with Lawes If then a wise choice were made out of the whole bodie of the Lawes of the most vsefull and proper for the present times and they severely executed the rest being repealed and abrogated it would proue both easier for the subject and happier for the weale publique Now for the number of Law-suites it hath alwayes beene observed that in times of peace and plenty as riches increase by manufactures and tillage and trading so doth the number of controversies Our Forefathers for many agés together lived for the most part in Civill Warres and continuall alarmes so as the sword then determined the controversie and not the Law since then the sword hath bin sheathed no marveile that the Law Courts of Iustice haue bin more in request Moreover the fall of the Monasteries and the alienating of their Lands into so many hands hath no doubt bin a great meanes to set Lawyers a worke since that fall more then in former ages And what is it but the setting of men a worke which sets vp a trade and multiplies the professours thereof And as the number of professours multiplie so doe the diversitie of their conceites and inventions many eyes seing more then one can which is the cause that both more flawes are found in Convayances and consequently more clauses and cautions thrust into them for the preventing of the like SECT 2. Another objection answered taken from the Scriptures which in diverse places seeme to say that the last times shall be the worst BUt the great doubt which troubles most men is that the Scriptures seeme in diverse places to say that the last times shall be the worst and to this end are commonly alleadged these passages Because iniquity shall abound the loue of many shall waxe cold When the Sonne of Man commeth shall he finde faith on the earth Now the Spirit speaketh expressely that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devills This know also that in the last dayes perillous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their owne selues covetous boasters and evill men and seducers shall waxe worse and worse deceiving and being deceived There shall come in the last dayes scoffers walking after their owne lusts Beloved remember yee the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ how that they told you there should be mockers in the last dayes who should walke after their owne vngodly lusts These are all or at least-wise the principall passages which I haue either found alleaged or can remember to that purpose Whereâ—…to I first reply in generall that put the case they all inferred a decay in matter of Manners toward the end of the world yet doth not that necessarily inforce a perpetuall vniversall declination since the fall of man but men may be as doubtlesse they haue been sometimes better sometimes worse by interchange and at the last worst of all But I would demaund how it can hang together that we should expect the subversion of Antichrist his kingdome the conversion of the whole Nation of the Iewes to the saving knowledge of the truth before the end of the world and yet withall affirme or beleeue that the whole world still hath doth shall to the end thereof grow worse and worse For mine owne part I must professe that I know not how to reconcile so different and contradictorie opinions But for the better clearing and vnderstanding of the passages alleaged it will be needfull to consider in what sense The last dayes in holy Scripture are to be taken Some there are who referre them to the dayes of Antichrist but others vpon better warrant to the dayes of Christ from his first comming in the flesh to his second comming to judgement Thus the Prophet Isayah It shall come to passe in the last dayes that the Mountaine of the Lords house shall be established in the toppe of the mountaines And Micah to the same purpose and so neere in the same words as if he borrowed them from Esay Now the dayes of Christs kingdome are therefore called the last dayes not onely because it set an end to the kingdome of the Iewes but because none other Priest-hood or Sacrifice or Sacraments or Law are to succeede in place thereof As man is a little world so the age of the world like that of man is distributed into diverse stops or periods It hath its infancie child-hood youth perfect estate old age And as in man old age may and sometime doth last as long as all the rest so may it fall out in these times of the kingdome of Christ and yet they be still the last times Thus the time of Iob from his restitution to his death is said to be his last dayes or latter end though it comprehend one hundred and forty yeares which in the life of man is a long space And if by the last dayes we should vnderstand the times neere approaching to the worlds end no small advantage might thereby vnawares be given to the Iewes who would beare vs in hand that the Messias is not yet come because the last times are not yet come Whereas we on the other side say for our selues and truly that the last times are come not therefore because they approach neere to the worlds end but because the Messias is come Vpon which ground the Apostles themselues in imitation belike of the Prophets likewise tearme it the last times In the last times he hath spoken to vs by his Sonne saith S. Paul And S. Iohn Little children it is the last time and as you haue heard that Antichrist shall come euen now are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time Since which time we know sixteene Centenaries of yeares haue passed So as the Apostles could not well tearme their times the last in regard of any neare approach to the worlds end but because they liued vnder the Kingdome of Christ. And if I should thus expound those alleadged passages I should conceiue the interpretatioÌ„ were not vnsound Augustin I am sure in his Epist. to Hesichius allowes it Calvin in divers places beats vpon it Per dies extremos satis tritum est regnum Christi designari and in another place more fully to our present purpose Sub extremis diebus comprehendit vniversum Christianae Ecclesiae statum vnder the tearmes of the last dayes hee comprehends the vniversall estate of the Church of Christ. Herevnto may be added that which some latter learned Diuines touching this point haue obserued that the Hebrew word signifies either extremitie or posterioritie as I may so speake Whence it is somtimes rendred Last and sometimes Latter both in Greeke Latine and other Languages and those two promiscuously taken the one for the other Thus the Apostle in 2 Timothy and the 3. calls that the last times which
exercendae atque desidiae miâ—…uendae causa fieri praedicant It is no discredit among the Germans to robbe so it be without the bounds of their citties and this they allow for the exercise of their youth the shunning of idlenes But particulars are infinite wherefore I will content my selfe with one nation three or foure notorious vices of that Nation The Nation shall be that of the ancient Romans I meane before their receiuing of Christianity because they were commonly reputed the most civill best disciplined of the whole world The speciall vices I will instance in shall bee their cruelty their couetousnes their luxurie their vaine-glory and ambition and in these will I shew their wonderfull excesse beyond latter ages concluding with a demonstration that the most eminent and renowned vertues of the Romanes as their wisedome courage haue likewise beene at least matched by some of latter ages and that in some other vertues as namely in modesty and humility they haue beene much exceeded CAP. 4. Of the excessiue cruelty of the Romans towards the Iewes the Christians other Nations one another vpon themselues SEC 1. Of the Romane cruelty toward the Iewes THe savage and barbarous inhumanity of the Romans appeares partly in their cruell handling of the Iewes Christians partly of other Nations But chiefely in their vnnaturall disposition one towards another and vpon themselues First then for the Iewes it is indeede true that by putting to death the Lord of life and crying alowd His blood be vpon vs and vpon our children they wilfully drew vpon themselues the Divine vengeance that dreadfull threate Loe the dayes shall come when they shall say happy are the barren and the wombes that haue not borne children and the paps that haue not giuen sucke Yet were the Romans though greater enemies to Christian Religion then the Iewes appointed by divine providence as the Executioners of that vengeance which they performed in a most vnmercifull manner And in regard of themselues an vndue vniust measure For to let passe all other bloody massacres of them in diverse townes citties thorow the Romane Empire after the passion of our Saviour and before the destruction of Ierusalem surely their cruelty acted in the siedge of that citty recorded by Iosephus was such as were able even to resolue an heart of steele into teares of blood It was on every side so straightly begirt that the besieged by extreamity of famine were forced to 〈◊〉 not only horses asses dogges rats mice and the leather that couered their shields bucklers but also the very dung out of their stables yea a Noble woman was knowne to eate her owne child that suckt vpon her breast wherein no doubt was fulfilled the prophecie of our Saviour happy are the barren Such as were taken by the Romans were by the commaundement of Titus crucified before the walls of the citty to the number of fiue hundred every day vntill at length as Iosephus reporteth there wanted both crosses for the bodies and place for the crosses Also great numbers of them who being forced with famine sought to saue their liues by yeelding themselues to ther enemies were nevertheles killed by the mercilesse souldier and their bowels ripped vp in hope to finde gold therein vpon a report or at least a conceite that the Iewes did swallow their gold to convay it out of the citty by that meanes Finally the number of those which were slaine and died during the siege was as witnesseth Iosephus a million and an hundred thousand and of the Captiues nine hundred and seventy thousand whereof Iosephus himselfe was one and of those some were condemned to the publique workes others of the stronger handsommer sort carried in triumph and such as were vnder the age of seventeene yeares were sold for litle or nothing those which remained in their countrey were loaden with such greivous impositions and tributes that they liued in a continuall misery slauery worse then death Yet the cruelty of the Romans towards these miserable Iewes ceased not heere but in the next age in the time of Traiane the Emperour within lesse then fifty yeares after the subversion of Ierusalem infinita eorum millia sayth Eusebius infinite thousands of them were killed in Egypt and Mesopotamia in Macedonia they were vtterly extinguished and in Cyprus they were all either put to the sword or banished and a law made that it should be death for any Iew to arriue there though he were driven thither by tempest against his will And in a few yeares after Iulius Severus being called out of Brittaine by the Emperour Adrian and sent into Iudea destroyed almost all the countrey For as Dyon writeth he dismantled fifty strong forts and razed or burnt nine hundred eighty fiue townes or villages and killed aboue fifty thousand Iewes in battell besides an infinite number of others that died either by fire famine or pestilence or were sold for slaues Shortly after Adrians time they were also miserablely afflicted by the Emperour Antoninus Pius and after him by Marcus Aurelius and againe some yeares after that by the Emperour Seuerus who renewed the decrees of Adrian for their exclusion from the sight of their countrey and triumphed for his great victories against them Now though it be true that the wickednes of the Iewish Nation was such as they well deserued to be thus seuerely punished yet cannot the Romanes be excused from vnreasonable cruelty in dealing thus vnmercifully with them as if they had beene beasts rather then men SECT 2. Their cruelty toward the Christians first in regard of the insatiable malice of their persecutors THeir dealing with the Christians whom they likewise named Iewes because our Saviours Apostles first disciples were all of that nation was yet more mercilesse because more vnjust They pretended the frequent rebellions of the Iewes to be the reason of their great severity towards them But the Christians they deadly hated and most cruelly persecuted only for their religion whereas they suffered all religions saue the Christian to be quietly exercised thorow their dominions Now their cruelty towards the poore Christians appeared in the insatiable malice of their persecutors the incredible number of those that suffered as Martyrs or Confessors and the exquisite variety of their tortures St. Augustine and his scholler Orosius compare the tenne persecutions of the Primitiue Christians which as so many raging waues came tumbling one vpon the necke of another to the tenne plagues of Egypt the first of which was vnder Nero whose cruelty or luxury was of the two more monstrous vnnaturall cannot easily be determined He caused Rome to be set on fire that he might the better conceiue the flames of Troy singing vnto it Homers verses His father and brother he poysoned murthâ—…red his master wife mother taking an exact view of her dead bodie commending the proportion of some parts discommending others
