of orbes: but then between the sphere of Saturne and the Firmament, there is such an incredible and vast space or distance (7000000. semidiameters of the earth, as Tycho calculates) void of stars: And besides, they do so inhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to salve those ordinary objections of Parallaxes and Retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alteration of the Poles, elevation in severall places or latitude of Cities here on earth (for, say they, if a man's eye were in the Firmament, he should not at all discern that great annuall motion of the earth, but it would still appear punctum indivisibile, and seem to be fixed in one place, of the same bigness) that it is quite opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and all out as absurd as disproportiall (so some will) as prodigious, as that of the Sun's swift motion of Heavens. But hoc posito, to grant this their tenent of the earth's motion: If the earth move, it is a Planet, and shines to them in the Moon, and to the other Planetary inhabitants, as the Moon and they do to us upon the earth: but shine she doth, as Galilie, Kepler, and others prove, and then per consequens, the rest of the Planets are inhabited, as well as the Moon, which he grants in his dissertation with Galilie's Nuncius Sidereus, "" that there be Joviall and Saturn Inhabitants," &c. and those severall Planets have their severall Moons about them, as the earth hath her's, as Galileus hath already evinced by his glasses: * four about Jupiter, two about Saturne (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Jul. Cæsar le Galla cavill at it) yet Kepler, the Emperour's Mathematician, confirmes out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, and more about Mars, Venus; and the rest they hope to find out, peradventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred. Then (I say) the earth and they be Planets alike, inhabited alike, moved about the Sun, the common Center of the World alike, and it may be those two green children which + Nubrigensis speakes of in his time, that fell from Heaven, came from thence; and that famous stone that fell from Heaven in Aristotle's time, olymp. 84. anno tertio, ad Capuce Fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, or An

Which may be full of Planets, perhaps, to us unseen, as those about Jupi. ter, &c. Luna circumterrestris Planeta quum sit, consentaneum est esse in Lunâ viventes creaturas, et singulis Planetaru globis sui serviunt circulatores, ex qua consideratione, de eoru incolis summâ probabilitate concludimus, quod et Tychoni Brahco, è solâ consideratione vastitatis eorum visum fuit. Kepl, dissert. cum nun. syd. f. 29. Temperare non possi quin ex invetis tuis hoc moneã, veri non absimile, non tam in Lunâ, sed etiã in Jove, et reliquis Planetis incolas esse. Kepl. fo. 26. Si non sint accolæ in Jovis globo, qui notent admiranda hanc varietatem oculis, cui bono quatuor illi Planetæ Jovem circumcursitant? *Some of those above Jupiter I have seen my self by the help of a glass 8 foot long. + Rerum Angl. 1.1. c. 27. de viridibus pueris.

cile or buckler in Numa's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in their ages, there be infinite Worlds, and infinite earths or systemes, in infinito ethere, which Eusebius collects out of their tenents, because infinite stars and planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and publikely defend, sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in æternitate per ambulationem, &c. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis philos. Epicur.) For if the Firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernicall Giants will have it, infinitum, aut infinito proximum, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some neerer, some farther off, and so far asunder, and those so huge and great, insomuch, that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, totum aggregatum (as Fromundus of Lovain in his tract. de immobilitate terræ argues) evehatur inter stellas, videri à nobis non poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter tellurem & fixas, sed instar puncti, &c. If our world be small in respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars visible in the Firmament to be so many Suns, with particular fixt Centers; to have likewise their subordinate planets, as the Sun hath his dancing still round him? which Cardinall Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have held, and some still maintain, Anima Aristotelismo innutritæ, & minutis speculationibus assueta, secus forsan, &c. Though they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so per consequens, there are infinite habitable worlds: what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite effects? as Nic. Hill Democrit. philos. disputes: Kepler (I confess) will by no means admit of Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many Suns, with their compassing planets, yet the said Kepler betwixt jest and earnest in his perspectives, Lunar Geography, & somnio suo, dissertat. cum nunc. syder. seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict; For the Planets, he yeelds them to be inhabited, he doubts of the Stars: and so doth Tycho in his Astronomicall Epistles, out of a consideration of their vastity and greatness, break out into some such like speeches, that he will never beleeve those great and huge bodies were made to no other use

Infiniti alii mundi, vel ut Brunus, terræ huic nostræ similes. Cont. philos. cap. 29.

* Libro

Kepler fol. 2. dissert. Quid impedit quin credamus ex his initiis, plures alios mundos de:egendos, vel (ut Democrito placuit) infialtos? Lege somnium Kepleri edit. 1635.

than

than this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect of the whole. But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, Earths, Worlds, "if they be inhabited? rationall creatures?" as Kepler demands, "or have they souls to be saved? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? Are we or they Lords of the world? And how are all things made for man?" Difficile est nodum hunc expedire, eò quod nondum omnia quæ huc pertinent explorata habemus: 'tis hard to determin, this only he proves, that we are in præcipuo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world, neerest the heart of the Sun. Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian Monk, in his second book de sensu rerum, cap. 4. subscribes to this of Keplerus; that they are inhabited he certainly supposeth, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means: and that there are infinite worlds, having made an Apologie for Galileus, and dedicates this tenent of his to Cardinall Cajetanus. Others freely speak, mutter, and would perswade the world (as Marinus Marcenus complaines) that our modern Divines are too severe and rigid against Mathematicians; ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations and certain observations, that they tyrannize over art, science, and all philosophy, in suppressing their labours (saith Pomponatius), forbidding them to write, to speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their profits sake. As for those places of Scripture which oppugne it, they will have spoken ad captum vulgi, and if rightly understood, and favorably interpreted, not at all against it: and as Otho Casman Astrol. cap. 1. part. 1. notes, many great Divines, besides Porphyrius, Proclus, Simplicius, and those Heathen Philosophers, doctrina & ætate venerandi, Mosis Genesin mundanam popularis nescio cujus ruditatis, que longa absit à vera Philosophorum eruditione, insimulant: For Moses makes mention but of two Planets, O and

