they doe dry as we doe fishes the bodyes of their dead which thereafter they hang up round about the Walls of their inner roomes adorning their heads shoulders and upper lips with Gold and Pearle And Ortelius in his Cosmographie speaking of Find-land or Lapland which he calls Livonia where there is no Religion almost at all because after the manner of the Heathen they worship the Sunne Moone and Serpents c. I find I say that when any one of great esteeme dieth his friends sit round about his corps laid on the earth but not yet covered with any mould and make good cheere and drinke to his farewell and putting the Cuppes in his hand as if he could pledge them they quaffe about a long time in end they lay him in the grave with store of meate and drinke by him and put a peece of money in his mouth and a sharpe Pole-axe fast by him then they shout aloud in his eares and give him in Commission that when he shall come to the other world whither they had victualled him and given him mony to defray his charges that he faile not whensoever he meete with any Dutch man to correct him as well as they had thralled him and theirs in this world which custome but after a more solemne manner and sumptuous they of China Cathay and Tartarie keepe almost in all points The like wherof that same Author observeth done in Ternessare a Citie of the East Indies but not to a like enemy In Greece yet as of old at least in such parts of it as are under the Turkish Empyre whensoever any remarkable person dieth all the women thereabouts after their old heathen custome meete together about the house of the deceased and there choosing the lowdest and shrillest voices to beginne betimes in the morning they make lamentable howlings and cryes weeping and tearing the haire from their heads beating their teats and breasts with their nailes defacing their cheekes and faces they conduct him to his grave singing by the way his praises and recounting what memorable things he had done in his life Which custome Aëtius an ancient Historian of our Country observeth to have beene used of Old amongst our British and yet in our Highlands is observed The Poets in their Luctus neniae make mention of this and the like as Ovid Horace Iuvenall Catuallus Tibullus Propertius amongst the Greekes Sophocles Musaeus Aristophanes Phocyllides and the rest whereof Ennius speaking of himselfe Nemo me lachrymis decoret nec funera flet◠Faxit Cur volito vivus per ora virum Sect. 4. Other severall Customes of interring the Dead amongst Aegyptians Romans and Indians that the manner of Christian Interrements are preferreable to all other NOw what hath beene the Curiosity of the Aegyptians for the keeping of their dead their Momies can testifie where the whole and intyre bodyes of some of their Princes and great men were to bee seene of late who died many thousand yeares agoe whereof who pleaseth to reade may consult Diodorus Siculus Ammianus Marcellinus Strabo Herodotus and others the Athenians and after their example the Salaminians saith Sabellicus lib. 5. Aeneid 2. used to interre their dead with their faces turned to the Sunne setting not to the rising with the Megarians and apparently Catullus was of their opinion when he said Nobis cùm semel occidit brevis lux nox perpetua una dormienda est But of the severall fashions of burying the dead I finde two most remarkable the one of some Greeks and Romans and not used but by those of the better sort which was in burning the Corps of the deceased after this manner There was either an Eagle or some other great fowle tyed unto the top of the Pyramide of Wood wherein the dead body lay This Pyramide being kindled by some of the most intire friends of the deceased amongst the cloud of smoke the Fowle being untyed which was tyed before was seene to flutter and flye away which by the Spectators was taken to be the soule of the deceased flying to Heaven the Ashes then of this burnt body they collected and kept in an Vrne and of this the Poets almost every where make mention The other was the Indians in eating the dead bodyes of their Parents and friends as they did in ire to those of their foes thinking that they could give them no more honorable Sepulchre abhorring the others burning into ashes as a thing unnaturall which might well be seene at the time that Alexander had conquered them for he willed both Greekes and Indians to doe alike but they upon no condition would condiscend to that the power of custome being so strong as it was impossible for any Novations though never so good to alter it Amongst al fashions above rehearsed I think that of our Christian interments to be most consonant to nature seeing of earth we are and that to it we must returne againe As for the Greekes howling weeping renting their cloathes haire and faces it seemeth that Saint Augustine in his worke De cura pro mortuis habenda aymed at them for in that whole worke I perceave nothing that maketh much for praying for them but chiefly he willeth all men to moderate extraordinary Griefes mournings and howlings for them seeing they rest from their labours and his conclusion is good that if prayers for the dead be not meritorious for them yet at least that they are some way comfortable for the living Si non subsidia mortuorum saith hee tamen solatia sunt viventium Indeede I will not deny but that Father and others also in their writings allow prayer for the dead as Peter Martyr Vermillius also in his loco 9. lib. 3. in the Title De Purgatorio denyeth it not but onely he refuseth such prayers to have beene subsidiary or helpfull to them but rather congratulatorie for that they were released from all their miseries which he instanceth by the funerall Oration of Saint Ambrose upon the deaths of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian where there is no mention of praying for their soules to ease or shorten their paines in Purgatory Section 5. That the Church of Rome reapeth great commodity by their funerall ceremonies as by their bells Cymballs Torches processions of order and the rest silent obscquies condemned a story of a woman whose Ghost haunted her Husband and family after her death and the cause thereof NOw for all this as there is nothing whereby the Church of Rome reapes more commodity then by their prayers for the dead for it is called the Friers kitchen So it is there is nothing wherein their pompous solemnities and their devotion appeareth more than in their accompanying their dead to the grave with the sound of Bells and Cymballs Tapers Torches prayers musicke Church Ornaments solemne processions of the fraternities and not without contention of precedence of orders all which ceremonyes as they bred a kinde of pious compassion in
monuments of his workes shall find that not without reason hee hath beene so styled for all other sects of Philosophers have but like men in Cimmerian darkenesse gropingly stumbled now and then upon the nature of the true God-head and every nation in those dayes had their severall and those strangely imaginarie Gods distinguished in so many rankes imployed in so many businesses appointed to so many different and sometime base offices that their number in fine became almost innumerable In the meane time this man soaring above them al hath more neerly jumped with our beliefe touching the God-head In so farre that Amuleus that great Doctor in Porphyre his Schooles having read Saint Iohn the Evangelist his proeme was strooke with silence and admiration as ravished with his words but at length burst out in these termes by Iupiter saith he so thinketh a Barbarian meaning Plato that in the beginning the word was with God that it is this great God by whom all things were made and created Now that this is true This much I find in his Parmenides concerning the nature of the God-head That there are three things to bee established concerning the maker of all which three must be coeternal viz. That he is good that he hath a minde or understanding and that he is the life of the world Section 2. Of Gods Creating and conserving of all things in an orderly order Plato's Reasons that the world hath a life Aristotles opinion of God hee is praysed and at his dying preferred before many doubtfull Christians THis King or father of all which is above all nature immoveable yet moving all hath in him an exuberant and overflowing goodnesse From the Father and goodnesse the minde or understanding proceedeth as from the inbred light of the Sun commeth a certaine splendor which minde is the divine or Fathers Intelligence and the first borne Son of goodnesse From this minde the life of the world floweth a certaine brightnesse as from light which breatheth over all distributeth yeeldeth and conteyneth all things in life So that the world which consisteth of foure principles or elements comprehended within the compasse of the heavens is but a body whose partes as the members of a living creature cohering and linked together are moved and doe draw breath by benefit of this life or spirit as he thinks This Virgil in his sixth of the Aeneids aymed at when he saith Principio coelum terras camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet By his opinion here as all animalls and living creatures doe