lastly all of us are to passe a tedious and troublesome life which breaketh and afflicteth the spirit as SOLOMON witnesseth so that all have great need of preservatives against vanity and refreshings in their wearinesse which helps can no where be found but in the possession of true wisdome We therefore desire and entreat that learning may not any longer be confined to the Latine tongue and imprisoned in Schooles as hath hitherto beene practised to the great prejudice and contempt both of vulgar people and languages but that it may be communicated unto all Nations in their owne languages that all men may have occasion of exercising themselves in such honest and good things rather then as is commonly used to weary out themselves with the cares of this life with ambition drunkennesse and other like vaine courses and so to mispend and lose both their parts and lives By this meanes also languages themselves will be polished as well as the Arts and Sciences To which ends we our selves intend also if God so please to publish these our endeavours both in the Latine and in our native tongue For no man lighteth a candle to put it under a bushell but on a candlesticke that it may give light unto all that are in the house as Christ saith Matth. 5. 25. And what profit is there in Wisdome which is hid and treasure which is hoarded up Ecclesiastious 20. 30. Those therefore that bend their studies to the seeking of Wisdome ought to make it their endeavour that they may herein follow the steps of Wisdome which saith Behold that I have not laboured for my selfe onely but for all them that seeke Wisdome And upon this ground we have somewhat altered our title from that which was in our former work calling this a Gate rather then a Dore. It was enough that we called our entrance into the Latine tongue a Dore in this matter the word Gate seemes to drive more neerely at our intentions For one by one enters in at a Dore but whole troupes through a Gate A Dore is shut as every one is entred in but Gates in peaceable Cities stand alwayes open And so the study of the Latine tongue which we first endeavoured to open is peculiar unto some few but the desire of Wisdome is common unto all mankind Those that will or are necessitated thereto enter in there but it is the duty of all men living to come in hither as we have already made it cleare Therefore let it be an open and wide Gate which leades unto Wisdome Grant O Lord that we may on earth see some resemblance of that which thou hast foretold shall be in thy heavenly Jerusalem that the Gates of it may not at all bee shut by day and there may be no more night there Revel 21. v. 25. Amen A DILVCIDATION ANSWERING CERTAINE OBIECTIONS MADE AGAINST THE ENDEAVOVRS AND Means of REFORMATION in Common Learning expressed in the foregoing Discourse By Mr. IOHN AMOS COMENIUS JOH 3. 20 21. Every one that doth evill hateth the light neither commeth to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth truth commeth to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God LONDON Printed for MICHAEL SPARKE senior at the Blew Bible in Greene Arbor 1642. TO THE IVDICIOVS AND LEARNED READERS LOVERS of Truth and Light and Survayers of this DESIGNE All true happinesse in CHRIST our Truth and Light IT was a discreet and wise discourse which the mother of those seven brethren Martyrs 2 Maccab. 7. 22 23. used to them I cannot tell how you came into my wombe for I neither gave you breath nor life neither was it I that formed the Members of every one of you But the Creator of the world who formed the generation of man and found out the beginning of all things The like may they say of the off-spring of their minds who out of a pious disposition to God offer up and sacrifice themselves and their endeavours to him to wit that themselves are not the Authours of those things which succeed well but that it is God who hath found out all the way of knowledge and hath given it by what instruments soever unto Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved as Baruch saith Chap. 3. Vers 36. And God himselfe ascribeth to himselfe the bestowing and conferring of wisedome for the performance of his owne commands Exod. 31. 6. Now God commands not onely when he speakes from heaven and expressely declares what hee will have done as he did to the Prophets but also when inwardly he enlightens the mind or outwardly ministers and presents occasions of action 1 King 17. 4 9. such as may be easily observed by any one who will but carefully heed and note the footsteps and guidance of Divine Providence in things both great and small My selfe though the least of all am not without some experience of the effectuall concurrence and sweete disposition of all things by that admirable wisedome of our God That wee must needs confesse every usefull apprehension or invention to proceed from God and not from our selves and thereupon we may solace our selves though malice rage and teare both us and our issue which we have consecrated to God because it is not chiefly our but Gods cause that is in agitation Not many yeares since occasion was offered mee by Gods providence to compose a worke for direction in teaching the Latine tongue as other languages also more compendiously according to the true series and order of Things which by the perswasion of my friends and approbation of superiours I published under the Title