old time they were out of which knowledge is gotten It may be an ignorant man is of the opinion of some Phylosophers to think that when Souls are separate they know all things and so defers his knowledge till then This Ignoramus Oh! he will take heed of a book for he thinks that will trouble his head with knowledge his Soul is as white paper he thinks and not scribled with such intricate notions of knowledge as the Learned is He can live very well in this Dungeon of Knowledge as the Child that was born in a Dungeon if he have but meat and drink what cares he for Hellicon or learning the food of the Soul he likes the Tullianum of ignorance far better then the Sun-shine of Knowledge A Covetous Man WIth â—rake he compasseth the World or at least he desires to do so the world is his Zodiack and he and his Gold makes Gemini he may be called an Idolater for he worships Images and a Papist for he adores Pictures He would have been the first man that would have worshipped Nebuchadnezzar's golden Image Poor simple man he is said that he lived not in the Gold Age for then he thinks he might have gotten Gold enough and he is sorrowful he had not a being in the Silver Age but is fallen into these hard times into this Iron Age last and worst times He wishes with Midas all were turned into Gold and he loves to drink of the golden waters and his â—est drink he thinks is Aurum potabile and Gold is his dainty and in these as Apitius in his dainty Banquets he places his summum bonum A Covetous man is alwayes for Arecipe and the Lawyers Terms To Have and to Hold are his three Principle Tenents but Yielding and Paying are as easily got of him as fire out of a flint but by the steele if he be a coward he is never in a good mood but he is alwayes in the Optative Mood with an Vtinam for Silver This greedy man would with Augustus Caesar make all men Tributaries to him A Covetous man is the rust that sticks to his Gold He has heard Physitians say that Gold is preservative but to him it has a contrary quality for it is destructive Gold is the Center of all his hopes yea the World is the least and most that he desires yea pieces of Gold and Silver are the circles in which he is conjured these Images are laid up in fit places and repositories and he will never forget them The Crosses on his coyne are those upon which his mind is Crucified Excruciated and tormented Well may he be called a Papist yea a Pilgrime that has so many Crucifixes and Crosses wandring in the Wilderness of the World this greedy man well proves that he was made of red Earth Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as this Hebrew VVord signifies because he so unsatiably seeks after reddish Earth This Covetous man is the Vtopians fool as they count Covetous men because they adore the shining of Pearls or Gold or Silver when they may see a thousand times more in the Sun or in a Star and because he is such reprobate Mettal himself he thinks he had need get Gold or else every one would make light of him A Covetous man makes himself more unclean then the Augean Stable that might Purchase the Indies O! Gold is a Covetous mans Paragon he is a good Chymist for out of his labours he extracts gold he rather abuses then uses money for his money is not currant as it should be but it is dormant He sometimes buries his money yea alwayes when he dies he buries it in graves who knows but he is of opinion of the men of China who buries when a man dies all his Goods with him to help him in the other World A covetous man is a Griffen for he doth build his nest of Gold as Naturalists observe the Griffens to do so We will not give a Covetous man so much honor as to call him a King because he has many Crowns nor well guarded because he has so many good Angels to protect him money is the mark he aims at A covetous man wishes for Democritus's plurality of Worlds yea and that there should be a Platonick year and of all books of the World he contemns none more then Petrarchs de contemptu mundi this man is a Heathen would go to the Elysin fields but he will not because Charon will have too much for Ferrying him over Styx and he would not go to Elysium but he hopes there is besides that Paradise a land of Havilah where he can get Gold enough and now having Characteriz'd him I will brand him with a black salt is troubled much with the Ethical vice Avacitia Covetousnesse is an Abyss a bottomless pit a pit of destruction a gulph it is deciphered by the Poets to be a Dog alwayes devouring never Satisfied It is a vacuum alwayes empty never filled and that which the Phylosopher Democritus affirmed De infinito vasto that I may say of covetousnesse it expatiates its desire in Spatium Imaginarium into that imaginary space beyond World's Heaven and it would finde out a new America truely this is like to the informed and deformed beast of America This Covetousnesse it doth with men as Circes did with Vlisses companions transforme them into Swine and make them wallow in Gold and Silver the red and white excrements of the earth and such dung-hill pleasures as it made that Roman Emperour Caligula wallow and lye all along amongst heaps of money Covetousnesse is a Dragon that keeps the Golden apples in its Hesperides made that great Emperour of Macedonia Alexander the great weep when he heard the Phylosopher Anaxagoras say there was no more worlds but one Vnus Peleo Juveni non sufficit orbis You may see what an irremiable Labrynth this covetousnesse is it is a Hydra oh for a Hercules to destroy it it is a Lyon Rampant whose devouring jaws are never satisfied here what Plutarch said of Covetousnesse a covetous minde saith he is as restlesse in seeking as it hath pleasure in finding as fire is never satisfied with wood nor earth with water so the Avarous is never satisfied with money The covetous mans desire is never termin'd nor bounded within the limits of reason Covetousnesse is all hands and armes to hold and embrace all things A covetous man was born when Saturn had dominion he is so covetous So here is an end of this Essay of a Covetous man and of covetousness and of Avarice I wish there were a Finis A Free Spirited or a liberal Man IS one who is much for Plato's community of goods and of all countries and form of Government he likes Vtopia and its community the best He practizes the morral Ethicall vertue liberallity most he knowes is speculative parts of Ethicks morral Phylosophy is not enough for a man unlesse he have the Practick too it is a Practicall Science He
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
