attainted with it as well as the Wise and he that should go about to cure all that are sick of this disease would reduce them to a worse condition then they that are Deaf and Blind For it is knowledg that teacheth men Arts and Sciences that entertaineth Learned men with the Miracles of Nature that disabuseth the ignorant of their Errors and stirs up Philosophers to the discovery of Truths which they knew not But she is so unsteady and her humor hath so little Coherence with the objects she hunts after that she makes game of all she meets with and she is so violent in her pursuits that no man hath yet been seen that was able to resist her fury It is a Worm that gnaweth in every ones Brain an Itch that without respect of persons tormenteth both the wicked and the vertuous a sickness that unites joy and sorrow in the person of them that have it and he that knoweth her Nature will confess that nothing is more common in the World then this distemper we find nothing more unjust nothing more insatiable She undertakes voiages and runs over all the Earth to find out some Novelty she takes upon her to know the secrets of Nature and to unfold by what artifice this common Mother bringeth forth Gold in the Indies by what Vertue she hardeneth water into Crystal and converts the dew of Heaven into Pearles by what means the Adamant attracts the Needle with one side and expulseth with the other and that being bruised in peices it preserveth a Quadrangular figure and hath on each side a different Vertue She ascends the Heavens without the mediation of evil Spirits there she examines how the Sun forms the measure of time how he divides the Seasons and proportioneth his Circular motions She contriveth perspectives to discern his Magnitude she draws him to a descent that she may look into the matter whereof he is made and without fear of being singed with his heat or blinded with his brightness she climbeth his Globe to judg of his Nature We find men now adays so curious that they reverse the method of time to satisfy their desire of Novelties they rise by night to lay wait for the Moon in her course her borrowed light is not without charms powerful enough to attract their affections and though the Poets make her the Mistress of rest she becomes often the tormentor of Astrologers and curious persons they descry Clouds in her which if you believe these ingenious Artists are nothing less then new Worlds wherein they describe Cities Provinces and Governments and without giving themselves the trouble of telling us which of the Apostles preached the Gospel there whether the Roman Pontiff be head of the Church in those Worlds whether the Spirit and Water compose their Baptism as they do ours they multiply Temples and form a Communion of our Saints with those planetary Inhabitants This diligent curiosity admitteth of some pardon because she hurts only such as give way to her surprisals they are tormented by the same vanity by which they were tempted and it may be said that the error and blindness that attend it are the cure of an evil of which they were the cause But we find some men who daring to act the petty Gods are curious in nothing but the discovery of other Mens faults all their study tends to the sounding of their Neighbours Conscience they descend to the depth of their Souls to peep into their designs and prouder then the evil Angels they prie into the Secrets of that Court whereof God hath reserved the knowledg to himself alone although they are ignorant themselves yet will they judg of other mens intentions notwithstanding they are Slaves to their own Passions their Reasons must be admitted for the pure Doctrin of the Gospel and setting up a Heathenish Vertue of their own inventing they unworthily confound it with the crimes and sins of Christians If I am no Molinist if I confess that I understand not that competent or midway knowledg by him found out if I boldly assert the uncontrolable Freedom of the Creator in all his operations if I own no other knowledg in him but what had the ancient Divines for approbators if I cannot endure that his power should be rendred weak or imperfect and that it should be made dependant on second causes in its working yet do I not therefore approve all the Doctrin of his adversaries they are too rigid in most of their opinions to invite me into their Party and how much soever they are flattered in the Justice of their cause let them protest that they undertake but to discover the confusion that sin hath wrought man into and the necessity of the grace of Jesus Christ to restore him they seem to me too severe when they at once pass the sentence of condemnation upon all good works of the Heathen and allow none to be upright or sincere but such as proceed from Faith For if Vertue be nothing more then a habitude acquired by multiplied Acts of Reason and if Reason be a Law of God imprinted in our hearts who shall believe that Man becometh guilty in following this guid that he merits chastisements by living according to his Instructions that vertue who is always innocent should be nothing different from Vice for not being elevated by faith and justified by the grace of the Son of God sin may have ravisht our original righteousness but it hath not been able to rob us of natural purity if it were potent enough to corrupt our nature it was not sufficiently powerful to destroy it and if he that