and real union wâ—th him that every fine thought or fancy that steals into their mind they may look upon as a pledge of the Divine savor and a siâ—gular illumination from God imitating in this the madness of Elionora Meliorina a Gentlewoman of Mantua who being fully perswaded she was married to a king would kneel down and talk with him as if he had been there present with his retinue and if she had by chance found a piece of glasse in a muck-hill light upon an oyster shell piece of tin or any such like thing that would glister in the Sun-shine she would say it was a jewel sent from her Lord and husband and upon this account fild her cabinet full of such trash In like manner those inspired Melancholists stuff their heads and writings with every flaring fancy that Melancholy suggests to them as if it were a precious Truth bestowed upon them by the holy Spirit and with a devotional reverence they entertain the unexpected Paroxysmes of their own natural distemper as if it were the power and presence of God himself in their Souls 43. This disease many of your Chymists and several Theosophists in my judgement seem very obnoxious to who dictate their own conceits and fancies so magisterially and imperiously as if they were indeed Authentick messengers from God Almighty But that they are but Counterfeits that is Enthusiasts no infallible illuminated men the gross fopperies they let drop in their writings will sufficiently demonstrate to all that are not smitten in some measure with the like Lunacy with themselves I shall instance in some few things concealing the names of the Authors because they are so sacred to some 44. Listen therefore attentively for I shall relate very great mysteries The vertues of the Planets doe not ascend but descend Experience teaches as much viz. That of Venus or Copper is not made Mars or Iron but of Mars is made Venus as being an inferior sphere So also Iupiter or Tinne is easily changed into Mercury or Quick-silver because Iupiter is the second from the firmament and Mercury the second from the Earth Saturn is the first from the heaven and Luna the first from the Earth Sol mixeth it self with all but is never bettered by his Inferiours Now know that there is a great agreement betwixt Saturn or Lead and Luna or Silver Iupiter and Mercury Mars and Venus because in the midst of these Sol is placed What can it be but the heaving of the Hypochondria that lifts up the mind to such high comparisons from a supposition so false and foolish But I have observed generally of Chymists and Theosophists as of severall other men more palpably mad that their thoughts are carryed much to Astrology it being a fancyfull study built upon very sleight grounds and indeed I do not question but a relique of the ancient superstition and Idolatry amongst the rude Heathens which either their own Melancholy or something worse instructed them in There are other pretty conceits in these Writers concerning those heavenly Bodies as That the Starres and Planets the Moon not excepted are of the same quality with precious stones that glister here on the earth and that though they act nothing yet they are of that nature as that the wandring Spirits of the air see in them as in a looking-glasse things to come and thereby are inabled to prophecy That the Starres are made of the Sun and yet that the Sun enlightens them That our eyes have their originall from the Starres and that that is the reason why we can see the Starres That our eyes work or act upon all they see as well as what they see acts on them That also is a very speciall mysterie for an inspired man to utter That there is onely Evening and Morning under the Sun That the Starres kindle heat in this world every where for generation and that the difference of Starres makes the difference of Creatures That were the heat of the Sun taken away he were one light with God That all is Gods self That a mans self is God if he live holily That God is nothing but an hearty Loving friendly Seeing good Smelling well Tâ—sting kindly Feeling amorous Kissing c. Nor the Spirit say I that inspires this mystery any thing but Melancholy and Sanguine That God the Father is of himself a dale of darknesse were it not for the light of his Sonne That God could not quell Lucifers rebellion because the battle was not betwixt God and a beast or God and a man but betwixt God and God Lucifer being so great a share of his own essence That Nature is the Body of God nay God the Father who is also the World and whatsoever is any way sensible or perceptible That the Starre-powers are Nature and the Starre-circle the mother of all things from which all is subsists and moves That the Waters of this world are mad which makes them rave and run up and down so as they do in the channels of the Earth That the blew Orb is the waters above the Firmament That there be two kinds of Fires the one cold and the other hot and that Death is a cold fire That Adam was an Hermaphrodite That the Fire would not burn nor there have been any darknesse but for Adams fall That it is a very suspicable matter that Saturn before the fall was where Mercury and Mercury where Saturn is That there are Three souls in a man Animall Angelicall and Divine and that after Death the Animal Soul is in the grave the Angelicall in Abrahams bosome and the Divine soul in Paradise That God has eyes eares nose and other corporeall parts That every thing has sense imagination and a fiduciall Knowledge of God in it Metals Meteors and Plants not excepted That this earth at last shall be calcined into Crystall That at the center of the earth is the Fire of hell which is caused and kindled by the Primum mobile and influences of the Starres That the Artick pole draws waters by the Axeltree which after they are entered in break forth again by the Axeltree of the Antartick That the Moon as well as the Starres are made of a lesse pure kind of fire mixed with air That the pure Blood in man answers to the Element of fire in the great world his heart to the Earth his Mouth to the Artick pole and the opposite Orifice to the Antartick pole That the proper seat of the Mind or Understanding is in the mouth of the Stomack or about the Splene That Earthquakes and Thunders are not from naturall causes but made by Angels or Devils That there were no Rain-bowes before Noahs flood That the Moon is of a conglaciated substance having a cold light of her own whereby the light of the Sun which she receives and casts on us becomes so cool 45. Hitherto our Collections have been promiscuous what follows is out of Paracelsus onely as for example That the variety of the
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 animal sensuall fire Now to passe my censure on this rare Zoographicall piece I tell thee if thy brains were so confusedly scattered as thy fancy is here thou wert a dead man Philalethes all the Chymistrie 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 mussiâ—ate 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 haâ—e so monstrous a disproportion and dissimilitude But you are such a Sophister that you can make any thing good Let 's try â—he Earth must represent the flesh because they noth 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 and opake as well as she What! is this flesh of the world then torn apieces 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 thornâ— 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-Animalâ—of â—of thine that which will answer to the heart and the systole and diastole thereof to make this pulse And besides 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 pottage or shog a milk-bowl But believe it Eugenius thou wilt never make sense of this Flux and Reflux till thou calm thy fancy 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 comparison 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 fancy 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 took 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 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 turing many of the grosse parts into more thin 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 Aristotelicâ—ll wayâ— 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 câ—nst not but understand if thou canst distinguish corporeall from incorporeall Beings Thy way of Rarefaction and Condensation O Eugenius must needs imply pâ—netration 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
