so little as an Epistle and therefore would insinuate that it was an Oration made to the Fratres R. C. I suppose at their meeting at Fryer Bacons brasen head in Oxford Well! be it what it will be my observation here Anthroposophus is that you would also by your addresse to the Fratres R. C. make the world beleeve that you are now mellowing apace and are not much unripe for admission into that Society And then Anthroposophus would be a rare Theomagician indeed But enough of this vein of mirth and levity Now Philalethes your brother Tel-troth intends to fall more closely on your bones and to discover whether you have not a greater minde to seem to be wise then to be so indeed or to make others so But yet you may assure your self I will only find flaws not make any in you but rather candidly passe over what may receive any tolerably good interpretation nor touch the soar anywhere but where I may hope to heal it either in your self or others And that this may be done without any tedious taking a peeces of what you have put together I shall fairly passe from page to page without any Analytical Artifice And truly from the first page to middle of the fourth page of you to the Reader there be many pretty smart elegant humorous contextures of phrases and things But there presently after Fryer Bacons Fool and his fellow you fall upon our Peripateticks as such superficiall Philosophasters because they cannot lay open to you the very essence of the soul Why Anthroposophus can you tell the very essence of any substantiall thing Hereby you show your self very raw and unexercised in meditation in that you have not yet taken notice what things are knowable what not And thus may you have as ill a trick put upon you for want of this discerning as the old dim and doting woman had that with her rotten teeth endeavoured to crack a round pebble stone instead of a nut which was a thing impossible Nor will any mans understanding be it as sharp as it will enter the bare essence of any thing But the nearest wee can get is to know the powers and operations the respects and fitnesses that things have in themselves or toward others Which is so true that any man in a little search will presently satisfie himself in the evidence thereof From the middle of this fourth page to the middle of the six is continued a dance of Anticks or various ridiculous shiftings and postures of phansie to make Aristotle and his followers contemptible But such generall railings as they are mis-beseeming the Writer so they teach the Reader nothing but that the Authour of them is a Mome or a Mimick and more like an Ape by far then him that he compares to one If this man clap the wings so when hee has really got the foil for hitherto hee has charged Aristotle with no particular piece of ignorance but of what is impossible to be known what would he doe if he had the victory The second particular taxation for generals I hold nothing Dolosus ambulat in universalibus is that the Peripateticks fancy God to have made the World as a Carpenter of stone and timber But this is false because they give an inward principle of motion to all naturall bodies and there is one continuity of all as much as of the parts of water among themselves But their grand fault is that they doe 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 breaths the interstellar skies his vitall waters the Stars his sensitive fire But are not you a mere 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 dappeld or spotted skin the coelum stellatum what over-proportionated 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 doe 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 judgment 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 in a day of necessity Certainly shee 'll be well holpe at a dead lift if shee 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 mere vagrant imaginations seated in your own subsultorious and skip-jack phansy only But what they are we shal now begin to examine according to the number of pages Anthroposophia Theomagica Pag. 2. Lio. 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 inprisoning your selfe in so darke a dungeon as to be able to write no better sense in your Preface to the Reader But I 'le 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 hee could never since the midwife raked him out all wet and dropping like a drown'd mouse once see cleerly what was sense and what nonsense 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 Pag. 3. Lin. 3. I tooke 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 beene a full fourth part of a year about But certainely 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 hee is forced to turn about to him whom hee so disdainfully flies and confesse two of the three principles of the Aristotelean Physicks viz. Matter and Privation that homo is ex non homine arbor ex non arbore c. But this Matter he says and it is the wisest word he has spoken yet he knowes not what it is But presently blots his credit again with a new peece of folly intimating hee will finde it it out by experience Which is as good sense as if hee should say hee 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 flyes off hence and is in quest after a substance which he smels out like a nosegay in Natures bosome Which substance hee hopes to see by Art Why Eugenius are you so sharp sighted that you can see substances A kind of Philosophick Hog he can see the wind too I warrant you But how can you hope to see that substance when Nature only exposes it to her own vitall celestiall breath And tell what this Breath is and doe not amaze us with strange words or else keep your breath to your self to cool your poctage Pag. 4. Here a fit of devotion has taken him and I am neither so irreligious nor uncivill as to interrupt him But now Sir you have done I hope it will not be any offence to addresse my discourse to you again And it will not be unseasonable to tell you that truth is not to be had of God Almighty for an old song no nor yet for a new one And that no man is to measure his wisdom by his devotion but by his humility purity of mind and unprejudicate reason nor that any man is wiser by making others seem more contemptibly foolish as your juvenility has thought good to deal with poor Aristotle and his Orthodox Disciples all this time Nay and that you may not take Sanctuary at Moses his Text let mee also tell you that before you prove any thing thence you ought first to make good that Scripture is intended for naturall Philosophy as well as a divine life But we need not arm our selves so well yet for from the fourth page to the eight page nothing is said but that God from a knowing Principle made the World Which Aristotle also seems to assert while he is so frequent in telling the ends of naturall things which could not be sense unlesse he supposed that Nature was guided by a knowing Principle which is to acknowledge a God after the best manner And that subtil Philosopher Julius Scaliger uses no contemptible arguments to prove that Aristotles Philosophy furnisheth us also with the knowledge of a Trinity in God so that Anthroposophus is very unkind and uncivill to so good a Master Pages 8. and 9. What an Aristotelean would dispatch in a word or two viz. that life is alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth hee is mysteriously sumbling out and drayling on