that they should bee kept still and cannot conceiue to what vse the treading of them should serue but the Father knowing the goodnes of the Fruite better then the Child for he planted them tended them and proyned them considereth also that within two moonethes or little more they would wither and dry away and therefore to preserue the vertue of them he maketh no account of the eating of them but treadeth them in a Fatte to make Wyne of them And when the Child comes afterward to discretion he museth at his owne folly and acknowledgeth that at that tyme he played the very Child notwithstanding that as then he thought himselfe wyser than his Father And after the same maner doth he when he sees him make conserue of Roses of Uiolets or of other flowers He is sory to see them mard as hee thinketh and is ready to weepe for it and he cannot be quieted because he would make Nosegayes of them which anon-after would wither and he himself would cast them away by the next morrow Now consider I pray thee whither without any further inducement thou find not thy selfe too resemble this Child GOD who made the good men that which they be hath no lesse consideration and loue toward them than those which bewayle them Hee knoweth to what ende their lyfe serueth in this worlde also hee knoweth when it is time to gather them and to put to his Hooke or Sickle to cut them downe that they rotte not vppon the tree or vppon the ground and how long they may be preserued in their kinde And thinkest thou it straunge that hee should take some when they bee fresh and greene too preserue them all the yeere long or that hee should make Conserues of their flowers to bee kept a long time or that hee should of their grapes make Wyns Thinkest thou it straunge say I that he should after a sort make their sauour their sweete sent and their strength that is to say their godlines their vprightnes and their vertue too liue after them which otherwise should bee buried with them And that they which for themselues could not haue liued past three or fower yeres should liue to the benefite of the Church and the commonweale not yeres but worlds of yeeres If thou bee a Christian take for mee example the Apostles and a great nomber of the Martyrs which haue suffered persecution doest thou not euen yet still drink of that liquor of theirs doth not their constant confession make thee also to confesse Christ and their death helpe thee too the endlesse lyfe Could Ignatius and Policarpus haue liued aboue fiue or sixe yeres more than they did And yet what part of all their ages hath lasted so long or done so much good as the last halfe howre wherein they dyed Or if thou be a Heathen man consider mee the death of Socrates or of Papinian If Socrates had not droonke the iewce of Hemlocke without gilt haddest thou had those goodly discourses of his concerning the immortalitie of the Soule Or wouldest thou haue beleeued it so easely and therevpon haue bene contented to forgo thy lyfe so freely for the defence of thy Countrie or for the mayntenance of the trueth And if Papinian had not shewed how honorable a thing it is to dye for doing right and how farre the souereine magistrate is to be obeyed should we not bee bereft of a singular goodly example of stoutnesse and rightfull dealing What thing did they in all their whole lyfe either so much to their owne honour or so beneficiall to them that were to come after them as their dying in such sort Now therefore let vs say we be but babes And forasmuch as we perceiue the wisdome of our Father tâ—o bee so great whereas wee condemne him of want of skill and forasmuch as our owne ignorance is so grosse whereas wee boasted of wisedome let vs rather confesse our weakenesse in all cases than presume to doubt of his sage prouidence in any thing But Cato of Vtica would needes that God should yéeld him a reason why Caesar ouercame Pompey as who would say that the veriest rascall in the Realme should commaund the high Court of Parliament to yéeld him account why his case was ouerthrowen For all our great Quarels and Complaints are lesse before God than the least case of a poore Uillaine is afore the greatest Monark of the world Nay hee should rather haue considered that priuate States are punished by order of Lawe and Commonweales and publik States by ciuill warres And that the Commonweale of Rome was euen by his owne confession so corrupted in maners in gouernment and in the very Lawes themselues that he might haue had much iuster cause to haue doubted of Gods prouidence if after her punishing of others for the lyke things she her selfe had scaped vnpunished That the Greate men what part so euer they mainteyned were the members most infected in so much that the wisest men of that age said We see what part we ought to shun but not what part wee ought to take And that as Caesar made warre openly against his Countrie so Pompey couertly and vnder hand made his partakers too fight for the mayntenaunce of his owne ambition which was paraduenture discountenanced too the common people but could not be counterfetted before God who seeth the very bottom of our hearts Now then shall wee thinke it straunge that to the intent to shewe the common people how greatly they bée subiect to be deceyued vnder pretence of good fayth and to teache great men how fore he mistiketh that they should shrowd their leawde lustes vnder the Cloke of Iustice God should suffer Pompey to fall into the hands of his enemies And that to punish the pryde of the Senate and the whole state hée should cause their Army to bee vanquished and let them fall into the hands of their owne Countryman their naturall Subiect Nay how could God haue shewed his prouidence more manifestly than by ouerthrowing that State by her owne force which thought there was not any Power in the worlde able too punish her and by making her a bondslaue to her owne Seruant which had brought so many Citties Commonweales Kings in bondage vnto her But it may be that Caesar himselfe scapeth vnpunished Nay To shewe vnto Tyrannes that the highest step of their greatnesse is tyed to a halter and that they be but Gods scourges which he will cast into the fyre when he hath done with them within a whyle after hée was slayne miserably in the Senate when it was full And by whome Euen by those in whome hee trusted which had fought vnder his Standard against the Commonweale and which presuming them selues to haue deserued more at his hand than they had in deede meant to deserue also of the Commonweale in murthering hym Were wee now as diligent in marking the procéedings of things done in Histories as we be in noting the maner of spéeches
dead men or Diuels for that shal be handled more materially in another place But it shall suffice for this present to shewe the vniuersalitie of consent in this point and that euen those which through custome did celebrate the pluralitie of Gods did yet notwithstanding beléeue that there is but onely one true God Which thing I will first maynteyne by the wyse men which liued from age to age Mercurius Trismegistus who if the bookes which are fathered vppon him bee his in déede as in trueth they bee very auncient is the founder of them all teacheth euerywhere That there is but one GOD That one is the roote of all things and that without that one nothing hath bene of all things that are That the same one is called the onely good and the goodnesse it selfe which hath vniuersall power of creating all things That it is vnpossible that there should bee many makers That in Heauen he hath planted immortalitie in earth interchaunge and vniuersally lyfe and mouing That vnto him alone belongeth the name of Father and of Good and that without blasphemie those titles cannot be attributed either to Angels to Féends or to men or to any of al those whom men do cal Gods as in respect of honor and not of nature He calleth him father of the world the Creator the Beginning the Glorie the Nature the Ende the Necessitie the Renewer of all things the worker of all powers and the power of all works the onely holy the onely vnbegotten the onely euerlasting the Lord of euerlastingnesse and the euerlastingnesse it selfe the onely one and by whome there is but onely one worlde alone and himselfe alonly all namelesse and more excellent than al names Unto him alone will he haue vs to offer vp our prayers our Prayses and our Sacrifices and neuer to call vpon any other than him I would faine knowe whether it bee possible for vs to say any thing either more or better for the setting forth of the sayd vnitie In déede in some places hee speaketh of Gods in the plurall nomber as when he calleth the world a God and the Heauen with the Planets which rule the Heauen Gods but that is after the same maner which he sometymes calleth man himselfe a God notwithstanding that noman can doubt of his birth and death which are things cleane contrarie to the true Godhead The Starres saith he speaking of the Creation were nombred according to the Gods that dwell in them And in an other place he saith There are two sorts of Gods the one wandring and the other fixed But in the tymes going before he had sayd that God is the beginner of them That he made them That he is the Father and onely good vnto whom nothing is to bee compared either of the things beneath or the things aboue Also he saith further That the world is a second God and a sensible God and that Man is a third God by reason of the immortall Soule which is in him but yet he calleth them Children Impes and Creatures of the onely one God and most commonly Shadowes and Images of him neither is it his meaning to attribute so much vnto them as only one sparke of goodnes or power to make the least thing that is To be short hée setteth downe some Gods as principall some as meane and other some as vndergouernours But the conclusion of his matter is that the souereine dominion belongeth to God the souereine Lord of them all vpon whom alonly they depend and from whom they proceede who alonly is called Father and Lorde and whatsoeuer holyer name can be giuen who made both men and Gods yea and men sayth he much better and more excellent then all the Gods And as at the beginning of his worke he had prayed vnto him alone so thanketh and praiseth he him alone in the ende which thing I thought good to set out at length because many Philosophers haue drawne their skill and knowledge out of his fountayne Pythagoras speaketh of God in these termes God is but one not as some thinke without gouernment of the world but all in all He is the orderer of all Ages the light of all powres the Originall of al things the Cresset of Heauē the Father Mynd Quickener and Mouer of all Moreouer he calleth him The infinite power from whence al other powers flowe which cannot be verified but of him alone Philolaus a disciple of his sayth That there is but onely one God the Prince and Guyder of all things who is alwaies singular vnmouable like himselfe and vnlike all other things Also Architas sayth that he estéemeth no man wife but him which reduceth all things vnto one selfsame Originall that is to wit vnto God who is the beginning end and middle of all things And Hierocles one of the same Sect sayth that the same is he whom they call by the name of Zena and Dia the Father and maker of all things because all things haue their life and being of him Uerely by the report of Eudorus as he is alledged by Simplicius they called him the founder of matter And had we the hookes of Numenius we perceiue well by the things which we reade hére there that we should finde them manifest and plaine Now all these had this doctrine both from Nature and from the Schoole of Pherecydes the Syrian the Maister of Pythagoras vnto whom Aristotle attributeth it in his Metaphisicks Empedocles the successor of Pythagoras celebrated none other but this onely one as appeareth by these Uerses of his All things that are or euer were or shall hereafter bee Both man woman Beast and Bird Fish Worme Herb Grasse Tree And euery other thing yea euen the auncient Gods each one Whom wee so highly honor heere come all of one alone Parmenides and Melissus taught the same and so did their Schoolemaister Xenophanes the Colophonian as we bee credibly informed by the Uerses of Parmenides rehearsed by Simplicius in the which Uerses hee calleth him the Vnbegotten the whole the only one not which hath bin or shal be but which euerlastingly is all together and all of himselfe To be short of the like opinion were Thales Anaxagoras Timeus of Locres Acmon Euclide Archoeuetus and others of the auncientest Philosopher And Aristotle witnesseth in many places that it was the common Doctrine of the men of olde tyme The which Zeno hild so streightly that to deny the Unitie of God and to deny the Godhead it selfe he thought to bée all one And the cause of so saying among the auncient Philosophers was not their only reading therof in the writings of some that went afore them as we might doe now but also their reading thereof both in the World and in themselues But let vs come to the chiefe Sects of the Philosophers Socrates the Schoolemaister of Plato confessed only one God and as Aulus Gellius and Apuleius report was condemned to drinke
the souereyntie of all other things That the world the Sea the Land and all other things obey Gods tokens And if aâ— any tyme he bring in an Epicure alledging such worshipfull reasons as this With what engines edgetooles did your God buyld the World and such other eyther he sendeth him away with such answere as he deserueth or els by holding his peace sheweth sufficiently that he deserueth no answere at all Varro the best learned of the Latins maketh an vniuersall Historie deuided into thrée tymes The first as I haue â—ayd alreadie is from the Creation of the world vnto the first Olimpiade This man being a man of great reading found the Creation of the world to haue bene but late afore yea and so late that he ioyned it immediatly to the tyme of the first Olimpiade Likewise Seneca found all things to be new and acknowledgeth in many places that God created the whole world and man peculyarly to serue him And euer since the beginning of the World sayth he vnto this day wee be guyded by the intercourses of daies and nights and so foorth Macrobius passeth yet further and sayth that the world cannot be of any long antiquitie coÌ„sidering that the furthest knowledge that is to be had thereof reacheth not beyond two thousand yéeres As touching the Poets whose spéeches do for the most part represent vnto vs the opinion that was admitted among the common people Virgill is full of excellent sentences to that purpose and Ouid hath made a booke expressely of that matter And euen Lucrece also who professeth vngodlinesse sayth that beyond the Warres of Troy and Thebes there was not any iote remayning to rememberance than by the which he could not better haue declared the World to be but young howbeit that after the maner of his own sect he fathereth that thing vpon chaunce which all the wise men ascribe to the euerlasting prouidence Plinie is the only man whom I wonder at that being so curious a searcher of Nature he could not conceyue that which is printed in euery part of it and which euery man might of himself learne by his owne reading therein He maketh a long Calendar of the first inuenters of things as of Letters of Houses of Apparell and of very Bread He reckoneth vp the Companies that haue fléeted from place to place for the peopling and replenishing of Countries And can there bee a greater proofe of newnesse than that Sometymes he sayth that the Earth is become weary and sometymes that it is wexed barreine in yéelding of fruite and Mettalles because it groweth olde But in one place he sayth expressely that mens bodies by little little become of smaller stature by reason of the witherednesse of the world which wexeth olde And is not this a reporting of the Skye to bee like a whéele which gathereth heate and chafeth with rowling and whirling about And what improteth this wexing old but that it had also as ye would say a birthtyme What meaneth the wearing thereof away but that it had erst bene newe What is ment by the chafing of it but that the temperature thereof is altered For if the World be eternall why is not the whéele thereof eternally in one heate and men eternally of small stature Or if at leastwise it be of very auncient continuance why were not men become Pygmées long ago And if the contrary bee to bee seene in Nature what remayneth but to confesse that the World is but of late beginning To bee short the Stoikes as Varro witnesseth of Zeno taught that the world was created of God and that it should perish The Platonists affirme that it is created and mortall but yet is susteyned from perishing by God The Epicures graunt that it had a beginning howbeit by haphazard and not by prouidence The Peripateticks say in their conclusions that it is without beginning and in their premisses they vtterly deny it The greatest despisers of God as Plinie and such other like doe write in their Prefaces That the world is an euerlasting God and throughout the whole treatises of their bookes they vnsay it agayne Now then after so many graue witnesses and after the coÌ„fessions of the parties them selues is there yet any of these pretensed naturalistes to be found which dareth thinke the contrarie still But now since the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ into the earth this doctrine hath bene receyued throughout the world so as the thing which had aforetymes bene disputable among the Heathen is now admitted as an article of faith welnere among all nations and sects on the earth It may bee that the myracles which were seene then in Heauen in Earth in the Sea vppon men and vpon the very Féends made the world to perceyue that there was a Creator of the world For who could doubt that the creating of a newe Starre the restoring of a deadman to life or onely the making of a blindman to see was not the worke of an infinite power yea euen as well as the buylding of the world considering that betwéene béeing and not béeing betwéene life and death betwéene the hauing of a thing and the nothauing the distance is infinite And it may be that the signes which we haue seene from Heauen in our tyme doe serue to make the blasphemers vpon earth vnexcusable But wherof soeuer it came the very Philosophers themselues began to make a grouÌ„ded principle therof insomuch that the Greekes Persians and Arabians and likewise afterward the Turkes and Mahometists did put it into their beléefe as a thing out of all controuersie To be short there is not at this day any ciuill or well ordered people which haue not their Chronicles and Histories of tymes begun alwaies at the Creation of the world wherein they doe all hold of Moyses and agrée all with vs Christians sauing in the controuersie of some fewe yéeres Of all the Philosophers only the Platonists continued in estimation and all men reiected the newfound opinions of Aristotle and they stood at defiance rather with the Gnosticks than with the Christians Sainct Austin sayth concerning the Philosophers of his tyme that their opinion was that God was afore the World howbeit not in time but in order and by way of vndersetting only like as if a foote sayth he were euer in one place the print thereof should also be euer there Unto whom it may be answered in one word that like as abilitie and intent of going went afore the going it self both in the man and in the foote so in God also the power and intent of creating went afore the Creation But it is best to heare their owne words Plotin in his booke of the World findeth himself not a little graueled in this case and he maketh very little account of all Aristotles supposalles If we say sayth he that the Skye is euerlasting as in respect of the whole bodie therof how can
