breast For Langius if that ballance of Justice be even how comes it to pass that this arrow of Calamities So oft the nocent passes but is sent Amongst the Virtuous still and innocent Why I say are some guiltless people rooted out and what have our wretched posterity done that they should rue the crimes of their ancestours This is that thick and troublesome mist that is got before my Eyes which if you can I pray dissolve and scatter with some ray of Reason Langius frowning upon me Young man said he dost thou thus again begin to wander from the path I set thee in I may not suffer it for as skillful Huntsmen suffer not their Doggs to change but force them to persist in the chase of that first buck they were lay'd into So I am resolved you shall follow me in that track which I first trac'd out to you I was discoursing you the Ends of Calamities that if you are good you may know your self exercised by them if offending corrected if wicked punish'd and you forth with hale me away to speak of the causes And vvhat vvould that vvandring Mind of yours by its so curious an inquisition Would you touch those heavenly fires They will melt you Would you scale that Tower of Providence You vvill fall headlong As Moths and other little vvinged insects towards Night vvill fly round about a Candle till they are burnt With the same danger doth the Mind of Man sport it self and vvanton about that secret fire Assign the causes say you vvhy divine vengeance overpasses these and seises upon these The causes I may lawfully say I know them not For that Heavenly Court never admitted me nor I its decrees This only I know that the chief cause of all other causes is the vvill of God Beyond vvhich if any Man enquire after any force or power he is ignorant of the Divine Nature For it is necessary that every cause be both before and greater than its effect but than God and his Will there is nothing either before or greater There is therefore no cause of it God strikes and God passes by vvhat would you have more As Salvian sayes piously and truly the vvill of God is the perfection of Justice But you vvill say vve desire some reason of this inequality from vvhom from God To vvhom alone it is lawful to do vvhatsoever he pleases and vvho is pleased to do nothing but vvhat is lawful Shall a Servant call his Master or a Subject his Prince to account The one vvould call it an affront and the other Rebellion and vvill you be more insolent against God himself Avvay vvith this perverse curiosity This reason doth not otherwise appear to be one than because it may be rendred to none And yet vvhen you have all done you shall never be able to disingage your self from these shades nor ever arrive to the knowledge of those truly so called Privy Councels Sophocles said excellently Divine decrees thou shalt not know Though thou knew'st all beside For those from us who are below The Gods themselves do hide CHAP. XIII Yet to satisfie the curious three usual Objections are answered First of that that evil Men are not punished To which is reply'd that though their punishments are deferred they are not remitted And this comes to pass either for Mans sake or from the Nature of God which is slow to Revenge THis rude and simple vvay Lipsius is here the only safe one the rest are slippery and deceitful In superiour and divine things the only acuteness is to discern nothing and the only knowledge is to be ignorant But forasmuch as this Cloud hath heretofore and doth still rest upon the Minds of Men in a few words if possible I shall endeavour to remove it and vvaft you now at a-stand over this River also Pardon me O thou Heavenly Mind said he lifting up his Eyes if I shall deliver any thing of these secrets yet vvith a pious intention less pure and pious than I ought And first of all Lipsius methinks I am able in general to vindicate the justice of God vvith this one Argument If God doth behold humane things he doth also care for them if he cares for them he governs them if he governes them it is with judgement and if vvith judgement how then unjustly For vvithout judgement there is no government but a meer heap confusion and Tumult What have you to oppose against this Javelin What Shield or vvhat armes If you vvill confess it nothing but humane ignorance I cannot conceive say you vvhy these should be punish'd and those other escape Be it so vvill you therefore add impudence to your imprudence and carp at the power of that Divine Lavv vvhich you cannot conceive of What more unjust way of proceeding against justice can there be than this If any stranger should take upon him to judge of the Laws and Constitutions of your Country you vvould command him to desist and be silent because he understands them not and shall you vvho are the inhabitant of earth presume rashly to censure the Laws of Heaven You understand not Or you that are the vvork to question your Maker But it matters not go on for I shall now come up more close to you and distinctly examine as you desire me these misty calumnies of yours by the Sun of Reason Three things you object that God doth not punish the vvicked that he doth punish the innocent and that he substitutes and and exchanges offendours You say first divine vengeance doth ill to pass by vvicked men Doth it then overpass