of Linguarum janua following therein the example of the Irish Fathers of the Colledge of Salamanca in Spaine who first gave mee the hint thereof which being commonly received into Schooles with great applause incouraged mee to intend my thoughts for the framing of a Janua rerum an entrance to the knowledge of things themselves For I thought it not enough to teach what is called white blacke hot cold a plant a man an Angell Heaven God Christ c. there is more need of teaching what those things are that the understanding may be rather acquainted with the essence of things than with their names which when I had assayed by some small endeavours I was easily invited to the hope of a prosperous successe of them In the meane while D. PETER LAURENBERG sets out under the Title of Pansophia an Encyclopaedia or generall comprehension of all the arts which having viewed with great desire and expectation and not finding it answerable to the amplenesse of the title for nothing was therein contained of the object and fountaine of true wisedome which is Christ nothing of the life to come and the way thereto c. wherein to be wise is wisedome indeed I thought it a fit occasion to supply what was there wanting that whatsoever is fit to be taught and learned in Christian Schooles
to be threefold 1. The tearing of Sciences into peeces 2. Want of due fitting of the method unto the things themselves 3. The carelesnesse and extravagancies of expressions and stile For first I professe seriously that as yet in all the bookes that ever I saw I could never find any thing answerable unto the amplitude of things or which would fetch in the whole universality of them within its compasse whatsoever some Encyclopaedias or Syntaxes or books of Pansophy have pretended to in their titles Much lesse could I ever see the whole provision of humane understanding so raised upon its certain and eternal principles that all things were chained and linked together from the beginning to the end without any rent or chink of truth And perhaps no man ever aimed hereat as yet so to square and proportion the universall principles of things that they might be the certain limits to bound in that every-way-streaming variety of things that so invincible and unchangeable Truth might discover its universall and proportionate harmony in all things I say no man ever yet seemes to have intended to cleare any universall way for the knowledge of Truth with the helpe of those universall principles and according to the true lawes of deductions even to the last conclusions Metaphysitians sing a requiem to themselves Naturalists applaud themselves Moralists make their owne lawes and Politicians fix their owne grounds Mathematicians have their triumphant Chariot and Divines their over-ruling throne every one in severall by themselves Yea in every faculty or Science almost every man laies his particular grounds and principles whereupon to build and fasten his particular opinions not regarding what others have deduced from theirs But it is impossible that Truth so scattered and obscured should be this way raked up together For while every one followes his owne fancie in this manner there is as much hope of agreement as there is in a company of Musicians when every one sings his severall song without respect of common time or melody and who would beleeve a Common-wealth to be well ordered wherein there are no publique lawes established but every one liveth as he listeth We see the boughs of a tree will quickly wither and die except they receive nourishment from the common stocke and roots and can the faire branches of Wisdome be thus rent and torne in sunder with safety of their life that is their truth Can any man be a good Naturalist that is not seene in the Metaphysicks or a good Moralist who is not a Naturalist at least in the knowledge of humane nature or a Logician who is ignorant of reall Sciences or a Divine a Lawyer or Physician that is no Philosopher or an Oratour or Poet who is not accomplished with them all He deprives himselfe of hands and eyes and rules that neglecteth or rejecteth any thing which may be knowne Astronomers for example sake would never have had the faces to introduce and maintaine such contrary and absurd hypotheses or positions if they had been to raise them upon the same ground of Truth neither would other things be or at least seeme to be so slippery and uncertaine For the common fate of all learning is this that whosoever delivers it others will take the paines to demolish it or at least to lay it bare Plato's philosophy seemed most elegant and divine but the Peripateticks accused it of too much vaine speculation And Aristotle thought his Philosophy compleat and trimme enough but Christian Philosophers have found it neither agreeing with the holy Scriptures nor answerable enough to the Truth of things Astronomers for many ages carried away the bell with their Spheres Eccentricks and Epicycles but Copernicus explodes them all Copernicus himselfe framed a new and plausible Astronomy out of his Optick grounds but such as will no way be admitted by the unmovable principles of naturall Truth Gilbertus being carried away with the speculation of the Loadstone would out of it have deduced all Philosophy but to the manifest injury of naturall principles Campanella triumphs almost in the principles of the ancient Philosopher Parmenides