to the length of almost two whole pages Pag. 9. Lin. 10. the divine light pierced the bosome of the matter c. This compared with what is at the bottome of the fourth page wee see that this rare philosopher tells us that the matter is an horrible emptie darknesse And me thinks his description is an hideous empty phansie and conveys not so much to the understanding as Aristotles description of the Matter which hee would describe to be The first subject out of which every thing is This latter is more cleane and sober the other more slabby and phantasticall And to call it Primitive waters 〈…〉 s but yet metaphors and poetry For you doe not mean waters such as we wash our hands in But they must be waters and dark that you may bring in the conceit of the light shining in them that like rivers and pooles the images of trees and birds and clouds and stars and what not may bee seen in them And this must help us coconceive that upon the breaking through of the light the divine idea's shone in the waters and that the holy Spirit not being able to see till then by looking then upon those images framed the matter into form But I pray you tell mee Mr. Anthroposophus that would be so wise as if you stood by while God made the world doe not you think that God can now see in the dark or behold his own idea's in the depth of the Earth You 'll say you doe not mean this naturall light but a divine light If so was ever the matter so stiff and clammy dark as to be able to keepe it out So that the divine idea's shone in the water so soon as God was and the Spiritus Opifex could see to begin his work ab cmni retro aeternitate And it could never be dark in your blind sense Is it not so Anthroposophus Lin 25. Si plantam quasi momento nasci c. If Anthroposophus had such a device a 〈…〉 this in a glasse what a fine gew-gaw would it be for the lad What fine sport would he make with his companions He would make them beleeve then that he was a Conjurer indeed But what other use there would be of it Anthroposophus truly I doe not know For it would not state one controversie in Philosophy more then what may be done without it For whether there be any such things as rationes seminales or whether these forms visible arise from heat which is motion and the conspiracy of fitted particles is as well and safely determined from your experiments of one spring as from this strange whimwham
in a glasse But weak stomachs and weak wits long most after rarities Pag. 10. Lin. 4. Two-fold idea divine naturall c. Anthroposophus Your naturall idea is but an idea of your own brain For it is no more an idea then a sheath is a knife or the spittle that wets the seal the seal or the grease the Saw or the water the Grindle-stone But you must strike betwixt this and the divine idea or else you will misse of your naturall one And so will be forced to do that of penury which he did of choice and for brevity sake divide your Text into one part But your quotation of Moses here near the bottom of the page is either nothing to your naturall idea or if you mean it of the divine is no new notion but nimmed out of Philo the Jew And yet in the beginning of the following page you magnifie your self as one that concerning this primitive supernaturall part of the Creation as you call it though you have not said so much as you can say by far as being a Nip-crust and Niggard of your precious speculations yet you have produced not a little new Pag. 11. Lin. 5. Some Authors c. And the reason why the world is beholden to this Gentleman more then to any for new discoveries of mighty truths is that whereas some Authors have not searched so deeply into the Center of Nature and others not willing to publish such spirituall mysteries this new Writer is the only man that is both deeply seen into the Center of Nature and as willing also to publish these spirituall mysteries So that he goes beyond them all O brave Anthroposophus What a fine man would you fain appear to the World In the residue of this page Anthroposophus his phansie is pudled so and jumbled in the limbus or Huddle of the matter that hee cannot distinguish betwixt God and the Creature 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 eternall If you can admit this by the rule of proportion you might swallow the greatest Gudgeon in Aristotle without kecking or straining Pag. 12. Lin. 11. Fuliginous spawn of Nature A rare expression This Magician has turned Nature into a Fish by his Art Surely such dreams sloat in his swimmering brains as in the Prophets who tels us so Authentick stories of his delicious Albebut Lin. 12. The created Matter Before the Matter was in an hazard of not being created but of being of it self eternall Certainly Eugenius you abound with leasure that can thus create and uncreate doe and undoe because the day is long enough 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 rheune Margret will escape well enough Especially if her two Handmaids Heat and Siccity doe but help with their Aquavitae botles 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 phansie as the Philosophers Asse on Sow-thistles Pag. 13. This page is spent in extracting from the Chaos a thin spirituall celestiall substance to make the Coelum 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 fitting all betwixt the Masse and the Coelum Empyreum But here I have so hedgâ—ed you in Mr. Anthroposophus that you will hardly extricate your self in this question The Empyreall substance encompassing all how could there be Morning and Evening till the fourth day For the Masse was alike illumined round about at once And for your interstellar water you do but phansie it implyed in Moses text and can never prove that he drives at any thing higher in the letter thereof than those hanging bottles of water the clouds 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 Lin. 26. This is cribrum Naturaes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} I warrant you The very sive that Iupiter himself pisses through as Aristophanes sports it in his Comedies 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 Lin. 29. Like a baffled Gyant Poeticall Eugenius Is this to lay the sober and sound principles of Truth and Philosophy Pag. 16. Lin. 1. A Black Bag I tell thee Eugenius Thy phansie is snap't in this Femall 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 hee will not take notice whether a black-bag be furniture for Ladies heads or their haunches Well! let him enjoy the glory of his affected rusticity and ignorance Lin. 5. Good Lord deliver us How the man is frighted into devotion by the smut and griminesse of his own imagination Lin. 15. Earth and water c. Concurrunt elementa ut Materia ergo duo sufficiunt says Cardan 'T is no new-sprung truth if true Mr. Eugenius But seeing that AEtherial vigour 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 Pag. 18. Lin. 22. Both in the same bed Why did you ever sneak in Eugenius and take them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the very act {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 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 Lin. 27. Spiritus aquae invisibilis congelatus melior est quam terra Universa Now as you are Philalethes tell me truly if you understand any determinate and usefull sense of this saying If you doe why doe you not explain it if you doe not for ought you know it may