Ahad Aeon Psyche with all graces deckt Whose nature well this riddle will detect A Circle whose circumference no where Is circumscrib'd whose Centre 's each where set But the low Cusp 's a figure circular Whose compasse is ybound but centre 's every where 9 Wherefore who 'll judge the limits of the world By what appears unto our failing sight Appeals to sense reason down headlong hurld Out of her throne by giddie vulgar might But here base senses dictates they will dight With specious title of Philosophie And stiffly will contend their cause is right From rotten rolls of school antiquitie Who constantly denie corporall Infinitie 10 But who can prove their corporalitie Since matter which thereto 's essentiall If rightly sifted 's but a phantasie And quantitie who 's deem'd Originall Is matter must with matter likewise fall What ever is is Life and Energie From God who is th' Originall of all Who being everywhere doth multiplie His own broad shade that endlesse throughout all doth lie 11 He from the last projection of light Ycleep'd Shamajim which is liquid fire It Aether eke and centrall Tasis hight Hath made each shining globe and clumperd mire Of dimmer Orbs. For Nature doth inspire Spermatick life but of a different kind Hence those congenit splendour doth attire And lively heat these darknesse dead doth bind And without borrowed rayes they be both cold and blind 12 All these be knots of th' universall stole Of sacred Psyche which at first was fine Pure thin and pervious till hid powers did pull Together in severall points and did encline The nearer parts in one clod to combine Those centrall spirits that the parts did draw The measure of each globe did then define Made things impenetrable here below Gave colour figure motion and each usuall law 13 And what is done in this Terrestriall starre The same is done in every Orb beside Each flaming Circle that we see from farre Is but a knot in Psyches garment tide From that lax shadow cast throughout the wide And endlesse world that low'st projection Of universall life each thing 's deriv'd What e're appeareth in corporeall fashion For body 's but this spirit fixt grosse by conspissation 14 And that which doth conspissate active is Wherefore not matter but some living sprite Of nimble Nature which this lower mist And immense field of Atoms doth excite And wake into such life as best doth fit With his own self As we change phantasies The essence of our soul not chang'd a whit So do these Atoms change their energies Themselves unchanged into new Centreities 15 And as our soul 's not superficially Colourd by phantasms nor doth them reflect As doth a looking-glasse such imag'rie As it to the beholder doth detect No more are these lightly or smear'd or deckt With form or motion which in them we see But from their inmost Centre they project Their vitall rayes not merely passive be But by occasion wak'd rouze up themselves on high 16 So that they 're life form sprite not matter pure For matter pure is a pure nullitie What nought can act is nothing I am sure And if all act that is they 'll not denie But all that is is form so easily By what is true and by what they embrace For truth their feigned Corporalitie Will vanish into smoke but on I 'll passe More fully we have sung this in another place 17 Wherefore more boldly now to represent The nature of the world how first things were How now they are This endlesse large Extent Of lowest life which I styled whileere The Cuspis of the Cone that 's every where Was first all dark till in this spacious Hall Hideous through silent horrour torches clear And lamping lights bright shining over all Were set up in due distances proportionall 18 Innumerable numbers of fair Lamps Were rightly ranged in this hollow hole To warm the world and chace the shady damps Of immense darknesse rend her pitchie stole Into short rags more dustie dimme then coal Which pieces then in severall were cast Abhorred reliques of that vesture foul Upon the Globes that round those torches trac'd Which still fast on them stick for all they run so fast 19 Such an one is that which mortall men call Night A little shred of that unbounded shade And such a Globe is that which Earth is hight By witlesse Wizzards the sole centre made Of all the world and on strong pillars staid And such a lamp or light is this our Sun Whose firie beams the scortched Earth invade But infinite such as he in heaven won And more then infinite Earths about those Suns do run 20 And to speak out though I detest the sect Of Epicurus for their manners vile Yet what is true I may not well reject Truth 's incorruptible ne can the style Of vitious pen her sacred worth defile If we no more of truth should deign t' embrace Then what unworthy mouths did never soyl No truths at all mongst men would finden place But make them speedie wings and back to Heaven apace 21 I will not say our world is infinite But that infinitie of worlds ther be The Centre of our world 's the lively light Of the warm sunne the visible Deitie Of this externall Temple Mercurie Next plac'd and warm'd more