to what you your self grant as well as according to the Hypothesis of Ptolemy that they are not too bigge to be true But secondly I say they are not as little as Mites in respect of the cheese they are in For the semi-diameter of Saturns Epicycle is to the semi-diameter of his Eccentrick at least as 1 to 10. and the semi-diameter of Jupiters Epicycle to the semi-diameter of his Eccentrick more then as 1 to 6. but Mars his as 2 to 3 or thereabout and the semidiameter of the Epicycle of Venus to the semidiameter of her eccentrick more then as 2 to 3 by a good deal And is it not plain hence Eugenius that thy mite in a cheese must swell up at least to the bignesse of a Mouse in a cheese though thy cheese were almost as little as a trundle bed wheel or a box of Marmalade and what a vast difference is there betwixt a Mite and a Mouse but thy ignorance emboldens thee to speak any thing But now in the last place the putting these two falsities together is contradiction as well as they are severally false For it is evident that if the Epicycles be too bigge to be true they cannot be so little as Mites in a cheese in respect of their orbs For then would they be easily contain'd within the crassities or thicknesse of their orbs But their not being able to be conteined within the Crassities of their orbs that 's the thing that must make them too bigge to be true And questionlesse if we will joyn the Epicycle with its right office which is to bring down the Planet to its lowest Perigee then the Epicycles of the planets will be too bigge to be true For there will be of them that are half as big again as their Deiferents nay five times if not ten times as big And of these Epicycles I said and Ptolemies ought to have been such unlesse they did desert their office that they were too bigge to be true But thou pronouncest concerning these things thou knowst not what and therefore art easily tost up and down like a shittle cock thou knowst not whither How do I blow thee about as the dust or the down of thistles ut plumas avium pappósque volantes Observ. 16. Thou Moore à {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} As much as a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thou art so drunk intoxicated with thine own bloud as Aristotle saith of all young men that they are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that thou seest double two O's in my name for one Observ. 19. See what I answer at observation the 23. Observ. 20. Phy Phy some rose-water Who speaks like a Puritan now Phil but why some rose water hast thou devoured an Orenge like an apple pulp and pill and all and so made thy mouth bitter O thou man of Wales But it is to wash hur mouth from bawdry Why wilt thou be so bold then as to name the Lawyers phrase rem in re Or hast thou a purpose to call all the Lawyers bawdy Gentlemen by craft I tell thee Phil. To the pure all things are pure but thy venerious phansie which I rebuked in this passage thou exceptedst against doth soyl and corrupt what is chast and pure Observ. 21. I do Mastix I do Why doest thou not then explain it thou little Mastigia Observ. 23. Here I have you fast Philalethes for all your wriggling For if our vitall and animal spirits which are as much a part of us as any other part of our body is be fed and nourished by the Aire then the Aire is an Element of our body But here he would fain save himself by saying that the Aire is rather a Compound then an Element but let any man judge how much more it is compounded then the Earth and then Water which nourisheth by drinking as well as the Aire can do by breathing Observ. 24. Page 59. line 1. How can darknesse be called a Masse c. No it cannot Nor a thin vaporous matter neither Thy blindnesse cannot distinguish Abstracts from Concrets Thy soul sits in the dark Philalethes nibbles on words as a mouse in a hole on cheese parings But to slight thy injudicious cavil at Mass to fall to the Matter I charged thee here to have spoke such stuff as implies a Contradiction Thou saidest that this Masse be it black or white dark or bright that 's nothing to the Controversie here did contain in a farre lesse compasse all that was after extracted I say this implies a Contradiction But you answer this is nothing but Rarefaction and Condensation according to the common notion of the Schools I but that Notion it self implies a Contradiction for in Rarefaction and Condensation there is the generation or deperdition of no new Matter but all matter hath impenetrable dimensions Therefore if that large expansion of the heavens lay within the compasse of the Masse that matter occupyed the same space that the masse did and so dimensions lay in dimensions and thus that which is impenetrable was penetrated which is a contradiicton What thou alleadgest of the rarefaction of water into clouds or vapours is nothing to the purpose For these clouds and vapours are not one continued substance but are the particles of the water put upon motion and playing at some distance one from another but do really take up no more place then before Observ. 