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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57647	Arcana microcosmi, or, The hid secrets of man's body discovered in an anatomical duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the parts thereof : as also, by a discovery of the strange and marveilous diseases, symptomes & accidents of man's body : with a refutation of Doctor Brown's Vulgar errors, the Lord Bacon's natural history, and Doctor Harvy's book, De generatione, Comenius, and others : whereto is annexed a letter from Doctor Pr. to the author, and his answer thereto, touching Doctor Harvy's book De Generatione / by A.R.	Ross, Alexander, 1591-1654.	1652 (1652)	Wing R1947; ESTC R13878	247,834	298

dislikes the Title given by Ortelius to Nilus when he calls it the greatest river of the world But Ortelius was not mistaken in calling it so for it is the greatest though not perhaps in length because it may be some are longer the which are not certainly known yet in breadth when it overflowes the whole Countrey in which respect it may be called rather a Sea then a River and so it was called by the Ancients as Pior Valerius sheweth Nile saith Basil is liker a Sea then a River and some esteem the length of it a thousand German miles or 35. degrees having Summer at the springs thereof and Winter at the other end the same time It is also the greatest in regard of use and benefit for no River doth so much enrich a Countrey as Nilus doth Egipt It is the greatest also in same for no River is so renowned in Writers By the world also is meant so much as is known to us for the Rivers of America are known rather by hearsay then otherwise The greatness of this River was of old Hieroglyphically expressed by the vast body of a Giant There is a Statue of Nilus in the Vatican the picture whereof is in Sands his Travels the greatest of Poets by way of excellency calls this the Great River In magno maerentem corpore Nilum Again the Doctor will have Rome magnified by the Latines for the greatest of the earth to be lesser then Cairo and Quinsay to exceed both But he is much mistaken for Cairo as Sands tells us who was there is not above 5. Italian miles in length with the suburbs and in bredth scarce one and a halfe whereas Rome was almost fifty miles in compasse within the walls and the circuit of the suburbs much more as Lipsius de mag Rom. l. 3. c. 2. hath collected out of divers Authors He shewes the greatnesse of it also by the number of the people therein for there were three and twenty thousand poor which was maintained upon the publick charge then if we reckon the multitude of rich men and their train which was not small for divers of the great persons maintained families of foure hundred persons if we look upon the multitude of Artificers of Souldiers of Courtiers of strangers from all parts flocking thither as to the great Metropolis and shop of the World we shall find there were no lesse then four millions or fourty hundred thousand people which is more then can be found in many large provinces Heliogabolus collected the greatness of this City by the Cobwebs found in it which being gathered together did weigh ten thousand pound Another argument of its greatness may be collected out of Eusebius his Chronicle who reckons that for many dayes together there were buried of the plague ten thousand daily Not without cause then was Rome called the Epitome of the world by Aristides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earths workhouse and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worlds Citadel or Castle by Saint Iohn the great Citie and the great Babylon by Virgil Maximum rerum And it stood with reason that Rome should be the greatest of Cities being the Queen and Mistress of the greatest Empire of such large Territories and full of people Cities and Nations Rome then was every way the greatest Citie both in extent in power in people in glory in magnificence What Citie ever had that multitude of stately Palaces Temples Theaters Olisks triumphant Arches Baths and other publick buildings as Laurus sheweth As for Quinsay in China we have a fabulous narration in M. Paulus Venetus that is was an hundred miles in compasse but his narrations have been found erroneous and if the Kingdome of China comes far short of the greatnesse of the Roman Empire surely Quinsay must fall short of Rome which as the Poet saith Inter alias tantum caput extulit urbes Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupress● As for Quinsay now it is not thirty miles in compasse as Nicolas de Contu sheweth who was there Again he saith That this anuall overflowing is not proper unto Nile being common to many currents in Africa I answer It is so proper to Nile that no other River doth so orderly so frequently so fully overflow their banks as this doth Crocodiles saith he are not proper to Nile Answ. They are so proper that no river either in Africk Asia or America hath such Crocodiles as Nilus if either we consider the magnitude multitude or fiercenesse of them Other Crocodiles chiefly the American are gentle the AEgyptian fierce and cruel which is the cause that Dogges are so afraid to drink out of Nilus whence arose that proverb Canis ad Nilum The greatest Indian Crocodiles exceed not twenty foot in length as Scaliger shewes but those of Nile are three hundred foot long whose jawes are so wide that one of them can contain a whole heifer at a time some have been found there of 25 and above 26. cubits in bigness as AElian reports The Romans to shew how proper this beast was to Nile represented AEgypt by a Crocodile in that Coin on which Augustus stampt a Crocodile tied to a palm-tree with this Inscription Primus relegavit for he subdued AEgypt and restored peace to them Again he saith That the Causes of Niles inundation are variable unstable and irregular because some yeares there hath been no increase at all Answ. He may as well say that the causes of all natural effects are variable because sometimes they faile But all naturall causes operate for an end therefore are constant regular and stable so are not Chance and Fortune which Aristotle excludes from naturall causes Are the causes of rain and storms irregular variable and unstable because sometimes it rains more in Summer then in Winter Or is generation irregular because sometimes women miscarry Naturall causes alwayes produce their effects or for the most part so that they faile but seldome and that upon the interposition of some impediment whereas fortuitall causes produce their effects seldome The causes then of Niles overflowing are not contingent but certain constant regular and stable because they never faile or but seldom upon some impediment in the producing of that effect As for the AEgyptian raines I have spoken elsewhere animad on Sir Walt. Raleigh Now because of this regular constant and beneficial inundation of Nilus it was called Iupiter AEgiptius and divine honours were given to it its annual festival was kept about the Summer Solstitial when it overflows the land This was called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priests used to carry the water of Nile on their shoulders with great solemnity to their temples falling down on their knees and lifting up their hands gave solemne thanks to Iupiter Nilius to whose honour they dedicated a certain piece of coin with this Inser●ption Deo Sancto Nilo CHAP. XIV 1. The cause of Niles inundation 2. Lots wife truly transformed into a salt Pillar 3. Hels

leg hanging upon a stake as if it had been the stalk of a lettice That vvas a monstruous fish vvhich Scaliger speaks of having a hogs head vvith tvvo horns and but one bone in all its body on vvhose back vvas a bunch resembling a saddle In the lake Amara of Ethiopia is a kind of Conger having a head like a toad and a skin of partie colours In the Ethiopian sea is a fish resembling a hog in his head and skin vvith long ears and a tail of tvvo foot in length No lesse monstruous is the Hippocampus a fish like a horse in his head and neck having a long main the rest of his body is like our painted dragons He speaks also of a fish like a leather purse vvith strings vvhich vvill open and shut There is a fish having the resemblance of a calves head vvith horns There are fishes that have four ranks of teeth and in every rank fifty teeth Rondoletius speaketh of fishes in vvhose bellies have been found men arm'd at all assaies The Uletif is a fish having a savv on his forehead three foot long and very sharp Thevet tels us ●f a fish in the Sarmatique sea having horns like those of a hart on the branches vvhereof are round buttons shining like pearl his eyes shine like candles he hath four legs long and crooked pavves vvith a long speckled tail like the tail of a Tigre his muzzle round like a cats vvith moustaches round about There are s●a serpents of tvvo hundred cubits long Some fishes have been found resembling mitred Bishops others hooded monks and divers more shapes there are but none more strange then that vve read of in the Storie of Harlem in Holland out of vvhose lake vvas fish'd a sea-vvoman vvhich by a spring tide had been carried thither vvhen she vvas brought into the Tovvn she suffered her self to be clothed and to be fed vvith bread milk and other meats she learned also to spin to kneel before the crucifix and to obey her Mistresse but she could nebe brought to speak and so remained for divers years dumb They that vvill see more of fishes let them read Aristotle Pliny Olaus Magnus Arbian Oppian Rondoletius Gesner Aldrovandus Belon and others CHAP II. 1. Publick and privat calamities presaged by owles 2. By dogs 3. By ravens and other birds and divers other ways 4. Wishing well in sneezing when and why used 5. Divers strange things in thunder-struck