Spirat florifer annus odores Aestas Cererem fervida siccat Remeat pomis gravis autumnus Hyemem defluus irrigat imber Haec temperies alit profert Quicquid vitam spirat in orbe Eadem rapiens condit aufert Obitu meâ—…gens orta supremo The concord tempers equally Contrary Elements That moist things yeeld vnto the dry And heat with cold consents Hence fire to highest place doth flie And Earth doth downward bend And flowrie Spring perpetually Sweet odours forth doth send Hote Summer harvest giues and store Of fruit Autumnus yeelds And showres which down from Heau'n doe powre Each Winter drowne the fields What euer in the world doth breath This temper forth hath brought And nourished the same by death Againe it brings to nought Among the subcoelestiall bodies following Natures methode I will first begin with the consideration of the Elements the most simple and vniversall of them all as being the Ingredients of all mixt bodies either in whole or in part and into which the mixt are finally resolued again are again by turnes remade of them the common matter of them all still abiding the same Heere 's nothing constant nothing still doth stay For birth and death haue still successiue sway Here one thing springs not till another dye Onely the matter liues immortally Th'Almightie's table body of this All Of changefull chances common Arcenall All like it selfe all in it selfe contained Which by times flight hath neither lost nor gained Changelesse in essence changeable in face Much more then Proteus or the subtill race Of roving Polypes who to rob the more Transforme them hourely on the wauing shore Much like the French or like our selues their apes Who with strange habit doe disguise their shapes Who louing novels full of affectation Receiue the manners of each other Nation By consent of Antiquity they are in number foure the Fire the Aire the Water and the Earth Quatuor aeternus genitalia corpora mundus Continet ex illis duo sunt onerosa suoque Pondere in inferius tellus atque vnda feruntur Et totidem gravitate carent nulloque premente Alta petunt aer atque aere purior ignis Quae quamquam spatio distant tamen omnia fiunt Et ipsis in ipsa cadunt Foure bodies primitiue the world still containes Of which two downeward bend the earth and watery plaines As many weight doe want and nothing forcing higher They mount th' aire and purer streames of fire Which though they distant bee yet all things from them take Their birth and into them their last returnes doe make Three of them shew themselues manifestly in mixt the butter beeing the Aieriall part thereof the whey the watery and the cheese the earthly but all foure in the burning of greene wood the flame being fire the smoke the aire the liquor distilling at the ends the water and the ashes the earth Philosophy likewise by reason teaches and proues the same from their motion vpward and downeward from their second qualities of lightnes and heauines and from their first qualities either actiue as heat and cold or passiue as dry and moist For as their motion proceeds from their second qualities so doe their second from the first their first from the heauenly bodies next to which as being the noblest of them all as well in puritie as activity is seated the Element of the fire though many of the Ancients and some latter writers as namely Cardane among the rest seeme to make a doubt of it Ignis ad aethereas volucer se sustulit aur as Summaque complexus stellantis culmina Coeli Flammarum vallo naturae moenia fecit The fire eftsoones vp towards heaven did stie And compassing the starrie world advanced A wall of flames to safeguard nature by Next the fire is seated the aire divided into three regions next the aire the water and next the water the earth Who so sometime hath seene rich Ingots tride When forc't by fire their treasure they devide How faire and softly gold to gold doth passe Silver seekes silver brasse consorts with brasse And the whole lumpe of parts vnequall severs It selfe apart in white red yellow rivers May vnderstand how when the mouth divine Op'ned to each his proper place t'assigne Fire flew to fire water to water slid Aire clung to aire and earth with earth abid The vaile both of the Tabernacle and Temple were made of blew and purple and scarlet or crimson and fine twisted linnen by which foure as Iosephus noteth were represented the foure elements his wordes are these Velum hoc erat Babylonium variegatum ex hyaâ—…intho bysso coccoque purpura mirabiliter elaboratum non indignam contemplatione materiae commistionem habens sed velut omnium imaginem praeferens Cocco enim videbatur ignem imitari bysso terram hyacintho aerem ac mare purpura partim quidem coloribus bysso autem purpura origine bysso quidem quia de