT 6. The last obiection answered pretended to bee taken from the authority of holy Scriptures AS the testimony taken frō Esdras wants authority so those which re drawn frō authority of sacred Canonicall Scriptures want right explicatiō applicatiō Whereof the first that I haue met with are those misconstrued words of the Prophet Isaiah The world languisheth and fadeth away or as some other translations reade it The world is feebled decayed Which by Iunius Tremelius are rendred in the future tence Languebit Concidet orbis habitabilis and are vndoubtedly to be referred to the destruction desolation of those Nations against which he had in some chapters precedent denounced the heauy judgements of God As the Moabites Egyptians Tyrians Syrians Assyrians Ethiopians Babylonians and the Isralites themselues Iunius thus rightly summing the chapter Propheta summam contrahit judiciorum quae supra denunciauerat The Prophet recapitulates or drawes into one head or summe the judgements which before hee had denounced at large and in particular which comming from the justice and immediate hand of God for sin vpon a part of the world can in no sort be referred to the ordinary course of Nature in regard of the Vniversall That which carries with it some more colour of Reason is that by St. Paul The Crearure is said to be subiect to vanity to the bondage of corruption to groaning and to travelling in paine All which seeme to imply a decay and declination in it But in the judgement of the soundest Interpreters the Apostle by vanity and bondage of corruption meanes first that impurity infirmity and deformity which the Creature hath contracted by the fall of man Secondly the daily alteration and change nay declination and decay of the Individuals and particulars of every kind vnder heaven Thirdly the designation hasting of the kindes or species themselues to a finall totall dissolution by fire And lastly the abuse of them tending to the dishonour of the Creator or the hurt of his servants or the service of his enimies All these may not improperly be tearmed vanity and a bondage of corruption vnder which the Creature groaneth and travelleth wishing and waiting to be delivered from it But that of S. Peter is it which is most of all stood vpon where he brings in the prophane scoffers at Religion and especially at the article of the worlds Consummation thus questioning the matter where is the promise of his comming For since the fathers fell asleepe all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation But in truth that place if it bee well weighed rather makes against the worlds supposed decay then for it in as much as if the Apostle had known or acknowledged any such decay in it it is to be presumed that being invited and in a manner forced therevnto by so faire and fit an occasion hee would haue pressed it against those scoffers or in some sort haue expressed himselfe therein But since hee onely vrges the Creation of the world and the overwhelming of it with water to proue that the same God who wasthe Authour of both those is as able at his pleasure to vnmake it with fire it should seeme hee had learned no such divinity as the worlds decay or at least-wise had no such assurance of it and warrant for it as to teach it the Church Nay in the 7 verse of the same chapter hee tells vs that the heavens and earth which are now are by the same word by which they were Created kept in store and reserved to fire It was not then their auerring that things continued as they were that made them scoffers but their irreligious inference from thence that the world neither had beginning neither should haue ending but all things should alwaies continue as formerly they alwayes had done And thus much may suffice for the consideration of the worlds decay in Generall it rests now that wee descend to a distinct view of the particulars amongst which the Heavens first present themselues vpon the Theatre as being the most glorious
and operatiue bodies and seated in the most eminent roome LIB II. Of the pretended decay of the Heauens and Elements and Elementary Bodies Man onely excepted CAP. 1. Touching the pretended decay of the Heauenly Bodies SECT 1. First of their working vpon this inferiour World SUch and so great is the wisdome the bounty and the power which Almighty God hath expressed in the frame of the Heauens that the Psalmist might justly say The Heauens declare the glory of God the Sun the Moone the Stars serving as so many silver golden Characters embroidered vpon azure for the daylie preaching and publishing thereof to the World And surely if he haue made the floore of this great House of the World so beautifull and garnished it with such wonderfull variety of beasts of trees of hearbes of flowres we neede wonder the lesse at the magnificence of the roofe which is the highest part of the World and the neerest to the Mansion House of Saints and Angels Now as the excellencie of these Bodies appeares in their situation their matter their magnitudes and their Sphericall or Circular figure so specially in their great vse and efficacy not onely that they are for signes and seasons and for dayes yeares but in that by their motion their light their warmth influence they guide and gouerne nay cherish and maintaine nay breed beget these inferiour bodies euen of man himselfe for whose sake the Heauens were made It is truly said by the Prince of Philosophers Sol homo generant hominem the Sunne and man beget man man concurring in the generation of man as an immediate and the Sunne as a remote cause And in another place he doubts not to affirme of this inferiour World in generall Necesse est mundum inferiorem superioribus lationibus continuari ut omnis inde virtus derivetur it is requisite that these inferiour parts of the World should bee conjoyned to the motions of the higher Bodies that so all their vertue and vigour from thence might be derived There is no question but that the Heauens haue a marvailous great stroake vpon the aire the water the earth the plants the mettalls the beasts nay vpon Man himselfe at leastwise in regard of his body and naturall faculties so that if there can be found any decay in the Heauens it will in the course of Nature and discourse of reason consequently follow that there must of necessity ensue a decay in all those which depend vpon the Heauens as likewise on the other side if there be found no decay in the Heauens the presumption will be strong that there is no such decay as is supposed in these Subcaelestiall Bodies because of the great sympathy and correspondence which is knowne to be betweene them by many and notable experiments For to let passe the quailing and withering of all things by the recesse and their reviving and resurrection as it were by the reaccesse of the Sunne I am of opinion that the sap in trees so precisely followes the motion of the Sunne that it neuer rests but is in continuall agitation as the Sun it selfe which no sooner arriues at the Tropick but he instantly returnes and euen at that very instant as I conceiue and I thinke it may be demonstrated by experimentall conclusions the sappe which by degrees descended with the declination of the Sun begins to remount at the approach thereof by the same steps that it descended and as the approach of the Sunne is scarce sensible at his first returne but afterward the day increases more in one weeke then before in two in like manner also fares it with the sap in plants which at first ascends insensibly and slowly but within a while much more swiftly and apparantly It is certaine that the Tulypp Marigold and Sun-flowre open with the rising and shut with the setting of the Sunne So that though the Sunne appeare not a man may more infallibly know when it is high noone by their full spreading then by the Index of a Clock or Watch. The hop in its growing winding it selfe about the pole alwayes followes the course of the Sunne from East to West and can by no meanes bee drawne to the contrary choosing rather to breake then yeeld It is obserued by those that sayle betweene the Tropicks that there is a constant set winde blowing from the East to the West saylers call it the Breeze which rises and falls with the Sunne and is alwayes highest at noone and is commonly so strong partly by its owne blowing and partly by ouer-ruling the Currant that they who saile to Peru cannot well returne home the same way they came forth And generally Marriners obserue that caeter is paribus they sayle with more speed from the East to the West then backe againe from the West to the East in the same compasse of time All which should argue a wheeling about of the aire and waters by the diurnall motion of the Heauens and specially by the motion of the Sunne Whereunto may be added that the high Seasprings of the yeare are alwayes neere about the two Aequinoctials and Solstices and the Cock as a trusty Watchman both at midnight and breake of day giues notice of the Sunnes approach These be the strange and secret effects of the Sunne vpon the inferiour Bodies whence by the Gentiles hee was held the visible God of the World and tearmed the Eye thereof which alone saw all things in the World and by which the World saw all things in it selfe Omma qui videt per quem videt omnia mundus And most notablely is he described by the Psalmist in them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun which is as a bridegroome comming out of his chamber rejoyceth as a strong man to run a race His going forth is from the end of the Heauen and his circuite vnto the ends of it and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof Now as the effects of the Sun the head-spring of light and warmth are vpon these inferiour Bodies more actiue so those of the Moone as being Vltima coelo Citima terris neerer the Earth and holding a greater resemblance therewith are no lesse manifest And therefore the husbandman in sowing setting graffing and planting lopping of trees felling of timber and the like vpon good reason obserues the waxing waning of the Moone which the learned Zanchius well allows of commending Hesiod for his rules therein Quod Hesiodus ex Lune decrementis incrementis totius agricolationis signa notet quis improbet who can mislike it that Hesiod sets downe the signes in the whole course of husbandry from the waxing and waning of the Moone The tydes and ebbes of the Sea follow the course of it so exactly as the Sea-man will tell you the age of the Moone onely vpon the sight of the tide as certainly as if he saw it in the water It is the observation of Aristotle
of Pliny out of him that oysters and mussels and cockles and lobsters crabbs and generally all shell-fish grow fuller in the waxing of the Moon but emptier in the waning thereof Such a strong predominancie it hath euen vpon the braine of Man that Lunatikes borrow their very name from it as also doth the stone Selenites whose property as S. Augustine and Georgius Agricola record it is to increase and decrease in light with the Moone carrying alwayes the resemblance thereof in it selfe Neither can it reasonably be imagined that the other Planets and starrs and parts of Heauen are without their forcible operations vpon these lower Bodies specially considering that the very plants and hearbes of the Earth which we tread vpon haue their seueral vertues as well single by themselues as in composition with other ingredients The Physitian in opening a veine hath euer an eye to the signe then raigning The Canicular star specially in those hotter Climates was by the Ancients alwayes held a dangerous enemy to the practise of Physick and all kind of Evacuations Nay Galen himselfe the Oracle of that profession adviseth practitioners in that Art in all their Cures to haue a speciall regard to the reigning Constellations Coniunctions of the Planets But the most admirable mystery of Nature in my mind is the turning of yron touched with the loadstone toward the North-pole of which I shall haue farther occasion to intreate more largely in the Chapter touching the Comparison of the wits inventions of these times with those of former ages Neither were it hard to add much more to that which hath beene said to shew the dependance of these Elementary Bodies vpon the heauenly Almighty God hauing ordained that the higher should serue as intermediate Agents or secondary Causes betweene himselfe and the lower And as they are linked together in a chaine of order so are they likewise chained together in the order of Causes but so as in the wheeles of a Clocke though the failing in the superior cannot but cause a failing in the inferiour yet the failing of the inferiour may well argue though it cannot cause a failing in the superiour We haue great reason then as I conceiue to begin with the Examination of the state of Coelestiall bodies in as much as vpon it the conditionof the subcoelestiall wholly de-pends Wherein fiue things offer themselues to our consideration Their substance their motion their light their warmth and their influence SECT 2. Touching the pretended decay in the substance of the Heavens TO finde out whether the substance of the heavenly bodies bee decayed or no it will not be amisse a little to inquire into the nature of the matter and forme of which that substance consists that so it may appeare whether or no in a naturall course they be capable of such a supposed decay That the Heavens are endued with some kinde of matter though some Philosophers in their jangling humour haue made a doubt of it yet I thinke no sober and wise Christian will deny it But whether the matter of it bee the same with that of these inferiour bodies adhuc sub Iudice lis est it hath beene and still is a great question among Diuines The ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Primitiue Church for the most part following Plato hold that it agrees with the matter of the Elementary bodies yet so as it is compounded of the finest flower and choisest delicacy of the Elements But the Schoolemen on the other side following Aristotle adhere to his Quintessence and by no meanes will bee beaten from it since say they if the Elements and the heauens should agree in the same matter it should consequently follow that there should bee a mutuall traffique and commerce a reciprocall action and passion betweene them which would soone draw on a change and by degrees a ruine vpon those glorious bodies Now though this point will neuer I thinke bee fully and finally determined till wee come to be Inhabitants of that place whereof wee dispute for hardly doe wee guesse aright at things that are vpon earth and with labour doe wee find the things that are at hand but the things which are in heaven who hath searched out Yet for the present I should state it thus that they agree in the same originall mater and surely Moses mee thinkes seemes to favour this opinion making but one matter as farre as I can gather from the text out of which all bodily substances were created Vnus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe So as the heavens though they bee not compounded of the Elements yet are they made of the same matter that the Elements are compounded of They are not subject to the qualities of heat or cold or drought or moisture nor yet to weight or lightnes which arise from those qualities but haue a forme giuen them which differeth from the formes of all corruptible bodies so as it suffereth not nor can it suffer from any of them being so excellent and perfect in it selfe as it wholy satiateth the appetite of the matter it informeth The Coelestiall bodies then meeting with so noble a forme to actuate them are not nor cannot in the course of nature bee lyable to any generation or corruption in regard of their substance to any augmentation or diminution in regard of their quantity no nor to any destructiue alteration in respect of their qualities I am not ignorant that the controversies touching this forme what it should bee is no lesse then that touching the matter Some holding it to bee a liuing and quickning spirit nay a sensitiue and reasonable soule which opinion is stiffely maintained by many great learned Clarks both Iewes and Gentiles Christians supposing it vnreasonable that the heavens which impart life to other bodies should themselues bee destitute of life But this errour is notablely discovered and confuted by Claudius Espencaeus a famous Doctor of the Sorbone in a Treatise which hee purposely composed on this point In as much as what is denied those bodies in life in sense in reason is abundantly supplied in their constant vnchangeable duration arising from that inviolable knot indissoluble marriage betwixt the matter the forme which can never suffer any divorce but from that hand which first joyned them And howbeit it cannot be denied that not only the reasonable soule of man but the sensitiue of the least gnat that flies in the aire and the Vegetatiue of the basest plant that springs out of the earth are in that they are indued with life more divine and neerer approaching to the fountaine of life then the formes of the heavenly bodies yet as the Apostle speaking of Faith Hope and Charity concludes Charity to bee the greatest though by faith wee apprehend and apply the merits of Christ because it is more vniversall in operation and lasting in duration so though the formes of the Creatures endued
with life doe in that regard come a step neerer to the Deity then the formes of the heavenly bodies which are without life yet if wee regard their purity their beauty their efficacy their indeficiencie in moving their Vniversallity and independencie in working there is no question but the heavens may in that respect bee preferred euen before man himselfe for whose sake they were made Man being indeed immortall in regard of his soule but the heavens in regard of their bodies as being made of an incorruptible stuffe Which cannot well stand with their opinion who held them to bee composed of fire or that the waters which in the first of Genesis are said to bee aboue the firmament and in the hundred fortie eight Psalme aboue the heavens are aboue the heavens wee now treate of for the tempering and qualifying of their heat as did S. Ambrose and S. Augustine and many others venerable for their antiquity learning and piety Touching the former of which opinions wee shall haue fitter oportunity to discusse it at large when we come to treate of the warmth caused by the heavens But touching the second it seemes to haue beene grounded vpon a mistake of the word Firmament which by the Ancients was commonly appropriated to the eight sphere in which are seated the fixed starres whereas the originall Hebrew which properly signifies Extention or Expansion is in the first of Genesis not onely applied to the spheres in which the Sunne and Moone are planted but to the lowest region of the aire in which the birds flie and so doe I with Pareus Pererius take it to bee vnderstood in this controversie This region of the aire being as S. Augustine somewhere speakes Terminus intransgressibilis a firme and immoveable wall of separation betwixt the waters that are bred in the bowels of the earth and those of the Cloudes and for the word heaven which is vsed in the hundred forty and eight Psalme it is likewise applyed to the middle region of the aire by the Prophet Ieremy which may serue for a Glosse vpon that text alleaged out of the Psalme When hee vttereth his voice there is a noise of waters in the heavens and hee causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth Now the Schoolemen finding that the placing of waters aboue the starry heavens was both vnnaturall and vnvsefull and yet being not well acquainted with the propriety of the Hebrew word to salue the matter tell vs of a Christalline or glassie heaven aboue the eight sphere which say they is vndoubtedly the waters aboue the firmament mentioned by Moses which exposition of theirs though it doe not inferre a decay in the heavenly bodies yet doth it crosse the course of Moses his historicall narration his purpose being as it seemes only to write the history of things which were visible and sensible as appeares in part by his omitting the Creation of Angells whereas the Christalline heaven they speake of is not only invisible and insensible but was not at all discouered to be till the dayes of Hipparchus or Ptolomy Since then the heavens in regard of their substance are altogether free for any thing yet appeares from any mixture or tincture of the Elements being made of an incorruptible and inalterable quintessence which neither hath any conflict in it selfe nor with any other thing without it from thence may wee safely collect that it neither is nor can be subiect to any such decay as is imagined SECT 3. An objection drawne from Iob answered HOwbeit the deserved curse of God deprived the earth of her fertility in bringing forth without the sweat of Adam and his ofspring yet I finde not that it stretched to the Starres or that any thing aboue the Moone was altered or changed in respect of Adams fault from their first perfection True indeed it is which Eliphaz teacheth that the heavens Bildad that the starres are not cleane in Gods sight it may bee because of the fall of Angels the inhabitants of heaven whom therefore he charged with folly Which exposition Iunius so farre favours as insteed of Coelum hee puts Coelites into the very body of the text But in my judgement it would better haue sorted with the Margin in as much as by Coelites wee may vnderstand either Saints or Angells both Citizens of heaven either in actuall possession or in certaine hope and expectation in possession as Angels and Saints departed in expectation as the Saints heere in warfaire on the earth And of these doth Gregory in his Moralls on Iob expound the place hoc coelorum nomine repetijt quod Sanctorum prius appellatione signavit saith hee Iob repeates that by the name of heaven which before hee expressed vnder the name of Saints And thus both hee and S. Augustine expound that of the nineteene Psalme The heavens declare the glory of God And with them most of the Ancients that petition of the Lords Prayer Thy will bee done on earth as it is in heaven But what neede wee flie to allegories figuratiue senses when the letter of the text will well enough stand with the analogie of faith the texts of other Scriptures and the rule of sound reason The very materiall heavens then may not vntruly or vnproperly bee said to bee vncleane in Gods sight First Quia habent aliquid potentialitatis admixtum as Lyra speakes they haue some kinde of potentiality I know not how otherwise to render his word mixed with them hee meanes in regard of their motion and the illumination of the moone and starres from the Sunne But chiefely as I take it they are said to be vncleane not considered in themselues but in comparison of the Creator who is Actus purissimus simplicissimus all Act and that most pure not only from staine and pollution but all kinde of impotency imperfection or Composition whatsoever And in this sense the very blessed glorious Angels themselues which are of a substance farre purer then the Sunne it selfe may bee said to be vncleane in his sight in which regard the very Seraphins are said to couer their faces and feete with their winges But to grant that the heavens are become vncleane either by the fall of man or Angells yet doth it not follow as I conceiue that this vncleannes doth daily increase vpon them or which is in trueth the point in controversie that they feele any impairing by reason of this vncleannes it being rather imputatiue as I may earne it then reall and inherent Nonne vides coelum hoc saith Chrysostome vt pulchrum vt ingens vt astrorum choreis varium quantum temporis viguit quinque aut plus annorum millia processerunt haec annorum multitudo ei non adduxit senium Sed vt corpus novum ac vegetum floridae virentisque juventae viget aetate Sic coelum quam habuit à principio pulchritâ—…dinem semper eadem permansit nec quicquam