live every one by their owne life so the world as of greater dignity then any of the rest hath a more noble life whereby it moveth then they And in effect many pithy reasons he produceth both in his Epimenides in Timaeo and in the 10. Booke of his Lawes to prove the world to bee an animall both from the constant and perpetuall course of the heavens from that naturall heat of the Sun seeing the Sun and man ingender man to which as to all the Starres he attributeth a soule by which they live but so that as they are of a delicate and transparent body so live they a most blessed life yet not that they are moved with an other life then the whole world is For as in the body of man the soule whereby our sinewes bones flesh bloud and all are moved is one and the same notwithstanding all the members be not alike vivificated so is it there For what reason is there saith he that man who is called a little world and encompassed of the foure elements as well as the great world is should be said to live and in the meane time to deprive the greater one of life Seeing the motion of the heavens and of her lights the moving of the Seas the seasons of the yeare all keepe their equall and constant courses Alwayes as Plato here before setleth a Trinity in the God-head the Father the minde or mens which is the Son and the life of the world flowing from them as the Spirit and as brightnesse from light So in his Timaeo he avoucheth that there is in the heavens one certaine Ens which is ever alike unto it selfe without beginning or ending which neither needeth nor taketh helpe of any which can neither be seene by mortall eye nor yet perceived by any mortall sense but onely to be contemplated by our minde and understanding So Aristotle in his Metaphysicks and in his workes De mundo esteemeth this Ens sempiternall unmeasurable incorporeall and individuall not resting in this habitable world but above it in a sublime one unchangeable not subject unto any passion or affection who as hee hath of himselfe a most blessed and perfect life so without errour may it be said of him that he giveth life unto all other things below and it is to be observed that as in his writings hee acknowledged this God so in his dying-houre he made his writings and words jumpe together Which is so much the rather to be remarked because whereas many Christians did professe a sort of religion in their life-time which on their death-beds they did disclaime yet this man as he acknowledged God in his writings so dying he recommended his soule unto him in these words Ens entium miserere mei And particularly in his Booke of the Heavens the 9. cap. as is cleere there saith he without the outmost heavens there is no place vacuity or end because those that are there are not apt or meet to bee in place neither yet maketh time them any older nor are they subject to change or alteration being exexempted from all passion affection or change they leade a most blessed and eternall life And in the 12. of his Metaphysicks cap. 7. but more especially cap. 10. De unitate primi motoris In God saith he is age and life eternall and continuall which is God himselfe Section 3. Platos opinion concerning the Creation of the world seconded by Socrates and Antisthenes Opinions of Plato Aristotle and other Philosophers confirming God onely to be the Creator of all things AS the Philosophers doe agree with us herein and in sundry other places about the nature of God so doe they likewise that this God made the world and all that is in it governeth it and sustaineth it And first Plato in Timaeo if saith he this world be created and begotten it must necessarily be by some preceding cause which cause must be eternall and be gotten of none other Now what this cause is in his Epimenides thus he expresseth I saith he there maintaine God to be the cause of all things neither can it be other wayes And in that dispute which is betwixt Socrates and his friend Crito let us not be solicitous what the people esteeme of us but what hee thinketh who knoweth
discovery of these Mysteries and secrets of Nature I answer not the vast expectation of the overcurious the more modest and discreet Reader will rest satisfied that I inferre the most approved Reasons of the more Ancient and Moderne Philosophers and such men as have most Copiously treated of them thereby to ease thee and all men of the like paines and turmoile that I have had in the search of these secrets which if they bring thee that content satisfaction that I desire and intended for thee I am assured of a favourable applause and have the reward I expected Section 1. Of the matter whereof the Heavens are composed with the confutation of various opinions of Philosophers concerning it ALthough the world and all comprehended within its imbraces is the proper subject of Physicke and that Physiologie is nothing else but a Discourse of Nature as the Greek Etymologie sheweth and so were a fitting discourse for this place yet because the questions which concern a Christian to know against the Philosophicall conceits Of the Worlds eternity his pre-existent matter that it had a beginning but shall never have an end if there be more worlds than one If the world be a living Creature in respect of the Heavens perennall and incessant rotation and the Ayres continuall revolution the Seas perpetuall ebbing and flowing the Earths bringing forth oâ— conceiving fruit alternatively c. Because I say these questions of the World together with these if there was a World before this which is now or if there shall be one after this is consummated if there bee any apart by this are handled in the Chapter of the World in this same Booke I passe them for the present and betake me to the more particular questions more necessary to be knowne and lesse irreligious to be propounded And because the Heavens of all the parts of the World are most conspicuous as that wheretoever we bend our eyes being the most glorious Creature of all the Creators workes at it I will begin but as I said I would alwayes have the Reader to understand that I propound these questions not so absolutely of mine owne braine to solve them as to give him a view of the variety of opinions yea of the most learned in these high and sublime questions whereat we may all conjecturally give our opinions but not definitively while it please the great Maker to bring us thither where we may see Him and them more cleerely Quest. First then I aske of what matter are the heavens composed Answ. Diverse have beene the opinions of Philosophers upon this subject For Averroes in his first booke of the heavens and there in Text 7. and tenth holds it to bee so simple a body that it is free from all materiall substance which opinion of his by this may be refelled that with Aristotle in the eight booke of his Metaph. chap. 2. and in his first booke De coelo and Text 92. What ever things falles under the compasse of our senses these same must bee materially substantiall But the heavens are such and therefore they must be materiall Besides that all movable Essences consist of matter and forme as Aristotle in his second booke of Physicke chap. 1. holdeth But so it is that the heavens are movable therfore they cannot be free of matter Quest. Seeing then it is evinced by argument and concluding reasons that the heavens doe consist of matter I aske now what kinde of matter are they compounded of Answ. The Philosophick Schooles in this point are different Some of them maintaining a like matter to be common with them and the sublunarie bodies that is that they were composed of the foure elements of which all things here below doe exist Neither lacked there some Sects that gave forth for truth that the heavens were of a fierie and burning nature which opinion Aristotle confuteth by many reasons in his first Book De coelo chap. 3. establishing his owne which have beene held for truth not only by his Sectaries the Peripateticks then but ever since have beene approved which is that the matter of the heavens being distinct in nature from that of the foure elements of which all other sublunarie things are framed must bee composed of a quintessence which opinion of his he thus maintaineth against the Platonists and all others who maintained that it was framed of the most pure and mundified part of the foure elements for saith hee All simple motion which we finde in nature must belong unto some simple body But so it is that we finde a circular motion in nature which no wayes appertaineth unto any of the elements in regard that in direct line they either fall downeward as the waters and earth or else they ascend upward as the ayre and fire And it is certaine that one simple body cannot have more proper and naturall motions than one Wherefore it followeth of necessitie that seeing none of the elements have this circular motion as is before verified therefore there must be a distinct simple body from them to which this motion must appertaine and that must be the heaven As for those who enforce identitie of matter in kind betwixt the heavens and these elementarie things below and consequently would involve them under corruption which is peculiar to all other things their warrant is of no validitie for although they