the edg of their Wits maâ—gre the impossibility would penetrate to the very Center of Verity see her in her self unveiled and naked They have scarce a mouth to suck the milk of Faith and yet they will gnaw the bones and take thence the marrow As if they already understood that which Nature hath of intelligible so that nothing rests for them to penetrate but only the obscure mysteries of Faith They would be Hercules's that having seen and conquered the Sea Land and Hell it self they might say Per domita tellus tumida cesserunt freta Inferna nostros regna sensere impetus Immune coelum est Dignus Alcidae labor In alta mundi spatia sublimis ferar Petatur aether But whilst they raise themselves on tip-toe and stretch out their wings to flie how seasonable would it be for one to hint to them the much that they attempt and the little that they atchieve For one to whisper in their ears what the WomaÌ„ of Samaria said to Christ. Domine neque in quo haurias habes puteus altus est Before you aspire to greater matters answer to the question made you by St. Jerome Why the Elephants that are as it were so many Mountains of flesh have onely four feet on which they rest the immeasurable masses of their huge bodies and the Louse which is but a living Point hath six You will confesse you know not this which if you did you knew just nothing and will you pretend to understand that which even that man is not able to understand who understands all things At the first step you take in the pursuit of intelligible things you stumble with Thales into a ditch and would you attein to the sight of that which so far surmounts the Stars How opposite to you would the correction be which Zeno the Stoick gave to a conceited young Fellow that had as little wit in his head as hair on his face and demanded his answer to things of which he was not able to understand the demand The Phylosopher made him set a Looking-glasse before him and then whispered in his ear The demand you make and the question you ask are worthy of this beard Your Wit in comparison of that of the Great Augustine is but as a Grashopper confronted to a Horse and do you pretend to couch the lance and hit the mark when he withdraws and presumes not to essay it Yea as it were slinging himself with that Phylosopher into the Sea and saying O abysse tu me cape quia te ipse non capio he an hundred times protesteth in his writings to know nothing and that he knew not how to know and goes on saying Nescio non erubesco consiteri me nescire quod nescio And how dare you open your mouth or exalt your voice to contradict and question that to which for this sixteen Ages the Pens of a world of Doctors the Blood of a world of Martyrs the consent of so many Nations the Testimony of so many Miracles have subscribed and ratified With the Rush-candle of your Dim understanding will you pretend to examine the light of the Sun Cannot the Wisedom of God your Master do as much with you as that of Pythagoras with his Scholars Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum nec inquisitione post Evangelium Others there are as vile as obstinate that swearing in verba magistri they take the Texts of some Ancient Phylosophers for Sacraments and his Sentences for Oracles and so far confesse Christ as he doth not contradict Aristotle or Plato Thus they hold the Gospel and Phylosophy in equilibrium in an equal poise of belief Quid Athenis Hierosolymis Quid Academiae Ecclesie Nostra institutio de porticu Solomonis Viderint qui Stoicum Platonicum Dialecticum Christianum prâ—tulerunt Even at this day the Church bewails and shall to the end of the World complain of the detriments done her by the prophane and idle Wit of the Age and by the Ancient Writers of the World Fathers of tenebrosity and Masters of millions of errours to whom she may confirm the Title conferred on them by Tertullian of Patriarchas Haereticorum How much mischief did Plato in the first Ages of the Church too much read too much believed and so made as the same Tertullian speaks Haeresum Condimentarium He instanceth passing by all the rest since that he alone serves for all in unfortunate Origen that of an Eagle which he had been accustomed to fix his eyes on the Sun of Christian Prudence and to draw thence lights of sublimest Truths was transformed into a Batt admiring a few glimmering rayes of light mixed with many umbrages of ignorance and errour and became so great a Platonick that he in the end ceased to be a Catholick losing the Truth in Fables and the Faith in Phylosophy and that same man whose breast had been kissed tamquam Spiritus Sancti coelestis sapientiae templum became Master of