it so Yet notwithstanding of all these babes which to thy seeming are but as forlorne things none dyeth for want of nurce or nourishment though there be nothing but payn and care in bringing them vp Therfore it must néedes follow that euen from the beginning a certeyne prouidence hath watched ouer them which hath ingrauen this kindly affection and carefulnesse in the mothers breast and the lesse that babes can do for themselues the more manifestly doth Gods power shine foorth in prouyding for them As for the bruite Beasts it was not requisite for them to be brought into the world in that sort forasmuch as being vnable to conceiue reason they had no interest at all in the knowledge of those things As touching diseases if thou blame the seasons of the yeere for them thou mayst as well blame the fire for burning thée which yet notwithstanding thou canst not forbeare For the fault is in thyne owne vndiscréetnesse and not in their nature and in thyne own vnrulinesse and not in their distemperance The selfsame heate wherwith thou findest fault ripeneth the Corne Wine and Fruites wherewith the most part of the world are fed And if thou thinke that any man be therby cast into an Agew he might haue forborne the to haue gone into the Sunne but he could not haue forborne the shining of the Sunne vpon the earth But if fathers of housholds haue roddes at hand to correct their children withal and that a part of their gouernment consist therein thinkest thou it straunge 〈◊〉 he which hath set vs in the World should haue meanes to 〈◊〉 vs in awe to bring vs home to him What wilt thou say 〈◊〉 a number of diseases which are as certeine fruits of some vices sinnes as one of Drunkennesse and another of Lecherie and so forth Or what wilt thou say to Hippocrates himselfe who speaking of ordinarie sores and diseases inioyneth the Phisition in any wise to consider well whether there be any peculiar stroke of God in them or no that is to say whether the sicknesse or disease bee extraordinarie so as the proper and nerest cause thereof be the hand of God vpon the party Now furthermore if there be nothing but disorder and wretchednesse in this World why blamest thou death which maketh thée to depart out of it If it bee because thou hast goodes which thou art loth to forgo thou must consider that if thy parents had not giuen place to thée by order of Nature those goodes had now bene none of thyne If it be because Death maketh cleane riddance of most things thinke also that in so doing it maketh place for other moe that are to spring vp in their place But yet if thou wouldest consider how often men goe to seeke Death where it seemeth to be doluen most déepe and yet finde it not how many méete with it at Bankets at Feastes at Mariages at Triumphes and where they would most faynest forget it how many there be which dye yoong and in good health and how many liue fore diseased euen to the depth of olde age how many returne safe from most cruell Battels to dye in their beddes and how many dye in battell or in some fray which haue shunned strife and tumult all their life long thou shalt easely perceyue that our life and our death are not in our owne hand ne yet depend vpon fortune forasmuch as we scape so many places where fortune seemeth to reigne and that much lesse doth our life and death depend vpon Nature seeing it is not with vs as it is with Trées and other liuing things to whom there is set a certeyne terme which for the most part they fulfill and ouerpasse it not but that our life and death depend vpon a higher cause whose onely will disposeth and boundeth them accordingly as is expedient for his owne glorie for the order of the whole yea and for our selues too Had it not bene better then sayst thou that man had bene made immortall rather than mortall And had it not bene much better also I say that the earth had rather bin fire than earth or that the eare had rather bene eye than eare seeing that the one is more excellent than the other and in the opinion of the Philosophers it is better to haue qualities actiue than passiue Had the earth bin fire where couldest thou haue rested And if thyne eares had bene eyes what had become of thy spéech yea of thy reason too Now therefore my friend giue this world leaue to be a world that is to wit a disposing of diuers things and an order of many degrées Euery kinde of thing hath his bounds and buttelles accordingly as God hath listed to appoynt thereto The Plant is a Plant because it doth but liue and grow if it had sence also thē should it be a Beast A Beast is a Beast because it liueth and hath sence if it procéeded so farre as to haue reason also then were it a Man Man reasoneth and discourseth because he is Man and were he therto vnchaungeable he were a God He therefore that demaundeth why the Plant hath no sence and why Man is not immortall in this World demaundeth why the Plant is a Plant and why Man is Man To be short the cause why it is so is that it hath pleased God to set as it were the diuers strings of the World in tune to make one harmonie insomuch that whosoeuer taketh away the diuersitie of things taketh away the World it selfe But this is a poynt whereon they greatly stand Well say they Admit that the diuine Prouidence haue stablished the World yea and that it haue an vniuersall care thereof Yet to toyle it self in the carke and care of so many particular things specially in this sinke here beneath I meane in this elementall world which is subiect to so many chaunges seemeth rather woorthie of dispraise than of praise Nay say I but if it be a praise vnto God to haue created all things as well beneath as aboue what discommendation can it bee vnto him to preserue them all And seeing he made them all of nothing whence procéedeth their woorthinesse or vnwoorthinesse but of his will Why should the cloth of Gold be of more account than the cloth of Hempe or the Silke of more account than the Linnen to the Paynter that paynted them both If God gouerne the Heauen why should he not also gouerne the Earth whereon doe go so infinite sorts of liuing things in euery of the which yea euen in the Flye and the Ant the greatnesse of the Creator shineth forth more than in the very Heauen as namely in their so liuely life so readie vse of sences so nimble and free mouing yea and in the very littlenesse of them which in so small roome conteyneth so many great things together For wee wonder more at the Clockmakers cunning in making a Clock which a Flye may couer with her wings than in
we say of the Creator What shall we say of him which is not the Soule of the Plant or of the Beast or of Man but the maker of al things yea which made thē of nothing who is not as some Philosophers haue vphild the Soule of the World but rather if he may be so termed the very life and Soule of all life and Soule in the World But as we see dayly if the Counsell of a Realme can not ceasse one wéeke without confusion of the Commonweale nor the Soule of a man or a Beast forbeare woorking bee it neuer so little without the death of the partie nor the life that is in Plants stay without withering of the Plant nor the Sunne goe downe without procuring darknesse or suffer Eclips without some notable chaūge much more reason haue we to beléeue that if the world and al that is therein were not guyded vphild and cared for by the same power wisedome and goodnesse that created it and set in such order as it is it would in one moment fall from order into confusion and from confusion to nothing For to haue no care of it is to mislike of it and to mislike of it is in God to vndoe it forasmuch as Gods willing of it was the very doing of it Now if Gods Prouidence extend it selfe throughout to all things aswell in Heauen as in Earth wee cannot doubt but that it extendeth also vnto man For what thing is there of so greate excellencie either on Earth as mans body or in Heauen as mans Soule And in extending it selfe to man it must needes extend it selfe equally to all men For who is either greate or small poore or riche in respect of him which made both of nothing Or what oddes is there betwixt them sauing that whereas both of them bee but slaues to him that setteth foorth the tragedie he appareleth the one in Cloth of Gold to play the King and the other in a course Pilche to play the Begger making them to chaunge their apparell when he listeth But hehold here commeth almost an vniuersall grudge For if there be say they a Prouidence how commeth it too passe that ill men haue so much prosperitie and good men so much aduersitie that some be so long vnpunished and othersome so long vnrewarded And to be short that one for his wickednes commeth to the Gallowes and another for the same cause obteineth a Diademe or Crowne This question hath combred not onely the most vertuous among the Heathen but also euen the most Religious of all ages But it were best to take héere a little breth and to put it ouer among diuers other things which remayne to bee treated of in the next Chapter following The xij Chapter That all the euill which is doone or seemeth to be doone in the world is subiect to the prouidence of God I Sayd héeretofore concerning GOD that all things teache vs that there is but one and yet notwithstanding that all things togither cannot sufficiently teache vs what hee is Also let vs say concerning Prouidence That in all things wee see a manifest Prouidence but yet to séeke out the cause thereof in euery thing is as much as to sound a bottomlesse pit if it be not much worse séeing that the will of God is the cause of all causes Surely if a man will blame Gods prouidence because it agreeth not with his owne opinion he is a thousandfold too bee more mislyked than hee that should find fault with the maister of an household for the order of his house where hee hath not lodged aboue one night or controll the Lawes Counsell of a straunge countrie wherof he hath had no further experience than by resorting too the Tauernes and common Innes Or than the Babe that should take vpon him to giue sentence of his fathers doings or than the Uarlet that should presume to iudge of the determination of a Court of Parliament vnder pretence that he had hild some mans Male at the Palace gate or I will say more than the brute beast that should vndertake too déeme of the dooings of men For what are wee to be admitted to the Counsell of God which cannot so much as abyde the brightnesse of his face And what vnderstand we further of him than he voutsafeth too reueale vnto vs What Princis Counseler is so wyse that he can giue his Lord good aduice vnlesse his Lorde doe first make him priuie to his purpose as well present as past and to all the other circumstances perteyning thereunto Or what Husbandman comming from a farre will presume to vnderstand better what tilth what séede what compost and what time of rest such or such a péece of ground requireth than he that hath bin acquainted with it all the dayes of his lyfe And how farre greater thing is it to create than to till But forasmuch as God is reason it self and we through his grace haue some sparke thereof let vs sée whether it bee not so euident in all his dooings that in this poynt it inlighteneth euen the darknesse of our reason And if wee perceiue it not so cleerly in all things let vs acknowledge our selues to be but men betwéene whom and God there is no comparison whereas in very déede there were no difference betwixt him and vs if we could throughly conceiue all his deuices Now then whereas it is sayd that if there be a prouidence why haue good men so much euill and euill men so much good afore wée deale with the matter let vs agree vpon the words I aske of thee which men thou callest good and which thou callest euill and likewise what things thou meanest to bee properly good or euill If I should aske thée why healthy men haue so many diseases and diseased men so much health thou mightest with good reason laugh mée to skorue for health maketh healthy and sicknesse maketh sicke But whereas thou askest mée why good men haue so much euill and euill men so much good pardon me though I cause thée to expound thy meaning for naturally I cannot conceiue that either good men haue euill or euill men haue good For if by good men you meane rich men men of honour and men that are healthy and that ye take riches honour and health to bee the good things then is your question absurd For it is al one as if ye should demaund why hearded men haue heare on their chinnes and beardlesse men haue none But if as I heare thée say thou estéemest Solons pouertie to be better than the gold of Crassus and Platoes honestie better than Dennysis tyrannie and the Collick and the Stone of a wiseman with his wisedom to be better than the health and soundnesse of bodie of the foole with his follie then art thou deceyued with the fayre name of Good for it is another thing than these goodes which causeth thée to preferre them and to estéeme them the better Therfore let vs say that the
euill meanest thou towardes him when thou weanest him from his Dugge Now then thinkest thou it straunge that GOD should cast thy goodes into the Sea which els would haue helped to drowne thée in destruction O how greatly did Platoes Shipwracke aduauntage him to make him wise Or that he should plucke the Sword of authoritie out of thy hand wherof thou art so desirous which els peraduenture had slayne thyne owne Soule Or that to prepare thée to another life better than this he should serue thee with such fit meanes as might make thée to bee in loue with it Thou wilt say that thou wouldest haue vsed them well but what a number of men haue bin seene which vnder the chastisement of pouertie were good men whom riches and honor did afterward marre corrupt Thou sufferest the Phisition to take frō thée some kynds of meates which thou louest well and to abridge thée both of thy fare and of thyne exercises and of thy pleasures because he hath seene thy water or felt sometymes thy pulse and wilt thou not suffer God who hauing created thee and shaped thee feeleth euerlastingly the pulse of thy Soule wilt thou not suffer him I say to bereue thée of some outward thing which he himselfe made and which would worke thy destruction Thou commendest the Captayne who to make his iourney the speedier against his enemie dispatcheth away all bag and baggage from his Armie that his Souldiers may go the lighter and that the breaking of a Chariot may not stay him by the way and canst thou not finde in thyne heart that he which made thee and gouerneth thée should dispose of thy baggages that is to wit of thy purchases or inheritances which thou hast gotten heere belowe to make thée the nimbler against vice and against the continuall temptations of this world But Enuie pricketh thee Why taketh he them not sayst thou aswell from this man and that man as from mée And why loueth he thée perchaunce better than them Tell mée why the Phisition appoynteth thee a greater portion of Rhewharbe than him Because such a one is more moued with one dramme than another is with three One is better purged with a single Clister than another is with a very strong Purgation One man is sooner warned of God by the losse of his cropp of Grapes or Corne than another is by the burning of his house the losse of all his goodes and the taking of his Children prisoners So Iob sawe the losse of his Cattell the burning of his houses and the death of all his Children and yet for all that he praysed God still That which was constancie in him might haue seemed blockishnesse in another But when God came once to the touching of his person he could not then forbeare to dispute with him Now then séeing that the things which thou termest euilles and mischiefes are in very déede both Medicines and Salues wilt thou not haue them ministred according to the complexion of the patient And thinkest thou thy selfe wiser in discerning the disposition of thy Soule thā he that created it thou I say which darest not trust to thyne own knowledge in the curing of thy bodie The same is to bee sayd of diuers Nations whereof some one may happen to be afflicted a longer tyme more sharply with the Plague or with Warre than another and oftentymes also euen for the selfesame causes For God knoweth both the common nature of whole Nations and the peculiar natures of euery seueral person Some nature if it should not sée the scurge alwaies at hand would become too too proude and presumptuous Another if it should see it continually would be quite out of hart and fall into dispayre If some were not kept occupyed with their owne aduersities they could not refrayne from working mischief to others Another agayne beeing more giuen to quietnesse is contented to sweate in tilling his grounds in trimming his Gardynes without coueting other mens goodes so he may keepe his owne In like case is it with Plants some require dunging some rubbing to make them cleane some proyning some new graffing againe with the same to take away the harshnesse of their fruite and some to haue their head cropped quite and cleane off One selfesame Gardyner doth all these things and a Childe of his that stands by and sees it woonders at it but he that knoweth the natures of things will count him the skilfuller in his arte Yea sayst thou but though these euilles may be Medicines and Salues how may death be so For what a number of Innocents doe wee see slayne in the world What a number of good folke doe we see put to the slaughter not onely good in the iudgement of vs but also euen in the iudgement of those that put them to death Nay rather what is death but the common passage which it behoueth vs al to passe And what great matter makes it whether thou passe it by Sea or by Land by the corruption of thyne owne humors or by the corruptnesse of thy Commonweale Agayne how often haue Iudges condemmed some man for a cryme whereof he hath bene giltlesse and in the denyall whereof he hath stoode euen vpon the Scaffold and yet hath there confessed himselfe faultie in some other cryme vnknowne both to the Iudges and to the standers by a manifest reproofe either of the ignorance or of the vniustice of the Iudges but a playne acknowledgement of the wisedome and iustice of the eternall God And if God hring them to that poynt for one fault and the Iudge for another what vniustice is in God for suffering them to bee condemned wrongfully by the Iudge yea and to be punished with death or otherwise for a cryme whereof their owne conscience cleareth them as giltlesse when as God and their owne conscience doo iustly condemne them for some other As for example The Iudge condemneth them for conspiracie against the commonweale whereas God condemneth them perchaunce for behauing themselues loosely in defending the commonweale The Iudge vnder colour of offence giuen to the Church and God for not rebuking the Churchmen freely inough For I speake as well concerning Heathenfolke as Christians in this behalfe And what a nomber doe wee see which confesse of themselues and witnesse of their familiar freends that by thy punishing of them wherewith thou being the Iudge mentest to haue put them in feare and too haue restrained them they haue taken warning to amend and bin the more quickened vp and incoraged And what els is this but that as in one selfesame deede God had one intent and thou another so also he guyded it to the end that he himselfe amed at yea and to a contrarie end to that which thou diddest purpose But what a thing were it if thou sawest the fruite that GOD draweth out of it The Childe that beholde his Father treading of goodly Grapes could find in his heart too blame him for so doing for he thinketh
sted of Gods Will he left his freedome and became a bondseruant vnto euill All they that are borne of this corrupted seede reteyne the faultynes of that first fault and cannot wyt it vppon any other than the first man Therfore if it be demaunded why God created man free and not vnfree seeing his freedome made him bond it is all one as if it were demaunded why hee created fyre to be light and suttle that is to say Fyre or why hee created water moyst and colde that is to say Water or the World full of so many varieties that is to say a World and to bee short euery kind of thing to be of this or that nature For to haue free mouing and capable of Reason is to be a man and if we had not had it so we would haue complayned Again to haue free moouing and such as cannot be but reasonable is to be reason it selfe that is to say to be God Now God ment not to create a God but a man to serue him lyke as when he intended to create Beastes for the seruice of man he created them Beasts and not men But wherein wilt thou more woonder at the prouidence of the euerlasting GOD than in that he not only ordereth disposeth the things that he hath created but also the thing which he created not insomuch that he draweth good out of the euill yea and compelleth the euill contrary to the nature thereof to serue vnto Good If a Captayne were of such skill as to order al things in such wise in his Armie that euery thing should serue to the atteynement of his victorie thou wouldest commend him highly it were in déede one of the rarest feates of Warre But if he could moreouer gayne some part of his enemies Hoste and make them to take his owne parte thou couldest not woonder sufficiently at his pollicie What wilt thou say then of him which could make them to fight on his side vnwitting to them selues and that euen his enemies Hargwebusses should helpe to giue themselues the foyle Soothly euen after that sort is it that God can skill to make both sinners and their sinnes to serue him Cyrus as appeareth by the Histories was an ambitious Prince and ambition as ye knowe cannot be welliked of God Now to satisfie his ambition Cyrus Ieuyes a great Hoste against the Assyrians If a man should haue told him it had bin to deliuer the Israelites and to buyld vp Gods Temple agayne as Esay had foretold what think you he would haue sayd vnto it Yet notwithstanding the end of his Warres and of his warfare fell out to be so in déede Thus ye see how an ambitious person and his ambition serued God without meaning any such thing The Emperour Titus ment to bring Iewry to due obedience and it had bin foretolde that of Hierusalem one stone should not be left standing vpon another No doubt but that Titussis owne passion caried him but yet see how God ouerruleth it The same man which persecuted the Christians at Rome goeth to reuenge Christes death at Hierusalem and as sayth Iosephus in that fact he tooke not himselfe as Emperour of the World but as the executer of Gods Iustice against the Iewes Iudas through Couetousnesse betrayed the blud of the rightuouse to death But God by the sheading of that blud if thou be a Christian redéemed thée and yet the holy Scripture saith that the Deuill being in Iudas did put that purpose into his heart Ye see then that not the Couetousnesse of Iudas only but also the Deuill himselfe serued GOD. Besides that the Stories of the Byble be full of such matter wee might marke the like examples ordinarily in the bookes of the Heathen if wee were as diligent in obseruing them as we bee in obseruing the arte of Rhetoricke or Logicke in the author's which we reade For by reason of the great corruption which reigned at those daies in Rome all men cryed out that there was not any Commonweale there appealing to God for defence against the vniustice of the Senate at the same tyme that GOD executed iust vengeance vpon them for it by the vniust couetousnesse of Caesar. Likewise when Attila entered euen into the bowelles of Europe all the Preachers of Christendome did nothing els but bewayle the wretchednesse of that tyme. Ye must thinke that when this great Robber cast lots in his Countrie of Scythia whether he should leade the third part of that Land he had another meaning than to reforme the world Yet notwithstanding all men acknowledged him to be a necessarie scurge of GOD and to haue come in due season Yea and he himselfe considering that he had conquered much more of the Countrie than euer he hoped at the first to haue séene insomuch that he had ouercome euen those which were counted the strength of the World as barbarous as he was he fell to thinke of himselfe that he was the Scurge wherby God chastised the World Not that God is not able to chastise vs himselfe whensoeuer he listeth for his Storehouse is neuer vnfurnished of roddes to scurge vs withall as of Plagues Diseases Famine and such other things but that as a Maister of a howshold holdeth skorne to whippe his Slaues himselfe causing eyther his thiefe Seruant or some other of their fellowes to doe it yea and when his owne Children offend him grieuously he voutsafeth not to beate them with his owne hands for so should he doe them too great an honour but causeth peraduenture the groome of his stable to doe it to the intent to shewe them the iustnesse of his displeasure Euen so doth God punish the wicked one by another whom he could consume all at once in one hower yea and his Children also by the wicked when not counting of them as of his Children but being readie as it were to disherite them he disoeyneth to punish them with his owne hands Thus therefore ye see how God serueth his owne turne by the wicked and their wickednesse to his owne glorie and to the welfare of those that are his And as touching the offences whereinto he suffereth good folks now and then to fall what greater poynt of prouidence can there bee than to turne them into instruments and furtherances of vertue If God should hold vs alway by the hand it is certeyne that we could neuer trippe And it is not to be doubted also but that we would think at the length that it was of our owne steadynesse and not of Gods vpholding of vs not only that we tripped not but also that wee tumbled not downe For what made vs fall but pride and what maner of pride but that we thought we would be Gods without God yea euen of our selues Now to make vs to knowe our infirmitie wherin it is his pleasure to shew his strength sometymes he letteth vs goe alone by our selues for a while and then stumble we at the next iob that we meete with