parts of water among themselves But their grand fault is that they do not say the World is Animate But is not yours far greater Anthroposophus that gives so ridiculous unproportionable account of that Tenet The whole World is an Animal say you whose flesh is the earth whose bloud is the water the air the outward refreshing spirit in which it breathâ— the interstellar skies his vitall waters the Stars his sensitive fire But are not you a meer Animal your self to say so For it is as irrationall and incredible as if you should tell us a tale of a Beast whose bloud and flesh put together bears not so great a proportion to the rest of the more fluid parts of the Animal suppose his vitall and animal spirits as a mite in a cheese to the whole globe of the earth And beside this how shall this water which you call bloud be refreshed by the air that is warmer then it And then those waters which you place in the outmost parts towards his dappled or spotted skin the coelum stellatum what over-pâ—oportionated plenty of them is there there In so much that this creature you make a diseased Animall from its first birth and ever labouring with an Anasarca Lastly how unproperly is the air said to be the outward refreshing spirit of this Animal when it is ever in the very midst of it And how rashly is the Flux and Reflux of the Sea assimilated to the pulse when the pulse is from the heart not the brain but the flux and reflux of the Sea from the Moon not the Sun which they that be more discreetly phantasticall then your self do call Cor Mundi Wherefore Anthroposophus your phansies to sober men will seem as vain and puerile as those of idle children that imagine the fortuitous postures of spaul and snivell on plaster-walls to bear the form of mens or dogs faces or of Lyons and what not And yet see the supine stupidity and senslesnesse of this mans judgement that he triumphs so in this figment of his as so rare and excellent a truth that Aristotles Philosophy must be groundlesse superstition and Popery in respect of it this the primevall truth of the creation when as it is a thousand times more froth then His is vomit My friend Anthroposophus is this to appear for the truth as you professe in a day of necessity Certainly she 'll be well holpe at a dead lift if she find no better champions then your self Verily Philalethes if you be no better in your Book then in your Preface to the Reader you have abused Moses his Text beyond measure For your Principles will have neither heaven nor earth in them head nor foot reason nor sense They will be things extra intellectum and extra sensum meer vagrant imaginations seated in your own subsultorious skip-jack phansie onely But what they are we shall now begin to examine according to the number of pages Anthroposophia Theomagica SECT II. 1. Mastix makes himself merry with Eugenius his rash assertion that all Souls at their entrance into the body have an explicite knowledge of things 22. And that after a whole Springs experience he had found out those two known principles of Aristotle Matter and Privation His absurd hope of seeing Substances 3. The vanity of Devotion without purification of the mind That Aristotle agrees with Moses in acknowledging the World to be framed by a knowing Principle 4. Life alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth 5. Eugenius his fond mistake as if either the Divine Light or Ideas could be kept out any space of time from shining in the opakest matter 6. The little fruit of that rarity of Doctour Marci in making the figure of a Plant suddenly rise up in a glasse 7. Eugenius his naturall Idea which he affirms to be a subtile invisible fire no Idea at all 8. His vain boasting of himself as if he were more knowing amd communicative then any that has wrote before him 9. His tearming the Darknesse or the first Matter the fuliginous spawn of Nature 10. His inconstancy in creating and uncreating this Matter 11. The horrible confused Qualme he fancies in the moist Matter at the creation of the world Heat and Siceitie the two active qualities in the Principle of Light assisting by their Mid-wifry Observation 1. Pag. 2. l. 11. So have all souls before their entrance c. But hear you me Mr. Anthroposophus are you in good earnest that all Souls before their entrance into the body have an explicite methodicall knowledge and would you venture to lose your wit so much by imprisoning your self in so dark a dungeon as to be able to write no better sense in your Preface to the Reader But I 'll excuse him it may be he was riding before his entrance into the body on some Theomagicall jade or other that stumbled and flung him into a mysticall quagmire against his will where he was so soused and doused and bedaubed and dirtyed face and eyes and all that he could never since the midwife raked him out all wet and dropping like a drown'd mouse once see clearly what was sense and what non-sense to this very day Wherefore we will set the saddle on the right Horse and his Theomagick Nag shall bear the blame of the miscarriage Observation 2. Pag. 3. Lin. 3. I took to task the fruits of one Spring c. Here Anthroposophus is turned Herbalist for one whole Spring damned to the grasse and fields like Nebuchadnezzar when he went on all four among the Beasts But see how slow this Snail amongst the herbs is in finding out the truth when he confesses it was the work of one whole Spring to find out That the Earth or seeds of flowers are nothing like the flowers There 's not any old Garden-weeder in all London but without a pair of spectacles will discover that in four minutes which he has been a full fourth part of a year about But certainly he intends a great deal of pomp and ceremony that will not take up such a Conclusion as this viz. That things that are produced in Nature are out of something in Nature which is not like the things produced but upon the full experience and meditation of one entire Spring And now after this whole Springs meditation and experience he is forced to turn about to him whom he so disdainfully flies and confesse two of the three principles of the Aristotelean Physicks viz. Matâ—er and Privation that homo is ex non homine arbor ex non arbore c. But this Matter he sayes and it is the wisest word he has spoken yet he knows not what it is But presently blots his credit again with a new piece of folly intimating he will finde it out by experience Which is as good sense as if he should say he would see it when his eyes are out For it is alike easie to see visibles without eyes as to see invisibles with eyes But he
causes of his being defeated in his great designes upon Fame and Knowledge That a wise man will not onely not be hurt but be profited by his Enemy ANd now O men of Ephesus I mean all you that reap the fruit of this noble exploit of mine rear me up my deserved Trophey and inscribe this Tetrastich upon it for an everlasting monument of your gratitude to me and love to the truth Religions Heat as yet unpurged quite From fleshly sense and self when 't makes a stir About high Mystâ—ries above Reasons light Is at the bottome but a rabid Curre But that I may conceal nothing from you O men of Ephesus I must tell you that whether you rear up this monument or whether you forbear all is one For the truth of these verses is already written in the corner stones of the Universe and engraven on the lasting pillars of Eternity Heaven and earth may passe away but noâ— one tittle of this truth shall passe away High and windy Notions do but blow up and kindle more fiercely the fire of Hel in the hearts of men from whence is Pride and Contention and bitter Zeal This is the pest and plague of Mankind and the succeeding torture of the sons of Adam For while the mind of man catcheth at high things of which she is uncapable till she be refined and purged she doth but fire the frame of her little world by her overbusie Motion which burning in grosse fewel fills all with smoke And thus the Soul is even smothered and stifled in her narrow mansion Her first enlargement here must therefore be by Temperance and Abstemiousnesse For without this breathing-hole for fresh aire Devotion it self will choak her still more and more heating her thick and polluted spirits in such sort that they cannot be sufficiently rectified by the power of the brain But in this Dispensation especially is lodged a strong voice weak sense and a rude contempt of any thing that will trouble the head as Reason Philosophy or any but ordinary subtilty in learning But they love Christ very heartily after their grosse way as their Protectour and Securer from what outward evil naturally attends so bad an inward condition But being so immersed in brutish sense and yet with conscience of sinne if any body have but the trick to perswade them that Sinne is but a name he will be a very welcome Apostle to them and they will find more ease to their beastly nature in fancying nothing to be sinne then they did in making their Hypocriticall addresses to an offended Saviour And then poore souls through the foulnesse of the flesh are they easily inveigled into Atheisme it self In so great danger are we of the most mischievous miscarriages by contemning of thoâ—â— known and confessed virtues of Temperance Continence and Chastity But we 'le suppose Men in a great measure temperate yet how farre off are they still from reall happinesse in themselves or from not disturbing the happinesse of others so long as Envy Ambition Covetousnesse and Self-respect doth still lodge in them Here indeed Reason may happily get a little more elbow-room but it will be but to be Patron to those vices and to make good by Argument harsh opinions of God and peremptorily to conclude the power of Christ weaker then the force of sinne And the Fancy in these something more refined Spirits will be more easily figurable into various conceits but very little to the purpose Of which some must go for sober Truths and those that are more fully shining in the midst of a shadowy Melancholiz'd imagination must bid fair for Diuine Inspiration though neither Miracle nor Reason countenance them But you O men of Ephesus if any one tell you strange devises and forbid you the use of your Reason or the demanding of a Miracle you will be so wise as to look upon him