Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n
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A51310
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Philosophical poems by Henry More ...; Psychōdia platonica
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More, Henry, 1614-1687.
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1647
(1647)
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Wing M2670; ESTC R14921
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253,798
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486
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that one single Essence can perform many and various functions as doth the Soul that being one unfolds her self into varieties of operations Yet have the Platonists established their Triad upon no contemptible grounds which I will not be so tedious as here to relate but give the Reader leave to peruse Plotinus at his leisure And I must confesse that that mystery seems to me a thing of it self standing on its own Basis and to happen rather to agree with some Principles of Christianisme then to be drawn from the holy Scripture But the best is that the happinesse of man is not the Essence but the Influence of the Divinity and to be baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost of more consequence then to read and understand all the curious and acute school-tracts of the Trinity For this may be permitted to the Divel that is the priviledge onely of the good and pious man Nor is it any wonder at all For be it so that the contemplation of these things is very sublime and subtile yet well I wot they are nothing satisfactory to the soul For the exile Theories of the Infinity of God and Trinity are but as it were the dry measuring and numbering of the Deity and profit as much to the soul devoid of charity as the Diametre of the Sunnes body or the remembrance of that trinall property in Lux Lumen and Calefaction can warm a man in a cold frosty night But if any man would be sufficiently initiated into these mysteries he must repair to the ever living Word of God that subtile and searching fire that will sift all the â—anities of dreaming Philosophers and burn up the vain â—maginations of false-Christians like stubble All this out of a tendernesse of mind being exceeding â—oth to give any man offence by my writings For though knowledge and theory be better then any thing but honesty and true piety yet it is not so good as that I should willingly offend my neighbour by it Thus much by way of preparation to the first Canto of this Poem I will now leave thee to thine own discresion and judgement Vpon the second Canto THis second Canto before we descend to particular lives exhibits to our apprehension by as fit a similitude as I could light upon the Universe as one simple uniform being from Ahad to Hyle no particular straitned being as yet being made no earth or any other Orb as yet kned together All homogeneall simple single pure pervious unknotted uncoacted nothing existing but those eight universall orders There God hath full command builds and destroyes what he lists That all our souls are free effluxes from his essence What follows is so plain that the Reader wants no direction Vpon the third Canto THere is no knot at all in this last Canto if men do not seek one I plainly and positively declare no opinion but shew the abuse of those opinions there touched crouding a number of enormities together that easily shroud themselves there where all sinfulnesse surely may easily get harbour if we be not yet well aware of the Devil that makes true opinions oftentimes serve for mischief Nothing else can be now expected for the easie and profitable understanding of this Poem but the interpretation of the names that frequently occurre in it Which I will interpret at the end of these Books as also the hard terms of the other Poems for their sakes whose real worth and understanding is many times equall with the best onely they have not fed of husks and shels as others have been forced to do the superficiary knowledge of tongues But it would be well that neither the Linguist would contemne the illiterate for his ignorance nor the ignorant condemn the learned for his knowledge For it is not unlearnednesse that God is so pleased withall or sillinesse and emptinesse of mind but singlenesse and simplicity of heart The Argument of PSYCHOZOIA Or The life of the Soul CANT I. This Song great Psyches parentage With her fourefold array And that mysterious marriage To thâ— Reader doth display 1 NO Ladies loves nor Knights brave martiall deeds Ywrapt in rolls of hid Antiquitie But th' inward Fountain and the unseen Seeds From whence are these and what so under eye Doth fall or is record in memorie Psyche I 'll sing Pfycheâ— from thee they sprong O life of Time and all Alterity The life of lives instill his nâ—ctar strong My soul t' inebriate while I sing Psyches song 2 But thou who e're thou art that hear'st this strain Or read'st these rythmes which from Platonick rage Do powerfully flow forth dare not to blame My forward pen of foul miscarriage If all that 's spoke with thoughts more sadly sage Doth not agree My task is not to try What 's simply true I onely do engage My self to make a fit discovery Give some fair glimpse of Plato's hid Philosophy 3 What man alive that hath but common wit When skilfull limmer ' suing his intent Shall fairly well pourtray and wisely hit The true proportion of each lineament And in right colours to the life depaint The fulvid Eagle with her sun-bright eye Would wexen wroth with inward choler brent Cause 't is no Buzard or discolour'd Pie Why man I meant it not Cease thy fond obloquie 4 So if what 's consonant to Plato's school Which well agrees with learned Pythagore Egyptian Trismegist and th' antique roll Of Chaldee wisdome all which time hath tore But Plato and deep Plotin do restore Which is my scope I sing out lustily If any twitten me for such strange lore And me all blamelesse brand with infamy God purge that man from fault of foul malignity 5 Th' Ancient of dayes Sire of Eternitie Sprung of himself or rather no wise sprong Father of lights and everlasting glee Who puts to silence every daring tongue And flies man's sight shrowding himself among His glorious rayes good Atove from whom came All good that Penia spies in thickest throng Of most desireables all 's from that same That same that Atove hight and sweet Abinoam 6 Now can I not with flowring phantasie To drowsie sensuall souls such words impart Which in their sprights may cause sweet agony And thrill their bodies through with pleasing dart And spread in flowing fire their close-twist heart All chearing fire that nothing wont to burn That Atove lists to save and his good Art Is all to save that wiâ—l to him return That all to him return nought of him is forlorn 7 For what can be forlorn when his good hands Hold all in lise that of life do partake O surest confidence of Loves strong bands Love loveth all that 's made Love all did make And when false life doth fail it 's for the sake Of better being Riving tortures spight That life disjoynts and makes the heart to quake To good the soul doth nearer reunite So ancient Atove hence all-joyning Ahad hight 8 This Ahad of himself the Aeon
