afrighted with a supposed approach of the Enemy ranne out of the Citie in their Armes In the Temples of Ptolemais Organs and other Instruments were heard to play before Caesars death And those horses which at the passage of Rubicon he had consecrated to Mars the day before his massacre were observed and seene to weepe and to forsake their foode and stray about Shortly after his death too about the proscription of Lepidus and Antonius an Oxe being led out to plough uttered these words to his Master Why urge you mee to worke wee shall lacke no corne but men and a new borne childe did speake SECT 5. Of Prodigies before the death of Galba before the destruction of Ierusalem and at the end of the Valerian persecution THere were such fearefull Earth-quakes before the death of the Emperour Galba that at the renting asunder of the Farth most hideous noyses were heard not unlike to the lowing of Oxen But of all the Prodigies and Miracles that I read of those which went before the destruction of Ierusalem were the most terrible whereof Iosephus maketh mention at length yet my Author recounteth others no lesse memorable which were these The Comet in the shape of a Sword that appeared and as it were did hang directly over the Citie before the destruction An Oxe leading to the Altar to be there sacrificed in the middle of the Temple did bring forth a calfe to the amazement and astonishment of all beholders of it One night about midnight it grew as light within the Temple as at noone-day Hoasts of armed men and Chariots appeared in the ayre and the Priests heard a voyce within the Sanctuary expresse these words Let us remove from hence About the end of the Valerian persecution before the death of Galenus the Emperour in whose dayes the Empire began mightily to decline there was darkenesse for some dayes over all that tract of Earth in and about Rome There were most dreadfull thunders heard with most frightfull noyses as roaring and fearefull lowings in the ayre and bowels of the Earth whereupon followed so terrible Earthquakes and openings of the Earth that whole Villages and Townes were thereby destroyed Lastly through the dread and terrour of these frightfull noyses and by the sight of these Prodigies and portentuous wonders many both men and beasts were strucken dead SECT 6. A continuation of other Prodigies with a conclution of this Treatise ABout the end of the Goths and Vandals wars against the Romanes there were seene in the ayre Armies flaming as all on fire from which there rained drops of blood and thereafter followed extraordinary overflowing and deboarding of Rivers but chiefly of Tyber which of all other Rivers is observed to deboard both most excessively and most often and these ever goe before some evill to happen to the City But of all her deluges none more memorable than that which happened under the Pontificy of Pelagius which overswelled the walles of the City destroyed all the Corne in the lower Countries and procured such a famine and Pestilence that thereby many thousands perished amongst whom the Pope himselfe after whom Gregory the most worthy Pope of that name succeeded In the time of Sabianus successor to him a terrible and Portentuous blazing starre was seene and the sea cast up many Monsters with visages like men These and many the like were seene before the dayes of Bonifacius the third in whose time the Romane Church obtained of Phocas then Emperour the title of Mother and supreame Church for till then the Greeke Church claimed the superiority In the dayes of Adrian the second Pope of that name it rained blood three dayes A little before the death of Sergius the first Pope that began to change his Proper-name terrible fiery torches and fleakes were seene in the ayre with great noyse and thundring In the Pontificy of Iohn the eleaventh sonne to Sergius a fountaine in Genoa ranne blood in great aboundance About the time that Iohn the twelfth was for his flagitiousnesse and abomination deposed by the Emperour Otho a great stone fell from heaven In Naples likewise within this hundreth yeares there fell a brownish coloured one of an extraordinary bignesse In France likewise upon a St. Iohns day there fell a great peece of Ice in a showre of raine many feete long In the yeare of our Lord 1012. when Ierusalem was taken by Anmrath the great Turke there were terrible earthquakes and fiery impressions seene over all the firmament and the Moone appeared bloody But to recount all Prodigies and Miracles which in latter ages have appeared in severall Countries and to set downe the severall Reasons that are given for them with the events observed to ensue after every of them would take up a greater Volume than I intend this whole booke to be therefore I will here put an end to this discourse SALAMANDRA OR A short Treatise of the PHILOSOPHERS STONE SECT 1. The Historie of the life and death of Antonio Bragadino THe History of one Antonio Bragadino a Cyprian Gentleman which in my time I did reade in Villamont a French Barones travels and voyages hath occasioned mee to undertake this taske This man saith he for the good services done to the Venetians in the time of their Warres upon that Isle being retired to Venice and there become their stipendiarie or rather pensioner having fallen at variance with some clarissimo whereupon ensued blood not being able to keepe their citie any longer