therewith the truly valiant often escape untoucht A mans own wit when bridled by fear hunts him into those snares that above all things he would gladly shun Cowardice throws contempt upon the great Creator of all things as arguing a distrust unworthy of his power Can God preserve Daniel in the Lions Den and not secure thee from the Plague thinkest thou is it harder for him to keep thee sound among the sick then it was to protect the three children in the Oven from the devouring flames and consuming heat thereof In a Coward not onely Religion but Reason endures the Rack and where a generous confidence is wanting the faculties of the Soul are frozen But a well-poyz'd Resolution is a bulwark against the most imminent dangers Audaces fortuna juvat The Gods befriend the nobly confident And valour as one well observes casts a kind of honor upon God in that we shew that we believe his goodness while we trust our selves in danger upon his care onely whereas the Coward eclipses his sufficiency by unworthily doubting that God will not bring him off Sinful Adam can't hide himself so closely but God can easily find him and if distrustful Jonah will flee to Tarshish God can raise a Tempest to overtake him If God have appointed the Pestilence for thy Portion thy flying from it but throws thee into its embraces Hence it is that the Countries round about us come to be so suddenly seized with this Sickness the fears of the Heartless fugitives being as so many nimble Chariots to convey it unto the places whither they fly or travel If men will be afraid to trust God it is no wonder that he refuses to protect them Let us consider how small a number of worthy generous persons this Pest preys upon in comparison of the vast multitudes of the vulgar that are swept away by it There hath not been six persons of eminent Note and consideration known to dye in this great and populous City since the Plague began It feeds chiefly upon those people that fear hath slain to its hand Persons of narrow souls understandings of confused Intellects and Aguish constitutions are they that principally fall sacrifices unto this great devourer when those of a more refined Reason and understanding as if supported by more noble Stars remain secure from it So we see a vertuous confidence is a security against the worst of Evils and a slavish timidity onely a herauld or harbinger to them Lucan tells us Fortunaque perdat Opposita virtute minas Fates greatest Threats be lost Where vertue Rules the Rost I read in a Book lately Printed upon occasion of this great Pestilence that in the time of that raging Sickness Anno 1348. many People kept themselves up close in their houses as in Castles and many retired into deserts and solitary places to secure and preserve themselves from its violence But the Pest as if it knew no limits nor could be contrould in its rage and fury untill the hand that scatter'd it restrained it pursues those poor souls into their close corners and there destroys great numbers of them And at the last when they saw they had like a bird in a net by striving entangled and endangered themselves the more they assumed a Christian and man like boldness and resolving to welcome death in that terrible habit if it fell to their Lot they went promiscuously together and became serviceable to each other in administring to one anothers necessities and to crown this happy magnanimity and fearless Resolution it so pleased God the Plague stayed And it is ingeniously observed by Mr. Kemp in his Treatise lately published pag 39. That in the ending 〈◊〉 great sickness 1625. the people went promiscuously 〈◊〉 another and the houses were quickly filled with 〈◊〉 and fresh commers out of the Country and yet 〈◊〉 infection followed Thus we see the conceit of 〈◊〉 hurts more then the thing it self Minus afficit 〈◊〉 â—â—tigatio quam cogitatio And since peoples 〈◊〉 from their habitations doth rather betray them 〈◊〉 the arms of danger then any way secure them 〈◊〉 the thing they fear it argues professed Folly in any 〈◊〉 for men may as well abscond from the 〈◊〉 presence as to hope to hide themselves from his 〈◊〉 CHAP. VII 〈◊〉 this present Plague was foretold by Astrology 〈◊〉 to say much of that impertinent and worthless scoffer whose mouth Satan hath lately opened not only against most honorable and Learned Society of men in the world 〈◊〉 the Colledge of Physicians but against the 〈◊〉 of the Stars and Heavens and the Augures Coeli as 〈◊〉 pleased to term Astrologers because I 〈◊〉 the Flux of his Pen he understandeth the Starry 〈◊〉 a little if at all in that he vainly goeth about to 〈◊〉 and Eclipse them The man by his writing seems 〈◊〉 of that number who for fear of giving that honor 〈◊〉 Coelestial bodies is their due are not ashamed of 〈◊〉 more and greater energy to a dunghill or unto a 〈◊〉 Lake or Pond or a close sluttish ally c. then unto 〈◊〉 and ever-busied Creatures whom God hath over us that as secondary Causes they might guide