pottage or shog a milk-bowl But believe it Eugenius thou wilt never make sense of this Flux and Reflux till thou calm thy phansie so much as to be able to read Des-Cartes But to tell us it is thus from an inward form more Aristotelico is to tell us no more then that it is the nature of the Beast or to make Latine words by adding onely the termination bus as hosibus and shoosibus as Sir Kenhelm Digby hath with wit and judgement applied the compárison in like case But now to put the bloud flesh and bones together of your World-Animal I say they bear not so great a proportion to the more fluid parts viz. the vitall and animal spirits thereof as a mite in a cheese to the whole globe of the Earth So that if thou hadst any phansie or judgement in thee thy similitude would appear to thine own self outragiously ugly and disproportionable and above all measure ridiculous Nor do not think to shuffle it off by demanding If there be so little earth to tell thee where it is wanting For I onely say that if the world be an Animal there will be much bloud and flesh wanting Philalethes for so great a Beast Nor do not you think to blind my eyes with your own Tobacco smoke I take none my self Eugenius For to that over ordinary experiment I answer two things First that as you look upon the parts of the body of a true Animal in the same extension that they now actually are not how they may be altered by rarefaction so you are also to look upon the parts of your World-Animal as they are de facto extended not how they may be by rarefaction And thus your Argument from Tobacco will vanish into smoke But if you will change the present condition of any lesser Animal by burning it and turning many of the grosse parts into more thinne and fluid you destroy the ground of your comparison betwixt the World-Animal and it for you take away the flesh of your lesser Animal thus burnt And besides the proportion betwixt the vapour or thinner parts extension to the remaining ashes is not yet so big as of the thin parts of the World-Animal in respect of its solid parts by many thousand and thousand millions Nay I shall speak within compasse if I say as I said before that there is a greater disproportion then betwixt the globe of the Earth and a mite in a cheese This is plainly true to any that understands common sense For the Earth in respect of the World is but as an indivisible point Adde to all this that if you will rarefie the Tobacco or Hercules body by fire I will take the same advantage and say that the water and many parts of the earth may be also rarefied by fire and then reckon onely upon the remaining ashes of this globe and what is turned into vapour must be added to the more fluid parts of the World-Animal to increase that over-proportion So that thou hast answered most wretchedly and pitifully every way poor Anthroposophus But besides In the second place When any thing is burnt as for example your Tobacco I say it takes up then no more room then it did before Because Rarefaction and Condensation is made per modum spongiae as a sponge is distended by the coming in and contracted again by the going out of the water it had imbib'd But the Aristotelicall way which is yours O profound Magicus that hast the luck to pick out the best of that Philosophy implies I say grosse contradictions which thou canst not but understand if thou canst distinguish corporeall from incorporeall Beings Thy way of Rarefaction and Condensation O Eugenius must needs imply penetration of dimensions or something as incongruous as every lad in our Universities at a year or two standing at least is able to demonstrate to thee But if thou thinkest it hard that so little a body as a pipe of Tobacco should be multiplied into so very much superficies above what it had before go to those that beat out leaf gold and understand there how the superficies of the same body may be to wonder increased And beside I could demonstrate to thee that a body whose basis thou shouldst imagine at the center of the Earth top as far above the starry Heaven as it is from thence to the Earth without any condensation used thereunto is but equall to a body that will lie within the boll of a Tobacco pipe Where art thou now thou miserable Philosophaster But to the next Analogie The aire is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast Creature breaths Two things I here object to shew the ineptnesse and inconguity of this comparison The one is taken from the office of respiration which is to refresh by way of refrigerating or cooling Is not the main end of the lungs to cool the bloud before it enter into the left ventricle of the heart But thou art so Magical thou knowst none of these sober and usefull mysteries of Nature All that thou answerest to this is That we are refresh'd by heat as well as by coolnesse Why then Is that generall sufficient to make up your analogie or similitude This is as well phansied as it is reasoned when men conclude affirmatively in the second figure There are laws in Phansie too Philalethes and I shall shew thee anon how ridiculous thou hast made thy self by transgressing them If thou meanest by refresh'd to be cheared or restored onely and what ever do's this must be ground enough to phansie a respiration then thou breathest in thy cawdle when thou eatest it and hast spoyled that conceit of his that said he never would drink sack whilst he breathed for if sack do in any sense refresh and comfort a man it seems he breaths while he drinks I tell thee in the Homologi termini of similitudes there ought to be something in some sort peculiar and restrained or else it is flat ridiculous and non-sense The other objection was taken from the situation of this aire that is to be the matter of Respiration in this great Animal What a wild difference is there in this The aire that an ordinary Animal breaths in is externall the aire of this world-Animal internall so that it is rather wind in the guts then aire for the lungs and therefore we may well adde the Cholick to the Anasarca Is the wind-Cholick an outward refreshing spirit or an inward griping pain Being thou hast no guts in thy brains I suspect thy brains have slipt down into thy guts whither thy tongue should follow to be able to speak sense Answer now like an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} O thon man of Magick He answers and the point and sting of all the sense of his answer is in the tail of it pag. 29. lin. 11. and it is their outward refreshing spirit He means the Earths and the Waters O feeble sting O foolish answer This onely
