RULES' TO GET CHILDREN BY WITH HANDSOME FACES: OR, Precepts for the Extemporary Sectaries which Preach, and Pray, and get Children without Book to consider and look on, before they leap.  
THAT SO, Their Children may not have such strange, prodigious, ill-bodeing Faces as their Fathers, who (unhappily) became so ill-phisnomied themselves, not only by being born before their conversion, by Original Sin, and by being Crossed over the Face in Baptism; but by the lineal ignorance of their Parents too in these Precepts, for begetting Children of Ingenuous Fea tures and Symmetrious Limbs.  
Composed by George Spinola.  
LONDON, Printed for R H, 1642.   

Rules to get CHILDREN by, with handsome Faces.  
NAture the Vicegerent of God, seems now to be grown old, and in such a decrepit dotage, that she is disenabled to bring forth things so accurate and perfect as she was wont, when she was young and lusty, and her veins filled with prolifique Spirit, not yet dispensed to the generition of so many Millions of several things. The Sun itself is observed by modern Men, to have sunk two degrees nearer to the Earth, than it was in Ptolemy's time▪ and if that glorious body of the Sun be not exempted from diminutions by time, we may well suspect that the whole Frame and Systeme of Nature, is hamstringd and lame, and that she herself goes now upon her crutches. The fire, which once (as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks tell us) brought forth many Creatures, as the Salamander, the Pyrausta, and others, is now grown quite fruitless and barren. The Air doth not now bestow a cherishing and vital incubation upon the Earth and Water, as sometimes it did; and to say all in a Word, in comparison of former influence and foecundity, the Heaven is become Brass, and the Earth Iron. Neither is this decay and damp of Nature observable in the Systeme of the greater World alone, but more eminently in the Microcosm or lesser World of Man, which is a little transcript of the great Universe. Do but sum up the age of Man now adays, then observe his petit diminutive Stature, and you will presently say, That Man is but the Creature of a Day, that he is become a Pigmy now, and that Nature hath spent all her sovereign Balm which sometimes maintained him in a kind of perfect, lasting, and settled beauty. Since, such an insufficiency of Nature in the ●eeming of all her Births, and especially of Man, is manifest▪ I thought it not unworthy of a Philosopher to inquire the Reasons, why Nature in this age of the World fails so much in the Generation of Man, and ●o to discover some Artificial Rules to help and relieve her failings in the bodies of Men, & to make Posterity beholding to m● for their better Faces. But I confess in all my observations of the Physiognomies of Men, I have not found such strange, exotic, foreign, ridiculous deformities, and non-conformities of parts in the Faces and Limbs of any kind of Men, as in those which at this day are familiarly called the Sectaries and Separatists, and therefore I direct this discourse of Face-mending to those invisible Christians of Knock-verjuce-lane, and other obscure places. They above all others seemed to me to have the fairest plea, title, and claim to such a discourse. First, because the mistakes of Nature are not so preposterous, ridiculous, and enormous in the Faces of any kind or order of Men as in theirs and their children's. Secondly, because some of the best Rules of Facemending here proposed, do work primarily by the strength and force of Imagination, in which kind of Imagination, they are known to have a greater share, then of Reason, and a clear intellectual mind. Now lest any Man should think I offer at a thing impossible, when I promise Rules to get Children with handsome Faces; First I will show you that some Christian Philosophers upon their honour have affirmed, that it is possible by Rules of Art reduced to practise, not only to mend, but to raise even out of Dust the bodies of many vegetables, and sensitive Creatures, which bids higher for the improvement of Nature, than my discourse of Rules. Secondly, I will lay the Basis and foundation of my Rules in the Scripture itself, that the Brownist (if he be true to his own positions) may not suspect me for a humane Traditioner; but apply himself forthwith to beget good Faces by the Text.  
It is reported of Rhasis the Arabian, and Albertus Magnus (and themselves in their writings intimate the same) that they did generate and produce by Art, Homunculos quosdam, certain little men in stature puppetlike, but with all the Organs of a perfect man, born by the ordinary course of Nature. Paracelsus, of whom the judicious Erasmus of Rotterdam, says, ●ulta invenit divinitus, he found out many things by Divine inspiration, confesses boldly, that he received that secret of producing little men by Art from God himself, and sets down the way of proceeding artificially to that purpose, in his first Book of the Nature of things.  
