III. BECAUSE to denote the Sufficiency of this Number, there are also nine Orders and Choirs of blessed Angels; namely, Seraphims, Cherubims, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels: Which the Prophet EZEKIEL[[125]] emblematically figures out by Nine Stones; as the Saphire, Emerald, Carbuncle, Beril, Onyx, Chrysolite, Jasper, Topaz, and the Sardis.

BUT besides the Nine internal and external Senses, mentioned in Sect. I. Chap. 5. more plainly and familiarly denote the Perfection of this Number: As, in like manner, the most learned Authors of all Ages take great Notice of it in the Age of Man, calling this Ninth, together with the Seventh, Climacterical Years.

NOT to mention the Ninth Hour, in which our Blessed Saviour breathed out his Holy Spirit; the Ninth Day the Antients buried their Dead, and many such remarkable Instances. Yet however, in most Natural and Philosophical Cases, this Number implies still some Imperfection; because it comes short of the Complement of the Great Number Ten (being deficient by One) as St. Austin interprets it of the Ten Lepers. Wherefore not to go too far in these Mystical Matters, I proceed to

CHAP. XXXVI.
Of a Ten-Months BIRTH.

AS to this Point, it is not only True in Part; to wit, during the First Ten Days of the 10th Month, as Some would have it, but rather (in my Opinion) Altogether, and at any time of it, as Legitimate as the 9th Month; according to Plautus the Comick Poet; Tunc illa quam compresserat, decimo post exacto Mense hanc peperit Filiam.

FOR altho’ Women commonly reckon their Births more frequent in the Ninth Month; yet many Learned Men have left it (as a doubtful Controversy) undecided whether That or This be the most proper natural Time: Whereas Some of the first Rank[[126]] have more positively determined a Legitimate BIRTH to happen in the Tenth Month Only, according also to Virgil’s excellent Poetical Computation—

“Matri longa decem tulerunt fastidia Menses.”

MOREOVER, for a farther Proof of this Argument, I need only refer to Solomon, the wisest of Kings; who being the greatest Master of all ARTS, cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of This Truth: And whose express Decision of this Doubt, we have set down in the Beginning of the 7th Chapter of his Book of WISDOM; saying, “I myself also am a mortal Man, and the Offspring of him that was first made of the Earth, and in my Mother’s Womb was fashioned to be Flesh in the time of TEN MONTHS, &c.”

BUT farther yet, as to the Nature of this Month, MARS is presumed to succeed in it, who indulges the Infant by his amicable Qualities, or benign Influences: For He is deemed a Friend to LIFE, as he affords Vitality to the BIRTHS happening in it.