Talents which may sharpen and help our weak Industry in the way to Heaven and set us forward and command us to increase and augment the gifts of God For one had 5. Talents another but two and a third but one Talent given him every one according as was fit for him by God who thought it best so to do and would in his due time call every man to give an account of the profit he had gain'd thereby 2 Tim. 1. So Paul warns Timothy and every one by him that they take care of their charge that they stir up the gift of God that is within them A Simile from fire under ashes as fire under ashes ready to go out that they shake off sluggishnesse and endeavour to perform what is committed to them For God requires of every man to better what he hath bestowed upon them that he restore him his talent with increase And because he will not have us idle nor faint in our Labour but to watch alwayes and indefatigably to employ our selves to advantage Luke 19. Occupy saith he till I come Which when Paul an instrument of Election did diligently teach unto others he studied by all means to do that Evangelical Merchandizing so that he was more zealous in his Embassage than the rest of the Apostles and more industrious in doing his office As therefore in Jewels Animals Plants Stars there is a difference A Simile from the nature of things one flower is sweeter then another one Jewel sparkleth more then another so it is in the Souls of men which being enriched with peculiar forces and faculties perform different effects and operations For as the Apostle St. Paul saith A Simile from the Stars and Seed 1 Cor. 15. every seed hath its imbred force and there is one flesh of beasts another of Men and there is one glory of celestial bodies and another glory of earthly bodies one glory of the Sun and another of the Moon and another of the Stars so one mans body is of better and more generous temper than another is Also one soul both in this life and in the Resurrection as the lot and deserts of it are which every one must ascribe to God and have no opinion or confidence in themselves is more worthy and more glorious than another There is a great disproportion between the souls of good and wicked men both in this world and in the world to come Psalm 1. and their condition is â—â—ch different for the wicked shall not stand amongst the just but shall be scattered as chaff and dust before the wind Wherefore St. Paul from the nature of things A Simile from sweet smels 2 Cor. 2. sets many things before our eyes by looking into which the secrets of God are made manifest to us So in the businesse of Christ he makes his comparison with the sweet and fragrant smels of natural things for as the smell and fragrancy of plants is known by the effects and they either refresh or offend the heart so that soul that sends forth a sweet odour or stinking smell either pleaseth or displeaseth Christ Aeneid 6. All Souls are spritefull and from Heaven come A Similitude from burning things But as one fire is hotter then another and burns hotter as the nature of the fuel is for in Oile Pitch Brimstone Bitumen Naphtha which men call oyl of Peter it burns more vehemently So the Soul for the faculty and force of it and for the powers it hath received works upon the body and is either more active or remisse in performing its actions yet so that the temper and mixture of the body its constitution and organs are subservient to the Soul The same reason serves in evil Angels Difference of ill spirits Math. 11. whereof one doth man more hurt then another doth So in the Gospel Beelzebub is cal'd the Prince of the Divels one that is powerfull to do mischief So the Gospell distinguisheth the evill angels by their desire of doing mischief and their malignity For that Divel that had but small force to torment the mind of man gets to himself seven others that were worse and they joyn together and possesse the man so that there is no hopes left of a better life or of repentance A Simile from Mettals And if we may compare corporeal with incorporeal things as lead Tin Copper Silver Gold Brasse and all mettals have their Excrements and will rust and Canker and as untild fields grow over with bushes and brambles and cockle and unlucky darnel grow up in them Esay 1. A Simile from untill'd fields so the substance of the Soul contracts many vices and being adorned she shines with vertues but neglected is obscured with the rubbish of vice Yet there is no cause why any man should speak or murmur against his maker Let all men submit to God Rom. 2. as that idle companion that hid his Talent in the ground since the virtue of our saviour extends to all men and God hath set marks of his divinity in every man so that the Law of God is written in the heart of the Gentiles also that know not God and by that law they are brought to the knowledg of him and their conscience testifies and reason teacheth them what to follow and what to shun and what great difference there is between what is honest and what is dishonest Natures law is imprinted in all men Let therefore every man be carefull to live so that this gift may not seem ill bestowed upon him and not to murmur against God by whose will all things are governed that his Soul is not so good as another mans but let him adorn that Soul he hath A Simile from tilling of grounds and till it as he would a barren field and soil it with hearing the word of God that will prepare it Let him not be wanting to his weak endeavours and his will that is ready And there is nothing better for the Soul than to meditate continually on Gods word An exhortation to embrace the Scriptures For this heals our sores drives 〈◊〉 our vices comforts our hearts enlightens our dark minds There is no remedy more effectual nor more sudden to cure our sick souls there is no wound so venemous and deadly that the Scriptures cannot cure Art thou tormented with a greedy mind Words for to heal this sore thou'lt eas'ly find Horal l. 1. Epist Do'st thou love praises and to be commended By reading Books this fault may be mended Froward fond angry Drunkard slothfull may If they take heed be cured all this way Philosophy can do all these things but not that Philosophy Horace dreamt of The profit of Gods word but heavenly Philosophy which restores nature that is disjoynted and out of frame to her former integrity which stirs up in us confidence towards God and reconciles God and Man which procures quietnesse and constancy in our
as the vegetative and sensitive parts are beaten and rent For in opinions sayings perswasions and Judgments sometimes the body yields to the Soul to its great disadvantage and is in all things a companion and minister unto it wherefore the body must suffer wrong if it should not bear a share in the same reward The body is the Souls organ whereby she performs her functions and operations How the Body is the Souls Instrument but the Soul useth the animate and sensitive body otherwise than a Smith or Carpenter useth a Saw or a Hammer or an Axâ— for all the parts are most fitly distinguished for their Offices and may be applyed to many duties A fit comparison from the Sun and Moon The same difference may be made between the Soul and the Body as there is between the Sun and Moon For though the Moon borrow light from the Sun yet she doth not wholly want force other own for she hath her proper motion and runs her own circuit but she borrows light from the Sun as a Looking-glasse A Simile from polished glasse and as Caldrons and Basons polished shine by the opposite light but she gives no light unlesse she be enlightned by the Sun yet she is not idle for she holds on her monethly course and goeth her circuit without the Suns help So the soul affords forces to the body yet the body is not without imbred faculties of its own and natural powers the qualities of the four humours whence it becomes capable of all functions and fit to perform all actions Eclipses of Sun and Moon compared to Soul and Body And as the Sun it eclipsed and hidden by the interposition of the Moon so the Moon is eclipsed by interposition of the Earth The Sun when he is in the same degree of the Ecliptick the Moon when she is in the opposite degree So the Soul and Body have their failings and Eclipses and one part oft-times either profits or hurts the other Since therefore there is so great union and faithfull society between these two and so long as they keep sentinel in this life they mutually assist one the other it is fit that the body should rise again to partake of the same glory and be admitted into the same liberty Consent of Soul and Body If any man like Thomas and Nicodemus are so dull they cannot understand how this shall come to passe let him not deny Gods power or distrust him but let him raise his heart and eyes unto him who is the Maker of all things and in the works of Creation he shall find enough to let him understand that God wants no power not onely to restore Man again but to do whatsoever he hath determined Let us behold the Heavens adorned with Stars Nature proves a Resurrection and the Earth that is under it out of which there spring so many beautifull and pleasant flowers so many healthful plants for Food and Physick so various kinds of fish in the Sea so many kinds of Birds in the Ayr so many Cartel for meat or to till the grounds and Man the Lord of all these All which were at first made by Gods Word The Majesty and Greatnesse of the Creator of nothing there being no former matter to make them of yet they continue fast having their vicissitudes risings progresse and increase Since therefore God the Creatour is so omnipotent in power who can say he wants power to restore the dead who made all things of nothing And if the Creatour made mans body of nothing without any labour how much more easie is it for him to raise the dead to life again not of nothing but from the same matter turn'd to ashes or resolved into the Ayr and scattered with the winds A Simile from Founders of Mettals But as an Artificer when a vessel is broken or spoyl'd makes it up again by casting it of the same mettal and makes it better than it was so God will in his good time raise to life bodies dissolved into Earth of the same form they were but freed from all spots and earthly errours God is Omnipotent in what he pleases Let us therefore ascribe so much honour to God and Omnipotency that he can do what he please and let no man measure Gods power by his own weaknesse or ignorance since we cannot comprehend the smallest things 4 Esd 4. for they exceed our capacity And if this worlds wonders and the order of Nature be not sufficient to elevate mens Minds and no reasons will serve to declare unto us the power of God yet let every man look into himself and consider diligently the excellency of his own Mind and then of how great power he is that gave such gifts unto men The Mind compar'd with Jewels Methinks mans mind is like to Jewels which besides their pleasant aspect and that the eyes are delighted with them have inward vertues and operations that are excellent which lye hid yet they are discovered by rubbing them as Amber Jet the Load-stone which being rub'd and healed A Simile from the force of Jewels draw Strawes Flocks Chat Iron and that with great force unto them So the force of the soul rays'd and moved puts forth it self and as fire under ashes raked open shines and sparkles And though Gods power be seen in all things and all men may be behold it in this great work of Nature so that the Soul of man can never be filled and satisfied therewith yet Gods great power shines in nothing more or is more eminent than in the Soul and Mind of Man which was taken forth of the Divine essence Man's Mind is God's Image Wherefore let no man dare to think that shall ever dye that came from Gods essence and is adorned with so admirable endowments In Phaedro Wherefore Plato reasons well What consists not of Elements is immortal and can never dye the Soul is not made of the Elements nor of concrete matter but came from God therefore it cannot dye Not could there be so great force in the Souls of men such sharpnesse of wit such excellency of Learning such subtilty of Invention such knowledge of things or love or knowledge of God unlesse the Soul were separated from earthly drosse and did partake of Divinity and were ordain'd for Eternity Which perswasion also was held by the Antients Tusc 1. Heathens believe Immortality who as Tully witnesseth did believe that there was a living after death and that man was not so extinguished by death as to be quite lost Which may be understood by many things else as also by their funeral Ceremonies For they had not taken so much care of the dead nor been so extreamly ceremonious in their burials unlesse they had thought that death did not abolish all but that there was a kind of passing and change unto a better life Ciâ— de divin For no man can be so rude
of both Sexes Page 25 Chap. 10. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms Page 29 Chap. 11. The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt What day of Child bearing it is infused Page 32 Chap. 12. The Soul though it be incorporeal not made of matter or Elements yet is it subject to passions and perturbations and such affections as redound upon the Body Page 36 Chap. 13. That the Souls of Men are not equal in all things nor of the same condition and dignity but one is better than another Page 42 Chap. 14. Of the immortality of the Soul and certainty of the Resurrection Also how that may be done Lastly how much our minds are raysed toward God from so great a benefit and what great confidence we may have when we die that we shall be saved Page 47 Chap. 15. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceed Page 57 Chap. 16. The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured Page 59 Chap. 17. Herbs are subject to change and will lose their forces and form unlesse they be dressed continually Page 67 Chap. 18. How manifold difference and variety there is in the nature of grounds Page 79 Chap. 19. Clusters of Grapes augment but grow not ripe by the Moon beams Page 81 Chap. 20. Why Hesiod dislikes soyling Page 81 Chap. 21. How Weezels and other Creatures that hurt Corn may be driven away or killed Page 82 Chap. 22. The cunningnesse of Worms in Mans body and what it portends when they come forth by the Mouth and Nostrils Page 83 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Second Book Chap. 1. THat humours and not bad Angels cause diseases yet the aereal spirits do mix themselves therewith and increase the diseases by adding fire unto them Page 86 Chap. 2. Melancholique Med and Frenzy people and such as are furious from other causes will sometimes speak strange Tongues they never learned and yet not be possessed with the Divell Page 91 Chap. 3. Of the Epilepsie's violâ—nce which disease the common people both now and formerly ascribe to certain Saints lastly how it may be cured And by the way that such are not to be buried presently that die of the Falling-sicknesse Lethargy or Apoplex Page 93 Chap. 4. Whence comes it that diseases are long and Chronical and will not easily be cured Whence come Feavers to revive again and to be with intermission and truce for a time which all men ought to know that they may not easily fall into a disease or being fallen may soon cure it Page 97 Chap. 5. Of those that come forth of their Beds and walk in their sleep and go over tops of Towrs and roofs of houses and do many things in their sleep which men that are awake can hardly do by the greatest cage and industry Page 99 Chap. 6. Of those that are drown'd mens bodies will flote on their backs and womens will flote on their faces and if their lungs be taken forth they will not swim Page 102 Chap. 7. The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body Page 102 Chap. 8. Of the Helmets of Children newly born or of the thin and soft caul wherewith the face is covered as with a vizard or covering when they come first into the world Page 105 Chap. 9. Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans Page 106 Chap. 10. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there Page 108 Chap. 11. The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest Page 109 Chap. 12. Some things will not burn but are invincible in the midst of flames and how that comes to passe Page 110 Chap. 13. The native heat of Man is fostered and increaseth by the heat of other Creatures but espâ—cially by the heat of children if they be laid to that part of the body that is weak For this fomentation doth not onely help concoction but easeth all joynt pains but amongst whelps which do it most effectually Page 112 Chap. 14. Why the French-Pox is more gentle now than it was formerly and rageth not so much and into what disease it degenerates Page 113 Chap. 15. How it is that Men dying though they have their mind and understanding firm yet they make a hoarse noise and a sound that returns back which the Low Dutch vulgarly call Den rotel Page 114 Chap. 16. The death of man and destruction of things that are is against Nature and is very improperly called natural Yet the mind must be resolved not to fear death though not without cause all men are afraid of it Page 115 Chap. 17. The Inconveniencies of Tippling and drunkennesse and what things will resist and cure it Page 116 Chap. 18. Intemperance of drink is worse than of meat Page 118 Chap. 19. Wine makes a man drunk otherwise than Beer or Ale doth Page 119 Chap. 20. Men that are tall and grosse bodied are sometimes not so long-lived as those that are slender and cannot so stoutly struggle with diseases But commonly litâ—le men will drink more wine than grosse men and will be longer before they be drunk Page 120 Chap. 21. They that eat a moderate breakfast in the morning will eat more freely at dinner and if they drink much wine it will offend them lesse By the way whether it be wholesome to eat much bread Page 121 Chap. 22. A Nutmeg and a Coral-stone carried about a man will grow the better but about a woman the worse Page 123 Chap. 23. For the most part such are barren and unfruitfull whose seed runs from them of its own accord and they pollute themselves and how that comes to passe Page 124 Chap. 24. When men are sick they grow tall though they eat lesse but they lose in breadth Page 127 Chap. 25. Whether it is best to open a Vein when one is fasting or after meat and whether it be lawful to sleep presently after blood-letting Page 129 Chap. 26. Physiognomy that is the reason how to look
in Physical businesse is bound to stretch his wits soundly to understand it The consent of Soul and Body For it concerns every man to know and search out these things because a man is conversant in himself and may rest in the contemplation of himself For since a man consists of Soul and Body and the body is the Instrument of the soul whereby she doth her actions who ought not to have care and to observe both these parts who would not wish that both might be preserved the best he could since one cannot subsist without the other and perform its office and functions without offence For both do ask each others help we see Horat. in Art Poet. And by this means most friendly they agree The body for a time is transitory and mortal but since it is the vessel and receptacle of the Soul and useth its Ministery God hath also design'd that for eternity and by the mystery of the resurrection it shall be made partaker of the same gift that is of immortality as it is the will of God CHAP. III. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God WHen God had made the Heavens and this sublunary world and framed them with so admirable wisdom and skill that there was nothing wanting for necessary uses commodity and pleasure it seemed good to him to make One that might have the use of them and that might delight in these things and enjoy them Wherefore when all the ornaments of nature were compleat and perfected he brought man into the world as into his own possession and that he might not lead a disconsolate life he gave a woman for an helper and companion Marriage Gods Ordinance and he put into them both force to love and a greedy desire of procreating their like having prepared for that purpose a swelling humour and spirit and organical parts and that the one should not be afraid or decline the society of the other he added allurements and a desire of mutual Embracing that when they did use procreation they should be sweetly affected and pacified wonderfull wayes For unlesse this were natural to all kind of Creatures that they should care for posterity and propagate their like mankind would quickly be lost nor could the affairs of mortalls long endure All men on earth and Beasts and Birds above Georg. 3. And Fishes of the Sea are mad with love What will a young man do whom Cupid burns He swims it 'h dark and tempestous night Ore the rough boyling Seas and nere returns Though Parents cry and billous would one fright Divers spurs to Venery Since this Passion is so forcible and so unruly that it can hardly be subdued and but a few can bridle their passions God granted unto man the use of the matrimonial bed that he might be bounded thereby and not defile themselves with wandring lust Wherefore God appointed Marriage who want the gift of Continency wherefore so soon as copulation is done and the Woman happens to prove with child great is natures cunning in fostering coagulating and framing the seed of both sexes that at the set time when nine moneths are run over Man that Ruler and Ornament of the whole world may come forth Job expressed this doubtful hope and first beginning of Nature Chap. 10. now going about to form a man by a most apposite similitude Hast thou not poured me forth as Milk and Crudled me as Cheese Thou hast compassed me about with skin and flesh thou hast made me with bones and sinews and my life is from thee and thy force hath upheld my breath Like to this is that saying of the wise Hebrew who describes the beginnings of his birth thus Wisd 7. I am also a mortal man like to other men the off spring of the first man on earth and I was made flesh in my mothers womb that came from coagulated blood in ten Moneths from the seed of man and the pleasure that comes with sleep And when I was born I drew in the common Ayre What are Mans beginnings and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first voice I uttered was crying as all others do By which we understand that in all other things as also in propagation of Children that all things must be done according to Natures order moderately All things must be done moderately As by the opinion of Hippocrates and Galen let motion or exercise precede meat after meat use venery after Venus sleep which being done the natural faculties do their parts in forming the child and the wearinesse that came by venery is abated by sleep which also helps concoction for sleep is a great help to facilitate concoction But as for that concerns the principles of Generation there is a great question controverted whether a woman afford seed to the generation of the child or whether manly force make any thing to the similitude of the form or difference of the fâ—x I shall first handle that concerning the form and similitude of it and afterwards of the female seed and what help it affords for procreation of the child And I shall do this the more accurately because there are some Bawds in our Countrey that would perswade women that Mothers afford very little to the generation of the child but onely are at the trouble to carry it and must endure the tedious time of nine Moneths Women do much in procteation of Children as if the womb were hired by men as Merchants ships are to be fraited by them and to discharge their burden By this perswasion women grow luke-warm and lose all humane affections toward their children and Love that was wont to be almost peculiar to this sex is quite banished But I think that such deserved to be held infamous and are not fit for honest womens company And would we punish them it should be done openly with all scorn and contempt For these are the cause that some are so cruel and barbarous to their children as to cast them forth and forsake them These are more cruel and savage than Tigers Lions Bears Panthers and other bruit beasts who bestow much labour to feed and bring up their young ones Math. 19. Force of Nature seen by Animals which our Saviour shewed by a Hen a domestick bird for all creatures will fight for their young ones and will venter their lives boldly for them I saw in these spring Moneths a Flock of 300. sheep which followed their bleating young ones that were carried away in a Ship from Land and were pulled from their Dams Udders Their Dams were not frighted with the Seas violence but with incredible desire followed till the Sea flowing up drownd them all An exhortation to humanity from the love of dumb beasts By this example I would have wicked unnatural Parents take heed and be admonished who
dignity Differente in Souls and that there is no odds between the Soul of a wise man and good and of a fool or wicked man and that the organs of the body onely hinder the actions and the faculties of the Soul are ill performed by reason thereof But I out of no desire of contention or contradiction am perswaded that it is otherwise For though I know that the mind growes dull by a sharp disease or by a blow on the head by some fall or bruise and that a man may so forget all things yet it followes not that all Souls are equall and that all men had Souls alike to judge or reason with For every mans Soul be it never so well adorned and the like pains be taken to make it skilfull in Arts and Sciences cannot attain to the same Excellency nor is alike capable of the same Learning and Knowledge that another mans Soul is For some are not at all disposed to learn Arts and it is against nature to bend their minds that way For as Torches and Lights some shine more than others do and give more light and as some burning matters A Simile from lighted Torches burn fiercer than others do so the Souls of men are of a different light and the minds of men are far distant in gifts one from the other And as Angels differ in order dignity office Ministry one from the other Angels are of different excellencies as Seraphims Cherubins Thrones Powers Vertues Archangels and the whole Hierarchy of Angels demonstrate so I see that there may be a difference set between mens Souls They all agree in this that they dwell in a mortal body that hath the shape of a man though some look more like savage beasts and are next unto them That all men are given to procreation that the same Lawes of Nature should govern them all That the same force of reason urgeth them That the essence of their Soul and form of their substance is created by God That they are all immortall and all endowed with one spirit But because the force of the Divine Nature doth not so strongly shew it self in all nor are all equally capable of his gift Disparity of Souls and some make themselves unworthy of so great a Benefit it comes to passe that the Souls produce their actions by another force and effect nor are they in their present condition state dignity and order equal nor shall they be equal in glory in â—he next life For so the Prophet Daniel clears this point Chap. 12. As many as sleep in the dust shall awake some to life eternal some to disgrace and punishment and condemnation And they that are learned shall shine as the Firmament and they that have taught many righteousness shall shine as Stars for ever and ever I find St. Paul observed the same difference between incorporeal substances taking a similitude from the Stars For as one Star is brighter than another and their bodies are very divers so great is the difference in the souls of men and in the resurrection one Soul shall be far more glorious than another 2. de Anima But God as Gregory Nyssen testifies hath appointed according to the several species of Animals that their Souls should be different one from another and for every body he hath assigned a convenient soul So to Bruit beasts God hath not given a reasonable understanding but natural industry whereby they shun all snares and dangers Wherefore every kind of Animals is moved by the same Inclination For every Hare is fearful every dog smells well Bruits are governed by Nature not by Reason and will hunt after wild Beasts all Foxes are crafty all Wolves cruel and greedy of their prey Every Ape will imitate mens manners But this is not so in Man For there are infinite reasons and wayes of mens Actions nor are all men enclined to one operation or to one thing as Bruits are that are ruled by nature onely and their actions tend all one way But the act of reason which belongs onely to man is diverse in divers men and as the condition of their soul is different so are their actions Hence arise so many sundry opinions in men As therefore St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 12. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withall and men have several offices appointed to them which God dristributes to every one as he pleases dividing to every man his Spirit as he will so every man hath his own proper soul made by the same God but not of the same dignity not endowed with the same understanding of things yet so as it is capable both of vice and vertue and by its imbred force it may embrace the best things and avoid what is evill though she can do all but weakly where she wants Divine assistance The Mind is a white paper wherefore methinks that comparison of Aristotle is not absurd who makes the mind of Man like a clean table whereon are no pictures drawn but yet is fit to receive any whatsoever be they Monsters of Vices or Images of Vertue To this belongs that comparison of St. Paul 2 Tim. 2. A Simile from large Houses As in great Houses there are vessels not onely of gold and silver but of wood and earth whereof some are for honourable others for inferiour uses So God hath sent many differences of bodies and souls of men upon this Stage of the world and hath provided them with diversity of persons and ornaments yet not without hope of attaining a more excellent gift For care and endeavours are taken from no man whereby they may contend after that which is best and attain felicity but God helps those that strive and drives them on when they faint in their industry Let no man accuse God So he that is wicked by his own wickednesse may purge himself and become a vessel of honour fit for the Masters use For the great anâ— good God hath assigned to every one a particular habit of body and a soul agreeing to his Nature which yet are subject to be altered many ways For sometimes a man falls off and degenerates from his Integrity and excellency whether you consider his Soul or his body and forgetting his originall he wallowes in the mud of vices But sometimes being secretly prompted by God he breaks out from the sins he was entangled with and endeavours to do that which is good and honest in the sight of God and Men. We may see examples hereof in Saul and the prodigal Child Luk. â—5 Every man therefore hath his own mind and his own soul but by Gods donation they have several gifts and endowments and the Divine Spirit doth not equally fill every mind All receive of his plentiful fountain but some more What is meant by the distributing of the pounds and talents Matth. 25. some lesse as we may understand by the distributing of the
minds and there is nothing more to be desired in the troublesome Ocean of this life To which that of Paul may be applyed than whom there was no man better skil'd in this School Every Scripture is inspired by God 2 Tim. 3. and is profitable for learning reproof correction Institution that will make a man perfect that the man of God may be compleat and fitted for all works of Piety CHAP. XIV Of the immortality of the Soul and certainty of the Resurrection Also how that may be done Lastly how much our minds are raysed toward God from so great a benefit and what great confidence we may have when we die that we shall be saved What the meditating of another life can do THere is nothing that can bring more profit to a Man in misery and subject to many diseases in this mortal life or give him more comfort against the fear of death than to contemplate of the felicity of a better life and to be certainly perswaded we shall enjoy it Which consists in the immortality of the Soul In what consists mans safety and resurrection of the body which is the sure ground and foundation of all our faith for all our labours and endeavours are in vain and all the course of our life Religion Devotion is idle and next to deceit if we should want so great a blessing as this and lose the hopes of a better life Some stupid people wonder at this The condition of Man is divers from the condition of beasts who think that men and beasts have but one breath and that the Soul dieth with the body and when man is dead all is ended But these men are blind in the very works of nature and know not Gods power by the â—hings he hath created hence it is that their minds cannot conceive how the Soul can be eternal and never die and that the body shall rise again and be restored to its integrity But God that would have man immortal Genes 1. created him after his own Image Man is Gods Image And if man be made after Gods Image and likenesse he must needs be of the same nature with his Maker and participate of eternity Other creatures have not obtained so great an honour from God â—rutes want reason and no prints of the divine nature appear in them they have no Mind Reason Memory Understanding Judgment Arts Sciences or cunning in the knowledg of things which God hath bestowed on Man abundantly Wherefore it is a wicked thing to say that is mortal and perishing that came forth of Gods substance and which the Divine mind breathed into Man As therefore God is eternal and free from decay so the soul of Man as partaking of the divine essence Mans soul partakes of the divine nature is eternal and free from all corruption But since God created all things for mans sake God created onely Man for himself and like unto him and therefore God loved man wonderfully from the beginning of the world and delighted to hold familiarity and to keep company with man so that for man's sake he was pleased to be united to the humane nature and the immortal God was inseparably joyn'd to mortall Man and thereby the Divine Nature is fast with the humane Nature God is wonderfully delighted with Man and the humane Nature with the Divine The truth of this is confirmed unto us by Christ who is the Wisdome of the Father Prover 3. who procured this blessing for us I was with God in the begining before any thing was made I was with him from eternity Gods love toward Man when he made the Heavens I was there when he compassed in the depths by a Law I was present when he fastned the Heavens above and the earth beneath I was with him ordering all things and was continually delighting before him recreating my self in the earth and my delight was with the sons of men Which Love and good will of God towards Man as St. Paul calls it 1 Tim. 3. hath effected so much that all things are communicated unto us by Christ that our condition is like to his and we are co-heirs with him whence it is that what is expressed in Christ Heb. 3. shall be expressed in Man He is eternal and subsists eternally and man by him obtains the same He first rose and conquer'd death he being the Author Prince and first fruits of so great a Triumph by the vertue of him all the rest are to be raised Wherefore let no man be so unjust to himself or so ungrateful to the giver of so great a gift that he should envy or cast off from himself the honour of this Name For who is so stupid that he would not desire to keep himself from destruction Let no man deny immortality of the Soul and desire to live alwayes rather than to sleep eternally and without hopes of ever coming forth to lye hid in eternal death I know some think this perswasion of the immortality of the Soul to be a very plausible doctrine but they wholly deny that the body shall ever be raised again or have any part in this happinesse But these men do not exactly seek into the Nature of Man Many grant the Souls immortality but few grant a resurrection and the reason of the making of the World nor do â—â—ey look upon him who is the Author of this gift unto Man and by whose vertue he hath obtain'd the benefits of life For since Soul and Body joyn'd together make a man it must needs be that the whole Man that is the Soul should have immortality and the Body should rise again to participate of the same felicity For the reason of framing Man will never suffer that one part shall enjoy the end it is design'd for without the other or that half a man or one part should be immortal and blessed wherefore it is necessary and the reason tâ—at man was made confirms it that the body should rise again at length and should be united again to the Soul to parâ—ake in the same condition with it For when God went about to make Man A strong Argument of the Resurrection Let us make saith he Man after our own Image In which words he did not mention one part onely but the whole Man Soul and Body for both these joyn'd together make a man for when these are divided a man dyes and is call'd a man no longer Wherefore Reason evinceth that both parts shall have the same end either blessednesse if they live well or misery if ill Nor were it reasonable that the body should fail of this hope of happinesse The Body is in danger for the Soul that partakes in the miseries of this life For sometimes for Conscience sake the body is scourg'd and tortur'd is griev'd and hazards its life so that at those faculties of the Soul that are common to man with beasts
it first it most be harrowed then it grows warm and by the vapours and fostering of the ground it grows up into a green blade which being fed by the fibres of the roots grows up by degrees and lifting up a knotted stalk begins to be shut up in the cods as growing nearer to be ripe and when it comes forth of them it sends forth corn in full ears which is defended from small birds with a fence of ears I passe over the force of all things that grow out of the earth for from a little kernel of a Fig Plants renewing shew a resurrection from a Grapestone and from the smallest seeds of other plants we see huge Trees and boughs and roots to grow Do not sprigs plants roots branches sciences buds do that which will make the Resurrection of mans body seem to be no absurdity Chrysostome after Tully doth wonderfully enlarge upon this admirable force of Nature and highly commends the Earth 1 Thes 4. Hom. 7. that is the Mother of all things The earth next after God the Parent of things For the life of all things is from the moysture of the Earth Herbs Trees all sorts of flowers admirable in their kinds for smell and sight proceed onely and are nourished by the fruitfulnesse of the ground Thick Ayre turns to water which falling upon the Earth from above waters the earth the Suns hear again rarifies it and turns it to Ayre and there are many mutations of that kind that will make a man admire as much as the resurrâ—ction doth For example Natures work the Vine out of the moysture of the Earth brings forth not onely branches and tendrels that are of sowre tast but also sweet juice and pleasant Grapes The Date tree is a rugged barky tree and produces sweet dates full of juyce and liquor like Wine An example from the structure of Man Also the seed from whence a man is made how comes it to produce and frame ears arms hands heart lungs nervs arteries flesh bones grisles membranes what man can understand this there are so many differences and varieties in mans body or qualities humours forces vertues functions all proceeding from the seed onely Do you not think it strange how a soft and moist humour should congeal to be a hard cold bone how meats should be changed into fresh red bloud and the food should turn into veins arteries nerves muscles ligaments tendons Since therefore nature daily doth so many things that the mind of man cannot comprehend who can deny but that the God of nature can do as much in raising dead bodies Nature Gods Instrument as nature that is but Gods instrument doth daily in fostering and preparing of the seed that is corruptible You may see the corn when it is moistned grow up again into a seemly plant and to bring forth thick leaves Examples of the Reâ—urrection out of Ciprian and will you not believe that a man buried in the earth may rise again and return to his former lustre Therefore Cyprian who is said to have made the Creed by Pauls example illustrates our Creed by the nature of seed For saith he if any man mingle divers kinds of seeds together and sows them unparted or casts them every where into the earth will not every seed after its kind spring up again in its proper season and have a stalk proper to its own form and kind So the substance of flesh though it be diversly scattered here and there when God pleaseth shall revive again in the same shape it was when it died and so it comes to passe that not any confused or strange body shall be restored to the several souls but to every soul the same body it had before that by consequent according as they lead their lives here a good body may be crowned or an ill body be tormented with its own soul Wherefore I think that Paul could not better set forth the type of the resurrection than by the similitude of seed sown in furrows of the earth A Simile from Seed sown For what it is in nature to hide seed in the earth the same it is in the resurrection to bury a dead body and what it is for seed to grow again and become a plant is same with mans rising again A body subject to corruption is committed to the ground but that shall revive all feeblenesse of nature being taken from it That is buried in the earth which was subject to many Infirmities calamities diseases it shall rise again lively An Example from a body wasted quick free from all infirmities and weaknesses An example will make it clearer A sick man that is spent with a strong disease grows pale and looks wan sad swart ill favour'd earthly and his whole body grows so lean and consumed that his lively juice being spent you cannot know him But this man by good Physick and wholesome diet recovers and grows fat and well liking and his skin grows so fine that you would think he were painted So in the resurrection the same body comes up again but more glorious and there will appear in it no marks of the old corruption An example of this was first begun in Christ who by nothing did more effectually declare his Divinity than by his triumphant Resurrection That example of his must be shew'd forth in all by his vertue who as Paul saith shall change our vile bodies and make them like his glorious body according to his power whereby he can subject all things unto himself Phil. 2. 1 Thess 4. Wherefore the Apostle would not have us to be tormented with fear of death or to grieve over-much for it For they that sleep in Christ shall be raised by the Word of God and shall live everlastingly with him Which our Saviour foretold that it should so come to passe John 5. The hour shall come that all that are in their graves shall hear his voyce and they that have done well shall come forth to the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation By which words he comforts dejected minds Distrust and confidence what they can do that they should not faint under dangers but to wicked and unpenitent men they strike terrour and amazement who would never make an end of sinning unlesse they consider'd that after this life the rewards of sin and godlinesse shall be paid unto men Chap. 14. 19. Wherefore Job in his worst condition when nothing was wanting to make him miserable comforts himself with this certain hope I know that my Redeemer liveth and I shall rise out of the Earth in the last day and I shall see God my Saviour in my flesh whom I shall behold my self and not another for me This hope is laid up in my brest that is no man shall take from me this confidence and assurance Since therefore all hopes of obtaining salvation The
no man living shall be justified If thou Lord shouldst observe what is done amisse who might abide it but with thee there is mercy and plenteous redemption Despair must be cast away CHAP. XV. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceeed ALl those that are like men and according to the order of being born received from our first Parents by that way and means proceed from both Sexes though they are monstrous in shape and deformed in body Deformity unmans no man have notwithstanding a reasonable soul and when they have run the race of this short life they shall be made at last partakers of the Resurrection But those that are not from man but by mixing with other Creatures and exercise their Actions otherwise than men do shall neither be immortal nor rise again So the wood-gods Satyrs houshold gods Centaurs Fairies Tritons Sirens Harpies and if fabulous antiquity hath invented any other things of this nature they have neither rational souls nor enjoy the benefit of the Resurrection There are indeed amongst so many millions of men many that are deformed in body and are of an horrid aspect with hogs snowt and uncomely Jaws yet all these though they are far from the natural shape of Man are referred to the number of men For they speak discourse judge remember and perform other offices of the Soul and perfect their actions after the manner of men though they somewhat degenerate from mans dignity and his imbred force of Nature Whence monstrous shapes proceed Now a Monstrous habit of body is contracted divers wayes For fear frights influence of the Stars too much or too little seed Imagination of women with child and divers phantasms which the mind conceives deform the body and cause Children to be of a shape not proper to the Sex Sometimes the whole course of Nature is changed either when the seeds are vitiated or the Instruments be unfit so that the natural faculties to propagate and form the Child cannot perform their offices exactly A Simile from the Industry of an Artificer For as the most Industrious Artist cannot bring to perfection a work happily begun where the matter is naught or the Instruments are dull so Nature wanting the forces of her faculties or not having a fit matter doth all things ill and fails of her end Some there are that by their operation do make some parts of the body otherwise than Nature made them So in Asia as Hippocrates testifies Of Ayr and places there were great heads that the Nurses made their heads to be long figured for that they thought was a sign of a noble and generous spirit as a Hawk nose was amongst the Persians whereby at length it came to passe that though the Midwives ceased to presse the childrens heads yet nature whilest she was forming the child agreed with the ancient custome and what they did by great Industry Nature did of her own accord Also nutriments and the qualities of the outward Ayr make some parts deformed So they that dwell in cold moyst Countries have great heads great bellies fat bodies Countries change the conditions of Soul and Body babber lips swoln cheeks Many Countries produce Pigmies and little men very short Other Countreys produce people with great throats and scrophulous tumours with flat noses crooked legs Yet though many things be wanting in these people and the parts be either ill framed or wrested amisse yet because they are born of women and some force of reason shines in them and they are led by the same Laws of Nature Orthodox Divines say There is a rational soul in them and that they shall rise again The Resurrection will restore bodies deformed to their right shape And by rising again they shall lay aside all deformities of their bodies that were ill favoured to behold and be well formed like as men are and all lame crooked imperfect limbs shall be made perfect And though in some the force of reason shines lesse because of the unaptnesse of the organ as in children old men drunkards mad-men in whom the force of the Soul is hindred or oppressed Yet every one of them hath a reasonable soul and what is defective shall be made up at the resurrection But imperfect and abortive births and all mischances where the limbs are not fashion'd or very imperfectly because these want the reasonable soul they cannot be call'd men nor shall they rise again Difference between abortion and a mischance Physitians make a difference between abortion and a mischance For a running forth of a mischance is when the seeds were for some dayes joyn'd in the womb but by the slipperinesse and smoothnesse of it they run forth again before they come to make a perfect shape so that a rude unframed mass runs out that was the rudiments of a Child that should have been and a shadow of what was begun but it was cast out untimely as seeds and buds from trees that bear not fruit to maturity But Abortion oft-times shews the parts of the Infant perfectly made up which when it is 42 dayes old is endowed with a rational Soul and is alive Whence if it chance to be cast forth by some sudden accident it shall one day rise again For though many things be wanting in it and it is not come to its full magnitude yet in the Resurrection all shall be made up that time would have produced A Simile from children increasing And as children have many things in possibility that with progresse of time and increase of years do shew themselves as teeth nails hair and full stature of body which by faculty of the seed increases by degrees and come to perfection so in the Resurrection all things wanting in the body and parts that are imperfect shall be made perfect Whosoever therefore is born of the seed of man and not from some foul matter or vitious humours concurring though he be of a monstrous body and ill favoured shape yet shall he rise again from death to life all faults being repaired by vertue of the Resurrection and framed decently for that Omnipotent Work-master of all things Makes nothing weak Prudentius who doth the body raise For were there fault it were not for his praise What is by chance or sicknesse or by care Or otherwise decay'd he will repair Nothing is impossible to God For that is easie for him who made all things of nothing For as Augustine saith It is more easie to create men than to raise them when they are dead It is more to give that a being that never was than to repair what was before And the earthly matter never is perished in respect of God who can easily restore to its former nature what is vanished into the Ayr and other Elements or what leannesse or hunger hath consumed or
a sure Anchor and let him continually think of that the Prophet David speaks I beheld the Lord allwaies before me because he is at my right hand that I should not be moved In which words he shews that he hath his eyes allwaies fixed upon God and that he depends wholly upon him that he subsists onely by him in doubtfull and dangerous matters that he did not waver or was carryed about with every wind of doctrine but was constant and stable and was not moved from the firm confidence in God for this reason onely that he finds God gracious unto him Ephes 4. Heb. 13. Psalm 27. and present with him in all things So that he confidently breaks forth into these words Behold the Lord is my helper in him have I trusted and I am helped and my flesh hath rejoyced in him I will confesse unto him from my whole heart CHAP. LVII Concerning the amplitude Majesty and power of the name Iesus by which onely we may resist Magical Charms and all deceits of the Divels are to be conquered and all mischiefs or dangers that may happen to the Soul or body I Said before that Inchantments and Magical Arts were to be rooted out and that no man ought to exercise what may do mischief It remains to shew by the way by what force and efficacy by what words and prayers the minds of men possessed and afflicted may be relieved The Devils are enemies to men and such as are entangled by the snares of the divels also by what means witchcrafts may be removed which are brought upon miserable men by the wicked Instruments of the divels whereby their bodies and Souls are tortured These insinuate themselves closely into mens bodies and offer violence to mans nature and spoil it of its faculties or at least make a change in them The evil spirits mingle themselves with our food humours spirits with the ayre and breath The Devils mingle with the humours as contagious diseases do with our bodies that we draw in and breathe out and they pollute many other things that serve for our use and whereby our health is preserved Wheefore I think I shall do something worth my pains if I can shew by what means miserable people may be happily freed from those chains wherewith they find themselves entangled and hindred For the inconveniences and hurts they sustain cannot be referred to any natural causes nor be cured by the same remedies that common diseases are If any disease proceed from Gluttony Venery wearinesse cold heat satiety hunger each of these is cured by its proper remedies The mischiefs the devils bring upon us cannot be referred unto natural causes God useth the malice of the devils to correct sins Why God sussers us to be tortured by the devil 3 Kings 32. Ahab deceived But such diseases as the divells bring upon us do not in any sort require natural remedies but such as are divine and supercelestial Some wonder that so great power is given to the divell and his instruments to vex and torment men But God doth partly wink at those hurts witches bring upon sinfull men and he suffers them to be afflicted and in so doing he hath a sufficient reason of his own counsell and providence and he partly instigates the Divells and their instruments to rage against many that have deserved to be so punished and he useth to another end their malice to chastise wicked men So a lying spirit was sent into the mouths of all the Prophets whereby the King Ahab being deceived might go to the battel wherein present destruction was made ready for him Sometimes God suffers some to be hurt to try their patience So he suffered Iob not onely to lose all his goods and to be spoiled of all his estate but to be tormented in his body also And this God suffered to be done partly to try the constancy of the man and that he might stir up other mortal men to endure evills Why Job was tormented by the Devil least when trouble comes upon them they should revolt from God and partly to declare his power whereby he comforts and stayes those that trust in him and raiseth such as are quite down restoring them to their former dignities But the reason is different in those vulgar operations of such as are possessed by the Devil or are tortured by him in any part of their bodies For a great part of those people are stupid and know not God upon whom as fit instruments and ready for him he exerciseth his tyranny â—he Divel sets â—pon stupid people So Satan assaults idle people Idolaters Superstitious in whose minds he rather lodges than in those that know God and are supported by trust in him for he is rather afraid of these and is fearfull to plant any engines against them because he knows that all his endeavours and attempts against such who stand upon their guards and trust in God are too weak and shall be frustrate and come to nothing A simile from a City not well-fenced For as Forts and Towns that have no walls ditches or Trenches to defend them nor guards of Souldiers to keep them are easily surprised so dull and sluggish minds that have no saving nor heavenly doctrine to support them and are strengthned by no trust in God are more exposed to the wiles of the divell The Devil provokes a man to all mischief and soonest yeild to him But since Satans chiefest end is to abolish the glory of God and to draw men from Salvation and to sollicite them to revolt he doth not cease to assault him both within and without and sometimes he troubles the body Sometimes the Soul and sometimes both to work their destruction Judas Iscariot besides Cain and King Saul affords us an example Gen. 4. 1 Kings 31. who when the Divel had driven his mind to desperation and distrust he caused him to hang himself being weary of his life Math. 27. and he made his body reproachfull by being hanged And though Satan the greatest enemy of mankind hath a thousand wayes and Arts to mischief The Devil is driven off by trust in God yet by one effectual means that is ready at hand is he chiefly driven away conquered namely by solid faith certain confidence in God the Father by Christ Met een vaest gheloove Saint Peter instructs us against the Devil ende een goedt betrowen op Godt Also the Apostle Peter shews that by this means we ought to fight against the snares of that Tyrant against his frauds impostures deceits subtilties rage cruelty namely by sobriety and vigilancy garded and defended by Faith 2 Pet. 5. For so he warns such as are secure Be sober and watchfull because your adversary the Devill goes about like to a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour whom resist constantly in the faith 1 John 5. For this saith Saint John is the victory which conquers the
by an inset faculty propagates and maintains it self there is nothing in so great an Universe that is barren or idle nothing was made rashly or by chance or in vain Every Plant hath its imbred vertue there is given to every living creature it s own disposition and natural inclination In a word whatsoever is contain'd within the compasse of the world and of the Heavens is indued with an imbred force for its peculiar operations and all things are disposed in their places and times and by an admirable viciscitude they all perform their offices and courses Wherefore when God the Efficient and Moderator of so great a gift had view'd all things that he had made in six dayes they seemed to him exceeding good That is Gen. 1. so wrought as art could require as the order and series of things could demand that all things might serve for use and tend to that end they were ordained Whereof Aristotle seems to speak wisely in these very words De part Ani. l. 1. c. 5. There is nothing in Nature so small or contemptible that may not make men in some things to wonder at it And what men report that Hieraclitus Tarentinus said when he turned aside into a Bakers house Enter here are the Gods also the same must we suppose of Natures works For in the smallest works of Nature the Diety shines forth and all things are good and beautifull For this is an adjunct to the works of Nature that nothing is done rashly or by chance but for a certain end And as when we talk of Houses magnificently built we speak not of the Lime or of Bricks or Wood and the other materials but of the form and shape and structure of the Edifices and for what purpose they were built An Example from Buildings so he that searcheth into the works of Nature he discourseth not of the matter but of the form and of the whole substance and finally the use and profit So the body was made for the Soul but the limbs for the offices they are to perform conveniently and to fulfill their functions For what use End Man was Created But Man was brought upon the stage of this world for Gods cause who ought to take pleasure in him and acknowledge his bounty may repose himself in God trust in him and rest upon him In therefore so great multitude and variety of Things existing we must not onely admire the force of Nature and Efficience but his Majesty and Immensity from whom all things are produced and do proceed and by whose bounty the works of Nature subsist and are kept from corruption Which consideration doth somewhat raise our minds otherwise too much fastned to the ground and brings us to know and acknowledge God Natures force must be referred to God Rom. 1. Tusc 1. For though God be invisible yet by the things created as St. Paul testifieth and from the world so wonderfully created and so wisely governed he may be both perceived and understood And as Cicero saith By the memory of things subtilty of Invention and quicknesse of motion and by the exceeding beauty of Vertue we know the force of the Mind though we cannot see it with our eyes so we perceive God and that eternal Mind clearly by the works he hath made How God is known to Man and effectually do we apprehend his force and influence for his vertue is diffused through all things Act. 17. and gives heat spirit and life to all things St. Paul preached learnedly at Athens of this matter from the sentences of Aratus which Lucan expressed elegantly lib. 9. We all are held in God and though no noise Be heard we do his will he needs no voice God is in Sea and Land and Ayr and Sky What would we more all is the Diety What ere we see or where so ere we go We must see God whether we will or no. Who then would not love him whose forces he manifestly perceives with whose benefits he is abundantly replenished If we do most justly honour and admire Emperours and Princes and we esteem them highly and present them with great presents A similitude from the works of Emperours because they do govern those Kingdomes they got without blood in great equity because they have Magistrates unblameable who in executing their offices and publike charges take great care and pains whereby they may hold all men in their duties and all things may be kept peaceably and the Commonwealth not rent by any Civil broils or seditions how much more ought we to admire and adore God who without any care or businesse or pains Governs so vast and large an Empire of the World by his will Of the world To this belongs that of Apuleius a man that was far from our Religion but he drew it from the Hebrew Fountains A Simile from many offices That which the Pilot and Steer-man is in a Galley a Coach-man in his Coach the Choragus in acting Comedies the Precentor in Dances the master of Games at all Games a Consul amongst Citizens a Captain in an Army a Companion in undertaking or repelling dangers that is God in the world but that it seems to be a toilsome thing and full of innumerable cares to be the chief in any office but the care of his Empire is neither troublesome nor burdensome unto God All Natur 's works must be referred to God Yet I would not have Physitians my adversaries or that Philosophers should be offended that in asserting the dignity of Nature I refer her to the Fountain and her first original for by this means all things are reduced to their first being and to the Archetype of all Nature And though the word Nature be of large extent and every man at his pleasure may invent secundary definitions yet they are all reduced to one So by the Physitians Nature is the imbred and inset quality in things Nature is the mixture and temper of the four Elements Nature is the force and propension of every ones mind Nature with Philosophers is the beginning of motion and rest Nature is that which gives the form to every thing with its specificall difference The proper definition of Nature Nature is the force and efficient cause and the conserving imbred cause of the whole World and the parts thereof Nature to speak more neerly is the order and serious of Gods works which obeys his power his words and commands and borrows forces from him The principall cause and original of all these descriptions and as many as learned men may invent proceeds from that eternall mind as from a most plentifull Fountain It behoves all men to know this and much concerns them to observe and to fasten it well in their minds that so the chief Work-master may be better known to us all and his majesty and immensity may be seen by us For the sight of things and contemplation of nature will draw brutish
tame as all kinds hens and birds fed up at house Psal 8. Heb. 1. But Man to whom all these things are made subject hath obtain'd something far beyond them for beside his gift of speaking he hath reason a Mind and soul partaking of a heavenly and a divine nature For the mind of Man was taken out of the divine Mind and can be compared to nothing but God nor referred to any natural being Wherefore Man must strive to come as near to his Maker as he can and to make himself like unto him For since God hath exposed all other living Creatures to feed and eat downward he hath made Man onely with his Countenance upwards from the ground to behold the Heavens the house of his habitation both with his Mind and Eye whereof we shall treat more at large in the following Chapter CHAP. II. Man's Worth and Excellency Man Gods chief workmanship WHen as our most great and good God is to be highly admired in the things created that are obvious unto us in every place and are beheld both with our minds and eyes yet chiefly his Wisdome appears in Man For nothing in the world though it be comely and excellently made can be compared with the Excellency of Man so that from Man God would have the valuation of his own Excellence to be made and that mortals should thus have a character of his Divinity That is he would have us all brought to know and adore him the great Work-master by the contemplation of Mens own Minds and knowledge of themselves For nothing more clearly represents God than the mind of Man Whereby man was made like unto Gods Image and similitude Mans mind is the Image of God For Man is the most expresse representation of God wherefore by reason of his outward and inward beauty and vaste Endowments he well deserved to be called A little World because that God the most bountiful Father and Maker of all things did abundantly pour forth into Man all their vertues for for his sake all things were brought to light and all things obey his use and are set forth for that end Psal 8. The Kingly Psalmist confesseth the same and uttering arguments of a grateful mind Thou hast made him saith he but little lower than the Angels and as it were a God thou hast clothed him with glory and honour and hast set him over the works of thy hands He obtained this prerogative even from the beginning of the world Man is Ruler of the world so that all things when they flourish and are in being do dutifully obey and serve mans use So Genesis the first God confirmed the Principality and chief Government of all the rest unto Man Be fruitfull and increase fill the earth and subdue it and rule over all Fishes in the waters Birds in the Ayr and all beasts that move upon the face of the Earth But of that divine mind in man whereby he comes next unto God and of the internal gifts of his Mind Reason and Understanding whereby he excells Beasts other Writers have spoken at large and because it belongs not to this place I shall leave off to speak more of it The comelinesse of Mans body But I will mention a few things concerning his body and what are of kin to that and depend of it For the excellent and beautifull form thereof is very fit and agreeable to the manners of his mind The fashion of his body is tall and lifted up towards Heaven his countenance is high and looks upward the symmetry of all the parts and of the whole or the exact proportion of it is much spread abroad by Heathens and such as are far from our Religion So that I cannot but wonder at the negligence of our Men who either seek nothing at all or else they do coldly and carelesly seek into themselves and the works of Nature David the onely admirer of Nature whereas David a Magnificent King contemplating more closely and carefully the nature of man began to be elevated and to burn with the Love and admiration of so great a Work-master For thus he writes his praises with such and such like Testimonials I will praise thee Psal 138. O Lord because I am wonderfully made thy works are wonderfull my soul searcheth and knoweth it right well thou knewest all my bones when I was fashioned in the secret place and when I was wonderfully formed in my Mothers womb Thy eyes beheld me being yet unmade David's Exclamation upon his admiring of God and in thy bock were all my members written which day by day were fashioned Thy knowledge is wonderfull unto me whereby I was made I cannot understand it For when saith he I throughly search out my self and when I diligently consider the structure of my body the excellency of my Soul and the force of my Mind and I cannot by Reason and Judgment attain thereunto I both adore thy Majesty and embrace thy bounty Now let us a little set that most comely form aside and the other parts of the Body visible and we will consider of the scituation of the internal Bowels the powers of the natural faculties the nerves arising originally from the brain the arterial pipes from the heart and the propagation of the veins from the Liver also the faculties and powers of the Soul whereby she doth produce and perfect her functions Three spirits in Man To these may be added that etherial spirit that is the seat or naturall heat and the vehiculum thereof which is divided into 3. divisions and is distinguished by so many places as the animal to the Brain the vital to the Heart and the natural to the Liver This being that it nourisheth and quickens the body by its naturall heat and moysture that are both instead of fuel and affords forces to perform Action What things uphold the Spirits therefore these three parts are carefully to be refreshed and restored with sleep wine nourishments exercise Yet these must be used moderately for if they be immoderate or unseasonable they may put a man from his right Mind and bring him to many ill diseases and affects Mans Mind is full of fiery vigour Aenead 6. and His first beginning was not from the Land But Heavenly yet if his body be Faulty and earthly grosse dead limbs not free From sad diseases fears and pains and grief Distempers and great cares do rule in chief Then is this fiery spirit shut within The dark prison of 's body The Tyranny of the Passions Wherein the Poet comprehends the four Passions of the mind which rising from Intemperance do trouble the mind of man and make it by many wayes wonderfully unquiet Lastly let us direct our eyes to those things that give the species to all these that is let us examine the workmanship of forming and figuring the Child which is such a one and so great that every one though he be stranger
of the Husbandman so the Infant receives all things more plentifully from the Mother For first the seed of them both is foster'd and heaped together in the womb then it growes up with the Mothers blood and increaseth by degrees secretly Hence it is that by sympathy Children love their Mothers most Why Children love their Mothers best for it proceeds from heaâ—nesse of Nature and because the Mothers forces were most employed about them Also Mothers are full of love to their Câ—ildren and more indulgent to their young ones than the Farâ—ers be who are oft-times more rigid I think the Evangelist meant so Math. 2. when he brings in Rachel lamenting for her Children who was so wounded in her mind with grief for being deprived of them Jer. 32. that she would by no means be comforted For there is nothing â—yâ— the opinion of Esaias more repugnant to Natures Laws than for a woman to forget her child Ch. 49. and to be cruel against the fruit of her womb laying aside natural affection We see that Fathers have their natural propension to their Children also but it is laâ—er before it appears For Fathers love them best when they are grown up and then they take most care for them when they begin to see some hopes of them But Mothers take more care of them in their Iâ—fancy and because that age stands in need of other's help most they are then the most loving and careful over them and not so curst as the Fathers be Math. 23. Stoâ—ks love their dâ—ms For this cause the Scriptures do so oft inviâ—er us to gratitude which by the example of Storks children do lowe to their Patents and we are commanded to requite them The like love we see in a Hen which loves the chickens A Hens siting she hate bed more dearly and though the Cock was the cause that the Eggs breed chickens yet he takes no care for them when they are hatched But that both yield seed we may prove in hen-eggs A Hen lays egs without a Cock. for a Hen will lay eggs without the Cock but if she sit on them they will sooner corrupt than hatch but the eggs the Hen laid when a Cock â—od her will after 19 dayes be hatched put under a Hen so that the Chickens will peep before the shell break This tedious Câ—ild-bearing time of the Mother in which for 9. moneths she feeds the Child with her purest blood and then her love toward her Child newly born and the usual likenesse of the Child to the Mother do clearly prove Women are not idle in making the child that women afford seed and that women do more toward making the Child than men do who onely injecting their seed are gone and neither further the woman nor help the child any more Yet in so many moneths the woman must do much to frame the child and nourish it Aeneid 6. For it cannot be that it should grow up from that congealed lump but by a wonderfull way CHAP. VII Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child God the chief cause of fruitfulnesse THough all things are justly ascribed to God that made all yet many things go in order by Natures rules and are carried by their imbred motion God being the Author of all these things he useth to alter many of them and to change the order of things and to bring forth some things in other forms and orders contrary to Natures Lawes For example a woman desiring a Man-child prayes unto God earnestly for it and God hears her prayers For example Sarah being past children Gen. 27. and her courses long since stayd yet she conceived Isaac by Abraham that was a very old man in which child God would have to be placed all hopes of his posterity and that hence all Nations should take the beginning of their happinesse Also Aâ—na being much afflicted with her long barrennesse 1 Reg. 1. by earnest and constant prayer she obtained Samuel from God Also Elisha's officious Landlady 4 Kings 4. by the prayers of the Prophet had a Child given her from God and afterwards he raised this Child that was dead to life again Luc. 1. So Zacharias being old by Gods dispensation had a Child by Elizabeth that was stricken in years and uncurably barren which was John the fore-runner of Christ So many others have pray'd to God for a Child to be their Heir in their Estates and God hath granted them their request None can doubt but this is Gods work and these things have a peculiar effect from the divine Will But we shall speak of things that proceed from natural causes and that nature useth to work by her imbred force For she prepares a body fit for the Souls condition and gives every thing its temper But since there are two principles out of which the body of man is made and which make the Child like the progenitors The force of seed and to be of this or that Sex Seed common to both sexes and Menstrual blood proper to the woman The similitude consists in the force of the male or female feed so that it proves like to the one or the other as the seed is more plentifully afforded by one or the other The force of the menstruall blood which belongs onely to the woman For were that force in the seed since the mans seed is alwaies stronger and hotter than the womans children would be all boyes Wherefore the kind of the creature is attributed to the Temperament of the active qualities which consist in heat and cold and to the substance or nature of the matter under them that is to the flowing of the menstrual blood Now the seed affords both force to beget and form the child and matter for its generation also in the menstrual blood there is both matter and force For as the seed most helps to the material principle so doth the menstrual blood to the potential Seed is saith Galen L. 2. de sem blood well concocted by the vessels that contain it so that blood is not onely the matter of generating the child but it is also seed in possiâ—ility Now that menstrual blood hath both principles that is both matter and faculty of effecting any thing is confessed by all But seed is the strongest efficient the matter of it being very small in quantity but the menstrual blood is much in quantity Menstrual blood affords matter to feed the child but the potential or efficient faculty of it is very feeble Now if the material principle of generation according to which the sex is made were onely in the menstrual blood then should all children be girles as if all the efficient force were in the seed they would all be boys But since both have both principles and in menstrual blood matter predominates in quantity and
narrowly consider the excellency of its own mind For so it comes to passe that a man lifts up his mind towards God and comes to know him and despising all filthy vice bethinks himself Man is Gods Image that he hath fellowship with the Divine Nature And truly it is not idly to be passed over that man hath the breath of life from God and is made after Gods Image The dignity and prerogative of which gift let no man think to consist in the outward form of the body but in the internal part that is the rational Soul of man which since it is an heavenly spirit and incorporeal substance taken from the pattern of the divine mind this is it that makes a man excell other creatures because he is like God and partakes of the divine essence But because God made the body of Earth it is mortal and endures but for a time but the Soul that God breathed from himself is immortal and incorruptible For since Gods essence is eternal and the Soul of Man proceeded from it it must needs be eternal and immortal as its original is And though the forces of the soul are much weakned and do not so exactly represent the Makers Image yet it is not quite lost for the wound the Devil gave it is cured by our Saviours mercy and his munificence and vertue hath restored that which was fouly defaced by the fall of our first Parents God the restorer of decayed Nature If any man would make tryall of this Divine gift and see the Excellency thereof let him descend into himself and search diligently into his own mind he shall be sure to find there admirable gifts and excellent ornaments in abundance The Gifts and Ornaments of the Soul with which every ones mind is richly endowed as Reason Understanding Judgment true choice agility of Wit Memory and many more that absolutely prove the Soul to be more admirable than that we should think it to be corporeall or subject to corruption The force and excellency of the Mind This onely enliveneth and rules the body and instructs it with various actions exercising it with many offices Whence it is that from the multiplicity of Effects it hath divers appellations For as Augustine saith De Spir. et anim c. 35. when it enliveneth the body it is called the Soul when it gives it knowledge and Judgment the Mind when it recalls things past Memory whilest it discourseth and discerneth Reason whilest it contemplates the Spirit whilest it is in the sensitive parts Seat of the Mind All these are the offices of the Soul whereby it declares its power and performs its actions This is placed in the highest part of the body and next to Heaven pouring forth effectually its forces on the parts of the body It is not drown'd in the blood it comes not ex traduce from our Parents or from the seminal faculty but it is free from all grosse matter and all corporeal corruption and being new created by God The Mind and Soul are incorporeal is infused into the body newly made not borrowed and fetched from some other place as the Pythagorean Philosophers maintain in their absurd transmigration of Souls holding Transmigration of Souls is absurd that when one man dyes his soul goes into another body not onely of men but sometimes of beasts Ovid in his 15. Metamorphos hath thus rendred it Soules cannot dye when they their bodies leave Then other Bodies do the same receave All things are chang'd but nothing quite decayes Nature is flitting one state never stayes Souls wander here and there from Beasts to Men They come and then to beasts return again Hence these superstitious Philosophers forbad the eating of flesh thinking it abominable to taste the flesh of any creature lest one might cnance to eat his Grandfather in a calf Tertullian his witty Sarcasm as Tertullian very facetiously derides them Christians must reject such opinions for Orthodox Divines conclude for certain that the Soul is given to every Infant and infused into it when the Child is perfect in all parts of the body When the reasonable Soul comes into Man which happens about the 45. day commonly after conception especially for males that are like to come forth to see the light in 9. moneths But females that are of a weaker constitution receive not their Souls till about the 50 day And though this day cannot be certainly set down yet Hippocrates hath exactly reckoned it at what time the Child hath its perfect form when it begins to move and when it shall be born For in his Book of the Nature of the Infant If a Male saith he be perfect on the 30 day he will move on the 60 day and he will be born in the seventh moneth But if he be perfectly formed on the 35 day he will move on the 70 day and begin to come forth in the eighth moneth But if he be perfectly formed on the 45 day he moves the 90 day and is born in nine moneths Out of which passing of dayes and moneths it appears clearly that the day of forming being doubled makes up the day of moving and the day of moving 3. times reckoned makes up the time of being born For example where 35 perfects ' the form if you double that it will make 70 the day of motion and that 3. times taken makes 206 dayes or 7. moneths giving every moneth 30 dayes so you must consider of the rest But a Female is made perfect in longer time than a Male A female is perfect later than a male and the mother goes longer of a girle so that there is some difference in the accompt For a female formed on the 30 day moves not till the 70 day and is born in the seventh moneth When she is formed on the 40 day she moves on the 80 day and is born in the eighth moneth But if she be perfectly formed on the 45 day she moves on the 90 day and is born in the ninth moneth But she that is formed on the 50 day moves on the 100 day and is born in the tenth moneth I have spoke the more largely hereof whereby every man may understand that the reasonable soul is then infused when the child hath its perfect form and is exactly distinguished in his lineaments For the soul is not present in the first Moneth the child begins to be formed but the faculty of the Matrix and the force of the seed perform that work very cunningly and by degrees distinguish the parts and make the form perfect For the first six dayes the seed lies like an Egg The rudiments of Mans form and represents Creme or Milk and thin fibres woven like cobwebs are produced the nine dayes following the Navel veins and the Cups do administer blood and spirit from whence are framed the organicall parts and such as serve for nutrition as the Liver Heart Spleen Lungs brain which from