throughly by his rayes Right nimbly 'bout his golden head doth flie Then Venus nothing slow about him strayes And next our Earth though seeming sad full spritely playes 22 And after her Mars rangeth in a round With firie locks and angry flaming eye And next to him mild Iupiter is found But Saturn cold wons in our utmost skie The skirts of his large Kingdome surely lie Near to the confines of some other worlds Whose Centres are the fixed starres on high 'Bout which as their own proper Suns are hurld Ioves Earths and Saturns round on their own axes twurld 23 Little or nothing are those starres to us Which in the azure Evening gay appear I mean for influence but judicious Nature and carefull Providence her dear And matchlesse work did so contrive whileere That th' Hearts or Centres in the wide world pight Should such a distance each to other bear That the dull Planets with collated light By neighbour suns might cheared be in dampish night 24 And as the Planets in our world of which The sun 's the heart and kernell do receive Their nightly light from suns that do enrich Their sable mantle with bright gemmes and give A goodly splendour and sad men relieve With their fair twinkling rayes so our worlds sunne Becomes a starre elsewhere and doth derive Joynt light with others cheareth all that won In those dim duskish Orbs round other suns that run 25 This is is the parergon of each noble fire Of neighbour worlds to be the nightly starre But their main work is vitall heat t' inspire Into the frigid spheres that 'bout them fare Which of themselves quite dead and barren are But by the wakening warmth of
I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body For all magnetick power is founded in Physis and in reference to her this world is but one great Plant one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} giving it shape and corporeall life as in reference to Psyche one happy and holy Animall Spirit Sometimes it signifieth the soul othersometime the naturall spirits in a mans body which are Vinculum animae corporis and the souls vehicle Sometimes life See Reduplicative Soul When I speak of mans Soul I understand that which Moses saith was inspired into the body fitted out and made of earth by God Genes 2. which is not that impeccable spirit that cannot sinne but the very same that the Platonists call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a middle essence betwixt that which they call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and we would in the Christian language call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the life of the body which is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a kind of an umbratil vitalitie that the soul imparts to the bodie in the enlivening of it That and the body together we Christians would call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the suggestions of it especially in its corrupt estate {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And that that which God inspired into Adam was no more then {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the soul not the spirit though it be called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Spiraculum vitae is plain out of the text because it made man but become a living soul {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} But you will say he was a dead soul before and this was the spirit of life yea the spirit of God the life of the soul that was breathed into him But if {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} implie such a life and spirit you must acknowledge the same to be also in the most stupid of all living creatures even the fishes whose soul is but as salt to keep them from stinking as Philo speaks for they are said to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} chap. 1. v. 20. 21. See 1 Cor. chap. 15. v. 45 46. In brief therefore that which in Platonisme is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is in Scripture {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} what {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the brute or beast in the other {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the same in both Self-reduplicative See Reduplicative T TRicentreitie Centre is put for essence so Tricentreitie must implie a trinitie of essence See Centre and Energie V VAticinant The soul is said to be in a vaticinant or parturient condition when she hath some kind of sense and hovering knowledge of a thing but yet cannot distinctly and fully and commandingly represent it to her self cannot plainly apprehend much lesse comprehend the matter The phrase is borrowed of Proclus who describing the incomprehensiblenesse of God and the desire of all things towards him speaks thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Theolog Platon lib. 1. cap. 21. See Psychathan lib. 3. cant. 3. stanz. 12. 