minds Not making Tyrants Gods to unmake Kings With flattering air for over-soaring wings 662. And though the ways of wit be infinite Not to be cast in any Mould or Art Like shadows changing shape with every light Ever and never still the same in part Yet by this Model wiser men may see That there is choice even in the vanity 663. And forms establisht which must be obey'd As levels for the world to guide her own Foundations against Anarchy well laid Whose Being is but Beings overthrown Where Thrones as mortal shrines with mortal fear Must be ador'd and worshipt every where 664. Therefore I thus conclude this fruitless dream That if the body have imperfect features Or swim like AEsops wife against the stream Each age must adde to all the works of Creatures And perfect things unperfectly begun Or else in vain sure I have roul'd this Tun. A TREATISE OF RELIGION By Sir FULK GREVILL Lord BROOK 1. WHat make these many laws these rains of pow'r Where with Mankind thus fetter'd is and bound These divers worships which mens souis deflow'r Nature and God with novelty confound 'T is ignorance Sin Infidelity By which we fall'n from our Creation be 2. What is the Chain which draws us back again And lifts Man up unto his first Creation Nothing in him his own heart can restrain His reason lives a Captive to Temptation Example is corrupt precepts are mixt All fleshly knowledge frail and never fixt 3. It is a Light a Gift a Grace inspir'd A spark of Pow'r a goodness of the Good Desire in him that never is desir'd An Unity where desolation stood In us not of us a Spirit not of earth Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth 4. His Image that first made us in perfection From Angels differing most in time and place They fell by Pride and we by their Infection Their doom is past we yet stand under Grace They would be Gods we would their evil know Man finds a Christ these Angels did not so 5. Sence of this God by fear the sensual have Distressed Nature crying unto Grace For Soveraign reason then becomes a slave And yields to servile sence her Soveraign place When more or other she affects to be Then seat or shrine of this Eternity 6. Yea Prince of Earth let Man assume to be Nay more of Man let Man himself be God Yet without God a Slave of Slaves is he To others Wonder to himself a Rod Restless despair desire and desolation The more secure the more abomination 7. Then by affecting pow'r we cannot know him By knowing all things else we know him less Nature contains him not Art cannot shew him Opinions Idols and not God express Without in Pow'r we see him every where Within we rest not till we find him there 8. Then seek we must that course is natural For owned fouls to find their owner out Our free remorses when our Natures fall When we do well our hearts made free from doubt Prove service due to one omnipotence And Nature of Religion to have sence 9. Questions again which in our hearts arise Since loving knowledge not humility Though they be Curious Godless and Unwise Yet prove our Nature feels a Deity For if these strifes rose out of other grounds Man were to God as deafness is to sounds 10. Religion thus we naturally profess Knowledge of God is likewise universal Which divers Nations diversly express For Truth Pow'r Goodness Men do worship all Duties to Parent Child Time Men and Place All known by Nature but observ'd by Grace 11. And that these are no positive made Laws Appears in this since no consent of Nations No Custome Time or any other Cause Can unto Vice give Vertues estimation Or root out those impressions from our hearts Which God by Nature unto Man imparts 12. Yea these impressions are so finely fixt In understanding and the Conscience too That if our nature were not strangely mixt But what we knew it could as easily do Men should even by this spirit in flesh and blood Grow happily Adorers of the Good 13. But there remains such natural corruption In all our Pow'rs even from our Parents seed As to the good gives native interruption Sence stains affection that Will and Will Deed So that what 's good in us and other too We praise but what is evil that we do 14. Our knowledge thus corrupted in our lives Serves to convince our Consciences within Which sentence of Record with self-love strives Leads us for rest and remedy of sin To seek God and Religion from without And free this condemnation which we doubt 15. Yet in this strife this natural remorse If we could bend the force of Pow'r and Wit To work upon the heart and make divorce There from the evil which perverteth it In judgement of the Truth we should not doubt Good Life would find a good Religion out 16. But our infirmity which cannot brook This strong intestine and rebellious war In wit and our affections makes us look For such Religions as there imag'd are Hence grow these many Worships Gods and Sects Wherewith mans error all the world infects 17. For when the Conscience this Religion fashions In