â—â—veâ—n all things in this inferior world But these are 〈◊〉 prefer a Hog to Venus embrace a Cloud for Juno 〈◊〉 Aesops Ape they cannot be content to hugg their own Ethiopian fancies c. but must be idly adventurin◠〈◊〉 corrupt and poyson the better-informed judgements of others Nor yet to examine his frivolous supposition of the Plague its taking beginning from the disease called the Scorbuâ—e or the Lues Venerea its Rise from a souldier copulating with a foul Mare as Holy Helmont and himself dream a most beastly and unsavory suggestion and bespeaks the Author and broacher thereof to be Sordiduâ— in coâ—tu as Astrologers say those are that have Saâ—urn and Venus in their Nativities in Quadrate or Opposite Aspect from beasâ—ial signs Not I say to take further or other notice of the Author oâ— these and many other insolent and unworthy passages in thaâ— defiled Pamphlet he calls A consolatory advice c. it being aâ— I hear under the examination of a better hand I shall in thiâ— Chapter acquaint the world that this great Pest was predicted by Astrology and that not by one Astrologer alone but by several as by these several passages cited from several of theiâ— works is apparent 1. Mr. John Booker in his Telescopium Uranicum 1665 mentioning a text of Haly de judiciis Astrorum of the effect of a â–¡ ♄ and ♂ such an Aspect happening in the Vernal figure thence predicts That one part of the people of that Clymaâ— meaning our own shall be destroyed consumed and wast away 2. William Andrews in his Almanack for 1665. in the Judicials of the Aestival figure thereof hath these words Aâ— in regard he that is Saturn is in the eighth house viz. the houâ— of death and mortality he doth seem thereby to prenote MORTALITY which will
man be a trench or channel capable of receiving the pretended Noxious esflâ—viums of another or whether Cables can be made of Cobwebbs All such enquiries I shall leave to those that have leisure and take pleasure to disport themselves with words and the names and noises of things onely That which I here aim at is to examine whether the Pestilence be infectious or catching If it be infectious and really catching in it self it must be so equally to all persons that approach it or that it approacheth and this either to some degree of danger or else unto death or else it must be infectious to some particular persons onely If it be infectious to all persons or catching to all alike then all persons that come into the sight or within the scent oâ— it must necessarily be subject unto iâ— and this either unto death or other lesser degree of danger There cannot be a person either man woman or child that is either shut up in a house with persons infected or that shall talk with any of them so shut up though but at a window or through a Wicket but mâ—st be supposed to paâ—take of the infection â—oâ—â—he Tâ—loâ—s of a Contagion in this sence lay hold on them all But How wide this is of the Truth I leave to the judgements of any that have their five Sences free from infection and their Reason from depravation In every great Pest experience convinceth this opinion of Error for in this great City we know and see it daily now that there are divers persons that have had and yet have the Sickness the very next door unto them on both sides of them before and behind them and yet their Persons Houses and Families not so much as concerned in it or touched with it Many also are constantly visiting their Friends and Relations that are visited yet by Gods blessing they remain safe and sound And many that I know whose hard hap it hath been to be shut up with others in an infected house out of which there have been several buried yet their good fortune hath been such that they have not only been freed from it but have not had so much as a head-ach all that time or in any considerable time afterward In this present Pestilence in Thames street a poor woman dyed of it having her Childsucking at her brâ—st at the same time yet was the infant preserved from it and was put unto a Nurse where it yet remains healthful as I am credibly informed and never had the least of prejudice of that kind attend it Nay some there are on my knowledge I speak it that have lyen in the same bed with those that have had the soars upon them and have nevertheless escaped free from all manner of detriment and danger thereby How many are there of Physicians Chirurgeons Apothecaries Nurses c. that are daily among them and yet escape not onely death but the disease it self If any shall reply that they may possibly have taken and do take Antidotes and thereby they escape I then demand If there be such a preserving vertue in any Antiâ—â—te that can be made use of what is the reason that any that take Antidotes and Preservatives as they are called at any time are infected or do dye of which I could give many instances Some we know have Fates attending them so strenuous that Sâ—lamander like they can bid defiance to the