as we have considered of the causes, so [1095]Galen prescribes Glauco:
and the common experience of others confirms that those cures must be
imperfect, lame, and to no purpose, wherein the causes have not first
been searched, as [1096]Prosper Calenius well observes in his tract de
atra bile to Cardinal Caesius. Insomuch that [1097]Fernelius puts a
kind of necessity in the knowledge of the causes, and without which it
is impossible to cure or prevent any manner of disease. Empirics may
ease, and sometimes help, but not thoroughly root out; sublata causa
tollitur effectus as the saying is, if the cause be removed, the effect
is likewise vanquished. It is a most difficult thing (I confess) to be
able to discern these causes whence they are, and in such [1098]variety
to say what the beginning was. [1099]He is happy that can perform it
aright. I will adventure to guess as near as I can, and rip them all
up, from the first to the last, general and particular, to every
species, that so they may the better be described.
General causes, are either supernatural, or natural. Supernatural are
from God and his angels, or by God's permission from the devil and his
ministers. That God himself is a cause for the punishment of sin, and
satisfaction of his justice, many examples and testimonies of holy
Scriptures make evident unto us, Ps. cvii, 17. Foolish men are plagued
for their offence, and by reason of their wickedness. Gehazi was
stricken with leprosy, 2 Reg. v. 27. Jehoram with dysentery and flux,
and great diseases of the bowels, 2 Chron. xxi. 15. David plagued for
numbering his people, 1 Par. 21. Sodom and Gomorrah swallowed up. And
this disease is peculiarly specified, Psalm cxxvii. 12. He brought down
their heart through heaviness. Deut. xxviii. 28. He struck them with
madness, blindness, and astonishment of heart. [1100]An evil spirit was
sent by the Lord upon Saul, to vex him. [1101]Nebuchadnezzar did eat
grass like an ox, and his heart was made like the beasts of the field.
Heathen stories are full of such punishments. Lycurgus, because he cut
down the vines in the country, was by Bacchus driven into madness: so
was Pentheus and his mother Agave for neglecting their sacrifice.
[1102]Censor Fulvius ran mad for untiling Juno's temple, to cover a new
one of his own, which he had dedicated to Fortune, [1103]and was
confounded to death with grief and sorrow of heart. When Xerxes would
have spoiled [1104]Apollo's temple at Delphos of those infinite riches
it possessed, a terrible thunder came from heaven and struck four
thousand men dead, the rest ran mad. [1105]A little after, the like
happened to Brennus, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, upon such a
sacrilegious occasion. If we may believe our pontifical writers, they
will relate unto us many strange and prodigious punishments in this
kind, inflicted by their saints. How [1106]Clodoveus, sometime king of
France, the son of Dagobert, lost his wits for uncovering the body of
St. Denis: and how a [1107]sacrilegious Frenchman, that would have
stolen a silver image of St. John, at Birgburge, became frantic on a
sudden, raging, and tyrannising over his own flesh: of a [1108]Lord of
Rhadnor, that coming from hunting late at night, put his dogs into St.
Avan's church, (Llan Avan they called it) and rising betimes next
morning, as hunters use to do, found all his dogs mad, himself being
suddenly strucken blind. Of Tyridates an [1109]Armenian king, for
violating some holy nuns, that was punished in like sort, with loss of
his wits. But poets and papists may go together for fabulous tales; let
them free their own credits: howsoever they feign of their Nemesis, and
of their saints, or by the devil's means may be deluded; we find it
true, that ultor a tergo Deus, [1110]He is God the avenger, as David
styles him; and that it is our crying sins that pull this and many
other maladies on our own heads. That he can by his angels, which are
his ministers, strike and heal (saith [1111]Dionysius) whom he will;
that he can plague us by his creatures, sun, moon, and stars, which he
useth as his instruments, as a husbandman (saith Zanchius) doth a
hatchet: hail, snow, winds, &c. [1112]Et conjurati veniunt in classica
venti: as in Joshua's time, as in Pharaoh's reign in Egypt; they are
but as so many executioners of his justice. He can make the proudest
spirits stoop, and cry out with Julian the Apostate, Vicisti Galilaee:
or with Apollo's priest in [1113]Chrysostom, O coelum! o terra! unde
hostis hic? What an enemy is this? And pray with David, acknowledging
his power, I am weakened and sore broken, I roar for the grief of mine
heart, mine heart panteth, &c. Psalm xxxviii. 8. O Lord, rebuke me not
in thine anger, neither chastise me in thy wrath, Psalm xxxviii. 1.
Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast
broken, may rejoice, Psalm li. 8. and verse 12. Restore to me the joy
of thy salvation, and stablish me with thy free spirit. For these
causes belike [1114]Hippocrates would have a physician take special
notice whether the disease come not from a divine supernatural cause,
or whether it follow the course of nature. But this is farther
discussed by Fran. Valesius, de sacr. philos. cap. 8. [1115] Fernelius,
and [1116]J. Caesar Claudinus, to whom I refer you, how this place of
Hippocrates is to be understood. Paracelsus is of opinion, that such
spiritual diseases (for so he calls them) are spiritually to be cured,
and not otherwise. Ordinary means in such cases will not avail: Non est
reluctandum cum Deo (we must not struggle with God.) When that
monster-taming Hercules overcame all in the Olympics, Jupiter at last
in an unknown shape wrestled with him; the victory was uncertain, till
at length Jupiter descried himself, and Hercules yielded. No striving
with supreme powers. Nil juvat immensos Cratero promittere montes,
physicians and physic can do no good, [1117]we must submit ourselves
unto the mighty hand of God, acknowledge our offences, call to him for
mercy. If he strike us una eademque manus vulnus opemque feret, as it
is with them that are wounded with the spear of Achilles, he alone must
help; otherwise our diseases are incurable, and we not to be relieved.
SUBSECT. II.—_A Digression of the nature of Spirits, bad Angels, or
Devils, and how they cause Melancholy_.
How far the power of spirits and devils doth extend, and whether they
can cause this, or any other disease, is a serious question, and worthy
to be considered: for the better understanding of which, I will make a
brief digression of the nature of spirits. And although the question be
very obscure, according to [1118]Postellus, full of controversy and
ambiguity, beyond the reach of human capacity, fateor excedere vires
intentionis meae, saith [1119]Austin, I confess I am not able to
understand it, finitum de infinito non potest statuere, we can sooner
determine with Tully, de nat. deorum, quid non sint, quam quid sint,
our subtle schoolmen, Cardans, Scaligers, profound Thomists,
Fracastoriana and Ferneliana acies, are weak, dry, obscure, defective
in these mysteries, and all our quickest wits, as an owl's eyes at the
sun's light, wax dull, and are not sufficient to apprehend them; yet,
as in the rest, I will adventure to say something to this point. In
former times, as we read, Acts xxiii., the Sadducees denied that there
were any such spirits, devils, or angels. So did Galen the physician,
the Peripatetics, even Aristotle himself, as Pomponatius stoutly
maintains, and Scaliger in some sort grants. Though Dandinus the
Jesuit, com. in lib. 2. de anima, stiffly denies it; substantiae
separatae and intelligences, are the same which Christians call angels,
and Platonists devils, for they name all the spirits, daemones, be they
good or bad angels, as Julius Pollux Onomasticon, lib. 1. cap. 1.
observes. Epicures and atheists are of the same mind in general,
because they never saw them. Plato, Plotinus, Porphyrius, Jamblichus,
Proclus, insisting in the steps of Trismegistus, Pythagoras and
Socrates, make no doubt of it: nor Stoics, but that there are such
spirits, though much erring from the truth. Concerning the first
beginning of them, the [1120]Talmudists say that Adam had a wife called
Lilis, before he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils.
The Turks' [1121]Alcoran is altogether as absurd and ridiculous in this
point: but the Scripture informs us Christians, how Lucifer, the chief
of them, with his associates, [1122]fell from heaven for his pride and
ambition; created of God, placed in heaven, and sometimes an angel of
light, now cast down into the lower aerial sublunary parts, or into
hell, and delivered into chains of darkness (2 Pet. ii. 4.) to be kept
unto damnation.
_Nature of Devils._] There is a foolish opinion which some hold, that
they are the souls of men departed, good and more noble were deified,
the baser grovelled on the ground, or in the lower parts, and were
devils, the which with Tertullian, Porphyrius the philosopher, M.
Tyrius, ser. 27 maintains. These spirits, he [1123]saith, which we call
angels and devils, are nought but souls of men departed, which either
through love and pity of their friends yet living, help and assist
them, or else persecute their enemies, whom they hated, as Dido
threatened to persecute Aeneas:
Omnibus umbra locis adero: dabis improbe poenas.
My angry ghost arising from the deep,
Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep;
At least my shade thy punishment shall know,
And Fame shall spread the pleasing news below.