which he had reassumed to himselfe in his naturall Philosophy but is quite confounded by one Optick glasse of Galilaeus Galilaei And why should we reckon any more Truly if every one would ground their judgements upon the same common principles it could not be that they should rush into such contradictions not onely to the hinderance of their hearers but even to the detriment of Truth which for the most part in such contentions falleth to the ground For when needles obscure and ambiguous things are propounded they cannot but breed distast and thwarting in the minds of those that heare them And when for the gaining of their assents principles are assumed whatsoever trash they be which are neither knowne nor yeelded nor of undoubted truth but rather obnoxious to severall limitations and exceptions of which sort are most of the Canons of common Philosophy and Divinity what can ensue from hence but most tedious contradictions and contentions that a man would be weary to heare such doubts and differences in things perhaps cleare enough of themselves Another course therfore must herein be taken care must be had that Truth approaching us in a most cleare light may not be mired in doubts nor wounded with contradictions but may over come all errours which we think cannot be effected unlesse the beames therof dispersed over all things be united into one that so there may be one and the same symmetry of all things both sensuall intellectuall revealed Now this we cannot behold without a perfect squaring and unseparable consolidation of the principles of knowledge Sense Reason and Divine Revelation which alone will make it to appeare and consequently put an end unto those many controversies For upon the discovery of the ground of things necessarily will follow either the manifestation of an errour in one part of an opposition or else that each part perhaps both thinketh and speaketh true though they understand not one another in regard of the divers respects and considerations of things the ground whereof they doe not yet perceive Certainely those errours which on every side besiege mens minds may this way be subdued and their minds brought into the open light or no way else For it must needs be that the bright Sunne of Truth arising infinite mists and clouds of opinions will vanish of themselves yea and by Gods help the very darknesse of Atheisme it selfe may at length be dispatched away 2. The second cause why Truth is so staggering and uncertaine I before declared to be the loosenesse of Method that Writers doe not wholly tie themselves unto the things themselves to deliver them as they are constantly in themselves but rather draw them unto some trimme and neat conceits of their owne to expresse them by abusing them a thousand wayes which is nothing else but to wrest and transfigure things from their native into strange formes
would be the meanes to heale up those wounds in Schooles Churches and Common-wealths and to restore peace to the Christian world that not onely all Christian nations might flourish in the studies of true Wisdome and Piety but even Infidels themselves might partake of the same light and be won to the embracing of Christianity in this divinely revealed way of Truth And so at last we should see what Gods sacred Oracles have foretold shall at length come to passe that the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea Isa 11. 9. And that the Lord shall be King over all the Earth and there shall be but one Lord and his name one Zach 14. 9. And that the way of SION shall be so plaine that even fooles shall not erre therein Isa 35. 8. Which is the same that another Prophet hath foretold That in the last dayes the mountaine of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountaines and it shall be exalted above the hils and people shall flow unto it And many Nations shall come and say Come and let us goe up to the mountaine of the Lord that he may teach us of his wayes And afterward And they shall beate their Swords into Plough-shares and Speares into Pruning-hookes Nation shall not lift up a Sword against Nation neither shall they learne warre any more Micah 4. 1. Take pity upon us O Lord and let thy peace rest upon Jerusalem Let thy glory arise over us that the Nations may walke in thy light But may such things be hoped for Certainely we must not despaire of them if this guide and director of humane understanding be once framed whereby mens minds may be infallibly led by continuall degrees and in open light from the groundworks and fundamentalls unto the highest tops of things For if wee come once by this meanes to behold the Theater of Gods wisedome mens minds cannot but be filled with joy and gladnesse so that they will call one unto another Come and let us goe up to the mountaine of the Lord that he may teach us of his wayes Now that such a Director or perfect method of Pansophie is not to be despaired of we have these perswasions First although things may seeme infinite and innumerable in respect of their multitude not to be measured in regard of their divers disproportions and unsearchable by reason of that depth wherein Truth is plunged Yet it is most certaine that all things are beneath man and subject to his understanding For all things are made for his sake but in an inferiour degree hee therefore being the last accomplishment of the creation and the most absolute Image of his Creator containing in himselfe onely the perfections of all other things why should he not at last habituate himselfe to the contemplation of himselfe and all things else For seeing God hath appointed him to be a spectator of his wisedome it is most certaine that he hath made him suitable to that e d which would not be if he had made either Things unproportionable to his understanding or his understanding uncapable of the Things It may then be cōcluded that God alone is great over all and his greatnesse is unsearchable Psal 145. 