Or is it the place of hell, as Virgil in his Æneides, Plato, Lucian, Dantes, and others poetically describe it, and as many of our Divines think? In good earnest, Anthony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian Colledge in Millan, in his great volume de Inferno lib. 1. cap. 47. is stiffe in this tenent, ’tis a corporeall fire tow, cap. 5. l. 2. as he there disputes.

Whatsoever Philosophers write (saith Surius) there be certain mouthes of hell, and places appointed for the punishment of mens souls, as at Hecla in Island, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living: God would have such visible places, that mortall men might be certainly informed, that there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God.

Krantzius dan. hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth Colerus cap. 12. lib. de immortal. animæ (out of the authority belike of St. Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the Schoolmen, who derive as much from Ætna in Sicily, Lypara, Hyera, and those sulphureous Vulcanian Islands) making Terra del Fuego, and those frequent Vulcans in America, of which Acosta lib. 3. cap. 24. that fearfull mount Heckleberg in Norway, an especiall argument to prove it,

where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a terrour to the Auditors; fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring in the souls of men in the likenesse of crows, and divels ordinarily goe in and out.

Such another proof is that place neer the Pyramides in Egypt, by Cairo, as well to confirme this as the resurrection, mentioned by Kornmannus mirac. mort. lib. 1. cap. 38. Camerarius oper. suc. cap. 37. Bredenbachius peregr. ter. sanct. and some others, where once a yeere dead bodies arise about March, and walk, and after a while hide themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them.

But these and such like testimonies others reject, as fables, illusions of spirits, and they will have no such locall known place, more than Styx or Phlegeton, Pluto’s Court, or that poeticall Infernus, where Homers soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c. to which they ferried over in Charons boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad inferos via, which is the shortest cut, quia nullum à mortuis naulum eo loci exposcunt, (saith Gerbelius) and besides there were no fees to be paid.

Well then, is it Hell, or Purgatory, as Bellarmine; or Limbus patrum, as Gallucius will, & as Rusca will (for they have made maps of it) or Ignatius parler?

Virgil, sometimes Bishop of Saltburg (as Aventinus Anno. 745. relates) by Bonifacius Bishop of Mentz was therefore called in question, because he held Antipodes (which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away the seat of Hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to Heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil, Lactantius, that held the earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta & common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball;

and Ierusalem where Christ died the middle of it; or Delos, as the fabulous Greeks fained: because when Iupiter let two Eagles loose, to flye from the worlds ends East & West, they met at Delos.

But that scruple of Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our later Divines: Franciscus Ribera in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have Hell a materiall & locall fire in the center of the earth, 200. Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words, Exivit sanguis de terrâ——per stadia mille sexcenta, &c.

But Lessius lib. 13. de moribus divinis cap. 24. will have this locall hell far less, one Dutch mile in Diameter, all filled with fire and brimstone: because, as he there demonstrates, that space Cubically multiplied, will make a Sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square) which will abundantly suffice; Cum certum sit, inquit, factâ subductione, non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum.

But if it be no materiall fire (as Sco. Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius, and others argue it may be) there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes System. Theol. for sure somewhere it is, certum est alicubi, etsi definitus circulus non assignetur.

I will end the controversie in Austins words. Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abrahams bosome is, and hell fire: Vix à mansuetis, à contentiosis nunquam invenitur; scarce the meek, the contentious shall never finde.

If it be solid earth, ’tis the fountain of metals, waters, which by his innate temper turns Aire into water, which springs up in severall chinks, to moisten the earths superficies, and that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) or else these fountains come directly from the sea, by secret passages, and so made fresh again, by running through the bowels of the earth: and are either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which they pass;

or as Peter Martyr Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others hold, from abundance of rain that fals, or from that ambient heat and cold, which alters that inward heat, and so per consequens the generation of waters. Or else it may be full of winde, or a sulphureous innate fire, as our Meteorologists enform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those horrible Earth-quakes, which are so frequent in these dayes in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow up whole Cities.

Let Lucians Menippus consult with or aske of Tiresias, if you will not beleeve Philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes a second voiage.

In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and finde out a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, Meteors, alterations, as happen above ground. Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct character (as it were) to severall nations? Some are wise, subtill, witty; others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timæo, Vegetius and Bodine proves at large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civill, black, dun, white, is it from the aire, from the soyle, influence of stars, or some other secret cause?

Why doth Africa breed so many venemous beasts, Ireland none? Athens Owles, Creet none? Why hath Daulis and Thebes no Swallowes (so Pausanias informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, Ithaca no Hares, Pontus Asses, Scythia Swine? whence come this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, metals, peculiar almost to every place?

Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta demands lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six dayes, or ever in Noahs Arke? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspence; no Greek, Latine, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut: and which is more, kine, horses, sheep, &c. till the Spaniards brought them were never heard of in those parts?

How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one Latitude, to such as are Periæci, there should be such difference of soyle, complexion, colour, metall, aire, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the Inhabitants about Caput bonæ spei are Blackmores, and yet both alike distant from the Æquator: