In the mean time I require a favorable censure of all faults omitted, harsh compositions, pleonasmes of words, tautological repetitions (though Seneca bear me out, nunquam nimis dicitur, quod nunquam satis dicitur) perturbations of tenses, numbers, printers faults, &c. My translations are sometimes rather paraphrases, then interpretations, non ad verbum, but as an author, I use more liberty, and thats only taken, which was to my purpose:

Quotations are often inserted in the Text, which make the stile more harsh, or in the margent as it hapned. Greek authors, Plato, Plutarch, Athenæus, &c. I have cited out of their interpreters, because the original was not so readie. I have mingled sacra prophanis, but I hope not prophaned, and in repetition of authors names, ranked them per accidens, not according to Chronologie; sometimes Neotericks before Ancients, as my memory suggested. Some things are here altered, expunged in this sixth Edition, others amended, much added, because many good authors in all kinds are come to my hands since, and tis no prejudice, no such indecorum, or oversight.

Nunquam ita quicquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit, Quin res, ætas, usus, semper aliquid apportent novi, Aliquid moneant, ut illa quæ scire te credas, nescias, Et quæ tibi putaris prima, in exercendo ut repudias. Ne’re was ought yet at first contriv’d so fit, But use, age, or something would alter it; Advise thee better, and, upon peruse, Make thee not say, and what thou tak’st, refuse. But I am now resolved never to put this treatise out again, Ne quid nimis, I wil not hereafter add, alter, or retract, I have done.

The last and greatest exception is, that I being a divine have medled with physick, ———tantumne est ab re tuâ otii tibi, Aliena ut cures, eaque nihil quæ ad te attinent? Which Menedemus objected to Chremes; have I so much leasure, or little businesse of mine own, as to look after other mens matters which concern me not? What have I to do with physick? quod medicorum est promittant medici.

The Lacedemonians were once in counsel about state-matters, a deboshed fellow spake excellent wel, and to the purpose, his speech was generally approved: A grave Senator steps up, and by all means would have it repealed, though good, because dehonestabatur pessimo authore, it had no better an author; let some good man relate the same, and then it should pass. This counsel was embraced, factum est, and it was registred forthwith, Et sic bona sententia mansit, malus author mutatus est.

Thou saiest as much of me, stomachosus as thou art, & grantest peradventure this which I have written in physick, not to be amiss, had another done it, a professed physician, or so; but why should I meddle with this tract? Hear me speak: There be many other subjects, I do easily grant, both in humanity and divinity, fit to be treated of, of which had I written ad ostentationem only, to shew my self, I should have rather chosen, and in which I have been more conversant, I could have more willingly luxuriated, and better satisfied my self and others;

but that at this time I was fatally driven upon this rock of melancholy, and carried away by this by-stream, which as a rillet, is deducted from the main chanel of my studies, in which I have pleased and busied my self at idle hours, as a subject most necessary and commodious. Not that I prefer it before Divinity, which I do acknowledge to be the Queen of professions, and to which all the rest are as handmaids, but that in Divinity I saw no such great need. For had I written positively, there be so many books in that kinde, so many commentators, treatises, pamphlets, expositions, sermons, that whole teemes of oxen cannot draw them;

and had I been as forward and ambitious as some others, I might have haply printed a sermon at Pauls-Cross, a sermon in St. Maries Oxon, a sermon in Christ-Church, or a sermon before the right honorable, right reverend, a sermon before the right worshipful, a sermon in latine, in english, a sermon with a name, a sermon without, a sermon, a sermon, &c. But I have been ever as desirous to suppresse my labours in this kinde, as others have been to presse and publish theirs.

To have written in controversie, had been to cut off an Hydra’s head, lis litem generat, one begets another, so many duplications, triplications, & swarms of questions, In sacro bello hoc quod stili mucrone agitur, that having once begun, I should never make an end. One had much better, as Alexander the sixth Pope, long since observed, provoke a great prince than a begging friar, a Jesuit, or a seminary priest, I will add, for inexpugnabile genus hoc hominum, they are an irrefragable society, they must and wil have the last word;

and that with such eagernesse, impudence, abominable lying, falsifying, and bitternesse in their questions they proceed, that as he said, furorne cæcus, an rapit vis acrior, an culpa, responsum date? Blinde fury, or error, or rashnesse, or what it is that eggs them, I know not, I am sure many times, which Austin perceived long since, tempestate contentionis, serenitas charitatis obnubilatur, with this tempest of contention, the serenity of charity is over-clouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kinde in all sciences, and more than we can tel how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket,

that as Fabius said, It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, then so far to dote to their own destruction. At melius fuerat non scribere, namque tacere Tutum semper erit;——— Tis a generall fault, so Severinus the Dane complains in physick, unhappy men as we are, we spend our daies in unprofitable questions and disputations, intricate subtilties, de lanâ caprinâ, about moonshine in the water, leaving in the mean time those chiefest treasures of nature untouched, wherein the best medicines for all manner of diseases are to be found, and do not only neglect them our selves, but hinder, condemn, forbid and scoffe at others, that are willing to enquire after them. These motives at this present have induced me to make choice of this medicinal subject.