notably discovered and confuted by Claudius Espenatus a famous Doctor of Sorbone in a Treatise which he purposely composed on that point de Caelorum animatione In as much as what is denied those bodies in Life in Sense in Reason is abundantly supplied in their constant and unchangeable duration arising from that inviolable knot indissoluble Marriage betwixt the Matter and the Form which can never suffer any Divorce but from that hand which first joyned them And howbeit it cannot be denyed that not only the reasonable Soul of Man but the sensitive of the least Gnat that flies in the Air and the vegetative of the basest Plant that springs out of the Earth are in that they are indued with Life more Divine and nearer approaching the Fountain of Life then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies yet as the Apostle speaketh of Faith Hope and Charity concludes Charity to be the greatest though by Faith we do apprehend and apply the merits of Christ because it is more universal in operation and lassing in duration so though the Formes of the Creatures endued with Life do in that regard come a step nearer to the Deity then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies which are without Life yet if we regard their purity their beauty their efficacy their indeficiency in moving their universallity and independency in working there is no question but that the Heavens may in that respect be preferred even before Man himself for whose sake they were made Man being indeed Immortal in regard of his Soul but the Heavens in regard of their Bodies as being made of an incorruptible stuff Which cannot well stand with their opinion who held them to be compos'd of Fire or the Waters which in the first of Genesis are said to be above the Firmament and in the hundred forty eight Psalm Above the Heavens are above the Heavens we now treat of for the tempering and qualifying of their heat as did St. Ambrose and St. Augustine hold and many others venerable for their Antiquity Learning and Piety Touching the former of which Opinions we shall have fitter opportunity to discourse when we come to Treat of the warmth caused by the Heavens But touching the Second it seems to have been grounded upon a mistake of the Word Firmament which by the Ancients was commonly appropriated to the eighth Sphere in which are feated the fixed Starrs whereas the Original Hebrew which properly signifies Extention or Expansion In the first of Genesis is not only applied to the Spheres in which the Sun and Moon are planted but to the lowest Region of the Air in which the Birds flie and so do I with Pareus and Pererius take it to be understood in this controversie This Region of the Air being as St. Augustine somewhere speaks Terminus intransgressibilis a firme and irremoveable wall of seperation betwixt the waters that are bred in the bowels of the Earth and those of the Clouds And for the Word Heaven which is used in the hundred fortyeighth Psalm it is likewise applied to the middle Region of the Air by the Prophet Jereâ—y Jer. 10. 13. Which may serve for a Gloss upon the Text alleaged out of the Psalm When he uttereth his voice there is a noise of the waters in the Heavens and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the Earth Now the Schoolmen finding that the placing of the waters above the Starry Heavens was both unnatural and unuseful and yet not being well acquainted with the propriety of the Hebrew Word to salve the matter tell us of a Christaline or glassie Heaven above the eight Sphere which say they is undoubtedly the waters above the firmament mentioned by Moses which exposition of theirs doth cross the course of Moses his Historical Narration his purpose being as it seems only to write the History of things which were visible and sensible as appeareth in part by his omitting the Creation of Angels whereas the Christaline Heaven they speak of is not only invisible and insensible but was not at all discovered to be till the days of Hipparchus or Ptolomy And as for the fresh lustre and brightness wherewith as is commonly thought the Heavens shall be renewed at the last day as a garment by the turning is changed and by changing refreshed it may be well by the making them more resplendent then now they are or ever at any time were since their first Creation not by the scowring of contracted rust but adding a new gloss and augmentation of glory And whereas some Authors have not doubted to make the spots and shadows appearing in the face of the Moon to be unredoubted arguments of that contracted rust if those spots had not been original and native of equal date with the Moon her self but had been contracted by the continuance of time as wrinkles are in the most beautiful faces they had said somewhat but that they were above fifteen hundred years agoe appeareth by Plutarch's discourse de Maculis in facie Lunae and that they have any whit since increased it cannot be sufficiently proved Perchance by the help of the late invented perspective-glass they have been more clearly and distinctly discerned then in former ages but that proves no more that they were not there before then that the Sydera Medcaeo lately discovered by the vertue of the same Instruments were not before in being which the discoverers themselves knew well enough they could not with any colour