blind affections there it straight begets Gross superstition when in witty passions It moulded is a Luster there it sets On hearts prophane by politick pretence Both buying shadows with the souls expence 18. For they Gods true Religion which a State And being is not taken on but in To bottomless hypocrisie translate The superstitious doth with fear begin And so deceiv'd deceives and under-rates His God and makes an idol of his sin The politick with Craft inthralls Mankind And makes his body sacrifice his Mind 19. Both in our selves make us seek out a God Both take self-love and fear for Scale and measure They both become their own and others rod The one takes care the other wrong for pleasure As many minds as many Gods they make Men easily change all they easily take 20. This superstitious Ignorance and Fear Is false Religion offring sacred things Either to whom it should not or elsewhere The manner to the Godhead scandal brings It fears Sea Earth Skie Silence Darkness Light And in the weak soul still hath greatest Might 21. Which natural disease of mortal Wit Begets our Magick and our Star-Divines Wizards Impostors Visions stand by it For what Fear comprehends not it enclines To make a God whose nature it believes Much more enclin'd to punish then relieve 22. The reason is when fears dim eyes look in They guilt discern when upwards justice there Reflects self-horror back upon the sin Where outward dangers threaten every where Flesh the foundation is Fancy the work Where rak'd up and unquencht the evils lurk 23. For Fear whose motion still it self improves Hopes not for Grace but prays to shun the Rod Not to do ill more then do well it loves Fashions God unto Man not Man to God And to that Deity gives
alliance not with Truth but Will And to confirm this strives to pull all down That limit the excesses of a Crown DECLINATION OF MONARCHY To Violence SECT II. 46. NOw though the World on the Excentricks be Fashion'd to move and ballance her own weight Not much enclining to obliquity Yet is her Ruler Man through self-conceit Violence of Pride fate of corruption Apt to give all her best works interruption 47. For since Religions name not Nature came To Rule those ancient forming pow'rs gave place The stile of Conscience over-weighing Fame And Reason yielding up her Soveraign Mace Unto those lively Pictures which produce Unactive apparitions of no use 48. Which Change straight wrought but was not straight-ways found Pow'r was so veil'd with formal laws and baits Under which still the infinite lay bound And Man bewitcht with wits confufed sleights To make pow'rs Throne the Idol of his heart Transforming Zeal and Nature into Art 49. So that without the guide of Cloud or Fire Man since sails fatal straights of hope and fear In Ebbs and Flouds of travelling desires Where what we have to us is never dear Pow'r making men vainly by off'ring more Hope to redeem that state they had before 50. Hence falls it out that silly people loose Still by these thin webs of Authority Which they that spin yet therefore cannot use Because these threds no more inherent be within themselves but so transcrib'd to Crowns As they raise Pow'r by pulling freedom down 51. Thus by a credulous obedience Mankind gave Might a ground to build up more Cooling and kindling his desire with sence Even of such things as were his own before Disease and Error meeting both in this That many follow where one rooted is 52. For thus imbas'd we since want pow'r to tie Others to us or us unto our own Our many passions serve to bind us by And our distractions keep our strengths unknown One holding that which others give away The Base whereon all Tyranny doth stay 53. Hence came these false Monarchal Councils in And instruments of Tyrants States apart Which to their private from the publick win While Man becomes the Matter Pow'r the Art Making obedience too indefinite As taxt with all the vanities of Might 54. The Tenure chang'd Nature straight chang'd the use For all the active spirits follow Might Ignorance baseness Negligence abuse Inconstancy disunion oversight By Crowns to people so intail'd are they As no subjection can put these away 55. Whence neither makers now nor Members held Men are but Blanks where Pow'r doth write her Lust A spriteless Mass which for it cannot weld It self at others pleasure languish must Resolve to suffer and let pow'r do all Weakness in Men in Children natural 56. From which Cras'd womb of frailty was brought forth A Giant Creature in excess of Might To work in all with every pow'r but worth Who to be sure that never shall have right Takes not God as he is but makes him new Like to his ends large narrow false or true 57. Religion Honour Natures Laws and Nations All moulds derived from that gift transcendent These Monsters stampt or gave disestimation As they did find them theirs or undependent Left nothing certain here on earth but Will And that yet never constant for t is ill 