And that he have grace, beauty, favour, health, Yet in the midst of his prosperity, let him remember that caveat of Moses, "Beware that he do not forget the Lord his God;" that he be not puffed up, but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits, and "the more he hath, to be more thankful," (as Agapetianus adviseth) and use them aright. Instrumental causes of our infirmities.] Now the instrumental causes of these our infirmities, are as diverse, as the infirmities themselves; Stars, heavens, elements, &c. And all those creatures which God hath made, are armed against sinners. They were indeed once good in themselves, and that they are now many of them pernicious unto us, is not in their nature, but our corruption, which hath caused it. For from the fall of our first parent Adam, they have been changed, the earth accursed, the influence of Stars altered, the four Elements, Beasts, Birds, Plants, are now ready to offend us. "The principall things for the use of man, are Water, Fire, Iron, Salt, Meale, Wheat, Hony, Milk, Oile, Wine, Clothing, good to the godly, to the sinners turned to evil," Ecclus. 39. 26. "Fire, and Haile, and Famine, and Dearth, all these are created for vengeance," Ecclus. 39. 29. The Heavens threaten us with their Comets, Stars, Planets, with their great conjunctions, Eclipses, Oppositions, Quartiles, and such unfriendly Aspects. The Air with his Meteors, Thunder and Lightning, intemperate heat and cold, mighty windes, tempests, unseasonable weather; from which proceed dearth, famine, plague, and all sorts of Epidemical diseases, consuming infinite myriads of men. At Cayro in Egypt, every third year, (as it is related by Boterus, and others) 300000. dye of the plague; and 200000. in Constantinople, every fift or seventh at the utmost. How doth the Earth terrifie and oppresse us with terrible Earthquakes, which are most frequent in China, Japan, and those Easterne Climes, swallowing up sometimes six Cities at once? How doth the water rage with his inundations, irruptions, flinging down Townes, Cities, Villages, Bridges, &c. besides shipwracks; whole Ilands are sometimes suddenly over-whelmed with all their inhabitants in Zeland, Holland, and many parts of the Continent drowned, as the Lake Erno in Ireland? Nihilque præter arcium ca urbium. m Quanto majoribus beneficiis a 'Deut. 8. 11, Qui stat videat ne cadat. Deo cumulatur, tanto obligatiorem se debitorem fateri. m Boterus de Inst. Lege hist. relationem Lod. Frois de rebus Japonicis ad annum 1596. • Guicciard. descript. Belg. anno 1421. Giraldus Cambrens. Janus Dousa ep. lib. 1. car, 10, davera Patenti cernimus freto. In the Fennes of Freesland 1230. by reason of tempests, the Sea drowned multa hominum millia, & jumenta sine numero, all the country almost, men and cattle in it. How doth the Fire rage, that mercilesse Element, consuming in an instant whole Cities? What towne of any antiquity or note, hath not been once, again and again, by the fury of this mercilesse element, defaced, ruinated, and left desolate? In a word, "Ignis pepercit, unda mergit, aëris Whom Fire spares, Sea doth drowne; whom Sea, Whom War 'scapes, sicknesse takes away. To descend to more particulars, how many creatures are at deadly feud with men? Lions, Wolves, Beares, &c. Some with hoofes, hornes, tuskes, teeth, nailes: How many noxious Serpents and venemous creatures, ready to offend us with stings, breath, sight, or quite kill us? How many pernicious fishes, plants, gummes, fruits, seeds, flowers, &c. could I reckon up on a sudden, which by their very smell many of them, touch, taste, cause some grievous malady, if not death itself? Some make mention of a thousand several poysons: but these are but trifles in respect. The greatest enemy to man, is man, who by the Devil's instigation is still ready to do mischief, his own executioner, a Wolfe, a Devil to himself, and others*. We are all brethren in Christ, or at least should be, members of one body, servants of one Lord, and yet no fiend can so torment, insult over, tyrannize, vex, as one man doth another. Let me not fall therefore (saith David, when wars, plague, famine were offered) into the hands of men, merciless and wicked men : -"Vix sunt homines hoc nomine digni, Quàmque lupi, sævæ plus feritatis habent." We can most part foresee these Epidemicall diseases, and likely avoid them; Dearths, tempests, plagues, our Astrologers foretel us; Earthquakes, inundations, ruins of houses, consuming fires, come by little and little, or make some noise beforehand; but the knaveries, impostures, injuries and villanies of men no art can avoid. We can keep our professed enemies from our cities, by gates, walls and towers, defend our selves Munster. 1. 3. Cos. cap. 462. lupus, homo homini dæmon. • Buchanan. Baptist. *Homo homini +Ovid de Trist. 1. 5. Eleg. 8. from from theeves and robbers by watchfulnesse and weapons; but this malice of men, and their pernicious endeavours, no caution can divert, no vigilancy foresee, We have so many secret plots and devices to mischief one another. Sometimes by the Devil's help as Magicians, Witches: sometimes by impostures, mixtures, poysons, stratagems, single combats, wars, we hack and hew, as if we were ad internecionem nati, like Cadmus souldiers borne to consume one another. 