as one that would bid you wink with your eyes that he might the more easily give you a box of the Eare or put his hand into your Pockets Now out of this Second Dispensation innumerable swarms of Sects rise in all the world For Falsehood and Imagination is infinite but Truth is one And the benignitie of the Divine Spirit having no harbour in all this varietie of religious Pageantry Envy Covetousnesse and Ambition must needs make them bustle and tear all the word in pieces if the hand of Providence did not hold them in some limits Quin laniant mundum tanta est discordia fratrum as he saith of the winds In this Dispensation lodgeth Anger and active Zeal concerning Opinions and Ceremonies Uncertainty and Anxiety touching the purposes of God and a rigid injudicious Austerity of which little comes but the frighting men off from Religion which notwithstanding if it be had in the truth thereof is the most chearfull and lovely thing in the world These men having not reached to the Second Covenant will also thank any body that could release them from the First For whereas true Religion is the great joy and delight of them that attain to it theirs is but their burden And so it is not impossible that these may be also wound off to the depth of wickednesse and sink also in time even to Atheisme it self For what is reall in them will work but what is imaginary will prove it self ineffectuall Wherefore is it not farre better for men to busie all their strength in destroying those things which are so evidently destructive of humane felicity then to edge their spirits with fiery notions and strange Fantasmes 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 Meâ—cifulnesse then Cruelty 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 believe that by the power of God in Christ we may reach to the participation of Divine Nature Which is a simple mild benigne
would skip like a Goat and brouze on trees as Goats use to do We might adde a fourth of one who by eating the brains of a Bear became of a Bear-like disposition but we will not insist upon smaller considerations 9. Baptista Porta drives on the matter much further professing that he had acquaintance with one that could when he pleased so alter the imagination of a man as he would make him fancie himself to be this or that Bird Beast or Fish and that in this madnesse the party thus deluded would move his body as near as it was capable so as such Creatures use to do and if they were vocall imitate also their voyce This intoxicating Potion is made of the extract of certain hearbs as Solanum manicum Mandrake and others together with the heart brain and some other parts of this or that Animal with whose image they would infect the fancie of the party And he doth affirm of his own experience that trying this feat upon some of his comrades when he was young one that had gormundized much beef upon the taking the potion strongly imagined himself to be surrounded with bulls that would be ever and anon running upon him with their horns 10. What happens here in these cases where we can trace the Causes sometimes falls out where we cannot so plainly and directly find out the reason For Physicians take notice of such kind of madnesses as make men confidently conceit themselves to be Doggs Wolves and Cats when they have neither eat the flesh nor drunk the blood of any Cat Dog or Wolf nor taken any such artificiall potion as we even now spake of to bring them into these diseases The causes of which cannot be better guessed at then has been by Sennertus in that of S. Vitus his dance For as there the body is conceived to be infested by some malignant humour near akin to the poyson of the Tarantula so in these distempers we may well conclude that such fumes or vapours arise into the brain from some foulnesse in the body though the particular causes we do not understand as have a very near analogie to the noxious humours or exhalations that move up and down and mount up into the imagination of those that have drunk the bloud of Cats or have been nourished with the milk of those Animals above named or taken such intoxicating potions as Baptista Porta has described 11. We have given severall instances of that mighty power there is in naturall causes to work upon and unavoidably to change our imagination We will name something now more generall whose nature notwithstanding is so various and Vertumnus-like that it will supply the place of almost all particulars and that is Melancholy of which Aristotle gives witnesse that according to the severall degrees and tempers thereof men vary wonderfully in their constitutions it making some slow and sottish others wild ingenious and amorous prone to wrath and lust others it makes more eloquent and full of discourse others it raises up even to madnesse and Enthusiasme and he gives an example of one Maracus a Poet of Syracuse who never versified so well as when he was in his distracted fits But it is most observable in Melancholy when it reaches to a disease that it sets on some one particular absurd imagination upon the mind so fast that all the evidence of reason to the contrary cannot remove it the parties thus affected in other things being as sober and rationall as other men And this is so notorious and frequent that Aretaeus Sennertus and other Physicians define Melancholy from this very effect of it 12. Aristotle affords us no examples of this kind Others do Democritus junior as he is pleased to style himself recites severall stories out of Authours to this purpose As out of Laurentius one concerning a French Poet who using in a feaverâ— Vnguentum populeum to anoint his temples to conciliate sleep took such a conceit against the smell of that ointment that for many yeares after he imagined every one that came near him to sent of it and therefore would let no man talk with him but aloof off nor would he wear any new clothes because he fancied they smelt of that ointment but in all other things he was wise and discreet and would talk as sensibly as other men Another he has of â— Gentleman of Limosen out of Anthony Verduer who was perswaded he had but one leg affrighted into that conceit by having that part struck by a wild Boar otherwise a man well in his wits A third he hath out of Platerus concerning a Countreyman of his who by chance having fallen into a pit where Frogs and Frogs-spawn was and having swallowed down a little of the water was afterward so fully perswaded that there were young frogs in his belly that for many yeares following he could not rectifie his conceit He betook himself to the study of Physick for seven yeares together to find a cure for his disease He travelled also in Italy France and Germany to confer with Physicians about it and meeting with Platerus consulted him with the rest He fancied the crying of his guts to be the croaking of the frogs and when Platerus would have deceived him by putting live frogs into his excrements that he might think he had voided them and was cured his skill in Physick made that trick ineffectuall For saving this one vain conceit the man was as he reports a learned and prudent man We will adde onely a fourth out of Laurentius which is of a Nobleman of his time a man of reason and discretion in all other things saving that he did conceit himself made of glasse and though he loved to be visited by his friends yet had a speciall care that they should not come too near him for fear they should break him Not much unlike to this is that of a Baker of Ferrara that thought he was compos'd of butter and therefore would not sit in the sun nor come near a fire for fear he should be melted It would be an infinite task to set down all at large Sennertus has given some hints of the variety of this distemper remitting us to Schenkius Marcellus Donatus Forestus and others for more full Narrations Some saith he are vexed and tormented with the fear of death as thinking they have committed some crime they never did commit some fancy they are eternally damned nay they complain that they are already tormented with hell fire others take themselves to be a dying others imagine themselves quite dead and therefore will not eat others fear that the heavens will fall upon them others dare not clinch their hands for fear of bruising the world betwixt their fists some fancy themselves Cocks some Nightingales some one Animal some another some entertain conference with God or his Angels others conceit themselves bewitched or that a black man or Devil perpetually accompanies them some complain of their poverty others fancie
