not lug them at this Time I will only instruct thee Aire and Heaven are incorruptible Essences It is the office of the Aire to praeserve the two weak passive Elements out of which all things are made namely Earth and Water These two I speak what I know may be easily disordered by excessive heate or by Excessive cold But lest the piercing swift Action of the superior fires should distemper them the Aire is commonly stirr'd with cold winds and charg'd with clouds to allay the Influence of the Fire-world On the Contrarie lest too much Cold should oppresse them the same Aire doth reach to the stars and immediatly receiving their heate conveys it down hither but Qualified This spirit floating and moving about the Earth and Water like a warme soft breath doth pierce and passe thorough them for he contains them in his silken Bosome and is their outward refreshing spirit Where art thou now Mastix what a miserable Cacofogue art thou But I march up to thy next Fort and now have at thy Lunatic Argument Here the Procupine shoots his last Quill and tels me the Flux and Reflux cannot be the pulse of the Great World because it proceeds from the Moon not from the Sun And is it so It proceeds indeed from the Moon as much as from Fromondus his Anti-Moone But come hither thou Man in the Moone I am an observator and I observe thee quite disarm'd thou art a bare Gentleman without sword or Buckler In this naked posture I scorne to kill Thee I will only trip up thy Heels and leave Thee You and your Peripatetics as you say allow all Naturall Bodies an inward Principle of Motion Is not the Sea then a naturall Body If so it hath an inward Principle of motion and needs not to be rockt by the Moone which is an outward one But perhaps the Principle you allow the Sea is a lame Principle and takes hold of the Moone-beames for Crutches or is it not sea-sick tell me lyes a bed of a Vomit and cannot stir O Mastix Mastix O portet Mendacem esse memorem And now Sirrah your Observations on my Epistle to the Reader which your Ignorance calls a Praeface are grinded into Powder They are shatter'd and batter'd into Atoms and you may look your scriblings in the Chaos of Democritus and Des Chartes Here is nothing more spoken but a little dirtie Nonsense which you freely fling at my Person woe to thee thou Man-mouse now comes thy finall and fatall Ruine Receive it from my mouth for I am thy Destinie Now art thou come from words to Matter I have thee where I could wish Thee in the Mysteries of my Theomagia Here hadst thou hang'd thy self like a Monkie intangl'd in his Chaine before ever I touch'd thee What will become of thee now when I shall put thee to the Torture I am sorrie thou hast brought thy self to this unnecessarie Confusion how dar'st thou ever looke Day in the face Come and appeare you Punie Now will I take Thee by the Beard pluck thee and tuck thee souse thee and salt thee like a Freshman Reader he hath upon my Anthroposophia Fourty nine Observations for so he calls his Oversights In what order I find them in the very same will I take them I will return him so many Knocks on the Coxcomb and leave him a pitifull Death's-head without Eyes or Brains And now my great Pike of Cham I am come up to your Observations to your Spawn and Minoes which shall no more escape my Net than the Mouse my Trap I will observe thee and conserve thee and lay thee up in Pickle for Posterity But I must fall from words to blowes my Observator opens and speaks Observation 1. BUt hear you me c. Mr. Mastix I do heare thee but I can heare no Sense Art thou the hobling Poet who sometimes Prais'd with his Quill Plato's Philosophie I believe thou hast heard of Plato but how canst thou praise his Philosophie when thou doest not know it every triviall Latin Authour can tell thee of Platonicum Reminisci that according to Plato's Doctrine the Knowledge which Soules attaine to in the Body is but a Remembrance of what they formerly knew before they were imbodied But thy Question is Am I in good Earnest that all Souls before their Entrance into the Body have an explicit methodicall Knowledge Assure thy self Mastix I am very earnest and I wish from my Soul thou hadst written something against this Truth and not oppos'd thy bare Negative Believe me I should have gall'd thy sides for it and set Spurs to a very Iade but not a whit Theo-magicall Observation 2. HEre Anthroposophus is turned herbalist for one whole Spring c. And why for one whole Spring who told thee so He confesses say'st thou it was the work of one whole Spring to find out that the Earth or seeds of Flowers are nothing like the Flowers Sirrah my words are these I took to task the fruits of one Spring This is all that I said of the Spring either whole or broken and now I prethee where is my Confession Sure it was an Auricular one for it is no where to bee found in my Book But Mastix I will discover thy