such a constitution I should have tempered it more carefully For I delight not in the vexation of any man The truth is my scope in writing that Book was laudable and honest and such as might become a very good Christian and my mirth and pleasantnesse of mind much and reall but the sharpnesse of my style personated and Aristotelicall and therefore being but affected and fictitious I felt it not there was no corrosion at all but all that was unkind in it if you will call that passion unkindnesse was a certain light indignation that I bore and ever do bear against magnificent folly And there being no name to your Book I thought I had the opportunity of doing it with the least offence as meeting with the thing disjoyned and singled from the person But I verily think I should not have medled at all if you had spared your incivilities to Des-Chartes whose worth and skill in naturall Philosophy be it fate or judgement that constrains me to it let the world judge I can not but honour and admire He is rayled at but not confuted by any that I see in his naturall Philosophy and that 's the thing I magnifie him for Though his Metaphysicks have wit and strength enough too and he hath made them good against his opposers Line 21. And assure thy self I will persecute thee so long as there is ink or paper in England Assuredly thou wilt not Philalethes For why I am dead already taken in thy trap and tortured to death will not this suffice thee I am dead and thou thy self but mortall wilt thou entertain immortall enmity against me But how canst thou persecute me being dead Wilt thou raise my soul up O Magicus by thy Necromancy and then combate with me over my grave I hope thou art but in jest Eugenius If thou beest not I must tell thee in good earnest thy present bitternesse will make thee Simon Magus like as well as thy former boasting O thou confounded and undone thing how hast thou shamed thy self Thy vizard is fallen off and thy sanctimonious clothing torn from about thee even as it was with the Apes and Monkies that being attired like men and wearing vizards over their faces did daunce and cringe and kisse and do all the gestures of men so artificially and becomingly that the Countrey people took them to be a lesser size of humane race till a waggish fellow that had more with then the rest dropt a few nuts amongst them for which they fell a scrambling so earnestly that they tore off their vizards and to the great laughter of the spectatours show'd what manner of creatures they were O Magicus do not dissemble before me For thou dost not know with what eyes I behold thee Were it not better for thee and all the world beside to make it their businesse to be really and fully possest of those things that are undoubtedly good and Christian nay indeed if they be had in the right Principle are the very buds and branches of the tree of Paradise the limbs and members of the Divine nature such as are meeknesse patience and humility discretion freedome from self-interest chastity temperance equity and the like is it not better to seek after these things then to strain at high words and uncertain flatuous notions that do but puff up the mind and make it seem full to it self when it is distended with nothing but unwholsome wind Is not this very true my dear Philatethes Line II. Upon certain similitudes and analogies of mine Now we are come to that rare piece of Zoography of thine the world drawn out in the shape of an Animal But let 's view the whole draught as it lies in your book because you make such a foul noise about it in your answer Your words are these Besides the texture of the Universe clearly discovers its Animation The Earth which is the visible naturall Basis of it represents the grosse carnall parts The element of the water answers to the bloud for in it the pulse of the great world beats this most men call the flux and reflux but they know not the true cause of it The air is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast creature breathes though invisibly yet not insensibly The interstellar skies are his vitall ethereall waters and the starres his animall sensuall fire Now to passe my censure on this rare Zoographicall peice I tell thee if thy brains were so confusedly scattered as thy phansie is here thou wert a dead man Philalethes all the Chymistry in the world could not recover thee Thou art so unitive a soul Phil. and such a clicker at the slightest shadows of similitude that thou wouldst not stick to match chalk and cheese together I perceive and mussitate a marriage betwixt an Apple and an Oyster Even those proverbiall dissimilitudes have something of similitude in them will you then take them for similes that have so monstrous a disproportion and dissimilitude But you are such a Sophister that you can make any thing good Let 's try The Earth must represent the flesh because they both be grosse so is chalk and cheese or an Apple and an Oyster But what think you of the Moon is not that as much green cheese as the Earth is flesh what think you of Venus of Mercury and the rest of the Planets which they that know any thing in Nature know to be as much flesh as the Earth is that is to be dark opake as well as shee What! is this flesh of the world then torn apeices and thrown about scattered here and there like the disjoynted limbs of dragg'd