Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	great_a	know_v	world_n	4,002	5	4.4108	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27209	A postscript to a book published last year entituled Considerations on Dr. Burnet's Theory of the earth	Beaumont, John, d. 1731.; Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715. Telluris theoria sacra.; Beaumont, John, d. 1731. Considerations on Dr. Burnet's Theory of the earth.	1694 (1694)	Wing B1622; ESTC R29033	4,551	9

of some Sciences and thinking it Shame to confess their Ignorance of any thing or seeking a Subterfuge or solacing themselves in their Want of knowledge make their Boast that those things they know not are but Trifles of little or no Use. But as Terence says It 's no wonder if a Whore acts impudently And are there not many Realities in Nature which cannot be brought under every Man's Apprehension A Man may talk long enough to a Person born blind of Light Colours and a Sun but he shall never make him frame a Conception of them You will say we are not Blind we have more Learning than your self and therefore you must not obtrude this on us Be it so you are more learned many Ways yet if a Child tells a blind Man that there is a Sun Light and Colours and the blind Man will not believe him the Child cannot but smile at him for it though the blind Man may have a sound Sense otherways and the Child is but a Child And I say there are many Truths in Nature which cannot be known but by Experience as all Masters of a Contemplative Life testifie and that the greatest Man of Parts in the World cannot apprehend them without having had a peculiar and practical Initiation for taking Knowledge of them according to what Zoroaster says in the Oracles Est quoddam intelligibile quod oportet te intelligere mentis flore by an esflorescent Excess of Mind The Lord Bacon tells us that the Magia Naturalis is a Setting of Forms a Work Now I would fain have any Man who has not seen an Operation in that kind to tell me if he can the Meaning of That but I know it impossible We read of Socrates that having perused the Works of Heraclitus he said what he understood of them was Excellent and therefore he believed that what he did not understand of them was so too And though I pretend not to any Excellency of Writing I hope what I have openly offered in my Considerations may be thought tolerably Plausible by indifferent Judges and if I leave a few Things Veil'd I think there may be no great Reason for Censure Some may object that if we give Way to Obscure Writing all Enthusiasm breaks in upon us and we know not how to distinguish betwixt the one and the other To this I can only say that if when a Man reasons Openly he reasons Soundly and Writes in a Free and Unaffected Manner I think it may be a rational Inducement for us to believe that though sometimes for Reasons known to himself he leaves some few Things in Mystery there may be some worthy Learning contained under them which he conceives not fit to be Openly explained So let any Man of Judgment read the Tract of Joannes Reuchlin De Verbo mirifico or his other Works and though in many Places he finds him involv'd in Mystery that he is not understood by him yet I believe by what he has Writ openly and his Way of Delivery the Reader will be convinc'd that he is no Muddy-brain'd Enthusiast using an affected Obscurity to beget Admiration in his Readers for his Seeming deep Reach into Mysteries to others unknown And so I may say of a multitude of others of the like kind Men whom a great Insight in the low Circumstances of human Life had made truly humble so that they could be no ways guilty of so poor a Vanity Having been thus far Explanatory in this Matter I shall little value any Man's Censure in such Cases Nay I shall be so far from dealing precariously with him for his favourable Opinion that I shall freely come wi●h him to this Unexceptionable Accommodation viz. That we laugh at each other by Consent and let him pass for the Idiot who laughs without Just Cause And I shall conclude with Bede who was Clamour'd and supercili●usly Censured by some Men of his Time for his searching into and writing on some Parts of Learning vulgarly not understood Nihil de Multitudine sed de Paucorum prolitate gloriantes Soli Veritati insudamus JOHN BEAUMONT Jun. I recommend the following Particulars to be inserted in their proper places in my Considerations on the Theory of the Earth BOOK 1. Chap. 1. Pag. 10. Lin. 20. after times read And hence as the preceding Age was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscure so this Age was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fabulous Ib. p. 11. in the last Line after Mind read And from hence sprung their Multiplicity of Gods according to the diversified Powers of Nature At the end of the said Chapter add the following Paragraph I shall conclude this Point concerning the Learning of the Antients with the Testimony of Averrhoes who as the Learned Fabricius tells ●s in h●s Zoroaster says in some part of his Works That Philosophy was in as great Perfection among the Antient Chaldeans as it was in the times of Aristotle Now the Testinony of this Man is the more to be valued because he was indisputably the soundest Reasoner and the most Learned among all the Arabians and a great Favourer as well as Folower of Aristotle he having writ Commentaries on his Works so that had he not been thoroughly convinc'd of the height of Philosophy among the Antient Chaldeans he would not have brought it in Competition with that in the Times of Aristotle So again the Learned Pierius concerning the Learning of the Antient Egyptians Constantissimâ famâ celebratum est Sacerdotes Aegyptios omnem Naturae obscuritatem adeo manifestè sibi cognitam professos ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traditam disciplinam haereditariam possiderent Chap. 4. p. 15. l. 7. after conceiving add And as for any other meaning in it they would say with Trismegistus in his Minerva Mundi Minime posteris credenda Fabula putetur esse Chaos I have thought on many other Additions and Amendments but I want Room to insert them here FINIS LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers Hall 1694 De Elem. Philos. 1. 2. in proaem In Ep. Comment hierog praemissâ