farre as the wringing of the nose bringeth forth bloud and the wresting of a string too high marres the musick but yet the question still remaines how it is to be vnderstood and how farre we me may safely extend it For to say that waxing old in that passage is only to be vnderstood of a nearer approch to an alteration or an abolishment seemes to be too cold an interpretation in as much as then needed not the Prophet to haue added for a clearer explication of his mind in the manner of their waxing old as doth a garment it rests then to be shewed as I conceiue wherein the similitude stands which the interpreters I haue met with do not sufficiently vnfold and those that vndertake the vnfolding of it runne vpon the rocks by publishing harsh and vnwarrantable positions Mee thinkes the Psalmist himselfe giues some light vnto it Thou coverest thy selfe sayth hee with light as with a garment and stretchest out the heauens like a Curtaine his meaning then in my judgment may be this that the Heavens which for their expansion may well be campared to a Curtaine or garment shall wax old the comparison standing betweene the heavens and a garment not in regard of their deficiencie but their spreading the heavens covèring this inferiour world as a garment doth the bodie it is spread over Or if the comparison stand in their deficiencie which seemes I confesse the more kindly exposition to my seemeing Aquinas in few wordes looseth the knot sicut uestimentum sayth hee quod sumitur ad vsum cessante vsu deponitur The heavens then shall wax old as doth a garment in that their vse shall cease together with man as doth the vse of a garment with him that vseth it Which exposition hee seemes to haue borrowed from Dydimus blind in his bodily eyes but in his mind sharpe sighted quod canit Psaltes veterescent mutabuntur designat eorum vsum abijsse defecisse Vt enim indumentum vbi officio functum fuerit obvoluitur sic coelum ac terrae functae munerihus suis abibunt In that the Psalmist professeth They shall waxe old and be changed his meaning is when there shall be no further vse of them For as a garment hauing performed that vse to which it was ordained is folded vp and layd aside so the heaven and the earth having finished those services for which they were created shall vanish and passe away And vpon this Comment of Dydimus Eugubinus thus commeth Hoc autem summus docet Theologus primum mundum antiquandum vetustate senio interiutrum sed non'eo senio quo res mortales corrumpuntur atque abolentur in coelo tale senium nullum est sed alium quoddam cujus similitudo ex vestibus ostenditur cum deponimus eas vbi nobis esse vsui desijssent tanquam invtiles eas exuimus atque obuoluimus sic mundus id est coelum non eo delebitur quod eadem vetustate atque omnia animalia arbores aliquando sit defecturus sed quia cessabit vsus ejus quo rerum tantos ordines peragebat The purpose of this greate Divine was to teach that the heavens should wax old and consume with age but not with such an old age as that by which things mortall suffer corruption and dissolusion In heaven there is no such waxing old to be found but another kind there is the resemblance whereof is taken from garments when we put them off as hauing no further vse of them laying them aside and folding them vp in like manner the heaven shall not therefore be disolued because it shall at any time suffer defect thorow that old age which beastes and plantes feele but because the vse of it shall cease by which it kept these inferiour bodies in due order And perchance the Apostle himselfe rendring the words of the Psalmist intends as much As a vesture shalt thou fold them vp as the curtaines and carpets and hangings are folded vp and layd aside when the family remoues Which seemes likewise to haue been foretold by the Prophet Isayah the heavens shall be rouled together as a scrole and they shall passe away with with a noyce sayth S. Peter like the hissing of parchment riueled vp with heat for so signifies the originall word in that place Howsoever they shall not wax old by the course of nature but by the mightie power of the God of Nature he that created them shall dissolue them and nothing else which the Prophet seemes to point at in this very passage Tu mutabis mutabuntur thou shalt change them not Nature but thou shalt change and they shall be changed And as for that fresh lustre and brightnesse wherwith as is commonly thought the heauens shall be renewed at the last day as a garment by turning is changed and by changing refreshed it may well be by making them more resplendent then now they are or euer at any time were since their first creation Not by scowring off of contracted rust but adding a new glosse and augmentation of glory And whereas some Divines haue not doubted to make the spots and shadowes appearing in the face of the Moone to be vndoubted arguments of that contracted rust if those spots had not beene originall and natiue of equall date with the Moone her selfe but had beene contracted by age and continuance of time as wrinkles are in the most beautifull faces they had said somewhat but that there they were aboue fifteene hundred yeares agone appeares by Plutarchs discourse De maculis in facie Lunae that they haue since any whit increased it cannot be sufficiently prooued Perchance by the helpe of the new devised perspectiue glasses they haue beene of late more cleerely distinctly discerned thē in former ages but that prooues no more that they were not there before then that the Sydera Medcaea lately discouered by vertue of the same instruments were not before in being which the Discoverers themselues knew well enough they could not with any colour of reason affirme SECT 5. A third objection taken from the apparition of new starres answered HOwbeit it cannot be denied but that new starres haue at times appeared in the firmament as some thinke that was at our Saviours birth yet in as much at it pointed out the very House in which he was borne by standing ouer it and was not for ought we finde obserued by the Mathematicians of those times I should rather thinke it to haue beene a blazing light created in the Region of the Aire carrying the resemblance of a starre then a new and true created starre seated in the firmament As for that which appeared in Cassiopaea in the yeare one thousand fiue hundred seventy two the very yeare of the great Massacre in France I thinke it cannot well be gainsaid to have beene a true starre it being obserued by the most skilfull and famous Astronomers of that time to hold the same
often trow ye is the moon eclypsed while you sleep yet she falls not from heaven Or is shee alwayes eclypsed in the night not likewise in the day time But then only it seemes is the moone eclypsed with you when your bellies are well stuffed with a full supper your braines steeled with full pots then only the Moone labours in heaven when the wine labours in your heads then is her circle troubled with charmes when your sight is dazled with over much quaâ—…ing How canst thou then discerne what befals the Moone in heaven when thou canst not discerne what is done neere thee on earth heerein is that plainely verified which holy Solomon foretold a foole chaâ—…geth as the Moone Thou changest like the Moone when beeing ignorant of the motion thereof thou who werst a Christian before now beginnest to be sacrilegious for sacrilege thou committest against thy Creator when thou imputest such impotency to the Creature Thou then changest like the moone when thou who before shinedst in the devotion of faith now fallest away thorow the weakenes of vnbeleefe thou changest like the moone when thy braine is as voide of wit as the moone is of light and I could wish thou diddest indeed change as the moone for shee quickely returnes againe to her fulnes but thou by leasure to the vse of thy wits shee soone recovers her light but thou slowly the faith which thou hast denyed Thy change then is worse then that of the moone shee suffers an Eclipse of her light but thou of thy soules health But willsome man say is not the moone in labour then yes indeed shee labours it cannot bee denyed but shee labours with the other creaturess as the Apostle speakes wee know that the whole Creature groaneth and travelleth in paine vntill now and againe the Creature it selfe shall also bee deliuered from the bondage of Corruption It shall bee freed from bondage You see then that the moone doth not labour with charmes but with dutifull observances not with dangers but with vsefull offices not to perish but to serue For the Creature is made subiect to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subiected the same So that the Moone is not willingly changed from her condition but thou wittingly and willingly robbest thy selfe of thine owne reason Shee by the condition of her nature suffers an Eclipse thou by consent of thine owne will art drawne into mischiefe Bee not then as the moone when shee is eclypsed but as when shee fils her circle with light For of the righteous man it is written Hee shall bee established for ever as the moone as the faithfull witnesse in heaven By which witty discourse of S. Ambrose it plainely appeares that in his judgement the moone suffered nothing by her Eclypse which opinion of his is confirmed not only by the testimony of Aristotle in the eight of the Metaphysickes but by the evidence of reason it being caused by the shadow of the earth interposed betweene the Sunne and the Moone as in exchange or revenge thereof as Pliny speaketh the Eclypse of the Sun is caused by the interposition of the moone betwixt the earth and it The moone so depriuing the earth and againe the earth the moone of the beames of the Sunne Which is the true cause that in the course of nature the Moone is never eclypsed but when shee is full the Sunne and shee being then in opposition nor the Sunne but when it is new-moone those two Planets being then in conjunction I say in the course of Nature for the Eclypse at our Sauiours passion was vndoubtedly supernaturall Quam Solis obscurationem non ex canonico Syderum cursu accidisse satis ostenditur quod tunc erat Pascha Iudaeorum Nam plena Luna solenniter agitur saith S. Augustine It is evident that that Eclipse of the Sunne happened not by the ordinary orderly course of the stars it being then the Passover of the Iewes which was solemnized at the full moone And this was it that gaue occasion as is commonly belecued to that memorable exclamation of Dennys the Areopagite being then in Egypt Aut Deus Naturae patitur aut machina mundi dissolvetur either the God of Nature suffers or the frame of Nature will bee dissolved And heerevpon too as it is thought by some was erected that Altar at Athens Ignoto Deo To the vnknowne God Though others thinke that Eclypse was confined within the borders of Iudea howsoever it cannot be denyed but that it was certainely beside and aboue the course of Nature Neither ought it seeme strange that the Sunne in the firmament of heaven should appeare to suffer when the Sunne of Righteousnes indeed suffered vpon earth But for other Eclypses though their Causes bee now commonly knowne yet the ignorance of them was it which caused so much superstition in former ages and left that impression in mens mindes as euen at this day wise men can hardly bee perswaded but that those Planets suffer in their Eclypses which in the Sunne is most childish and ridiculous to imagine since in it selfe it is not so much as depriued of any light nor in trueth can bee it being the fountaine of light from which all the other starres borrow their light but pay nothing backe againe to it by way of retribution Which was well expressed by Pericles as Plutarch in his life reports it For there happening an Eclypse of the Sun at the very instant when his Navy was now ready to lanch forth himselfe was imbarked his followers began to bee much apald at it but specially the Master of his owne gally which Pericles perceiuing takes his cloake with it hoodwinkes the Masters eyes then demaunds of him what danger was in that hee answering none neither saith Pericles is there in this Eclypse there being no difference betwixt my cloake and that Vaile with which the Sun is covered but only in bignes And the truth is that the Sun then suffered no more by the intervening of the Moone then from Pericles his cloake or daily doth from the cloudes in the aire which hinder the sight of it or by the interposition of the Planet Mercury which hath sometimes appeared as a spot in it But whether these Eclypses either cause or presage any change in these inferiour bodies I shall haue fitter occasion to examine heareafter and so passe from the consideration of the substance to the motion of the heavenly bodies CAP. 2. Touching the pretended decay of the heavenly bodies in regard of their motions SECT 1. The first reason that there is no decay in the motions of the heavenly bodies drawne from the causes thereof MOtion is so vniversall and innate a property and so proper an affection to all naturall bodies that the Great Philosopher knew not better how to define Nature then by making her the Enginer and Principle of Motion And therefore as other obiects are
Starres are not Gods as the Gentiles commonly imagined the other that they are governed by God which the Epicurians denyed for the former of those saith he argumentum illud quo colligunt vniversa coelestia Deos esse in contrarium valet Nam si Deos esse idcircò opinantur quia certos rationabiles cursus habent errant Ex hoc enim apparet Deos non esse quod exorbitare illis apraestitutis itineribus non licet caeterùm si Dij essent huc atque illuc passim sine vlla necessitate ferrentur sicut animantes in terra quorum quia liberae sunt voluntates huc atque illuc vagantur vt libet quocunque mens duxerit eo feruntur That argument from whence the Heathen doe collect that the Starres must needes be Gods doth most plainly prooue the contrary For if they take them to be Gods because of the certainty of their courses they be therein much deceiued for this plainely prooveth that indeed they be no Gods because they be not able to depart from their set courses Whereas if they were Gods they would mooue both this way and that way in the Heauens as freely as liuing Creatures doe vpon the earth who because they haue the liberty and freedome of their will they wander vp and downe whither they themselues please And for the latter tanta rerum magnitudo saith hee tanta dispositio tanta in servandis ordinibus temporibusque constantia non potuit aut olim sine provido Artifice oriri aut constare tot seculis sine incola potente aut in perpetuū gubernari sine perito sciente rectore quod ratio ipsa declarat Such a greatnes in their creation such a comelinesse in their order such a constancie in observing both their courses and their seasons could neuer either at first haue beene framed without a cunning hand or so long haue beene preserued without a powerfull inhabitant or so wisely haue beene governed without a skilfull Regent as euen reason it selfe maketh it plaine and evident And Plurarch affirmeth generally of all men that the very first motiue that lead them vnto God was that orderly motion whereby the starres are carried Homines caeperunt Deum agnoscere cùm viderent stellas tantam concinnitatem efficere ac dies noctesque aetate ac hyeme suos servare statos ortus atque obitus Men beganne first to acknowledge a God when they considered the starres to maintaine such a comelinesse and both day and night in summer and winter to obserue their designed risings and settings SECT 4. An objection of Du Moulins touching the motion of the Polar Starre answered ANd thus I hope the Heauens are sufficiently discharged from any imputation of Decay in regard of their motion the constant regularity whereof we finde to haue beene obserued and admired by the most learned of all ages It remaines now that I should proceede to the examination of the other qualities thereof which before I attempt it shall not be amisse to remoue a rub cast in our way by Du Moulin a famous French Divine in his Booke intituled The accomplishment of Divine Prophesies touching the motion of the Polar starre his words are these or to this purpose Astrologie also doth lend vs some light in this matter For in the yeare of the World three thousand six hundred sixty fiue Ptolomaeus Philadelphus raigning in Egypt some foure hundred sixty nine yeares after the building of Rome there lived one Hipparchus a famous Astrologer who reports that in his time the starre commonly called the Polar starre which is in the taile of the lesser Beare was 12 degrees two fifths distant from the Pole of the Aequator This star from age to age hath insensibly still crept neerer to the Pole so that at this present it is not past three degrees distant from the Pole of the Aequator When this star then shall come to touch the Pole there being no farther space left for it to goe forward which may well enough come to passe within fiue or six hundredth yeares it is likely that then there shall be a great change of things and that this time is the period which God hath presixed to Nature A bold coniecture of a man so well versed in holy Scriptures and in other matters so modest as if God had written in the Heavens the period of times or had so written it as any mortall eye could discerne it his beloued Son professing that it is not for vs to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his owne power And as the Conjecture is bold so is it built vpon as sandy a foundation which is that the Pole-star shall draw so neere the Pole as to touch it or shall euer be brought to those straits as it shall finde no passage to goe forward whereas it is certaine it shall euer remaine in some certaine distance from the Pole twenty sixe or twenty seuen minutes at the least True indeed it is that about fiue hundred yeares hence if the World last so long it shall then approach the nearest but then shall it with-draw it selfe again by degrees to as remote a distance as it euer was before As it heretofore hath beene the most Southerly star in that Asterisme and is now become the most Northerly so in processe of time it may become the most Southerly againe But from hence to inferre that the Poles of the Aequator are moueable is inconsequent and incompatible with the most receiued and best approued grounds of Astronomy Besides other fixed stars haue their times of accesse and recesse to and frōthe Pole aswell as this so that the motion of this can no more point out the period of Nature then of those All which Du Moulin himselfe either by his owne observation or advertisement from others well perceiuing in a latter Edition of that booke printed at Sedane in the yeare one thousand six hundred thenty one hath well mended the matter by changing some words For insteed of this in the first edition From hence it appeareth that the Poles of the Equatour are moueable in the second he hath thus changed it It being certaine and observed by long experience that the fixed stars moue from the West to the East in a motion paralell to the Eclyptique In his first edition he sayes When this starre shall come to touch the Pole there beeing no further space left for it to goe forward but in his second hee changeth it thus when this starre shall approach the Pole as neere as it can Againe in his first thus which may well come to passe within these fiue or six hundred yeares in his second thus which may well come to passe within siue hundred yeares Lastly in his first thus it seemes that this time is the period which God hath prefixed to Nature in his second thus it seemes that some notable period shall then expire And surely I cannot but as much commend