take upon them to demonstrate by their late Astronomicall observations in the Aetherian region new prodigies not observed nor remarkable heretofore which both Ruvius and the Conimbricenses give forth to proceed from a corruption and defect of the first cause from whence they flow They mistake in so farre as they are rather extraordinary workes of the great maker threatning mortalls by their frownings then other wayes Symptomes of the Celestiall Pâ—râ—xysmes and corruption Neither must you understand that I doe so adhere unto the heavens incorruptibility that I thinke it free from all change but contrarily rest assured that at the last conflagration it shall suffer a change and novation but no dissolution as the low elementarie world Quest. You conclude then that the heavens are of a fift substance not alembecked out of the foure elements but an element by it selfe having it 's owne motion severall from the others which is a circular one Answ. Yea truly I doe Quest. But now seeing all circular motion is such that it hath some immoveable thing in the middle of it whereabout it whirleth ever as we see in a Coach Wheele and the axeltree What is this immovable thing whereabout the heavens circular rotation and perpetuall motion is Answ. The Globe of the earth which whatsoever fond conceit Copernicus had concerning the motion of it yet remaineth firme and immovable And the heaven doth rolle still about this earth and hath still as much below it as we see round about and above it Sect. 2. Of the Starres their substance and splendor where also of the
Sunnes place in the firmament Quest. But I passe from the motion of the heavens and their matter which you hold to be a quintessence and so a thing distinct from the foure elements Now I crave to understand what is the matter of these twinckling Starres which we see glancing in the face and front of this heaven Answ. Of that same matter whereof the heavens are because in simple and not composed bodyes their parts doe communicate with that same nature and matter whereof the whole is so that the heaven being a most simple body and the Starres her parts or a part of it no wonder that they communicate both of one essence and of this opinion is the Philosopher himselfe in his second booke De coelo chap. 7. Quest. But if so be as you say the starres are of a like matter with the body of the heavens how then is it that they are a great deale more cleare and glauncing where they appeare then the rest of the heaven is Answ. Because they are the thicker part and better remassed together and of a round Spherick forme and so more susceptible of light Now round they must be for besides that we discerne them so with our eyes the Moone and Sunne are found to bee round But so it is that all Starres are of a like forme and matter but the lesser and the bigger differ only by the lesser or greater quantity of their matter condensed or conglobed together Quest. But whether doe they shine with their own innate or inbred light or is their splendor borrowed from any other beside Answ. Some such light they have of their owne howbeit but little whatsoever Scaliger saith to the contrary in his sixtie two exercitation But indeed the brightnesse of the Starres light floweth from the Sun the fountaine of all light and that this is either lesser or more according to their diversitie of matter and their equality and inequality there is no question For which cause the Sunne is placed in the midst of all the moveable Starres as in the midway betwixt the starrie firmament and the first region of the aire from thence to communicate his light unto all so that those which are nearer unto him above and to us below doe seeme brighter than these higher above as may be seene in Venus Mercurie and Luna Sect. 3. Of the Moone her light substance and Power over all sublunarie bodyes Quest. NOw resolve mee if the Moone hath not more light of her selfe then the rest Answ. Yea she hath a glimps of light indeed of her selfe but that is dimme and obscure as may be seene in the sharp-new as we say but as for the fulnesse of that light wherewith shee shineth unto us at the quarters or full she borroweth that from the Sun But we may better conceive the weaknesse of her light in her eclipses when the earths shadow interposed betwixt the Sun and her directly vaileth and masketh her face which then appeareth blackishly browne yet not altogether destitute of light Now as the light of the Sunne is the fountaine of warmenesse by day even so no question but the winter and Summer nights are at a full Moone warmed more then during the first or last quarters Quest. But is it true which is usually reported that in the body of the Moone there be mountaines and valleys and some kinde of spirituall creatures inhabiting which Palingenius an Italian Poet describeth at length Answ. It is certaine and our Mathematicians have found out that in the Moone there are some parts thicker some thinner which make her face not to looke all cleare alike for that dimmer blackenesse in the middle of it vulgarly called the Man in the Moone is nothing else but a great quantitie of the Moones substance not so transparent as the rest and consequently lesse susceptible of light which black part of it with other spots here and there Plinius lib. 2. cap. 9. of his Naturall historie taketh to be some earthly humors attracted thither by her force and attractive power which I hardly give way to in respect of the weaknesse of her force to draw to her any heavy dull and earthly humor which never transcend the regions of the aire above all which the Moone is Quest. Now finally hath the Moone no power over particular sublunary bodies for I heare much of the influence and power of the Planets over the bodies of Men Beasts and Plants Answ. As for the power and efficacy of the other Planets over us I have something in the title of Necromancie As for the Moones power experience sheweth that the ebbes and flowes of the Sea how different so ever the Coasts be depend totally and constantly on the full and change of the Moone for accordingly her waters swell or decrease Moreover the braines and marrow in the bones of Man and beast doe augment or diminish as the Moone increaseth or waneth as doe likewise the flesh of all shell fishes Dayly experience too hath taught your Pruners of trees gelders of cattell gardners and the like to observe the Moones increase and decrease all which is strongly confirmed by Plinie in his second booke De Historia animalium and Aristotle lib. 4. cap. 41. De generatione animalium Sect. 4. Of the Element of Fire whether it be an Element or not and of its place Quest. LEaving the heavens their number matter Sun Moone and Starres I come lower unto the foure Elements whereof the Philosophers will all things below the Moone to be framed and made First then I adhere to Cardan and Volaterans opinion that betwixt the sphere of the Moone and the first region of the aire where the Philosophers place this fire to be which they make the first element it cannot be and so that it cannot be at all because that if it were there we should see it with our eyes for the Comets and these lancing Dragons and falling Stars c. whereof many are neighbours with this Ignean-sphere we visibly see and the fires which burne on earth also Answ. There is not a point of Philosophy which if you reade judiciously and peruse the Authors treating thereupon but you shall finde such controversie concerning the establishing of it amongst themselves that one to an hundred if you find two or three jumpe together Quest. But yet as a Mirrour or Glasse giveth way unto diverse faces and representeth unto every one their owne visage although never so farre different from other while it of it selfe remaineth unchanged or unaltered So it is with truth how different soever the opinions bee of the searchers out of it in any Science yet this verity it selfe abideth in them all and is alwayes one and alike in it selfe and so in this point what ever be Volateran or Cardans opinion yet sure it is that the Element of fire is there and the cause why it is not seene as are our materiall and grosly composed fires of all the