committed the first crime were absolutely able to bring all his Children into that revolt he may boast of not having made so many guilty as unhappy successors The sickness they have contracted hinders not the performance of healthy actions we may exercise Vertue though we be fallen from our excellency we may love God although we be born his Enemies and as Birds do walk though their wings be clipt we may perform actions that are good according to Nature although not meritorious without grace The Example of the Patriarcks is of this a convincing proof their life was pleasing to God although they were guilty of their Fathers crime they became his friends without any reconciliation they eschewed evil before the Sacraments had healed their wounds and to speak after the language of the great Doctor of the Gentiles they observed his Commands before they knew any of his Laws To speak properly all Christian instructions are but so many Commentaries upon their Lives which being Written for our Learning we become Vertuous by imitating their actions if holy men have taught us piety it hath been by consulting these primitive Doctors and even in St. Austins opinion that Vertue which renders to every one his due is not so much the effect of opinion as the product of nature and conscience we can tell what Vertue
fill our heads with wind she approves no skills that direct us not to vertue she rejects all that sublime knowledg whereof the learned make their boast She esteems them the inventions of ease and delights which after having a while entertained our fancy leave us in dispair of finding her Those arts which we stile liberal are but the pass time of youth School-boys must learn them and a man is not to converse with them any longer then while he is uncapable of more excellent knowledg For if they be the beginning they are not the end of his studies if they make part of our Apprentiship they are not to be our employment and if they help to make us knowing they contribute nothing to our vertue Also Seneca acknowledgeth but one science that leads us to wisdom that teacheth us modesty with the art of good Expression and that putting us into a state of liberty at once inspireth us with the Prudence of Politicians the Valor of Conquerors and the constancy of Philosophers But she is so excellent that she admits no rival she endures not inferior Allies and she would think it a Treason against her own Grandeur if she should vouchsafe them her company As the designs of Princes are not formed from the wild opinions of their People and as Commanders banish from their Counsels those advices which conduce not to the end proposed vertue rejects all that is not for her purpose she retains but what is necessary and as she esteems it an injustice in a covetous man to wish for superfluous Riches she concludes that it would be a kind of intemperance in a wiseman to desire the knowledg of more then he needeth We must not judg of the wisdom of a man by the multitude of things he hath learned Religion takes offence when we study her Mysteries rather for knowledg than reverence she commands that practice should be the end of our Travels and she permits us not to be of the number of them who spend their whole lives in the search without the love of Truth When God placed man in the terrestrial Paradice he inspired him only with the knowledg of things needful for him although the favors wherewith he honoured him were excessive He limited his Science He would not he should learn what could not profit him and in the opinion of Tostatus he sent him not the Animals made of Corruption to give Names unto but for that the knowledg thereof was not of use to him too much Learning is always insolent and edifieth not as we find no Conquerors that are not proud we see no learned men that are not puffed up Divines can tell us that the proud Angels strayed not from their Duty but by having too much knowledg Aristotle was of opinion that the famous men of old were often guilty of fantastical actions that they made small sallies which were little different from great follies that their Extasies surpast the strength of their Reason and that they could bring forth nothing above ordinary men which was not akin to fury Those great Wits which Antiquity puts amongst the number of Prodigies have not always been the wisest men their Works are not irreproveable no more than their Lives if they have written some things worthy of honor they have left us others as ridiculous and their Disciples confess they had intervals in which they were not more reasonable than mad men Although this Language be opposite to the common opinion of the people and that the benefits of knowledg oblige men to give it reverence where ever they find it yet I think it not hard to draw them to the contrary sentiment and to obtain their assent that the knowing men at this day are but delightful dotards who act the fool by authority and teach impertinencies with approbation For what is it that our Professors of Learning do when they instruct us to define all things by their chiefest attributes to separate their nature from their properties and by the aid of propositions infer that Vertue is a Gender that Justice and Prudence are the Species and that Vertue is separable from Temperance but that Temperance is not to be divided from Vertue What profit do we reap from these formalities Of what use is it