in workes of heate but the sunne burneth the mountaines three tymes more breathing out fiery vapours Neither were there wanting some among the ancient Philosophers who maintained the same opinion as Plato and Plyny and generally the whole sect of Stoicks who held that the Sunne and Starres were fed with watery vapours which they drew vp for their nourishment and that when these vapours should cease and faile the whole world should be in daunger of combustion and many things are alleaged by Balbus in Ciceroes second booke of the nature of the Gods in favour of this opinion of the Stoicks But that the Sunne and Starres are not in truth and in their owne nature fieric and hot appeares by the ground already layd touching the matter of the heavens that it is of a nature incorruptible which cannot bee if it were fiery inasmuch as thereby it should become lyable to alteration and corruption by an opposite and professed enimie Besides all fiery bodies by a naturall inclination mount vpwards so that if the starres were the cause of heat as being hot in themselues it would consequently follow that their circular motion should not bee Naturall but violent Wherevnto I may adde that the noted starres being so many in number namely one thousand twenty and two besides the Planets and in magnitude so greate that every one of those which appeare fixed in the firmament are sayd to bee much bigger then the whole Globe of the water and earth and the Sunne againe so much to exceede both that globe and the biggest of them as it may iustly bee stiled by the sonne of Syrach instrumentum admirabile a wonderfull instrument which being so were they of fyre they would doubtlesse long ere this haue turned the world into ashes there being so infinite a disproportion betweene their flame and the little quantity of matter supposed to bee prepared for their Fewell That therefore they should bee fed with vapours Aristotle deservedly laughs at it as a childish and ridiculous device in as much as the vapours ascend no higher then the middle region of the ayre and from thence distill againe vpon the water and earth from whence they were drawne vp and those vapours being vncertaine the flames likewise feeding vpon them must needes be vncertaine and dayly vary from themselues both in quantity and figure according to the proportion of their fewell SECT 2. That the heate they breed springes from their light and consequently their light being not decayed neither is the warmth arising there from THe absurdity then of this opinion beeing so foule and grosse it remaines that the Sunne and Starres infuse a warmth into these Subcaelestiall bodies not as being hot in themlselues but only as beeing ordeined by God to breed heate in matter capable thereof as they impart life to some creatures and yet themselues remaine voyd of life like the braine which imparts Sense to every member of the body and yet is it selfe vtterly voyd of all Sense But here againe some there are which attribute this effect to the motion others to the light of these glorious bodies And true indeed it is that motion causes heat by the attenuation rarefaction of the ayre But by this reason should the Moone which is neerer the Earth warme more then the Sunne which is many thousand miles farther distant the higher Regions of the Aire should be alway hotter then the lower which notwithstanding if wee compare the second with with the lowest is vndoubtedly false Moreouer the motion of the coelestiall bodies being vniforme so should the heat deriued from them in reason likewise be the motion ceasing the heat should likewise cease yet I shall neuer beleeue that when the Sun stood still at the prayer of Iosua it then ceased to warme these inferiour Bodies And we find by experience that the Sun works more powerfully vpon a body which stands still then when it moues the reason seemes to be the same in the rest or motion of a body warming or warmed that receiueth or imparteth heat The motion being thus excluded from being the cause of this effect the light must of necessitie step in and challenge it to it selfe the light then it is which is vndoubtedly the cause of coelestiall heate in part by a direct beame but more vehemently by a reflexed for which very reason it is that the middle Region of the aire is alwaies colder then the lowest and the lowest hotter in Summer then in Winter and at noone then in the morning and evening the beames being then more perpendicular and consequently in their reflexion more narrowly vnited by which reflexion and vnion they grow sometimes to that fervencie of heate that fire springs out from them as wee see in burning glasses and by this artificiall device it was that Archimedes as Galen reports it in his third booke de Temperamentis set on fire the Enemies Gallyes and Proclus a famous Mathematician practised the like at Constantinople as witnesseth Zonaras in the life of Anastasius the Emperour And very reasonable me thinkes it is that light the most Divine affection of the Coelelestiall Bodies should be the cause of warmth the most noble actiue and excellent quality of the Subcoelestiall These two like Hippocrates twinnes simul oriuntur moriuntur they are borne and dye together they increase and decrease both together the greater the light is the greater the heate and therefore the Sun as much exceedes the other starres in heate as it doth in light To driue the argument home then to our present purpose since the light of the Sun is no way diminished and the heate depends vpon the light the consequence to me seemes marvailous faire and strong which is that neither the heate arising from the light should haue suffered any decay or diminution at all SECT 3. Two obiections answered the one drawne from the present habitablenes of the Torrid Zone the other from a supposed approach of the Sun neerer the earth then in former ages NOtwithstanding the evidence of which trueth some haue not doubted to attribute the present habitablenesse of the Torride Zone to the weaknesse and old age of the Heauens in regard of former ages But they might haue remembred that the Cold Zones should thereby haue become more inhabitable by cold as also that holding as they doe an vniversall decay in all the parts of Nature men according to their opinion decaying in strength as well as the Heauens they should now in reason be as ill able to indure the present heate as the men of former ages were to indure that of the same times wherein they liued the proportion being alike betweene the weaknes as between the strength of the one and the other But this I onely touch in passing hauing a fitter occasion to consider more fully of it hereafter when we come to compare the wits and inventions of the Ancients with those of the present times That which touches
Spirat florifer annus odores Aestas Cererem fervida siccat Remeat pomis gravis autumnus Hyemem defluus irrigat imber Haec temperies alit profert Quicquid vitam spirat in orbe Eadem rapiens condit aufert Obitu meâ—…gens orta supremo The concord tempers equally Contrary Elements That moist things yeeld vnto the dry And heat with cold consents Hence fire to highest place doth flie And Earth doth downward bend And flowrie Spring perpetually Sweet odours forth doth send Hote Summer harvest giues and store Of fruit Autumnus yeelds And showres which down from Heau'n doe powre Each Winter drowne the fields What euer in the world doth breath This temper forth hath brought And nourished the same by death Againe it brings to nought Among the subcoelestiall bodies following Natures methode I will first begin with the consideration of the Elements the most simple and vniversall of them all as being the Ingredients of all mixt bodies either in whole or in part and into which the mixt are finally resolued again are again by turnes remade of them the common matter of them all still abiding the same Heere 's nothing constant nothing still doth stay For birth and death haue still successiue sway Here one thing springs not till another dye Onely the matter liues immortally Th'Almightie's table body of this All Of changefull chances common Arcenall All like it selfe all in it selfe contained Which by times flight hath neither lost nor gained Changelesse in essence changeable in face Much more then Proteus or the subtill race Of roving Polypes who to rob the more Transforme them hourely on the wauing shore Much like the French or like our selues their apes Who with strange habit doe disguise their shapes Who louing novels full of affectation Receiue the manners of each other Nation By consent of Antiquity they are in number foure the Fire the Aire the Water and the Earth Quatuor aeternus genitalia corpora mundus Continet ex illis duo sunt onerosa suoque Pondere in inferius tellus atque vnda feruntur Et totidem gravitate carent nulloque premente Alta petunt aer atque aere purior ignis Quae quamquam spatio distant tamen omnia fiunt Et ipsis in ipsa cadunt Foure bodies primitiue the world still containes Of which two downeward bend the earth and watery plaines As many weight doe want and nothing forcing higher They mount th' aire and purer streames of fire Which though they distant bee yet all things from them take Their birth and into them their last returnes doe make Three of them shew themselues manifestly in mixt the butter beeing the Aieriall part thereof the whey the watery and the cheese the earthly but all foure in the burning of greene wood the flame being fire the smoke the aire the liquor distilling at the ends the water and the ashes the earth Philosophy likewise by reason teaches and proues the same from their motion vpward and downeward from their second qualities of lightnes and heauines and from their first qualities either actiue as heat and cold or passiue as dry and moist For as their motion proceeds from their second qualities so doe their second from the first their first from the heauenly bodies next to which as being the noblest of them all as well in puritie as activity is seated the Element of the fire though many of the Ancients and some latter writers as namely Cardane among the rest seeme to make a doubt of it Ignis ad aethereas volucer se sustulit aur as Summaque complexus stellantis culmina Coeli Flammarum vallo naturae moenia fecit The fire eftsoones vp towards heaven did stie And compassing the starrie world advanced A wall of flames to safeguard nature by Next the fire is seated the aire divided into three regions next the aire the water and next the water the earth Who so sometime hath seene rich Ingots tride When forc't by fire their treasure they devide How faire and softly gold to gold doth passe Silver seekes silver brasse consorts with brasse And the whole lumpe of parts vnequall severs It selfe apart in white red yellow rivers May vnderstand how when the mouth divine Op'ned to each his proper place t'assigne Fire flew to fire water to water slid Aire clung to aire and earth with earth abid The vaile both of the Tabernacle and Temple were made of blew and purple and scarlet or crimson and fine twisted linnen by which foure as Iosephus noteth were represented the foure elements his wordes are these Velum hoc erat Babylonium variegatum ex hyaâ—…intho bysso coccoque purpura mirabiliter elaboratum non indignam contemplatione materiae commistionem habens sed velut omnium imaginem praeferens Cocco enim videbatur ignem imitari bysso terram hyacintho aerem ac mare purpura partim quidem coloribus bysso autem purpura origine bysso quidem quia de terra mare autem purpuram gignit The vaile was Babylonish worke most artificially imbrodered with blue and fine linnen and scarlet and purple hauing in it a mixture of things not vnworthy our consideration but carrying a kinde of resemblance of the Vniversall for by the scarlet seemed the fire to be represented by the linnen the earth by the blew the aire and by the purple the sea partly by reason of the colours of scarlet and blue and partly by reason of the originall of linnen and purple the one comming from the earth the other from the sea And S. Hierome in his epistle to Fabiola hath the very same conceite borrowed as it seemes from Iosephus or from Philo who hath much to like purpose in his third booke of the life of Moses or it may be from that in the eighteenth of the booke of Wisedome In the long robe was the whole world As not only the vulgar lattin and Arias Montanus but out of them and the Greeke originall our last English Translation reades it The fire is dry and hot the aire hot and moist the water moist and cold the earth cold and dry thus are they linked and thus embrace they one another with their symbolizing qualities the earth being linked to the water by coldnes the water to the aire by moistnes the aire to the fire by warmth the fire to the earth by drought which are all the combinations of the qualities that possiblely can bee hot cold as also dry and moist in the highest degrees beeing altogether incompatible in the same subject And though the earth the fire bee most opposite in distance in substance in activity yet they agree in one quality the two middle being therein directly contrary to the two extreames aire to earth and water to fire Water as arm'd with moisture and with cold The cold-dry earth with her one hand doth hold With th' other th' aire The aire as moist and warme Holds fire
not touched vs. In the 31 yeare of King Henry the first a terrible murraine of cattell spred through the whole kingdome in so much as whole sties of hogs and whole stalls of oxen were euery-where suddenly emptied it continued so long vt nulla omninò huius regni villa huius miscriae immunis alterius incommoda ridere posset saith Malmesburiensis so as no one village was so free from this misery that it could laugh at the mishap of others Now adayes we heare not of so frequent of such fowle fretting kindes of Leprosies any-where in the World as were anciently among the Iewes they had the Leprosie of the skin of the flâ—…sh of the scab of the running sore of the haire of the head and beard their garments both linnen wollen were infected with it so as sometimes it increased and spread it selfe in the very garment though separared from the body of the diseased Nay which is more strange the wals of their houses were not free from it it tainted the very stones the morter with greenish reddish spots so as they were forced sometimes to plucke downe a part of the House sometimes the whole when no other meanes was found to cleanse it Now their great multitudes of Lepers appeares in this that they had so many and so solemne lawes for their tryall for their cleansing for the shutting of them vp without the campe And though we may well conceiue that some of them were stricken with this disease immediatly by the finger of God as Myriam Moses sister for her murmuring Gehazi for his bribery Azariah for his backwardnes in reformation of Religion Vzziah for his presumptuous forwardnes in taking vpon him the Priests office yet those foure that sate together expecting the charity of Passengers at the gate of Samaria those ten that our Saviour healed at once shew that the number of their ordinary Lepers was very great Lastly none can be ignorant that the sicknesse which wee call the French disease they the Neapolitane and the Neapolitanes the Indian because we borrowed it from the French they from the Spaniards at Naples and they againe from the Indians is neither so catching nor so virulent not so contagious nor so dangerous as in former times it hath beene SECT 4. Of earthquakes in former ages and their terrible effects liuely described by Seneca TO the pestilences and other contagious diseases of former ages may be added the Earthquakes arising likewise from the distemper of the aire though in another kind Of these we haue heard little in these latter times or at leastwise they haue beene nothing so frequent fearefull as in the dayes of our more ancient predecessors in so much as they chiefly gaue occasion to the composing of that Letany and therein to the petition against suddaine death which by publique authority is vsed through the Christian Church at this day by the force of Earthquakes contrary to the Proverbe Mountaines haue met The Citty of Antioch where the Disciples of Christ were first called Christians with a great part of Asia bordering vpon it was in Traianes time swallowed vp with an Earthquake as writeth Dion reporting very marvailous things thereof By the same meanes at one time were twelue famous Citties of Asia ouer-turned vnder the reigne of Tiberius And at an other time as many townes of Campania vnder Constantine And of the dreadfulnes of this accident aboue the pestilence or any other incident to mankind Seneca excellcntly discourses in the sixth book of his Naturall questions Hostem muro repellam saith hee praeruptae altitudinis Castella vel magnos exercitus difficultate aditus morabuntur à tempestate nos vindicant portus nimborum vim effusam sine fine cadentes aquas tecta propellunt fugientes non sequitur incendium adversus tonitrua minas Coeli subterraneae domus defossi iu altum specus remedia sunt ignis ille coelestis non transverberat terram sed exiguo ejus objectu retunditur in pestilentia mutare sedes licet nullum malum sine effugio est nunquam fulmina populos percusserunt pestilens coelum exhausit vrbes non abstulit hoc malum latissimè patet inevitabile avidum publicè noxium non enim domus solùm familias aut vrbes singulas haurit sed gentes totas regionesque subvertit modò ruinis operit modò in altam voraginem condit ac ne id quidem relinquit ex quo appareat quòd non est saltem fuisse sed supra nobilissimas vrbes sine vllo vestigio prioris habitus solum extenditur A wall will repell an enemy rampiers raised to a great height by the difficulty of their accesse will keepe out powerfull armies An Hauen shelters vs from a tempest the couering of our Houses from the violence of stormes lasting raines the fire doth not follow vs if we fly from it against thunder the threats of Heauen vaults vnder ground deep caues are remedies those blastings flashes from aboue doe not pierce the earth but are blunted by a little peece of it oppofed against them In the time of pestilence a man may change dwellings there is no mischiefe but may be shunned the lightning neuer stroke a whole Nation a pestilential ayre hath emptied Cities not ouer-turned them but this mischiefe is large in spreading vnavoydable greedy of destruction generally dangerous For it doth not onely depopulate Houses Families townes but layes waste makes desolate whole Regions and countreyes sometimes covering them with their own ruines and sometimes ouer-whelming them and burying them in deepe gulphes leauing nothing whereby it may so much as appeare to posterity that that which is not sometimes was but the Earth is levelled ouer most famous Citties without any marke of their former existence SECT 5. Of dreadfull burnings in the bowels of Aetna and Vesuvius and the rising of a new Iland out of the Sea with hideous roaring neere Putzol in Italy AS the quakings of the earth were more terrible in former ages so were the burnings in the bowels thereof no lesse dreadfull the one being as it were the cold the other the hot fits thereof The mountaine Aetna in Sicilie hath flamed in time past so abundantly that by reason of thick smoake and vapours arising therefrom the Inhabitants thereabout could not see one another if wee may giue credite to Cicero for two dayes together And in the yeare of the world 3982 it raged so violently that Africa was thereof an astonished witnesse But Virgils admirable description thereof may serue for all Horrificis tonat Aetna ruinis Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem Turbine fumantem piceo candente favilla Attollitque globos flammarum sydera lambit Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis Erigit eructans liquefactaque saxa sub aur as Cum gemitu glomerat