the body and that the Glasses are out of the Spectacles but the eysight is still good Why should we déeme the Soule to be forgone with the Sences If the eye be the thing that séeth and the eare the thing that heareth why doe wee not see things dubble and heare sounds dubble seeing we haue two eyes and two eares It is the Soule then that seeth and heareth and these which wee take to be our sences are but the instruments of our sences And if when our eyes bee shut or pickt out wee then beholde a thousand things in our mynd yea and that our vnderstanding is then most quicksighted when the quickest of our eysight is as good as quenched or starke dead how is it possible that the reasonable Soule should bee tyed and bound to the sences What a reason is it to say that the Soule dyeth with the sences séeing that the true sences do then growe and increase when the instruments of sence doe dye And what a thing were it to say that a Beast is dead because he hath lost his eyes when we our selues see that it liueth after it hath forgone the eyes Also I haue prooued that the Soule is neither the body nor an appertnance of the body Sith it is so why measure we that thing by the body which measureth al bodies or make that to dye with the body whereby the bodies that dyed yea many hundred yéeres agoe doe after a certeine maner liue still Or what can hurt that thing whom nothing hurteth or hindereth in the bodie Though a man lose an arme yet doth his Soule abide whole still Let him forgoe the one halfe of his body yet is his Soule as sound as afore for it is whole in it selfe and whole in euery part of it selfe vnited in it felfe and in the owne substance and by the force and power thereof it sheadeth it selfe into all parts of the body Though the body rot away by péecemeale yet abideth the Soule all one and vndiminished Let the blud dreyne out the mouing wex weake the sences fayle and the strength perish and yet abideth the mynd neuerthelesse sound and liuely euen to the ende Her house must bee pearced through on all sides ere she bee discouraged her walles must be battered doune ere she fall to fléeting and she neuer forsaketh her lodging till no roome be left her to lodge in True it is that the brute Beastes forgo both life and action with their blud But as for our Soule if wee consider the matter well it is then gathered home into it self and when our sences are quenched then doth it most of all labour to surmount it selfe woorking as goodly actions at the tyme that the body is at a poynt to fayle it yea and oftentymes farre goodlyer also than euer it did during the whole lifetyme thereof As for example it taketh order for it selfe for our houshold for the Commonweale and for a whole Kingdome and that with more vprightnesse godlynesse wisedome and moderation than euer it did afore yea and perchance in a body so forspeâ—â—â— so bare so consumed so withered without and so putrified within that whosoeuer lookes vpon him sees nothing but earth and yet to heare him speake would rauish a man vp to heauen yea and aboue heauen Now when a man sees so liuely a Soule in so weake and wretched a body may he not say as is said of the hatching of Chickens that the shell is broken but there commeth forth a Chicken Also let vs sée what is the ordinary cause that things perish Fire doth eyether goe out for want of nourishment or is quenched by his contrary which is water Water is resolued into aire by fire which is his contrary The cause why the Plant dyeth is extremitie of colde or drought or vnseasonable cutting or vyolent plucking vp Also the liuing wight dyeth through contrarietie of humours or for want of foode or by feeding vpon some thing that is against the nature of it or by outward vyolence Of all these causes which can we choose to haue any power against our Soule I say against the Soule of man which notwithstanding that it be vnited to matter and to a bodie is it selfe a substance vnbodily vnmateriall and only conceiuable in vnderstanding The contrarietie of things Nay what can be contrarie to that which lodgeth the contraries alike equally in himselfe which vnderstandeth the one of them by the other which coucheth them all vnder one skill and to bee short in whom the contrarieties themselues abandon their contrarietie so as they doe not any more pursewe but insewe one another Fire is hote and water cold Our bodies mislike these contraries and are gréeued by them but our mynd linketh them together without eyther burning or cooling it selfe and it setteth the one of them against the other to knowe them the better The things which destroy one another through the whole world do mainteine one another in our mynds Againe nothing is more contrary to peace then warre is and yet mans mynd can skill to make or mainteyne peace in preparing for warre and to lay earnestly for warre in seeking or inioying of peace Euen death it selfe which dispatcheth our life cannot bée contrary to the life of our Soule for it seeketh life by death and death by life And what can that thing méete withall in the whole world that may bee able to ouerthrowe it which can inioyne obedience to things most contrary What then Want of foode How can that want foode in the world which can skill to feede on the whole world Or how should that forsake foode which the fuller it is so much the hungryer it is and the more it hath digested the better able it is to digest The bodily wight feedeth vppon some certeyne things but our mynd feedeth vpon all things Take from it the sensible things and the things of vnderstanding abyde with it still bereaue it of earthly things and the heauenly remayne abundantly To be short abridge it of all worldly things yea and of the world it selfe and euen then doth it feede at greatest ease maketh best chéere agréeable to his owne nature Also the bodily wight filleth it selfe to a certeyne measure and delighteth in some certeyne things But what can fill our mynd Fill it as full as ye can with the knowledge of things and it is still eager and sharpe set to receyue more The more it taketh in the more it still craueth and yet for al that it neuer feeleth any rawnesse or lack of digestion What shall I say more discharge our vnderstanding from the mynding of it self and then doth it liue in him and of him in whom all things doe liue Againe fill it with the knowledge of it selfe and then doth it feele it self most emptie and sharpest set vpon desire of the other Now then can that dye or decay for want of foode which cannot be glutted with any thing which is nourished and mainteyned with
to conceiue that thy Soule should dye with the Body but euen in the selfesame tyme when it disputeth ageinst it selfe it shifteth it self I wote not how from all thy conclusions and falleth too consider in what state it shall bee and where it shal become when it is out of the body The Epicure that hath disputed of it all his lyfe long when he commeth to death bequeatheth a yerely pension for the keeping of a yéerely feast on the day of his birth I pray you to what purpose serue feastings for the birth of a Swyne séeing he estéemeth himselfe to be no better than so Nay what els is this than a crying out of his Nature against him which with one word confuteth all his vaine arguments Another laboureth by all meanes possible to blot out in himselfe the opinion of immortalitie and bicause he hath liued wickedly in this world he will néedes beare himselfe on hand that there is no Iustice in the world tocome But then is the tyme that his owne nature waketh and starteth vp as it were out of the bottome of a water and at that instant painteth againe before his eyes the selfsame thing which he tooke so much paynes to deface And in good sooth what a number haue wee seene which hauing bene despisers of all ReligioÌ„ haue at the hower of death bin glad to vow their Soules to any Sainct for releefe so cléere was then the presence of the life to come before their eyes I had leuer sayd Zeno to see an Indian burne himselfe chéerefully than to heare al the Philosophers of the world discoursing of the immortalitie of the Soule and in very déede it is a much stronger and better concluded argument Nay then let vs rather say I had leuer see an Atheist or an Epicure witnessing the immortalitie of the Soule and willingly taking an honorable farewell of nature vpon a Scaffold than to heare all the Doctors of the world discoursing of it in their Pulpits For whatsoeuer the Epicures say there they speake it aduisedly and as ye would say fresh and fasting wheras all that euer they haue spoken all their life afore is to bee accounted but as the wordes of Drunkards that is to wit of men besotted and falne asléepe in the delights and pleasures of this world where the Wine and the excesse of meate and the vapors that fumed vp of them did speake and not the men themselues What shall I say more I haue tolde you alreadie that in the inward man there are as ye would say thrée men the liuing the sensitiue and the reasonable Let vs say therefore that in the same person there are thrée liues continued from one to another namely the life of the Plant the life of the Beast and the life of the Man or of the Soule So long as a man is in his moothers wombe he doth but only liue and growe his Spirit seemeth to sléepe and his sences seeme to bee in a slumber so as he seemeth to bee no thing els than a Plant. Neuerthelesse if ye consider his eyes his eares his tongue his sences and his mouings you will easely iudge that he is not made to be for euer in that prison where he neither seeth nor heareth nor hath any roome to walke in but rather that he is made to come forth into an opener place where he may haue what to see and behold and wherewith to occupye al the powers which wee see to bee in him As soone as he is come out he beginneth to see to féele and to moue and by little and little falleth to the perfect vsing of his limbes and findeth in this world a peculiar obiect for euery of them as visible things for the eye sounds for his hearing bodily things for his feeling and so forth But besides all this we finde there a mynd which by the eyes as by windowes beholdeth the world and yet in al the world finding not any one thing woorthy to rest wholly vppon mounteth vp to him that made it which mynd like an Empresse lodgeth in the whole world and not alonly in this body which by the sences and oftentymes also without the sences mounteth aboue the sences and streyneth it self to goe out of it selfe as a child doth to get out of his mothers wombe And therefore wee ought surely to say that this Mynd or Reason ought not to bee euer in prison That one day it shall see cléerely and not by these dimme and clowdie spectacles That it shall come in place where it shall haue the true obiect of vnderstanding and that he shall haue his life free from these fetters and from all the affections of the body To be short that as man is prepared in his moothers wombe to be brought foorth into the world â—o is he also after a sort prepared in this body and in this world to liue in another world We then vnderstand it when by nature it behoueth vs to depart out of the world And what child is there which if nature did not by her cunning driue him out would of himself come out of his Couert or that commeth not out as good as forlorne and halfe dead or that if he had at that tyme knowledge spéech would not call that death which we call birth and that a departure out of life which we call the enterance into it As long as we be there we see nothing though our eyes be open Many also doe not so much as stirre except it bee at some sodaine scaring or some other like chaunce and as for those that stirre they knowe not that they haue eyther sence or mouing Why then should wee thinke it straunge that in this life our vnderstanding seeth so little that many men do neuer mynd the immortall nature vntill they be at the last cast yea and some thinke not themselues to haue any such thing howbeit that euen by so thinking they shew themselues to haue part thereof And imagine wee that the vnborne babe hath not as much adoe by nature to leaue the poore skinne that he is wrapt in as we haue hinderance in our sences and in our imprisoned reason when we be at the poynt to leaue the goods and pleasures of this world and the very flesh it selfe which holdeth vs as in a graue Or had the babe some little knowledge would he not say that no life were comparable to the life where he then is as we say there is no life to the life of this world wherein we be Or would he not account the stage of our sences for a fable as a great sort of vs account the stage that is prepared for our Soules Yes surely and therfore let vs conclude where wee began namely that man is both inward and outward In the outward man which is the bodie he resembleth the béeing and the proportion of all the parts of the world And in the inner man he resembleth whatsoeuer kyâ—nd of life is in all things
or in any thing that beareth life in the world In his moothers wombe he liueth the life of a Plant howbeit with this further that he hath a certeyne commencement of sence and moouing which excéede the Plant and doe put him in a readynesse to be indewed with Sences as a Beast is In this life he hath sence and mouing in their perfection which is that propertie of a sensitiue wight but yet besides these he hath also a beginning to reason and vnderstand which are a beginning of another life such as the sensitiue wight hath not this life is to be perfected in another place In the life to come he hath his actions free and full perfected a large ground to worke vppon able to suffise him to the full and a light to his vnderstanding in stead of a light to the eye And like as in comming into this world he came as it were out of another world so in going yet into another world he must also goe out of this world He commeth out of the first world into the second as it were fayling in nourishment but growing in strength vnto mouing and sence and he goeth out of the second into the third fayling in sences and mouing but growing in reason and vnderstāding Now seeing we call the passage out of the first world into the second a birth what reason is it that we should call the passage out of the second into the third a death To be short he that considereth how all the actions of mans mynd tend to the tyme to come without possibilitie of staying vppon the present time how pleasant and delightful soeuer it be we may well discerne by them all that his being which in euery thing as sayth Aristotle followeth the working thereof is also wholly bent towards the tyme to come as who would say this present life were vnto it but as a narrowe grindle on the further side whereof as it were on the banke of some streame or running water he were to finde his true dwelling place and very home in déede But now is it tyme to sée what is sayd to the contrarie wherein we haue to consider eftsoones that which we spake of afore namely that if all that euer is in vs were transitorie and mortall wee should not be so witty to examine the Immortalitie as we be for of Contraries the skill is all one If a man were not mortall that is to say if he had no lyfe he could not dispute of the mortall lyfe neither could he speake of the Immortal if he himself also were not Immortall Therefore let vs goe backe retryue Some man will say that the Soule dyeth with the body bycause the Soule and the body are but one thing and he beléeueth that they be both but one bycause he seeth no more but the body This argument is all one with theirs which denyed that there is any God bycause they sawe him not But yet by his dooings thou mayst perceyue that there is a God discerne lykewise by the dooings of thy soule that thou haste a Soule For in a dead body thou seest the same partes remayne but thou séest not the same dooings that were in it afore When a man is dead his eye seeth nothing at all and yet is there nothing chaunged of his eye but whyle hee is aliue it séeth infinite things that are dyuers The power then which séeth is not of the body Yet notwithstanding how lyuely and quickesighted so euer the eye be it séeth not it self Woonder not therefore though thou haue a soule and that the same soule sée not it self For if thyne eysight sawe itself it were not a power or abilitie of séeing but a visible thing lykewise if thy Soule sawe itself it were no more a Soule that is to say the woorker and quickener of the body but a verie body vnable to do any thing of it self and a massie substance subiect to suffering For we sée nothing but the body and bodily substances But in this thou perceiuest somewhat els than a body as I haue sayd afore that if thyne eye had any peculiar colour of it owne it could not discerne any other colour than that Seeing then that thou conceyuest so many dyuers bodies at once in imagination néeds must thou haue a power in thee which is not a body Be it say they that we haue a power of sence yet haue we not a power of reason for that which we call the power of reason or vnderstanding is nothing but an excellencie or rather a consequence of sence insomuch that when sence dyeth the residew dyeth therewith also Soothely in this which thou haste sayd thou haste surmounted sence which thing thou haddest not done if thou haddest nothing in thee beyond sence For whereas thou sayest if the sence dye the rest dyeth also it is a reason that proceedeth from one terme to another and it is a gathering of reasons which conclude one thing by another Now the sences do in deede perceyue their obiects but yet how lyuely so euer they be they reason not We sée a Smoake so farre extendeth the sence But if we inferre therefore there must needes be fire and thereupon seeke who was the kindler thereof that surmounteth the abilitie of sence We here a péece of Musicke that may any beast do as well as we But his hearing of it is but as of a bare sound whereas our hearing therof is as of an harmony and we discerne the cause of the concords and discords which either delight or offend our sence The thing that heareth the sound is the sence but the thing that iudgeth of that which the sence conceyueth is another thing than the sence The lyke is to be sayd of smelling tasting and feeling Our smelling of sents our tasting of sauours and our feeling of substances is in déede the woorke of our Sences But as for our iudging of the inward vertue of the thing by the outward sent thereof or of the wholsomnes or vnwholsomnes of foode by the taste thereof or of the whotnesse or vehemencie of a feuer by feeling the pulse yea and our procéeding euen into the very bowels of a man whether the eye beeing the quickest of all sences is not able to atteyne surely it is the woorke of a more mightie power than the sence is And in verie déede there are beasts which do here see smell taste and feele much better and quicklyer than man doth Yet notwithstanding none of them conferreth the contraries of colors sounds sents and sauours none sorteth them out to the seruing one of another or to the seruing of themselues Whereby it appeareth that man excelleth the Beasts by another power than the Sences and that whereas a man is a Peynter a Musician or a Phisition he hath it from elswhere than from his sences Nay I say further that oftentymes we conclude cleane contrarie to the report of our sences Our eye perchauce telleth vs that a Tower
our bodies which after a long sicknesse reteyne still eyther a hardnesse of the Splene or a shortnesse of breath or a falling of the Rhewme vppon the Lungs or a skarre of some great wound that cannot bee worne out because of the breake that was made in the whole For neither in their vnderstanding neither in their willes do our Soules feele any abatement sauing that there abydeth some mayme or blemish in the instruments to wit as I will declare hereafter so farre foorth as it pleaseth GOD for a iust punishment to put the Soule in subiection to the bodie whose souereyne it was created to haue bene because it hath neglected the will of the Creator to followe the lustes and lykings of the bodie This appeareth in Lunaticke folkes and such others which haue their wittes troubled at tymes and by fittes For they be not vexed but at the stirring of their humours beeing at other tymes sober and well enough stayed in their wittes The like is seene in them that haue the falling sicknesse For their vnderstanding seemeth to be eclipsed and as it were striken with a Thunderclap during the tyme of their fittes but afterward they bée as discréete as though they ayled nothing To bee short the body is subiect to a thousand diseases wherewith wée see the vnderstanding to bee no whit altered because they touch not the instruments of the Sences and of the Imaginations which moue the vnderstanding Troubled it is in déede by those fewe things only which infect the Sence and the Imagination which by that meanes report the things vnfaithfully whereon the mynd debateth Therfore ye shall neuer see any bodie out of his wittes or out of his right mynd in whom the Phisitions may not manifestly perceyue eyther some default of the instruments as a mishapen and misproportioned head or els an ouerabounding of some melancholike humour that troubled and marred his bodie afore it troubled or impayred his mynd And like as the wisest men being deceyued by false Spyes do make worng deliberations howbeit yet grounded vpō good reason which thing they could not doe vnlesse they were wise in déede So the reason that is in our mynd maketh false discourses and gathereth wrong conclusions vppon the false reports of the imaginations which it could not doe if it were eyther diminished or impayred or done away Whereunto accordeth this auncient saying That there bee certeyne follyes which none but wise men can commit and certeyne Errors which none but learned men can fall into because that in some cases discretion and wisedome are requisite in the partie that is to be deceyued euen to the intent he may bee deceyued and learning is required in a man that he may conceyue and hold a wrong opinion As for example to be beguyled by a dubbledealing Spy or by the surprising of a cosening letter belongeth to none but to a wise man For a grosheaded foole neuer breaketh his brayne about such matters as might bring him to the making of false conclusions by mistaking likelyhoods in stead of truth Likewise to fall into Heresie by misconceyuing some high and déepe poynt befalleth not to an ignorant person for he is not of capacitie neyther doth his vnderstanding mount so high To be short whosoeuer sayth that mans Soule perisheth with the bodie because it is troubled by the distemperature or misproportionatenesse of the bodie may as well vphold that the Child in the moothers wombe dyeth with his moother because he moueth with her and is partaker with her of her harmes and throwes by reason of the streyt coniunction that is betwéene them howbeit that many children haue liued safe and sound notwithstanding that their moothers haue dyed yea and some haue come into the world euen by the death of their moothers And whereas some say that because our mynd conceyueth not any thing here but by helpe of Imagination therfore when the Imagination is gone with the instruments whereunto it is tyed the Soule cannot worke alone by it self nor cōsequently be alone by it selfe surely it is al one as if they should say that because the Child being in his moothers wombe taketh nourishment of her blud by his nauill therfore he cannot liue whē he is come out of her womb if his nauillstrings be cut off Nay contrarywise then is the tyme that the mouth the tongue and the other parts of the Childe doe their duetie which serued erst to no purpose sauing that they were prepared for the tyme to come After the same maner also doe wee cherish our mynd by Imagination in this second life which in the third life being as ye would say scaped out of prison shall begin to vtter his operations by himselfe and that so much the more certeynly for that it shall not be subiect to false reports nor to the sences eyther inward or outward but to the very things themselues which it shall haue seene and learned To bee short it shall liue but not in prison it shall see but not through Spectacles it shall vnderstand but not by reports it shall list but not by way of lusting the infirmitie which the bodie casteth vpon it as now shall then bee away the force which it bringeth now to the body shal then be more fresh and liuely than afore Now then notwithstanding these vayn reasons of theirs let vs conclude That our soule is an vnderstanding or reasonable power ouer the which neither death nor corruption haue naturally any power although it be fitted to the body to gouerne it And if any man doubt hereof let him but examine himselfe for euen his owne doubts will proue it vnto him Or if he will stand in contention stil let him fall to reasoning with himselfe for by concluding his arguments to proue his Soule mortall he shall giue iudgement himselfe that it is immortall And if I haue left any thing vnalledged which might make to this purpose for why may I not séeing that euen the selfsame things which I haue bin able to alledge on the behalf of myne aduersaries do driue them thereunto let vs thinke also that he which feeleth himself conuicted in himselfe and for whose behoofe and benefite it were greatly both to beléeue it and to confesse it néedeth no more diligent proofe than hath bene made alreadie But if any man will yet of spyght stand wilfully still against himselfe let him trye how he can make answer to my foresayd arguments and in the meane while let vs see what the sayd opinion of the wisest men yea and of the whole world hath bene vpon this mater The xv Chapter That the immortalitie of the Soule hath bene taught by the Philosophers of old tyme and beleeued by all people and Nations SOothly it had bene a very harde case if this mynd of ours which searcheth so many things in nature had not taken some leysure to search it selfe and the nature therof and by searching atteyned to some poynt in that behalfe And therefore as there
