the Magnet that will draw all things to it at what distance so ever Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi So far am I from approving thy Magnet O Magicus Nor do the pages thou here citest of which I give a favourable censure prove any such thing Let the Reader peruse them and judge Indeed certain operations of the soul are highly and Hyperbolically there set out by thee but the Magnet came dropping in at the latter end of the story I gave no allowance to that I will not have my soul so ill taught as to attract metall out of mens purses at any distance whatsoever Page 64. line 12. Didst thou ever hear or know that I was a pick-pocket If I had had the least suspicion of thee that thou wert so I would not have called thee so for it had been an unmercifull jest But if thou wert as full of candour and urbanity as I deem thee clear of that crime thou wouldst not have interpreted it malice but mirth For such jests as these are not uncivil nor abusive to the person when the materiality of them are plainly and confessedly incompatible to the party on whom they are cast Observ. 27. Page 65. line 14. Prethee why a Gallileo's tube were there more Galileo's then one Certainly Phil. thou dost not look through a Galilco's glasse but through a multiplying glasse that seest in my English more Galileos then one Go thy wayes for the oddest correctour of English that ever I met with in all my dayes Observ. 28. Page 67. line 1. For I fear God The Devills also beleeve and tremble But do'st thou love God my Philalethes If thou didst thou wouldst love thy brother also But shall I tell thee truly what I fear Truly I fear that thou hast no such pretious medicine to publish which thou makest so nice of and that thou dost onely make Religion a cover for thine ignorance But let me tell thee this sober truth That Temperance will prevent more diseases by far then thy medicine is like to cure and Christian Love would relieve more by many thousands then thy Philosophers stone that should convert baser metalls into gold There is gold enough in the world and all necessaries else for outward happinesse but the generations of men make themselves miserable by neglecting the inward This is palpably true and it would astonish a man to see how they run madding after the noise of every pompous difficulty and how stupid and sottish they are to those things which God has more universally put in their power and which would if they made use of them redound to their more generall and effectuall good Observ. 29. So doth S. John prophesie too But Magicus is too wise to understand him S. John tells us of a new Heaven and of a new Earth Here Magicus having recourse to his Chymistrie in the height of his imagination prefigures to himself not onely Crystalline Heavens but also a Vitrifide Earth But I consulting with Scripture and with the simplicity of mine own plain Spirit think of a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwels righteousnesse He 's for an Eden with flowry walks and pleasant trees I am for a Paradisc {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Where Virtue Wisdome and good Order meet As the Chaldee Oracles describe it He is for a pure clear place I place my happinesse in a clear and pure mind which is the holy place or temple of God Observ. 30. Tecum habita I will not urge that Precept too strictly upon thy self because I wish thee a better companion Observ. 31. For thy ho sounds like the noise of a Sowgelder As much as the celestiall orbs or labyrinth rumble like a wheel-barrow This is but the crowing of thine own brain to the tune of the Sow-gelders horn Observ. 32. Here in answer to my objection thou tellest me that Ruach and Nephesh the parts whereof the soul of man consists differ as male and female All the mysterie then is to make mans soul an Hermaphrodite Thou shouldst have told us here what operations were proper to Ruach what to Nephesh whether vegetation belong to the one reason and sense to the other or whether in this the divine life were seated in that the animal and fleshly reason and the like But the subtiltie of thy wit reacheth no further then the discrimination of sexes and the grossely pointing out of Male and Female Page 69. line 9. For your Sodomite Patron Aristotle allows of it in his Politicks More wretched beast he if it be so but I do not remember any such passage in his Politicks and yet have read them through but long since and it is sufficient for me if I remember the best things in Authours I read I can willingly let go the worst But what thou sayest of Aristotle is not unlikely for he is tax'd for this unnaturall practise in Diogenes Laertius whith one Hermias a foul friend of his in the praise of whom notwithstanding he hath wrote a very fair and elegant Hymne which begins thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} To this sense Vertue that putst humane race Upon so hard toyl and pains Lifes fairest prize Thy lovely face Bright Virgin the brave Greek constrains To undergo with an unwearied mind Long wasting labours and in high desire To throng through many deaths to find Thee that dost fire Mans soul with hopes of such immortall fruit No gold can sute Nor love of Parents equalize Nor slumbers sweet that softly seize the eyes So easie a thing is it for bad men to speak good words It is recorded by the same authour out of Aristippus that the same Philosopher was also so much taken with the conversation of Hermias his whore that in lieu of that pleasure he reap'd by her he did the same ceremonies and holy rites to her that the Anthenians were wont to do to their goddesse Ceres Eleusinia From whence it seems that his soul did consist of two parts Male and Female he having to do with both So that he is more like to prove thy Patrone then mine Philalethes for I have to do with neither Page 69. line 10. But I am tickled say you Yes I say you are so tickled and do so tickle it up in your style with expressions fetched from the Gynaeceum that you are ridiculous in it and I thought good to shew you to be such as you are But for mine own part I am moved neither one way nor another with any such things but think good to affix here this sober consideration That there being
