or on the Theorbo Observation 20. Pag. 28 29. In the former page you could not part till you had made God and Nature mysteriously kisse In this you metamorphize Mercury and Sulphur into two Virgins and make the Sun to have more Wives then ever Solomon had Concubines Every Star must have in it Vxor Solis But what will become of this rare conceit of yours if the Stars themselves prove Suns And men far more learned then your self are very inclinable to think so But now he has fancied so many Wives he falls presently upon copulation helter skelter and things done in private betwixt Males and Females c. Verily Anthroposophus if you had but the patience to consider your own Book seriously and examine what Philosophick truth you have all this while delivered since your contemning of Aristotle's definition of Nature Form and Soul you shall find in stead of his sober description from the proper operations and effects of things nothing but a dance of foolish and lascivious words almost every page being hung with Lawns and Tiffanies and such like Tapestry with black Shadowing hoods white Aprons and Peticoats and I know not what And this must be a sober and severe Tractate of Anima Abscondita As if the Soul were dressed in womans apparell the better to be concealed and to make an escape And to as much purpose is your heaps of liquorsome Metaphors of Kissing of Coition of ejection of Seed of Virgins of Wives of Love-whispers and of silent Embraces and your Magicians Sun and Moon those two Universall Peers Male and Female King and Queen Regents alwayes young and never old what is all this but a mere Morris-dance and May-game of words that signifie nothing but that you are young Anthroposophus and very sportfull and yet not so young but that you are marriageable and want a good wife that your sense may be as busie as your fancy about such things as those and so peradventure in due time the extravagancy of your heat being spent you may become more sober Observation 21. Pag. 30. Lin. 8. It is light onely that can be truly multiplyed But if you tell us not what this light is we are stil but in the dark I doe not mean whether Light be a Virgin or a Wife or whose Wife or what clothes she wears Tiffanies or Cobweblawns but in proper words what the virtue and nature of it is Whether Corpus or Spiritus Substance or Accident c. But Anthroposophus you doe not desire at all to be understood but please your self onely to rant it in words which can procure you nothing but the admiration of fools If you can indeed doe any thing more then another man or can by sound reason make good any more truth to the World then another man can then it is something if not it is a meer noise and buzze for children to listen after SECT III. 22. Certain notable Quotations of Eugenius his out of Scripture and other writers 23 He presages what ill acceptance his high mysteries will have with the School-Divines 24. He acknowledges the Scriptures obscure and mystical 25. Some Philosophers that have attain'd to the Ternarius could not for all that obtain the perfect Medicine there being but six Atuhors he ever met with that understood that mystery fully 26. That this Medicine transformes the body into a glorified state and that the material parts are never seen more The divine Spirit swallowing them into Invisibility 27. He complains how ready the world will be to boy him out of countenance for his presumption in so high mysteries especialy the reverend Doctors who he says sustain their gravity on these two crutches pretended Sanctity and a Beard 28. He advises us not to tamper with this Theomagical Medicine rashly 29. Adding a monition out of the Poet. 30. That the Spirit whereby a man becomes magically wise a lawful worker of miracles is the Christian Philosophers stone and the white stone 31. He entreats the Reader not to mistake him as if he had as yet attain'd to this stone because God is no debtor of his 32. He only affirmes himself to be an Indicatour of it to others as a Mercury to a traveller on the way 33. And that if you could show him one good Christian capable of the secret he would show him an infallible way to come by it Observation 22. Pag. 31. FRom this 31 page to the 41 you have indeed set down the most couragious and triumphant testimonies and of the highest and most concerning truth that belongs to the soul of man the attainment whereof is as much beyond the Philosophers stone as a Diamond is beyond a peble stone But the way to this mystery lies in a very few words which is a peremptory persistent unraveling releasing of the Soul by the power of God from all touch and sense of sin and corruption Which every man by how much the more he makes it his sincere aim by so much the more wise and discreet he will appear and will be most able to judge what is sound and what is flatuous But to deal plainly with you my Philalethes I have just cause to suspect that there is more wind then truth as yet in your writings And that it is neither from reason nor from experience that yon seem to turn your face this way but high things and fiery and sonorous expressions of them in Authors being sutable to your Youthfulnesse and Poetical phansie you swagger and take on presently as if because you have the same measure of heat you were of the same fraternity with the highest Theomagicians in the World Like as in the story where the Apples Horsdung were caryed down together in the same stream the Fragments of Horsdung cryed out Nos poma natamus Pardon the homelyness of the comparison But you that have flung so much dirt upon Aristotle and the two famous Universities it is not so unjust if you be a little pelted with dung your self Observation 23. Pag. 42. Lin. 12. I know some illiterate School-Divines c. He cannot be content to say any thing that he thinks is magnificently spoken but he must needs trample upon some or other by way of triumph and ostentation one while clubbing of Aristotle another while so pricking the Schoolmen and provoking the Orthodoxe Divines that he conceits they will all run upon him at once as the Iews upon the young Martyr St. Steven and stone him for his strange mysteries of his Theomagick stone Truly Anthroposophus there are some good things fall from you in your own style and many cited out of considerable Authors but you do so soil and bemar all with your juvenile immoralities and Phantastries that you lose as much in the one a you get in the other Observation 24. Pag. 44. Lin. 4. The Scripture is obscure and mystical c. And therefore say I Philalethes a very uncertain foundation to build a Philosophy on but
