That the noice thats conveyed to our ears is corporeall and material be it of bels or of canons is beyond controversy, since _sonus_ is _obiectum sensûs corpori, ut auditus: at objectum rei corporcae oportet esse corporeum: cum incorporea sub sensibus naturaliter non cadunt_. I adde _naturaliter_, because I know _super naturaliter in beatificá visione Deus quodammodo cadet sub sensibus ut glorificatus_, according to that of Jobs with thir same wery eyes sall I see my Redeimer: yea not only is _sonus quid materiale_, but further something much more grossely material then the objects of the rest of the senses, as for instance in the discharging of a canon being a distance looking on we would think it gives fire long before it gives the crack, tho in wery truth they be both in the same instant. The reason then whey we sie the fire before we hear the crack is because the _species Wisibiles_ that carries the fire to our eyes, tho material are exceeding spirituall and subtill and are for that soon conveyed to our sight: when the _Species Audibiles_ being more gross takes a pitty tyme to peragrate and passe over that distance that is betuixt us and the canon, or they can rendre them selfes to the organ of our hearing.
But let us returne, we are informed that in Italy, wheir thunders are bothe more frequent and more dangerous then heir, they are wery carefull not only to cause ring all their bells, but also to shoot of their greatest cannons and peices of ordonnances and that to the effect mentioned. I am not ignorant but the Papists feignes and attributes a kind of wertue to the ringing of bells for the chassing away of all evill spirits if any place be hanted or frequented wt them. Yet this reason cannot have roome in our case, since ther are few so ignorant of the natural causes of thunder as to impute it to the raging of ill spirits in the air, tho the Mr. of Ogilvy at Orleans, who very wilfully whiles would maintain things he could not maintain, would not hear that a natural cause could be given of the thunder, but would impute it to evill spirits. I do not deny but the Devils wt Gods permission may occasion thunders and other tempests in the air, but what I aime at is this, they never occasion it so, but they make use of natural means; for who is ignorant but the Meteorologists gives and assignes all the 4 causes of it its efficient, its materiall, its formall and its finall.