a School of Errours and Reader of the blind and so madly did he talk that as before Ubi benè nemo melius so after Ubi male nemo pejus What infinite mischief even at this day doth that Struendi destruendi artifex versipellis Aristotle believed the Authom of the mortality of the Soul which in one word is as much as to say Destroyer of the Faith and Father of those that live without the Souls of Men the life of Beasts How many of those whom he hath inchanted Qui niâ—il aliud quà m Aristotelem ructant hold only those points of Faith for certain that accord with the Oracles of Peripatus as if Religion were a Grain to be gathered out of the Chaff of humane Phylosophy and not a Bread of life descended from Heaven to the end that upon the tasting of its sweetnesse we might spit out the husks quâ—e medullam non habent nec possunt nutrire discentium populos sed de inanibus sti pulis conteruntur Those are Frogs saith Augustine Ranae damantes paludibus limâ—sis quae strepitum habere possient doctrinam verae sapientiae insinuare non possunt Now whilst the Heavens are open and you hear the Father from thence pointing with his finger to the Word his Son to say Ipsum audite will you lend one eye to Christ and the other to Aristotle or Plato Coelum tonat taâ—eant Ranâ— where Christ teacheth and in him Truth or rather he as Truth it self revealed Wisdome is dumbe and the Phylosophy of the World speechlesse phylosophia nostra Christus est SELF-DECEIT The folly of such as pretend to study little and know much IT is not the opinion of Hyppocrates only nor of Aristotle and Theophrastus but it is the common vogue and concordant complaint of all the World That heaven hath been sparing to us of that time whereof it hath been so prodigal to Stags
the vertue of their aspects and whether they derive their light from the Sun or have the fountain of it in themselves By what wayes the Planets move whence come the spots of the Moon and the causes of Eclipses If the Heavens be solid if the Sun be hot how the Rainbow is painted how the winds run through the air Who moveth the Sea with fluxes and re-fluxes who makes the earth to quake Quae nihil ad nos saith St. Ambrose quasi nihil profutura praeteriit He said only so much as sufficed to infuse into the judgment the fundamentals of Faith he dictated onely so much as was necessary to be known for the accomplishment of his Law the rest he omitted as if Marcescentis sapientiae vanitates And the Wisdom of the Father his living Word the great exemplar of all the Idea's came he in the School of a stable upon the chair of a Manger in the assembly of Oxen and Asses to teach in the silence of mid-night with the voice of his groanes the occult verities of humane Phylosophy Liv'd he in the Licëum a Professor of Learning a Maintainer of Disputes a Writer of Sciences Or yet did he discover the least letter that may be pronounced did he in this as said St. Augustin very finely make so much as Jotaunum which is the least letter yea or Unus apex that is lesse than the least of all the Letters He came its true to convince the Phylosophy of the Academi's and Licëum's of Ignorance and to make the Wisdom of the World to appear foolishness but he used not therefore sublimness of stile nor quaintnesse of pelligrine discourses With the simple word of his mouth Fecit latum de sputo using parables and a manner of speech not only vulgar but rude and with this restored sight to our but dim-sighted eyes And for Apostles the Legislators of the World the Oracles of true answers who did he elect who did he call The rude and ignorant taught with no other voices than of hoist the sailes weigh anchor make to shoare learnt them in the Mariners school Yet saith Theodoret with the Solecismes of these illitrates he confounded the Syllogismes of the Phylosophers Thus God honoured Sanctity without Learning by how much the purer by so much the fairer By how much the lesse exhal'd by speculations so much the more plentiful and abundant in affections He knows much yea knows all that knows no other than onely God He that knows not this howbeit he knows every thing else knows nothing whereupon according to Origen that bad Politician and worse Priest Caiphas spoke the truth to the Hebrew Senators sworn enemies of Christ Vos nescitis quidquam Verè enim nihil noverant qui Jesum veritatem ignorabant Lord give me the merits of so great a glory as that wherewith St. Gregory honoureth that good Monk Steven of whom he saith Erat hujus lingua rustica sed docta vita Lord teach me and discover to me thy self I desire to know no other and I will leave with the Samaritan the Well of humane Wisdom that