people THat destruction and mortality are oftentimes presaged by the skrieching of ovvles the houling of dogs the flocking together and combating of ravens and other birds and by divers other ominous signes is no Gentil superstition or Vulgar Error as Dr. Brown Book 4. c. 21. vvould have it but a truth manifested by long experience Lampridius and Mar●ellinus among other prodigies vvhich presaged the death of Valentinian the Emperor mention an ovvle vvhich sate upon the top of the house vvhere he used to bathe and could not thence be driven avvay vvith stones Iulius Obsequeus in his book of Prodigies c. 85. shevves that a little before the death of Commodus Antoninus the Emperor an ovvle vvas observed to sit upon the top of his chamber both at Rome and at Sanuvium Xiphlirus speaking of the prodigies that vvent before the death of Augustus saith that the ovvle sung upon the top of the Curia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he shevvs also that the Actian war was presignified by the flying of owls into the Temple of Concord in the year 1542 at Herbipolis or Wirtzburg in Franconie this unluckie bird by his schrieching songs affrighted the Citizens a long time together and immediately follovved a great plague War and other calamities Pliny lib. 10. c. 12. shews that this abominable and funeral bird as he calls it portended the Roman destruction at Numantia and therefore one time being seen in the Capitol so affrighted the City that Rome vvas purified to prevent the evils vvhich that ovvle presaged Balthasar Cossa vvho vvas Pope and named Iohn the 24th vvas forevvarned by an ovvle that appeared over against him as he sat in Councel of the troubles vvhich justly fell on himself and by his means on others About 20 years ago I did observe that in the house where I lodged an Owl groaning in the window presaged the death of two eminent persons who died there shortly after Therefore not without cause is the owl called by Pliny Inauspicata funebris avis by Ovid Dirum mortalibus omen by Lucan sinister bubo by Claudian infestus bubo and the Prince of Poets among other ominous portenders of Q. Dido's death AEn 4. brings in the owls schrieching and groaning Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo Saepe queri longas in fletum ducere voces And in another place he makes the owl presage the death of Turnus AEn 12. Quae quondam in bustis aut culminibus desertis Nocte sedens s●rum canit importuna per umbras II. That dogs also by their howling portend death and calamities is plain by Historie and experience Iulius Obsequeus c. 122. sheweth that there was an extraordinary howling of dogs before the sedition in Rome about the Dictatorship of Pompey he sheweth also c. 127. that before the civil Wars between Augustus and Antonius among many other prodigies there was great howling of dogs near the house of Lepidus the Pontifice Camerarius tels us c. 73. cent 1. that some German Princes have certain tokens and peculiar presages of their death amongst others are the howling of dogs Capitolinus tels us that the dogs by their howling presaged the death of Maximinus Pausonius in Messe relates that before the destruction of the Messenians the dogs brake out into a more fierce howling then ordinary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we read in Fincellus that in the year 1553 some weeks before the overthrow of the Saxons the dogs in Mysina flock'd together and used strange howlings in the woods and fields The like howling is observed by Virgil presaging the Roman calamities in the Pharsalick War Obscaenique canes importunaeque volucres Signa dabant So Lucan to the same purpose Flebile saevi latravere canes and Statius Nocturnique canum gemitus III. By ravens also and other birds both publick and privat calamities and death have been portended Iovianus Pontanus relates two terrible skirmishes between the ravens and the kites in the fields lying between Beneventum and Apicium which prognosticated a great battel that was to be fought in those fields Nicetas speaks of a skirmish between the crowes and ravens presignifying the irruption of the Scythians into Thracia The cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians in which above 30 thousand men were slain were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of emmets In the time of King Charls the 8 of France the battel that was fought between the French and Britans in which the Britans were overthrown was