26. To say nothing to thy fond cavil at words in the former Observation and thy false accusation that I called thee dog for I would not dishonour Diogenes so much as to call thee so and leaving it to the censure of the world how plain and reall thy principles are I am come now to my 26 Observation on the 23 page of thy Anthroposophia where thou tellest us That there is a threefold Earth viz Elementary Celestiall Spirituall Now let us see what an excellent layer of the fundamentals of Science thou wilt prove thy self And here he begins to divide before he defines Thou shouldest first have told us what Earth is in generall before thou divide it This is like a creature with a cloven foot and never a head But when thou didst venture to define these Members where was thy Logic Ought not every definition nay ought not every Precept of Art to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} but I will not vex thy head with these severities The Magnet is the second member the object of this 26 Observation Here you say I condemn this Magnet but I do not offer to confute it But I answer I have as substantially confuted it as merrily but thou dost not take notice of it I have intimated that this precept of art is not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} nay that it is plainly false For it affirms that which hath no discovery by reason or experience viz. That there is a certain earth which you call
such a constitution I should have tempered it more carefully For I delight not in the vexation of any man The truth is my scope in writing that Book was laudable and honest and such as might become a very good Christian and my mirth and pleasantnesse of mind much and reall but the sharpnesse of my style personated and Aristotelicall and therefore being but affected and fictitious I felt it not there was no corrosion at all but all that was unkind in it if you will call that passion unkindnesse was a certain light indignation that I bore and ever do bear against magnificent folly And there being no name to your Book I thought I had the opportunity of doing it with the least offence as meeting with the thing disjoyned and singled from the person But I verily think I should not have medled at all if you had spared your incivilities to Des-Chartes whose worth and skill in naturall Philosophy be it fate or judgement that constrains me to it let the world judge I can not but honour and admire He is rayled at but not confuted by any that I see in his naturall Philosophy and that 's the thing I magnifie him for Though his Metaphysicks have wit and strength enough too and he hath made them good against his opposers Line 21. And assure thy self I will persecute thee so long as there is ink or paper in England Assuredly thou wilt not Philalethes For why I am dead already taken in thy trap and tortured to death will not this suffice thee I am dead and thou thy self but mortall wilt thou entertain immortall enmity against me But how canst thou persecute me being dead Wilt thou raise my soul up O Magicus by thy Necromancy and then combate with me over my grave I hope thou art but in jest Eugenius If thou beest not I must tell thee in good earnest thy present bitternesse will make thee Simon Magus like as well as thy former boasting O thou confounded and undone thing how hast thou shamed thy self Thy vizard is fallen off and thy sanctimonious clothing torn from about thee even as it was with the Apes and Monkies that being attired like men and wearing vizards over their faces did daunce and cringe and kisse and do all the gestures of men so artificially and becomingly that the Countrey people took them to be a lesser size of humane race till a waggish fellow that had more with then the rest dropt a few nuts amongst them for which they fell a scrambling so earnestly that they tore off their vizards and to the great laughter of the spectatours show'd what manner of creatures they were O Magicus do not dissemble before me For thou dost not know with what eyes I behold thee Were it not better for thee and all the world beside to make it their businesse to be really and fully possest of those things that are undoubtedly good and Christian nay indeed if they be had in the right Principle are the very buds and branches of the tree of Paradise the limbs and members of the Divine nature such as are meeknesse patience and humility discretion freedome from self-interest chastity temperance equity and the like is it not better to seek after these things then to strain at high words and uncertain flatuous notions that do but puff up the mind and make it seem full to it self when it is distended with nothing but unwholsome wind Is not this very