A POSTSCRIPT TO A BOOK Published the Last Year ENTITULED CONSIDERATIONS ON Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth MANY Persons since the publishing my Considerations on Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth having used Cavillations against some parts of them viz. where I seem to leave some things in Mystery which they will needs have to proceed from Enthusiasm Some having done this in my Presence and Others where I have not been present as I have been Inform'd by many Friends I have thought fit by printing this Paper to bring the Matter above Board and to see what may be said in the Case and try whether we cannot sound the Depths of these Mens Thoughts as they take upon them to judge others To disswade a Man from leaving any thing he writes or discourses on in Mystery I remembred to have read an Ingenious Writer of Politick Essays who says That a man renders himself as lyable to Censure by offering to maintain a Mysterious Truth as an open Falsehood and therefore he disswades Men by all means from meddling in Mysteries I remembred also that Ecclesiastical Maxim of Melancthon Solent homines aut odisse aut superlè contemnere quae non intelligunt I called to mind the old Tricks both of Aesop's Fox which cried out that the Grapes were sour which were out of his Reach and of his ill natur'd Curr in the Manger which would not permit the Horse to ear Oats when he cared not to eat them himself I remembred likewise those wretches mentioned in the Scriptures who damm'd up Isaac's Wells and would not permit him to draw Waters for his Use though themselves made no use of them Moses does not say if the Paschal Lamb cannot be eaten by your self it must presently be burnt but first call in your Neighbour and if he cannot eat it then let it be committed to the Fire And as for some things which may seem obscurely intimated in my Work I well know there are many Men in the World who will fully apprehend what they import but if all do not I cannot help it Are there not Tacenda on many Accounts in the common Practice of Life And why may there not be in some parts of Learning It 's known that the greatest Writers among Mankind have left a great Part of what they have writ wrapt up in Enigma's or however they have otherwise exprest themselves it 's intelligible only to a few Are Roger Bacon Picus Mirandula Joannes Trithemius Cornelius Agrippa Joannes Reuchlin our Dr. Dee any of the whole Tribe of Hermetick Philosophers or any Masters of a Contemplative Life among the Jews Gentiles or Christians I say are any of these open in all things they write so that every Man acquainted in Common School Learning or any Man acquainted in no more understands them Or have the Writers of the Scriptures or Christ himself thought fit still to be open to every Man's Capacity Because in the first Chapter of my Considerations I mention a Promethean Arcanum Astrologicum and a Seven Reed Pipe of Pan. without a farther Explanation some will needs have This to be Enthusiasm Now as for the Promethean Arcanum Astrologicum Prometheus is known to have been Famous for some notable Skill he had in Astrology as a School-Boy may read in any Mythologist And the Assyrians are known to have been the most Famous of any Men in the World for Astrology and their most Ancient Astronomical Observations which Sciences they are said to have first learnt of Prometheus And there are many Men living in the World who know themselves to have been touch'd by the Rod of Prometheus or of some Priest of Apollo touch before at the Chariot of the Sun whereby They are become animated with a lively and penetrating Aetherial Spirit whereas before they were as Lumps of Clay conversant only with the outside Barks of things And in Réference to this Men may remember the Epitaph of the Antient Poet Colophonius Phoenix on Ninus where reflecting on him for his giving himself wholly over to the Vanities and Pleasures of this Life among other things he says thus of him Astra nunquam vidit nec forsitan id optavit Ignem apud Magos sacrum non excitavit Deum nec virgis attigit c. It 's of this Fire of the Magi that Zoroaster speaks in the Oracles Quando videris Ignem Sacrum forma sine Collucentem totius per profundum Mundi Audi Ignis Vocem And I know Men in our Nation who have seen this Fire and hearkned with Dread to the Voice of it And even in the Temple of Jerusalem as in the Holy Place on the North side stood on a Table the Twelve Loaves of Shewbread denoting as Josephus tells us the Twelve Signs of the Zodiack and having a Crown of Gold about them said by the Jews to denote the Crown of the Kingdom So on the South side of it there stood the Candlestick with Seven Lamps denoting the Seven Planets six of which were turned bending towards the Lamp in the middle and that towards the Sanctum Sanctorum where the Mystery lay And how far this may relate to some Astrological Arcanum I shall leave it to Men acquainted in an apt dispensation of Types and to those Masters of a contemplative Life who have pass'd Proficients in the most sublime Science of Mystical Divinity As to the Seven Reed Pipe of Pan a Man that knows any thing of Hieroglyphical Philosophy knows that Pan is always drawn with a Pipe of Seven Reeds and that those Seven Reeds denote the Seven Planets And certainly Virgil had heard this Pipe and could play upon it himself when in the Person of Corydon he said to Alexis Est mihi disparibus septem compacta Cicutis Fistula Having said before to him Mecum unà in Sylvis imitabere Pana canendo And why must it be expected that I should be more explanatory concerning this Pipe than Virgil Indeed I make no doubt but there have been and are still many Men in the World who through an affected Sublimity in Writing or a Vanity of seeming Knowing in what others are not have often been sinking themselves in Mystery where in truth there is no Bottom And again on the other hand I am as well satisfied that there have been and are still many Men in the World who being deeply sick of a Philautian Arrogancy to keep up their Repute for Learning among the Vulgar have gone about to perswade them that there is nothing valuable in Learning forsooth but what is known to their Learned Selves though in truth there are Parts of Learning of far greater Excellency than any they ever came acquainted withal If a meer Grammarian having his Boys about him should hear one Logician say to another that a Syllogism contains a majus extremum a minus extremum and a medium to make himself seem somebody among his Boys he may say that this is but Cant Ostentation and Enthusiasm For there are Men who knowing nothing