Period of true Religion this Gentleman's intended Theam as I conceive I have no occasion to speak any thing since my Author doth but transiently mention it and that too in such a phrase as ordinary Catechisms speak of to vulgar Capacities Thus my Lord having run through the Book God knows how sleightly upon so great a sudden which your Lordship commanded me to give you an account of there remaineth yet a weightier task upon me to perform which is to excuse my self of Presumption for daring to consider any Moles in that Face which you had marked for a Beauty But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these Remarks will free me from that Censure I offer not at Judging the Prudence and Wisdom of this Discourse These are fit Inquiries for your Lordships Court of highest Appeal In my inferiour one I meddle onely with little knotty pieces of particular Sciences Matinae apis instar operosa parvus carmina fingit In which it were peradventure a fault for your Lordship to be too well versed your Imployments are of a higher and nobler Strain and that concerns the welfare of millions of men Tu regere Imperio Populos Sackville memento Hae tibi erunt Artes pacisque imponere morem Such little Studies as these belong onely to those Persons that are low in the Rank they hold in the Common-wealth low in their Conceptions and low in a languishing and rusting Leisure such an one as Virgil calleth Ignobile otium and such an one as I am now dulled withal If Alexander or Caesar should have commended a tract of Land as fit to fight a Battel in for the Empire of the World or to build a City upon to be the Magazine and Staple of all the adjacent Countries no body could justly condemn that Husbandman who according to his own narrow Art and Rules should censure the Plains of Arbela or Pharsalia for being in some places sterile or the Meadows about Alexandria for being sometimes subject to be overflown or could tax ought he should say in that kind for a contradiction unto the others commendations of those places which are built upon higher and larger Principles So my Lord I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerliness for putting in a Demurrer unto a few little particularities in that noble Discourse which your Lordship gave a general Applause unto and by doing so I have given your Lordship the best Account I can of my self as well as of your Commands You hereby see what my entertainments are and how I play away my time Dorset dum magnus ad altum Fulminat Oxonium bello victorque volentes Per populos dat jura viamque affectat Olympo May your Counsels there be happy and successful ones to bring about that Peace which if we be not quickly blessed withal a general ruine threatneth the whole Kingdom From Winchester-House the 22 I think I may say the 23 for I am sure it is Morning and I think it is Day of December 1642. Your Lordships must humble and obedient Servant Kenelm Digby The Postscript My Lord LOoking over these loose Papers to point them I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eighth sheet to touch in a word concerning Grace I do not conceive it to be a Quality infused by God Almighty into a Soul Such kind of discoursing satisfieth me no more in Divinity than in Philosophy I take it to be the whole Complex of such real motives as a solid account may be given of them that incline a man to Virtue and Piety and are set on foot by God's particular Grace and Favour to bring that work to pass As for Example To a man plunged in Sensuality some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tenderness and inclineth him to much thoughtfulness In this temper he meeteth with a Book or Preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his own condition and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other Objects after he shall have taken leave of his former beloved Sins This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men and experienced Physitians in curing the Souls Maladies whereby he is at last perfectly converted and setled in a course of solid Vertue and Piety Now these accidents of his misfortune the gentleness and softness of his Nature his falling upon a good Book his encountring with a pathetick Preacher the impremeditated Chance that brought him to hear his Sermon his meeting with other worthy men and the whole Concatenation of all the intervening Accidents to work this good effect in him and that were ranged and disposed from all Eternity by Gods particular goodness and providence for his Salvation and without which he had inevitably beer damned This chain of Causes ordered by God to produce this effect I understand to be Grace FINIS * A Church Bell that tolls every day at six and twelve of the Clock at the hearing whereof every one in what place soever either of House or Street betakes himself to his prayer which is commonly directed to the Virgin b A revolution of certain thousand years when all things should return unto theirformer estate and he be teaching again in his School as when he delivered this Opinion b Sphaera cujus centrum ubique circumferentianullibi * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nosce teipsum * Post Mortem nihil est ipsaque Mors nihil Mors individua est noxia corpori nec patiens animae Toti morimur nullaque pars manet nostri In Rabbelais * Pineda in his Monarchica Ecclesiastica quotes one thousand and forty Authors * In his Oracle to Augustus * Thereby is meant our good Angel appointed us from our Nativity * Who willed his friend not to bury him but hang him up with a staff in his hand to fright away the Crows In those days there shall come lyars and false prophets †Urbem Romam in principio Reges habuere * Pro Archia Poeta †In qua me non inficior mediocriter esse * In his Medicus Medicateus * That he was a German appears by his Notes Pag. 35. where he hath these words Duleissima nostra Germania c. * In Praefat Annotat * Excepting two or three Particulars in which reference is made to some Books that came over since that time Printing Guns * Tho. Aquin in com in Boet de Consolat prope â—inam This Story I have but upon relation yet of a very good hand
