Bodies And true indeed it is that Motion causes Heat by the attenuation and rarefaction of the Air But by this reason should the Moon which is nearer the Earth warm more than the Sun which is many thousand miles farther distant and the higher Regions of the Air should be always hotter than the lower which notwithstanding if we compare the second with the lowest is undoubtedly false Moreover the Motion of the Coelestial Bodies being uniform so should the heat in reason derived from them likewise be and the Motion ceasing the Heat should likewise and yet I shall never believe that when the Sun stood still at the Prayer of Joshua it then ceased to warm these Inferiour Bodies And we find by experience that the Sun works more powerfully upon a Body which stands still then when it moves and the reason seems to be the same in the rest or Motion of a Body warming or warmed that receiveth or imparteth heat The Motion being thus excluded from being the cause of this Effect the Light must of necessity step in and challenge it to its self the Light then it is which is the cause undoubtedly of Coelestial heat in part by a direct beam but more vehemently by a reflexed for which very reason it is that the middle Region of the Air is always colder then the lowest and the lowest hotter in the Summer then in the Winter and at Noon then in the Morning and Evening the beams being then more Perpendicular and consequently in their reflection more narrowly united by which reflexion and union they grow sometimes to that fervency of heat that fire springs out from them as we see in Burning-glasses And by this artificial device it was that Archimedes as Galen reports it in his third Book De temperamentis Cap. 1. Set on fire the Emperours Ships and Proclus a famous Mathematician practised the like at Constantinople as witnesseth Zonarus in the life of Anastatius the Emperour And very reasonable methinks it is That Light the most Divine Affection of the Coelestial Bodies should be the cause of warmth the most noble active and excellent quality of the Subcoelestial These two like Hippocrates Twins Simul oriuntur moriuntur they are born and dye together they increase and decrease both together the greater the Light is the greater the Heat and therefore the Sun as much exceeds the other Starrs in Heat as it doth in Light The Suns continual Declination or nearer approach to the Earth is rather an idle Dream than a sound position grounded rather upon the difference amongst Astronomers arising from the difficulty of their observations then upon any certain or infallible conclusion Ptolomy who lived about the year of Christ one hundred and forty makes the distance of the Sun to be from the Earth One thousand two hundred and ten Semidiameters of the Earth Albategnius about the year Eight hundred and eighty makes it One thousand one hundred and forty six Copernicus about the year One thousand five hundred and twenty makes it One thousand five hundred and seventy nine Tycobrahe about the year One thousand six hundred makes it One thousand one hundred eighty two Now I would demand whether the Sun were more remote in Ptolomies time and nearer in the time of Albategnius and then again more remote in the latter ages of Copernicus and Tychobrahe which if it were so then one of these two must needs follow that either these observations were not grounded upon so certain Principles as they pretend or that the declination of the Sun is uncertain or variable not constant and perpetual as is pretended But what would Bodwin say if he lâ—ved to hear Lansbergius and Kepler and other famous Astronomers of the latter times teaching that the Sun is now remote above Two thousand and eight hundred nay three thousand Semidiameters from the Earth affirming that Copernicus and Tycobrahe neglected to allow for refractions which as the Opticks will demonstrate do much alter the case I will close up this point with the censure of Scaliger in his Exercit. 99. upon the Patrons of this fancy Quae vero nonnulli prodere ausi sunt solis corpus longè proprius nos esse quam quantum ab Antiquis scriptum sit it a ut in ipsa deferentis corpulentia â—â—cum mutasse videatur vel ipsa scripta spongiis vel ipsi Authores scuticis sunt castigandi In as much as some have dared to broach that the body of the Sun is nearer the Earth then by the Ancients was observed to be so that it might seem to have changed place in the very bulk of the Sphear either the Authors of this Opinion deserve themselves to be chastened with stripes or surely their Writings to be razed with Sponges So that as I conceive it may fitly and safely be inferred first that either there is no such removal at all of the Sun as is supposed or if there be as we who are situate more Northerly feel perhaps the effects of the defects of the warmth thereof in the unkindly ripening of our fruits or the like so likewise by the rule of Proportion must it needs follow that they who lye in the same distance from the South Pole as we from the North should enjoy the benefit of the nearer approach thereof and they who dwell in the hoâ—test Climates interjacent of the abating of the immoderate fervency of their heat From hence I again infer that supposing a mutability in the Suns greatest Declination look what dammage we suffer by his further removal from us in the Summer is at least in part