covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. 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 MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI 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 PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
differences of it By the way a consideration of some herbs growing by the Sea that are full of Salt juice and out of which Salt is made Page 213 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Fourth Book Chap. 1. OF the force and effect of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven and what useth to happen to men that are dying or desperately sick when they are in their agony and are beginning to dye by the flowing and ebbing of the Sea and motion of the Moon whose forces such as live near the Sea perceive more effectually then other men Page 221 Chap. 2. Of the Islands in Zealand and of the nature of people there and their Conditions Manners Original and what great benefits the land of this fruitfull Countrey affords to strangers in a short and clear description wherein by the way the memory of things done is rubbed up and many naturall causes are explained Page 225 Chap. 3. How comes it that such as are old Men or far in years do beget Children not so strong and oft-times such as are froward and of a sad and sowr Countenance and such as are seldome merry Page 229 Chap. 4. How comes it that the Bay-Tree which some say will not grow in Zealand grows no where more beautifully than in this place and what you must do to make it endure the Winter frost and cold Page 242 Chap. 5. Of a neutrall body that is one that can be said neither sound nor sick but is of a tottering and doubtfull condition floting between both Page 243 Chap. 6. Of the reason of seeing and quicknesse of the eyes and why some will see clearly things a great way off and yet are blind close by others will see the smallest things near them exactly but things afar off though they be high mountains they cannot discern easily and why commonly the right eye is duller than the left and sees not so clear By the way concerning the colours of the eyes and many other things which are arguments of the mind also some remedies for a dull eye Page 247 Chap. 7. A reason why some Men are born without some parts or are maimed others have two bodies or some superfluous parts that are uselesse Page 253 Chap. 8. Whether people in Feavers should change their shirts or waste-coats or sheets and whether it be convenient so soon as a man is recovered of a disease to shave his beard and cut his hair also in what diseases it is good to wash ones feet Page 255 Chap. 9. That by a wonderfull force of nature and incredible efficacy several herbs are appointed for several parts of the body to help them and they do severally help several parts by their imbred qualities and quanities Page 259 Chap. 10. That Planets are of both sexes and that some are affected with one thing some with another Page 262 Chap. 11. That Lampreys which the Hollanders commonly call Pricken if they be dried in a Chimney they will burn like Torches and Links if they be lighted Page 265 Chap. 12. Of an Egg laid by a Cock and at what age he useth to lay it then what is bred out of it also concerning the Cock-stone and the Jewel Aelites Page 266 Chap. 13. Of the nature condition and manners of Women and why that sex being angry is more violent than men are and will scold more outragiously and is overborn by many other affections and passions and by the way what is the meaning of that saying of the wise Hebrew The iniquity of a man is better than a woman that doth well Page 272 Chap. 14. Wherefore an Egg at both ends whereby at the long and narrower end it will stand like the Pole-artick and antartick cannot be broken between your fingers or both hands closed together although you press it and wherefore steeped in sharp Vineger it will grow soft like a tractable and soft membrane lastly why the same Egg steeped in Aqua-vitae that is in spirits of Wine it will be consumed like Iron by Aquafortis Page 278 Chap. 15. The Moon by a wonderful force of Nature every Moneth otherwise than the rest of the Starres do searcheth all the sound parts of Mans body secretly and undiscovered 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 Page 279 Chap. 16. The counsel wherewith I use to gratifie young men that they may have Beards betimes and that a comely Doun may grow upon their chins By the way a fit comparison of Grasse and Corn with the Hair and Locks of Man Page 282 Chap. 17. How and for what reason preserving Physick ought to be given in the time of the Plague and contagious diseases and what things are best for their force and vertues for this Page 283 Chap. 18. To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of form and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other Page 285 Chap. 19. Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Plants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusuall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive Page 287 Chap. 20. The hand or other parts of the body that are frozen and grown stiff with cold and frost how they may be thaw'd and recover their former heat Page 289 Chap. 21. 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 Page 291 Chap. 22. How many moneths 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 moneths the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrels arise not onely betwixt married people but others also that use unlawful copulation Page 299 Chap. 23. A profitable and pleasant Narration of the Procreation of Man wherin is illustrated the other part of the Argument Page 301 Chap. 24. At what age Maids desire to be married and are fit to conceive Again when women in years grow barren and their courses ceasing they cease to be longer fruitfull In which Narration the condition of Man is examined also Page 308 Chap. 25. Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that Children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse Page 310 Chap. 26. Of the skin or feather covering of the Vulture that is of great force in strengthening the Ventricle and in getting of a stomach something more effectual than Ginger whose nature is
in the middle and pressed down they have a crestiâ—urining upward their tail doth not turn under their belly as we see it doth in mungrels but it stands upright and bends like a sickle he hath very great eyes and that stick forth and they are both blear eyes weak legs and that are crooked about the joynts but the hinder part of his body is smooth without any hair and their tail is seen very uncomely by those that are present and they will turn their tails on purpose for people to look on This small creature because it is ridiculous for its parts and manners and hath many things that may hurt a woman when she is with child and cause the child within her to be ill formed I think not fit to keep least Women with child should be wronged thereby But this monstrous form and limbs so crooked are not naturall but artificiall Women love dogâ— too well For men shut them up in small Cages and taking their food away they make them grow small as in Terence they took away meat from maids to make them grow small as bulrushes least if any of them should grow corpulent she should seem to be a Champion See your Juglers that passe the Countries use to wrest the limbs of young boyes that they may leap and dance the better Lately A History there was a notable Knave who carried a child to be seen from Town to Town which had a very great head all the other limbs bore no proportion with it This deformity when it is naturall and not by art Physitians call Hydrocephalon Very great heed what disease by reason of the head swoln with a watry humour When a woman great with child had looked on this picture she was so frighted with this unusual sight that when her â—â—â—e came to be delivered she brought forth a child with a spongy vast bead and it had like to have cost her her life And this mischief followed it that it grew greater in the Nurses arms till it became monstrous great The woman a â—e to me and made this complaint bringing the child with hot and when I pressed the head of it with my fingers it would sink down like to a cushions and come forth again These spectacles are not onely to be a â—oided by Women with child but also by all those that may beâ—â—roubled and frighted in their sleep by such frights as it commonly happens to children sick weak old melancholique people Whence Children have ill marks yet monstrous sights will hurt them lesse that they will women with child For they by the sights of such things will frame 〈◊〉 like in their Children For since all their forces and natural faculties are wholly employed to form the child it happens that when the woman is any way offended all the humours and spirits run downwards to the womb And when the imagination of a thing that sticks fast in the mind joyns with these it frames the like fashion on the child that the mind conceives A Proverb from Imagination For it is not said in vain Imagination makes fashion For by the same reason if a Mouse a Cat a Weasel leap suddenly on a Woman or Strawberries Cornel-berries Cherries Grape-stones fall on any part of the body When a Woman doth remove marks from the Face to the Thighs or hinder parts they presently leave their mark and the print of this thing will be printed on that limb unlesse the woman at the same time that these things happen to her body do presently wipe the part and put her hand behind her back or on some remoter part of her body For so the mischief is suddenly cured or the mark is made on that part she touched all her Imagination and natural faculty being turn'd thither CHAP. V. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life THe order of the former narration seems to require me to speak something concerning the longing of Women Longing a Disease For they are both all most from the same cause About three Moneths after conception a disease troubles Women which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Pica when by reason of cold vitious humours and sharp â—â—â—gm that lyes in their stomachs they earnestly desire coles parings chalk shels and other things unfit to eat this mischief prevails most when the childs hair first begins to grow and they are with child of a Girle For by reason of want of heat flegmatique humours are lesse concocted Hence it is that winds and often belchings frequently trouble Women Of kin to this is the daintinesse of Women wherewith men and Feavourish people are oft troubled But child-bearing Women that are tempted with this disease are so insatiable in their desire that if they cannot obtain what they long for they bring both themselves and their Child in danger of death Mayst Women long for strong things This disease for the most part troubles the Low Country Women because they are of moyst cold constitutions and feed on ill Nourishment There have been some in our dayes that when they saw a corpulent well â—â—d man they desired to bite at this shoulders A History and there was a man who that he might satisfie a womans longing granted her leave to bite least she might take any hurt whereupon she bâ—t out a part with her teeth and chewd it a little and then she swallowed it raw When she was not yet satisfied she desired to bite again but the man would not endure her But she presently began to languish and to be delivered She brought forth Twins the one living and the other dead for want of a second bite I can see no other reason for it than that the woman grieving in her mind the vitall spirits are lessned A Woman with child suffers if her longing be demed her and the humours appointed to nourish the child turn another way and are not carried to the womb so the child wanting the food which the mother longed for grows feeble and dies For when the passages and receptacles whereby food useth to be derived to the Matrix are stopped it must needs follow that the child will want nutriment and die But if the teeming woman be strong of nature and knows how to moderate her passions the child doth not die but grows sickly By these you may see abundantly what a womans Imagination can do and what outward objects conceived in the mind can print upon the child that is then to be formed When we must please sick people with diet Wherefore I suppose they do not much transgresse the bounds of Art that are not so rigid but do sometimes indulge to sick people such meat as they long for though they are not so proper for them in case they are such as will bring no great hurt to their bodies
forth so by the superfluity of a cold humour the seeds of men are choked that the force and faculty of the womb can make no sex nor form of them Seseli of Marsilea is of the like effect Sage Nutmegs Cinamon Cassia Lignea Zedoary Lignum Aloes Masterwort Calamint Clary Dittany Elecampane Orris root juice of Motherwort and innumerable things of this kind that discuss winds What things purge the watrinesse of the womb and wipe away superfluous moysture and prepare the womb as till'd grounds for to sow the seeds on So other things by other forces cause that the matrix be not so slippery that the seed may stick the faster Of this kind are Amber shavings of Ivory Storax Calamita Harts-horn Sumach Blatta Byzantina Myrtil seed Witwalls Cypresse Nuts Frankincense with the bark Mastick Spoonwort Avens Cinquefoil red Roses whereof some applyed outwardly others taken inwardly strengthen the womb and consume superfluous moysture bind close the gaping of the matrix and make it hold the Seed and because the women on this side the Alps for the most part are subject to fits of the mother and such diseases of the womb they had need use these things before others But if the parts be overdryed and burnt they must use moderately moystning means both Meats and Physick A dry matrix what is good for it But they that would be commended for their wedlock actions and not be without Children they must observe this rule to lie with their Wives at distance of time not too often nor yet too seldome for both these hurt fruitfulnesse alike For to eject immoderately weakens a man and spends his spirits and to forbear longer than it is convenient makes the seed ineffectuall and not manly enough Also we must consider the opportunity of this matter when it is best to copulate and what sex you conceive in your mind to beget Avicenna his Counsel for Copulation Avicenna no base fellow nor an Authour of the lowest rank describes the time and manner of procreating a sex When saith he the terms are spent and the womb is cleansed which is commonly in five dayes or 7. at most if a man lye with his Wife from the first day she is purged to the fifth she will conceive a Male but from the fifth to the eighth day a female Again from the eighth day to the twelfth a male again but after that number of dayes an Hermaphrodite Though he brings no probable cause of these effects yet methinks it seems to be very probable Avicenna his opinion explan'd For the first dayes the womb being cleansed and the fordid humour perfectly purged forth the matrix hath more heat whereby the man and the womans seed stick faster together and is directed to the right side of the womb by the attractive force of the Liver and the right Kidney from which also in those dayes hot blood is derived for nutriment of the Child that shall be For the left parts as being cold and benummed and void of blood cannot contribute any thing so soon as the terms are purged but blood is drawn later and more sparingly from the veins of the left side which are called the Emulgent veins Emulgent veins that creep about the Milt and the left Kidney so that at length after the first day untill the eighth day some blood comes forth of them whereby the Child is to be nourished So that when those parts perform their office and the right side parts do cease by reason of the scituation and cold nutriment a female is begot After the eighth day the parts on the right side do their office again and blood comes from them to nourish a male After this circuit of dayes because the menstrual blood flowes without distinction from all parts and the matrix is made too moyst with cold humours flowing unto it and the seed joyns to neither side but flotes in the midst of the womb betwixt both What begus Hermaphrodites The seed of both Sexes confounded make an Hermaphrodite which conception takes its form and forces sometimes from the left sometimes from the right side and useth the help of them both Hence Hermaphrodites are begot which name is so call'd from Mercury and Venus Irregular copulation is detestable Sometimes this vicious and infamous conception is begot by undecent copulation when the woman besides Natures custome lyes uppermost and the man under her sometimes times to the great hurt of their health for by that copulation turn'd the wrong way they become subject to Ruptures and Herniaes especially if they be full with meats CHAP. X. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms DAily Experience proves that some have been married at 12. years old and some to their great hurt and damage of their health have had no terms at 19. years old The Courses is an argument of conception Whence many ask Whether when a Maid is fit for a Man and she never had her courses she can conceive some are of opinion it cannot be that one can conceive but after her terms are over and this seems to me to be the truth For when the helps be wanting that further conception and the matrix wants the humour should feed the Child how can a woman conceive A Similitude from flourishishing shrubs But our Matrons especially Midwives reason thus from Trees as no Plant wants fruit that bears flowers and no Tree is barren that yields blossoms but every Tree is unfruitfull that wants flowers so young Maids that have no courses conceive not nor do their wombs swell though they receive the seed When the courses stay then stayes fruitfulnesse But women in years bear Children no longer after their terms are stopt For since the flux of this excrement affords matter to generation of Mankind the seed of man like runnet and leaven heaping this up within it self it follows that a woman cannot conceive either before that humour begins to run nor after that it leaves off to run any longer because the nutriment for the Child is wanting What use of the terms But here ariseth another question whether the menstrual bloud be a profitable Excrement and fit to seed the child or onely a filthy matter which at set times is voided as a sink I know that Pliny and many more think so who suppose that the menstruall bloud is venemous and monstrous and they do wonderfully rayse this opinion So Juvenal taking an argument from hence to speak against women stirs up men to hate them Sat 6. and doth purposely write a whole Satyr against them that despising them they should never marry I know indeed that the flux of the Terms is a fowl thing and what harm may come by it if this sink be stopt longer then it should be and that Moses did well Levit. 18.20 Deut. 29. as God commanded him to forbid all