fundoque exaestuatimo Aetna here thunders with a horride noise Sometimes black clouds evaporeth to skies Fuming with pitchie curles and sparkling fires Tosseth vp globes of flames to starres aspires Now belching rocks the mountaines entrals torne And groaning hurles out liquid stones there borne Thorow the aire in showres But rightly did another Poet diuine of this mountaine and the burnings therein Nec quae sulphurijs ardet fornacibus Aetna Ignea semper erit neque enim fuit ignea semper Aetna which flames of sulphure now doth raise Shall not still burne nor hath it burnt alwayes The like may be said of Vesuvius in the kingdome of Naples it flamed with the greatest horrour in the first or as some say in the third yeere of the Emperour Titus where besides beasts fishes and fowle it destroyed two adjoyning Citties Herculanum and Pompeios with the people sitting in the Theater Pliny the naturall Historian then Admirall of the Romane Navy desirous to discover the reason was suffocated with the smoake thereof as witnesseth his Nephew in an epistle of his to Cornelius Tacitus Sensit procul Africa tellus Tunc expuluerijs geminata incendia nimbis Sensit et Aegyptus Memphisque Nilus atrocem Tempestatem illam Campano è littore missam Nec caruisse ferunt Asiam Syriamque tremenda Peste nec exstantes Neptunj è fluctibus arces Cyprumque Cretamque Cycladas ordine nullo Per pontum sparsas nec doctam Palladis vrbem Tantus inexhaustis erupit faucibus ardor Ac vapor They be the verses of Hieronymus Borgius touching the horrible roaring and thundring of this mountaine and may thus be englished Then remote Africke suffer'd the direfull heate Of twofold rage with showers of dust repleate Scorcht Egipt memphis Nilus felt amaz'd The woofull tempest in Campania rais'd Not Asia Syria nor the towers that stand In Neptunes surges Cyprus Creet Ioues land The scattered Cyclades nor the Muses seate Minervaes towne that vast plague scapt such heate Such vapours brake forth from full jawes Marcellinus farther obserues that the ashes thereof transported in the ayre obscured all Europe and that the Constantinopolitanes being wonderfully affrighted therewith in so much as the Emperour Leo forsooke the Citty in memoriall of the same did yearely celebrate the twelfth of November Who in these latter ages hath euer heard or read of such a fire issuing out of the earth as Tacitus in the 13 of his Annals and almost the last words describes The citty of the Inhonians in Germanie confederate with vs sayth he was afflicted with a sudden disaster for fires issuing out of the earth burned towns feilds villages every where and spred even to the wals of a colony newly built and could not be extinguished neither by raine nor river water nor any other liquor that could be imployed vntill for want of remedie and anger of such a destruction certaine pesants cast stones a farre of into it then the flame somewhat â—…laking drawing neare they put it out with blowes of clubs and otherlike as if it had been a wild beast last of all they threw in clothes from their backes which the more worne and fowler the berrer they quenched the fires But the most memorable both Earthquake and burning is that which Mr. George Sands in the forth booke of his Travels reports to haue hapeÌ„ed neare Puttzoll in the kingdome of Naples likewise in the yeare of our Lord 1538 and on the 29th of September when for certaine daies foregoing the countrey thereabout was so vexed with perpetuall Earthquakes as no one house was left so intire as not to expect an immediate ruine after that the sea had retired two hundred pases from the shore leauing abundance of fresh water rising in the bottome there visiblely ascended a mountaine about the second hower of the night with hideous roaring horriblely vomiting stones and such store of Cinders as overwhelmed all the buildings therabout and the salubrious Bathes of Tripergula for so many ages celebrated consumed the vines to ashes killing birds and beastes the fearefull inhabitants of Puttzoll flying through the darke with their wiues and children naked defiled crying out and detesting their Calamities manifold mischiefes had they suffered yet none like this which nature inflicted yet was not this the first Iland that thus by the force of Earthquakes haue risen out of the sea the like is reported both of Delos and Rhodos and some others SECT 6. Of the nature of Comets and the vncertaintie of praedictions from them as also that the number of those which haue appeared of late yeares is lesse then hath vsually beene observed in former ages and of other fiery and watry prodigious meteors IT remaines that in the next place I should speake somewhat of Comets or Blazing starres whether in latter times more haue appeared or more disastrous effectes haue followed vpon their appearance then in former ages Some tooke the Comet to haue beene a starre ordained and created from the first beginning of the world but appearing only by times and by turnes of this mind was Seneca Cardan likewise in latter times harps much if not vpon the same yet the like string But Aristotle whose weighty reasons and deepe judgment I much reverence conceiueth the matter of the Comet to be a passing hot and dry exhalation which being lifted vp by the force vertue of the Sun into the highest region of the ayre is there inflamed partly by the Element of fire vpon which it bordereth and partly by the motion of the heavens which hurleth it about so as there is the same matter of an Earthquake the wind the lightning and a Comet if it be imprisoned in the bowels of the earth it causeth an Earthquake if it ascend to the middle region of the ayre and be from thence beating back wind if it enter that region and be there invironed with a thick cloud lightning if it passe that region a Comet or some other fiery Meteor in case the matter be not sufficiently capable thereof The common opinion hath beene that Comets either as Signes or causes or both haue allwayes prognosticated some dreadfull mishaps to the world as outragious windes extraordonary drougth dearth pestilence warres death of Princes and the like Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus aether Ne're did the Heavens with idle blazes flame But the late Lord Privy Seale Earle of Northampton in his Defensatiue against the poyson of supposed prophesies hath so strongly incountred this opinion that for mine owne part I must professe he hath perswaded mee there is no certainty in those praedictions in asmuch as Comets doe not alwayes forerunne such euents neither doe such euents alwayes follow vpon the appearing of Comets Some instances he produceth of Comets which brought with them such abundance of all things abated their prises to so low an ebbe as stories haue recorded it for monuments and miracles to posterity And the like saith hee could I say of others
most true that in the yeare of our Lord 1532 in the Northerne parts of our own land not farre from Tinmouth hauen was a mighty Whale cast on land found by good measure to be 90 foot in length arising to 30 English yards the very bredth of his mouth was sixe yards and an halfe and the belly so vast in compasse that one standing on the fish of purpose to cut off a ribbe from him and slipping into his belly was very likely there to haue beene drowned with the moisture then remaining had hee not beene suddenly rescued From whence we may gather that Iobs admirable description of this fish vnder the name of Leviathan is still true that in vastnes since Augustus his time he is nothing decreased And yet I well beleeue that those on the Indian Seas may much exceed ours which might perchance giue occasion to those large relations of Pliny Iuba Herevnto may be added the observation of Macrobius touching the growth of the Mullet Plinius Secundus saith he temporibus suis negat facile mullum repertum qui duas pondo libras excederet at nunc majoris passim videmus praesentia hac insana nescimus Plinius Secundus denies that in his time a Mullet was easily to be found which exceeded two pound weight but now adayes we euery-where see them of greater weight and yet are not acquainted with those vnreasonable prises which they then payde for them I will close vp this chapter with a relation of Gesners in his Epistle to the Emperour Ferdinand prefixed before his bookes De Piscibus touching the long life of a Pike which was cast into a pond or poole neere Hailebrune in Swevia with this inscription ingraven vpon a collar of brasse fastned about his necke Ego sum ille piscis huic stagno omnium primus impositus per mundi Rectoris Frederici Secundi manus 5 Octobris anno 1230. I am that fish which was first of all cast into this poole by the hand of Frederick the second governour of the World 5 of Octob. in the yeare 1230. He was again taken vp in the yeare 1497 by the inscription it appeared hee had then liued there 267 yeares so as it seemes that as fishes are not diminished in regard of their store or growth so neither in respect of their age and duration But I leaue floting on the Waters and betake mee to the more stable Element the Earth CAP. 9. Touching the pretended decay of the Earth together with the Plants and beasts and minerals SECT 1. The divine meditations of Seneca and Pliny vpon the globe of the Earth An objection out of Aelian touching the decrease of mountaines answered That all things which spring from the earth returne thither againe consequently it cannot decay in regard of the fruitfulnesse in the whole Other objections of lesse consequence answered BOth Seneca and Pliny haue most divine meditations vpon this consideration that the Globe of the Earth in regard of the higher Elements and the Heauens wheeling about it is by the Mathematicians compared to a prick or point These so many peeces of Earth saith Pliny or rather as most haue written this little prick of the World for surely the Earth is nothing else in comparison of the whole is the only matter of our glory this I say is the very seat thereof here we seeke for honours and dignities heere we exercise our rule and authority here wee covet wealth and riches here all mankind is set vpon stirs and troubles here we raise civill warres still one after another and with mutuall massacres murthers we make more roome therein And to let passe the publique furie of Nations abroad this is it wherein wee chace and driue out our neighbour Borderers and by stealth dig turfth from our Neighbours soyle to put into our owne And when a man hath extended his lands and gotten whole countreyes to himselfe farre and neere what a goodly deale of earth enjoyeth he and say that he set out his bounds to the full measure of his covetous desire what a great portion thereof shall he hold when he is once dead and his head layed Thus Pliny with whom Seneca sweetly accords Hoc est punctum quod inter tot gentes ferro igne dividitur ôquam ridiculi sunt mortalium termini Punctum certè est illud in quo navigamus in quo bellamus in quo regna disponimus It is but a point which so many Nations share with fire and sword Oh how ridiculous are the bounds of mortall men It is verily but a point inwhich we saile in which we wage warres in which we dispose of Kingdomes But from these sublime speculations wee are to descend to the examination of the Earths supposed decay Aelian in the eight booke of his history telleth vs that not onely the mountaine Aetna for thereof might be given some reason because of the daily wasting and consuming of it by fire but Parnassus Olympus did appeare to be lesse and lesse to such as sayled at sea the height thereof sinking as it seemed and therevpon infers that men most skilfull in the secrets of Nature did affirme that the world it selfe should likewise perish and haue an end His conclusion I cannot but approue and most willingly accept of as a rich testimonie for the confirmation of our Christian doctrine from the penne of a Gentile But that he inferres it from so weake groundes I cannot but wonder at the stupidity of so wise a man For to graunt that those mountaines decrease in their magnitude yet shall I never yeeld a vniuersall decrease in the whole globe of the Earth since the proportions aswell of the Diameter as Circumference thereof are by Geometricall demonstrations found to be the same which they were in former ages or at least-wise not to decrease And for the difference which is observed betwixt the Calculation of Ancient Moderne writers it is certainely to be referred to the difference of miles or of instruments or the vnskilfullnesse of the Authours not to the different dimensions of the Earth which I thinke no Geometrician euer somuch as dreamed of Notwithstanding which truth I must doe readily subscribe to that of Iob Surely the mountaine falling commeth to nought and the rocke is remoued out of his place but let vs take Iobs reason with vs which he immediately adds The waters weare the stones thow washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth This diminution then of the Mountaines as Blaucanus obserues is caused partly by Raine-water and partly by Riuers which by continuall fretting by little and little wash away eate out both the tops and sides and feete of mountaines whence the parts thus fretted through by continuall falling downe weare out the mountaines and fill vp the lower places of the valleyes making the one to increase as the other to decrease whence it comes to passe
that some old houses heretofore fairely built be now almost buried vnder ground and their windowes heretofore set at a reasonable height now growen euen with the pauement So some write of the triumphall Arch of Septimius at the foote of the Capitol mountaine in Rome now almost couered with earth in somuch as they are inforced to descend downe into it by as many staires as formerly they were vsed to ascend whereas contrariwise the Romane Capitoll it selfe seated on the mountaine which hanges ouer it as witnesseth George Agricola discouers its foundation plainely aboue ground which without question were at the first laying thereof deepe rooted in the earth whereby it apppeares that what the mountaine looseth the valley gaines and consequently that in the whole globe of the earth nothing is lost but onely remoued from one place to another so that in processe of time the highest mountaines may be humbled into valleyes and againe the lowest valleyes exalted into mountaines If ought to nought did fall All that is felt or seene within this all Still loosing somewhat of it selfe at length Would come to nothing if death's fatall strength Could altogether substances destroy Things then should vanish euen as soone as die In time the mighty mountaines tops be bated But with their fall the neighbour vales are fatted And what when Trent or Avon overflow They reaue one field they on the next bestow And whereas another Poet tels vs that Eluviemons est diductus in aequor The mountaine by washings oft into the sea is brought It is most certaine and by experience found to be true that as the rivers daily carrie much earth with them into the sea so the sea sends backe againe much slime and sand to the earth which in some places and namely in the North part of Deuonshire is found to bee a marveilous great commoditie for the inriching of the soyle Now as the Earth is nothing diminished in regard of the dimensions the measure thereof from the Surface to the Center being the same as it was at the first Creation So neither is the fatnes fruitfulnes thereof at least-wise since the flood or in regard of duration alone any whit impaired though it haue yeelded such store of increase by the space of so many reuolutions of ages yet hee that made it continually reneweth the face thereof as the Psalmist speakes by turning all things which spring from it into it againe Saith one Cuncta suos ortus repetunt matremque requirunt And another E terris orta terra rursus accipit And a third joynes both together Quapropter merito maternum nomen adepta est Cedit enim retro de terra quod fuit ante In terras And altogether they may thus not vnfitly be rendred All things returne to their originall And seeke their mother what from earth doth spring The same againe into the earth doth fall Neither doe they heerein dissent from Syracides with all manner of liuing things hath hee couered the face of the earth and they shall returne into it againe And that doome which passed vpon the first man after the fall is as it were ingraven on the foreheads not onely of his posterity but of all earthly Creatures made for their sakes Dust thou art and vnto dust shalt thou returne As the Ocean is mainetained by the returne of the rivers which are drayned deriued from it So is the earth by the dissolution and reuersion of those bodies which from it receiue their growth and nourishment The grasse to feede the beasts the corne to strengthen and the wine to cheere the heart of man either are or might bee both in regard of the Earth Heauens as good and plentifull as euer That decree of the Almighty is like the Law of the Medes Persians irreuocable They shall bee for signes and for seasons and for dayes and for yeares And againe Heereafter seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease so long as the Earth remaineth And were there not a certainety in these reuolutions so that In se sua per vestigia voluitur annus The yeare in its owne steps into in selfe returnes It could not well be that the Storke and the Turtle the Crane and the Swallow and other fowles should obserue so precisely as they doe the appointed times of their comming and going And whereas it is commonly thought and beleeued that the times of the yeare are now more vnseasonable then heeretofore and thereby the fruites of the Earth neither so faire nor kindely as they haue beene To the first I answere that the same complaint hath beene euer since Salomons time Hee that observeth the winde shall not sow and he that regardeth the clowdes shall not reape By which it seemes the weather was euen then as vncertaine as now and so was likewise the vncertaine and vnkindely riping of fruites as may appeare by the words following in the same place In the morning sow thy seede and in the euening let not thy hand rest for thou knowest not whether shall prosper this or that or whether both shall bee alike good And if sometimes wee haue vnseasonable yeares by reason of excessiue wet and cold they are againe paid home by immoderate drought and heate if not with vs yet in our neighbour countries and with vs. I thinke no man will bee so vnwise or partiall as to affirme that there is a constant and perpetuall declination but that the vnseasonablenes of some yeares is recompensed by the seasonablenes of others It is true that the erroneous computation of the yeare wee now vse may cause some seeming alteration in the seasons thereof in processe of time must needes cause a greater if it bee not rectified but let that errour be reformed and I am perswaded that communibus annis we shall finde no difference from the seasons of former ages at leastwise in regard of the ordinary course of nature For of Gods extraordinary judgements we now dispute not who sometimes for our sinnes emptieth the botles of heaven incessantly vpon vs and againe at other times makes the heavens as brasse ouer our heads and the earth as yron vnder our feete SECT 2. Another obiectiòn to uching the decay of the fruitfulnes of the holy land fully answered WHen I consider the narrow bounds of the land of Canaan it being by S. Hieromes account who liued long there but 160 miles in length from Dan to Bersheba and in bredth but 40 from Ioppa to Bethleem and withall the multitude incredible were it not recorded in holy Scripture both of men cattell which it fedde there meeting in one battle betweene Iudah Israel twelue hundred thousand chosen men Nay the very sword-men beside the Levites and Benjamites were vpon strict inquirie found to be fifteene hundred and seuentie thousand whereof the youngest was twenty yeares old there being none
was a great man among the Anakims Besides the word Adam euen in the Vulgar Translation it selfe is not alwayes vnderstood as proper to the first man but common as homo in Latine or man in English And yet to graunt the word in that place to be vnderstood of the first man and that he was there buried well might he be called the Greatest yet notsomuch in regard of any excessiue vastnesse in the dimentions of his bodie as because he was the headspring and fountaine of mankind or in respect of that originall justice with which before his fall hee stood invested There is no necessitie then to beleeue that the first man was the tallest of men nay rather as he came short of many that followed after in age and number of yeares so it may safely be thought that he exceeded them not in stature or dimentions of body there being often found in the Creatures a reciprocall corespondence betwixt their durations and dimentions as among the Graecians the same word signifies both whence some translate it age and some stature So that those Patriarches of the first age who by speciall dispensation liued longest may well be conceiued by vertue of the same dispensation to haue had a stature and length of body in some sort sutable to the lasting and length of their liues SECT 2. What those Gyants were which are mentioned in the 6 of Genesis that succeeding ages till Davids time afforded the like YEt the first mention that holy Scripture makes of Gyants is in the sixth of Genesis not long before the flood but long after the Creation There were Gyants in the earth in those dayes saith the text and also after that when the sonnes of God came in vnto the daughters of men and thy beare children vnto them the same became mighty men which were of old men of renowne The Originall word is Nephelim derived from Naphal which signifies to fall whence Iunius referres their name to their defection apostacie from religion and the worship of the true God Calvin to the falling of others before them by reason of their excessiue pride cruelty and oppression Philo in his booke which he hath purposely composed de Gygantibus to their owne falling from piety and godlines to carnall thoughts and earthly desires From which he fetcheth their name in Greeke S. Cyrill about the beginning of his ninth booke against Iulian discoursing of this very passage of Moses thus comments vpon it Mos est divinae Scripturae Gigantes vocare agrestes feroces robustos Nam de Persis Medis Iudaeam devastaturis dixit Deus per Isayam Gigantes venient vt impleant furorem meum It is the phrase of holy writ to call such Gyants as are in behaviour rough and rude wild and barbarous So speakes God by the Prophet Isayah of the Medes and Persians ordained for the laying wast of Iudea Gyants shall come and execute my fury vpon you So that if we rest in any of these interpretations there is no necessity we should conceiue these Gyants to haue exceeded other men in stature Nay S. Chrysostome seemes to deny it Gygantes à Scriptura dici opinor non invsitatum hominum genus aut insolitaâ—… formam sed Heroas viros fortes hellicosos I thinke they are in Scripture called Gyants not any vncouth kind of men for shape or feature but such as were Heroycall and warlike Which exposition of his hath in trueth some ground in the latter part of the same verse where Moses seemes to vnfold himselfe thus describing those whom immediatly before he had called Gyants the same became mighty men which were of old men of renowne On the other-side Cassianus Ambrose and Theodoret are as express that by Gyants Moses there vnderstood men of an huge and vast proportion of body But for mine owne part I see not but all these interpretations Chrysostomes onely excepted may well enough stand together and be accorded These Gyants being such as the Interlineary Glosse briefely but pithily describes immanes corpore superbos animo viribus praevalidos inconditos moribus Gyants then they were not onely in regard of their pride their tyrannie their incivility and infidelity but like wise and that doubtles most properly in respect of the monstrous enormity of their bodies most of the former being in likelihood occasioned by this latter Now as this is the first place that wee reade of Gyants not long before the flood which should argue they were taller and stronger then any that went before them so it is not the last but in all times wee may trace them thorow the history of succeeding ages From whence Reason collects that euen in regard of these irregular prodigious birthes for ought we finde in Scripture Nature hath suffered no apparent or sensible decay Of this stamp it seemes was Nymrod who hath therefore this Character set vpon him that he was Robustus Venator coram Domino a mighty hunter before the Lord There were some likewise found of this excessiue stature in the time of Abraham of Moses of Iosuah and of David whom wee haue registred vnder the names of Rephaims Zuzims Zanzummins Emims and Anakims Also the Prophet Amos found among the Amorites men of Gyant-like stature whose height he compareth to Cedars and their strength to Oakes Particularly it is noted in the third of Deuteronomy of Ogge King of Basan foure hundred yeares after Abraham that his bedde of yron kept and shewed as a monument in Rabbah was nine cubits long and foure broad And surely if his stature were answerable to the dimensions of his bed hee was one of the greatest Gyants that wee any where reade of not only in sacred but in any warrantable prophane story For whereas nine cubits make vp thirteene foote and an halfe if wee should allow a foote and halfe for the length of his bed-steed at both the ends beyond his body yet there still remaines twelue foote which is double to a iust stature And though I am not ignorant that both the Chaldee Paraphrase and Complutensian Bible following it render it In cubito eiusdem Regis as if the measure were to be taken by the Cubit of King Ogge himselfe yet Arias Montanus and Tremellius following the originall render it in cubito viri or virili and Iunius giues this note vpon it idest iustae communis mensurae qualem mensuram cubitalem quisque Artifex observare solet that is of the iust and common measure such as Artificers vsually obserue in their cubits and such as himselfe in the third of Iosuah translates notam mensuram the ordinary knowne measure And to say truth the measuring of Ogge by his owne cubit had beene both to make his stature altogeter vncertaine and the commensurations of his body most disproportionable there being no man whose body is justly framed who is full foure of his owne cubits in length neither had such a shape
He was there shewed a tooth belonging as it was thought to that St bigger then a mans fist the patterne whereof belike was taken from that huge Colossus made to represent him at the entrance of Nostre-dame in Paris more like a mountaine then a man whereas notwithstanding Baronius professeth in plaine tearmes se non habere quid dicat de Gigantea statura qua pingi consuevit that he knowes not what to say to that Gyantlike stature in which they commonly set him forth But Villauincentius goes farther dubium nemini esse picturam hanc à sanctis Patribus in hunc vsum propriè excogitatum vt Evangelij preconem adumbret that no man neede doubt but that picture was deuised of holy men to shadow forth the preacher of the Gospell who whiles hee lifts vp Christ by his preaching and carries him about to be seene and knowne is indangered in the waues of this world and yet vpheld by the staffe of hope The like tooth is to be seene in the Netherlands pretended to belong to the Gyant of Antwerpe but Goropius Becanus rather thinkes it to be the tooth of an Elephant whose conjecture is therein the more probable for that as witnesseth Verstegan at such time as the famous water passage was digged from Brussells vnto the river of Rupell at Willibrooke there was found the bones of an Elephant the head whereof which is yet reserued himselfe had seene Of latter times it hath beene written and by some strongly auerred that the body of William the Conquerour was found vncorrupt more then foure hundred yeares after it was buried and in length eight foote the former of which could not well be since his tombe being too narrow for the vnbowelled body so say our stories it brake in the laying of it downe for the latter there is as litle shew since they who haue written his life all agree that he was a man of a meane or middle stature though for his limmes actiue strong And for a full confutation of the said fable saith Stow when his restlesse bones which so hardly had obtained intombing did afterwards as vnluckily againe lose it in the yeare of Christ 1562 viz when Chastillion conducting the remnant of those that escaped at the battell of Dreux tooke the citie of Cane certaine sauage souldiers aswell English as others did beat downe vtterly deface the noble Monument of that victorious King pulling out all his bones which some of them spitefully threw away when they could not finde the treasure they falsely surmised had beene laid vp there and others specially the English snatched euery one to haue some peece of them not making any wonder of them as they would haue done if they had exceeded the length bignesse of mens bones of latter yeares whereas indeede there was no such thing noted in them as I haue beene certainely informed saith the same Authour by English men of good credit who were then present eye-witnesses at the spoyle of that Monument bones and brought some part of them into this Realme Theuet likewise in the second Tome of his Cosmographie describing the city of Cane mentioneth the rifling of his Monument but of any such monstrous bones or body there found hee speakes not a word And besides it is most vnreasonable to conceiue that within the compasse of fiue hundred yeares or little more there should be such a wonderfull abatement neither in truth if our measures be the same as then they were is it at all possible SECT 2. Diverse reasons alleadged why such bones might be found in former ages and not now and yet the ordinary stature of mankind remaine the same NOtwithstanding all this I am not so incredulous diffident or so peremptory and daring in this case as is Becanus Non credam illud Orionis apud Plynium licet Lucius Flaccus Metellus qui visum iuisse dicuntur per capita sua iurarent I will not credit that story of Orion reported by Pliny though Flaccus and Metellus who are sayd to see it should sweare by their heads it was true Let vs not wrong Antiquity so farre but deale with them as we desire our posterity should deale with vs Let vs not conceiue they were all either so vaine as to affirme they saw that which they saw not or so weake as not able to distinguish betwixt the figure of the bones of men and those of beasts fishes specially when they found the Sceleton whole and intire Much I graunt might be and no doubt was fained much mistaken much added to truth thorow errour or an itching desire of Hyperbolicall amplifications yet I cannot but beleeue that many of their relations touching this point were true howbeit a diminution of the stature of mankind in generall cannot from thence be sufficiently inforced To let goe then the conceite of Theophrastus Paracelsus that by the influence of the heavens such bones might be bred in certaine tracts veines of the earth I should rather choose to ascribe these superlatiue prodigious shapes to artificiall or supernaturall then to naturall ordinary causes For the former it may be that either great princes out of ambition and desire of honour in succeeding ages or cunning woorkemen out of curiosity haue framed and composed such peeces which posterity discouering might behold with astonishment the infernall spirits thereby to delude men and the sooner to draw them from the knowledge and worship of the true God to Idolatry and superstition haue concurred with them heerein yeelded them their assistance who being able to raise wonderfull tempests in the aire stormes in the sea I see not but they might be as able to compose such frames vnder the earth The wit and art of man may goe farre but being assisted by the Devils helpe it produceth effects almost incredible That insana substructio that huge monstrous peece of worke knowne by the name of Stone-henge neere Amesbery though it be by the Ancients tearmed Chorea Gigantum the Gyants daunce yet shall I neuer thinke that it was performed by the strength of men but rather by some sleights or Engines now vnknowne or by some artificiall composition they being no naturall stones hewen out of the rocke but artificially made of pure sand by some glewy and vnctuous matter knit and incorporated together as Camden seemes to conjecture or whether Merlin as the common saying is brought them thither reared disposed them in that order by Magicke and the helpe of Deuills I will not take vpon me to determine howsoeuer it were it is doubtles a worke for admiration nothing inferiour to the greatest Sceleton or frame of bones that was euer yet discouered And for teeth I make no question but they may by meere art be made so liuely to resemble the naturall teeth of men that the wisest will hardly be able to distinguish the counterfeite from the naturall But that which I rather
as they did And for the strength of their Physicke let vs heere Goropius a famous Physitian and doubtles a very learned man as his workes testifie and his greatest adversaries cannot but confesse Dicunt olim medicamenta multò vehementiora data fuissâ—… quà m nunc hominum natura ferre possit They say that the Physicke which the Ancients administred was much stronger then the nature of man is now capable of to which he replies eos qui sic arbitrantur insigniter falli contendo ferunt enim corpora aequè nunc helleborum atque olim eodem vel majori pondere vt ipse in alijs meipso sum expertus Verùm inscitia eorum qui nihil Medici habent praeter titulum vestem longam impudentem arrogantiam in causa est vt sic opinentur I am confident that those who thus thinke are notablely deceiued in asmuch as our bodies can now aswell endure the like or greater quantity of Elleborum as I haue made triall in my selfe others But the ignorance of such as haue indeed nothing in them of the Physitian but the bare title a long gowne and impudent arrogancie is the cause that men so thinke And with him heerein plainely accords Leonardus Giachinus of the same profession who hauing composed a Treatise purposely to shew what damage arises to learning by preferring Authority before reason makes this the title of his first Chapter Corpora nostra eadem ferre posse auxilia quibus Veteres vsi sunt idque cum ratione tum experientia comprobari That our bodies now a dayes may well enough suffer the same helpes of Physicke which the Ancients vsed that this may be made euident aswell by reason as experience And I suppose skilfull Physitians will not deny but that the Physicke of former times agrees with ours as in the receites so for the dosis and quantity and for them who hold a generall decay in the course of Nature they are likewise forced to hold this For if plants and drugges and minerals decay in their vertue proportionablely to the body of man as is the common opinion then must it consequently follow that the same quantity hauing a lesse vertue may without daunger and with good successe be administred to our bodies though inferiour in strength Roger Bacon in his booke de erroribus medicorum tells vs that the disposition of the heavens is changed euery Centenary or thereabout and consequently that all things growing from the earth change their complexions as also doth the body of man and therevpon infers that eaedem proportiones medicinarum non sunt semper continuandae sed exigitur observantia certa secundum temporis discensum The same proportions of medicines are not still to be continued but there is required a certain quantity according to the variation of time Where by the change of the disposition of the heavens I cannot conceiue that he intends it alwayes for the worst for so should he crosse himselfe in the same booke neither for any thing I know haue we any certainty of any such change as he speakes of but this am I sure of that if together with the heauens the plants change their tempers and with the plants the body of man then needs there no alteration in the proportion of medicines in asmuch as what art should therein supply nature her selfe preuents performes But for mine own part holding a naturall decay in neither vpon that ground as I conceiue may more safely be warranted the continuance of the ancient proportions Now touching the drawing of blood I know it is said that Galen vsually drew six pounds at the opening of a veine whereas we for the most part stoppe at six ounces which is in truth a great difference if true specially in so short a time he liuing three hundred yeares or thereabout since Christ. For decision then of this point we must haue recourse to Galen himselfe who in that booke which he purposely composed of cures by letting of blood thus writes Memini quibusdam ad sex vsque libras sanguinem detractum fuisse ita vt febris extingueretur I remember that from some I haue drawne six pounds of blood which hath ridde them of their feuer yet from others he tooke but a pound and a halfe or one pound and sometimes lesse as he saw occasion neither in old time nor in these present times was the quantity euer definite or certaine but both then and now variable more or lesse according to strength the disease age or other indications and in pestilent fevers his advise is vbi valida virtus subest aetas permittit vsque ad animae defectum sanguinem mittere expedit where the strength and age of the patient will beare it it will doe well to take blood euen to a fainting or sounding and such was the case as by his owne words it appeares in which he drew so great a quantity Neither is this without example in our age Ambrose Par a French Surgeon a man expert in his profession as his bookes shew reports that he drew from a patient of his in foure dayes twenty seven pallets euery pallet of Paris containing three ounces more so that he drew from him about seven pounds allowing twelue ounces to the pound which was the account that Galen followed as appeares in his owne Treatise of weights and measures and so continues it in vse among Physitians and Apothecaries vnto this day The whole quantity of blood in a mans body of a sound constitution and middle stature was anciently estimated and so is it still at about three gallons and I haue beene informed by a Doctour of Physicke of good credit and eminent place in this Vniversity that a patient of his hath bled a gallon at nose in one day and hath done well after it which as I conceiue could not be so little as seuen or eight pounds allowing somewhat lesse then a pound to a pint in asmuch as I haue found a pint of water to weigh sixteene ounces Now what Nature hath done with tollerance of life Art may come neere vnto vpon just cause without danger And if any desire to be farther informed in this point he need goe no further then the Medicinall observations of Iohannes Shenkius de capite Humano where to his 333 observation hee prefixes this title Prodigiosae narium haemorragiae quae interdum 18 interdum 20 nonnunquam etiam 40 sanguinis librae profluxere Prodigious bleedings at the nose in which sometimes 18 sometimes 20 sometimes 40 pouÌ„ds of blood haue issued The Authors from whom he borroweth his observations are Matheus de Gradi in his commentaries vpon the 35 chapter of Rasis ad Almans Brasauolus comment ad Aphor. 23. lib. 5. Donatus lib. de variolis morbillis cap. 23. Lusitanus Curat 100. Cent. 2. And againe Curat 60 Cent. 7 his instances are of a Nunne who voided by diverse passages 18 pounds of bloud of Diana a