stone is mine however thou scramblest for the Philosophers stone I wish thou hadst them both that is all the harm I wish thee I still the raging of the sea I clear up the lowring Heavens and with my breath blow away the clouds I sport with the beasts of the Earth the Lion licks my hand like a Spaniell and the Serpent sleeps upon my lap and stings me not I play with the fowls of Heaven and the birds of the Air sit singing on my fist All the Creation is before me and I call every one of them by their proper names This is the true Adam O Philalethes This is Paradise Heaven and Christ All these things are true in a sober sense And the Dispensation I live in is more happinesse above all measure then if thou couldst call down the Moon so near thee by thy Magick charms that thou mightest kisse her as she is said to have kissed Endymion or couldest stop the course of the Sunne or which is all one with one stamp of thy foot stay the motion of the Earth All this externall power in Nature were but as a shop of trinkets and toyes in comparison of what I have declared unto you And an adulterous generation onely seeks after a signe or idiots such as love to stare on a dexterous jugler when he playes his tricks And therefore they being of so little consideration in themselves I see and am satisfied why miracles are no more frequent in the world God intends an higher dispensation and greater happinesse for these later times wherein Divine Love and Reason and for their sakes Liberty will lay claim to the stage For He will as I told you draw us with the cords of a man not ride us as with a bridle like a horse or tug us along like a mad stear in a band He will sanctifie our inward faculties and so take possession of the Earth But that a man may not deplore what is lamentable or be angry at what is injurious to God or Goodnesse or laugh at what is ridiculous this is not any part of that Law that is made manifest in the Heavenly life but the arbitrarious precepts of supercilious Stoicks or surly Superstitionists For God hath sanctified and will sanctifie all these things Nor am I at all mad or fanatick in all this O you unexperienced and unwise For as our Saviour said of his body touch me and handle me so say I of my soul feel and try all the faculties of it if you can find any crack or flaw in them Where is my Reason inconsequent or inconsistent with the Attributes of God the common Notions of men the Phaenonema of Nature or with it self Where is my Phansie distorted unproportionate unproper But for the bottome of all these that I confesse you can not reach to nor judge of that is divine sense the white stone in which there is a name written that none can read but he that hath it But for the guidance of my reason and imagination they have so safe a Stearsman viz. that Divine touch of my soul with God and the impregnation of my Understanding from the most High that judgement and caution have so warily built the outward fabrick of words and phansie that I challenge any man to discover any ineptitude in them or incoherencie And now verily the serious consideration of these weighty matters have so composed my mind that I find it some difficultie to discompose it into a temper childish enough to converse with my young Eugenius But as high as I have taken my station I will descend and go lesse my self to bring him to what is greater Behold I leap down as from the top of some white rocky cloud upon the grassie spot where my Philalethes stands and I shall now begin the game of my personated Enmitie or sportfull Colluctation with him Page 7. lin. 5. Be sure in your next to give me an account of this disease in what books or persons c. Mous-catcher take away thy Trap and take off the tosted cheese from off the wire and with thy fore-finger and thy thumb put it into thine own wide mouth O thou Tom Vaughan of Wales Lin. 14. I have found them in your Ballade Ballade is a good old English word from which I abhorre no more then Spencer or Lucretius from old Latine who yet was something younger then Tully Is not the song of Solomon called the Ballade of Ballades in some Church-bibles Thou art so angry that thou art not able to rail with judgement But what high swoln words of vanitie are there in that Ballade of mine Thou art so ignorant that terms of Art seem Heathen Greek to thee But for those words that I interpreted for the ignorants sake you see what a care I have of you O unthankfull Eugenius there is an Apologie prefixt that will satisfie the ingenuous and for others it matters not Pag. 9. Lin. 15. With a Bull rampant You bestow upon me many Bulls Eugenius But when you are so kind as to give me them for nothing you may well expect that I will be so thankfull as to return you a Calf for every Bull I have gratis Let us begin c. And you indeed have done your part already The sense is But you indeed have done your part already What is this but an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} But you have I see as little skill in