Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	alive_a	dead_a	life_n	5,787	5	5.0987	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

sticks and glow-worms or cats eyes are fire or flames and if stars be flames because in colour they are like to flames let us say that the Heaven is water for in colour it is like water IV. It seems saith he Cent. 1.45 that the parts of living creatures that lie more inwards nourish more then the outward flesh except it be the brain which the spirits prey too much upon to leave it any great vertue of nourishment This is not so for experience shews the contrary that the outward flesh of sheep and so of other animals nourish more then the heart lungs liver kidney and spleen Therefore Galen l. de cibis reckoneth these amongst his meats of bad juyce and indeed this stands with reason for that nourisheth most which is easiest of concoction and softest and most abounding in benign and nutritive juyce but such is the outward flesh not the heart kidney c. which are harder and drier and not so apt to be converted into blood It is true the Romans made much of the gooses liver more to please their palate then out of any good nutriment it offorded so they preferred moshromes and such like trash to the best nutrive meates as for the brains they are less nutritive then the flesh not because the spirits prey upon them for the animal spirits in the brain do not prey more upon it then the vital spirits do upon the heart which notwithstanding his lordship acknowledgeth to be more nourishing then the outward flesh because more inward but because the brain is less sanguineal then the flesh for those parts which they call spermatical are less nutritive what is more inward then the Spinalis medulla or pith in the back bone on which the animal spirits do not prey and yet it is little nutritive V. The fift cause of cold saith he Cent. 73. is a quick spirit inclosed in a cold body as in nitre in water colder then oyle which hath a duller spirit so show is colder then water because it hath more spirit so some insects which have the spirit of life as snakes c. are cold to the touch so quick silver is the coldest of all mettals because fullest of spirits Answ. No spirit can be the cause of cold for all spirits in vigitable animals produce heat and are produced of heat therefore we finde that where there are most spirits there is least cold 2. Nitre which is mentioned by the Ancients is hot and not cold and therefore both Dioscorides Pliny and Galen adscribe to it the qualities of heat to cut extennat discuss and purge gross and cold humors and if that nitre which we use at this day be not the same yet it is not much unlike as Mathiolus shews as having divers qualities of the old nitre besides it is a kinde of salt and is begot of hot things as pigeons dung and the urins of animals therefore Brun. Seidelius makres it hot 3. I deny that water is colder then oyl to the outward touching for hot waters as he said before are in this regard cold and if oyl hath a dul●er spirit then water how comes it to mount upward and swim above the water sure this ascendant motion cannot produce from the earthy and gross substance but from the quick spirits thereof therefore we finde that water is cold and oyl hot in operation because more full of spirits then water 4. I deny that snow is colder then water because it hath more spirit but because it is more condensed for heat and cold are more active in a dense and solid then in a thin atternated substance so ice is colder then water and yet who will say that there is more spirits in the ice then in water besides the snow is colder then the water because begot of colder winds and in colder clymats 5. I deny that insects are cold to the touch for having in them the spirit of life because they are colder when that spirit is gon as we see in all dead bodies which are colder then when they were alive therefore death is called by the Poets frigida more and gelidum frigus the spirit of life is that which is both begot of heat and begets heat and preserveth it that when that spirit leave su● heat also for sakes us caler ossa relinquit saith the Poet It is not therefore the spirit of life but the temperament and constitution of the body of divers earthy and watrish animals which argue cold and we see that for this cause womens bodies are colder then mens and some men of colder constitutions then others because they have fewer spirits and more of earth and water in them We know also how dull and stupid our hands are in cold frosts till the spirits in them be quickned by heat 6. I deny also that quicksilver is the coldest of metals because fullest of spirits for it is much doubted whether Mercury be cold at all for agility proceeds from heat not from cold and such a quality became the messenger of Iupiter by whom all things receive life and vigour Indeed Mercury may be called the Monster of Nature for sometimes it refrigerats sometimes it califieth it cures sometimes cold sometimes hot diseases take it hot it produceth cold take it cold it produceth hot effects and it hath this quality of heat that nothing is more penetrating then it is Christopher Encelius de re metalica makes it hot and moist in the fourth degree Quercitan in his answer to Aubert makes it rather aerial then aquiall we know that heat is one of the qualities of air Renodaeus in Pharmac makes it both hot and cold Keckerman in Sist. Phy. sayth That it is hot as it is full of spirits but cold as these spirits are congealed Croclius in Bas. Cly. prescribes it in defluxions of the head and in hydropsies