affected if there were nothing to come whence she would not be able so sensibly to discover to her self her own Hypocrisie or sinceritie Lastly that loving adherence and affectionate cleaving to God by Faith and divine sense would be forestall'd by such undeniable evidence of Reason and Nature Which though it would very much gratifie the naturall man yet it would not prove so profitable to us as in things appertaining to God For seeing our most palpable evidence of the souls immortality is from an inward sense and this inward sense is kept alive the best by devotion and purity by freedome from worldly care and sorrow and the grosser pleasures of the body otherwise her ethereall vehicle will drink in so much of earthy and mortall dregs that the sense of the soul will be changed being outvoted as it were by the overswaying number of terrene particles which that ethereal nature hath so plentifully imbib'd and incorporated with she will become in a manner corporeall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Jamblichus speaks and in the extremity of this weaknesse and dotage will be easily drawn off to pronounce her self such as the body is dissolvable and mortall therefore it is better for us that we become doubtfull of our immortall condition when we stray from that virgin-purity and unspottednesse that we may withdraw our feet from these paths of death then that Demonstration and Infallibility should permit us to proceed so farre that our immortality would prove an heavy disadvantage But this is meant onely to them that are lovers of God and their own souls For they that are at enmity with him desire no such instructions but rather embrace all means of laying asleep that disquieting truth that they bear about with them so precious a charge as an immortall Spirit To the Reader REader sith it is the fashion To bestow some salutation I greet thee give free leave to look And nearly view my opened Book But see then that thine eyes be clear If ought thou wouldst discover there Expect from me no Teian strain No light wanton Lesbian vein Though well I wot the vulgar spright Such Harmony doth more strongly smite Silent Secesse wast Solitude Deep searching thoughts often renew'd Stiffe conflict 'gainst importunate vice That daily doth the Soul entice From her high throne of circuling light To plunge her in infernall Night Collection of the mind from stroke Of this worlds Magick that doth choke Her with foul smothering mists and stench And in Lethaean waves her drench A daily Death drad Agony Privation dry Sterility Who is well entred in those wayes Fitt'st man to read my lofty layes But whom lust wrath and fear controule Scarce know their body from their soul If any such chance hear my verse Dark numerous Nothings I rehearse To them measure out an idle sound In which no inward sense is found Thus sing I to cragg'd clifts and hils To sighing winds to murmuring rills To wastefull woods to empty groves Such things as my dear mind most loves But they heed not my heavenly passion Fast fixt on their own operation On chalky rocks hard by the Sea Safe guided by fair Cynthia I strike my silver-sounded lyre First struck my self by some strong fire And all the while her wavering ray Reflected from fluid glasse doth play On the white banks But all are deaf Vnto my Muse that is most lief To mine own self So they nor blame My pleasant notes nor praise the same Nor do thou Reader rashly brand My rhythmes 'fore thou them understand H. M. PSYCHOZOIA OR The first part of the Song of the SOUL Containing A Christiano-Platonicall display of LIFE By H. M. Master of Arts and Fellow of Christs Colledge in Cambridge Tot vitae gradus cognoscimus quot in nobismetipsis expedimus Mars Ficin CAMBRIDGE Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Universitie 1647. TO THE READER Upon the first Canto of PSYCHOZOIA THis first Canto as you may judge by the names therein was intended for a mere Platonicall description of Universall life or life that is omnipresent though not alike omnipresent As in Noahs Deluge the water that overflowed the earth was present in every part thereof but every part of the water was not in every part of the earth or all in every part so the low Spirit of the Universe though it go quite through the world yet it is not totally in every part of the world Else we should heare our Antipodes if they did but whisper Because our lower man is a part of the inferiour Spirit of the Universe Ahad Aeon and Psyche are all omnipresent in the World after the most perfect way that humane reason can conceive of For they are in the world all totally and at once every where This is the famous Platonicall Triad which though they that slight the Christian Trinity do take for a figment yet I think it is no contemptible argument that the Platonists the best and divinest of Philosophers and the Christians the best of all that do professe religion do both concur that there is a Trinity In what they differ I leave to be found out according to the safe direction of that infallible Rule of Faith the holy Word In the mean time I shall not be blamed by any thing but ignorance and malignity for being invited to sing of the second Unity of the Platonicall Triad in a Christian and Poeticall scheme that which the holy Scripture witnesseth of the second Person of the Christian Trinity As that his patrimony is the possession of the whole earth For if it be not all one with Christ according to his Divinity yet the Platonists placing him in the same order and giving him the like attributes with the Person of the Sonne in Christianity it is nothing harsh for me to take occasion from hence to sing a while the true Christian Autocalon whose beauty shall adorn the whole Earth in good time if we believe the Prophets For that hath not as yet happened For Christ is not where ever his Name is but as he is the Truth so will he be truely displayed upon the face of the whole Earth For God doth not fill the World with his Glory by words and sounds but by Spirit and Life and Reality Now this Eternall life I sing of even in the middest of Platonisme for I cannot conceal from whence I am viz. of Christ but yet acknowledging that God hath not left the Heathen Plato especially without witnesse of himself Whose doctrine might strike our adulterate Christian Professors with shame astonishment their lives falling so exceeding short of the better Heathen How far short are they then of that admirable and transcendent high mystery of true Christianisme To which Plato is a very good subservient Minister whose Philosophy I singing here in a full heat why may it not be free for me to break out into an higher strain and under it to touch upon some points of Christianity as well as