Ann. Dom. 1555. 1556. 1557. 1558. after all which yeares nothing chanced that should driue a man to seeke out any cause aboue the common reach and therefore I allow the diligence of Gemma-Frisius taking notice of as many good as badde effects which haue succeeded after Comets Moreouer hee tells vs that Peucer a great Mathematician of Germany prognosticated vpon the last Comet before the writing of his Defensatiue that mens bodies should bee parched and burned vp with heat But how fell it out Forsooth saith hee wee had not a more vnkindely summer many yeares in respect of extraordinary cold neuer lesse inclination to warre no Prince diseased in that time and the plague which had beene somewhat quicke before in Lombardy as God would haue it ceased at the rising of the Comet Besides all this hee reports of his owne experience as an eye-witnesse that when diverse vpon greater scrupulosity then cause went about to disswade Queene Elizabeth lying then at Richmond from looking on a Comet which then appeared with a courage answereable to the greatnesse of her state shee caused the window to be set open and cast out this word jacta est alea the dice are throwne thereby shewing that her stedfast hope confidence was too firmely planted in the providence of God to bee blasted or affrighted with those beames which either had a ground in nature wherevpon to rise or at least-wise no warrant in Scripture to portend the mishappe of Princes Neither doe I remember that any Comet appeared either before her death as at her entrance there did nor that of Prince Henry nor of Henry the Great of France the one being a most peerelesse Queene the other a most incomparable Prince the third for prudence valour a matchlesse King And for the last Comet which appeared it was so farre from bringing any excessiue heate with it that for a long time there hath not beene known more cold yeares thē three or foure immediatly ensuing it And though it bee true that some great Princes died not long after it yet after that immediatly going before I cannot call to mind any such effect but as Seneca truely notes Naturale est magis nova quam magna mirari it is naturall vnto vs to bee inquisitiue curious rather about things new and strange then those which are in their owne nature truely great Yet euen among the Ancients Charlemaigne professed that hee feared not the signe of the blazing starre but the Great potent Creator thereof And Vespasian as Dyon reports when the apparition of a Comet was thought to portend his death replied merrily No said hee this bushy starre notes not mee but the Parthian King Ipse enim comatus est ego verò calvus sum For hee weares bushy locks but I am bald Lastly some Comets haue beene the Messengers of happy ioyfull tidings as that at the birth of our Saviour another at the death of Nero Cometes summè bonus apparuit qui praenuntius fuit mortis magni illius Tyranni pestilentissimi hominis saith Tacitus There appeared a favourable auspicious Comet as an Herauld to proclaime the death of that great Tyrant and most pestilent man The praediction then successe of mischievous vnfortunate accidents from the appearance of Comets appearing to bee thus vncertaine it followes in the second place to be considered whether more haue appeared in these latter times then in former ages For mine owne part I remember but two for the space of these last thirty yeares and during his late Majesties reigne but one whereas my Lord of Northampton as wee haue heard before speakes of foure within the compasse of foure yeares Before the death of Iulius Caesar Virgill witnesseth Non alias coelo ceciderunt plura sereno Fulgura nec diri toties arsere Cometae Ne're in cleare skymore lightnings did appeare And direfull comets never rifer were Beda Paulus Aemilius mention two which by the space of fourteene dayes appeared together in the reigne of Charles Martell father to Charlemaigne the one in the morning going before the Sunne the others in the euening following after it The like wherevnto I doe not remember wee any where read of Now that which hath beene said of Comets may likewise bee applied to other fierie watery Meteors as streamings swords flying dragons fighting armies gapings two or three Sunnes Moones the like appearing in the aire many times to the great terrour astonishment of the beholders of all which many more of that kinde hee that desires to reade more I referre him to Vicomercatus Garzaeus Pontanus Lycosthenes de Prodigijs Portentis ab orbe condito vsque ad annum 1557. Of strange prodigious accidents from the beginning of the world to the yeare of our Lord 1557. But the strangest apparition in the aire in this kinde that ever I heard or read of was that which I finde reported by Mr Fox whiles the Spanish match with Queene Many was in the heat of treating neere vpon the eoncluding There appeared in London on the fifteenth of February 1554 a Rainebow reuersed the bow turning downeward the two ends standing vpward a prodigious supernaturall signe indeed of those miserable bloudy times which quickely followed after SECT 7. Of strange and impetuous winds and lighnings in former ages aboue those of the present IN the last place wee may adde the impetuous thunders lightnings together with outragious windes in former times such as latter ages haue scarce beene acquainted with And because the latter of these haue of late plaid their parts more fiercely both by sea land it shall not be amisse to remember that euen in the Phophet Davids time when in likeliehood they lanched not forth into the maine but coasted along by the shore they were notwithstanding by the violence of tempests lifted vp to heaven and carried downe againe to the depths which the Poet hath in a manner translated word for word Tollitur in coelum sublato gurgite et ijdem Voluimur in barathrum With surging waues to heaven wee lifted are And in a trice to helward downe we fare It was a terrible storme seldome heard of which encountred S. Paul his company in their voyage towards Rome though they sayled in sight of land raysed by a tempestuous winde called Euroclydon insomuch as beside their imminent daunger neither Sunne nor Starres which should haue beene their guides in many dayes appeared vnto them The concurrence combating of contrary windes which is now a dayes not often observed to happen I thinke in course of Nature discourse of Reason can hardly bee yet Virgill mentions it more then once Vnà Eurusque Nothusque ruunt creberque procellis Affricus vastos voluunt ad littora fluctus Th'Eastwinde the West the Southwest and by West Rush forth together and with boistrous stormes Huge