which shews it is hot And Poterius in Pharm Spagir tells us That by reason of its different operations no man can tell whether heat or cold be most predominant but it is certain saith he that it is both for is known by our senses that it is cold it is known by its effects and operations that it is hot for it cuts at●enuates dissolves and purges which are the effects of heat and so his Lordship doth acknowledge in the next following leaf That heat doth attennate and by atenuation sendeth forth the spirit In his following discourses he hath phrases not to be tolerated in Phylosophy as when he saith Cent. 1.80 That tangible bodies have an antipathy with air Belike then the air is no tangible body but experience shews the contrary that air is tangible both actively and passively our bodies are sensible enough of this tangibility both in hot and cold weather Again if by tangible bodies he mean grosse and dense bodies how can air have an antipathy with them seeing air is one of the ingredients of which all mixed bodies are compounded can it ●e contrary or antipatheticall

of Monsters of a woman whose milk did so abound that in the space of two or three days she voided a gallon and an half of which was made very savory Butter and Cheese Though this be rare yet it is no miracle for that woman abounding much in blood must also abound in milk And some Livers are of that constitution and temper that they sanguifie much more then others especially in constitutions that are inclined to cold and moisture for hot and dry bodies have but little blood and therefore little milk and where there is much sweet flegm or rhume it is easily converted into blood III. I read divers stories of women with child who have lusted after and have eat mens flesh and for that end have faln violently upon them and bit them This is also a dis●ase proceeding of natural causes as that infirmity of ea●ing chalk coals dirt tar ashes in maids and some married women called by Physitians Pica or Malacia and is caused by the distemper of the phantasie and soure malignant melancholy humors in the mouth and concavity of the stomach and impacted in the runicles of the ventricle proceeding partly from the suppression of the flowers whereby the appetite is vitiated and the phantasie disturbed and partly from the malignity of the humor cove●ing after such things as are like to it in malignity yet contrary to it in some of the prime qualities heat cold humidity and siccity for Nature looks in the contrary quality to finde remedy IV. I read of divers maids one in Colen another in the Palatinate a third in the Diocesse of Spira divers more who have lived without meat and drink two or three years together This indeed may seem strange yet it is not against nature for naturally such bodies as have in them little heat and much humidity can subsist longer without food then hot and dry bodies can as we see in women and old people who can fast longer then men and youths And we know that divers creatures for many moneths together can subsist without food therefore these maids having much adventitious moisture and little heat to waste the radical humidity might continue a long time without food for where there is little deperdition there needs not much reparation besides the moisture of the air is no small help to them V. But that is more strange which Zacutus in his Praxis Admiranda lib. 1. obs 4. mentioneth of a Boy who lived 3 years without a brain if he had brought an example of one who had lived 3 years without an heart I should have subscribed to Galen against Aristotle that the heart in dignity is inferiour to the brain But I suppose that he was not altogether without a brain For that water which was found within the membrans of the skull when his head was dissected was doubtlesse his brain converted into water or else it had some analogy with the brain by which the heat of the heart was for a while ●empered and the animal spirits generated but weakly therefore life could not subsist long in him So I have read in Laurentius or Parry of one who lived many years without a spleen but there were found some kirnels in the place of the spleene which supplied its office As for that woman mentioned by Zacutus Ob. 5. who lived eight years together with the half of a knife in her head between the skull and Dura Mater do●btlesse that knife touched not the substance of the brain therefore could be no hindrance to the animal functions VI. It is strange that whereas Anacreon was choaked with a Resin stone yet some as Forestus in his observat recordeth l. 15. obs 24 25 c. have swallowed iron lead long sticks glasse points of knives and of swords and other incredible things without hurt and have voided them by the stool This ●partly impute to the widenesse and capacity of the passages and partly to witchcraft or juggling for the eye in such cases is often deluded although nature sometimes by imposthumes c●sleth our such stuf●e for points of knives and pins have been this way ejected and some have perished and have b●en choaked whilest they have in their madnesse attempted such things And provident nature hath in some without hurt sent away needles and pinnes by the urine abo●t which have been found hard crusty stuffe w●ich was the matter or glassy slime that was gathered about these pins and baked by the heat of ●he body VII I have read of a certain Soldier in the Wars of Savoy Anno Dom. ●589 who was shot in the forehead with a Mus●ue● b●lle● he was cured of the wound but the bull●● remained Afterward falling from a Ladder whil●st he was scaling the walls of a Town