recompenced by his nearer approach in Winter and by his Periodical Revolutions fully restored And so I pass from the Consideration of the warmth to those hidden and secret qualities of the Heavens which to Astronomers and Philosophers are known by the name of Influences Howbeit Aristotle thorow all those Works of his which are come to our hands to my remembrance hath not once vouchsafed so much as to take notice of such qualities which we call Influences and though amongst the Ancients Averroes and Avicenne and amongst some of the latter times Picus Mirandula and Georgius Agricola seek to disprove them yet both Scripture and Reason and the weighty Authority of many good Schollars as well Christians as Ethnicks have fully resolved me that such there are They are by Philosophers distinguished into two Ranks the First is that Influence which is derived from the Empyreal Immoveable Heaven the Pallas and Mansion House of Glorifyed Saints and Angels which is gathered from the diversity of Effects as well in regard of Plants as of Beasts and other Commodities under the same Climate within the same Tract and Latitude equally distant from both the Poles which we cannot well originally refer to the inbred nature of the soile since the Author of Nature hath so ordained that the temper of the Inferiour Bodies should ordinarily depend upon the Superiour nor yet the Aspect of the
moveable Spheres and Starrs since every part of the same Climate successively but equally enjoyes the same Aspect It remains then that these Effects be finally reduced to some Superiour immoveable cause which can be none other then that Empyreal Heaven neither can it produce these effects by means of the Light alone which is uniformly dispersed through the whole but by some secret quality which is diversified according to the divers parts thereof and without this we should not only find wanting that connexion and unity of order in the parts of the World which make it so comly but withal should be forced to make one of the worthiest peeces of it void of Action the chief end of every Created thing Neither can this Action mis-beseem the worthiness of so glorious a piece since both the Creatour is still busied in the works of Providence and the Inhabitants in the works of Ministration The other kind is that which is derived from the Starrs the Aspect of several Constellations the Opposition and Conjunction of the Planets and the like These we have warranted by the mouth of God himself in Job 38. 31. according to our last and most exact Translation Canst thou bind the sweet Influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion canst thou bring forth Mazoreth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his Sons know'st thou the Ordinances of Heaven canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth where by the Ordinances of Heaven it may be thought is meant the course and order of these hidden qualities which without Divine and Supernatural Revelation can never perfectly be known to any mortal Creature Besides as Sr. Walter Raleigh hath well and truly observed it cannot be doubted but the Starrs are Instruments of far greater use then to give an obscure Light and for men only to gaze at after Sun set it being manifest that the diversity of Seasons the Winters and Summers more hot or cold more dry or wet are not so uncertained by the Sun and Moon alone who alwayes keep one and the same Course but that the Starrs have also their working therein as also in producing of several kinds of Mettals and Minerals in the bowels of the Earth where neither Light nor Heat can pierce For as Heat pierces where Light cannot so the Influence pierces where the Heat cannot Moreover if we cannot deny but that God hath given Vertues to Springs and Fountains to the cold Earth to Plants to Stones and Minerals nay to the excremental parts of the basest living Creatures why should we rob the beautiful Stars of their working Powers for seeing they are many in number and of eminent beauty and Magnitude we may not think in the Treasury of his Wisdom who is Infinite there can be wanting even for every Star a peculiar Vertue and Operation As every Herb Plant Fruit and Flower adorning the face of the Earth hath the like As then these were not Created to beautifie the Earth alone or to cover and shaddow her dusty face but otherwise for the use of Man and Beast to feed them and cure them so were not those incomparably glorious Bodies set in the Firmament to none other end then to adorn it but for Instruments and Organs of his Divine Providence and Power so far as it hath pleased his just Will for to determine which Bartas admirably expresseth I 'le ne'r believe that the Arch-Architect With all these Fires the Heavenly Arches deckt Only for shew and with these glistering Shields T' amaze poor Shepheards watching in the Fields I 'le ne'r believe that the least Power that pranks Our Golden Borders or the common Banks And the lest Stone that in her warming lap Our kind nurse Earth covetously doth wrap Hath some peculiar Vertue of its own And that the Glorious Starrs of Heaven have none But shine in vaine and have no charge precise But to be walking in Heavens Galleries And through that Pallace up and down to Clamber As golden Guls about a Princes Chamber But how far it hath pleased God in his Divine Wisdom to determine of these Influences it is hard I confess to be determined by any human Knowledg For if in the peculiar vertues of Herbs and Plants which our selves sow and set and which grow under our feet and we daily apply to our several uses we are notwithstanding in effect ignorant much more in the Powers and workings of the Coelestial Bodies For as to this purpose we said before Hardly do we guess at the things that are on the Earth and with labour do we find the things that are before us but the things which are in Heaven who hath searched out Wisd. 9. 