for feare of his life withdrew himselfe to the countrey where being in necessity through reason of his pension which he wanted bethinking himselfe how he might live by his wits in the end retiring to a desert he rancountred with an Hermite who tooke him to his cell and having imparted to him his distresse got this comfortable answer back againe that if hee would be partner with him of the taske which sundry yeares agone he had undertaken that he would not onely releeve him of his present necessity but likewise if the event deluded not his intention would make him one of the richest and wealthiest men in the world To which discourse having listned and perceiving it was nothing but the blowing of the coale hee meaned being allured thereto by his present want the hope and expectation of future gaine the venerablenesse and gravity of the person the religious silence of so solitary a place he embraced the offer and in the end became so expert in the calling that by his white powders for as yet hee had not come to that perfection to make red he redeemed himselfe from his exile by presenting the Senate of the Citie with Ingots to the value of fiftie thousand Crownes with certificate if that it should please them to restore him to his wonted liberty for thither was his affection carried beyond all the parts of the world in regard his Mistresse was there hee should enrich
people was plagued Iulius Caesar in his imperiall Throne having by the overthrow of his enemies attained that verticall point of earthly honour was even then and there murdered King Henry the second of France was amidst the triumphs and tiltings of his Sisters wedding solemnities killed King Henry the third at the rendering up of his rebellious Citie of Paris to him was murthered by the trayterous stroake of a blacke Frier his predecessors both shortly taken away But more miserably his great and valorous successor Henry 4th in the middest of that glorious City and of the pompous shewes at his Queenes coronation was murdered Our hopefull Prince Henry taken away about the time of his sisters mirthfull Nuptialls And I read of a Prince in an Historian whose torch dedicated and lighted to Hymen in his nuptialls served to kindle his funerall pile Not to speake a word of Philip of Macedon killed in the middest of his Army while he is assisting the sacrifice to the Gods Nor of his Son Alexander the great cut off in the floure of his yeares Ioyes and glorious great victories with a thousand of this same kinde Section 3. Stories of severall worthy and brave men that upon occasions have shed teares of the sensible greefe of some Horses Dogges and Hawkes upon the losse of their Masters WHich being so we may see that the Lord ordained wisely the Pascall Lambe to be eaten with bitter hearbes And providently the old heathen enjoyned us to mingle cares amidst our joyes Laeta tibi austeris varientur festa profestis From holy Scripture we have warrant that it is better to be in the house of mourning and weeping then in that of laughing And blessed are they that weepe for they shall bee comforted and their teares washt from their eyes our Saviour is said to have wept and never to have laughed we reade of St. Peters teares of the royall Prophets of the Prophet Ieremy his complaints of the groanings howlings and lamentings of the best servants of GOD of none or little of their rejoycing except it had beene under the Crosse or at least in the Lord finally with teares wee come into this world with care wee abide in it and with paine we remove from it Yea even of those who are most enured and hardened with fights bloudsheds alarmes and consequently who should seeme most averse from teares pitie and compassion some I marke to have solemnly wept and are signalized more peradventure in consideration of humane frailty as measuring things by themselves then otherwise for any great matter or reason they had to shedd teares for the time seeing they had obtained the thing they so eagerly desired Nam cum praeda sternitur alter Praemia solliciti certa laboris habet The good Emperor Adrian at his triumphant entrie into Rome after a remarkable victorie seeing the innumerable spoyles of his enemies before his Imperiall chayre and the Captives themselves manicled and fettered with chaines doing homage unto him It is recorded of him that though he rejoyced in publike yet in private hee wept and in a manner expressed by all likelihood no lesse than our famous Buchanan in this distich Tuquoque crudelis Babylon dabis improba paenas Et rerum instabiles experiêre vices King David shed teares at the sight or hearing of his sonne Absoloms death Iulius Caesar at the sight of Pompeys head Vespasian seeing the holy and magnificent Sanctum Sanctorum on fire Xerxes the insolent Persian King yet seeing a number of hundred thousands in a plaine wept considering the frailty of nature for that of so many as hee saw there they might bee all dead in few houres dayes or yeeres To these I may subjoyne Bajazet successor to Mahomet Emperour of the Turks Anno 1481. his teares after his brother Zizimus had surrendered himselfe to the great Master of Malta in name of all the Christian Princes whom neverthelesse he drove to that extremity As for Heraclitus his perpetuall weeping for the misery of this world I thinke it as worthy of blame as Democritus his continuall laughing at the folly of