Dedicatory.
ker, their naming divine, in respect that Adam out of the plenty of his own divine wisdome, gave them their several appellations, as it were out of a Fountaine of prophesie, foreshewing the nature of every kind in one elegant & significant denomination, which to the great losse of all his children was taken away, lost, & confounded at Babel. When I affirm that the knowledg of Beasts is Devine, I do meane no other thing then the right and perfect description of their names, figures, and natures, and this is in the Creator himself most Divine, & therefore such as is the fountain, such are the streams yssuing fro the fame into the mind of men. Now it is most cleare in Gen. how the Holy ghost remembreth the creation of al living creatures, and the Four-footed next before the creation of man, as thogh they alone were appointed the Ushers, going immediately before the race of men. And therefore all the Devines observe both in the Hebrew, in the Greeke and Latine, that they were created of three several sorts or kinds. The first Iumentum, as Oxen, Horse, Asses & such like, Quia hominum iwamenta. The second, Reptile quia hominum medicine. The third, Bestia I: à vastando, for that they were wild & depopulators of other their associats, rising also against man, after that by his fal he had lost his first image & integrity. Now were it not a knowledge Divine, why should the holy Scripture relate it, and divide the kinds? Yea, why should al holy men take examples fro the natures of Beasts, Birds, & c. & aply the to hevenly things, except by the ordinance of God they were both allowed and commanded so to do; and therefore in admiration of them the Prophet David crieth out, Quam magnifica sunt opera tua domine, omnia in sapientia fecisti. The old Manichees among other blasphemies accused the creation of harmful, venomous, ravening, and destroying Beasts, affirming them to bee made by an evill God, and also they accused the creation of Mice and other unprofitable creatures, because their dulnesse was no kinder to the Lord, (but like cruel and covetous misers, made no account of those beasts, which broght not profit to their purse. You know (Right Learned D.) how that grave Father answereth that calumnly, first affirming that the same thing which seemed ydle to men, was profitable to God; and the same that appeared ugly to them, was beautifull to him, Qui omnibus utitur ad gubernationem universi. He therefore wisely compareth a fool that knows not the use of the creatures in this World, to one ignorant that commeth into the workehouse of a cunning man, viewing a number of strange tooles, and having no cunning but in an Axe or a Rake, thinketh that al those rare inventions of a wise Workman are ydle toies: and whilst thus he thinketh, wandering to and fro, not looking to his feet, suddenly falleth into some surface in the same Work-house, or chance to take up some sharpe tool whereby he is wounded, then he also thinketh that the same are hurtful and daungerous. Quorum tamen usum quia novit artifex, insipientiam eius irridet, & verba inepta non curans officinam suam constenter exercet. But we that are ashamed to deny the use of instruments in the shops of rare Artisans, but rather admire their invention, yet are not afraid to condemn in Gods storehouse sundry of his creatures, which are rare inventions, although through folly we be wounded or harmed by them, and therfore he concludeth that al beasts are either utilia, and against them we dare not speake; or pernitiosa, whereby we are terrified, that we should not love this perillous life, or else they are superflua, which to affirme were most ridiculous: far for as in a great house all things are not for use, but some for ornament, so is it in this World, the inferior pallace of God. Thus far Austen. Therefore I will conclude this first part, that not only the knowledge of the profitable creature is divine, and was first of all taught by God, but also of the hurtfull: For a wife Man saith Salomon, seeth the Plague (by the revelation of God) and hideth himself from it. And John Bap: Quis vos docuit ab ira ventura fugere. These things I have principallie laboured in the Treatise, to shew unto men what Beasts are their friends, and what their Enemies, which to trust, and which avoyd, in which to find norishment, and which to shun as poison. Another thing that perswadeth me in the necessarie use of this history, that it was devine was the preseruation of al creatures living, which are ingendered by copulation (except Fishes) in the arke of Noah: unto whom it pleased the creator at that time to infuse an instinct, and bring them home to man as a fold: surely it was for that a man might game out of them much devine knowledge, such as is imprinted in them by nature, as a tipe or spark of that great wisedome whereby they were created. In mice and serpents a foreknowledge of things to come, in the Aunt and Pismire a providence against old age, in the Bear the love of yong; in the Lyon his stately pace; in the Cock & Sheep, change of weather; as S. Basill in