of reason affirm Howbeit it cannot be denyed but that new Stars have at times appeared in the Firmament as some think that was at our Saviours Birth in as much as it appointed out the very House in which he was born by standing over it and was not for ought we find observed by the Mathematicians of those times I would rather think it to be a blazing Light created in the Region of the Air carrying the resemblance of a Star seated in the Firmament As for that which appeared in Cassiopaea in the year One thousand five hundred and seventy two the very year of the great Massacre in France I think it cannot well be gainsaid to have been a true Star it being observed by the most skillful and famous Astronomers of that time to hold the same Aspect in all places in Christendom to run the same course to keep the same proportion distance and situation every-where and in every point with the fixed Stars for the space of two whole years But this I take not to have been the effect of Nature but the Supernatural and miraculous work of Almighty God the first Author and free disposer of Nature And the like may be said of all such Comets which have at any time evidently appeared if any such evidence can be given to be above the Globe of the Moon St. Augustine in his de Civitate Dei reports of Varro's book entituled de Gente Populi Romani and he out of Castor touching the Planet Venus which to add the greater
touch only those of the Planets The proper Motion of Saturn was by the Ancients observed and is now likewise found by our Modern Astronomers to be accomplished within the space of thirty years that of Jupiter in twelve that of Mars in two that of the Sun in Three hundred sixty and five dayes and almost six hours neither do we find that they have quickned or any way slackned these their courses but that in the same space of time they always run the same races they have passed These then are the bounds and limits to which these glorious Bodies are perpetually tyed in regard of their Motion these be the unchangeable Laws like those of the Medes and Pâ—rsianâ— whereof the Psalmist speaks He hath given them a Law which shall not be broken Psal. 148. 6. Which Seneca in his Book De divina providentia well expresses in other words AEterna legis imperio prâ—â—â—dunt they move by the appointment of an eternal Law that is a Law both invariable and inviolable That which Tully hath delivered of one of them is undoubtedly true of all Suturni stella in suâ— cursu multa miracula efficiens tum ante â—dende tum râ—tardando tum vespertinâ—s temporibus delitesendâ— tum matutinis rursum se aperiâ—ndâ— nihil tamen immutat sempiternis saeculerum aetatibus quam â—adim eiisdem tâ—mporibus efficiat Lib. 2. de nat Deor. The Planet Saturn doth make strange and wonderful passages in his Motion going before and sometimes coming after withdrawing himself in the Evening and sometimes again shewing himself in the Morning and changeth himself nothing in the continual duration of ages but still at the same season worketh the same effects And in truth were it not so both in the Planet and in all other Starrs it is altogether impossible that they should supply that use which Almighty God in their Creation ordained them unto that is To serve for Signs and Seasons for dayes and for years to the Worlds end Gen. 1. 14. And much more impossible it were that the year the month the day the hour the minute of the oppositions the Conjunctions and Ecclipses of the Planets should be as exactly calculated and foretold One hundred years before they fell out as at what hour the Sun will rise to morrow morning To which perpetual aequability and constant uniformity in the Coelestial Motions the Divine Plâ—io accords Nec errant nec praeter antiquuâ— ordinem revolvuntur Neither do they run at randum nor are they rolled beyond their ancient order Aristotle in his Book De Mundo breaketh out in this passionate admiration thereof Quod nunquam poterit aequart caelesti ordinâ— volubilitati cum sydera convertantur exalâ—issiâ—a norma de alioin aliud seculum What can ever be compared to the order of the Heavens and to the Motion of the Starrs in their several Revolutions which move most exactly by a rule or square by line and level from one Generation to another There were among the Ancients not a few nor they unlearned who by a strong fancie conceived to themselves an excellent melody made up by the motion of the Coelestial Spheers it was broached by Pythagoras entertained by Plato and stifly maintain'd by Macrobrius and some other Christians as Bede Boetius and Ansâ—lm Bishop of Canterbury But Aristeâ—le puts it off with a jest in his Lib. 2. de Caelo Cap. 9. as being Lâ—pide Musice dictum factis autem impossibile a pleasant and Musical conceit but in Effect impossible in as much as those bodies in their Motion make noise at all Howsoever it may well be that this conceit of theirs was grounded upon a certain truth which is the Harmonical and Proportionable Motion of those Bodies in their just order and sâ—â— courses as if they were ever dancing the rounds and the Measures In which regard the Psalmist tells us That the Sun knoweth his going down he appointeth the Moon for seasons Psal. 104. 19. Which words of his may not be taken inâ—â— proper but in a figurative sence the Prophet therefore implying that the Sun observeth his prâ—â—cribed Motion so precisely to a point that in the least jâ—tâ— he never erreth from it And therefore he is said to do the same upon knowledg and understanding Non quod animatus fit aut ratione â—ut atur saith Basil upon the place Sâ—d quod juxtâ—â— terminum divinitus prescriptum ingrediens semper eâ—â—dem cursâ—s â—â—rvat ac mensuras suas custodit Not that the Sun hath any Souâ—â— or use of understanding but because he keepeth his courses and measures exactly according to Gods prescription But the Motion of the Heavens puts me in mind of passing from it to the Light thereof As the Waters were first spread over the face of the Earth So was the Light dispersed through the Firmament and as the Waters were gathered into one heape so was the Light knit up and united into one body as the gathering of the Waters was called the Sea so that of the Light was called the Sun As the Rivers come from the Sea so is all the Light of the Stars derived from the Sun and lastly as the Sea is no whit lessened though it furnish the Earth with abundance of fresh Rivers So though the Sun have since the Creation both furnished and garnished the World with Light neither is the store of it thereby deminished nor the beauty of it any way stained What the Light is whether of a corporeal or incorporeal Nature it is not easie to determine Philosophers dispute it but cannot well resolve it Such is our ignorance that even that by which we see all things we cannot discern what it self is But whatsoever it be we are sure that of all visible Creatures it was the first that was made and comes nearest the name of a Spirit in as much as it moveth in an instant from the East to the West and piercing through all transparent Bodies and still remains in it self unmixed and undivided it chaseth away sad and melancholy thoughts which the Darkness both begets and maintains it lifts up our minds in meditation to him that is the true Light that Lightneth every man that cometh into the World himself dwelling in Light in accessible and cloathing himself with Light as with a Garment And if we may behold in any one Creature any spark of that Eternal Fire or any farr-off dawning of Gods brightness the same in the beauty and vertue of this Light may be best discernedâ— Quid pulchâ—rrimus Luce saith Hugo de sanctoVictore quae cum in se colorem non habeat omnium â—amâ—n rerum colores ipsâ— quodammodo colorat What is more beautiful then Light which having no colour in it self yet sets a lustre upon all Colours And St. Ambrose Unde Vex Dâ—i in Scriptura debuit inchoare nisi a Lumine unde Mundi ornatus â—â—si a Luce exordium sumerâ— frustra enim esset si non videretur From whence should the voice of God
Motion upwards and downwards from their second qualities of lightness and heaviness and from their first qualities either Active as heat and cold or Passive as dry and moist For as their Motion proceeds from the second qualities so do their second from their first from the Heavenly Bodies next to which as being the Noblest of them all as well in purity as activity is seated the Element of the Fire though many of the Ancients and some later Writers as namely Cardane amongst the rest seemed to make a doubt of it Lib. 1. Subtil And Manilius in his first Book of Astronomy Ignis ad aetbâ—reas volucer se sustulis auras Summaque complexus Stellantis culmina Coeli Flammarum vallo Naturae Maenia fecit The Fire est soones up towards Heaven did flye And compassing the Starry World advanced A wall of Flames to safeguard Nature by Next the Fire is seated the Air divided into Three Regions next the Air the Water and next the Water the Earth so Bartas Who so sometime hath seen rich ingots tride Where forc't by Fire their Treasure they divide How fair and softly Gold to Gold doth pass Silver seeks Silver Brass conforts with Brass And the whole lump of parts unequal severs It self apart in white red yellow Rivers May understand how when the mouth Divine Open'd to each his proper place t' assign Fire flew to Fire Water to Water slid Air clung to Air and Earth with Earth abid The Vail both of the Tabernakle and Temple were made of Blew and Purple and Scarlet or Crimson and fine twisted Linnen by which four as Josephus notech were represented the four Elements Lib. Antiquit. 15. Cap. 14. His words are these Velâ—â—â—â—ec erat Babiloniâ—â—s variegatum ex Hyaecintho bysso ceâ—ecquâ— purpura mirabiliter elaboratum non indignam contemplatione materiae commistionem habent sâ—d velut â—mnium imagineâ—â— praeferens Cocco enim videbatur ignem imitari Bysso terram Hyacintho aerem ac Mare purpura partim quidem coloribus bysso autem purpura Origiâ—e bysso quidâ—â—â— quia de terra Mare autem purpura gignâ—t The Vaile was Babilonisâ— Work most artificially imbrodered with Blew and fine Linnen and Scarlet and Purple having in it a mixture of things not unworthy of our Consideration but carrying a kind of resemblance of the Universe for by the Scarlet seemed the Fire to be represented by the Linnen the Earth by the Blew the Air and by the Purple the Sea partly by reason the Colours of Scarlet and Blew partly by reason of the Original of Linnen and Purple the one coming from the Earth the other from the Sea And St. Hierom in his Epistle to Fabâ—â—la Epist. 128. hath the very same conceit borrowed as it seems from Josephus or from Philo who hath much to the like purpose in his Third Book of the life of Moses or it may be from Wisâ—â— 18. 14. In the long Robe was the whole World As not only the Vulgar Latin and Arias Montanus but out of them and the Greek Original our last English Translation reads it The Fire is dry and hot the Air hot and moist the Water moist and cold the Earth cold and dry thus are they linked and thus do they embrace one another with their Simbolizing qualities the Earth being linked to the Water by coldness the Water to the Air by moistness the Air to the Fire by warmth the Fire to the Earth by drought which are all the combinations of the qualities that can possibly be hot and cold as also dry and moist in the highest Degrees being altogether incompatible in the same subject and though the Earth and the Fire are most opposite in distance to substance and in activity yet they agree in one quality the two middle being therein directly contrary to the two extreams Air to Earth and Water to Fire These four then as they were from the beginning so still they remain the Radical and Fundamental Principles of all Subcoelestial Bodies distinguished by their several and Ancient Situations Properties Actions and Effects and howsoever after their old wont they fight and combate together being single yet in composition they still accord marvellous well as Boethius Lib. 3. Met. 9. Tu numeris Elementa ligaâ— us frigâ—ra fâ—ammis Aridâ— conveniunt Liquidis ne puriâ—r ignis Evâ—let aut mersas deducant pondera terraâ— To Numbers thou the Elements dost tie That cold with heat may symbolize and dry With moist lest purer Fire should soare to high And Earth through too much weight too low should lie The Creator of them hath bound them as it were to their behaviour and made them in every mixed body to stoop and obey one Praedominant whose sway and conduct they willingly follow The Air being Praedominant in some as in Oyl which alwayes swimmes on the top of all other Liquors and the Earth in others which always gather as near the Center as possibly they can And as in these they vary not a joâ— from their nature and wonted properties so neither do they in their other conditions It is still true of them that Niâ— graevitant nec lâ—vitant in suis lâ—eis there is no sense of their weight or lightness in their proper places as appears by this that a Man lying in the bottom of the deepest Ocean he feels no burthen from the weight thereof the Fire shall serve to warm us the Air to maintain our breathing the Water to cleanse and refresh us the Earth to feed and support us and which of them is most necessary for our use is hard to determine Likewise they still hold the same proportion one towards another as they have done For howbeit the Peripeteticks pretending herein the Authority of their Mr. Aristotle tell us that'as they rise above one another in Situation so they exceed one another propertione decupla by a ten-fold proportion yet is this doubtless a foul Errour or at least-wise a gross mistake whether we regard their entire bodies or their parts if their entire bodies it is certain that the Earth exceeds both the Water and the Air by many degrees the depth of the Waters not exceeding two or three miles and for the most part not above halfe a mile as Marriners find by their Line and Plummer whereas the Diameter of the Earth as Mathematicians demonstrate exceeds Seven thousand miles And for the Air taking the height of it from the part of the ordinary Comets it contains by estimation about fifty two miles as Nonius Vitellio and Albâ—â—en shew by Geometrical proofs Whence it plainly appears that there cannot be that proportion betwixt the entire Bodies of the Elements which is pretended nor at any time was since the Creation And for their parts 't is as clear by experience that out of a few drops of Water may be made so much Air as shall exceed them a thousand times at least There is in the Elements a noble compensation of their fourfold
qualities dispencing themselves by even turnes and just measures For as the Circle of the Year is distinguished by four quarters one succeeding another the time running about by equal distances In like manner the Four Elements of the VVorld by a reciprocal vicissitude exceed one another and which a man would think to be incredible while they seem to dye as Philo writes they become Immortal running the same race and instantly traveling up and down by the same path From the Earth the way riseth upward it dissolving into VVater the VVater vapours forth into the Air the Air is rarified into Fire and again they descend downward the same way the Fire by quenching being turned into Air the Air thickned itto VVater and the Water into Earth Hitherto Philo wherein after his usual manner he Platonizes the same being in effect to be found in Plato's Timaeus as also in Aristotles Book De Mundo if it be his in Damascen and Gregory Nyssen And most elegantly in the wittiest of Poets Ovid Met. 15. Resolutaque tellus In liquidas rarescit aquâ—s tenuatur in auras Aeraque humor habit dempto qucque pondere rursus In superos aer tenuissimus emicat ignes Inde retro redeunt idemqne retexitur ordâ— Ignis enim densum spissatus in Aera transit Hinc in aquas tellus glomerata cogitur unda The Earth resolved is turned into streames Water to Air the purer Air to Flames From whence they back return the fiery flakes Are turned to Air the Air thickned takes The Liquid form of Water that Earth makes The Four Elements herein resembling an Instrument of Musick with four strings which may be tuned diverse wayes and yet the harmony still remains sweet and so are they compared in the Book of Wisdom Cap. 19. v. 17. The Elements agreed amongst themselves in this change as when one tune is changed upon an Instrumont of Musick and the Melody still remaineth Utque novis facilis signatur cera figuriâ— Nâ—â— manet ut fucrat nec formam servat candem Sed tameâ— ipsa cadem est They are the Verses of Ovid in the 15 Met. touching which several Prints stamped upon one and the same lump of Wax Bartas curiously dilates in one of his weeks Our next subject will be to discourse of Comets and Blazing Starrs he uncertainty of the Predictions of them Some took the Comet to have been a Star Ordained and Created from the first bâ—ginning of the World but appearing only by times and by turnes of this mind was Senâ—cae Cardan likewise in latter times harp's much if not upon the same yet the like string But Aristotle in his Natur. Quest. Lib. 7. Cap. 21. 23. whose weighty reasons and deep judgment I much reverence conceiveth the Matter of the Comet to be a very hot and dry exhalation which being lifted up by the force and vertue of the Sun into the highest Region of the Air is there inflamed partly by the Elements of Fire upon which it bordereth and partly by the motions of the Heavens which hurleth it about so that there is in the same manner of an Earth-quake the Wind the Lightning and a Comet if it be imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth it causeth an Earthquake if it ascend to the Middle Region of the Air and be from thence beaten back Wind if it enter that Region ' and be there environed with a thick Cloud Lightning if it pass that Region a Comet or some other fiery Meteor in case the matter be not sufficiently capable thereof The common Opinion hath been that Comets either as Signes or Causes or both have always Prognosticated some dreadful mishaps to the World as out-ragious Winds extraordinary Drought Deaâ—th Pestilence Warrs the death of Princes and the like Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus aether Nere did the Heavens with idle blazes Flame So Manelius hath it But the Lord Privy Seal Earl of Northampton in his Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophesies hath so strongly incountered this Opinion that for my own partâ— must profess he hath perswaded me that there is no certainty of those Predictions in as much as Comets do not always fore run such events neither do these events always follow upon the appearing of Comets Some instances he produceth of Comets which brought with them such abundance of all things and abated their prises to so low an Ebbe as stories have recorded it for Monuments and Miracles to posterity and the like saith he could I say of others Anno Dom. 1555. 1556. 1557. 1558. After all which years nothing chanced that should drive a man to seek out any cause above the common reach and therefore I do allow of the diligence of Gemma-Frisius in taking notice of as many good as bad effects which have succeeded after Comets Moreover he tells us that Peucer a great Mathematician of Germany Prognosticated upon the last Comet before the writing of his Defensative that Mens bodies should be parched and burned up with heat But how fell it out Forsooth saith he we had not a more unkindly Summer for many years in respect of extraordinary cold never less inclination to War No Prince deceased in that time and the Plague in Lombardy as God would have it ceased at the rising of the Comet Besides all this he reports of his own experience as an Eye witness that when divers persons upon greater scrupulosity then cause went about to disswade Queen Elizabeth lying then at Richmond from looking on the Comet which then appeared with a courage answerable to the greatness of her State she caused the Window to be set open and cast out this Word Jacta est alea the Dice are thrown thereby shewing that her stâ—dfast hope and confidence was too firmly planted in the good pleasure and Providence of God as not to be blasted or affrighted with those beams which either had a ground in Nature whereupon to rise or at least-wise no warrant in Scripture to portend the misfortune of Princes Neither have I heard of any Comet that appeared before her Death as at her entrance there did nor that of Prince Henry nor of Henry the Great of France the one being a most peerless Queen the other a most incomparable Prince and the third for Prudence and Valour a matchless King Therefore as Seneca truly notes Natural is magis nova quam magna mirari It is natural unto us to be inquisâ—ived and curious rather about things new and strange than those which are in their own nature truly great yet even amongst the Ancients Charlemaine professed that he feared not the signe of the Blazing-Star but the Great and Potent Creator thereof And Vespasian as Dion reports when the apparition of a Comet was thought to portend his Death replied merrily No said he this bushy Star notes not me but the Parthian King Ipse enim Cometus est ego vero calvus sum for he wares bushy Locks but I am bald Lastly some Comets have been the