14. The Philosophers Devotion SIng aloud his praise rehearse Who hath made the Universe He the boundlesse Heavens has spread All the vitall Orbs has kned He that on Olympus high Tends his flocks with watchfull eye And this eye has multiplide Midst each flock for to reside Thus as round about they stray Toucheth each with out-stretch'd ray Nimbly they hold on their way Shaping out their Night and Day Never slack they none respires Dancing round their Centrall fires In due order as they move Echo's sweet be gently drove Thorough Heavens vast Hollownesse Which unto all corners presse Musick that the heart of Iove Moves to joy and sportfull love Fills the listning saylers eares Riding on the wandering Sphears Neither Speech nor Language is Where their voice is not transmisse God is Good is Wise is Strong Witnesse all the creature-throng Is confess'd by every Tongue All things back from whence they sprong As the thankfull Rivers pay What they borrowed of the Sea Now my self I do resigne Take me whole I all am thine Save me God! from Self-desire Deaths pit dark Hells raging fire Envy Hatred Vengeance Ire Let not Lust my soul bemire Quit from these thy praise I 'll sing Loudly sweep the trembling string Bear a part O Wisdomes sonnes Free'd from vain Relligions Lo from farre I you salute Sweetly warbling on my Lute Indie Egypt Arabie Asia Greece and Tartarie Carmel-tracts and Lebanon With the Mountains of the Moon From whence muddie Nile doth runne Or whereever else you won Breathing in one vitall aire One we are though distant farre Rise at once lett 's sacrifice Odours sweet perfume the skies See how Heavenly lightning fires Hearts inflam'd with high aspires All the substance of our souls Up in clouds of Incense rolls Leave we nothing to our selves Save a voice what need we els Or an hand to wear and tire On the thankfull Lute or Lyre Sing aloud his praise rehearse Who hath made the Universe FINIS
he might sit alone Then wholly should my mind to him incline And woxen strait since larger love was gone That paultrie sprite of low contracting lust Would fit my soul as if 't were made for 't just Then should I with my fellow bird or brute So strangely metamorphis'd either ney Or bellow loud or if 't may better sute Chirp out my joy pearch'd upon higher spray My passions fond with impudence rehearse Immortalize my madnesse in a verse This is the summe of thy deceiving boast That I vain ludenesse highly should admire When I the sense of better things have lost And chang'd my heavenly heat for hellish fire Passion is blind but virtues piercing eye Approching danger can from farre espie And what thou dost Pedantickly object Concerning my rude rugged uncouth style As childish toy I manfully neglect And at thy hidden snares do inly smile How ill alas with wisdome it accords To sell my living sense for livelesse words My thought 's the fittest measure of my tongue Wherefore I 'll use what 's most significant And rather then my inward meaning wrong Or my full-shining notion trimly scant I 'll conjure up old words out of their grave Or call fresh forrein force in if need crave And these attending on my moving mind Shall duly usher in the fitting sense As oft as meet occasion I find Unusuall words oft used give lesse offence Nor will the old contexture dim or marre For often us'd they 're next to old thred bare And if the old seem in too rustie hew Then frequent rubbing makes them shine like gold And glister all with colour gayly new Wherefore to use them both we will be bold Thus lists me fondly with fond folk to toy And answer fools with equall foolerie The meaner mind works with more nicetie As spiders wont to weave their idle web But braver spirits do all things gallantly Of lesser failings nought at all affred So Natures carelesse pencill dipt in light With sprinkled starres hath spattered the Night And if my notions clear though rudely thrown And loosely scattered in my poesie May lend men light till the dead Night be gone And Morning fresh with roses strew the skie It is enough I meant no trimmer frame Or by nice needle-work to seek a name Vain man that seekest name mongst earthly men Devoid of God and all good virtuous lere Who groping in the dark do nothing ken But mad with griping care their souls do tear Or burst with hatred or with envie pine Or burn with rage or melt out at their eyne Thrice happy he whose name is writ above And doeth good though gaining infamie Requiteth evil turns with hearty love And recks not what befalls him outwardly Whose worth is in himself and onely blisse In his pure conscience that doth nought amisse Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem Who can his passions master and controll And that true lordly manlinesse doth deem Who from this world himself hath clearly quit Counts nought his own but what lives in his sprite So when his sprite from this vain world shall flit It bears all with it whatsoever was dear Unto it self passing in easie fit As kindly ripen'd corn comes out of th' eare Thus mindlesse of what idle men will say He takes his own and stilly goes his way But the retinue of proud Lucifer Those blustering Poets that flie after fame And deck themselves like the bright Morning-starre Alas it is but all a crackling flame For death will strip them of