Rhetorick as Civilitie The Calf take thee Phil. or take thou the Calf There is one to begin thy herd Page 10. Lin. 1. What both tell-Troths Before thou wast no Rhetorician now thou art no Logician nor Philosopher that canst not distinguish betwixt Veritie and Veracitie Veracitie is enough to make a Tom Tell-troth though his Narration be false Hence it is demonstrable that two men may be both Tel-troths though their stories be point-blank contrary to one another The sense of my words is this You have told what you thought Aristotle was blameable in I will now tell what I think you are blameable in You may be against Aristotle and I for him and both with veracitie though not with veritie Page 11. Lin. 21. Found out some new truths Yes I say there are passages in your book that imply so much at least We shall see when we come at them and I shall shew that you found them before they were lost Page 12. Lin 17. The third project is the same with the first Why is to be skilful in Art magick and to find out new truths all one It seems then you suppose there are no new Truths to be found out but Magicall ones Blessed age that we live in All other arts are brought to their Non plus ultrá Physicians Geometricians Astronomians Astrologians Musicians put up your pipes Claudite jam rivos pueri There is nothing remains to be done by you All is perfected But let me ask you one sober question Phil. Have you gone through all these Arts
pottage or shog a milk-bowl But believe it Eugenius thou wilt never make sense of this Flux and Reflux till thou calm thy phansie 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 compárison 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 phansie 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 look 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 to 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 turning many of the grosse parts into more thinne 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 Aristotelicall way 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 canst not but understand if thou canst distinguish corporeall from incorporeall Beings Thy way of Rarefaction and Condensation O Eugenius must needs imply penetration 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 as a pipe of Tobacco should be multiplied into so very much superficies above what it had before go to those that beat out leaf gold and understand there how the superficies of the same body may be to wonder increased And beside I could demonstrate to thee that a body whose basis thou shouldst imagine at the center of the Earth top as far above the starry Heaven as it is from thence to the Earth without any condensation used thereunto is but equall to a body that will lie within the boll of a Tobacco pipe Where art thou now thou miserable Philosophaster But to the next Analogie The aire is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast Creature breaths Two things I here object to shew the ineptnesse and inconguity of this comparison The one is taken from the office of respiration which is to refresh by way of refrigerating or cooling Is not the main end of the lungs to cool the bloud before it enter into the left ventricle of the heart But thou art so Magical thou knowst none of these sober and usefull mysteries of Nature All that thou answerest to this is That we are refresh'd by heat as well as by coolnesse Why then Is that generall sufficient to make up your analogie or similitude This is as well phansied as it is reasoned when men conclude affirmatively in the second figure There are laws in Phansie too Philalethes and I shall shew thee anon how ridiculous thou hast made thy self by transgressing them If thou meanest by refresh'd to be cheared or restored onely and what ever do's this must be ground enough to phansie a respiration then thou breathest in thy cawdle when thou eatest it and hast spoyled that conceit of his that said he never would drink sack whilst he breathed for if sack do in any sense refresh and comfort a man it seems he breaths while he drinks I tell thee in the Homologi termini of similitudes there ought to be something in some sort peculiar and restrained or else it is flat ridiculous and non-sense The other objection was taken from the situation of this aire that is to be the matter of Respiration in this great Animal What a wild difference is there in this The aire that an ordinary Animal breaths in is externall the aire of this world-Animal internall so that it is rather wind in the guts then aire for the lungs and therefore we may well adde the Cholick to the Anasarca Is the wind-Cholick an outward refreshing spirit or an inward griping pain Being thou hast no guts in thy brains I suspect thy brains have slipt down into thy guts whither thy tongue should follow to be able to speak sense Answer now like an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} O thon man of Magick He answers and the point and sting of all the sense of his answer is in the tail of it pag. 29. lin. 11. and it is their outward refreshing spirit He means the Earths and the Waters O feeble sting O foolish answer This onely
