Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A54477
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An anatomical lecture of man, or, A map of the little world, delineated in essayes and characters by Samuell Person ...
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Person, Samuel, 17th cent.
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1664
(1664)
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Wing P1665; ESTC R18374
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38,395
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111
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it is a vulgar errour for men to say the World stands still and is constant which the Famous Phylosoper Copernicus proves nothing to be more unconstant more frail more giddy then it The World is a Centre the Heavens are its circumference which do encircle it yea the VVorld it self is a circle and the Devil is the Conjurer in it men are bewitched and are so charmed with enchantments that they do nothing but sleep in the bed of insecure security That is a very good Emblem of the frailty of the VVorld the VVorld being pictured and a hand from Heaven holding it in a string which string is the threed of this Life during its Duration in the VVorld which when it is divided by Atropus the destinies knife then the VVorld falls into an abysse of nothing from whence it came and so according to that distick Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo Et subito casu quae valuere ruunt All humane things hang by a slender thred VVhat stands most strong is quickly ruined Experience that severe Mistris teaches us every day how unconstant how brittle how unstable the World is and what man is there now that will not believe the opinions of the New Philosophers and Mathematicians that the World turns round This World is a stage or a theatre upon which all men come to act their parts Heavens are the Spectators they fight or should fight against the Devil and divellish vices This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Phylosophers calls it is a Labirinth and death is the Minotaure in it which devoures all men in its devouring jawes but our Heavenly Theseus will be the death of this death and the life of our life The World is more filthy then the Augaeano Stable oh for a Hercules which might clense it by letting the Alphean Rivers of Justice run through it to purge it from the dung of sin and puddle of iniquity This Structure of the VVorld is as an Ark swiming and floating in a Sea of Miscry delug'd with floods of iniquity Oh there is too many unclean Beasts in it not only whose feet bears the Image of the Beast the Devil but whose Souls have upon them his Devillish inscription The VVorld is round as though it stood for a Cypher but in my Arithmetick it is one though in the laughing wise-man Democritus's account there were plurality of Worlds but Mundus wants the plural number The VVorld by that ingeniousest of Poets Ovid is said to have four Ages the first Age was the Golden or best Age the second the Silver Age the third the Brazen Age and this last and worst Age is the Iron Age well may it be called so for so much war and so many Iron instruments of it that it seem'd as though Mars had made the World his field of War So here is an end of my description of the World though not of the World it self A Man IS by the Phylosophers called a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a little World and by a witty Characterist the world is called a great man and man a little World Man is a Map or Description of the great World he is the World in Epitomy man is Natures darling This Microcosme is a compendium and an abridgment of the great World Let us peep in the cranyes of secret Anatomy and let us symbolize mans parts with the worlds Man is compounded of the foure Elements viz. Fire Aire Earth and Water and so is the World a compound of these his Liver Blood and Moisture is as the Sea which sends out its streams into all parts of the body by little sanguine Rivers in Violet veins which are as so many leaden pipes to convey his blood Mans natural heat is his fire his radical moisture his Water his breath blown out and in by the bellows of his Lungs his Air and his Flesh is earth but mans soul by the tenent of all Phylosophers and Christians is held to be of a spiritual substance like to the Angels and his soul is the angellick intelligences so it doth move its little orb its body in its right course as do the coelestial inteligences or Angels move their orbs every one in their proper sphear mans body is of admirable Architecture Frame and Composure but mans soul which Ovid calls his better part which some bruitish men makes the worst it is as the heavens of an heavenly existence though his body be but as the earth Mans reason is the sun that shines in the Firmament of his soul and gives light to his body the little world his soul is a little heaven as I may call it his faculties viz Fancy Imagination Wit Memory Understanding Will c. are the Stars that gives light to his lesser VVorld Man is the model and extract of nature he is all the creatures epitomized in his little coppy he is the greatest letter in the book of nature mans soul is indued with such exquisite faculties his soul can fly from one pole to another in a moment with this winged motion can ascend to the heavens in a minuite and descend into the abisse in an instant can pierce with the Lynx's eyes of his Imagination and Fancy into the secretest places yea and behold imaginarily the centre of the Earth A man is a master-piece in which there are a thousand several motions a soul indued with such excellencies as in one minuite it can be in a thousand places mounts up to the top of the world fadoms the universe without touching it which goes glisters sparkles which is the great indagatrix which searches all the treasures and magazines of nature which finds out all sorts of inventions which frames Arts which governs States which orders Worlds Man is a book which he ought to dedicate to his Maker and this man is the King Lord and Master of all other creatures which man shall be an inhabitant of heaven or hell if he be a valiant Champion and fight his Battel on the Stage of the World and can say truly Caesars three Triumphant words Veni Vidi Vici Then he shall be an inhabitant of the Coelestial Paradise where he may eat of the tree of Life freely drink of the Waters of Life abundantly and enjoy the Tree of Knowledg eternally when he shal know what soever is to be known but if he be vanquished he may say of heaven and happiness as one said in another case Vale in aeternum Vale farewell and forever farewell but he shall be a prisoner in the subterraneal Gaol of hell settered in chains of darkness The World is a Center and men are the lines about it he who moves in a larger Orb he is further from the Center of the World and neerer heaven but he who moves in a narrower Orb and Sphear is neerer the earth and further from Heaven Riches are trash and pleasures a toy But peace of conscience is a perfect joy A Wise man IS one of Apollo's
