A27641:22
A learned treatise of the plague
A learned treatise of the plague wherein the two questions, whether the plague be infectious or no, and , whether and how far it may be shunned of Christians by going aside, are resolved / written in Latin by the famous Theodore Beza Vezelian.A learned treatise of the plague wherein the two questions, whether the plague be infectious or no, and , whether and how farr it may be shunned of Christians by going aside, are resolved / written in Latine by the famous Theodore Beza Vezelian.
London: printed by Thomas Ratcliffe, 1665
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But doth it therefore follow that this came to pass without any Natural causes stepping in between? Or shall we not rather say, that those Princes of the Air (as the Apostle, not without cause, calleth them) made in a moment, those indeed natural impressions of the Air? The Devil sendeth the Godly to Prison, Revel. 2. 10. But by Tyrants and Persecutors of the Church. In the same Book, cap. 6. vers. 8. The pale Horse on whom Death the Rider sitteth, receiveth power to kill with the Sword, Famine, and Pestilence, and sending of wild Beasts: Here, if we shall by that Rider understand an Angel, why shall we not aswell say, that he used Natural matter to cause the Plague and Famine, as a Sword and Wilde beasts, when themselves are also natural instruments? and afterwards, cap. 9. v. 1. The Angels are commanded to stand in the four quarters of the Earth, and to keep back the Winds, that they hurt not the Sea and the Land with blowing. Whereof followeth, that at the Commandment of God, the Winds are in like manner sent forth by them; from the which doubtless it is manifest, that many Infections of the Air, and chiefly infection, doth proceed. So that Natural causes, whether they be moved by little and little of their own force planted in them by Nature, or otherwise beyond Order, God so commanding, they be in a moment carried to their effects, they are natural, and so far forth are their effects also worthily judged natural, which no man of reason can deny. For if there come in no Natural causes in the Plague, those whom ⟨p. 8⟩the Plague hath touched, doubtless they cannot be at all eased, much less be healed by Natural remedies. And to prove this to be most false, experience and very sense doth demonstrate; yet I profess my self to be one of those which do so far detest the superstitious judicious Astrology, of Casters of Nativities, and all other such like predictions, that I could wish the old Statures of Princes concerning those things were renewed, and strictly to be observed. But to take from the divers concourses of the Stars, the natural Constitutions of the Air, and such effects as depend thereupon in our Bodies;
But doth it therefore follow that this came to pass without any Natural causes stepping in between? Or shall we not rather say, that those Princes of the Air (as the Apostle, not without cause, calleth them) made in a moment, those indeed natural impressions of the Air? The Devil sendeth the Godly to Prison,