16. It cannot well be denyed but that they are not Signes only but at least wise concurrent Causes of immoderate cold or heat drought or moisture lightning thunder raging winds Inundations Earthquakes and consequently of Famine and Pestilence yet such cross accidents may and often do fall out in the matter upon which they work that the Prognostication of these casual Events by the most skillful Astronomers is very uncertain And for the common Alminacks a man by observation shall easily find that the contrary to their Predictions is commonly truest Now for the things which rest in the liberty of Mans Will the Starrs have doubtless no power over them except it be led by the sensitive appetite and that again stirred up by the constitution and complexion of the body as too often it is specially when the humours of the Body are strong to assault and the Vertues of the Mind weak to resist If they have dominion over Beasts what shall we judge of Men who differ little from Beasts I cannot tell but sure I am that though the Starrs incline a Man to this or that course of life they do but incline inforce they cannot Education and Reason and most of all Religion may alter and over-master that Inclination as they may produce a clean contrary Effect It was to this purpose a good and Memorable speech of Cardinal Poole who being certified by one of his acquaintance who professed the knowledg of these secret favours of the Starrs that he should be raised and advanced to a great Calling in the World made answer that whatsoever was portended by the figure of his birth for natural Generation was cancelled and altered by the grace of his second Birth or Regeneration in the Blood of his Redeemer Again we may not forget that Almighty God created the Starrs as he did the rest of the Universal whose secret Influences may be called his reserved and unwritten Laws which by his Prerogative Royal he may put in execution or dispence with at his pleasure For were the strength of the Starrs such as God hath quitted unto them all Dominion over his Creatures that Petition in the Lords Prayer Lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil had been none other but a vain expence of words and time Nay
there being no difference betwixt that Vail and my Cloak with which the Sun is covered but only in bigness And the truth is that the Sun then suffered no more by the intervening of the Moon then from Pericles Cloak or daily doth from the Clouds in the Air which hinder the sight of it or by the interposing of the Planet Mercury which hath sometimes appeared as a spot in it But whether these Ecclipses either cause or presage any change in these inferiour Bodies I shall have fitter occasion to examine hereafter and so I pass from the Consideration of the substance to the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies Motion is so universal and innate a property and so proper an affection to all Natural Bodies that the great Philosopher knew not better how to define Nature then by making â—â— the Engineere and Principle of Motion and therefore as other Objects are only discernable by the sense as colours and sounds by hearing Motion is discernable by both nay and by feeling too which is a third sense really distinguished from them both That there is in the Heavenly Bodies no motion of Generation or Corruption and of Augmentation or Diminution or Alteration I have already shewed There are also by reason of the incredible swiftness of the first Mover and some other such Reasons dare deny as Copernicus doth that there is in them any Lation or Local motion herein flatly opposing in my judgment both Scripture Reason and Sense But take it as granted without any dispute that a Local motion there is which is the measure of Time as Time again is the measure of Motion the Line of Motion and the Thred of Time being both spun out together some doubt there is touching the Mover of these Heavenly Bodies what or how it should be some ascribing it to their Matter some to their Form and some to their Figure and many to the Angels or Intelligences as they call them which they suppose to be set over them For mine own part I should think that all these and every one of them might not unjustly challenge a part in that Motion the Matter as being neither light nor heavy the Form as well agreeing with such a Matter the Figure as being Spherical or Circular the Intelligence as an assistant in the Matter is a disposition for where light Bodies naturally move upward and heavy downward that which is neither light nor heavy is rather disposed to a Circular motion which is neither upward nor downward In the Figure is an inclination to that motion as in a Wheel to be carried round from the Form an inchoation or onset and Lastly from the intelligence a continuance or perpetuation thereof as that great Divine Hooker in his Ecclesiastical policy 5. 