them In my apprehension it doth not but rather deferrs their punishment If divers Men owe me money and I require it of this debtour assoon as it becomes due and allow to that other a longer time of payment Am I therefore culpable Or are not these things at my own dispose The same does our Great God to vvhom all vvicked men owe a punishment He requires it presently of these but gives day to others yet to be paid with interest and what injustice is this unless possibly you are solicitous for God and fear he should lose part of his debt by his merciful forbearance But you need not fear it no Man ever prov'd bankrupt to this supream Creditour We are all under his Eye vvâ—eresoever we betake our selves nay already in his shackles and custody But I vvould say you have such a Tyrant immediately punished that by his present slaughter he may satisfie so many as he hath oppressed For this vvay the Justice of God vvould shine out the more illustriously to us Rather your stupidity in my Mind For vvho art thou that not only presumest to lead on the judgements of God but also to prescribe him his season Do you think him your judge or rather your Lictour or Executioner Dispatch lead him off say you scourge him cover his face and hang him up For it is my vvill it should be so O impudence But
and clear that amongst all sorts of Men there is not a more ancient or receiv'd Opinion And look to how many the light of a Deity and Providence hath shin'd to vvell nigh as many hath this of Fate Insomuch that those very same privative Fires vvhich discovered the knowledge of a God to Men seem also to have guided Man in the knowledge of this other Consult Homer that first and vvisest of all Poets There is not any one path vvherein that Divine Muse hath so frequently pass'd and repass'd as this of Fatality Nor hath the vvhole Race of the Poets dissented from their Ancestour Look upon Euripides Sophocles Pindar and our Virgil Look upon Historians their common Language is such a thing fell out by Fate and Kingdomes owe their Ruine and establishment to Fate Look upon Philosophers vvhose charge it vvas to ransome and defend Truth against the encroachments of the vulgar Howsoever these have in most other things dissented from one another transported thereunto by an over eager itch after contention and dispute yet 't is maryellous to observe vvhat a Universal accord there is amongst them as to the beginning of this vvay vvhich leads to Fate I say in the beginning of the vvay For I am not about to deny but that soon after it vvas trod out into divers paths All vvhich notvvithstanding seem to be reducible to these four Mathematical Natural Violent and true Fate Each of these I shall briefly explain and as it vvere set a foot in each Forasmuch as commonly much of confusion and errour doth arise from hence CHAP. XVIII The three First kinds of Fate briefly explained The description of them The Stoicks in part excused MAthematical Fate I call that vvhich chaines and fastens all Actions and Events vvhatsoever unto the influences of the Starrs and the Positions of Heaven Of vvhich the Chaldeans and Astrologers vvere the First Authors and amongst the Philosophers that profound and sublime vvriter Mercurius Trismegistus vvho subtilly and not altogether idlely distinguishing of Providence Necessity and Fate hath these vvords Providence saith he is the perfect and absolute Counsel of the Heavenly God to which there are two faculties nearly ally'd Necessity and Fate Fate doth administer and is subservient at one and the same time both to Providence and Necessity and the Stars are subject to Fate For no man can evâ—de the force of Fate nor with all his caution prevent the powerful influence of the Starrs For these are the Artillery and weapons of Fate by whose direction they cause and conclude all those things which are in Nature or amongst Men. And in this Ship of Folly are at this day embarked the most of the Astrologers amongst us to the great reproach of Christianity Natural Fate I call such an Order of Natural causes vvhich unless they are hindred do by their own Nature and efficacy produce alwayes a certain and the same effect Aristotle is for such a Fate if vve may credit Alexander Aphrodisiensis one of the most Faithful of his Interpreters and of the like Mind vvas Theophrastus vvho plainly asserts that Fate is nothing else but every Mans Nature Agreeable to those Mens Opinions it is that a man's begetting a Man is by Fate that if a man arrive to his death by internall causes vvithout the accession of such as are forreigne and outward this is by Fate On the other-side that a Man begets a Serpent or some other Monster this is not by Fate neither if he perish by the Sword or Fire An opinion truly not very peccant inasmuch as it rises not to the force and height of Fate And how can that be in danger of falling vvhich never adventures to climb And such is Aristotle almost every vvhere in Divine matters I except only that little Book of his de Mundo vvhich is a golden one indeed and such as seems to me to be inspired by some other and more heavenly Genius I read also farther in a Greek Writer that Aristotle vvas of Opinion That Fate it self is not a cause but a certain accidental Mode to the cause in such things as proceed