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 {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} pag. 6. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 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 Seminall Substances in which the hidden and invisible forms of all things become manifest and visible by circumvolutions of seasons These are the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Rationes seminales the seminall Forms of things Observ. 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 repugnancie is there in it Answer Logician Therefore there is no Bull here till thou be grown up to thy full stature Observ. 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 dark Evaporations of the Chaos towards God which thou wouldst fain shuffle off thy absurdities by I say they are but the flarings of thine own phansie 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 theee 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 That following this Rule we shall find the Extent of the World to be bounded no higher then the clouds or there about So that the Firmament viz. the Air for the Hebrews have no word for the Air distinct from Heaven or Firmament Moses making no distinctiō may be an adequate bar betwixt the lower and upper waters Which it was requisite for Moses to mention vulgar observation discovering that waters came down from above viz. showers of Rain and they could not possibly conceive that unlesse there were waters above that any water should descend thence And this was it that gave occasion to Moses of mentioning those two waters the one above the other beneath the firmament But to return to the first point to be proved That Scripture speaks according to the outward appearance of things to sense and vulgar conceit of men This I say is a confessed truth with the most learned of the Hebrews Amongst whom it is a rule for the understanding of many and many places of Scripture Loquitur Lex secundùm linguam filiorum hominum that is That the Law speaks according to the language of the sonnes of men as Moses Aegyptius can tell you And it will be worth our labour now to instance in some few passages Gen. 19. V. 23. The sunne was risen upon the Earth when Lot entred into Zoar. Which implies that it was before under the Earth Which is true onely according to sense and vulgar phansie deuteronom. 30. V. 4. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Implies that the earth is bounded at certain places as if there were truly an Hercules Pillar or Non plus ultrá As it is manifest to them that understand but the naturall signification of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} For those words plainly import the Earth bounded by the blue Heavens and the Heavens bounded by the Horizon of the Earth they touching one another mutually Which is true onely to sense and in appearance as any man that is not a meer Idiot will confesse Ecclesiastic cap. 27. V. 12. The discourse of a godly man is alwayes with wisdome but a fool changeth as the moon That 's to be understood according to sense and appearance For if a fool changeth no more then the Moon doth really he is a wise and excellently accomplished man Semper idem though to the sight of the vulgar different For at least an Hemisphear of the Moon is alwayes enlightned and even then most when she least appears to us Hitherto may be referr'd also that 2. Chron. 4.2 Also he made a molten Sea of ten Cubits from brim to brim round in compasse and five Cubits the heigth thereof and a line of thirty Cubits did compasse it round about A thing plainly impossible that the Diameter should be ten Cubits and the Circumference but thirty But it pleaseth the Spirit of God here to speak according to the common use and opinion of Men and not according to the subtilty of Archimedes his demonstration Again Psalme 19. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sunne which as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to runne his race This as M. John Calvin observes is spoken according to the rude apprehension of the Vulgar whom David should in vain have indeavoured to teach the mysteries of Astronomy Haec ratio est saith he cur dicat tentorium ei paratum esse deinde egredi ipsum ab una coeli extremitate transire celeriter ad partem oppositam Neque enim argutè inter
Philosophos de integro solis circuitu disputat sed rudissimis quibusque se accommodans intra ocularem experientiam se continet ideóque dimidiam cursûs partem que sub Hemisphaerio nastro non cernitur subticeti e. This is the reason to wit the rudenesse of the vulgar why the Psalmist saith there is a tent prepared for the Sunne and then that he goes from one end of the heaven and passes swiftly to the other For he doth not here subtily dispute amongst the Philosophers of the intire circuit of the Sunne but accommodating himself to the capacity of every ignorant man contains himself within ocular experience and therefore saith nothing of the other part of the course of the sunne which is not to be seen as being under our Hemisphear Thus M. Calvin I 'le adde but one instance more Joshuah 10 V. 12. Sunne stand thou still upon Gibeon and thou Moon in the Valley of Ajalon Where it is manifest that Joshuah speaks not according to the Astronomicall truth of the thing but according to sense and appearance For suppose the Sunne placed and the Moon at the best advantage you can so that they leave not their naturall course they were so farre from being one over Ajalon and the other over Gibeon that they were in very truth many hundreds of miles distant from them And if the Sun and Moon were on the other side of the Equatour the distance might amount to thousands I might adjoyn to these proofs the suffrages of many Fathers and Modern Divines as Chrysostome Ambrose Augustine Bernard Aquinas c. But 't is already manifest enough that the Scripture speaks not according to the exact curiosity of truth describing things {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} according to the very nature and essence of