true my dear Philatethes Line II. Upon certain similitudes and analogies of mine Now we are come to that rare piece of Zoography of thine the world drawn out in the shape of an Animal But let 's view the whole draught as it lies in your book because you make such a foul noise about it in your answer Your words are these Besides the texture of the Universe clearly discovers its Animation The Earth which is the visible naturall Basis of it represents the grosse carnall parts The element of the water answers to the bloud for in it the pulse of the great world beats this most men call the flux and reflux but they know not the true cause of it The air is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast creature breathes though invisibly yet not insensibly The interstellar skies are his vitall ethereall waters and the starres his animall sensuall fire Now to passe my censure on this rare Zoographicall peice I tell thee if thy brains were so confusedly scattered as thy phansie is here thou wert a dead man Philalethes all the Chymistry in the world could not recover thee Thou art so unitive a soul Phil. and such a clicker at the slightest shadows of similitude that thou wouldst not stick to match chalk and cheese together I perceive and mussitate a marriage betwixt an Apple and an Oyster Even those proverbiall dissimilitudes have something of similitude in them will you then take them for similes that have so monstrous a disproportion and dissimilitude But you are such a Sophister that you can make any thing good Let 's try The Earth must represent the flesh because they both be grosse so is chalk and cheese or an Apple and an Oyster But what think you of the Moon is not that as much green cheese as the Earth is flesh what think you of Venus of Mercury and the rest of the Planets which they that know any thing in Nature know to be as much flesh as the Earth is that is to be dark opake as well as shee What! is this flesh of the world then torn apeices and thrown about scattered here and there like the disjoynted limbs of dragg'd Hippolytus Go to Phil where are you now with your fine knacks and similitudes But to the next Analogie The element of water answers to the bloud Why For in it is the pulse of the great world But didst thou ever feel the pulse of the Moon And yet is not there water too thou little sleepy heedlesse Endymion The bloud is restagnant there I warrant you and hath no pulse So that the man with the thorns on his back lives in a very unwholesome region But to keep to our own station here upon Earth Dost thou know what thou sayest when thou venturest to name that monosyllable Pulse dost thou know the causes and the laws of it Tell me my little Philosophaster where is there in the earth or out of the earth in this World-Animal of thine that which will answer to the heart and the systole and diastole thereof to make this pulse And beside this There is wanting rarefaction and universall diffusion of the stroke at once These are in the pulse of a true Animal but are not to be found in the Flux of the sea For it is not in all places at once nor is the water rarefied where it is Now my pretty Parabolist what is there left to make your similitude good for a pulse in your great Animal more then when you spill your
intellectuall Idea's which are the seals of Gods sensible works for before the earth sent forth herbs there was even then Saith Moses herbs in Rerum Natura and before the grasse grew there was invisible grasse Can you desire any thing more plain and expresse But to make thee amends for laughing at thy division of the Idea which had but one member and hopped like one of the Monocoli upon a single legge I will give thee another Idea besides this out of the same Philo and such as may be truly called both an Idea and a naturall one a thing betwixt thy Ideal vestiment and the Divine Idea it self {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} pag. 6. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is But the fruits was not onely for nourishment for living creatures but preparations also for the perpetuall generation of the like kind of plants they having in them Seminall Substances in which the hidden and invisible forms of all things become manifest and visible by circumvolutions of seasons These are the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Rationes seminales the seminall Forms of things Observ. 11. Page 48. line 9. Mastix is deliver'd of a Bull This is a Calf of thy own begetting but I have forgot all this while to render thee a Calf for a Bull as I promis'd thee I am not toyish enough for thee my little Phil. Do I say heat and siccity are Aqua vitae bottles But may not heat and siccity and Aqua vitae be consentany arguments what repugnancie is there in it Answer Logician Therefore there is no Bull here till thou be grown up to thy full stature Observ. 