of the Devil yet because it is not alwayes so and that it does very seldome plainly appear that there is any thing more of either Devil or Vitiosity in the Enthusiast then in others saving what his meer Complexion leads him to I think it is said he more safe to leave those Considerations out their causality being more lax and generall then to be appropriated to Enthusiasme and it being farre more laudable in my judgement and allowable to let the guilty go free especially in matters of this nature then to endanger the innocent Thus Reader thou seest how thou art beholden to Mastix as well for what is judiciously left out as what is fitly and usefully taken in to the following Discourse For I must confesse that in the unridling of this Riddle of Enthusiasme I have wholly plowed with his Heifer which having told thee I shall now dismisse thee being unwilling any longer to detain thee from the reaping of the harvest of my Labours Philophilus Parresiastes The Contents of the ensuing Discourse 1. THe great Vse and necessity of discovering the imposture of Enthusiasme 2. What Inspiration is and what Enthusiasme 3. A search of the Causes of Enthusiasme in the Faculties of the Soul 4. The severall Degrees and Natures of her Faculties 5. Why Dreams till we awake seem reall transactions 6. The enormous strength of Imagination the cause of Enthusiasme 7. Sundry naturall and corporeall causes that necessarily work on the Imaginaâ—ion 8. The power of meats to change the Imagination 9. Baptista his potion for the same purpose 10. The power of diseases upon the Fancy 11. Of the power of Melancholy and how it often sets on some one absurd conceit upon the minde the party in other things being sober 12. Severall Examples thereof 13. A seasonable application of these examples for the weakning of the authority of bold Enthusiasts 14. That the causality of Melancholy in this distemper of Enthusiasme is more easily traced then in other extravagancies 15. Melancholy apertinacious and religious complexion 16. That men are prone to suspect some speciall presence of God or of a Supernaturall power in whatever is Great or Vehement 17. The mistake of heated Melancholy for holy Zeal and the Spirit of God 18. The Ebbs and Flowes of Melancholy a further cause of Enthusiasme 19. The notorious mockery of Melancholy in reference to Divine love 20. That Melancholy partakes much of the Nature of Wine and from what complexion Poets Enthusiasts arise what the difference is betwixt them 21. That a certain Dosâ—s of Sanguine mixt with Melancholy is the Spirit that usually inspires Enthusiasts made good by a large Induction of Examples 22. More examples to the same purpose 23. Of Enthusiasticall Ioy. 24. Of the mysticall Allegories of Enthusiasts 25. Of Quaking and of the Quakers 26. That Melancholy disposes to Apoplexies and Epilepsies 27. Of the nature of Enthusiastick Revelations and Visions 28. Of Extasie The nature and causes thereof 29. Whether it be in mans power to cast himself into an Enthusiastick Apoplexie Epilepsie or Extasie 30. Of Entâ—usiastick Prophecy 31. Of the Presage of a mans own heart from a supernaturall impulse sensible to himself but unexplicable to others where it may take place and that it is not properly Enthusiasme 32. Severall examples of Politicall Enthusiasme 33. David George his prophecy of his rising again from the Dead and after what manner it was fulfilled 34. A description of his person manners doctrine 35. The evident causes of his power of speech 36. An account of those seeming graces in him 37. That he was a man of Sanguine complexion 38. Further and more sure proofs that he was of that temper 39. That it was a dark fulsome Sanguine that hid the truth of the great promises of the gospel from his eâ—es 40. The exact likenesse betwixt him and the Father of the moderne Nicolaitans and the Authours censure of them both 41. A seasonable Advertisement in the behalf of them that are unawares taken with such Writers as also a further confirmation that Enthusiastick madnesse may consist with sobriety in other matters 42. Of Philosophicall Enthusiasme 43. Sundry Chymists and Theosophists obnoxious to this disease 44. A promiscuous Collection of divers odd conceits out of severall Theosophists and Chymists 45. A particular Collection out of Paracelsus 46. That it is he that has given occasion to the wildest Philosophick Enthusiasmes that ever was yet on foot 47. That his Philosophy though himself intended it not is one of the safest sanctuaries for the Atheist and the very prop of ancient Paganisme 48. How it justifies the Heathens worshipping of the Starres derogates from the authority of the miracles of our Saviour makes the Gospel ineffectuall for the establishing of the belief of a God and a particular Providence gratifies that professed Atheist Vaninus in what he most of all triumphs in as serving his turn the best to elude all religion whatsoever 49. That Paracelsus and his followers are neither Atheisticall nor Diabolicall and what makes the Chymist ordinarily so pittifull a Philosopher 50. The writer of this Discourse no foe to either Theosophist or Chymist onely he excuses himself from being over credulous in regard of either 51. The cure of Enthusiasme by Temperance Humility and Reason 52. What is meant by Temperance 53. What by Humility and the great advantage thereof for Wisdome and Knowledge 54 What by Reason and what the danger is of leaving that Guide as also the mistake of them that expect the Spirit should not suggest such things as are rationall 55. Further Helps against Enthusiasme 56. Of the raised language of Enthusiasts and of what may extraordinarily fall from them 57. Of Enthusiastick prophecy that ordinarily happens to fools and madmen and the reason why as also why Extaticall men foresee things to come and of the uncertainty of such predictions 58. That if an Enthusiast should cure some diseases by touching or stroaking the party diseased that yet it might be no true miraâ—le 59. Of the remote Notions mysterious Stile and moving Eloquence of Enthusiasts 60. How we shall distinguish betwixt pure Religion and Complexion 61. That the devotional Enthusiasm of holy sincere souls has not at all been taxed in all this Discourse 62. That the fewell of devotion even in warrantable and sincere Enthusiasme is usually Melancholy 63. That there is a peculiar advantage in Melancholy for divine speculations and a prevention of the Atheists objection thereupon 64. How it comes to passe that men are so nimble and dexterous in finding the truth of some things and so slow and heavy in othersome and that the dulnesse of the Atheists perception in divine matters is no argument against the truth of Religion A short Discourse of the Nature Causes Kindes and Cure of Enthusiasme 1. HAving undertaken the republishing of the two following Books and reduced them both under one common Title of Enthusiasme I think it not amisse to speak
whereby she so farre sinks into Phantasmes that she cannot recover her self into the use of her more free faculties of Reason and Understanding that thus peremptorily engages a man to believe a lie And if it be so strong as to assure us of the presence of some externall object which yet is not there why may it not be as effectuall in the begetting of the belief of some more internall apprehensions such as have been reported of mad and fanaticall men who have so firmly and immutably fancied themselves to be God the Father the Messias the Holy Ghost the Angel Gabriel the last and chiefest Prophet that God would send into the world and the like For their conceptions are not so pure or immateriall nor solid or rationall but that these words to them are alwayes accompanied with some strong Phantasme or full imagination the fulnesse and clearnesse whereof as in the case immediately before named does naturally bear down the Soul into a belief of the truth and existence of what she thus vigorously apprehends and being so wholly and entirely immersed in this conceit and so vehemently touched therewith she has either not the patience to consider any thing alledged against it or if she do consider and find her self intangled she will look upon it as a piece of humane sophistry and prefer her own infallibility or the infallibility of the Spirit before aâ—l carnall reasonings whatsoever As those whose fancies are fortified