contempt whilst therefore they direct their Devotions to Her I offered mine to God and rectifie the Errors of their Prayers by rightly ordering mine own At a solemn Procession I have wept abundantly while my consorts blind with opposition and prejudice have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter There are questionless both in Greek Roman and African Churches Solemnities and Ceremonies whereof the wiser Zeals do make a Christian use and stand condemned by us not as evil in themselves but as allurements and baits of superstition to those vulgar heads that look asquint on the face of Truth and those unstable Judgments that cannot resist in the narrow point and centre of Virtue without a reel or stagger to the Circumference Sect. 4 As there were many Reformers so likewise many Reformations every Country proceeding in a particular way and method according as their national Interest together with their Constitution and Clime inclined them some angrily and with extremity others calmly and with mediocrity not rending but easily dividing the community and leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation which though peaceable Spirits do desire and may conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect yet that judgment that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extreams their contrarieties in condition affection and opinion may with the same hopes expect an union in the Poles of Heaven Sect. 5 But to difference my self nearer and draw into a lesser Circle There is no Church whose every part so squares unto my Conscience whose Articles Constitutions and Customs seem so consonant unto reason and as it were framed to my particular Devotion as this whereof I hold my Belief the Church of England to whose Faith I am a sworn Subject and therefore in a double Obligation subscribe unto her Articles and endeavour to observe her Constitutions what soever is beyond as points indifferent I observe according to the rules of my private reason or the humour and fashion of my Devotion neither believing this because Luther affirmed it or disproving that because Calvin hath disavouched it I condemn not all things in the Council of Trent nor approve all in the Synod of Dort In brief where the Scripture is silent the Church is my Text where that speaks 't is but my Comment where there is a joynt silence of both I borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva but the dictates of my own reason It is an urjust scandal of our adversaries and a gross errour in our selves to compute the Narivity of our Religion from Henry the Eighth who though he rejected the Pope refus'd not the faith of Rome and effected no more than what his own Predecessors desired and assayed in Ages past and was conceived the State of Venice would have attempted in our days It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome to whom as temporal Prince we owe the duty of good language I confess there is a cause of passion between us by his sentence I stand excommunicated Heretick is the best language he affords me yet can no ear witness I ever returned him the name of Antichrist Man of sin or Whore of Babylon It is the method of Charity to suffer without reaction Those usual Satyrs and invectives of the Pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar whose ears are opener to Rhetorick than Logick yet do they in no wise confirm the faith of wiser Believers who know that a good cause needs not to be pardon'd by passion but can sustain it self upon a temperate dispute Sect. 6 I could never divide my self from any man upon the difference of an opinion or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that from which within a few days I should dissent my self I have no Genius to disputes in Religion and have often thought it wisdom to decline them especially upon a disadvantage or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage Where we desire to be informed 't is good to contest with men above our selves but to confirm and establish our opinions 't is best to argue with judgments below our own that the frequent spoils and Victories over their reasons may settle in our selves an esteem and confirmed Opinion of our own Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth nor fit to take up the Gauntlet in the cause of Verity Many from the ignorance of these Maximes and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth have too rashly charged the Troops of Error and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City and yet be forced to surrender 't is therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazzard her on a battle if therefore there rise any doubts in my way I do forget them or at least defer them till my better setled judgement and more manly reason be able to resolve them for I perceive every mans own reason is his best Oedipus and will upon a reasonable truce find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgements In Philosophy where Truth seems double fac'd there is no man more Paradoxical than my self but in Divinity I love to keep the Road and though not in an implicite yet an humble faith follow the great wheel of the Church by which I move not reserving any proper Poles or motion from