he was stiffled in the Ditch into which he fell his head being dissected the bullet was found in the hinder part thereof But I believe this removal was by the fall for otherwise it could not have been removed by the heat or spirits of the head CHAP. II. Of one who wanted the pericardium 2. Of hairy hearts 3. Of one that walked and f●ught after his heart was wounded 4. Stones found in the heart 5. And worms found there The heart may putrifie white we are alive 6. Worms in the brain COlumbus in his Anatomy l. 16. speaks of a young man in Rome whom he dissected and in this found that his heart had no Pericardium the want of which was doubtl●sse the cause of his death and for want of it he fell into divers swouning fi●s and was often troubled with the Syncope by reason the heart wanted refrigeration which it hath from the water in the Pericardium For some whose Pericardium hath b●●ne but sleightly touched by the sword in the wound of the breast have fallen into swouning fits cold sweats with a cessation of the pulse so needful is this membran and its water for the heart Yea I have read of some hearts quite dried shrunk to nothing for want of this water such was the heart of Casimire Marquess of Brandenbourge of whom Melancthon speaketh l. 1. de anima II. I have read of divers hairy hearts bes●des those of Leonidas Aristomenes and Hermogines which is also the work of nature for hairs are produced of ●uliginous and gr●sser excrements of the humours where the skin is hottest and driest for hairs seld●me grow where the skin is cold and moist now if these caus●s be found in the heart the same effect will be produced there but this is seldome seen and in such onely as are of a fierc● truculent and audacious disposition III. Ambrose Parry speaks l. 9. c. 23. of a Gentleman who in a duel being wounded d●eply in the very substance of the heart did notwithstanding for a good while lay about him with his sword and walked two hundred paces before he f●ll down this is likely enough for though the heart was wounded yet the vital blood and spirits and heat of the heart

fire till it blistred out of which blisters they came and so he was cured Salt is an enemy to them yet they are bred in those AEthiopians by the frequent eating of the salt locusts But perhaps it is not the eating of the salt meat so much as the nastinesse and sweat unwholesom waters and corrupted air that breeds them And it is certain that wild and savage people are most given to them because of their carelesse uncleanlinesse using no other remedy against them but shirts died with Saffron which some wilde Irish doe wear six months together without shifting But sometimes this disease is inflicted by the immediate hand of God as a punishment of sinne and tyranny Examples we have in Sylla Pherecides Herod Philip the second of Spain and others who died of this malady Now because Locusts are such an unwholesome food I cannot think that Iohn Baptist did feed on them and therefore it is no vulgar error to hold that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Matth. 3. doth signifie the tops of hearbs rather then locusts both because these were an unwholesome food and unpleasant to the palat and nose used rather for Physick then diet as Dioscorides and Galen shew that Locusts are good against the Cholick and Stone and may be more safely given then Cantharides to provoke urine And although the AEthiopians did eat them for food yet this is no argument to prove that Iohn did eat them which is all the reason that Beza and Casaubon bring to prove their assertion neither can it be proved that Locusts were a food ever used in Iudaea For Pelusiota who lived an Eremite many years in those Desarts never knew any such food used there But whereas they alledge that in Levit. c. 11. v. 22. Locusts are set down for clean food I answer with Munster on Levit. 11.22 who though an excellent Hebrician yet confesseth that neither he nor the Rabbins themselves doe know the true meaning or signification of the proper tearms there used Therefore the Hebrew word Harbe which we translate Locust the Septuagints call Bruchus which is another kind of Insect And the French in their Bibles have left the Hebrew word untranslated And so did Luther before as not knowing what that word meant nor the other three Hebrew words Dr. Brown then had done well rather to have reckoned the Baptists eating of Locusts among the Vulgar Errors then his feeding upon hearbs in the Desart III. There is no flesh so much subject to putrefaction as mans body because it abounds in heat and moisture so that oftentimes some parts of it doe putrifie before the soul leave it which cannot so long preserve it from corruption as salt spices the juice of Cedar and other means by which the AEgyptians used to embalm their dead bodies For indeed heat and siccity are enemies to putrefaction therefore where the ambient air which is properly moist is excluded there the bodies remain unputrified Hence the bodies which are digged out of the hot and dry sands in Egypt have there continued many hundreds of years uncorrupted Alexanders body lay many days unburied and unbalmed yet stunk not but smelled odoriferously because he had dried up the superfluous moisture of his body by continual drinking of strong and fragrant wines There be also some wines that preserve dead bodies uncorruptible by reason of their cold and exsiccating quality So we read in the Indian stories that upon the Mountains of Chily bodies have been found dead there which have many years without corruption continued The first detectors of those Countries