of the Creator and the sentence of his iust wrath vppon his creature wherethrough it came to passe that the same was not onely bereft of all the grace wherewith it was replenished by beholding it selfe in him but also was made an vnderling to the selfesame things which were made to haue done it seruice Now what this sinne was wee cannot better vnderstand than by the punishment thereof For punishment and sinne haue a mutuall respect one to another as a sore and a salue and may after a sort be knowne the one by the other Order would that our wit should obey GOD and that all our sences and appetites should obey our reason but wee see that as now our sences and appetites hold reason vnder foote This punishment ought to set our fault before our eyes when as wee see our selues falne downe and thrust vnder our selues namely that man intended to haue mounted vp aboue God The same order would also that all the whole world and worldly things should haue serued man and man haue serued GOD that God might haue bene the marke of man as man should haue bene the marke for all other things to haue amed at But wee see that at this day man is an vnderling to the least things that are insomuch that euen those which haue neither sence nor life doe resist him and he pitcheth the ende of all his desires in earthly things as if they were of more valewe than himselfe accordingly as all of vs know that the end is alwaies better thā the things that tend to the same Séeing then that nature is reuolted from man it is certeyne that man is reuolted from God for it is the ordinary punishment of rebellious Subiects that their owne seruaunts and vnderlings also do kicke and spurne agaynst them And moreouer seeing that man not only findeth all maner of mischiefe and misfortune in himselfe but is also so blynd as to seeke his felicitie in the myre and in the durtie dunghils of this world it is a token that he sought his happinesse in himself and elswhere than in God To bee short wée bée striken in our Soules with ignorance of the things that are most néedfull for vs and in our bodies with continuall infirmities and finally with death and that is because we haue bene curious in seeking trifeling things as not contented with the lesson that GOD had giuen vs and would néedes haue made our selues immortall howbeit not by the euerlasting power of Gods quickening spirit but by the forbidden vse of transitorie things yea euen which had no life in them Thus see we now whereof the corruption of mankynd is come namely euen of our owne transgression and of the punishment that followed vpon the same But it is demaunded of vs yet further how long it is ago since this befell If wee had espyed this corruption in vs but from some certeyne hundred yéeres hence it were not for vs to seeke any further for it But let vs hold on our course vp the streame of Mankynd euen to the Riuers head and wee shall finde it still alwaies foule and muddy and we shal from age to age heare these outcryes euen among the best I loue well the good but I cannot doe it and to bee short that man is inclyned to doe euill and subiect to receyue euill which are in one word both the fault and the punishment Agayne were it but in some households or but in some Nations only men would not sticke to father the fault vppon the Clymate and the Soyle or vppon the misteaching or misexample of the Parents But when we see that in that respect all men are in one selfesame taking aswell the men of old tyme as the men of our daies sauing that sinne increaseth continually as well vnder the Equinoctiall lyne as betwéene both the Tropicks and as well on the further side as on the hether side of them sauing that some take more payne to keepe it from sight thā others and that those which haue most wit are woorst forasmuch as I haue alreadie sufficiently proued the creation of the world and of the first man wee be driuen to mount vp agayne to the same man and to say that as he is the roote of our ofspring so is he also the welspring of this corruption which reigneth in vs as in whom our whole race was both atteinted with sinne and attached with punishment In this behalfe it is not for vs to pleade against GOD but to submit our shoulders to his Iustice and to lift vp our eyes to his mercie For necessarily from poynt to poynt doth this consequence ensewe The Soule is corrupted in all mankynd Who is so corrupted that he feeleth it not This corruption cannot procéed from the Creator For when did euer purenesse yéeld forth corruptiō The other creatures could not haue defiled it For what maketh a thing vncleane but the taking of vncleannesse vnto it and what causeth the taking of vncleannesse vnto it but the touching thereof and what touching one of another can there be betwéene a Spirit and a Bodie It remayneth therefore that our Soule corrupted it self by forsaking her duetie eyther of her owne accord or by the admitting vnto it of some wicked Spirit that is to say by perswasion of that Spirit which perswasion is vnto Spirits as touching is vnto bodies And agayne this coruption is from all tyme then comes it not of trayning And in all Nations then comes it not of Constellation And in all ages both old young and middle sort then comes it not of imitation or exampletaking Therefore it must néedes procéed both from one only man and from the firstcreated man who turned away from God through pride whervpon God also did iustly turne away from him as wee reade of our first father Adam in the holy Scripture Now then what remayneth more for vs but to conclude that thing by nature which wee beléeue through Scripture namely That God created man good That he told him his will That man chose to liue after his owne lyking and would néedes become equall with God That therevpon he was banished from Gods presence and fauour That the Earth became rebellious against man and man against himselfe and to bee short that man was wrapped in the wretchednesse of this world intangled with sinne in himself driuen to liue euer dying in this life and were not Gods wrath appeased towards him sure to dye euerlastingly in the life to come The xvij Chapter That the men of old time agreed with vs concerning mans corruption and the cause thereof IT followeth that wee gather the voyces and iudgements of the wisest sort yea of all men in generall the which in myne opinion ought to beare the more sway with vs because it is a kindly thing with vs both to loue our selues and also to thinke ouerwell of our selues For what cause hath a man to complayne if being made Iudge in his owne case he frame his
AEgiptians who bee of most antiquitie hild and taught the same in their Misteries It is a méetly cléere shadowe of that which we reade in the Scripture concerning the fall of the deuill wherevnto he drewe mankynd afterward by his temptations But when as Pherecydes the Syrian agréeing therein with Sibil telleth vs expresly that this Deuill which hath marred and destroyed the whole earth was a Serpent whom he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Snakebread or Adderbread which armeth men by whole troopes against God we by gathering al these testimonies together shall haue the whole storie of the fall of man Hermes being auncienter than all these doth plainly acknowledge the corruption of man yea and that so farre as to say that there is nothing but euill in vs that there is no way for vs to loue God but by hating our selues And to kéepe vs from accusing the Creator The workmaister sayth he to cut off all quarelling is not the procurer of the rust neyther is the Creator the author of the filth and vncleannesse that is in vs. On whom then shall wee father the cause therof God sayth he created man after his owne likenesse and gaue him all things to vse But man in stead of staying vppon the beholding of his father would needes bee medling and doing somewhat of himselfe and so fel from the heauenly contemplation into the Sphere of Elements or of Generation And because he had power ouer al things he began to fall in loue with himselfe and in gazing vpon himself to wonder at himself whereby he so intangled himselfe that he became a bondslaue to his bodie whereas he was free and at libertie afore Now he intangleth this trueth with his accustomed speculations But yet what is this in effect but that the first man being proud of the grace which he had receyued drowned him selfe in the loue of himselfe whereas he might haue liued euerlastingly by drinking still of the loue of GOD And if we mount vp yet higher to Zoroastres who as is written of him was Noes graundchild wee shall finde that in his Oracles he bewayleth the race of Mankynd in these words Alas alas the Earth mourneth euen vnto Children which words cannot be otherwise interpreted than of originall sinne which hath passed from the first man into all his ofspring after which maner the Cabalistes and namely Osias the Chaldian interpret it wherevnto Gemistus the Platonist is not repugnant And as touching the originall of this mischief he denyeth in these words that it came of creation The thing that is vnperfect sayth he cannot proceede of the Creator Now that we be come as it were vp the streame to the first man Adam by whom sinne entered into the world and by sinne death let vs see hēceforth what the opinion of the Philosophers hath bin since the comming of the second man Iesus Christ. We haue a little booke of one Hierocles a Stoick vppon the golden sayings of Pythagoras which shall answer both for the Pythagorists and for the Stoiks Man sayeth he is of his owne motion inclyned to follow the euill and to leaue the good There is a certein stryfe bred in his affections which stepping vp ageinst the will of Nature hath made it to tumble from Heauen to Hell by vndertaking to fight ageinst God He hath a free will which he abuseth bending himself wholy to incounter the Lawes of God and this freedum itself is nothing else but a willingnesse to admit that which is not good rather than otherwise What els is this but as the holy scripture saieth that al the imaginations of manes hart are altogither continewally bent to euill and which wee dayly dispute of namely that our freedome is fresh and foreward vnto euill but lame and lasie vnto dooing well If yee aske him the cause thereof Let vs not blaspheme for all that sayeth he nor say that God is the author of our sinnes but rather that man is of his owne accord become vntoward and that whensoeuer we fall into sinne we do that which is in vs but not which was in vs from God How then shall we make these propositions of his to agree namely that God created man that man is froward and corrupted and yet that God created not man such a one vnlesse we say that God created man good and that afterward man degenerated from his nature But it is the very thing whereunto he commeth of himself Ambition sayth he is our bane and this mischeefe haue wee of ourselues bycause we be gone away from God and do giue ourselues to earthly things which make vs to forget God And that this mischeef is comon to all mankynd he confesseth sufficiently in that he giueth vs an vniuersall remedie that is to wit Religion the which alonly is able sayeth he to rid vs from earthly ignorance without the riddance whereof we can neuer come agein to our former shape and to the lykenes of our kynd which was to be lyke vnto God Now if all the whole kynd be defiled as he sayeth it is surely we must resort backe to one first father frō whom it is spred out into the rest by naturall generation Plutarke wryting of Morall vertue findeth it a very hard matter to make our affection subiect to reason and the body obedient to the spirit And he is driuen to maruell greatly That our féete should be so ready to goe or too stand still whensoeuer Reason loozeneth or pulleth backe the Brydle and that on the contrarie part our affections should carry vs away so headlong for all the restreint that wee can make Also hee thinketh it strange that in our discourses of the greatest matters as of Loue of the bringing vp of our Children and of such like we be driuen to take the brute beastes for our Iudges as who woulde say that nature had stamped no Print of them in our selues And he findeth himself so sore graueled in his consideration that he preferreth the brute beastes before vs in all things sauing in the capacitie which wee haue to knowe God vndoubtedly as perceiuing a continuall following of their kind in all of them wheras in vs only there is contrariwise such an vnkindly and Bastardly Nature that not euen the best of vs haue any whit of our former nature remayning in vs sauing onely shame that we haue it no more And this very gift of knowing God which remayneth to man graueleth Plutarke more than all the rest Man saieth he is a reasonable Creature God hath set him in the world to be serued honored of him and he hath made him to be borne to common ciuill Societie Whereof commeth it then that in his doings he is more vnreasonable more contrarie to Gods will and more against the Lawe of Nature then the very brute beastes In this perplexitie one whyle he saith that man had receiued fayre and sound
worship a man for his knowing of some two or three of them Among other Nations of the world the AEgiptians haue vpon the lyke reasons Deified their King Apis forbidding all men vppon peyne of death to say he was a man and I am euen ready to shudder at the remembrance of his misteries Likewise the Babylonians deified their Bele the Mawres their Iuda the Macedonians their Cabyrus the Latines their Faunus the Sabines their Saâ—cus and the Romanes their Quirinus that is to wit the first founders of their Townes and Citties or the leaders of them to inhabite in forrein Countries and the eldest of these their Gods that is to say their auncientest Princes they called Saturnes their Sonnes Iupiters their Graundsonnes Herculeses and so foorth wherevpon it came to passe that in diuers Nations there were diuers Saturnes Iupiters and Herculeses Afterward the Emperours deified themselues and their fréends and some their Mynions as Alexander did Ephestion and as Arian did Antinous and some their Children and some their wiues Cicero béeing but a Citizen of Arpie was so prwd that he would néedes Deifie his daughter Tullia he sticked not to say to Atticus that he would make her to be worshipped as another Iuno or Minerua considering that she was not inferiour to them in any thing But he came in too rough a time to make Gods What more Euen in one man were a thousand Gods to be found For they made Gods of faithfulnes of constancie of wisedome and of all the other vertues and likewise of Loue of Pleasure of the instruments of pleasure and of all other vices Also of feare palenesse gastfulnes and all passions Lykewise of Agewes of the Hemerodes of the Falling siknesse and of maladies and diseases Also of Dounghils of Snow of Blastings and of the very Winds insomuch that the greate Emperour Augustus did sacrifice to the winde Circius which trobled him in Gall. The cause of these absurdities is in two things the one is Gods iust striking of men with blindnes for their turning away from him vnto man insomuch that whereas they will néedes become equall with God they fall by degrees from poynt to poynt euen to the casting of themselues downe vnto Beastes and Wormes that is to say they become inferiour to beastes The other is that Princes vnlightened by GOD are so desirous of vainglorie and their Seruants are such flatterers that the Princes perceiuing themselues to haue men at their commaundement thinke themselues to be more than men and their seruants to bée made Idols themselues doe willingly make Idols of their Princes Hereof wee reade in the very Lawes of the Christian Emperours that their answers are called Oracles their persons Godheads and their countenances diuine brightnesse Who reading this can doubt but that if such Lawiers had come in the first ages they would haue made vs good store of Gods Nay would God we sawe not still among vs greate nombers of lyuely and plaine-speaking examples of mans inclined disposition to the worshipping of creatures notwithstanding that our Lawe in euery lyne thereof doe reproue vs for it and after a sort twich vs euery howre by the Cote to pull vs from it Now therefore let the premisses be a president vnto vs both of the vanitie of the Godds and of the blockishnes of men which haue both worshipped them and made them And so let vs commit the knitting vp of this matter to Cicero himself who saith thus The conuersation and custome of men sayth he hath allowed the aduanuncing of those men into heauen both in reputation in good will by whom they had receiued any greate benefite Of that sort are Hercules Castor Pollux Esculapius Liber and such other so as Heauen is peopled with mankind And if I listed to search ransacke the Antiquities and Registers of the Greekes I should find that the same Gods whom we take for the greatest haue had their originall from among vs. And for the verifying thereof Inquire whose the Tumbes are that are shewed in Greece and consider with thy selfe what their mysteries and Ceremonies are and thou hauing accesse thither shalt vnderstand without doubt that my saying reacheth very farre The xxiij Chapter That the spirites which made themselues to be worshipped vnder the names of those men were feends that is to say Diuels or wicked Spirites NOw séeing that the sayd Gods were but men yea and not Men but Stocks and Images of men that the same slocks if they had bene any more than Stocks should rather haue worshipped men we must néedes say with Seneca that the men which worshipped them were become worse than stocks But herevnto it wil be answered that they gaue answers of things to come and that they wrought effects beyond the reache of man which shewed that there was a lyfe and power in them or els they had not seduced folke so long time This is the second part which I haue taken in hand to prooue namely that although all the auncient Philosophers agrée that there are both good Spirits and bad the one sort whom we call Angels Seruants and Messengers of God and the other sort Diuels enemies to Gods glorie and our welfare yet notwithstanding the Spirits which were serued in Stocks and Images as Hermes hath told vs were vncleane and mischeuous Spirites These Féends therefore to purchase themselues authoritie did borrowe the names of men and most commonly of the wickeddest men Yea and when they were asked what they were they sayd in their owne Oracles that they were so as for exaÌ„ple he that was worshipped at Delphos said he was the sonne of Latona Esculapius the sonne of Apollo Mercurie the sonne of Iupiter and Maia and so foorth as we reade in Oracles rehearsed by Porphyrius But what honest man will not refuse for neuer so greate gayne to take vppon him the name of a wicked man or rather abhorre both the name and the very rememberance of him And who then will not conclude that those Deuils which to winne themselues credite clothed themselues after that sort with the cases of so wicked men were worse than the men Also they were drawne sayth Hermes into Images by Arte Magicke yea and by the reporte of Porphyrius and Proclus they taught men receyts wherewith to drawe them thether and to bind them there as wee reade of Proserpyne Hecate and Apollo Of whom one commaunded to beset her Image with Wormewood to paynt a certeyne number of Rattes about it and to offer vnto her Blud Myrrhe and Storax to draw her thither Another commaunded to wype out the lines and figures to remoue the tuzzimuzzies of flowers from his féete and to take the braunch of Olife out of his hand that is to say from his images hand that he might withdrawe himselfe Who sees not that they made themselues to bee drawne in and driuen out by things that haue no force at all specially ouer Spirites That it say
