Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A56390
|
A free and impartial censure of the Platonick philosophie being a letter written to his much honoured friend Mr. N.B. / by Sam. Parker.
|
Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Bisbie, Nathaniel, 1635-1695.
|
1666
(1666)
|
Wing P463; ESTC R18216
|
56,029
|
122
|
contending about the Glories and Prerogatives of their own Nation in which Controversie men of all Nations are apparently partial for their own but none so grossly as the Jews who would have their Nation the only Fountain of all knowledge and wisdom as if all other men had been meer Mushromes and had not reason enough to reflect upon and observe the natures and properties of Things and therefore Aristobulus the first Founder and Foundation of this Conceit does with the same Confidence maintain that the Peripatetick Philosophie was stoln out of Moses and the Prophets as that the Fancies of Plato and Pythagoras were taken thence There are perhaps one or two obsolete Grecian Testimonies produced on the behalf of this Opinion but I shall not be at the pains critically to examine their weight and authority because I have as great a suspition of all those obsolete records concerning the Iewish Nation cited by some Ancient Authors as I have of their Sibillan Prophecies and other confessed Impostures in that most of them discover their own Forgery As those so famous and still credited Testimonies of Apollo's Oracle on behalf of the Jewes of which there is â— greâ—t multitude in Eusebius his Praeparatio Evangelica among the rest this is one of the famousest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Chaldeans and Hebrews alone are Professors of true Wisdome who worship the Eternal God in a pure and holy manner 'T is strange Eusebius should think the world so credulous yet so credulous it has been as to believe that this Distick ever drop'd from Apollo's Oracle for whether that were inspired by the Priests or by the Divel I am confident they were neither of them so honest or so simple as thus openly to commend the Iewish Religion and condemn their own But now as for those Writers who were best able to give the truest account of the Commerce between the Jewes and the Grecians if there had been any they are universally silent in it The Ancient Records of Greece are scarce more silent in any thing then the Iewish Nation Though they relate frequent Voyages of their wise men into Forreigne Countries yet no mention at all of their Iewish Traffick they acknowledge their Geometrie to have been imported from Egypt their Astronomie from Chaldea their Arithmetick from Phenicia their Theologie from Persia but no account of their Cargo from Iudaea And Lactantius justly and seriously chides with the Ancient Philosophers because they neglected to trade with the Jewes for wisdome as well as other Nations Equidem miâ—ari soleo saies he quod cum Pythagoras postea Plato amore indagandae veritatis ad Aegyptios Magos Persas usque Penetrassent ut earum Gentium ritus sacra Cognoscerent suspicabantur enim sapientiam in Religione versari ad Iudaeos tamen non accesserint penes quos tum solos fuit quo facilius ire potuissent There are indeed some conjectures to make it probable that the Grecians might confound Iudea with Phaenicia which if true 't is a good Argument that they had very little knowledge of it for 't is not likely that any who conversed with the Iewish Nation should confound them with the Phaenicians when there was so vast not only difference but contrariety between them as to their Civil State Laws Customes and Religion Nay the Jewish Religion Customes Laws being of so peculiar a constitution from those of all other Nations it can scarce be supposed but that those who so carefully observed the Laws and Customes of Forreign Nations as the Grecian Philosophers did should have taken a more signal and particular Notice of the Iewish Constitutions if they had been acquainted with them Besides all which let me add that we find as great a consonancy of the opinions of the Wise men of other Nations with the Hebrew Writings where there appeare no foot-steps of commerce between them as of the Grecians For instance though Numa Pompilius is generally acknowledged the first Pythagorean being more ancient then Pythagoras yet there is not the least appearance of any commerce between him and the Jewes And therefore when Mr Selden thinks that if those 7 Books of Wisdome found in the Field of Petilius An ab U. C. DLXX. and attributed to Numa by an Inscription upon the Chest in which they were were really his that he was probably not unacquainted with the Discipline of the Hebrews only because Cassius Hemina and C. Piso in Plinie report that the matter contained in them was very consonant to the Pythagorick Philosophie the best foundation of the conjecture is the deserved greatness of his own name and authority for you cannot but perceive that in it self 't is very fond frivolous and if such a licentious latitude may be allowed in historical guesses Quidlibet ex Quolibet will soon be as warantable a maxime in History as 't is in the Epicurean Philosophie It were easie to have given you a larger account hereof but I write a Letter not a Treatise 3. As to the pretence of a Vocal Cabala I can scarce without amazement consider with what confidence and eagerness some learned men of late have cryed up an invention so novel and fanciful for I know nothing more precarious and destitute of tolerable pretences then these Cabalistical Traditions being only a late silly Invention of the Iewish Rabbins for they are altogether unknown to and unmentioned by the ancient both Jewes and Christians And yet Kircher who never gives out at credulity would have every one that does not believe the Divine Original of the Cabala to be convicted of Heresie as an Enemy to the Divine Providence But for my part I cannot understand how any Rational man can be at all concerned for so vain and frivolous an Invention of the Modern i. e. trifling Rabbins But he that could find all the Learning of the world in an Egyptian Hieroglyphick may find all the Articles of his Faith in a Rabbinical Fable 'T is certain that the Cabala was invented since the dispersion of the Iewish Nation there being not the least footsteps of it before but in what Century or Period is uncertain and must remain so for from the Destruction of Ierusalem there commenced as to the Iewish History a Tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Period alwayes fit for Fables there being no Records or Monuments of their Condition and Affairs unless some few fabulous Relations in the Talmud But whatever became of them 't is certain that being given up to a vain and trifling spirit they imployed themselves in foolish absurd Inventions of which making Mystical and Allegorical Interpretations of Scripture is none of the least especially when they prefer them so much before the true and literal meaning for they compare the Scripture it self to a Candle but the Mystical sense to a Iewel for the discovery whereof of the Candle is lighted and the Misnical Doctors
