Sophy

It had ben) beter to haue kepte the same sophie

Turn thee to mee, in caſe Manhod ther bee ſo much left in thy hert: Coom fight with mee: that on my helmet wear Apolloes laurel, both for learnings laude, And eke for Martiall prayſe: that, in my ſhield, The ſeuenfold ſophie of Minerue contein: A match, more meet, ſir king, than any here.

Who knoweth not the difference betweene…semblance, and assurance; docosophy, and sophy?

Now it is high heaking time, and bee the windes neuer so eaſterly aduerſe and the tyde fled from vs, wee must violently towe and hale in our redoubtable Sophy, of the floating kingdom of Piſces, whome ſo much as by name I ſhoulde not haue acknowledged, had it not beene that I muſed, how Yarmouth ſhould be inueſted in ſuch plenty and opulence, conſidering that in M. Hackluit’s [i.e., Richard Hakluyt’s] Engliſh diſcoueries, I haue not come in ken of one mizzen maſt of a man of warre bound for the Indies, or mediteranean ſternebearer ſente from her Zenith or Meridian; [...]

Yet notwithstanding some men in sundrie nations have mounted above the common rate, and indevored to cherish and advaunce the said Insights, and drawen some small sparkes of truth and wisedome out of them, as out of some little fire raked up under a great heape of ashes; the which they have afterward taught unto others, and for so doing have bene called Sophies and Philosophers, that is to say, Wise men and lovers of wisedome.

The Angels caroll’d loud their song of peace, The cursed oracles were strucken dumb, To see their Shepherd, the poor shepherds press, To see their King, the kingly sophies come, And them to guide unto his Master’s home, A star comes dancing up the orient, That springs for joy over the starry tent. Where gold to make their prince a crown they all present.

You that nothing have Like Schollars but a Beard and Gowne, for me May pass for good grand Sophies […]

It is no thanks then to us, that very children among us do believe and confess these high mysterious points, whereof Plato, and Aristotle, and all the other grand sophies among them were ignorant; since we owe our whole knowledge herein, not to our own natural sagacity or industry, wherein they were beyond most of us, but to divine and supernatural revelation.