by long use and education in any absurd point of a false Religion though wise enough in other things will firmly hold the conclusion notwithstanding the clearest demonstration to the contrary Now what Custome and Education doth by degrees distempered Fancy may do in a shorter time But the case in both is much like that in dreams where that which is represented is necessarily taken for true because nothing stronger enervates the perception For as the ligation of the outward Organs of Sense keeps off such fluctuations or undulations of motion from without as might break or obscure these representations in sleep so prejudice and confidence in a conceit when a man is awake keeps his fond imagination vigorous and entire from all the assaults of Reason that would cause any dubitation Nor is it any more wonder that his Intellectualls should be sound in other things though he be thus delirous in some one point no more then that he that thinks he sees the devil in a wood should not be at all mistaken in the circumstance of place but see the very same path flowers and grasse that another in his wits sees there as well as himself To be short therefore the Originall of such peremptory delusions as mankind are obnoxious to is the enormous strength and vigour of the Imagination which Faculty though it be in some sort in our power as Respiration is yet it will also work without our leave as I have already demonstrated and hence men become mad and fanaticall whether they will or no. 7. Now what it is in us that thus captivates our Imagination carries it wide away out of the reach or hearing of that more free and superiour faculty of Reason is hard particularly to define But that there are sundry materiall things that do most certaâ—nly change our mind or Fancy experience doth sufficiently witnesse For our Imagination alters as our Blood and Spirits are altered as I have above intimated and instanced in our dreams and indeed very small thingâ— will alter them even when we are awake The meer change of weather and various tempers of the aire a little reek or suffumigation as in those seeds Pomponiâ—u Mela mentions which the Thracians who knew not the use of wine wont at their feasts to cast into the fire whereby they were intoxicated into as high a measure of mirth as they that drink more freely of the blood of the grape The virtue of which is so great that as Iosephus phrases it it seems to create a new soul in him that drinks it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It transforms and regenerates the soulâ— into a new nature But it doth most certainly bring a new scene of thoughts very ordinarily into their minds that have occasion to meddle with it Which made the Persians undertake no weighty matter nor strike up a bargain of any great consequence but they would consider of it first both welnigh fuddled and sober For if they liked it in all the representations that those two contrary Tempers exhibited to their minds they thought themselves well assured that they might proceed safely and succesfully therein And yet wine doth not alwayes so much change the thoughts and alter our temper as heighten it in so much that its effect proves sometime contrary onely by reason of the diversity oâ— persons some being weeping drunk others laughing some kind others raging as it happens also in those that are stung with the Tarantula Alii perpetuò ridâ—nt alii canunt alii plorant c. as Sennertus observes out of Matthiolus But that which they both seem most to admire is That the Fancie of the Tarantulati should be so mightily carried away with Musick for they do not onely forget their pain but dance incessantly Of which Epiphanius Ferdinandus tells a very remarkable story of an old man ninety foure yeares of age that could scarce creep with a staff who yet being bit by the Tarantula presently upon the hearing of Musick leaped and skipped like a young kid Akin to this is that kind of madnesse which they call S. Vitus his Dance which disease Sennertus rightly affirms to proceed from a certain malignant humour gendred in the body of near cognation with this poyson of the Tarantula which will help us for the explicating of the Causes of stranger workings on the fancie then has yet been mentioned As for example in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are distempers of the mind whereby men imagine themselves to be Wolves Cats or Doggs 8. There are severall Relations in the forenamed Authour concerning the power that nourishment has to work upon imagination and to change a mans disposition into the nature of that creature whose bloud or milk doth nourish him A Wench at Bresla being struck with an Epilepsie upon the seeing of a Malefactours head cut off by the Executioner when severall other remedies failed was perswaded by some to drink the blood of a Cat which being done the wench not long after degenerates into the nature and propertie of that Animal cries and jumps like a Cat and hunts mice with like silence and watchfulnesse that they do pursuing them as close as she could to their very holes This Narration he transcribes out of Weinrichius and has another short glance upon another in the same writer of one that being long fed with swines blood took a speciall pleasure in wallowing and tumbling himself in the mire as also of another Girle who being nourished up with Goats milk
thing as to a more luscious and fulsome mixture of Sanguine in his Enthusiastick complexion For nothing will so slake a mans desires or dead his belief of that more spiritual and immaterial state and condition as this sweet glut of blood that so thickens and clouds the Spirits that the mind cannot imagine or presage any thing beyond the present concernment of this mortal Body And of the latter I think it is acknowledged by all that no such genuine cause can be assigned as this same complexion of Sanguine that disposes men so strongly to the love of women 39 Wherefore this Enthusiast being overborne by the power of his own constitution into the misbeliefe of those great promises of Eternal life set forth in the Scripture took the holy writers thereof either to be mistaken or onely to have intended Allegories by what they writ and that fervour that he found in himself to love and peace and equity and the like boyling so high as to the driving of him into a perswasion that he was inspired he conceited his misbelief of those precious promises of Immortality and glory in the heavens a special piece of illumination also and the resurrection of the dead to be nothing else but to be raised into a like ardency towards such things with himselfe and to a like misbelief with him of that celestial crown the Apostle speaks of And therefore he not being able to raise his minde by faith to heaven he brought heaven to earth in his vain imagination Which was lesse pains then Mahomet took who was fain to walk to the mountain when he saw the mountain would not move to him 40. This is a brief account of David George whose error the Father of our modern Nicolaitans did drink in so carefully as if he were loath one drop should spill beside Never was that in Solomon so plainly verified in any as in these two As face answers to face so the heart of man to man Wherefore concerning them both I dare pronounce that though they equalized themselves to Christ and made themselves Judges of the quick and the dead yet they were more devoid of true judgment in matters of religion then the meanest of sincere Christians and though they have so deified or as they phrase it begodded themselves all over I might say bedaubed themselveâ— with the faigned and counterfeit colours or paint of high swelling words of vanity to amaze the vulgar yet they were in truth meer men of shallow mindes and liquorsome bodies cleaving to the pleasures of the flesh and so deeply relishing the sweet of this present life that all hope or desire of that better was quite extinct in them and therefore their setled and radicate ignorance made them so Enthusiastically confident in their own errour 41. But that my zeal to the Truth may not turn to the injury of any I cannot pass by this Advertisement That this poyson we speak of is so subtilly conveyed and silently supposed in the reading these writings that a good man and a true Christian may be easily carried away into an approbation of them without any infection by them as not minding what they imply or drive at or yet any defection from the main principles of Christianity and indeed by how much the heat seems greater toward the highest perfection of holiness the Reader is made the more secure of the Writers soundness in the main Essentials of Religion though it be far otherwise at the bottome For Madness and Melancholy drive high and we have prov'd by divers instances that a man may be most ridiculously and absurdly wilde in some one thing and yet sound and discreet in the rest as Gazeus handsomely sets it out in a story of an old man that conceited himselfe God the Father And Acosta verifies it in a true history of his own knowledge concerning a certain learned and venerable Professor of Divinity in the Kâ—â—gdome of Peru whom he doth affirm to have been as perâ—ectly in his senses as to soundness of brain as himself was at that time when he wrote the Narration Which being something long â— shall transcribe only what precisely makes to my purpose This Peruviaâ— Doctor would sadly and soberly affirme that he should be a King yea and a Pope too the Apostolical Sea being translated to those parts as also that holinesse was granted unto him above all Angels and heavenly hosts and above all Apostles yea that God made profer unto him of Hypostatical union but that he refused â—o accept of it Moreover that he was appointed to be Redeemer of the world as to matter of Efficacie which Christ he said had been no further then to Sufficiency onely That all Ecclesiastical estate was to be abrogaâ—ed and that he would make new Laws plain and easy by which the restraint of Clergy-men from marriage should be taken a way and multitude of wives allowed and all necessiâ—y of Confession avoided Which things he did maintain before the Judges of the Inquisition with that earnestness and confidence with so many and so large citations out of the Prophets Apocalyps Psalmes and other books with such unexpected Applications and Allegorical Interpretations of them that the Auditotory knew not whether they should laugh more at his fancy or admire his memory But himselfe was so well aâ—sured of the matter that nothing but death could quit him of the delirium For he dyed a Martyr to this piece of madness of his to the eternal infamy of his Judges who were either so unwise as not to know that Melancholy may make a man delirous as to some one particular thing though his Intellectuals be sound in others or else so cruel and barbarous as to murder a poor distracted man The story you may read more at large in a late Treatise concerning Enthusiasme what I have transplanted hither is further to evidence the truth of what Physicians say of Melancholy that it may onely befool the understanding in some one point and leave it sound in the rest as also to confirme what I did above observe that Enthusiasts for the most part are intoxicated with vapours from the lowest region of their Body as the Pythiae of old are conceived to have been inspired through the power of certain exhalations breathed from those caverns they had their recesse in For what means this bold purpose of contriving a new law for plurality of wives amongst Christians but that his judgment was over-clouded by some venereous fumes and vapours 42. That other kinde of Enthusiasme I propounded was Philosophical because found in such as are of a more speculative and Philosophical complexion and Melancholy here making them prone to Religion and devotion as well as to the curious contemplation of things these natural motions and affections towards God may drive them to a beliefe that he has a more then ordinary affection towards them and that they have so special an assistance and guidance from him nay such a mysterious but intimate
or a Miracle is most justly deemed to proceed from no supernaturall assistance but from some Hypochondriacall distemper 62. Moreover for these Rapturous and Enthusiasticall affections even in them that are truely good and pious it cannot be denied but that the fuell of them is usually naturall oâ—â—â—ntracted Melancholy which any man may perceive that is religious unlesse his Soul and Body be blended together and there be a confusion of all as it is in mistaken Enthusiasts that impute that to God which is proper to Nature But Melancholy usually disposes and the mind perfects the action through the power of the Spirit And a wise and holy man knows how to make use of his opportunity according to that Monition of the Apostle If a man be sad let him pray if cheerfull let him sing Psalmes 63. But there is also a peculiar advantage in Melancholy for divine speculations and yet the mysteries that result from thence are no more to be suspected of proving meer fancies because they may occasionally spring from such a constitution then Mathematicall Truths are who ow their birth to a Mathematicall complexion Which is as truly a complexion as the Religious complexion is and yet no sober man will deny the truth of her Theorems And as it would be a fond and improper thing to affirm that such a complexion teaches a man Mathematicks so it would also be to affirm that Melancholy is the onely mother of Religion 64. But most certain it is and observation will make it good That the souls of men while they are in these mortall bodies are as so many Prisoners immured in severall prisons with their fingle loop-holes looking into severall quarters and therefore are able to pronounce no further then their proper prospect will give them leave So the severall Complexions of mens bodies dispose or invite them to an easie and happy discovery of some things when yet notwithstanding if you conferre with them concerning other some that lie not within their prospect or the limits of their naturall Genius they will be enfâ—â—â—ed either to acknowledge their ignorance or if they will take upon them to judge which is the more frequent they will abundantly discover their errour and mistake Which sometimes seems so grosse and invincible that a man may justly suspect that they want not onely the patience but even the power of contemplating of some objects as being not able to frame any conception of what they are required to think of and such are the duller sort of Atheists that rank the notion of a Spirit and consequently of a God in the list of Inconsistencies and ridiculous Non-sense Wherein though they seek to reproach Religion they seem to me mainly to shame themselves their Atheisme being very easie to be paralleld with Enthusiasme in this regard For as some Enthusiasts being found plainly mad in some one thing have approved themselves sober