it seeing with Salomon there are times to laugh and times to weepe also Nam res humana fatiscit Laeta nisi austeris varientur festa profestis And if we trust Sabellicus not onely Men but also Horses and Dogs have beene seene to weepe for the losse of their Masters he instanceth particularly that those Horses which Iulius Caesar vowed to Mars at his passage over Rubicon were observed before his murther to stray carelessely up and downe prognosticating as it were their masters death by their unaccustomed drooping dejectednesse and shedding of teares Du Bartas Hawke which hee relateth to have cast it selfe after some other signes of sorrow into the grave with the corps of its dead Master may be mentioned as rare and memorable Section 4. Risus Sardonicus what and how to be taken Of the holy teare kept in the Abby Church at Vandesme in France NOw for laughing that which we call Risus Sardonicus is a perfect modell and patterne of our humane laughing for as they who have eaten of the hearb Sardis do all the perfect gestures of one tickled with joy or mirth as dimpling their cheeks and other like gestures yet it is onely the contracting power of that venomous herbe that procureth that convulsive gesture in them the Crocodiles teares may be compared oftentimes to our weeping as being either delusive treacherous or revengefull and too many I feare doe like Iudas kisse onely to deceive But what shall be said to the Teare which is conserved in a Violl and kept in a little Chappell on the North-side of the Abbey-Church at Vandome in France which they give forth to be a teare which fell from our Lords eyes and was kept since in that Violl by some holy Saint living in those dayes which in an overpious beleefe they say hath continued since without diminution by them called La Sainte larme The holy teare this at solemne festivall dayes they shew and exhibite to the superstitiously credulous people that repaire thither from the remotest parts of that kingdome who with great and submissive prostration and kneeling kisse it to the great and gainefull profit of the keeper truly for my owne part I am not so universally catholick though I have seene it as to beleeve that no more than their religious paradoxes of the transportation of our Lady De Loretta her chamber from so many diverse places and countries to the place where now it is neither finde I any motion to pray God for helpe in my unbeliefe of this and other such fained miracles of theirs being so meerely and palpably grosse inventions of men Sect. 5. Of weeping for the dead how to be moderated The matter of teares of laughing and weeping for one and the same thing moderation in both commended ALthough Tertullian in his booke De patientia did forbid the people in his
dayes to mourne and weepe for the dead yet our Lord and other Saints have wept for them S. Paul indeed reprehendeth the immoderatenesse of it 1 Thes. chap. 4. where he forbiddeth not the Thessalonians to sorrow at all but not sorrow as those who had no hope of the resurrection The Poet could finde fault with immoderate mourning for the dead which in this Iron and declining age of the world but very few needs to be reproved for Tu semper urges flebilibus modis Misten ademptam nec tibi vespero Cadente decedunt amores Necrapidum fugiente solem The philosophicall reason given for not mourning for the dead I thinke neither allowable to a Christian nor to a meere naturallist for they say that it is but lost time and action seeing death is remedilesse common necessary and teares cannot prevaile to recall them againe and therefore availe nothing for such like arguments are rather to reinforce sorrow than otherwayes to mitigate griefe and so much the rather because there is no remedy for it for as another Philosopher replieth to one who reprooved him for lamenting so heavily the death of his sonne since said he you know that there is no remedy for it and therefore replied the other doe I weepe yet some of the wisest sort of them agreed unto this mourning for the dead as a kind naturall duty in so farre that they who wept not for their parents death were by them said In patrios minxisse cineres Not to speake of the matter of teares whether it be the same with that of sweate or the waterish part of bloud all these being salt I shall enquire the occasion of teares which we finde out of holy and prophane stories to be both joy and sorrow In Ezra when the Iewes saw the holy Temple re-edified They wept saith the Prophet but diversly some for joy to see it rebuilt againe others for sorrow to see the glory and ornament of it as it was then not comparable to the former so wept Ioseph for joy upon his brethrens necks in a word ire and revenge will occasion teares as well as pitty and compassion yea some will weepe on no occasion Mens immota manet lachrymae volvuntur inanes I can say no more to the stupidity of these people than to their folly who laugh at all occasions without cause OF VARIETIES THE FOVRTH BOOK CONTEINING FOVRE TREATISES OF 1. Curiosities 2. Divine Philosophy or Mans felicity 3. The Consonancy and agreement betwixt Ancient Philosophers and Christian professors 4. Sleepe and Dreames 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 HONORABLE IOHN Earle of Traquair Lord Linton and Caberston his MAIESTIES Treasurer Depute of Scotland and one of his Majesties most Honorable Privie-Councell