terra mare autem purpuram gignit The vaile was Babylonish worke most artificially imbrodered with blue and fine linnen and scarlet and purple hauing in it a mixture of things not vnworthy our consideration but carrying a kinde of resemblance of the Vniversall for by the scarlet seemed the fire to be represented by the linnen the earth by the blew the aire and by the purple the sea partly by reason of the colours of scarlet and blue and partly by reason of the originall of linnen and purple the one comming from the earth the other from the sea And S. Hierome in his epistle to Fabiola hath the very same conceite borrowed as it seemes from Iosephus or from Philo who hath much to like purpose in his third booke of the life of Moses or it may be from that in the eighteenth of the booke of Wisedome In the long robe was the whole world As not only the vulgar lattin and Arias Montanus but out of them and the Greeke originall our last English Translation reades it The fire is dry and hot the aire hot and moist the water moist and cold the earth cold and dry thus are they linked and thus embrace they one another with their symbolizing qualities the earth being linked to the water by coldnes the water to the aire by moistnes the aire to the fire by warmth the fire to the earth by drought which are all the combinations of the qualities that possiblely can bee hot cold as also dry and moist in the highest degrees beeing altogether incompatible in the same subject And though the earth the fire bee most opposite in distance in substance in activity yet they agree in one quality the two middle being therein directly contrary to the two extreames aire to earth and water to fire Water as arm'd with moisture and with cold The cold-dry earth with her one hand doth hold With th' other th' aire The aire as moist and warme Holds fire
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
the body of him that should bee slaine None of the people might crye skrecke make any noice or giue any signe whatsoeuer And heerevnto at Hall in Suevia a place appointed for Campfight was so great regard taken that the Executioner stood beside the Iudges with an axe ready to cut off the right hand and left foot of the party so offending He that being wounded did yeeld himselfe was at the mercy of the other to be killed or let to liue if hee were slaine then was he carried away and honourably buried and hee that slew him reputed more honorable then before But if beeing ouercome he were left aliue then was hee by sentence of the Iudges declared vtterly voide of all honest reputation and neuer to ride on horsbacke nor to carry armes The tryall by red hot iron called Fire-Ordeall was vsed vpon accusations without manifest proofe though not without suspition that the accused might be faulty the party accused and denying the offence was adjudged to take red hot iron to hold it in his bare hand which after many prayers and invocations that the truth might be manifest hee must either adventure to doe or yeeld himselfe guilty and so receiue the punishment that the Law according to the offence committed should award him Some were adjudged to goe blinde-folded with their bare feete ouer certaine plow-shares which were made red hot laid a little distance one from another and if the party in passing thorow them did chaunce not to tread vpon them or treading vpon them receiued no harme then by the Iudge he was declared innocent And this kind of tryall was also practised here in England as was likewise the Camp-fight for a while vpon Emma the mother of K. Edward the Confessour who was accused of dishonesty of her body with Allwin B. of Winchester and being led blind-folded to the place where nine hot Culters were laid went forward with her bare feet and so passed ouer them and being past them all not knowing it good Lord said shee when shall I come to the place of my purgation then hauing her eyes vncovered and seeing her selfe to baue passed them she kneeling down gaue God thankes for manifesting her innocencie in her preservation in memoriall thereof gaue nine Lordships to the Church of Winchester and King Edward her sonne repenting he had so wrongfully brought his Mothers name into question bestowed likewise vpon the same Church the I le of Portland with other revenewes A much like tryall vnto this is recorded of Kunigund wife to the Emperour Henry the second who being falsely accused of adultery to shew her innocency did in a great honourable assembly take seaven glowen irons one after another in her bare hands had thereby no harme The tryall called Hot water Ordeall was in cases of accusation as is afore sayd the party accused being appointed by the Iudge to thrust his armes vp to the elbowes in seething