them but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} according to their appearance in sense and the vulgar opinion of men Nor doth it therefore follow that such expressions are false because they are according to the appearance of things to sense and obvious phansie for there is also a Truth of Appearance And thus having made good the first part of my promise I proceed to the second Which was to shew that the Extent of the world is to be bounded no higher then to the clouds or thereabouts that it may thence appear that the upper waters mentioned in Moses are the same with those Aquae in coelo stantes mentioned by Pliny lib. 31. his words are these Quid esse mirabilius potest aquis in coelo stantibus and these waters can be nothing else but that contain'd in the clouds which descends in rain and so the whole Creation will be contain'd within the compasse of the Aire which the Hebrews call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quasi {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ibi aquae because it is sedes nubium the place of clouds and rain And that the world is extended no higher then thus according to Scripture it is apparent First because the clouds are made the place of Gods abode whence we are to suppose them plac'd with the Highest There he lives and runns and rides and walks He came walking upon the wings of the wind in the 104 Psalm Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters who maketh the clouds his chariot and walketh on the wings of the wind Laieth the beams of His chambers in the waters to wit the upper waters which are the clouds The Almighties lodgings therefore according to the letter are placed in the clouds There about also is his field for exercise and warre Deut. 33.26 There is none like to the God of Jeshurun who rideth upon the Heavens for thy help in his excellency on the sky that is upon the upper clouds as Buxtorf interprets it and indeed what can {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} properly signifie above but clouds for below it signifies pulvis tenuissimus small dust and the clouds are as it were the dust of heaven Vatablus also interprets that place of Gods riding on the clouds And this agrees well with that of Nahum chap. 1. V. 3. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and the clouds are the dust of his feet Here he is running as swift as a whirlwind and raiseth a dust of clouds about him You shall find him riding again Psalme 68.4 and that in triumph but yet but on the clouds sutably to that in Deut. Sing unto God sing praises unto his Name extoll him that rideth upon the heavens by his name J A H and rejoyce before Him That rideth upon the Heavens the Hebrew is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which I would be bold with Aben Ezraes leave to translate that rideth upon the clouds For clouds cause darknesse and the root from whence {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which signifies obtenebrari obscurari But for the ground of this Rabbies interpretation to wit upon the heavens it is taken out of the 33 verse of the 68 Psalme To him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens of old But if we read on there we shall find that those heavens of heavens in all probability reach no higher then the clouds For let 's read the whole verse together To him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens that were of old Lo he doth send out his voice and that a mighty voice what 's that but thunder and whence is thunder but out of the clouds and where then doth God ride but on the clouds The following verse makes all plain Ascribe ye strength unto God His excellency is over Israel and his strength is in the clouds which doth notably confirm that the Extent of the Heavens according to the letter of Moses and David too are but about the height of the clouds For here the heaven of heavens is the seat of thunder and Gods strength and power is said to be in the clouds Nor doth this expression of this height to wit the heaven of heavens of old imply any distance higher For sith all the Firmament from the lower to the upper waters is called Heaven it is not a whit unreasonable that the highest part of this Heaven or Firmament be called the Heaven of Heavens And this is my first argument that the heaven or firmaments Extent is but from the Sea to the Clouds because God is seated no higher in the outward phrase of Scripture My second argument is taken from the adjoyning the heavens with the clouds exegetically one with another for the setting out of that which is exceeding high as high as we can expresse And this the Psalmist doth often Psalme 36.5 Thy mercy O Lord is in the Heavens and thy faithfulnesse reacheth unto the Clouds And Psalme 57.10 For thy mercy is great unto the Heavens and thy truth unto the Clouds And Psalme 108.4 For thy mercy is great above the Heavens and thy truth