12. Here I told you that you incompassing all with the Empyreal substance you had left no room for Evening and Morning upon the Masse of the Earth What do you answer to this That the Empyreal substance was a fire which had borrowed its tincture from the light but not so much as would illuminate the Masse of it self No Philalethes Do not you say it retain'd a vast portion of light and is not that enough to illuminate the Masse of it self Nay you say it made the first day without the Sunne but now you unsay it again Pitifull baffled Creature But as for those terrible mysterious radiations of God upon the Chaos dark Evaporations of the Chaos towards God which thou wouldst fain shuffle off thy absurdities by I say they are but the flarings of thine own phansie and the reeks and fumes of thy puddled brain Dost thou tell me this from Reason or Inspiration Phil If from Reason produce thy arguments if from Inspiration shew me thy Miracle Page 51. line 25. The clouds are in the Aire not above it c. But if the clouds be the highest parts of the world according to the letter of Moses which is accommodated as I shall prove to the common conceit and sense of the Vulgar then in the judgement of sober men it will appear that thy Argument hath no agreement neither with Philosophy nor common sense Now therefore to instruct thee as well as I do sometimes laugh at theee I will endeavour to make these two things plain to thee First that Scripture speaks according to the outward appearance of things to sense and vulgar conceit of men Secondly That following this Rule we shall find the Extent of the World to be bounded no higher then the clouds or there about So that the Firmament viz. the Air for the Hebrews have no word for the Air distinct from Heaven or Firmament Moses making no distinctiō may be an adequate bar betwixt the lower and upper waters Which it was requisite for Moses to mention vulgar observation discovering that waters came down from above viz. showers of Rain and they could not possibly conceive that unlesse there were waters above that any water should descend thence And this was it that gave occasion to Moses of mentioning those two waters the one above the other beneath the firmament But to return to the first point to be proved That Scripture speaks according to the outward appearance of things to sense and vulgar conceit of men This I say is a confessed truth with the most learned of the Hebrews Amongst whom it is a rule for the understanding of many and many places of Scripture Loquitur Lex secundùm linguam filiorum hominum that is That the Law speaks according to the language of the sonnes of men as Moses Aegyptius can tell you And it will be worth our labour now to instance in some few passages Gen. 19. V. 23. The sunne was risen upon the Earth when Lot entred into Zoar. Which implies that it was before under the Earth Which is true onely according to sense and vulgar phansie deuteronom. 30. V. 4. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Implies that the earth is bounded at certain places as if there were truly an Hercules Pillar or Non plus ultrá As it is manifest to them that understand but the naturall signification of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} For those words plainly import the Earth bounded by the blue Heavens and the Heavens bounded by the Horizon of the Earth they touching one another mutually Which is true onely to sense and in appearance as any man that is not a meer Idiot will confesse Ecclesiastic cap. 27. V. 12. The discourse of a godly man is alwayes with wisdome but a fool changeth as the moon That 's to be understood according to sense and appearance For if a fool changeth no more then the Moon doth really he is a wise and excellently accomplished man Semper idem though to the sight of the vulgar different For at least an Hemisphear of the Moon is alwayes enlightned and even then most when she least appears to us Hitherto may be referr'd also that 2. Chron. 4.2 Also he made a molten Sea of ten Cubits from brim to brim round in compasse and five Cubits the heigth thereof and a line of thirty Cubits did compasse it round about A thing plainly impossible that the Diameter should be ten Cubits and the Circumference but thirty But it pleaseth the Spirit of God here to speak according to the common use and opinion of Men and not according to the subtilty of Archimedes his demonstration Again Psalme 19. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sunne which as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to runne his race This as M. John Calvin observes is spoken according to the rude apprehension of the Vulgar whom David should in vain have indeavoured to teach the mysteries of Astronomy Haec ratio est saith he cur dicat tentorium ei paratum esse deinde egredi ipsum ab una coeli extremitate transire celeriter ad partem oppositam Neque enim argutè inter