that may raise distempers quarrels or troubles between them The affections passe to the Child Which are those the people call naturall Children for all these things fall upon the Child that is then begot and inform it with the like manners and the parents conditions are imprinted upon it I referr that to the like causes that Children which they call naturall that is such that are illegitimate and born without lawfull matrimony are of different nature condition and manners from the other Children whereof such as were begot by noble parents and gentlemen are oft of an high and lofty behaviour and are adorned with many great and rich endowments with rare wits singular prudence exact judgements especially if the parents are a help to their liberal education so that somtimes they become the pillar of the family and are an Ornament and glory to all that are of their kin and blood Why illegitimate Children are more witty than others The reason seems to me to be because they have received all things abundantly from their fathers loynes and bowells and in that secret copulation obtaind by stealth they received not sparingly and slenderly but abundantly the guifts of Nature From when both greedily desire to satisfie their Lusts and are prodigall in their embracements and use all the might they have to propagate and beget a Child it comes to passe that all things necessary for conception are afforded plentifully and there is no want in this businesse and so it falls out Whence comes it Parents love their Children and contrarily that since Children represent their parents manners and have obtain'd much from them there is an incredible love and prosension on both parts and they love one the other exceedingly From which force also there ariseth cheerfullnesse and readinesse of mind in the Child and a generous inclination whereby they disdain that they were born illegitimate and out of the laudable bands of Matrimony and that they should want any thing that others do not to make them uncapable of honours and dignities and publick employments A sublime mind strives for the highest things This makes them use all means to bring themselves out of contempt and by their good life and sound manners to blot out that mark of infamy which some very unwisely impute unto them who some times were begotten more beastly than those that were begotten in adultery But such Children that are born after this adulterous way from mean and base parents and so want the benefit of education for want of means can hardly ever attain to any great matter or raise themselves from the Earth for as the Poet saith Juvenal Satyr 3. They hardly can proceed Who are at home in need Poverty that is wise For though a poor man be wise as the Proverb saith and be the inventor of many rare Arts yet it is a very great hindrance to famous wits that they cannot rise to any high things CHAP. IV. How comes it that the Bay-Tree which some say will not grow in Zeland grows no where more beautifully than in this place and what you must do to make it endure the Winter frost and cold MAny wonder that in the Sea-coasts and that part of Zeland which is denominated from the River Scheld that runs by it that such stately and large Bay-Trees grow being the Country is cold and this Tree abhors cold and frosty climates The Bay-Tree what ground it loves And they wonder the more at this miracle of nature because they are not onely in every mans Garden and allwaies green and very tall with leaves still upon them but they bear long fashioned Berries very black and smooth no lesse effectuall and good in discussing winds and dissipating collections of humours than those that are brought from hot Countries Sometimes the Bay-Tree feels the injury of the Ayre Cold an Enemy to the Bay-Tree especially to the voot and in Winter when it is very cold is in danger by it so that the leaves boughs stalks sometimes wither and dye but the root takes no harm wherefore the Bay-Tree dead upwards must not be dug up by the roots but cut off by the body for when the spring comes or somewhat sooner it will grow green again But that it riseth so high in this Country is caused by the fruitfullnesse of the earth which is wonderfull and the thick compacted nature of the ground that consists of a fat tenacious earth so that by reason of the Earth's solidity The Bay-Tree requires a thick ground Snow melted hurtfull to Plants the cold cannot in frosty weather penetrate to the root of it Now nothing is more hurtfull to plants or more destructive than Snow or Ice melted if when they are melted the drops come to wet the roots especially if after this it chance to freiz again and to stick first about the roots in icecles For so the earth loosned drinks-in the cold chilly moysture and the root drenched with it withers and dyes But that plants may not be subject to this inconvenience nor be obnoxious to the injuries of cold the superficies of the ground wherein they are set must be fenced with straw and ashes Ashes keep herbs from frost A comparison of Vineger and Lees with ashes Why the Bay-Tree grows not in Brabant for ashes by their imbred heat foster the ground and will not let the strong cold enter For as Vinegar and Wine-lees so coles and ashes are of a fiery quality But that the Bay-Tree grows not in Brabant and other parts of the Low Countries or else grows more sparingly amongst them it is not to be ascribed to the Ayre which is very calm and wholsome but to the nature of the ground which is dry sandy light empty that the cold can easily enter nor is there any solid substance to make the Tree fat and thence it is that in those Countries the Bay-Tree is low and shrubby and wanting berries whereas in the City of Zirizea by the benefit of the Earth it grows so tall that it is above 20 foot high and full of boughs about the root with many shoots coming forth whereby it defends it self from the cold Water shoots Wherefore that numerous company of suckers about the root must not be taken away or cut up for it is defended thereby that it cannot easily take cold for if it lose the leaves yet next Spring it grows again so the root be kept untouched by the cold and frost CHAP. V. Of a neutrall body that is one that can be said neither sound nor sick but is of a tottering and doubtfull condition floting between both IT is confessed that the art of Physick was formerly divided into three parts The first is that preserves the present health and carefully keeps off all inconveniences of sicknesse The second that which containes the reason whereby the body may be fenced and defended that it shall not easily fall into sicknesse The last that
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
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
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
love their children very little or but from the lips outward when as poor dumb creatures ordained for the slaughter shew such great love toward their young CHAP. IV. Of the likenesse of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms The force of the Seed is a reason of similitude IT is a constant opinion amongst Physitians and confirmed by many reasons that if the Woman afford most seed the child will be like the Mother but if the man afford most then it will be like the Father but if they both afford alike for quantity and force then will the child be like to them both or one part will resemble the Father another part the Mother Lastly if it fall on the right side of the Womb and proceed from the right Testicle by reason of heat it will be a Manchild but if it proceed from the left and incline to the left side by reason of cold and moisture it will be a Girle Libro de opifice Lactantius his mind of the likenesse of the seed Lactantius saith that sometime when the mans seed falls on the left side of the womb a male child is begotten But because the conception is perfected in that part of the womb that is ordain'd for the procreation of females there will be something in it that is but half man and will be fairer and whiter or smoother and lesse hairy than is convenient for a man to be or the voice will be small and sharp or the chin will be bare and bald and the courage will be lesse Whence is the name Virago Again if the seed be cast into the right side of the womb it may be a girle may be begotten but because she is conceived in the place ordained for the male she will be more viraginous than ordinary women as having strong limbs very tall a swart countenance What woman is most imperious a hairy chin a ruder face a strong voyce and a bold and man-like courage whence it falls out that such women will cast off the yoke and rule over men and will take so much power to themselves in governing that men dare not speak or stir for them Though these things and many more might be alledged for the similitude of the form which are very probable and for the most part they so fall out yet the principal cause of this effect seems to me to consist in the tacite Imagination of the woman For if she conceive in her mind or do by chance fasten her eyes upon any object and imprint that in her Mind the child commonly doth represent that in the outward parts The womans Imagination what it doth So whilest the Man and Woman Embrace if the woman think of the mans countenance and look upon him or thinks of any one else that likenesse will the child represent For such is the power of Imagination that when the woman doth intentively behold any thing she will produce something like that she beheld so it falls out that children have the forms of divers things upon them as Warts Spots Moles Dashes which cannot easily be wiped off or taken away So some of our women seeing a Hare bring forth a child with a Hare-lip Hare-lip so some children are born with flat Noses wry mouths great bubber lips and ill shaped of all the body because the woman when she conceived the child and in the time she was big of it had her eyes and mind busied upon some monstrous creature Art can change the shape and colour of Animals Men use to effect the like by art in other creatures setting before them when they are to conceive the colours of divers things Jacob used that stratagem who was afterwards called Israel laying rods he had pilled off the rinds from before them every where Gen. 30. and so he made the greatest part of the flock spotted and party-coloured So we make painted birds dogs and horses dapled and with divers spots Which Artifice of Nature and all the reasons and causes of similitude Pliny exactly comprehended almost in these words Similitude in the mind is a diligent thinking of a thing L. 7. c. 12. Pliny his opinion of the cause of similitude wherein many accidents have great force as sight hearing memory forms taken up at the very instant of conception and a sudden thought rising of any thing is supposed to give the form and similitude hence some are like their Grandfathers others like their Fathers or some other kindred Hence there are more differences in Man than in other Creatures because the quicknesse of his thought and nimblenesse of his mind and variety of his wit imprint divers marks because other creatures have their minds fixed almost and unmoved and all of the same kind are alike Hence it is that a woman may cause her Child to have a strange form and nothing like to the father So a woman that had layn with another besides her husband fearing lest her husband should come in the mean time after 9. moneths she brought forth a Child not like the party that she lay with but like her husband that was absent There is a very witty Epigram written of this Sir Tho More 's witty Epigram by that most ingenious Man Sir Thomas More Those four boys Sabine Which thy Wife brought forth Thou think'st are not thine Unlike thee naught-worth But that Boy alone That she lately bore Like thee for thine own Thou tak'st and no more Four as bastards born Rejected are in scorn Yet wise men suppose That the Mothers mind Doth the Child dispose For likenesse in 's kind Four were begot When that many miles From home thou wert not Feared nor thy wiles This last like to thee Was begot in fear Thy Wife was not free Thou wert then too near This I think was it That thy likenesse hit Hence it followes that the argument is vain to assign the Father from the likenesse of the Child Likenesse can confiâ—m no child to be the Fathers own For neither the Law of Nature nor the publick consent of Mankind will suffer a child to be laid to any man because it is like him But what concerns Wit and Manners and propensions of the mind daily examples teach us that Children which have all force and vital spirits from the faculty of the Seed are commonly of the same condition with their progenitors and of the same nature But there is much in this whether Venery be used with great or weak desire For many are lesse venereous and not so hot and do not with any great desire use copulation but rather decline from it and that they may pacifie their wives they pay their due benevolence as St. Paul calls it very faintly and drowsily 3 Cor. 7. whence it happens that the Child falls short of the Parents nature manners and
imbred generosity and hence it is that wise men sometimes beget stupid slothful Children Why wise men sometimes beget fools and that are of a feeble mind because they are not much given to these delights But when the Progenitors are hot in venereous actions and do liberally and abundantly employ themselves therein it oft-times happens that the children are of the same manners desires and actions of mind that their Parents are A Simile from Birds For as Birds are of the same Nature with those they are bred from and are of the same colour'd Feathers so Children exactly imitate the manners of their Progenitors and are essentially the same in nature with them And the same native signs that are printed on the Parents are found also commonly upon the Children For Horace Carmin l. 4. od 4. speaks thus Good and strong beget the same Calves and Colts their Sires ' present From stout Eagles never came Birds like Pigeons impotent And because Education perfects the gifts of nature corrects errours and frees from vice he added very fitly Art amends what Nature is Good Manners mend what 's amisse Chremes in Terence concludes from the Mothers Manners what the son is for thus he brawls with Sostrata Heauton-timerum Act. 4. Scen. 3. His manners shew him born of thee In that in all he doth agree He hath thy vices to a hair None but thee then could him bear Ill Crows ill Egs. And truly it is so by nature and we see it fall out most commonly that Children will imitate their Parents conditions and tread upon their heels following dicing whoring tipling yet some by their Parents care and benefit of education come to good manners wherefore every man ought to strive so to moderate his passions and so order his course of life and dyet that he may not hurt himself or infect his posterity For from the fathers seed and the mothers blood many things use to descend to posterity for the same force and vertue that is in the Parents sperm is poured forth into the children as from one vessel into another So saith Catullus Cat will ever follow kind And Children are of Parents mind Parents diseases faults descend to their children Seeing that the seed flowes from the principall parts and contains in it the force and nature of all the members it comes to passe that what disease is in any part descends by right of succession to the Children So the Leprosie Epilepsie feet-gowt hand-gowt and other diseases and defects are hereditary And because the Mothers blood is the chief nutriment for the Child Women derive most part of mischief to the children and the secondary beginning of procreation it oft-times happens that Children take more mischief from the Mother whether you consider their bodies or minds So wicked drunken foolish women commonly with us bring forth just such Children and that are subject to the same vices The Mothers fault doth more wrong to Children if she be unchaste and play the whore than the Fathers fault doth so likewise if she be given to drunkennesse or any other vice For if a man of ripe years or when he is young and unmarried should get a Maid ☞ with child he deserves almost to be commended for it and not to be disgraced For it is commonly said that one may safely marry his daughter to such a man who is not unfruitful and barren but hath proof of his Manhood already in getting of a child But if a woman or a maid that is marriageable should do the like or suffer any such matter to be done when she begins to fall in love she would so lose her reputation and honour that no Cobler nor any mean fellow whatsoever but would scorn to marry her and if one should marry her he would quickly hit her in the teeth with her whoredome So as soon as any maid is overcome and hath lost her maidenhead and those cloysters of Virginity are entred that fault can never be washt away nor can those closets be ever lockt again For so the Poet describes it Virginity once stain'd Can never be regain'd So Plautus in Amphitruo I do not think that to be the dowry which people call so but chastity and bashfulnesse and a moderate desire a fear of the Gods love of Parents and concord with kindred Wherefore besides others Ecclus. that wise Hebrew doth earnestly warn Parents that they should be very careful to look to their daughters chastity and honesty that they may not be polluted with wicked company or be stained by them For women-kind are naturally frail and more subject to be abused Since therefore there are many things that hinder manners and good life as also there are many things that defile the body and the decent frame thereof care must be had that nothing may pollute the mind with ill manners or disgrace the body by any monstrous deformity And because the beauty and decent form of the body is very acceptacle to all Men we should observe exactly by the progresse of natural causes what things will make one beautiful or deformed and ugly since these things principally consist in womens Imagination and in such things as proceed from without care must be had that that Sex may see nothing A woman with child is subject to passions that may move their mind to think absurdly which in framing the child may bring any hurt For if any mischief happen from without if any fear or trembling fall on them when they meet any terrible thing presently all this fright falls upon the child the natural spirits and humours being turn'd thither and all the faculties of the woman are busied in framing such a thing For a vehement and fixed cogitation whilest it doth tosse the vehement species of things and turns them often over it doth imprint that form and figure which it so often thinks on upon the Child For the confluence of the internal spirit and humours paints out the Image of the thing thought on Whence comes deformity of body It is not for nothing and for no cause that some have such ill shapen bodies ill and uncomely cruel countenances swoln blabber'd cheeks wry mouthes wide chaps for these things come to passe because their mothers being great with them thought on such deformed shapes and representations or fastned their eyes too much upon them So I dislike nothing more than lascivious women that use to delight themselves beyond measure with Whelps and Apes and to carry them in their bosoms to foster them to kisse and hug them For by the company and sight of these creatures the imperfect Nature of women may take some strange impressions and they may frame in their minds such forms as may make their children deformed Maka Dogs So the great women of the Low-Countroys love Malta dogs they are commonly called Camusii from their crooked nostrils their bodies are but small they are white as snow their noses are flat
for sometimes by such manner of diet we dispell Chronical and long diseases So when sick people are vexed with lasting diseases I do not use to be very obstinate or refractory against them in granting to them such meats as they greedily desire and earnestly intreat for when they earnestly ask for them and eat them with a great Appetite For by this means it comes to passe that natural heat is stirred up and the imbred faculties are moved humours that stick in the body are concocted and dissipated the passages being opened And by Hippocrates example sometimes I study to gratify my Patients and to be silent and wink at them if they take what may not greatly hurt their bodies For as he saith Something worse meat and drink so it please L. 2. Aph. 38. is better than that which is better and pleaseth not so well For all those things that relish best in the Palate and are most pleasing to the taste are more easily concocted and nourish more because the stomach takes them in greedily and likes them best Desire makes all sweet So I know some that have cured Quartans and wandring Agues by eating raw Herrings new taken out of the Sea So in desperate diseases that are come to the height of their danger I do not much fear that greedy appetite nor do I contend with or deny to them that desire such things what they would have but using choice and prescribing them the way and manner how to dresse them I let them use their own desire so far as I am confident it will not hurt them and I conjecture the disease may be batter'd by it For by this acrimony and greedinesse of eating them the force of nature is sharpned and set forward that was before asleep and so regaining strength it sets upon the disease afresh So we drive forth one disease with another as one nail with another and for an ill knot we apply an ill wedge Diseases are driven out with desire of some meats which no man may think to be absurd since in some diseases we willingly raise a Feaver for otherwise there were no cure for them So I know some that by the sudden coming on of the enemy and by a great fright have been cured of a quartan Ague So there was an Epidemicall disease amongst us that had destroyed some thousands that by a suddain inundation of the Sea presently ceased for by some outward trouble arising the collections of humours are dissipated and diseases abate and cease by critical evacuation One disease is sometimes cured by another Hence it is that such as are bit by mad-dogs and fear the water we cast them unawares into the deep water and drive away fear by fear When some are troubled with cold diseases we put them into hot Feavers for so naturall heat being raised cold raw humours are concocted and nature is excited to cast out the disease CHAP. VI. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation It is proved by reason that a woman wants not Seed THough the Seed of Man be the chief efficient and the begining of action motion and generation yet that a woman affords seed and doth effectually lend help to the procreation of the Child is evinced by strong reasons First seminary vessels had been given them in vain and genital testicles if a woman wanted seminal excrement she should afford very little to the child and should have no part in it But since that nature doth nothing in vain it must needs be that they were made for use of seed and for procreation and placed in their proper places both the Testicles and the receptacles of seed whose nature force is to afford fruitfull vertue to the seed And to prove this there needs no stronger Argument than this that if women do not use copulation to cast out their seed they oft-times fall into great diseases and cruel symptoms The danger of seed retain'd For you shall see many Widows for want of husbands and Virgins ready for Marriage when they do not marry in time though their terms keep their orderly seasons yet are they cruelly tormented with fainting fits and strangling of the Mother For all are of opinion that more harm comes to them by the seed being corrupted than by their courses being stopt For the seed growes to be of a venomous quality hence ariseth that swarth weasil colour in Maids when they begin to be in love hence comes their short breathings tremblings and pantings of the heart the expulsive faculty being moved to cast out the swelling humour Maids to be married in time If such lusty Widows or Maids in years happen to be married that their seed by the use of man may be ejected you shall presently see them look fresh as a Rose and to be very amiable and pleasant and not so crabbid and testy especially if their husbands be men for their turn and can give them their due Maids by Marriage grâ—w fresh And though the Society of the lawful bed consists not in these things yet you shall find that this Sex is by no means better won than when the husband often satisfieth them this way Woman is greedy of copulation For so are all things more peaceable in the House and there fall out no wranglings or janglings between them But if the man lye but seldom with his wife or the man be slow in doing his office you shall see the house turn'd upside down for some of this Sex are so greedy of copulation that you may weary them but never satisfie them which seems to me the chief cause why a woman in copulation doth afford seed and hath more pleasure than a man hath For since by nature infinite delight accompanies the ejecting of the seed by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the stiffnesse of the nerves and the woman performs a double office The woman desires man as the matter doth the form Why children are most like the Mother and suffers both wayes for she drawes forth the mans seed and casts her own in with it It is very likely that she takes more delight and is more recreated by it Hence it is that the Child is commonly more like the mother than the Father because the Mothers confer most in generation and it is proved because women love the Children best For besides their ejecting of seed all the time they are great with child they nourish the Child with their purest blood I find Galen to be of that mind for he thinks that the child receives something more from the Mother than from the Father Lib. 2. de sem and he refers the difference of Sex to the affluence of menstruall blood but the reason of likenesse to the force of the seed A Simile from Plants and the industrious husbandman For as plants receive more from fruitfull ground than they do from the Industry