GOD according to which rule God will be serued and that God was serued in Israell and no where els The Rule which we seeke must néedes be found in Israell too For as it is vnpossible that it should be elsewhere because the true God was not anywhere els so is it not possible that it should not bee there forasmuch as there was one there and that the true God also was there Now therefore the people of Israell had alwaies certeine bookes which we call the Byble or old Testament which bookes they reuerenced and followed as the very word of GOD whereby he hath shewed vnto men after what maner he will bee serued and worshipped And those bookes haue bene kept continually from tyme to tyme euen since the creation of the world and they haue bene of such authoritie among the true Israelites that they beléeued not any other bookes and for the maintenauce of them haue indured warres oppressions banishments remouings deaths and slaughters which are such things as are not to bee found among other Nations notwithstanding that the Law-makers of other Nations in giuing them their lawes made them beléeue that they procéeded from the Gods because it was a thing as good as graunted among al men that the setting doune of rules for Religion and for mans Soulehealth belōged only vnto God And therefore wee might well gather this conclusion whereof the premises are proued heretofore That there is but one true God one true Religion one true Rule of seruing God reuealed by and from the true God And that this true God was not knowne and worshipped elswhere than among the people of Israell Unto Israell then was the sayd word reuealed and that word must néedes be the Byble or olde Testament whereby the Israelites were taught the seruice of God But forasmuch as wee haue to doe with folke that will sooner be driuen to silence by arguments than perswaded by reason to beléeue as though it stoode God on hand to perswade them for his honor and not them to beléeue for their own welfare I will by the Readers leaue set forth this matter at large First of all forasmuch as there is a Seruice of God to bée had and that seruice should rather bée a misseruice than a Seruice if it were not according to his will and his will cannot be conceiued of vs by coniectures but must be manifested vnto vs by his word I aske them vpon their conscience if they were to discerne that word from all others by what markes they would knowe it that they might not be deceiued This word say I is the rule of Gods seruice and the way of welfare Unto this seruice is man bound from his very creation and it is the marke whereat hee ought to shoote from his very birth Will it not then bee one good marke of this word if it be auncienter than all other Lawes and Rules than all other words than all inuentions of man And will it not be another good marke if it tend to none other end than the glorifying of God and the sauing of mankind If say I it withdrawe man from all other things to leade him to God and to turne him out of all bypathes how great pleasure so euer there be in them to leade him to saluation Nay I say yet more If we find things in the Scripture which no Creature could euer haue foretold or spoken things which could neuer haue come into any mans mind things not onely aboue but also against our nature Will any man bee so wilfull and so very an enemy to his owne welfare as not to yéeld and agrée when he seeth both the hand the signe and the Seale of God In déede I vndertake a matter beyond my abilitie but yet the higher it is the more will GOD ayde mee with his grace And first of all forasmuch as the worlde was made for man and man for God and man could neuer be without true Religion nor true Religion without the word of God I demaund of the great Nations and florishing kingdomes that haue giuen Lawes to all the world and among whom the liberall sciences artes and learning haue bene most renowmed whither any one of them is to be found that hath had a Lawe set downe in writing concerning the true Seruice of the true God Yea or one worde either right or wrong that hath bin beléeued to procéede from him I meane from the only one euerlasting GOD the maker of Heauen and Earth Also I demaund of them whither among the Assyrians Persians Greekes and Romanes a man shall find an Historie of Religion deduced from the first beginning of the world and continued so on from tyme to tyme and from age to age And on the contrarie part whether there be any Heathen man which is not driuen to confesse that the very latest writer of our Byble is of more antiquitie than the auncientest authors that are renoumed among the Gentiles And whether that little which the Gentiles haue learned concerning God be not borowed from other men and finally whether in matters of religion they haue not walked by groping without light and without any direction This matter is handled at large by diuers auncient writers Neuerthelesse for the ease of them which cannot reade them all I will gather them here together in feawe words The Byble beginning at the creation of the world of man leadeth vs from tyme to tyme and from Father to Sonne euen vnto Christ. It deliuereth vs a diuision of men into Gentiles and Israelites into Idolaters and true worshippers of the Souereine God and their comming togither ageine into one after a certeine time and by a meane appoynted euerlastingly to that end by God And the writers thereof are Moyses Iosua the Chronicles of the Iudges and Kings the Prophetes euery of them in his time Daniell Nehemias and Esdras of whome euen these latest were about thrée thousand and sixehundred yéeres after the creation and yet were they afore any Chronicles of the worlde were in the residue of the world I desire all the Antiquaries of this time which make so greate account of the antiquitie of the Greekes and Romanes or of an old Coyne or of a whetherbeaten Piller or of a halfeaten Epitaphe what find they like vnto that Esdras is the latest in the Canon of the Hebrewe writers and yet liued he afore the tyme that Socrates taught in Athens And what rule of Religion was there among the Greekes of his tyme who condemned him for speaking of the onely one GOD At the same tyme were Pythagoras Thales Xenophanes and the seuen Sages which haue borne so great fame in Greece who in their whole life tyme haue sayd some good words concerning maners and conuersation among men but as for God they haue spoken nothing of him but dreamingly nor deemed of him but ouerthwartly nor knowen aught of him but that little which they learned of the AEgiptians Thither went Orpheus Homere
tymes so as no man can atteine to the same naturall veyne the same zeale and the same efficacie vnlesse he be led by the same hand moued by the same spirit and pricked with the same spurre that Moyses Dauid and the Prophetes were To be short if it be hard to father a booke vppon Plato Herodotus and Hipocrates but that hee which shall haue read them aduisedly will by and by espie it euen a farre of So is it as vnpossible to father the other bookes vppon those which haue a stile sofarre differing from other writings vnlesse a man wil beare himselfe on hand that such bastardbookes were made in the same ages or néere about the same tymes that those Authors liued in Let vs sée how it may be possible to haue bene doone in the same ages Moyses published the Lawe before all the people and he curseth the partie with death both of body and soule which shall adde diminish or alter any thing Hee bindeth the people household by household to take fast hold thereof His bookes are deliuered to euery Trybe they be read openly euery Saboth day they be kept carefully in the Arke and the Arke is kept as carefully by all the Trybes And that this was doone it appeareth not onely by his booke but also by the effects that insewed therof from time to time and by the footesteps therof which are euident euen yet among the Iewes If it be possible for a booke to bee preserued from falsifying and foysting what booke shall that be but the Byble which was garded by ten hundred thousand men and copyed out not by some Scriueners onely but also by all the people Afterward came Iosua who renewed the same Couenant proclaymed the Lawe and yéelded record vnto Moyses Lykewise the Iudges succéeded Iosua Samuell succéeded the Iudges the Kings and the Chronicles succéeded Samuell and the Prophets succéeded them all These bookes followed one another immediatly and without interpâ—â—â—â—tion and euery one that followed presupposed the things to be an infallible trueth which had bene written by them that went afore neither was there any that did cast any douts or reproue any of the former histories as is found to be doone in other Histories as for example Hellanicus reproueth Ephorus Ephorus finds fault with Timeus and consequently Timeus reprehendeth them that wrote afore him But Iosua gathereth a certeine and vnfallible consequence of Moyses the Iudges of Iosua Samuell of the Iudges Dauid of them all and so all the rest And to speake of the Prophets they bee not lyke the bookes of our Astrologers which reforme one anothers Calculations and controll one anothers Prognostications But as they shoote all at one marke so they agrée in one thing notwithstanding that they wrote in sundrie times and sundry places Nay which more is wée see that the people were so sure of that Lawe that from age to age they chose rather to abyde all extremities than to giue it ouer insomuch that they defended it ageinst the Chananites the Philistines the Assyrians the Babilonians the Persians the Greekes and the Romanes Who then durst be so prowd and bold as to voilate or imbace the thing that was hild to be so holy defended with so many lyues and confirmed with so many deathes If yee say the Heathen Their intents was not to marre it but to make it quyte away For what profite could haue redounded vnto them of that payne to what ende should they haue done it or how could they haue corrupted it in the sight in the knowledge of so many folke Moreouer who knoweth not that the Scriptures were caryed by the banished Iewes into diuers countryes of the world afore they came into the hands of the Gentiles as of the Greekes or Romanes As for the Iewes their shooteanker and felicitie consisted in the kéeping of them the reward of corrupting them was death and what could it theÌ„ haue benefited them to haue corrupted them Nay yet further which of them would haue dyed afterward for a Lawe which they knewe to bee corrupted or counterfetted And soothly we see throughout their Histories that there passed not so much as any one halfe hundred yeeres without persecutions and warres for that Lawe And whereas it myght be sayd that some suttleheaded fellow among the Iewes had done it to abuse the rest how could that be ageine séeing it was not in the hands of fower or fiue Prestes only as the Ceremonies of the Hetrurians and Latins were but in the hands of the whole people so as one sillable could not be chaunged but it was to be espyed euen by yoong Children Considering also that we reade not of any king how wise so euer he were that euer durst presume to ad diminish or alter any whit thereof whereas notwithstanding all other Lawes of the world were made by péecemeale and Kings and Senats haue alwaies reserued to theÌ„selues a prerogatiue to correct them and alter them at their pleasure specially when they limited their authoritie and serued not for the mayntenance of their possession And if any man to beréeue vs of this argument will stepfoorth and say that our Scriptures are as an Historie gathered out of the Registers of many ages by some one author as we sée Berosus hath done for the Chaldees Duis for the Phenicians Manetho for the Egiptians and such others let him tell vs then I hartily pray him in what age of the world that Author is lykely to liued If in the tyme of Moyses of Iosua or of the Iudges how commeth it to passe that he wryteth of the reignes of the kings If in the tyme of the first Kings how wryteth he of the last Kings If in the tyme of the last Kings how is it possible that the Iewes being afore that time caryed away into diuers places of the world and scattered abroade euerywhere lyke the members of Pentheus should carie keepe with them the books of Moyses which by these mens reckoning were not yet made according to which booke both themselues did notwithstaÌ„ding then liue and also taught other Nations I meane the ten Trybes by name which by three former remouings were scattered ouer the whole Earth whereof the marks are to apparant to be denyed The first in the the tyme of Achaz King of Iuda and of Placea King of Israell by Thiglath Phalassar King of the Assirians who caryed away Ruben Gad and the halfe trybe of Manasses the second in the tyme of Ose by Salmanasar who caryed away Isachar Zabulon and Nepthaly into Assiria and the third anon after by the same Salmanasar who conueyed away Ephraim and the other half of Manasses as is witnessed both by the auncient Records of many Countryes and also by the Chronicles of the Hebrewes And at that tyme whyle Printing was notyet in vse what meane was there to disperse those books so soone and so farre of Nay which more is what will they say when they shall find the bookes of
of men and concerne but themselues or some others are the workes of men so these bookes which tend alonly to the glorie of God yea euen by the contempt of men are the works of God that is to say inspired by GOD As much is to be sayd of the Prophets who when they speake of any succour that was to come to the people of Israell or of any enemie that was to come sodeynly vppon them they sayd not your friends shall succour you or your enemies shall runne in vpon you but the Lord will send Cyrus to deliuer you the Lord will arme the Babylonians to scourge you Uayne are all your dealings if your trust be not in him Uayne are the threatnings of your enemies if you turne vnto him and all this is to assure you that all things are subiect vnto him insomuch that euen they which thinke themselues to make warre against him do fight for him and by him To be short if we inquire of them concerning the state of the earthly Kingdomes they answer vs of the heaueÌ„ly If a man be combered with this present life they teach vs the life to come And oftentymes a man would thinke that they spake nothing materiall to our demaunds because they answer not directly to our demaund but to that which wee ought to demaund Let vs consider somewhat nerely of what mynd the Soothsayers are both by the Oracles of the Deuilles and by such as make profession of Soothsaying The Deuilles require Sacrifices for their answering to curious questions The Astrologians are fayne to seeke out Princes The foreteller of things to come by Palmistrie or by Phisiognomie or by the inwards of Beastes or by the signes of the Skye doe the like And ordinarily who bee more vayne and more puffed vp with pride than those kynd of men What iarring is there among them what disagréement in their foresayings Nay which of them haue wee séeâ—â—â— which is not a mony man or that would rather dye than not declare Gods wrath to a Prince Or that hath not soothed a Prince in his sinnes to sucke gayne out of him Or that hath giuen the glorie vnto God and not to his owne cunning skill Or refused the honor that was offered vnto him as a notable iniurie Witnesses hereof may Apollonius Apuleius Maximus and such others be who by their foretellings neuer sought other thing than Images of themselues to be set vp in Halles of Cities and Pensions in the Courts of the most vicious and detestable Princes And what is to be sayd then of these folke who goe willingly to declare the ouerthrowe of States and the deaths of Princes Which for sake their apparant ease to goe and shew foorth Gods wrath Who of all their wonderfull knowledge yéeld none other reason but this The Lord hath sayd it vnto vs nor seeke any other reward than the glorie of GOD yea matched oftentymes with their owne death Let vs come to the Poetries of our Scriptures and let the heathen set theirs ageinst them and who wil doubt but that they shall blush for shame To omit the arte the measure and the antiquitie of them which are but the outsides of them but yet more beautifull in ours than in the Poetries of the Greekes or Romanes For what are theirs but the vauntings of men counterfetted prayses and discourses of Loue Songs not manly but vnméete for men One singeth mée the rage of Achilles another the wandrings of AEnaeas and a third the loue of Paris and Helen And so farre hath this kind of dealing passed into custome that it seemes vnpossible for man to be a Poet a Diuine and an Historiographer all togither So farre are our mirth and songs estraunged naturally from God and from trueth What shall wee say then to the Poetries specially of Dauid considering that he was afore all the Poetries of the Heathen but that those Poetries are not an imitation but a simple affection If we seeke there for songs of victorie we haue of them but they concerne the God of Hostes If for Brydesongs they bee not wanting but if they be of God and of them that feare him If for hurning loues there be songs of the very Loue itself howbeit kindled of God himselfe If for Shepeherds songs it is full of them but they concerne the Euerlasting for the Shepherd and Israell for the flocke The arte of them is so excellent that it is an excellencie euen to translate them The affections so liuely that they quench choke all others If he had written in mans behalfe had he not as good a ground as Homere had what were his combate with Golias his victories ouer the Philistines his loue of Bersabee and such others Or thinke we that he was not subiect to the same passions or made of the same mould that wee be Or that he which wakeneth vs so much was drowzie himself Or that he which speaketh of nothing but Loue and Honor was without them hymselfe No but in very deede it was another maner of Pulse that did beate in his Ueynes than beateth in ours and another maner of fire that burned in his marow Which thing no man can deny that readeth his Psalmes so lyuely so feruent and so full of affections howbeit that he directeth his loue and his vehement desires to another marke as one that behild a farre other beautie coueted a farre other honor and tasted a farre other pleasure than of the worlde For all those bookes aime at none other marke than the honor of God contrarie to mans nature which robbeth God of his honor as much as can be to cloth itselfe therewith and coueteth nothing so much as glorie But let vs come to the other marke which followeth this successiuely namely the welfare of man Forasmuch as I haue sayde that the marke whereat man shooteth in this life is his owne welfare If God haue left him any word or giuen him any reuelation to what end ought wee to aknowledge the same to be done but to light him in the way of welfare and to turne him from all crossepathes and bywayes which might leade him from the ende that he aimeth at Now let vs hardely reade all the Bookes of the Heathen and there is none of them which buzieth not our braynes about Mooneshine in the water making vs to spend night and day therein as though wee had none other resting place to seeke whereas none other booke than the Byble doth put vs in minde of our way Our welfare is our shooteanker and the welfare as well of one of vs as of another is to liue immortally vnited vnto God How shall Aristotle put vs in mynde thereof who leaueth vs in doubt whether there be any immortalitie or no and which fetteth our shooteanker in I wote not what muzings peraduenture vpon Logicke and naturall Philosophie as his own Or how shall Plato doe it who suffereth himselfe to be caried away with the comon error Or Seneca
of remembrance there was no mention made by the History-writers and Poets of Greece Demetrius Phalareus answered him that it was a diuine lawe giuen of God which ought not to be touched but with cleane hands as Hecataeus himself writeth affirming moreouer that Theopompus a Disciple of Aristotles had done him to vnderstand that whereas some had gone about to disguise the Scriptures of the Iewes with Gréeke eloquence they were striken with amazednesse for their labour and vppon prayer made vnto God were warned in a Dreame that they should forbeare to vnhallow or defile those heauenly matters with the glosse of their owne inuentions Yea and that Theodotus a Tragicall Poet had told him that because he intended to haue intermingled some matters of the Scriptures with his Tragedies that is to wéet by drawing grounds of his Poetries out of the Byble as other Poets had done with the warres of Thebes and Troy he had suddeinly forgone his sight which was afterward restored agayne vnto him vppon continuall prayer and long repentaunce And this befell iust in the same tyme that the Greekes and Romaines did but begin to deale with Philosophie Also Numenius the Pythagorist whom many preferre before Plato made so great account of the Scriptures that his booke of Welfare of Number and of Place and his booke intytled The Lapwing were full of texts alledged out of Moyses and the Prophets with great reuerence And he is the same Philosopher whom Plotin had in such estimation that he voutsafed to write a Cōmentarie vpon him But I would that the Greekes should but shew me the like record of their owne writings and of their owne lawes not in our bookes but euen in their owne bookes and I beléeue that no indifferent person would refuse that offer Here followeth another obiection Namely that the Scriptures haue a simple bare and grosse style but if they were of God they would speake farre otherwise I demaund of them whither mens styles ought not to be according to the persones that speake and whither the grace of eloquence cōsist not in obseruing séemelynesse as namely whither the eloquence of a Subiect ought not to differ from the eloquence of a King the eloquence of a child from the eloquence of a father and the eloquence of an Aduocate from the eloquence of a Iudge or whether by the Rules of Rhetorick that which is eloquence in the one shall not bee foolishnes in the other Therefore if the Lawyer or Aduocate will pleade eloquently he must moue affections to the intent he may moue other men hee must first mooue himselfe The Iudge must vtter his wordes grauely and he must also be vnflexible and vnintreatable without moouing and without affection The King must simply and absolutely commaund for hee is both the voyce of the Lawe and the rule of the Iudge But if either the King come to perswade or the Iudge to debate cases then must the one put on the state of an Aduocate and the other the state of a subiect and lay aside the state of a King and Iudge What then I pray you shal become of the law of God the King of kings who is infinitely further aboue the greatest Monarkes than the greatest Monarkes are aboue their meanest Subiects and who excéedeth alyke both the Iudges and the parties that are to be iudged We would haue him to vse Inductions as Plato doth or Syllogismes as Aristotle doth or pretie sleightes as Carneades doth or outcryes as Cicero doth or fyne conceites as Seneca doth We would haue him to vtter his words by weight that they might fall in iust measure and sound and to interlace some farre sought words some allegoricall matters and some strange deuises wherwith comon vse is vnacquainted If we should sée a Kings Proclamations set foorth in such a style which of vs would not by and by note it as smelling to much of the Inkhorne and which of our Eares woulde not rather glowe at it than lyke of it Surely then the simpler that Gods Lawe is the better doth it beséeme the Euerlasting considering that the simpler it is the more it resembleth the voyce of him that can doe all things yea and which more is the simpler it is the better doth it fitte all people For the Lawe that is ordeined for all men without exception ought to be as an ordinarie foode or rather as a common kynd of bread applyed to the taste and relishe of all men But what will you say if the Scriptures haue in their lowlynes more statelynes in their simplicitie more profoundnes in their homelines more allurance and in their grossenesse more lyuely force sharpnes than are to bee found any where els Wee reade in the first chapter of Genesis God created heauen and earth God spake and the waters were seuered from the earth Hee commaunded and the earth brought foorth herbes There is not so very an idyot or so simple a man but he can vnderstand these things I meane so farre as is requisite to his Saluation yea and consent at the very hearing of them that the things must néedes bee as it is sayd there But if a man will wade déeper into the matter as how God hath in all eternitie chosen as ye would say one instāt whereat to begin this worke without stuffe or matter to woorke vppon and how he made it by his onely bare word they be such bottomlesse déepes as will make euen the stoutest afrayed and enforce the wysest to stoupe to the skill of the lowly and little ones so excellent is the simplicitie of the Scripture both to instruct the lowly and to confound the prowd both at once In our Bible we haue Histories and in Histories what desire wee A trueth for that is the very substance of them Now what greater proofe of trueth can there be than simplicitie A style or maner of indyting that setteth downe things past before our eyes as if they were presently in doing What greater token would we haue thereof than in our reading to féele the very same affections which those felt of whom we reade Let the hardest hearted men and the most vntoward in the world go reade the Histories of our Byble as how Isaac was led to be sacrifized how Ioseph became knowen agein to his brethren how Iephthe was vexed with the méeting of his daughter or how Dauid was gréeued at the death of Absalon and if they will say the trueth they shal féele a certeine shuddering in their bodyes a certeine yirning in their heartes and a certeine tender affection all at one instant farre greater than if all the Oracles of Rome or Athens should preach the same matters whole daies togither Let them reade the same stories ageine in Iosephus to whom the Emperour Titus caused an Image to be set vp for the elegancie of his historie and they shal find that after his inriching of them with all the ornaments of Rhetoricke he shal leaue them more
