Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	air_n	fire_n	water_n	32,759	5	7.2266	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93684	Rules to get children by with handsome faces: or, Precepts for the extemporary sectaries which preach, and pray, and get children without book to consider and look on, before they leape. That so, their children may not have such strange, prodigious, ill-bodeing faces as their fathers, who (unhappily) became so ill-phisnomied themselves, not only by being born before their conversion, by originall sin, and by being crost over the face in babtisme; but by the lineall ignorance of their parents too in these presepts, for begetting children of ingenuous features and symmetrious limbes. / Composed by George Spinola.	Spinola, George.	1642 (1642)	Wing S4983; Thomason E238_11; ESTC R4088	6,676	8

RVLES TO GET CHILDREN BY WITH HANDSOME FACES OR Precepts for the Extemporary Sectaries which Preach and Pray and get Children without Book to consider and look on before they leape THAT SO Their Children may not have such strange prodigious ill-bodeing Faces as their Fathers who unhappily became so ill-phisnomied themselves not only by being born before their conversion by Originall Sin and by being Crost over the Face in Babtisme but by the lineall ignorance of their Parents too in these Precepts fot begetting Children of Ingenuous Fea tures and Symmetrious Limbes Composed by George Spinola LONDON Printed for R H 1642. Rules to get CHILDREN by with handsome Faces NAture the Vicegerent of God seems now to be grown old and in such a decrepit dotage that she is disinabled to bring forth things so accurate and perfect as she was wont when she was young and lusty and her veines fill'd with prolifique Spirit not yet dispenc'd to the generition of so many Millions of severall things The Sunne it selfe is observed by moderne Men to have sunke two degrees neerer to the Earth then it was in Ptolomies time and if that glorious body of the Sunne be not exempted from diminutions by time we may well suspect that the whole Frame and Systeme of Nature is hamstringd and lame and that shee her selfe goes now upon her crutches The fire which once as the Ancient Aegyptians and Greeks tell us brought forth many Creatures as the Salamander the Pyrausta and others is now grown quite fruitlesse and barren The Ayre doth not now bestow a cherishing and vitall incubation upon the Earth and Water as sometimes it did and to say all in a Word in comparison of former influence and foecundity the Heaven is become Brasse and the Earth Iron Neither is this decay and dampe of Nature obserueable in the Systeme of the greater World alone but more eminently in the Microcosme or lesser World of Man which is a little transcript of the great Universe Do but summe up the age of Man now adaies then observe his petit diminutive Stature and you will presently say That Man is but the Creature of a Day that he is become a Pigmey now and that Nature hath spent all her soveraign Balme which sometimes maintain'd him in a kind of perfect lasting and setled beauty Since such an insufficiency of Nature in the ●eeming of all her Births and especially of Man is manifest I thought it not unworthy of a Phylosopher to inquire the Reasons why Nature in this age of the World failes so much in the Generation of Man and ●o to discover some Artificiall Rules to help and relieve her failings in the bodies of Men to make Posterity beholding to m● for their better Faces But I confesse in all my observations of the Phisnomies of Men I have not found such strange exotick forrain ridiculous deformities and non-conformities of parts in the Faces and Limbs of any kinde of Men as in those which at this day are familiarly called the Sectaries and Seperatists and therefore I direct this discourse of Face-mending to those invisible Christians of Knock-verjuce-lane and other obscure places They above all others seem'd to me to have the fairest plea title and claime to such a discourse First because the mistakes of Nature are not so praeposterous ridiculous and enormous in the Faces of any kind or order of Men as in theirs and their Childrens Secondly because some of the best Rules of Facemending here proposed doe worke primarily by the strength and force of Imagination in which kind of Imagination they are known to have a greater share then of Reason and a cleare intellectuall minde Now least any Man should thinke I offer at a thing impossible when I promise Rules to get Children with handsome Faces First I will shew you that some Christian Philosophers upon their honour have affirm'd that it is possible by Rules of Art reduc'd to practise not only to mend but to raise even out of Dust the bodies of many vegetables and sensitive Creatures which bids higher for the improvement of Nature then my discourse of Rules Secondly I will lay the Basis and foundation of my Rules in the Scripture it selfe that the Brownist if he be true to his own positions may not suspect me for a humane Traditioner but apply himselfe forthwith to beget good Faces by the Text. It is reported of Rhasis the Arabian and Albertus Magnus and themselves in their writings intimate the same that they did generate and produce by Art Homunculos quosdam certain little men in stature puppet-like but with all the Organs of a perfect man born by the ordinary course of Nature Paracelsus of whom the judicious Erasmus of Roterdam saies ●ulta invenit divinitus he found out many things by Divine inspiration con●esseth boldly that he receiv'd that secret of producing little men by Art from God himselfe and sets down the way of proceeding artificially to that purpose in his first Book of the Nature of things The bold experiments of these Philosophers excuse me for daring only but so high as to prescribe Rules to beget good and Orthodox Faces especially since my way of proceeding takes it rise from Scripture and common experience of observing men And now I fall upon that part of naturall and most lawfull Magick by which the Generation of Man may be perfected and enobled 1 Rule It is known to all sober and discreet men That all sensitive Creatures and such are Men especially when they close with Women do Impresse into the thing begot that very affection which prevailes and presides in them in or about the time of Generation And this is confirmed by the practise of the Patriarch Ja●ob Gen. 30. 37. And Jacob tooke him Rods of green Poplar and of the ●asell and Ches●ut-trce and pilled white strakes in them and made the White appeare which was in the Rods. And he set the Rods which he had pil'd before the Flo●ks in the Gutters in the watring-troughes when the Flocks came to drink that they should conceive when they ●ame to drink And the Flo●ks conceiv'd before the Rods and brought forth Cattel ri●gstraked speckled and spotted c. The whole Story proves not only the lawfulnesse of this kind of Naturall Magick to better the Generation of Beasts much more of Men but the use and certain effect of Impressions taken from externall objects In Mesopotamia and Syria where this Patriarch was Shepheard the heat of the weather is excessive the Waters but ●ew and those for the most part in little purles therefore when the Flocks came to the water wherein the Rod● were laid and look'd upon them in the Water to which they had an e●ger appetite they did as it were with their eies draw in and drink the sh●pes of those Rods lov'd and desir'd by them even in that love and desire of the Water and so generated conceived and teem'd t●ose speckled births And no doubt but an Artifici●ll and