hot water which after sundry prayers and invocations he did and was by the effect that followed judged faulty or faultles Lastly cold water Ordeall was the tryall which was ordinarily vsed for the common sort of people who hauing a cord tied about them vnder their armes were cast into some riuer and if they sunke down to the botttome thereof vntill they were drawne vp which was within a very short limited space then were they held guiltlesse but such as did remaine vpon the water were held culpable being as they sayd of the water rejected cast vp These kindes of impious vniust lawes the Saxons for a while after their Christianity continued but were at last by a decree of Pope Stephen the second vtterly abolished as being a presumptuous tempting of God without any grounded reason or sufficient warrant and an exposing many times of the innocent to manifest hazard CAP. 3. Touching the insufficiencie of the precepts of the Ancient Philosophers for the planting of vertue or the rooting out of vice as also of the common errour touching the golden age SECT 1. Touching the insufficiencie of the precepts of the ancient Philosophers for the planting of vertue and the rooting out of vice as also of the manners of the Ancients observed by Caelius secundus Curio out of Iuvenall and Tacitus TO these lawes of the Graecians and Germans may be added the opinions precepts of the Ancient Philosophers touching vertue and vice finall happinesse and the state of the soule after this life which were as diverse one to another as they were all erronious and opposite to the truth the growth of vertue or suppressing of vice What could possiblely ◅ore hinder the course of vertue then the doctrine of the Epicureans that soueraigne happinesse consisted in pleasure or more strengthen the current of vice then that of the Stoicks that all sins were equall The Epicureans though they graunted a God yet they denyed his prouidence which should serue as a spurre to vertue and a bridle to vice The Stoickes though they graunted a diuine providence yet withall they stiffely maintained such a fatall Necessity not only in the events of humane actions but in the actions themselues as thereby they blunted the edge of all vertuous endeauours and made an excuse for vicious courses Againe the Epicurean gaue too much way to irregular affections and on the other side the Stoicke was too professed an enimy to them though regulated by reason but both of them doubted if not denyed the immortality of the soule whereby they opened a wide gappe to all licentiousnesse not censureable by the lawes of man or which the executioners whereof either thorow ignorance could not or thorow feare or fauour would not take notice of Which hath often made mee wonder that the common-wealth of the Iewes would suffer such a pestilent sect in the bowels of it as the Sadduces who flatly denyed not only the resurrection of the body but the immortality of the soule Since then the Christian religion and that alone teacheth both as fundamentall articles of our beleife and withall a particular providence of God extending to the very thoughts and a particular judgement after this life rewarding every man according to that he hath done in the flesh whether it be good or euill and besides requires a reformation of the heart inward man the fountaine source of all outward actions speeches it is most euident that howsoeuer our liues bee yet our rules tend more to vertue and honesty then did those either of the Gentiles or of the Iewes who although they were not all infected with the foule leprosie of the Sadduces yet it is certaine that these doctrines and rules were not in the law of Moses the Prophets so cleerely deliuered as now they are by Christ his Apostles in the Gospell nay the law it selfe permitted vnto thē such a diuorce though for the hardnes of their hearts as is not now allowed And though the Law allowed not
ingenia despicio neque enim quasi lassa aut effaeta natura vt nihil jam laudabile pariat I am one of the number of those who admire the ancients yet not as some doe I despise the wits of our times as if Nature were tired and barren and brought forth nothing now that were praise-worthy To which passage of Pliny Viues seemes to allude male de natura censet quicunque vno illam aut altero partu effaetam arbitratur hee that so thinkes or sayes is doubtles injurious and ingratefull both to God and nature And qui non est gratus datis non est dignus dandis hee that doth not acknowledge the peculiar and singular blessings of God bestowed vpon this present age in some things beyond the former is so farre from meriting the increase of more as hee deserues not to enjoy these And commonly it falls out that there the course and