the first moment of Conception are perfected the eighteenth day then till the fourty fourth day the other parts are perfected and the child begins to live and feel though it move not being weak or it moves so weakly that the Mother cannot perceive it At this time the rational soul is thought to enter and to add force to the natural faculties and to perfect the whole work which Augustine proves by the testimony of Moses Quaest 32. Exod. 20. If anyone saith he strike a woman great with child and she miscarry if the child were formed he shall pay life for life but if the child were not alive he shall pay a sum of money for it Whereby he proves that the soul is not in the child nor can it be called Man unlesse all the members be perfected that it have the perfect form of a man Since therefore it is infused into the body made no man may think it comes in with the seed For if the rational immortal Soul were in the seed or should flie out with it many souls saith he would vanish with the daily running forth of the Seed Wherefore it is not fit to think that the Soul was propagated by Adam or any of our progenitours but that God doth every moment create and infuse them Which I think may be confirmed by this saying of our Saviour John 5. My Father worketh unto this time and I do work Whereby he implyes that the great and good God the Father and the Son also that is equal to him and of the same essence are still working in creating and saving the souls of men and are busied in producing them and of other Creatures souls also whereby they live and have their being To which belongs that of the Psalmist God saves both man and beast and feeds and fills them with his plenty Psalm 35. Davids words explained Who being peculiarly affected toward man he hath bestowed more rare gifts on his soul For man is in a more excellent condition by far than the beasts are For God hath given to man reason and a mind which other creatures have not and hath taught him to know his maked and hath breathed into him a divine soul which bounty Job confesseth He teacheth us more than the beasts of the Earth Job 35. he instructeth us above the Fouls of the Ayre whereby he shews that men excell other creatures and that God hath given man better parts in abundance But imperfect births and Monsters want these singular gifts of God For though some of them panâ— and seem to be alive yet they have not that from a rational soul but from the forming faculty and the generative spirit that are in the seed and bloud An Embrio in the first Moneth deserves not a Mans name for these for the first fourty dayes nourish the conception and enliven it and form it like a man Also the other creatures have a vitall spirit and other powers of the soul to live and perceive which they have from the faculty of the soul and the flowing of bloud and by these they grow in the belly and receive life For which that of Leviticus may be alleadged Levit. c. 17. For the life of every Creature is in the blood thereof For the life and spirit of every living creature is in the blood and fed by it as the Lamp is by the oyle Which force of the soul as Galen knew very well so he ingenuously confesseth that he is ignorant what is the substance of Mans soul and whence it comes But had he been learned in better Philosophy What the Soul is he would not have doubted to say that the soul is a spark of the divine mind and a blast of God that distinguisheth man from beasts and makes us immortal But that every man hath a particular soul as it is proved by many things so especially the vast difference between the manners wits judgments opinions and affections of men doth confirm this So Horace writes So many Men so many minds L. 2. Ser. Satyr 1. Pers Sat. 5. As shapes so thoughts are of all kinds Each Mans will 's his own Which I think proceeds onely from the divers conditions of their souls For God saith David Psalm 33.15 hath in particular fashioned the hearts and minds of all men and hath given to every one its proper being and a soul of its own nature Hence Solomon rejoyceth that God had given him a happy soul and a pure body agreeing with the manners of his soul Many of the Ancients question in what part of the body the soul hath its seat Philosophers say in the middle of the heart which the Wiseman seems to point at Keep thy heart with all diligence because life proceeds therefrom Prov. 4. But Physitians that have searched the works of nature more narrowly The house of the soul place the soul in the Brain from whence all the senses and faculties of the soul and the actions proceed Yet the force of it is diffused through all the parts of the body it fosters and enlivens all the parts with heat and gives them force But it doth give peculiar force to the heart the fountain of life Apoplectick-veins by the Arteries carotides or sleepy Arteries that pats upon the throat which being cut men grow barren or if they be stopt they become apoplectick for there must necessarily be some ways and passages of the veins and Arteries through which the humours and spirits animal and vital may passe to and fro receive native heat from the soul For as a Parlour though it be large grows hot with a good fire and a Dining room is warmed all over with a hot Stove A simile from a hot fire so the body receives effectually the forces of the soul spread all over and by the help thereof performs its operations For though the soul is said to reside in one place yet the force of it passeth far and near and is seen in every part of the body and exerciseth every member So the eyes ears nostrils tongue the joynts of hands and feet are the Souls Instruments that she useth The parts are the Soul's Instruments But if the Instruments and Organs that serve the Soul be unfit or out of tune or hindred they perform the operations of the Soul the more imperfectly As we see in fools old men children and mad-men in some of them the faculties of the Soul shew themselves after a long time and in others they are lost A Simile from fire rak't up For as fire under ashes doth not shine forth and the Sun under a thick cloud affords but little light so the Soul drown'd in moyst or faulty matter is darkned and reason is over-clouded by it The Soul in Children is imperfect by reason of the Organs And though reason shines lesse in Children than in grown people yet no man must think that the Soul is an
Infant and that it grows by degrees for then it should decrease again and grow old For the Soul hath its force and endowments from the first being of it for the substance of it can receive no losse but the unfitnesse of the Instrument and Organ makes the difference that it cannot so well perform all her functions and offices of which I purpose to speak more at large in the next Chapter whereby the faculties of the Soul and Body may appear more fully and that every one may know how they agree and are affected mutually with diseases CHAP. XII The Soul though it be incorporeal not made of matter or Elements yet is it subject to passions and perturbations and such affections as redound upon the Body SInce the Soul performs her functions by the body and carrieth that house about with her A Simile from a Snail and her shell as a Snail doth her shell it falls out most commonly that when the body is affected the Soul is affected also not with a primary passion as some believe but onely secondarily by reason of company for so great is the sympathy and affinity between them that some faults of the body fall upon the Mind and some of the Mind upon the body For being that the Soul useth the Organs of the body which are many wayes oft-times affected with ill humours or perverted it falls out that the Instruments being hurt or hindred the Soul cannot perform her actions as she should So the Body hurt doth ill affect the Mind Hor. serm l. 2. And presseth down the Soul as oft we find The wise Hebrew who saw that before Horace saith That the corruptible body presseth down the Soul Sap. 9. and overcomes the Mind that meditates on many things And though the substance of the Soul is thought to contract no stain or fault from the body yet as a thick cloud darkneth the Sun beams A Simile from the Suns light and as the eye by looking through a glasse of divers colours sees things otherwise than they are as red yellow green blue A Similitude from Spectacles of divers colours so intem perance of the body shadowes and darkens the light of reason and the Mind and causeth the actions of the Soul to be worse performed So mad and doting and drunken people think they see two objects when there is but one So melancholique people imagine strange things Humours that offend the Mind and invent dreams cholerick people are rash and strangely angry when the brain is oppressed with the smoke of hurtfull vapours And besides many small inconveniences formidable diseases do confirm what hurt comes to the Mind from the humours of the body as the Apoplex Lethargy Palsie Convulsions Madnesse Phrensie Epilepsie all which do so forcibly offend the forces of the Body and Soul that a Man is quite besides himself and his mind is altogether overwhelmed Also if the Mind be held with any hurtful matter and be given to hatred anger jealousie aemulation envy or detraction it brings the body to the same temper and poysons it with the like mischief To say nothing of the other Passions of the Mind whose weak cogitations trouble our rest and disturb our sleep For there is nothing saith Fabius so employed L. 1. c. 1. so various and unquiet and torn with so many cogitations as an ill mind so that it hath no leisure to take care of health or of any honest employments For neither sleep that is most pleasing to those that are weary nor speech that is a Physitian to a sick mind An ill mind unquiet nor meat nor drink that nourish the body are sweet unto it what quietnesse of mind can they have what content or constancy in their cogitations They that a guilty Mind torments within Juven Sat. 14. A secret whip of conscience lash for sin Do suffer more than all the Fiends of Hell Can do their witnesse in their breasts doth dwell To this may be referred that of Isaiah The heart of the wicked is as the foaming Sea whose waves cast up mire and dirt Chap. 17. for they have no rest there is no peace to the wicked saith the Lord. An ill Mind may be merry oft-times but is never secure The Countenance shewes the Mind Now these affections of the Mind are so violent and cruel that what the Mind feels appears outwardly by the countenance And as the clearnesse of the mind is seen in the eyes colour face and the whole habit of the body so a deadly mind full of vices breaks forth by the outward appearance which Isaiah sheweth Isaiah 3.9 explain'd The shew of their countenance doth witnesse against them that is their face and outward habit of their body doth argue them to be wicked and that they meditate nothing but deceits and mischiefs To which agrees that saying of Solomon The fools eyes wander every way Eccle. 8. Prov. 27. In the face of the wise wisdome shines for the countenance of a man is a certain sign of his mind and brings forth what lyeth secretly within So Catiline's pale face saith Tully filthy eyes sometimes quick sometimes slow gate did clearly bewray his wicked heart he had an impure mind hatefull to God and Man that could be quieted with nothing his conscience did so wound him with fear and restlesnesse There is never so small a fault of the Mind but will appear somewhat in the outward lineaments of the body For hatred anger fear sorrow love envy treason a desire to rob and steal will presently be seen in the face Diogenes his opinion of a pale young man Diogenes seeing a pale wan-faced young Man said he was either in love or was malicious For envious persons are vexed with the good successe of other men wax lean and their marrow and bones corrupt within them When he saw another that was pale with love Prov. 14. said He was dead in his own body Lovers are pale and living in anothers All which confirm that vices go and come from one part to another and that one partakes of the others hurt and that they mutually suffer one the others ill In prolog de virtu Christi But Cyprian excuseth the body and will have no fault laid upon that For he saith All vices in Man grow up in the Soul for that onely lives feels and moves The body is the souls instrument But the Soul as he maintains so useth the body as the Smith useth a Hammer or an Anvil wherein it forgeth all the Idols of obscenenesse and filthinesse and makes all Images of ill desires The body is driven by the soul to act For saith he the flesh dictates no sins nor invents any mischiefs nor doth it frame thoughts or dispose of what must be done but the body is the Soul's shop and what the Soul affects it performs by the body But where it is said that the flesh contends
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh he thinks it spoken figuratively because all that contention is of the Mind against it self striving with its own will For the Mind being drunk with the venom of its own desire applyes the body in acting such contumelies and so they joyntly sink down into deadly pleasures and fall asleep in them Gal. 5. Yet though Cyprian speak very wittily herein I think it fitter to believe St. Paul who faith that the weight of the body presseth down the soul and hinders the good endeavours of it For the spirit doth lust against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit they are his own words and these two are enemies so that a man cannot do what he would For the earthly mansion is a burden to the soul and stops the mind from doing what it intends A Simile from a restive horse And as a restive horse will not endure his rider and labours to throw him off so the body strives against the mind that spurs the body on to noble actions and hinders it and by an imbred wickednesse this slave is alwaies disobedient to its ruler and will not be drawn on by it Math. 21. Which Christ inculcates to the Apostles when they were drowsy saying The spirit is ready but the flesh is weak For the flesh is deaf when the spirit directs it and admonisheth it and is unwilling to hearken to it As a man going a Journey A Simile from a loaded Porter goes on merrily to the place he intends but if he be overloaded he goes on more heavily and against his will is longer on his way before he can come to his journeys end so the soul oppressed with the burden of the body goes on very heavily and with great difficulty attains the end it aims at Wherefore let no man think that the body is wholly idle but that the natural powers and faculties of the body and the humours in it either hurt or help the actions of the soul and that they yield mutual aid unto the other For in vain and undeservedly should the body partake of eternal pain or joy with the body if it were not in many things a companion and helper with it Let the body be the vessel and house of the soul let it be the receptacle shop organ or place for it to reside in yet it contracts some smack from it A Simile from a Cask that is tainted as good Wine from a fusty Cask But if all that belongs to Man and all his functions must be attributed to the soul it is necessary that it be subject to passions The Soul subject to passions and that the body should not be blamed at all or but very little Augustine strives by such Arguments to prove that the soul is not free from passions Whatsoever is affected with grief fear sorrow indignation desire of revenge is passible the soul when it cannot have what it desires is grieved c. Therefore the soul is subject to passions He seems to me to argue very wittily For if the soul bound to the body were free of all grief or passions it could feel no pain or torments in hell But that is not so Luk. 16. as the History of the rich glutton in the Gospel confirms who when he was in torments desired to have his burning tongue cooled with a drop of water to ease his torments Which is spoken figuratively and parabolically that no man may think that incorporeal substances have use of corporeal organs For the Scripture applies it self to mans capacity Gods parts in Scripture are figurative How parts are ascribed to GOD. with proper words fetched from the likenesse of things that are and so declares Gods love to those that are good and his revenge against the wicked By the like figure in speech the Bible sets forth gods anger zeal sorrow repentance the face eyes countenance hands arms of God for the weaknesse of mans mind could not any other waies apprehend the mighty force and power of God unlesse they were delivered to us in such a common expression Since therefore it is clear from Scripture that the fouls of men freed from their bodies and ordained for torments are tormented how can it be that being in the bodies and hindred by their union with them they should not suffer also For I am perswaded that souls as coming from heaven cannot be annihilated or feel corruption but that they are cruelly tormented and feel the pricks and wounds of a biting conscience which Christ sheweth as Esaias did their worn dieth not and their fire is not quenched Ch. 66. Mark 9. A Simile From rotten Wood. For as rottennesse and worms corrupt the hardest wood and as fire consumes all it meets with so the pricks of a guilty mind wound the soul and internal furies burn and torment it When the mind burns with covetousnesse is kindled with revenge is inflamed with anger consumes with envy burns in love is contracted with grief Rackings of the mind are worse than of the body I think there is no man but is ready to do or suffer any thing than to suffer such rackings in his very soul and to be so grievously tormented at the very heart The Tortures of the soul are far more intollerable then the pains of the body Which by a figure of Interrogation that he might strike deeper into the mind Persius thus set forth Did ere the Bull of Brasse so fiercely roar Or the Sword hanging down tormented more The heart of Damocles Wherefore the soul is afflicted an other way by feeling and touching than the body is when it is tormented by whipping and scourging whilst it is wounded or racked or burnt For the rational soul being a spirit incorporeal hath inward tortures griefs fears jealousies envies hatred indignation and rackings of conscience Which affections are more properly perturbations if they stay longer in the mind and cannot be discussed by reason nor by divine help they not onely afflict the mind most cruelly but the body also Wherefore they are both subject to one the others laws and bound mutually together Yet the soul hath this prerogative for her honour and dignity The soul doth many things without the body that she doth many things of her self but the body can do nothing without her direction Wherefore the soul doth two waies perfect her faculties some of them by organs some without them and with no help of the body So what actions are done by reason and understanding and judgment of the mind are the offices of the soul alone But manual actions cannot be done without the Ministry of the body For a man conceives in his mind the arts of Architecture plaistring painting and other arts usefull for man but he works them with his hands When the soul useth the help of the body and useth other organs of the body But when the soul is bent on the contemplation
of things when it remembreth things past and meditates of things to come and joyns things present with them when it discourseth and searcheth out hidden things when it is ravished and carried aloft as Paul was is made partaker of hidden mysteries 2 Cor. 12. it useth its imbred force received from God and needs no bodily help unlesse it would act something thereby For then the body assists the soul as a sure undivided partner and collegue and by the help thereof the soul doth her actions Thoughts of the mind weaken the body But if the thoughts be overlong and too intent upon any businesse it falls out that the body for want of the souls help faints and dies Which we may observe in them that over study themselves at unseasonable times are too much given to their books their body wasts by degrees and their vital forces decay Whosoever therefore thinks that the mind is moved with no passions but that the mind and soul are entire and is onely affected by reason of the object and the organ do not seem to me to speak what agrees with the truth Christs fear shews he was a Man For what is the meaning of that Agony and perplexity our Saviour endured when he conceived in his mind the horridnesse of the punishment he should undergo and the great ingratitude and forgetfulnesse of Man for his rich bounty by his humane frailty a while before his death he brake forth into this speech Math. 16. My Soul is sorrowful unto death and he prays against it unto his Father And though the Souldiers insolence did not as yet lay hold of him or insult over him yet his whole mind and thoughts were bent upon the danger that was at hand and he was stricken with so much terrour and horrour Christ felt pains in his Soul and body that he sweat drops of blood that ran down his whole body in abundance so that the bitternesse of the pain was communicated to both parts and from his Soul passed upon his body And let no man think that in this great astonishment and sufferings his vital and vegitable soul endured tortures and his natural spirits onely suffered but the best part of man was in conflict and upon the soul lay the whole force of the mischief Yet the soul grew mindful of her first original and recollects her self and being supported by heavenly ayd she without fear manfully went through all the dangers by divine assistance that relieved her Mary tormented with grief With these passions also was the Mind of the blessed Virgin many wayes troubled For her spirit and soul was sometimes full of joy then full of sorrow that when the Angel brought the Message of her conception and wonderfull child-bearing when the Shepherds came to see what was done and the wisemen adored but this was foretold by Simeon and she found it to be true when her Sonne was crucified I could reckon up a large Catalogue of those that being in great calamities were sorely wounded in their souls The multitude of Prophets will serve for examples as Helias Helizeus The Prophets exposed to calamities David Hieremias Moses Esaias Jonas Zacharias and besides some thousands of Martyrs that indefatigable maintainer of our Faith St. Paul who all served God the rewarder of their pains faithfully who besides the sufferings of their bodies and their losses and straights they sustain'd had their Souls gall'd with most bitter pangs Whosoever shall consider with himself what griefs seised upon their souls what tortures of mind they endured what trembling when as they were driven out of their Countreys wanting the comfort of their friends and kindred exposed to scorns whippings reproaches afflicted pressed down trod under feet proscribed and they were forced to passe thorow desarts where no men could follow them to escape the fury of their Enemies and to save their lives The Soul though into poreal is tossed with pains But if the Soul that distinguisheth men from beasts be free from all passions and can neither joy nor grieve what is the meaning of these sorrowfull speeches Why art thou troubled O my Soul and why art thou disquieted within me my Soul fainted within me my Mind refused comfort Again when he is refreshed and finds Gods favour Enter my Soul into thy rest for the Lord hath done good unto thee Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name My soul longed after thee thy right hand hath sustained me Infinite more Examples might be alledged whereby I think the natural faculties of the Soul onely are not to be understood and the powers that shall quickly dye but the reasonable Soul which partakes of a Divine Nature from which all actions of the body proceed and all the functions are perfected In this part God hath set Synteresis that is Rom. 1. What Synteresis is the love and knowledge of keeping and performing the Law of Nature and the difference of vertues and vices which force as Paul saith effects this in the minds of those that are strangers from God that by the light of Nature they embrace vertue and abhor vice For that part of the Soul wherein the Image of God shines forth Instinct of Nature and the integrity of Nature appears detests and condemns what is ill done and strives to keep her self clear from wickednesse Though this force of Nature be somewhat weakned that what the Mind conceives the Will refuseth readily and faithfully to perform What Conscience can do in the Mind Akin to this is Conscience which accuseth and condemneth with in the mind of Man that is pricked by God and by terrour upon the remembrance of past sins a man falls to detest his former life and purposing to amend repents of what he hath done So revenging-Conscience admonisheth a man setting his sins long past before his eyes whence we may easily prove that the Soul is exposed to passions and is disquieted by them For she perceives sweet and bitter she is enlarged and rejoyceth in prosperity and is grieved with adversity And not onely Men but Angels have their affections after a sort for they are sorrowfull for Man's miseries and punishments when they forsake good wayes Esay 33. Evil Angels hurtful to men but they rejoyce when wicked men repent On the contrary the wicked Angels are offended with men and scandalize them and follow them with mortal hatred and if Passions fall upon Angelical spirits how should Man be free from them CHAP. XIII That the Souls of Men are not equal in all things nor of the same condition and dignity but one is better than another THough I mentioned some things a little before that concern this Argument and that may establish this Paradox yet I believe it will be worth my Labour if I enlarge this in a particular treaty Many are of that opinion that the Souls of Men are of the same worth and
and so inhumane of conditions who lifting his eyes to Heaven though he be ignorant what God it is that by his providence rules all we behold yet he will understand there is a God by the greatnesse of the World the motion disposition order profit constancy thereof Man is the chief of all the rest who governs and directs all things Since therefore the great and good God who doth nothing rashly or in vain hath given Man the principality over all the rest it is absurd to think that man shall be annihilated and come to nothing Natures Maker hath far better provided for Mankind than to make that and to provide for it which after enduring hard labours should dye eternally but he rather hath shew'd the Haven and safe harbour wherein man may rest after he hath endured the sore travels of this life Hence Paul would have all our businesse and cares to be concerning heavenly matters Colos 3. Hebr. 2. and that we should lift up our Minds and meditate of heavenly things But if this life be the utmost bounds of our life and it lasts no longer there is nothing more miserable and contemptible than Man is and the condition between the rich poor were very unequal For the rich have abundance of all things to rejoyce in here and the poor being full of miseries should have no comfort after this life Wherefore Paul reasoneth excellently well 1 Cor. 15. Paul's sound reasons to prove Immortality If we have hopes in Christ in this life onely we were of all men the most miserable and they were in a far better condition who are strangers to Christ and live pleasantly and take their ease than Christians who being deluded with vain hopes suffer themselves to be vexed and to be the laughing stock and refuse of the whole world But if all that is Man and all mans hopes end in death Torment of the Mind reads the Thoughts what is the meaning of that anxiety and torment of the mind what makes Conscience the revenger of wickednesse what makes fear and trembling when any trouble ariseth again whence ariseth tranquillity constancy and security of the mind Are not the former the effects of those Souls that fear punishment after this life and these the rewards of those that hope to be comforted after they have endured sorrow here and to be rewarded for walking after Gods Law of which they had a certain hope Whereupon Paul exhorts Timothy his disciple to fulfill the function of an Apostolical Employment whereunto he was to be admitted pronouncing confidently concerning himself by an example borrowed from Runners and Fencers I have fought a good fight I have finished my course 2 Tim. 4. I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousnesse which God the just Judge shall give unto me and not to me onely but to as many as believe in him and trust in his promise Wherefore no man ought to cast aside this hope or let his mind fall off from an expectation of so great felicity For every man's mind dictates to him the truth of this matter his understanding perceives it his reason confirms it Nature it self speaks it Add to this that all men have a rational desire of Immortality and every man desires to preserve the memory of himself so long as he can and would have it continued to posterity never to be forgotten by Age. De cognit verae vitae Tusc l. 1. Which reason was held most forcible by Augustine and Cicero whereby it may be proved that the Soul is immortal and shall never die For this perswasion doth much put a man forward and incite a man to vertue and makes him endeavour to do most noble actions coâ—sidering the reward And though this point and many more cannot be proved sufficiently by reason not do divine things as Paul saith consist in words of mans wisdome 1 Cor. 2. yet their industry and endeavour is not to be disallowed who bring sober reasons whereby they may root out of some mens minds that errour who despise the testimony of Scripture and will not believe the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the Body How far we may seek into Gods secrets I think it not good in other things to seek too curiously into Gods Secrets and the Scriptures do restrain humane rashnesse that would venture to search out such things God hath concealed and to enter so deep from whence they cannot easily return Job Esdras and chiefly Paul have given us rules concerning this Rom. 11. who was gone so far that he was forced to cry out O the depth of the riches of the wisdome and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his Judgments and his wayes past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellour for by him and through him and to him are all things Moreover that no man might suffer himself to be drawn off from this solid foundation on which all man's hope rests and the strength of his salvation turns upon it Paul doth stifly urge and inculcate the resurrection 1 Cor. 15. which both comprehends the immortality of the Soul and expresseth the beliefe certainty reason and manner of it borrowing a similitude from the nature of things For Nature the Artificer of all things which cannot be imitated and that no man can exactly expresse or resemble the force of it How Men shall be raised doth bring forth and make many things which shew Gods omnipotence in all things and declare his vertue and power in framing and fashioning the images of things And if men admire a man for some rare picture drawn by him A simile from painting or some curious piece of work as he of Gades did when he had ended Livy his History how much more reason is there to admire and adore him who hath set such wonderfull rarities before our eyes which we can neither number nor understand For that the resurrection of mans body may be proved by the smallest things in Nature who hath not observed that when a Grashopper is grown old and hath cast his skin A Simile from the nature of things a lively new shril insect wil come forth of it from a dying and sluggish Caterpillar comes out a painted and flying Butterfly from Ants a winged flie What doth the Silk-worm that weaves Silk doth it not give us to understand the Resurrection when as being dead it revives again A Phoenix is a type of the resurrection The Phoenix that Lactantius writes in praise of doth it not by reviving shew us an example of our rising again Doth not the pleasantnesse of the Spring and the acceptable return of the year represent the Resurrection and raise our minds to hope for immortality Who is not delighted to see the nature of the Earth Which when she hath received the seed sown and the rain hath softned