flames of the greatest Pestilence as others we have known to be safe in the heat of a battle when men have fallen by the sword or bullets on every side of them He that hath powerful Stars is not onely shot-free but Plague-free and a good Nativity is the certainest Amâ—let or Antidote that a man can have or be blessed with I need not labor to be more perspicuous in this which is so plain and cleer of it self Every Parish where the Viâ—itation hath come affords instances more then enough and therefore it will be but a blotting of paper to endeavor a further eviction of this so obvious and Sun-like Truth That the Plague is not equally infectious nor are all persons in danger of catching it Secondly If the Plague be presumed not infectious unto all but unto some particular persons onely I say then it ought not to be deemed or esteemed infectious at all at least not any more infectious then are all other diseases viz. Small Pocks Scurvey Pleuresie Ague Gout Palsey Tooth-ach c. since though the Notion of Infection be laid aside there is not a person born into the world that hath not at some time or other in his life as his Nativity shall truly shew some one disease or other As persons Genitures are either mild and quiet or ragged and violent so accordingly do they partake of diseases in the course of their lives Never was any person subject to violent diseases as the Plague c. but had a violent Nativity to shew it and è contra And he that hath the Sun Moon or Ascendant in his Radix directed to the hostile beams or body of Mars in dangerous places of the Heavens as the books of Astrologie will truely inform you shall never escape the Plague although the Kingdom he lives in at that time be free from it And that the Pestilence can be otherways in this later sence catching I deny All persons must grant that to the first person in a Pestilence it comes â—x Aftris if not I would fain know from what other Cause Then if it be possible for the first person to meet with the Plague without Infection from another why is it not so for a Second or for a Third or for a Thousand A Million c Do we think that God and Nature cannot suit effects to their proper Causes without being beholding to an infection from so filly a worm as Man Is it not as easie for Heaven to strike thousands of Millions of persons with the Pestilence at once as to afflict one poor individual mortal therewith Poor man that hath hardly breath enough to help himself must vainly suppose he hath some to spare to hurt and offend others We blaspheme one of the greatest Attributes of the Almighty when we restrain his power it is not we that can or are able to infect one another but it is God by his Power over us that afflicts us all and indeed the Plague carrieth not in it so much of infection as it doth of affliction and so we mortals find it Beyond all peradventure the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Small Pox Lues Venerea c. are diseases in all respects as loathsome and dangerous as the Pestilence yet how few is the number that dread infection or Contagion from them in Comparison of the vast multitudes of men and women that bow the knee of their Reason to this Nay I dare aver and maintain that although the Plague be a disease principally known by the spoâ—s yet compared to those
destroy and bring MANY to theâ— Graves 3. Thomas Trigge in his Calendarium Astrologicum 〈◊〉 in his Junes observation thereof hath these words I 〈◊〉 much fear a sickly season in earnest from which evil God of 〈◊〉 mercy protect this great and populous City for Mars possesseâ— Gemini the Ascendant of London And it 's observable that thâ— Sickness then began to encrease 4. In my own Ephemeris for the present year 1665. in thâ— moneth April at what time the Pestilence first began to sheâ— it self I had these Poetical observations If England keep but from Sickness free Then England may a happy Kingdom be â—hereby you see I feared not onely the Pestilence but the â—eat damage that thereby this Nation hath sustained and iâ— like yet to undergo thereby 5. And in my discourse of the Comets or Blazing Stars pag. 47. thereof after a consideration of the Natural portâ—nts of the two first Comets I subjoyn these words When we consider these several dreadful significations which I there at large mention aâ— any that list may read it may put us all to our â—â—â—tany From War PLAGUE and Famine Libera nos Doâ—â—ine Good Lord deliver us And in pag. 51. of the same book as having a sufficient 〈◊〉 vision of the present Pest from the apparition of those â—â—lestial Monitor's the Comets and other eminent occurring Causes I bewail the world by reason of the many and terrible afflictions they denounce unto it thus The sword is an enemy that by the sword a man of resolution and magnanimity may contend with and be in hopes of a victory but the PLAGUE and FAMINE are adversaries there is no fence for or defence against They are so sure an Ambush that the subtilty