vvhich there are seminal spirits is not prejudiced by the vvater vvhere it is shed but the male fishes cast their seed upon the spaw● vvhich the females leave in the vvater as Aristotle Pliny AElian Albertus and others do shew Lastly vvee must not think all the stories false vvhich are written of the Incubi vvhich vvere evil spirits conveying the masculine seed to the place of generation of vvhich there have been conceptions For to deny this saith Augustine lib. 15. de Civit. Dei cap. 23. doth argue impudence considering the many testimonies and examples of the same yet I deny not but the imagination is sometimes deluded but not still as Wierus thinks and I know also that Incubus is the same disease with Ephialtes yet it will not follow that there are no evill spirits called Incubi and Succubi For to deny such vvere to accuse the ancient Doctors of the Church and the Ecclesiastick Histories of falshood vvhich affirm that the Catecbumeni vvere much troubled vvith these Incubi This vvere also to contradict the common consent of all Nations and experience There is then a double Incubus the one natural called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vvhich is caused in sleep by a frigid grosse vapour filling the ventricles of the brain and prohibiting the animall spirits to passe through the nerves vvhereby the imagination is hurt so that they think they are oppressed vvith a great vveight This disease is much like the Epilepsia but somwhat milde The other Incubus is Diabolical III. That some men can in their sleep perform those actions which they neither could nor durst do when awaked is known by Histories and experience Marianus cap. ad audientiam witnesseth that he had a Maid vvho in her sleep could rise and make bread as if she had been awaked Francis Mendoza l. 6. de Flor. knew one vvho vvould rise in his sleep and in the night time vvalked out vvith his naked sword vvith vvhich hee struck some of the City guard but at last being vvounded vvas awaked Tirannel in Mendoza speaks of an English man in Paris vvho rose in his sleep vvent down towards the river Sene vvhere having met vvith a Boy he killed him and so returned being all this vvhile asleep to his bed Horstius de noctambulis vvrites of one vvho in his sleep usually vvould arise go up and down the stairs lock and unlock his chests He speaks of another vvho dreamed he vvas to ride a Journy riseth puts on his cloaths boots and spurs gets up into the Window vvhere he sate stradling beating the vvals vvith his spurs till hee vvas awaked And he sheweth that at Helmstad one rose in his sleep vvent down the stairs into a Court from thence toward the Kitchin neer vvhich vvas a deep Wel into this he went down holding fast to the stones by his hands and feet but when hee touched the vvater with the cold thereof he vvas awaked and finding in what danger he was gave a pitiful out-cry which awaked those in the house who having found him got him out and brought him to his bed where he lay many days speechlesse and immoveable being extreamly weakned with fear cold and crying Another story he hath no lesse strange then this of a young Gentleman vvho in his sleep arose naked carrying his shirt in his hand and by the help of a rope clambers up to a high Turret in the Castle where he then was Here he findes a nest of Mag-pies which he robs and puts the young ones in his shirt and so by the same rope comes down again and returns to his bed The next morning being awaked tells his brother how he dreamed that he had robb'd a Pies nest and withal wondring what was become of his shirt riseth and findes it at his beds feet with the young birds wrapt up in it To these examples wee may add that of Lot who in his sleep begot his two daughters with childe This Dr. Brown Book 7. c. 6 will not admit though he hath a direct Text of Scripture against him For there it is said Gen. 19. That Lot neither knew when his daughters lay down nor when they rose up Which words are expounded by Irenaeus c. 51. cont Haeres That Lot had neither pleasure nor consent nor sense nor knowledge of this act Chrysostome affirms the same expounding these words Lot saith he Hom. 44. in Genes was so intoxicated with wine that he knew not at all what he did lest he should be guilty of so great a crime acting in this neither wittingly nor willingly S. Austin is of the same minde Cont. manic l. 22. and other Expositors Now if one ask how sleeping men can do such things I answer it is partly by the strength of Imagination which is more active in sleep then when we are awake 2. All sleepers are not apt for such actions but such whose natures are melancholy or cholerick whose spirits are more fervent subtil and agile then others moving the bmuscles and by them the body though the outward senses be ound up by sleep 3. They catch not that hurt in their sleep which they would do if awaked because their senses are not avocated by other objects they have no apprehension of fear their imagination is more intent in sleep and withal their Genius or good Angel is carefull of them IV. I read of divers both beasts and men which have lived a long time without meat or drink We know that Swallows Cuckows Dormice diuers other animals sast all the Winter The like is recorded of Lizards Serpents Water-Crocodiles Bears and other ravenous beasts whose bodies by reason of their humidity and rapacity are full of crudi●les by which they are fed in the Winter Mendosa d● Flor. Philos. Probl. 