Hippolytus Go to Phil where are you now with your fine knacks and similitudes But to the next Analogie The element of water answers to the bloud Why For in it is the pulse of the great world But didst thou ever feel the pulse of the Moon And yet is not there water too thou little sleepy heedlesse Endymion The bloud is restagnant there I warrant you and hath no pulse So that the man with the thorns on his back lives in a very unwholesome region But to keep to our own station here upon Earth Dost thou know what thou sayest when thou venturest to name that monosyllable Pulse dost thou know the causes and the laws of it Tell me my little Philosophaster where is there in the earth or out of the earth in this World-Animal of thine that which will answer to the heart and the systole and diastole thereof to make this pulse And beside this There is wanting rarefaction and universall diffusion of the stroke at once These are in the pulse of a true Animal but are not to be found in the Flux of the sea For it is not in all places at once nor is the water rarefied where it is Now my pretty Parabolist what is there left to make your similitude good for a pulse in your great Animal more then when you spill your
reaches so far as to save the Earth alive from my jugulating objection The globe of Earth and Water indeed may be still an Animal for all that objection But thou saidst the whole world was an Animal What is the whole world an Animal because the Earth is one O bundle of simples to return thee thine own parcell of ware again for it belongs not to me this is as well argued as if thou shouldest say That a cheese is an Animal because there is one living mite in it But that this Earth neither is a breathing Animal is plain enough For what respiration what attraction and reddition of aire is there in it There may be indeed something answering to sweating and perspiration nothing to respiration my good Philalethes But to shew thee thy folly I will follow thy liberty and impudently pronounce that a pair of bellows is an Animal Why is it not It has a nose to breathe through that 's plain the two handles are the two eares the leather the lungs and that which is the most seemly analogie of all the two holes in the back-side are the two eyes as like the eyes in the fore-side of a Crab as ever thou seest any thing in thy life Look thee Phil. are they not You 'll say The analogie of the nose is indeed as plain as the nose on a mans face But how can the handles be eares when they stand one behind another whereas the eares of Animals stand one on one side and the other on the other side of the head And then how can the leather be lungs they being the very out-side of its body Or those two holes eyes They have neither the situation as being placed behind nor office of eyes Answer me all these objections O Mastix I can fully answer them O Magicus This is an Animal drawn out according to thine own skill and principles The leather sayst thou must be no lungs because it is without Why then the aire must be no aire for thy World-Animal to breath because it is within And if thou canst dispence with within and without much more mayst thou with before and behind or behind and on the sides So the eares and lungs of this Animal hold good against thee still Now to preserve my monsters eyes against this Harpy that would scratch them out They are no eyes say you because they have not the situation of eyes But I told thee before thou makest nothing of situation But they have not the office of eyes Why They can see as much as the eyes of thy World-Animal for ought thou knowest I but this Bellows-Animal breaths at these eyes And have not I shewed thee that thy World-Animal breaths in his guts But I will make it plain to thee that those two holes are eyes For they are two as the two eyes are and transmit the thin aire through them as the eyes do the pure light So that they agree gainly well in the generall As your Respiration in the World-Animal in refreshing though by heat when in others it is by cold Fie on thee for a Zoographicall Bungler These Bellows thou seest is not my Animal but thine and the learned shall no longer call that instrument by that vulgar name of a pair of Bellows but Tom Vaughans Animal So famous shalt thou grow for thy conceited foolerie The interstellar skies are his vitall ethereall waters Here I object O Eugenius that there is an over-proportionated plenty of those waters in thy World-Animal and that thus thou hast distended the skin of thy Animal God knows how many millions of miles off from the flesh O prodigious Anasarca But what dost thou answer here viz. That I say that the body which we see betwixt the starres namely the interstellar waters is excessive in proportion No I do not say so but that they are two excessive in proportion to be the fluid parts of a World-Animal But how ever as if I had said so he goes about to prove that there is no excesse of proportion in them Dost thou hear Mastix sayes he Look up and see Well I hear Phil. I look up But do not chock me under the chin thou wag when I look up Now what must I see What a number of bonefires lamps and torches are kindled in that miraculous celestiall water Yes I see them all I suppose they burn so clear for joy and triumph that my Reason and Sense have so victoriously overthrown thy Phantastry and Non-sense But why miraculous waters Phil I see the cause Bonefires and torches burn in the waters That were a miracle indeed Eugenius but that it is a falsity Thou givest things false names and then wouldst amaze us with verbal miracles And the starres his animal sensuall fire What is thy meaning here little Phil. For I never called thee to account for this yet That this World-Animal has sense onely in the starres To call them the eyes of the world is indeed pretty and Poeticall And Plato's delicious spirit may seem to countenance the conceit in that elegant Distich upon his young friend After which in plain