of the Manichees and indeed found the other of the two much more probable By whom in some measure the course of nature was rightly weighed though the Lord thereof undiscovered by them Ps 138.6 Because Great art thou O Lord and thou regardest the lowly but the proud thou knowest a farr off neither dost thou approach save to the contrite in heart neither art thou discovered by the high-minded though their curious search numbereth the stars of the Heaven and the sands of the Earth and though they quarter out all the celestiall regions and describe the various courses of the planets For indeed by the light of understanding they do find out all these things and by the wit which thou hast given them they have many years before both discovered and foretold the eclipses of the great lights the Sun and the Moon in what day what hour and in how many digits they should happen and their calculation hath not faild but the event punctually answered their prescription And by the rules which they have delivered men still prognosticate in what year month day hour and in what portion of its light the Sun or Moon shall be darkned and what is said is done And these things the ignorant admire and stand amazed at the knowing exult in and glory of and yet being by their wicked pride put in this opposition to thee their Sun and ecclipsed of thy light they that do so long before discover the Sun or Moons defects cannot though present discern their own For they do not religiously search in the first place from whence they have that wit by which they search out other things and again when finding that thou art he that madest them they do not restore themselves unto thee that thou maist keep that in them which thou hast made Nor slaughter and sacrifice unto thee that which they have made themselves and offer up unto thee their exalted and soaring imaginations as the fouls of the Heavens their diving curiosities with which they walk through the paths of the deep as the fishes of the Sea and their sensuall luxuries as the beasts of the field that thou O God as a purging fire maist consume in them there their former dead cares and recreate them anew into immortality But these poor souls knew not the way unto thee namely Thy word by which were made all those things they number and themselves also that number them and the reason by which they know how to number of which thy wisdom there is no number Ps 147.5 1 Cor. 1.30 Which only-begotten of thine was made unto us Wisdom and Righteousnesse and Sanctification and descended so low as to be numbred amongst us and amongst us to pay Caesars tribute This humble way they knew not Mat. 17.27 by which they should descend first from themselves unto Him that afterward by the same they might ascend unto him This way they knew not and fancying themselves as illustrious and exalted amongst the starrs which they numbred Rev. 12.4 Rom. 1.21 behold they fell upon the Earth and their foolish heart became darkned And many truths indeed concerning the Creature are vented by them and yet the Truth that formed these Creatures remains to them undiscovered because not piously by them inquired of or if found yet knowing God they do not own him as God neither are thankfull but become vain in their imaginations and say they are wise Rom. 1.21 c. Thus attributing to themselves what is only thine and attributing to thee by a most obstinate cecity what is theirs namely forging lies of thee who art truth and changing the glory of an incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things they do also convert thy truth into a lye and worship and serve the Creature before the Creator Yet many truths learned from the Creature I received from these men and saw some reason thereof from calculations and the successions of times and the visible revolutions of the stars and these I conferred with the dotages of Manicheus who had written much foolish stuffe of the same subjects and therein I could discover no reason neither of the solstices and aequinoctialls nor of the ecclipses nor of any other part of secular knowledg Only there I was required to believe things contrary to my experience CHAP. IIII. Sciences not beatifying ANd now is he such a one O Lord the God of truth as knowes all these things therfore a favorite to thee Surely unhappy man he who knowes all these and knows not thee and blessed the man who knows thee though none of these and who so knows both them and thee happy he is not for them but for thee if knowing thee he as God glorifie thee and be thankfull unto thee and become not vain in his own imaginations For as he is in a farr better case that hath the possession of a tree and for the fruits thereof gives thee praise though he knows not how tall the trunk thereof is or how many the branches than another who hath exactly measured it and counted every sprig but neither owes it nor knows nor loves its maker even so the faithfull whose the whole World is and who as having nothing yet possesseth all things by inhering in thee 2 Cor. 6.10 who owest all things though he knows not so much as the short revolution of Charles Wain yet it were silly to doubt that he were not a much better person than the surveyer of the Heavens and the calculatâ—r of the stars and the poiser of the Elements and meanwhile one careless of thee who art he that ordered all those things in their exact number and weight and measure CHAP. V. Yet the Manichees ignorant also in them BUT yet what needed I know not what Manicheus to trouble himself to write so much on these subjects without the science of which true piety might well be learnt And thou hast said that piety and the fear of Thee Job 28.28 this is wisdom of which he might possibly be ignorant still though perfectly knowing all those things but in this most impudent presumption of his to teach such things when he knew them not must needs be ignorant of it For 't is but a vanity to make much shew and profession of such secular things when never so well known by us and piety to be making our humble confessions unto thee But he very deficient in this therefore by thy just permission spent much discourse on the other that so discovering his errors in things so well known men might hence judge how to value his opinions in things more hidden and obscure CHAP. VI. Faustus naturally eloquent but very ignorant in those Arts wherein he was reputed to excell THerefore for almost all those nine years in which with an unsatisfied opinion I had been a Disciple to those Doctors I impatiently expected the long longed-for coming of this