a sweet Musitian for there is such sweet harmony proceeds from his Organs and such Concord in all his thoughts words and actions every Learned man moving in their proper Sphears Oh the harmony of these Sphears and Orbs and besides these he is a real Musitian one of Therpsicore or Vterpe's Sons He is an Astronomer for his eye is alwayes fixt on Heaven and considers whether the Starrs Heavens-eyes look with kind aspects on the Sons of Men and a deep profound Astrologer and considers the powerful working influence and effects of the Starrs the Caelestial torches and an eloquent eminent Rhetorician who has Mercury's Golden Tongue another Mithridates a Schollar is a Geometrician for he measures the Earth and knows that the World is a circle and mans heart a triangle therefore the world cannot fill mans heart He is also a Medick or Physitian that can cure the sicknesse of the Soul viz. ignorance by that All-heal knowledge and the end of other Sciences is but the beginning of this Science of Sciences viz. Divinity For he is a Divine Whose object is his Maker nay and besides all these he is an Exquisite Chymist sucking the marrow of all Phylosophy extracting out of it the quintescence and by his Mercury and other Alchymistical ingredients He makes his Elixar and Phylosophers Stone if possible to be made and then he makes his Furnaces his Golden Indies from whence he gets his Gold and all this is to an excellent end to aspire to the top of Pythagoras Y which deciphers Wisedom and he knows he cannot climb to it without Craesus's Golden Ladder A Learned Man is a Rabby that is skilled in the Oriental Tongues This knowing man being pollish't by Mercury and Minerva may become one of the tall Caedars in the Lebanon of the Church or State other shrubs being not fit Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius Learning to a Schollar is good Armour Armour of proof against the Heretical Cannons of Adversaries yea he is out of their Gun-shot having drunk of the Muses Hellicon that Spring and Fountain of Learning He is then as it were inspired by that Learned goddess Minerva with Heavenly fire and having tasted of Aristotles Well he detests the muddy waters of ignorance A learned man with Esops fellow Servant can do all things not ascribing Omnipotence to any man but all things that a man can do Learning is the stamp and superscription that is coyned upon learned men and therefore they are currant and runs with the swift Curranto's of his imagination over the Universe Learning is the Jewel in a Learned Mans head yea his Head is the Muses Store-House their Capitol Learning is an Ornament to the Rich Riches to the Poor Power to the Potent and what not And now I have given you a Discription of the Learned hear what difference that Cynick Phylosopher Diogenes makes between the Learned and unlearned saith he As much difference there is as between the dead and the living so much difference there is between the learned and Ignorant But I had almost forgot to play the Astronomer about Calculating the Learned's Nativity they are commonly brought into the World when Mercury is culminating which doth presage them to be Wise Studious contemplative An Ignorant Man IS a meer Simplicius he may have St Austins Confession written in Capitol Letters about his head after the Romane manner with this Inscription HOC TANTVMSCIO QVOD NIHIL SCIO I onely know this that I know nothing Aske him any thing and the Answer will be that Nescunt word Nescio I know not When an Ignorant man is to bring his Verdict in about any thing it will be this Ignoramus Yea he is an Ignoramus himself ask him what he has been Reading he will say de nihilo of nothing if you draw many Interrogatories he is vext and saith He knows what he knows Were I to picture an Ignorant man I would paint him without eyes for he is blind the eyes of his Soul of his understanding the chief part thereof are blind yea all those that wants the eye of Knowledge may be said to be blind in my Judgement the Mole would be a good Hyerogliphick of an ignorant man for as Naturalists say it is blind and alwayes plodding and digging in the Earth so do ignorant men and they with Aesops Cock in the Fable had rather have Corn or a little Earth then the Pearle of Knowledge Ignorant men are Owles that howle for woe in a night of Misery The Ignorant are inveloped in such Cymmerian darknesse where the Sun of Knowledge never visits them nor darts its joyful Beams into the crany's of their Souls Ignorance is a Prison the ignorant are the prisoners that are enchained with chains and setters of slavery yea untill the scales of ignorance be wipt from their eyes they will be blind I may say just and justly contrary of him what I said of a Learned man the Sword of obscurity keeps him from tasting of the Tree of Knowledge yea his knowledge afterwards for want of knowledge will be a miserable knowledge to know his misery which a Learned man shall be ignorant of An ignorant man is a kind of a fool yea he may be embarqued in Barkleys Ship of Fools You my know what an ignorant man is by the Rule of contrary he is an opposite to a learned man and I put them together that you may see the greater difference according to that Axiome Cannon or Rule in Phylosophy Contraria juxta se opposita maxime Avecseunt Is it not a wonder that he objects not this if a Knowing Learned man know all things then with Aesop I Answer I know nothing if he know all things what need I know any thing he leaves nothing for me to know But I Answer one man cannot Monopolize all Knowledge but every man ought to have his share of it The World is a Wilderness Knowledge is mens guide now without this they know not which way to go nor what to do neither as the saying is do the ignorant know what is what An Ignorant man is unfit for all business put to any and his excuse will be I am a poor ignorant man I cannot yet he thinks he is an innocent man an Innocentius though not a Pope Every thing is a Riddle to the ignorant with every unusual thing they are caught with an extasie of admiration and think it a miracle so indeed it is a wonder to him and no wonder he being so ignorant of Nature and Natural Causes An Ignorant man is one of the Worlds Herd grunting in a dung-hill of ignorance and will never enter into Minerva's Paradize where is Trismegists Tree or Rod of Knowledge I do not say it was a bough or twig of the Tree of Knowledge but it has such virtue in it as it will be to him Lignum Sacrum or a Holy Oke Learning and Knowledge is the fruit of it its leaves or bark are as it were Books as in