Hoplocrisma-spongus: or, A sponge to vvipe avvay the weapon-salve A treatise, wherein is proved, that the cure late-taken up amongst us, by applying the salve to the weapon, is magicall and unlawfull By William Foster Mr. of Arts, and parson of Hedgley in the county of Buckingham.

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Title
Hoplocrisma-spongus: or, A sponge to vvipe avvay the weapon-salve A treatise, wherein is proved, that the cure late-taken up amongst us, by applying the salve to the weapon, is magicall and unlawfull By William Foster Mr. of Arts, and parson of Hedgley in the county of Buckingham.
Author
Foster, William, 1591-1643.
Publication
London :: Printed by Thomas Cotes, for Iohn Grove, and are to be sold at his shop in Furnivals Inne Gate in Holborne,
1631.
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Subject terms
Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric -- Early works to 1800.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A01091.0001.001
Cite this Item
"Hoplocrisma-spongus: or, A sponge to vvipe avvay the weapon-salve A treatise, wherein is proved, that the cure late-taken up amongst us, by applying the salve to the weapon, is magicall and unlawfull By William Foster Mr. of Arts, and parson of Hedgley in the county of Buckingham." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A01091.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 5, 2024.

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Page 38

A Digression wherein Doctor Flud, his reasons are examined and answered.

DOctor Flud hath written some Folio pa∣ges, * 1.1 for defence of the Weapon-Salve! Well he may. He writes himselfe Armi∣ger & medicinae Doctor, is called by Fran∣ciscus Lanovius Medico-miles, a souldier Physitian; and being a Weapon-bearing Doctor, may well teach the Weapon-curing medicine: especially setting the Armiger before the Doctor, the Gunne before the Gowne, and the Pike before the Penne. I have read some dispute, whether a Knight or * 1.2 Doctor should take place: never of an ordinary Esquire. Herauld I am none. But I suppose that the worthy Gentlemen which professe it, will be∣twixt these two, decide the controversie with that of Tully,

Cedant armatogae, concedat laurea Lingua. * 1.3

But the quarrell is not betwixt the Doctor and me for his Weapon, but for his Weapon-Salve: whether that be Witchcraft or no? Surely his very defence of it is enough to make it suspected, him∣selfe being accused for a Magician, by Marinus Mersennus, with a wonder that King Iames (of bles∣sed * 1.4 memory) would suffer such a man to live and write in his Kingdome. But if to be accused were to be guilty, who could be innocent? Master Do∣ctor hath excused himselfe in his booke, entituled,

Page 39

Sophiae cum moria certamen (cujus contrarium verum, * 1.5 saith Lanovius.) His friend Ioachimus Frizius (or ra∣ther his owne selfe, saith Lanovius) in a booke an∣nexed to his, called Summum Bonum, excuseth Fry∣er Roger Bacon, Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Marsi∣lius Ficinus, and Fratres Rosea crucis, from being Caco-magicians. I wonder at nothing more than that Belzebub was not in the number! Whether the Doctor excuse himselfe any better, than these Arch-magicians can be excused, I leave to the learned judicious and religious Reader? Yet thus much for him in the question. Hee prescribes no superstitious, either collections of the Ingredients, composition of the Vnguent, or observation at the annointing of the Weapon. His directions are, that the Weapon be left in the Vnguent pot, till the Patient be cured: and that the wound bee kept cleane with a linnen cloath, wet every morning in his urine. Whether this be a fallacy or no, I com∣mend to the judgement of those which are expert in the renowned Art of Chirurgery. For let the Doctor be sure to keepe a wound cleane, and I suppose, they will tell him that it will cicatrice without his Weapon-Salve. Neither doth hee a∣scribe an unlimited sphere of Activity (though a large one) thirty or sixty miles (which is false too) unto it. And he saith, that an Horse pricked with a nayle, may bee likewise cured, if the nayle bee left sticking in the unguent pot. I desire the Doctor to remember this his horse-leechry, as an argu∣ment to overthrow his naturall balsame and sym∣pathy. But Master Doctors reasons to maintaine the lawfulnesse of this cure, are not yet called to

Page 40

speake for themselves. Now they come. I have made them as short and perspicuous as I can, spea∣king another language, consisting of more words.