For he knows not whether the Chaos be created or uncreated How much wiser are you now then Aristotle Mr. Eugenius that made the world Eternal If you can admit this by the rule of proportion you might swallow the greatest Gudgeon in Aristotle without kecking or straining Observation 9. Pag. 12. Lin. 11. Fuliginous spawn of Nature A rare expression This Magicician has turned Nature into a Fish by his Art Surely such dreams float in his swimmering Brains as in the Prophets who tells us so Authentick stories of his delicious Albebut Observation 10. Lin. 12. The created Matter Before the Matter was in an hazard of not being created but of being of it self eternal Certainly Eugenius you abound with leasure that can thus create and uncreate doe and undoe because the day is long enough Observation 11. Lin. 21. A horrible confused qualm c. Here Nature like a child-bearing woman has a qualm comes over her stomach and Eugenius like a man-midwife stands by very officiously to see what will become of it Let her alone Eugenius it is but a qualm some cold raw rhewme Margret will escape welâ— enough Especially if her two Handmaids Heat and Siccity which you mention do but help with their Aquavitae bottles What a rare mode or way of Creation has Eugenius set out Certainly it cannot but satisfie any unreasonable man if there be any men without reason and I begin to suspect there is for Eugenius his sake such as feed as savourly on the pure milk of fansie as the Philosophers Asse on Sow-thistles SECT III. 12. He asserts that there was a vast portion of light in the Extract from the Chaos which surrounded the whole earth 13. He compares Ptolemees Heavens to a rumbling confused Labyrinth 14. He calls the Firmament Cribrum Naturae 15. Affirmes that the light before the fourth day equally possest the whole creation 16. That the Night peeps out like a baffled Giant when the Sun is down 17. That the shadow of the Earth is Natures black bagg 18. He prays to be delivered from the dark Tincture which at last by the Protochymist shall be expeld beyond the Creation 19. He allows onely two Elements Earth and Water â—0 He speakes of Water and Fire which is Apuleius his Psyche and Cupid of their bedding together 21. Cites an obscure Aphorisme out of Sendivow 22. Affirmes that the Air is the Magicians baâ—k doore 23. And our animal Oyl the fuell of the vital and sensual fire in us Observation 12. Pag. 13. THis page is spent in extracting from the Chaosâ— a thin spiritual celestial substance to make the Caelum Empyreum of and the Body of Angels and by the by to be in stead of a Sun for the first day But then in the second Extraction was extracted the agill air filling all betwixt the Masse and the Coelum Empyreum But here I have so hedged you in Mr. Anthroposophus that you will hardly extricate your self in this question The Empyreal substance encompassing allâ— how could there be Morning aud Evening till the fourth day for the mass was alike illuminated round about at once And for your interstellar water you do but fancy it implyed in Moses text can never prove that he drives at any thing higher in the letter thereof than those hanging bottles of water the clouds Observation 13. Pag. 14. Lin. 12. A rumbling confused Labyrinth 'T is only Erratum Typographicum I suppose you mean a rumbling Wheel-barrow in allusion to your Wheel-work and Epicycles aforementioned But why small diminutive Epicycles Eugenius you are so profound a Magician that you are no Astronomer at all The bignesse of them is as strong a presumption against them as any thing they are too big to be true Observation 14. Lin. 26. This is Cribrum Naturae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I warrant you The very sive that Iupiter himself pisses through as Aristophanes sports it in his Comedies Observation 15. Pag. 15. Lin. 20. Equally possest the whole Creature Therefore again I ask thee O Eugenius how could there be Evening and Morning the light being all over equally dispersed Observation 16. Lin. 29. Like a baffled Gyant Poetical Eugenius Is this to â—ay the sober and sound principles of Truth and Philosophy Observation 17. Pag. 16. Lin. 1. A Black Bag. I tell thee Eugenius Thy phansie is snapt in this female Black-bag as an unwary Retiarius in a Net Do's Madam Nature wear her Black-bag in her middle parts for the Earth is the Center of the World or on her head as other matrons doe That Philalethes may seem a great and profound Student indeed he will not take notice whether a black-bag be furniture for Ladies heads or their haunches Well! let him injoy the glory of his affected rusticity and ignorance Observation 18. Lin. 5. Good Lord deliver us How the man is frighted into devotion by the smut and griminesse of his own imagination Observation 19. Lin. 15. Earth and water c. Concurrunt element a ut Materia ergo duo sufficiunt says Cardan â—Tis no new-sprung truth if true Mr. Eugenius But seeing that AEthereal vigour and celestial heat with the substance thereof For coelum pervadit omnia is in all things and the air excluded from few or no living Creatures if we would severely tug with you Mr. Anthroposophus you will endanger the taking of the foil Observation 20. Pag. 18. Lin. 22. Both in the same bed Why did you ever sneak in Eugenius and take them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lawyers speak This is but poeticall pomp in prose And Ovid Philosophizes better in verse where speaking of heat and moisture he expresses himself apertly and significantly Quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque Concipiunt ab his generantur cuncta duobus Observation 21. Lin. 27. Spiritus aquae invisibilis congelatus melior est quà m terra Vniversa Now as you are Philalethes tell me truly if you understand any determinate and usefull sense of this saying If you do why do you not explain it if you do not for ought you know it may be onely a charm to fox fishes And I pray you Philalethes make triall of the experiment Observation 22. Pag. 19. Lin. 29. It is the Magicians Back-doore Here I cannot but take notice at the great affectation of Philalethes to appear to be deeply seen in Magick But I suppose if he were well searched he would be found no Witch nor all his Back-door of air worth the winde of an ordinary mans back-doore Observation 23. Pag. 20. Lin. 2. The air is our Animal oil the fuell of the vitall Now Eugenius you are so good natured as to give Aristotle one of his two elements again that you wrested from him If this be our animall oil and fuell of the vitall it is plain our animall and vitall spirits are from the air and that the air is one element amongst the rest And your moist
wink at and will deal with you onely about those things that you produce and oppose Observation 2. Pag. 3. Lin. 19. Nature is a Principle Here you cavil that Nature is said to be a Principle because you cannot find out the thing defined by this general intimation But here Philalethes you are a pitiful Logician and know not so much in Logick as every Freshman in our University doth viz. that that part of the Definition which is general do's not lead us directly home unto the thing defined and lay our hand upon it but it is the difference added that do's that As if so be we should say onely that Homo est animal that assertion is so floating and hovering that our mind can settle on nothing which it may safely take for a man for that general notion belongs to a slea or a mite in a chees as well as to a man but adding rationale then it is determined and restrained to the nature of man And your allegation against the difference here annexed in the definition of Nature is as childish For you only alleadge that it tels us what nature do's not what it is My dear Philalethes Certainly thou hast got the knack of seeing further into a millstone then any mortal else Thou hast discovered as thou thinkest Dame Nature stark naked as Actaeon did Diana but for thy rash fancy deservest a pair of Asses ears as well as he did his Bucks-horns for his rash sight Can any substantial form be known otherwise then by what it can do or operate Tell me any one substantial form that thou knowest any better way then this Phillida solus habeto take Phillis to thy self and her black-bag to boot Thou art good Anthroposophus I perceive a very unexperienced novice in the more narrow and serious search and contemplation of things Observation 3. Pag. 4. Lin. 23. This is an expresse of the office and effect of formes but not of their substance or essence Why Philalethes as I said before have you ever discovered the naked substance or Essence of any thing Is colour light hardnesse softnesse c. is any of these or of such like essence substance it selfe if you be so great a Wizard show some one substantial form in your Theomagical glasse Poor Kitling how dost thou dance and play with thine own shadow and understandest nothing of the mystery of substance and truth Observation 4. Pag. 5. Here in the third place you cavil at Aristotles Definition of the Soul and by your slubbering and barbarous translating of the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smother the fitnesse of the sense What more significant of the nature of a Soul then what this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is compounded of viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totamque infâ—sa per artus Mens agitat molem Or if we read the word as Cicero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it wil be more significant as being made up of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that which do's inwardly pervade and penetrate that which do's hold together and yet move this way and that way and lastly still moving possess and command an organical body c. what is this but a Soul or what better Definition can be given of it then this But here this peremptory opposer do's still inculcate the same cavil that the naked substance or essence of the soul is not set out by this but its operations But still out of the same ignorance supposing that a substantial Form can be better known then by its proper operations And this ignorance of his