Resurrection strengthens feeble minds and all comfort in the greatest dangers is in the faith of the Resurrection let us set this faith against all the terrours and temptations wherewith the Devil endeavours to overthrow and weaken our minds and let us hope assuredly in him who is the Author unto us of so great advantage and liberty What Christ's Birth did The long expected birth of our Saviour did exceedingly raise the Souls of men to a high hope of salvation and confidence of it His conversation amongst men his upright life his doctrine and lastly his death which he suffered for us to free us from destruction did confer much thereunto What Christ's Resurrection did But the truth of his resurrection did effect this that when he had got the victory over death no man need to doubt of his salvation but ought to hold a firm hope that what hath been done already in Christ their head shall be perfected in them also Wherefore all our hope depends on our Saviours Resurrection whereby he vanquished death and thereby he pulled out the sting of death that is sin that bred the Enmity between God and us Wherefore since we have obtain'd so great felicity by the death and resurrection of Christ Peter 1. let us not be removed from the truth but let us endeavour to partake of the fruit of so much good works and look steadfastly upon him who by his singular favour and mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope by Christs rising from the dead and hath restored us to life that shall never end and hath assigned unto us an immortal Inheritance pardoning all our offences Colos 2. and blotting out the hand-writing that was against us The memory of this benefit should be alwaies before our eyes especially at our last conflict The Resurrection should still be in our minds when detesting all the wickednesse of our former life we must oppose against Satan sin death and hell the immense mercy of God the Father by out full assurance in Christ by whom there is provided certainly for us salvation and remission of all our sins and reconciliation by his blood By him we have admission and entrance unto the Father He is the propitiation for our sins Considence in Christ gives us courage For so God loved the world that he gave his onely Sonne to redeem us that every one that believes in him trusts in him and relyeth on his promises may not perish but have everlasting life Which confidence raiseth our minds to bring forth good fruits by works of charity whereby we love God above all things and our neighbour for his sake Matâ—h 25. What Faith dictates Charity performs For a working Faith begets charity and charity nourisheth faith Faith joyn'd to Love So in the foolish Virgins lamps the light of faith went out because there wanted oyl of charity Wherefore this faith and confidence of promised mercy that is infused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost must be stirred up and nourished in us that by the merit of Christ our Mediatour we may cry Abba Father For the Spirit of Adoption Gal. 4. and the earnest of our Inheritance raiseth up our hearts and comforts us with the redemption and possession purchased for us and takes from our minds all fear and trembling and terrour of Conscience and makes us acknowledge Gods favour presence and mercy and that we may attain Redemption and Reconciliation by the help of Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be our peace-maker through faith in his blood Wherefore being justified by faith we have peace with God and a settled Conscience and a quiet mind so that all distrust and desperation is discussed and we apprehend certain hopes of the Resurrection and Immortality and doubt nothing of our salvation so that we depart from hence chearfully to our heavenly Country and place of rest to enjoy everlasting comfort with our Redeemer And that these things may never slip out of our minds and so great a benefit may never be forgot Christ instituted his holy Supper The Communion whereby we may remember and recollect what he hath done for us that our mind may be elevated and grow hot with the frequent meditation of the new Covenant to adore him and receiving his body and blood we may be united to him and may conceive certain hope and trust of his great love and mercy to us whereby he was willing to dye for us Which wonderful work we ought daily but especially to meditate on at our end when death approaches The Lords Supper that our minds may be settled and we may firmly believe in him and we may give him continual thanks for that inestimable gift of our salvation by the shedding of his blood whereby he wiped away all spots of sin from us and freed us from dear of death and from the cruel tyranny of our great Enemy the devil so setting us at liberty Therefore by this mystical Bread and holy Sacrament we are assured that Christ is in us and we in him and that we are joyned to him by the most firm bond of love Heb. 8. Whence it is that being born up with certain hope as with a staff we are confident to receive those things that faith infused into us by the Spirit prompts us with and perswades us unto for from faith as the root spring forth the branches of charity James 2. that yield plentifully the fruits of good works For works testifie that faith is alive and safe and sound in all parts of it There must be choice of works For saving faith is never without good works that are pleasing to God but as a good Tree brings forth both leaves and fruit Since therefore those heroick and divine vertues inspired by God which are so joyned together that they can never be asunder are so necessary to salvation the mind must be daily busied in them that after the troubles of this life are past after that we have approved the profession of our faith and shew'd it openly which God requires we should do Sinners are Justified by Faith in God and exerciseth us therein we may come to those riches that Inheritance those rewards that God hath appointed for them who in the conflict of this life have employ'd their Talent as they ought to do Ezek. 18. wherein if they have erred the next way to salvation is to lift up their souls to God and to commit themselves wholly to his great mercy Wherefore depending on his clemency in hopes of mercy which he denyeth to none that repent Heb. 4. Let us come with boldnesse to the Throne of Grace that we may find mercy in time of need And let us continually from our very heart speak in the ears of our merciful and placable Judge those words of the Prophet Psal 148. Enter not into Judgment with thy servant Psal 119. O Lord because in thy sight
diseases have wasted or what is burnt to ashes or is passed into the first principles or into the substance of some other body For the flesh shall be restored to that man it was taken from as his Due A Simile from borrowed money that was borrowed from him They that are men shall find this to be true and those mousters that are bred from them and have the same nature with them shall be partakers of this divine gift CHAP. XVI The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured THere is no mortal Man that is not led by his passions and perturbations but one is more driven by them than another and is more easily forced by the motions of his mind All men led by Passions Why Socrates was lesse subject to them For they that are of a good bodily temper and lead a temperate life and sober diet are lesse wont to be troubled with passions So Socrates is reported to have been of that constancy and calmnesse of mind that both at home and abroad he was alwaies of the same countenance and alacrity of mind though he had a very scolding Wife to vex him which he obtain'd no otherwise than by his frugall life and great temperance Hence it is that Cicero saith that Intemperance is the fountain of all the passions Tusc 4. which is a departing from the mind and from right reason So that the desires of the mind cannot be ruled or kept in order Temperance As therefore Temperance abates all disorderly desires and makes them submit to right reason and preserves the judgment of the Mind entire so Intemperance that is contrary thereunto inflames and disturbs every condition of the Mind and urgeth it Whence it comes that all diseases of the body and errours of the Mind spring from thence For as when blood and flegme abound or both cholers are increased sicknesses arise in the body so the disturbance of ill opinions and the jarring between them spoyls the Soul of her health The difference of passions amongst themselves and draws the body into mutual destruction For so anger rashnesse fear envy forrow emulation when they seize upon the veins and marrow and are possessed of the inward parts of the mind are hurtfull also to the body and cause many terrible diseases thereof Also the diseases of the body by sympathy and way of company affect the Soul And though objects and many outward causes stir up many troublesome motions in man yet the principall cause and original is from the heart and from the humours and spirits which if they be moderate and not infected with some strange quality the mind is not so hot The original of Passions and is more calm So if the bloud be clean and pure if the temper be equal and the body be well men are slower to be moved nor are they so exceedingly vexed with fear anger or revenge and if they be somewhat in passion as no man is without all passions presently reason being call'd to counsel and Judgment of the mind admitted all heat of stomach abates and is asswaged Examples of moderation are David and Pericies We have examples of this in David and Pericles who when a naughty fellow reviled them and upbraded them they did not revenge or hate him for it but used him with great humanity The heart receives divers motions of the mind from outward objects Yet oftimes when there are no outward objects presented it breaks forth into violent passions and some secret thought entring the mind of a contumely offered or by indignation by reason of some inconvenience received the mind it self grows hot and is disturbed within Wherefore it is of great concernment in the difference of passions to know what temper every man is of what humours are abounding in his body and what is the quality of the spirits that arise from those humours For those that are of a hot and dry temper of them bodies are soonest angry especially short little men who are presently enraged upon some trivial businesse of no value Which anger by reason of the narrownesse of the place wâ—y little men are soâ—â— angry and the small distance of the organs presently seiseth on the mind and fires and burns them as low cottages and sheep coats For the same reason these little men exceed others for wit and judgment of mind because the spirits are gathered together and not so much dispersed and so perform their forces more closely A Simile from fuel on fire and sharply But as some fuel takes fire sooner than other combustible matters do and some are sooner put out than others are so it useth to happen in spirits and humours whereof some breed long and during passions others sudden passions and fading presently whence it falls out that cholerick men are hot and presently angry The 〈◊〉 of cholerick men and as straw and stubble presently takes fire so they by the thinnesse of a hot humour and sudden inflammation are more weakly angry for their anger suddenly grows cold and they are pacified But me lancholique people are slower before they grow angry Melancholique natures but when they are provoked they are ill to be calmed again and they are so mindfull of in juries that they will hardly be friends any more Flegmatique But flegmatique people as they are cold and moist are scarse ever moved with passions of the mind and are never greatly troubled with any thing whence it is that they are slothfull and sluggish and not fit for any noble actions on them the Proverb may be verified He hath no mind that hath no anger A proverb against sluggards Sanguin complexions But sanguin people are of hot and moist constitutions and are held with no waighty or serious businesse of cares but are wholly taken upon with sports tales songs and jears and complements and take care for nothing but pleasures and delights which conditions and differences of men alter according to the quality and mixture of the humours according to the climate and Ayre they live in and they do variously affect the minds of men and therefore I am perswaded that the humours are the causes of Passions For the heart being affected the spirits are raised and the humours boyl and the minds of men by their agitation are more inflamed as if a torch or fire brand were put under For as when the General or Prince is moved in an Army his guard of Souldiers A Simile from a Captain of an Army and all that are to defend him presently make themselves ready to fall on upon the enemy So when any passion ariseth all the humours are suddenly stirred with the heart and the spirits break forth as in anger shame bashfulnesse immoderate joy but in grief sorrow fear
time to consult L. 1. offic What therefore Cicere requires in Military matters a Physitian must do to have all his businesse ready by praemeditation that he may maturely perform his work and never depart from Reason Also he must consider and know what will follow In Physick it is folly to say I did not think and so determine of the event both wayes and he must not say afterwards I did not think Sometimes a Physitian in a doubtful disease that soon hastneth to the state as a Fencer on the Stage takes advice as the present occasion will suffer him Which I remember I formerly did sometime For when I considered the disease and the symptoms of it and was well informed by the series of words and by the order of the Medicaments yet the matter as I said before being changed I was forced to alter the whole scene So Terence speaks learnedly and wisely No man ever knew so well Adelph act 5. Scen. 9. But Age and Time will more tell And use makes perfect you know Not all what you think you do And what you now respect A second thought will reject The Comedian could never speak truer for the whole course of a man's life and chiefly in curing diseases In Physick all must be done seriously For though a man long premeditate before he enters upon a businesse and hath examined all things by rule how to go to work what to give first what last at that very moment he goes about the businesse he is forced to reject his former thoughts and take a new course as the matter directs him Wherefore by use and practice and long experience Men gain prudence and to do their work as they should and so come to their desired end with good successe For Patients that are sick easily oft-times recover their longed for health and quickly if they make use of a skilfull Physitian and are obedient to his prescriptions For I hold fit that all Mountebanks and Quacksal vers should be banished from this Art who are not afraid to venture on mens lives and bodies and as the Proverb is to try the Porters Art by breaking of Pots as Pliny saith to learn by others dangers and by false experiments and conjectures to kill their Patients By whose rashnesse and errour it comes to passe that the Art of healing 1 Cor. 12. which St. Paul reckoneth amongst the gifts of the Spirit and which next the sacred Oracles is the most excellent thing amongst men and most needfull together with the Artists is despised and neglected Not to joyn to these the Impudence of old wives that dare turn Physitians whom not onely the universal consent of Nations and Authority of the Antients hath rejected from practising Physick or to speak more lowly from giving Physick but also from all practise of the Law and whom St. Paul hath excluded from preaching and from bearing office in the Church For as Persius faith Nature and Lawes of Men forbid us then To practice 1 Tim. 2. Sat. 5. which we know not how nor when Reason is clear against it lest we spill What we should save and not cure but kill One steeps Hellebore who doth not know Whether it will do good or no. To which agrees that of Horace L. 1 â—ist 1. He that 's no Sea-man a Ship dares not steer And Hellebore to give all Quacks must fear Let none but Learned Doctors Physick give Let Smiths and Carpenters by their Trades live The Proverb speaks this in brief Let every man practise what he knowes Wherefore Pliny saith Arts would be happy if onely Artists might judge of them and practise them A Simile from Architecture and other Trades For since we choose a cunning Artist and one that is careful to build our houses and the most expert Pilate to govern a Ship the best Generals and Souldiers to manage a War the best Rhetoricians to teach us oratory and the best Moderator to instruct and direct our Minds wherefore in curing diseases and preserving our healths do we admit of trivial Mountebanks and doting old Wives To whom we give our bodies over to be killed and the House or Soul to be pulled down for now every one practiseth Physick A History of this businesse and brags of skill they have So at Ferrara as Pontanus relates there was a contestation amongst the Lords of the Court of what Profession most men were and when one said one thing and another another thing as there are in that Common-wealth many Bakers Butchers Cooks Weavers Carpenters Carters Fullers Bankers Usurers Taylors Marriners Bawds that make the greatest gain there was one replyed that there was no greater number than of those that professe Physick and boast of that Art and he said he would soon make it appear wherefore the next day he brought one to act this part very cunningly who was wrapt up with napkins all about his face and counterfeited himself sick of the Tooth-ache and then complaining he stood in the way and asked alms of all that past by or some remedy for his pain Every one that passed by as there were great companies prescribed him a remedy and said confidently that such a thing would presently cure him wherefore they all yielded upon this That of all Trades Physitians were most numerous And he was not mistaken For all people almost never so illiterate and unskilful professe their knowledge in Physick confidently and practise it as boldly when they understand nothing of it at all CHAP. XVIII How manifold difference and variety there is in the nature of grounds TO adde something that is next to the former Argument I think Physitians ought to consider the nature and qualities of all grounds For from hence arise divers kinds of Plants and of divers faculties and vertues In Epist Hence Hippocrates prescribes to Cratera to gather herbs that grow on hills and high Mountains In what places Plants are best For they are stronger and firmer and more effectual than those that grow near waters by reason of the density of the Earth and the thinnesse of the Ayr but to gather the flowers of them that grow near Rivers and watry places which are weaker and not very forcible and of a sweeter juice Since therefore we know the force and temperament of Plants by duly considering the nature of the ground and some plants delight in one ground some in another and all require such Land as is proper to their natures I will set down the differences of them by the way as in a Table which Virgil exactly describes 2. Georg. that so all plants may be fitted to their own soyl and not fail in their forces by reason of the malignity of nutriment For hence it is that they do not answer our expectation but deceive us with vain hopes All ground is either or Slender Tough Barren Glutinous Lean Gravelly Spare Sandy Fat Pibly Oyly Stony Bituminous Shelly Plaistry Full
these and many more wherewith the Art of Physick abounds being rightly administred we see such persons restored and to be the same they formerly were When therefore the humours very frequently boil and the spirits are much troubled thereby and the exceeding swift motion of the mind brings forth some language not known before as we see sparks fall from striking of a flint A simile from striking sire with a flint Now it is natural to mans mind to be fit and ready to learn and it is endowed with Arts before it hath the use of them so that Plato's saying is not unlikely that all our knowledge is but remembrance The mind is endowed with Arts before we learn them In Phaed. For the mind of man contains in it self the knowledge of all things but it being oppressed with the weight of the body and thick humours cannot easily illustrate it self and as fire raked up in ashes it must be stirred and fostered A simile from fire racked up in ashes though imbred sparks and light of nature may shine forth When therefore this diviner part of man the Soul is shaken with diseases she brings forth such things as lay hid within her and useth her imbred forces An excellent simile from the sweetnesse of plants For as some plants smell not at all till you crush them in your hand so the imbred faculties will not shew themselves unlesse they be tried like Gold on a Touchstone By the same reason Jet Amber will not alwaies draw chaff and straws and such other things as are driven with the wind A simile from the effect of stones and plants but onely when they are rubbed and heated So when you whet daggers often and swiftly you make sparks fly forth Also the force of nature may be known in plants and Jewels For Piony Misseltoe Fruticulus Vervain Corall bloudstone Pearls Emrods Whence there is force in raysing spirits and other Amulets that is such things as drive away things hurtfull applied to the body or hanged about the neck by a present force either discusse diseases or stop bloud and do other things according as their natural quality is But all these are of more force taken inwardly A simile from the efficacy of wine You may make experience by strong wine that if you smell to it it refresheth the mind and spirits and heart but when you drink it down into the body for it doth nothing in the vessel but when it comes into the veins then it shewes its force and will make dull fellows very eloquent in speech For the heat of the wine sharpens the mind and brings forth what lyes hid in the brain Just so do the humours affect men when the whole force of the disease hath filled the cranies of the brain and the mind and spirits both vital and animal begin to be stirred We see some in burning Feavers that are most vigorous commonly in Summer who will discourse very well and speak very eloquently and in that dialect which when they are recovered they cannot perform which I said were not troubled with the devil and that they did not this by the devils instigation but from the force of the disease and violence of the humours whereby the mind of man is inflamed as if a firebrand were put under it I have recovered some of these by Opiates in potion and fomentations applyed to their heads and so brought them to their right minds when the disease was gone they forgot all they spake or did and when I told them of some things they were ashamed of them and wondred they had so much forgot themselves So those that are dying because there is an ardent force of the mind rais'd in them and some divine Inspiration comes into them before their Souls depart use to prophesie and to foretell certainly what shall follow hereafter and that so considerately and handsomely that the standers by admire at it Why a Soul departing will foretell things to come But that the Soul as it partakes of a heavenly original can foreknow things to come especially when death is near shall be shewed by me in its proper place CHAP. III. Of the Epilepsie's violence which disease the common people both now and formerly ascribe to certain Saints lastly how it may be cured And by the way that such are not to be buried presently that die of the Falling-sicknesse Lethargy or Apoplex WE have shewed elsewhere what effects the humours work in the bodies of men but since they do diversly affect us according to the diversity of places I thought good to speak of those also that are inherent in the brain For those diseases that are in the highest part of the body do not onely afflict us with pain but also take away sense and motion and hurt the mind as we may see in the Apoplex Lethargy and the Epilepsie that is weaker in children and women To whom the Epilepsie must be ascribed The Falling-sicknesse against Hippocrates mind was ascribed by the Antients to some special Saints for when those that stood next saw the diseased so suddenly tortur'd and pull'd We must not ascribe to Saints the torments of diseases they thought some Saints that were their Enemies or some ill spirits must be the cause thereof and sent such mischief wherefore they made vowes to them and set up Tables for their deliverance Hence our Age hath distinguished the Epilepsie into many sorts and one they ascribe to St. John the Baptist another to Cornelius and Hubert but as no man should deride the folly of these men so I think by degrees we should perswade them better to understand that these things should be referred to natural causes For they are of divers sorts in respect of the habit of the body or largenesse of the passages or abundance of clammy humours hence some howl and bark like dogs some hiss and gnash their teeth some cry loud and terribly Differences of Falling-sicknesses some are wholly mute especially their brain being stuffed with grosse humours and their midriff oppressed and the conduits of breathing stopped Whence it comes that they cannot freely draw their breath and these are most tormented of all men in my opinion But the symptoms increase most at the full and new Moon or when she is in those signs that respect the brain or heart For then the humours abound most especially when after North winds the South winds begin to blow for as these winds are turbulent and unwholesome so are they cold and moyst The Moon exasperates moyst diseases For moyst bodies that use moyst meats and are in a moyst climate are more fit and subject to this disease which is evident because children and women are most subject unto this and if it cease not about the 25th year when the natural heat is augmented Aphor. 7. Com. 5. and causeth a dryer temper and if it continue beyond that age it useth to