'Tis an ordinary thing to read of a hundred and two hundred thousand men slaine in a battle. Besides all manner of tortures, brasen bulls, rackes, wheeles, strappadoes, gunnes, engines, &c. Ad unum corpus humanum supplicia plura, quam membra: We have invented more torturing instruments, then there be severall members in a man's body, as Cyprian well observes. To come nearer yet, our own parents by their offences, indiscretion and intemperance, are our mortall enemies. "The Fathers have eaten sowre grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." They cause our griefe many times, and put upon us hereditary diseases, inevitable infirmities: they torment us, and we are ready to injure our posterity; "u mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem," 2 and the latter end of the world, as Paul foretold, is still like to be worst. We are thus bad by nature, bad by kinde, but farre worse by art, every man the greatest enemy unto himself. We study many times to undo ourselves, abusing those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon us, Health, Wealth, Strength, Wit, Learning, Art, Memory to our own destruction, Perditio tua ex te. As Judas Maccabeus killed Apollonius with his owne weapons, we arme our selves to our own overthrows; and use Reason, Art, Judgement, all that should help us, as so many instruments to undo us. Hector gave Ajax a sword, which so long as he fought against enemies, served for his help and defence; but after he began to hurt harmlesse creatures with it, turned to his own hurtlesse bowels. Those excellent meanes God hath bestowed on us, well imployed, cannot but much availe us; but if otherwise perverted, they ruine and confound us: and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness they commonly do, we have too many instances. This S. Austin acknowledgeth of himself in his humble confessions, "promptnesse of Wit, Memory, Eloquence, they were God's good gifts, but he did not use them to his glory." If you will particularly know how, and by a what meanes, consult Physicians, and they will tell you, that it is in offending in some of those six non-natural things, of which I shall dilate more at large; they are the causes of our infirmities, our surfetting, and drunkenness, our immoderate insatiable lust, and prodigious riot. Plures crapula, quam gladius, is a true saying, the board consumes more than the sword. Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens bold age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death. And last of all, that which crucifies us most, is our own folly, madnesse, (quos Jupiter perdit, dementat; by substraction of his assisting grace God permits it) weaknesse, want of government, our facility and pronenesse in yeelding to severall lusts, in giving way to every passion and perturbation of the minde: by which meanes we metamorphize ourselves, and degenerate into beasts. All which that Prince of Poets observed of Agamemnon, that when he was well pleased, and could moderate his passion, he was-os oculosq; Jovi par: like Jupiter in feature, Mars in valour, Pallas in wisdom, another God; but when he became angry, he was a Lyon, a Tiger, a Dogge, &c. there appeared no signe or likenesse of Jupiter in him; so we, as long as we are ruled by reason, correct our inordinate appetite, and conforme our selves to God's word, are as so many saints: but if we give reines to Lust, Anger, Ambition, Pride, and follow our own wayes, we degenerate into beasts, transforme our selves, overthrow our constitutions, provoke God to anger, and heap upon us this of Melancholy, and all kinds of incurable diseases, as a just and deserved punishment of our sinnes. SUBSEC. II. The Definition, Number, Division of Diseases. WHA THAT a Disease is, almost every Physician defines. Fernelius calleth it an "Affection of the body, contrary to Nature." Fuschius and Crato "an hinderance, hurt, or alteration of any action of the body, or part of it." & Tholosanus, "a dissolution of that league which is between body a Part. 1. Sec. 2. Momb. 2. Homer. Iliad. Nequitia est quæ te non sinet esse senem. 4 Intemperantia, luxus, ingluvies, & infinita hujusmodi fagitia, quæ divinas pænas merentur. Crato. est affectus contra naturam corpori insides. Feru. Path. 1. 1. c. 1. Morbus Fusch. Instit. 1. 3. Sect. 1. c. 3. quo primum vitiatur actio. Dissolutio foederis in corpore, ut sanitas est consummatio. and and soule, and a perturbation of it: as health the perfection, and makes to the preservation of it." Labco in Agellius, "an ill habit of the body, opposite to nature, hindering the use of it. Others otherwise, all to this effect. Number of Diseases. ] How many diseases there are, is a question not yet determined; Pliny reckons up 300. from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot: elsewhere he saith, morborum infinita multitudo, their number is infinite. Howsoever it was in those times, it boots not; in our daies I am sure the number is much augmented: * macies, & nova febrium Terris incubuit cohors." For besides many Epidemical diseases unheard of, and altogether unknown to Galen and Hippocrates, as Scorbutum, Small pox, Plica, Sweating sickness, Morbus Gallicus, &c. we have many proper and peculiar almost to every part. k <m No man free from some disease or other.] No`man amongst us so sound, of so good a constitution, that hath not some impediment of Body or Minde. Quisque suos patimur manes, we have all our infirmities, first or last, more or lesse. There will be peradventure in an age, or one of a thousand, like Zenophilus the Musician in Pliny, that may happely live 105. yeares without any manner of impediment; a Pollio Roinulus, that can preserve himself with wine and oyle;" a man as fortunate as Q. Metellus, of whom Valerius so much braggs; a man as healthful as Otto Herwardus, a Senator of Ausborrow in Germany, whom "Leovitius the Astrologer brings in for an example and instance of certainty in his art; who because he had the significators in his geniture fortunate, and free from the hostile aspects of Saturne and Mars, being a very cold man, "could not remember that ever he was sick.' Paracelsus may bragge, that he could make a man live 400 years or more, if he might bring him up from his infancy, and diet him as he list; and some Physicians hold, that there is no certaine period of man's life; but it may still by temperance and physick be prolonged. We finde in the meane time, by common experience, that no man can escape, but that of 'Hesiod is true: Πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλείη δὲ θάλασσα, Lib. 4. cap. 2. Morbus est habitus contra noturam, qui usu ejus, &c. Cap. 11. lib. 7. *Horat. * Cap. 50. lib. 7. Centü et quinq; vixit annos Intus mulso, foras oleo. sine ullo incommodo. 0 "Exemplis genitur. Qui, quoad pueritia ultimam me moriam recordari potest non meminit se ægrotum decubuisse. Lib. de vita 'Oper. & dies. longa, |