A Preface to the Reader
Having been moved to give way to the publication of this Philosophical Miscellany, the fruit of my younger studies, I conceive it needful to prevent one obvious prejudice under which I may labour. For it may haply seem indecent in me, having adventured to publish some few, though weak discourses in arguments divine, that I should now suffer the blossoms of my youth to look abroad and run the [reconstructed: hazard] of public censure. To which, when I shall have [reconstructed: given] a short answer, I shall rest something the more confident of a [reconstructed: candid] construction.
And here I might first allege the [reconstructed: favor] which God himself has been pleased to give to [reconstructed: Instruction], and natural knowledge. In the first creation when he gave to man the [reconstructed: Dominion] over other creatures for his use, he gave him likewise the [reconstructed: knowledge] of them, for his Maker's glory, and his own delight. (For God brought them to him to give them names.) And as the Holy Scriptures are all over full of the mysteries of God's wisdom in natural things, so are there some special passages thereof written as it were purposely on that argument. And we find that Moses and Solomon have therein testimony given to them, not only of their divine, but of their human, and natural knowledge likewise.
And if we look into the ancient Christian churches, or into these of later times, we shall find that very many ecclesiastical persons have not denied to the world their philosophical and poetical labors, either whole and alone, or mixed, and directed to theological ends, as we find in the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Eusebius Caesariensis, Saint Austin's Books, De Civitate Dei, and others, Venerable Bede, Isidore Hispalensis, Synesius Sidonius Apollinaris, Honorius Augustodunensis, etc. In the [reconstructed: Hexamerons] of Saint Basil, Nyssen, Ambrose, and the books of those who have written more directly upon some parts of the argument of this present treatise, as Gregory Nyssen, Lactantius, Nemesius, Procopius, [reconstructed: Gazaeus], Damascen, and others. And in later times, besides the Schoolmen, and those vast labours of many of that side, in dialectical, physical and metaphysical writings we might instance in very many of the [reconstructed: Reformed] churches abroad, some of whose younger labours have seen the light; as also in the oratory, logical, moral, historical, mathematical, [reconstructed: miscellaneous] writings of many learned divines of our own church, under the protection of which great examples I shall use the apology which Quintilian dictates to me, Vel Error honestus est Magnos Duces sequentibus. That it is no uncomely, but a pardonable error, which has great examples to excuse it. In which respect I find myself chiefly subject to this infelicity, that I am constrained to follow such examples, as little children do their fathers, Non aequis passibus, at a very great distance.
And truly, when I again consider the excellent use and subordination of human learning to learning divine (it being hardly possible, without it, to understand sundry passages of holy Scripture, depending upon the propriety of words and idioms, or upon the customs, rites, proverbs, forms, usages, laws, offices, antiquities of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman monarchies, as might be shown in sundry particulars, and were a labour most worthy the industry of some able and learned pen:) when I consider that the spoils of Egypt were by God allowed to enrich Israel, and the spoils of the Gentiles reserved by David for the building of the Temple: that a Gentile by legal purification and marriage, might become an Israelite, that the crown of Rabbah was put upon the head of David, and the sword of Goliath used to slay himself: that the gold and [reconstructed: myrrh], and frankincense of the wise men of the East, was offered to Christ; when I find the Apostle convincing the Jews, out of their law, and the philosophers out of their maxims. And that every gift, as well as every creature of God is good, and may be sanctified for the use and delight of man; I then conclude with myself, that this moral and philosophical glass of the human soul may be of some service even to the Tabernacle, as the looking glasses of the Israelitish women were to the altar.
[reconstructed: Nor] [reconstructed: do I but] wonder a little at the melancholy fancy of Saint Hierom, who conceiving himself in a [reconstructed: vision] beaten by an angel for being a Ciceronian, did for ever after promise to abjure the reading of secular [reconstructed: authors]. [reconstructed: He is found] himself both justifying the [reconstructed: lawful] use of that kind of learning, and acknowledging [reconstructed: that] conceived vision of his to have been but a [reconstructed: dream].
It is true indeed that in regard of the bewitching danger from human learning, and the too great aptness in the minds of man to surfeit and be intemperate, in the use of it; some of the ancients have sometimes interdicted the reading of such authors to Christian men; but this calls upon us for watchfulness, in our studies, not for negligence, for the Apostle will tell us, that to the pure all things are pure. And even of harmful things when they are prepared, and their malignancy by art corrected, does the skillful physician make an excellent use. If then we be careful to moderate and regulate our affections, to take heed of the pride and [reconstructed: inflation] of secular learning, not to admire philosophy, to the prejudice of evangelical knowledge, as if without the revealed light of the Gospel, salvation might be found, in the way of Paganism; if we suffer not these lean [reconstructed: cattle] to devour the fat ones, nor the river Jordan to be lost in the dead Sea; I mean piety to be swallowed up of profane studies, and the knowledge of the Scriptures (which alone would make any man conversant in all other kinds of learning with much greater felicity, and success:) to be under-valued, and not rather, the more admired, is a rich jewel compared with glass. In this case, and with such care as this, there is no doubt, but secular studies prepared and corrected from pride and profaneness, may be to the church as the [reconstructed: Gibeonites] were to the congregation of Israel, for [reconstructed: Hewers] of [reconstructed: Wood], and drawers of water, otherwise we may say of them as Cato Major to his [reconstructed: son], of the Graecian arts and learning, Quandocunque ista Gens suas literas dabit, omnia [reconstructed: Corrumpet].
Nor have I upon these considerations only adventured on the publication of this tract, but because withal, in the reviewing of it, I found very many touches upon theological arguments, and some passages wholly of that nature. Indeed, all the material parts of the treatise do so nearly concern the knowledge of ourselves, and the direction of our lives, as that they may be all esteemed borderers upon that profession.
In the perusing and fashioning of it for the press, I have found that true in writing, which I had formerly found true in building; that it is almost as chargeable to repair, and set right an old house, as to erect a new one. For I was willing in the most material parts of it, so to lop off luxuriances of style, and to supply the defects of matter, as that with candid, favourable, and ingenuous judgments, it might receive some tolerable acceptation. In hope whereof I rest,
Yours in all Christian service, EDWARD REYNOLDS.