makes him so proud that he does Fellow at every word if not Sirrah Prince Aristotle because he has not done that which is impossible to doe unbare to us the very substance of the Form What an imperious boy is this a wrangling child in Philosophy that screams and cries after what is impossible as much as peevish babes after what is hurtful Aud in this humorous straining and wrigling bemarres both his Mother and his Aunt both the Universities at once casting dirt and filth upon their education of youth as if they taught nothing because they cannot teach what is impossible to be learned Observation 5. Pag. 8. Here Anthroposophus begins to be something earnest and rude with Nature not content any longer to use his adulterous phansie but to break open with his immodest hands her private closet search her Cabinet and pierce into her very Center What rare extractions he will make thence I leave to himselfe to enjoy Sure I am that if any skilful Cook or Chymist should take out Philalethes brains and shred them as small as mincemeat and tumble them never so much up and down with a trencher-fork he would not discover by this diligent discussion any substantial Form of his brains whereby they may be discovered from what lies in a Calfs head Nay if they were stewed betwixt two dishes or distilled in an Alembek neither would that extraction be any crystalline mirror to see the substantial form stark naked in and discover the very substance of that spirit that has hit upon so many unhappy hallucinations But you are a youth of rare hopes Anthroposophus Observation 6. Pag. 9. Lin. 20. Where by the way I must tell you c. viz. That the Heavens are not moved by Intelligences Who cannot tell us that But indeed you are forward to tell us any thing that do's but seem to sound high or make any show There 's no body now but would laugh to hear that a particular Angell turns about every Orb as so many dogs in wheels turn the spit at the fire So that it seems far below such a grand Theomagician as you are to tell us such incredible fopperies as these to be false Observation 17. Lin. 10. For the Authours credit and benefit of the Reader Good Philalethes What credit do you expect from your scribling though it be the onely thing you aim at in all your Book when yet nothing of truth but this aim of yours is to be understood throughout all this writing Observation 8. Lin. 15. This Anima retain'd in the Matter and missing a vent c. A similitude I suppose taken from the bung-hole of a barrell or more compendiously from bottled bear or it may be from the corking up close the urine of a bewitched party and setting it to the fire For Anthroposophus will not be lesse then a Magician in all things nor seem lesse wise then or witch or devil But me thinks Anthroposophus your expression of the nature of this Anima that must do such fine feats in the world by the efformation of things and organizing the matter into such usefull figuration and proportion in living creatures had been as fitly and as much to your purpose expressed if you had fancied her tied up like a pig in poke that grunting and nudling to get out drove the yielding bag
this Unity defiled with Matter the Ternarius or this Binarius refined by Art 17. That this Ternarius which he calls the Magicians Fire Mercurius Philosophorum Microcosmos and Adam is the Magicall maze where Students lose themselves And that this Magicall fire moves in shades and Tyffanies here below above in white etheriall vestures 18. His Periphrasis of Agrippa after a long citation out of him This is he with the black Spaniel c. 19. His self-condemnation for going counter to all the World in making use of Scripture for Physiologie 20 The Mosaicall Heaven and Earth are Mercury and Sulphur Uxor Solis a certain principle in every Starre and in the whole world The coition of these two their Ejection of seed with many such lascivious Mâ—taphors 21. Light a certain Principle that applied to any body whatsoever perfects it in suo genere and that this light is onely multipliable Observation 12. Pag. 14. HEre Philalethes is taken like a Fly in a Spiders Web. He is altogether for subtilties But spins but a thick thred from them such as any Rusticks hand would draw out as well as his own viz. That Spiders have some light of knowledge in them Who knows not that Philalethes But in the fifteenth page Observation 13. Pag. 15. He is so lavish of what he has so little of himself that he bestows it on every plastick materiall Form and not a Rose can grow in Nature but some seeing and knowing Hyliard with his invisible pencill must draw it and thus by his meer rash dictate do's he think he has dash'd out that long and rationall dogma in Philosophy of the particular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rationes seminales Whose fondnesse in this groundlesse assertion it were easie to confute but he that will not bring any reasons for what he sayes is not worthy to have any reasons brought against him For as for that onely slight reason which he intimates that the Matter being contrived into such a rational or artificial disposure of parts the immediate Artificer thereof must have animadversion and reason in it it is onely said not proved and will reach no further but that the ratio seminalis must at least proceed from something that is knowing and be in some sense rational but not have Reason and Animadversion in it self The like confidence and ignorance is repeated and insisted upon in the 16 and 17 pages but I let them passe Observation 14. Pag. 18,19 These pages contain a certain preachment which would have done well if it had been from some one that had more wit in knowing when to preach and when to hold his peace and more charity to abstain from such undeserved chidings of Aristotle But your unmeasureable and unmercifull chastisings of him and so highly advancing and soothing up your self in your own windy conceits and fluttering follies make all your serious applications ridiculous and ineffectual Observation 15. Pag. 20. Petition of St. Augustine A Logica libera nos Domine lin 7. Assuredly Philalethes ever since the Church Litanie was put down has used this of St. Augustine and that with such earnestnesse and devotion that he has even extorted from Heaven the full grant of his Petition and has become as free and clean from all sense and reason as he is luxuriant and encumbred with disturbed and unsetled fancies and undigested imaginations Observation 16. Pages 21. Lin. 3. These three Principles are the Clavâ—s of all Magick c. Here Philalethes like the Angel of the bottomless Pit comes jingling with the Keyes of Magick in his hands But he opens as Hokus Pokus do's his fists where we see that here is nothing and there is nothing But something he will seem to say viz. That the first Principle is one in one and one from one He that has so many years so devoutly pray'd against Logick do you expect when he speaks to hear reason This is as much as to say nothing One in one and one from one Suppose a ripe Apple should drop into the rotten hollow of the tree that bore it Is this Apple your mysterious Magical principle It may be that as well as any thing else by this description For it is one Apple in one hollow from one tree O but he addes It is a pure white Virgin Some religious Nun I warrant you No she may not be a Nun neither For she is uxor Dei stellarum It seems then there is a kinde of Plato's Common-wealth betwixt God and the Stars and they have community of wives amongst them But if she be so pure a Virgin-wife as you make her how come some of her Husbands to wear horns as they doe viz. Aries Capricorn and others But is this to Philosophize or to play the Theomagician Philalethes thus to tell us of virgins or wives with white peticoats or to tell us that from this one there is a descent into four c This is but idle treading of the air and onely a symptome of a light swimmering fancy that can have patience to write such hovering undeterminate stuffe as this that belongs either almost to any thing or nothing You even weary your Reader out Philalethes with such Metaphysicall dancings and airy fables Observation 17. Pag. 22. Lin. 5. This is a Labyrinth and wilde of Magick where a world of Students have lost themselves And you Philalethes have not scaped scot-free For you have lost your reason before as I told you and your so much and so confidently conversing with mere Unities and Numbers which in themselves design nothing will teach you in time to speak words without any inward phantasm of what you say So that you shall bid fair for the losing of your fancy too and then you will be as you are near it already Vox praeterea nihil a mere noise and clatter of words Lin. 13. It moves here below in shades and tiffanies c. What a description is this of the Magicians fire I suppose you mean the Magicians Thais It moves in shades that is for the text is very dark and wants a Commentary in the Evening or Twilight Tiffanies is plain English but white etheriall vestures must be white Peticoats and white Aprons or else white Aprons upon Blew Peticoats and that she is exposed to such a publick prostitution passing through all hands every one having the use of her body this Theomagicians fire seems to me to be no other then some very common strumpet But if you mean any thing but a Strumpet you have a wondrous infected fancy that dresses up your Theomagicall notions in such whorish attire But of a sudden my Theomagician has left those more grosse and palpable expressions and now dances very high in the air quite out of the Ken of our eye like some Chymicall Spirit that has broke its Hermeticall prison and flown away out of the Artist's sight and reach being farre more invisible and thin now then the finest Tiffany that ever took his