enough in the rest so these Atheists though they show a tolerable wit and acutenesse in other matters yet approve themselves sufficiently slow and heavy in this FINIS OBSERVATIONS UPON Anthroposophia Theomagica And Anima Magica Abscondita By ALAZONOMASTIX PHILALETHES Psalm They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end LONDON Printed by I. Flesher 1655. To Eugenius Philalethes the Author of Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita SIR THE Great deserved fame that followed this noble work of yours the due recompense of all eminent performances engaged me to peruse the same with much eagerness of mind and yet with no lesse attention I being one of those that professe themselves much more willing to learn then able to teach And that you may see some specimen of the fruits of your labour and my proficiency I thought fit to present you with these few Observations Which considering the barrennesse of the Matrix as you Chymists love to call it in which they were conceived may be termed rather many then few And that imputed to the alone virtue or Magicall Multiplication or Theomagical fecundity of your Divine Writings not at all to the sterility of my disfurnished Braine Which now notwithstanding having gathered both warmth and moisture from the heat and luxuriancy of your youthfull fansie findes it selfe after a manner transformed into your own complexion and translated into the same temper with your selfe In so much that although I cannot with the height of a protestation in the presence of my glorious God as your selfe has gallantly done in pag. 50. lin 17. of Anthropos Theomag affirme that the affection and zeale to the truth of my Creatour has forced mee to write yet I dare professe in the word of an honest man that nothing but an inplacable enmity to immorality and foolery has moved me at this time to set Pen to Paper And I confesse my indignation is kindled the more having so long observed that this disease is growne even Epidemicall in our Nation viz. to desire to be filled with high-swolne words of Vanity rather then to feed on sober Truth and to heate and warme our selves rather by preposterous and fortuitous imaginations then to move cautiously in the light of a purified minde and improved Reason Wherefore I being heightned with the same Zeale of discountenancing of Vanitie and conceitednesse that your selfe is of promoting the Truth you will permit to me the same freedome in the prosecution thereof For as we are growne neare akin in temper and complexion so we ought mutually to allow each other in our Actings alike according to our common Temper and Nature and the accustomed Liberty of the Philalethean Family In confidence whereof till wee meete againe in the next Page I take leave and subscribe my selfe A Chip of the same Block Alazonomastix Philalethes Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita SECT I. Eugenius taxed of vain glory Three main ways he atempts to approve himself an extraordinary knowing man to the world His affectation of seeming a Magician discovered in his so highly magnifying Agrippa in the dress of his Title-page and his submissive address to the Rosie-brotherhood His indiscreet exprobration of ignorance to the Aristoteleans for not knowing the very essence or substance of the Soule His uncivil calling Aristotle an Ape and ignorant taxation of his School concerning the frame of the world The disproportionable Delineation of Eugenius his World-Animal and his unjust railing against Aristotles writings which he uncivilly tearms his Vomit ANd now brother Philalethes that we are so well met let us begin to act according to the freenesse of our tempers and play the Tom Tell-troths And you indeed have done your part already My course is next Which must be spent in the Observations I told you of upon those profound Treatises of yours Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita And my first and general Observation is this That the genius of my brother Eugenies magical Discourse is such that Magus-like
flies off hence and is in quest after a Substance which he smels out like a nosegay in Natures bosome which Substance he hopes to see by Art Why Eugenius are you so sharp sighted that you can see Substances A kind of Philosophick Hog he can see the wind too I warrant you But how can you hope to see that Substance when Nature onely exposes it as you say to her own vitall celestiall breath And tell what this Breath is and do not amaze us with strange words or else keep your breath to your self to cool your pottage Observation 3. Pag. 4. Here a fit of devotion has taken him and I am neither so irreligious nor uncivill as to interrupt him But now Sir you have done I hope it will not be any offence to addresse my discourse to you again And it will not be unseasonable to tell you that Truth is not to be had of God Almighty for an old song no nor yet for a new one And that no man is to measure his wisdome by his devotion but by his humility and purity of mind and unprejudicate reason nor that any man is wiser by making others seem more contemptibly foolish as your juvenility has thought good to deal with poor Aristotle his Orthodox Disciples all this time Nay and that you may not take Sanctuary at Moses his Text let me also tell you that before you prove any thing thence you ought first to make good that Scripture is intended for naturall Philosophy as well as a divine life But we need not arm our selves so well yet for from the fourth page to the eight page nothing is said but that God from a knowing Principle made the World Which Aristotle also seems to assert while he is so frequent in telling the ends of naturall things which could not be sense unlesse he supposed that Nature was guided by a knowing Principle which is to acknowledge a God after the best manner And that subtil Philosopher Iulius Scaliger uses no contemptible arguments to prove that Aristotles Philosophy furnisheth us also with the knowledge of a Trinity in God so that Anthroposophus is very unkind and uncivill to so good a Master Observation 4. Pages 8. and 9. What an Aristotelean would dispatch in a word or two viz. that Life is alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth he is mysteriously fumbling out and drayling on to the length of almost two whole pages Observation 5. Pag. 9. Lin. 10. The divine light pierced the bosome of the matter c. This compared with what is at the bottome of the fourth page we see that this rare philosopher tells us that the Matter is an horrible empty darknesse And me thinks his description is an hideous empty fancie and conveys not so much to the understanding as Aristotles description of the Matter which he would describe to be The first subject out of which every thing is This latter is more clean and sober the other more slabby and fantasticall And to call it Primitive waters is but yet metaphors and poetry For you do not mean waters such as we wash our hands in But they must be waters and dark that you may bring in the conceit of the light shining in them that like as in rivers and pools the images of trees birds and clouds and stars and what not may be seen in them And this must help us to conceive that upon the breaking through of the light the divine Idea's shone in the waters and that the holy Spirit not being able to see till then by looking then upon those images framed the matter into form But I pray you tell me Mr. Anthroposophus that would be so wise as if you stood by