Logic Eugenius observ'd the fruits of one Spring Ergo one whole Spring was spent in the Observation Certainly thou hast got the fool's Metaphysics for Non-sense is naturall to thee The fruits of a Spring cannot be studied for a whole Spring for Nature before ever I can find them spends a good part of the Spring in their production How can I then be damned thou doest speak devilishly for one whole Spring to the fields This is but thy Moorish malice to my Person and indeed it is eminent for elsewhere thou doest advise me to drown my self in the river Ysca which is the right way to be damned I am beholding to thee wherefore I will teach thee a Cure for Disgrace Thou hast already done something which Achitophel did When thou didst Scrible thy Notes thou didst saddle thy Asse and I shall not fail to ride him and spur him for thee Now to prevent thy future shame thou mayst imitate him in the rest dispose of what thou hast set thy house in order and hang thy self But before you be hang'd I will Shrieve you you must come to Confession of your Non-sense Mr. Mastix I have met with a very strange expression of yours to find out that the Earth or seeds of Flowers are nothing like the Flowers Doe you think then that the Earth is the seed of Flowers or that the seeds of Flowers are Earth thou monstrous Ignorant There 's not any old Garden-weeder in all London but can tell thee thou art a fool in this and no Philosopher But I am forc'd you say to turn about and confesse a Principle of Aristotel for Matter Sirrah is a principle of Nature Namely Privation My Book is extant any man may read it if
fire be This is his Question and I beseech you mark his Answer to it It signifies saith this Interpreter Squibs and Crackers such as the Cardinals are entertained with at Rome for it does not meane Carabines and Canons This he proves by the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which is in the Context of this Oracle and implies a subsultation or skipping this way and that way And thus Reader he concludes that Zoroaster in this oracle did prognosticat of fire crackers and Squibs rather then Canons or Carbines Injoy thy owne sense thou Goose of Cham for I hope thou art none of her Swans much good may it doe thee Thou hast spoken very wisely and I am confuted no man knows how I was about to dismisse him here but come hither Sirrah with your Fire-squirts These fine Inventions have their Consequences I wish the Elders to be at the Charge to stuffe your Breech with these Squibs and fire crackers then procure you a Chariot such as you mention and convey you invisibly to Scotland This is a better Project than any of your Three Iockey will place you in Front for some miraculous Mortar-peece of the Kirk and 't is but planting your Buttocks in the Canon-posture you may squirt your sires if you squirt not something else for feare in the face of the English Armie and demonstrat the Presbyterie â Posteriori This is all the use I can find for you and now you may fall to But blesse us the Squib is return'd he hath left Zoroaster and skips this way have at you Eugenius but you are a saucy boy you feare him not you know 't is a meer Cracker Well! he fals to my Epistle sticks in his Chops and now my Latine is under Correction Orator is vestri implies a Solaecism I am absurd not apposit in my Expressions And why thou Goblin what was my Action in that Epistle did I not request did I not orare and am I not then an Orator may not the Action denominat the Person Goe read Quintilian and he will tell thee Vim sermonis esse in Verbis Materiam in Nominibus But thou hast a Reason shall prove my Absurditie the Length of my Letter is not sufficient Is it then their Length or Breadth that qualisie speeches or is it their Designe and Matter miserable Ignorant he cannot distinguish Rhetorie from Geometrie But I had almost forgot amidst all this Barrennesse and Non sense we have a full Banquet from the Clouds Presbyterian Manna hee fils his mouth with Sugar-plums and Carva's Sure hee hath a sweet tooth and the Gale of the Beast is too bitter for it Poore Alaz this is a Bit and a Bob. But why should I condemn him in this his own Conscience hath accused him and by his self â—onfession it is Levitie It seems then all his performance hitherto was false fire but now hee will shoote Bullets he intends to fall more closely on my bones but questionlesse he will spoile his Teeth Deare Reader if thou doest love me pray for me Poore young Eugenius he was sometimes a notable wag a saucie boy but what will become of him now I cannot tell Sure this great Oâ—k will eate him up Come you Clod-pate you Black-moore what sayst thou to me I fall upon the Peripatetics you say as superficiall Philosophasters Why superficiciall and Philosophasters too will not one of both serve learn to speak sense for shame you did not find this language in my Book But you go on shew wherfore Becaeuse they cannot lay open to me the very essence of the Soul Prethee what is the Sense of this Essence doest thou mean the very central inscrutable Essence or very being of the Soul or doest thou mean her substance and Nature I am very confident thou doest speak thou doest not know what thy self But thy Question is Can I tell the very Essence of any substantiall Thing to tell the Essence is a barbarous form of speech but I believe thou wouldest ask me if the Essence be intelligible or not Thou art indeed a fine fellow Doest thou presume to defend Aristotel when thou doest not understand him In good earnest diddest thou ever read Logic hast thou not read then of a twofold Definition Accidentall and Essential Come hither good-man fool put on thy spectacles and peruse my words once more The Peripateties when they define the Soul or some inferior Principle describe it onely by outward circumstances which every child can do but they state nothing Essentially Thus Eugenius But Alaz denies that any thing can be stated Essentially Tell me then to what purpose did Aristotel praescribe Essentiall Definitions Get thee gone thou great Owle put a Gag in thy Chops and do not any more shame thy mother Vniversity But now Mr. Mastix you are transformed you cast your skin as Serpents do but you are not wise as Serpents are you were lately a simple Philosopher now you will be a splenetic spider You spin your shallow brains into some thirty small lines which you spend like poyson on my person Buâ—Philalethes is no Fly to be raâ—â—â— with Cobwebs I will onely break thorough and say nothing Would you know what 's next Little do you think I have the opportunity to be reveng'd on you I have found you once more troublesome busie with my Mistris I mean with Nature here will I kick you knock you as I please Be sure I will strip you of Hide and Flesh I will pick your bones and bestow you afterwards on Cambridge for a Fool's Anatomie I tax the Peripatetics you say because they fansy God to have made the world as a Carpenter of Stone and Timber Verely If I tax them for any such fancy I have done them an Injury But in good earnest do I tell you that God made the world of Stone Timber or that the Peripatetics say any such Thing put on your spectacles again and bring your Nose to the Book my words are these The Peripatetics look on God as they do on Carpenters who build with Stone and Timber without any infusion of life Who builds here with Stone Timber think you God or the Carpenter Fie upon you You cannot understand Common Sense though written in your own native English But there are some hopes of you you speak something at last and tell me very boldly this is false Doe you 〈◊〉 know what I am that you should be so saucy with me well Sir you shall be met withall You tell me the Peripatetics give an inward principle of Motion to all Natural Bodies and therefore look not on God as on Carpenters who build without any Infusion of Life This must be your Consequence if what I said is false as you would make it But Mr. Mastix do they allow an inward principle of Motion to all naturall Bodies are you sure of it Hold hold if this be true then there is in these Europaean parts you know
Philosophicall Doest thou make the mysterious Signatures and Symbols of Nature to be but fansies and Poetry Thou art indeed a Platonist by thy self Observation 39. DOes not this see and heare too in man c. Reader hee questions me concerning the rationall spirit and truly it is an od Question whether the Rationall spirit be a sensitive spirit or not To this Quaere he addes his own scruple namely how the Rationall spirit can judge of what is done if he doth not see it Mastix I dare swear this is a Probleme all thy skill in the Platonic Philosophy hath fail'd to answer and now thou doest propose it to me for satisfaction You must know Sirrah that the Rationall Spirit hath his objects as well as the Sensitive and by Consequence he hath a sense proportionable to those objects otherwise he could not appehehend them The sense of the Animal spirit is grosse for so are his Objects and Nature makes all Things agree by proportion Now this Animal or sensitive Spirit doth sentire objecta namely the Bodies themselves but the Species of the Bodies he doth convey and like a Glasse presents them to the Rationall spirit This done the Rationall spirit by a more subtil sense doth sentire speciem which is a more subtil Object and by that species he doth judge of the grosse object whose species it is Thus it must be Mr. Mastix and no otherwise for Reason is nothing else but a Iudgement past upon sensation But you let fly your fools Bolt If this be true then there are two hearing and seeing Souls in a man Ha! Ha! He The objects are different and therefore the Senses must be different besides I must tell you that every Superior spirit hath in him the