in the seed force and vertue deservedly saith Galen the child receives its sex rather from the Mother than from the Father though his seed do afford something to the material principles but more weakly But similitude though Imagination be of great force therein is referred rather to the Father than the Mother for there is more force in the mans seed But the womans seed receiving faculty from the menstruall blood for 9. moneths doth as much exceed the man's as the man 's did the woman at first copulation For it is proper to the womans seed to strengthen and increase her own substance more than the mans So the woman not onely affords matter to make the Child but force and vertue to perfect the conception though the womans seed be fit nutriment for the mans feed by reason of the moysture and thinnesse of it and is more fit to frame and make up the conception thereby For as of soft running wax and moyst clay A Similitude from wax and moyst clay the workman can work what he will with his hand so the man's feed mixed with the womans seed and the menstruall blood helps effectually to make the form and perfects the parts of a man Or if you would have a comparison of these things from Natural things as the Earth is to plants so is the womb for conception A comparison of the Earth and the Womb. For as the seeds of Plants need the Earth to nourish and increase them so the seed of man requires the womb which is affected with a desire of an off spring For by the moysture thereof and by blood running forth at the veins to water the child it doth grow and increase Hence you may conjecture what art nature useth in conceiving and framing a child which by an innate force growes up by degrees and secretly increasing comes to its full strength wherein I think that worth the Enquiry by what force the nature of the woman makes a man or a woman what faculty seems to be ascribed rather to the woman than to the man by reason of more matter coming from her which consists in the blood and seed of the woman whereby the Child all the time it is in the womb is nourished and increased For as mans seed is the chief cause of motion and the Instrument and Artificer whereby Man is made yet the womans seed with the plenty of her menstrual blood affords more matter than the man doth and by help thereof the child is perfected and is distinguished for its sex for that is it makes a child a male or a female CHAP. VIII Of prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon THe Nature of Man and his parts destinated to the Generation of man if they be rightly disposed and there be no defect in them will beget a perfect man But if they be defective or faulty or the feed be confusedly mixed Whence come Monsters or the principles of Generation be otherwise involved than they should be it falls out that prodigious and monstrous births are made Some fay that these things happen from the influence and aspects of the Stars and as just judgments for sins And I think it very consonant to truth For they commonly happen from a faulty constitution of the Womb from filthy corrupt seed A simile from Founders and disorderly copulation For as in the art of melting meâ—â—als if the matter be not pure and well cleansed if the vessel or receiver be oblique full of windings ill joynted hath conners is set awry or is full of chinks or plains is unloosed or holds ill together we see that men cast ridiculous and improper figures so if the places be ill appointed if the womb inclines to one side or the matter be unfit or ill tempered nature shall never make a fit and decent form So the Low Countrey Women chiefly those that live near the Sea-side being restlesse and troubled in copulation A Mola of the Matrix they have strange mishapen Embrio's and do not onely bring forth rude and deformed burdens not made up that no sword will cut but also something deformed that pants and is alive and is like the imperfect draught of a figure that Artists use to draw with a rude Pensil For Marriners which they commonly marry when they come from long voyages run mad upon their wives with full sail Intemperance of Venery burts the child never regarding their menstrual courses nor the Conjunction or new Moon at which time by reason of their terms copulation useth to be hurtfull for the seed cannot stick together nor be fitly united with the womans blond whence it comes to passe that the seed either runs forth or if it chance to stick together nature cannot make up any thing rightly of a confused matter that sticks not so as it should do And not onely the mens incontinence is to be found fault with but also of the women who having waited so long in their absence do voluntarily put themselves upon their husbands and snatch the seed from them as hungry dogs do a bone or Cerberus his bait Whence it comes that the faculty of the Womb loseth its force to generation and successe of breeding a child Or if it try to do any thing it makes some monstrous form that is nothing like to the shape of a man sometimes after three Moneths space that filthy matter runs forth and an undigested heap comes out by pieces as filthy water out of a Ship by the Pump Not unlike to this is an efflux that troubles women with many heavy torments our women because this conception begins in the fourth Moon when she is in Conjunction by whose force the terms flow down call it a Moon birth or Manekinds A birth not natural is cast forth Sometimes this false conception is made without the help of man by Imagination onely in those that are very lascivious so as by often seeing their Husbands and but touching them the womans seed will mix together with the blood and the neat of the Womb will begin to frame something like to a living Creature But the formal cause the mans seed being wanting that is like the Work-master the matter the woman affords Mans seed is the former of the child obtains a strange deformed shape sometimes the like is made by the help of the man when in the sourth and silent Moon he copulates with his wife and on the fourth day after the Moons Conjunction when her courses run not observing natures rules for he strives against the flux and sails against the stream A common proverb to pisse against the Moon Our people by a Proverb call it pissing against the Moon the Latines call them Born in the fourth Moon Because they have unhappy beginnings of their life and had their first entrance by generation contrary to natures order whence it happens
men to lie with women that time that they were defiled with this Excrement So he drives from the company of men those that have Gonorrheas that is fluxes of bloud and commands them to be purified And Esaias to expresse extream foulnesse to be abhorred All our righteousnesse saith he is as a menstruous rag c. Which though it be true We must abstain from menstruous Women and and the great Law-giver by Gods order did most justly forbid it that no man should defile himself with fowl copulation or be polluted thereby yet this proves not that this flux is superfluous and doth not serve for the childs nutriment For Hippocrates the Authour of Physick and Galen a great lover of it do rightly professe in many places that the menstrual bloud feeds the child and that the child grows by receiving that flowing out of the veins De tuenda valetudine So Galen Blood saith he and genital seed are the beginnings of our Generation which arise from the very principles as from a root The blood is as fit matter that obeys the Artificer the seed is as the Workmaster Again in comment Aphoris The menstruall blood is one principle of our Generation and is by nature moist L. 1. Aph. 14. Hitherto belongs that Aphorism of Hippocrates If a Woman with child have her courses the child cannot be well For the blood is taken thus from her that is directed to the womb from all the body to feed the child If therefore the courses running away weaken the child and defraud him of his nourishment it must needs be that they do good when they are stopt and serve to feed the child all the while it is in the womb The Breasts fill with milk when the terms stop If they do no good and the child hath no nutriment from them I pray what is the cause that the courses are stopt in women with child and such as give suck and that without any hurt to them There can be no other cause given but that they are consumed to make plenty of milk or to feed the child But to explain this question the more fully I shall set down this dilemma If the courses confer nothing to feed the child The Authours dilemma of the monethly terms then women may conceive though they want their courses for nature can draw blood from the veins to feed the child But if they do help to feed and increase the child they cannot conceive unlesse they do run Aristotle excellently unties this knot Hist Animal Women saith he conceive naturally after their terms are over and they that want their terms are commonly barren Yet it may be that some may conceive that have them not namely as many as have so much humour collected in their wombs as useth to remain with those that are purged For some have the humour remaining in the womb but not so much as to break forth and run out yet enough to feed the child For many when the courses run do conceive but they cannot conceive afterwards for their Matrix presently after purgation closeth and the places are no longer open De vul se Galen clearly explains the same in these words The vessels of the Matrix that penetrate into the inmost part from whence flow the terms when the woman is about to conceive open their orifices But the time of conception is when the terms begin or at least end For though the rest of the time of purging these orifices are open yet the woman can by no means conceive because the seed cannot stay in the womb but is washt away by the blood that runs in so plentifully But when the terms end or begin the orifices are open and the menstrual blood runs not by streams but gently forth by little and little as by a dewy humour sweating in whereby the Matrix is moistned whence it is that the seed sticks to the roughnesse of the womb and nourishment enough follows by the dropping of bloud that flowes thither For before the Terms flow conception cannot be made because the nourishment is wanting nor doth the seed stick fast for at that time the vessels being shut the matrix is smooth and the seed by reason of smoothnesse like glasse polished runs away and cannot stick and unite for roughed things are fitter than smooth things to sodder together Why Whores conceive not Hence it is that whores by frequent lying with men do not conceive To which appertains that sentence of Hippocrates Those that have moyst wombs do not conceive L. 5. Aphor. 62. for the seed is drown'd in these as corn is in wet grounds Likewise they that have over-dry matrixes are unfit to bear children for it is necessary that the parts should be wet with the dropping of the menstrua I do not now discusse the matter what strong arguments they insist upon who think the terms not needfull to nourish the Child Let them hold their opinion but I can never believe that this humour is unprofitable and doth not serve toward the Childs generation For since all women that are in perfect health have their courses at set times what can we think but that this humour runs forth for some end and is not venomous unlesse it stay beyond Natures time in the body or it be restrain'd by some disease or accident So in plethorick bodies that is Continual Feavers such as are full of humours pure blood if it be not ventilated corrupts and causes a putrid feaver and other next to contagious diseases as the small Pox and Measels A Simile from houses shut up so we see houses long shut and not cleansed by the wind to grow musty and smell filthily Since therefore the terms are an excretion of superfluous blood which the weaknesse of that sex can neither concoct by heat nor discusse by exercise it must needs break forth by the Moons urging of it at a set time and by the running out thereof the body is cleansed and if it chance to be stopped longer it growes venomous by corrupting But it is not so in Nurses or women with child What menstrua are venemous for it is a strong argument because that humour is usefull in its time and fit to nourish the Child but that is not so that by long stay corrupts in the body But because after conception it drops from the veins into the womb and feeds the Child all the time the Woman is great with child if the womb should lye open or the terms any way run from it the Child cannot live or would grow very weak CHAP. XI 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 How the mind raiseth it self toward God THe Soul of Man is by no means more invited to love God nor can know it self better than by searching into it self and when it doth
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
at that part where the passages of the body are open a bloody liquor will run out namely by the eyes nostrils ears or nether parts So commonly we see in a fluxible and loose body when it hath layn unburied two or three dayes that a liquor will run forth mingled with blood when the bearers with much motion carry the bier on their shoulders Also Oxen Bulls when they are slain and hang'd up to the beams in houses make the pavement bloody with drops of blood wherefore I conjecture it comes from some such cause But this seems to be most likely A man will bleed suddenly from a fright that the friends of the party slain or he that killed him will bleed at the nose by a sudden fright when they behold the dead carkasse because the natural faculties and mind happen to be vehemently moved and shaken and the humours do not stand still but flote here and there For we see them strangely affected and troubled both in their speech and thoughts and sometimes they blush sometimes look pale and tremble for fear whence it comes to passe that by long looking on and being troubled the blood will break out of their nostrils whether they will or no. As we see the same will happen to those who suddenly chance to see and think on some sad objects or lamentable things If any man say that sympathy that is mutual consent of Nature drawes blood from kindred and Antipathy and secret disagreement makes the murderers bleed I am not against that Blood will wax hot again in dead bodies But I shall more easily grant this that blood will run forth of the wound though it be bound over with swathbands if he that did the murder stand by For so great is the force of secret Nature and so powerful is Imagination that if there be any life left or the dead body be warm the blood will boyl and wax hot by choler kindled in the dead body CHAP. VIII 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 An old Wives opinion of the caul of children THere is an old opinion not onely prevalent amongst the common and ignorant people but also amongst men of great note and Physitians also how that children born with a caul over their faces are born with an omen or sign of good or bad luck when as they know not that this is common to all and that the child in the womb was defended by these membranes Three Membranes defend the child For there are three coverings or membranes that involve the Infant in the Mothers womb The outmost is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in Latine the Secondine because it comes forth presently after the birth there are two other membranes under this the first whereof from the figure of a pudding-gut is called Alantorides and it is bred of the womans seed that is put upon the head buttocks and feet and lyes upon the eminent parts and the use of it is to receive the urine of the child formed The last is a very thin skin or membrane that drinks up the sweet and vapours that come forth of the child when it growes up and compasseth the child round about it is called Amnios from its thin lamb-like tendernesse Which fences and helps in child-bearing provident nature hath provided lest the Infant should suffer any inconvenience by bruising or be hurt outwardly The last of these sometimes come forth with the child being fastned to the parts they are appointed for especially when the passages are open and the secrets of the woman and genital parts are loose and open wide in bearing But if the child can hardly with great strugling get forth of these streights and the woman be of a narrow passage When the child comes with a helmet those membranes stick by the way and those kins are wiped off as any small skin is wiped from the face or other parts of the body when we creep through some cranny or narrow hole What signifieth a black covering of the child Wherefore old Wives say this skin when it covers the face is a helmet of which they speak many fabulous things and frigâ—t or cheer the child-bearing woman If this cover be black they speak as from an Oracle when as they do but dote and know not what they say that such children shall suffer many sad accidents and that many misfortunes hang over their heads and that ill spirits will haunt them and shall be vexed with dreams and night visions unlesse this be broken and given in drink which against my will many have done to the great hurt of the child The red helmet what that signifies But if this cover be red or the skin that is fast to the crown of the head they prophesie that he will be a notable child and shall have great successe in all his affairs And this superstitious old opinion was held also by the Antients Antoninus had a Diadem on his head For Aelius Lampridius in the life of Antoninus Diadumenus whose head was crown'd with a Diadem and a Garland that children were wont when they were born as a sign of good fortune to have a cap on their heads by nature which the midwives catch away and sell to their credulous Advocates For Lawyers think they shall find great help from them The superstition of Lawyers in keeping childrens Helmets But since those membranes are seen of divers colours I think that onely comes from the humours that flote about in the matrix for those vary the colour of them When therefore the Womb is wet with a fowl and vitious moisture which grows together with the seed of both Parents the membrane is of a dark brown colour and the childs skin of a smoky dark colour also But if the seed and bloud be pure clean and subject to no fault the cover is red and the child is of a pleasant and lively colour And these membranes are not onely different in colour but in shape also either by reason of some internal or external effect or from some object of the eyes or mind For when some men are so lascivious and given to pleasure that without choice taking no heed of the flowing of the terms they will use copulation with women it falls out sometimes that when the terms have run three dayes or thereabout and there is not much behind onely a day or two that they have to run more the natural time is hindred and some part of the excremental flux is kept back by unseasonable copulation but yet sometimes this perfects the conception When therefore a woman is in the act of generation and knows that her terms are not yet quite staid and that she should not yet copulate the parts being still wet she secretly blusheth at it and her eyes are
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
