I loath to hear them swear and stare, By wounds and nails they think to win, For all their frets and fumes in sin, There is no wight, that us'd it more, In this most vile and sinful cast, A DISCOURSE upon PRODIGIOUS ABSTINENCE*, OCCASIONED BY THE Twelve Months Fasting of Martha Taylor, the famed Proving that, without any Miracle, the Texture of Human Bodies may so altered, that Life may be long continued without the supplies of Meat and Drink. be With an Account of the Heart, and how far it is interested in the Business of Fermentation. BY JOHN REYNOLDS. Humbly offered to the Royal Society. London, printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, at the Sign of the Three Crowns near Holbourn Conduit; and for Dorman Newman, at the Surgeons Arms in Little Britain, 1669. Quarto, containing thirty-seven Pages, besides the Title and Dedication. To the deservedly famous and my honoured friend, Walter Needham, doctor of physick, as also a member of, and curator SIR, elect to the royal society. Ir were a solecism of the first magnitude to entertain you with any thing like a narrative of the superennial fast, under all the havocks and depredations whereof the Derbyshire damsel hath hitherto been sustained, though emaciated thereby into the ghastliness of a skeleton, to the great astonishment of the Vulgus, Your correspondencies are so faithful, and your circumstances so advantageous, as wholly to supersede the necessity of my engaging in, and the possibility of my gratifying you, by such a province. However, indulge me, while bemoaning This is the 59th number in the Catalogue of pamphlets, in the Harleian Library. myself, the liberty to tell you, that, concerning the Phænomena's attending this prodigious abstinence, my own thoughts have been so miserably ravelled, and my scanty intellectuals so much overmatched thereby, that I could not with any complacency look into those, nor with any delight consult these. A just reverence to reformed theologues, asserting a total cessation of miracles, forbade me to immure myself in any such supernatural asylum; and a prejudicate opinion of human bodies, in this animal state, allowed me not to euretuge my fluctuating mind in physical causes clubbing together, by an anomalous copulation, to ingender so great an heteroclite. While thus lost in the chaos of confused apprehensions, and smarting under the hurricane of my own tumultuary thoughts, I hurry away to a very worthy and compassionate friend, who with a little deliberation runs through the diagnosticks of my malady, pitieth my case, and, after some sharp conflicts with his own modesty, affords the relief of a philosophical elixir (for so I call the ensuing discourse) wholly transferring the right, which he had in the happy results of his own contemplations, upon me. Now (Sir!) what, by much importunity, I extorted from him, for my own private satisfaction, I make bold to tender the world a view of, under the countenance and protection of your great name, which is not only able to secure it from the critical pharaphrases of an envious age, but also to command it the justice of an unprejudicate perusal, with such as know your worth. To my own grief, I have found it much an anodyne; or as a pleasant lullaby to my whimpering fancy; the issue of all hath been rest: Not knowing, but it may minister the like seasonable relief to others, who have not wit and philosophy enough to start any greater objections, than myself; I judged it worthy to travel the world. The confidence, wherein I seek to intitle you to the patrociny of it, is no less than an assurance of your benign nature, singular ingenuity, and obliging goodness, which have begotten and pupilled in me that persuasion, ever since I had the happiness and honour to know you. Besides, your clearer intellectuals, and your vast acquaintance with nature's recondite mysteries, made it wholly incongruous to adopt any other the object of this dedication. I do still remember, with the deepest resentments of a grateful heart, the happy distinction betwixt parts spermatick and parts hematick, wherewith in pity you relieved me, when anxiously enquiring, upon a religious account, after the principium individuationis in human bodies; a notion (as to me it seems) more able to rescue the grand article of our creed concerning the resurrection of the same individual body from under suspicion, and the many gross absurdities, that some philosophasters, and half-witted atheists, would fain clog it with, than any offerture of human reason, that I ever yet had the happiness to meet with! Here methinks I could break forth into an upnxa, and congratulate my great, though late, felicity, that the id Xapaxтnpitov тò σwμa (as Origen, in one sense or other, calls it) the principle maintaining a numerical identity in human bodies, through the whole series of vicissitudes, changes, and sanctorian transmutations, betwixt the uterine formation, and the ultimate reunition of soul and body, should, after many a tedious search, and frustraneous disquisition, at last, be suggested by an hand able, in