English is Starre whom he instructed in the Art of Astronomie {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thou viewest the starres my Star were I the skyes That I might fix on thee so many eyes But what Eugenius wilt thou venture in Philosophick coolnesse to say the sense of thy World-Animal lies in the starres I prethee what can those starry eyes spy out of the world They are very quick-sighted if they can see there where there is nothing to be seen But it may be this Animal turns its eyes inward and views it self I would Philalethes were such an Animal too He would then find so much amisse within that he would forbear hereafter to be so censorious without But what is there sense then onely in the starres For sense can be no where but where there is accesse for the Animal spirits So it seems the starres must hear as well as see nay feel and tast as they do questionlesse as often as they lick in and eat up that starre-fodder the vapours wherewith in Seneca they are phantastically said to be nourished And thus you see that Tom Vaughans Animal I mean the bellows now may see at the very same two holes that it breathes at for he confounds all by his indiscreet phansie How art thou blown about like a feather in the air O thou light-minded Eugenius How vain and irrationall art thou in every thing Art thou the Queen of Sheba as thy Sanguin a little overflowing thy Choler would dresse up thy self to thy soft imagination and make thee look smugg in thy own eyes Had that Queen so little manners in her addresses to so great a Philosopher No thy language in all thy book is the language of a scold and of a slut And for thy wit if thou wilt forgo thy right to the ladle and bells thy feminine
have not wrote like some bestrid Pythonick or hackneyed Enthusiastick let them looke read under what light I 〈◊〉 and sung that divine Song of the Soul But yet my Muse still take an higher flight Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good That Faith that doth our souls to God unite So strongly tightly that the rapid flood Of this swift flux of things nor with foul mud Can stain nor strike us off from th' Unity Wherein we stedfast stand unshak'd unmov'd Engrafted by a deep Vitalitie The prop and stay of things is Gods Benignity All 's is the rule of His Oeconomie No other cause the creature brought to light But the first Goods pregnant secundity He to himself is perfect full delight He wanteth nought With his own beams bedight He glory has enough O blasphemy That envy gives to God or sowre despight Harsh hearts that feign in God a Tyranny Under pretense to encrease his sovereign Majesty When nothing can to Gods own self accrew Who 's infinitely happy sure the end Of His Creation simply was to shew His flowing goodnesse which He doth outsend Not for himself for nought can Him amend But to his Creature doth his good impart This infinite Good through all the world doth wend To fil with Heavenly blisse each willing heart So the free Sun doth light and ' liven every part This is the measure of Gods providence The Key of knowledge the first fair Idee The eye of Truth the spring of living Sense Whence sprout Gods secrets the sweet mystery Of lasting life eternall Charity c. And elsewhere in my Poems When I my self from mine own self do quit And each thing else then an all-spreaden love To the vast Universe my soul doth fit Makes me half equall to all-seeing Jove My mighty wings high stretch'd then clapping light I brush the stars and make them shine more bright Then all the works of God with close embrace I dearly hug in my enlarged arms All the hid pathes of heavenly love I trace And boldly listen to his secret charms Then clearly view I where true light doth rise And where eternal Night low-pressed lies c This Philalethes is that lamp of God in the light whereof my Reason and Phansie have wrought thus many years This is that true Chymicall fire that has purged my soul and purified it and has crystallized it into a bright Throne and shining Habitation of the divine Majesty This free light is that which having held my soul in it self for a time taught me in a very sensible manner that vast difference betwixt the truth and freedome of the Spirit and anxious impostures of this dark Personality earthly bondage of the body This is my Oracle my Counsellour my faithfull Instructer and Guide my Life my Strength my Glory my Joy my communicated God This is that heavenly flame and bright Sun of Righteousnesse that puts out the light and quenches the heat of all worldly imaginations and desires whatsoever All the power and knowledge in Nature that is all the feats and miraculous performances done by Witches Magicians or Devils they be but toyes and tricks and are no solid satisfaction of the soul at all yea though we had that power upon lawfull terms if compared with this And as for divine knowledge there is none truly so called without it He that is come hither God hath taken him to his own familiar friend though he speak to others aloof off in outward Religions and Parables yet he leads this man by the hand teaching him intelligible documents upon all the objects of his Providence speaks to him plainly in his own language sweetly insinuates himself and possesses all his faculties Understanding Reason and Memory This is the Darling of God and a Prince amongst men farre above the dispensation of either Miracle or Prophesie For him the deep searchers and anxious soliciters of Nature drudge and toyl contenting themselves with the pitifull wages of vain glory or a little wealth Poor Gibeonites that hew wood and draw water for the Temple This is the Temple of God this is the Son of God whom he hath made heir of all things the right Emmanuel the holy mystery of the living members of Christ Hallelujah From this Principle which I have here expressed have all those Poems I have wrote had their Originall and as many as are moved with them aright they carry them to this Principle