of the mind farre above reason or any other experiment And in this attire thou canst not but dance to that Musick of the Sibylle {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} I am Jehovah well my words perpend Clad with the frory sea all mantled over With the blue Heavens shod with the Earth I wend The stars about me dance th' Air doth me cover This is to become Deiform to be thus suspended not by imagination but by union of life {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} joyning centers with God and by a sensible touch to be held up from the clotty dark Personality of this compacted body Here is love here is freedome here is justice and equity in the superessentiall causes of them He that is here looks upon all things as one and on himself if he can then mind himself as a part of the whole And so hath no self-interest no unjust malicious plot no more then the hand hath against the foot or the ear against the eye This is to be godded with God and Christed with Christ if you be in love with such affected language But you O ye cages of unclean birds that have so begodded your selves that you are grown foul and black like brutes or devils what will become of you O you sinks of sinne You that have heretofore followed religion to excuse you from reall righteousnesse and holinesse and now have found a trick to be abominably wicked without any remorse of conscience You are Gods and Goddesses every bit of you and all actions in you divine He leads you up into the bed of a whore and uncases you both for the unclean Act. And when you tell obscene stories in a rapture you are caught up into God O you foul mouthes You blebs of venery you bags of filth You dishonour of Christendome and reproach of men Is not all this righteously come upon you because you never sought after Religion as a thing within you holy and divine but as an excuse to save you from wrath and yet to remain in your sinnes But that cannot be You are in the fewell of wrath while you are in your sinnes and that fewell will be set on fire some time or other But that you may be secure of wrath you say there is no sinne but that it is onely a conceit and a name Is it not a sinne to be lesse happy ten thousand times then God would have you Doth not both sense and reason discover to you I am sure it doth to others that you walk in the wayes of Hell and death But you are still secure you your selves are as much God as any thing else is and so you may make your Hell as favourable to your selves as you please But O you fools and blind I see you cannot but you are entangled with the cords and snares that the divine Nemesis hath laid for the wicked in all the parts of the world But you are not yet any thing moved O ye dead in trespasses and sinnes For there is no God say you more then a dog or a horse is God Behold O ye forlorn wretches and miserably mistaken Behold He is come down to you nay He is ever with you and you see him not Ask of him and He shall answer you Demand of him and He shall declare unto you not in obscure words or dark sayings not in aenigmaticall speeches or parables but He will speak unto your own reason and faculties which he hath given you propound therefore unto him why you think the soul of man is mortall and why you deny an omnipotent and omniscient God distinct from Nature particular Beings propound unto Him and He will plainly answer you But alas alas you are neither fit to hear nor able to propound for you have destroyed those faculties that he hath given you by sinning against the light of them and now you have drunk out your eyes you swear there is no Sun in the Firmament and now you have whored away your brains you are confident there is no God O sunk and helplesse generation how have you sop'd and soaked overflown and drown'd the highest seat and Acropolis of your soul that through your sensuality it is grown as rotten and corrupt as a dunghill You have made your selves as fit to judge of reason as if your heads were stuffed with wet straw These things hath the divine Indignation uttered against you but more for reproof then reproach But your sinne hath made you sottish and your sottishnesse confident and secure But his anger burns against you O you false Religionists and the wrath of God will overtake you when you are not aware and your shame shall ascend up like the smoke of the bottomlesse pit and your stink shall be as the filthinesse in the valley of the children of Hinnom This will be the portion of all those that barter away sound reason and the sober faculties of the soul for boisterous words of vanity and unsetled conceits of Enthusiasts that having neither reason nor scripture nor conspicuous miracle row down with the stream of mens corruptions and ripen and hasten the unclean part in man to a more full and speedy birth of sinne and ungodlinesse But what 's all this to me saith Philalethes I tell thee Phil. I neither wrote before nor do I now write onely for thy sake but for as many as my writings may reach for their good Nor am I out of my wits as some may fondly interpret me in this divine freedome But the love of God compelled me Nor am I at all Philalethes Enthusiasticall For God doth not ride me as a horse and guide me I know not whither my self but converses with me as a friend and speaks to me in such a Dialect as I understand fully and can make others understand that have not made shipwrack of the faculties that God hath given them by superstition or sensuality for with such I can not converse because they do not converse with God but onely pity them or am angry with them as I am merry and pleasant with thee For God hath permitted to me all these things and I have it under the broad seal of Heaven Who dare charge me God doth acquit me For he hath made me full Lord of the foure elements and hath constituted me Emperour of the world I am in the fire of choler and am not burned In the water of phlegme and am not drowned In the aiery sanguine and yet not blown away with every vain blast of transient pleasure or false doctrines of men I descend also into the sad earthy Melancholy and yet am not buryed from the sight of my God I am Philalethes though I dare say thou takest me for no bird of Paradise Incola coeli in terrâ an inhabitant of Paradise and Heaven upon Earth and the white