that glorious plume That airie blisse will vanish into fume For can their carefull ghosts from Limbo â—ake Return or listen from the bowed skie To heare how well their learned lines do take Or if they could is Heavens felicitie So small as by mans praise to be encreas'd Hells pain no greater then hence to be eas'd Therefore once dead in vain shall I transmit My shadow to gazing Posteritie Cast farre behind me I shall never see 't On Heavens fair Sunne having fast fixt mine eye Nor while I live heed I what man doth praise Or underprize mine unaffected layes What moves thee then said he to take the pains And spenden time if thou contemn'st the fruit Sweet fruit of fame that fills the Poets brains With high conceit and feeds his fainting wit How pleasant 't is in honour here to live And dead thy name for ever to survive Or is thy abject mind so basely bent As of thy Muse to maken Merchandize And well I wote this is no strange intent The hopefull glimps of gold from chattering Pies From Daws and Crows and Parots oft hath wrung An unexpected Pegascian song Foul shame on him quoth I that shamefull thought Doth entertain within his dunghill breast Both God and Nature hath my spirits wrought To better temper and of old hath blest My loftie soul with more divine aspires Then to be touchd with such vile low desires I hate and highly scorn that Kestrell kind Of bastard scholars that subordinate The precious choice induements of the mind To wealth or worldly good Adulterate And cursed brood Your wit and will are born Of th' earth and circling thither do return Profit and honour be those measures scant Of your slight studies and endeavours vain And when you once have got what you did want You leave your learning to enjoy your gain Your brains grow low your bellies swell up high Foul sluggish fat ditts up your dulled eye Thus what the earth did breed to th' earth is gone Like fading hearb or feebly drooping flower By feet of men and beast quite trodden down The muck-sprung learning cannot long endure Back she returns lost in her filthy source Drown'd chok'd or slocken by her cruell nurse True virtue to her self's the best reward Rich with her own and full of lively spirit Nothing cast down for want of due regard Or 'cause rude men acknowledge not her merit She knows her worth and stock from whence she sprung Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung Dew'd with the drops of Heaven shall flourish long As long as day and night do share the skie And though that day and night should fail yet strong And steddie fixed on Eternitie Shall bloom for ever So the soul shall speed That loveth virtue for no worldly meed Though sooth to sayn the worldly meed is due To her more then to all the world beside Men ought do homage with affections true And offer gifts for God doth there reside The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat To such what 's given God himself doth get But earthly minds whose sight 's seal'd up with mud Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity Ne do acknowledge any other good Then what their mole-warp hands can feel and trie By groping touch thus worth of them unseen Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween Wherefore the prudent Law-givers of old Even in all Nations with right sage foresight Discovering from farre
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} But to them that endeavour to be joyned with the first Good there is no need of knowledge or multifarious cooperation but of settlednesse steddinesse and rest lib. 1. cap. 24. Theolog. Platon And in the next chapter {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} For we must not seek after that absolute or first Good cognoscitively or imperfectly but giving our selves up to the divine light and winking that is shutting our eyes of reason and understanding so to place our selves steddily in that hidden Unitie of all things After he preferres this faith before the clear and present assent to the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} yea and the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} so that he will not that any intellectuall operation should come in comparison with it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} For the operation of the Intellect is multiform and by diversitie separate from her objects and is in a word intellectuall motion about the object intelligible But the divine faith must be simple and uniform quiet and steddily resting in the haven of Goodnesse And at last he summarily concludes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} See Procl. Theolog. Platonick lib. 1. cap. 25. H HYle See Interpret Gen. I INtellect Sometimes it is to be interpreted Soul Sometime the intellectuall facultie of the soul Sometimes Intellect is an absolute essence shining into the soul whose nature is this A substance purely immateriall impeccable actually omniform or comprehending all things at once which the soul doth also being perfectly joyned with the Intellect {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Plot Ennead 