from whence they came But to those whose ignorance makes them contemn them I will onely say to them what our Saviour said to Nicodemus The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but knowest not from whence it comes nor whither it goes But I am afraid I have stood all this time in a little too high a station for thee my Philalethes I descend now and come a little nearer to thee And now I tell thee further that thy rash and unworthy abuse of Des-Cartes did move me to write so as I did more then any personall regard else whatsoever For I love the Gentleman for his excellent and transcendent naturall wit and like his Philosophy as a most rationall coherent subtill peice and an Hypothesis accurately and continuedly agreeing with the Phaenomena of Nature This is he whom thou callest my fellow fool to thy own great disparagement But this is he that I call the wisest Naturalist that ever came to my hands And having not had the good hap to light on such a rare peice of my own invention I thought it was the best office I could do the world to bestow my judgement and censure of his And so now you will say I am become so great a Cartesian that I begin to think but meanly of Platonisme A wise inference as if divine and naturall knowledge were inconsistent I tell thee no Philalethes Nor am I become cold to my own Poems For I say that that divine spirit and life that lyes under them is worth not onely all the Magick that thou pretendest to but all that thou art ignorant of beside yea and Des-Cartes his Philosophy to boot I say it is worth all that a thousand times told over Des-Cartes Philosophy is indeed a fine neat subtill thing but for the true ornament of the mind bears no greater proportion to that Principle I told you of then the dry bones of a snake made up elegantly into a hatband to the royall clothing of Solomon But other naturall Philosophies in respect of Des-Cartes his are even lesse then a few chips of wood to a well erected Fabrick But I say that a free divine universalized spirit is worth all How lovely how magnificent a state is the soul of man in when the life of God inactuating her shoots her along with himself through Heaven and Earth makes her unite with and after a sort feel herself animate the whole world as if she had become God and all things This is the precious clothing and rich ornament
pain And tost with dire disease they 're wearied so This shelter lost how can they then sustain The strong assaults of stormy winds that blow I tell thee Phil such a soul as thou fanciest would be no more able to withstand the winds then the dissipable clouds nor to understand any more sense then a soul of clouts or thy own Soul doth But now I have so fully confuted thy grosse opinion of the Soul it may be happily expected that I would declare mine own But Phil I onely will declare so much that I do not look on the Soul as a Peripateticall atome but as on a spirituall substance without corporeall dimensions but not destitute of an immateriall amplitude of Essence dilatable and contractible But for further satisfaction in this point I referre to my Philosophicall Poems And do professe that I have as distinct determinate and clear apprehension of these things and as wary and coherent as I have of any corporeall thing in the world But Heat and Phantastry to suddled minds are as good companions as Caution and Reason to the sober But the durablenesse of that satisfaction is uncertain whereas solid Reason is lasting and immutable Observ. 10. Page 101. line 6. But from a similitude and Symbole of Nature You are indeed very good at similitudes Phil. as I have proved heretofore out of your skill in Zoography But this is another businesse For here you professe to speak of the symbolizing and sympathizing of things one with another in Nature and so mutually moving to union by a kind attractive power according to that saying {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Well be it so that there is a mutuall attractive power in things that symbolize one with another for the attraction is mutuall as well as the similitude mutuall What is this to take away what I have objected Nothing But I will shew you how you are hang'd in your own chain For it is as plain as one of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that where two things of the same nature act the greater is stronger and the stronger prevails Wherefore three portions of light should fetch up two or five one rather then one should fetch down three or five or two This is the bare point of my reason which I covered with a double comparison viz. from the greater number of the lincks of a Chain preponderating the lesse number and from the greater portion of Earth prevailing over the lesse as in that instance when a clod taken from the earth and let go in the free aire the earth commands it back to it self again according to that conceit of Magnetisme And here the argument was à pari not à specie and there may be a collation of parity even in contraries And your ignorance of that Logicall Notion hath inabled you to rayl so much and speak so little to the purpose on this Observation as any Logician may very easily discern Observ. 