Quest. What causeth some Fountaines to last longer than others certainly that must proceed from the copiousnesse and aboundance of the veine and and waters such long-lasting ones have above the others Or finally if it be demanded what can be the cause that some Rivers and Springs which formerly did flow in large swift currents do lessen and sometimes totally dry up That must not be imputed to the scituation or change of the Starres as some suppose by which say they all places in the world are altered but rather unto the decay of the veine peradventure because the earth preasing to fill up voidnesse hath sunke down in that place and so choaked the passage and turned the course another way Neither can there be a fitter reply given unto those who aske what maketh two Springs or Fountaines which are separated onely by a little parcell of ground to bee of a contrary nature yea one sweet and fresh the other brackish and salt one extreame cold another neere adjoyning to it to bee luke-warme Then the diversity of Oares or Metals through which these waters doe runne which is the cause of their different tasts and temperatures as on one parcell of ground some flowers and herbs salutiferous and healthfull others venemous and mortall may grow The Moone is often said to bee the efficient cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea now if so be as universally all the Learned hold what is the cause seeing shee is universally seene by all Seas in a manner and I may say equally that therefore all Seas flow not and ebbe not alike To this I thinke no better reply can be given than that some Seas there are which be rather Lakes in a manner and of fresher water than Seas in respect of the incessant running of endlesse Rivers into them whereof they make no account againe to say so by subministring matter to Rivers Fountaines Brookes or Lakes as the Ocean doth the invironing bankes and shoares being higher almost than they such are all Sounds Gulphs and it may be the Mediterranean Sea also Or yet we may say that the profundity and deepenesse of some Coasts hindereth the flowing more then it doth upon shallow and ebbe sands and other valley and low bankes Now the cause of our hot Baths neere Bristoll in Flanders Germany France Italy and else where is onely the sulphureous and a brimstony Oare or Metall through which their waters runne as the salt earth through which some waters doe runne is the cause of their saltnesse such as the Salt-pits in Poland and Hungarie out of which Salt is digged as our Pit-coales and stones are digged out of Quarries And no question but these waters are heated too by running through such earth These and the like are the reasons given by Philosophers for such secrets of Nature as either here before I have touched or may handle hereafter and howbeit by humane reason men cannot further pry into these and the like yet no question but the power of the great Maker hath secrets inclosed within the bowels of Nature beyond all search of man To learne us all to bend the eyes of our bodies and minds upward to the Heavens from whence they flow to rest there in a reverent admiration of his power working in by and above nature and that by a way not as yet wholly manifested unto mortall men By all which and many more we may easily espie as the power so the wisdome of this our Maker in disposing the forme of this Vniverse whether the great World or the little one MAN in both which there is such a harmony sympathy and agreement betwixt the powers above which wee see with our eyes as the Heavens and the distinguished Regions of the Ayre in the greater World with the Earth and Seas or of the soule minde life and intellect of Man the heaven in him comparatively with his body the Earth and such like of the one with the other that is the great and little world together as is a wonder For as in the Ayre how the lower parts are affected so are the superiour and contrarywise as the superior is disposed right so the inferiour So we see that not onely a heaven of Brasse maketh the Earth of Iron but likewise waterish and moist earth causeth foggy and rainy ayre as a serene or tempestuous day maketh us commonly either ioyfull or melancholy or as a sad and grieved minde causeth a heavie and dull body but contrariwayes a healthfull and well tempered body commonly effecteth a generous and jovially disposed minde OF VARIETIES THE THIRD BOOKE CONTEINING FIVE TREATISES OF 1. Armies and Battels 2. Combats and Duels 3. Death and Burials 4. Laughing and Mourning 5. Mentall Reservation BY DAVID PERSON OF Loughlands in SCOTLAND GENTLEMAN Et quae non prosunt singula multa juvant LONDON Printed by RICHARD Badger for Thomas Alchorn and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Greene Dragon 1635. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THOMAS Earle of Hadington LORD Privy Seale of Scotland and one of His Majesties most HONOURABLE Privy Counsell in both KINGDOMES Right Honourable IF writers of books in former ages have made a gratefull commemoration in the front of their workes of worthy men who for their brave deeds either in Peace or War Church or Common wealth were renounced thereby to enternize their fame and by their examples to extimulate others to the imitation of their vertues nothing could expiat my trespasse if I should passe over your Lordships most accomplished rare vertues thereby to deprive posterity of so excellent a President especially amongst your other many exquisite perfections you being in this barren age so worthy a patterne and Bountifull Patron of letters and literate men Let antiquity boast it selfe of the integritie of a Greeke Aristides in the gravity and inflexibilitie of a Roman Cato and the rest yet our age may rejoyce to have all these accumulated on your Lordship alone Envy cannot conceale with what credit and generall applause as through the Temple of Vertue to the Sacrary of Honour you have past all the orders of our Senatoriall Tribunall even to the highest dignity where like an Oracle you strike light through most foggie and obscurest doubts The continued favour of Kings the aggrandizing of your estate by well managed fortune the peopling by the fecunditie of your fruitefull loynes not only your owne large stocke but many of the most ancient and honourable families in our nation may well set out your praises to the world but the true Panegyrick which I if able would sound abroad your Honours due deserving merits to which in all humility and reverence I offer this small pledge of my entirer affection hoping ere long to present them with something more worthy the studies and travels of Your Lordships in all dutifull obedience D. PERSON OF ARMIES AND BATTELLS VVherein by the way our moderne VVarfare is compared with
these alleadged changes of triplicities we see these same proprieties of Coelestiall signes which Cardan and Iulius Maternus observed by Caldeans and Aegyptians stand good in such sort that not onely the Elements and Elementary things Reptiles Plants Animalls with all living and moving creatures of all species and kindes mineralls c. keepe that same frame and figure without and nature within which they had at first ingraft and ingraven and primitively characterised in and upon them But also we see the seasons of the yeare nights and dayes Sunne Moone and Sarres to observe their constant and equall course which from all beginning was imposed upon them Whereby even now as before we see the people of the North different from these of the South in nature Stature complexion colour disposition as at more length I have set downe in my Title of the diversitie of mens humors And that not onely by authoritie of famous writers who have described them to bee just so then as now yet wee see them But likewise conforme to the positure of the very body of the heavens themselves So that in a manner the nature and seate of the Plannets argueth of necessitie the nature of the people to which they shall be found to appertaine As Saturne to the Meridionall and Southernely people a dry and Melancholious Starre Mars to the Septentionall as strong and Iustier Iupiter againe father of light and life equall to both Venus for the Southerne as more lascivious than the other The Moone for us in the North againe as more moyst and unconstant than they while Mercurie shall be equall almost for both But more enclyning to the Southerne as being better spirits for from them eloquence and contemplative Sciences doe flow unto us As from us to them Miriads of lustie great people which overranne all their fertill provinces And if it be objected how it comes to passe seeing Venus and lasciviousnesse are attributed to them that they should bee lesse populous than we To this I answere That their women in numbers farre exceed their men Thus Polygamie was and is so frequent amongst them for if according to their wits they were both strong and numerous the World could not abide them Thus the Al-seeing God hath disposed things wisely in this world that the worst and subtilest creatures are fewest in number as Lyons Foxes Wolves Leopards whereas the weaker and more Innocuous sort are more frequent as Sheepe Beeves Hart Hinde and so forth SECT 18. The causes of the Changes of severall things as of men Countries plots of ground c. and that these proceede not from triplicities as Astrologers would have it NOw if so be that some of the people have changed any whit of their former innated Natures That must not be imputed so much to the change of Triplicities as to education and the commerce of other more politicke Nations which is more frequent than before formerly it being counted a rare thing for a man to make a voyage to Spaine or Portugall whereas now new found worlds and people of other countenances are nothing so strange and wonderfull unto us Finally that some Countries or rather Grounds are become more barren than they were that men are more weake and lower of stature than they were must not bee imputed to their triplicities but rather it argueth the wrath of God upon the earth for the Sinnes of Mortalls the inhabitants thereof and in like manner the decaying age of the World as in plentifulnesse so in vertue for if the Luxurious plentie of Sicily Asia the lesser of Egypt on the other side againe and Barbarie