Quest. 29. What manner of change Nebuchad∣nezzars was.
1. Lyranus and Carthusianus doe impute this opinion vnto Iosephus, that he should thinke, that Nebuchadnezzar was indeede changed into an oxe. But Iosephus in that place, where he toucheth that storie, lib. 10 antiquat. cap. 11. hath no such thing: he onely saith, vitam acturus erat inter bestias, that he was to lead his life among the beasts. Indeede Darotheus and Epiphanius are of opinion, that he was not changed at all in his minde,* 1.1 but onely externally in his bodie▪ and that the forepart of him was like an oxe, the hinder part like a lyon. But this cannot be so. 1. If they presse the words literally they may with better reason say, he was changed into an eagle: because it is said, his haire was as eagles quilles, and his nailes like birds clawes: 2. If there had beene in him any such notorius change it would not haue beene omitted, seeing the power of God should haue beene set forth there∣by. 3. And if the Chaldeans had seene him in the shape of a beast, they would haue taken him for a very bruite beast, and not fit to be restored to his kingdome. 4. It is euident also that the same Nebuchadnezzar a man, and not a beast, after the time expired, was restored to his kingdome: but if he had beene so changed, he should not haue beene the same, but an other.
2. Medina is of opinion, that Nebuchadnezzar was changed not indeede but in shewe,* 1.2 that he appeared to be a bruit beast in the sight of all that looked vpon him: such a like thing is that, which Hierome reporteth in the life of Hilarion, how a woman was brought vnto him, which seemed vnto others to be a beast, but he discerned her to be a woman.
But Gods workes are not fantasticall, or in shewe: that which he doth is in veritie and truth: this difference there is betweene Gods workes, and the illusions of Sathan, that he maketh things to be the same which they appeare, as Moses rodde became a true serpent, but Sathan deceiueth the sense, the sorcerers serpents were but counterfeit.
3. Neither yet can I altogether subscribe vnto the opinion of Thomas Aquin.* 1.3 who thin∣keth that although Nebuchadnezzar were neither actually, nor in shewe a beast in his bodi∣ly shape, yet sua opinione videbatur sibi bestia, he seemed a beast vnto himselfe: I thinke ra∣ther with Calvin, non sic obstupuit, quin mala sua sentiret, he was not so besotted, but that he had some sense of his calamitie: for otherwise how should he haue remembred it afterward, and so giuen thankes to God for his restitution.
4. This then was the transmutation which Nebuchadnezzar had, manente forma huma∣na, his mans shape remayning, his humane soule was changed to be brutish by his phrensie and madnesse: Bulling. not that the minde of a beast was giuen him in substance, for he re∣tayned his reasonable soule: nor yet that there was no more vnderstanding in him left, then in a bruit beast, Osiand. for the reasonable soule remayning, though it became bruitish, yet it is not altogether as the sense of a bruite beast: but as Lyranus saith, vsum rationis perdi∣dit per amentiam, he lost the vse of reason by his madnesse: his minde became bruitish, and in