the water a thing whereof it were vneasie to yéeld a reason But the sayd law of Moyses not being vnprofitable ne tending any higher than this present life did not without cause put a difference betwéene brute things For if we looke well to it it denouÌ„ceth al those brute things vncleane whereby the AEgiptians made their diuinations or tooke their foretokens as the Woolfe the Foxe the Dragon the Hare the Sparehauke the Kyte so foorth And that was to make the people of Israell to abhorre the vanities and abhominations of AEgipt like as if a man would keepe his children from fire he would prohibite them euen the Chimney And because those abuses were knowen among them the end and aimingpoynt of that Lawe was the redresse of them And therefore vppon this poynt I desire our despisers to suspend their iudgement in the things they vnderstand not For as in that tyme no fault was found with this difference in the Lawe of Moyses so should no fault be found with many others at this day if wee could set before vs the same tyme againe I omit concerning the things that liued vpon pray that ouer and besides that men tooke foretokens at them they had this doctrine in them without much stepping aside from the letter that men should not take away one anothers goodes And as touching the Swyne it is well knowne that for the inuention of Tillage which hee shewed to the AEgiptians by wrooting vp the ground with his groyne they worshipped him as a God in consideration whereof he was declared to be abhominable besides the which thing there appeared this euident allegorie that men should not bemyre them selues in the dirt and dung of this world As for the Sacrifices I haue touched them heretofore and will treat of them more at large hereafter forasmuchas they did put men hourely in rememberance of death dew for sinne and of the necessitie of a sacrifice to cleanse away the same namely of the sacrifice of Iesus Christ then to come which should serue for the clensing of all mankynd But admit that God to bring vs to obedience had listed to giue vs Lawes whereof we could not conceiue the reason What is it more than many Princes and Lawemakers haue done as Plutark sayeth Or than we our selues do to our Children and Seruants And yet who will think it méete that they should aske vs a reason why we do so Surely I desire no more but that they which come to our Scriptures should yeeld at leastwise the like regarde that they yeeld to Homer or Virgill If they find in them any dark sentences they say they will mark them with crosses and leaue them too Grammarians too martyr themselues withall Therefore let them not thinke it straunge that God hath left such things in his Scriptures to humble the mynds of diuines withal If in the Poet they meete any Solecismes that is too say incongruities of speeche byandby they be elegancies or figures Let them consider in the Scriptures also that the thing which they think doth disagree at the first sight wil bee found verie fit of him that vnderstandeth the figure To be short if a Poet haue spoken a woord that seemeth needlesse or without reason the Schoolemayster turneth it into al sences to find some sence in it the Scoller is out of patience if his Mayster find none and the Scholler will rather find fault with his Mayster and the Mayster with his owne ignorance than confesse any imperfection ar ouersight in the Poet. Now then if in these bookes confirmed with so manie Miracles and proceeding from soo greate authoritie we mâ—â— offeâ—th things which to our fleshly wit séeme vnprofitable or absurd it â—ere good reason that wee should bee the more diligent and heedfull in serching them and in turning them into al sences And if in the end of all this we find not wherewith to satisfie vs let the hearer confesse his dulnesse of vnderstanding and the teacher acknowledge his owne ignorance and let vs pray God to voutsafe to inlighten vs with his Spirit Now I thinke I haue sufficiently shewed by the antiquitie the style and the matter by the ende also and by the particularities of our Scriptures that they be of God and that they cannot procéede from any other than him By antiquitie for they bee the first of all writings and God hath bin reuealed in them euer since there were any men By their style for they instruct the lowly and pull downe the highmynded speaking with like authoritie to all men By their matter for their onely treating is of Gods doings and of his communicating of himselfe to men By the marke whereat they aime for they tende not to any other thing than Gods glorie and mans welfare And by their singularnesse for there are things without number which cannot bee bred in the mynd eyther of man or Angell The absurdnesse which wee suppose to be there is but a seeming so to our ignorance and the impossibilitie which to our seeming is in them is but in comparison of our disabilitie The truth of them is witnessed vnto vs in Histories at leastwise if the case so stand that Gods word haue neede of mans record He that is the Child of God knoweth his fathers voyce but yet it may be that for the better confirming of him my writing hereof shall not bee in vayne Who so refuseth that no man can perswade him thereto but yet shall this serue to conuict him and by Gods helpe a great sort which as yet haue had their eares so dulled with the noyse of this world that they haue hetherto but ouerheard it shall hereafter incline both their eares and their hearts thereunto Now I beséech the almightie who spake the worde and the world was made to speake effectually in our daies and that the world may beléeue him And because the marke that beléef shootes at is the welfare of man let vs see what welfare wee finde in this word which is our third marke of Religion and shal be the matter of the Chapter next following The xxvij Chapter That the meane ordeyned of GOD for the welfare of mankind hath bene reuealed alwayes to the people of Israel which is the third marke of Religion _â—Ow remayneth the third marke of true Religion to be examined which is that it teache the true and only way ordeined of God for the saluation and recouery of mankind without the which as I haue shewed already all Religion is vnauailable and vayne Howbeit forasmuch as this Doctrine importeth the welfare of the world and I haue interlaced many things by the way which may dim the remembrance thereof Let vs here call ageine to mind how néedfull this marke is in religion And soothly it will be one further marke of the heauenlynes of our Scriptures if we find that they teache vs the necessitie of that only meane and also direct vs to it from the beginning foorthon from tyme to tyme.
of the remembrance of ydols from the earth sayth the Lord of Hostes. All this is nothing els but the clearing of men from their sinnes and the abolishing of Sathans reigne To bee short Malachie telleth vs of Christ That he shall bring vs an Attonement betwéene GOD and vs. And of the Ambassadour whom GOD ment to send afore him to prepare his wayes He sayth that hee shall turne the heartes of the Children to their Fathers and the heartes of the Fathers to their children By the preparation of the Ambassadour we iudge of the Office of his Maister namely that his comming is properly to reigne in our Soules seeing his Ambassadour prepareth them for him exhorting vs to turne away from our sinnes Now of this long but yet néedefull discourse wee gather two things The one against the Gentyles which is that the meane of cleansing mankind hath bin promised and preached euen from the fall of Adam and that the same promise is from time to time brought to our remembrance by our scriptures to wit that it is doone by Christ who was to bée borne of the womans séede by Abraham Iuda Dauid and others The other is against the Iewes of our tyme who looke still for a Christ to come which is that the deliuerāce promised by him is not ment of the tyranny of some earthly Prince ouer vs but of the Tyranny which the diuell exerciseth in our Soules by the vnrighteousnes of sinne the rewarde whereof is euerlasting death The Gentiles of old tyme yéelded vnto these texts when they had once imbraced the spirituall kingdome of Christ and it may be that if we had to doo with the Iewes of elder tyme the matter should soone bee dispatched For all the forealledged Texts haue bene vnderstood of the Messias and of his reigne both by the auncient Rabbines and by the Chaldee Paraphrasts Moreouer it is very manifest that the Cabalists who wrate long tyme afore the Talmudistes and who as they say doo pearce into the very Marowe of the Scriptures wheras the Talmudists doe but grate vppon the barke of them haue vnderstoode that the cleansing away of sinne and the heating of the contagious venome which the Serpent did shed into Adam and by him into the whole ofspring of man was to bee wrought by the Messias Yet for all this notwithstāding al the forecasts of mans wit we want not some euen of the newer sort of Writers which haue vnderstoode it after the maner aforesaid The exposition of Salomons Balett vpon these words A Grape of Copher makes this allusion Eschcol Haccopher That vnto the Church Christ is a man of full attonement who shall be borne of the Children of Abraham and shall make satisfaction for sinnes in such sort as he may say to the measure of Iudgement It is enough that is to say he may stay Gods wrath and punishment and God sayth he will lay him to gage and deliuer him for those that are his And vpon the fourth Chapter where it is written thus A thousand sheelds hang there that is to say in the Tower of Dauid the sayde exposition hath these words Often haue I saith the Lord taken my people in in protection for the dezert of one that was to come after a thousand generatiōs And I haue made them to succeede one after another to bring the Sheeld at the last vnto him which is the onely desyre of my Children and shal defend them better then a thousand Sheelds Also the Rabbines say That the Creatures which are growen out of king by Adams fall shall be set in their perfect state againe by the Sonne of Perets and according to their accustomed fondnesse for proofe thereof they bring in a Text of Ruth and another of Genesis where this worde Toledoth is written very plainly that is to wit with two Vaus And as thouching the sayd Sonne of Perets euery man knowes among them that it is the Messias whom they looked for to come of Iuda by his sonne Perets Concerning the calling of the Gentiles the Talmud maketh this comparison That the Horse shal be set in the stall of the halting Oxe Which wordes Rabbi Iacob and Rabbi Selomoh expound thus namely that forasmuch as the Iewes shall haue forsaken the Lawe God will put the Gentyles in their place and yet not driue them away afterward though the Iewes turne again vnto him which is a thing very farre of from the Monarchie which they imagin as oft as there is any speaking of the calling of the Gentiles To bee short the notablest of their Rabbines are ashamed of the feastings extraordinarie pastimes which the Iewes behight themselues at the comming of the Messias and conclude with Rabbi Moyses ben Maimon of whom they report that since Moyses hymselfe vntill this Moyses there was none so like vnto Moyses that the felicities and pleasures of that tyme ought to bee vnderstood according to this saying of Esayes That the earth shal be as it were ouerflowed with the knowledge of the Lord and that euery man shal be occupyed in seeking and in knowing GOD. But Rabbi Hechadoseh sayth yet more plainly That the Messias shall by his death saue Adams race and deliuer mens Soules from Hell and therefore shall bee called Sauiour Let vs yet further by reason ouercome the wilfull sort if it bée possible They hold it for an Article of their faith both by Scripture and by tradition that there shal be a Messias He that denyes that say they denyes the Lawe the Prophetes and is condemned to Helfyre And therefore say they he that denyeth the comming of the Messias cannot be saued If he which is to reigne in Israell and to giue them prosperitie bee a temporall King what skilles it me greatly whether I knowe him and beleeue in him or no or what ioy can it bee to me sith I cannot see him Nay rather what a griefe is it to mee that I shal not see him and what a peine is it to pyne away in wayting for him Ageine what goodnesse is it in GOD to haue foretold vs it if by beléeuing it we fare neuer the better yet must dye euerlastingly for not beléeuing it In the Articles of their faith they beléeue in the only one God There is greate reward in beléeuing well They beleeue a blessed lyfe As it is the Soule that beleeueth so doth the reward redound vnto her And euen so is it with all other things which are no Articles of fayth furtherfoorth than a man hath benefite by beleeuing them But as for this Article of the Messias what booted it Abraham Moyses so many Kings so many Prophetes such a nomber of people if there were no further secret in it Why was it foretold so carefully by the Prophetes Why was it so oft repeated no lesse in the prosperitie than in the aduersitie of that people and no lesse vnder the good Kings than vnder the Tyrants Nay which
more euident in Moyses so at this tyme there was great store of them in Iewrie to the intent it might appeare what difference is betwixt that which man can doe by the Diuels abusing of him and that which the fingar of God himselfe can doe in man And in good sooth I dare well say there is not any arte in the worlde that doth more clearely verifie the miracles of Iesus than Magicke doth For by Plinies report there were neuer mo Magicians than in the time of Nero which was the tyme that Christes Disciples did spread his doctrine abrode neither was the vanitie of that Arte euer more apparantly knowen as he witnesseth than at that time And euen among the Iewes of our time that science is more common at this day thaÌ„ among al other people For they make bookes thereof specially in the Eastpartes of the world But what are they els than casts of Legierdemayne or Iuggliugtrickes and toyes for Babes to play withall And as for the Magicians which the Princes of Christendome mainteine in their Courts to the shame of vs all and to their owne confusion what are the things which they doe but to speake fitly mere illusions that vanishe away out of hand as which consist in some nimble tricks in playing at Cards and Dyce or in slipper deuises of slight and vayne things Of which kind of folkes and dealings I say not who would willingly dye for them but who would not be ashamed to liue with them As for Iesus wee see it is farre otherwise with him Hee wrought very great miracles in the world and although hee was crucified yet sayth Iosephus his Disciples forsooke him not and therefore euen after hee was gone from them they wrought miracles still and what maner of Miracles Surely euen such as within the space of twentie yeres or thereaboutes filled all the world full of Christians and that miracle continueth still vnto this day The Empires which had not heard any speaking of Christ were conuerted to the Kingdome of Christe and beléeued hym for his doings afore they heard of his name The Emperours vnder whome hee had bene crucified and his Disciples diuersly persecuted are glad to doe him honour and to build Temples vnto hym Let the Iewes tell mée what Magician they euer heard of that wrought such miracles after his death If they say that Christes Apostles and Disciples also were Magicians then séeing that no man which is well aduised doeth any thing but to some end let them tell mée what gayne the Apostles could get by exercising this Magike which procured them nothing but hatred sorrowe imprisonment torments and cruell death And seeing that Magicians doe hyde themselues and conceale their arte when they be pursued for it what kind of Magicke is this which will needes be knowen and exercised euen in despite of Princes and of the world yea and of death that is to say euen in despite of the man himselfe if I may so say that doth practise it If it be further replied that some extreme vainglorie led them how happeneth it that euery of them did not cause himselfe to be worshipped alone And that they did not their workes in their owne names but referred all to Iesus yéelding vnto him the power the honour and the glory of all If they say as of force they néedes must that the power of the crucified Man wrought still in them and by them Let them say also that the same man liued still euen after his crucifying yea and a farre other lyfe than all other men considering that after this lyfe he maketh men to be more than men that is to wit a lyfe not onely free from death but also euerlasting and diuinâ— in deede and so is farre of from the punishment appointed by them to Magicians that is to wit from béeing in Iayle and vnder torture or as they themselues terme it in endlesse death But as soone as they perceyue themselues stopped on that side by and by they seeke to scape out another away Iesus say they wrought his miracles by vertue of the vnvtterable name of God which he mynded And therevpon they fall to an account which sheweth as many other in their Talmud doe that in Gods matters they wanted not only the spirit of God but also euen the humane wit and reason and God knoweth I would be ashamed to rehearse it but for their owne welfare Their saying then is that in Salomons Temple there was a certeine stone of very rare vertue wherein Salomon by his singular wisedome had ingrauen the very true name of God which it was lawfull for euery man to reade but not to cun by hart nor to write out And that at the Temple doore were two Lyons tide at two Cheynes which rored terribly that the feare of it made him to forget the name that had commited it to memorie and him to burst asunder in the mids that had put it in writing But Iesus the sonne of Mary say they regarding neither the curse annexed vnto the prohibition nor the roring of the Lyons wrate it out in a bill and went his way with it with great gladnesse And least he might be taken with the thing about him he had a little opened the skinne of his Leg and put it in there and afterward wrought his miracles by the vertue of that name Now ye must thinke that if I was ashamed to repeate this géere I am much more ashamed to stand confuting of it Neuerthelater séeing that the sumptuousnes of Salomons Temple is described so diligeâ—tly vnto vs and yet no mention is made either of that rare stone or of those Lyons that were so zealous of Gods name whence I pray them haue they this so fayre tale And how commeth it to passe that Iosephus was ignorant thereof who had so diligently perused their matters of remembrance or how come they to the first knowledge thereof so many hundred yeres after Ageine where became those Lyons at such tymes as the AEgiptians and Bahylonians spoyled Hierusalem and defyled the Temple How found they them ageine in the second Temple Or if they were immortall where became they afterward Nay further how happeneth it that Salomon that great king who consecrated and ingraued the sayde Stone wrought not the lyke miracles himselfe specially sith wée reade not that he wrought any miracle at all And what godlynes had it bene for him to haue concealed and kept secret that name which would haue cured so many diseases of body and infirmities of mind whereby folke might haue bene turned away from idolatrie and the whole world might haue bene wonne vnto the lawe of God But if I must néedes answere fooles further according to their folly then if Iesus be the seruant of the liuing God and vse his name to his glory why doe they not beléeue him Or if he serued not GOD how was it possible that the name of God should bee waged by a mortall man ageinst the glorie
