places rung at that time. I told him my opinion was fixed about those cures some years before they were performed : For that one Coker, (for that was the name of the person whose remarkable way of curing or healing I now mention,) by a very gentle chafing or rubbing of his hand, cured diseases ten years ago, to the best of my remembrance, as Gretrakes did, though not so many and va rious, for this cured cancers, scrofulas, deafness, king's evil, head-ach, epilepsie, fevers though quartan ones, leprosy, palsy, tympany, lameness, numbness of limbs, stone, convulsions, ptysick, sciatica, ulcers, pains of the body, nay, blind and dumb in some measure, and I knownot but he cured the gout, Of all which cures "Gretrakes wrote a book, attested, by good hands, to which, for brevity's sake I refer the reader. But it is in general to be observed, that although he cured all those diseases, yet he did not succeed in all his applications, nor were

his cures always lasting. Moreover it was not only his hand that had this healing quality, but even his spittle and his urine, whereby you may the more easily discover that cures have relation to the temperament of the body. Besides, it was well known that his body as well as his hand and urine, had a sort of herbous aromatic scent: though that may be no certain sign of a sanative faculty.

"This I can speak by experience of myself, especially when I was young, that every night, when going to bed I unbuttoned my doublet, my breast would emit a sweet aromatick smell, and every year after about the end of winter, or approaching of the spring, I had usually sweet herbous scents in my *nostrils, no external object appearing from whence they came Nay, my urine would smell like violets, which made me very much to wonder at the mistake of that famous physician and philosopher Henricus Regius, That no body's urine

smelt sweete but from some medicine taken inwardly; whereas I know the contrary to happen in my own certain knowledge. Besides I remember above forty years ago that one winter pulling off, my shoes, and setting them to the fire, my chamber fellow coming into the room at the same time presently „cry'dˆ out, what a mighty smell of musk or ciyet is here! At which I smiling desir ed him to draw near, and smell to my shoes, which he did, but soon found a different smell there. But I know not how I thus insensibly run into this humour of talking of myself. Let us return to Gretrakes and his cures, which it is manifestly plain may be within the bounds of nature, (though perhaps not a Intle, purified and defecated by the help of religion) because he could only relieve or cure afflicted Nature, but not restoreTM it when decaying. But that which to me seems wonderful above all the rest is, that subtil morbifick matter, which,

by the application of his hand would become volatil, and remove from the · part griev'd, and then like lightning disperse itself by the same application of the hand, into several parts of the body, till at last he would drive it into some extreme part, suppose the fingers, and, especially the toes, or the nose or tongue;" into which parts when he had forced it, it would make them so cold and insensi ble, that the patient could not feel the deepest prick of a pin, but as soon as his hand should touch those parts, or gently rub them, the whole distemper va nished, and life and sense immediately returned to those parts. So subtil a thing is the matter of most, or all dis eases, and yet at the same time so stupid and deadly, that it is, as it were the firstfruits of Death.

"As to the constitution of these two Coker was a very melancholick man, as I have been informed by those that con.. versed with him; Gretrakes was quite

very

the contrary, being of a sanguine temper, civil and humane, "and really pious, without sourness or superstition. (For myself have often conversed with him sat Ragley, when I used to be at my Lord Viscount Conway's) Whence I plainly saw, by the ascension of blood and spirits, his brain was in no danger, nor was I mistaken in my conjecture.

But I would not be understood in what I have said of these sorts of cures, as if I despised them; for they may be the special gift of God in Nature, especially in regenerate Nature. Of which sort it is likely these cures of Gretrakes were, as any one may collect from the account of his forepass'd le, for he

gave himself up wholly to the study of Godliness and sincere mortification, and through the whole course of his life, shew'd all manner of specimens of a Christian disposition. But, besides the innocence of his private life, and his most effusive charity and humanity, in