to the quicke The former Capellus I meane in his very preface sharpely censures the Poets Homer Virgill Iuvenall for their hyperbolicall amplifications in speaking of the enormous stature of the Ancients and so doth he Pliny Solinus S. Augustine and Ludouicus Vives for following them therein and then alleadging that passage of Iulius Scaligers where he affirmes that the Samogithians a people seated betwixt Prussia Liuonia by turnes beget dwarfes gyants he graunts that this vicissitude though not in that degree yet in some sort may be obserued in all nations yet this man after all this flourish tells vs that it cannot be but some kinde of truth there should be in those complaints of the Poets that the world waxes old though not in post-hast as they would haue it yet sensim sine sensu as he tearmes it soft faire by degrees insensible The onely reason he buildes vpon being this that the measures of all Nations being proportioned as he imagineth to their statures and withall that as the Nations rise in antiquitie one aboue another so doe their measures from whence he inferres that as the measures of the Ancients were longer so were likewise their statures Wherein he manifestly crosseth both himselfe and as many as I haue read of that subiect either occasionally or of set purpose for himselfe he freely acknowledgeth in another place of the same discourse that both the present Parisian foote in France the Picen in Italy are bigger then the Ancient Romane for the latter of which he both vouches and well approues the testimony of Cardan de subtil lib. 11 Adducor authoritate scribentium olim de re militari qui tyronum mediocrem magnitudinem quinque pedum esse statuerunt vt quarta parte pes antiquus mensura pedis nostri minor sit I am induced by the authority of those who writing of military matters set down fiue foote for the ordinary stature of a common souldier to beleeue that the ancient foote was by measure a quarter lesse then ours Againe himselfe confesseth neither without manifest follie can it bee denyed that some nations in regard of their Clymate much exceed others in stature as for the most part do the Westerne the Easterne the Northerne the Southerne so as if his comparison had beene made betwixt the ancient and moderne measures of the same nation it might well haue carried at leastwise some semblance of truth but to make it betwixt different nations though in different ages as he doth carries with it in my iudgment no colour at all Lastly he holds not the like decrease in age wits manners that he doth in stature nor in the heavens the earth the beasts the plants that he doth in men which though it stand with his purpose yet how it can stand with the course of nature for mine own part I cannot imagine as neither can I conceiue how there should bee any such alternatiue vicissitude of stature in all nations as he holdes and yet withall an vniversall and perpetuall decrease all which himselfe it seemes foreseeing modestly concludes the point Nos igitur haec ea potius mente in medium adduximus vt haec vere nobilis questio ab eruditis viris luculentius accuratius pertractetur quà m quod veluti de inventa veritate gloriemur nobis ipsi suffeni simus We then haue produced these things to this purpose that this question truly noble may by learned men be more cleerely and exactly handled not that I would glory in the finding out of a truth or as if I were onely pleased with mine owne conceite Now for Iohannes Temporarius he doth not mince the matter as Capellus but in his Chronologicall demonstrations Anno mundi 410 and fourth Chapter strikes downe-right right blowes telling vs roundly and plainely that nothing is altered in the stature of man since the Creation and that eadem est hominum primi saeculi insecutorum magnitudo that the stature of the men of the first age and those which afterward ensued is the â—…ame and that as there were Gyants then so haue there since beene in all ages downeward and some euery way as tall if not taller then they and afterward discoursing of the Arke the capability thereof out of Buteo though indeed hee name him not he makes Moses his cubit to be the same with ours the beasts then to be of the same bignesse as now they are to spend no more quantitie of foode then now they doe herein likewise treading in Buteo his steps though in some other things touching the fabrique of the Arke he dissent from him SECT 7. Another rubbe remoued taken from the impurity of the seede contracted by the succession of propagation as also touching some late memorable examples of parents famously fertile in the linage issuing from their bodies beyond any examples in that kinde in former ages THE last but in the opinion of many not the least rubbe to bee remoued is drawne from the impuritie of the seede contracted by the succession of propagation from whence there must needes in reason succeed as a diminution in the continuance and duration so likewise an imparing both in the strength and stature of mankinde This argument I find thus expressed in a treatise published in Mr Câ—…ffs name and intitled The differences of the ages of mans life As is nutrition saith he to the particular so is generation to the species in the case of their continuance and preservation Wherefore as by the nourishment wee take for our naturall moisture there being supplied not so pure humiditie as was lost the particulars decaying by little and little are at last cleane consumed so by procreation the mainetenance of our species the purity of our complexion being by degrees time diminished at length there followes euen of necessity an absolute corruption but for answere herevnto though it be graunted that generation be as requisite to the continuance of the species as is nutrition for the preseruation of the particular withall that our foode doth not so kindely and fully supply our radicall moisture which is daily wasted by our vitall heate feeding vpon it whence finally ensueth the Individuals extinguishing Yet that every individuall should necessarily yeeld weaker and worsâ—…r seede for the propagation of the species then it selfe was generated of that I constantly beleeue can neuer be proued Nay the contrary therevnto is manifested by daily experience in asmuch as wee often see feeble sickely parents to beget strong healthy short to beget tall such as haue dyed young long-liued children And vndoubtedly if this were so indeede as is pretended mankind had long since beene vtterly extinguished with it had this controuersie beene at an end not only mankind but the severall kindes of fowles fishes beasts plants since they are all maintained by their seed as man is whose decay notwithstanding is questioned but by
their minds being thoroughly drenched with the liquor of foolishnes They which haue sence adore things without sence which haue life things without life which are from heauen things earthly It were good then from some high tower that all might heare it to proclaime alowd that of Persius O cares of men O world all fraught With vanities O mindes inclined Towards earth all voide of heau'nly thought And Sedulius an ancient Christian Poet by Nation a Scot hath excellently described this palpable folly Heu miseri qui vana colunt qui corde sinistro Religiosa sibi sculpunt simulacra suumque Factorem fugiunt quae fecêre verentur Quis furor est quae tanta animos dementia ludit Vt volucrem turpemque bovem torvumque draconem Semihominemque canem supplex homo pronus adoret Ah wretched they that worship vanities And consecrate dumbe Idols in their hearts Who their owne Maker God on high despise And feare the worke of their owne hands and Art What fury what great madnesse doth beguile Mens mindes that man should vgly shâ—…pes adore Of birds or buls or dragons or the vile Halfe dog halfe man on knees for aide implore To these vgly shapes doth Seneca allude Nuâ—…ina vocant quae si accepto spiritu occurrerent monstra haberentur Divine powers they call those which if they should meete hauing life put into them would be held monsters And one of their owne Poets seemes to â—…est at their grossenesse herein Olim truncus eram ficulnus invtile lignum Quem Faber incertus scamnum facereâ—…ne Priapum Maluit esse deum Euen now I was the stocke of an old figge tree Thâ—… workeman doubting what I then should bee A bench or god at last a god made mee It is indeed true that the Romanes for a time were altogether without images for any religious vse but afterward they receiued into their City those of all other Nations by them conquered so as they who were Lords of the whole world became slaues to the Idoles of all the World Which bables as witnesseth S. Augustine that learned Varro both bewailed vtterly condemned in expresse words Qui primi simulacra Deorum populis posuerunt ij civitatibus suis timorem ademerunt errorem addiderunt They who first erected Idols for the peoples vse thereby both abolished all feare of the Deitie and introduced errour But the wise Seneca thus derides them Simulacra Deorum venerantur illis supplicant genu posito illa adorant cum haec suspiciant fabros qui illa fecere contemnunt the Images of the Gods they worship those they pray vnto with bended knees those they adore and while they so greatly admire them they contemne the Artificer that made them SECT 3. Their grosse and ridiculous blockishnesse in the infinite multitude of their gods THeir strange infatuation will yet appeare farther vnto vs if wee rise a little higher from the Images to the Gods which they represented and surely whether their practice about their images or their opinion touching their Gods were more grosse and ridiculous it is hard to define Whether we regard their number or their condition or their manner of service For their number he that reades Boccace his books de Genealogia Deorum will easily finde them almost numberlesse so as the Apostle might well say There be Gods many and Lords many Crinitus out of Hesiodus makes them thirty thousand strong the Iuppiters alone out of Varro no lesse then three hundred There were Dij majorum gentium which were worshipped generally throughout the greatest part of the world Dij Tutelares gods of seuerall Nations Provinces chosen to be their patrons guardions which may be gathered by those high places which Solomon built for his Idolatrous wiues wherein they worshipped the seuerall Gods of their seuerall Nations Ashtoreth the Goddesse of the Sidonians and Milcom the God of the Ammorites Cbemosh the God of the Moabites Molech the God of the Ammonites so likewise for all the rest of his outlandish wiues which burnt incense offered vnto their Gods whereby it appeareth that euery Nation had a God of his owne yet farther may it be seene by the practice of those Nations which Salmanezer transplanted into the Samaritan Cities of whom it is recorded that though they feared the Lord yet they worshipped euery one his owne peculiar God of whom there is a Catalogue in the same place set downe The Babylonians Succoth Benoth the Cuthites Nergall the Hammathites Ashima the Avites Nibhaz Tartak the Sepharvites Adramelech Anamelek And as seuerall Nations Provinces chose to themselues their Gods so did likewise the Cities as we may partly see by that rabble of them mustered vp by Rabshaketh in his Oration to King Hezekiah where is the God of Hamah and Arpad where is the God of Sepher-vaim Hevah Iuah in imitation of the Gentiles did the men of Iudah multiply their gods according to the number of their Cities Neither did Nations Provinces Cities onely affect to haue euery one vnto themselues their owne peculiar and seuerall Gods as their Patrons and defenders but the same was likewise followed by all their seuerall families who still had their Lares Deos Penates that is their houshold Gods as the Protectours of their families whom because they adored in the secret inward parts of their houses the Poets vse to call Deos Penetrales Yea and as Pliny reporteth not only seuerall families had their seuerall Gods but also euery seuerall person would adopt a seuerall God of his owne insomuch that hee thought the number of Gods to bee multiplied aboue the number of men Major Coeliâ—…um populus etiam quâ—…m hominum intelligi potest cùm singuli quoque ex semetipsis singulos Deos faciant Iâ—…nones Geniosque adoptando sibi We may well conceiue greater multitudes of Gods then of men seeing euery man adopâ—…eth as he pleaseth both greater smallâ—…r gods to himselfe All which considered otiosum est per omnia Deorum nomina perâ—…urrere qui colerentur à veteribus saith Terâ—…ullian It were an idle thing to attempt to runne through the names of all the Gods which the Ancients worshipped they had so many old Gods new Gods hee Gods shee Gods citty Gods countrey God coâ—…mon Gods proper Gods land Gods sea Gods And with Tertullâ—…an heerein accords S. Augustine Quando autem possins vno loco libri hâ—…us â—…morari omnia nomina Deorum aut Dearum quae illi grandibus volumâ—…bus vix comprehendere potuerunt singulis rebus propria dispertieâ—…tes officia Numinum How can all the names of their Gods and Goddesses bee recounted in one chapter of this booke which themselues could not range within the compasse of many great volumes appointing a pâ—…rticular God to waite on euery particular thing nay for some thing saith he they had many Gods as namely for corne
from hence I beleeue hath chiefely growen in the world so great an admiration of them in many things beyond all succeeding ages and their deserts But certaine it is that never any people vnder the Sunne more daringly chalenged to themselues the toppe of all perfection Nulla vnquam Respub nec maior nec sanctior nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit sayth Livie Never was there any common-wealth more ample or holy or rich in good examples Gentiuâ—… in toto orbe praestantissima vna in omni virtute haud dubie Romana exstitit saith Pliny The Romane Nation hath beene doubtlesse of all others in all kinde of vertue the most excellent Nulla Gens est quae non aut ita subacta sit vt vix exstet aut ita domita vt quiescat aut ita pacata vt victoria nostra imperioque laetatur sayth Tully There is no Nation which either is not so vtterly vanquished as it is extinguished or so mastered as it is quieted or so pacified that it rejoyceth in our victorie and Empire and Claudian Haec est exiguis quae finibus orta tetendit In geminos axes parvaque à sede profecta Dispersit cum sole manus Small were her confines when she first begun Now stretcheth to both poles small her first seat Yet now her hands shee spreadeth with the Sunne This seemed not enough vnto Caecilius against whom Arnobius writes for he sayth that the Romans did Imperiuâ—… suum vltra solis vias prapagare They inlarged their dominion beyond the course of the Sun And Ovid he commeth not a steppe behind them in this their exaggerated amplification For he sayth that if God should looke downe from heaven vpon the earth he could see nothing there without the power of the Romanes Iupiter arce sua totum cum spectet in orbem Nil nisi Romanum quod tueatur habet Yea and as Egesippus recordeth there were many that thought the Romane Empire so great and so largely diffused over the face of the whole earth that they called orbem terrarum orbem Romanum the globe of the earth the globe of the Romanes the whole world the Romane world Hyperbolicall speeches which though Lypsius put off with an animosèmagis quam superbè dicta as arguing rather magnanimitie then ostentation yet Dyonisius Halicarnassaeus somewhat more warily limits them thus Romana vrbs imperat toti terrae quae quidem inaccessa non sit the citty of Rome commaunds the whole earth where it is not inaccessible But Lypsius himselfe more truly quicquid oportunum aut dignum vinci videbatur vicit it overcame whatsoeuer it could well overcome or thought worthy the ouercomming And Macrobius though himselfe a Roman ingenuously acknowledgeth Gangem transnare aut Caucasum transcendere Romà ni nominis fama non valuit The fame of the Romans as great as it was yet was neuer so great as to be able to swimme ouer the Riuer Ganges or climbe ouer the mountaine Caucasus so that euen their fame came short of their swelling amplifications vsed by their Orators and Poets but their Dominion came much shorter as is expressely affirmed by the same Author Totius terrae quae ad coelum puncti locum obtinet minima quaedam particula à nostri generis hominibus possidetur Though the whole Earth compared with the Heauens bee no bigger then a Center in the midst of a Circle yet scarce the least parcell of this little earth did euer come into the hands of the Romans Yet how could a man well devise to say more then Propertius hath said of that City Omnia Romanae cedant miracula terrae Natura hic posuit quicquid vbique fuit All miracles to Rome must yeeld for heere Nature hath treasur'd all what 's euery-where Except Martial perchaunce out-vy him Terrarum Dea gentiumque Roma Cui par est nihil nihil secundum Of Lands and Nations Goddesse Rome and Queene To whom novght peere nought second yet hath beene Which Frontinus seemes to borrow from him but with some addition of his owne Romana vrbs indiges terrarumque Dea cui par est nihil nihil secundum Now saith Crinitus alleaging those words of Frontinus Eos dicimus ferè indigetes qui nullius rei egeant id enim est tantum Deorum wee vsually call those indigites which want nothing for that is proper to the Gods Hubertus Golzius in his treasure of Antiquity hath effigiated two peeces of coine the one with a Greeke Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other with this in Latin ROMA DEA the meaning of both being that Rome was a Goddesse neither was this figuratiuely but properly vnderstood she hauing advanced her selfe into the number of the Gods as witnesseth Dion in Augustus nay erected Temples and addressed sacrifices to her selfe as testifie Victor and Onuphrius in their descriptions of Rome which Prudentius a Christian Poet both glances at and deservedly derides Colitur nam sanguine ipsa More Deae nomenque loci seâ—… numen hà betur Atque Vrbis Venerisque pari se culmine tollunt Templa simul geminis adolentur thure deabus Shee Goddesse-like is worshipped with blood A places name is hallowed for a god As high as Venus Cities Church doth rise And joint to both they incense sacrifice And Lucan as to a Goddesse directs his prayer solemnely vnto her summique ô numinis instar Roma saue câ—…ptis And thou as greatest power divine Favour O Rome this enterprise of mine Her Temple was situate vpon mount Palatine as appeares by that of Claudian bringing in the Provinces as suppliants to visite the Goddesse Conveniunt ad tecta Deae quae candida lucent Monte Palatino They meet at th'Goddesse Temple which doth shine So white and glorious on mount Palatine But this was in truth such a mad drunkennesse with pride and self-loue that Lypsius himselfe cannot hold from crying out O insaniam aedificijs inanimato corpori non vitam solùm attribuere sed numen O strange madnesse to ascribe vnto houses and stones and a dead body not life onely but a deity And being now a Goddesse shee might well take to her selfe that of old Babylon a type of her pride I sit as a Queene and am no widdow shall see no sorrow and challenge to her selfe aeternity as most blasphemously she did as is to be seene in the coine of the Emperour Probus in which we haue Rome set forth sitting in her Temple in a victorious triumphant manner hauing on the one side this inscription Conserv vrbis suae and on the other Romae aeternae and so is it expressely named both by Symmachus and Ammianus Marcellinus And Suetonius testifies in the life of Nero cap. 11 that of all their seuerall kindes of playes pro aeternitate imperij susceptos appellari maximos voluit those which were exhibited for the aeternity of the Empire should bee had in greatest
of him that devised it or the bold heart of him that vndertooke it To commaund such a thing to be done or to obey and yeeld and goe in hand with it But when wee haue sayd all that we can the folly of the blind and bold people of Rome went beyond all who trusted such a ticklish frame durst sit there in a seate so moueable loe where a man might haue seene the body of that people which is Commaunder and ruler of the whole earth the Conqueror of the world the disposer of kingdomes Realmes at their pleasure the divider of countryes and Nations at their wils the giver of lawes to forraine states the vicegerent of the immortall Gods vnder heaven and representing their image vnto all mankind hanging in the aire within a frame at the mercy of one onely hooke rejoycing ready to clap hands at their owne daunger What a cheape market of mens liues was heere toward what was the losse at Cannae to this hazard how neere vnto a mischiefe were they which might haue hapned heereby in the turning of a hand Certes when there is newes come of a city swallowed vp by a wide chink and opening of the earth all men generally in a publique commiseration doe greeue thereat and there is not one but his heart doth yearne and yet behold the Vniversall state and people of Rome as if they were put into a couple of barkes supported betweene heaven and earth and sitting at the deuotion only of two pinnes or hookes And what spectacle doe they behold a number of Fencers trying it out with vnrebated swords Nay ywis but even themselues rather entred into a most desperate fight and at the point to breake their neckes every mothers sonne if the scaffold failed never so little and the frame went out of joynt SECT 5. The third objection touching the pretended fortitude of the Romans answered in asmuch as their Empire is by their owne writers in a great part ascribed to Fortune by Christians may be referred to Gods speciall providence for the effecting of his owne purposes rather then to any extraordinary worth in them NOw that which is most of all stood vpon aswell by the Romanes themselues as by their Proctours Patrons is their great fortitude courage as appeares in their subduing the greatest part of the knowne world and in truth placing their chiefe happinesse in the honour and glory of their names withall supposing that there was for the purchasing thereof no readier meanes then the sacryficing of their liues for the inlarging advancement of their Empire they were in this regard for the most part even prodigall of their blood But shall we call that fortitude which neither aimed at justice nor was guided by true wisedome or rather obstinacie adventurous boldnes It is very true that they were often in their warres very successefull but Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat May that mans actions never well succeed Who by th' event doth censure of the deed By the confession of their owne writers they owed as much to Fortunâ—… as their valour whom therefore they made a Goddesse and placed in heaven Te facimus Fortuna Deam coeloque locamus Thee Fortune we a Goddesse make And grant thee place in heaven to take These two Fortune Fortitude Ammianus so chayneth linketh together as neither of them could well be wanting in the raysing of their Empire Roma vt augeretur sublimibus incrementis foedere pacis aeternae virtus convenit atque fortuna quarum si altera defuisset ad perfectam non venerat summitatem That Rome should rise to that height greatnes Fortitude Fortune made a league of eternall peace so as had either of them beene wanting it could never haue risen to that perfection Both of them performed their parts heerein seeming to striue which should precede the other which Plutarch disputes at large in his booke de fortuna Romanorum and Florus hath briefely but roundly cleerely expressed Ad constituendum Romanum imperium virtutem ac Fortunam contendisse videri that to the stablishing of the Romane Empire Fortitude Fortune seemed to contend which should be most forward Now if themselues attributed as much to fortune as to their fortitude wee may well conceiue that the latter was short of the former rather then otherwise And surely if by Fortune we should vnderstand Gods Providence we may safely say that for the effecting of his owne purposes though happily vnknowne to theÌ„r ather then for any extraordinary worth or merit in them he conferred vpon them the Empire of the world As Augustus Caesar was by Gods speciall providence directed in taxing the world that so euery man repairing to his owne Citty Christ by that meanes might be borne in Bethleem as was fore-told by the Prophet Micah so likewise was he by the same hand and power settled in the Empire that he might thorow the world settle an vniversall peace when the Prince of Peace was to be borne into it as was foretold by another Prophet They shall beate their swords into plow-shares and their speares into pruning hookes And may we not well conceiue that the world was therefore by the divine Providence brought vnder the yoake of the Roman government made subject to their Lawes and acquainted with their language that so when the Emperours themselues should become Christians as afterwards they did the propagation of the Gospell of Iesus Christ might finde an easier passage The Romans then perchaunce might challenge that as due to their owne worth in the conquering of the world which is rather to be ascribed to the hand of Heauen disposing these earthly Monarchies for the good of his Church or for the chastising of his enemies To which purpose he gaue to Nebuchadnezzar such great victories and large Dominions Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of heaven hath giuen thee a kingdome power and strength and glory which was not for any extraordinary worth or vertue that we read of in Nebuchadnezzar but only to make him as a staffe or a rod in his hands for the scourging of other rebellious nations an instrument for the accomplishment of his own designes Answerable whereunto is that memorable speech of S. Augustin Non tribuamus dandi regni atque imperij potestateÌ„ nisi Deo vero qui dat faelicitateÌ„ in regno coeloruÌ„ solis piis regnum verò terraruÌ„ piis impiis sicut ei placet cui nihil injustè placet Let vs not referre the power of conferring Kingdomes but only to the true God who giues happines in the kingdome of heauen only to the godly but these earthly kingdoms both to the godly vngodly as pleases him whoÌ„ nothing pleases that is vnjust I conclude this point with that of Salomon The race is not alwayes to the swift nor the battle to the