the maintenance of it, to grapple with any contradictor. In this you have satified not only my reason, but my curiosity too; and therefore, sir, so great is my opinion of your skill (absit omnis adulationis suspicio!) that, whatever dogma steps abroad with your name written upon it, I could almost surrender up myself as a perfect captive to it, were I not a man, and, which is more, a protestant, upon an implicit faith! But I have, I know not well how, digressed, and stepped aside into things heterogeneous to the purport of this dedicatory address. I therefore return to my ingenious friend's discourse, upon which, were my judgment in these matters worth any thing, I could afford to be liberal in the bestowance of my encomiums. But, as it is. shrouded under your patronage, so it is submitted to your censure; (this I am bold to do, knowing the author so much an admirer of you, that he cannot reluctate) whether more worthy of your pity or your approbation, none can better judge, than your discerning and deserving self. Therefore, such as it is, I leave it to your mercy; and beg leave to tell you, that I should presently fall out with myself, did I not, upon a faithful scrutiny, find myself in the number of those that really love and honour you. Farewel Worthy Sir, YOUR requests to take into consideration the so much famed prodigious twelve-months abstinence of the Derbyshire maid, having the force of commands, have produced these lean results of the imposed meditations. It cannot be unknown to a person of your large endowments, and hot pursuit after substantial science, that both divines, medicks, historians, yea, poets and legenders, have presented the learned world with a great variety of wonderful abstinents, some whereof I shall briefly recite, as well to reserve your sliding time for more noble employments, as to manifest that our contemporary Derbense is not so singular as some may imagine. Most certain it is, that the learned Moses+ fasted forty days, and as many nights, whilst he abode on the burning mount; the great Elijah went as long in the strength of a meal, and no less was the fast of the § holy Jesus. St. Austin reports, that, in his time, one survived forty days fasting: But most strange is the story fathered on ** Nicephorus, of three brethren affrighted by persecution into a cave, where they slept three-hundred and seventy-three years, as was known by the coin they produced, when they awaked. The learned ++ Fernelius saith, he saw a pregnant woman that lived two months without meat or drink. ‡‡Zacutus Lusitanus reports, that at Venice there lived a man that fasted forty days, another there forty-six days; and from Langius and Forstius, two considerable writers, another, full three years, and that with just stature, good habit, free countenance, and youthful wit. The famous §§ Sennertus is copious in such stories; he relates from Sigismundus and Citesius, a person, he saith, worthy of credit, that the people of Lucomoria, inhabiting some mountains in Muscovy, do every year die, in a sort, or rather, sleep or freeze, like frogs or swallows, on November 27, and so continue in that rigid state till April 24; in which time they use no evacuation, save only that a tenuious humour, distilling from their nostrils, is presently condensed by the ambient cold, much like to isicles, by the which those patent pores are precluded, and the most endangered brain fortified against the fatal assaults of brumal extremities. The same Sennertus rehearses a story of a virgin at Padua, from Viguntia, professor there, who, Anno 1598, was afflicted with a fever, then a tumour, then arthritick pains, and pains in the ventricle, and whole abdomen; then with vomiting and nauseating of food, till, at last, she could take no food for two months; then, after another fit of vomiting, purging, and bleeding, she fasted eight months, and, after a little use of food, she fasted two months more. And, to be short, he stories it of three * Καὶ ἐπαδεύθη Μωσής πάση σοφία Αἰγυπτίων. tt Zac. Lusit. de Medic. Princ. Hist. p. 914. Cap. 2. de longâ Abstin. p. 389. Acts vii. 22. + Exod. xxxiv. 28. ▲ a 4 vour of the long-parliament, for what might be wicked in him, might be just as to them: And though, if what he did, had been for the restoration of his majesty, he might have been excused, yet, being for his own single advancement, it is unpardonable, and leaves him a person to be truly admired for nothing but apostasy and ambition, and exceeding Tiberius in dissimulation. I am not ignorant that some think it matter of praise in him, that he kept as in peace, four years and nine months; but that hath little in it, his majesty having done the like, almost double his time, since his return, with one fifth part of that number of soldiers which he commanded; though he hath also had the trouble of pressing, and sometimes forcing uniformity in religion, which he found under several forms; whereas Oliver kept the nation purposely divided in opinions, and himself of no declared judgment, as the securest way of engaging all several persuasions equally