from Necessity O the courage of a Philosopher Who durst seriously Number Fortune and chance amongst the causes but not Fate But I pass him and return to my Stoicks for not to dissemble I have a great affection and esteem for that Sect vvho are the Authors of violent Fate vvhich I define vvith Seneca such a Necessity of all things and actions as no power is able to interrupt Or vvith Chrysippus a spiritual power that doth orderly govern this vvhole Universe Nor are these Definitions very remote from that vvhich is right and true if they may have a sound and modest interpretation As neither is their vvhole Opinion perhaps vvere it not that it hath been already murthered by the retorted Thumbs of the whole hand of the vulgar These charge them vvith two crimes that they subject God himself to the disposal of Fate and that they place also the internal actions of our vvill under the same power Nor vvill I over-confidently undertake to clear them of either of these faults For amongst those few of their vvritings vvhich are yet extant there are such from vvhence these Tenents may be collected as there are others from vvhence vvee may receive that vvhich is sound and Orthodox It must be confess'd that Seneca no mean Trumpet of that School seems to dash upon that first Rock in that Book vvhere he had least Reason to do so of Providence The same Necessity saith he doth bind even the Gods themselves that irrevocable decree doth equally carry along with it both humane and Divine things The great Creator and Ruler of all things did indeed write down this Law of Fate But he followes it himself and ever obeys what he once commanded And that indissoluble Chain and twist of causes vvhereunto they fasten all things and Persons seems and that not Obscurely neither to offer violence to the vvill of Man But the Genuine and true Stoicks did never openly avouch these things Or if any such matter did fall from them as it is possible enough in their heat of writing and dispute you shall rather find it in vvords than in their sense and meaning Chrysippus himself vvho first corrupted and Enervated that Masculine Sect vvith the intricate niceness of Questions he in Agellius sufficiently cleares them from attempting upon the liberty of the vvill Nor doth our Seneca subject God to Fate he vvas better advised but in a certain Mode of speech God to God For those amongst them vvho came nearest to the truth do by Fate sometimes understand Providence and at others God And therefore Zeno when he defines Fate to be a power moving the matter according to the same respects in the same manner he adds it matters not if I had called it either Providence or Nature And Chrysippus from the same Principle doth elsewhere call Fate the Eternal purpose of Providence Now
time Is it the Fate of Tarquine to be expell'd his Kingdom Let it be done but vvithall let Adultery precede You see the Order Is it the Fate of Cesar to be slain Be it so but be it also in the Senate-house and at the foot of Pompey's Statue You see the Place Shall Domitian be murther'd by his Servants Let him fall but let it be in that very hour which he sought in vain to decline viz. the Fifth you see the time CHAP. XX. It s Difference from the Stoicks Fate in four respects That it offers no violence to the will That God is neither a Copartner in nor the Author of Evil. ARe you sufficiently apprehensive of these things young Man or do you yet stand in need of a further and a clearer light I shaking my Head a clearer Langius a clearer said I or you will leave me for ever in the midst of this Night For vvhat means the subtile thread of distinctions What captious snares of questions are these Believe me I vvas in fear of some stratagem and began to be as suspitious of these your vveigh'd and vvary vvords as of so many Enemies Langius smiling you may be confident said he no Hanibal is here nor are you fallen into an Ambush but into a safe place of retreat I shall very vvillingly enlighten you declare only vvhere and in vvhat part it is you desire a further satisfaction There Langius said I vvhere you speak of force and necessity For I am not able to apprehend vvhich vvay you dissever this Fate of yours from that of the Stoicks For howsoever you have excluded it in vvords and as they say at the Portall yet in reality and at the Postern you seem to me to readmit it Langius readily farr farr be it from me Lipsius said he I vvould not so much as in my dreams introduce that Fate of the Stoicks nor do I endeavour to revive those long sinceexpired Beldames the destinies It is a modest and pious fate I contend for and vvhich differs from the violent one these four vvayes The Stoicks subject God to Fate neither was Iupiter himself in Homer able to exempt his Sarpedon from its bonds when he earnestly desired it But we on the contrary subject Fate to God vvhom vve acknowledge to be a most free Author and independent Agent in all things Who vvhen he pleases can surpass and break through all the strengths and intricate foldings of Fate They also constitute a Series and Flux of Natural causes from Eternity vve admit not such a Series of these causes vvithout interruption for God makes Prodigies and worketh Miracles oftentimes besides yea contrary to Nature nor can this Series of causes be from Eternity For Second causes are not Eternal as having most certainly their beginings vvith that of the world Thirdly they seem to have remov'd contingency from things vve restore it and as often as second causes are such vve admit contingency and accident in events Lastly they seem to have brought in a violent force upon the Will this is farr from us vvho as vve do assert Fate so vve reconcile it with the Liberty of the Will For vve so avoid the deceitfull Gust of Fortune and Chance as that yet vve do not force our Ship upon the Rock of Necessity Is there Fate That Fate is the first cause which is so farr from removing the second and subordinate ones that ordinarily and for the most part it acts not but by them Now amongst these second causes is the Will vvhich never believe that God vvill either enforce or destroy Here is all the Errour and Cloud in this matter no Man knowes or thinks that he wills what Fate vvills and yet that he wills it freely For that God who created all things employes those things vvithout the destruction of them As the highest Heaven doth so carry along with it all the inferiour Orbs as not to stop or break off the proper motion of any of them So God by the force of Fate disposes of all things but destroyes not the peculiar power or motion of any of them Is it his vvill that Trees and Fruits should grow They do so by Nature without any compulsion Is it his pleasure that Men should deliberate and choose They deliberate without any inforcement and they choose vvith their own vvill And yet God from Eternity foresaw that very thing in which their choice vvould determine But he only foresaw he did not inforce he knew but did not enjoyn he foretold it but he did not prescribe it Why stumble our Curioso's at this Poor wretches There is no point that seems to me to carry a greater evidence of truth vvith it vvere it not for that vvanton Mind of ours vvhich being infected vvith an evil Itch of wrangling and dispute is ever and anon urging and exasperating it self For say they if God foresaw that I should sin and this foresight of his is no vvay to be deceiv'd How can it otherwise be but that I should sin Necessarily I acknowledge it is Necessarily but not in respect of your Mind since your own free vvill doth here intervene For he foresaw that you should sin the same vvay he foresaw but he foresaw you should do it freely and therefore of Necessity you must sin freely Is not this sufficiently clear But they urge again that God is the Author of all motions in us He is indeed I confess the Author of all motions in common but the fautor and favourer of nothing but vvhat is good Do you prepare your self to an action that is virtuous He knowes and assists it Or to one that is vitious He knows and permits it nor is he herein chargeable vvith any fault I ride upon and spur a dull and lame Horse that I spur him is from me that he is dull is from himself I play upon a Harp that is out of tune and ill strung You vvill easily acknowledge that the discordancy of the instrument is not imputable to me but to it self This very Earth doth feed all sorts of Trees and Plants vvith one common juice and yet some of these bring forth vvholesome Fruits and some others Poysons What vvill you here say That this is from the Earth Or rather in that inbred Nature of the Trees which converts the good nourishment into their own poyson In like manner it is here That you move is from God from your self and in your self that you move to Evil. Finally that I may at last finish my discourse about this Liberty Fate is as it were the Leader of the Dance in this Masque of the world But so that we also have our parts to act of alwayes vvilling or nilling but not further of effecting For it is only a will that is left unto Man whereby he may be desirous to oppugne and resist God But he hath not a power whereby he is able As I may vvalk up and dovvn the Decks and Hatches of a Ship but this little
vvith the vveights of them both doth most equally poise the ballance of his Justice I sayd in external punishments and I vvould have you to observe it For crimes themselves are not transferr'd nor is there a kind of confusion of them God forbid there should But certain punishments and corrections only such as are about us not in us and which properly respect the Body or estate but not this inward Mind of ours And in all this where is the injury We are doubtless willing to be heirs of those advantages and rewards if any that are due to our ancestours And if so why do we refuse the burdens and punishments Those Plagues for which the former times did call On thee poor Roman undeservedly fall Sings the Roman Poet and truly had he not added undeservedly For 't is most deservedly since our ancestours did deserve it But the Poet could only see the effect He ascended not to the cause but as in one and the same Man we justly punish in his old age that offence which he committed in his youth So doth God the elder crimes of Empires and Kingdomes because in respect of their outward communion they are to him but one conjoyned thing These intervalls of time do not divide us with him who comprehends all eternity in the vastness of his Mind Should those martial Wolves heretofore rase so many Cities and break so many