13. Page 103. line 14. Answer if thou darest to any one of these Questions Assure thy self Eugenius I can give a very rationall answer to every one of them But for thy sake I think fit to answer none of them But what is in my Philosophicall Poems will salve them all I will now rather examine what force of Arguments you have to prove that that which orders Matter into shape and form is Animadversive and Intelligent Your first Argument is that if there were no Animadversion in the Ratio Seminalis or call it what you will that shapes the Matter into Form the Agent would mistake in his work Secondly That he would work he knew not what nor wherefore and that therefore all Generations would be blind Casualties Thirdly There would not be that Method infallibility of Action nor proportion and Symmetry of parts in the work Fourthly and Lastly That there would be no End nor Impulsive cause to make him to work To all these unsound Reasons I have already answered very solidly and truly That the force of them reached no further then thus That the Ratio Seminalis must at least proceed from something that is knowing and be in some sense Rationall but not have reason and animadversion in it self And this is the opinion of Plotinus Marsilius Ficinus and all the Platonists that I have met with {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. Ennead 2. lib. 3. To this sense For the Ratio Seminalis acts in the Matter and that which acts thus naturally neither understands nor sees but hath onely a power to transform the Matter not knowing any thing but making onely as it were a form or shape in the water And Ficinus compares this Ratio Seminalis to an Artifice cut off from the mind of the Artificer and made self-subsistent and able to work upon prepared matter but without knowledge as being disjoyned from all animadversive essence This is the right notion of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And this fully takes away the force of all your Arguments For these being divine art imbodied in Nature and Matter and working naturally they will First Mistake no more then a Stone will in its journey downwards or the Fire in its course upward which go alwayes right if no externall obstacle hinder them And these will work right if the Matter be duly prepared Secondly Though they work they know not what yet they work right in virtue of that cause from whence they came the divine Intellect and their operation is no more casuall then the ascent of Fire and descent of Earth for it is naturall Thirdly This third falls in with the second and the same answer will serve both Fourthly There is an Impulsive cause and End of their working though unkown to them yet not unknown to the Authour of them As in the orderly motion of a Watch the Spring knows not the end of its Motion but the Artificer doth Yet the watch moves and orderly too and to a good End But this fourth falls in also with the second or first And you see now that they are indeed all fallen to nothing at all So easily is Confidence overcome when unbacked with solid Reason Observ. 14 15 16 17 18 19. Page 107. line 5. Did ever man scribble such ridiculous impertinencies Never any man before Eugenius Philalethes But why will you scribble such stuff Phil. that will put you to the pains of reproaching of it when you have done My exception against your definition of the first principle of your Clavis was as solid as merry For One in one and One from one is no definition of any one thing in the world For definitio or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is a bounding and limiting what you define But here is no bounds nor limits at all For every thing that is is One in one and One from one viz. in one world and from one God And then in your other attempt this way to
which are so evidently destructive of humane felicity then to edge their spirits with fiery notions and strange Phantasmes which pretend indeed to the semblance of deep mysterious knowledge and divine speculation but do nothing hinder but that the black dog may be at the bottome as I said before But you will ask me How shall we be rid of the Importunity of the impostures and fooleries of this second Dispensation But I demand of you Is there any way imaginable but this viz. To adhere to those things that are uncontrovertedly good and true and to bestow all that zeal and all that heat and all that pains for the acquiring of the simplicity of the life of God that we do in promoting our own Interest or needlesse and doubtfull Opinions And I think it is without controversie true to any that are not degenerate below men that Temperance is better then Intemperance Justice then Injustice Humility then Pride Love then Hatred and Mercifulnesse then Crueltie It is also uncontrovertedly true that God loves his own Image and that the propagation of it is the most true dispreading of his glory as the Light which is the Image of the Sunne is the glory of the Sunne Wherefore it is as plainly true that God is as well willing as able to restore this Image in men that his glory may shine in the world This therefore is the true Faith to beleeve that by the power of God in Christ we may reach to the participation of the Divine Nature Which is a simple mild benigne light that seeks nothing for it self as it self but doth tenderly and cordially endeavour the good of All and rejoyceth in the good of All and will assuredly meet them that keep close to what they plainly in their consciences are convinced is the leading to it And I say that sober Morality conscienciously kept to is like the morning light reflected from the higher clouds and a certain Prodrome of the Sunne of Righteousnesse it self But when he is risen above the Horizon the same vertues then stream immediately from his visible body and they are the very members of Christ according to the Spirit And he that is come hither is a pillar in the Temple of God for ever and ever for he hath reached to the Second Covenant which he can in no more likelihood break then lay violent hands on himself to the taking away of his naturall life Nay that will be farre more easie then this For a man may kill himself in a trice but he cannot extinguish this Divine life without long and miserable torture If this be to be a Puritane Eugenius I am a Puritane But I must tell thee that by how much more a man precisely takes this way the more Independent he will prove And the pure simplicity of the life of God revealed in Jesus Christ will shine with so amiable a lustre in his inward mind that all the most valuable Opinions that are controverted amongst Churches and Sects will seem no more comely then a fools coat compared with the uniform Splendour of the Sunne But if thou