with the destroyed cities, and in divers the city of Sodom placed about the middle, or far from the shore of it; but that it could not be far from Segor, which was seated under the mountains, near the side of the Lake, seems inferrrible from the sudden arrival of Lot, who coming from Sodom at daybreak, attained Segor at sun-rising; and therefore Sodom to be placed not many miles from it, and not in the middle of the Lake, which is accounted about eighteen miles over; and so will leave about nine miles to be passed in too small a space of time. CHAPTER XVI. Of Divers other Relations, viz :-Of the Woman that Conceived in a Bath;-Of Crassus that never Laughed but once;- That our Saviour never Laughed;-Of Sergius the Second, or Bocca di Porco;-That Tamerlane was a Scythian Shepherd. : THE relation of Averroes, and now common in every mouth, of the woman that conceived in a bath, by attracting the sperm or seminal effluxion of a man admitted to bathe in some vicinity unto her, I have scarce faith to believe and had I been of the jury, should have hardly thought I had found the father in the person that stood by her. 'Tis a new and unseconded way in history to fornicate at a distance, and much offendeth the rules of physic, which say, there is no generation without a joint emission, nor only a virtual, but corporal and carnal contaction. And although Aristotle and his adherents do cut off the one, who conceive no effectual ejaculation in women; yet in defence of the other they can 6 by attracting, &c.] No absurdity, which Browne undertakes to refute though so gross as not to merit notice, appears too monstrous to find acceptance with Ross. He finds it "quite possible, even as the stomach attracteth meat and drink, though in some distance from it." The conceit respecting Lot is not suggested by the scriptural account, which only asserts that he did not recognize his daughters. not be introduced. For if, as he believeth, the inordinate longitude of the organ, though in its proper recipient, may be a mean to inprolificate the seed; surely the distance of place, with the commixture of an aqueous body must prove an effectual impediment, and utterly prevent the success of a conception. And therefore that conceit concerning the daughters of Lot, that they were impregnated by their sleeping father, or conceived by seminal pollution received at distance from him, will hardly be admitted. And therefore what is related of devils, and the contrived delusions of spirits, that they steal the seminal emissions of man, and transmit them into their votaries in coition, is much to be suspected; and altogether to be denied, that there ensue conceptions thereupon; however husbanded by art, and the wisest menagery of that most subtile impostor. And therefore also that our magnified Merlin was thus begotten by the devil, is a groundless conception; and as vain to think from thence to give the reason of his prophetical spirit. For if a generation could succeed, yet should not the issue inherit the faculties of the devil, who is but an auxiliary, and no univocal actor; nor will his nature substantially concur to such productions. And although it seems not impossible, that impregnation may succeed from seminal spirits, and vaporous irradiations, containing the active principle, without material and gross immissions; as it happeneth sometimes in imperforated persons, and rare conceptions of some much under puberty or fourteen. As may be also conjectured in the coition of some insects, wherein the female makes intrusion into the male; and from the continued ovation in hens, from one single tread of a cock, and little stock laid up near the vent, sufficient for durable prolification. And although also in human generation the gross and corpulent seminal body may return again, and the great business be acted by what it carrieth with it: yet will not the same suffice to support the story in question, wherein no corpulent immission is acknowledged; answerable unto the fable of Talmudists, in the story of Benzira, begotten in the same manner on the daughter of the prophet Jeremiah.7 7 And although, &c.] This paragraph first added in 3rd edition. 2. The relation of Lucillius, and now become common concerning Crassus, the grandfather of Marcus the wealthy Roman, that he never laughed but once in all his life, and that was at an ass eating thistles, is something strange. For, if an indifferent and unridiculous object could draw his habitual austereness unto a smile, it will be hard to believe he could with perpetuity resist the proper motives thereof. For the act of laughter, which is evidenced by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely voluntary, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves, but, as it may be constrained by corporal contaction in any, and hath been enforced in some even in their death, so the new, unusual, or unexpected, jucundities which present themselves to any man in his life, at some time or other, will have activity enough to excitate the earthiest soul, and raise a smile from most composed tempers. Certainly the times were dull when these things happened, and the wits of those ages short of these of ours; when men could maintain such immutable faces, as to remain like statues under the flatteries of wit, and persist unalterable at all efforts of jocularity. The spirits in hell, and Pluto himself, whom Lucian makes to laugh at passages upon earth, will plainly condemn these Saturnines, and make ridiculous the magnified Heraclitus, who wept preposterously, and made a hell on earth; for rejecting the consolations of life, he passed his days in tears, and the uncomfortable attendments of hell.8 3. The same conceit there passeth concerning our blessed Saviour, and is sometime urged as a high example of gravity. And this is opinioned, because in Holy Scripture it is recorded he sometimes wept, but never that he laughed. Which howsoever granted, it will be hard to conceive how he passed his younger years and childhood without a smile, if as divinity affirmeth, for the assurance of his humanity unto men, and the 8 the uncomfortable, &c.] Ross remarks with much reason on this observation, that" oftentimes there is hell in laughing, and a heaven in weeping:" and that "good men find not the uncomfortable attendments of hell in weeping, but rather the comfortable enjoy ments of heaven."