declination in the seaventh Now that which these Ancients obserued touching these secret stations and progresses of Nature in the state of mans body and course of his life is still found to be true aswell by the Verdict and judgement of learned men as by the proofe and triall of Experience which could not possiblely bee were there a constant abatement in the length of our whole age by such an vniuersall irreuocable decay of Nature as is pretented for then should men doubtles grow to ripenes and perfection sooner as they are supposed sooner to hasten to death and dissolution which must needes draw on an alteration and confusion in all the noted changes thorow the course of mans life And therefore the holy Scripture assigning the Patriarches a longer life assignes them likewise proportionablely therevnto a longer time before they were ripened for generation as Peter Martyr hath rightly noted It is true and euer was which Galen in his sixth booke of the regiment of health hath observed that these chaunges cannot so be tyed to any such precise number of yeares but that a variation of latitude is to be admitted in them in regard of some particulars some growing to their puberty at fourteen others at fifteen some declining at thirty others at thirty fiue according to their severall constitutions educations diet situation of Clymates and countreyes and the like The Poet professed of himselfe aboue sixteene hundred yeare agoe that his beard began to sprout and paint his cheekes before twenty Quamuis jam juvenile decus mihi pingere malas Caeperit nondum vicesima venerit aetas Though now my beard began my cheekes to grace Nor had I liued yet twice tenne yeares space But as all rules in Science so theses are held sufficiently currant and warrantable if they be found infallible in the greatest part and vniforme where all circumstances concurre in a like degree It is now commonly thought that thirty three or between that and 35 yeares is the flower perfection of mans age it being the mid way to sevēty which both Moses Solon held the Epilogue cōclusiō thereof so as those who run beyōd that are like Racers which run beyōd the goale And this was the age of our blessed Saviour to the perfection whereof the Apostle seems to allude in the 4 to the Ephesians Till we meet together vnto a perfect man and vnto the measure of the age of the fullnes of Christ which passage S. Augustin interpreting is of opiniō that we shall rise againe by reasō of the perfectiō thereof iu ea aetane vsque quā Christū pervenisse cognovimus as men of that age vnto which Christ himselfe the head of the Church arriued I know there want not some as namely Irenaeus others who by occasion of that speech of the Iewes thou art not yet fifty yeare old and hast thou seene Abraham conjecture that he was about that age but whether it were his cares troubles that made him seeme elder then indeéde he was or the Iewes would thereby signifie that though he had beene much elder then he was yet was it not possible for him to haue seene Abrabam in the flesh certaine it is that he came not to fourty some late Divines being of opinion that he reached thirty fiue but the most part as also the most Ancient and most learned that he little exceeded thirty three since then our infancie ends and childhood begins our childhood ends and youth begins our youth ends and manhood begins and lastly our manhood ends our declining estate begins where it did a thousand or two thousād yeare agoe I see no reason but we may safely conclude that at leastwise since that time mankind is nothing decayed in regard of age and the like reason there is in there observing anciently the same Clymactericall yeares and in them the same danger of sicknesse or death that we do as appeares not only in Brodeus his Miscellanea lib. 6. cap. 26. and in a little discourse which M. Wright hath written and annexed to his book of the passions of the mind occasioned as he there professeth by the death of Queene Elizabeth but much more fully in Baptista Codronchus a famous both Philosopher and Phisitian who hath purposely cōposed a large treatise de annis Climactericis in which thus begins his preface to that worke Antiquissimi peritissimi rerum naturalium observatores nec vulgares homines vitae humanae curriculum considerantes septimo quoque anno presertim tertio supra sexagesimum homines plerosque corporis animi affectionibus conflictari in discrimine versari ac saepius interire pluribus observationibus ac periculis cognoverunt The most ancient and skilfull searchers into naturall things and those no meane men taking into consideration the course of mans life by many observations and tryals they found that every seventh yeare and specially in the 63 most men are sorely affected both in body and mind are brought into great danger and many times die outright I will bring onely one instance from Antiquity to shew their agreement as in the other before mentioned so likewise in this point with these latter ages it is borrowed from Gellius in his fifteenth booke and seaventh chapter of his Noctes Atticae where he thus speaks of this matter Observatum in multa hominum memoria expertumque est in senioribus plerisque omnibus sexagesimum tertium vitae annum cum periculo clade aliqua venire aut corporis morbique gravioris aut vitae interitus aut animi aegritudinis It hath been of a long time observed and experienced in almost all old men that the 63 yeare of their life hath proued dangerous and hurtfull vnto them either in regard of some greivous sicknesse of body or death or great greefe of mind going on he alleags to this purpose a part of a letter which Augustus Caesar wrote to Caius his Nephew Aue mi Cai meus ocellus iucundissimus quē semper medius sidius desidero quum à me abes sed precipue diebus talibus qualis est hodiernus oculi mei requirunt meum Caium quem vbicunque hoc die fuisti spero laetum benevolentem celebrasse quartum sexagesimum natalem meum nam vt vides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commnem seniorum omnium tertium sexagesimum annum evasimus I greet the well my Caius mine owne deare heart whom in truth I always find wanting as oft as thou art absent from me but cheifely vppon such days as this is mine eyes long to behold my Caius which wheresoeverthou wert I hope thou hast kept festivall it being my sixty fourth birthday for as thou seest I haue escaped my sixty third being the common climactericall of all old men SECT 2. The second is drawne from the age of Matrimony and Generation which among the Ancients was fully as forward as ours now is if not more