the Epicycle of my own brain by this means I have no gap for Heresie Schismes or Errors of which at present I hope I shall not injure Truth to say I have no taint or tincture I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three not any begotten in the latter Centuries but old and obsolete such as could never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine for indeed Heresies perish not with their Authors but like the River Arethusa though they lose their currents in one place they rise up again in another One general Council is not able to extirpate one single Heresie it may be cancell'd for the present but revolution of time and the like aspects from Heaven will restore it when it will flourish till it be condemned again For as though there were Metempsuchosis and the soul of one man passed into another Opinions do find after certain Revolutions men and minds like those that first begat them To see our selves again we need not look for Plato's year every man is not only himself there hath been many Diogenes and as many Timons though but few of that name men are liv'd over again the world is now as it was in Ages past there was none then but there hath been some one since that Parallels him and as it were his revived self Now the first of mine was that of
is not unremarkable what Philo first observed That the Law of Moses continued two thousand years without the least alteration whereas we see the Laws of other Common-weals do alter with occasions and even those that pretended their Original from some Divinity to have vanished without trace or memory * I believe besides Zoroaster there were divers that writ before Moses who notwithstanding have suffered the common fate of time Mens Works have an age like themselves and though they out live their Authors yet have they a stint and period to their duration This only is a work too hard for the teeth of time and cannot perish but in the general Flames when all things shall confess their Ashes Sect. 24 I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero ‖ others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the Library of Alexandria for my own part I think there be too many in the World and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican could I with a few others recover the perished leaves of Solomon * I would not omit a Copy of Enoch's Pillars had they many nearer Authors than Josephus or did not relish somewhat of the Fable Some men have written more than others have spoken Pineda quotes more Authors in one work than are necessary in a whole World ‖ Of those three great inventions in Germany there are two which are not without their incommodities and 't is disputable whether they exceed not their use and commodities 'T is not a melancholy Utinam of my own but the desires of better beads that there were a general Synod not to unite the incompatible difference of Religion but for the benefit of learning to reduce it as it lay at first in a few and solid Authors and to condemn to the fire those swarms millions of Rhapsodies begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgements of Scholars and to maintain the trade and mystery of Typographers Sect. 25 I cannot but wonder with what exception the Samaritans could confine their belief to the Pentateuch or five Books of Moses I am ashamed at the Rabbinical Interpretation of the Jews upon the old Testament as much as their defection from the New And truly it is beyond wonder how that contemptible and degenerate issue of Jacob once so devoted to Ethnick Superstition and so easily seduced to the Idolatry of their Neighbours should now in such an obstinate and peremptory belief adhere unto their own Doctrine expect impossibilities and in the face and eye of the Church persist without the least hope of Conversion This is a vice in them that were a vertue in us for obstinacy in a bad Cause is but constancy in a good And herein I must accuse those of my own Religion for there is not any of such a fugitive Faith such an unstable belief as a Christian none that do so oft transform themselves not unto several shapes of Christianity and of the same Species but unto more unnatural and contrary Forms of Jew and Mahometan that from the name of Saviour can condescend to the bare term of Prophet and from an old belief that he is come fall to a new expectation of his coming It is the promise of Christ to make us all one Flock but how and when this Union shall be is as obscure to me as the last day Of those four Members of Religion we hold a slender proportion there are I confess some new additions yet small to those which accrew to our Adversaries and those only drawn from the revolt of Pagans men but of negative Impieties and such as deny Christ but because they never heard of him but the Religion of the Jew is expresly against the Christian and the Mahometan against both For * the Turk in the bulk he now stands he is beyond all hope of conversion if he fall asunder there may be conceived hopes but not without strong improbabilities The Jew is obstinate in all fortunes the persecution of fifteen hundred years hath but confirmed them in their Errour they have already endured whatsoever may be inflicted and have suffered in a bad cause even to the condemnation of their enemies Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion It hath been the unhappy method of angry Devotions not only to confirm honest Religion but wicked Heresies and extravagant Opinions It was the first stone and Basis of our Faith * none can more justly boast of Persecutions and glory in the number and valour of Martyrs For to speak properly those are true and almost only examples of fortitude Those