-Arcana, p. 176. 9 The same conceit, &c.] Tis noe argument to say tis never read in Scripture that Christ laughed, therefore he did never laughe, but on the other side to affirme, that hee did laughe is therefore dangerous bycause unwarrantable and groundles.—Wr. concealment of his divinity from the devil, he passed this age like other children, and so proceeded until he evidenced the same. And surely herein no danger there is to affirm the act or performance of that, whereof we acknowledge the power and essential property; and whereby indeed he most nearly convinced the doubt of his humanity. Nor need we be afraid to ascribe that unto the incarnate Son, which sometimes is attributed unto the uncarnate Father; of whom it is said, "He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh the wicked to scorn." For a laugh there is of contempt or indignation, as well as of mirth and jocosity: and that our Saviour was not exempted from the ground hereof, that is, the passion of anger, regulated and rightly ordered by reason, the schools do not deny; and, besides the experience of the money-changers and dove-sellers in the temple, is testified by St. John, when he saith, the speech of David was fulfilled in our Saviour.* Now the alogy of this opinion consisteth in the illation; it being not reasonable to conclude from Scripture negatively in points which are not matters of faith, and pertaining unto salvation. And therefore, although in the description of the creation there be no mention of fire, Christian philosophy did not think it reasonable presently to annihilate that element, or positively to decree there was no such thing at all.3 * Zelus domûs tuæ comedit me. 1 humanity.] The doubt of his humanity was convinced soe many other wayes (before his passion) as by his birth, his circumcision, his hunger at the fig-tree, his compassion and teares over his friend Lazarus, and those other instances here alleaged, that the propertye of risibilitye (which is indeed the usuall instance of the schooles) though it bee inseparable from the nature of man, and incommunicable to any other nature, yet itt does not infer the necessitye of the acte in every individuall subject or person of man; noe more then the power and propertye of numeration (wherof no other creature in the world is capable) can make every man an arithmetician. Itt is likewise recorded of Julius Saturninus, sonne to Philippus (Arabs) the emperor, that from his birth nullo prorsus cujusquam commento ad ridendum moveri potuerit.—W'r. It is the characteristic description of our Redeemer that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Will it not be felt by every Christian, that laughter is utterly out of keeping with the dignity, the character and office of him, who himself took our infirmities, and bare our sins; who spent a life in the endurance of the contradiction of sinners against himself,—and in the full and constant contemplation of that awful moment when he was to lay down that life for their sakes? The difficulty would have been to credit the contrary tradition, had it existed. 2 fire.] There is no mention of mettals or fossiles; and yet wee know they were created then, or else they could not now bee.-Wr. Thus, whereas in the brief narration of Moses there is no record of wine before the flood, we cannot satisfactorily conclude that Noah' was the first that ever tasted thereof.* And thus, because the word brain is scarce mentioned once, but heart above a hundred times in Holy Scripture, physicians that dispute the principality of parts are not from hence induced to bereave the animal organ of its priority. Wherefore the Scriptures being serious, and commonly omitting such parergies, it will be unreasonable from hence to condemn all laughter, and from considerations inconsiderable to discipline a man out of his nature. For this is by rustical severity to banish all urbanity: whose harmless and confined condition, as it stands commended by morality, so is it consistent with religion, and doth not offend divinity. 4. The custom it is of Popes to change their name at their creation; and the author thereof is commonly said to be Bocca di Porco, or Swines-face; who therefore assumed the stile of Sergius the 2nd, as being ashamed so foul a name should dishonour the chair of Peter; wherein notwithstanding, from Montacutius and others, I find there may be some mistake. For Massonius who writ the lives of Popes, acknowledgeth he was not the first that changed his name in that see; nor as Platina affirmeth, have all his successors precisely continued that custom; for Adrian the sixth, and Marcellus the second, did still retain their baptismal denomination. Nor is it proved, or probable, that Sergius changed Only in the vulgar Latin, Judg. ix, 53. bee partes of the creation, and many things spoken to the vulgar capacity, which must be understood in a modified sense. But never any thinge soe spoken as might be convinced of falshood: soe that either God or Copernicus, speaking contradictions, cannot both speak truthe. And therefore, sit Deus verus et omnis homo mendax, that speakes contradictions to him.-Wr. 4 Noah.] Noah was not the first that tasted of the grape: but itt is expresly sayd, Genes. ix, 21, that Noah was the first husbandman that planted a vine yard, and that first made wine, and |