timely FOR the better clearing of which poynt it shall not be amisse somewhat farther to insist vpon the age of Generation and Marriage which among the Ancients was both in opinion held and in practise proued to be the same or little different from that which amongst vs is in vse at this day The third councell of Carthage ordained that publicke readers in the Church cum ad annos pubertatis venerint aut cogantur vxores ducere aut continentiam profiteri when they came to yeares of puberty should be forced either to marry or vow chastity and Quintilian of his owne wife professeth that hauing borne him two sonnes she died Nondum expleto aetatis vndevicesimo anno being not yet full one and twenty years of age Mulieres statim ab anno decimo quarto à à viris Dominae vocantur saith Epictetus women no sooner passe foureteene but presently they haue giuen them from men or from their husbands the title of Mistresses The Civill Lawes allowed a woman marriage at twelue so did the. Iewish Talmud and the Canons of the Church Hesiod at fifteene Xenophon and the Comaedian at sixteene anni sedecem fios ipse Aristotle at eighteene Plato at twenty The reason of the difference I take to be this The Lawes would not permit them to marrie sooner Plato held it not fitte they should stay longer And as wee commonly are both ripe for marriage and marrie about the same yeares the Ancients did so men for the most part leaue begetting and women bearing of children about the same time as they did Tiberius made a Law knowne by the name of Lex Papia by which he forbad de such men as were past sixty or women past fiftie to marrie as being insufficient for generation To which Lactantius out of Seneca seemes to allude thus jesting at the Ethnickes touching their great God Iupiter Quare apud Poetas salacissimus Iupiter desijt liberos tollere vtrum sexagenarius factus ei Lex Papia fibulam imposuit How comes it to passe that in your Poets the lecherous Iupiter begets no more children is hee past sixtie restrained by the Papian Law Yet this Law by the Emperour Claudius in part but by Iustinian almost fiue hundred yeares after was fully repealed as insufficient in asmuch as men after that age were and still are found to be sufficient for that act Seldome indeede it is that men beget after seaventy or women beare after fiftie and the same was long since both observed recorded by the principall both Secretarie great Register of Nature in his time adding farther that men commonly left begetting at sixtie fiue women bearing at fortie fiue When Abrahams body was now dead in regard of generation he was short of 100. Indeede Plutarch reports of Cato Maior that hee begat a sonne at eightie Pliny of Masinissa after eightie six but they both report it as a wonder neither want there presidents in this age to parallell either of them I well know that the accusation is common perchaunce in part not vnjust that men now a dayes generally marrie sooner then their Ancestours did which is made to be one of the chiefe causes of our supposed shorter liues but that many of them abstained not so long from marriage as wee now commonly doe it may be euidenced by these following examples drawn from the Oracles of sacred writ There descended from Abraham in the space of foure hundred yeares and little more from Iaacob and his sonnes within 200 or thereabout aboue six hundred thousand men beside children and those who died in the interim and were slaine by the Egyptians which wonderfull multiplication within the compasse of that time should in reason argue that they married timely In the forty sixth of Genesis Moses describing old Iaacobs journey downe into Egypt tells vs that the number of persons springing from his loynes which accompanied him in that journey were sixty six soules and not content with the grosse summe hee specifies the particulars among which the sonnes of Iudah are named to bee Er Onan Shelah and Pharez and Zerah but Er and Onan saith the text died in the land of Canaan and the sonnes of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul so that he begat Pharez vpon Thamar his daughter in law after the death of his eldest sonnes Er and Onan who according to the Law had married her successiuely and Pharez begat Hezron and Hamul and yet at this time was Iudah himselfe but forty foure yeares of age at most as appeares by this that Ioseph was then but thirty nine sixteene he was when he was sold by his brethren twenty three yeares after was his fathers journey into Egypt Now it is evident that Iudah was but foure yeares elder then Ioseph the one being borne in the eleuenth yeare of their Fathers abode in Mesopotamia and the other after the expiration of the fourteenth In the compasse then of forty foure yeares or thereabout had Iudah sonnes which were married namely Er Onan after that himselfe by mistake begets another sonne vpon their wife viz Pharez who had likewise two sonnes at this time when Iaacob went downe into Egypt S. Augustine is I confesse much perplexed in the loosing of this knot and so is Pererius treading in his steps They both flying for the saluing of the Text to an Anticipation in the storie as if some of those who are named by Moses to haue descended with Iaacob into Egypt had beene both begotten borne long after his setling there But this glosse seeming to Pareus somewhat hard as in truth it is he resolues the doubt by making both Iudah Er Onan and Pharez to marrie all of them at the entrance of their fourteenth yeare which in the ordinary course of nature both then was and still is the yeare of pubertie and then thus concludes hee In his omnibus nihil coactum aut contortum nihil quod non consueto naturae ordine fieri potuerit vt nec miracula fingere sit opus nec filios Pharez qui in descensu numerantur in Aegypto demum natos asserere sit necesse In all this there is nothing strained or wrested nothing but may well be done in the ordinary course of nature so as we need not either fly to miracles or affirme that the sonnes of Pharez who are ranked in the number of those who descended with Iaacob were afterward borne in Egypt And with Pareus heerein accords the learned Arnisaeus some small difference betweene them in the calculation of yeares set apart wondering that two such great Clarkes as Augustine Pererius should trouble themselues so much about so slender a difficultie not considering as it seemes the Examples of the like or more timely marriages recorded in holy Scripture Whereof we haue a notable one in the same