that are fetch'd from the field or drawn from the actions of the Camp are not oft-times so truely precedents of valour as audacity and at the best attain but to some bastard piece of fortitude ‖ If we shall strictly examine the circumstances and requisites which Aristotle requires to true and perfect valour we shall find the name only in his Master Alexander and as little in that Roman Worthy Julius Caesar and if any in that easie and active way have done so nobly as to deserve that name yet in the passive and more terrible piece these have surpassed and in a more heroical way may claim the honour of that Title 'T is not in the power of every honest Faith to proceed thus far or pass to Heaven through the flames every one hath it not in that full measure nor in so audacious and resolute a temper as to endure those terrible tests and trials who notwithstanding in a peaceable way do truely adore their Saviour and have no doubt a Faith acceptable in the eyes of God Sect. 26 Now as all that dye in the War are not termed Souldiers so neither can I properly term all those that suffer in matters of Religion Martyrs * The Council of Constance condemns John Huss for an Heretick the Stories of his own Party stile him a Martyr He must need offend the Divinity of both that says he was neither the one nor the other There are many questionless canonized on earth that shall never be Saints in Heaven and have their names in Histories and Martyrologies who in the eyes of God are not so perfect Martyrs as was * that wise Heathen Socrates that suffered on a fundamental point of Religion the Unity of God * I have often pitied the miserable Bishop that suffered in the cause of Antipodes yet cannot chuse but accuse him of as much madness for exposing his living on such a trifle as those of ignorance and folly that condemned him I think my conscience will not give me the lye if I say there are not many extant that in a noble way fear the face of death less than my self yet from the moral duty I owe to the Commandment of God and the natural respects that I tender unto the conservation of my essence and being I would not perish upon a Ceremony Politick points or indifferency nor is
of many Nunc's or many instants by the addition of one more it is still encreased and by that means Infinity or Eternity is not included nor ought more than Time For this see Mr. White de dial mundo Dial. 3. Nod. 4. Indeed he only is c. This the Author infers from the words of God to Moses I am that I am and this to distinguish him from all others who he saith have and shall be but those that are learned in the Hebrew affirm that the words in that place Exod. 3. do not signifie Ego sum qui sum qui est c. but Ero qui ero qui erit c. vid. Gassend in animad Epicur Physiolog I wonder how Aristotle could conceive the World Eternal or how he could make two Eternities that is that God and the World both were eternal I wonder more at either the ignorance or incogitancy of the Conimbricenses who in their Comment upon the eighth Book of Aristotle's Physicks treating of the matter of Creation when they had first said that it was possible to know it and that actually it was known for Aristotle knew it yet for all this they afterwards affirm That considering onely the light of Nature there is nothing can be brought to demonstrate Creation and yet farther when they had defined Creation to be the production of a thing ex nihhilo and had proved that the world was so created in time and refused the arguments of the Philosophers to the contrary they added this That the World might be created ab aeterno for having propos'd this question Num aliquid à Deo ex Aeternitate procreari potuit they defend the affirmative and assert That not onely incorporeal substances as Angels or permanent as the celestial Bodies or corruptible as Men c. might be produced and made ab aeterno and be conserved by an infinite time ex utraque parte and that this is neither repugnant to God the Creator the things created nor to the nature of Creation for proof whereof they bring instances of the Sun which if it had been eternal had illuminated eternally and the virtue of God is not less than the virtue of the Sun Another instance they bring of the divine Word which was produc'd ab aeterno in which discourse and in the instances brought to maintain it it is hard to say whether the madness or impiety be greater and certainly if Christians thus argue we have the more reason to pardon the poor Heathen Aristotle There is not three but a Trinity of Souls The Peripatetiques held that men had three distinct Souls whom the Hereticks the Anomaei and the Jacobites followed There arose a great dispute about this matter in Oxford in the year 1276 and it was then determined against Aristotle Daneus Christ Eth. l. 1. c. 4. and Suarez in his Treatise de causa formali Quaest An dentur plures formae in uno composito affirmeth there was a Synod that did anathematize all that held with Aristotle in this point Sect. 14 Pag. 18 There is but one first and four second Causes in all things In that he saith there is but one first cause he speaketh in opposition to the Manichees who held there were Duo principia one from whom came all good and the other from whom came all evil the reason of Protagoras did it seems impose upon their understandings he was wont to say Si Deus non est unde igitur bona Si autem est unde mala In that that he saith there are but four second causes he opposeth Plato who to the four causes material efficient formal and final adds for a fifth exemplar or Idaea sc Id ad quod respiciens artifex id quod destinabat efficit according to whose mind Boetius speaks lib. 3. mot 9. de conf Philosoph