meanest by either Puritane or Independent one in the second Dispensation I should dissemble in the presence of Heaven if I should not say I am above them as I am above all Sects whatsoever as Sects For I am a true and free Christian and what I write and speak is for the Interest of Christ and in the behalf of the life of the Lamb which is contemned And his Interest is the Interest of the sonnes of men for he hath no Interest but their good and welfare But because they will not have him to rule the Nations of the world by a Divine Nemesis are given up into the hands of Wolves Foxes and Lions The earth is full of darknesse and cruell habitations Wherefore Eugenius thou doest very unskilfully in endeavouring to tumble me off from the Independents to cast me amongst the Puritanes as thou callest them For it is not in thy power to cast me so low as any Sect whatsoever God hath placed me in a Dispensation above them and wilt thou throw me down No Eugenius I shine upon them both as the Sunne in the Firmament who doth not wink on one side or with-draw his Rayes but looks openly upon all imparting warmth and light Thou hast encountred with a Colosse indeed though thou callest me so but in sport and scorn far bigger then that stradling Statue at Rhodes and that reacheth far higher And yet no Statue neither but one that will speak what nothing but Ignorance and Hypocrisie can denie Wherefore with my feet lightly standing on the shoulders of all the Sects of the earth for I would not tread hard like a statue to hurt them with my head stooping down out of the Clouds I will venture to trie the world with this sober question Tell me therefore O all ye Nations People Kindreds of the earth what is the reason that the world is such a stage of misery to the Sonnes of Men Is it not from hence that that which should be their great Guidance their Religion and highest Light of their minds is but Heat and squabbling about subtile uncertain points and foolish affectation of high mysteries while the uncontroverted sober truths of Vertue and Piety are neglected and the simplicity of the life of God despised as a most contemptible thing And I had no sooner uttered these words in my mind but me thought I heard an Answer from all the Quarters of the earth from East West North and South like the noise of many waters or the voice of Thunder saying Amen Halelujah This is true Nor is this any vain Enthusiasme Philalethes but the triumph of the Divine Light in my Rationall Spirit striking out to my exteriour faculties my Imagination and Sense For my head was so filled with the noise that it felt to me as bound and straitened as being not able to contain it and coldnesse trembling seised upon my flesh But you will say All this is but a triviall truth that you are so zealous and triumphant in But verily Eugenius is it not better to be zealous about those things that are plainly true then those that are either uncertain of false 'T is true what I have said to thy soaring soul may seem contemptible But if thou once hadst the sight of that Principle from whence it came thou wouldst be suddenly ashamed of that patched clothing of thy soul stitch'd up of so many unsutable and heedlesse figurations of thy unpurged phansie and wouldst endeavour to put on that simple uniform light And now Eugenius that I find my self in an advantageous temper to converse with thee come a little nearer me or rather I will come a little nearer to thee Hitherto I have play'd the part of a personated Enemy with thee give me leave now to do the office of an open Friend I perceive there is in you as you have made it manifest to
was once Childish Ignorant Proud and Passionate when he is well cured of those distempers We are what we are and what is past is not and therefore is not to afflict us But he that is more anxious concerning Fame then Vertue and seeks onely to seem a gallant and invincible thing to the world when in the mean time his mind is very weak and vulnerable I know my Eugenius is so wise that such a man as this will seem as irrationall to him as if one having by ill chance cut his shinne he should be lesse solicitous about healing of his legge then mending of his stocken FINIS An Index of the generall heads and more remarkable passages in the foregoing Reply M Astix his Apologie for his smart Observations upon Eugenius his Anthroposophia Theomagica c. from page 9 to the 14. That to laugh at the follies and defeatments of vain men is lawfull in a Christian p. 14 15 16 Eugenius his Title-page The Man-mouse taken in a Trap censured p. 21 22 Mastix his Answer to two perverse charges of high incivilities gathered out of his Observations from p. 23. to p. 32 His Personall Reasons that moved him to write his Observations p. 35 36 Of Platonisme and of Mastix his Philosophicall Poems his Song of the Soul c. from what Principle they were writ p. 36. to p. 41 Of the Philosophy of Des-Cartes how far above all other naturall Philosophyes and yet how short of that noble divine universalizing Spirit in Christianity and Platonisme p. 41 42 43 44 A zealous Invective against the Atheists of these times wherein sundry causes of Atheisme are glanced at p. 44. to 48 Mastix no Enthusiast but speaks according to the faculties of a man actuated by God p. 48 A description of an heavenly Dispensation upon earth farre above either Prophecie or Miracle p. 39 40. and 49 50 Whether there be any Essentiall definitions of Substances and in what sense p. 57 58 59 Whether the Peripaleticks conceit God to have made the world as a Carpenter makes houses of Stone and Timber p. 59 60 61 Eugenius his vizard of high affected Sanctimony fallen off all the people laugh at him p. 63 64 The ridiculous Analogies Eugenius makes between his World-Animal and an ordinary Animal p. 65 66 The flesh of his World-animal confuted p. 66 67 The pulse of his World-animal confuted p. 67 68 Of Rarefaction and Condensation and of the miraculous multiplication