indeed such a mystical Philosophy as you would build may be erected upon any ground or no ground may hang as a castle in the air Observation 25. Pag. 45. Lin. 3. I never met in all my reading but with six Authors c. But how do you know that these six did perfectly understand the Medicine and this stupendious mystery unlesse you understood it perfectly your selfe So that you would intimate to the world that you doe perfectly understand it Observation 26. Lin. 25. After this the material parts are never more to be seen This is the nature of the Medicine then not to rectifie a visible body but to destroy it Like the cure of the head-ake by cutting off the neck Death indeed will cure all Diseases But you will say this is not death but a change or translation Nor the other a medicine but Spiritus medicus So that in multitude of words you doe but obscure knowledge Observation 27. Pag. 46. Lin. 5. Boy me out of countenance c. Here Philalethes is mightily well pleased to think that one of his greenness of yeers should arrive to this miraculous ripenesse and maturity of knowledge in the most hidden mysteries of Theosophy And comparing himselfe with the Reverend Doctors finds the greatest difference to be this that they indeed have more beard but he more wit And I suppose he would intimate unto us that they have so little wit that they know not the use of their own limbs For if he make their beards their crutches they cannot scape going on their heads as if they were not inverted but rightly postured plants or walking Stipites In good truth you are a notable Wagg Philalethes Observation 28. Lin. 10. Let me advise thee I say not to attempt any thing rashly And I commend your wit Anthroposophus in this point For you are so wary of putting your finger into the fire that like the Monkey you will rather use the Cats foot then your own as you will evidently show anon Observation 29. Lin. 22. Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano Keep your self there Philalethes 'T is a great deal better peece of devotion then that of Augustine A Logic â libera nos Domine Observation 30. Pag. 48. 49. Lin. 22. This is the Christian Philosophers Stone And this is the white Stone Which you Philalethes have covered over with so much green mosse that you have made it more hidden then ever before Having little will and lesse power to show it but in all likelyhood a great purpose of ostentating your self Observation 31. Pag. 49. Lin. 10. But Reader be not deceived in me I am not a man of any such faculties c. I warrant you Anthroposophus I am not so easily deceived in you You have walked before me in very thin transparent Tiffanies all this while or if you will danced in a net I suspected you from the very first that you would prove so good and so wise as you now plainly professe your self But that you are no better then you are you say is because God is no debtor of yours Why do's God Almighty run so much in some mens Arrears that he is constrain'd to pawn to them that precious Jewell or to give them the White stone to quit scores with them How far is this from Popery Philalethes that you seem elsewhere so much to disclaim Observation 32. Lin. 13. I can affirme no more of my self c. Right Philalethes Right Your fancy was never so happy as in transfiguring your self into a Wooden Mercury that points others the way which it self knows not nor can ever goe but stands stock still Observation 33. Lin. 18. Shew me but one good Christian c. Why then it seems Philalethes that you are no good Christian your selfe and uncapable of the secret you are so free to impart to others Or it is your discretion to attempt nothing your selfe rashly but as I said before to doe as the Ape or Monkey take the Cats foot to rake the Chesnut out of the fire SECT IV. 34 He speaks here of the natural coelestial Medicine more ordinary then the former which after the middle Nature-fire is sublimed per Trigonum Circulum and the Terra media which is betwixt the Unarius and Binarius is separated from the Magical compounded Earth becomes the true Petra Crystallina a bright Virgin Earth Terra Maga in aethere clarificata carying in its belly Wind and Fire to which if you unite the Heaven in a triple proportion applying a generative heat to both they will attract from above the Star-fire of Nature and thus you shall have gloriam totius mundi fugiet à te omnis obscuritas 35. Though the law of Nature be infallible in it self yet God can repeal in particular what he has enacted in the general 36. Eugenius his slight ground of Faith which is the hope or desire that what we believe might be true 37 Certain moral instructions of his to his student of Magick 38. His salutation of the river Yska from whom he pretends to have learned many virtues 39. He walks all night long by this river side a stargazing 40. He endeavours to make his mind as cleer as Yska's Crystalline streams 41. Admires the lownesse of his banks 42. As also their homely cloathing one and the same all the yeer long 43. He learns a lesson of Simplicity from hence 44. Is transported in beholding the pure type of piety in the River 45. Is astonished at the benignity of his streams they inriching those shoars that infringe their liberty by keeping them in their channel 46. He takes instruction from the River to swim up to Heaven in his tears as the River runs down to the Sea but expresses himselfe so obscurely that he seems to suppose the River to run to Heaven to show him the way thither Observation 34. Pag. 50. HE tells us here an obscure AEnigmatical story of attaining the Natural coelestial Medicine and that without any retractation as if he himself had been a potent and successeful Operatour in the Mysterie But let me once more take notice of the fondness of this affected obscurity in words that no man be any whit taken with that sleight of imposture and become guilty of that passion of fools causeless admiration For the most contemptible Notion in the World may be so uncertainly and obscurely set out by universal and hovering tearms taken from Arithmetick and Geometry which of themselves signifie no real thing or else from the Catachrestical use of the terms of some more particular and substantial Science that the dark dresse thereof may bring it into the creditable suspicion oâ— proving some venerable mystery when as if it were but with faithfulness and perspicuity discovered and exposed to the judgement free censure of sober men it would be found but either some sorry inconâ—iderable vulgar truth or light conjectural imagination or else a ghastly prodigious lie But say
sense and plamest truths of Christianity That stumble at the threshold or rather grope for the dore as the blinded Sodomites All the faculties of man are good in themselves and the use of them is at least permitted to him provided that with seasonable circumstances and upon a right object And I have made it already manifest that my Act was bounded with these cautions I but there is yet something behind unsatisfied Though Eugenius be ridiculous yet is it not ridiculous for one that pretends so much to the love of Christianitie as your self so publickly to laugh at him That pinches indeed Why am I so venerable a Personage I am sure I never affected to seem any such to the world yet I wear no sattin ears nor silk cap with as many seams as there are streaks in the back of a lute I affect neither long prayers nor a long beard nor walk with a smooth-knobbed staff to sustain my Gravity If I be a Precisian as Eugenius would have me it must be from hence that I precisely keep my self to the naked truth of Christianity As for Sects Ceremonies superstitious Humours or specious garbs of Sanctimony I look on them all if affected as the effects of Ignorance or masks of Hypocrisie And thus am I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Gentleman in querpo a meer man a true man a Christian One that never thinks himself so great as to grow unweildy and unready to put himself into any shape or posture for a common good And I prethee Reader why may not such a Christian as this laugh Or tell me Who is he in Heaven that laughs them to scorn that has the opposers of the reigne of Christ in derision God is not a man that he should laugh no more then cry or repent as much as concerns theÌ„ Divine Essence it self But as God is in a Deiform man he may be said to laugh and he can be said to laugh no where else And if he might yet that which is attributed to God though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot mis-become a good man Thus Reader is your argument againâ—â— laughing as solidly argued as sportingly laughed out of countenance and affected austerity made ridiculous by the plain and unaffected reasonings of Eugenius his merry Adversary but Your sober and serious friend Alazonomastix Philalethes To Eugenius Philalethes Eugenius THe reason why you heard not from me sooner is because yours arrived