there Right honorable EXamples of Histories and daily experience teach us that as Piety and Iustice are the pillars of a State and the Countrey happy as none more than ours whose King is endued with them seeing people commonly follow their example so most fortunate is the Land where a most wise King substitutes such officers of State as whose piety justice charity and other vertues may be a comfort rule and example to the people over whom God and their King hath placed them That this reflecteth upon you my Lord none of our Nation is so destitute of understanding as to question upon which assurance I have adventured this dedication to your Lordship that where these eminent vertues doe so cleerely shine there can be no clouded mystinesse cast betwixt a candide and auspicious acceptance and this small tender of my duty to honourable vertue and entire affection to your Honour which in your younger yeeres at Paris where I began this work I did vow unto your then blooming merits and now performe that it may remaine to after Ages as an everduring token of the love favour duty honour and respect that was alwayes carried to the most illustrious name of Stewart in generall and to You my Lord in particular as a Noble branch of the Honorable Stock of Lennox By Your Lordships faithfull and affectioned servant David Person OF VARIETIES THE FOVRTH BOOKE Of Curiosities where the greatest Subtilities of all Sciences are some way unfolded and disapprooved and some naturall Curiosities propounded as of the Heavens Aire Seas Earth c. Section 1. The difference betwixt factions and editions a rebellion of the common people of Rome against the Senate and Patricians Emulation a principall producer of great exploites the harme that followeth Curiosity and that Church-men are not exempt from it AS order and unity are the upholders of a Commonwealth so factions and seditions are their overthrow These two I hold not to bee one for sedition is by open violence faction under colour of Iustice That both these are procured by too curious and ambitious braines and diseased spirits who envy other mens preferment or wealth above their owne it is manifest as thorow all the Romane history so particularly in that sedition of the Commons who openly rose up against the Senat and Patricians flying in armes to the Aventine Mount where neverthelesse by that elegant Oration of Menenius Agrippa set downe by Livius at length they were appeased My purpose here is not to hinder that honest emulation and allowable curious ambition of well doing either in private or publike men for both the Greeke and Roman stories doe sufficiently informe us that there were never greater incitements to an emulous antagonist then their opposites glorious exploits in war and vertuous proceedings in peace nor sharper spurres to waken and rouse up their lasinesse if any was then the desire to parallell them examples are very obvious in this kinde My intent here is to desire a moderation in men of all conditions especially the learned for the harme prejudice and evill that idle and sturring Curiosities which have beene caused by Antagonists emulations and disputes have procured in private and publik men or States in warre and peace is universally and dayly perceaved and regrated And who so would thinke that our Clergy and Gowne men who prescribe rules of wisedome unto others are to bee exempted from this fault are farre deceaved for both of old and late dayes they have barboyled the sound doctrines of their professions with their idle unnecessary and too curious questions who so will with me skimme over but a handfull of them shall soone confesse this truth Section 2. How Curiosities have wonderfully disturbed the peace of the Church A Recitall of some impertinent Curiosities in Religion with some also of Subtilis Scotus and Thomas Aquinas c. ANd first then it may bee demanded what solid peace and agreement hath been in the sacred Church which is the
piller of Truth since the purity of the Primitive Doctrine left by the holy Evangelists Apostles and their Successors hath beene adulterated and martyred with curious questions as those of Transubstantiation Concomitance Latreia Dulia Hyperdulia mentall reservation equivocations implicite faith congruities condignities and Supererogations together with the inerrability of the Popes Holinesse Semi-man and Demi-God as also those questions of our late Divines whether CHRISTS death alone was satisfactory for our salvation or His life and death together And those questions also of providence of predestination of prescience Gods effective and permissive power in sin if GOD can lie or recall time past or make a thing done to bee undone c. what hath mooved our so inquisitive Curiosists as Subtilis Scotus and D. Thom. who have as it were so overclouded all with their pregnancies of wit to be so curiously sollicitous as to enquire whether or not besides Creation and Generation there were any other production of things in nature different and distinct from those two which surely is not for by that meanes accidents should befound to be concreated congenerated not inhesive and having their being in the subject according to the Logicians rule accidentis est inesse Whereupon followed that no lesse idle then curious question whether GOD may sustayne accidents after the substracting of their subject from them in which they