24. speaks of a Hen in his time which lived eighty dayes without food and vvater Cardan de subtil l. 10. writes that the Indian bird called Manucodiata lives only in the aire upon dew as Grashoppers do Rond●letius l. 1. de Piscib c. 12. shews that his wife kept a fish three years in a glasse without any other food but water and yet the fish grew so big that the glasse could not at last contain it And I have kept Spiders my self in a glasse which I dismissed after they had fasted nine months The Camelion also liveth upon the air Oscitans vescitur follicans ruminat de vento cibus saith Tertullian in Pallio I have seen a Camelion which was brought hither from Africa by sea and kept in a box which all the while was never seen to feed on any thing else but air Yet D. Brown Book 3 c. 21. will not have air to be his food for these reasons 1. Because Aristotle and AElian speak nothing of this Ans. Neither do they speak any thing against it which likely they would have done if they had thought their feeding on aire had been fabulous They do not speak of what food each animal is sustained and though they doe

yet it was no unusual thing for Princes and great Commanders sometimes to perform the Priests office and though he might have evaded his vow yet it seems he knew not so much for superstition had blinded him therefore he saith I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot go back And doubtless he thought that the sacrificing of his daughter was lawfull grounding this his conceit upon Gods command to Abraham and commendation of him for his readiness to sacrifice his son Lastly he saith the 31 verse may be thus rendred It shall be the Lords or I will offer Answ. Most Translations have it and I will offer although the Hebrew Ve sometimes signifies Or but this is seldom Hence then we see the Painter is not to be blamed who in representing Iephtha's sacrifice is waranted by the Scripture by Austin Ambrose and Hierom by the ancient Rabbins and Iosephus besides reas●ns For what needed Iephtha so to vex himself and tear his cloathes if he meant only to sequester his daughter from marriage and humane society Again there was neither Law nor President for him to vow his daughters virginity nor could such a vow be effectuall without her consent It was a curse also in Israel to be childless and it had been ridiculous in him or her to vow virginity and then to lament it II. He excepts against the picture of Iohn Baptists because he is painted in a Camels skin whereas the text saith his garment was of Camels hair Answ. It was fit the Baptist who came to preach repentance for sin should wear a garment of skins which was the first clothes that Adam wore after he had sinned for his fig-●●aves were not proper and this garment also shewed both his ●overty and humility For as great men wear rich skins and costly furs he was contented with a Camels skin By this garment also he shewes himself to be another Elijah 2. Kings 1. who did wear such a garment and to be one of those of whom the Apostle speaks who went about in skins of whom the world was not worthy Neither was it unusefull in Iohns time and before to wear skins for the prophets among the Iews the Philosophers among the Indians and generally the Scythians did wear skins hence by Claudian they are called Pellita juventus Great Commanders also used to wear them as Hercules the Lyons skin Acestes the Bears Camilla the Tigers Iohns garment then of Camels hair was not as some fondly conceit a Sack-cloth or Chamblet● but a skin with the hair on it So in Exodus chap. 25. the peoples are commanded among other skins to bring to the Tabernacle Goats hair not as if they were to pluck off the hair for Aaron and keep the skins to themselves but to offer both therefore in the originall Hairs is not expressed but the word Goats III. In some subsequent Chapters the Doctor questions the pictures of S. Christopher carrying Christ over the river of Saint George on Horse-back killing the Dragon of S. Ierom with a clock hanging by of Mermaids Unicorns and some others with some Hieroglyphick pictures of the AEgyptians In this he doth luctari cum larvis and with AEneas in the Poet Irruit frustra ferro diverberat umbras He wrastles with shadows for he may as well question all the Poetical fictions all the sacred Parables all tropicall speeches also Scutchions or Coats of Armes signes hanging out a● dores where he will finde blew Boars white Lions black Swans double-headed Eagles and such like devised onely for distinction The like devices are in military Ensignes Felix Prince of Salernum had for his device a Tortoyse with wings flying with this Motto Amor addidit intimating that love gives wings to the slowest spirits Lewis of Anjou King of Naples gave for his device a hand out