§. 2. But I find that it is no wonder that he was understood by few, For 1. His sublime and philosophical notions, met not with many Auditors, so well studied in those things as to be capable of understanding them. It is a great inconvenience to men of extraordinary discoveries and sublimity, that they must speak to very few. 2. And though he cloud not his matter ⟨p. 108⟩with so many self-made names and notions as Behmen, Paracelsus, Wigelius and some others, yet those few that he hath, do somewhat obscure it▪ 3. But above all the excessive pregnancy of his wit produceth so great a superabundance of Metaphors or Allegories, that (about the description of Christ especially) they make up almost all his style; so that to any ordinary Reader his matter is not so much clothed in Metaphors, as drowned, buried or lost: And though I confess my wit, being to his, but as a barren Desert to a florid Meadow, may be apt to undervalue that which it attaineth not; yet I do approve of my present judgement, in thinking, that (seeing all metaphorical terms are ambiguous,) he that excessively useth them befriendeth not the Truth and the hearers intellect, but while he is too much a Rhetorician, he is too little a good Logician: a•d as he is hardly understood by others, I should fear lest he seduce his own understanding, and can scarce have clear mental conceptions of that matter, which he utters by a torrent of ambiguous Metaphors, if he think as he speaketh, and his words be the direct expressions of his mind. I had rather be instructed in the words of the most barbarous Schoolman, adapted to the matter, than to be put to save my self from the temptation of equivocations in every sentence which I hear, and to search after that Truth (which is known only naked) under so florid a disguise and paint.
§. 2. But I find that it is no wonder that he was understood by few, For 1. His sublime and philosophical notions, met not with many Auditors, so well studied in those things as to be capable of understanding them. It is a great inconvenience to men of extraordinary discoveries and sublimity, that they must speak to very few. 2. And though he cloud not his matter ⟨p. 108⟩with so many self-made names and notions as Behmen, Para•elsus, Wigelius and some others, yet those few that he hath, do somewhat obscure it▪ 3. But above all the excessive pregnancy of his wit produceth so great a superabundance of Metaphors or Allegories, that (about the description of Christ especially) they make up almost all his style; so that to any ordinary Reader his matter is not so much cloathed in Metaphors, as drowned, buried or lost: And though I confess my wit, being to his, but as a barren Desart to a florid Meadow, may be apt to undervalue that which it attaineth not; yet I do approve of my present judgement, in thinking, that (seeing all metaphorical terms are ambiguous,) he that excessively useth them befriendeth not the Truth and the hearers intellect, but while he is too much a Rhetorician, he is too little a good Logician: a•d as he is hardly understood by others, I should fear lest he feduce his own understanding, and can scarce have clear mental conceptions of that matter, which he utters by a torrent of ambiguous Metaphors, if he think as he speaketh, and his words be the direct expressions of his mind. I had rather be instructed in the words of the most barbarous Schoolman, adapted to the matter, than to be put to save my self from the temptation of equivocations in every sentence which I hear, and to search after that Truth (which is known only naked) under so florid a disguise and paint.
