211. Valentine Gretrakes.
It is Henry More[1] who tells us of his civet-like odour of complection. He is explaining how an enthusiast may cure some diseases by touching or stroking the part diseased, yet it would be no true miracle,.. and the perverse ingenuity with which he supports a true opinion by false reasoning, is very characteristic of this curious writer. "There may be very well, (he says) a sanative and healing contagion, as well as morbid and venomous. And the spirits of melancholy men being more massy and ponderous, when they are so highly refined and actuated by a more than ordinary heat and vigour of the body, may prove a very powerful elixir, Nature having outdone the usual pretences of chemistry in this case."
Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, Sect. 58.
"This very place," he adds in the Scholia to this Treatise, "I shewed to that excellent person, Mr. Boyle, at London, as I was talking with him in a Bookseller's shop, being asked by him what I thought of the cures of Valentine Gretrakes, with the fame of which all 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 various, 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 know not 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'd out, what a mighty smell of musk or civet is here! At which I smiling desired 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 little purified and defecated by the help of religion) because he could only relieve or cure afflicted Nature, but not restore 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 insensible, 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 vanished, and life and sense immediately returned to those parts. So subtil a thing is the matter of most, or all diseases, and yet at the same time so stupid and deadly, that it is, as it were the first-fruits of Death.
As to the constitution of these two, Coker was a very melancholick man, as I have been informed by those that conversed with him; Gretrakes was quite the contrary, being of a sanguine temper, very civil and humane, and really pious, without sourness or superstition. (For I myself have often conversed with him at 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 life, 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 the management of public offices, whether military or civil, (for he was a man not only of a pious and liberal education, but of an estate and capacity fit to serve the publick,) he did nothing but what carried an air of justice and equity in it, and a general good will towards all; insomuch, that though he did most heartily embrace the Reformed Religion, yet he would persecute no sect upon the score of religion, not even the Papists, and that in Ireland too, where they had, through their cruelty and perfidy, made such horrible havock of the Protestants. This and other things of this nature, certainly shew us that we ought to impute this gift of his curing diseases, not to the simple, but regenerate nature, since we find so many, and manifest steps and marks of the regenerate man in him; nor could I ever discover any thing in him that was contemptuous or immoral towards the spirtual, or secular magistrate, and truly be seems to me such an exemplar of candid and sincere Christianity, without any pride, deceit, sourness or superstition; to which let me add his working such wonderful at least, if not properly called miracles, as the Church of Rome in no age, could ever produce for their religion. For what Gretrakes did, was done in the face of the world, seen and attested by Physicians, Philosophers, and Divines of the most penetrating and accurate judgment. But what ridiculous shams and cheats the miracles of the Roman Church are, is too well known to the world to spend any time on them here."
The most remarkable thing about Gretrakes is, that he should have performed these cures without becoming a religious enthusiast. Many men have pretended to 'call spirits from the vasty deep,' without believing themselves conjurors, . . but none of these pretenders would have doubted the reality of their own magical powers, if the spirits had "come when they did call for them." There was a time when our saints dealt largely in prophecy, . . but there is a valuable story upon record, of one whose prediction happened to be accomplished, and the effect which it produced upon him was immediately to make him mad. This striking fact is thus related by the faithful historian of the Quakers, William Sewel.
"Thomas Ibbitt of Huntingtonshire, came to London a few days before the burning of that city, and, (as hath been related by the eye-witnesses) did upon his coming thither, alight from his horse, and unbutton his clothes in so loose a manner, as if they had been put on in haste just out of bed.
"In this manner he went about the city on the sixth, being the day he came thither, and also on the seventh day of the week, pronouncing a judgment by fire, which should lay waste the city. On the evening of these days, some of his friends had meetings with him, to enquire concerning his message and call, to pronounce that impending judgment: In his account whereof he was not more particular and clear, than, that he said he for some time had the vision thereof, but had delayed to come and declare it as commanded until he felt (as he exprest it) the fire in his own bosom: which message or vision was very suddenly proved to be sadly true.
"The Fire began on the 2d of September, 1666, on the first day of the week, which did immediately follow those two days the said Thomas Ibbitt had gone about the city declaring that judgment.
"Having gone up and down the city, as hath been said, when afterwards he saw the fire break out, and beheld the fulfilling of his prediction, a spiritual pride seized on him, which, if others had not been wisier than he, might have tended to his utter destruction. For the fire being come as far as the East end of Cheapside, he placed himself before the flame, and spread his arms forth, as if to stay the progress of it; and if one Thomas Matthews, with others had not pulled him, who seemed now altogether distracted) from thence, it was like he might have perished by the fire. Yet in process of time, as I have been told, he came to some recovery and confessed this error; an evident proof of human weakness, and a notorious instance of our frailty, when we assume to ourselves the doing of any thing to which Heaven alone can enable us."
- ↑ See vol. I, p. 144, where I had supposed it was Lord Herbert of Cherbury.