purpose of a better life And no man can be perswaded that God is displeased with his way of living or that his manners and customes and studies are not approved by him unlesse his mind be afflicted with some grief and sadnesse and his body with some diseases For the mind is so deaf to all wholesome admonitions and counsels and the understanding is so hardned with the custome of sin that it will either reject milder corrections or not be much moved by them and there appears no hopes of amendment unlesse more sharp remedies be applied Hence was it that God threatens by Esaias Chap. 5. and 9. because this people returns not to him that smites them therefore is not his fury turned away but his hand is stretched out still and lifted up again to smite them The like is said in Jeremiah and complained of Chap. 2. In vain have I smitten your children and they have not received instruction Hierem. 5. Again I smote them and they lameâ—â—d not I bruised them but they refused to be instructed they made their â—â—ces harder than a stone and they would not return they are grown rich great and fat and they foulely passed over my words Wherefore God sometimes chastiseth us more bitterly to recall us to an honest and more pious life So Alexander King of Macedo who suffer'd men to honour him as a God Alexander wounded confessed he was mortal when he was wounded with an arrow and when he saw the blood run out abundantly he forthwith remembred that he was but a man and laid aside all his cruelty and Arrogancy Psalm 88. To which may be referred that of the Psalmist Thou hast humbled the proud as one that is wounded thou hast broken all his strength Wherefore when things are at the height of prosperity and all goes according to our minds and as we would have it let no man too much elevated by his good successe pride himself too much or bray immoderately but let every man duly consider himself and think on adversities losses crosses dangers calamities diseases mishaps that hang continually over our heads and that God sometimes sends these upon man for a remedy and cure to correct his errours and cause him to repent and may have a certain confidence of his salvation elevating his heart unto God which God would have every man to know and observe diligently when he saith Psalm 88. If his sons offend and obey not my laws and keep not my Commandements I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with scourges but I will not take my mercy from them nor suffer my truths to fail whereby he openly declares that he corrects us for our amendment God corrects us to make us better and not for our destruction That so our carnal desires being subdued and our licentiousnesse in sinning restrained every man might turn to lead an honest and innocent life and to sober and good manners For it is Gods correction on us which proceeds from his fatherly affection a great argument of his exceeding love and a Testimony of his good will towards us For whom the Lord loves them he chasteneth Prov. 1. and correcteth them as a man doth the son whom he loveth But such as God suffers to wander licentiously and to live loosly and to be involved in all corruptions Heb. 12. and doth not by his secret spirit call them back from their errours it is because God hath given them over and forsaken them I will not saith he Hosea 4. visit nor correct your sons and daughters when they commit fornication nor your wives when they pollute themselves with adulteries as there are some women whereof our age can shew examples that have layn with other men Adulteries noted before they lay with their husbands to whom they were before contracted so that another man had their Maiden-head before the nuptial feast was ended and that they came to bed to their husbands So God provoked by the continuance of sin and daily custome of doing wickedly holds back his hand from smiting them and suffers them to fall and run to all disgrace infamy reproach and to obey their lusts By which erroneous life they first get a troublesome and restlesse mind than which nothing can befall a man more lamentable and miserable then besides their unhappy end and bitter death wherein they have nothing to support them they passe to eternall punishment and intollerable torments When therefore God gives a man abundance of all things as riches Gold Silver gallant houses stately furniture brave garments in a large measure We should be thankfull to God we should never forget that God by whose bounty we have obtained all this abundance freely For there is no vice in magnificent houses and Mannors in money Lands possessions if we look how to use and employ them well Rches are not ill but the abuse of them Lastly if what is the principall and is chiefly required at out hands we have a thankfull heart towards God and are bountifull to our neighbours and poor people Deut. 8. Moses the Law-giver amongst the Jews by the Commandment of God and by what he received from God did admonish them of this matter and often inculcated it unto them that no man should ever forget him to whom we owe our selves and all we have When saith he thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and when thy heards and they flocks thy Silver and thy Gold are multiplyed and all that thou hast take heed that thine heart be not then lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God the giver of all these things And least that should be objected to them for their ingratitude and forgetfulnesse that God gave them butter from the heard and milk of sheep with the far of Lambs and Rams with the flower of Wheat and delicate Wines in abundance but when Israel was fat and full he kicked backwards and forgot the Lord that made him and was unthankfull to the Authour of his salvation Wherefore to such backfliders Moses threatneth terrible threatnings and punishments and lays it down that many sad and miserable calamities shall befall them whereby Let their posterity learn an be warned as God speaks in Jeremias Deut. 32. If they continue in the same fault Chap. 2. what a sad and bitter thing it is to forsake the Lord our God and not to fear and reverence him who is the Lord God of hosts CHAP. XXX Stones or Jewels dug forth of the Earth or taken out of the Sea or out of the bodies of living Creatures what vertue they have and by what means they perform their operations BOth reason and experience prove that stones and Jewels have great vertues so they be not counterfeit and artificial stones Wherefore to wear a ring or a Jewel that hath a handsome and effectuall stone set in it is good for the eyes to look on
is in Capricorn at Berg an hour and half or two hours later at Antwerp and Dort when the Moon inclines to the Equinoctial Westward when the West-winds blow gently about six of the Clock at Mechlin about eight of the clock yet so that the Sea flows in sometimes sooner sometimes later when the weather is calm or the wind blows strongly And when in the space of six hours she moves toward the West she causeth the Sea to ebb and sink down as many hours untill the Moon being gone out of our sight riseth to those that are Antipodes to us for then the Sea flowes again but when the Moon comes to midnight and comes to our hemisphere the flouds fall back again Wherefore the scituation of places must be observed and to what part of the heavens they are inclined and the coasts of the Countries must be regarded and we must fit the course of the Moon rising and setting thereunto For thus it will be easy to know the ebbing and flowing of the water at all places But let no man think the horns of the Moon are to be taken notice of for on that side it hath no operation but we must regard the bunchy and convex part of it which is enlightned by the Sun The aspects of the Moon cause the floud in all places For that part of the Moon that is against the Sun and toward the earth draws the water and fills those Ports and Havens with a flowing water which she directly respects with her beams For the Sea runs that way the light of the Moon drives them Yet let them that are Sailers take notice of this that when the Moon riseth and shews her self first in our hemisphere if the part of the Moon that is enlightned by the Sun send her beams Eastward that in those parts that are Eastward the waters have risen to their height again if the Moon look Southward or Westward in those places the flouds rise and fall in the Eastern parts Wherefore if any man sail from the East or Winter aequinoctial from whence the South-East or East winds blow toward the West countries it will be the time to sail forth at high water when the flouds are greatest to passe into the Lower-Countries As for example From Mechlin Antwerp Dort Berg Breda Bolduc Delph Gand and other places that are scituate farther off it is good to set forth when it is full Sea and the waters begin to fall Again if any man sail from the West Southward or Eastward he must set forth and Sail into the deep at low-water when the Sea is comming in and the flouds begin to come back So that he must alwaies take notice of the Moons motion and to what part of the Heaven she enclines and what Coasts and Ports she respects CHAP. XLII Of the force and nature of Lettice and whom it is good or ill for THose that eat Lettice in sallets often unlesse they eat Rocket or Cresses or Tarragon which is next kind to Snees-wort What corrects the coldnesse of Lettice it will hurt their sight and make them blind for it thickneth and condenseth the visive spirits and troubles the Crystalline humour unlesse you drink wine to correct the force of it The Antients did not eat this at beginning of supper or for the first course but last of all as Martial shews Tell me why Lettice is our first repast In our fore-fathers dayes it was the Last Which I think they did it not without good reason for since it is of a cold and moist nature taken after supper it causeth sleep more effectually and restrains the heat of Wine and hinders drunkennesse by moistning the brain Whether Lettice should be eaten before or after supper But in our daies it is thought best to eat it first at supper For since after a long dinner we have no great stomach to our supper the custome is so soon as we sit down to supper to whet our stomachs with Lettice seasoned with Oyle and Vinegar Also Lettice is good for that if it be carried into the veins before all other meat it cools the heat of the bloud and abates the hot distemper of the Liver and of the Heart so that the immoderate use of it will bridle venereous actions and extinguish the desire of lust as Cucumbers Pompions Purslane and Camphor do Wherefore it must be used more largely by them that would lead a single life and live chastly for this will take away their venereous desires but such as are bound in the bonds of Matrimony may nor totally refuse the use of it because sometimes their brains are dried by too much venery But the coldnesse of it must be corrected with heating hearbs Lettice who it is good for least it weaken the generative seed too much and make it uneffectuall to beget children and altogether unfit for it CHAP. XLIII Of Patience commonly call'd or the great Dock Of the hearb Patience or Monks Rheubarb SInce there are many kinds of Sorrel or Dock two of them specially are fit to be eaten that which is commonly called Sorrel that in Sallets whets the appetite and takes off loathing and that which from its greatnesse is called Horse-dock It is a Pot-hearb with a great top with long broad leaves and the stalk when it is ripe is red and the root is yellow I find this hearb to be of such faculty that if you boyl any flesh or meat with it be they never so old they will be tender and fit to eat For being it is of a slippery moist nature it will soften and temper the hardest Oxe-flesh or old Hens Wherefore the Antients used it often because it will make meats easy of digestion and it loosneth the belly Orage is of the same faculty with it which from the prickly seed is called Spinach and is like to Lampsana Dioscorides speaks of which I think Martial meant when he said Use Lettice and the Mallowes soft And Horace Epod. L. od 3. Fat Olives pulled from the boughs of'th Tree Or sowre Docks that Meadows love Or Mallows that with costive bodies best agree CHAP. XLIV Of the operation of Mans spittle The force and effects of fasting spittle DIvers experiments shew what power and quality there is in Mans fasting spittle when he hath neither eat nor drunk before the use of it For it cures all tetters itch scabs pushes and creeping sores And if venemous little beasts have fastned on any part of the body as hornets beetles toads spiders and such like that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and inflammations do but rub the places with fasting spittle and all those effects will be gone and discussed moreover it kills Scorpions and other venemous creatures or at least hurts them exceedingly For it hath in it a venemous quality and secret poison that it contracts from the foulnesse of the teeth in part and partly from vitious humours For to the mouth and
of it for it is of an astringent nature and an opiat and stupefies and doth not cause expectoration Elephantiasis commonly called the Leprosy is a fowl abominable disease and such as are infected with it are shut without the City walls To try the Leprosy And because sometimes it is hard to know it the Low-Dutch appoint men to judge and censure it I try it by their urine into which I strew the Ashes of burnt Lead and if they sink to the bottom of the glasse they are not any wayes infected in their bodies with this disease But if they flote and stick on the top of the urine I judge them to be infected For it shews a grossenesse of the humours and that a burnt corrupted melancholy is diffused all over their bodies The effects of Quicksilver When Gold-smiths will gild cups with gold they do it with Quicksilver which being put into the hot fire will flye away into smoak and offensive vapours And if you spread a cover over and receive the fume that will come again to Quicksilver and congeal as the smoak from Coles turns to a grosse and thick soot Quicksilver loves Gold But how much that mineral body is affected with Gold I spake before Yet this is wonderfull that one who is anointed with it for the French-Pox if he carry a Gold ring in his mouth Gold good for such as have the Pox. and turn it up and down with his Tongue and Teeth the Quicksilver that swims in the body from the anointing will come to the ring that it will seem to be but Silver and will not be made like gold again but by putting it into the fire Wherefore I advise all those that are anointed with this oyntment that they do this often A strange wonder of Quicksilver for great quantity of Quicksilver will stick in their bodies for it hath been observed when a vein was opened that some drams of it have run forth and hence it is that such men are alwaies pale and tremble so long as any part of the Quicksilver remains in their bodies And therefore I wonder at some that will give a scruple weight to women in child-birth to make them to be the sooner delivered a doubtfull and uncertain experiment as also for children to kill the worms yet I say that pure Quicksilver is more harmlesse than the rest and then that which is killed with spittle or some other liquor For sublimate that is extracted by the heat of the fire from Vitriol Allum Salt Nitre Ammoniac and Arsenick is most pernicious and next to this is red and yellow precipitate which some Empiricks give to swallow down half a scruple for those that have the pox but it exulcerates both their Gums and Jaws but outwardly it is good for rebellious Ulcers Also Aquafortis that the Gold-smiths part Gold from Silver with is as bad Though some of our Matrons are not afraid to make their locks yellow with it with great hurt to and sometimes the losse of their hair for the roots of their hair thus dried wither and they become bald and ugly without all hopes of their hair growing again And if you put this into a rotten tooth it will eat the gums Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizee OF THE Dignity and Excellency of Nature The Third Book CHAP. I. How children are forced to endure the reproaches and disgraces of their Parents and the faults and wicked actions of their Progenitors are so far imputed unto these that by reason of them they lose their reputation or substance and goods of fortune or sustain some dammages in their bodies or minds THere is an excellent Sermon in Ezechiel or rather a severe and reprehensive expostulation of God with them who complain'd that they suffer'd for their Parents faults Chap. 13. and that it was unjust that children should be censured by reason of their Parents wickednesse What is it saith the Lord that you turn this Parable into a Proverb saying every where The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the Childrens Teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord you shall no more use this Proverb for all souls are mine as the soul of the Fathers so of the Children also the soul that sins that shall dye Wherefore God taking away this Proverb pronounced that every man should dye for his own sin and that the wickednesse of the Progenitors nor any of their disgraces should be derived to their posterity unlesse they go in the same way their Parents did or follow their vitious footsteps For whoever as he speaks at large in this whole Chapter despising and forsaking God and imitating and following his forefathers sins useth the same ungodly practises his Ancestors did and contaminates and pollutes himself with rapins usuries calumnies adulteries frauds deceits cavillings idolatries filthy lusts and other ungodly waies and will not obey Gods precepts and Commandments but rejects his wholesome instructions as he is in the same fault with his progenitours so shall he partake of the same punishment Children do not suffer for their Parents faults Wherefore God will not suffer it that the Parents sins shall be imputed to the children or that any children shall be punished for their progenitours oftences unlesse they do as bad as they did but every one shall be guilty for his own transgression so that as St. Cyprian saith Since the brightnesse of the Gospel hath subdued the Law God in his divine Justice doth not judge the Race but the person What guilt came by original sin if any man object that original sin was brought upon all mankind by Adam whereby all mens minds are grown blind for want of divine light and their will is made contrary unto Gods will that is easily answered For being that he was the common Parent of all mankind and from him the nature of man being traduced was thereby vitiated this guilt and corruption and depravation of nature was spread by propagation into all his posterity as it falls out with them that are born of sickly Parents from faulty humours and corrupt seed An example from a corrupt body an hereditary disease will stick to these children so long as they live Wherefore we are chiefly subject to that sin but not to sins of another kind whereof some are proper and peculiar to other humours and these are called actual sins or are learned by custome or imitation by keeping company with wicked men and are not bred and born with us and part of our nature yet for the most part these sins sprowt and come forth of the former sin Sometimes the Parents and Children are of divers tempers and conditions Wherefore sometime neither the faults nor yet the vertues of the Parents are translated to the children For the Father may be an Idolater a Spend-thrift Lustfull a bawd a Gamester yet the son may be a thriving man and free from all these vices But as we received
this spot from Adam so we have the same principles of our birth with great pain and labour in travail and the same kind of end and death with great fear and trembling Wherefore as we were begot by him so were we made of the same earth and become guilty of the same crime And no man of so many thousands but had done the like All men â—â—e born and â—ye after the same manner if the same occasion had been presented and he had stood in Adams room he would have been baited and allured with the same baits and allurements and promises and any of us would have fallen into the same snare and stuck in the same mud if the same fraud had been used unto us to entrap our minds with But as besides Kings and Princes the Governours and chief officers of Towns and Cities A simile from such as are oppressed by usury which is now a common thing in the Low-Countries with a desire to help the Common-Wealth do burden it with debt and bind themselves and Citizens in strong obligations and for the money received bind themselves and the Cities to yearly payments and their heirs also so that if they keep not the days of payments or do not pay as they should they may be arrested by strangers and imprisoned that they cannot freely go forth or remove but they must pay their penalty either by laying down money or putting in good security even so almost are we bound to the Divel and like bank-rupts for Adams transgression are we entangled in most grievous dammage for by his fault we are fallen into the same inexpiable errour and wickednesse that no man could possibly get forth of it or untangle himself unlesse our most merciful father having conquer'd the tyranny of the Devil by his son Jesus Christ had redeemed us into liberty blotting out the hand-writing that was against us Colos 2. How original sin is blotted out as St. Paul saith for he took that away that the enemy pressed us with and fastned it unto his Crosse and he spoiled principalities and powers making a shew of them openly triumphing over them that he had wholly divested and cast down and pardoning all our offences that there is no danger that what any man hath formerly done amisse should be imputed unto him so that he henceforth by a firm faith rely on God and truly repent himself of his former misdoings Gods Judgement in misfortunes that come to posterity But to proceed in what I began It falls out sometimes that children are plagued and suffer losse for their Parents faults when they chance to possesse an inheritance purchased by fraud and wickednesse which oft-times are ruined by a secret Judgment of God When Children suffer for their Parents faults and come to nothing either by fire or water or some other sad mischances So that God will not suffer their innocent children to grow rich by their wicked rapins and frauds of their parents or long to enjoy those possessions that were heaped of injuries and injustice Likewise some dye suddenly before their time when the Parents for the Childrens cause indulge unto themselves overmuch and do nothing but gripe and plot for wealth possessions honours dignities and lofty titles and they make their way unto them by right and wrong and without any firm trust in God do all they can to mount to high preferments whereas God oft-times soon takes their children from this life Whence comes death before the time and will not let them live long and the empty hopes of the Parents perish Which is confirmed by that saying of the Wise man He pleased God and was beloved of him Wisdome 4. so that living amongst sinners he was translated yea speedily was he taken away lest that wickednesse should alter his understanding or deceit beguil his soul It is from God that Parents are deprived of children therefore hasted he to take him away from the midst of the wicked And when men see this saith he they understand not the cause of it nor can they tell why they dye so soon and come so suddenly to an end So sometimes it falls out by the providence of God that the heir dieth and all hopes of posterity and the very pillar of the family falls Also Hoseas professeth that God takes away some mens children for their Parents wickednesse Chap. 7. For so God threatneth wicked men there Their glory shall flye away like a Bird from the birth and from the Womb and from the conception that is they shall be barren and unfruitfull Barrennesse and want of Children from God nor shall they beget or conceive any children and if they get any I will slay them and take them away from the earth There are in all ages innumerable examples of this matter For we see the chief Nobility and Lords in Court not onely to want and be deprived of their children but to run in debt exceedingly But that David was deprived of the child he had by sheba the wife of Uriah there was great reason for it in the Judgements of God 2 King 12. For a grievous revenge from God followed that Tragedy and wickednesse committed Gods anger being kindled both against David and the child For God stroke the child with an incurable sicknesse that it died on the seventh day as it useth to be in very acute diseases For the provident justice of God would have none remain that was so begotten though David as the Scripture relates fell down upon the ground and wept and prayed continually that God would have mercy on the child This History affords every man a wholesome lesson that so far as mans frailty will permit he should keep himself from all dishonesty Adultery to be avoided and especially from embracing those that are lawfully married according to Gods institution to other men We must not grieve too much for losse of children And again if God take away a mans children he ought not to vex toil and perplex himself and destroy or hurt himself with immoderate sorrow For what a madnesse is it to afflict a mans self for those things that cannot be restored or possibly live again Wherefore Davids courage deserves praise his great moderation of his passions in so sad a condition For as soon the child was dead whereas a little before he was in a very sad case David was not sorrowfull for the child's death lying in dust and ashes as the custome of that country is could possibly lament no more than he did he presently shook off all sorrow and sat down to eat in his Kingly majesty But as for the other part of the Tragedy which had as lamentable an end as the former God offended with David's wickednesse denounceth terrible threats against him by Nathan the Prophet Adultery not unpunished 2 Kings 12. for that having ravished so chaste a Matron and killed so faithfull a Captain Uriah