descent of the graces of God ceases and the spring is dried vp where there is not a corespondent recourse and tide of our thankfullnes Let then men suspend their rash judgoments nec perseverent suspicere preteritos despicere presentes onely to admire the ancients and despise those of the present times Let them rather imitate Lampridius the Oratour of whom witnesseth the same Sydonius that he read good Authours of all kindes cum reverentia antiquos sine invidia recentes the old with reverence the new without envy I will conclude this point and this chapter with that of Solomon Hee hath made every thing beautifull in his time answereable wherevnto is that of the sonne of Syrach which may well serue as a Commentary vpon those workes of Solomon All the workes of the Lord are good and hee will giue every needfull thing in due season so that a man cannot say this is worse then that therefore prayse ye◅ the Lord with the whole heart and mouth and blesse the name of the Lord. CAP. 3. The Controversy touching the worlds decay stated and the methode held thorow this ensuing Treatise proposed SECT 1. Touching the pretended decay of the mixt bodies LEast I should seeme on the one side to sight with shaddowes and men of straw made by my selfe or on the other to maintaine paradoxes which daily experience refutes it shall not bee amisse in this Chapter to vnbowell the state of the question touching the Worlds decay and therewithall to vnfold and lay open the severall knots and joynts thereof that so it may appeare wherein the adverse party agrees and wherein the poynt controverted consists where they joyne issue and where the difference rests It is then agreed on all hands that all subcoelestiall bodies indiuidualls I meane vnder the circle of the moone are subiect not onely to alteration but to diminution and decay some I confesse last long as the Eagle and Rauen among birds the Elephant and Stagge among beasts the Oake among Vegetables stones and mettalls among those treasures which Nature hath laid vp in the bosome of the earth yet they all haue a time of groweth and increase of ripenesse and perfection and then of declination and decrease which brings them at last to a finall and totall dissolution Beasts are subject to diseases or at least to the spending of those naturall spirits wherewith their life and being as the Lampe with oile is mainetai ned Vegetables to rottennesse stones to mouldering and mettalls to rust and canker though I doubt not but some haue layen in the bowells of the earth vntainted since the worlds Creation and may continue in the same case till the Consummation thereof Which neede not seeme strange since some of the Aegyptian Pyramides stones drawne from their naturall beds and fortresses and exposed to the invasion of the aire and violence of the weather haue stood already well nigh three thousand yeares and might for ought wee know stand yet as long againe And I make no question but glasse and gold and christall and pearle and pretious stones might so be vsed that they should last many thousand yeares if the world should last so long For that which Poets faine of time that it eates out and devoures all things is in truth but a poeticall fiction since time is a branch of Quantity it being the measure of motion and Quantity in it selfe isno way actiue but meerely passiue as being an accident flowing from the matter It is then either some inward conflict or outward assault which is wrought in time that eates them out Time it selfe without these is toothlesse and can neuer doe it Nay euen among Vegetables it is reported by M. Camden that whole trees lying vnder the Earth haue beene and daylie are digged vp in Cheshire Lancheshire Cumberland which are thought to haue layen there since Noahs floud And Verstigan reports the like of finre trees digged vp in the Netherlands which are not knowne to grow any where in that Countrey neither is the soyle apt by nature to produce them they growing in cold hillie places or vpon high mountaines so that it is most likely they might from those places during the deluge by the rage of the waters be driuen thither Yet all these consisting of the Elements as they doe I make no doubt but without any outward violence in the course of nature by the very inward conflict of their principles whereof they are bred would by degrees though perchance for a long time insensibly yet at last feele corruption For a Body so equally tempered or euenly ballanced by the Elements that there should be no praedominancie no struggling or wrastling in it may be imagined but surely I thinke was neuer really subsisting in Nature nor well can be SECT 2. Touching the pretended decay of the Elements in regard of their quantity and dimensions