also the workes that are therein shall be burnt vp saith S. Peter And I saw a great white throne him that sate on it from whose face the earth and the heauen fled away and there was found no place for them saith S. Iohn Now I would demaund whether being no more as Iob perishing as David vanishing away like smoake dissolving rolling together falling downe as a withered leafe or a dry fig from the tree as Esay passing away as our Saviour passing away with a great noise melting with feruent heate burning vp as S. Peter or lastly flying away so as their place be found no more as S. Iohn doe not include an vtter abolition or at leastwise exclude a restitution to a perfecter estate once Beza I am sure is so evidently convinced by the alleadged words of S. Peter that he plainly confesses the dissolution the Apostle there speakes of to be a kinde of annihilation And both Tilenus Meisnerus are confident that those who hold a restitution will neuer be able to reconcile their opinion with the alleadged Scriptures If we looke back to higher times before S. Hierome we shall not easily finde any who maintained it And certaine it is that Clement in his Recognitions or whosoeuer were the Author of that worke brings in S. Peter reasoning with Simon Magus teaching that there were two Heauens the one Superius invisibile aeternum quod Spiritus beati incolunt the highest invisible and eternall which bl◅ssed spirits inhabite the other inferius visibile varijs distinctum syderibus corruptibile in consummatione saeculi dissolvendum prorsus abolendum lower visible distinguished with diverse starres corruptible and at the worlds end to be dissolued and vtterly abolished Now though that worke were not Clements yet was it doubtlesse very ancient being quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen and remembred by S. Hierome in his Commentaries vpon Esay and is of sufficient authority against those who receiue it for my selfe I stand not vpon his authority but the rock of Scripture and reason drawne from thence and the force of naturall discourse SECT 5. The same farther prooved by reason THE first then and as I conceiue the most weighty argument is taken from the End of the Worlds creation which was partly and chiefely the glory of the Creator and partly the vse of man the Lord Deputy as it were or Viceroy thereof Now for the glory of the Creator it being by the admirable frame of the World manifested vnto man man being remoued out of the world and no Creature being capable of such a manifestation besides him wee cannot imagine to what purpose the frame it selfe should bee left and restored to a more perfect estate The other end being for mans vse either to supply his necessity in matter of diet of Physick of building of apparell or for his instruction direction recreation comfort and delight or lastly that therein as in a looking-glasse he might contemplate the wisdome the power and the goodnesse of God when he shall attaine that blessed estate as he shall haue no farther use of any of these enjoying perfect happinesse and seeing God as he is face to face the second or subordinate end of the Worlds being must needs be likewise frustrate And what other end can bee giuen or conceiued for the remaining or restoring thereof for mine owne part I must professe I cannot conceiue And to affirme that it shal be restored withal to assigne no end wherefore is ridiculous and vnreasonable An house being built for an inhabitant as the World was for man If it bee decreed that it shall no more be inhabited it were but vanity to repaire much more to adorne and beautifie it farther And therefore when mankinde shall bee dislodged and remoue from hence therevpon shall instantly ensue the Consummation or End not the reparation or restitution but the End of the world So the Scriptures call it in plaine tearmes and so I beleeue it And in truth some Divines considering that of necessity some end must bee assigned haue falne vpon ends so absurd and vnwarrantable that the very naming of them were sufficient to make a man beleeue there was no such matter indeed Some then and that of our owne Church and that in published bookes for the clearing of this objection haue fancied to themselues an intercourse of the Saints after the resurrection betwixt heauen and earth and that full Dominion ouer the Creatures which by the fall of Adam was lost Others are of opinion that the Earth after the day of judgement being renewed with fire and more pleasantly apparelled shall be the mansion of such as neither by their merits haue deserued heauen nor hell by their demerits And lastly others that such as haue died in their infancy without circumcision or Baptisme might possesse it Now what meere dreames these are of idle braines if I should but endeavour to demonstrate I feare I should shew my selfe more vaine in vouchsafing them a confutation then they in publishing them to the World And yet they are the best wee see that Learned men by the strength of their wits can finde out My second reason shall be drawne from the nature of the world and the quality of the parts thereof which are supposed shall bee restored to their originall integrity and so in that state euerlastingly remaine I will begin with the vegetables and Creatures endued with sense concerning them would willingly learne whether they shall bee all restored or some onely namely such as shall be found in being at the day of Iudgment if all where shall we finde stowage for them Surely we may in this case properly apply that which the Evangelist in another case vses figuratiuely if they should all be restored euē the world it self could not cōtain the things which should be restored if some only thē would I gladly know why those some should be vouchsafed this great honour not all or how these creatures without a miracle shal be restrained frō propagating multiplying that infinitly their kinds by a perpetuall generatiō Or lastly how the several individuals of these kinds shall cōtrary to their primitiue natures liue dure immortally But to make a good sound answere to these demaunds is a point of that difficulty that the greatest part of Divines rather choose to leaue out the mixt bodies preferre only the heavens the elements to this pretended dignity of restitution though about the number of the Elements to be restored they all agree not But heere againe I would demaund whether the world without the mixt bodies can truly be sayd to be more perfect and beautifull then before whether the inbred and inseparable qualities of the Elements as thickenesse and thinnesse weight lightnesse heate cold moisture drynesse shall remaine if they shall not how shall they remaine Elements if they shall how without
whom they derided and vilified or what greater comfort and content to the other then to be justified and rewarded in the view of them who were their professed enemies Lastly as our blessed Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ who shall then appeare as Iudge at his first comming into this world was contemptible in the eye of wordlings and dishonoured publiquely both in his life and death So was it convenient that once in this world hee should shew his power and Majesty and that in the sight of all his Creatures but specially of his wicked enimies who after that day are never to see or behold him more To these reasons may be added the testimonie of the very Gentiles of Hydaspes Hermes Sybilla whereof the first having described the iniquity of the last age sayes that the godly and righteous men being severed from the vntighteous shall with teares and groanes lift vp their hands to heaven imploring the helpe of Iupiter and that therevpon Iupiter shall regard the earth heare their prayers and destroy the wicked Quae omnia vera sunt praeter vnum quod Iovem dixit illa facturum quae Deus faciet saith Lactantius all which things are true saue one which is that he ascribes that to Iupiter which God shall doe And besides sayth he it was not without the cunning suggestion of Sathan left out that then the Sonne of God shall be sent from the father who destroying the wicked shall set the righteous at liberty Which Hermes notwithstan ding dissembled not Part of Sybilla's verses alleadged by Lactantius in Greeke may thus be rendred in Latine English Huic luci finem imponent cum fata supremum Iudicium aethereus Pater exercebit in omnes Iudicium humano generi imperiumque verendum When God shall to this world its fatall period send Th' immortall mortall men in judgment shall arraigne Great shall his judgment be his Kingdome without end And againe Tartareumque chaos tellure hiscente patebit Regesque aetherij sistentur judicis omnes Ante thronum Tartarean Chaos then Earth opening wide shall show And then all kings before Gods judgment seat shall bow And in another place Coelum ego convolvens penetralia caeca recludam Telluris functique fati lege soluti Et mortis stimulo exurgent cunctosque tribunal Ante meum Iudex statuam reprobosque probosque Rolling vp Heauen I will Earths secret vaults disclose Deaths sting also and bonds of fate will I vnloose Then shall the dead arise and all both small and great Both good and bad shall stand before my judgment seat Ouer and aboue these Prophets and men of learning Peru the South part of America doth yeeld to vs an ignorant people who by the light of Nature and a generall apprehension for God knoweth they haue nothing else doe beleeue that the World shall end and that there shall be then a reward for the good and for the euill according to their desert SECT 2. The consideration of this day may first serue for terrour to the wicked whether they regard the dreadfulnesse of the day it selfe or the quality of the Iudge by whom they are to be tryed THe certainty then of this vniversall Iudgment at the last day being thus cleerely prooued not only by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament but by the light of Reason and the testimonies of the Gentiles the consideratiō thereof may justly serue for terrour to the wicked it being to them a day of wrath and vengeance for Comfort to the Godly it being to them a day of refreshing and full redemption and lastly for admonition instruction to both First then it may justly serue for matter of extreame terrour to the wicked whether they regard the dreadfulnes of the day in which they shall be tryed or the quality of the Iudge by whom they are to be tryed or the nature number of their accusers that shall bring in evidence against them or the presence of such an assembly of men and Angels before whom they shall be arraigned or their owne guiltinesse and astonishment or lastly the sharpnesse and severity of the sentence that shall passe vpon them The very face and countenance of that day shall be hideous and dismall to looke to it shal be apparelled with horrour and affrightment on euery side That day is a day of wrath a day of trouble and heavinesse a day of destruction and desolation a day of gloominesse and darknesse a day of clouds stormes and blacknesse a day of the trumpet and alarme against the strong cities and against the high towres Then shall the Sun be darkned and the Moone shall be turned into bloud and the starres shall fall from heauen as it were withered leaues from their trees and the powers of heauen shall be shaken and the graues shall vomit vp their dead bodies the heauens shall passe away with a noise and shriuel together like scorched parchment the elements shall melt dissolue with heat the sea flouds shall roare the Earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt vp there shall be horrible clapps of thunder flashes of lightning voyces earthquakes such as neuer were since men dwelt vpon the earth such howling such lamentations such skriches shall be heard in euery corner that the hearts of men shall tremble wither for very feare and expectation of those things which at that day shall befall them And now tell me what mortall heart can choose but ake and quake at the remembrance of these vnspeakable incomprehensible terrours The Law was giuen with thunder lightnings and a thick cloud vpon the mount with an exceeding lowde and shrill sound of the trumpet so that all the people were afrayde yea so terrible was the sight that Moses said I feare and quake Now if Moses the servant of the Lord quaked to heare the first trumpet at the giuing of the Law how shall the wicked condemned in their owne Conscience tremble and quake to heare the second at the execution thereof Specially being arraigned at the barre of such a Iudge apparelled with Robes of Majesty attended with millions of Angels A Iudge so soueraigne as there lyes no appeale from him so wise as nothing can escape his knowledge so mighty as nothing can resist his power so vpright as nothing can pervert his justice who neither can bee deceiued with sophistry nor blinded with gifts nor terrified with threats They shall looke vpon him whom they haue wounded and gored with the speare of their blasphemies with the nailes of their cursings and cursed oathes whō they haue buffeted spit vpon with their impiety prophanesse whō they haue again crucified to themselues by their divelish damnable actions trampling his pretious Bloud vnder foot by their impenitencie putting him to open shame by their infidelity making a mock of him by their obstinacy and turning his grace into wantonnes by their presumption Holy Augustine
considering that with thee is the well of life in thy presence is the fulnes of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore By parting from thee then wee part from the blisfull vision of the face of God from the fruition of the happy fellowship of the holy Angels and society of Saints and consequently from happinesse it selfe What remaines then but that parting from happinesse wee should indeede become most miserable and accursed Caitifs Depart from me yee Cursed Men sometimes curse where God blesses and blesse where God curses They can only pronounce a man cursed they cannot make him so but heere it is otherwise for with this powerfull and righteous Iudge to pronounce is to make when he cursed the figge tree it instantly withered And as these impenitent Sinners loved cursing so shall it come vnto them and as they loved not blessing so shall it be farre from them As they cloathed themselues with cursing like a rayment so shall it come into their bowels like water and like oyle into their bones it shall be vnto them as a garment to cover them and for a girdle wherewith they shall be alway girded Cursed shall be the day of their conception cursed the day of their birth Cursed they shall be in their soules and cursed in their bodies Cursed in their thoughts and cursed in their desires cursed in their speeches and cursed in their actions Cursed in the haynousnes of their sinne and cursed in the grievousnesse of their punishment cursed in their punishment of losse for their aversion from the Creator Depart from me and cursed in their punishment of sense for their conversion to the Creature Depart from me into everlasting Fire Of all the Creatures appointed by Almighty God to be instruments for the execution of his vengeance water and fire are noted to haue the least mercy And therefore with fire brimstone consumed he the filthy Sodomites a type of this hellish fire as Sodome was of hell it selfe If creating an element heere for our comfort I meane the fire he made the same so insufferable as it is in such sort as a man would not hold his onely hand therein one day to gaine a kingdome what a fire thinke you hath he provided for hell which is not created for comfort but only for torment Our fire hath many differences from that and therefore is truly sayd of the holy Fathers to be but as a painted or fained fire in respect of that For first our fire was made to comfort as I haue sayd and that only to afflict and torment Our fire hath need to be fed continually with wood and fewell or else it goeth out that burneth eternally without feeding and is vnquenchable for that the breath of the Lords owne mouth doth blowe and nourish it Our fire worketh only vpon the body immediatly vpon the soule being a spirit it cannot worke that worketh vpon the soule separated from the bodie as it likewise doth vpon the Apostate Angells and vpon both soule and bodie rejoyned Our fire giveth light which of it selfe is comfortable that admitteth none but is full of dismall darkenesse Our fire may be extinguished or the rage of it abated with water that cannot Ours breedeth weeping that not only weeping but gnashing of teeth the ordinary effect of cold Such a strange and incredible fire it is that it implies contraries and so terrible is this Iudge to his enimies that he hath devised a wonderfull way how to torment them with burning heate and chilling cold both at once Lastly our fire consumeth the food that is cast into it and thereby in short space dispatcheth the paines whereas that afflicteth tormenteth but consumeth not to the end the paines may be Everlasting as is the fire O deadly life O immortall death what shall I tearme thee Life and wherefore then dost thou kill Death and wherefore then dost thou endure There is neither Life nor Death but hath something good in it For in life there is some ease and in death an end but thou hast neither ease nor end What shall I tearme thee even the bitternesse of both For of death thou hast torment without any end and of life the continuance without any ease so long as God shall liue so long shall the damned die and when he shall cease to be happy then shall they also cease to be miserable A starre which is farre greater then the earth appeareth to be a small spot in comparison of the heavens much lesse shall the age of man seeme yea much lesse the age and continuance of the whole world in regard of this perpetuity of paines The least moment of time if it be compared with tenne thousand millions of yeares because both tearmes are finite and the one a part of the other beareth although a very small yet some proportion but this or any other number of yeares in respect of endlesse eternity is nothing lesse then just nothing For all things that are finite may bee compared together but betweene that which is finite and that which is infinite there standeth no comparison O sayth one holy Father in a godly meditation if a sinner damned in hell did know that hee had to suffer those torments no more thousand yeares then there be sands in the sea or grasse leaues on the ground or no more thousand millions of ages then there be Creatures in heaven hell and in earth he would greatly rejoyce for that he would comfort himselfe at the leastwise with this cogitation that once yet the matter would haue an end But now sayth this good man this word never breaketh his heart considering that after an hundred thousand millions of worlds if there might be so many he hath as farre to his journeyes end as hee had the first day of his entrance into those torments And surely if a man that is sharpely pinched with the goute or the stone or but with thetoothach and that they hold him but by fits giving him some respite betweene-whiles notwithstanding doe thinke one night exceeding long although he lie in a soft bed well applied cared for how tedious doe wee thinke eternity will seeme to those that shall be vniuersally in all their parts continually without intermission perpetually without end or hope of end schorched in those hellish flames which besides that they are everlasting haue this likewise added that they are prepared for the Devill and his Angells Prepared by whom surely by the Iudge himselfe who giues the sentence Now if but mortall Iudges should set and search their wits to devise prepare a punishment for some notorious malefactour what grievous tortures doe they often finde out able to make a man tremble at the very mentioning of them what kinde of punishment then shall wee conceiue this to be which this immortall King of Heauen Earth this Iudge both of the quick dead hath prepared Surely his invention this way is as farre beyond the reach