if by these triplicities they are changed I pray you where is it for my owne part wheresoever I have beene whatsoever I heare or reade nothing but universall complaints of the Earths waxing worse and worse I end this with that of Plimus in his Naturall History complaining upon the badnesse of the times in his dayes to that they were before Gaudebat terra triumphali aratore laureato vâ—mere subigi This was when the Emperours themselves tooke pleasure in Agriculture leaving their Scepters to betake themselves to the Plough SECT 19. How ancient Writers have compared Man and all his parts to the World and all its parts wherein is recounted the different dispositions of men of different Countries and to what Countries the facultiâ—s of the soule are attributed AS these above-cited Writers and many others have gone about with most apparent reasons to attribute the temperament of severall Countries and the severall dispositions and complexions of men in those Countries to the site and disposition of the Planets that governe over such and such places and men so they instance many inducing examples for the proofe of it One of them in comparing the great World to the little world Man willeth us to imagine a Man walking or laid according to the naturall motion of the superiour bodies from East to West and wee shall evidently perceive that his right Arme wherein his greatest strength and vigour is and his right Side where the Liver and Gall are placed are towards the North and the left hand and side which is called the feminine part towards the South whereupon it is inferred that according to this and the posture of the celestiall Bodies the place and people of the world that the right side beholdeth which are the Northerne wherein the Easterne are comprehended are strong and lusty where the people of the opposite part of the world are more weake and lash The one faire and lovely the other brownish swarthy and hard favoured the one cold and moyst the other hot and dry the one given to labour and travell the other to study and contemplation the one joviall and merry the other mellancholick and grave the one simple and no wayes malicious the other crafty and deceitfull the one inconstant the other pertinacious never swarving from his intended resolutions the one prodigall the other parcimonious and sparing the one affable and facill the other arrogant and stayed the one mercifull the other cruell and revengefull the one chaste and bashfull the other venereous and affronted the one impatient the other long suffering the one in Counsell rash and sudden the other more constant deliberate with severall other the like qualities wherein the one halfe of the world North and East doe differ from the other South and West All which they doe back with many forcible Reasons in so farre that there is not any part in the Microcosme Man to which they doe not assimilate some part of the great World yea the three principall faculties of the soule Imagination Reason and Vnderstanding are attributed to three parts of the World Imagination which is proper for meditations of divine and sublime Sciences which consist not in demonstration and Reason but on a naked and simple beliefe is appropriated to the Meridionales or Southerne people who of all others are
may be said to be respiration but since nothing properly can be said to breath but that which hath lungs the instruments of breathing which indeed fishes have not The conclusion is cleare That they have rather a sort of refrigeration then respiration Quest. But is it of truth which wee heare of our Navigators that in the Southerne seas they have seene flying fishes and herring like a foggie or moist cloud fleeing above their heads and falling againe in the Seas with a rushing and flushing Answ. Yea I thinke it possible for the great Creator as he hath created the foules of the Aire the beasts of the earth and the fishes of the Sea at the first creation in their owne true kindes So hath hee made of all these kindes Amphibia And as there are foure footed beasts and fowles of double kinds living promiscuously on land and water why may there not be fishes of that nature also of which hereafter So hath hee indued the Aire as the more noble element of the three with that prerogative that in it either fowles or watery creatures might be engendred out of vapors either moist or terrestriall or extracted from standing lakes stanckes marishes myres or the like oyly and marshie places which waters elevated to the Aire by the violent operation of the Sunnes beames either from the Seas or the fore-said places by the benefit of the warme Aire where they abide as in the fertile belly of a fruitfull mother doe there receave the figure either of frogge or fish according to the predominancy of the matter whereof that vapor is composed from whence again as all heavie things doe tend downeward so doe they also Which hath made some suppose that herrings by them called flying fishes doe descend from the aire their place of generation where indeed more truly the error commeth this way the Herrings in their season doe come in great shoales as Sea men say upon the superfice of the waters where scudding along the coasts some sudden gale of wind they being elevated upon the top of some vaste wave may chance to blow them violently so farre till they encounter and light on a higher billow which hath made Marriners thinke they flie Quest. What have you to say to this that as there are fishes extraordinary so I have heard of fowles without either feete or plumes Answ. Fowles they cannot be because fowles are defined to be living creatures feathered and two footed and since these are not such fowles they cannot be And yet Iulius Scaliger exercitatione 228. sect 1. 24. maketh mention of them calling them Apodes which Greeke word is as much as without feete Quest. But leaving the various diversities of fowles as the Geese who hatch their egges under their paw or foote and the like how doe those claick geese in Scotland breed whereof Du Bartas maketh mention as of a rare work of nature Answ. Their generation is beyond the ordinary course of nature in so much that ordinarily one creature begetteth another but so it is that this fowle is engendred of certaine leaves of trees out of which in a manner it buddeth and ripeneth Now these trees growing upon the bankes of lakes doe at their due time cast these leaves which falling into the lake doe there so putrifie that of them is engendred a Worme which by some secret fomentation agitation of the waters with the Suns helpe groweth by little and little to be a fowle somewhat bigger than a Mallard or wild Duck and in those waters they live and feed and are eaten by the inhabitants thereabouts First then I resolve their questions who argument against the possibility of this generation and then I shall cleare you of that doubt you have proposed thus it standeth then with these Argumentators when Aristotle in his last chapter of his third booke De generatione animalium before he had dissenssed the materiall causes of all kind of perfect creatures In the end falleth upon the materiall cause of insects and so of the lesse perfect one kinde of them he maketh to be produced of a Marish clay an earthie and putrified slimie substance whereof wormes froggs snailes and the like are produced the Sun beames as the efficient cause working upon that matter The other sort is more perfect and these are our Bees waspes flyes midges and so forth which are engendred of some putrified substance as peradventure of a dead horse oxe or asse out of which by the operation of the environing aire and the internal putrefaction together they are brought forth The insects of the Sea are said to have the like generations whereof Aristotle De historia Animalium lib. 1. cap. 1. Et in libro de respiratione and lately the learned Scaliger Exercitatione 191 sect 2. Notwithstanding the venerable testimony and authority of such famous Authors yet our beleevers of miracles doe reason thus both against the generation of the Claik Geese and of the Insects also Every thing begotten must be engendred of a like unto it selfe as men horse Sheepe Neat c. engender their life and this by the warrant and authoritie of Aristotle else where but particularly cap. 7. Meteor Text 2. Quest. But so it is that the body of the heavens the Sun and his heate are no wayes similia or alike unto these Insects produced and procreated from the slymie and putrified matters above rehearsed And therefore that cannot be the way of their generation Thus they Answ. To this answer must be made Philosophically in distinguishing the word alike to it selfe for things may be said alike unto other either of right or univoce as they say in the Schooles That way indeed our Insects are not a like to the putrified earth or beast they came of but Analogice they may be said to be alike that is in some respect in so farre as they communicate in this that they are produced of the earth and by the warmenesse of the Sun which are things actually existing Quest. Now to cleere the question concerning fowles wanting feete and feathers whether may such things be or not Ans. Yea for as the great Creator hath ordained in nature betwixt himselfe and us men here Angels yea good and bad spirits betwixt sensitive and insensitive Creatures mid creatures which wee call Zoophyta and Plantanimalia as the Fishes Holuthuna stella marina Pulmo marinus c. Even so betwixt fowles and fishes nature produced middle or meane creatures by the Greekes called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or beasts of two lives partly living by waters partly by earth And of this sort these fowles must be as betwixt land beasts and fishes are frogs and Crocodills and some others the like Sect. 10. Of fishes and their generation How fowles are generated in the waters If gold can be made potable and of the matter of precious stones Question BVt you have not as yet sufficiently enough satisfied my minde of that scruple