O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernaâ— Terrarum Coelique sator qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes stabilisque manens das cuncta moveriâ— Quem non externae pepulerunt fingere causae Materiae fluitantis opus verum insita sumâ— Forma boni livore carens tu cuncta supera Ducis ab exemplo pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse Mundum mente gerens similique in imagiâ— formans Perfectasque jubens perfectum absolvere partâ—â— And St. Augustine l. 83. quaest 46 where amongst other he hath these words Restat ergo ut omnia Ration sint condita nec eadem ratione hoâ—â— qua equus hoc enim absurdum est existimare singula autem propriis sunt creata rationibus But these Plato's Scholar Aristotle would not allow to make or constitute a different sort of cause from the formal or efficient to which purpose he disputes l. 7. Metaphysic but he and his Sectators and the Romists also agree as the Author that there are but the four remembred causes so that the Author in affirming there are but four hath no adversary but the Platonists but yet in asserting there are four as his words imply there are that oppose him and the Schools of Aristot and Ramus I shall bring for instance Mr. Nat. Carpenter who in his Philosophia libera affirmeth there is no such cause as that which they call the Final cause he argueth thus Every cause hath an influence upon its effect but so has not the End therefore it is not a Cause The major Proposition he saith is evident because the influence of a cause upon its effect is either the causality it self or something that is necessarily conjoyned to it and the minor as plain for either the End hath an influence upon the effect immediately or mediately by stirring up the Efficient to operate not immediately because so it should enter either the constitution or production or conservation of the things but the constitution it cannot enter because the constitution is onely of matter and form nor the Production for so it should concur to the production either as it is simply the end or as an exciter of the Efficient but not simply as the end because the end as end doth not go before but followeth the thing produced and therefore doth not concur to its production if they say it doth so far concur as it is desired of the agent or efficient cause it should not so have an immediate influence upon the effect but should onely first move the efficient Lastly saith he it doth not enter the conservation of a thing because a thing is often conserved when it is frustrate of its due end as when it s converted to a new use and end Divers other arguments he hath to prove there is no such cause as the final cause Nat. Carpenter Philosop liber Decad. 3. Exercitat 5. But for all this the Author and he differ not in substance for 't is not the Author's intention to assert that the end is in nature praeexistent to the effect but only that whatsoever God has made he hath made to some end or other which he doth to
to be adopted and design'd Successor and the Emperour 's own Son to be disinherited and against the Emperour whom he so much praised when he had need of him after his death he writes a scurrillous Libel In Nero's Court how ungratefully doth he behave himself towards Agrippina who although she were a wicked woman yet she deserv'd well of him and of her Son too who yet never was at rest till he had taken away her life and upon suspicion cast in against her by this man Afterwards not to mention that he made great haste to grow rich which should not be the business of a Philosopher towards Nero himself how well did it become his Philosophy to play the Traitor against him and to become a complice in the Conspiracy of Piso And then as good a Tragedian as he was me thinks he doth in extremo actu deficere when he must needs perswade Paulina that excellent Lady his wife to die with him what should move him to desire it it could in his opinion be no advantage to her for he believ'd nothing of the immortality of the Soul I am not satisfied with the reason of Tacitus Ne sibi unicê dilectam ad injurias relinqueret because he discredits it himself in almost the next words where he saith Nero bore her no ill will at all and would not suffer her to die it must surely be then because he thought he had not liv'd long enough being not above 114 years old so much he was and had not the fortitude to die unless he might receive some confirmation in it by her example Now let any man Judg what a precious Legacy it is that he bequeaths by his nuncupative Will to his friends in Tacitus Conversus ad amicos saith he quando meritis eorum referre gratiam prohiberetur quod unum jam tamen pulcherrimum habebat imaginem vitae suae relinquere testatur It cannot be denyed of him that he hath said very well but yet it must as well be affirmed that his Practice hath run counter to his Theory to use the Author's phrase The Scepticks that affirmed they knew nothing The ancient Philosophers are divided into three sorts Dogmatici Academici Sceptici the first were those that delivered their opinions positively the second left a liberty of disputing pro contra the third declared that there was no knowledg of any thing no not of this very proposition that there is no knowledge according to that Nihil sciri siquis putat id quoque nescit An sciri possit quod se nil scire fatetur The Duke of Venice that weds himself to the Sea by a Ring of Gold c. The Duke and Senate yearly on Ascension day use to go in their best attire to the Haven at Lio and there by throwing a Ring into the water do take the Sea as their spouse Vid. Hist Ital. by Will. Thomas Cambro brit Busbequius reports that there is a custom among the Turks which they took from the Greek Priests not much unlike unto this Cum Graecorum Sacer dotibus mos sit certo veris tempore aquas consecrando mare clausum veluti reserare ante quod tempus non facile se committunt fluctibus ab ea ceremonia nec Turcae absunt Busb Ep. 3. legat Tursic But the Philosopher that threw his money into the Sea to avoid Avarice c. This was Apollonius Thyaneus who threw a great quantity of Gold into the Sea with these words Pessundo divitias ne pessundare ab illis Polycrates the Tyrant of Samos cast the best Jewel he had into the Sea that thereby he might learn to compose himself against the vicissitude of Fortune There go so many circumstances to piece up one good action To make an action to be good all the causes that concur must be good but one bad amongst many good ones is enough to make it vitious according to the rule Bonum ex causa integra malum ex partiali Sect. 56 Pag. 121 The vulgarity of those Judgments that wrap the Church of God in Strabo's Cloak and restrain it unto Europe 'T is Strabonis Tunica in the Translation but Chlamydi would do better which is the proper expression of the word that Strabo useth it is not Europe but the known part of the World that Strabo resembleth to a Cloak and that is it the Author here alludeth to but we have no reason to think that the resemblance of Strabo is very proper Vid. Sir Hen. Savil in not ad Tac. in vita Agricolae Sect. 57 Pag. 123 Those who upon a rigid application of the Law sentence Solomon unto damnation c. St. Aug. upon Psal 126. and in many other places holds that Solomon is damned Of the same opinion is Lyra in 2 Reg. c. 7. Bellarm. 1. Tom. lib. 1. Controv. c. 5. THE SECOND PART Sect. 2 Pag. 127 I Wonder not at the French for their Frogs Snails and Toad-stools Toad-stools are not peculiar to the French they were a great delicacy among the Romans as appears every where in Martial It was conceived the Emperour Claudius received his death by Poyson which he took in a Mushroom Suet. and Tac. Sect. 1 Pag. 130 How among so many millions of faces there should be none alike It is reported there have been some so much alike that they could not be distinguished as King Antiochus and one Antemon a Plebeian of Syria were so much alike that Laodice the King's Widow by pretending this man was the King dissembled the death of the King so long till according to her own mind a Successor was chosen Cn. Pompeius and one Vibius the Orator C. Plancus and Rubrius the Stage-player Cassius Severus the Orator and one Mirmello M. Messala Censorius and one Menogenes were so much alike that unless it were by their habit they could not be distinguished but this you must take upon the faith of Pliny lib. 7. c. 12. and Solinus cap. 6. who as this Author tells elsewhere are Authors not very infallible Sect. 3 Pag. 138 What a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hot skirmish is between S. and T. in Lucian In his Dialogue judicium vocalium where there is a large Oration made to the Vowels being Judges by Sigma against Tau complaining that Tau has bereaved him of many words which should begin with Sigma Their Tongues are sharper than Actius his Razor Actius Navius was chief Augur who as the Story saith admonishing Tarqu. Priscus that he should not undertake any action of moment without first consulting the Augur the King shewing that he had little faith in his skill demanded of him whether by the rules of his skill what he had conceived in his mind might be done to whom when Actius had answered it might be done he bid him take a Whetstone which he had in his hand and cut it in two with a Razor which accordingly the Augur did Livy And therefore we must conceive it was very sharp Here the
inaccessible Light cometh to us cloathed in the dark Weeds of Negations and therefore little can we hope to meet with any positive Examples to parallel it withal I doubt he also mistaketh and imposeth upon the several Schools when he intimateth that they gain-say this visible worlds being but a Picture or Shadow of the Invisible and Intellectual which manner of Philosophizing he attributeth to Hermes Trismegistus but is every where to be met with in Plato and is raised since to a greater height in the Christian Schools But I am sure he learned in no good School nor sucked from any good Philosophy to give an actual Subsistence and Being to first Matter without a Form He that will allow that a Real Existence in Nature is as superficially tincted in Metaphysicks as another would be in Mathematicks that should allow the like to a Point a Line or a Superficies in Figures These in their strict Notions are but Negations of further Extension or but exact Terminations of that Quantity which falleth under the Consideration of the Understanding in the present purpose no real Entities in themselves so likewise the Notions of Matter Form Act Power Existence and the like that are with Truth considered by the Understanding and have there each of them a distinct Entity are nevertheless no where by themselves in Nature They are terms which we must use in the Negotiations of our thoughts if we will discourse consequently and conclude knowingly But then again we must be very wary of attributing to things in their own Natures such Entities as we create in our Understandings when we make Pictures of them there for there every different consideration arising out of the different impression which the same thing maketh upon us hath a distinct Being by it self Whereas in the thing there is but one single Vnity that sheweth as it were in a Glass at several positions those various faces in our understanding In a word all these words are but artificial terms not