forceably consequently hath a greater power of making men not outwardly formally but really inwardly vertuous And if we should look back into Histories compare time with time we shall easily finde that where this Profession spred it selfe men haue generally beene more accomplished in all kind of morall civill vertues then before it took place It is true indeed that in processe of time thorow the ambition covetousnes luxury idlenesse ignorance of them who should haue bin lights in the Church it too much degenerated from its Originall purity therevpon manners being formed by it were generally tainted this corruption like a leprosie diffusing it selfe from the head into all the body But together with the reviving of the Arts Languages which for sundry ages lay buried in barbarisme the rust of superstition was likewise in many places scowred off from Religion which by degrees had crept vpon it fretted deepe into the face of it and the Arts being thus refined Religion restored to its primitiue brightnes manners were likewise reformed euen among them at least in part in shew who as yet admit not a full reformation in matter of Religion A foule shame then it were for vs who professe a thorow reformation in matter of doctrine to be thought to grow worse in matter of manners GOD forbid it should be so I hope it is not so I am sure it should not be so That grace of God which hath appeared more clearely to vs then to our fore-fathers teaching vs to adorne our profession with a gracious and vertuous conversation to deny vngodlinesse and worldly lusts and to liue soberly and righteously and godly in this present world soberly in regard of our selues righteously in regard of others and godly in regard of religious exercises If then we come short of our Auncestors in knowledge let vs not cast it vpon the deficiencie of our wits in regard of the Worlds decay but vpon our own sloth if we come short of them in vertue let vs not impute it to the declination of the World but to the malice and faintnesse of our owne wills if we feele the scourges of God vpon our Land by mortality famine vnseasonable weather or the like let vs not teach the people that they are occasioned by the Worlds old age and thereby call into question the prouidence or power or wisedome or iustice or goodnes of the Maker thereof but by their and our sins which is doubtles both the truer more profitable doctrine withall more consonant to the Sermons of Christ his Apostles the Prophets of God in like cases And withall let vs freely acknowledge that Almighty God hath bestowed many blessings vpon these latter ages which to the former he denyed as in sending vs vertuous and gracious Princes and by them the maintenance of piety peace plenty the like Lest thorow our ingratitude he vvithdraw them from vs and make vs know their worth by wanting them which by injoying them wee vnderstood not But I will not presume to advise where I should learne only I will vnfainedly wish and heartily pray that at leastwise your practise may still make good mine opinion maintained in this Booke refute the contrary common errour opposed therein that you may still grow in knowledge and grace and that your vertues may alwaies rise increase together with your buildings These latter without the former being but as a body without a soule Yours to doe you service to the vtmost of his poore abilitie G. H. THE PREFACE TRuth it is that this ensuing Treatise was long since in my younger yeares begunne by me for mine owne private exercise and satisfaction but afterward considering not onely the rarity of the subject and variety of the matter but withall that it made for the redeeming of a captivated truth the vindicating of Gods glory the advancement of learning the honour of the Christian reformed Religion by the advise and with the approbation and incouragement of such speciall friends whose piety learning and wisedome I well know and much reverence I resolved permissu superiorum and none otherwise to make it publique for the publique good and the encountring of a publique errour which may in some sort be equalled if not preferred before the quelling of some great monster Neither doe I take it to lye out of my profession the principall marke which I ayme at throughout the whole body of the Discourse being an Apologeticall defence of the power providence of God his wisedome his truth his justice his goodnes mercy and besides a great part of the booke it selfe is spent in pressing Theologicall reasons in clearing doubts arising from thence in producing frequent testimonies from Scriptures Fathers Schoolemen and moderne Divines in proving that Antichrist is already come from the writings of the Romanists themselues in confirming the article of our faith touching the Worlds future and totall consummation by fire and a day of finall judgement from discourse of reason and the writings of the Gentiles and lastly by concluding the whole worke with a pious meditation touching the vses which we may and should make of the consideration thereof seruing for a terrour to some for comfort to others for admonition to all And how other men may stand affected in reading I know not sure I am that in writing it often lifted vp my soule in admiring and praysing the infinite wisedome and bounty of the Crator in maintaining and managing his owne worke in the gouernment and preservation of the Vniverse which in truth is nothing else but as the Schooles speake continuata productio a continuated production often did it call to my mind those holy raptures of the Psalmist O Lord our governour how excellent is thy Name in all the world Thou Lord hast made me glad through thy workes I will reioyce in giuing praise for the operations of thy hands O Lord how glorious are thy workes thy thoughts are very deepe An vnwise man doth not well consider this a foole doth not well vnderstand it And againe The workes of the Lord are great sought out of all them that haue pleasure therein His worke is worthy to be praised had in honour his righteousnes endureth for euer And though whiles I haue laboured to free the world from old age I feele it creeping vpon my selfe yet if it shall so please the same great and gratious Lord I intend by his assistance spating mee life health hereafter to write Another Apologie of his power providence in the government of his Church which perchaunce by some may be thought both more proper for mee and for these times more necessary though he that shall narrowly obserue the prints of the Almighties footsteppes traced throughout this ensuing discourse may not vnjustly from thence collect both comfort and assurance that as the Heauens remaine vnchangeable so doth the Church triumphant
about the yeare 3369 after Christ. This opinion of Copernicus is received by most of this time some following him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others somewhat varying in the difference of the greatest declination making it when it is least as in our time not lesse then 23 30 and in the Periodicall restitution thereof But to speake freely I cannot so easily bee drawne into this opinion but rather thinke the greatest declination of the Sunne to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immutable and for ever the same For the little difference of a few minutes betwixt vs and Ptolomy may very well arise as I formerly said from the errour of observations by the Ancients The greatest declination of the Sunne from the Aequinoctiall towards either Pole being alwaies the same the Sunne cannot goe more Southernely from vs nor come more Northernly towards vs in this then in former ages But supposing a mutability in the Sunnes greatest declination according to the former Periods it followeth that as the Sunne about 65 yeares before the Epoche of Christ went from our verticall point more Southernly then now it doth So many Ages before Christ it went no more Southernly then now it doth and that many ages after our time it shall goe as farre Southernly as at the Epoche of Christ. Secondly when the greatest declination was most As then in Winter the Sun went more Southernly from vs then now so in Summer it came more Northernly and neerer vs then now Againe when the greatest declination is least as in our Age it goeth not so farre Southernly from vs in Winter as formerly neither in Summer comes so farre Northernly From which answere it may as I conceiue bee fitly and safely inferred first that either there is no such remoueall at all of the Sunne as is supposed or if there bee as wee who are situate more Northernly feele perchance the effects of the defects of the warmth thereof in the vnkindly ripening of our fruites and the like so likewise by the rule of proportion must it needs follow that they who lie in the same distance from the South-Pole as wee from the North should enjoy the benefite of the neerer approach thereof And they who dwell in the hottest Climates interiacent of the abating of the immoderate fervency of their heate and consequently that to the Vniversall nothing is lost by this exchange And as in this case it may happily fall out so vndoubtedly doth it in many other from whence the worlds supposed decay is concluded Wee vnderstand not or at least-wise wee consider not how that which hurts vs helpes another nation wee complaine as was before truely observed out of Arnobius as if the world were made and the government thereof administred for vs alone heereby it comes to passe that as hee who lookes onely vpon some libbat or end of a peece of Arras conceiues perhaps an hand or head which he sees to bee very vnartificially made but vnfolding the whole soone findes that it carries a due and iust proportion to the body So qui ad pauca respicit de facili pronuntiat saith Aristotle hee that is so narrow eyed as hee lookes onely to his own person or family to his owne corporation or nation will paradventure quickely conceiue and as soone pronounce that all things decay and goe backewarde whereas hee that as a Citizen of the world and a part of mankinde in generall takes a view of the Vniversall and compares person with person familie with familie nation with nation suspends his judgement or vpon examination cleerely findes that though some members suffer yet the whole is thereby no way indammaged at any time and at other times those same members are againe relieued And from hence my second inference is that supposing a mutability in the Sunnes greatest declination looke what dammage wee suffer by his farther remoueall from vs in Summer is at least-wise in part recompensed by his neerer approach in Winter and by his Periodicall Revolutions fully restored And so I passe from the consideration of the warmth to those hidden and secret qualities of the heavens which to Astronomers and Philosophers are knowne by the name of Influences CAP. 5. Touching the pretended decay of the heavenly bodies in regard of their Iufluences SECT 1. Of the first kinde of influence from the highest immoueable Heaven called by Divines Coelum Empyraeum HOwbeit Aristotle thorow those workes of his which are come to our hands to my remembrance hath not once vouchafed so much as to take notice of such qualities which wee call Influenences and though among the Ancients Auerroes and Auicenne and among those of fresher date Picus Mirandula and Georgius Agricola seeke to disproue them Yet both Scripture and Reason and the weighty authority of many great schollers aswell Christians as Ethnickes haue fully resolved mee that such there are They are by Philosophers distinguished into two rankes the first is that influence which is derived from the Empyreall immoueable heaven the pallace and Mansion house of Glorified Saints and Angells which is gathered from the diversity of Effects aswell in regard of Plants as beasts and other commodities vnder the same Climate within the same Tract and latitude equally distant from both the Poles which wee cannot well referre originally to the inbred nature of the soile since the Authour of Nature hath so ordained that the temper of the inferiour bodies should ordinarily depēd vpon the superiour nor yet to the Aspect of the moueable spheres and stars since every part of the same Climate successiuely but equally injoyes the same aspect It remaines then that these effects bee finally reduced to some superiour immoueable cause which can be none other then that Empyreall heaven neither can it produce these effects by meanes of the light alone which is vniformely dispersed thorow the whole But by some secret quality which is diversified according to the diverse parts thereof and without this wee should not onely finde wanting that connexion and vnity of order in the parts of the world which make it so comely but withall should bee forced to make one of the worthiest peeces thereof voyde of action the chiefe end of euery created being Neither can this action misbeseeme the worthinesse of so glorious a peece since both the Creator thereof is still busied in the workes of Providence and the Inhabitants in the workes of ministration SECT 2. Of the second kind derived from the Planets and fixed starres THe other kind is that which is derived from the starres the aspect of severall constellations the opposition and conjunction of the Planets the like These wee haue warranted by the mouth of God himselfe in the thirty eight of Iob according to our last and most exact Translation Canst thou binde the sweete influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion Canst thou bring forth Mazzoreth in his season Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sonnes Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven
Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth whereby the ordinances of heaven it may well bee thought is meant the course and order of these hidden qualities which without divine and supernaturall revelation can neuer perfectly bee knowne to any mortall creature Besides as a wise man of late memory hath well and truly observed it cannot bee doubted but the starres are instruments of farre greater vse then to giue an obscure light and for men to gaze on after sunne set it being manifest that the diuersity of seasons the Winters Summers more hot or cold more dry or wet are not so vncertained by the Sunne and Moone alone who alway keepe one the same course but that the stars haue also their working therein as also in producing severall kindes of mettalls and mineralls in the bowels of the earth where neither light nor heat can pierce For as heat peirces where light cannot so the influence pierces where the heat cannot Moreouer if wee cannot deny but that God hath given vertues to springs and fountaines to cold earth to plants and stones and mineralls nay to the very excrementall parts of the basest liuing creatures why should wee robbe the beautifull starres of their working powers For seeing they are many in number and of eminent beauty and magnitude wee may not thinke that in the treasury of his wisedome who is infinite there can be wanting euen for euery starre a peculiar vertue and operation As euery hearbe plant fruite and flower adorning the face of the earth hath the like As then these were not created to beautifie the earth alone or to couer and shadow her dusty face but otherwise for the vse of man and beast to feede them and cure them so were not those incomparablely glorious bodies set in the sirmament to none other end then to adorne it but for instruments and organs of his divine prouidence so farre as it hath pleased his just will to determine I 'le ne'r beleeue that the Arch-Architect With all these fires the Heav'nly Arches deckt Onely for shew and with these glistring shields T' amaze poore sheepheards watching in the fields I 'le ne'r beleeue that the least flower that pranks Our garden borders or the common banks And the least stone that in her warming lap Our kind nurse Earth doth covetously wrap Hath some peculiar vertue of it owne And that the glorious Starres of Heau'n haue none But shine in vaine and haue no charge precise But to be walking in Heau'ns Galleries And through that Palace vp and downe to clamber As golden Guls about a Princes Chamber But how farre it hath pleased the Divine Providence to determine of these influences it is hard I confesse to be determined by any humane wisedome SECT 3. That the particular and vttermost efficacie of these influences cannot be fully comprehended by vs. IF in the true and vttermost vertues of hearbs and plants which ourselues sow and set and which grow vnder our feet and wee dayly apply to our severall vses we are notwithstanding in effect ignorant much more in the powers and working of coelestiall bodies For as was sayd before hardly do wee guesse aright at things that are vpon the earth and with labour do wee find the things that are before vs but the things which are in heauen who hath searched out It cannot well be denyed but that they are not signes only but at leastwise concurrent causes of immoderate cold or heat drought or moysture lightning thunder raging winds inundations earthquakes and consequently of famine and pestilence yet such crosse accidents may and often do fall out in the matter vpon which they worke that the prognostication of these casuall events euen by the most skilfull Astronomers is very vncertaine And for the common Almanackes a man by observation shall easily find that the contrary to their prediction is commonly truest Now for the things which rest in the liberty of mans will the Starres haue doubtlesse no power over them except it be lead by the sensitiue appetite and that againe stirred vp by the constitution and complexion of the body as too often it is specially where the humours of the body are strong to assault and the vertues of the minde weake to resist If they haue dominion over Beastes what should we judge of Men who differ litle from Beasts I cannot tell but sure I am that though the Starres incline a man to this or that course of life they do but incline inforce they cannot Education and reason and most of all Religion may alter and over-master that inclination as they shall produce a cleane contrary effect It was to this purpose a good and memorable speech of Cardinall Poole who being certified by one of his acquaintance who professed knowledge of these secret favours of the starres that he should be raysed and advanced to great calling in the world made answer that whatsoever was portended by the figure of his birth â—…or naturall generation was cancelled and altered by the grace of his second birth or regeneration in the bloud of his Redemer Againe we may not forget that Almighty God created the starres as he did the rest of the Vniversall whose secret influences may be called his reserved and vnwritten Lawes which by his Prerogatiue Royall he may either put in execution or dispence with at his owne pleasure For were the strength of the Sarres such as God had quitted vnto them all dominion over his Creatures that petition of the Lords Prayer Lead vs not into temptation but deliver vs from evill had been none other but a vaine expence of words and time Nay be he Pagane or Christian that so beleeueth the only true God of the one and the imaginary Gods of the other would thereby be dispoyled of all worship and reuerence and respect As therefore I do not consent with them who would make those glorious Creatures of God vertulesse so I think that we derogate from his eternall and absolute power and providence to ascribe to them the same dominion over our immortall soules which they haue over our bodily substances and perishable natures For the soules of men louing and fearing God receiue influence from that divine light it selfe whereof the Suns clarity and that of the Sarres is by Plato called but a shadow Lumen est vmbra Dei Deus est lumen luminis Light is the shadow of Gods brightnesse who is the light of light SECT 4 That neither of these kindes of influences is decayed in ther benigne and favorable effects but that curious inquisition into them is to be forborne NOw then since the Immoveable Heaven by the confession of all that acknowledg it is altogether inalterable since the aspect of the fixed constellations the conjunction and opposition of the Plannets in the course of their revolutions is still the same and constant to it selfe since for their number their quantity their distance their substance thâ—…is motion their