I Come then in the next place from the mixt Bodies to the Elements themselues wbereof they are mixed Of these it is certaine that they decay in their parts but so as by a reciprocall compensation they both loose and gaine sometime loosing what they had gotten and then again getting what they had formerly lost Egregia quaedam est in elementis quaternarum virium compensatio aequalibus iustisque regulis ac terminis vices suas dispensantium saith Philo in his book de Mundi incorruptibilitate there is in the Elements a singular retribution of that foure-fold force that is in them dispensing it selfe by euen bounds and just rules The Element of the fire I make no doubt but by condensation it sometimes looses to the aire the aire againe by rarefaction to it Again the aire by condensation looses to the water the water by rarefaction to it The earth by secret conveyances sucks in steales away the waters of the Sea but returns them againe with full mouth And these two incroach likewise make inrodes interchangeably each vpō other The ordinary depth of the sea is cōmonly answerable to the ordinary hight of the
water falls the downe By overflowes is chang'd to champaine land Dry ground erewhile now moorish fen doth drowne And fens againe are turn'd to thirsty sand Here fountaines new hath nature opened There shut vp springs which earst did flow amaine By earthquakes rivers oft haue issued Or dryed vp they haue sunke downe againe The Poet there bringes instances in both these And to like purpose is that of Pontanus Sed nec perpetuae sedes sunt fontibus vllae Aeterni aut manant cursus mutantur in aeuum Singula inceptum alternat natura tenorem Quodque dies antiqua tulit post auferet ipsa Fountaines spring not eternally Nor in one place perpetually do tary All things in every age for evermore do vary And nature changeth still the course she once begun And will herselfe vndoe what she of old hath done which though it be true in many yet those great ones as Indus and Ganges and Danubius and the Rhene Nilus are little or nothing varied from the same courses and currents which they held thousands of yeares since as appeares in their descriptions by the ancient Geographers But aboue all meethinkes the constant rising of Nilus continued for so many ages is one of the greatest wonders in the world which is so precise in regard of time that if you take of the earth adjoyning to the river and preserue it carefully that it come neither to be wet nor wasted and weigh it dayly you shall finde it neither more nor lesse heavy till the seventeenth of Iune at which day it begineth to groweth more ponderous and augmenteth with the augmentation of the river whereby they haue an infallible knowledge of the state of the deluge Now for the Medicinall properties of Fountaine or Bathes no man I thinke makes any doubt but that they are both as many and as efficacious as ever some it may be haue lost their vertue and are growne out of vse but others againe haue in stead thereof beene discovered in other places of no lesse vse and vertue as both Baccius Blanchellus in their bookes de Thermis haue observed And for those hot ones at the citty of Bath I make no question but Nechams verses may as justly be verified of their goodnesse at this present as they were fower hundred yeares since about which time he is sayd to haue written them Bathoniae Tharmas vix prefero Virgilianas Confecto prosunt Balnea nostra seni Prosunt attritis collisis invalidisque Et quorum morbis frigida causa subest Our Baines at Bath with Virgills to compare For their effects I dare almost be bold For feeble folke and crazie good they are For brus'd consum'd farre spent and very old For those likewise whose sicknesse comes of cold SECT 2. That the fishes are not decayed in regard of there store dimensions or duration BUt it is sayd that though the waters decay not yet the fish the inhabitants thereof at leastwise in regard of their number are much decayed so as wee may take vp that of the Poet. Omne peractum est Et iam defecit nostrum mare All our Seas at length are spent and faile The Seas being growne fruitlesse and barren as is pretended in regard of former ages that so it appeares vpon record in our Hauen townes But if such a thing be which I can neither affirme nor deny hauing not searched into it my selfe themselues who make the objection shape a sufficient answere therevnto by telling vs that it may so be by an extraordinary judgment of God as he dealt with the Egyptians in the death of our fish for the abuse of our flesh-pots or by the intrusion of the Hollander who carries from our coast such store as we might much better loade our selues with and if we should a little enlarge our view cast our eyes abroad comparing