nigh over the very tops of their houses. The like Machiavell reports concerning Artium, and acknowledges that such kinde of Prodigies are very frequent in History, as also certain forerunners of the Troubles and Disturbances of that State and Countrey wherein they appear.
13. His own words are so free and ingenuous, and his judgment so considerable, (though he will not pretend to Philosophy) touching the reason of these strange sights, that I think it worth the while to transcribe them. * Dispt. de Republica lib. 1. cap. 56.* Hujusmodi rerum causas ab iis explicari posse credo qui rerum naturalium ac supranaturalium cognitione insignes sunt, à qua me alienum esse fateor: nisi forte cum philosophis quibusdam pronunciandum censeamus, aerem plenum spiritibus & Intelligentiis esse, quæ res futuras dentes, & casibus humanis condolentes, eas hominibus per hujufmodi signa prænuncient, at se adversus eos tempestiviùs præparare & communire queant. Utut se res habeat, Experientiâ certè compertum habemus talia signa sequi solcre magnos aliquos motus.
14. I have now compleated this present Treatise against Atheism in all the Three parts thereof: upon which while l cast mine eye, and view that clear and irrefutable evidence of the Cause I have undertaken, the external Appearances of things in the world so faithfully seconding the undeniable dictates of the innate Principles of our own Minds, I cannot but with confidence aver, That there is not any one notion in all Philosophy more certain and demonstrable then That there is a God.
And verily I think I have ransacked all the corners of every kinde of Philosophy that can pretend to bear any stroke in this Controversie with that diligence, that I may safely pronounce, that it is mere brutish Ignorance or Impudence, no Skill in Nature or the Knowledge of things, that can encourage any man to profess Atheism, or to embrace it at the proposal of those that make profession of it.
15. But so I conceive it is, that at first some famously-learned men being not so indiscreetly zealous and superstitious as others, have been mistaken by Ideots and traduced for Atheists, and then ever after some one vain-glorious Fool or other hath affected, with what safety he could, to seem Atheistical, that he might thereby, forsooth, be reputed the more learned, or the profounder Naturalist.
16. But I dare assure any man, that if he do but search into the bottom of this enormous disease of the Soul, as Trismegist truly calls it, he will find nothing to be the cause thereof but either vanity of mind, or brutish sensuality and an untamed desire of satisfying a mans own will in every thing, an obnoxious Conscience, and a base Fear of divine Vengeance, ignorance of the scantness and insufficiency of second causes, a jumbled feculency and incomposedness of the spirits by reason of perpetual intemperance and luxury, or else a dark bedeading Melancholy that so starves and kils the apprehension of the Soul, in divine matters especially, that it makes a man as inept for such Contemplations as if his head was filled with cold Earth or dry Grave-moulds.
17. And to such flow Constitutions as these, I shall not wonder if, as the first Part of my Discourse must seem marvellous subtile, so the last appear ridiculously incredible. But they are to remember, that I do not