to know how to compose a formal Discourse to reduce an Argument to an impossibility to frame Sophisms to ensnare the unlearned and to use Dilemma's and Inductions to surprize the unskilful What advantage can we hope from the knowledg of Natural Philosophy to be informed that the Earth is solid that God by his Power can separate the form from the matter that he unites at his pleasure two substantial forms into one compound and directs the substance to produce a third by the intermediation of accidents to which he communicates his efficacy What serves it us to discover the Influences of the Heavens to know that the Planets are corruptible that the Sun is a mixt not a pure Element that the Stars are void of Life and that the whole Earth is but a Point compared with the Firmament that surrounds it In fine what advantage do we acquire when we are taught by Divines that God is infinit that the Unity of his Nature agrees with the Trinity of his Persons that the Father begets the Son from all eternity and that the holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son hath the communication of their Perfections Were it not better that all the Arts were banished the Schools than that they should entertain us with so many unedifying things that they should teach us to regulate our Wills rather than our Fancies and how to live vertuously rather than to dispute well Were it not to be wisht that Logick by which we flourish our Harangues by which we examine the property of Speech and which boasteth of laying open Truth by the subtilty of Arguments taught us to reform our Manners and to reject all these vain amusements of the mind which benefit a wise man as little as they are troublesome and insignificant to the simple Were it not better that Geometry taught the rich to bound his Desires to divide a proportion of his Revenues amongst the poor than to shew him the Art of taking the contents of his Parks the height of his Palaces and the extent of his Lands Were it not to be desired that the Professors of Divinity would discover to us the way to love rather than define the Creator and instead of informing us of his Essence and labouring to make us conceive the mysterious Trinity of his Persons by the Unity of his Nature to teach us the â—wful adoration of Him whom we are not able to comprehend and to make us forgo all that is dearest to us in the world to be united to him who alone ought to possess all our affections But the delight of all Arts is the pleasure of discourse they are swallowed up of the words that compose them they are
is before we are taught it and we have an abhorrance of Vice though we never saw its deformities When God Almighty commanded man the observance of his Laws he made use of termes so plainly simple that the Casuists are at their Arts end about the explication thereof it was enough to give us the knowledg of his will without adding the Reason of it he knew it to be a sufficient justification of his decrees against the transgressor to say thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit Adultery for the Law of Nature prohibiting impudicity and homicide he employs but few words in the publication of the two most important of his Commandments When Cain had persued the criminal tract of his Fathers offence when he had committed the first murder upon his Brothers person and when passion had armed him with weapons to bereave him of Life whom by the Law of nature he was bound to love and cherish the Scripture observes that he was both witness and Judg against himself that he condemned himself to death before he was accused his crime became both his punishment and tormentor and without having yet received any written Law forbidding Parricide he confesseth that his sin was too great to be pardoned As the Law of Nature is not one thing in those first Men and another in the Heathen As both one and the other are governed by the same principles and as Conscience is a faithful indifferent Judg in both they condemn sin and approve its contrary they are dejected after a crime committed and rejoyce in well doing they know that the one estrangeth them from God and that by the other they draw nigh unto him and without having any other guide then Reason they know by the End proposed to themselves the innocence or guilt of their actions If then all their Vertues were false and if all their good works were real sins I do not see why they should not indifferently afflict themselves in the Commission of Vice and the practising of Vertue why they should not complain that being created free Agents they are constrained to commit offences against their will that they are made guilty for observing the Law of Nature and that they are condemned to everlasting punishments for succouring their Neighbor serving their Country for taking Armes in defence of a good cause and putting their lives in hazard to prevent the ravishing of Women the robbing of the Fatherless and the oppression of the innocent This Doctrin seemeth so rational to them that maintain it that they judg it needless to borrow any arguments from Divines to make out the truth of it and if the Council of Trent had not censured the contrary opinion it were more then sufficient to shew that Jesus Christ delivers it to his Apostles and gives it authority by his Gospel that all Christians might be obliged to imbrace it When he teacheth his Disciples how to walk amongst the Pharisees he exhorts them to follow their instructions though he condemn their practice he directs them to esteem their Doctrin though he forbid them the imitation of their manners and invites them to reverence their precepts though he charge their actions with a thousand reproaches As we commend the Vertue of an Enemy and prefer a publique good above a private hatred he distinguisheth their good works from their sins he approves their Vertues and detests their Vices and putting a difference between the works of God and the practice of vicious Men he commends the words that proceed from their mouth and blames the hidden malice of their hearts and the scandal which they caused unto others This Truth is so constant that to consult the ancient Fathers is sufficient to confirm her adherents in their belief and though St. Austin seem to be of a different sentiment yet in many parts of his Writings he forbeareth not to approve it He ascribes the flourishing of Rome's common Wealth to the Justice of her Laws he asserts that the uprightness of her Subjects had subdued more Enemies then the courage of her Commanders that they possest the most famous Empire of the World as the reward of their Vertues and that though God would not make them the Companions of Angels in Heaven because they were Infidels yet he gave them the command of the whole Earth because they were vertuous When he writes to Marcellus he declares himself openly to be of their Party he delights in representing to him the price of civil Vertues since they attract such glorious rewards he assures us they are not criminal since they may be admitted to Honors in Heaven and that being Christianized by the powerful excellency of Faith they translate their Lovers to the franchisement of that City whose Soveraign is truth whose Law is love and whose duration is Eternity These two places discover his thoughts and who ever shall well examine his words will confess that he mixeth the Vertues of the Romans with their sins because they had no regard to the glory of God and that they proposed ends to themselves which for the most part were faulty and unlawful I know that in his opinion that Act cannot be holy which is not accompanied with Charity that all the good inclinations we have for commendable things cannot make us truely Vertuous if they be not informed by grace and that Nature and Reason must implore the Celestial succours if they will perform works worthy of eternal glory Nevertheless I cannot conceive how that all who walk not in these steps should become guilty that a Man should be accounted disobedient to his Maker without transgressing his Laws and that without being accused by his own Coscience he should justly be condemned to those Torments that are only the portion of Sinners and wicked men If all these Reasons be not prevalent enough to convince a Jansenist he will at least hereby be obliged to acknowledg that it is not so much an Error as an Incivility not to be of his opinion and that that which hath been examined by the most skilful Divines approved by the most famous Academia's of Europe and authorized by a Councel may be written without danger and maintained without fear of being charged as factious THE SECOND TREATISE OF The Nature of Passions in general Discourse I. What the Nature of Passions is and in what Faculty of the Soul they Reside THat self Love which caused so strange a disorder among the Angels in Heaven which separated the first Man from his Creator in the Terrestrial Paradice and which taught his descendants to aspire to the Soveraignty of their fellow Creatures in other parts of the World appeared in nothing more artificial then in the dividing of Philosophers in distinguishing their opinions and wills and that after they had all retained one and the same inclination for truth caused them to betake themselves to divers ways to find her out If truth be a common Mistress if she yeild to all that
them they stood in need of her rules both to begin and to finish them We must be ingrateful not to honor her for so many good offices her use binds us to esteem her and it would be a kind of obstinacy to remain her Opponent after having learnt how necessary she is Nevertheless by the principles of Seneca we must say that she was not more successful when she found out the art of Building then when she formed the figures of Sillogismes and that she was not less fatal to man when she taught him to build Palaces then when she instructed the Logicians to deceive the simple by sophistries the Physicians to commit Homicides without punishment and the Lawyers to rob men of their Estates and good name without fear of chastisement Indeed the Mansions of great men are not always the retirements of innocence Vice there reigneth commonly by Authority and what care soever the superintendant takes to preserve them from disorder they cannot in such families hinder the commission of those Crimes which in Huts and Cottages are unknown Theives take the advantage of their Woods and Coverts to surprize the harmless unguarded Traveller the domesticks lead a disorderly life the Masters spend their time in Play and Riot their servants become lazie their Stewards grow rich and their Lords poor and the frequenters of such Houses insensibly become vain and insolent It is with families as with Cities the greatest are commonly the most vicious