while God made the World doe not you think that God can now see in the dark or behold his own Idea's in the depth of the Earth You 'l say you doe not mean this Natural light but a divine light If so was ever the matter so stâ—ff and clammy dark as to be able to keep it out So that the divine Idea's shone in the Water so soon as God was and the Spiritus Opifex could see to begin his work ab omni retro aeternitate And it could never be dark in your blind sense Is it not so Anthroposophus Observation 6. Lin. 25. Si plantam quasi momento nasâ—i c. If Anthroposophus had such a device as this in a glasse what a fine gew-gaw would it be for the lad What fine sport would he make with his companions He would make them believe then that he was a Conjurer indeed But what other use there would be of it Anthroposophus truly I do not know For it would not state one controversie in Philosophy more then what may be done without it For whether there be any such things as rationes seminales or whether these forms visible arise from heat which is motion and the conspiracy of fitted particles is as well and safely determined from your experiments of one spring as from this strange whim-wham in a glasse But weak stomachs and weak wits long most after rarities Observation 7. Pag. 10. Lin. 4. Two-fold Idea divine natural c. Anthroposophus Your natural Idea is but an idea of your own brain For it is no more an idea then a sheath is a knife or the spittle that wets the seal is the sealâ— or the grease the saw or the water the Grindle-stone But you must strike betwixt this and the divine Idâ—a or else you will misse of your natural one And so will be forced to do that of penury which he did of choise and for brevity sake divide your Text into one part But your quotation of Moses here neer the bottom of the page is either nothing to your natural Idea or if you mean it of the divine is no new notion but nimmed out of Philo the Iew. And yet in the beginning of the following page you magnify your self as one that concerning this primitive supernatural part of the Creation as you call it though you have not said so much as you can say by far as being a Nip-crust or Niggard of your precious speculations yet you have produced not a little new Observation 8. Pag. 11. Lin. 5. Some Authors c. And the reason why the world is beholding to this Gentleman more then to any for new discoveries of mighty truths is that whereas some Authors have not searched so deeply into the Center of Nature and others not willing to publish such spiritual mysteries this new Writer is the onely man that is both deeply seen into the Center of Nature and as willing also to publish these spiritual mysteries So that he goes beyond them all O brave Anthroposophus What a fine man would you fain appear to the World In the residue of this page Anthroposophus his phansie is pudled so and jumbled in the Limbus or Huddle of the Matter that he cannot distinguish betwixt God and the Creature
incorporate into one person And this you have done out of malice Magicus and implacable revenge But I wish you had some black bag or vail to hide your shame from the world That is the worst I wish you One that desires to be a Conjurer more then to be a Christian If you like not Conjurer write Exorcist That 's all I would have meant by it There is a Conjuring out as well as Conjuring up the devil And I wish you were good at the former of these for your own sake But now to apply my Emollient to the other boyl you have made in the body of my little book You have made the sharp humour swell into this second bunch by your unnatural draining A fool in a play a Iack-pudding a Thing wholly set in a posture to make the people laugh a giddy phantastick Conjurer a poor Kitling a Calfshead a Pander a sworn enemy to Reason a shittle scull no good Christian an Otter a water-Rat Will with the wisp and Meg with the Lanâ—horn Tom fool in a play a natural fool A fool in a play a Iack-pudding c. Let the Reader consult the place if there be not a seasonable occasion of reminding you of your over much lightnesse you taking so grave a task upon you as to be a publick professor of Theomagicks A giddy fantastick Conjurer No Conjurer there but a Phantastick I admit in you the lesser fault to discharge you of the greater Is this to revile you or befriend you A poor Kitling Poor Kitling Take it into thy lap Phil. and stroke it gently I warrant thee it will not hurt thee Be not so shie why thou art akin to it Phil. by thy own confession For thou art a Mous-catcher which is neer akin to a Cat which is also a catcher of mice and a Cat is sire to a Kitling A Calfs-head I did not call thee Calfshead Eugenius but said that no Chymist could extract any substantial visible form out of thy brains whereby they may be distinguished from what lies in a Calfshead And there is a vast difference in simply calling you Pander and calling you Pander to Madam Nature who you confesse complains of your prostitutions A sworn enemy to Reason Why Doe you not pray against reason A logicâ libera nos Domine And I think any body would swear you are a real enemy to that you pray against unless your devotions be but a mockerie A shittle scull My words were Did your sculler or shittle skull I hope you do not think that I meant your skull was so flue and shallow that boies might shittle it and make ducks and drakes on the water with it as they do with oyster-shells Or that your self was so Magical that you could row to the crystal rock in it as witches are said to do on the Seas in Egg-shells Excuse me Phil. I meant no such high mysteries It was onely a pitiful dry clinch as light as any nut-shell something like that gingle of thine Nation and Indignation No good Christian. In that place you bad us show you a good Christian and you would c. There I inferre that you being at all other times so ready to show your selfe and here you slinking back you were conscious to your selfe that you were no good Christian. Otter and Water-Rat I said onely that you did waddle on toward the river Vsk like an Otter or Water-Rat Will with the wisp and Meg with the Lanthorn I do not call you Will nor Meg but tell you If you walk by River sides and Marish places you may well meet with such companions there as those to take a turn or two with you Tom-fool in a play Why is not your name Tom They tell me it is Tom Vaughan of Iesus Colledge in Oxford Well then Tom Do not you make your self an Actour in a play For these are your words I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next Actour So here is Tom in the play But where is the fool say you Where is the wisest man say I. My selfe saies Tom Vaughan I warrant you Why then say I Tom Vaughan is Tom fool in the play For the fool in the play is to be the wisest man according to the known proverb But how will ye wipe off that aspersion of calling me natural fool says wise Tom. That indeed I confess impossible because it was never yet laid on I said only if you had answered the Aristoteleans Sic probo's with meer laughter you would have proved your selfe a natural fool But he hath not done so nor is Tom Vaughan a natural fool I dare swear for him He has too much natural heat to be a natural fool Bless thee from madness Tom and all will be well But there is yet something else behind worse then all this That all these terms of incivilitie must proceed from spight and provocation And this you place betwixt the two bilious tumours you have raised as a ductus communis