essence and naturall functions the same which was from the beginning the bounds of his quantity cannot vary in any great or notorious difference but through some exorbitancie and aberration in nature which as they haue beene in all ages so haue monsters too not only in figure and shape but also both in excesse and defect CAP. 5. Wherein the principall objections drawne aswell from Reason as from authority and experience are fully answered SECT 1. Of sundry fabulous narrations of the bones of Gianlike bodies digged vp or found in Caues THe Truth being thus settled it remaines that wee now dispell those mists and cloudes with which the brightnes of it is sometimes ouercast whereof the chiefe is the huge bodies and bones that at sundry times haue beene digged vp and yet are kept in many places as monuments of Antiquity to be seene Such are they which are shewen at Puteoli or Putzole in the Kingdome of Naples vpon which Pomponius Laetus hath bestowod verses which he thus concludes Hinc bona posteritas immania corpora servat Et tales mundo testificatur avos Their huge corpes good posterity keepes here To witnesse to the World that once such were The like haue I seene at Wormes in Germany and other Citties standing vpon the Rheine hung vp in Chaines or laid vp in Megazines and other publique places but saith Philippus Camerarius I haue heard many dispute and make doubt whether they were the bones of men or of fishes Infinite are the stories which to this purpose are recorded it would require a iust volume to collect them into one body and in truth it shall not need inasmuch as I finde it already done by the same Camerarius by Gassanion in his booke of Gyants and Fazelus in his first booke and first Decade of the affaires of Sicily as also by our Hollenshed in the fourth chap. of his first volume but with this Caution For my part saith he I will touch rare things and such as to my selfe doe seeme almost incredible wherefore I will onely point at a few of the most memorable lest on the one side I should seeme purposely to baulke that rubbe which is commonly thought most of all to thwart my way or on the other side should cloy the Reader with too many vnsavory tales It is reported by Plutarch out of Gabinius which I confesse I somewhat marvell at in so graue an Authour that Sertorius being in Lybia neere the streights of Morocco found the body of Antaeus there buried sixty cubits to which Fazelus adds ten more and makes it vp scaventy But Strabo in the seaventeenth of his Geography mentioning the same thing layes this censure vpon Gabinius the Authour of it Sed nec Gabinius Romanarum rerum Scriptor in describenda Mauritania fabulis prodigiosis abstinet neither doth Gabinius in his description of Mauritania abstaine from the relation of monstrous fables In the fourteenth yeare of Henry the second Emperour was the body of Pallas as 't was thought companion to Aeneas taken vp at Rome and found in height to equall the walles of that cittie But as Galeotus Martius hath well obserued his body was said to haue beene burned Arsurasque comas obnubit amictu The locks that shortly should consume in fire He couered with his Robe Which I suppose to be likewise true of many of those bodies which notwithstanding are reported to haue beene found intire for their proportions long after their deaths though turned into ashes many yeares before It being the custome of those countries to burne as it is ours to burie our dead Our Malmesburiensis likewise in his second booke thirteenth chapter de gestis Rerum Anglorum mentioneth the same story shall I call it or fable telling vs that in the yeare of grace 1042 in the reigne of S. Edward the body of Pallas the sonne of Euander of whom Virgill speakes Romae repertum est illibatum ingenti stupore omnium quod tot saecula incorruptionem sui superavit was found at Rome intire and sound to the great astonishment of all men that by the space of so many ages it had triumphed ouer corruption and farther to confirme the trueth thereof he assures vs that the gaping widenesse of the wound which Turnus made in the midst of his breast was found by measure to be foure foote an halfe a large wound and the weapon which made it we cannot but conceiue as large and by the appearance of it at full not onely the bones and skinne and sinewes but the flesh to remaine incorrupt a matter altogether incredible Besides he sets vs downe his Epitath found at the same time Filius Evandri Pallans quem lancea Turni Militis occidit more suo iacet hic Which himselfe knowes not well how to giue credit too quod non tunc crediderim factum sayth he which I cannot beleeue was then made but by Ennius or some other of latter ages But I proceede Herodotus in his first booke tels vs that the body of Orestes being taken vp was found to be seaven cubits but Gellius is bold to bestow vpon him for his labour the title of Homo Fabulator a forger of fables rather inclining to the opinion of Varro who held the vtmost period of a mans growth to be seaven foote What would he then haue said to the body of Oryon which Pliny makes forty six cubits or of Macrosyris which Trallianus makes an hundred cubits or of that body discouered in a vast caue neere Drepanum in Sicilie three of whose teeth if wee may beleeue Boccace weighed an hundred ounces and the leadde of his staffe a thousand and fiue hundred pounds And the body it selfe by proportion of some of the bones was estimated to no lesse then two hundred cubits which makes three hundred feete somewhat I thinke beyond Pauls steeple The more I wonder at S. Augustine who confidently assures vs that himselfe with others being on the sea shore at Vtica he there saw a mans iaw-tooth so bigge that being cut into small peeces it would haue made an hundred such as the men liuing in his age commonly had by which computation the body it selfe must likewise in reason haue exceeded the bodies of his age an hundred times so that being compared with a body of six foote exceeding it one hundred times it will be found six hundred foote high which is the just double to Boccace his Gyant Yet Ralph the Munke of Cogshall who wrote 350 yeares agoe as witnesseth Camden it may be in imitation of S. Augustine auerres that himselfe saw the like which in a Munke is I confesse more tollerable then that which Lodovicus Viues deservedly reputed a graue and learned Authour vpon that passage of S. Augustines affirmes that going to the Church on S. Christophers day the place he names not but it seemes to be Louaine because from thence he dates his Epistle dedicatorie to King Henrie the 8