springs from the earth and also the pitcher of desire of ever any more thirsting for it Hitherto I have spoken in others language not with my own and said that not which is absolutely true but which some preach as true some I say qui ad inscitiae praetextum faith Nazienzen in alleding themselves to be the disciples of Fishermen condemn the Sciences in others which they desire not or indeed rather know not how to have in themselves An Ecclesiastick that could read no other Books understand no other Phylosophy then that of his revenue and defended himself with this shield of the Apostle which saith Learning is a venom and pâ—st litter a enim occidit thus he interpreted that text moved Sir Thom as Moore either in derision or for his correction to write upon him this Epigram but in him alone to how many doth he speak Magna Pater clamas Occidit littera In ore Hoc unum Occidit littera semper habes Cavisti benè tu ne te ulla occidere poss it Littera Non ulla est littera nota tibi That Sancâ—ity without Learning is very precious and excellent there is none will deny That its better to be a holy man than a wise man who doubts but that it s not better to be a Saint and a Scholar than a Saint alone I know no man that can with reason question it To be as Christ said of the great Baptist Lucerna ardens lucens in whom the light is united with the fire and the heat with the splendor which is that very Perfectum of S. Bernard in whom both parts concurre Lucere ardere To have as the Holy Animals of Ezekiel Manus sub pennis namely the works of the hands and the desires of the mind To carry in the mouth as the Spouse the Hony combes cultivated by Heaven and of the Earth with the Honey of eternal life for himself and with the Wax tapers of Sciences Illuminators of others To unite as in the Ark the Law and the Manna as in Paradise the Tree of Life with that of Wisedom finally to Love and to Know is not this upon earth the type of the Beatitudes of Heaven is it not worthy to be the Throne of that great Monarch and God which sits upon the Cherubims and rides upon the Wings of the Wind One of the most signal honours God doth bestow upon his favourites is the gift of the Sciences For if by giving to Abraham one letter of his name he did him so extraordinary a favours Ut quemadmodum reges saith Chrysostome praefectis suis tabellas aureas tr adunt signum videlicet principatus sic Deus justo illi in honor is argumentum unam literam deder it What shall we say of him to whom Gods adds not onely a letter to the name but great Sciences to the mind making him the liker to himself the perfecter he is in understanding The Spouse craved nothing before this beginning the Canticles with demanding a kiss which was in effect to require that her Husband would be her Master and with his Love to give also Learning that in the union of the lips this in the impressions of the speech Petit osculum saith the Interpreter St. Bernard id est Spiritum Sanctum invocat per quem accipiat simul scientiae gustum gratiae condimentum Et benè scientiae quae in osculo datur cum amore recipitur quia amoris indicium osculum est Those that are thus priviledged are the â—ilii Lucis called as Beda interpreteth it by the illustrious name of Day in that place where the Prophet saith Dies Dei eructat verbum per diem enim accipimus limpidissimum lucidissimum ingenium ad divina contemplanda habentes And as according to the saying of St. Ambrose Ipse est Dies filius cui
the tempests of the Seas which it before all other ships did navigate came to take port in Heaven where now it s inriched with as many Stars as before it did carry Heroes Mari quod prima cucurrit Emeritum magnis mundum tenet acta procellis Servando Dea facta Deos. Thus after a thousand others in this last age Gallileus an Academick truly Lincean both for the eye of his wit and for that of his Perspective Tube with which he hath rendered the Commerce of Earth with the Heavens so familiar that the Stars which were before hid no longer disdain to appear and suffer themselves to be seen and those which were before seen discover to us not only their beauties but also their defects At the foot of the Sepulchre of this most acute Linx might be ingraven in lamentation that which the Poet in derision said of Argus Arge jaces quodque in tot lumina lumen habebas Extinctum est centumque oculos nox occupat una Thus Christopher Scheiner which from the motions of the Faculae and the Maculae of the Sun hath found by Astronomy and Phylosophy Coelestial Lights of so noble rare and authentick verity as are the double motion of the Sun that in the fashion of a Top firmly revolves in it self and on the Poles of his Axis that moving at the same instant in two Circles ordinately curve it whence ariseth the variety of appearances that the Spots therein make Moreover and besides the rational conjectures which are drawn from the conception birth increase return sometimes and decrease of the spots to define what is the substance and nature of the Sun it self VVherewith he hath so inrich't the VVorld with sublime experiments that if every age should afford the like few ages would suffice to make Astronomy as absolutely Mistris of the Heavens as at this day Geography is of almost all the Earth Macti ingenio este coeli Interpretes rerumque naturae capaces argumenti repertores quo Deos Hominesque vicistis VVorthies to whom as to that Ancient Meton that left as a legacy to posterity graven in a Column with lines of exact proportion the various course of the Sun should be erected as reward of eternal honour Statues with tongues gilded and underneath this inscription Ob divinas praedictiones VVorthies to whom Heaven should be given not as heretofore the Emperour Carolus Quintus gave only in picture the Stars of the Crosier a Constellation so called to Oviedus the Historian of the American affaires but it self for a reward and her Stars for a Crown And well do they deserve them Admovere oculis distantia sydera nostris Aethereaque Ingenio supposuere suo I have instanced only in these two that so I might not overpass all since I could not speak of all Only to us that succeed these ought that of Seneca to be inculcated that Agamus bonum patrem familiae Faciamus ampliora quae accipimus Major ista haereditas à me ad Posteros transeat Multum ad huc restat operis Multumque restabit nec ulli nato post mille secula praecluditur occasio aliquid adhuc adjiciendi I shall only add thus much that to become Inventors of new things we must not make our selves Masters of Novelties wandring without reason especially in things that are meerly Natural from those wayes which beaten already so many ages by the best wits of the VVorld have upon their Confines for such as passe them Temerity and Error Nor do as Diogenes going contrary to the current of all men as if we alone were the Sages we alone dived to the bottom of Heraclitus VVell to fetch up Truth Should we esteem of the Sun of the VVits of the VVorld not by the light of their greater knowledge of the truth but by our opposition to the course of all the World and could we say in a vaunt what Apollo spake by way of advice to his Son Phaēton Nitor in adversum neque me qui caetera vincit Impetus rapido contrarius evehor orbi we ought also from him to hear that without peril of precipitation we cannot deviate from those direct paths which trodden by the Chariot of the Light are made no lesse obvious than clear Hac sit iter manifesta rotae vestigia cernes That the Earth with an annual period revolves under the Ecliptick and with a daily motion turns from VVest to East That the Moon yea all the Planets no other but voluble Earth have inhabitants people of different nature That the World consists of infinite Masses or Chaoses and in its immense Vasts comprehendes innumerable VVorlds c. These are Opinions that some Moderns have fondly raised from their Graves calling them back the first from the Sepulchres of Cleanthes and Phylolaus the second of Pythagoras and of Heraclitus the third of Democritus and Methrodorus with whose death they had been so many ages buried in Silence and Oblivion This is not to inrich the World with new cognitions but with old errors nor to make ones self Master of those that follow us but Disciple of those that precede us with this remuneration that those very dreams of theirs which were not blindly received by the World shall in like manner sleep with us in our Sepulchres How we may honestly and commendably steal from others Writings BUt I find I have enterprized too difficult a task whilst I pretend to divert our thoughts from the taking feloniously from others with proposing to them both the obligation of enriching Learning with new inventions and the guerdon that in so doing we acquire Much better it were that I should teach That we may borrow with a good Conscience and not only without necessity of Restitution but also with the Merit of Commendation All the thefts of light made upon the wheels of Apollo's Chariot which are if I do not ill augurate the Books of the most celebrious Wits upon which Truth shines triumphs that condemn not the offender to the Rocks of Caucasus and the Eagle of Prometheus There is an impunity of taking provided we take not as the Moon from the Sun which when it most approches