1. lib. 1. cap. 8. Ideas or Idees Sometimes they are forms in the Intellectuall world viz. in Aeon or On other sometimes phantasmes or representations in the soul Innate Idees are the souls nature it self her uniform essence able by her Fiat to produce this or that phantasme into act Idiopathy See Interpret Gen. Iaâ— L LOgos See Interpr Gen. Life The vitall operation of any soul Sometime it is the soul it self be it sensitive vegetative or rationall Lower man The lower man is our enquickned body into which our soul comes it being fitly prepared for the receiving of such a guest The manner of the production of souls or rather their non-production is admirably well set down in Plotinus See Ennead 6. lib. 4. cap. 14 15. M MOnad See Interpr Gen. Mundane Mundane spirit Is that which is the spirit of the world or Universe I mean by it not an intellectuall spirit but a fine unfixt attenuate subtill ethereall substance the immediate vehicle of plasticall or sensitive life Memory Mundane memory Is that memory that is seated in the Mundane spirit of man by a strong impression or inustion of any phantasme or outward sensible object upon that spirit But there is a Memory more subtill and abstract in the soul it self without the help of this spirit which she also carries away with her hauing left the body Magicall That is attractive or commanding by force of sympathy with the life of this naturall world Moment Sometimes signifies an instant as indivisible as {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which in motion answers to an instant in time or a point in a line Aristot. Phys. In this sense I use it Psychathan lib. 3. cant. 2. stanz. 16. But in a moment sol doth ray But Cant. the 3. Stanz. 45. v. 2. I understand as also doth Lansbergius by a moment one second of a minute In Antipsych Cant. 2. Stanz. the 20. v. 2. by a moment I understand a minute or indefinitely any small time O ORb. Orb Intellectuall is nothing else but Aeon or the Intellectuall world The Orbs generall mentioned Psycathan lib. 1. cant. 3. stanz. 23. v. 2. I understand by them but so many universall orders of beings if I may so terme them all for Hyle hath little or nothing of being Omniformity The omniformity of the soul is the having in her nature all forms latent at least and power of awaking them into act upon occasion Out-world and Out-Heaven The sensible world the visible Heaven P PErigee See Interpret Gen. Psychicall Parelies Parallax Protopathy Parturient See Vaticinant Phantasie Lower phantasie is that which resides in the Mundane spirit of a man See Memory Q. Quantitative Forms quantitative are such sensible energies as arise from the complexion of many natures together at whose discretion they vanish That 's the seventh Orb of things though broken and not filling all as the other do But if you take it for the whole sensible world it is entire and is the same that Tasis in Psycozoia But the centre of Tasis viz. the multiplication of the reall Cuspis of the Cone for Hyle that is set for the most contract point of the Cuspis is scarce to be reckoned among realities that immense diffusion of atoms is to be referred to Psyche as an internall vegetative act and so belongs to Physis the lowest order of life For as that warmth that the sense doth afford the body is not rationall sensitive or imaginative but vegetative So this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} i. e. liquid fire which Psyche sends out and is the outmost last and lowest operation from her self is also vegetative R RHomboides See Interpr general Reason I understand by Reason the deduction of one thing from another which I conceive proceeds from a kind of continuitie of phantasmes and is something like the moving of a cord at one end the parts next it rise with it And by this concatenation of phantasmes I conceive that both brutes and men are moved in reasonable wayes and methods in their ordinary externall actions Rayes The rayes of an essence is its energie See Energie Reduplicative That is reduplicative which is not onely in this point but also in another having a kind of circumscribed ubiquitie viz. in its own sphear And this is either by being in that sphear omnipresent it self as the soul is said to be in the body tota in toto tota in qualibet parte or else at least by propagation of rayes which is the image of it self and so are divers sensible objects Reduplicative as light colours sounds And I make account either of these wayes justly denominate any thing spirituall Though the former is most properly at least more eminently spirituall And whether any thing be after that way spirituall saving the Divinitie there is reason to doubt For what is entirely omnipresent in a sphear whose diametre is but three feet I see not why that in the circumference being as fresh and entire as that in the centre it should stop there and not proceed even in infinitum if the circumference be still as fresh and entire as the centre But I define nothing S SPermaticall It belongs properly to Plants but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls