Preface / To the highly laudable Likely referring to the "highly laudable Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross."

...[this] little kabbalistic treatise kabbalistic (cabalische): relating to Jewish mysticism, though here used in a Christian context to mean hidden or spiritual wisdom, of which more shall be mentioned hereafter, and expand it with more [content]. And even the pagan writers—who knew nothing of God and His Word, or the way to eternal salvation—were forced to confess regarding themselves and their own knowledge: No good mind exists without divine inspiration. original Latin: "Nulla mens bona absq; afflatu Divino." A quote traditionally attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca.

Faith is compared with reason.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable that such knowledge—which flows forth from divine revelation and is drawn through faith—is to be preferred far above reason. For what else is faith but to behold God alone, and to behold all things in Him?

Faith is preferred: 1. because of its object.

What is contemplation—in the sense that the word is used in the schools Referring to "Scholasticism," the traditional academic and theological method used in universities at the time.—when it uses reason as it exists outside of Grace after the Fall? It is to search through the world and what is in it by the aforementioned untrodden, circuitous, and slow paths of reason, and quite often to completely and utterly miss the highest unified and single purpose of the Creator. I say...