The bold experiments of these Philosophers excuse me for daring only but so high as to prescribe Rules to beget good and Orthodox Faces, especially since my way of proceeding, takes it rise from Scripture, and common experience of observing men. And now I fall upon that part of natural and most lawful Magic, by which the Generation of Man may be perfected and ennobled.  
1 Rule. It is known to all sober and discreet men; That all sensitive Creatures (and such are Men especially when they close with Women) do Impress into the thing begot that very affection which prevails and presides in them in or about the time of Generation. And this is confirmed by the practice of the Patriarch Ja●ob, Gen. 30. 37. And Jacob took him Rods of green Poplar, and of the ●asell and Ches●ut-trce, and peeled white strakes in them, and made the White appear which was in the Rods. And he set the Rods which he had piled before the Flocks in the Gutters in the watring-troughes when the Flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they ●ame to drink; And the Flocks conceived before the Rods, and brought forth  ringstraked, speckled and spotted, etc. The whole Story proves not only the lawfulness of this kind of Natural Magic to better the Generation of Beasts, much more of Men, but the use and certain effect of Impressions taken from external objects. In Mesopotamia and Syria, where this Patriarch was Shepherd, the heat of the weather is excessive, the Waters but ●ew, and those for the most part in little purls; therefore when the Flocks came to the water wherein the Rod● were laid and looked upon them in the Water, to which they had an e●ger appetite, they did, as it were, with their eyes, draw in and drink the ships of those Rods loved and desired by them, even in that love and desire of the Water, and so generated, conceived, and teemed t●ose speckled births. And no doubt, but an Artificial and lawful Magic not unlike this of the Patriarch may be used with good success to perfect the generation of Man. Be this then the first Rule, Take heed what affection prevails in thee, and what Impression thou hast derived and naturalised to thyself from outward objects about that time when thou goest about the Blandum Mysterium, as Trismegist speaks, the toying mystery, which makes thee Father of an handsome or ill-favoured Babe. The Tribe of the Brownists though illuminated has been extremely ignorant in this principle. And it is no wonder that they and their barns are of such ridiculous Physiognomies, since by their profession they abhor all decency and harmoniousnesse, and lie with their Wives in that opinion. Impressions of slovennesse, disorder and disproportion must needs affect the Spirits of such as are habitually averse from decency, order and proportion. If no other ill Impression but this which is almost their very essence; namely, the abjuring of all Order, affected their spirits, it were enough to make all their brood of shapes as strange and monstrous as those irregular figures and appearances which sometimes we see in the Clouds, which several eyes judge to be of several form▪ yonder Cloud says one looks like a Pedlar with a pack upon his back, no says another, it is a Cat-a-mountain with the heels upward. But this is not all; besides, their resolute abjuring of Order, from variety of other Objects of their like or dislike, varieties of strange Impressions arise in their Spirits. One fastens upon a Presbytery which neither he nor the Christian World, for this almost fifteen ●undred years, well understood, and in the ignorant heat of that desire, begets a thing of such a doubtful shape, that when it is presented to a Minister that can see, he may justly doubt whether it be a thing that ought to be Christened at all, or not. From his dislike of Episcopacy results his love of Presbytery, and from those two together, such a miscellaneous Impression is made in the blood, that any thing begot of that is very likely to look monstrous scurvily. In the mind of another of them, Canterbury continually runs, and though his fancy be not strong enough to hit the lineaments of the Man exactly, yet his hate is active enough to draw him more monster than he is in shape or manner's▪ He hath an ugly shape of the man in his mind, though not a true one, and that ugly Idea, Prints itself in his blood, as we often see misshapen Clouds in the Water; when his Religion, his appetite, and Mistress incites him to give due benevolence, he cannot well expect, if ●e understand himself, that the issue of that Close, should have but one Face, and that handsome▪ but one Name, and that Christian. Certainly, it must needs prove a thing of doubtful Interpretation, of a Priest-and-Minister Face, of a Secular and Ecclesiastic Head and Shoulders, or else an uncooth-shaped Lay-Elder bepissed in the Swadling-clouts; for part of its Original it will owe to that Impression which the Father hath derived from strange apprehensions of Canterbury, and part to the Dad and Mam, as mere Separatists. Neither is it unlike, that the shape of a Bishop should contract Lay-Eldership and Original Sin from the blood of a Brownist, where ignorance and hate hath mistaken, and writ it foul.  