were and with which they were concreated as who can imagine a whitenesse to exist without a wall paper cloud cloath or some such subject to be in wherwith first it was concreated as Ruvius in his Commentary upon the second Phys. and second de anima fondly giveth forth seeing it is certaine that the actions of GODS will are ever bounded to and terminated with an object either possible or actuall and the reason of this is because all potency and possibility to bee tendeth to and terminateth in an object from which it may assume the owne species kind So that the acts of the divine Intellect or understanding tending to an object extant or in aptibility to exist do tend to it as it is in the Divine intellect and so consequently such as actually or possibly existeth Such questions as these being more fit to cruciate and perplexe the mindes yea even of the most learned then otherwise to instruct them or any of the weaker sort Section 3. A continuation of some other Theologicall and Metaphysicall subtilities and curiosities SVch as this is that of the multiplicity of formes in one selfe same subject and this if the formes of matters be extracted out of the potentiality of the matters which certainly is the first not wherein I agree with Suares in his disputation upon the first of the Metaphysicks and whether Angells be species or individualls howbeit in my minde what ever Divus Thomas speaketh in favour of species they are more properly to be held as individualls yea and with our Moderne Divines reverence whether Protestants or Iesuites what can bee the formall object of our faith the subject of it being once perfectly knowne howbeit in effect to my opinion the formall object of it with Divus Thomas must bee the divine verity manifested unto us in holy Scripture by our Lord and Master the holy Prophets Evangelists and Apostles the pen men of GOD together with the authority of the Church which authority is but as a testimoniall and secondary and with both and all others permission who prye and dive so deepely in the Orcum and mysteryes of Learning as whether or not Creation bee all one with the thing Created sooner solved then advisedly propounded for so it is that Creation being an action of the divine will fiat factum est Gen. 1. 34. Moreover that will in GOD and His Divine essence being all one there is no question but that Creation is prior to the thing created the like or part whereof neither the Iewish Thalmud nor the Mahometan Alcoran scarce ever did propound to their Readers But I leave the sublimity of Theologicall and Metaphysicall questions which hath puzled marvellously even the best refined and acute Spirits Section 4. Of Curiosities in Logick the relation betwixt the Creator and the creature to what Heaven the Prophet Enoch and Elias were wrapt what place is said to be Abrahams bosome VVHat hath the Logician advantaged his art of reasoning by troubling himselfe and others with what kind of relation is betwixt the creature and the Creator Whether with Aristotle predicamentall or not mutuall or that it holdeth onely of the creature not of the Creator also howsoever predicamentall with Aristotle it cannot be for that Creation argueth no change in GOD as it doth in the thing Created which is transchanged from a not being to a being which is certaine because GOD and supernall intelligencies as meere formes free of all matter doe worke by their intellect and will So that Creation proceeding from GOD as an act of His will and intellect must have beene from all eternity with Him nothing being in Him which was not with Him likewise To the former adde this curiosity likewise what Heaven it was which the Prophets Enoch and Elias were wrapt into for our curious Our anographers by their doings I warrant you shall exclude them out of all Heavens for why say they into the Aire which is the first Heaven they could not be wrapt seeing if they were taken up from the Earth for rest and ease there they would find little it being the proper place of stormes and tempests neither into the second for if for ease joy and rest they were taken from the earth it behooved to be elsewhere then there because that starrie Heaven by many is held to be in perpetuall revolution and motion much lesse will they admit them into the third Heaven because they were not as yet gloryfied at least there is no warrant in Scripture for it besides that our MASTER IESUS CHRIST being Primitiae resurrectionis was the first that entered which was many ages after their uptaking Where the bosome of ABRAHAM is to which most credibly they were rapt our curious Topographers cannot agree their sublimities and curiosities rather producing scruples then instruction What it is is by all almost agreed upon but where it is maketh the doubt with Peter Martyr Vermillius loco 16. Classis 3. It is thought to be nothing els then a place of rest where the soules of the Fathers departed before our SAVIOURS comming to the World were attending and in joy expecting it denominated from Abraham the Father of the faithfull without excluding the rest of the Fathers which place what ever they say I take to have beene in Heaven in which we know there are many stations how ever they perplexe themselves in marshalling our lodgings there And against them all of this opinion is S. Augustine Commenting on the 85. Psalme Section 5. The Curiosity of the Millenarij