found it so by experience for many of them were killed by the piercing subtil quality of those winds and preserved from putrefaction by the excessive drinesse thereof I have read of Horsemen sitting on Horse-back with their bridles in their hands yet dead many months before without any corruption It is also the opinion of som that bodies thunder-struck do not putrifie I am apt to believe that either they putrifie not at all or not in a long time because of the exsiccating quality of the sulphurous vapour which comes from the thunder and lightning But there is nothing more apt to preserve dead bodies from corruption then the juice of Cedar therefore much used among the Ancients both in preserving of their books and bodies which by reason of their extream bitternesse and driing quality gives life to the dead and death to the living extinguishing the temporary life of the body and in recompence giving it immortality So then we see that siccity is the main enemy to putrefaction which is the cause the Peacocks fl●sh is not fo apt to putrifie as of other creatures because of its drinesse as Saint Augustine in the City of God sheweth who speaks of a Peacock which in a whole year did not putrifie The diet also is a great help to further or retard putrefaction for they that feed plentifully on flesh fish or other humid meats which breed much blood and humours are apter to putrifie then those who feed sparingly on hard and dry meats In the siege of Amida by Sapor the Persian King this difference was found for the European bodies who lay four days unburied did in that time so putrifie that they could scarce be known but the Persian bodies were grown hard and dry because of their hard and dry food having contented themselvs with bread made of Naesturtiu●● which we call Cresses or nose-smart an hot and dry hearb Concerning the stone Sarcophagus which consumes flesh in forty days as Pliny witnesseth l. 36. c. 17. is no fable for Scaliger writes Exerc. 132. that in Rome and in the Town where he then was the dead bodies were consumed in eight days But the stone Chernites is a preserver of flesh from corruption therefore the Tomb of Darius was made of it The like is written of the hearb Clematis or Vinca pervinea which resisteth putrifaction therefore of old they used to binde the heads of young men and maids deceased with garlands of this hearb And Korrimanus de mirac mortuorum speaks of a dead head so crowned with this hearb which in the year 1635. being taken out of the grave was found uncorrupted And as dead bodies embalmed with spices are preserved from corruption so by the fame dead bodies men are oftentimes preserved alive for that stuffe which proceeds from them called by the Arabians Mumia is an excellent remedy against diseases arising from cold and moisture Francis the first carried always some of it about him It was found in the Tombs of those Princes who had been imbalmed with rich spices but that which is found in ordinary graves is not the true Mumia but false uselesse or rather pernicious for the body as not being of the same materials that the true Mumia was IV. That the presence of a dear friend standing by a dying man will prolong his life a while is a thing very remarkable and true and which I found by experience

women oftentimes Nature is wiser in her productions then we are in our conceits and imaginations 2. It overthrowes saith he Gods benediction Be fruitfull and multiply Answ. Gods benediction of multiplication was not pronounced to the beasts and creeping things but the birds and fishes 2. It 's a question whether Vipers and some other poysonous creatures were created before the fall 3. The viper multiplieth fast enough when at one birth she bringeth forth twenty young ones as Aristotle and others affirm there is then no cause to complain when twenty are produced by the losse of one neither is it a greater curse in the Viper to die then in all othe● living creatures for all are morrall in their individuals though immortal in their species 4. If the viper had been created before the Fall yet this punishment was not inflicted on her till after for all creatures doe fare the worse by reason of Adams sin who hath made them all subject to vanity Rom. 8.3 To bring forth in sorrow saith he is proper to the woman therefore not to be translated on the Viper Answ. I deny that painfull births are proper to the woman for all animals have some pain more or lesse in their productions I have seen a Hen which with the pain of excluding her Egge fell down gasping for breath as if the pangs of death had bin on her and so she continued till the Egge was excluded Many Bitches and other females have died with pain at the time of their littering Painfull productions then is a punishment of the woman and yet no translation to the Viper for her pain is not thereby eased because the Viper in such a case is killed nor are all women alike tortured some are lesse pained then many other creatures 4. This overthrowes saith he Natures parentall provision for the Dam being destroyed the youngling● are left to their own protection Answ. No they are left to the protection of him who is by David called the Saviour both of man and beast and by the same is said to seed the young Ravens when they call upon him And God in Iob long before David sheweth That he fills the appetite of the young Lions and provideth food for the young Ravens when they cry unto God For the Naturalists tell us the old Ravens quite forsake their young ones but God feeds them with Flies and Wormes he sends into their nests The like improvidence and cruelty we find in Ostridges who exclude their Eggs in the sand and so leave them without further care to his providence in whom all things live and move and have their being Therefore God complains in Iob Chap. 39.14 15 16. of the Ostridges astorgie and cruelty in leaving her Eggs in the earth forgetting that the foot may crush them or that the wild beast may break them shee is hardned saith he against her young ones as though they were none of hers The C●●kow also wanteth parentall provision for she layeth her Egge in another birds nest and so leaves it to the mercy of a stranger And no lesse cruelty is there in this young nursling then in the viper for he both destroyeth his Foster-brothers and the mother that brought forth and fed him I read also in AElian of Scorpions begot sometimes in Crocodiles Egges which sting to death the Dam that gave them life The young Scorpions doe use to devour the old I have also read of women who have brought forth monsters to the destruction both of the mother and of the child in her womb therefore what the Ancients have written of the vipers cruelty is not a matter so incredible as the Doctor makes it As for the experiments of some Neotericks who have observed the young vipers excluded without hurt to the parent I answer 1. There is great odds between the Vipers of Africk or other hot Countries and those in cold Climats and so there is in poysonable herbs and Serpents which lose their venome upon transplantation in cold Countries the most fierce cruell and poysonable animals lose these hurtfull qualities 2. The works of Nature in sublunary things are not universally the same but as the ●Philosopher saith● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the most part there is no Ruleso generall but hath some exceptions ordinarily the child comes out with the head forward yet sometimes otherwise ordinarily the child is born at the end of the ninth moneth yet sometimes sooner sometimes later Therefore though ordinarily the young Vipers burst the belly of the Dam yet sometimes they may be excluded without that rupture 3. Education and food doe much alter the nature of creatures these vipers mentioned by Scaliger and others which excluded their young ones or viperels by the passage of generation were kept in bran within boxes or glasses and fed with milk bran and cheese which is not the food of those wild vipers in hot Countries It is no wonder then if the younglings staied out their time in the womb being well sed and tamed by the coldnesse of the climat 4. All the Ancients doe not write that the vipers burst the belly but only the membrans and matrix of the Dam which oftentimes causes the●losse of her life and they wanted not reason besides experience for this assertion to wit the fiercenesse of their nature the heat of the countrey and the numerousnesse of their young ones being twenty at a time besides the goodnesse of God who by this means doth not suffer so dangerous a creature to multiply too fast for which cause also he pinches them so in the Winter that they lie hid and benumbed within the earth besides he will let us see his justice in suffering the murther of the Sire to be revenged by his young ones upon the Dam. As for the Doctors exception against Nicanders word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not material for it is a Poeticall expression and what is it to the purpose whether the head be bit or cut off if so be the bite be mortall CHAP. X. 1. Moles see not and the contrary objections answered 2. The opinions of the Ancients concerning divers animals maintained 3. The right and left side defended 4. The true cause of the erection of mans body and the benefit we have thereby 5. Mice and other vermin bred of putrefaction even in mens bodies 6. How men swim naturally the Indian swimmers COncerning Moles the Doctor proves they are not blind Book 3. cap. 8. because they have eyes for we must not assigne the Organ and deny the Office Answ. Scaliger tells us they have not eyes but the form of eyes Pliny lib. 11. cap. 37. saith They have the effigies of eyes under the membrane but no sight being condemned to perpetuall darknesse Aristotle lib. 3. de Animal saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it seems they have eyes under a thin skin and a place for eyes The Prince of Poets calls them Oculis captos Geor. 1. Scaliger Exer. 243. saith They are

foreshewed by a skirmish between the magpies and jackdaws I have read also of skirmishes between wild-ducks and wild-geese likewise between water and land serpents premonstrating future calamities among men In this land of late years our present miseries and unnatural wars have been forewarned by armies of swallows martins and other birds fighting against one another And that privat men have been forewarned of their death by ravens I have not only heard and read but have likewise observed divers times a late example I have of a young gentleman Mr. Draper my intimate friend who about five or six years ago being then in the flower of his age had on a sudden one or two ravens in his chamber which had been quarrelling upon the top of the chimney these he apprehended as messengers of his death and so they were for he died shortly after There is then no superstition in the observation of such things for God is pleased sometimes to give men warning of their ends by such means so we finde in the life of Cicero who was forewarned by the noise and fluttering of the ravens about him that his end was near which proved true for the murtherers sent by Mark Antonie slew him presently after in his Sedan Why may not God forewarn men of their future death and calamities by birds as well as by generation of monsters apparition of comets strange showres of frogs blood stones and such like I saw a little before these last troubles of Germany divers Parseleons or Moors with crosses in the air not long before the appearing of the last blazing star Why is it less superstitious to observe such uncouth meteors then uncouth actions of birds and beasts or why is there less credit to be given to the one then the other seeing God can make use of all his creatures as he pleaseth therefore he that imployed a raven to be a feeder of Elias may employ the same bird as a messenger of death to others Camerarius out of Dietmarus and Erasinus Stella Writes of a certain fountain near the river Albis or Elbe in Germany which presageth Wars by turning red and bloudy coloured Of another which portendeth death if the water which before was limpid becomes troubled and thick so caused by an unknown Worm There is a noble Family in Bohemia vvhich is forevvarned of death by a spectrum or ghost appearing like a Woman cloathed in mourning Such an apparition had Mr. Nicholas Smith my dear friend immediatly before he fell sick of that feaver vvhich killed him having been late abroad in London as he vvas going up the stairs into his chamber he vvas embraced as he thought by a Woman all in vvhite at vvhich he cried out nothing appearing he presently sickneth goeth to bed and vvithin a vveek or ten days died Novv vvhether these things be true and real or only imaginary in the phantasie I vvill not here dispute it is sufficient that by such means many are forevvarned of their ends as Brutus was in his Tent to whom his evill Genius appeared the night before he died And why may nor our tutelary Angel by these and such like means give us warning of our dissolution We read in Histories of a Crow in Tr●jans time that in the Capitoll spoke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things shall be well And St. Hierom tels us that the Ravens fed the two Eremites Paul and Anthony many yeares together with bread The same God that imployed these birds as Stewards to feed his servants may also use them as messengers to warn them of their migration And yet in this I doe not patromize the heathen augurations who in all their actions depended superstitiously upon the chattering flying and feeding of birds then the which nothing could be more vain seeing they cannot naturally foreknow the death of others who cannot fore see their own as that Roman Commander made appeare to his Army who shot the bird dead by whose chattering the Augur would have hindered the Armies march Yet from hence it will not follow that all observations of meteors or animals are superstitious or that they do not fore-warn at all death and future calamities seeing Historie and experience teach the contrary and Christ sheweth that before the destruction of Ierusalem there shall be signes from heaven in the Sun Moon and Starres and Sea which Iosephus confirmes Obsequeus tells us That at Rome was extraordinary thundring immediatly before Catilines conspircy the like was before the Pharsalick battel as the Roman Stories inform us in which also we find that before the invasion of Italy by the Goths under Alaricus by the Huns under Attila and by the Lombards there was more then usuall thundring and lightning presaging the calamities that were to fall on that Countrey And this very houre that I am writing this discourse Aug. 23. anno 1651. I observe that it hath continued thundring and lightning almost 14 hours with some short interruptions whereas usually thunder lasteth not above an houre or two By which I fear me God is forwarning this Land of the horrible bloodshed and calamities which are suddenly like to fall out among us which we beseech God in his mercy to avert and to give us all repenting and relenting hearts IV. That sneezing or sternutation was superstitiously abused by the Centiles in divination is manifest by their writings who used to fore-tell good or bad events by sneezing they held that propitious which was in the afternoon and towards the right hand but to sneeze in the morning or towards the left hand was counted unlucky as Aristotle sheweth So superstitious they were that if they sneezed whilst they were rising in the morning they would to bed again and if any sneezed at Table whilst the meat was taking away they would set down the meat again If the Generall of an Army did sneeze when he was going to fight he would forbeare fighting that day such an ominous thing they held sneezing to be On the other side at Monopotama sternutation was of such high esteem that when the King sneezed all the people would fall down and worship him and proclamations were sent abroad to give notice to all the Kings subjects of his sneezing to the end they might rejoyce and worship Among the rest of the Gentiles ridiculous opinions this was one That Prometheus was the first that wisht wel to the sneezer when the man which he had made of clay sell into a fit of Sternutation upon the approach of that celestiall fire which he stole from the Sun This gave originall to that custome among the Gentiles in saluting the sneezer They used also to worship the head in sternutation as being a divine part and seat of the senses and cogitation They held also sternutation one of their gods because their chiefest soothsayings and divination was by Birds hence sternutation was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bird by them by reason it is the action of the brain which is