Alexander Ross

“ The Turks are preposterousy zealous in praying for the conversion, or perversion rather, of Christians to their irreligious Religion, they pray heartily, and every day in their Temples, that Christlans may imbarte the Alcoran, and become their Prosolytes, in effecting of which they leave no means unassaied by fear and flattery, by punishments and rewards; now, is it fitting that they in charity and zeal should exceed us? we are bound to pray, and indeavor heartily for their conversion, from darkness to light from error to truth ”

“ There is a kinde of necessity we should know evil as wel as good, falshood as well as truth, that we may avoid the one, and so much more love the other; he that hath smelled a stinking weede will smell with more delight the sweet Rose, he that reades the Alcoran will finde it smell worse then Mahomets carkass did, which after his death lay putrifying upon the ground, which his disciples permitted for many dayes together, hoping he would have been as good as his word, who made them a promise that he would rise again the third day ”

“ Though it may be dangerous to such as like reedes are shaken, and like empty clouds carried about with every winde of doctrin, yet to staid and solid Christians, the reading of Mahomets Heresies will be no more dangerous, then the reading of those errors which are recorded in Scripture, for in them are mentioned many damnable errors and abominations of the Egyptians, Cananites, Hittites, Sidonians, and other Gentiles, and of the Hebrews themselves, of the Sadduces who denied Spirits, Angels, and the Resurrection. ”

“ Physick speaks of poysons as well as cures; Historians describe both the vertuous and vicious actions of Princes; in Divinity we learn, not only what God and good Angels are, but also what Sathan is and his wicked Angels; in Navigation we must know, not only what places are Navigable, but also what are not; how shall we avoid Rocks, Quick-sands and Shelves if we know them not? even so Christian Religion permits not only the reading of Scripture but also of heretical and heathenish books, as is said, that we may know what to embrace, what to shun ”

“ It is no for every many to meddle with Apothecaries drugs, he may chance meet with poyson as soon as an antidote; if all men were like Bees, to suck honey even out of Henbane, there might be no danger in reading the Alcoran, but most men are like Spiders sucking poyson even out of the sweetest of Roses; therefore they only may surely and without danger read the Alcoran, who are intelligent, judicious, learned, and throughly grounded in piety ”

“ They that learn Arts and Sciences, desire the knowledg, not only of the good things, but of the evil things also, and the abuses of them, to the end they may avoid them; therefore Logick sspeaks as well as sophisticall and fallacious syllogismes, as of demonstrative and topical; Ethicks treats of vices as well as of vertues; Natural Philosophy handleth the natures, not only of useful and beneficial creatures, but also of hurtful and venomous, as of Serpents ”

“ Perhaps in memory of this lying miracle, the Turks use yet the half Moon for their Arms: He tels us of a great army of men and Angels raised by Salomon, but much hindred in their march by an army of Flies, which Salomon rebuked, where we have a witless conference between Salomon and the Fly; he tels you strange Story of Noahs Ark, how there the Hog was generated of the Elephants dung, and a Rat of the Hogs dung, which gnawing a hole in the Ark, at which Noah was affrighted ”

“ Of Lyes: first of Contradictions he doth ordinarily say, and unsay the same thing; one while he tells us, that he was the first that ever entered into Paradise, and elsewhere he sayes he found men and women there; sometimes he affirms that Jews and Christians shall be saved by their own Religion, and sometimes again that none can be saved who embrace not his Alcoran; In one place following the Opinion of Origen, or rather of the Origenists he affirmed that all the devils shall be saved; in another place he saith only those devils shall be saved who hearken to, and obey his Alcoran. ”

“ Opposita uxta se posita clarius elucescunt, the Gem recieves lustre from the foile, the stars from the night, & fire is most scorching in Frost, even so by an Antiperistasis truth is fortified by error Who can thing that the fight of a Hob Goblin, or deformed vizard should draw the childe from the Nurse or brest of the Mother to embrace it, Whereas the fight thereof will rather cause the child hold faster by the mother. ”