say they doe either perpendiculagor or obliquely sphericall or angularly crowde together this globe and all the diversities in it whereof indeede I may say with the Satyrists Spectatum ad missir sum teneatis amiei This is that which Virgil savoreth when he bringeth in old Silenus his Canto to this purpose in these words Nemque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta Semina terrarumque animaque marisque fuissent Et liquidi simulignis ut his exordia primis Omnia ipse etiam mundi concreverit orbis All which opinions in this may be refuted that they derogate too much from the power of God whether they would have had the world eternall or of any preexisting water insomuch as they thought not him who is able to draw light out of darkenesse sufficient to have framed by his very World all this Fabricke of nothing or yet if this Chaos had beene drowned in oblivion and sunck in darknesse not to have raised and reframed a new one by the same Word and his power SECT 8. The most approved opinion of all Philosophers concerning the Worlds beginning and matter the infallble truth of it and a checke of Augustines against over curious inquisitors after those and the like misteries THe more tolerable opinion was of those who held all things to be composed in time of the foure elements admitting the Creatures of the Etheriall Region to bee of a like kinde and species with these of the Sublunary and yet they thought not that any thing of them could be but by some preëxisting matter Whereas we hold sacred anchor of veritie that the mightie infinite eternall and all-powerfull God created this World of nothing in and with time about five thousand sixe hundereth and odde yeares agoe and that hee shall destroy it in time knowne onely to himselfe And if they aske what God was doing before this short number yeeres We answere with S. Augustine replying to such curious questioners that he was framing Hell for them Seeing then it was created and with time it cannot therefore be eternall these two being repugnant and incompatible ad idem as we say which indeed to mortall men inlightned but with nature only is hard to beleeve As for Trismegistus in his Poemander and Plato in his Timeo what they have spoken more divinely than others herein no question but they have fished it out of Moyses his Pentateuch who flourished before them as Diodorus and Iosephus both witnesse SECT 9. How Philosophers differ from Christians in the wayes whereby God is knowne the Parts whereof the world is composed the division of the Coelestiall Spheares wherein severall varieties may be observed THere are three wayes of knowing God first affirmatively by which whatever good is in man they with us acknowledged to be in God in a supereminent manner and in abstracto as we say in the schooles Secondly by denying what ever evill is in man can any wayes be in God which is called the way of negation But in the third way which is called the way of causation by which we acknowledge God to be the causer of all things only There they did mistake in so farre as they imputed the cause of many things to a continued series and a perennall succeeding of one thing to another for although Saint Augustine Lib. 2. de civitate dei cap. 17. and 4. holds that nature hath charecterised that much in every one to know the finger of God in their Fabricke For that which to us Christians are as undoubted truths to them were dubitable grounds grounded upon their physicall maxime That ex nihilo nihil fiet But leaving these opinions of Philosophers as almost al Cosmographers do I divide the world into two parts Caelestiall and Elementary for the Almighty hath so disposed and linked them together That the Elementary or lower world cannot subsist without the Celestiall Her vertue power motion and influences for effectuating whereof the heavens are framed like a concaved Globe or a hollow Bowle whose center or middle body is this earth environed about with these heavens distant equally at all parts from it The Celestiall Region which properly is all the bounds betwixt the Sphere of the Moone and the highest heavens comprehendeth in it eight Starrie Orbes of which eight seaven Plannets have their spheares betwixt the starrie firmament and the ayre but so set that every ones orbe is lesser than the other untill they reach the Moones which is the least last and lowest spheare of all The eight orbe which is the starrie firmament comprehendeth all the rest of the fixed starres and under it the planetary spheares before mentioned But yet so that it againe is environed by one greater more ample and capacious called the ninth spheare And this ninth is girt about againe by that most supreme of al called the tenth or primum mobile above which againe is the Emperian or Christaline heaven which is the domicile and habitation of the blessed Spirits The tenth spheare or primum mobile is that in order by whose perennall revolution the starrie firmament and all the rest are rowled and wheeled about in the space of 24 houres from East to West upon the two Poles of th world called the South and North or Polearticke or Antarticke Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis at illum Sub pedibus styx atra videt manesque profundi And yet that revolution is not so swift but that the Plannets have every one their owne course and motions and that from the West to the East upon other Poles by the Astronomers called Zodiack Poles Nor is each Plannets course aalike swift and rapid for the Moones course through the Zodiack is ended in one moneth The Sunnes in a yeare and so forth of the rest So that Saturne finished his but in 30 yeares Iupiter his in 12. And Mars in lesse and fewer to wit in 2. Venus and Mercury whose place is next below the Sunne in the like space with the Sunne but by reason of their changing by retrogradation and progression they are sometimes before the Sunne in the morning and sometime behinde at evening and at othertimes so neere him that they cannot bee seene finally the Moone as remotest from the first Mover or tenth heaven is swiftest in her owne peculiar motion through the Zodiack which shee endeth as I was saying in 27. dayes and some odde houres Neither thinke It strange although the change fall not untill the 29. and a litle more the reason being that during the time of 27. dayes wherein the Moone goeth thorough the Zodiack the Sunne in the meane time by his peculiar motion hath gone 27 degrees forward in that same Zodiack which space the Moone must yet measure before shee can be in Conjunction with the Sunne which in effect is the change So they two are to be distinguished the Periodick motion of the Moone her Lunation from change to change All these motions of
the Starres our Astronomers have found out by visible demonstrations as for a peculiar motion allotted to them besides it is a thing of some further consideration Aristotle and the Astronomers of that age doe teach that the eight Spheare commonly called the Firmament of fixed starres is the highest and next to the first movable yet the later Astronomers observing in the fixed starres beside the daily revolution of 24 houres another motion from West to East upon the Poles of the Zodiack in regard one simple body such as is the Firmament cannot have but one motion of it selfe have concluded that above the Firmament of fixed starres there behoved to be a ninth heaven And last of all the later Astronomers and chiefly the Arabs observing in the fixed starres a third motion called by them Motus trepidationis or trembling motion from North to South and from South to North upon its owne Poles in the beginning of Aries and Libra have hereupon inferred that there is yet above all these a tenth heaven which is the first moveable in 24. houres moving round about from East to West upon the Poles of the World and in the same space drawing about with it the nine inferiour heavens and the ninth heaven upon the Poles of the Zodiack making a slower motion to the East measureth but one degree in one hundreth yeares and therefore cannot absolve its course before six and thirty thousand yeares which space is called the great Platonick yeare because Plato beleeved that after the end thereof the heavens should renew all things as they had beene in former times seeing they returned to their first course so that then hee should bee teaching those same Schollers in the same Schoole whereby it seemeth that this motion was not unknowne in his time The slownesse of this motion proceeding from the neerenesse to the first moveable like as the eight Orbe or Firmament finisheth its trembling motion in 7000. yeares but of this trembling motion as also of the number motions and aspects of the Starres who lists to reade Ioannes Herpinus his Apologie for Bodin against Ferrerius shall rest marvellously contented SECT 10. The order of the Elements with some observations of the Ayre and Water NOw betwixt the Spheare of the Moone and the Earth and Waters is the Element of Ayre next after the Element of fire filling up all that vast intecstice divided in three Regions whose middle Region by Anteperistasis as we say of the supreame one ever hot and the lower ones now hot now somewhat cold is ever cold and so is made the receptacle of all our Meteors Raine Haile Snow and so forth framed there accordingly as the matter elevated from the earth and waters is either hot moist dry cold high or low Next to the Element of the Ayre is the Element of Water and Earth which two make but one Globe whose uppermost superficies is breathed upon with the incumbing and environing Ayre These two are the center to the Globe and environing heavens the great Ocean by Homer and Virgil called Pater Oceanus which compasseth the earth and windeth about it as it is father to all other floods fountaines brookes bayes lakes which doe divide themselves through the whole body and upon the face of the Earth like so many veines shedde abroad and dispersed thorough our humane bodies whose source and spring is from the Liver so hath it divers denominations from the Coasts it bedeweth as Britannick Atlantick Aethâ—opick Indick and so forth Now the reason why the Seas which are higher than the Earth doe not overflow it seeing it is a matter fluxible of it selfe cannot bee better given by a Naturalist setting aside Gods eternall ordinance than that the waters having their owne bounds from the bordering circumferences doe alwayes incline and tend thither Praescriptas metuens transcendere metas SECT 11. Of the Earth that it is the lowest of all the Elements its division first into three then into foure parts and some different opinions concerning them reconciled THe Earth is as the heaviest so the lowest subsidit tellus though divers admit not the waters to bee higher than the earth of which opinion Plato seemes to mee to be placing the spring of Rivers and Fountaines in orco or cavities of the earth The former opinion our famous Buchanan elegantly illustrateth in his first Booke de Sphaera Aspice cumpleuis è littore concita velis Puppis eat sensim se subducente Carina Linteaque suâ—mo apparent Carche sia maio Nec minus è naviterram spectantibus unda In medio assurgens c. Which argueth rather the Earth to be round nor that the Seas or waters are higher than it so it may be confidently enough said that the water is above about and in the Earth yea and dispersed thorough it as the blood is diffused and dispersed thorough the body or man or beast from its spring the Liver the Orcum as we may say of it This Earth alwayes by the Geographers of old was divided into three parts viz. Europe Asia Africk not knowing any further but suffereth now a new partition or division since the dayes of Columbus who in the yeare 1492 by an enterprize to the eternall memory of his name made discovery of America added by our moderne Mappes as a fourth part which according to our late Navigators and discoverers shall bee found to exceede the other three in extent from whence the gold and silver commeth hither as Merchant wares occasioning all the dearth we have now considering how things were in value the dayes of our Fathers as Bodin in his paradoxes against Malestrot averreth so that the profuse giving of their gold for our trifies through the abundance of their inexhaustible gold mynes maketh now by the abundance of money which formerly was not that a thing shall cost ten yea twenty which before was had for one or two Mercator that most expert Cosmographer expecteth as yet the fifth part of the Earth intituling it Terra Australis the Spaniards in their Cardes Terra dell fuego which must be by South that Sea descried by Magellanes So that by his supputation the world shall be divided yet in three making Europe Asia Africk but one as but one Continent which in effect it is America and this looked for terra Australis the other two SECT 12. Of the different professions of Religion in the severall parts of the world what Countries and llands are contained within Europe and what within Asia BVt leaving those two last parts as most remote from our commerce and knowledge of Europe Africk and Asia thus much I finde in Cosmographers that scarce the fourth part of these three is Christians and yet those Christians differing amongst themselves the Greeke Church differing in five principall points from the Roman that from the Protestants and the other amongst themselves For not to speake of Europe where Christianisme is gloriously professed consisting of
one for the tutelage of every Countrey But that they should have imagined their Gods so irreligious as to have beene fawtors or authors much lesse actors of evill I thinke farre beneath the beliefe of any ex faece of the lees and dregges of the people much more of a wise man and a Philosopher which moveth mee to thinke that those were wisest amongst them who medled least to speake of their Gods and vexed not themselves with their enquiry but with Socrates esteemed the best judgement that they could make of their Gods to be to judge nothing at all of them The most diligent inquirers in the end discovered them to have beene but mortall men who in their life-time had proved worthy either in Warre or peace were deified after their death And accordingly Augustus Caesar had more Temples and pompous solemnities instituted in his favour than Iupiter Olimpius almost had So that to obscure the basenesse of their Gods it would seeme that they were moulded or painted of old with their fist closed upon their mouthes or at least their fingers as willing thereby living men to speake either sparingly of their nature or nothing at all Thus Pythius Apollo said well and before him Timaeus to his Disciple Socrates speaking of the nature of the Gods Vt potero explicabo non ut certa fixa sunt quae dixero sed ut homunciolus probabilia conjectura adumbrans And in other places Sperantium sunt haec non probantium But to enter here into the diversity of their opinions concerning the Deity the nature and descent of their Gods I am loath lest wee should imagine those Philosophers in stead of wise men as they were called to have beene starke madde Thales esteeming Gods to bee spirits which had made all things of water for he was the first that â—ried in the cabin of their secrets Anaximenes on the contrary willeth them to be of the ayre because they as it should bee in continuall motion Others of no little note repute the Sunne and the Moone with the Starres to be Gods Labentem coelo qui ducitis annum Liber alma Ceres vestro si numine c. Some againe made that Law imprinted in our hearts by which we are inwardly as it were driven to doe good and to abstaine from evill Pythagoras reputed God to be a certaine Spirit spread and shed abroad on or in the nature of all things so that with him all were full of Gods Others finally flatly deny that there was any at all but that all things had beeing as they are and should continue in a perennell motion vicissitude and change But I should weary you if I should but relate every one of their severall opinions SECT 3. Pythagoras opinion concerning the transmigration of soules rejected of the coupling of the soule and body together with severall opinions of the ancient learned men concerning the substance of the soule O What perplexity and doubts were the ancient Philosophers plunged in concerning the transmigration of their soules their renowned Pythagoras avouched that strange opinion of Metempsychosis of the change or transplacing of the soule of a dying man to and in the body of a new borne creature whether beast or rationall body and then that body dying againe that selfe same soule to remove and regaine a new habitation and so to continue from body to body To which so fond an imagination I thinke no old womans fable comparable And yet I excuse some way the irresolution of the Philosophers in this point much more than in the mistaking of their Godhead because I finde that besides them even the best Professors have doubtings in this point that some of our Christian Fathers have beene touched with an admiration how the soule and body were coupled and yoaked together whence one of the most famous is brought in saying that Modus quo animae adherent corporibus omninò mirus est nec comprehendi aâ— homine potest as before him Plinius Omnia abdita in naturae majestatis gremio reclusa So that with the Poet no marvell though they should say likewise Ignoratur enim quae sit natura animai Nata est an contra nascentibus insinuetur Et simul intereat nobiscum morte perempta An tenebras orci visat vastasque lacunas An pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se. The alterations and disputes concerning the substance of the soule