the french Kings aduocate and others of that nature which are all published and extant partly in Latine and partly in their owne languages with that variety and learning as much exceedes the former ages SECT 4. Ancient and moderne Physitians compared especially in the knowledge of Anatomy and Herbary the two legges of that Science THE third great Profession is Physicke in which besides the vncertaine and fabulous reports of Apollo and Esculapius we read not of any excellent till Hippocrates after him being much decayed it was revived by Galen vt sub eo rursum nata medicina videatur so as it seemed vnder him to bee borne againe Two speciall parts thereof are the knowledge of the body of man and the knowledge of simples touching the former the opening and anatomizing of mens bodies It was doubtlesse among the Ancients in very little vse I meane the Aegyptians the Hebrewes the Graecians the Romans the Primitiue Christians First then I know the Aegyptians are by some said to haue beene this way most skilfull but considering how excessiuely curious ceremonious or rather superstitious they were in preseruing their bodies intire vnputrified I coÌ„ceiue their opening them to haue beene rather for the imbowelling imbaulming then the anatomizing of them and for the Graecians they could not well practise it in as much as they vsually burnt their dead bodies by the testimony not onely of Homer Herodotus whose authorities yet in this case might passe as sufficient but likewise of Thucidides Plutarch witnesses beyond all exception whereof the latter in the 3 booke and 4 question of his Symposiaques giues vs to vnderstand that their custome was with the bodies of ten men to burne one of an woman because they supposed their flesh to be more vnctuous and thereby to helpe forward the burning of the rest more easily speedily surely had Anatomy beene in vse among the Graecians me thinkes Physitians Anatomists should somewhere discouer it in the works of Hippocrates yet extant which I presume cannot be showne once I am sure that when at the instance of the Abderites he came to visite Democritus hee found him as may bee seene in his Epistle to Damogetus cutting vp seuerall beasts who being by him demaunded the reason thereof Democritus returnes him this answere Haec animalia quae vides proptereà seco non dei opera perosus sed fellis bilisque naturam disquirens these beasts which thou seestI cut vp not because I hate the workes of God but to search into the nature of gall choller now if hee feared lest the cutting vp of beasts might be censured as an hating of Gods workes he must needes much more haue feared that censure had he cut vp the bodies of men But among the Iewes it is evident that this Art could not be in vse for that their executed malefactours were put to death either by burning or stoning whom they buried vnder an heape of stones or by crucifying them vpon a crosse for these they had expresse charge Deut. 21. at the last verse that they should noâ—… suffer them to hang all night vpon the tree but in any wise must they bury them the very day they werâ—… crucified and besides it was most precisely injoyned them Number 〈◊〉 11 that they might not so much as touch the dead body of any that was either executed or died otherwise he that touched it was by the law of Moses so farre held vncleane that if he presumed to enter into the tabernacle before he was purified he was to be cut off from Israel for defiling it nay if in this case he but touched bread or pottage or wine or oyle or any meate he thereby made it vncleane as appeares Aggai 2. 13. Some more doubt seemes to be touching the ancient Romanes but I thinke it may easily bee shewed that from the Graecians they likewise tooke vp practised the burning of dead bodies the places which they commonly vsed to this purpose were by them called puticuli or culinae the pots or vessels in which they preserued the bones ashes of the burnt bodies Vrnae whereof I haue seen one in M. Chambers his keeping at Bath but all the difficultie seems to consist in this when this custome began among them and when it ceased for the former it is commonly held that it was not in vse among the Romans before Sylla the Dictator who hauing himselfe cruelly tyrannized vpon the dead bodie of Marius fearing lest the same measure might be shewed to himselfe commanded that his body instantly vpoÌ„ his death should be burned wheras Pli 7. 54. only sayes that he was thefirst of the Cornelian family that had his body burnt Tully 2 de legibus restrains it more narrowly Primus è patritijs Cornelijs igni voluit cremari he was the first of the Cornelian nobility that commanded it and he that attentiuely reads the Roman story will easily finde that this custome was practised among them long before Sylla euen from the first foundation of Rome so witnesseth Ovid in his 4 de Fastis speaking of Remus the brother of Romulus Arsarosque artus vnxit The limbes that now were to be burnt His brother did annoint And againe Vltima plorato subdita flamma rogo est The last fire now was set vnto his hearse After this Numa being by sect a Pythagorean forbade his owne body to be burnt as witnesseth Plutarch in his life which he needed not haue done had not the custome then beene vsuall Tullus Hostilius his successour had not his body therefore burnt because he was stricken dead with lightning for so was the Law After this againe Tully in his second de legibus telsvs that the Law of the 12 Tables commaunded Hominem mortuum in vrbe ne sepelito neve vrito let no dead body be buried or burned in the Citie which as he there addes was for feare their buildings might from thence take fire now the Lawes of the 12 Tables were composed as witnesseth Gellius 20. 1. in the 300 yeare after the foundation of the City which was almost 400 yeares before Sylla if any desire further satisfaction in this point I referre him to the learned and copious Annotations of Blasius Vigenerus in French vpon the first Decade of Livie which Author himselfe hath excellently translated into that language among other examples produced by him to this purpose he makes it plaine ouâ—… of Livie lib. 8 that the body of the sonne of Manlius the Consull who contrary to his fathers commaund fought out of his ranke was therefore by a commaund from the same mouth put to death was presently carried out of the campe and burned with all military pompe and this he assignes to the yeare 412 by his computation aboue 270 yeares before the death of Sylla Now this practise of the Romans I haue the longer insisted vpon partly for the checking of a common errour