with the greatest presents you can give them Whence Solomon compares their yawning and wide open dores to the Jaws of hell and the grave that are never satisfied Proverb 30. Wherefore if they that are married will take good counsel when they recover of a disease and begin to be well let them not presently fall to lying with their wives to be milked by them but let them moderate their affectiâ—â—s and put reigns on their pleasures that are exorbitant for they have then nothing to spare as young tender trees that must not be lopt nor have their branches cut off from them An example from young Trees For if the disease thus chance to revive and a man fall into a relapse they either dye suddenly or very hardly recover And if lusty and stout men when they first marry can hardly hold out when they too frequently use venerious actions and to speak in Tullyes language enter their wives too often how much more must weak and sickly men be dejected and cast down Immoderate venery spoils beauty And such as are uxorious will make this appear by their Weesil-colour for being too much given to venery they look yellow burnt or like Box or bloudlesse Lead-colour'd their limbs and joynts are feeble and weak whereas others that use this action moderately all fuliginous vapours are discussed by it and they appear fresh in their countenances and lively and their faces so comely red as if they were painted There is indeed in every part an imbred force and vertue as sight to the eyes Eath part hath its imbred faculty hearing to the ears smelling to the Nose to the Tongue taste and savour which is of all the senses the most voluptuous the bladder and its muscles serve to make water and the Intestins to void other excrements the genitals to procreate children and for copulation so other parts have other offices they are designed for and in all of these there must be temperance and moderation used For the eyes with continual poring are toyled and grow dim The Ears with too great noise grow deafe What is to much is alwaies naught as we see that Smiths are thick of hearing The Taste is abolished with immoderate eating or drinking Why Smiths are half deaf and all things become unsavoury and unpleasant so that the stomach loaths and refuseth the meat The Nostrils that have a smelling faculty when they are full of snot cannot swell the most fragrant sents All parts have their distinct offices Also the generative parts that all the parts do service to and if by chance they fail or be exhausted other parts will assist them in their courses for from the whole body humours and spirits flow thither and are derived unto them and if they be tired with immoderate and profuse lust not so much they as the whole body decayes and suffers Wherefore in preserving the forces of nature and corroborating the state of the body all things must be used temperately and with moderation that every man may seasonably and maturely grow old without trouble for lustfull youth will when old age comes leave a froward and peevish mind and a decayed and feeble body CHAP. III. Of the effect of the Ayre and gentle blasts and of the names of the winds with their forces and natures to cause diseases and to stir the humours which being agitated sometimes move the mind and molest it THere are two external accidental things that are no lesse hurtfull than they are healthfull to our bodies Which do support our health and sometimes make us sick The Ayre and winds sometimes make us well and sometimes sick namely nourishments and the Ayre that surrounds us by the agitation and motion whereof there ariseth wind and blasts to which our bodies are exposed every moment and thereby suffer manifest changes But winds and windy vapours breed in our bodies Whence come winds in the body partly by reason of the external beating of the Ayre and partly from meats and drinks that being taken in cause winds and stretch the belly as are Beans Peason raw hearbs Rapes Radishes fruits of Trees sweet wine new beer and Ale and Winds rising from these trouble the stomach and are offensive to the Intestines and the hypochondres and Middriff These To drink greedily fills the body with winds as also those blasts that use to enter when we feed greedily or drink in haste abundantly either come forth by belching or by breaking wind backwards But if they stay over long in the body or fasten upon any part they cause pains and must be excluded by applying hot remedies outwardly and inwardly by such things as dispell winds as Cummin What things expell winds Bay-berries Anniseed Fennel-seed Carway-seed strong Wines as Malmsey and Candey Wine For these will force and make the winds to rore Aeneid And to flye out where they can find a dore But since outward winds are commonly offensive to us and by their penetrating force do us much hurt I shall chiefly speak of them here For they sometimes get secretly into our bodies and sometimes openly and by violence they rush in and do great hurt to men heards of cattle Corn hearbs Trees The original of winds The wind proceeds from the Ayre and small blasts moved and tossed whence it is that sometimes it is gentle easy and pleasant sometimes strong violent and vehement as the Ayre is calm or moved What the wind is Wherefore the wind is nothing else then an effusion and flowing form of the forces of the Ayre troubled which receives strength and nutriment from the exhalations and vapours of the earth Or as Vitruvius saith The wind is the flowing sourge of the Ayre moved by uncertain and unstable motion John 3. A place of the Gospel explained Which when our Saviour speaks of he saith The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth For taking a similitude from the outward blasts he instructs Nicodemus by what force and what secret operation the spirit of God affects the minds of men For as the aereal blast is not quiet nor obedient to any mans command but is restlesse and unquiet and is carried by its own violence and driven here and there so that being diffused all over it shews it self by the effect and noise of it and not by sight sometimes wholesome for the earth Gods spirit compared with the winds and sometimes hurtfull so the Spirit of God by a secret and unspeakable blast beats upon the minds of men drives forces inflames stirs up transforms and makes spiritual of carnal men But as the mind of man subsists and is supported by the spirit of God so this animal living body of ours is no lesse refreshed with the whole some outward Ayre than with meat and drink For the use of Ayre and breath that we draw into our bodies is
some cause of corruption and inflammation to the bloud But in Winter it causeth extream cold weather East South-East is most cold in Winter that is commonly attended with snow and bitter frosts so that such as go forth when this wind blows can hardly defend their noses faces eyes cheeks from the piercing and deadly cold of it and the same force is ascribed by some to North-East wind The nature of the North-East wind that is a very fierce blast and differs something from the East South-East The South-East wind is next the South which in Summer for the most part is calm though sometime it not onely troubles the Ayre with clouds but the minds of men also For this wind being turbulent makes the mind melancholly but it lasts not long for it is no sharp bitter wind to stir the humours as some winds are But as the waves of the sea by the violence of the winds A simile from the waves of the Sea tossed with the winds swell and are lifted up so in mans body the humours are moved and rage by the same force the vapours and sumes whereof carried upwards trouble the mind and make it peevish froward angry hard and untractable The winds distemper mans mind also that whilst that distemper of the affections last you shall hardly obtain any petition from those men especially from women or covetous old men who as they are jealous and suspitious they think that men craftily come to delude them Opportunity to be taken and therefore they will repell them with great incivility and give them ill language unlesse they come very seasonably and in good time that is the chiefest of all things For those that take opportunity by the forelock Do prove their passage Virgil Aeneid L. 4. and consider when It 's time to speak and hold their peace agen Since therefore there are many things that are apt to change mans condition especially the concourse of the winds and unstable motions of the Ayre can do it by whose violence not onely our bodies but our animal spirits suffer wrong and the mind it self is somewhat distemper'd that as the Ayre and winds vary so is it calm or troubled though the diet and Intemperance in meats and drinks is of great concernment to constitute the habit of the body and to foster our affections The South Wind is unstable The South wind amongst them all is most hurtfull and offensive to mans health being by nature and operation hot and moist For when that wind blows the rain wets the earth abundantly What diseases the South wind causeth whence it is that our bodies and humours are soon corrupted and Catarrhs and defluxions fall upon our throats vocal artery and Lungs Whence arise Poses hoarsnesse Coughs Epilepsies Vertigoes Lethargies Apoplexies Blear-eyes deafnesse noise in the Ears and many more diseases that scatter every where when the South-wind blows I have observed oft that when the South-wind blew long The South wind causeth abortion great bellied women did miscarry and by an immoderate flux arising to have been in danger of their lives For when the parts of the body that serve to carry the burden begin to flag namely the ligaments Nerves Muscles Membranes Flaps Cauls and the Matrix from too great moisture begins to grow slippery and to be dilated by degrees it cannot be that nature should carry the burden to the full time especially when after a dry time moist weather falls in which as it is not hurtfull for dry and cholerick people The South wind not ill for cholerick people so is it extream ill for women and children and flegmatique constitutions and such as dwell in boggy and fenny lands The South wind naught for flegmatique people Hence Infants and children are troubled with an implacable cough the Low-dutch call it Kindthoest that comes forth with a kind of Hiccop and will give them no time so much as to take their breath For when they cough continually and painfully and never stop at all A cough ill from liquid humour yet all their straining is in vain nor do they prevail a whit so that their breath is stopt and they are ready to be strangled and all their Pipes of breathing being shut A cough that strangleth children their breath that goes and comes will come forth behind and break out not without great danger of their lives if you do not hold their buttocks close pressed together with both your knees that so the breath that strives to come out behind the wrong way may be forced to return back and come forth at the wind pipes as it should This kind of cough comes by a thin fluxible humour that doth not clot and grow together but falls into the receptacles of the Lungs so that the faculty and power of nature cannot cast up so moist an excrement that is not compacted together A simile from a moist running matter For as a drop of water or any other liquor powred on a table doth not cleave together but runs all abroad so that you cannot take it up with the tops of your fingers so the humours falling from the head upon the throat the vocal artery and Lungs and fibres cannot be taken away though nature by a continuall cough strives to drive it forth yet all in vain and yet it is so thin that it cannot be touched but it will slip away also grosse flegme that sticks to the Lungs like Birdlime troubles men as much as thin matter doth but it doth not endanger to strangle us Wherefore it is the South winds that are the cause of these diseases and inconveniencies in our health and are the seminary of many more infirmities For the humours being melted and flowing up and down The South wind causeth the joynt-Gout to move the Gout and joynt aches are stirred up whereby all the parts of our bodies being afflicted they become unapt to perform their duties But as for the internall forces and offices of the mind the mind when the South wind blows The South wind hurts the mind is feeble stupid dull dejected and cast down and sleepy that she goes drowsily about all her businesse And this force puts forth it self in inanimate and dead things For we see that when the South wind blows all things in the house are moist and flagging Linnen Clothes Sheets cover-lids blankets Paper skins pictures Geographical The South wind over-clouds all and the North clears all up and the rest of the houshold stuff Also Lakes and Moorish places Rivers Ponds Seas are muddy and troubled and dark But when the Northwinds blow all things are clear lightsome pure and cleansed that you may see the bottom and all things that are on the ground under water The like happens in our bloud and humours the dregs whereof swim up when the South wind blows and darken the mind but when the East wind or West blow they hide
their sharp taste they are very good for a nauseating and qualmish Palate David speaks of this plant who in many places brings very apt similitudes to perswade in the point of Religion fetched handsomely from natures works Before saith he Psal 57. your Thorns be grown and become hard as white Thorn the Lord shall break you and take you away and shall make you melt as a Snail A place of David explained and an abortive child Whereby he describes the factions and deeds of wicked men shewing that their Tyranny threats power endeavours and undertakings shall all come to nothing and shall never do the hurt they intended taking a comparison from the Buckthorn that when it is grown up is full of hurtful prickles but in the spring it is tender soft tractable and not so hurtfull Now there are in these Sea-coasts many shrubby plants whereof some growing far from the shore yet receive the Sea Ayre though they be never wet with Sea-water others are moistned by the Sea coming in when the Ocean over-flows as it useth to do in winter at the full or new of the Moon hence it is that all Sea plants are of a wan colour Sea hearbs are ill colour'd and hoary and not so beautifull as Garden plants are nor so gracefull to sight yet some of them transplanted and made tame by cultivation become more beautifull and grow and flourish more delightfully We see the like in Coblers Bakers that stand by the Oven A simile from sordid Artificers Colliars Black-Smiths Gold-Smiths that are gilders which is performed by Quicksilver and in those that forge Pewter Brasse Copper Lead all these are discovered by their Countenance Some works change a mans colour and have not their natural colour but that which is accidental by reason of the vapours and fumes that fly about them so that some of them are Box-colour'd Weesil-colour'd wan like half burnt Brick brown smoky but should these men use some other trade and forsaking their vulgar calling should live as gentlemen they would soon look of another hue far more comely and beautifully and their whole body as well as their faces would be more gracefull to look upon though some of them would allwaies carry some marks of their old vocations that they were before used to and this we observe in Country-maids and men that chance to rise to great fortunes that they commonly will discover something of their former rural and servile life Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizee CONCERNING Natures Dignity and Excellence The Fourth Book CHAP. I. Of the force and effect of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven and what useth to happen to men that are dying or desperately sick when they are in their agony and are beginning to dye by the flowing and ebbing of the Sea and motion of the Moon whose forces such as live near the Sea perceive more effectually than other men I Shewed before what power this Planet had Gen. 1. which was ordaind to give light by night and is nearer to us and more familiar than the other stars whose force works upon the bodies of Animals and stirs the humours But since it is wonderfull effectual not onely in raising The force of the Moon what diseases it sharpneth and moving of Tempests and inundations of the Sea but in causing and sharpning diseases namely the Apoplex Lethargy Astonishment Epilepsie Palsey Dropsy Catarhs and flegmatique distillations I shall speak a little more accurately concerning the nature of it and the rather because the Inhabitants of the Low-Countries do more strongly feel the force of it by living so near to the Sea than others do that live farther from it for these being so near and when the Moon sets in the West are so nearly shined upon by her and no woods or Mountains keep her from them do manifestly perceive the power of the Moon and are more abundantly moistned by the moist beams of it For as Pliny saith The Moon is a feminine soft and nocturnal light that moves humours L. 2. c. 100. but it draws none as the Sun doth but fills all things with a moist vapour and makes them swell whence it is that such as dwell in moist and cold countries are full of Flegme and excrements and are subject to coughs hoarsnesse Poses and to many other defluxions and Catarhs especially such as are idle Idle persons subject to catarhs Idlâ— people subject to the Moons effects and sit much and seldome labour or exercise upon whom by reason of abundance of humours the Moon doth more forcibly shew her strength So that these above other men are exposed to her motions and effects For Porters Seamen Carriers Husbandmen and many more that labour much and who by native heat augmented and rowsed do consume superfluities if there be any are lesse subject to the inconveniencies of this Star and do not greatly feel the force of it Yet that I may discover what I have proved and observed by long experience I will shew what force the God of nature who makes all things for our use hath given to the Moon besides that clear light she borrows from the Sun to give light to mortals in the night time Moreover I will shew by the way what increase she gives to Shel-fish Oysters Cockles Plants L. 1. Hist c. 98. Corn-Trees Pliny from Aristotle maintains that in the French Seas no living creature dieth but when the Tide goes forth which opinion as I dare not contentiously contradict or disallow yet I do testify to all men that all things do not exactly answer that opinion since I have seen some by the motion and aspect of the Moon when the Sea was coming in to dye but most men when the Sea goes out For in the low Countries those that live by the Sea as I have proved it use to dye after a diverse manner according as the humours abound in them Fat people are in danger when the Sea flows For some by the course of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven when the waters flow others when they ebb either recover or dye the humours and Spirits being either tossed or quieted by the motion and aspect of this Starr So in denouncing the Crisis that is in giving judgment of life and death upon all those that I observed to be troubled with diseases from fullnesse of humours or with inflammation of the Lungs Pleuresie Quinseys Apoplexies Lethargies and Flegmatick diseases and Dropsies whose bodies do swell and the moysture chokes them I pronounce that when the Moon is at the full and when the tide comes in those persons will dye or else the most of them according to the condition and nature of the disease will suffer some manifest alteration by sudden breaking forth of sweat or blood or evacuation and flux of humours that abound in some part Dry bodies dye when the Sea goes out then I give my judgment
their houshold and ordinary affairs they are neat and cleanly their table is moderate and frugal never prodigall and luxurious In Merchandize there is not one Citizen but is cunning at it and industrious and greedy of gain and looks close to it yet they are all liberal and beneficial to the Inhabitants that are pressed with poverty or are in want and toward the rest hospitable gentle mild affable easy and without any dissembling or complemental delusions they are open and clear to all For Godlinesse and pious worship Zelanders are cunning they are rather religious than superstitious But as for the people and dwellers in this country there is no place of the world are so cunning and crafty in smelling out and discovering impostors captious deceivers dissemlers flatterers spies underminers and dangerous men though they do flatter cunningly and use all skill to tickle their ears for they cannot withall their arts and Coggings and counterfeit behaviours and false glosses deceive these men but they will soon find them out They are so wise to tell What 's sound and faigned words they know full well Pers Sat. 5. If Brasse with Gold be mingled for to sell As some use to do who speak one thing and mean another From this skill of judging of counterfeits some common quibs and taunting proverbs have risen amongst the Hollanders Some inclinations of the lower Hollanders the fool in the Comedy that they publickly acted speaking to them that no man must take offence at it The Brabander is merry jocant ridiculous immoderate in stage-playes and Comedies the Fleming is lascivious intemperate lustfull wanton the Hollander simple improvident carelesse dull sluggish sleepy foolish nothing Politick the Zelander is crafty cunning deceitfull flye false Which affections also grow stronger as they grow old and shew themselves more for cibly unlesse the inclination of nature be conquered and men better taught that they may bear better fruit For those are the vices of the baser people and manners of the Nation Manners of the Nation are peculiar to the people Every Nation hath its vioes and not of the Noblemen Gentlemen and such as have liberall education But since every Nation hath its faults and vices manners inclinations and studies that is customes they all apply themselves unto so this Nation that hath the common nature of men hath its imbred and natural affections that nature carries them to partly proceeding from the ambient Ayre which manifestly affects our bodies partly to say nothing of mens dier from the nature of their Parents and manners of their Ancestors and ordinary custome of life which with time is so grown up with them and fastned in their minds that it can hardly be ever taken out Noblemens manners differ from the fashions of the commons whence it comes to passe that if you take away the Nobility or Senatours that are all Schollers and adorned with learning the common people and promiscuous multitude are inhumane rude barbarous fierce cruel unruly and far from civility if you go over any Nations whatsoever But that inveterate errour and depraved manners may be removed which begin from our cradles and infancy to wax in our minds and which we seem to suck in with our Mothers milk Children to be instructed by their Ancestors it is the office and duty of Parents which our men now begin to take great care about to see their children taught well and to use so much care for the manuring of their minds that laying aside all naturall fiercenesse they may be inclined to all humanity and curtesie A simile from wild beasts and Trees For as wild trees by transplanting and by the industry of man become mild and grow in Orchards and cruel wild beasts by mans Art and managing grow tame so mans mind which is not altogether so hard as Iron or Adamant may be bent and instructed in more humane Arts to learn honesty honour vertue godlinesse and religion This is that amongst us that makes our Fishermen a people rude and used to the Sea Zirizea full of Fishermen whereof in Zirizea there are above 500. besides young boyes not yet of age that learn the same vocation that afterwards are to be taken for Marriners and experienced Pilots are of so great integrity of life and manners that never any quarrels contentions discords or jars arise amongst them and they never go to law one with another so that the Magistrate never interposeth to decide any controversies between them but upon most urgent occasions for they use to hold a counsel themselves The condition of life of the Marriners in Zeland and so to put an end to them all They suffer none of their vocation to beg and they hold it a disgrace for any of their company to ask an Alms at the dore or any thing by intreaty But the company of Fishermen and he that is the chief amongst them whom they call their Deacon appoints an allowance out of the common stock for every one that stands in want and hath not sufficient to keep his family so that they need nothing whereby they may frugally and liberally sustain their hunger The Zelanders Fishermens moderation of their affections But when such a great multitude go to Sea to fish very far off and it happens that they speed not well none of them is vexed or troubled at it nor wishes any ill luck to any man but they all take it quietly and thankfully in hopes that they shall have a better voiage for the future But that moderation of their mind in such rude men What the source of nature can do is not engrafted by any laws prescribed unto them or teaching from wise men but by the instinct and guiding of Nature and apprehended by reason whereby they find what is honest and decent and what is not But to look back to the Scheld The original and course of the River Scheld This River at Vermandose is yet well known by its antient name it comes forth of two Fountains by the Nervii now called Tornaci and through Gaunt a most famous City Gaunt a nursery for Students where I first went to School to learn my Letters and so through the rest of the Countries of Flanders it comes to Antwerp and runs under the wals of it and make a famous harbour The Scheld an Ornament to Antwerp Why the Scheld running by Flanders is called the Houte and place for Ships to ride safely in Then running a little farther it parts into two and divides Brabant and Flanders from Zealand for winding on the left hand toward the South it runs on the coasts of Flanders and is called by another name de Honte from its barking and noise it makes where the passage lyeth open by South Vealand and Wallachria into the Western Sea and again a passage into these parts but on the right hand leaving the Coasts of Brabant by a continued course and
in a silent night For since nothing hinders nor Woods nor Groves nor Mountaines nor Rocks as high as Heaven the noyse passeth on the plain of the Sea as in a wide Champion Land farr and broad and is scattered through the Ayre But when all night this miserable slaughter and destruction continued in the morning the Flemings past all hopes became subject to their enemies being killed and scattered by them In that battel were lost above 8000 Flemings and there were taken besides private Souldiers whose number is not easie to be had Guido Earl of Flanders Captivated Guido Dampetra Prince of Flanders and with him innumerable Lords of the Court their Ensignes were taken from them Skins Tents spoils and many rich booties and gallant things were recovered from them and with the Prince and Captives were brought into the City Warr is not rashly to be entred on and the great Fleet they had with all things so well appointed was either shattered to peices or burnt and what they had came all into the Enemies hands Wherefore the Flemings being afflicted with this memorable losse take Counsel to compose the businesse and to redeem their Captives Other mens Countries not to be invaded These things should teach Princes that are covetous of other mens Countries and long after their neighbours Lands that they should not raise Armes against such as live neere unto them where they have no just cause to make a Warr not sufficient reason to induce them to it And if there be a cause they were better first try all means and admitt of any conditions almost for peace than to take up the Sword But now the siege being raised at Zirizea and the Warr ended which fell out Anno Domini 1303 about the Ides of August which was St. Laurence day least so fierce a victory obtain'd after so bloody Warr after some yeares should be forgotten or slip out of the minds of the Citizens they decreed that solemn yearly thanksgiving should be rendred unto the immortal God and the Senate would have this continued year by year for perpetuall memory to shew how these things were done and how the City was delivered and this hath never been neglected by their posterity but also the young boys that frequent publick Schools What things fall amisse are somtime to be remembred and are traind up in learning keep this day holy-day and rest having leave allowed them for to play so is the remembrance of this deed delivered as it were by hand from one generation to another that each Citizen may know and hold fast in mind in what streights and danger of their lives their Ancestors were when they fought with all their might for religion and liberty for their Wives and dear Children and endeavour'd to serve their Prince to their utmost power In the mean while it affords especially this doctrine to posterity and they are warned of it by the yearly commemoration of it that when they are afflicted and in great danger they should lift up their Hearts unto the great and good God and seek for safety from him that their Countrey besieged may be releived that all things may prosper and that they may obtain the victory without shedding of blood which thing alone we read that Abraham Moses David Ezechias Judith and many more did and by these helps they wonn the victory But since the Scheld and Zirizea situate therein hath been often set upon by strangers and shaken with Warr Whence is the Island Suythvelandia so call'd and none of the Islands more than Suythvelandia which is so called onely because it is opposite to the South and stretcheth spatiously being a very pleasant Country toward the Coasts of Flanders and Brabant though some few years it sufferd damage Romersvalla a City and is become narrower than formerly by halfe From this a City of no small note call'd Romersvalla was broken off which having no Land about it The City Gows nor ground about the walls the Sea runs round it that it subsists alone by making of Salt In the Western part of the Island is the City Gows scituate the walls are but a very small compasse but it is pleasantly and handsomely built and the Citizens are very civil and of laudable manners There is besides this another Island joyns to Brabant only a small narrow Sea runs between Tole a City of Zeland Martin â—s City wherein stands Tole so called from the tribute and custome It is an antient little Town from whence the fortresse of Martin is not farr distant it is the free Town that belongs to the Prince of Orange a delightfull place set about with Trees wherein there builds a multitude of birds especially Herons There are besides these some small Islands of no great note as Duveland so called from the frequency of Pigions there Goerede from the good harbour for Ships Platessa and many more not long since won out of the Sea I think it needlesse to stay to describe them since a description of Zealand newly set forth doth exactly represent them all which the curious may look upon at their leasure The originall of the Zelanders As for the original of the Zealanders the report is constant and derived to the Inhabitants by succession that they are derived from the Goths and Vandals especially from that Island of Norway Zeland in Denmark Hafnia Coopmans Haven which the Danes call Zealand wherein there stands that famous place for Merchandice called Hafnia commonly Coopmans-Haven from a Haven much frequented by Merchants who first found this Land void of Inhabitants and reduced it into Islands and first setting up Cottages and small places made it fit for pasture and arable Land Zeland belongs to Holland For in Caesar's time there was a great part of this land which is no other but an Appendix to Holland that is untill'd nor ever was it ploughed to sow upon or dug but full of Lakes and arms of the Sea that hinders it as even to this day Holland hath many Lakes so that the way by land is cut off every where by them and men must passe in boats Aestuaria what which is also used in Zeland in the places overflowed which are nothing else but places without and within the shores that are exposed to the Sea's flouds For when the Mediterranean Sea runs into them they are full of water so that in the Winter there is no foot passage and there is no going to those places but by boats But the ground beyond the ramparts that for many acres far and wide goes as far as the creeks and Sea-coasts is heaped up by the washing of the water and is beaten upon with continual floud and sometimes when the Ocean swels as it doth at the full or new of the Moon it is all overflowed and when the Sea falls back again it comes forth that the places which are somewhat high bear very good pasture to feed cattel
the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
that they see clearly by day because the day light runs into these dark shady eyes and moves and enlightens the spirits But at night they see ill and not so exactly as others because they want the outward light to move the humours and spirits to sharpen their sight Grey and blew colour'd eyes whence and how they see but where the humour of a mans eye is transparent and clear but the spirit is small slender and weak they have Owls eyes or grey and blew colour'd that is temper'd with blew and white of which colour are lanthorns that you may see through Lanthorns are a light grey for with these are made plates for lanthorns and of this colour are the eyes of Owls and many other creatures They that have such eyes see weakly and confusedly by day because the day light and brightnesse of the Sun dissolves and dissipates the visual spirits that are not very strong but in the night because the organs of sight are enlightned with a natural and imbred light the spirits being collected and heaped together they see clearly what is in their way These kind of eyes sparkle What eyes twinkle in the night and shine in the dark and like glittering Stars they send forth their beams so that besides men many living creatures not so much by their craft in hunting as by the faculty of sight they are endued with find no inconvenience by the darknesse of the night whereas the bright day hurts them and blinds them as we see in Owls Creatures that see clear in the night night-Crows Bats Cats Rats Mice Dormice who see worse in the day by reason of the too great light but the darknesse of the night sharpneth their eyes for you see that if you hold candles or Torches before them they can hardly see wherefore Sea-men when they Sail at night desire not that the Moon should shine too clear but a dark kind of sky that is not covered with too thick clouds For so they can see farther and the rayes are lesse dissipated by a light object and do not vanish away so soon Sea-colourd eyes Sea-colourd eyes are tempered with white and green it is a moyster colour than the rest but not so clear and smooth and neat Wherefore by reason of the grosse moysture of it and the small spirits they that are so affected see not very clearly especially in a bright Ayre which offends them chiefly But if the humour and spirit be of a moderate temper Eyes and sight moderately disposed the colour is between white and black very clear and thereby is the sight performed most exactly The colours of the eyes vary according to age The colour and sight of the eye by what reason it is varied and by reason of the thicknesse thinnesse plenty paucity of the humours and spirits which thing is also manifest in the leaves of plants which when they first shoot forth are yellow then as they grow elder they wax green and again as the plant grows old they become yellow or Sea-colour So when children are first born their eyes are grey and blew Sea-green green Owl-eyes but as age comes on they grow black but in old age they grow white as their hairs do or degenerate into Owl-like eyes Also Dioscorides hath from the opinion of other men L. 1. c. written that by medicaments the colours of the eyes may be altered For the shells of small nuts burnt to ashes will make the pupills of young childrens eyes black that are grey and blew being powred in and anointed on the forehead with Oyl Also the wind the constitution of the Ayre the climate diseases affections and passions of the mind immoderate venery hunger immoderate sleep watching and surfetting change both the colours of the eyes and the qualities of the humours and spirits Counsels in restoring the eyes Wherefore a moderate diet and course of life must be kept least the organ of sight than which God hath given us nothing better in our bodies should receive any damage Emptinesse and fullnesse to be observed in recreating the eyes And if the eyes begin to grow dark for want of humours or by drinesse or want of spirits with grief of mind weeping watching wearinesse old age immoderate venery or be extenuated and wasted with immoderate study we must use such things as are restorative for our bodies and foster our eyes What things restore eyes that are decay'd as new rere Egs sweet wine Raysins sweet Almonds Pistaches Chestnuts either rosted or boyled soft Turneps the vertue whereof by reason of the plenty of their windinesse riseth to the head and wonderfully refresheth the visive spirits that are wasted also the brains of birds that fly much do the like as of Sparrows Linnets Spinks They do unadvisedly who without any choice or making any difference apply to their eyes Rue Celandine Rue sometimes hurts the eyes the galls of Vultures Kites Hawks that are of a burning and biting faculty and they waste and devour the spirits and humours that make the sight they are indeed fitly applied when the eyes are dark and misty from superfluity of humours When Rue and Celandine are good for the eyes Radish and Rapes good for the eyes and when the pin and web take away the sight and deform the eyes for they dissolve the congealed and collected humours that by their thicknesse hinder the spirits to be brought thither so all things that are abstergent and extenuating are good in this case as are common Radish that procures a good appetite Fennel-seed leaves and roots Eyebright French-Lavander and all things that cleanse the brain of thick vapours Wherefore let Schollers that must study by the help of their eyes avoid Garlick Leeks Onions and all strong â—â—â—elling things and that send forth such sâ—â—â—king vapours and are hurtfull for them Garlick and all strong things are hurtfull to the eyes For these spoil the eyes memory and damnify all the senses But such as use hard labour and exercise none of these things can hurt them But outwardly we must look on such things that refresh the sight Green things delight the eyes and are delightfull to behold as are all green things whereof there are innumerable kinds and differences in the fields woods Gardens Groves to be found but of stones Emrods are by their green colours good for the eyes the full greennesse of the Emrod and with which the eyes can never be satisfied as also the Prasius the Topaz the Jaspâ—r the Saphir Eranos commonly called a Tarquesse and the Lazul-stone Whereby the visive spirits are collected and do not vanish so they sharpen the sight of the eyes But that some by looking on the eyes do collect the inclination of the mind and thoughts The eyes are tokens of the mind I am not against it For they are the Indexes and do shew forth the inward affections thoughts conceptions though the tongue 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