to my hands later then I exspected It was so hot it seems that none of my acquaintance had so hard and brawny fingers as to indure the dandling of this glowing coal till its conveyance where you would have it It is a brand from that fire that hath not onely calâ—ined but so vitrifâ—ed Eugenius that it hath made him transparent to all the world All men may see now through his glassy sides how unevenly and disorderly his black heart beats and pants they need not feel his pulse to find his distemperâ— AEsops fair water but a little warmed hath proved a very â—ffectuall Emetâ—ck for thee O Philalethes and hath made thee vomit up thy shame and folly in the sight of the world as his Accuâ—er did the figs before his Master So that that which you falsly supposed me to have eâ—deavoured you have fatally brought upon your self above the desire I should think of your bitterest enemies I am sure beyond the expectation of me that am your reall friend I did not endeavour your personall disgrace but the discountenancing of that which in my judgâ—ment is the disgrace of your person and many other persons besides And now that you have done me the greatest despight you can imagine and show'd your malice to the fullâ— so that in the court of Heaven and according to the doctrine of Christ you are no better then a murderer yet for all this I am benignly affected tâ— you still and wish you as much good as I do those that never endeavoured to provoke me And really I speak it from my soul if it lay in my power to do it you should find it But for the presâ—nt I could in my judgement do nothing more proper considering all circumstances then what I have done and still do in advertising you of what is for the best And truly looking upon you in some sort as a Noctambulo one that walks in his sleep that Book which hath proved so mischievous a scandal I intended onely for a stumble to wake you that you might shrugg and rub your eyes and see in what a naked condition you are not a stone of offense for you to fall upon and hurt you But you are fallen and hurt and yet do not awake as if Mercuries rod or I know not what other force of Magick still held fast your eyes You onely mutter against the present disturbance as one shogged while he dreams upon his pillow but you still sleep You cry out as one cramp'd in your bed but your closed sight can not discern whether it be a friend in sport or for better purpose or whether it be your foe to torture you Awake Eugenius Awake Behold it is I your sportfully troublesome friend or what you will in due time acknowledge though in this present drowsie humour you puff at it and kick against it Your carefull and vigilant brother ALAZONOMASTIX PHILALETHES ¶ The second Lash of Alazonomastix SECT I. Mastix sports himselfe with Eugenius his Title-page The man-mouse taken in a trap c. Taxes his indiscretion for dedicating so foul a paper to his grave Tutor Sleights his friends Poetry Apologizes for his own liberty of speech Vindicates himselfe from that unjust aspersion of being uncivil or immoral by answering to every particular passage alledged against him out of his Observations Declares the true causes of his writing against Eugenius ANd now Eugenius if it be as lawfull to speak to one asleep as it was for Diogenes to talk to Pillars and Posts that are not in a capacity of ever being awake Let me tell you to begin with your Title-page first that you doe very much undervalue and wrong your selfe that you being a Gentleman of that learning and parts that you are you will thus poorly condescend to that contemptible trade of a Mous-catcher And that you are not content to abuse your self onely but you doe abuse Scripture too by your ridiculous applying St. Pauls fighting with beasts at Ephâ—sus to your combating with and overcoming of a mouse Truly Philalethes I think they that have the meanest opinion of you would give you their suffrage for a taller office then this and adjudge you at least worthy of the place of a Rat-catcher As for your Epistle Dedicatory I conceive you have a very indulgent Tutor else you would not be so bold to utter so foul language in his hearing You have a very familiar friend of him if you can without breach of civilitie thus freely vomit up your figs into his bosome But for P. B. of Oxenford his
make a Cavil Put on thy spectacles and see if there be any comma before of in my Book If you understood common sense you could not but understand that my meaning is this That you tax the Peripateticks for fancying God to have made the world as a Carpenter makes houses of stone and timber Now pitifull Caviller But to the point I say this is a false taxation Eugenius For the parts of the world according to the Peripateticks own doctrine are set in this order they are from an inward principle of motion and their own proper qualities so that they do as the stones and trees are said to have done at the musick of Orpheus and Amphion move of themselves But the stone and timber in the work of a Carpenter do not move themselves into their places they ought to be for the building up of an house But you answer two things to this First that the parts of the world do not move themselves Secondly that if they do then they have infusion of life To the first Why do's not any part of the earth move it self downward if it be in an higher place then is naturall to it and the aire and fire upward c. and this from an inward principle of motion Nay is not the very definition of Nature Principium motûs quietis c. wherefore we see plainly that according to the Aristoteleans all to the very concave of the Moon have an inward principle of motion And for the Heavens themselves the most sober and cautious of the Peripateticks hold them to be moved from an inward Principle their Forma informans as they call it So that though they do not allow life infused into the world yet they allow an inward principle of motion in naturall bodies which is their Substantiall Forms by virtue whereof they are ranged in this order as we see or at least according to which they are thus ranged and ordered And this is not so dead a businesse as the Carpenters building with stone and timber But in the second place you say That if they have this motion from an inward principle then they have also infusion of life But do not you see plainly that according to the mind of the more sober Peripateticks they have motion from an inward Principle Therefore you should have been so farre from taxing them to look upon God as a Carpenter that you should have concluded rather that they held infusion of life Pag. 24. Lin. 1. Thou hast abused me basely Verily if that were true I should be very forrie for it For I would not willingly abuse any man living of what condition soevâ—r But the thing has happened unluckily I read thy Book I knew not thy person nor thy name nor thy nature further then it was exprest in thy Book which did not represent it so ill as now I find it If I had thought my Galenical purge had met with 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 verâ—ly think I should not have medled at all if you had spared your incivilities to Des-Carters whose worth and skill-in naturall Philosophy be it fate or judgement that constrains me to it let the world judge I cannot 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 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 becomingly that the Countrey people took them to be a lesser size of humane race till a waggish fellow that had more wit 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 Philalethes SECT IV. The Confutation of Eugenius his World-Animal from the unmercifull disproportion and ugly dissimilitude of the parts thereof compared with a true Animal reinforced and invincibly confirmed Pag. 24. WE are now 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 Vniverse clearly discovers its Animation The Earth which is the visible naturall Basis of it
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 Fantastry 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 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 Aster which in plain English in Starre whom he instructed in the Art of Astronomie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou viewest the starres my Star were I the skies 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 fantastically 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 fancy 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 brains as thou callest them may lay claim to the maid-marians place in the Morris-dance while my strong cruds as thou tearmest my masculine understanding which are as sweet as strong not tainted with the fumes of either revenge or Venery shall improve their utmost strength for the interest of Truth and Virtue And thus have I taken all thy Outworks Eugenius yea and quite demolished them Yet now I look better about me there is I perceive one Half-moon standing still Wherefore have at thy Lunatick answer to that which thou callest my Lunatick argument which thou propoundest thus That the Flux and Reflux cannot be the pulse of the great World because it proceeds from the Moon not from the Sunne I say Philalethes The Sunne being the heart of the world according to those that be more discreetly fantasticall consult Dr. Fludd thou art but a bad chip of that block it was to be expected