69. Expresseth saith he Gods own Eternity is the bound which leadeth Angels in the course of their perpetuity the perpetuity the hand that draweth out Coelestial Motion that as the Elementary substances are governed by the Heavenly so might the Heavenly by the Angelical As the Corruptible by the Incorruptible so the Material by the Immaterial and all Finites by an Infinite It is the joynt consent of the Platonicks Peripateticks Stoicks and all noted Sects of Philosophers who acknowledg the Divine Power with whom agree the greatest part of our Christian Doctors That the Heavens are moved by Angles neither is there in truth any sufficient means beside it to discover the being of such Creatures by the discourse of Reason The most signal Motions of the Heavens beside their Reâ—rogations Treoidations Librations and I know not what hard Words which the Astronomers have devised to reconcile the diversity of their observations are the Diurnal Motion of the fixed Starrs and Planets and all the Coelestial Spheres from East to the West in the compass of 〈◊〉 four and twenty hours and the 〈◊〉 Motion of them all from the West to 〈◊〉 These Motions whether they perform themselves without the help of Orbes as Fishes in the Water or Birds in the Air or fastned to their Spheres as a Gemme in a Ring or a Nail or knot in a Cart Wheele I cannot easily determine howbeit I confess we cannot well imagin how one and the same body should be carryed with opposite Motions but by the help of somewhat in which it is carryed As the Marriner may be carryed by the Motion of his Ship from the East to the West and yet himself may walk from the West to the East in the same Ship or a Flie may be carried from the North to the South upon a Cart-Wheel and yet may go from the South to the North upon the same Wheele but howsoever it be it is evident that their Motions are even and regular without the least jarr or discord variation or uncertainty languishing or defect that may be which were it not so there could be no certain demonstrations made upon the Globe or Material Sphere which notwithstanding by the Testimony of Claudian are most infallible as appears by those his elegant Verses upon Archimedes admirable invention thereof Jupiter â—â— paervo cum cerneret aethera vitrâ— Risit 〈◊〉 superos talia dicta dedit Huc 〈…〉 alis progressa potentia curae Jam 〈◊〉 fragili luditur Orbe labor Jura Poli â—erumque fidem â—igesque Deorum Ecce Syracusus transtulit arte Senex Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris Percurrit propriâ—m mentitus signiser annum Et simulatiâ— novo Cynthia mense redit Jamque suum volvens audax industria Mundum Gaudet Humana sydera mense regit When Jove within a little glass survaid The Heavens he smil'd and to the Gods thus said Can strength of Mortal Witt proceed thus far Loe in a fraile Orbe my works matched are Hither the Syracusians art Translates Heavens form the course of things and human fates Th' included Spirit serving the Star decked signes The living Work in constant Motion windes Th' adulterate Zâ—diak runs a Natural year And Cynthias forg'd horns monthly new light bear Viewing her own world now bold industry Triumphes and rules with human power the skie The Gentiles saith Julian As Cyril in his third Book against him reports it Violentes nihil eorum quae circa caelum minus vel augere nâ—que ullam sustinere de â—rdinatum affectionem sed congruam illius motionem ac bene optatam ordinem definitas queque leges Lunae definites ortus occasus solis statutis semper temporibus merito Deuâ— Dâ—i solium suspicabantur Seeing no part of Heaven to be diminished and decreased to suffer no irregular affection but the Motion thereof to be as duly and as orderly performed as could be deâ—ired the waxing and waining of the Moon the rising and setting of the Sun to be setled and constant at fixed and certain times they deservedly admired it as God or as the Throne of God The order and Regulation of which Motions we shall easily perceive by taking a particular view of them I will
in holy Scripture begin but likewise from the same Light for in vain it were were it not seen as Bartas excellently Expresseth O Father of the Light of wisedom Fountain Out of the Bulk of that confused Mountain What should what could issue before the Light Without which Beauty were no beauty hight St. Augustine in divers places of his works is of opinion That by the first Created Light we understood the Angels and herein is he followed by Beda Eucherius and Rupertus and divers others which opinion of his though it be questionless unsound in as much as we are taught That the Light fâ—râ—ng out of Darkness 2 Cor. 4. 