The Female Physician / Containing all the diseases incident to that sex, in virgins, wives, and widows; together with their causes and symptoms, their degrees of danger, and respective methods of prevention and cure: to which is added, the whole art of new improv'd midwifery; comprehending the necessary qualifications of a midwife, and particular directions for laying women, in all cases of difficult and preternatural births; together with the diet and regimen of both the mother and child.

by John Maubray

THE Metaphysician useth a vast Variety of sublime Arguments; whereof I shall only give a few Instances: viz.

I. THAT every finite Being must needs proceed from something else, limiting it in that Finiteness, in which its Nature conflicts.

II. THAT all Multitude must proceed from Unity, as the Motions of the lower Orbs proceed from that of the one highest; or as the many particular distinct Actions and different Motions of the Man, proceed from (their Superior) the Soul.

III. THAT the Subordination of the Creatures, one serving another, and all concurring to the Common Good, must needs proceed from the Disposal of some most wise Governour.

IV. THAT the wonderful and incomparable Art, observable in the Make and Form of every the minutest Part of the least and most despicable Creature, must necessarily proceed from some very great and omnipotent Artificer.

V. THIS Sect acknowledges also the Immortality of the Soul, as Cicero witnesses; because it is an immaterial Substance, and independent of the Body: And consequently they allow it to proceed from an immortal Author, and to return to the same, after a Dissolution from the Body.

AS to the Moralist, his way of Reasoning is plainer to our common Capacities.

I. HE proves this Argument from the natural Disposition and Propensity of the worst of Men, even Atheists themselves, upon the Approach of Death or any heavy Calamity, to acknowledge some superior divine Power; as Seneca witnesseth of Caligula, &c.

II. FROM the ultimate End and chief Good of Man; which (according to Plato) is nothing Terrestrial: Our Souls being insatiable in this Life, have a constant Tendency to that particular End, for which we are created; which (in his Words) consists only in being inseparably united to God.

III. FROM Virtue and Vice, the Rewards and Punishments due to these from Nature and Reason; which agree with Equity and Justice, that they, who live well, should be rewarded with this their ultimate End and final Felicity: And those who live otherwise, should be punished by the Loss thereof forever. Thence they (of consequence) acknowledge, that there must be a just and powerful Judge, above all created Beings, to inflict this impartial Sentence.