luckiness in them and that in their speaking many things that should were spoken some things which did after come to passe not foreknown by those who said them but happened on by their not saying nothing Thou procuredst I say a friend of mine a curious consulter of Astrologers though himself not much seen in it who related to me something from his father which though he made little reflection thereupon served very much for the overthrow of the vain esteem of that Science This man therefore by name Firminus ingenuously educated and well studied in eloquence consulting me as one very dear to him what I collected from his Constellations as he call'd them concerning some important affair of his to which his secular hopes aspired and I who was now somewhat inclined to Nebridius his opinion conjecturing and divining thereupon what my doubting mind met-with in the Art but withall superadding that I was almost perswaded all those things were ridiculous and vain he proceeded to tell me how his father was a most curious student of such books and had also a friend alike-affected who with emulating studies and comparing of their observations were so farre enflamed toward those toyes as that when any mute Animals of their own brought forth young they marked the moment of their birth and set down the positions of the Heavens in them from whence they might gather some experiments of this Art And he said he had heard from his father that when his mother was great with child of the said Firminus a certain maid-servant of his friends happened to be big with child at the same time not unremarked by her Master who observed with most exact diligence even the puppyings of his dogs and that so it happened that they with most wary observation accounting one the day hour minute of his wifes the other of his maids being brought to bed both were delivered at the same instant so that they were forced to set down the same calculation to a minute of the Nativity one of his son the other of his servant For as soon as the women fell in labour they gave mutuall notice and had one ready to send to each other so soon as the child was born and those sent met so justly in the mid-way that neither of them was permitted to observe any position of the starrs or particle of time different from the other And yet Firminus as honourably descended ran the more happy courses of this world increased in wealth was advanced in dignities But the servant having the yoke of his condition no way eased waited on a Master as he told me vvho very vvell knevv him Hearing therefore and believing these things from so creditable an Author all my former reluctance presently melted and first I endeavoured to reduce Firminus from this curiosity saying That from the inspection of his Constellations to tell him the truth of what should succeed I was in them to discern that his parents were of better quality his family noble of the City where they lived his extraction and his education honourable his studies ingenuous But if afterward the servant out of these Constellations for he had the same consulted me to tell him the truth also I must in them behold his fortune a most abject family a condition servile and all other things farr differing and much contrary to the former Whence it would follow that on the same aspects I was to read contrary fortunes if I foretold the truth or if I read the same fortune must say what was false And hence I gathered that what is spoken true from consideration of such Constellations is said not by Art but by guesse and what is spoken false is not from any unskilfulness of Art but from the errour of guessing From this entrance upon a further consideration of these things lest any who lived by this trade whom I much desired to confute and render ridiculous should reply that Firminus to me or his father at least to him had told an untruth I reflected my thoughts on those who are born twins who ordinarily are excluded into the world so hastily one after the other that the small interval of time whatever operation they may pretend it to have in nature yet cannot be collected by humane observation nor expressed in the composition of any figure out of which the Astrologer is to make his prognostication His predictions therefore either cannot be true if from perusing the same figure he should say the same things for example of Esau and Jacob when as the same things happened not to them both Or if true he must not say the same of them whereas yet his inspection was utterly the same Therefore not from Art but chance it is that he speaketh truth For thou O Lord the most just Moderator of the Universe whilst the consulters and the consulted know not any thing by a secret instinct orderest what is fit both that the one should say and the other hear according to the hidden merits of souls and the abyss of thy just judgement Eâ—clus 35.17 To whom let none say What is this wherefore is that let him not say let him not say it for he is but a man CHAP. VII Prâ—secuâ—ing the same query Unde Malum THus loosed from these bonds by thee my Helper yet I was still in a labyrinth concerning the query From whence Evil and could find no way out Yet thou didst not suffer me by any wayes of those my cogitations to be carried away from the right faith by which I believed both that thou wert and that thy substance was immutable and that thou didst take a care of and didst justice amongst men and that in Christ thy Son our Lord and in the holy Scriptures which the authority of thy Catholick Church recommended unto me thou hadst appointed a way of mans salvation in reference to that life which after this present death shall be enjoyed These points therefore being safe and well-quieted in my mind I still hotly enquired from whence should come Evil. And what pangs were those of my heart in travel what groans O my God And there were thine eares receiving them and I knew it not and whilst in silence I importunatly sought the tacite contritions of my soul were powerful clamours to thy mercy Psal 38.9 10. Vulgar Ante te omne desiderium meum lumen oculorum meorum non est mecum And my desire was before thee and the true light of mine eyes was not with me For it was within and I was abroad Neither possessed it any place But my fancy was intent only upon things circumscribed by place and amongst them I found no place of rest and neither did they so well entertain me that I could say I am well this is enough Nor yet did they quite release me to return where it might be well enough with me For I was much superiour to them as inferiour to thee And thou wouldest be true joy and