especially in the month of March Whence comes the Nails Also this Infant that was a Female wanted her nails upon her fingers and the utmost joynts of her fingers upon which from the musculous or cartilaginous matter of the skin nails that are very smooth do come forth and grow hard there appeared hardly any marks or prints of nails and they were not so hard as horn but soft as thin skin But on the joynts of their feet there were not resemblance of nails because those parts are not so hot as the hands and are farther from the heart the Fountain of heat for the joynts of the hands that are fastned to the brest by the Armes by the benefit of the heat that is diffused from the heart have more apparent signes on the fingers than any other parts The judgement of Physitians concerning Child birth with no favour or disfavour unto any Wherefore the Physitians observing many naturall causes and depending on solid reasons with favour or disfavour to neither side but as the matter would beare it if he would be so content that was in question to set his integrity and honesty upon it pronounced before the Judges to whom that tryall was commited by them that amongst the Dutch are the King of Spains vicegerents at Brussels that this Infant was to be taken for a Child not of nine but of seven months birth the time the woman went with Child being 27 weeks and such a Child must be accounted born in seven months though the time was not quite finished and one or two weeks were wanting and some dayes to make the time compleat But in this businesse the Moons circuit must be observed The Moon makes the months for women with Child that is perfect in four weeks that is in lesse than 28. days in which space of her revolution the blood being agitated by the force of the Moon the courses of women flow from them which being spent and the matrix cleansed from the menstruall blood as it useth to be oft times on the fift or seventh day Naturall conception is after the courses if after that time a man lye with a woman the conception proves to be most naturall so that the Infant born after seven or nine months is most healthfull and free from diseases to which Children use to be obnoxious For Children use to be troubled with many diseases by reason of the menstruall blood The Epilepsie is Childrens diseases that stays in the Matrix at the time of conception as are the Measils that is lively eruptions commonly called Measils and small-Pox in low dutch Maeselen ende Pocken and other red or wan Pushes that are contracted by the menstruall foulnesse and in the Spring or Summer thrust themselves forth into the outward parts of the body To this we may add the Epilipsie or Falling-sicknesse the Dutch call it Vallende Siecte which disease because it hath many differences the superstitious Gentiles of old were wont to referr it to certain Gods before the light of the Gospel was revealed to men whereas it proceeds from naturall causes and chiefly from clammy and tenacious flegme Moreover in the mouths of young Children there breed almost so soon as they are born some blisters about their throats and Palates the Araâ—â—ans call them Alcolam the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dutch dan Sprowe What is Alcola and uâ—der rheir tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly call'd the Frog What the Frog is in low Dutch Spanare which either by incision or with ones naile or rubbing with Salt as I use to do when they fear the iron instrument or Oxymel of Squils is taken away to say nothing of Hydrocephalon A spongy head that is a head swoln with a spongy watry humour and of many other collections of humours that come from vitious milk and menstruall blood which also use to accompany men in yeares and when they seem to be gon they will come oft times again Therfore both in tilling and sowing of ground A simile from tilling of ground as also in copulation with women and manuring that ground and proâ—reation of Children even by Moses law the Moons motion was to be observed by force whereof at set times womens courses run or are stopt The Moons circuit is performed through the Zodiack in 27 dayes and in one third part of a day which dayes comprehending lesse than four weeks make a Lunar month In how many dayes the Moon peâ—fects her course especially if you take away that time that this planet lyeth hid and is not seen for she is three dayes more or lesse in conjunction that is as they say conmonly the time she is invisible See Galen of decretory dayes in which time she doth not exercise her force upon the earth and is not fit to alter them But when she begins to shew her selfe and is new and when she is full that is she is in opposition to the Sun and shews round she hath wonderfull force in conception and many other things for she both augments Corn and fruits and shell-fish and flesh that hangs to the roofs of houses is corrupted by the beams of it shining upon it such as sleep or continue long in the Moon light she makes pale and trembling and heavy headed brings the Epilepse to Children as also stupidnesse and the Palsey and many more things she doth not that she exceeds the other Planets but she doth it by being so neere to us For she being so placed in the lowest Orb The Moon is a Planet next the Earth and next to the earth she doth so guide the beginnings and increase of things that by the effect of her even after conception of the seed the Child in the Mothers Womb by the Mothers blood that nourisheth it is augmented and made to grow The time of carrying the Infant is to be referred to the course of the Moon Also all the time a woman goes with Child whether you please to measure it by dayes or months or weeks as great bellyed women commonly use to reckon must be referred and counted by the age of the Moon But she shews her forces more effectually upon the body either when first she meets with the Sun begins to be enlightned by him or when she is round and full but when she is but a halfe Moon she hath lesse forces and least of all when she is crooked and by degrees fades and is obscured For at that time there is no concourse of waters in the Ocean no abundance of humours in the bodies of men no collection of marrow in the bones so that then it is fit for tender bodies to leave off copulation and to make a League with it But I oft times use to foretell to women great with Child when their travel shall be easie When the birth will be easie and so to raise their minds to hope very well if they chance
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
most part when nine Moneths are past produceth Mankind either Male or Female of the same shape and form with the progenitors But to proceed in relating the other parts of what I have undertaken The third time to make up this fabrick is set when those three principal parts shew themselves evidently and perspicuously namely the Heart from whence spring the Arteries the Brain from whence as some threads from a distaff the Nerves proceed and the Liver from whence the Veins are propagated To frame these the faculty of the Womb is busied from the time of conception unto the 18. day of the first Moneth But lastly which time reacheth to the 28. or 30. day the outward parts are seen exquisitely elaborated and distinguished by their joynts and then the child begins to grow and to pant from which progresse of dayes because all the Limbs are parted and the whole artifice is perfect it is no longer seen as an imperfect child or Embryo that is a concretion that springs forth but is held to be a perfect and absolute child Males for the most part are perfect by the 30. day but Females on the 42. or 45. day It is by reason of heat that Males are sooner perfected than Females for heat extends the humour like to soft Wax Why Males are soâ—ner perfected than Females diffuseth and dilates it and by its force frames and fashions it So heat and vigour of the body and the alacrity of nature in Men makes them to move in three Moneths When the child stirs but Women in four Moneths At which time also his hair and nails come forth and the child begins to stir and kick in the Womb so that great bellied Women can plainly perceive the motion of them and are troubled with nauseating and loathing of their meat and farther they desire to feed on some absurd meats and such as are strange to nature as Rubbish Coles Pots shels some have longed for raw fish and mens Limbs I knew some that longed for live Eels and Congers and rent them with their teeth in pieces and swallowed them down Yet there are many Noble women that are not subject to this enormous appetite and desire for that they have not much excrementitions or faulty humours heaped up in their bodies but it is otherwise with the common people for those women are ravenous and have heaped up much filthy and feculent humours and blood in their containing vessels within from whence about the third Moneth after conception proceed nauseating loathing sowre belchings and the preternatural desire and coveting of many things is stirred up in them I saw at Bridges a City in Flanders An example of two twins that suffered abortion an abortion of Twins that hapned in three Moneths they were both boyes and from this longing desire the woman miscarried because she could not have what she eagerly longed for The child was a finger long or something more and of the same thicknesse all the Limbs of it were perfect and no want in any part so that you might plainly see the eyes with a black pupill the Nostrills Ears Fingers Navell Privy Member Thighs Shanks Calfs Ankles Feet and Toes When both these children panted and appeared to be alive they were brought to the font to be Baptized when that was ended they appeared no longer to be alive The scituation of the child in the Womb. Moreover I shall shew by the way how the child lyeth scituate in the Womb. It is carried in the Mothers Womb fastned with a long string to her Naver as the Apple is fast to the Tree by its stalk by which by the help of the umoilical Vein it is nourished and drinks at a fountain of pure bloud not by the mouth and lips which are of no use yet for to eat by as the Arse and Bladder serve not yet to cast forth the excrements by For the umbilical vein springing from the Matrix enters the Liver in two parts and is terminated in vena porta from which the most pure bloud by the seminary vessels is derived to the Matrix Hence it is that the bloud and spirits like auxiliaries and a supply of more forces are alwaies carried downwards that none of these may be wanting Wherefore by these channells and rivers of Veins and Arteries that proceeding from the Mothers body are carried to the Womb and then are presently fastned in the Navel is the child fed and by the faculty of the seed that is fostered by the heat of the Womb and is moistned with bloud is it perfected in such a time in all its parts But the Infant is equally ballanced in the middle of the Womb as it were in the Center of it lying all of an heap and being something long is turned round so that the head a little inclines and he layes his chin on his brest his heels and ankles upon his buttocks his hands on his cheeks and eyes but his legs and Thighs are carryed upwards with his hams bending and they touch the bottom of his belly the former and that part of the body that is over-against us as the Fore-head Nose Face is turned toward the Mothers back and the head inclining downwards it hath its eyes and face toward the Coccyx that is the rump bone that is fast to os sacrum the Dutch call it destier this in the birth parts together with the os pubis and is loosned whence it is that commonly males come with their faces downwards or with their head turned somewhat obliquely that their faces may be seen but Females are commonly scituate the contrary way so that they come forth with their faces upwards and look up toward heaven and cry Births contrary to Nature But these things do not alwaies proceed according to natures order for many births are contrary to nature and many children there are not born with their heads foremost and their bodies longwayes and with their hands lying on their hips but some come to the door with their feet crooked and wide some with their necks bowed and their heads lying obliquely with their hands stretched out as they have that swim and with their shoulders downwards with great danger to themselves and their mothers and no lesse trouble to the Midwives But when all things proceed orderly and naturally the child when the time is accomplished in the Womb endeavours to come forth and inclining himself roles downwards For he can no longer lye hid in these hiding places than he can find nutriment by the Navel and the heat of the heart can subsist without external respiration Wherefore being grown great he is desirous of nutriment and of light and he so desires to take Ayre Whence comes pain in Child-birth that he breaks the Membranes and coverings wherewith he was covered and fenced against any attrition and with bitter pangs of his mother he comes forth to the light and that not onely from the narrow and straight passages
of the Womb but because this misery and pain in travel was brought in by God Gen. 3. by reason of the fall of Adam and Eve and this punishment was laid upon her the man also being cast into a condition of misery not inferiour to it For the most part in the ninth Moneth the Matrix parts and the os pubis being loosned the Woman striving what she can and desiting to thrush forth what is a burden to her and the child breaking forth by an imbred strength and by the conduct of nature which help the Woman lacks when the child is born dead For a child that is quick and lively labours no lesse in this work than the woman and strives to come forth to draw in the outward Ayre Yet there are many that when 9 Months are compleatly ended Tenth Months births are not delivered till the tenth such births Hippocrates calls births of the tenth month namely the tenth Lunar Month being begun that is perfected in 28. dayes to a month and not fully ended Wisd 7. So the Wiseman saith he was ten months formed in the Womb and coagulated of the seed of the man and woman from pleasure that comes by copulation By like reason they that have now passed the sixth Month in which no child born can live because the parts want strength and are entred upon the seventh and are gon two or three weeks in it are said to be born in the 7th month The same reason serves to reckon weeks and months by which are terminated in a certain number of dayes for the former week or month being past and the following begun from this is the reason of the time deducted and the course that the woman went with Child is ascribed to that from that month the great bellyed woman is in or the Child is born is the Account made as it useth to fall our in 7 or 9 turns of the Moon The like reason serves in reckoning of years either from Christs incarnation or passion so that the inscription is dated from the following yeare as for the beginning of the first month Why a child is vitall born at seven months the precedent month being neglected and defaced It is not besides reason that a Child should be vitall at seven months but there is a certaine cause for it For the Child by an imbred force and order of Nature doth then turn it selfe about and changeth its place for larger room A simile from a Captain in War And as a Captain in Warr marcheth to some other place when the place he is in is too narrow or difficult or he want necessaries for food yet so that in pitching his Tents and quarters the Souldiery allwaies keeps watch and is ever ready for all events of warr and sudden force that might fall on and is prepared against the assaults of the enemy so if in that moment of time whereby in the seventh month that motion of nature useth to be stirred the time of Child-birth chance to happen and the Infant come forth with joynt forces of the Mother assisting him without doubt it will be vitall A simile from such as cannot sleep in the night But the like hapeneth to this Infant as it doth to those that watch in the night and turn themselves to the other side and seek to lye on the softer part of the bed that is not so much pressed down and if any thing unlooked for befall them or any sudden occasion hinder them that they cannot turn themselves againe in their beds they presently leave their beds and shaking off sleep though the night be not quite spent they hasten to do what they are urged unto But if any accident unlookt for befalls them that are fast asleep they quake and tremble and if they goe about any thing it is confusedly and without all order that the businesse can have no good or succesfull end as it useth to fall out in the eighth month wherein the Infant being come to rest begins to be refreshed again and to enjoy its lodging in the womb and nutriment from the Mother Some are born in the 7th month whose bodies are loose and not not firme and that have but weak naturall heat A simile from ripning of fruits but being helped by the care and industry of Nurses they will last long and live many yeares For it happens to them as it doth to apples and other fruits of Trees that fall or are pulled off too soon which fruiterers and haglers hide in straw and bury in chafe that they may grow ripe in time and fit to be eate For such Infants by the labour and care of their Mothers or Nurses gain strength and by fostering grow strong and by this help they prolong their dayes for many yeares which can be obtain'd by no means in a Child born the eighth month for such a one seldome lives because that motion of Nature is quiet and asleep which agitation is wont to proceed from a certain cause both from the Mother and the Child Wherefore being tyred by that strugling in the 7th month it begins to regain strength and to be fostered untill the set time it ought to remain in the Mothers Womb. A Child in the eight month seldome lives Hence if any distemper or perturbation arise and the Child be driven forth of its place and habitation it is deadly by reason of an externall cause and that is against natures order Saturn an enemy to Children which is also exasperated by Saturn a cruel and hurtfull Planet to Children that by the coldnesse of it dejects their strength wherefore it is safe to stay in the womb till the 9th month that they may recollect their forces and just firmnesse For when the ninth month begins to come the Child sinks down for want of nutriment and falls low to the neck of the Matrix seeking to come forth to the light and is desirous to be released Sometimes in the very heat of birth and hastening it slips through the slippery parts the Womb giving way without the help of any Midwife suddenly as a ripe apple falls with the least touch of it which is most common to them whose Matrix is wide and the Infant hath all helps together being sufficiently enabled to come forth For such as have narrow month'd wombs bring forth with difficulty and painful labour with all the force they have From this pressure and hard travel A morall from hard labour John 16. our Saviour draws a most fit comparison and comforts and encourageth mightily his followers that they should not faint nor be discouraged by reason of calamities and persecutions which they suffer for the Gospell since by the example of a woman in Labour all their sorrow shall be turned to sudden joy and solid consolation Wherefore he shews that danger is at hand anxiety sadnesse and trembling but all these things by joy unexpected arising and by the
of the Milk is infected and tainted with a feavourish quality Wherefore they must be presently weaned that they suck not in the disease and be polluted with the vicious juice Sick children infect the Nurses Also Nurses sometimes take diseases from sucking children but they are not so dangerous because there proceeds not so great force of the Malignity or contagion from children as from Nurses whose bloud is hotter and more corrupt But in curing diseases in children because that age cannot away with Physick I use this stratagem that I give the Poysick to the Nurses to drink for the force of the Physick soon runs through the bloud that the milk is made of comes into the Brests and the Milk receives the quality of it so if it be a purging medicament it will purge the child if it be astringent it will stop and bind him Likewise if they be naturally subject to a Cough or Asthma I give such things as may dilate and cleanse the brest as Hyfop Horehound Orris root Elecampane Licoris Figs Savory Sometimes I command to bind up in a fine rag such Medicaments as are proper for the child and to give the infusion of them as it is commonly called especially where that age hath learned to drink and can put the cup to the mouth wherefore I study to find an art how to handle young children old men childing-women and such as lye in sick people and such as are in labour with child as the condition of every body requires and the nature of the disease having allwaies in my mind that saying of Hippocrates we must yeeld much to age to the climate l. 1. Aph. 17. to custome And as Marriners as the weather serves and the wind sometimes fold in their sheets sometimes hoise up their sails and make all they can and turn the Rudder now this way now that way as Shoomakers fit our feet with Shooes Some similitudes from common things Taylors make our clothes fit for our bodies as Nurses give children meat chewed when they are very young and do not cram them with solid meat as Masters deal with Schollers according to their age and wit and first teach them their letters then solid learning As we read Saint Paul was very carefull to do in delivering the mysteries of our faith and in teaching the Corinthians 1 Cor. 3. who being not capable of more sublime doctrine he fed yet as children with milk that is he let fall his words according to their capacities so a skillfull and experienced Physitian handles every man according to his disposition and gives such things as may profit and do no hurt at all By these reasons and examples I use to stop the mouthes of some young smatterers in learning who will let no Physick be given to Children old men child-bearing women and to such as are weak by travel in child-birth of which there are none but must be strengthened with the greatest care and a very convenient diet and by a wholesome use of Physick that can do no hurt be brought to their former health So I doubt not within three dayes after they are delivered to open a vein to women in child-bed if they have the Quinsey or a Pleuresy and by giving them a pectoral potion to ripen the flegme Also about Women with child if at any time they are infected with an acute disease great consideration must be had least the woman or the child should be endangered If there be necessity to open a vein or purge L. 1. Aph. 4. I resolve to do it as Hippocrates bids us from the fourth Moneth untill the seventh Moneth and that in the upper parts of her Arms but by no means about the Feet Thighs Ankles or Insteps to which not so much as cupping glasses must be set least there should be danger of abortion Also to young men infected with the Plague or taken with an acute disease I soon apply safe remedies and I do all I can to defend the heart the fountain of life and to drive the disease from the principal parts Moreover in these tender bodies the forces must be carefully maintained and the disease must be vanquished For it is ill Physick where nature suffers any losse Wherefore let the Physitian either do good or else let him do no harm but let him study by Art to profit all he can and this he shall well do if he do all by right reason and rules of Art CHAP. XXVI Of the skin or feather covering of the Vulture that is of great force in strengthening the Ventricle and in getting of a stomach something more effectual than Ginger whose nature is here set down also that every man hath not observed SInce there are many things that laid on outwardly will strengthen the stomach and help concoction nothing is better or more present than a Vultures skin pulled off The Nature of the Vulture being dressed and fitted as other skins are This Bird like the Kite is very greedy and will eat exceedingly that the Dutch call this from its desire of Carrion and because it is alwaies hungry and hunting after its prey Ghier from the nature whereof they call covetous people and such as are never satisfied Ghierich that is Vulture-like But since the nature of this bird is such that it greedily seeks after all things and consumes all without any hurt to it the skin of it is of that force that it will corroborate mans stomach and will strengthen a weak digestion to desire and concoct the meat and it will stop fluxes of the belly and vomiting but applyed to the stomach the contrary way For I know this by experience that if one take of the skin of this Bird and let the same be dressed by the Skinners Art handsomely and fitted if it be laid to a feeble stomach or belly it will stop the flux of it and help the slipperinesse of the Intestines especially if it be so applyed that the feathers may be downwards as we use in Garments that are held up to stroke the skins with the hayre with our hands For it comforts and cherisheth one by its warmth and heat and by its astriction it corroborates the faculties of natural forces wherewith nutriments use to be attracted retained concocted and expelled also it effects that the three nervous tunicles of the stomach and so many fibres the right ones as Galen will have it whose office is to attract the oblique that have the retentive faculty the transverse that thrust all things out shall do their offices But that skin applyed the contrary way with the feathers pointing upwards and looking aloft will stay vomiting the Muscles of the stomach being drawn downwards whereby it takes in and holds the meat And in these kind of diseases wherewith the upper or nether parts use to be affected I practise something not unlike to this For in vomiting I bid that the mouth of the Stomach shall be annointed stroking