Scull-mosse or bones (saith he) Mummy and the Fat of Man (the speciall Ingredients) comprehend the corporeall perfection of Man, and so are apt to heale, by reason of a naturall Balsame resting in them, sympathizing with the hypostaticall Bal∣same residing in living man. These Ingredients have their beginning and aliment from the blood. In the blood reside the vitall spirits: in the vitall spirits the soule after her hidden manner. This causeth the blood to have recourse by sympatheti∣call harmony, to the masse of blood remaining in the body. For the spirit of the blood shed is car∣ried by the ayre (which is the carrier of the spirits of every thing) to his body: this spirit going by this ayre, in a direct invisible line, carrieth the sa∣native virtue from the annointed Weapon to the wounded party. For the Weapon communicates it to the blood fixed on it, the blood to the spirits, the spirits conducted by the ayre, communicate it to the body, and so the Patient is (without appli∣cation of Plaister) naturally healed. For as the ra∣dij or Sun-beames are a messenger betwixt heaven and earth: So this vitall beame or invisible line is a messenger and conductor (by a kinde of Magne∣ticall attraction) of the healing virtue of the bal∣same, residing in the unguent, to the body of the wounded party: and the sympathy betwixt the blood on the annointed Weapon, and the blood in the body causeth the cure. That there is such a sympathy betwixt the blood in the body, and the

Page 41

blood drawne from the body, is most evident by the example of Witches. The Divell sucketh blood from them. This blood remaining with the Divell, participates of his maligne nature, and ha∣ving recourse by the spirits thereof to the Witches body, makes all their blood sympathize with that the Divell hath; and so the blood changeth the Witches nature, and they become maligne and di∣abolicall, and so addicted to the service of Sathan, that it is impossible to reclaime them. This is the summe of Master Doctors reason: against which least any should object, that the sanative vertue may be interrupted by the intervening motion of the sundry creatures, and so the vertue lost and not carryed to the wished port: He answereth, that though the ayre be by intervening bodies inter∣rupted, nay, parted and divided, yet it will after the passage of that body be re-united. As when we di∣vide the ayre with a sword, the blow ceasing, the ayre returnes againe to his former unity of sub∣stance. And as Dyers water cast into a River, pro∣tracts it selfe into a long line, and for some time keepes his colour and line; and if a Boat crosse and divide it, the Boat gone, the line comes toge∣ther againe: So though some creatures doe by their interposed motion interrupt and breake off this spirituall line carrying the sanative vertue, yet it will be so but a season; for they passed the line will be re-united, and so though somewhat for a time hindred, yet nothing of the end frustrated.

To all which I answer, that Master Doctor doth petereprincipia. For first, I deny that Scull-mosse or bones, Mummy and mans Fat have (though

Page 42

they be medicinable) any natural balsame or radicall humour (for so some call naturall balsame) residing in them, sympathizing with the hyposticall bal∣same * 1.6 remaining in living man; unlesse a horse have a balsame sympathizing with mans. For, saith Ma∣ster Doctor, which I advised him to remember, if the nayle which pricked an horse be put into the oyntment pot, the horse shall be cured. I say there's no such sympathy betwixt horse and man. And if there be no cause at all to beleeve the one, there is but little to beleeve the other.

Secondly, I deny that mans bones have their be∣ginning and aliment from blood. For Physitians and Philosophers say that they have their begin∣ning * 1.7 from the grosser seminall parts, and their ali∣ment from blood, or marrow, or both.

Thirdly, I deny that any spirits reside in separa∣ted blood, my reason is already given in my an∣swer to the fourth objection. To which I farther adde, that Casman is so confident in this, that in parts separated from the body, remaine no spirits, * 1.8 that he saith, the very Divell cannot beget or con∣serve any spirits in them.

Fourthly, I deny that the soule resides after any hidden manner in the spirits. The Stoickes indeed held that the spirits were vinculū anima & corporis; & so the soule may be after a kind in the spirits, as that which is bound is within the teather. But the Peripateticks & Divines deny this as needlesse. For seeing the body is generated for the soule, and the soule created for the body, and both make the to∣tum compositum, what need these any bond to fa∣sten them together? There is a reciprocall desire

Page 43

of comming together at first, and endevour after the union, so to keepe together. The spirits indeed are the instruments of the soule, by which it wor∣keth: and when these instruments 〈◊〉〈◊〉, the worke failes, and the soule, the worke-mistresse takes her leave, not because she is hid in the spirits, as the contiuent to abide in, but because she wants the spirits as her instruments, to worke by. For the is corporis organici actus seu 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the act and per∣fection * 1.9 of the body; not onely for that shee gives the body act and being (as Aristotle defines it) but also because she gives the body action during the being: As Tully not improperly interprets it. Now * 1.10 then as the workeman cannot be said properly to reside in his instruments, but rather the instru∣ments in the workeman (because as Logicians * 1.11 speake, tota instrumenti vis in usu consistit:) So the soule cannot in any kind depend on, or reside in, the spirits her instruments, but the spirits on the soule. Therefore as the Axe must not boast it selfe against the hewer, nor the Saw magnifie it selfe against the shaker, Esay 10. 15. No more must the Doctor set * 1.12 up the spirits against the soule to be her upholder, from whom they have all their being and opera∣tion.