because men live in Palaces more at their ease they do not therefore lead more vertuous lives vice attends plentiful Tables and be it that liberty or abundance facilitates the way to sin experience sheweth that they who enjoy them seldom escape undepraved But we likewise see that Divine Justice gives Commission to the works of great men to become their tormentors they tremble in the midst of their Palaces they are afraid of death under the covert of their guilded Ceelings the cleft of a wall puts them into a fright the clattering of a shutter drives their courage to a Non-plus and they fear their days to be at an end every time the wind breaks a pane of their Windows or puffs up a Tile from their Roof The places of safety are not secure to them and they are as much amazed to see the tapistry slip from the wall as if an Earthquake had violently thrown up the foundation of their Dwelling How much more happy do I esteem the condition of our forefathers who neglecting the art of building contented themselves with the Lodgings that nature had made them those Chambers which she had indented in the Rocks served them for places of retreat the open Fields were their floores a large heap of Earth cased with Moss was their Bed and as Vanity had not yet taught them the art of adorning their Dwellings they retired to the Caves of the Earth as to the places of their recreation If they found a necessity of building Houses art had no share therein the Earth without opening her Bowels served them for foundations mud mixt with straw was the matter the spoiles of Trees furnisht the Roofs and Covering and two forked poles interlaced on each side supported the whole structure The small accomodations that secured them from the outragious influences of the weather were also their defence against ravenous Beasts and they lived more happily in those their Huts then Princes do at this day in their glorious Palaces For they were free under straw and moss and these are Bondmen upon Thrones of Gold and Ivory they found the contentment of happy men in their poverty and these meet with the miseries of the damned in their Plenty Though they possess all things yet are they never satisfied and it seemeth as if Heaven had granted them the temporal blessing of abundance only to render them eternally miserable Those men that were ignorant of the use of Noble structures who lived in woods and forrests who built not but to defend themselves against the intemperatures of the Air past their time with content their nights were not interrupted with vexatious thoughts they awakened as chearful in the morning as they contentedly laid themselves down to rest over night Our cares commenced with the art of Building the Edifices that enclose us ravish our rest and it may be said we became unhappy when knowledg perswaded us to forsake our Dales and Cottages to inhabit Palaces and Lordlike Houses A wise man that knows the vanity of our structures despiseth them he useth Houses as places of refuge not as apartments to dwell in he looks upon them as fortresses invented by necessity to warrant him from injurious seasons and without being concerned for the matter whereof they are composed he lodgeth his felicity in his vertues and in his conscience he esteems his habitation sumptuous enough when he hath vertue for his Guest he considers the mansions of Noble men as the Sepulchres of the living he calls them the retreats of men that know how to hide themselves but not how to live and whose spirits are mean enough to love their Prisons but wanting courage to despise them They who delight in Gardens are not more excuseable and what pretext soever they lay hold on to authorise their practice they cannot escape the censure of Philosophers The pleasures which these men boast of tasting in such exercises seem not to them sufficiently pure and innocent to rob them of their time and though they have promised to themselves great advantages by their fruits or beauty yet could they never intice those reasonable men to approve such employments They pass the sentence of blame upon them for that they conclude them unserviceable to wisdom and they inveigh against their Authors because they entertain us only with things vain and forreign Socrates who so perfectly understood the injustice and sordidness of our divertisements banisheth this employment from his School he prefers the City before the Country he adviseth his Scholars to be Citizens and not Peasants and well knowing flowers and Trees are speechless things he perswades them by his own Example not to consult those Tutors who if they be able to recreate their Eyes cannot satisfy their Ears I know that the Romans made esteem of Gardens that the most famous amongst them made such their abode that they disingaged themselves from the care of the Empire to exercize a Gardening life and that a great number of their wise men retired to such places the better to apply themselves to the study of Philosophy I know that the curious walks and plots of Gardens are friends to the Muses that the refined wits take pleasure in them that the greatest part of those works we admire at this day had their conception there and that their shady retirements have often been of more use to the learned then the Schools and conferences There I know that the Poets composed those verses that animated many men to glorious Actions that the Orators