it and most replenisheth it self with his light in perfect Novi-lunii ingratefully eclipseth it but as he that in a Mirrour of pure Christal receiveth a Sun beam and with that doth not only not diminished it of light but rather renders it with the reflexion the more splendid and glorious Thus the Bee equally ingenious and discreet Candida circum Lilia funduntur But so innocent is their Rapine that without diminishing the odour without violating the beauty without breaking the pods of the Flowers they abundantly gather Wax and Hony for themselves and others The first way to Borrow with applause is to Imitate with Judgment He that is not a Giant of high stature let him climbe to the top of a great turret and thence inform himself of the
many other places of Augustine read his 111 Epistle where he saith His custome was not to adore the Authours but the Truth not their Sayings but Reason forsaking them where they forsook her Talis sum ego in scriptis aliorum concludes he the Epistle tales volo intellectores meorum On this ground the more Wise are perswaded before the publishing their writings to bring them to the rest and censure of a friend equally judicious and faithful that where they find them defective they may say to them as the Ancient Fencers to their scholars Repete but if only after their coming to publick light they be seen deficient they themselves may correct them retacting them as Painters which boast not their labours for works exactly perfect according to the rigour of Art but write underneath the Faciebat of Polycletus and Apelles Tanquam inchoata Arte perfecta ut contra judiciorum varietates superesset artisici regressus ad veniam velut emendaturo quidquid desideretur si non esset interceptus And of this the Great Hyppocrates gave an example who reputed it no shame to retract any thing which he had writ of the Sutures of the brain But for as much as either the Writer unlesse too late perceives not his errours of which unwittingly he makes himself Master printing them or is prevented by others in opportunely prescribing them an Antidote and giving them a reproof when that evenes he that is a prudent Judg and rational friend should not write to disgrace injure or irritate him for that is not his desire that as the Ancient Romans whilst they were wholly ignorant of the Mathemathicks regulated their publick actions by an irregular and lying Dial Non enim congruebant ad horas ejus liniae so his errours should be the rule of others understandings Nimis enim perversâ— seipsum amat said the Great Augustine qui alios vult errare ut error suus lateat Yea to be assisted in un-deceiving himself and which is more the World ought to be so much the dearer to every one by how much all are oblieged to love the Truth And hear in a few of his own words the sense that the same Augustine had of this A man I know not whether of greater ingenuity or modesty Non pigebit mesic ubi haesito quaerere sic ubi erro discere Proinde quisquis hac legit ubi pariter certus est pergat mecum ubi pariter haesitat quaerat mecuâ—â— Ubi errorem suum cognoscit redeat ad me ubi meum revocet me And this of which I have hitherto writ is the part of the modesty of him that writes Nor should it be lesse that of him that readeth Not betaking themselves to a profession of running only to errors of Writers to condemn them as Vultures to putrid Carcasses or Ravens to Carrion to devour them doing it moreover with as much liberty as if there were no possibility of their erring in noting the errors of others and yet the Aphorisme of Ambrose is most true Saepe in judicando majus est peccatum judicit quâ—m peccati illius de quo fuerat judicatum This is the discourteous manner of many Qui obtrectatione alienae Scientiae famam sibi aucupantur Ferulasque tristes sceptra Paedagogorum they hold a Censorious brow still advanced over the Authours they read to lash them they delighting no lesse thus to use the rod than others to graspe the Scepter Thence are born the so many Contests Apologies not to say the Duels and Tragoedies of a thousand Authours though of no ordinary judgment which in this kind of impertinency have thrown away much time and much sweat but to what purpose Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos This seems to me a matter not to be wholly past over with a coniving eye Take therefore about it some few advertisements First That a man that hath no more but a belly and a tongue as Antipater said of Demades should undertake to make himself the Triâ—r of the Golden Writings of worthy Men finding how much of purity and how much of dross they contein condemning what they understand