of the clouds holding a pair of scales with this Motto AEqua durant semper Henry the first of Portugal had a flying Horse for his Device A thousand such conceits I could alledge which are symbolical and therefore it were ridiculous to question them as if they were historicall As for the Cherubims I find four different opinions 1. Some write they were Angels in the form of birds 2. Aben Ezra thinks the word Cherub signifieth any shape or form 3. Iosephus will have them to be winged animals but never seen by any 4. The most received opinion is that they had the shape of children for Rub in Hebrew and Rabe in Chaldee signifieth a child and Che as So then Cherub signifieth as a child and it 's most likely they were painted in this form IV. For the Doctors questioning divers superstitious observations 5. book c 22. as the crossing of a Hare the falling of salt the breaking of Eggshels and such like I have nothing to say but to conclude with him that they are superstitious yet ancient But when he asks whether the present Hebrew be the unconfounded language of Babel I answer That if by the present Hebrew he mean the language which they now speak it is not for as the greatest part of the world lost that tongue except Hebers family at the confusion of Babel so Hebers family the Jewes lost it themselves in the captivity of Babel for being mingled with the Chaldeans they made a mixt language of Hebrew and Chaldee which for distinction sake was called Syriac and sometimes Hebrew because the Jewes Hebers posterity spake it Hence S. Hierom is to be understood when he writes that Matthew penned the Gospel in Hebrew and Eusebius when he calls it his native language they mean the Siriac which was now the native language of the Hebrewes and S. Paul in the Acts is said to have made a speech to the people in Hebrew the meaning is he spake in Syriac for they understood not the ancient Hebrew onely the Priests and Lawyers kept the knowledge of it Therefore it had been vain for Matthew to write his Gospel or for Paul to speak in pure Hebrew to those that understood it not yet there is an Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew extant which some think was written by S. Bartholomew and by Pantaenus coetaneal with Origen brought from the Indies this imperfect and torn Copie Munster saith he extorted fromthe Jewes But if his question be whether that Hebrew text now extant be the ancient Hebrew tongue before the confusion I answer It is For though the Jewes lost their ancient language in respect of speaking and use yet the Bible was carefully retained in the true Hebrew without any alteration save onely in the Characters or Letters which about the captivity were changed by Esdras as Hierom de emend●t temp p. 621. Ioseph Scaliger Ioh. Drusius Casper Waserus lib. 2. of his old Hebrew coin and Sethus Calvitius in his Chronological Isagoge witnesseth that this was done by Esdras to debar all commerce with the Samaritans not the Israelites which were long before carried away by Salmanasser who also were called samaritans

from their chiefe Citie Samaria but I understand that table of Nations which Salmanasser brought in to possesse the Israelites lands These with so many of the ancient Samaritans or Israelites as remained in the land retained the ancient Hebrew characters in which the Law was given by Moses and these letters for distinctions sake were named Samaritan and those of Esdras called Hebrew and square from their form Some ancient coins as Sicles have been found with Samaritan characters on them which shew this difference The form of these letters may be seen in the Samaritan Alphabets As these Samaritan retained the ancient characters so they did the ancient Pentateuch of Moses and no more Now that Hebers posterity retained their language without mixture after the Flood is proved by Austin and Ierome out of the Hebrew Names given to the creatures before the Flood It stood also with reason that Hebers family should not be partakers of the worlds punishment in this confusion of tongues seeing they were not guilty of their sins CHAP. XIII 1. There is not heat in the body of the Sun 2. Islands before the Flood proved 3. The seven Ostiaries of Nilus and its greatness The greatness of old Rome divers ways proved Nilus over-flowing how proper to it the Crocodiles of Nilus its inundation regular THe Doctor in his subsequent discourses 6 Book c. 1 2 3 4 5 6 hath many learned Cosmographicall passages collected dextrously out of many approved Authours against which I have nothing to say onely he must give me leave to dissentfrom him in his opinion concerning the Suns heat when he sayes that if the Sunne had been placed in the lowest spheare where the Moon is by this vicinity to the earth its heat had been intollerable What will he say then to that world lately discovered in the Moon by glasses as fallacious as the opinion is erroneous