that is they that study onely the litteral sense are compared to Apothecaries who only prepare those Medicaments which the Physitian prescribes but the Cabbalistical Doctors to Physitians who understand their Natures Uses and secret Properties And therefore they leave the litteral and superficial sense of Scripture to the rude and ignorant People whilst they that are Learned dive into the mysteries and depths of the Law and by the help of Fancy fetch strange and wonderful secrets from Words Letters Points from their several Shapes Combinations Transpositions Abbreviatures Arithmetical Indications and the like And then with a frontless Impudence assert that they came Originally from Adam Abraham and Moses You may see enough of this Cabbalistical Trash in a thousand Authours but most Copiously in Reuchlin de Arte Cabbalistica and in that grand Thesaurus of Learned Trifles Kirchers Oedip. tom 2. Class 4. The first that produced them into the Christian World was the Earl of Mirandula in whose time the very word Cabbala was so unknown that as Hottinger relates out of Garzon it was taken for a Witch Vetula venesicits dedit◠And the Earl himself relates in his Apology that one of his greatest Antagonists being asked what this Cabbala was replyed that he was a certain notorious Heretick that had opposed himself against Iesus Christ and that from him his Accomplices and Followers were named Cabbalistae The Earl when he had at a high price purchased some small fragments of it from the Iews thought himself Master of the most ancient and valuable Monument in the World The mistake was pardonable in him but unpardonable in those who since have had opportunity to examine its first rise and antiquity and cannot discern the least Traces of it beyond the Talmudical Rabbins Besides this I might overthrow the Cabbala from rational Arguments taken from the thing it selfe as that it would reflect upon the Wisdom of God that he should conveigh down such material and important Truths as are supposed to be contained in the Cabbala by so uncertain and questionable a way as Oral Tradition That it renders the Word of God ridiculous and useless and makes its meaning altogether doubtful and ambiguous and exposes it to the giddy and fanciful Conjectures of every warm Brain but the groundlesness of the thing it self makes all other confutation needless Some not unlearned men have urged the Consistency of the Cabbala with it self and the suitableness of the Allegory to the Text as no contemptible Argument of its Truth and Solidity But alas beside that most of their Analogies between the Mystery and the Text are sufficiently forced and uncouth there 's nothing more easie then for Fancy to find some Consonancy between the most distant things especially in such various and unlimited things as Allegories are If you should require it I think I could with an ordinary plausibility draw up a body of the Epicurean Philosophie out of the Writings of Iacob Behem and yet perhaps it would puzle you to think of any Hypotheses of a more distant Genius then they Such an Africa is Fancy that it can couple things of the most distant and contrary Natures And therefore I shall never think the prettiest Parallels Analogies and Similitudes to be any tollerable Arguments 4. Having thus evidenced the unwarrantable Rashness of deriving Platonick Notions from Iewish Traditions I come in the next place to give 1. A brief Account of the Rise of that seeming agreeableness between the Platonick and the Christian Trinity 2. To shew by what Principles and steps the Platonists happened upon their Triad For the first it seems to have its Original from those counterfeit and supposititious Authors which pretended to the greatest Antiquity but yet were really composed by the Gnosticks out of the Ethnick and Christian Theologie and ascribed to names of the greatest Antiquity and Veneration such as Hermes Trismegistus Zoroasters Oracles the Sybillan Prophecies now it were strange if in these Authors there did not appear some kind of Resemblance and Vicinity between the Platonick Philosophie and the Holy Scriptures seeing they had by all Artificial ways blended them together as by coupling their different terms to express the same thing for whereas the Scripture stiles the first Person of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Plato the first of his Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they joyn'd them together and call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the Second Person is in Scripture termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these he is generally stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now they that knew nothing of the Imposture meeting with such an Artificial agreement between Platonick Notions and Christian Doctrines might easily imagine that it was natural The first Author of this mistake seems to have been Ammonius of Alexandria Father to that Golden Chain of Philosophers of the Sacred succession who being both a Christian and a Platonist lighting upon these Spurious Books in which the Platonick Notions and Christian Articles were blended and reconciled together might thence be easily induced to fancy a true and real Consonancy between them And therefore Patricius avers that he was the first that understood aright the notion of Plato's Threefold Principle and that he came by this knowledge by perusing the Books of Trismegistus And hence those Platonists that followed him might speak of the Trinity more consonantly to the Scriptures then perhaps they intended though not long after these Impostures were discovered by Porphyrie as himself relates in the Life of Plotinus For the second the Platonick Triad is widely different from the Christian for they intend by it so many Orders and Ranks of Intellectual Beings and frequently added a fourth which was the Humane Soul and set it at no greater distance from the Third by which they meant the Soul of this Universe then that was removed from the Second by which they meant the First mind or soul of the Immaterial world And their Progress to the knowledge of these Beings proceeded in this Method 1. They suppose all things to ascend by Scales to Unity as Plato endeavours to prove in his Parmenides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unity is the Origine of all Number or all mix'd and compounded Beings must be at last resolved into some one simple and unmix'd Principle otherwise the resolution would be endless so that all blended and Heterogeneous Perfections both material and immaterial must of necessity exist somewhere simple and unmix'd And then all Immaterial Perfections being found blended together in the Humane Soul they concluded that as many degrees of Perfection as they could discover there that there were so many Ranks of superior and more homogeneal Beings in the Intellectual world The Soul therefore as they apprehended consisting of four parts must have the fourth Rank in the order of Intellectual Beings and by consequence there must be three superior Orders more simple and uncompounded which must by