A postscript to a book published last year entituled Considerations on Dr. Burnet's Theory of the earth Beaumont, John, d. 1731. 1694 Approx. 14 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2003-01 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A27209 Wing B1622 ESTC R29033 10797719 ocm 10797719 45950 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A27209) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 45950) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1415:25) 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. 8 p. Printed and are to be sold by Randal Taylor, London : 1694. Caption title. Page 7 signed: John Beaumont, Jun. Reproduction of original in the British Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Creation. Earth -- Early works to 1800. 2002-06 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2002-07 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2002-08 Mona Logarbo Sampled and proofread 2002-08 Mona Logarbo Text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-10 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion 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 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 Notes, typically marginal, from the original text Notes for div A27209-e10 De Elem. Philos. 1. 2. in proaem . In Ep. Comment , hierog . praemissâ .