But see! here comes a Company of Assassinate's to make a religious ●iot upon Cheapefide-Crosse: they look something like Men, and might possibly beget Children with humane Faces; but for those very Images which they will carry home to their Wives, Imprinted in their Animal-Spirits, (Spiritus animalis quoniam natura mobilis, tenuis passivusque est, aptus est omnibus a rebus pati, Campanella. lib. 4. cap. 6.) by looking eagerly upon what they desire to ruin.  
The Objects of Love and Hate cut deep Impressions in our Souls. One falls foul upon the Picture of Judas and his Lantern, and when he comes home reports to his Wife his zeal and valour, and ●hen whilst his spirit is big and full of the action, begets a Brat with a Judas-lanthorn-belly, which in time will be fi●●d with Illumination and Gut, like the Fathers. Another ●al upon the Stature of S●int Peter; a third upon Paul's; a fourth upon those which are remembrancers of more glorious Names, and from all these first looked upon with hate, while they stand entire, and then with pleasure when they are dismembered, strange unshapen figures are impressed in the blood, able to make all their posterity Apes, Elves, and Hobgoblins.  
Thus they prevaricate from my first Rule which teaches Men to take heed what affection presides in them, and what Impression they derive from outward Objects. And since misshapen objects possess the eager beholders with misshapen figures; I advise the Sectaries hereafter to find themselves objects wherein there is a beauteous conformity of all parts, out of a Christian pity to them and their posterity, I wish them all which have Wives to buy the Canon of the Mass, ana the Golden Legend, for there they shall find most beauteous pictures of the Roman Saints of Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Archbishops, Archdeacous, Canons, Demicanons, prebend's, Deans, Nuns, and Virgin-Ladies, which will beget ●ine ●ormes in their fancies, especially if with a devout intention they peruse the story of their lives subjoynd, which will certainly send them back to gaze upon the pictures with a great deal of love. One serious look of a Brownist upon the red Capital Letters in the Canon of the Mass, would enable him to beget a Boy or G●rle with Cherry-cheeks and L●ps. But I must praemonish thee (good Brownist) that thou look not upon all the pictures in the Masse-book and Legend with equal ardency; take ●eed of staring too wide upon S. Dunstan holding the Devil by the Nose with a pair of tongs, lest immediately upon it thou chance to get a Babe which may have more of the Devil, the Nose, and the Tongues in it, then of S. Dunstan. There is a Picture of a certain Saint, preaching in the Water with a little Millstone about his neck, by miracle to convert the Ethnics which fling him so desperately into the Water▪ pass by this picture I pray thee, lest while the Imagination of this is fresh in thee, thou shouldst afflict the World with a prodigious opinionist which would induce a form, and urge the necessity of Preaching in the Water, with Millstones about men's necks, to put University Hoods quite out of fashion. And thus I pass from the first Rule, and your trespasses against it, with the redresses of ills ensuing to you from those trespasses, to the second Rule as followeth.  
2 Rule. Let no Sectary dare to enter the arms of his mistress, before he has praemeditated, and is certainly informed whether benign stars be in the Horoscope, whether happy Planets smile upon one another with a gracious aspect, that a Child may not be got (as Spencer speaks) 
— Under illdisposed Skies,  
When sullen Sa●u●ne sits ' ith'house of obloquys.   
But this Rule the Brownist is partly resolved, partly necessitated to transgress though he get a Child with more horrid and ridiculous Physiognomies than are necessary for a whole mask of antics. First because he neither has nor will have any skill in this kind of humane learning. Secondly, his extemporary Cock-sparrow devotion towards his doxy will not let him take time to Catechise a Planet, and say, is it peace Jehu (for by his learning he may easily take that for the name of a Planet) or in what point of Heaven is Leviathan now. Thirdly, because he cannot be convinced that the Stars have an Influential authority here upon Earth, since he believes that the Bishops which liein a nearer prospect to him have none at all; And yet the Stars (beloved sought in their courses against Jabin and Sisera, and why may not the Stars take up the Cudgels to break thy baby's Head, or Brain, or face, and make it break forth a ●ery Mooncalf; rather than you should be quite ignorant in this Rule and fright us still with your children's ill-portending faces, I pray that you may convert Bouker, Alestre, Winter, and all the rest of the Almanack-mongers to be the advisers and grooms of your wantou Stools.  
3 Rule. My third Rule or caution is founded upon a relation of Aelian a Greek Historian and Philosopher. In Africa (says he) where it is very hot, and Waters are scarce, wild Beasts of all kinds and shapes meet iogether at the Water in very great Companies, and there, when their spirits are cheered by the Water, they engender with one another at random, and so by a continual coalition of promiscuous blood, afric is continually full of strange and monstrous shapes.  
It is not hard to draw a fair parallelisme betwixt these African Beasts, and the practice of the invisible brethren; your hearts▪ (brethren) are known to be as great and malignant as those which the surly Dog-star breathes; your companies are full, and of shapes, strange and exotic, whether compared with us, or one another, your watering places are but few and private; your waters are cheering, sublimated Cock-broth, ambergris caudle, candied-eryngomotives, frontinack & muscatellie-means, with the high and mighty spirit of Diasatyrion to raise your weaklings, fallen into interims of spiritual desertions; now, if you chance to mingle your loves promiscuously (which I will not say) as you i●●e●●eave opinions, and beget monsters, in reason, your Church may well Vie with afric for monstrous shapes, and give it three in seven. Take heed therefore (good private Christion) of these hot, private, lusty, and promiscuous meetings, if thou meanest that thy Child, or him that thou mayst own for thine, should have a handsome ingenious look.  
My fourth Rule informs the Sectary not to be rash in the choice of a place for familiar congress and collation of notes with his Mistress, place may conduce much to the temper, both of the body and mind of a Child. A Child got upon a pair of stairs, is very likely to be crump-shouldred; and besides that, may confess the place of its Original by staring. An Orchard may conduce to the Greensickness; a Dairy to a Wheybeard; a Chee●e-loft to all kind of Obstructions; a Gallery, to a Longnose▪ a dull kitchen to the love-hickup, for the want of Wit; and repletion by meat and drink engender love and the hickup. If thy Mistress will stand a veney rather than fail against a Bean-stalk, canst thou think to beget any thing there but an Arminian, for the Mother's fear and suspicion of breaking her Bean-rest, may infuse in a Babe so begot a strong suspicion of falling away finally, against the Brownists Position of Assurance: If she be so coming that she will allow thy Courtship, even there where there is nothing but Venice-glasses & Urinals behind her, the Birth may prove an open trasparant Fool, and have the Pissing evil for ever.  
My fifth Rule adviseth thee to leave thy Preaching, and fall to thy Trade, if thou mean to get Children with handsome Faces, and Symmetrious Limbs. Those high speculations of thine, concerning Gods eternal efficacious decree, concerning the certainty of Divine prescience opposing contingency of actions, concerning the immobility of Divine praedestination, end reprobation; those (I say) make thy weak Spirit, like a Skein of raveld Silk, which is hardly evolved without snapping, ●aring, and a thousand knots; whilst thy Spirits are so entangled, perplexed, and attenuated into single threads, thy Child must probably have such a long, thin, and narrow Face, that a man even with that Face, instead of a stick might stop paper into the hole of an Eldern-gnn. The Roman Priests even for this Reason, Because their Spirits are engad'g in Divine and Humane Contemplations, are prohibited the Marriagebed; and if at any time a contemplative Priest chance to g●t a Baby, it proves such a witless and shapeless Fool, that he never owns it as his Son, but his Nephew. Much more I could have said in this Argument of Sectary-facemending, but that a serious study which I have in hand, calls me to play upon a deeper Reed, then ●●nes the Face of a 〈◊〉. If these Precepts already given do not mend their Faces and behaviours, I beeleeve our Honourable Patriots of the high Council will become such natural magnians as Jacob was, and lay Rods for'em in their most private Watring-troughs.  
FINIS.