real things And the not right understanding of them is the dangerousest Rock that Scholars suffer shipwrack against I go on with our Physician 's Contemplations Upon every occasion he sheweth strong parts and a vigorous brain His wishes and aims and what he pointeth at speak him owner of a noble and a generous heart He hath reason to wish that Aristotle had been as accurate in examining the Causes Nature and Affections of the great Universe he busied himself about as his Patriarch Galen hath been in the like considerations upon this little World Man's Body in that admirable Work of his De Vsu Partium But no great humane thing was ever born and perfected at once It may satisfie us if one in our age buildeth that magnificent Structure upon the others foundations and especially if where he findeth any of them unsound he eradicateth those and sixeth new unquestionable ones in their room But so as they still in gross keep a proportion and bear a Harmony with the other great Work This hath now even now our learned Countryman done The knowing Mr. White whose name I believe your Lordship hath met with al in his excellent Book De Mundo newly printed at Paris where he now resideth and is admired by the World of Letter'd men there as the Prodigie of these latter times Indeed his three Dialogues upon that Subject if I am able to judge any thing are full of the profoundest Learning I ever yet met withal And I believe who hath well read digested them will perswade himself there is no truth so abstruse nor hitherto conceived out of our reach but mans wit may raise Engines to scale and conquer I assure my self when our Author hath studied him throughly he will not lament so loud for Aristotle's mutilated and defective Philosophy as in Boccaline Caesar Caporali doth for the loss of Livies ship-wracked Decads That Logick which he quarrelleth at for calling a Toad or Serpent ugly will in the end agree with his for no body ever took them to be so in respect of the Vniverse in which regard he desendeth their Regularity and Symmetry but onely as they have relation to us But I cannot so easily agree with him where he affirmeth that Devils or other Spirits in the Intellectual World have no exact Ephemerides wherein they may read before-hand the Stories of fortuite Accidents For I believe that all Causes are so immediately chained to their Effects as if a perfect knowing Nature get hold but of one link it will drive the entire Series or Pedigree of the whole to its utmost end as I think I have proved in my fore-named Treatise so that in truth there is no Fortuitness or Contingency of things in respect of themselves but onely in respect of us that are ignorant of their certain and necessary Causes Now a little Series or Chain and Complex of all outward Circumstances whose highest link Poets say prettily is fasten'd to Jupiter's Chair and the lowest is riveted to every Individual on Earth steered and levelled by God Almighty at the first setting out of the first Mover I conceive to be that Divine Providence and Mercy which to use our Author 's own Example giveth a thriving Genius to the Hollanders and the like And not any secret invisible mystical Blessing that falleth not under the search or cognizance of a prudent indagation I must needs approve our Authors Aequanimity and I may as justly say his Magnanimity in being contented so cheerfully as he saith to shake hands with the fading Goods of Fortune and be deprived of the joys of her most precious blessings so that he may in recompence possess in ample measure the true ones of the mind like Epictetus that Master of moral Wisdom and Piety who taxeth them of high injustice that repine at Gods Distribution of his Blessings when he putteth not into their share of goods such things as they use no Industry or Means to purchase For why should that man who above all things esteemeth his own freedom and who to enjoy that sequestreth himself from commerce with the vulgar of mankind take it ill of his Stars if such Preferments Honours and Applauses meet not him as are painfully gained after long and tedious Services of Princes and brittle Dependances of humorous Favourites and supple Compliances with all sorts of Natures As for what he saith of Astrologie I do not conceive that wise men reject it so much for being repugnant to Divinity which he reconcileth well enough as for having no solid Rules or ground in Nature To rely too far upon that vain Art I judge to be rather folly than impiety unless in our censure we look to the first Origine of it which favoureth of the Idolatry of those Heathens that worshipping the Stars and heavenly Bodies for Deities did in a superstitious Devotion attribute unto them the Causality of all Effects beneath them And for ought I know the belief of solid Orbs in the Heavens
we must consider what it is that bringeth us to this excellent State to be happy in the other World of Eternity and Immutability It is agreed on all hands to be God's Grace and Favour to us But all do not agree by what steps his Grace produceth this effect Herein I shall not trouble your Lordship with a long Discourse how that Grace worketh in us which yet I will in a word touch anon that you may conceive what I understand Grace to be but will suppose it to have wrought its effect in us in this life and from thence examine what hinges they are that turn us over to Beatitude and Glory in the next Some consider God as a Judge that rewardeth or punisheth men according as they co-operated with or repugned to the Grace he gave That according as their actions please or displease him he is well affected towards them or angry with them and accordingly maketh them to the purpose and very