caÌ„not be ment of Dauid for he is dead and rotten in his graue yea and he shal be raysed againe within the third day for it is written He will quicken vs after two dayes and in the third day will he rayse vs vp ageine Also he shall go vp into Heauen to sit at the right hand of God for it is written The Lord hath sayd to my Lord sit thou on my right hand And all these Texts are so expounded by Rabbi Moyses Hadarsan by R. Hacadoseh by R. Ionathan the Sonne of Vziell and others and they be all accomplished in Iesus For their owne writer Iosephus sayth In the tyme of Tyberius there was one Iesus a wise man at leastwise if he was to be called a man who was a worker of great miracles and a teacher of such as loue the trueth and had a greate trayne as well of Iewes as of Gentyles Neuerthelesse being accused vnto Pilate by the cheefe of the Iewes he was crucified But yet for all that those which had loued him from the beginning ceassed not to continue still For he shewed himself alyue vnto theÌ„ a three dayes after his death as the Prophetes had foretold of him both this and diuers other things And euen vnto this day doe those continue still which after his name are called Christians Certesse then let vs conclude as this Iewe doth in the selfesame place and in his owne words This Iesus was in very deede the Christ. For as for the goodly tale That Christes Disciples stole him out of his Graue and that for feare they did cast hym downe in a Gardyne where he was found afterward the fondnesse and fabulousenesse thereof appéereth in this that whereas because hee had sayd in his lyfetyme Destroy this Temple and in three dayes I will rayse it vp ageine And also There shall none other signe be giuen vnto you but the signe of the Prophet Ionas and so foorth therevpon the Iewes caused Pylate to set a sure gard about the Sepulchre Yet notwithstanding Pylate writing afterward to the Emperour Claudius aduertised him of the resurrection of Iesus so as the greater and surer the gard was that Pylate did set the mo and the stronger were the witnesses to proue the Iewes lyars in that behalf Also the high Priestes béeing so inraged against Iesus as they were would not haue sticked to haue hanged vp the sayd found Carkesse openly in the Marketplace whereby they might haue abolished all the reputation of Iesus out of hand Ageine on the other side the Apostles were men so afrayd of death so weakeharted so féeble in faith and so vtterly without credit that there is not any lykelihod that they durst take the matter in hand Nay which more is what benefite could they haue had by his dead Carkesse what should it haue booted them to haue forgone their Children their Wyues yea and themselues too for such a one Should they not rather haue had cause to haue bene offended at his cowsmage and therevpon bene the readier to haue condemned the remembraunce of him them selues and to haue turned all men away from him Contrariwise they preach nothing but his resurrection for that are they contented to dye for that doe they teache other men to dye alonly by that doe they hope too liue and dye most blessedly and of all the whole noÌ„ber of them there was not so much as one that could be brought to say otherwise nay rather which could bee made to conceale it and not to speake of it though they were let alone yea or for any promise or threatning that the greatest personages in the worlde could make vnto them Surely therefore if euer any deede were true we must needes say that this is it Finally Daniell sayth After that the Anoynted is slaine The Prince of a people to come that is to say the Emperour of Rome shall destroye the Citie and the Sanctuarie and his end shal be in destruction and vnto the end of the warre be desolations ordeyned But he shall stablish his couenant with many in one weeke and in halfe a weeke shall he cause the Sacrificing and Offering to ceasse And to the same effect Iesus himselfe sayth Weepe for your selues and for your Children and let them which are in Iewrie flee into the Mountaines Abhomination shall abide in the holy place and of the Temple one stone shall not be left vpon another And yet neuerthelesse this Gospell sayth he shall be preached ouer all the world for a witnesse to al Nations Who can say that this was not accomplished within a while after the death of Iesus And who seeth not yet still the remnants of this desolation vpon Hierusalem and vppon all that people Yea and moreouer that this their vtter ruine and ouerthrowe is not to bee fathered vpon any other thing than vpon their putting of Iesus to death Iesus was apprehended in Mount Oliuet and from Mount Oliuet was Hierusalem beseeged He was crucified on the day of the Passouer and on that day was the Citie entered into Hee was whipped in the Romaine Emperours Pauilion by Pylat and in the Emperours Pauilion were the Iewes whipped by the Romaines for their pleasure He was deliuered by them into the hands of the Gentyles and they themselues were scattered abroade into the whole world to bée a skorning stocke to all Nations Of these things and many other like doe the Rabbines complaine in their Histories and the more they speake of them the more doe they confesse Gods Iudgement vpon themselues For what els are all these things but the execution of this their owne sentence giuen vpon themselues his blud be vpon vs vpon our Children Insomuch that as Iosephus reporteth when Tytus sawe the sayd extremities he lifted vp his eyes to heauen and sayd Lord thou knowest that my hands are cleere from all this blud that is shed And afterward when vpon the taking of the Citie he had considered the force and strength of the place and the people he sayd In very deede God hath fought on our side in the taking of this Citie for otherwise what power could euer haue woÌ„ne it Also the TeÌ„ple was burnt doune though he did what he could to haue saued it because sayth Iosephus the vneschewable day of the destruction thereof was come Likewise the Citie was rased cast vp vppon heapes and made leuell with the ground as if neuer man had dwelt there and ten hundred thousand men were put to the sword within it which thing wee reade not to haue bene done to any otâ—er Citie taken by the Romaines To bee short the signes that went afore and the voyce that gaue warning from heauen the opening of the Temple of it own accord seemed to be forefeelings of Gods wrath that was to light vpon them Again the Fountayne of Silo which was dryed vp afore swelled vp to giue water to the Romaine Hoste
looked into the consciences of those Rabbines I beléeue hee should haue seene that they made not so good account of GOD as of themselues As for the Scriptures they expound not one text of them among a hundred to the purpose no nor scarsly without blasphemie sauing where they followe or alledge the Rabbines of old time The residew are either toyes or oldwiues tales or horrible blasphemies or things either too fond for Children or to wicked for men and such as euen the Diuell himself would be ashamed of To be short I can not tell how they that wrate that booke could bee Iewes or howe the reading of it now should not make them all become Christians Yet they reply still and say What lykelyhod is there that this Iesus was the Messias comming so attyred as he did Or were not we at least wyse woorthie to be excused for not knowing him comming disguysed after that manner Nay I demaund of you after what other sort he could or should come considering that hee came to humble himself and to be crucified for vs You looked to haue had him princelyke and he was forepromised poore a Warryour and it was told you he should be beaten and wounded with a greate trayne and he is descrybed alone vppon an Asse with a companie of wyues and there was no mo spoken of but only one with tryumphing and feasting and yee were informed aforehand that his bread should be stéeped in vineger and his Cup be full of gall and bitternesse You imagin vnder him eyther the Peace of Salomon or the Conquests of greate Alexander peace to manure Iewrie at your ease and Warre to reape the riches of the Gentyles But he came to appease Gods wrath and to vanquish the Diuell and thenceforth to make Iewes and Gentyles equall Of these two commings which is most meete both for Gods glorie and for his owne Admit he had the Empyre of Cyrus and Alexander admit he had all the power and riches of all the Kingdomes that euer were in the world what were all this but a witnesse of his want and an abate 〈◊〉 of his glorie As for example Moyses led Sixhundred thousand feyghting men out of Egipt and with the stroke of his rod he passed the red Sea and drouned the Egiptians therein Now in whether had Gods glorie more appeared and the calling of Moyses bin better warranted â— by his winning of a battell ageinst the Egiptians with so greate a nomber of men or by ouerthrowing them with one stroke of a rod In reducing the King to reason by force of armes or in making him to seeke mercy by an hoste of fleas and lyce Let vs come now to Christ. He was to subdewe the world vnder his obedience Whether was it more to his glorie and more correspondent to his Godhead to haue done it by inuesting himself in an Empyre or by ridding himself of all worldly meanes by force of armes or by his only word By conquering men with shewe of pompe or by winning them with suffering reproche at their hand By tryumphing ouer them or by being crucified by them By being alyue or euen by being dead By killing his enemyes or by yéelding vnto them By ouerthrowing his foes or by sending his seruants to suffer whatsoeuer they would do vnto them For who séeth not that in the victories of Princes their men bée partakers with them of their glorie And that in battells betwéene men the Horse and the speare haue their part And that oftentimes the harnesse and the very shadowe of the Crests of their helmets as yee would say do step in for a share Surely therefore wee may well say that Iesus could not haue shewed his Godhead better than in comming like an abiect miserable man nor his strength better than in comming in feblenesse nor his myght than in infirmitie nor his glory than in despisednes nor his eternitie than in dying nor his rysing ageine than in being buryed nor his whole presence than 〈◊〉 his way hence nor finally his quickening life than in conquering the world by the death of his Diciples For had he come otherwise man had had the glory thereof the stronglyer he had come the lesse had bin his victorie and the more pomp he had pretended outwardly the lesse had he alwayes vttered his Godhead and the more excusable had both the Iewes and Gentyles bin in not receyuing him To be short wil ye sée that he was the same sonne of God which was present with God at the creating of the world God created the world without matter or stuffe whereof and without help by his only word And Iesus being destitute of all help and meane hath conquered the world with his only word euen by his 〈◊〉 death which séemeth to haue bene a cleare dispatch of him What greater maiestie or greatnesse can we imagine than this Yea but say they where bee the signes promised by the Prophets and specially the euerlasting peace which Christ was to bring vnto the world which should turne Swords into Mattocks and Speares into Coulters To this we may answer that Iesus was borne vnder the Emperour Augustus at which tyme the Histories tell vs that the Temple of Iauus at Rome was shut vpâ— and all the world was at peace throughout as who would saythat by that meane God meant to open a free way to the preaching of his Gospell But let them first of all marke here their owne contrarietie of speech in that they require of vs here a generall peace and in other places speake of battelles against Gog and Magog and of the bathing of themselues in the blud of the Gentyles insomuch as they say that their second Messias the Sonne of Ioseph shal be slayne in battell Nay as he is a spirituall King so bee his warres and peace spirituall also Esay calleth him a man of warre but of his warres he sayth They shall turne their swordes into Coulters On the contrary part he calleth him that Prince of peace but of such peace wherof it is sayd The chastisemeÌ„t of our peace was layd vpon him and by his stripes are we healed that is to wit he was wounded for our misdeedes and torne for our iniquities To be short Micheas sayth He himselfe shal be the peace Neuerthelesse to the intent ye should not thinke he meaneth of your manuring of your grounds of your dressing of your â—ine-yards yet shall not the Assyrian sayth he ceasse to come into our Land and to march in our Palaces And therefore doth Ieremie well say He shall breake the yoke from thy necke burst asunder thy bonds howbeit as he expoundeth himselfe in another place in such sort as thou shalt not serue straunge Gods any more that is to say he will both winne vs victorie and be our victorie himself against the Deuil and also both purchace vs peace and be our peace vnto God according to this which he sayth another where
such a one and to imbrace his doctrine with all our heart Howbeit to take all cause of doubt from the Heathen let vs shewe them yet further that Iesus is God the sonne of God without the testimonie of the Scriptures For it may be that although they will not beleeue Iesus to be very God by meanes of our Scriptures yet they will beléeue our Scriptures to be of GOD in very deede when they shall see that Iesus is God whose comming hath bene declared so plainly and so long aforehand in our Scriptures But to begin withall let vs call to mynd this saying of Porphyrius That Gods prouidence hath not left mankind without an vniuersall cleansing and that the same cannot be done but by one of the beginnings that is to wit by one of the three Persones or Inbeeings of Gods essence And likewise these poynts which I haue proued already namely That man is created to liue for euer That by his corruption hée is falne from Gods fauour into his displeasure and consequently excluded from that blessednes That to bring him in fauour ageine a Mediator must step in who must be man that he may susteine the death which mankind hath deserued and God that he may triumphe ouer death and decke vs with his desert And such a one doe we say the same Iesus is which was crucified by the Iewes and beleeued on among the Gentyles of olde tyme And God of his grace graunt in our tyme to inlighten all those to whom he hath not as yet giuen grace to beléeue Surely as the Mediator came for the Gentyles as well as for the Iewes that is to say for all men so it should seeme that the Gentiles had some incling thereof reuealed to them from GOD that they might prepare themselues to receiue him In the Scripture we reade of a Prophet named Balaam who prophesied plainly enough of Christ. And some auncient writers say that his Prophesie and the prophesie of one other named Seth were kept in the East partes of the world And Iob who was an Edomite sayth I am sure that my Redeemer liueth and shall stand vp last vppon the earth Also the Sibils and specially Sibill of Erithra who is so famous aboue the rest at leastwise if the bookes which wee haue vnder their names be theirs doe tell vs that he should be the sonne of God be borne of a Uirgin be named Iesus woorke miracles be crucified by the Iewes be raysed ageine to glory come in the ende to iudge both the quicke and the dead and so foorth and that which is a greater matter in such termes and with such particularities as it seemeth to be the very Gospel turned into verse as though God had meant to vtter his misteries more manifestly by them to the Gentiles than he had done to the Iewes bycause the Gentyles had not bene inured to the heauēly doctrine any long time aforehand and namely to the hope of the Redéemer And as for them which thinke those bookes to haue bene counterfetted in those Sibils names surely they may more easely say it than proue it but I passe not greatly for that For as Suetonius Tranquillus reporteth the Emperour Augustus made them to bee locked vp in two Cofers of gold at the foote of the Image of Apollo on mount Palatine in Rome where it was hard for men to haue falsifyed them And in the tyme of Origen of Clement of Alexandria and of Iustine the Martir which was not long after the preaching of the Apostles those bookes were abrode in the world as appeareth by the discourses of Celsus the Epicure who sayth in deede that they were counterfet but hee proueth it not Also the Emperour Constantine in a certeine Oration of his witnesseth that hee had séen and read them and referred the Gentiles of his time to them Well it cannot be denied but that there was at leastwise some such like thing For Cicero in his bookes of Diuination writeth these words Let vs obserue the bookes of Sibyll We must name vs some King if we will liue in safetie And yet all men knowe how hatefull a thing the name of King was both to all the Romaines and to Cicero him selfe Also he maketh mention of Sibils Acrosticke that is to say of certeyne verses of hirs whose first letters made the name of that King of which sort wee haue some in the eighth booke of the Sibyls wherevpon he concludeth that they had a sound and wel setled mynd Moreouer the Emperour Constantine affirmeth that Cicero had translated the booke Sibyll of Erithra that Antonie would haue had it abolished In these bookes it was sayd that as soone as the Romanes had set the King of AEgipt againe in his State by and by should bee borne the King of the whole worlde And therefore Cicero writing to Lentulus who sewed to haue that charge doth mention that Oracle vnto hym and the Romaines made a dout whether they might restore the King of AEgipt or no by reason of that matter whereof the Sibyls doe make some spéeche in their second booke Neuerthelesse when the Romaines had well canuased the case Gabinus conueyed home Ptolomie King of AEgipt into his Kingdome and at the same time was Iesus Christ borne Virgill who by the fauour of Augustus had accesse to those bookes made an Eglog which is but a translation of certeine of the Uerses of those Sibyls concerning the happie state which Sibyll behighted by Iesus Christ the sonne of God sauing that Virgil not looking deepely into the matter applyed it wholy to one Salonine in fauour of Augustus whō he meant to flatter After which manner the Romanes wrested this famous foresaying of Syria to the Emperour Vespasian That out of Iewrie should come the Souereine of the whole world But wee reade that one Secundian a notable man in the tyme of the Emperor Decian and one Verian a Peinter and one Marcelline an Orator became Christians vpon the onely reading and conferring of those Oracles And therefore the first writers among the Christians as Iustine Origen Clement such others doe sommon the Heathen to the bookes of the Sibyls because they would not with their good willes haue beléeued ours and also to a former prophesie of one Histaspes which spake plainly of the comming of the sonne of God into the world and of the conspiring of all kingdomes ageinst him and his And therefore all those bookes were forbidden by the Heathen Emperours vpon peyne of death But God of his wonderfull prouidence had prouided for the Saluation of the Gentyles by scattering the Iewish nations with their books and prophesies into all the fower quarters of the World howbeit that we reade not of any other Linage or Nation to haue bene so scattered without losing their tytles their bookes their name and the very knowledge of their original which prerogatiue the Iewes had to the intent they should bee
Preachers of the comming of the Mediator and witnesses of the antiquitie trueth and vncorruptnes of the Prophestes ageinst the effect whereof neuerthelesse they set themselues with all their power For what better witnesses I pray you could the Gentyles haue than the Iewes themselues namely in that they being the putters of Iesus and of his disciples to death were ready notwithstanding to dye for the trueth soundnesse of the bookes wherein he was foreshewed foretold and fore-promised vnto them at all tymes Furthermore that this King promised by the Prophetes and the Sibyls should deliuer the Law of good lyfe to the whole world Cicero séemeth to haue had some vnderstanding howsoeuer he came by it or els I caÌ„not tell wherto I should apply this goodly sentence of his in his third booke of his Commonweale Soothly the very Lawe in deede sayth he is right reason shed into all men constant euerlasting which calleth all men to their duetie by commaunding and frayeth them from fraud by forbidding which yet notwithstanding neither biddeth nor forbiddeth in vayne to the good nor by bidding or forbidding moueth the bad From this lawe may nothing be taken to it may nothing be put neither may it be wholy abrogated Neither Senate nor Pope can discharge vs of this Lawe neither needeth there any interpreter or expounder thereof to make it playne There shall not bee one Lawe at Rome and another at Athens one tooday and another toomorrowe But one selfesame Lawe being both euerlasting and vnchaungeable shall conteyne all Nations and at all tymes and there shall be but one common mayster and commaunder of all euen God He is the deuiser the discusser and the giuer of this Lawe which who will not obey shall flee from himselfe as if he disdeined to be a man which dooing of his must needes be a sore punishment vnto him though hee were sure to scape all other punishments Who seeth not here that this Heathen man espyed that all Lawes of man are but vanitie and that he looked that God himselfe should come openly into the sight of the world to giue a good lawe to Mankind Now Iesus hath manifestly giuen this Lawe causing it to be published by his Apostles and their voyce sounded to the vttermost bounds of the earth And for proof hereof what is more conuenient and meete for man in the iudgement of conscience than to loue God with all his heart and all his Soule and his neighbour as himself which yet notwithstanding doth more surmount our abilitie to performe and more bewray our corruption and more condemne whatsoeuer is in vs of our owne than doth the Lawe it selfe vniuersally in all mankind On the contrarie part what find we in all the writings of the Heathen but a Hireling vertue and a teaching to cloke vice that is to say Hipocrisie But as this Lawe is verily of God so let vs see whether the bringer thereof bee God And I beseech all worldly wise men not to hearken vnto mee by halues nor to looke vpon things at a glaunce for I come not to daly with them but to yeeld mée both their eares and to looke wistly to bend all their wits aduisedly for the néerer they looke vnto the matter the more deliberatly they consider of it the sooner will they yeeld to our doctrine as to the vndoubted trueth yea as to very nature it self Iesus therefore is borne in the little Countrie of Iewrie subdewed by the Romaines of poore parents in a sorie Uillage destitute of friends and of all worldly helpes and yet was he to be Emperour of the whole world to giue the Law to the whole world Let vs see the procéeding of this Emperour of his Empyre Amend sayth he and beleeue the Gospell for the kingdome of Heauen is at hand If we consider the maiestie of the Romaine Empyre the eloquence and learning of the great Clerks and the pride of the Sophists and Orators of that tyme what greater fondnesse could there be to all seeming than to talke after that maner Who would not haue thought folly both in Christ and in his Apostles for their preaching so But what addeth he Whosoeuer wil come into this kingdome let him forsake goodes father moother wife children yea and himselfe too And let him take vp his Crosse and followe me Let him thinke himself happie that he may suffer a thousand miseries for me and that in the end he may dye for my names sake What maner of priuiledges are these I beseech you to drawe people into that kingdome What a hope is it for them that serue him What are these promises of his but threatnings and his perswasioÌ„s but disswasions What say we to a friend whom we turne from some other man but thus eschewe that mans companie for ye shall haue nothing with him but trauell and trouble And what worse could the veriest enemies of his doctrine say than he himselfe sayd Also what a saying of his was this to S. Paule a man of reputation among the Pharisies and greatly imployed afore in following the world I wil shew thee how great things thou hast to indure for my names sake And yet notwithstanding what a sodeyne chaunge insewed from apprehending and imprisoning to bee apprehended and imprisoned from being a Iudge to be whipped and scourged from stoning of others to death to offer himselfe from Citie to Citie to bee stoned for the name of Iesus Let vs heare on the contrarie part the voyce of a worldly Conquerour Whosoeuer will followe me sayth Cyrus to the Lacedemonians if he be a footman I will make him a Horseman if he bee a Horseman I will giue him a Charyot if he haue a Manor I will giue him a Towne if he haue a Towne I wil giue him a Citie if he haue a Citie I will giue him a Countrie and as for Gold he shall haue it by weight and not by tale What â—ddes is there betwéene the spéeches of these two Monarkes and much more betwéene their Conquests And therefore what comparison can there bee betwixt the Conquerours themselues This Cyrus as great an Emperour as he was could not haue the Lacedemonians to serue him for all his great offers But Iesus being poore abiect and vnregarded did by his rigorous threats euen after his own suffering of reprochfull death and his manacing of the like to his followers drawe all people and Nations vnto him and not only Souldyers but also Emperours nor only Cities but also whole Empyres Cyrus dyed in conquering and Iesus conquered by dying The death of Cyrus decayed his owne kingdome as a bodie without a soule But the death of Iesus inlarged his kingdome euen ouer the Empyres And how could that haue bene but that the death of Iesus was the life of all Empyres and all Kingdomes Who seeth not then in the mightinesse of the one a humaine weakenesse and in the weakenesse of the other a diuine mightinesse Wee woonder