Surely these people must live uncomfortably where the heat is so intollerable or else they must have the bodies of Salamanders or else of those Pyrus●ae in the Furnaces of Sicily but indeed though the Sunne work by the Moon upon sublunary bodies yet the Moon is not hot nor capable of it no more then the line is capable of that stupidity which from the Torpedo is conveyed by the line to the Fishers hands No celestiall body is capable of heat because not passive except we will deny that quintessence and put no difference between Celestial and Elementary bodies The Sun then is not the subject but the efficient cause of heat the prime subject of heat is the element of fire the prime efficient cause is the Sun which can produce heat though he be not hot himself And this is no more strange then for him to produce life sense vegetation colours odors and other qualities in sublunary bodies which notwithstanding are not in him though from him Again if the Sun be the subject of heat because he is the original and effector of it then Saturn is the subject of cold the Moon of moisture and Mars of drinesse and so we shall place action and passion and all elementary qualities in the heavens making a Chaos and confusion of celestial and sublunary bodies Moreover if the Suns vicinity causeth the greatest heat why are the tops of the highest mountains perpetually cold and snowy Why doe there blow such cold windes under the Line as Acosta sheweth We conclude then that the Sun is the cause of heat though he be not hot as he is the cause of generation and corruption though he be neither generable nor corruptible Ovid then played the Poet not the Philosopher when he causeth the Suns vicinity to melt Icarus his waxen wings II. He sayes That Islands before the Flood are with probability denied by very learned authors Answ. He doth not alledge any one probable reason out of these Authors in maintenance of this opinion I can give more then probable reasons that there were Islands before the Flood First the whole earth it selfe was made an Island therefore the Sea is rightly called Amphitrite from encompassing the earth For this cause David saith That God hath founded the Earth upon the Waters And though Earth and Sea make but one Globe yet the Earth onely is the Center of the world as Clavius demonstrates 2. The world was in its perfect beauty before the Flood but Islands in the Sea tend no lesse to the beauty and perfection of the world then Lakes upon the Land 3. All the causes of Islands were as well before the Flood as since for there were great Rivers running into the Sea carrying with them mud gravell and weeds which in time become Islands There were also Earthquakes by which divers Islands have been made the vapour or spirit under the bottome of the Sea thrusting up the ground above the superficies of the water and who will say that in the space of 16. hundred years before the Flood there should be no Earth-quakes Again in that time the Sea had the same power over the neighbouring lands which it hath since the Flood But we find that Islands were made by the Sea washing away the soft and lower ground in peninsules at this day there doubtless the Sea wanted not the same force and quality before the Flood for there were as forcible winds and as impetuous waves Lastly Islands are made when the Sea forsakes some Land which it useth to over-flow and this property also we cannot deny to have been in the Sea before the Flood for there were windes to beat off the Sea to drive together heaps of sand into some altitude whereby the water is forced to forsake the land whence hath proceeded divers Isles III. He saith Book 6. c. 4. there were more then seven Ostiaries of Nilus Answ. There were but seven of note the other four were of no account but passed by as inconsiderable Hence they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therfore the stream of all waters run upon seven so Virgil septem discurrit in ora And AEn 6. septem gemini turbant trepida ostia Nili Ovid calls the Ri●er Septemfluus by others it is named Septemplex by Valerius septem amnes Claudius gives it septem cornu Manilius septem fauces Ovid septem portus Statius septem hiemes Dionysius Afer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These seven mouthes have their particular names given them by Mela and other Geographers and so the Scripture gives it seven streams Isaiah 11.15 at this day there are but foure left two of which are of little use therefore the Doctor needed not to have troubled himselfe so much as he doth because so frequenely this is called the seven-mouthed river for it is usuall to give denominations not from the exact number but from the most eminent and major part of the number He may as wel except against Moses who indivers places reckons but seventy souls which went down into AEgypt and yet Saint Steven in the Acts mentions 75 souls Again he