accompany one untill Death that is it never ends till death put an end thereto Since therefore the cause of the Falling-sicknesse is so Evident The habit of Epileptick persons terrible I would perswade the ignorant people to think of no other cause of this disease than the motion of the humours that men may not fear so much when they see their mouths draw awry their cheeks swoln and strutting forth with a frothy humour and should not be dismaid to come near them and lend them their help For so are all those that stand by and are fearful amazed when they see them rending themselves and beating their heads and bodies against posts that they think there is no hopes of them and so cause them to be buried before their Souls are departed from them For I have found it in our own dayes and in former Ages also that some have broken the Coffin and lived again Wherefore it is fit a Law should be made that those who are to take care of the dead bodies should not presently put them into their coffins whom they think to be dead Apoplecticks are not to be presently buried especially those that are strangled by the Apoplex Epilepsie or rising of the Mother for oft-times their soul lies within them and they live again But when the Plague and pestilent Feavers rule Men dead of the Plague must be presently enterred I think it not necessary nor fit to observe this so strictly because the contagion will presently spread when they are dead and infect those that are near For there is lesse danger to stand by those that have the Plague and to attend upon them when they are alive than to stand by them when they are dead A fit Simile from Candles put out for then the contagion spreads and infects as it goes For it is with bodies newly dead as with Torches and Candles that whilest they are lighted they do not stink but when they are put out they fill the room with a stinking savour Wherefore the danger is greater to be present when a man dies of the plague than when he is yet alive or dead and grown cold and stiff But if you keep these bodies a little too long unburied they become stinking Carkasses and they do by little and little send forth filthy exhalations and corrupt filthy matter runs from them which happens but seldome in the Apoplex and other cold diseases of the brain The motion and revolution of humours in such as are dead unlesse it be very hot weather or the bodies be very fat And if there be no such matter to hinder they need not be buried till three dayes be over For when seventy two hours are over the humours cease to move and stir not because in that time the Moon hath passed one sign in the Zodiack by force whereof the humours run in the body which some say was the reason that Christ took occasion to raise Lazarus miraculously that was dead four dayes John 11. lest any man should say he was not dead but onely in a trance and come to himself again Why Christ raised Lazarus no sooner Also when he by his Death and Resurrection wrought mans salvation he took the same occasion For besider that he had a mortal wound on his side he lay three dayes in the Sepulchre to take away all objections from them who would speak irreverently and not as they ought concerning his Death and Resurrection but calumniate all he said or did In which errour and madnesse the Jews continue even to this day But since those diseases are so formidable that bereave a man of his understanding that all the standers by are frighted at it I shall do a considerable work to add some present remedies and those not ordinary whereby every one that is unskilful in Physick may preserve himself and his family from them And because all diseases of the brain especially such as proceed from a cold humour are near of kin these remedies may be used to them all indifferently as to losse of memory vertigo's panting of the heart trembling Epilepsies Lethargies Apoplexies and for the hag and night mare and other diseases of the night which disease is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amongst innumerable remedies against these diseases I have found four especially to be most effectuall Remedies for the Night-mare not so much approved by experience as by reason The round black Piony seed for the corner'd and red colour'd seed is uselesse herein the round bulbous root of Squils the shavings of mans skull and Misseltoe I should shew severally how they perform these effects The force of Pionie and by what reason they perform it Galen eryes up Pionie as much as Cato did Coleworts which not onely by an Elementary quality but from the whole substance of it and secret property resists this disease And it will raise children that fall because it is not so strong in them if it be but banged about their necks For it discusseth and consumes the flegmatique humour that is the seminary of this disease Also the seeds of this given inwardly will do it more effectually in such as are of years For it drinks up the windy venemous miosture and brings the body to a hotter and dryer temper Some say this seed is the best that comes from the first increase of the male Pionie For a long time it brings forth unprofitable shoots without seed But when it is of perfect growth the husks cleave and in one part you shall see berries very smooth and black in another kernels of a shining scarlet red colour The black seed must be kept for use Yet not so superstitiously as to hold that the seed of the next year is uneffectual for that seed that comes after ten years is a present remedy if it be not rotten and decay'd What sorce Squills have in the Epilepsie Squills are better than Pionie and have a wonderfull force and faculty not onely for the Epilepsie but also for all diseases that proceed of a clammy viscous humour in what part soever of the body For it hath an abstergent force to dissolve all clammy things For which use I use to give a spoonful of an oxymel that I make of it which because it is exceeding bitter I use to mingle it with syrup of French Lavender and I put in a little Nutmeg to it also I command them to wash their mouthes with vinegar of Squills so as to swallow it down by degrees Also I find that the shavings of mans skull are a present remedy to dry up those humours that cause those diseases if some part of a mans skull scraped off be given to a man or of a womans skull to a woman and that in wine or Oxymel of Squills not by any hidden quality but because it dryes exceedingly for which cause the runner and blood of a Hare stayes the bloody flux and other fluxes of
marrow hath taken from them all sense thereof But at first when any strange quality seizeth on the body whereby it corrupts and is changed what parts soever receive sharp biting humours they feel pain But when the disease growes old and is grown up with Nature they feel not much pain because they agree together and the humours wax faint by commerce with the body and keeping company with it and by the mixture of other humours they are weakned as strong Wine is with Water Yet the footsteps of the old disease and reliques of it alwaies remain which if they fall down upon the Lungs they make the sick hoarse and short winded if it fall on the joynts it makes them subject to the Gowt in the feet hands hucklebone and it returns at certain times So all that have pocky sores are gowty But all that have the Gowt in their feet or hips All that have pocky sores have the Gowt but not contrarily have not the symptoms of the Pox. And if the flux of humours is sent to the outward skin their skin is made rugged and crusty their face is deformed with tetters scabs foul sores and scurf and their hair falls For it falls out with them as it doth with Trees and Twigs on which pisse A Simile from Trees that are corrupted or some salt water or filth is cast For when the root is hurt the leafs fall off and the branches wither yet the Tree dyeth not at the root but it decayes and is hardly restored CHAP. XV. How it is that Men dying though they have their mind and understanding firm yet they make a hoarse noise and a sound that returns back which the Low Dutch vulgarly call Den rotel IN the Low-Countries and in all the Countries toward the North those that are dying shew certain arguments of their departure by making a murmuring noise and none of them die but have this mark before How those that dye make a murmuring noise For as death is at hand they make a noise as the water doth when it falls through rough winding crooked places they will sound and murmur like to the noise that Pipes make in Conduits For when the vocal artery happens to be stoped the breath that would fain break forth at once finding a narrow passage and the pipe sunk down comes forth by a certain gargling and makes a hoarse sound in smooth places and springing forth forsakes the dry limbs Wherefore the breath being heaped together and mingled with swelling froth causeth a noise like the ebbing of the Sea which also comes so to passe in some by reason of their pannicles and membranes drawn into wrinkles so that the breath comes forth by a crooked and winding revolution But they that have a strong and great bodies and die of violent deaths sound more and strive longer with death by reason of plenty of humour and grosse and thick spirits But in those that are wasted in their bodies Who dye gently and who with great trouble and that die easily by degrees the breath runs not so violently nor with so great a noise so that they dye by little and little very gently and do even as it were fall asleep CHAP. XVI The death of man and destruction of things that are is against Nature and is very improperly called natural Yet the mind must be resolved not to fear death though not without cause all men are afraid of it THough it be so ordained by nature since that mans rebellion hath drawn this upon him deservedly that we must all tend to destruction and dye Yet I see that by reason this may be proved that death is not natural but contrary to nature In the beginning this was given by nature to all kinds of Creatures to defend themselves their life and body Cic. l. 1. offâ—â— and to decline that may seem to be hurtfull unto them and to be very carefull to look to their own preservation and safety For who doth not observe what great care and diligence men use by the light of reason and brute beasts by the light of nature to defend and keep themselves from danger All men fear death every one strives to keep himself from it for when death comes Nature is extinguished No man but trembles at the fear of death and ceaseth to be any longer So Christ who would shew the imbred weaknesse of mans nature who except sin and diseases was like to us in all things feared death and prayed against it John 21. Also in Peter is expressed the affect of nature and infirmity of the flesh when Christ thrice asked him if he loved him and that he should take great care to feed his flock showing unto him what should befall him and what death he should die When thou wer 't young saith he thou wandredst whither thou wouldest and didst gird thy self but when thou growest old another shall gird thee about and lead the whether thou wouldest not Whereby he shews the desire and weaknesse of man's nature that is stricken with the terrour of death and is very unwilling to come to it yet the mind is willing and ready John 22. Since therefore death is the deprivation and abolition of Nature how can it be said that it is natural and agreeing unto nature that is violent and wholly extinguisheth Nature I know that man by his fall deserved so much and in that he degenerated from the dignity he was created with being disobedient to his creatour to be punished with all pains and vexations diseases hunger and thirst and unquietnesse of mind and at last to undergo the punishment of death Sin brought in diseases and death But it was not the fault of nature that brought in these miseries but sin For since the fall of the first man all things are changed and become contrary so the stars diseases Elements Wild-beasts and Devils are become enemies to man And as Paul saith the whole creation is made subject to vanity and corruption for mans cause Rom. 8. and the whole series of Creatures the Angels not excepted desire an end of their labours But the certain hopes of a better life doth recreate our minds in so great miseries and our confidence in Christ who restores the decayed Nature of man to his former dignity takes away from us all terrour and fear of death also out of our souls Faith in Christ takes from man the fear of death For the remembrance of his death and resurrection doth wholly confirm and strengthen us for we believe that man shall not be annihilated but changed to a better condition and that death is not our ruine but the door and entrance to a more happy life 2 Cor. 5. A simise from the structure of houses For we know as Paul saith that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved as houses use to be taken down disjoynted that we have a building from God a house not
made with hands eternal in the heavens Which God provided for this end that by rising again we might enjoy the glory of immortality and God hath given us his spirit Gal. 4. as an earnest and pledge thereof who doth by his presence confirm to us our hope and highest confidence of things to come Colos 2. For by his spirit alone we are certified that he who raised the Lord Jesus from death will by the power of him raise us also and make us partakers of his glorious Resurrection CHAP. XVII The Inconveniencies of Tippling and drunkennesse and what things will resist and cure it THere is an old custome of force amongst the High and low Dutch that they care for no mans friendship or familiarity but such as can drink strongly with them In Curcul piss stoutly Wherefore I thought I should do something considerable to relate some things that will resist drunkennesse that every man in that contest may look to himself either not to be overcome with Wine or to be offended but little by it At first let no man drink too much and be too ready to take up his cups but let him civily refuse and draw back pretending that he is not very well Sometimes you must find out some stratagems to deceive those that aim at you to make you drunk and that most endeavour to prevail over you And you must take occasion cunningly to steal forth to make water or to take away the cup but you must be very crafty and subtill in doing it with great dexterity For if the company find your cunning they will ply you the more abundantly Yet every man may easily find out some shifts to avoid and wittily to cosen his fellow drinkers In the mean while let every man consider well the reward of this inveterate and unworthy custome and errour and he shall see as clear as day what hurt it doth to his body and soul and spirits to be given to much drinking For first it not onely hurts memory the most pretious faculty of the mind Intemperance in Wine hurts the memory and makes it weak but totally ruines it making the eyes dark and causing blindnesse the cheeks are blabber'd and the limbs tremble and reel and many other inconveniencies accompany immoderate drinking of wine and they are all cold distempers Nor as Galen saith De Temp. l. 3. doth it alwaies heat a man but when he drinks more than he can conquer it causes cold diseases For the natural heat is extinguished and choaked just as when you powre abundance of oyl at once upon a little flame I do premise this that no man should faslly judge that do give occasion or open the dore for such wickednesse For it is my chiefest desire that men would either drink moderately or if there fall out an extraordinary occasion to drink much for as the Proverb is A Proverb at bankets these solemnities cannot stand without it that they may not want helps to drive away drunkennesse amongst which I set down bitter things and as many such means as will purge away watry humours by urine For by this way the fumes are derived from the head and the Wine is hindred from going into the veins Bitter things hinder drunkennesse also by their bitternesse they dry up moisture So five or six bitter Almonds taken before supper will perform it effectually Peach kernels have the like quality with them and the juice of Peach-leaves pressed forth and a little taster full thereof drank fasting hath the same vertue also the infusion of Roman-Worm-wood and nutmeg For all these open the passages and make them wide and loose as also oyl pressed forth of Olives or two ounces of oyl pressed forth of the seeds of Sesamum drank in the morning before Sun-rising for it makes the belly slippery and extends the urinary passages so that drink staies not in the body but passeth away continually if so be a man do not burden his stomach too much with eating 'T is naught for drinkers to eat overmuch For he that is forced to drink must eat meat but sparingly but if he shall eat a morsel of bread dipt in honey he shall do well For honey takes away the force of wine and blunts the sharpnesse of the fumes Cabbage is better than them all Cabbage hinders Drunkennesse which Cato commended exceedingly it is vulgarly called Caulis because no plant hath a greater stalk But of this there are many kinds and the red cole is best to resist drunkennesse if you chew the leaves in your mouth and swallow down the juice or eat them boyl'd for the first dish at table Yet the sea-cole Sea-cole-worts and sea-purslane that grow plentifull by the sea in Zealand are far more effectual which we use in sallets and sauces to sharpen appetite For they make a man very hungry and thirsty by their imbred faculty Hence it comes that no fumes or vapours of the wine can rise to the head for they are purged out by siege and urine There are many other things of this kind that resist drunkennesse that a man may not be overcome but I cannot reckon all But if any man chance to be drunk that is not provided with these helps For wine as Habakkuk saith Ch. 1. Eccl. 31. deceives the wise he must be helped by vomit which the wise man also gave counsel for If thou art compelled to gorge thy self go forth and vomit Vomit is good After this the testicles and genitall parts must be soked in cold water and wrapped up in a wet napkin but womens breasts must be so wetted For presently the vapours being turned away all drunkennesse is discussed In the mean time sharp and sowrish things and good juicy Apples must be eaten As Oranges Citrons Cherries Peaches Barberries Verjuice Cornels and all things that are of a cooling and repercussive quality and have some cutting and abstergent faculty For though drunkennesse ceaseth either by sleep or vomiting Head-ache from yesterdays wine yet the head will ake the next day and is offended by vapours Festus Pompeius calls this effect Helucus which word signifies as much as half a sleep and a gaping from yesterdayes wine Helucus is the head-ache from drunkennesse Tertullian useth this word for that affection whereby men are made sleepy by the drinking much the day before when he saith The vertue of Ivy is to defend the head from this drowsinesse The force of Ivy in dispelling drunkennesse by its discussing and drying quality whereby also it is thought to keep men from being drunk if it be applyed outwardly to the head or by taking before-hand some of its berries that are yellow-colour'd CHAP. XVIII Intemperance of drink is worse than of meat SOme say that men are lesse hurt by drinking than eating if a man do take either immoderately and above the strength of Nature L. 2. Aph. 11. Moyst things soonest
in such bodies and such a distemper that the instruments of the senses fall into convulsions and all the faculties of the soul are inverted Whereby it comes to passe that not onely young children but such as are of riper years which reverence and honour their Parents are shaken with sudden fear and sudden consternation of mind as with thunder and suffer great damage in their reason and understanding Gen. c. 49. Children must be taught by the Parents and no lesse mischief in their bodies Wherefore me thinks the old Hebrewes had an excellent way of teaching their children that were indeed exceeding well bred For they were wont to pray and wish all good luck and happinesse to their children both at home and abroad not from fortune but from God Also their children were wont with great devotion and godlinesse to obey and honour their Parents and with their best intreaties observances and well-beseeming words to procure from them their blessings and prosperous wishes For thus they thought they should be freed from future dangers and by the help of the great God to whom both they and their Parents made their vows they believed they should escape the casualties and inconveniencies of humane affairs and live securely and happily all their daies CHAP. XXIX How comes it that according to the common Proverb scarce any man returns better from his long travels or from a long disease and to lead a better life afterwards THere is an upinion that is of long continuance and a perswasion in the Low-Countries that is commonly objected against such as recover of a long disease No man is better after a disease That no man is made better for a dangerous disease or a long journey And it commonly falls out so For such is the nature of mortall men that though they be vexed with long diseases and are tossed with dangerous and hazardous voyages both by Sea and Land and wandring up and down when they chance to escape they soon forget all and they begin to live more loosely and licentiously that they are worse than they were before and the time past was better than what comes after Math. 12. Doctrine inspired by God makes the best manners This I suppose happens because the mind of man is much neglected and the inward man is not manured as it should be for good education would root out imbred errours and vitious affections namely the love and confidence in God and the knowledge of his word unto which the will and reason are made subjects and so all his actions are framed by that rule For these things would effect and bring to passe that we should forsake those sins which when we were sick and in danger we so much renounced otherwise all the fair promises we made and our purposes of amendment of life and many more vows that we then made become void and of no moment For when we are restored to our former strength nature falls back to her damnable customs and will not alter Wherefore and honest course of life and a purpose of doing as we should The heavenly word is the food of our souls that we had in our minds can by no other means be brought to perfection but by the word of God and the influence of his spirit which if when the disease is gon it stay fast in our minds we shall not easily fall away from our purpose of amendment of life which pain extorted from us not without some secret inspiration but we shall stick constantly unto it though many things do sollicite us to fall from it There is a famous Epistle extant of Pliny the younger L. 7. wherein he saith he was advertised by the sicknesse of a friend that we are best when we are fastned by diseases to our beds For he that is sick if he be tempted by lust or covetousnesse he will not be amorous or covetous he neglects honours and riches he is lowly and not so fierce and lastly he resolves to lead a harmlesse happy honest sober life That the purpose of the mind may come to a happy issue if he chance to escape Wherefore he took occasion from hence to admonish both his friend and himself that when they are well they should persevere to be such as they promised to be when they were sick This exhortation was good and commendable But he knew not nor could he shew by whose conduct help and inspiration this was to be effected For unlesse we are sustained by the power of God and his word upon every light occasion we shall fall back to our former errours and the floud of humane affairs will carry us another way and not to an honest innocent life and good and unblameable manners For it was he infirmity of man that wrested from us the promises of leading a better life Why is it that some are made better and not faith or any solid doctrine founded on Gods word But if any man ask for a natural reason there is none that seems to me more probable than that when men recover of their disease many witty merry companions come to see them and they invite them to rejoyce and make merry and to fall into all kinds of Luxury and deceitfulnesse of pleasures and dalliances Hence they eat and drink healths one after another round about and so they gratify them that are restored to their former health and commonly there they sing bawdy songs and such things that are not fit to be seen or heard are represented These things and many such like do easily draw a sick and dubious mind that hath quickly forgot its deliverance to embrace what is worse To this I add the delicate and voluptuous meats which the humours being augmented by do stimulate and prick the obscene parts with Delicate meats foment lust and cause erection Hence it is that they return to luxury and gluttony and profuse lusts and whorings and unbridled pleasures so Unchanged nature without delay Juven Sat. 24. Will still return the same way For so great is the inclination and pronenesse of mans nature to that which is worst that unlesse God were very desirous of our salvation and did continually warn us and send us some great afflictions all would run to utter oblivion So as it is in Esaias Chap. 29. onely trouble gives so much understanding to the ear That is no man but when troubles come near and calamities arise doth awake and give attention nor doth a man ever think to live frugally and moderately or thinks of leading a better life but when he is afflicted or when we chance to be sick of feavers and other cruel diseases and are tormented with most terrible pains Now there is nothing that turns a man more from God and alienates him from his maker than prosperous successe and abundance of all things Prosperity makes us sluggish and negligent onely affliction calls us to repentance and mourning and to a
