was really and essentially charged into a Wolf? no, that would be inconsequent and ridiculous; and so would it be, if because _Nebuchadnezzar_ lay in the open field, was wet with the rain and dew, and did eat grass as an ox, to conclude, that therefore he was really changed into a beast; the absurdities are both alike. This is as mad a kind of inference, as if we should say, Conies and Geese do eat grass like an Ox, therefore they are Oxen or Asses, when notwithstanding they still retain their essential beings and shapes, without any essential transformations at all. [Sidenote: _Argum. 2._] 2. Because the hairs of his head (as the Text saith) were grown like to an Eagles feathers, and for that also the very nails of his hands and feet were like the claws of a bird: yet it doth not prove that he was really changed into a beast, and that for these Reasons. 1. Because it would be more consonant to conclude, that he was rather transformed into some bird, having feathers and claws, than into a beast that hath horns and hoofs, though there was in him no corporeal transformation at all, but only a changed mind. 2. The Text is not according to the Hebrew Phrase used when there is real transubstantiation, as in _Lots_ Wife; _Et fuit statua salis_; but as _Tremellius_ renders it: _Usquedum pili ejus ut Aquilarum plumæ crevissent, & ungues ejus ut avium_. And _Arias Montanus_ thus: _Donec capillus ejus sicut Aquilarum crevit, & ungues ejus sicut avium_: which is exactly agreeable to the Hebrew. So that the assertion is not, that his hairs were changed into Eagles feathers, nor his nails into birds claws, but that they were _sicut_ as the feathers of Eagles, and as the claws of birds; the hairs by being grown ruffled, squalid, and rugged, and the nails by being grown long, hard, and crooked for want of cutting, dressing, combing, and ordering; and more change than this the words or sense do not bear. 3. There was no other change, but what was by natural growth; for the Hebrew word ‏רָבָה‎ doth properly signifie _multus fuit, succrevit in multitudinem_: so that the hairs were increased naturally in multitude and length, and the nails in magnitude and length, and so there was no essential change at all, but only an excessive augmentation of them both, he having lost the use of reason, whereby he could not use means to cut, cleanse, and order them. So that they did but grow squalid and ill-favour’d for want of using means to order and make them comely, even as many that have been lost, or left in Desarts, and desolate places, have after some length of time been found to be overgrown with hairs and ugly nails, that they have scarce been taken for men, but have appeared as savage and feral Monsters. [Sidenote: _Argum. 3._] [Sidenote: Dan. 4. 34, 36.] [Sidenote: _Avenar. Diction._ _pag._ 313.] [Sidenote: _Palon._ _in loc._]