not rejecting what they like not gnawing what they cannot bite That a sordid Woman instead of her Spindle should take a Pen and write against the Divine Theophrastus taxing him of ignorance and simplicity renewing the Ancient Monsters of Fable That a proud Omphale should condemn Great Hercules from a Club to a Distaffe from killing of Monsters to spinning That a Demosthenes Cook to Valens the Emperour as if the Kitchin had been a School of Wisedom and the Dishes Books should villifie the Theology of Great Basil and reject it as viands without salt and Sapience without savour That one Mr. Johan Ludovicus should pretend to draw the most Learned Augustine out of ignorance and presume Sus Minervam to teach the true form of Logick to that Great Augustine all Soul to that Ingenious Archimedes which against the enemies of Truth and Faith knew how to make as many thunder-bolts as he made arguments deducing his propositions from most manifest principles as rayes from the Sun and directing them in a Logical form to the mark of infallible consequences Is not this the same as to see Mures de cavernis exeuntes tilt with a straw at the brest of a Lion To see water-Frogs not only to muddy the water for Diana but to desire to ingrosse it solely and wholly to themselves To see Beasts with the horrid yelling of their discordant throats to affright and put to flight the Giants In beholding these and others of the like stamp expound blot out and correct the writings of Learned Men it brings to mind and sets before my eyes that indiscreet Asse which with teeth accustomed to Roots Shrubs and pungent tops of Thistles durst attempt to tear and devour all the Illiades of the Poet Homer to the greater disgrace and disaster of Troy as a Poet speaks in as much as heretofore a Horse more honourably now an Asse more sordidly destroyed it The Grecian Aristides died a man of Martial valour proved at more than one encounter died of poison taken from the wound of a certain little Animal that had stung him Death grieved not the Valiant Man but dying so dishonourably namely not torn by a Lion not bruised by an Elephant not dismembered by a Tyger but stung by an unlucky Fly The like in my judgment may be the resentment of those great Masters of the World seeing themselves stung reprehendâ—d condemned not by man excellent for Wit and Learning but by a Cook by a Woman by a Pedant For iâ— the Stars saith Cassiodorus seeing upon a Dial the immense periods of their light imitated and as it were mocked by the little motion of a shadow would be offended and in disdain confound Heaven and the World and would commence other motions other revolutions Meatus
to behold those alive which only are able to be Oedipus's to their Aenigma's Yea as once the Generous Macedon to a Forreign Messenger that brought him good News and before he exprest it in words intimated it by the joy in his face What now said he What News bringst thou Is Homer risen from the Dead This alone was the most welcome Intelligence that that great Emperor could receive which yet had a Soul and a desire adequate to the Monarchy of Infinite Worlds At this day also if we did ask a great part of the Wisest Men what thing they desired above the terms of ordinary we should hear them wish some that Plato might return to life and Aristotle some Hyppocrates and Gallen some Archimedes and Ptolomy some Homer and Virgil some Demosthenes and Cicero some Livius and Zenophon some Ulpian and Paulus some Chrysostome and Augustine Their lives were not in respect of the shortnesse of ours so long but that they were to short for the need the World hath of them Therefore the death of those is ever displeasing who cannot die without publick prejudice as also they would not have lived but for publick benefit Mihi autem saith the Consul Pliny very finely videtur acerba semper immatura mors eorum qui immortale aliquid parant Nam qui voluptatibns dediti quasi in diem vivunt vivendi causas quotidie siniunt qui verò posteros cogilant memoriam sui operibus extendunt his nulla mors non repentina est ut quae semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat These Suns of the World the rayes of whose sublime Sapience enliven the Sciences illuminate the Ages beautifie all the Earth merit they not in honour that place that the Light had in the first formation of things The Light was made by God worthy of the chief praise that he gave with his mouth to any work of his hands And that not so much because it is beautiful in it self as because every thing that it seeth it makes beautiful therefore Tantum sibi praejudicatorem potuit invenire a quo jure prima laudetur quoniam