honest our Masters must have as much honour shewed unto them as to Parents So Juveâ—al commends his Ancostors Sat. 7. and wisheth good luck to their Souls because they honoured and loved their Masters so well as they did their Parents To our Fore-fathers Souls let the Gods grunt Light earth that may not presse and let them want No fragrant Saffron let their Spring abiâ—â— Who Masters as their Parents dignified So Fabius warns his Schollers that they should love their Masters as well as they do their Books and esteem them as Parents L. 2. c. 10. not of their bodies but their minds They are equall and it is almost all as one to be born Teaching adorns the mind and to be taught for one begets the body the other informs the mind Now if the Parents being liberally bred bestow their time to instruct their children or if they want that help they choose a learned Master to teach them Wisdome and Learning they can do no greater thing for them or that shall more adorn and beautify them For by this way of breeding children their minds are not onely gifted with the most excellent vertues as integrity of life honesty continency meeknesse placability modesty humanity justice temperance civility but also wealth dignities and honours come unto them whether they will or no and are freely offered unto them for learning makes the way unto all these things CHAP. IX To whom chiefly amongst men must we give honour and reverence SInce every Man ought to be honoured according to his dignity and honour Rom. 13. as Saint Paul commands and that especially to old age and hoary heads we are bound to give honour and to that age we all hasten Levit. 19. Old men must be honoured So by Gods command Moses saith Thou shalt rise before the hoary head and honour the person of old men Also Lycurgus the Lacedemonian Law-giver decreed that this should be observed who would have the greatest honour given not to rich and mighty men but to old men as they were in age and in no part of the earth was old age more honourable To whom honour must be given To this rank we must refer Magistrates and Consuls in Authority and Governours and him that is chief by whose Wisedome Dignity and Authority the Commonwealth subsists in safety and we enjoy peace and quietnesse Rom. 13. The Magistrate must be honoured To these we must annex all that are noted for honest men and such as are of ripe years or Noblemen that are sprung from ancient Families and Schollers that are to be honoured for their learning But those that are Ministers and are employed in their sacred functions Church-men are to be honoured 1 Tim. â— to direct mens minds and to correct depraved manners are to be honoured in the first place above others So Saint Paul pronounceth that Presbyters that is such that are a light to others by their grave behaviour Wisdome that favours of old age and by their integrity of life and such as by sound doctrine which is the pure food of the Gospel Rom. 12.13 Philip. 2. feed the hungry are worthy of double honour and all things must be done more largely and in a more ample manner for them not onely to reverence them according to their age but to afford them such a liberal maintenance that they may live in honour and have sufficient of all things that are needfull for their families CHAP. X. What good teaching doth for a Man and what kind of teaching it must be What good Instruction doth for man IT is of much concernment to be bred as we should be Wherefore so soon as children are capable to learn and apt to be instructed in the study of Letters they must be taught in time liberal and ingenious Arts. For by these chiefly is the nature of man fashioned to honesty and is cultivated with humanity The most fortunate beginning of Instruction is taken from the framing of mens manners Wherefore let a young man that is destinated to be a Scholler first learn good Manners next to that Eloquence and grace of speech which is ill conceived as Pliny saith In Epistol without good manners For it is better to live Honestly than to speak Eloquently though these two ought still to go together and never to be parted for one is a great help to the other Likewise we must consider concerning the choice and judgment of things and words We must learn things and words for though it be more to be desired to know things than words yet things must be explained by fit terms and names Also the precepts of life which adorn the mind and inform the understanding in piety though they be honest and safe of themselves yet as Lactantius and Fabius supposed they are more powerfull to perswade as oft as clearnesse of speech is a light to the beauty of things For those things enter mens minds most effectually that carry their force with them and are illustrated by Rhetorique L. 1. c. 1. L. 1. c. 3. And though we ought not to insist too narrowly upon words as some young Schollers do that want the knowledge of things yet it is best to joyn Eloquence and Oratory with Wisdome lest we should get a custome to speak obsolete barbarous words out of use which rather cloud than illustrate the best Oration But if there be neat trim words without wisdome We must avoid Barbarisme and there be no grave sentences amongst them Wisdome without Eloquence is more to be commended than a vain and foolish babbling For as Cicero saith L. 2. de Oratere Wisdome is the foundation of Eloquence and of other things Horace speaks wittily which speech all ought to practise Art Poet. Poets will either profit or delight Or speak what 's good and fit to do what 's right He hath done all that sweet with profit joyns Delights the Reader and to good enclines But the holy Scripture that proceeded from the Inspiration of Gods Spirit needs no humane supplies For that affects our minds not by Eloquence and curiosity of words but by a secret and hidden force draws and transforms the minds of men which thing when the Apostle Paul would have it known to the Corinthians 1 cor 2. when saith he I first came unto you and preached unto you the oracles of God I used no flattering words or enticing speeches of mans Wisdome nor was my preaching after mans perswasive way but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the Wisdome of men but in the power of God The words of the Apostle explained In which words he rejects not Oratory and grave words and Sentences that he was abundantly instructed with nor doth he cast a way the efficacy and force of perswasion wherewith by alleadging strong reasons and apposite words he drew the minds of men to embrace the truth
the free Ayre In Summer we must go into cool close places and iz Winter it is good to be in the Sun we may do that in the wide fields or upon some eminent and high place But as amongst moderate and wholesome exercises for students and magistrates it is very convenient to read aloud with a clear voice and to speak out orations frequently so for strong and lusty people wrestling is good and to shoot or play at Tennis which Galen approves in a book set forth to that purpose and to play at cudgels or fight on Horseback whereby the natural heat is augmented and the body grows strong the bloud running through all the parts and hence it is that such as use exercise have a good colour and their skin is very handsome and red Yet let those that use these sports remember thus much that they must do all with moderation least violent and winding motions should cause luxations of their lims that is least any part should be dislocated or removed out of his place by their toilsome stirring and turning of their bodies And as our minds are not presently to be wearied with studying so soon as we have eaten our meat that the stomach may more commodiously be employed about concoction that the natural heat may not be dispersed and scattered So when men have eaten freely they must not fall to over-hard labour for violent and uncomposed motions hinder concoction Violent moving hurts concoction and all immoderate agitations of the body carry the raw and undigested meats into the Veins and these become the seminaries of diseases obstructions and putrefaction proceeding from thence Cockal what it is The Antients used to play at Cockall or casting of huckle bones which is done with smooth sheeps bones the Dutch call them Pickelen wherewith our young maids that are not yet ripe use to play for a husband and young married folks despise these so soon as they are married But young men use to contend one with another with a kind of bone taken forth of Oxe feet The Dutch call them Coten Cockall Childrens plays are many and they play with these at a set time of the year as they do also with Nuts and Rattles which childish sports are contemned and rejected by them when they are something elder so that once past fifteen years old they hold it not seemly and not generous to be employed in toyes for as Horace saith after a childish manner L. Serm. 1. l. 3. They build them houses and put Mice to Carts Play at even and odd and use such Arts To ride on sticks but if one with a beard Delights in 't he is mad and to be fear'd Moreover Cockals Dice are different from huckle-bones which the Dutch call Teelings are different from Dice for they are square with four sides and Dice have six the use whereof is so frequent in Europe that many men oft-times by the use of these wast all their patrimonies and when they have spent all they are thus brought to beggery whereas Cockals are used by maids amongst us and do no wayes waste any ones estate For either they passe away the time with them or if they have time to be idle they play for some small matter as for Chestnuts Filberds Pins Buttons and some such juncats Whipping of a Top. But young youth do merrily exercise themselves in whipping the top and to make it run swiftly about that it cannot be seen and will deceive the sight and that in Winter to catch themselves a heat Sat. 3. Persius saith that this kind of exercise was usual amongst the Antients and he and others were exceedingly delighted in it For that by right was most desired thing To know what ere the right sise point might bring And what the worst cast of the Dice might not Not to be cheated by the small mouth'd pot Who had most Art to whip the top about Virgill also makes mention of this childish instrument and he compares in most elegant Verses The pot was of earth as ours is in which stares use to breed in Low-Dutch Spreâ—â— the mind of Lavinia that was agitated by the Furies for the love of Turâ—us to a whirlgigg and that it was turned round like to a top for so it is called in Dutch that is driven about with whips and scourges He prosecutes the matter thus Virg. L. 7. Aeneid The elegant destription of Virgill Then she unhappy by huge monsters chas'd Runs madding through the great City in haste Like to a Top that 's whipt by wanton boyes In open Court amongst their childish toyes Which they admire when it turneth round So shee through Cities ran ' mongst people sound Children are commonly wont to be busied in these sports but when boyes grow to be young men they desire some more decent employments In all exercise whereby the body or mind may receive some benefit we must still have a care of decency and honesty So Salust commends Jugurtha's towardnesse Jugurtha's towardnesse when it was not depraved with ambition and desire of a kingdome For he so soon as he was grown up Exercise of youth being strong and well favoured but most of all abounding in wit he did not give himself over to luxury and idlenesse to be corrupted but as the manner is of that nation to ride shoot run with his equals and when he wan the honour from them all yet he was beloved by all and would do very much and speak little in his own commendation Avoid Dice and Cards Inâ—â—â—ous plays and such other delights of idle people as things most hurtfull and infamous For in these sports Art and skill prevails not but fraud and cogging and cheating reason counsel and Wisedome can do nothing but chance fortune and accident Dice or hazard comprehends all plays subject to chance What a Dy is or fortune as Dice cast out of the hand or out of a Box Tables also every way of casting Dice so that it is not allowed in the smallest matters and childrens games if it be often used or deceitfully or contentiously So Martial speaks wittily Childish pastimes seem to be harmlesse things Yet often such delight great mischief brings Wherefore since in these sports commonly they do all with craving defrauding and wicked intention so much moderation must be used as to seek for recreation therein rather than gain For those that are ignorant are often cousned of their money by cunning Gamesters Gain must not be by fraud And though in such sports some hopes of gain tickleth the minds of men and he that wins is taken with the reward yet we ought to do nothing with too earnest a desire of gain and advantage Exercise and sport is appointed and allowed not for hopes of gain but for recreation and for our health sake and that the minâ— being tired may be refreshed and obtain new forces to fall upon businessse as before
of mischief that long custome procures boldnesse and confidence unto this Sex that if any man begin to grow weary of them and would fain be quit of them it cannot be done but by a tumult For they will mingle heaven and earth together when once they hear of a divorce or when upon any discontent arising they fear they shall be shut out of dores Those Concubines which the Priests keep in their houses to live with them are examples sufficient for these men are forbid lawfull Matrimony and are commanded to lead single lives which is a thing exceeding hard and laborious for lusty men that are full of natural moysture Wherefore they erre as much as can be and are wholly deceived in the choice of humane society Copulation without marriage is a burden to the Conscience who suppose that they live in peace who being free from a wife keep a Concubine in their houses or hunt after one abroad to take their pleasure and whose company they can enjoy when they please when as oft-times besides the unquietnesse of their minds and torture of Conscience there riseth more trouble and molestation by a friend that is so kept for a time and more jealousy and suspition than from a lawfull and laithfull wife which is soleâ—only marryed to live with us so long as welive No slate of life is void of trouble And though in this estate as in many more sweet and fowre are mingled together sadnesse and joy bitter and pleasant cloudy and clear weather nor are there jarrings wanting in this course of life with contentions quarrels and affections of jealousy as there is no kind of life happy in all things yet no fault is to be put upon the order of Matrimony For however many inconveniencies accompany Matrimonial life and these men are busied with many cares great anxieties and disturbances in educating and bringing up of their children 2 Cor. 5. as Saint Paul testifies in providing for their families yet mutual love sweetneth and mitigates all the rest and the procreation of children according to Gods Ordinance Now children are the delights and singular joy of Matrimony for conjugal love increaseth and is fostered thereby Children are the pleasure of Marriage and on both sides thereby is there great comfort taken But if contrary to our will and desire we chance to have no off-spring Want of children must be born patiently and that the hope of posterity is deferred for many years yet must we hold the promise made in wedlock sacred and we must so continue between us a mutual society of life that one may bear up another as fruitfull Trees planted hard by do uphold the Vine by which it is prooped and as it were marryed and taking hold of them by its tendrils it grows very high and spreads very far For as a Vine wanting props and stayes falls down upon the earth A comparison of a Vine and Matrimony so Matrimony and houshold affairs run to ruine unlesse they be upheld by the mutual support of man and wife But if there be any fault in this society if any distempers tumults Mens affections and not nature to be blamed quarrels or suspicions arise we must ascribe them rather to mens affections and ill manners than to this ordinance For they are not the vices of marriage but of depraved nature and of a troublesome mind contracted from the guilt of original sin upon which all the fault must be laid CHAP. LVI How it may be obtained that death may not prove fearfull to a Man that naturally fears it SInce in humane affairs there is nothing firm and constant but all things are transitory frail and uncertain We must not trust in transitory things and the best things are subject to ruine it is not for any man to admire or to love these things too much and be affected with them out of measure But rather let every man lift up his mind and thoughts upward to heaven and there contemplate things that are solid and eternal For whoever with a full confidence in God the Father through Jesus Christ is lead with certain hope and expectation of immortality he need not sear any chances that shall hang over him or inconveniences he hath no cause to be frighted with diseases calamities and dangers or with death it self which they especially fear who are destitute of Gods Spirit and have no true knowledge of God For such as place their trust in God are supported by his holy Spirit and they stand undaunted against all adversities Rom. 8. â— Tim. 1. Galat. 4. â— John 4. with a couragious mind and as Saint Paul saith we have not receiâ—â—â— the Spirt of bondage and fear but the spirit of adoption of power and of love whereby we cry boldly Colos 2. Abba Father For in this saith Saint John is our love made perfect that we may have confidence in the day of Judgment There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out all fear for fear breeds pain or trembling Wherefore that we may shake off all fear and not be daunted at death or any thing else that may make us tremble let us cast all our hope wishes thoughts confidence upon our most bountifull father through Jesus Christ Christ overcame death who hath purged us with his own bloud and hath set us at liberty from fin and the tyranny of death blotting out and taking away the hand-writing which was against us whereby we were bound to the Devil and were indebted to him A simile from such who are oppressed by bonds The Dutch say In hem ghebonden teghens hem verbonden But that Christ might support fearful and fainting minds and might shew that all hope and confidence must be placed in him he saith Be of good chear I have overcome the World Now the Prince of this world is Judged that is he that brought in death John 16. John 12. is driven away by my death and is condemned to Judgment and is spoiled of all power of doing harm The Prince of this World is come and hath found nothing in me Christ is formidable to Satan By which comfortable words he shews that Satan and all his confederates by reason of sin in this world have no power against Christ or his members that firmly believe in him and are engrafted into him These saving and comfortable words work thus much upon the minds of men that depend upon his help Comfortable sentences that shaking off all fear of death they fortify themselves cheerfully against the greatest tempests that can arise Psalm 19. Psalm 26. Psalm 3. Psalm 22. and become invincible and with great confidence break forth into these sayings My eyes are still toward the Lord for he shall pull my feet our of the snare God is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear The Lord is the upholder of my life of whom shall I be afraid If an army