3. all things else are made in number weight and measure Wisd 11. 20. Isay 40. 12. They are therefore to be numbred measured weighed untill this universall harmony do clea ly appeare unto us Secondly God hath made all things well as the Scripture saith but every thing in his time that is by degrees Is it then in vaine that God hath set the world in mens hearts that is a desire to find out those things which he worketh from the beginning to the end Eccles 3. 11. It would be in vaine if that desire could not obtaine its end But we must not ascribe any frustraneous actions unto that Soveraigne wisedome Thirdly wee have already great store of provision hereto those bookes and monuments of mens diligence compiled with great care and industry Can we thinke that all these have done nothing That cannot be in regard as I have shewed already of the supreme governour of all things who will not suffer any thing even errours themselves to be in vaine Let us grant therefore that they have erred and beene deceived in most things yet God who is the eternall and unchangeable foundation of Truth will surely order the matter so that even errours themselves will at last perforce be made subservient to the farther discovering and establishing of Truth Now it is manifest that many things are already found out and why should we not hope that the rest will follow It it no small matter that Euclides Archimedes and others have brought the knowledge of Quantities to such evidence and perfection that even miracles may be effected by numbers measures and weights It is not a thing of nothing that Hermeticall Physitians and others have by meanes of Chymistry found how to extract the qualities out of naturall bodies and to separate even the very essences of things It is a matter of moment which the Lord VERULAM hath effected in his excellent Novum Organum where he shewes the infallible way of making a narrow search into the natures of things and that which JUNGIUS the Saxon is now about who laboureth to bring the Art of Logicke to such perfection that the truth of propositions may be upheld and all fallacies avoided with as much certainty as any of EUCLIDES's Problemes can be demonstrated Why should I adde any more as one pinne drives out another so doth one invention thrust another forward especially in this age so fruitfull of wits and why should wee not hope for some invention of inventions whereby the severall inventions and endeavours of so many wits may not onely in their matter but even in their manner of discovery be united into one and made common to mankind It would surely be an excellent thing For if every one hath formerly had his owne sharpnesse of wit his owne rules of proceeding and his owne weights of judgement what might not be effected if all these wits were united into one their lawes into one and their judgements into one The more candles the greater light If only the way be found out how all these lights may be united into one that is how those divers and infinite devises inventions and knowne truths may be reduced unto one perpetuall immutable and eternall rule and manner of inventing knowing and devising For if this be found out that which we seeke for is easily obtained And why may it not be found out we are already possessed of more than a contemptible store of knowne truths and for our farther progresse we are provided of such light of method as wee need not feare walking in the darke Onely let us presse forward unto the utmost bounds of Method and of things themselves For where there is a progresse there will at
because he neither can nor will doe otherwise he cannot because he can behold nothing but himselfe in his infinite eternity whence then should he borrow either the beginning or rule of his works Neither will he for seeing he is most perfect he can will nothing but that which is most perfect now nothing can be said to be most perfect but that one onely eternall and perfect good which is himselfe If any man say that God did take liberty to himselfe to thinke of other rules for the forming of things I aske then to what end he did so If God doe nothing in vaine now in his ordinary concurrence with Nature why should he be thought to have done so at the beginning why should he bethinke himselfe of any other way when himselfe was the most infinite patterne of all perfection Was it that he might conceale his owne Majesty No for it was his owne good purpose to display it visibly Rom. 1. 