comprehended in excellent verse Virgils praise for his great knowledge who being he was most versed in the knowledge of things and had so exactly sought out all the works of Nature he did also in some measure subject the 〈◊〉 of men to their forces and effects For men are diversly 〈◊〉 and otherwise constituted according as the time is according as the Starrs set or the Ayre varies The condition of the sky changeth mens minds and the four seasons of the year differ So when the skie is clowdy and dark and the aire grosse and thick men are sad and sour countenanced and sleepy but when the sky is clear and in the spring-time when all things flourish men are cheerfull and lightsome and very much given to mirth For the pleasant aire dissipates all foulnesse of humours and grosse vapours that darken our minds and makes our Spirits cheerfull and our minds quick and lively which Virgil expressed in this elegant verse But when the season and the flitting Ayre Grow moist L. 1. Georg. and Southern-winds begin to blow Things are then thickned that before were rare And a great change is made in things below Mens minds do alter as the times go round When Tempests are they do not hold the same As in fair weather sometimes birds abound And sing beasts skip Crows a hoarse note do frame For the Spirits that were before kept in break forth when the ayre is calme and pleasant A simile from smoky houses and when they are recreated with the West-wind For as Smoke and vapours when the houses are unlockt and the dores set open the ayre and wind entring use to be dissipated and blown away and all Galleries and Chambers that were full of filth begin to be more lightsome so in mens bodies all soul vapours and all stinking sents that were in them and all dullnesse of Spirits are discussed and ventilated Wherefore not onely internall causes and imbred humours are helps to health or diseases but the outward conjunction of the Starrs and constitution of the outward ayre and breathings and qualities of the winds breed divers and sudden mutations in the bodies of men The body is subject to the constitution of the ayre which every man may find true in himself every moment almost of time For who is there to passe over the affections of the mind who when some tempest is at hand or distemper of the Ayre three days also before it comes doth not perceive some pricking in his limbs and some beating pains contractions of the nerves palpitations or some other sensible pains For Watts Corns Horny substances Cicatrices Knots Kernells or if any thing be strain'd or disjoynted or broken torn or dissolved in any part of the body all these will foreshew a tempest coming which doth not use to come but with most bitter torments to such that have any secret touch of the Whores Pox. For these when cold winds begin to blow are soonest sensible of their pains for their Nervs are stretched and their Muscles grow stiffe Sick people perceive the change of the aire and the vitious humours in their bodies being agitated do trouble them grievously For there is under those parts a kind of distemper like to the weather that tortures them strangely in their inward parts But such as are of a sound habit of body and in good health feel no inconvenience or distemper by it For as patcht broken leaking ships are sooner swallow'd up in a tempest A simile from Ships that are shaken so diseased people and such as are of a decai'd and uncertaine health are expossed to all injuries and subject to all inconveniences for upon the least distemper of the Ayre arising they use to feel most terrible pains or when the Sun or Moon cause any mutation in the inferiour bodies For these Planets put forth their forces The force of the Sun and Moon upon inferiour bodies not only upon mens bodies but upon all terrestriall things the force whereof is so great and is extended so wide that all things contained in the circumference of the Heavens have their order Ornament and Glory from them and the whole course of things and times of the yeare are governed by them And though the power of the upper Starrs be not ineffectuall yet by the help of the Sun all things of greatest concernment are brought to passe For the Sun chiefly adorns this World and disposeth and guideth all things very decently For by the Suns operation seeds are propagated and corn grows ripe and all things increase and proceed And thus the year doth trace it self about Georg. 2. Also the works of the Moon appeare very great in the Nature of things but not so great as the effects of the Sun For she enjoyes the benefit of the Sun and borrows her light from him Opposition makes a full◠Moon Conjunction a new Moon that so much of the Moon is light as the Sun shines upon but she fails and hath no light when the earth comes between and causeth an ecclips But then especially she shews her forces upon earthly things when she is full the Sun being right over against her and makes her round or when she is in Conjunction with him for at these times Corn grows and augments shell-fish swell the veines are full of blood and the bones full of marrow whence it is that copulation at those times offends least And because she moisteneth all things flesh that are subjected and exposed to the Moon-beames corrupt and men that are drunk dead asleep allmost Wax pale and are troubled with the Head-ache and are affected with Epilepsie for it looseneth the Nerves She causeth the ebbing and flowing of the Sea and moisteneth the brain over-much and by its chilling force it stupefies the mind Also no man may doubt but that she is the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea For being that we fee that when the Moon is dark and silent or a halfe Moon or crooked with Horns or increaseth or diminisheth the waters do not run much together nor are there any high tides The Moon moves the Sea upon any shores whatsoever but again when she is in Conjunction with the Sun and begins to be a new Moon or to be round and a full Moon the tides are very great and the waves rise exceedingly who then can ascribe the flowing and ebbing of the Sea to any thing than to the motion of the Moon For as the Loadstone draws Iron A simile from the Load-stones forces so this Planet being next the earth moves and draws the Sea For when the Moon riseth the Sea roules about those parts namely the Eastern parts and leaves the Western parts but when she goes to the West and sets the flouds increase in those parts and abate in the Eastern parts and this more abundantly or sparingly as the Moon increaseth or decreaseth in her light that is conveighed by the
seven days as the acrimony of the liquor is you shall find the shell of it grow so like a tender skin that you may draw it through a ring a man wears on his finger By the same reason and effect an egg soked in Aquavitae will be consumed and come to nothing as I have proved As also a flint wet with Vineger and the Gravel-stone called Tophus The Tophus is next to Gyp-Teras wherewith the Masons rough-cast walls and make Cisterns which the Dutch call Teras will melt in it and be resolved into powder for both liquors have a penetrating consuming fiery force that eats and consumes all solid bodies whereby it come to pass that those who use these things in too great abundance as also Salt and Cummin-seed immoderately What will make men lean grow lean and dry and are wholly consumed for they hinder the growth of young people Ill â—â—â—â—ours eat the bones and that they cannot grow tail and comely They waste the native moysture by help whereof the body springs up to a decent proportion So Salt biting burning nitrous humours do eat up the membranes in the body the flesh Muscles Nerves Solid-bones and those that are as hard as stones as the teeth and the Ossa Petrosa of the head A simile from Worms and as Catterpillars feed on stalks and herbs and as Wormes feed on wood Rust eats iron they eat and make them rotten Moreover a raw egg is so solid and firme long-wayes at the two ends that the strongest man cannot break it let any man try it and he shall find it is no fiction for unlesse you bend it something to one side it will not yeeld though you presse it never so hard with your hands nor will it break by the hardest thrust against it for that shelly force will make such resistance that it cannot be broken or the frame of it dissolved though a man put all the force he hath to it and presse his hands together with all his might For it is so defended by the sides that it supports it selfe every way nor doth it become pliable that it may be thrust or bowed inward So poles beames peices of wood iron set an end upward will bear vast weights and never bend nor be crooked by them Country Farmers wives are not ignorant of this that on market dayes come to the Cities and bring victuals to sell to Towns for they do not set their eggs in their panniers lying down or inclining which way they will commonly fall of themselves but they set them upright so that the narrower end for it is copped at both ends stands highest which they do for this reason that they may not break and may bear a weight lying on them upon which parts also an Egg put into Salt water will flote An Egg will flote in brine and so will Ambergreece CHAP. XV. The Moon by a wonderfull force of Nature every Moneth otherwise than the rest of the Stars do searcheth all the sound parts of mans body secretly and undiscerned but the sick parts manifestly and not without sense or pain and stayes in them sometimes two sometimes three dayes By the way whether a Vein may safely be opened in that part that the Planet governs at that time The Stars rule inferiour things THe beginning and increase of things and the universe do demonstrate that the Stars do by their influence govern inferiour bodies for the nature of things is not idle sluggish and slothfull but lively quick agil prompt effectual and hath great force given unto her by God by whose word all things flourish and subsist Gen. 2. Psalm 31. Nor is the exceeding beautifull frame of the heavens made onely to feed our eyes and to gaze upon as also the motions continued order and disposition of the heavens but that we might receive some profit and help thereby For God Earthly bodies are subject to the Stars The nature of things subject to the Stars The mind free from the Stars besides delight and contemplation that we enjoy by this great work abundantly hath created all things for use and hath made all plants Seas Rivers Mettals Jewels Stones and all things else that are dug forth of the earth or adorn the superficies of it and distinguish it with variety and very bodies of men and the humours in them subject to the Stars So that from the Stars they feel some motion impulsion and effects But the Spirit of God onely doth move and agitate the minds of men that are loose and free from all mortall concretion and were inspired by Him and they have no commerce or society with the Stars unlesse perhaps sometimes they are drawn aside to corporeal delights by consent and conspiring with the body when reason is against it whose ministery and help every mans mind and Soul is forced to make use of But since the Moon is a Planet that is more conversant and next unto man and most near to the Earth St. Paul Rom. c. 7. she more than the rest employs her forces upon mans body and runs through every part by a peculiar vertue and effect sometimes not without most bitter sense or torment For if there be any fault that lyeth hid in any part that part is most cruelly shaken and torn with pains the force of the Moon rending it or else by moving the humours that are in it Wounds deadly from the effect of the Moon and stick close to it So all diseases and distempers are exasperated and grow worse by the Moons forces when she is in the joynts so that wounds will hardly grow well or come to cicatrize and sometimes become mortal when they are made on that part the Moon then rules in By the same reason the head Throat Lungs Breast Liver Milt Reins Bladder Bowels also the Nervous parts feel hurt or their distemper becomes greater when the Moon is in those Bowels All parts feel the Moons motions So the Breast is narrow and short-winded the Nerves Membranes Muscles are contracted and grow stiff when the Moon runs in them For the humours wherewith all the parts are moistned and fed both those that are wholesome and the rest that are unwholesome and faulty are exposed and are under the rule of the Moons motions But since the course of the Moon for the most part brings hurt and danger to weak and feeble bodies Whether that part the Moon is in may be cut it may be made a disputable question whether in that part wherein the Moon stayes and governs a Vein may be opened for in this matter most men are fearfull and dare not adventure to do it though the disease be urgent and require this help presently But I think we ought to do it in time and to go about it without fear and with great confidence of bringing help and driving away the disease A simile from outward calamity for acute and swift diseases will allow
and grow greater by a sudden and immoderate heat In the mean time the parts affected must be gently rubbed and chafed with the hand with oyle of Camomile Dill sweet Almonds then wet with warm water or with warm milk newly milk't from the Cow in which are boy'ld green Bay-leaves that are oyly Rosemary Sage Lavander Spike of that part of France called Celtica or french Lavender whereby the blood may be recalled and the parts that are dead may revive And all these things must be done gently by degrees least pain may be caused thereby Cold an enemy to the Nerves and bones I think there is no man but hath sometimes proved in himselfe what bitter pains the joynts endure by reason of the nerves that have a most exquitsie feeling when they grow stiffe with a more intense and peircing cold the blood being either extinguished or running inward into the inmost parts so that at the first coming of cold the hands will wax red and by and by as the blood grows cold they will grow wan and dead being deprived of the vitall blood and Spirits Wherefore the Joynts must be chafed easily and bathed in a decoction of the Intestines of four footed beasts What will help lims oppressed with cold with their feet puddings and tripes which is to be commonly had in all Cities and to be provided In which liquor as also in Cows milk hearbs may be boyled that I mentioned before wherewith the parts may be heated again with heat of life that were almost dead and restored to their first temper for such fomentations do help and strengthen the parts and ease the pains as also baths stoves and Baths of sweet waters do Also the parts thus affected so they be not totally benummed with cold Snow and cold water raise up heat and that some bloud be left in them are to be plunged in cold water and washed with it which will restore them to their former vigour and they will by degrees regain the heat they had lost for by antiperistasis or contrarietie the heat comes in the cold being driven away which every man may make proof of by handling Snow or Ice for his hands will presently grow hot and look very red So frozen Apples soked in cold water return to their own nature and all that is congealed in them melts and is dissolved So Ice let down into a pit will suddenly melt and run Wells are cold in Summer hot in Winter For well-waters are hot in winter as store-houses and caves under ground are but in Summer they are exceeding cold Moreover that the heat and vital spirits may be driven forth from the inward parts to the outward parts we must give some things to drink made of wine and other heating things whereby natural heat like fire raked up in ashes may be stirred up and also some of the best Theriac must be drunk with wine and outwardly we must apply to the body bottles of Tin Bottles applied to the body bring forth sweat or Earth fil'd with hot water wherein hearbs are boyl'd that draw forth sweat and open the pores as Fennel Smallage of the Marshes Lovage Lovage with black leaves Macedonian Parsley Bay-leaves Balm Angelica Origanum Rue Savoury c. Which I use to do also in the Plague that thereby all the venome and contagion may be discussed from the heart How Seamen must be restored after shipwrack And if any man after ship-wrack be cast on the shore and besides his joynts and limbs benummed with cold hath drank in much salt-water he must take such things as provoke urine abundantly that the salt water may not corrode his inward parts I bid them make a drink of barley Figs Raysins Anniseed Fennel-seed and roots and red chiches putting a little Licoris thereto for this takes off from the heat and acrimony of the Seawater and suppleth and easeth the ulcerated parts A safe potion for such as have drank Sea-water And as for their meat they must eschew all salt sowre sharp things water of Honey and Cows milk with a little Sugar is an excellent remedy for them A Ptisan drink and all that is made of Barley either to sup or in Pap or Creme of Barly doth wonderfully help them And if the skin outwardly be corroded as it useth to be by salt water A liniment for the skin worn by Salt-water they must have a Liniment of fresh Butter Hogs grease without Salt Goose Ducks Hens grease unguent of Roses and of black Poplars CHAP. XXI Whence arise and grow stings of Conscience in man and whether as passions and perturbations of the mind they are to be ascribed to the humours or whether they consist in the mind and the will COnscience that is the testimony of good and bad in every mans mind which by a remembring of what is done What Conscience is approves what is praise worthy and condemns what is naught and ill is by God set in every mans heart So a pure and sound mind that is guilty of no fault comes forth by calling to mind the good life that such a man hath led but a troubled tumultuous fearful The force of Conscience unquiet mind riseth from the remembrance of an evill life and will offer it self whether a man will or no so that it drives some men into despair and desperation as it did Cain King Saul Judas and it raiseth others into hope and confidence of obtaining Salvation as it did David Peter Magdalen Therefore a man is affected with some anguish of his mind and torture in his soul whensoever conscience sets before him the memory of the wickednesse he hath committed When fear is the cause of Repentance and Salvation and it terrifies him with fear of revenge and punishment that he trembles at it by which pricks of conscience the mind sometimes elevated unto God as it fell out with the Prodigal Son is moved to repentance and dispelling fear obtains tranquillity so that the soul is raised again and cheered and sending the bloud through the body and elevating the spirits that a little before were almost extinguished the colour becomes fresh that was pale and almost gon the body pining and the mind being contracted with sorrow For being that the vices and affections of the mind do shew themselves in the habit of the body and in the Countenance if at any time any secret mischief or wickednesse lye hid in the Soul such kind of men upon any light occasion offered will commonly look pale be troubled and angry will tremble be short winded sad complaining suspicious half dead and are distracted with divers thoughts because as the Psalmist saith their sin is continually before their eyes so that they cannot as they would and as they seek to do obliterate and deface the memory of their sins committed but it will be daily renewed and be fresh again To which that prayer of the Prophet David may be
words in treating of the motions of conscience because this argument be longs to Preachers and professours of Divinity whose duty it is and by vertue of their office they are bound to pacifie and settle mens consciences and to free them from all feares But since these affections do overthrow mans health that proceed from the stings of conscience and the Spirits and humours vitiated do afford nutriments for it it is the Physitians part also to remove these perturbations out of mens minds that those being taken away the body may be in perfect health For it it a laborious and very difficult matter to restore the body that is fallen sick where the conscience is polluted with the spots of sinns where the Organs of the senses and the Spirits vitall and animall are vitiated And it is no lesse troublesome for a Church-man to give comfort to the soul when the body is full of vitious humours for by reason of the narrow consent and union of both parts the vices of the mind fly upon the body and the diseases of the body The sympathy of the Soul and body are carryed to the Soul As we have for example all mad people and such as are melancolique or frantique such as rave or dote or are drunk Apoplectick paralytick forgerfull stupid Lunatick and many more whose sick distempers proceed from the distemper of the brain wherefore we must carefully look to the head which is the seat of the mind and use all meanes to preserve both parts in health CHAP. XXII How many months doth a Woman go with Child and which must be accounted a seasonable birth By the way of the framing of the body of man and in how many dayes or months the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrells arise not onely betwixt marryed people but others also that use unlawfull copulalation SInce there use oft times great contentions and quarrells to arise amongst many people concerning the time that the woman goes with Child and some complain that are jealous of their Wives that they have formerly marryed to keep them company that they have not gone their full time to be delivered so that somtimes they suspect that they have play'd the Whores and that some other men have secretly made use of their bodies I thought it not amisse to write something to this purpose and the rather because Lawyers that end controversies referr the judgment of this matter to Physitians and leave the resolution of it to them to decide So Paul The judgment of inspection is referred to Physitians Digest Tit. 2. Of the state of Man the Counsellour lib. 19 Respons It is now a received truth that a perfect Child may be born in the seventh month by the Authority of the most learned man Hippocrates and therefore we must believe that one born in lawfull matrimony in the 7th month is a lawfull Child Gellius handleth this argument but rather after mens opinions than according to the truth of the businesse or from natural reason who supposeth that there is no certaine time set of bearing Children and that from the Authority of Pliny who saith that a woman went 13 months with Child L. 7. c. 5 A Child at seven months is full of life But as for what concernes the 7th month I know many marryed people in Holland that had Twins who lived to extreame old age their bodies being lusty and their minds quick and lively Wherefore their opinion is foolish and of no moment who think that a Child at seven months is imperfect and not so long lived and that a Child cannot be borne perfect in all parts untill nine months be past So of late there arose a great conflict amongst us A History of a Child born and it was cruell and bloody and a most deadly and desperate fight by reason of a Maid whose chastity was violated that had no ill Name or doubtfull report but she had a weak head and a feeble judgment and these of all others are soonest overcome and do not so valiantly and corragiously resist and stand against either threats of flattering inticements other wise than some fierce clamorous maids use to do who will bite and scratch and compell one that shall assault their chastity to forsake them But in this Tragedy the conflict grew again more violent and bitter because the Father who was reported to have gotten her with Child or to have ravished her denyed the fact which his enemies charged upon him so bitterly that he might be torturd and racked till he should confesse it but he confidently avouched A deniall of a rape charged upon one that he was ready to forswear it upon the Bible he himselfe being wont to be President in judgment and to handle sacred matters that he never so much as entred her or broke the membrane of her Virginity nor penetrated into her body Wherefore he would by no means be taken for the Father of the Child or that it should be accounted his amongst other arguments he alleaged for his innocency this was one that the Child was born in the 7th month and hardly so late for the month was rather then new begun than ended and all the parts of it were perfect except the nails which we observe sometimes to be wanting in a Child born in nine months especially where great bellyed women use salt fish too lavishly or lick salt as that sex is most prone to desire salt and sharp things When a Child wants nails Wherefore he strove to prove it was not a Child of seven months but nine months and that by making that account of the months and by observing the reason of time they must seek for another Father who had formerly lain with her and got her with Child But when the Judges gave Judgment that the Infant should be viewd and searched by the Physitians a Midwife being called some honest women one was a noble woman who was the Mother of 19. Children and who severall times had been delivered at seven months and the seven months not fully ended They all pronounced not examining the cause of the fact nor respecting the Father whether they should reckon this man or some other to be the Father that this was a Child born in seven months that was carried in the Mothers belly 27 weeks and if the Mother could have gon nine months the child's parts and limbs would have been more firme and strong and the structure of the body would be more compact and fast and not so loose For the brest bone that â—yeth as a buckler or fence over the heart the Dutch call it Borstplate and the sword-like gristle that lies over the stomach were higher than naturally they should be and did not lye down plain but crooked and sharp pointed like the brest of young Chickens that are hatched at the beginning of Spring or
to travel when the Moon is either new or full especially when the force of the Moon is about the Secrets or Groins or Thighs for I said elsewhere that this Planet runs through all the parts and stays upon them severally two dayes and sometimes three And when she stays about those parts the Womb is wet and slippery and opens with more ease and is dilated and makes the passage ready for the child to come well out by But if the birth happen when the Moon is old and diminished it commonly useth to be more laborious and to be thrust forth with great strugling and endeavours Because I have often observed these things and they seem not strange from reason I thought fit to set them down to make good this argument Moreover since we have in some part mentioned the Moons forces it is fit to remember this again that I spake of a little before that in raysing and changing of the temper of the Ayre she hath no forces unlesse the Sun enlighten her and that vast Planet shall shine upon her and illustrate her with his face toward her therefore it is that she hath so little force when she first comes to meet the Sun but after the third or fourth day that she shines she manifestly foreshews either a Tempest or fair weather Prognosticks from the Moon so that the fourth day constitutes the temper or distemper of the whole Moneth Which effects of the Sun and Moon Virgil elegantly expressed in these Verses observing the variety of the colours that she is overspread with from the exhalations of the Ayre and Earth When first the Moon doth recollect her light Georg. L. 1. If that her horns shew black and dark as night Plowmen and Seamen must great rains expect But if a Virgin red she doth reflect Strong Winds are near a red Moon doth blow But the fourth day which makes the certain show If she look bright and her sharp horns appear That day and all that follow will be clear Calm and serene and till that month do end No rain shall fall nor shall the Winds contend He comprehends the power of the Sun in as many Verses which not onely changes all mortall bodies but also the Souls of men CHAP. XXIII A profitable and pleasant narration of the Procreation of Man wherein is illustrated the other part of the Argument SInce many do erre and are blind in the knowledge of naturall things and especially in those things that appertain to the structure of mans body and many trifling narrations are used to be delivered concerning the fashioning of the Infant and the scituation of it of the time of a womans going with child and of the course of the Moon and whether the seventh Moneth may be thought seasonable for the birth of a child and whether a child then born be long lived I think I shall do well if I shall attempt by the way to explain the framing of man for there is an excellent structure of this divine workmanship and there is an elegant and curious frame of all the parts that are seen outwardly or are inwardly concealed and serve for mans use The Original of mans body The efficacy of humane seed Man consists of the Seed of both Sexes and for the first seven dayes the Mothers bloud running to it he grows in shape like to an Egg. But there is a forming faculty and vertue in the Seed from a divine and heavenly gift for it is abundantly endued with a vital and etherial spirit and is full of it and this gives the shape and form to the child so that all the parts and the whole bulk of the body that is made up in the space of so many Moneths and is by degrees framed into a decent and comely figure of a Man do consist in that and are adumbrated thereby Psalm 138. which David the greatest King admired and observed being the onely contemplator of divine works Physitians that have narrowly contemplated mans nature Four times of forming the Infant constitute four different times wherein the framing of man is perfected The first when presently after copulation and mutual embracements it hath the nature of Seed at which time it is called conception or geniture because the two Seeds fermented together do grow up like Creme or the concretion of Milk Job 10. which Job describes thus Hast thou not poured me forth as milk and crudled me as Cheese by these is the conception and conglobation of the seeds of Male and Female perfected in the first week if there be no effluxion as it useth to fall out when the Matrix is slippery or stands too wide open The second time of forming is constituted when Nature and the force of the Womb by the use of her own imbred forces and vertue makes a manifest change in the Seed so that all the substance seems rather to be neshy and sanguine than seminal and this happens about the 12. or 14. day after the frame began and though this concretion and fleshy masse abounds with hot fiery bloud yet it is rude and without any form and there are no lineaments or figure of the parts distinguished for the Limbs have yet obtained no certain form whence it is that we can see no fashion or portraiture of a man but onely a rudiment and beginning of mans workmanship Similitudes from Artificers that learns as it were to fashion the child An example may be fetched from Potters for Art imitates nature who from moist tenacious tractable Clay make Images and Pots first without any certain form undigested but afterwards very artificial figures A simile from Painters We may observe the same in Painters who first with a more rude pensil or with a cole or chalk draw a picture in the ground-work of it the Dutch call that bewerpen then they polish it and finish it so that those things that before appeared rough hid undressed dark obscure shadowed do afterwards shew neat pleasant and clear We may conceive the like in Image-makers and Silver-smiths A simile from Image-makers who hew their brasse or wood to polish it and when they have made it hollow with a tool they polish it with another Instrument and so they make their work exact and perfect Like unto this in reason is sowing of Seed and casting it about upon the ground A simile from sowing of Seed for that being warmed and softned in the bosome of the earth grows up continually by the moist vapours and becomes a plant bears fruit and seed just as that it came from A simile from the fruitfulness of the Earth As therefore the fertile and fruitful earth fosters the Seed by embracing it and brings forth a Plant of the same kind as that was the Seed came from so the Womb of a Woman unlesse it be wholly barren frames a child of the Seed that is hid in it and at a set time that is for the