Orthography Cato's discerning-eye could not descry a knot sooner then he will perceive his Orthography corrupted Secondly for his Etymology he will slice words in twain and mince them so long until he finds out the root he diggs for he abstracts all compounds and at last he comes to Simples he runs from one thing to another as the Pythagoreans did to find a Deity from whence came this word from that from whence that untill he comes to the Theme and Radix he trases words And for Syntax whosoever doth not tye his speech with its tyes he wishes a rope were about his neck 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hanged within the Letter II which is a figure of a pair of Gallows neither doth he ever abide to see womans manuscripts and that which would break Prisians Head will break his Heart The last part or Pillar upon which his art depends on his Prosodia and here he speaks sometimes in a grave tone sometimes he is an Asper sometimes a Lene and he has sometimes a rough Spirit Spiritus Asper sometimes of a mild Spirit Spiritus Lenis yea to conclude he is part of a Musitian for he keeps his time and scans words A Logician A Logician is a Reasonable Man he is skilled in the Art of reasoning He with Phaeton rides upon the Sun of Reason which is the eye of the Soul which Sol with his bright rayes shines gloriously in the Firmament of mans Soul But when our Great Sier Adam fell then the Sun of mans Reason was Eclipsed and then this Lucifer had its fall too But this Logician he strives to dissipate the clouds of ignorance that bemists mans reason so that men by this means recovers the sight of this eye of the Soul But yet he hides this Gem this Pearle in such a Trophonious Den of Obscurities that men need have Tiberius his eyes to discover it and Lynx its sight to perceive it A Logician when he cannot unloose knots of difficulties more harder to unloose then that Gardian knot then with Alexander he cuts them with the sword of distinctions A Logician is an Aedipus to unriddle those riddles of that Sphinx Phylosophia or Sphinx Phylosophica which if a man cannot undoe it kills him with Grief Care and Study yea and of Nature too Another Sphinx which drowned our chiefest Philosopher Aristotle in Euripus and smothered or Martyred that great yea greatest Naturalist Pliny in Vesuvias flames Logick is Philosophy or Phylosophies Mechanick that makes all its Instruments A Logician distinguishes of all things divides all things reasons and disputes of all things and defines all things he disputes pro and con he refutes errours stifly answers Objections throughly distinguishes rightly explains things throughly defends his opinions against gainsayers A Logician is a very understanding man and his art is to bring a reformation to reform the understanding though this Art will puzzle Intellects he is a cunning Sophister who by his Sophistry can circumvent yea he can sometimes delude by his fallacies but to say truth of him he has his veritas logica he is not Thema Simplex but singulare a singular man he is ens completum he is homo omnium horarum But now I come to a Conclusion which is Finis A Rhetorician or an Orator A Rhetorician or Orator is one whose Speech is elevated to the height of the Ciceronian Pole whose stile is copious flexible and eloquent he has gotten Erasmus's Copia verborum He has a very well-tuned Genius as I may call it for his Words are sweet Harmony that charmes men He is one that minds the cadency and chiming of words as much as the density of the matter his words are genuine and masculine He is very sententious yea as that famous Seneca and he seems to have read Gabriel and Camaracensis books of Sentences Mercury the God of eloquence is feigned by the Poets to have wings on his armes and feet that he might fly to Heaven so this our Mercury may be said to have so too for he soars to the clouds sometimes with his winged Eloquence His words are like Aresta's arrows that catch fire as they fly surely Promethius is present with him with his heavenly fire that doth inspire him Mercury's Golden tongue he has which being a good tongue is Aesops best dish which makes a good relish in the Pallat of every Judicious mans Judgement An Orator is a second Orpheus who with the sweet Musick of his words draws every one after him He is a second Apelles for he ran depict and sets forth every thing in lively Colours He is another Proteus for he can transform himself into what form and shape he will sometimes he will be a Dog to bark at all mens manners a biteing Menippus sometimes a Serpent to sting men with reproaches a stinging Hipponax And thus he has as many delusions as a Jugler but in them all he shews that he has skill in Politicks and is a Politician for he doth all these things out of Policy A Rhetorician is all Tongue by which Instrument he overcomes and wins more then Mars by his Weapons witnesse the Orator Cyneas whom King Cyrus confessed he had gotten and won more Towns by Cineas's Eloquence then by Mars's Instruments An Orator is so perswasive that if he but say it none can gain-say it truly he by his charms of eloquence rocks men into such pleasing lul-la-bie and dallies them in such a Dallilahs Lap of pleasure that he takes all strength from such strong Sampsons An Arithmetician I wonder whether an Arithmetician in the Book of Nature stand for a cypher or is a figure He seems to play with his figures and makes them fight with one another and musters his Armies of Figures which are almost innumerable and sets them in rank and file and those that are overcome he cancels them but of all cancelling he loves to cancel his debts in other mens debt-Books His Art of Arithmetick consists of nine Figures viz. 1 2 3 4 c. and a cypher it stands for nothing but if that o Cypher be well pondred in the scales of a Judicious mans Judgement it will preponderate and over weigh all the other nine figures An Arithmetician saith o the Cypher is no figure but the Phylosopers say an o or a circle is Figura Capacissima the World is an o the Heavens the Caelestial Sphears are os o is called figura divinissima This o is the greatest Letter in the Book of nature o is the figure in which Motus runs and moves in o after figures increaseth the sum ten times yea and will make them run into Infinitum An Arithmetician with the Pythagoreans minds mystical numbers he saith 1. 3. 5. 9. are mystical numbers but his prime words are Imprimis and Items If this Arithmetician be for a Curtesan a Whore then he practises the Rule of Multiplication and puts an Addition to the innumerable number of Men and Women Arithmeticus is a nounce of