Scepters vvith impunity Should they broach so much blood by the slaughters of others and themselves never bleed for 't I should then indeed confess that God to be no avenger who yet hears and sees all that we do But they shall not scape so at length of Necessity they must undergo punishments at least in their posterity such as are slow indeed but not too late Nor is there a conjunction of time only vvith God but of parts too I mean thus that as in a Man the whole Body suffers when possibly only the hand or groin or belly has offended So is it in great Societies All many times do account for the faults of a few Especially if those that have sinned are as it were the more principal members as Kings Princes and Magistrates Hesiod spake truly and from the most inward recess of Wisdom it self For one Mans crime oft the whole City smarts For his oppressive sacrilegious Arts Jove from high Heaven his dreadful vengeance sheds Of Plague or Famine upon all their heads So the vvhole Navy of the Graecians perished For ones offence what Ajax did commit In the distemper of a brain-sick fit Thus in Iudea threescore and ten thousand were slain with a single pestilence for the unlawful pleasure of their King And sometimes on the other side God singles out one or but some few to be the expiatours of a general sin In which if he recede something from the rigid Law of parity yet out of that very disparity a new equity is raised and that is a merciful act of Justice towards many which seems cruelty upen a few Does not the School-master give the Ferula to some one of his wantonizing Scholars And does not a General chastize his cowardly Army by the decimation of them And both these upon the safest considerations because the punishment though but of those few does terrify and amend all I have often seen the Physitian strike a vein in the Foot or Arm vvhen the whole body was distempered how know I but it may be thus here These are secrets Lipsius secrets I say and if vve are vvise let us presume no nearer unto this sacred fire some sparkling emanations and bright emissions of which Men may possibly behold but it self they cannot As they lose their sight that too daringly gaze upon the Sun So they all the light of their Minds who too intentively fix it upon this more glorious light Let us therefore abstain from that which is at once of so curious and so dangerous a disquisition And let us rest satisfied at least in this that crimes neither can nor ought to be estimated by Men that the ballance and tribunal of God is different from that of ours and that how abstruse soever those judgments are yet they are not to be blamed but patiently undergone and trembled at by us This one Sentence I shall immind you of and with it shall both close this discourse and shut the mouths too of all those Curioso's The judgments of God are many of them hidden but none of them unjust CHAP. XVIII A transition to the last Argument for Constancy from Examples That sometimes it is adviseable to mix harsher Physick with such things as are pleasant THis is that Lipsius which I thought meet to say in the behalf of Divine justice against these unjust Cavillers And though I confess it doth not directly lead on my discourse Yet neither is it at all besides it For we shall doubtless undergo our Calamities with greater cheerfulness and patience when once we are throughly satisfyed that they are not unjust And here Langius pawsing awhile he suddenly broke forth again 'T is well said he I have recovered breath I have got beyond all those Rocks of objections and now methinks I may with full Sails spoom away into the Haven I discover my fourth and last Brigade which I shall very cheerfully lead up And as Marriners in a tempest when they behold the Twins are full of hopes and mirth So also am I after all these storms at the appearance of my Twinny Legion I may safely call it so after the old custom since it is double And two things I shall evince by it that these miseries which we now suffer are neither grievous nor new Which while I shall dispatch in those few things that remain yet to say see Lipsius that you be attentive Never more Langius reply'd I for it joyes me to have passed these difficulties and after these serious and severer Medicines I greedily long after this gentle and more popular one for so the Title promises me it is Nor are you mistaken said Langius for as Physitians after they have sufficiently made use of Causticks and Incisions do not so cast off and relinquish their patients but apply some gentle fomentations and other remedies to asswage their pains So will I deal vvith you whom because I have enough followed with the sharper methods of wisdom I will now cherish with milder discourses and handle as they say vvith a Ladies hand I shall descend from that steep hill of Philosophy and take a turn or two vvith you in the pleasant plains of your Philology and that not so much to recreate you as to compleat your cure As they say Demochares the Physitian did to the Lady Considia since she refused all harâ—her prescriptions he caused her to drink the Milk of Goats but yet such as he had fed vvith the Branches of the Lentisk Tree So I vvill administer to you Historical and pleasing things vvhich yet shall have a secret tincture of the