Thomas Vaughan Quotes

He did therefore hatch the matter and bring out the secret essences, as a chick is brought out of the shell, whence that other position of the same Zoroaster: "By one single fire is generated all that is." Neither did He only generate them but He also preserves them now, with perpetual efflux of heat and spirit.

Now God defend: what will become of me? I have neither consulted the stars nor their urinals, the Almanacks. A fine fellow to neglect the prophets who are read in England every day. They shall pardon me for this oversight. There is a mystery in their profession they have not so much as heard of... a new heaven fancied on the old earth. Here the twelve apostles have surprised the zodiac and all the saints are ranged on their North and South sides. It were a pretty vanity to preach when St Paul is ascendant, and would not a papist smile to have his pope elected under St Peter? Reader, if I studied these things I would think myself worse employed than the Roman Chaucer was in his Troilus (To the reader)

Bless'd souls, whose care it was this first to know
And thus the mansions of the light attain:
How credible to hold that minds like these Transcend both human littleness and vice.
If Thou, O Jehovah, my God, wilt enlighten me, darkness shall be made light. p.56

As we know the sun doth not only dispense heat but some other secret influx, so did God also in the creation, and from Him the sun and all the stars received what they have, for God Himself is a supernatural sun or fire, according to that oracle of Zoroaster: "That Architect Who built up the cosmos by His unaided power was Himself another orb of fire." (Factor qui per se operans fabrefecit mundum, Qucedam ignis moles erat altera.)

Be pleased to consider, that obstinacy enslaves the Soul, and clips the wings which God gave Her for flight, and discovery.

Their philosophy is like a church, that is all discipline, and no doctrine

They dwell altogether in the face, their endeavors are meer titillations, & their acquaintance with Nature is not at the heart.

Surely, So sir, this is not the Philosophers’ Stone, neither will I undertake to define it, but give me leave to speak to you in the language of Zoroaster: “Seek thou the channel of the Soule.”

This is my advice but how welcome to thee I know not.

Besides, their Aristotle is a poet in text, his principles are but fancies, and they stand more on our concessions, then his bottom.