one part of the world with another we shall easily discerne that though our Coast faile in that abundance which formerly it had by ouer-laying it yet others still abound in a most plentifull manner as is by experience found vpon the Coast of Virginia at this present And no doubt but were our Coasts spared for some space of yeares it would againe afford as great plenty as euer Finally if the store of fish should decay by reason of the decay of the world it must of necessity follow that likewise the store of plants of beasts of birds and of men should dayly decay by vertue of the same reason Nay rather since the curse lighting vpon man extended to plants and beasts but not to fishes for any thing I finde expressely registred in holy Scripture As neither did the vniversall Deluge hurt but rather helpe them by which the rest perished There are still no doubt euen at this day as at the first Creation in the Sea to be found As many fishes of so many features That in the waters one may see all Creatures And all that in this All is to be found As if the World within the deepes were drown'd Now as the store of fishes is no way diminished so neither are they decayed either in their greatnes or goodnes I will instance in the whale the King of fishes or as Iob termes him the King ouer the children of pride That which S. Basil in his Hexameron reports namely that the whales are in bignes equall to the greatest mountaines and their backes when they shew aboue water are like vnto Ilands is by a late learned Writer not vndeservedly censured as intollerably hyperbolicall Pliny in the ninth booke and third Chap. of his Naturall history tels vs that in the Indian Seas some haue beene taken vp to the length of foure acres that is nine hundred and sixty feete whereas notwithstanding Arrianus in his discourse de rebus Indicis assures vs that Nearchus measuring one cast vpon that shore found him to be but fifty cubits The same Pliny in the first Chapter of his 32 booke sets downe a relation of King Iubaes out of those bookes which he wrote to C. Caesar son to Augustus the Emperour touching the History of Arabia where he affirmes that in the bay of Arabia Whales haue beene knowne to be 600 foot long and 360 foote thick and yet as it is well known by the soundings of Navigatours that Sea is not by a great deale 360 foot deep But to let goe these fancies and fables and to come to that which is more probable The dimensions of the Whale saith Aelian is fiue times beyond the largest Elephants but for the ordinary saith Rondeletius hee seldome exceedes 36 cubits in length and 8 in heighth Dion a graue Writer reports it as a wonder that in the reigne of Augustus a Whale lept to land out of the German Ocean full 20 foot in bredth and 60 in length This I confesse was much yet to match it with lattet times Gesner in his Epistle to Polidor Virgill avoucheth it as
with one water with th' other arme As countrie-maidens in the moneth of May Merrily sporting on a holy-day And lusty dancing of a liuely round About the May-pole by the Bag-pipes sound Hold hand in hand so that the first is fast By meanes of those betweene vnto the last But all the linkes of th' holy chaine which tethers The many members of the world togethers Are such as none but onely hee can breake them Who at the first did of meere nothing make them SECT 2. That the Elements still hold the same proportions each to other and by mutuall exchange the same dimensions in themselues THese foure then as they were from the beginning so still they remaine the radicall and fundamentall principles of all subcoelestiall bodies distinguished by their severall and ancient Situations properties actions and effects and howsoeuer after their old wont they fight and combate together beeing single yet in composition they still accord marueilous well Tu numeris elementa ligas vt frigora flammis Arida conveniant liquidis ne purior ignis Euolet aut mersas deducant pondera terras To numbers thou the elements doest tie That cold with heat may symbolize and drie With moist least purer fire should sore too high And earth through too much weight too low should lie The Creator of them hath bound them as it were to their good behaviour and made them in euery mixt body to stoope and obey one pre-dominant whose sway and conduct they willingly follow The aire being predominant in some as in oyle which alwaies swimmes on the toppe of all other liquors and the earth in others which alwaies gather as neere the Center as possiblely they can And as in these they vary not a jot from their natiue and wonted properties so neither doe they in their other conditions It is still true of them that nec gravitant nec levitant in suis locis there is no sense of their weight or lightnes in their proper places as appeares by this that a man lying in the bottome of the deepest Ocean he feeles no burden from the weight thereof The fire still serues to warme vs as it did the aire to maintaine our breathing the water to clense and refresh vs the earth to feede and support vs and which of them is most necessary for our vse is hard to determine Likewise they still hold the same proportion one toward another as formerly they haue done For howbeit the Peripatetikes pretending heerein the Authority of their Mr Aristotle tell vs that as they rise one aboue another in situation so they exceede one another proportione decupla by a tenne-fold proportion yet is this doubtles a foule errour or at least-wise a grosse mistake whether wee regard their entire bodies or their parts If their entire bodies it is certaine that the earth exceedes both the water and the aire by many degrees The depth of the waters not exceeding two or three miles for the most part not aboue halfe a mile as Marriners finde by their line and plummet whereas the diameter of the earth as Mathematicians demonstrate exceedes seven thousand miles And for the aire taking the height of it from the place of the ordinary Comets it containes by estimation about fiftie two miles as Nonius Vitellio and Allhazen shew by Geometricall proofes Whence it plainly appeares that there cannot be that proportion betwixt the intire Bodies of the Elements which is ptetended nor at any time was since their Creation And for their parts 't is as cleare by experience that out of a few drops of water may be made so much aire as shall exceed them fiuehundred or a thousand times atleast But whatsoeuer their proportion be it is certain that notwithstanding their continuall transmutation or transelementation as I may so call it of one into another yet by a mutuall retribution it still remaines the same that in former ages it hath beene as I haue already shewed more at large in a former Chapter Philo most elegantly expresseth Egregia quidem est in elementis quaternarum virium compensatio aequalibus justisque regulis ac terminis vices suas dispensantium sicut enim anni circulus quaternis vicibus distinguitur alijs partibus post alias succedentibus per ambitus eosdem vsque recurrente tempore pari modo elementa mundi vicissim sibi succedentia mutantur quod diceres incridibile dum mori videntur redduntur immortalia iterum atque iterum metiendo idem stadium sursum atque deorsum per eandem viam cursitando continuè à terra enim acclivis via incipit quae liquescens in aquam mutatur aquaporrò evaperat in aerem aer in ignem extenuatur ac declivis altera deorsum tendit à Capite igne per extinctionem subsidente in aerem aere verò in aquam se densante aquae verò liquore in terram crassescente There is in the Elements a notable compensation of their fourefold qualities dispencing themselues by euen turnes and just measures For as the circle of the yeare is distinguished by foure quarters one succeeding another the time running about by equall distances in like manner the foure Elements of the World by a reciprocall vicissitude succeed one another which a man would thinke incredible while they seeme to dye they become immortall running the same race and incessantly travailing vp and downe by the same path From the Earth the way riseth vpward it dissolving into water the water vapors forth into aire the aire is rarified into fire again they descēd down ward the same way the fire by quēching being turnedinto aire the aire thickned into water the water into earth Hitherto Philo wherein after his vsuall wont he Platonizes the same being in effect to be found in Platoes Timaeus as also in Aristotles booke de Mundo if it be his in Damascene and Gregory Nyssen And most elegantly the wittiest of Poets resolutaque tellus In liquidas rarescit aquas tenuatur in auras Aeraque humor habet dempto quoque pondere rursus In superos aer tenuissimus emicat ignes Inde retrò redeunt idemque retexitur ordo Ignis enim densum spissatus in aera transit Hinc in aquas tellus glomeratâ cogitur vndâ The Earth resolu'd is turned into streames Water to aire the purer aire to flames From thence they back returne the fiery flakes Are turn'd to aire the aire thickned takes The liquid forme of water that earth makes The foure Elements herein resembling an instrument of Musicke with foure strings which may bee tuned diverse wayes and yet the harmony still remaines sweet and so are they compared in the booke of Wisdome The Elements agreed among themselues in this change as when one tune is changed vpon an instrument of Musick and the melody still remaineth Sith then the knot of sacred marriage Which joynes the Elements from age to age Brings forth