faculties of the Inferior but Eminenter as it is here in a more excellent way I could Mastix teach thee a higher Truth That the Soul may understand al Things whatsoever sine Conversione ad Phantasmata for what she understands from without doth no way conduce to her perfection But this Speculation is so high it would quite distract and destroy thy Coxcomb Observation 40. TRuly Anthroposophus these Pages are of that Nature c. Here you acknowledge would seem to know the Magnet which you formerly deni'd Then you set up your Chaire and begin to censure me Magisterially as if you had overthrown me Horse and Foot But Sirrah you are not Cock of the game but a Coxcomb and therefore do not you Crow Observation 41. ANd quarrell again with the Peripatetics c. Here he tells me the Peripatetics and School Divines will not refute such crazy discourses as mine is onely he moved with pity towards me will correct me Indeed Mastix thou hast had a faire time to correct me three Quarters of a year hast thou spent in providing six sheets of Papyr for the Presse Here was Time enough to come forth an Elephant but thou doest enter the Stage a meere Mouse I will not much threaten thee with Correction onely the Trap I say is dangerous Observation 42. IN this heat all that Philalethes writes c. Three Designes Mastix you observed in the very Beginning of your Pamphlet and now you present me with a fourth I write mysteries say you to get my Book established jure Divino This Project you suppose is feasible because Episcopacy and Presbytery cannot be settled Have at you my friends the Independents Here is a jerk for you as well as for me Well Sirrah Presbyter if they rank my Books in the Canon then woe to thy Brown Tribe I will punish every false Glosse with the stool of Repentance Observation 43. WHat more then to the prophets and Apostles c. Here I said I ow'd al the Philosophy I had next to God to Agrippa What saith he more then to the Prophets and Apostles Mastix you deni'd formerly that Scripture was intended for Philosophie but now you will have me to learn my Philosophie of the Prophets and the Apostles There is reason indeed for your Contradiction He must needs lye who resists the Truth Observation 44. A Piping hot papyr of verses indeed c. Here is nothing but a stoic Pompous severity a Brow and no Braine He asks me indeed a few Natural ordinarie Questions but if he had understood my Book which he hath proudly undertaken to censure he had not been to seek in such Punctilio's But seeing his very Quaeries are so many Acknowledgements of his Ignorance in Nature with what face if you bate a Moore's face can hee judge of Nature One thing I cannot choose but take notice of He asks mee If I can rule and counsell States Reader he mistakes my Physics for Politics Sure enough he would have me to rule the Parliament and settle the Presbyterie Observation 45. FRom this Page to the 62. c. Here he sayes I did bid fair for Purgatorie because I oppos'd it in my Exposition of Saint Peter then he tells me I had rather style my self a Protestant than a Christian Mastix would gladly put those asunder whom God hath put together It is an office that well becomes a Schismatic He goes on and sayes my Industrie will but vex Nature and make her appear something els than what she really is No Violence can do it Mastix much lesse a true Physicall Processe Thou doest speak Impossibilities Bables and Fables This is all Sir and now you break off your Discourse and fall both from Generalls and Particulars because you know not what to say next For a Close I should say for Custome you fall on my Person and tell me I am a very unnaturall son to my mother Oxford Do not thou prophane her name with thy rude illiterate Chops I am thou know'st Mastix a notable wag and a saucy Boy whom she hath sometimes dandl'd on her Knees She hath commanded me to be an enemie to Thee because thou art an enemie to Truth but to my Mother I am a very naturall loving Child If thou canst but read here are a few sighes I breath'd over her when thy Father Presbyter destroy'd her Drie Pumic Statues Can you have an Eye And have no Teares to see your Mother dye Were you not taught such Numbers to rehearse Might make the Marble weep to bear your Verse Or those lesse polish'd Quarries where each part Acts by infused Malice of the Heart She heav'd your fansies higher than the Pride Of all her Pinnacles and would have dy'd Blest in her Martyrdome had you but shed A Teare to prove her Children were not dead Such Drops pearls had sent her sparkling hence A Constellation and your Influence To all her woes had been a just Relief Because your Life was argu'd by your Grief But you keep back those Joyes which even Fate In all her Malice thought not to translate You spend not one poore sigh for her last breath That we may say she liv'd before her Death Yet hath she Comforts which proceed