ipsa facit ut etiam caetera mundi membra digna sint laudibus This is the nature and these the merits of those that Seneca adoring the minute in which they were born kissing the earth on which they lived bewailing the hour in which they died calleth Praeceptores generis humani and if this be too little Deorum ritu colendos And why not would Vitruvius say Cum enim tanta munera ab Scriptorum prudentia fuerint hominibus praeparata non solum arbitror palmas coronas his tribui oportere sed etiam decerni triumphos inter Deorum sedes eos dedicandos OBSCURITY Ambition and Confusion two principles of Obscurity Affected and Natural WEre it not for the Opinion wholly against truth which anciently has so general credit with the vulgar That the fixed Stars were mothers and keepers of Souls and that every one whilst he lived had above in Heaven his of the first middle or greatest magnitude and splendor adjusted to the degrees of Fortune which rendered him more or lesse considerable on earth Certain Obscure Souls certain Chymmerian Minds whence would they be able to derive themselves but only from the nubilous and duske Stars that have so much light mixed with so much darknesse that they seem amongst their fellows rather Spots than Stars These are those unfortunate Aethiopian Soules that extract Obscurity from the Sun the Father of Clarity that learn confusion from Wisdom the Mother of Order From the fire of the Sacred Palace whereby the Wits become so much the more luminous by how much the more inflamed they take only the darknesse and blacknesse of Coals and rejecting the pupils of the Eagle for the eyes of a Bat esteem themselves more the Birds of Pallas when they be most Nocturnals In vain would Prudent Socrates experiment his wonted conjecture upon them that knowing the speech to be a lively Image of the Mind to come to the knowledg of what was in any one would say to him Loquere ut te videam Their speech their writing is as if one should design in plano certain Monstrous figures of Faces but so miscoloured and of features but so counterfeited that no eye can discern in them the lineaments of humane resemblances but only looking through a Cylinder of polished steel and seeing them by reflexion O Ingenuities unfortunately ingenious Dedalus's contrivers only of Labyrinths so crooked so confused that they themselves can scarce find Clues to dis-ingage them But all Obscurity is not of the self-same nature not hath all one only beginning and fountain For there is one made by Art and another had by Nature This being the defect of the Wit that the effect of Ambition the one worthy of compassion the other of reprehension It s a received opinion among the vulgar That all Obscurity is an Argument of Wit and the mark of the loftinesse of a great understanding to measure it self by it even as well as heretofore by the nine hundred Stadium's of shadow the Ancients found the height of the Summitie of Mount Atho◠That Nature hath given the Stars to the obscurity of the night and Wisedom to the obscurity of VVits That God himself in his Oracles is all Clouds and that the excessive Light in which he dwels in which he is seen hath the name of darknesse because it in such manner shews him that it in the same instant hides him That the style of the VVisest Ancients was no other whose sublime minds whose high conceited VVits as it were mountains with steep tops have their heads still amidst the Mysts and Clouds That their writings were so much securer from the Fisher the more they were obscured that they were so much the abler to discover Carbuncles and Diamonds the more palpable was the darknesse Thus the vulgar deluded by a false apparance of truth always most admire what they least understand The splendid the clear though profound stream of VVit because they reach it with their eye they esteem not one foot of muddy water because they cannot dive into the depth of it with their sight they judg to be an abysse of VVisdom So likewise in Learning Alba ligustra cadunt Vaccinia nigra leguntur Thereupon some take through their ambition of Wit an affectation of Obscurity and with the Art of not making themselves understood they seek to make themselves adored They transform themselves into more shapes than Proteus to get out of the hands of such as hold them that so they may not know what they are They invent more Hieroglyphicks than Egupt knew because therein they fancy a kernel of solid truth under a shell of feigned mystery Every one of their Periods is a Gordian knot that promiseth an Empire to him that unknits it They confound their words more then the leaves of Sybilla were disordered by the wind