of all the Machiavils in the world cannot enervate or destroy enemies that the stoutest of men cannot take a revenge upon although they see their dearest friends murdred by them before their faces And in pag. 53. and 54. in my Catalogue of places that were by those Comets c. designed to suffer and become passive I name England and London And although these predictions be particular enough as to the thing in question yet had it not been that I was loâ—th to affright folks too much with the sence or thought of danger before it came I could have been much plainer and much plainer I was also in this very particular Pest some years before it came to many of my peculiar and better knowing friends as are yet in the City some of them by my encouragement only and I am confident are both ready and willing to aâ—â—est the truth hereof if occasion required it or if that that I have now said from divers others as well as my self in print do not satisfie in this matter Let this therefore in this place suffice to prove to the ingenious that by Astrology this present Pest was foretold even as Hippocrates that Prince of Physicians by the same Art was also enabled to predict that raging Plague which happened in his time for the which curious skill he is so honorably remembred by Sir Christopher Heydon in his unanswerable defence of Astrology as also by many other eminent and worthy Writers CHAP. VIII That the Air is unjustly suspected to lodge the Contagion IT is received generally for a truth that the Noble Element of Air doth harbor and lodge the Contagion and that men c. sucke in a kind of venesick poisonous matter therewith and so come to be infected with the Pestilence Which iâ— true it proves Custome a most terrible Tyrant in following whereof the Magistrates shut up people infected in Houses or Rooms to prevent the spreading thereof For if the Air be at such a time infected and doth really harbor the Contagion the hotter it is the more infectious it needs must be and consequently the plague in far greater danger of encreasing by this customary Care then if it were wholly omitted Nay were the Air the Palace of the Pestilence in a time of Sickness it would be even dangerous for persons to assemble either in Churches or Courts of Justice nay for many to talk together in a street since the uniting of breaths must make an addition of heat unto that which was too hot and pestilential before but we accuse the Air unjustly to lodge the contagion and that for these Reasons 1. The Air is that Element whose office it is to preserve all things and without which nothing can remain alive and can we reasonably suppose it should be able to estrange it self so much from its native quality as to lodge within its bosom so destructive an enemy as infection The Air being a pure Element is attracted by the Lungs into mans body and without it saith Dr. Brown there is no durable continuation of Life It preserves the body by ventilation and by its power alone the Natural flame or torch of life is kept from extinction That therefore which by its natural vertue is the preserver of every thing that hath life cannot be presumed to entertain so unhappy and cruel an inmate as infection it being supposed the grand enemy to and destroyer of Life 2. Anaximenes the Milesian in Plutarch maintaineth that Air is the principle of the world and as our soul saith he which is Air keepeth us alive so Spirit and Air maintain the being of the whole world And we know it is for want of Air that the earth refuseth to bring forth its fruits and it is for the Aires sake we remove some Plants and open the roots of others or else they either dye or bring forth nothing worthy Nay Fishes as one ingeniously observes though they breath not perceptibly yet we see the want of Air kills them as when a long and tedious Frost imprisons a Pond in Ice It cannot therefore be that that Element which hath all these noble and preserving qualities should lodge so foul a guest as the Contagion 3. The Air saith learned Feltham is not corruptible we speak falsely when we say the Air infecteth the Air it self ever clarifies and is always working out that taint which would mix with it Every breath we take it goes unto our heart to cool it Our Veins Arteries Nerves and in most Marrow are all vivified by their participation of Air and so indeed is every thing that the world holds as if this were the Soul that gave it livelihood It were therefore great presumption for so defiled and unclean a Companion as the Contagion to attempt the taking up of so fair and pure quarters as the Air affords And however the Air is come to be charged it is below Reason to think that Pure and Impure can at all agree The Air therefore cannot lodge the Contagion 4. If the Contagion should keep its court in the Air as the Air it self altered so should the Contagion but we see the contrary is true therefore the Air hath nothing to do in lodging with the Contagion The Learned