Fiftly, I deny Master Doctors carrier, viz, his di∣rect invisible line, carrying the sanative vertue so many miles from the weapon to the wound. Sure¦ly this is Tom Long the Carrier, who will never doe his errand. But the Sunne hath his beames a true messenger betwixt Heaven and earth: and so this Salve betwixt Weapon and Wound. O incom∣parable * 1.13 comparison! Tully saith, the Sunne is cal∣led

Page 44

Sol quasisolus, as having no peere, no creature working like it. But the Doctor, like another Ar∣chimedes, can by his Art make one working by sen∣ding forth beames like it.

Sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna cothrno! * 1.14

The Sunne beames, the Messenger betweene Heaven and Earth, proceed of the light of the Sunne, in whom is such innate light, that he is the fountaine of light. But what light hath this Salve to send forth radiant messengers? The Sunne, and the rest of the celestiall bodies, is or∣dained by God and Nature, to worke upon the ter∣restriall by light or beames, motion and influence. Art immitates Nature. But what Art hath in this kinde ouertaken Nature? The Sunne is a Gyant, saith David, Psal. 19. 5. many degrees, even 166, * 1.15 bigger than the earth, as the Astronomers collect, and so may by proportion worke on it. The Sun is * 1.16 the eye and visiter of the whole world, there's no∣thing hid from it, saith the Psalmist, Psal. 19. 6. and so by his presence is within the sphere of his activity. The Sunne is above, and so sends downe in a direct line, his beames without hinderance. But this Vnguent hath no proportion: 'tis little in * 1.17 respect of the Patient; it hath no presence or con∣tact with him; It must worke in a laterall oblique line, and so is subject by interposed bodies to bee hindred. A little fire cannot burne or heat a great body, at a great distance, in an ascendent direct line; much lesse an oblique, many other bodies be∣ing interposed. No more can a little Salve worke

Page 45

naturally on a Patient at a great distance, when many other bodies are interposed. The line and the ayre carrying it so long a journey, will be hin∣dred and stopped; if not altered and changed. The line and his carrier the ayre may be stopped and hindred, not onely by moving intervening bodies, which may give place againe to the line and ayre when they have cut and crossed it, as the Doctor instanceth in the cutting of the ayre with a sword, and the re-union after the blow is ceased, and the re-union of the line of Dyers water cut with a Boat; but also it may meet with stationary im∣moveable bodies, as wals, woods, houses, castles, townes, cities, fiers, seas and waters, which will not give place to the Doctors line, though it were as strong as an halter. How then shall this line be car∣ried thus intercopted? It must either penetrate the bodies, or shun them before it comes at them, or when it comes at them, glyde in a laterall course by them, or per saltum, ascend in a transcendent course over till it comes beyond them, and then betake it selfe to its old course againe. Penetrate them it cannot: Nature abhorres vacuity and pe∣netration. Avoyd them before it comes at them, it cannot neither. To avoyde hurtfull things, is an act either of reason, sense, or naturall instin∣ction. This Carrier the ayre hath neither of these to goe his journey. Not reason, it is not rationall. Not sense, it is no sensible creature. It hath not naturall instinction to shunne any place. Ayre fil∣leth every place (without exception) not filled * 1.18 with some other body, saith Aristotle. Glyde by or leape over these bodies it cannot.

Page 46

And Mr. Dr. saith, this line is a direct invisible line. It must then goe point blancke, (as we use to say.) If it glance a skew, or leape over, and make an angle, then the rectitude of this line is broken, and Mr. Doctors reason is broken also. Besides, the carrier failing, the line, the portadge must needs fayle also. And the ayre the carrier may fayle, by being changed and altered into an other body. For * 1.19 ayre and water are symbolicall elements, such as are easily transmuted into the substance of each other. The ayre when it comes into moyst and va∣pourous places, (Robertus de Fluctibus) or when it meets with glabritious and terse bodies, as polished iron (like Mr. Doctors weapon) stone, glasse, &c. (as experience teacheth) is turned into water. Or the ayre in a long journey may be turned into one of the other elements. For ayre may bee chan∣ged into fire, commodissimè & parvo momento, saith Scaliger, fitly and in a short time, and it may be∣come * 1.20 earth also, though not so easily by vicissitude and often changing, seeing there is (as Keckerman * 1.21 speaketh) Elementorum transmutatio circularis, a cir∣cular transmutation of the elements. Now then unlesse the Doctor can secure his carrier, that part of the ayre which carrieth his invisible line, from transmutation (the ayre onely being his carrier) his carrier will faile, and bee sit to goe of none but a dead mans errand; & so Mr. Doctors line will faile, the Cure fayle, and the reason fayle. Neither if the line should not fayle, but the carrier truly doe his message, and carry it from the weapon to the wound, can the Cure bee done by sympathy, be∣twixt the blood residing on the weapon, and that in