or common chanel to convey the sharp malignant humour to swell them to the full It is true my words run thus That I have been very fair with you and though provoked c. But this was spoken in the person of an Aristotelean whom your scornfull usage of their Master Aristotle you may be sure did and does provoke But in good truth Philalethes you did not provoke me at all with your book unlesse to laugh at you for your Puerilities I but you have an argument for it that I was provoked viz. Because your Theomagicall discourse has so out done or undone my Ballade of the Soul as you scornfully call it that my ignorance in the Platonick Philosophy has now appeared to the world O rem ridiculam Thou art a merry Greek indeed Philalethes and art set upon 't to make the world sport Thou dost then professe openly to all the world that thou hast so high a conceit of thy Anthroposophia that it may well dash me out of countenance with my Philosophicall Poems and that through envy I being thus wounded I should by my Alazonomastix endeavour for the ease of my grief to abate thy credit What a Suffenus art thou in the esteeming of thy own works O Eugenius and of what a pitifull spirit dost thou take Alazonomastix to be I do professe ex animo that I could heartily wish that my self were the greatest Ignaro in the world upon condition I were really no more ignorant then I am So little am I touched with precellency or out-stripping others But thou judgest me to have wrote out of the same intoxicating Principle that thou thy self hast that is vain glory Or however if there was any thing of that whâ—n I wrote those Poems which I thank God if any was very little yet long ago I praise that power that inabled me I brought it down to a degree far lesse then thy untamed Heat for the pâ—esent can imagine possible But you 'll say This is a mysterie
to lay aside his vain affectation of Magick and to become a good Christian Pag. 7. lin 14. HIgh swoln words of vanity I tell you I have found them in your Ballade Ballade is a good old English word from which I abhorre no more then Spencer or Lucretius from old Latine who yet was something younger then Tully Is not the song of Solomon called the Ballade of Ballades in some Church-bibles Thou art so angry that thou art not able to rail with judgement But what high swoln words of vanitie are there in that Ballade of mine Thou art so ignorant that terms of Art seem Heathen Greek to thee But for those words that I interpreted for the ignorants sake you see what care I have of you O unthankfull Eugenius there is an Apologie prefixt that will satisfie the ingenuous and for others it matters not Pag. 9. Lin. 15. With a Bull rampant You bestow upon me many Bulls Eugenius But when you are so kind as to give me them for nothing you may well expect that I will be so thankfull as to return you a Calf for every Bull I have gratis Let us begin c. And you indeed have done your part already The sense is But you indeed have done your part already What is this but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But you have I see as little skill in Rhetorick as Civilitie The Calf take thee Phil. or take thou the Calf There is one to begin thy herd Pag. 10. Lin. 1. What both Tell-troths Before thou wast no Rhetorician now thou art no Logician nor Philosopher that canst not distinguish betwixt Veritie and Veracitie Veracitie is enough to make a Tom Tell-troth though his Narration be false Hence it is demonstrable that two men may be both Tel-troths though their stories be point-blank contrary to one another The sense of my words is this You have told what you thought Aristotle was blameable in I will now tell what I think you are blameable in You may be against Aristotle and I for him and both with veracitie though not with veritie Pag. 11. Lin. 2◠Found out some new truth Yes I say there are passages in your book that imply so much at least We shall see when we come at them and I shall shew that you found them before they were lost Pag. 12. Lin. 17. The third project is the same with the first Why is to be skilful in Art magick and to find out new truths all one It seems then you suppose there are no new Truths to be found out but Magicall ones Blessed age that we live in All other arts are brought to their Non plus ultrá Physicians Geometricians Astronomians Astrologians Musicians put up your pipes Claudite jam rivos pueri There is nothing remains to be done by you All is perfected But let me ask you one sober question Phil. Have you gone through all these Arts and throughly understand them that you do so boldly pronounce them compleat and perfect I know Philalethes is not so immodest as to say so I am sure the world is not so foolishly credulous as to believe so So that I must conclude Eugenius that thou art so outragiously distempered in thy mind that thou art a weaker Arithmetician then the rude Thracians They told to foure◠Thou art out at three and must begin again Pag. 13. Lin. 11. How many more syllables in Anthroposophia then in Antipsychopannychia Not so many So that if I had affected to be so Magical as your learned self the same conceit would have fitted my Title-page But I begin now to suspect you are so nimble at comparing that your Title-page was a kind of Apish Imitation of mine in the first Edition of my Song of the Soul But wast thou so simple as to think that any body thought better of my book for those hard words in the Frontispice of it I onely set them there as a wind-mill on a stack of corn by the clack of it to scare away sparrows and crows that it might be reserved entire for men But I perceive for all that that thy Rooks bill has been pecking there But much good may it do thee Phil. I envy it thee not Pag. 15. Lin. 20. Vim sermonis esse in verbis c. I say the force and warrant both of Nouns and Verbs is from their use Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma loquendi But if you will have Orator to be good and proper this Epistle of yours must then be no Epistle though you call it so but an Oration to the Fratres R. C. which you spoke to them when they were God knows where and they will answer you God knows when Verily Philalethes thou art a fine fellow to have made an Oratour of in King Midas his time for he had they say very long eares And so mightest thou have made an Oration before the King in his absence Pag. 17. Lin. 21. A twofold Definition Accidentall and Essentiall That 's true Phil. what Freshman but knows that But how it is to be understood I perceive thou dost not know I am ashamed that I must be fain to rub up in thee the very first rudiments of Logick or rather teach thee them For couldst thou ever forget what is meant by Accidentall what by Essentiall Accidentall is that which may be or not be in a thing and yet the thing be As a horse may be a horse be it black or white Essentiall is that which so belongs to the thing to which it is said to be Essentiall that the thing cannot be conceiv'd to exsist without it Now say I these Faculties of Understanding Reason and Sense are essentiall to the Soul of man because we cannot conceive a Soul without a power or faculty of understanding reasoning c. And Aristotle has defined a Soul from these Therefore would a Peripatetick say with an Essentiall Definition But Eugenius No This is but circumstantiall sayes he Therefore I do inferre Eugenius that thou dost dream of knowing the very naked substance of the Soul which thou wilt as soon know as see the wind And thus I spoke to that that thou must needs mean if thou meanest any thing but it is a plain cafe thou dost not know thy own meaning But Aristotle doth sufficiently countenance mine with what he has very luckily let fall somewhere in his Analyticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus is it manifestly true in that sense that you your self meant That the very essence of any Substance is not to be known nor is there any such Essentiall Definition This is as true Tom. Vaughan as two and two are foure though I do not call you Owl for your ignorance as you do me for my knowledge But we shall have another bout again with this in your Anima Magica Abscondita Pag. 19. to the 24. To have made the world as a Carpenter of stone and timber Thou hast misplaced a comma in the sentence to