20. Was it that he might manifest the depth of his wisdome by that looking off from himselfe Neither for this would prove a diminution of the fulnesse of his glory if he could find out any perfection which was not in himselfe which is impossible Therefore it is most certaine that both the creatures and their Idea's have issued from this one fountaine And seeing that among the creatures every agent naturally labours to assimilate its object unto it selfe why should we not acknowledge the same in God who hath imprinted this property in the creatures especially seeing God can find nothing fit to be the end of his works but himselfe Therefore we conclude that God takes from himselfe the rule of his workes as well at the end of them and power to effect them the matter onely whereof the creatures are compos'd and wherein they differ chiefely from their Creator he takes out of nothing 9. God therefore in framing of the world figureth out himselfe so as the creature is wholly proportioned to the Creator Even as the impression answereth alwayes to the stamp although sometimes it be more sometimes lesse evident whence arise divers degrees of this proportion So the Sonne of God is called the expresse image of his Father Heb. 1. 3. And yet man is said to be made after the image of God Gen. 1. 26. 1 Cor. 11. 6. Yea and all other things are said to resemble him in some sort for it is said that the invisible things of God are seene from the beginning of the world in those things which are made Rom. 1. 20. and that in the greatnesse and beauty of created things their Creator may be proportionably knowne Wisd 13. 5. And hereupon it was that the Gentiles entitled Nature not onely the Daughter of God but said that its selfe was God Nature is nothing else saith SENECA but God and divine Law implanted in the whole world and all its parts de Benef. 4. c. 7. 10. And because all things are partakers of divine Ideas hence also it comes to passe that they partake one of another and are proportioned one to the other For those things that agree in any third thing agree among themselves 11. Therefore the conceptions of all things are the same nor is there any difference but in the manner of their existence because in God they are as in their Originall in Nature as in the Coppy in Art as in the counterfeit Even as in a Seale the form is one and the same which is first conceived in the mind of him that graves it or commands it to be graven then as it is engraven in metall and lastly as it is stamped upon wax For although it be threefold yet it is the same because the second is formed by the first the third by the second each of them after the resemblance of that which is next before it in order So these Ideas being first conceived in God imprint their likenesse in the creatures and likewise the reasonable creatures in things which they themselves effect 12. Therefore the ground as of the framing so of the knowledge of all things is Harmony That which the Musicians call harmony is a sweet consonancie of diverstones the like exact agreement is to be found in the eternall perfections of God with those which are created in Nature and those which are expressed in Art for each of them is harmonious in it selfe as also in mutuall respect one to the other Nature is the image of divine Harmony and Art of Nature 13. The first thing required in Harmony is that there he nothing dissonant Musical Harmony is composed of most different contrary tones and yet there is a certaine consonancie to be found in their contrariety So the whole world is composed of contraries because without them the Truth and order essence of the world would fall as also the Scripture containeth many things in it which seeme to oppose one another all which notwithstanding have a perfect agreement in themselves and so are to be disposed in our understandings towards a perfect Harmony that so there may bee an universall consent as in Divine so in humane workes and words all seeming dissonancies vanishing of themselves The want of the understanding of this mystery is the reason that Philosophers and Divines doe picke out of Nature and Scripture one this thing another that opposing Nature to Nature Scripture to Scripture and thereupon drawing out contrary senses fall into contentions and differences among themselves which thing cannot chuse but vanish of it selfe if once the light of this universall Harmony doe but appeare For Truth is one and every way agreeing with it selfe 14. The second thing required in Harmony is that all things have a perfect consonancie and agreement It is manifest both in naturall and artificiall things that all are framed according to Harmony So in a beast a tree a musicall instrument a ship a booke an house all the parts are necessarily proportionate as to the whole so to one another But some men may make a question whether divine things have any proportion with things naturall and artificiall for it may be thought that it best becomes the divine Majesty to have nothing common with the creatures But we must observe that whatsoever is to be found in the counterfeit is first and by way of excellencie in the patterne so the river proceeds from the fountaine the shadow from the body and the image in a glasse from the thing it represents Againe if the workes of nature are so absolute and exact that there is no place left for new additions thereunto as GALEN confesseth lib. 6. de usu part cap. 1. and if the nature of Nature be unchangeable and unalterable as TERTULLIAN witnesseth against Valent. cap. 9. 29. what then is Nature but a lively image of him in whom all things are first and by way of excellencie good perfect and unchangeable Lastly in the Scripture God attributes to himselfe eares eyes a mouth hands