Page 47

the body. The one is warme, living by the vitall spi∣rits, the other cold and dead by the losse of them. The one is blood in his persection, the other in corruption, the one properly, the other equivocal∣ly. And what actuall sympathy or corresponden∣cy is there betwixt heat and cold, perfection and corruption? Blood in their living fountaines may sympathize. The plague and other sicknesse is apt to runne in a kindred or blood, because of the simi∣litude. Were I perswaded of the artificiall incor∣poration of the warm blood of one man with ano∣thers, I might in time be brought to beleeve a sym∣pathy (and also the Doctors nancius inanimatus) * 1.22 because of the life in it, either by some sparke of spirits by the warmth detained, or by union acqui∣red: but that cold, dead, dry, corrupted blood, out of the body should smpathize with moyst, warme, living, perfect blood in the body, seemes to mee such a paradoxe, that I thinke I shall not beleeve in whilst I have blood in mine owne body. But the Doctor proves it by the example of blood sucked by the Divell from Witches; which remaining with the divell, & sympathizing with the blood in Witches bodies, changeth their nature, and makes them become maligne and diabolicall▪ O pro∣found example!

Non valet exemplum quod litem lite resolvit. * 1.23

Here Master Doctor closely conveyes a ground for his Argument, which neither true Philosophy nor Orthodoxe Divinity will give us leave to as∣sent to. The Witches blood remaining with the

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blood-sucker the Divell, sympathizes with the blood in the Witches body? How can this be? How can blood, a substance corporeall, remain with the Divell a spirit and incorporeall? I smell a Rat. I know the Doctors intent. He would leade us into * 1.24 the errour of Plato as Iamblicus, followed by Apu∣leius and Theupolus, who hold that the Divels have tenuia corpora, tenuious and slender bodies; for the Doctor who impiously attributes compositi∣on to God, dares falsely (though it be a sinne to be▪ lye the Divell) attribute corporeity to Divels. The contrary of which, that they have no manner of bodies, is the tenent of the Church. And the truth of it may be manifested foure wayes.

viz. the autho∣rity of
  • 1 Scriptures.
  • 2 Councels.
  • 3 Fathers.
  • 4 Schoolemen.

First, Scripture teaches that the Divels have no manner of bodies. We wrestle (saith Saint Paul) not against flesh and blood, but against spirituall wicked∣nesse (or wicked spirits in high places, Ephes. 6. 12. And * 1.25 indeed living bodies may be touched and handled; therefore Christ said to his disciples when they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seene a spirit, Luke 24. 27. Handle mee, * 1.26 and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as yee see me have, vers. 39. But Divels cannot be handled, therefore Divels have no bodies. Besides, our Savi∣our * 1.27 cast out a legion of divels out of the possessed, * 1.28 Luke 8. 30. A legion is sixe thousand, saith Cas∣man

Page 49

and others. Now sixe thousand divels could * 1.29 not really and substantially possesse one man (as a Pilot doth the ship, being the externall mover of it) if divels were corporeall.

Secondly, the second Lateran Councell (held at Lateran in Rome, anno 1••••5. in the time of Innocent the third, where were present 1284. Prelates, be∣sides Ambassadors from the East and Westerne * 1.30 Emperours, and from the Kings of Hierusalem, Eng¦land, Spaine, France and Cyprus) rankes it amongst the Articles of Faith, that we are to beleeve: That God created some creatures corporeall onely (as stones, * 1.31 mettals, &c.) some spirituall onely (as Angels good and bad) and some of a common and middle nature, participating of both, as men.