. no 4. elements, &c. Reade more in him, in Grossius and Junius. But to proceed, these and such like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious Paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, if it once be granted, which Rotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Diggeus, Origanus, Galileus, and others maintain of the earth's motion, that 'tis a Planet, and shines as the Moon doth,

Quid igitur inquies, si sint in celo plures globi, similes nostræ telluris, an cum illis certabimus, quis meliorein mundi plagam teneat? Si nobiliores illo. rum globi, nos non sumus crea ur rum rationalium nobilissimi: quomodo igitur omnia proper hominem? quomodo nos domini operum De? Kepler. fol. 29. Francofort. quarto 1620. ibid. 40. 1622. * Præfat. in Comment. in Genesin. Modo suadent Theologos, summâ ignoratione versari, veras scientias admittere nolle, et tyrannidem exercere, ut eos falsis dogmatibus, superstitionibus, et rcligione Catholicâ detineant.

Theat. Biblico.

which containes in it "* both land and sea as the Moon doth:" for so they find by their glasses that Macule in facie Lunæ, "the brighter parts are Earth, the duskie Sea," which Thales, Plutarch, and Pythagoras formerly taught: and manifestly discern Hills and Dales, and such like concavities, if we may subscribe to and beleeve Galilie's observations. But to avoid these Paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately 'condemned as hereticall, as appears by Blancanus and Fromundus writings) our latter Mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the World, out of their own Dedalæan heads. Fracastorius will have the earth stand still, as before; and to avoid that supposition of Eccentricks and Epicycles, he hath coined 72. Homocentricks, to solve all appearances. Nicholas Ramerus will have the earth the Center of the World, but moveable, and the eighth sphere immoveable, the five upper Planets to move about the Sun, the Sun and Moon about the earth. Of which Orbes Tycho Brahe puts the earth the Center immoveable, the stars immoveable, the rest with Ramerus, the Planets without Orbes to wander in the Aire, keep time and distance, true motion, according to that vertue which God hath given them. "Helisæus Roslin censureth both, with Copernicus (whose Hypothesis de terræ motu, Philippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated, and demonstrated with solid arguments in a just volume, Jansonius Cæsius + hath illustrated in a sphere.) The said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633. hath since defended his assertion against all the cavills and calumnies of Fromundus his Anti-Aristarchus, Baptista Morinus, and Petrus Bartholinus: Fromundus, 1634. hath written against him again, J. Rosseus of Aberdine, &c. (sound Drummes and Trumpets) whilest Roeslin (I say) censures all, and Ptolomeus himself as unsufficient: one offends against natural Philosophy, another against Optick principles, a third against Mathemati call, as not answering to Astronomicall observations: one puts a great space betwixt Saturnus Orbe and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis he makes the earth as before, the universall Center, the Sun to the five upper Planets, to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnall motion, Eccentricks, and Epicycles to the seven Planets, which hath been formerly exploded, and so

"Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt,"

*His argumentis plane satisfecisti, do maculas in Lunâ esse maria, do lucidas partes esse terram. Kepler. fol. 16.

mundo. Edit. 1597.

Lugduni 1633.

Anno 1616.

In Hypothes. de

as

as a Tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reformes some, and marres all. In the mean time, the World is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoyse the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and goe at their pleasures: One saith the Sun stands, another he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he findes certain spots and clouds in the Sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith Keplerus) a thing seen a thousand times bigger in plano, and makes it come 32. times neerer to the eye of the beholder: but see the demonstration of this glass in * Tarde, by means of which, the Sun must turn round upon his own Center, or they about the Sun. Fabritius puts onely three, and those in the Sun: Apelles 15. and those without the Sun, floating like the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine Sea. Tarde the Frenchman hath observed 33. and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileus Epist. ad Velserum supposeth, but Planets Concentrick with the Sun, and not far from him with regular motions. + Christopher Shemer a German Suisser Jesuit, Ursica Rosá, divides them in maculas & faculas, and will have them to be fixed in Solis superficie: and to absolve their periodicall and regular motion in 27. or 28. dayes, holding withall the rotation of the Sun upon his Center; and all are so confident, that they have made skemes and tables of their motions. The Hol lander in his dissertatiunculá cum Apelle censures all; and thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcileable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolomeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Ticho, thus Ramerus, thus Roeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c. with their followers, vary and determine of these celestiall orbs and bodies; and so whilest these men contend about the Sun and Moon, like the Philosophers in Lucian, it is to be feared, the Sun and Moon will hide themselves, and be as much offended as I shee was with those, and send another message to Jupiter, by some new fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all those curious Controversies, and scatter them abroad.

But why should the Sun and Moon be angry, or take exceptions at Mathematicians and Philosophers? when as the like measure is offered unto God himself, by a company of Theolo

* In Burboniis syderibus.

Jo. Fabritius de maculis in sole Witeb 1611. Lib. de Burboniis syd. Stellæ sunt erraticæ, quæ propriis orbibus feruntur, non longè a Sole dissitis, sed juxta Solem. + Braccini fol. 1630. lib. 4. cap. 52. 55. 59. &c. Lugdun. Bat. An. 1612. Ne se subducant, & relicta statione decessum parent, ut curiositatis finem faciant.

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