it is I now confess my faults who hadst pity on me before I confessed them unto thee whilst I sought thee not according to the higher reason of my understanding in which thou hadst pleased to advance me above beasts but according to the exterior sense of my carnality when as thou meanwhile wast more interior to me than what of me was most intimate and more superior then what was my highest I lighted upon that shameless Prov. 9.16.17 witless woman Salomons Emblem of errour sitting at the door of her house and saying Come eat ye secretly of my pleasant bread and steal ye a draught of my sweet waters Who easily seduced me because she found my soul inhabiting abroad in the eye of my flesh and chewing its cud upon such food as it had before received and swallowed by the senses CHAP. VII Their questions that stumbled him and the solutions of them in the three Chapters following FOr meanwhile that which was true in thy word was not truly understood by me and their seeming acutenesse moved me to assent to those silly deceivers when they put such questions unto me Whence came Evill †Supposed Ten en◠of Christianity See Gen. 1.26 27. Gen. 16.2 Gen. 22.10 And * whether God were concluded within a corporeal shape And had hair and nails And * whether they were to be accounted righteous men that at one time had many Wives and those who slew men and sacrificed living creatures With which things my ignorance was much troubled and travelling away from Truth thought still I marched toward it For ignorant I was that Evil was a privation of Good even to the furthest extent thereof any thing lesse than which good hath at all no real being Which how could I discern whose sight * of my eyes extended only to a body * of my mind to a phantasme Again I knew not God to be a Spirit and not such a thing whose parts were extended in length and breadth and whose being was bigness for a bigness is less in a part than in its whole and though supposed infinite is lesse in some portion of it included within a certain space than in its infinitude and is not all of it every where as a spirit as God is And what there could be in us like unto God and whether we were rightly said in the Scriptures to be made after his image I was utterly ignorant And again I knew not that true and interior iustice not judging out of customs but out of the perfect Law of the Almighty God by which were variously fashioned the manners of all Countries and times according to the exigence of those times and Countreys when as it meanwhile in all times and all places remaineth but one not at any time diverse or any where otherwise According to which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David were righteous and commended by God though deemed ungodly by silly men judging according to their own short day and measuring by a little span of their own fashions 1 Cor. 4.3 the universal customes of all mankind As if one in an Armory not knowing what suted to every member would cover his head with Greaves and his feet with an Helmet and then murmur at his ill accoutrement Or when traffick is forbidden for an afternoon a shop-keeper should rage that he was not permitted to sell his wares because he might only do this in the morning Or a Servant in a house seeing another take something in hand which perchance the cup-bearer was forbid to meddle with or something done behind the stables not sufferable in the Dining-room should chafe that in one dwelling and one family the same thing to every one in every place was not allowed Even such are they who strange at it when they hear that righteous men in one age might do something which in another righteous men might not and that God had commanded one thing to these to those another for reasons temporal whilst still the same eternal justice is obeyed by both when as yet in one man and on one day and in one family they see several things sute to the several members something formerly lawful after an hour not so some thing in one corner permitted or also commanded that is in another forbidden punished Doth the rule of justice then swerve sometimes and vary from it self No. But the times over which it presides run not constant and even for they are fleeting times But men whose dayes are few upon the earth being by their short sense unable to connex reconcile the causes unexperienced of past ages and forreign Nations with those of their own tryed by them and yet well discerning in one body or day or house what members what minutes what roomes and persons every thing becometh are offended in those in these well satisfied These things then I knew not observed not on every side they beat upon my sight I regarded them not And I knew when I composed Sonnets I might not place every foot every where but in several kinds of verse in a diverse manner and in any one verse not in all places the same foot yet the art by which I composed in its capacity comprehended all these varieties at once And I did not behold that that justice which good and holy men obeyed did farr more excellently and more sublimely together at once in fold all those things which it had severally commanded and was in no part varied and yet through so varying times did distribute and enjoyn not all at once but to each their proprieties And thus Blind-man I censured those holy Patriarchs not only managing the present affairs as God commanded and inspired them but also thereby foreshewing the future as he revealed these unto them †Alluding to the Israelites sacrificing of Beasts and Abraham his Son and other ceremonies that were typicall CHAP. VIII BUt now since some Constitutions are changeable according to places and times becomes it then at any time or in any place unjust To love God with all ones heart with all his soul and with all his mind and his neighbour as himself No. △ Those infamous crimes which †Flagitia are against nature it self are in every time in every place to be abhorred to be detested such as those of the Sodomites were which-like should any other Nation at any time commit they should incur the same guilt by the divine Lawes which made not men so as to use themselves in such manner For by this is violated that society which we ought to have with God when the nature whereof he is author is polluted by the perversion of lust contrary to the Authors design △ Likewise those infamous crimes which are against the civil society of men according to the diversity of their several usages and practice are to be avoided and forborn As a covenant which is ratified by a custom or law made amongst those of any City or Nation