of the Superficies of bodie p. 70 71 72 The Respiration of his World animal confuted p. 72 73 74 That a Pair of Bellows is an Animal according to Eugenius his Zoography p. 75 76 The vitall moysture of his World-animal confuted p. 77 78 The Animal Spirits of it confuted p. 78 79 The causes of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea and that it cannot be the Pulse of his World-animal p. 81 82 83 Mastix his Philosophicall Poems censured and defended p. 85 86 87 Reminiscency no Argument for the Preexistencie of the Soul p. 88 89 90 A large Demonstration that that Matter which Eugenius asfirms he hath often seen and felt is not the first Matter of all things from p. 91. to p. 97 His Assertion that Aristotles first Matter is in Nature neither {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} nor {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} confuted p. 101 102 Eugenius his Ridiculous division of an Idea into one part p. 104 A supply made to this hopping distribution out of Philo the few p. 105 106 That Eugenius doth so surround the Masse with his â—mpyreall substance that there could be no Morning nor Evening as Moses text requires p. 107 That the Scripture speaks according to outward sense and vulgar apprehension proved by sundry passages of Scripture and Testimonies of learned Men from p. 109 to 113 That the Extent of the world according to Moses David c. is but to the Clouds or thereabout very fully and largely demonstrated and so consequently that there is no room for Eugenius his interstellar waters in Moses his Text unlesse he will make them all one with the Clouds or Vapours that be coagulated into Rain from p. 113 to p. 120 Eugenius his grosse Mistake concerning Orbs and Epicycles venting three absurdities in one Assertion p. 121 122 123 124 In what sense Mastix said in his Observations that Epicycles were too big to be true p. 125 That Rarefaction and Condensation according to the Schools implies a Contradiction p. 128 What a miserable layer of fundamentalls of Sciences Eugenius is And in particular of his Magnet p. 129 130 S. Johns new Heaven and new Earth how Mastix would interpret it and how Magicus p. 132 133 Aristotle taxed of Sodomy p. 134 135 His Hymne in honour of Hermias and his doing the same Rites unto his whore when he had married her that the Athenians did to their Goddesse Ceres Eleusinia p. 135 136 The naturall shame in men of obscene matters notoriously discovered in the story of Osiris and Typhon and that this shame is a signe that there is a certain conscience or presage in the soul of man that a better condition belongs to her then this in the body p. 137 138 That the soul of man is not propagated as light from light p. 140 141 142 That Eugenius doth plainly assert that blind men see in their sleep p. 143 That there is not a Sensitive Spirit distinct from the rationall soul in a man p. 144 145 146 147 How long Mastix was making his Observations upon Eugenius his Magicall Treatises p. 149 150 Eugenius so unlucky in his Poeticall Encomiums of Oxford that whereas he intends to praise he seems to abuse that learned and well-deserving Universitie p. 153 154 That the very substance of a thing cannot be known p. 161 162 163. The union betwixt the flame and the candle not at all to set out the Union of the soul and body to any Philosophicall satisfaction p. 164 165 That the soul is not Intelligent fire proved by sundry Arguments p. 166 167 c. From her Organization of the body p. 167 From her Information p. 168 From Spontaneous Motion p. 168 From Sensation p. 169 to 174 From Memory p. 174 From the Souls Immortality acknowledged by Eugenius p. 174 175 The bare point of Mastix his argument against Magicus his mysterious chain of light more plainly discovered p. 177 178 Eugenius his foure arguments to prove that the Seminal Forms of things are understanding Agents propounded and confuted from page 178 to 181 What a Ritio Seminalis or Seminall Form is according to Plotinus and the Platonists p. 179 180 Mastix his exception against Eugenius his definition of the first Principle of his Clavis magica proved to be as solid as merry p. 181 182 Whether the Starres receive any light from the Sun p. 183 Mastix his friend â— T. vindicated p. 186 His favourable conjecture of the Authour of Magia Ada mica p. 188 His power of discovering Impostures parallel'd with Apolionius us p 189 His Victory Trophey and Inscription p. 190 His Oration to the Men of Ephesus p. 190 191 c. A description of a threefold Dispensation under which Christians are from p. 191 to 197 The first Dispensation p. 191 192 The second Dispensation from p. 192 to 195 What is the way to be delivered from the Impostures and Fooleries of the second Dispensation p. 195 196 The third Dispensation or second Covenant p. 196 197 In what sense Mastix is Puritane or Independent p. 197 That he is above all Sects whatsoever as Sects as being a mere Christian p. 197 198 The Transfiguration of his inward man into a breathing Colosse speaking from Heaven and reminding all the Inhabitants of the Earth of the true cause of their perpetuall Miseries and Calamities p. 199 That Mastix is no Enthusiast for all this but that it is onely the Triumph of the Divine Light in his Rationall Spirit striking through his exteriour faculties and moving his very body with coldnesse and trembling p. 200 His friendly and faithfull Monitions to Eugenius freely discovering to him the true causes of his being defeated in his great Designes upon Fame and Knowledge from p. 200 to 204 That a wise man will not onely not be hurt but be profited by his Enemie p. 205 c. Errata Page 106. line 3. read {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} page 125. line 9. read Deferents page 145. line 7. read glasse page 147. line 23. for in the highest read the highest page 160. line 20. read {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} page 177. line 3 4. read kind of attractive