then to cruelty Expectet aliquis ut alieno sanguini parcant qui non parcunt suo non possunt innocentes existimari qui viscera sua in praedam canibus obijciunt quantum in ipsis est crudelius necant quam si strangulassent saith Lactantius Can any man expect they should spare other mens blood that spare not their owne innocent they cannot be held who expose their owne bowels for a prey to dogges and as much as in them is kill more cruelly then if they had strangled them Besides such corporall defects doe not alwayes nor often hinder the operation of the minde and vnderstanding and therefore it may very well happen by the execution of this inhumane Law of Aristotle not onely that a Father shall be depriued of a sonne but also the Common-wealth of a serviceable notable member For as Seneca saith ex casa vir magnus exire potest ex deformi humilique corpusculo formosus animus magnus A worthy man may come out of a base cottage and a beautifull high spirit out of a low deformed body The like may be said of the other Law of Aristotle concerning abortion or the destruction of the Childe in the mothers wombe being a thing punished seuerely by all good Lawes as inâ—…urious not onely to nature but also to the Common-wealth which thereby is depriued of a designed Citizen as Cicero tearmes it speaking of a woman of Miletum in Asia who hauing procured abortion of her childe a little before her time of trauell was condemned to death neque injuria saith he quia designatum reipub civem sustulisset very justly for that shee had made away one that was designed to bee a Citizen of the Common-wealth In which respect the Civill Common Law do grievously punish all wilfull abortion after conception and the Canonists teach it to bee a mortall sinne And heere I cannot forbeare to say somewhat of another Constitution of Aristotles which I know not whether it were more absurd or ridiculous for whereas he forbade in his Common-wealth the vse of lascivious pictures and images lest young men and specially children might be corrupted by the sight thereof neuerthelesse in the same Law he excepteth the Images and pictures of certaine Gods in whom saith he the custome alloweth lasciviousnesse meaning no doubt the painted tables and grauen stories of the adulteries of Iupiter Mars Venus and other Gods and Goddesses set forth euery-where among the Paynims as well in private houses as in their Temples and other publique places Wherein may be obserued the ridiculous absurdity of this great Philosopher for what could it availe to take away all other wanton pictures and representations that might corrupt the mindes of youth when hee expresly alloweth the vse of the lasciuious pictures of the Gods which must needs corrupt them much more and as it were instill into them vitious affections desires together with their religion yea by the example of their Gods by the imitation of whom they could not but hope to attaine aswell to perfection of vertue as to eternall felicity beleeuing as they did that they were true Gods For how could any man be perswaded that adultery deserued punishment or was not a great yea a divine vertue seeing Mars taken tardy with Venus or Iupiter stealing away Europa in shape of a bull violating Leda in the forme of a Swan entring into the house of Danae by the louer like a goldeÌ„ showre would not any man that should be religiously devoted to these Gods be animated by the sight thereof to doe the like yea and children learning their religion and not only hearing but seeing every-where by pictures images that such acts were committed by their Gods could they imagine that the same were evill and not to be imitated This is very well declared by Lucian of his owne experience who in his Dialogues maketh Menippus say thus When I was yet but a boy saith he heard out of Homer and Hesiod of the Adulteries fornications rapes and seditions of the Gods truely I thought that those things were very excellent and began euen then to be greatly affected towards them for I could not imagine that the Gods themselues would euer haue committed adultery if they had not esteemed the same lawfull and good And the like signifieth also Cheraea in Terence who beholding a table wherein it was painted how Iupiter deceiued Danae when hee came in at the top of the house saith that he was greatly incouraged to defloure a young maide by the example of so great a God at quem Deum saith he qui templa coeli summa sonitu concutit ego homuncio hoc non facerem ego verò illud ita feci lubens But what God was this trow you marry hee who shakes the highest Temples of Heauen with thunder and therefore might not I who am but a silly wretch doe the like yes truely I did it and that with all my heart And it is doubtlesse most true which S. Augustine hath obserued to this purpose magis intuentur quid fecerit Iupiter quam quid docuerit Plato vel censuerit Cato they rather considered what Iupiter did then what Plato taught or Cato thought SECT 5. The barbarous and vncivill lawes of the Gaules and the Saxons our Predecessours NOw these Lawes of the Graecians were not more dishonest and vnmorall then were those of the Gaules and Saxons our Predecessours vncivill and barbarous I meane their ordeall Lawes which they vsed in doubtfull Cases when cleere and manifest proofes wanted to try and finde out whether the accused were guilty or guiltlesse These were of foure sorts as Aeneas Sylvius Beatus Rhenanus Iohannes Pomarius Cornelius Killianus and others in their Histories and Chronicles report The first was by Campfight or Combate the second by yron made red hot the third was by hote water and the fourth by cold water For their tryall by Camp-fight the Accuser was with the perill of his owne body to prooue the accused guilty and by offering him his gloue or gantlet to challenge him to this tryall which the other must either accept of or acknowledge himselfe culpable of the crime whereof hee was accused If it were a crime deseruing death then was the Campe-fight for life and death and that either on horsebacke or on foot if the offence deserued imprisonment and not death then was the Camp-fight accomplished when the one had subdued the other by making him to yeeld or vnable to defend himselfe and so be taken prisoner the accused had the liberty to choose another in his steed but the accuser must performe it in his owne person and with equality of weapons No women were admitted to behold it nor men children vnder the age of thirteene yeares the Priests and people did silently pray that the victory might fall to the guiltlesse And if the fight were for life death a Beere stood ready to carry away