6. Which of the Angels can in no sort be verified yet it shews the lightsome nature of Angels so likewise the Angelical nature of Light still flourishing in youth and is no more subject to decay then the Angels are They who maintain that the Soul of Man is derived ex traduce hold withall that the Father in begetting the sons Soul looses none of his own it being tanquam Lumen de Lumine as one Light from another nay more then so it is the very resemblance that the Nicene Fathers thought not unmeet to express the unexpressible Generation of the second Person in the Trinity from the First who is therefore termed by the Apostle The brightness of his Glory Heb. 1 3. As then the Father of the Communicating of his Substance to his Son looses none of his own so the Sun by Communicating of his Light to the World looses no part nor degree thereof Some things there are of that nature as they may be both given and kept as Knowledg and Vertue and Happiness and Light which in Holy Scripture is Figuratively taken for them all Whether the same Individual Light be still resident in the body of the Sun which was planted in it at the first Creation or whether it continue empty and spend it self and so lâ—ke a River be repared with fresh supplies for my part I cannot certainly affirm though I must confess I do rather incline to the former But this I believe as the body of the Sun is no whit lessened in extention so neither is the Light thereof in intention Men being now no more able to fix their eyes upon it when it shines forth in its full strength then they were at the first Creation of it Now we have spoken of the Light we shall next discourse of the warmth and influence thereof which springs from it which now succede in their order The Light of Heaven of which we have spoken is not more comfortable and useful then is the warmth thereof with a Masculine vertue it quickens all kind of Seeds it makes them Vegitate blossom and fructifie and brings their Fruit to Perfection for the use of Man and Beast and the perpetuating of their own kindness nay it wonderfully refresheth and chears up the Spirits of Men Beasts Birds and creeping things and not only imparts the life of Vegitation but of Sense and Motion to many thousand Creatures and like a tender Parent fosters and cherisheth it being imparted Some there are that live without the light of Heaven searching into and working upon those Bodies which the Light cannot pierce but none without the warmth it being in nature the universal instrument thereof which made the Psalmist say That there is nothing hid from the heat of the Sun Few things are hid from the Light but from the Heat thereof nothing I am not ignorant that St. Augustine St. Basil St. Ambrose and many Divines held that there were Waters properly so termed above the Starry Firmament who held withal that the Sun and Starrs cause heat as being of a fiery Nature those waters being set there in their Opinion for the cooling of that heat which Opinion of theirs seems to be favoured by Syracides in the forty third of Ecclesiasticus where he thus speaks of the Sun At noon it parcheth the Country and who can abide the burning heat thereof A man blowing a Furnace is in works of heat but the Sun bu neth the Mountains three times more breathing out fiery vapours Neither were there wanting some among the Ancient Philosophers who maintained the same Opinion as Plato and Pliny and generally the whole Sect of Stoicks who held that the Sun and the Starrs were fed with watery vapours which they drew up for their nourishment and that when the vapours should cease and fail the whole world should be in danger of combustion and many things are alledged by Baelbo in Cicero's Second Book of the Nature of the Gods in favour of this Opinion of the Stoick But that the Sun and Starrs are not in truth fiery and hot appears by the ground already laid touching the matter of the Heavens that it is of a nature incorruptible which cannot be if it were fiery in as much as thereby it would become lyable to alteration and corruption by an opposite and professed enemy besides all fiery bodies by a natural inclination mount upwards so that if the Starrs were the cause of heat as being hot in themselves it would consequently follow that their circular Motion should not be natural but violent Whereunto I may adde the noted Starrs being so many in number namely One thousand twenty and two besides the Planets and in Magnitude so great that every one of those which appear fixed in the Firmament are said to be much bigger then the whole Globe of the Water and Earth and the Sun again so much to exceed both that Globâ— and the biggest of them as it may justly be stiled by the Son of Syrac Instrumentum admirabile A wonderful instrument Ecclesiast 43. 1. Which being so were they of fire they would doubtless long ere this have turned the World into ashes there being so infinite a disproportion betwixt their flame and the little quantity of matter supposed to be prepared for their Fewel That therefore they should be fed with vapours Aristotle deservedly laughs at it as a childish and ridiculous device in as much as the vapours ascend no higher then the middle Region of the Air and then distill again upon the Water and the Earth from whence they were drawn up and those vapours being uncertain the flames likewise feeding upon them must needs be uncertain and daily vary from themselves both in quantity and figure according to the proportion of their Fewel The absurdity then of this Opinion being so foule and gross it remains that the Sun and Starrs infuse a warmth into these Subcoelestial Bodies as not being hot in themselves but only as being ordained by God to bread heat in matter capable thereof as they impart life to some Creatures and yet themselves remain void of life like the brain which imparts sense to every Member of the Body and yet is it self utterly void of sense But here again some there are which attribute this effect to the Motion others to the Light of these glorious