home feel the effects of his kindness or indignation Others that fly a higher pitch and are so happy Vt rerum poterint cognoscere causas do conceive that Beatitude and misery in the other life are effects that necessarily and orderly flow out of the Nature of those Causes that begot them in this life without engaging God Almighty to give a sentence and act the part of a Judge according to the state of our Cause as it shall appear upon the Accusations and pleadings at his great Bar. Much of which manner of expression is Metaphorical and rather adapted to contain vulgar minds in their Duties that are awed with the thought of a severe Judge sifting every minute-action of theirs than such as we must conceive every circumstance to pass so in reality as the literal sound of the words seems to infer in ordinary construction and yet all that is true too in its genuine sence But my Lord these more penetrating men and that I conceive are vertuous upon higher and stronger Motives for they truely and solidly know why they are so do consider that what impressions are once made in the spiritual Substance of a Soul and what affections it hath once contracted do ever remain in it till a contrary and diametrically contradicting judgement and affection do obliterate it and expel it thence This is the reason why Contrition Sorrow and Hatred for Sins past is encharged us If then the Soul do go out of the Body with impressions and affections to the Objects and pleasures of this life it continually lingreth after them and as Virgil learnedly as well as wittily saith Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But that being a State wherein those Objects neither are nor can be enjoyed it must needs follow that such a Soul must be in an exceeding anguish sorrow and affliction for being deprived of them and for want of that it so much prizeth will neglect all other contentments it might have as not having a relish or taste moulded and prepared to the savouring of them but like feavorish tongues that when they are even scorched with heat take no delight in the pleasingest liquors but the sweetest drinks seem bitter to them by reason of their overflowing Gall So they even hate whatsoever good is in their power and thus pine away a long Eternity In which the sharpness and activity of their pain anguish and sad condition is to be measured by the sensibleness of their Natures which being then spiritual is in a manner infinitely more than any torment that in this life can be inflicted upon a dull gross body To this add the vexation it must be to them to see how inestimable and infinite a good they have lost and lost meerly by their own fault and for momentary trifles and childrens play and that it was so easie for them to have gained it had they remained but in their right senses and governed themselves according unto Reason And then judge in what a tortured condition they must be of remorse and execrating themselves for their most resupine and sensless madness But if on the other side a Soul be released out of this Prison of clay and flesh with affections setled upon Intellectual goods as Truth knowledge and the like and that it be grown to an irksome dislike of the flat pleasures of this World and look upon carnal and sensual Objects with a disdainful eye as discerning the contemptible Inanity in them that is set off only by their painted outside and above all that it hath a longing desire to be in the Society of that supereminent Cause of Causes in which they know are heaped up the Treasurers of all Beauty Knowledge Truth Delight and good whatsoever and therefore are impatient at the Delay and reckon all their Absence from him as a tedious Banishment and in that regard hate their Life and Body as Cause of this Divorce such a Soul I say must necessarily by reason of the temper it is wrought into enjoy immediately at the instant of the Bodies dissolution and its liberty more Contentment more Joy more true Happiness than it is possible for a heart of flesh to have scarce any scantling of much less to comprehend For immense Knowledge is natural to it as I have touched before Truth which is the adequated and satisfying Object of the Understanding is there displayed in her own Colours or rather without any And that which is the Crown of all and in respect of which all the rest is nothing that infinite Entity which above all things this Soul thirsteth to be united unto cannot for his own Goodness sake deny his Embraces to so affectionate a Creature and to such an enflamed Love If he should then were that Soul for being the best and for loving him most condemned to be the unhappiest For what Joy could she have in any thing were she barrred from what she so infinitely loveth But since the Nature of superiour and excellent things is to shower down their propitious Influences wheresoever there is a Capacity of receiving them and no Obstacle to keep them out like the Sun that illuminateth the whole Air if no Cloud or solid opacous Body intervene it followeth clearly that this infinite Sun of Justice this immense Ocean of Goodness cannot chuse but inviron with his Beams and replenish even beyond satiety with his delightsome Waters a soul so prepared and tempered to receive them No my Lord to make use of this Discourse and apply it to what begot it be pleased to determine which way will deliver us evenest and smoothest to this happy end of our Journey To be vertuous for hope of a Reward and through fear of Punishment or to be so out of a natural and inward affection to Vertue for Vertues and Reasons sake Surely one in this latter condition not onely doth those things which will bring him to Beatitude but he is so secured in a