are so many and different as is a wonder some deny there is any soule in the body but that our bodies move of themselves by the instinct and power of nature Others againe confesse that there is a soule wherewith our bodies are vivified say it is a mixt thing composed of water and earth others of fire and earth Empedocles wills it to be of and in the blood thus Eurialus dying was said to render sanguineam animam Sanguineam vomit ille animam Zeno more judiciously in that kinde esteemeth it to bee the quintessence of the foure Elements Hypocrates a spirit diffused through the whole body and every part thereof Ita ut sit tota in toto tota in qualibet parte It was a generall and received opinion that in this world there was a generall Soule Anima mundi from which as all particular ones were extracted so being separated from their bodies thither they returned againe according to which Virgill saith Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris c. And againe Scilicet hinc reddi deinde ac resoluta referrâ— Omnia nec morti esse locum SECT 4. The former Heathnick opinions confuted by our Christian Beliefe that they differed concerning the time of the soules continuance and place of its abode how they thought soules after the separation from the body to be rewarded for good or ill c. THe last most plausible opinion and which hath purchased to it selfe most Patrons was that the Father infused it into the Childe by generation from which opinion few have swarved but Christians who are taught to beleeve that the soule is given us from above The Iewish Church held as wee Coelitus demissa and not ex traduce Thus Salomon Eccles. 12. ver 7. The Philosophers generally held the contrary the Poets whom I account Rythmicall Philosophers as Philosophers unversified Poets are copious in this subject Fortes creantur fortibus bonis faith the Lyrick Nec imbelles faerocem progenerant aquilam columbae And againe another Dolus vulpibus ac fuga cervis A Patribus datur Now as they differed in opinion touching the substance and discent of their soules so no lesse varied they about the time how long and the place where the soules should continue after the dissolution of their bodies The Stoicks maintained that the soule shall remaine a certaine space after the dissolution from the body but not ever Pythagoras and his Sect of whom a little before that the soules of the departed did remove from that body to
another of which sort yet some were of opinion that of these same soules some removed to heaven againe and within a space thereafter reddescended to the lower parts which Virgill intimateth when hee saith O Pater Anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est Sublimes animas rursumque ad tarda reverti Corpora est And againe Lathos culices longa oblivia potant Plato and that he hath out of Pindarus esteemeth that as a man hath lived well or ill in this world accordingly his soule shall bee requited hereafter if well that then it shall be rejoyned to the Starre to which it was first assigned if ill that then it shall be coupled to one of some malignant influence Finally Apuleius Madaurensis in his tractate of the Moone bringeth in Plutarch maintaining that the soules of well doers here during their abode in bodies to be converted into Demi-gods or Saints On the contrary the ill ones or at the least the worst are turned into Demons As for the absolute eternity of them they medled with that opinion rather more Sperantium quà m probantium By this preceding discourse wee may see how farre we are obliged to the infinite mercies of our great God who as he hath revealed himselfe truly unto us at whom these ancient wise men but in a glimpse obscurely aymed so hath hee ridde our mindes of that perplexity wherein they were wrapt and infolded touching both the discent and event of our Soules SECT 5. Philosophicall tenents of plurality of Words confuted of Gods Creation of male and femall of all living Creatures BEcause the discourse of the World and the Philosophers opinions touching the beginning continuance and ending of it is the Theame which directly here I intend to handle I haste me to it That there were more worlds than one Democritus Epicurus and others mantained as an undoubted verity whence the Poet Terramque Solem Lunam Mare caetera quae sunt Non esse unica sed numero magis innumerali The reason whereupon they grounded the probability of their opinion was this because that in all the Vniverse there was nothing created alone without a mate or fellow as in all birds fishes beasts Yea in plants and hearbs and in man their under Monarch may be seene but as Aristotle himselfe hath confounded that opinion of his prior Philosophers concerning their plurality of worlds so naturall reason may leade us by the hand to its convincing for if there was another world it behoveth to be as this is spherite and round because that of all figures the orbicular is as most perfect so most spacious then if they were round howbeit in their sides they might touch and kisse one another yet sure betwixt the superior convexes and lower concaves there behoved to bee vacuities which their owne Maximes admit not for Natura say they abhorret à vacuo As for that conjugality if abusively I might say so of all living Creatures in paires it was ordained by the great maker for the propagation and multiplication of their kindes which otherwise had decayed for with Apulcias Cunctatim sumus perpetui sigillatim mortales SECT 6. Severall opinions of severall Phylosophers concerning the Worlds Eternitie their naturall reasons for approving of it and what the Egyptians thought concerning the antiquitie of the World THeir other opinion of the Eternitie of the World hath had more Patrons than this and that so much the rather because that seeing the Godhead their supreame Ens was from all Eternitie that therefore I say hee could not then even from all beginning if Eternitie could admit a beginning be a Creator without a creature for otherwise he should have nothing to do as they say So that those of this opinion doe not infringe that of the most famous in all the Greeke schooles favoring the Eternitie of the World saying that the World was a god created by a greater One this World being a body composed of soule and bodie which Soule had its seate and residence in the Center from whence it diffused by musicall numbers her force and power to the remotest extremities of the circumference having within it other lesser gods as the Seas Aire Starres which doe corresponde to other in a mutuall harmonie in perpetuall agitation and motion The Earth sending up vapors to the Aire the Aire rayning downe upon the Seas againe the Seas by secret conduits and channells transmitting them into the earth like veines ramifying themselves and bubbling up in fountaines rivers and brookes c. The Sunne and starres infusing their force upon all Creatures and vegetables The Moone hers upon the Sea Apuleius as in his tractat de Mundo Luna Deo Socrates aimes at this above spoken So Herodotus when he enquired at the Aethiopian and Aegyptian Gymnosophists what they thought of the Eternitie of the Word had for answere That since their first king of whom they shew him the picture exquisitely done There had runne out a leven thousand and so many hundred yeares and that by their observations the Sunne had changed foure times his ordinary course and the heavens theirs also And Diodorus setteth downe that in his dayes the Chaldeans kept Register of foure hundreth thousand yeares since the first beginning which admit were but Lunarie which is problematicke neverthelesse it is above all measure farre beyond the reckoning of their neighbours the Iewes To this opinion of the Egyptian and Indian Gymnosophists favouring the Eternitie of the World may be added the opinion of the Materiarie philosophers who howbeit they admit the beautie of the World to have come unto it with time yet they hold confidently that the Chaos and matter it selfe whence I call them Materiarcy was coetanean and contemporary from all beginning with the Maker Of this opinion was Hesiod in his Theogoma saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Now to speake of the divers opinions of the other old Philosophers who admitted a beginning to this world and what principalls they supposed for it Heraclitus was of opinion that the world was begunne with fire and that by the fatall order of the Destinies it should bee destroyed by it againe and dissolved in flames yet in such sort that after some ages thus being purified it should be renewed againe which Leo Hebraeus some way admits Thales againe would have the beginning of it to have beene of water having fished that out of Homer as it seemeth and Virgill from him againe At nos interram lympham vertaminor omnes And we often reade in Homer and Virgil pater oceanus But what more foolish or idle conceit than that of Democritus and Leucippus who imagined the beginning of the world and of all contained therein to have beene by the casuall encounter of Atoms which are little infectile bodies not unlike the Moates which wee see to tumble and rowle about in the Sunne beames when they pierce any glasse-window or cranice whose encounter like unto these