certainly false nor yet contemne the hearty and powerfull exhortations of a zealous soul to the indispensable duties of a Christian by any supposed deviations from the truth in speculations that are not so materiall nor indispensable Nay though something should fall from him in an Enthusiastick Hurricano that seems neither sutable to what he writes elsewhere nor to some grand Theorie that all men in their wits hitherto have allowed for truth yet it were to be imputed rather to that pardonable disease that his naturall complexion is obnoxious to then to any diabolicall designe in the Writer which rash and unchristian reproach is as farre from the truth if not further as I conceive then the credulitie of those that think him in every thing infallibly inspired 5. I cannot but interpret it as an argument of the sincerity of your affection and friendship that you discover some measure of sollicitudes what successe this second edition of the forenamed Pamphlets may have and must give you many thanks for your so seasonable and particular intimations of what you have observed most liable to the hasty censure as you say of either the heedlesse or malevolent Reader but I suspect it is but an handsome Scheme of suggesting to me your own dissatisfaction in severall of those passages which you propound And therefore I am the more willing for surenesse to answer to all to ease you of that anxiety your mind may be any way burdened with on my behalf when you shall understand that all is right at the bottome let things appear at first sight as they will 6. First then as for my Observations let the mirth and humours therein be as wilde and exorbitant as they may provided they be no other then may well be found in some angry Aristotelean that has taken pepper in the nose upon the sleights and abuses put upon his Master Aristotle the Dramatist has offended nothing in all this having throughout kept the Decorum of such a person as he intended to represent And must confesse that on set purpose that the Writer might be the more certainly concealed I gave my self leave to let slip sometimes such passages as were least likely to fall from my pen. But understanding what an enraged Antagonist I had got that he might not adde injustice to wrathfulnesse and discharge his choler at randome where ever his suspicion and jealousie should carry him I thought it better to be so courteous as to satisfie the inquisitive and so just as to prevent that injury that might fall upon the falsly suspected then to shelter my self any longer by concealing the authour of that merry Exploit But as concerning my Reply I cannot there give so succinct an account the impatiency and fury of my Adversary having torn off our masks and constraind us to act in our known persons but must descend particularly to those severall Exceptions that you observe to have been made against sundry passages of that writing and I shall take them in that order of Pages as they lie 7. What you intimate concerning the whole second Section according as Parresiastes has divided the Book as if it smelt too much of pride and magnifying my self You are â—irst to consider what a showre of dirt my Antagonist had powred upon me in his foul Answer endeavouring to tread me down into a dunghill if he could and therefore it is more pardonable if I rise up with more courage and shake off all suspicion of being so pittifull a creature as he would make me and truly I had a conceit that shewing the inward frame of my mind so freely to him it might have proved as successefull as the flying open of Prince Arthurs shield in his combate with the Gyant Orgoglio but it seems he had no eyes to behold that kind of lustre But in the second place that which is more considerable I magnifie my self in nothing but in the common accomplishments of every sincere Christian and that I set them off in so high and lofty a strain is but a zealous profession that the ordinary Christian graces are farre to be preferred before all the miracles of Magick that my Antagonist hankers after all the knowledge of Nature and what ever else the world will afford but I have apologised to this purpose already in my Preface to my Antidote 8. Pag. 175. line 27. Sing of Platonick Faith What you write as if some men conceited from this passage that I affected a Faith that was not Christian I wonder much at their mistake These verses are transcribed out of my Poems of the Immortality of the Soul and contain a very considerable argument thereof which is the Goodnesse or Benignity of God on which the Platonists or better sort of the Heathen relyed or reposed themselves upon in their expectation of happinesse from him that is They had their Recumbency upon that principle in God which moved him in the fulnesse of time to send Iesus Christ into the world according as it is written God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Sonne c. which is a greater and more particular manifestation of the love of God then the poore Heathen ever did enjoy But yet so farre forth as they did rely on the goodnesse of God they did not differ in their faith from us Christians who also rely upon the same though upon more explicite terms and from a more certain and particular knowledge thereof revealed in Christ Iesus that noble pledge of the love of God towards us Besides the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ is a more palpable argument of a blessed Immortality then any the Philosophers could ever produce 9. Pag. 177. l. 23. My glory my joy my communicated God That some have been scandalised with this Passage I conceive is because they have fancied that I understood thereby a more mysterious union with God then is competible to any saving Christ himself But for my own part I am so farre from thinking that the union of a Christian with God is hypostaticall that I hold it utterly inconsistant with Christian Religion to think so For if our union with God be the same that Christs union is we are as much God as he and as lawfull objects of adoration whith in my apprehension destroyes the whole frame of Christianity But to those that have no mind to cavill this place have been found void of all offence it signifying no more then what is expressely in the Scripture if you compare S. Peters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with that of S. John God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him But it is a riddle to me that God who is Love should communicate himself so fully as to live and abide in a man and yet that he should not be for all that communicated to him which they do plainly imply that cavill at this Passage 10. Pag. 180. l. 20. This is to be Godded with God and Christed with