to him; which artifice, together with his leaving the church lands alienated as he found them, were all the true principles of policy that I know of, which he kept unto. The honesty of these principles I refer to the judgment of every man's conscience, but, if we may judge of things by experience and success, they seem to have been very happy in the world: For, in comparing the condition of the protestant countries at present, to what they were in times of Popery, we shall find them more considerable now than formerly; for, in taking a true survey of the reformed dominions, we shall discover them to bear no proportion at all, in largeness, to the Popish*; and that there is nothing that keeps the balance betwixt the two parties, but the advantage that the first hath, in being free from the bondage of the church of Rome, and the latter's being under it: For, as the church of Rome's mercies are (by their principles) cruelties+, so, had they power answerable to the natural richness of the soil of their countries, and extent of their territories, they would long before this have swallowed up the protestant churches, and made bonfires of their members; but, as God, in his mercy and wisdom, hath, by his over-ruling hand of providence, preserved his church; so, for the Romish church's inability to effect that which they have will and malice enough to carry them on to do, there are these natural reasons: First, There being generally, of the Popish countries, above one moiety belonging to churchmen, Monks, Friars, and Nuns, who, like drones, spend the fat of the land, without contributing any thing to the good of mankind, renders them much the less considerable. Secondly, Marriage being forbidden to all these sorts and orders, occasions great want of people every where, they being uncapable of any children but those of darkness, except in France, which is an extraordinary case, proceeding partly, by not being so sub • See page 41, &c. See page sf, &c. : Vis. Bastards. ject to Rome, as other countries of that belief are; but especially from the multitude of protestants, that are among them. Thirdly, The blind devotion of these people, carrying them on to vast expences, in the building and richly adorning of many needless and superfluous churches, chapels, and crosses, &c. with the making chargeable presents by the better, and pilgrimages by the meaner sort, to their idols, keeps all degrees under. Fourthly, The many holydays, upon which, the labouring man is forbidden to work, adds much to their poverty. But, Fifthly and Lastly, The vast number of Begging Friars, who living idly, and purely upon the sweat of other men's brows, without taking any labour themselves, make it impossible, for the lower sort of people, who think they are bound, in conscience, to relieve them, ever to get above a mean condition. Now whosoever shall seriously weigh and ponder these circumstances, under which the Popish countries lie, and consider the reformed's advantage in being free from them, must confess it the less wonder, that the Evangelical princes and states, with their small dominions, compared to the others great, are able to bear up against them. And now, as the alienation of church-lands, the turning out the Romish vermin, the Priests, Monks, Friars, and Nuns, who devour all countries wherever they come, and freedom from the Popish imposition upon conscience, hath mightily increased the greatness of the Protestant princes and states, to what they anciently were, and the not doing the same, in the Popish countries, keeps those princes under; So, even amongst the reformed, where the church-lands are most alienated, and liberty of conscience most given, they prosper most, as in Holland, and some parts of Germany, with other places. And, on the contrary, Denmark, where church-lands are least alienated of any of the reformed countries, and the city of Lubeck, where, of all the free imperial cities of Germany, liberty of conscience is least given, they thrive least in both places. And, I think, it will also hold, that, as this famous kingdom, in the times of Popery, was, in no measure, so formidable as now it is; so before the restoration of our Hierarchy to their lands, their hoarding up the money, which before went in trade, and their discouraging and driving into corners the industrious sort of people, by imposing upon their consciences, it flourished more, was richer, and fuller of trade, than now it is; and I dare undertake to be a prophet in this, 'That, if ever any protestant country should be so far forsaken of the Lord, as to be suffered to turn unto Popery, these observations will be made good in their visible loss of the splendor, riches, power, and greatness, that they now know. Had Cromwell been a person of an open prophane life, his actions had been less scandalous; but, having been a professor of religion, they are not to be pleaded for; neither can it be consistent with religion to palliate them, which have been of so much offence, * Protestant, so called, because they take the word of God for their rule of faith. |