was proclayming his Lawes and yet notwithstanding those Lawes bare sway in Lacedemon many hundred yéeres after But Iulian must remember also that the Phrasians being next neighbours to Lycurgus and his confederates companyons in armes would not admit them and that the Lacedemonians themselues corrected them while he was yet aliue vpon the report whereof he dyed out of hand for pride greef disdeyne But what comparison is there betweene Sparta and the whole world betwéene dying for disdeyne to see his Lawes corrected and dying willingly to correct the Lawes of all the world What will he tell vs now of Alexander He had a great Hoste and power of men so much the more weaker was he of himselfe Iesus was despised and full of infirmitie so much the greater is his mightinesse and honor Alexander vanquished the Persians in Battell how much more commendable had it bene if he had done it with a blast of his mouth If he had liued he would haue conquered the whole world how much more honorable had it bene if he had tryumphed ouer the world by dying Alexander increased his kingdome by oppressing and Iesus by yéelding Alexander by killing and Iesus by dying But Alexanders Empyre decayed by his death whereas the kingdome of Iesus was both founded and stablished by the death of himself and his The difference therfore betwixt them is as great as is betwixt him that dyeth and him that quickeneth or betwéene him that of all maketh a thing of nothing and him which of nothing maketh all things To bee short if ye looke for vertue A man that excelled in vertue was in old tyme a wonder The Philosophers themselues sayth Cornelius Nepos condemned themselues in their owne teachings But after the tyme that Iesus was once preached what a number of men women and euen children in Towne and Countrie yea and in Wildernesses taught vertue to the world by their example If ye require rightuousnesse what were the first Christians but teachers of equitie of vncorruptnesse and of vprightnesse Yea what enemie of theirs doe wee finde that once openeth his mouth to accuse them If ye seeke the despising of death in déede they make a great a doe of one Zeno an Eleate for spitting out his Tongue at a Tyrant least he might confesse what the Tyrant demaunded and likewise of one Leena a woman of Athens that indured all maner of torments without vttering one word If this be so great a matter what a thing is it that in one age ye shal haue whole millions of all fexes of all ages of all states degrées and conditions go willingly and ioyfully to death insomuch that the Historiographer Arrianus makes a generall rule of it That all Christians made in effect no account of death not to conceale any fault of theirs as those others did who had leuer to haue suffered tormēts than to haue dyed but for professing the thing openly before all people which they had learned of God as folke that would haue thought themselues vnworthie to liue if they had hild their peace To bee short what Disciples what Subiects what Souldyers had Socrates Lycurgus or Alexander in all their life that came any thing nigh this these I say which were taught ruled and trayned vp by Iesus euen after he was departed hence and by his Apostles which were rude ignorant and weake as long as he was conuersant with them yea and euen at the very tyme of his death Besides this notable alteration I sayd also that at that tyme the seruing of Idols ceassed in all places at once Are they thinke you so voyd of wit as to say that the ceassing thereof in so many places in so notable maner and in so great geynstriuings happened by chaunce And must it not be that those Gods were made in great haste which had perished by so sodeine chance No say they it came to passe by a Constellation that is to say I wote not what a méeting together of the Starres in the Skye Let vs examin◠this Astrologie a little They suppose and it is a cōmon opinion that according to the diuersitie of Images in the Skye there are also diuers Religions and diuers Goddes in diuers Nations and therefore they deuide the world into seauen Clymates and vn to euery Clymate they allot a seuerall Planet to haue the rule of it But how wil they answer to Bardesanes the Syrian who as they themselues cannot denye was the wisest of all the Chaldees Ye part the world sayth he into seauen Clymates euery Clymate to bee gouerned by a Planet and what a number of Nations are vnder euery Clymate In euery Nation what a number of Shyres In euery Shyre what a sort of Townes All which doe differ both in Lawes in Gods and in Religions and that not only according to the number of the twelue Signes or of the sixe and thirtie faces only but in infinite sorts In India vnder one selfesame Clymat some eate mans flesh and some eate no flesh at all some worship Idols and othersome admit none at all Againe ths Magusians carie them whether soeuer ye will are giuen to Incest after the custome of their Moothercoūtry Persia from whence they descend And the Iewes being dispersed ouer all the world alter not their Religion nor their maner of life wheresoeuer ye bestow them To be short a Nation departing out of one Clymate carieth new Goddes and newe Lawes into another Clymate and yet the Clymate neither troubleth nor hindereth the doing thereof What vertue haue the Clymats or the Signes ouer Lawes and Religions the differences whereof are made by Forrestes Riuers and Mountaynes which are the bounds of Iurisdictions rather thā by them And which they are brought into againe euen in despite of them by men by custome and by conquest And in good sooth whereof commeth it that in the Countries where Venus Mercurie and Saturne were worshipped in old time the Gods are now abolished quite and cleane yet the signes are still in the same places where they were afore And whereof commeth it that the Iewish Lawe beeing banished and vtterly rooted out of their owne Countrie continueth vnder all Clymates still How happeneth it that the Religion of Mahomet is now where the Christian Religion was in tyme past and the Christian is now where sometyme were the bluddy Altars of Saturne and Mars and in some places many and contrarie Religions together For the saluing of this absurditie they runne into another Not the Clymates in very déede say they doe make the differences in Religion but the great Cōiunctions of the Planets and yet euen about this poynt they bee at great oddes among themselues For some say that the great Coniunctions of Iupiter and Saturne and none other do dispose of Religion Others say that properly Iupiter betokeneth Religion and that after as he is accompanied so bringeth he foorth the diuersities of them as for example accompanyed with Saturne the
think that my speaking hereof is bycause I haue not matter where with to aduantage myself in their Astrologie For I could alledge here how they say that Iesus in his natiuitie had for his ascendent the signe of Virgo in hir first face as they terme it in which place of the Heauen Albumazar the Arabian sayeth that the Indians and Egiptians haue marked a virgin bearing two eares of Corne in hir hand and a Child sucking on her breast whom a certeine Nation sayth he call Iesus and that the Starre which the Greekes and Latines in their languages cal an Eare of Corne is called by the Arabians The signe of the foode that susteyneth as if ye would say The substantiall bread or foode And that vpon the Starre which the wise men sawe in the East in the tyme of the Emperour Augustus the Astrologers deliuer matter enough But in these earnest matters I am loth to alledge any thing which is not substantiall or which I take not to be so After Astrologie Magik biddeth vs battell I sayd that Iesus in his miracles surmounted the abilitie of all Creatures Hereuppon they set ageinst vs Simon the Sorcerer Apollonius of Thyanie Apuleus of Medaure and such others And soothly all these doo yeld vs so much the greater record of the miracles of Iesus in that for to diminish the estimation of them they haue had recourse to false miracles and giuen credit to such as were woorkers of them Simon therfore reported himself to be a GOD to haue giuen the Lawe to Moyses vpon Mount Sinay to haue appeared afterwärd in the persone of Christ and finally too haue shed out the gifts of toongues vpon the Apostles in the persone of the holy Ghost wherein he confesseth aforehand the myghtynesse of Christes name and that he would haue men beléeue that he was Christ and beautifie himself with his woorks To this end doth he apply the grounds of Magicke whereby he maketh the people to woonder at him Now Iesus had bin crucified but vnto this man the Romanes did set vp a standing Image vppon the Bridge of Tybris with this tytle To Simon the holy God The Disciples of Iesus suffered and taught men to suffer and were extreamely persecuted of all Iudges Contrariwise he and his folowers were much made of among the greatest personages But he did yet more for he taught his Disciples that Idolatrie is an indifferent thing and that men should not néede to suffer for his Doctrine and what could be more delyghtfull and more entycing than this géere Yet notwithstanding in the end both he and his Lady Selene were quyte shaken of at all mens hands and all the cunning he had could not make him to take footing ageine in the world neither hath the rememberance of him had any continewance here but to the glorie of the Lord Iesus and to his owne shame And what els doth this giue vs to vnderstand but that it is in vaine for Princes to cherish a wicked wâ—ede when Heauen is bent ageinst it and that they labour in vayne to plucke vp the good herb which God intendeth to prosper They make greate braggs of one Apollonius of Thyanie How feawe at leastwise among our learned men haue not heard of him This man did call vp the Ghost of Achilles that is to say a diuell What a nomber of Sorcerers can do as much as that He asketh him whether he had not a Tombe Whether Polixena were killed for his sake or no Whether the things which the Poets report of him be true What good hap should come vnto the world and what good fortune was to befall to the Necromancer himself He tooke a Lucksigne at the sight of a Lyonesse and what a Superstition was that He wore Rings made by the constellations of Planets and what a vanitie was that When a Plague was begun he gaue warning of it and when it grewe strong he floonke away He fetched a yoong wench to life againe but yet his counterfet Euangelist Philostratus durst not auowe that she was starke dead What is there in all these that is eyther good or great But now come wee to the poynt Iesus dyed for the saluation of the world and Apollonius to driue a certeyne disease out of a Citie caused a straunger to be stoned to death as he passed by in the open Marketsted The Disciples of Iesus were slayne in all Cities and Apollonius had Images set vp vnto him and was worshipped in many Temples for a God The sayd Disciples did in the end ouerthrow both the Temples the Idols and his Images too Contrarywise Apollonius liued till he sawe himselfe bereft of all honor and his Images consumed into smoke neither did the fame of him ouerliue him thrée daies insomuch that euen the booke which he had written of his consultations with the Deuils in the den of Trophonius rotted and perished together with the Ceremonies of the same Caue What are the Myracles of this Apollonius but proofes of the Godhead of Iesus For seeing that hauing atteyned to the vttermost that man and nature could come vnto he vanished away so soone euen of himselfe and Iesus euen in despite of man and of the world and of nature went through and gate the vpper hand of him and of all others how could this haue come to passe if the working of Iesus had not bene by a higher power than the power of the world of man and of nature Apuleius of Madaure hath shewed sufficiently in his bookes that he knewe al the trickes of Magicke but what was he the better for them He was of an honorable house but did he euer atteine to the least degrée of dignitie Some will say perchaunce that he made no reckoning of it what shall we say then to his pleading against the men of Choa from whence neuerthelesse he had maried his wife for that they would not receiue an Image of him But the Emperour Vespasian sayst thou cured a blynd man at Alexandria and those sayth Tacitus doe beare witnesse of it which had no gayne by saying it And why then deléeuelye not the myracles of Iesus witnessed by so many men which are content to forgoe all that euer they haue yea and their liues also for saying it And had Vespasian done so who knoweth not the vaingloriousnes of the Romaines O how well would it haue matched with this Oracle applyed vnto him by his flatterers namely That the Monarke of the whole world should come out of Iewrie and also with this other That to bee saued it behoued them to haue a King And as small a miracle as it was what a couÌ„tenance would it haue caried being vphild by so many Legions soothed by so many learned flatterers mainteyned by the state of the Empyre and confirmed by so many hangers on For as for Antinous the Emperour Adrians Minion whom the Emperour endowed with Temples and Sacrifices to what purpose serued he
Starre to haue bin Let any man iudge how little credit to himself and authoritie to Christ the Euangelist could haue purchaced by beginning with a lye which all men could haue disproued specially seeing he taketh the Scrybes and Pharisies themselues to witnesse therof But we reade that the very same time Augustus hauing then the cheefe charge of the Games kept in the honor of his moother Venus at Rome there was seene a Blasingstarre or Comet that is the name whiche they giue too all extraordinarie Starres whereof the Preests of that Colledge gaue their iudgement that for the singular markes which it had it betokened not warre plague or famin as other ordinarie Comets do but the saluation of mankynd to be at hand And vnto this Comet bycause of the rarenesse thereof there was an Image set vp in the Citie And that onely Comet sayeth Plinie is woorshipped ouer all the World Whereunto relyeth this verse of Virgill in his fourth Eglog made to flatter Augustus by applying vnto him the appering of that Starre Behold how noble Caesars Starre steppes foorth with stately pace After which maner hee wresteth vnto Augustus all the happinesse with Sibyll promised by the birth of the Redeemer Also Cheremon a Stoik Philosopher iudged the same Starre to betoken welfare and happynesse and thereuppon perceyuing his Gods to be weakened he traueled into Iewry with certeine Astrologers to seeke the true God And Chatcidins the Platonist sayth expresly that the Chaldees had obserued that it betokened the Honorable comming of God downe vnto vs to bring grace to mortall men Here the Astrologers had matter whereupon to excercyse their Contemplations For this Starre appeared in December when the Sunne was in Sagittarius in which signe say they both Iupiter the Sunne and Venus were met altogether al which thrée by their principles betoken a most ryghtuouse a most myghtie and a most mercifull King but yet poore by reason of the Sunne which was come in betwixt them How should he be myghty if poore Frutefull also bycause of Iupiter in the Angel of the ascendant but yet baren and Chyldlesse by reason of the Moone which was in the first face of Virgo Of these their Contrarieties we myght according too their art gather some profit But I will let these curiosities alone too such as delyght in them But in very deede this Starre appearing in December without rayes and being healthfull was not an ordinarie Comet but a very Starre in deede The lyke whereof we haue seene ourselues in the same season of the yere in the yere of our Lord a thousand fiuehundred threescore and twelue the signification whereof God will reueale vnto vs when he sees tyme. How had the former Starre bin one of the ordinarie Starres that are fixed in the firmament what a miracle was it that it should leaue his place and charge not to reigne ouer Iesus but to serue him And if it were newly then created by whome could it be created but by the Creator and for whom but for himself And whereas Iulian the Renegate not being able to deny the trueth of the Historie and the cunning of the Wise men by the gwyding thereof would beare men on hand that it was the Starre named Asaph which the Egiptians haue marked to be séene but once at euery fower hundred yeres besides that we reade not of any lyke to haue bin séene in all the former ages it hath not bin séene any more in these full fiftéene hundred yeeres which are passed since that tyme. Now by this inquirie of the wise men Herod was moued to kill all the Children about Bethelem which were two yéeres old and vnder meaning among them to haue killed the Child whom the Starre betokened in doing wherof bycause a Sonne of his owne was killed with the rest we reade in Macrobius that the Emperour Augustus héering thereof gaue him this taunt I had leuer be Herods Swyne than his Sonne Agein that Christ should be borne of a Uirgin they thinke it very straunge I haue discussed this poynt already ageinst the Iewes GOD had foretold it and what could then let him to bring it to passe For who can dout of his power when he is sure of his will But this was so true that Simon Magus to the intent he myght not seeme inferior to Christ in any thing Preached to his owne Disciples that he himself was the sonne of a Uirgin which thing Iesus Christ neuer Preached of himself And wee reade that the same day that Christ was borne the Temple of Peace fell downe at Rome at the laying of the foundation whereof Apolo told the Romanes it should stand till a Uirgin did beare a Chyld wherevpon they thought it should haue continewed for euer And as touching Simeon who hauing Iesus in his armes acknowledged him to be the Sauiour of the world I haue declared what the Iewes say of him And as for Iohn the Baptist our Lords foregoer the Historie of his godly life and doctrine and of his death also is set downe after the same maner in Iosephus that it is in our Euangelists If we consider Christes works all the whole course of his life was nothing but myracles the which I haue proued true long ago And this only poynt namely that they be described set forth with so many circumstances whereunto neuer any man hath yet presumed to take exceptions doth sufficiently giue credite to the matter and therefore let vs passe vnto his death From the sixth hower saith our Euangelist vnto the nineth hower there was darknesse ouer all the Land that is to say at high noone and euen in the chiefe of the day If they doubt hereof Phlegon Trallia the Emperour Adrians Fréedman the diligentest of all Chronaclers noteth that in the fourth yéere of the two hundred and tenth Olympiade there was the greatest Eclips of the Sunne that euer was seene and therewithall a very straunge Earthquake And that was the very 18. yéere of Tyberius in the which yere Christ suffered his passion And Eusebius sayth he had read the like in the Commentaries of the Gentyles Also Lucian a Priest of Antioche cryed out to such as tormented him Search your owne Chronicles and you shall finde that in the tyme of Pylate the light fayled in the chiefe of the day and the Sunne was put to flight as long as Christ was a suffering And Tertullian in his Apology doth summon them to the same bookes Now that it was no naturall Eclips it appeareth playne For the Sunne was then so farre of from Cōiunction with the Moone that it was euen full against it according to the Lawe of the Passouer which was to bee kept the 14. day of the Moone And if they take exceptions to the Epistles of Dennis of Areopagus wherein he describeth the spectacle of this wonder at lēgth Esculus the Astrologian a man of small Religion sayth that at that tyme the Sunne was