Thirdly, the Fathers teach the incorporeity of Angels, both celestiall and infernall. As Saint Ba∣sil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostome, Gregorius Mag∣nus, Cyrill, Theodoret, Venerable Beda, Isiodor, Damas¦cen, &c. * 1.32 In very deed, Origen, Tertullian and Saint Augustine seeme to incline to the contrary, as that the Angels are corporeall substances. But Origen was a Platenist and followed his Philosophy too much, wherby he brought himselfe into many er∣rours in Divinitie, amongst which this is one, wherein we leave him. And for Saint Augustine that incomparable Father, there are three opini∣ons concerning the verity of what he held in this point. Some say he did somewhat incline to this opinion: So Hurtadus de Mendoza. Others say that it cannot be denyed, but that he was absolutely of this opinion: So Lodovicus Vives. Lastly, others say, that he delivered not this opinion as his owne

Page 50

dogmaticall tenent, asserendo, maintaining it, but recitando opinionem aliorum, as the opinion of o∣thers reciting it. So Thomas Aquinas and Duran∣dus * 1.33 de Sancto Portiano. But Casman, Estius, and other Schoolmen excuse both Saint Augustine, Tertullian and other Fathers; that they delivered not this o∣pinion positively, but comparatively in respect of God: who is so incorporeall, that he is all act without power of future being, what he now is not: infinite; repletively filling all places, without be¦ing circumscribed any where as man, or defined as an Angell: pure, and simple without composition of quantitative, essentiall, or integrall parts: without composition of matter and forme, without com∣position * 1.34 of subject and accident, without composi∣tion of power and act, without composition of kinde and difference, and without composition of being and essence. Man is not simple, but com∣pounded ail these wayes. God is most simple and absolute, compounded none of these wayes, Angels are not simple but compounded some of these wayes. Therefore when the Fathers said that Angels are corporeall they meant it, secundum quid, non simpliciter, comparatively, and in respect of God, who is actus simplex, voyd of all composi∣tion, not absolutely in respect of themselves.

Fourthly, and lastly, the Schoolmen run in this streame, as Aquinas, Durandus, and all the rest. For * 1.35 so saith Estius, a late and most learned Schoolman. It is the common and constant doctrine of all Schoole∣men, that Angels are altogether incorporcall and purely spirituall. Now then the Divels being not corporeall, how can they so retaine and incorpo∣rate

Page 51

the blood sucked from Witches, as to alter and change the nature of it into their nature, and that altered blood by sympathy to change the masse of blood remaining within the body? For though it be a common received opinion, that the Diuell useth to sucke some place of the Witches body, and to that purpose either enters a true bo∣dy of some creature, as the Divell in Paradice en∣tred into the body of a Serpent to deceiue Evah, * 1.36 Gen. 3. 1. (and now adayes appeares to Witches like Dogs, Cats, Hares, &c.) or assumes a body of cōdensed thickned ayre, compacting it to the shape and colour of man: and when he hath done his er∣rand, layeth it aside againe (as a man doth his gar∣ment) it being resolved into the former matter, yet this body (because it is not united to, or long kept by the Divell) cannot keepe the blood it suc∣ked, but it is disposed some other way, spilt or lost, when the body is put off, and so there is no partici∣pation of the blood with the Divels body, nor of the Witches separated blood, with that in her bo∣die.

Besides, if there were any heate or spirit residing in the blood sucked from the Witch, the coldnesse of the Divels assumed body is such, it would streight chill and extinguish it. This Alexander ab * 1.37 Alexandro relateth to be true, by the experience of an acquaintance of his, who touched the heele of a Divell that assumed the shape of a man, and found it so could that no Ice could be compared to it. And Cardanus (a man conversant with spirits) affirmeth * 1.38 the like of his owne experience, that he being tou∣ched with the hand of a Divell, found it so cold

Page 52

that it was not at any hand to be endured. And o∣ther examples are recited by Lavater, in his booke * 1.39 of walking spirits: by all which it is apparant, that there can be no sympathy betwixt blood separa∣ted and the fountaine, be it the blood of Witches, or of any other person whatsoever. The Divell indeed may by compact of Witches which shall serve him, and so endevour to be like him (as the fervant endevours to be like his Master) or by the permission of God, stirre and excite the humours of mans body (be he Witch or not) inflaming his blood, kindling his choller, disturbing his phan∣tasie, cause a malignity of Nature in him. But to doe it by a sympathy of the blood remaining with him, with that which remaines in the body, is alto∣gether a thing impossible. And so Master Doctors argument of sympathy, and his sympathizing Salve, cannot be salved to be naturall and sympa∣thize with reason, though he hath fetched an argu∣ment from Dyers and Lyers, from the Divell, the father of Lyers to maintaine it.

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