created that are in the compasse of the Heavens or comprehended in Sea or Land Which the Prophet David the chiefe admirer of Gods works doth testifie in these words O Lord our God how excellent is thy name in all the World For thy magnificence is exalted above the Heavens What is man that thou art mindfull of him Psalm 8. or the Son of man that thou so regardest him Thou hast made him little lower than the Angels that thou mightest crown him with Glory and worship thou hast set him over the works of thy hands Thou hast put all things under his feet c. In which words he declares how much God respects man next unto Christ and how great reckoning God makes of man to whom the world is made subject and obedient that not onely all things created are exposed for his use and profit but also Christ died for man by whose favour and merits the Father gives all things unto us abundantly CHAP. IV. How great Man's thankfullnesse should be unto God BUt this principally should stirr up exceeding great love and reverence in man toward God that when he was estranged from God and for breaking his Commandements cast down unto eternall death Mans reconciliation our Heavenly Father by the singular favour we enjoy for Christs merits received us into his mercy For Christ taking pity of mans misery reconciled man to his Father by shedding his own blood and conquering death and breaking the yoke of the most cruel Tyrant to whom man was bound and indebled he brought him back beyond expectation to his former liberty and restored him to his Inheritance of his heavenly Kingdome So that as St. Paul saith we are no longer strangers and Forrainers from God but Citizens and Heirs and friends Ephes 2. and of the houshold of God built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner stone by whom we have admission and entrance unto the Father in one spirit Wherefore since every one of us is ingrafted by the help of saving doctrine by faith and the washing of regeneration into Christ and as St. Paul saith have obtain'd grace and inheritance Tit. 3. by the renovation of the holy spirit that he hath powred forth upon us abundantly it is fit and the restauration of our salvation requires it that placing all our hope and trust upon so magnificent a Father and upon his Son Jesus Christ who hath destroyed death and sin we should submit our selves to him and conform unto him our lives We must approve our lives to God manners and customes and with all purity of Mind and holy and unblameable conversation with daily and earnest prayer we should procure his favour to us and endeavour to win his love and gracious acceptance CHAP. V. What Baptism adds to Man and what it minds him of What Baptism doth BEcause Baptism or sacred washing is the first Entrance into the Church and company of the faithfull and is the very gate and footstep this is it that leads us to hope and confidence of Salvation For by Faith and Repentance that is by detesting our former life and by mortifying our bodies and by renewing of our minds we are ingrafted into Christ who hath wiped off and cleansed us from all spots and abolished all faults of our souls applying this external Sacrament unto us and by infusing the holy Ghost into our hearts whereby being assured of our Salvation we cry Abba Father Which double and continually ingeminated invocation is so effectual and present help that it will obtain all things from our munificent father if so be that a man direct his prayers and desires and groans unto God for Christ his sake For by this Leader and Mediatour who hath deserved favour for us 1 John 5. James 1. with his own bloud we obtain all things that are good for us and our prayers are never in vain and uselesse For so mercifull a Father will never stop his ears to their requests Prayers are effectual by Christ Deut. 6. Levit. 7. for whose sake and redemption he gave his onely begotten Son to dye CHAP. VI. Next unto God we must love our neighbours BUt since we are chiefly to love God to whom we owe all things Mark 12. Luke 10. Love towards God and for whose service man is bound to employ all his force that is in his heart mind and service so also he must be loving to his neighbour that is to man who is of the same nature and condition with him and must love him as himself So that each man must willingly lend his help unto him and when there is need and an opportunity offered which also it is fit we should seek for and take to assist him with Moneys and counsell For this is the principal fruit of our faith and is a sincere and no counterfeit testimony of our true Christian profession Love to our neighbour CHAP. VII How great should be the piety of children towards their Parents MOreover as we owe all to God much to our country and friends so it is no small matter that we owe unto our Patents But what respect and honour we ought to shew unto them I need not speak any more or prescribe since naturally every one is enclined to love his own even the very heathen as Christ testifies so that this love though we do our duties Math. 5. deserves no commendation but is our duty and must be done if we will be blamelesse But this must from our child hood be daily inculcated unto every man that he love heartily and entirely his Parents by whose means and ministery he enjoyed his first being and life Children must love their Parents Prov. 28. that he obey them in all things that equity and reason shall dictate unto him as Christ is said to be subject to his Mother Mary and to Joseph For Piety is acceptable to God Luk. 2. and the service and obedience we shew to our Parents is approved by him which is also carefully commanded in the Old and New Testaments Exod. 20. Deut. 5. Math. 25. Ephes 5. Math. 7. Mark 4. That is is a witty saying of Pittacus the Philosopher Such duty as you shew to your Parents expect the same from your children To which respects that speech of Christ that is more large Such measure as you mete the same shall others measure to you again For from the errour and negligence of this it commonly falls out that children are unruly and disobedient to their Parents that when they come to years they scorn to hear their Parents instructions and that sometimes by a deserved and just retaliation and revenge because their Parents were not obedient to their Parents before them but were stubborn and untoward CHAP. VIII How every Man ought to behave himself toward his Master MAster 's that instruct you and adorn your mind with principles of Learning We must
whereby even in the Low-Countries some Witches and cunning Women do mischief to their neighbours heards and flocks of Cattel Witchcraft is hurtfull and rob them of their milk and butter by the help of the Divel spoyling their Corn and Wine and destroying them Also they take strength from men and as if they were gelded they make them weak and feeble for the Marriage bed of which some strong brawny men have complained to me and that they were become Eunuchs and unable to their great disgrace and losse to their Wives to whom I strove to afford help and to give them amulers applying to them such hearbs that in such cases are present remedies by the gift of God Now for a man to toil his wits in such enchantments is not onely unnecessary and idle but also dangerous and destructive For by laws of God and man they are to be punished with death and tied to a post Deuter. 28. they are to be burnt who exercise any wicked Arts by the help of the wicked spirits But how inchantments may be driven away and repelled I shall shew at the end of the Book where I shall speak of the Majesty of the name Jesus lest we should here interrupt the order and series of this treaty CHAP. XXI We must not lesse take care for our Minds than for our bodies We must adorn both minds and bodies BUt since man is made of Soul and body we must with all providence take care for the safety of them both The Soul is the principal part in man and the body is the house of the Soul We use most the command of the Soul A simile from domestick affairs and the service of the body therefore we must not be slothfull in the consideration of them both For if we be so carefull that our houses stand not in boggy and marish lands that there be no rifts nor open places for the rain and winds to come in and that our cloathes be not mouldy and for want of ayring come not to be eaten by flyes and mothes how much more need have we to look to our bodies the vices whereof will affect the Soul also by consent and law of company and they converse together in all things For Horace Our bodies Faults do fasten on our mind The Soul divine is thus made earthy kind To which agrees that of the Wise man The corruptible body presseth down the Soul and the mind that meditates on many things Wherefore we must take some care of our body upon whose props as Pliny faith the Soul stands Saint Paul observed that who forbad Timothy to use water any longer and prescribed unto him the use of Wine 3 Tim. 5. to comfort his stomach and to make him more cheerful in the propagation of the Gospel For the body being in a sound condition can better serve the Soul and hinders not nor burdens the mind when it is employed in the contemplation of high things But in the first place we ought to take care for out mind and to adorn that which is no way better performed than by a firm and stable confidence in God which raiseth a man into a most certain hope of immortality and takes out of our minds all dread and fear of death And as meat is nutriment for the body The Souls food so is Gods word the food and nourishment of our Souls whereby alone we conceive peace and tranquillity in our minds than which there is nothing more to be desired and sought for in this life But even the external habit of the body shews what disquietnesse and anguish of heart there is and what tortures wicked men endure in their minds The wicked are unquiet For wickednesse is such a revenger of it self that what mind it hath once fastned on it will never suffer it to be at quiet but continually holds it upon the rack with perturbations which Esaias expressed by an elegant similitude taken from the waves of the Sea Esay 57. The heart of the wicked is as the troubled Sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt That is the minds of those men who are stain'd and polluted with sins and wickednesse are tumultuous troublesome Naughty affections hurt the mind and unquiet For what man can take pleasure in his life or enjoy a quiet mind who carrieth a body about with him that is soiled with most foul faults and a Soul polluted with obscene vices wherefore since great part of misery comes from the vicious affects of the mind we must by all means abstain from them that the body may receive no hurt thereby With the like care and industry must the body be freed from diseases least any blemish or contagion might be conveied from the body to the Soul For being that ill and vitious humours communicate ill fumes to the brain Ill humours cloud the mind they drive and provoke the mind to many mischiefs CHAP. XXII How we must help the body that it may subsist in perfect health Frugality is profitable FRugality and temperance in diet defends health and drives off diseases using moderation in those things that are necessary to confirm health and to cause strength Galen calls these conserving causes because they are fit to conserve the habit of the body Art Med. 83. so we use them well and opportunely Things that bring strength The modern Physitians call them things not-natural not that they are besides nature but because being set without the body and are not within us as the humours by use and effect they affect nature and the faculties thereof with some inconvenience if they be employed amisse and not duely as they ought to be Of this kind is the Ayre that is about us meats and drinks sleeping and waking repletion and inanition affections and motions of the mind all of which mans body requires for the preservation and defence thereof But because the principal part of health consists in a sound diet we must diligently observe in that what is good or hurtfull to the body And since gluttony is no lesse loathsome than it is pernicious and hurtfull to the body we must take in so much meat and drink as will serve natures necessity and that the forces of the body may be fed and not oppressed Moderate diet is profitable for students Moderate diet is profitable and necessary in all occupations of study and managing of great affairs to endure watchings in labour and in performing publick duties For it is this that keeps health perfect it makes the spirits both animal and vitall that are ascribed to the brain and heart to be cheerfull and ready so that what a man conceives in his mind he can readily effect and bring to passe without any trouble But daily examples prove that by luxury and intemperance of life diseases are brought on our studies are hindred all honest cogitations fail we cannot proceed in our lucubrations the
wholly on God and rest in him who takes the chief care of humane affairs To which belongs that of Isaiah chap. 30. Thus saith the Lord God the holy one of Israel your strength shall be in silence and in hope The place of Isaiah explained swijcht ende verwacht be silent and wait In which words he drives away distrust from turbulent and unquiet spirits and he exhorts them that they would quietly and securely wait for help and succour from God for they shall in time obtain their desire so they do not distrust his promises for though sometimes God sends help after a long time yet he never fails those who carefully wait on him with a sure hope and confidence Serm. 1. Sat. 1. Horace a curious observer of humane matters when he saw men to be so tossed and inconstant in that way and course of life they had begun and that their minds were totally unsetled and uncertain so that every man disdained his own lot and desired to change with some other man as the Merchant Souldier Husbandman Lawyer he makes this enquiry L. 1. Serm. Sat. 1. How is' t Maecenas that there is no mar Content with his own lot nor reason can Prevail with nor shall ever we perswade Men to be constant or hold to one Trade And this he prosecutes afterwards in an elegant Proverb borrowing a metaphor from the heards L 1. Epist 14. The dull Oxe would wear trappings and the Horse Had rather go to plough Wherein he observes that it is an imbred condition in men to repent of their own lot and to wish to change with others and to esteem things they know not better than what they do know In another place he gives the reason of this Inconstancy and levity that the mind flotes with We repent for what we are by a contestation arising from the delights of the City and the Country For one man commends the City affairs and the noise and frequency of people the other prefers solitarinesse and country delights and the pleasures of woods and fields For thus they argue one with the other Epist 14. I say who lives it 'h Country liveth best Thou say'st the City life is far more blest He that loves other mens chance hates his own Fools that we are we love what is not known And discommend unjustly what we have The mind 's in fault that never leaves to crave The mind is un-constant A simile from the Waves of the Sea In my opinion the Poet doth rightly accuse the mind and casts all the fault upon the rashnesse and inconstancy thereof For since the mind of man is led by affection and not by reason and is tossed as a Ship with the Waves and raging of the Sea it is every moment carryed divers wayes and conceives divers opinions And hence it is that what course of life soever a man first enters upon he doth not alwaies persevere in it but he continually thinks upon some other way wherein he supposeth there may be more commodity whereas the change of our state or condition doth not change our affections or take off our cares which are not in the things themselves but in our minds For whether it be that a man change a solitary life for to be conversant amongst many people or poverty be changed into plenty of all things the mind will be never the more quiet because it doth not shake off those troublesome motions that are not obedient to reason The like happens to such men as Plutarch and Saint Basil testify as it doth to those that sail into the Ocean and the wide Sea Of the tranquillity of mind of a solitary life A simile from such as are tossed at Sea who desire to come to a commodious haven they are bound for for they are no lesse troubled with vomitting giddinesse and nauseating in a great Ship than they are in a small for neither in the one nor the other will their desire to vomit leave them because the superfluity of choller and flegme in their stomachs goes along with them in both veslels So in changing the course of life no man attains tranquillity unlesse he do wholly shake off his affections and manage all his actions by reason Whence Seneca speaks pat to the purpose Ad Lucil. Epist 1. I think it the first argument of a setled mind that it can consist and stay with it self Wherefore saith he I rejoyce O Lucillius that thou dost not rove nor wander For he that is every where is no where Wherefore it helps nothing to passe over-Seas and to go from Cities to Cities and to take up sometime this sometime that course of life If thou wilt avoid these things that presse thee be not elsewhere but be another man that is compose your own mind and shake off vicious affections by reason and counsel and moderating of all your actions by prudence For as he saith To passe the Seas changes the place not mind What will settle a mans mind But against boysterous desires that distract the mind divers waies so that upon every light occasion it forsakes its purpose resolved on we must fight with Gods word and heavenly doctrine to assist us For this will make a wandring and unsetled mind constant and to be content with that condition God hath placed it in so that it will neither leave it nor disdain it or be too ambitious and greedily gaping after another CHAP. XXXVI We must avoid the company and familiarity of wicked men SHun the company of wicked men as the Plague L. 3. de Ira. For as Seneca saith we take manners from conversation and as contagions lay hold of the body so vices passe into our souls by words and pollute our minds So that a wholesome Ayr is not more profitable for our health than for unsetled minds to keep the company of good men Let every one converse with those that are good We see this in cruel and savage beasts which grow tame by the company and society of man-kind It is also the condition of honesty to make those that are used to it vertuous and well-manner'd so wickednesse and ungodlinesse have this property to deprave and pollute those that deal with it and respect it Wherefore Saint Paul saith lest any man be drawn away from the truth 1 Cor. 15. and hope of Salvation from confidence of obtaining immortality and from the integrity of his mind he carefully admonisheth those that are pious that they should not conceive any such opinion as to perswade themselves there remains nothing of man after death but that the whole man perisheth as brute beasts do Wicked men to be avoided Which ungodly men who fear not God do diligently strive to perswade impudent and ignorant men and by their pernicious doctrines they draw away doubtfull and uncertain minds from the saving truth that is no wayes doubtful or ambiguous Wherefore the Apostle by all
17. and a wicked and counterfeit dissembler For he freely and gravely will tell a man of his duty to whom he wisheth well which Solomon placeth in the chiefest seat of friendship but this will cunningly flatter and daub you over with gallant words approves all you do and applauds you in your errours and fits all things for your Ears so that his words are not onely agreeing to your will but he observes even your looks and countenance Gnatho in Terence doth accurately describe men of this condition Esaiah 30. Eunuch Act. 2. Scen. 2. and by these Verses he shews the manner how they use to endear men unto them The Condition of a Parasite There is a sort of men that fain the chief would be And yet they are not so they shall not laugh at me But I do please them still and wonder at their wit What they affirm I praise and if they deny it I praise that also I say and unsay again What ere they say or unsay now the greatest gain Is flattering which I use all other arts are vain Wherefore since flattery is detestable to all men though thy estate be very mean never become a flatterer or Parasite to any man It is true that to tickle the Ears procures the favour of some men The friendship of flatterers is unfaithfull but it is unconstant and will not last Sometimes men get great gain by it but it is base and infamous and when the craft is detected it proves hurtfull to the Author of it so that no ingenious man who is free bred would endure this character to be fastned upon him Next of kin to flatterers are deceivers and crafty beguilers The Art of deceiving who are as subtile as Foxes to circumvent and deceive simple men by many cunning wiles and deluding wayes and they like to Hyenaes Civility that is deceitfull and Crocodiles lye in wait to entrap mens estates and wives also these are at first sight and appearance very fair in words and deeds but afterwards they will do a man hurt and work his destruction These are very cunning and crafty but wonderfull officious and ready at every beck who for that end and purpose insinuate themselves into mens familiarity and acquaintance that they may cheat and defraud them of something For so soon as they can catch any opportunity to defraud you of any thing they have both their eyes and hands ready for it Wherefore a man must not easily and lightly trust to any man unlesse he hath first well known him by his Just actions and Integrity of life CHAP. XLIII Some commodious Precepts to teach a Man how to live well and happily In what things consists happiness of life SInce there are many rules laid down by learned men how a Man may live well and happily amongst the rest Martial hath writ some Verses wherein he comprehends things that agree with honesty and points at as it were with his finger the way whereby a Man may lead a commodious life and enjoy the health of his body and tranquillity of mind also He prosecutes the matter thus These are the things that made a happy life L. â—0 Goods by Inheritance not got by strife Ground that is fruitfull and a constant fire No suits few visits and a set desire Free born a body from diseases free Friends that are equal prudent honesty An easie diet a Table where is no Art The night not drunk but free from cares of heart A bed not sad but chaste a fixed mind Content with what thou art in every kind Neither to fear nor yet desire death If thou canst not wholly obtain all these commodities of life according to thy will and desire The providence of God moderates all things Psalm 30. thou must not torment and vex thy self but thou must refer all things to Gods providence and will which is the moderatour of all humane affairs for so David did in all things that befell him whether they were prosperous or unfortunate for he submitted all to the power of God not regarding chance or fortune The Godly acknowledg no fortune So when he ascribes to God the whole course of his life he saith My time is in thy hands that is all our affairs run according to thy will and pleasure CHAP. XLIV Of Exercise wherewith the forces wearied are restored both of the Mind and of the Body SInce the Nature of man cannot subsist unlesse it take some time of refreshment and be released from labour for a while We must indulge some relaxation to our selves least the forces of our bodies and souls grow feeble and be overcome with immoderate businesse For as pleasing and seasonable sleep restores and refreshes the weary lims after labour To rest from labour is good so also remission or intention repairs and raiseth up the tired mind and spirits that are exhausted with constant studies and lucubrations The delight of Husbandry The Antients when they had their Vacation from businesse of the Common-wealth and Courts of Law took their pleasure in the Country and reaped as much profit in husbandry as they took delight in it For besides the Woods and green fields that were most pleasant to look upon and besides places set with Trees and adorned with Osiers besides the commodities of their Farms and country houses and sweet retreats they reaped a most lawfull and plentiful profit from their well-tilled land and large harvest and yearly revennues For profit joyned with honesty and Justice can be discommended by no man For as Cicero saith of all things that men get profit by there is nothing better than husbandry L. 1. Offâ—â— or more profitable or more becomming a free-born man So Hesiod thought that nothing was so magnificent and becomming Kings than to till the ground and to be employed in Country affairs of Husbandry A Husbandman is never idle Wherefore the old Romans hating the City went into the country as if they came out of captivity For here you shall find many things to offer themselves that you may take pleasure in by course for sometimes it is time to prune and lop Trees then the pleasant spring invites us to inoculate and to graft Trees again Horat. in od it is time to dresse Vines and when the Vine branches are sprung up to plant the high growing popular Trees Sometimes to catch wild beasts in snares and then Birds with lime twigs Virg. 1. Georg. and after that again To compasse round Woods with Dogs and by turn To entrap Birds and bushes for to burn Many kinds of exercise Hunting and Hawking is healthfull for young people and such as are of ripe age and is a fit exercise for them and is not to be discommended so a man be not over-addicted to it and do not spend all his time in following and destroying wild beasts neglecting serious matters and his houshold affairs But it wonderfully refresheth a