if thou wouldst have the Flux and Reflux to be the Pulse that it should come from the Sun that is reputed the heart of the world but it comes from the Moon To this you answer That it comes no more from the Moon then from that fictitious Anti-selene or Anti-moon as you venture to call it You say thus but prove nothing But there is such an apparent connexion betwixt this Phaenomenon of the Flux and Reflux and so constant with the course of the Moon that it is even unimaginable but that there should be the relation of cause and effect betwixt them But I think you will not say That the motion of the Sea has any power or effect upon the course of the Moon wherefore it must be granted that the course of the Moon has an effectuall influence upon the Flux of the Sea And therefore Fromundus speaks very expressely concerning this matter and very peremptorily in these words Si ex effectis de causa conjectatio valere potest tam compertum videtur â—stus effici gubernari à Lunari sydere quà m calorem ab ignibus effundi aut lumen à Sole to this sense If we can gather any thing from effects concerning the cause it seems to be as experimentally sure that the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea is made and governed by the Moon as that heat flows from the fire or light from the Sunne For indeed how could there be kept such inviolable laws as that the Ocean should alwayes swell at the Moons ascending and not onely so but attemperately and proportionably to her motion for she coming every day later and later above the Horizon the Flux of the Sea is later and later every time according to her recession toward the East in her monethly course I say How could these laws be so accurately observed Mr. Eugenius if the Moon were not accessory to nay the principall causer of this Flux and Reflux of the Sea And if thou beest not wilfully blinâ— this is enough to convince thee that that which thou callest the Pulse of thy World-Animal is from the Moon not from the Sunne nor from its own inward â—orm for thou seest it is caused and regulated by an externall Agent But for a more full discovery of this mysterie I send thee to Des-Cartes in the fourth part of his Principia Philosophiae or to what I have taken from thence and made use of in the Notes upon my Philosophicall Poems In which Poems the intelligent Reader may understand how far and in what sense any sober Platonist will allow the world to be an Animal Nor do's one part of it acting upon another as the Moon upon the Sea hinder its Animation For in men and beasts one part of the body do's plainly act upon another though all be actuated by the soul. And now Philalethes I have taken all thy Out-works none excepted out of which thou hast shot many a slovenly shot against me But thy foul piece has reâ—oyled against thy self in all sober mens opinions and has beat thee backward into the dirt
that which continues the same numericall substance though in its notion incomplete and sustains the succeeding form that is a thing in Nature But when we precisely conceive it utterly devoid of all forms that 's a separation made onely by the fire of our understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Oracles call it not by your Chymicall fire and this is not in Nature but in our apprehension Wherefore your assertion is false when you say that this Matter is neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Nature For though the notionall respect be not in Nature the thing it self is And this I say is a sober description and signifies something But your horrible empty darknesse which you say here is the first Matter doth but mock a mans fancy in the dark Page 42. line 15. The holy Spirit say you is not able to see c. I say Anthroposophus that it is you that have put things together so ill-favouredly as if you implied so much as the Reader may judge by perpending the ninth page of your Anthroposophia Page 43. line 20. As soon as God was Where is thy Logick Eugenius doth that imply there was a time when God was not when we say that one is as wise as a wisp does that imply the wisp is wise I tell thee a wisp is no wiser then thou art Mr. Magicus So if I say that the light of the Idea's was not later then the existence of God that saying does neither stint nor stretch out the duration of Gods existence but onely it coextends the light of the Idea's with that duration Page 44. lin 1. But the water was not so But what was the horrible empty darknesse O thou man in the dark was that ab aeterno or not and if that was could not the Divine light shine in that darknesse but I will wrestle no longer with such Lemures in the dark as thy shifting fancie proves it self O Anthroposophus Let 's go on and see if we can get into the light Observation 6. And speak of Rationes seminales Yes I spake of them and mov'd a very materiall question concerning them to wit what that Experiment in a glasse could do for the confirming or confuting the Rationes seminales It had been your duty here to have satisfied this Quaere but I perceive your inabilitie and pardon you Observation 7. Line 10. I my self make the Naturall Idea no Idea at all So then Anthroposophus this is the story There is a twofold Idea a divine Idea and an Idea which is no Idea at all Ha ha he Thou hadst abused me so unmercifully in this bitter book of thine that I thought I should never have been able to laugh again as long as I liv'd But this would make a dog burst his halter with laughing I must now laugh or die What art thou now turned Preacher Phil though no Puritane by no means and tel'st us of three kinds of Seekers that they are either those which are both Seekers and Finders or those that are Finders but no Seekers or lastly such as are neither Seekers nor Finders Certainly when thou wrotest this book thou hadst a plot to eternize thy fame and leave thy folly upon record Page 46. line 1. Cite him then and produce his words Here they are Philalethes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 20. He there proves that there are divine Idea's before the creation of the visible plants from that text of Moses Gen. 2. v. 4 5. Philo's own words are these upon that text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Does not he manifestly set before us incorporeall and intellectuall Idea's which are the seals of Gods sensible works for before the earth sent forth herbs there was even then saith Moses herbs in Rerum Natura and before the grasse grew there was invisible grasse Can you desire any thing more plain and expresse But to make thee amends for laughing at thy division of the Idea which had but one member and hopped like one of the Monocoli upon a single legge I will give thee another Idea besides this out of the same Philo and such as may be truly called both an Idea and a naturall one a thing betwixt thy Ideal vestiment and the Divine Idea it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is But the fruits was not onely for nourishment for living creatures but preparations also for the perpetuall generation of the like kind of plants they having in them Seminal Substances in which the hidden and invisible forms of all things become manifest and visible by circumvolutions of seasons These are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Rationes seminales the seminall Forms of things Observation 11. Page 48 line 9. Mastix is deliver'd of a Bull. This is a Calf of thy own begetting but I have forgot all this while to render thee a Calf for a Bull as I promis'd thee I am not toyish enough for thee my little Phil. Do I say Heat and Siccity are Aqua vitae bottles But may not heat and siccity and Aqua vitae be consentany arguments what repugnancy is there in it Answer Logician Therefore there is no Bull here till thou be grown up to thy full stature Observation 12. Here I told you that you incompassing all with the Empyreal substance you had left no room for Evening and Morning upon the Masse of the Earth What do you answer to this That the Empyreal substance was a fire which had borrowed its tincture from the light but not so much as would illuminate the Masse of it self No Philalethes Do not you say it retain'd a vast portion of light and is not that enough to illuminate the Masse of it self Nay you say it made the first day without the Sunne but now you unsay it again Pitifull baffled Creature But as for those terrible mysterious radiations of God upon the Chaos and dark Evaporations of the Chaos towards God which thou wouldst fain shusfle off thy absurdities by I say they are but the flarings of thine own fancy and the reeks and fumes of thy puddled brain Dost thou tell me this from Reason or Inspiration Phil If from Reason produce thy arguments if from Inspiration shew me thy Miracle Page 51. line 25. The clouds are in the Aire not above it c. But if the clouds be the highest parts of the world according to the letter of Moses which is accommodated as I shall prove to the common conceit and sense of the Vulgar then in the judgement of sober men it will appear that thy Argument hath no agreement neither with Philosophy nor common sense Now therefore to instruct thee as well as I do sometimes laugh at thee I will endeavour to make these two things plain to thee First That Scripture speaks according to the outward appearance of things to sense and vulgar conceit of men Secondly