58. Instance proud Mahomet when he propos'd The Empire of this world to his ambition Under Gods name were not his acts dispos'd To change Mans faith and freedom of condition The sacred Dove whisp'ring into his Ear That what his Will impos'd the World must fear 59. Unto Cambyses all his sages vow'd That in their reading they of no Law wist Which Marriage with his Sister had allow'd But that their Monarch might do what he list Licet si libet and what be these other Then hellish words of Caracalla's Mother 60. And doth not our great Capitolian Lord Use the same compass in each course he steers Are not those Acts which all Estates discord As Kings assasinate mutiny of Peers Stirr d up by him under pretence Divine To force those Scepters he cannot encline 61. Nay hath he not a higher pitch attain'd A more compendious power of perswasion Having since Phoebus and Cybele Raign'd Made himself such a Trypode by occasion As may not be examin'd or withstood But with a Godhead equally made good 62. Which Errors like the Hectick Feavers be Easie to cure while they are hard to know But when they once obtain Supremacy Then easily seen but hard to overthrow So that where Pow'r prevents not this excess Miters grow great by making Scepters less 63. Therefore did these proud Tyrants live awake Careful to Cancel all inferior Rights And in Creations still keep pow'r to make To fit each Instruments and fashion Spirits That as the Head Ideas rule the Heart So pow'r might print her Will in every part 64. For active Rulers seldom fail of means Occasion Colour and Advantage too To bind by Force by Wit by Customes chains And make th' oppessed souls content to woe Fear suffering much for fear to suffer more As still by smart made greater then before 65. Knowing that Men alike touch't never were That divers sence works diversly in woe The nimblest Wits being still kept down by fear Dull wits not feeling neighbors overthrow The wise mistrust the weak and strive to bear Thrones being strong because men think them so Yet mark at length how Error runs in rounds And ever what it raiseth up confounds 66. For when this pow'r transcendent grows secure Flattering it self that all is made for one Then Will which nothing but it self endure And Pow'r that thinks it stands and works alone With an unsatiate pride and wanton ease Surfets it self with other mens disease 67. Hence Laws grow tedious and the very names Of God and Truth whose Natures died before A heavy burthen to these racking Frames That with a word would wrest up all and more Assemblies of Estate disparagements be Taxe Custome Fear and Labor onely free 68. Hence Thrones grew Idols Man their Sacrifice And from the Earth as to the Sun above Tributes of Dew and exhalations rise So humane Nature yields up all but Love Having this strange transcendency of Might As Child of no mean vice but Infinite 6 Whereby these strengths which did before concurre To build invent examine and conclude Now turn disease bring question and demur Oppose dissolve prevaricate delude And with opinions give the State unwrest To make the new still undermine the best 70. Caesar was slain by those that objects were Of Grace and Engines of his Tyranny Brutus and Cassius work shall witness bear Even to the Comfort of posterity That proud aspirers never had good end Nor yet excess of Might a constant friend 71. So that although this Tyrant usurpation Stood peaz'd by humours from a present fall Thoughts being all forc't up to adoration Of wit and pow'r which such Thrones work withal Yet both the Head and
estate affects So from within man to work out the right As his Will need not limit or allay The liberties of Gods immortal way 232. Where Tyrants discipline is never free But ballanced proportioned and bounded So with the temporal ends of Tyranny And ways whereon pow'rs greatnesses are founded As in Creation Fame Life Death or War Or any other heads that Soveraign are 233. Pow'r may not be opposed or confounded But each inferior Orb command or serve With proper latitudes distinctly bounded To censure all States that presume to swerve Whereby the common people and the Throne May mutually protected be in one 234. Not rent asunder by sophistication Of one frail sinner whose supremacy Stands by prophane or under-valuation Of Gods anointed Soveraignity And by dividing subjects from their Kings Soars above those Thrones which first gave them wings 235. Affecting such irrevocable might With us as to their Mufty Turks liv'd under Or rather sacriledge more infinite From Jove to wrest away the fearful Thunder Salmoneus pride as if the truth then fell When he alone rul'd not Earth Heav'n and Hell 236. Salmoneus who while he his Carroach drave Over the brazen Bridge of Elis stream And did with artificial Thunder brave Jove till he pierc't him with a lightning beam From which example who will an Idol be Must rest assur'd to feel a Deity 237. Thus much to shew the outward Churches use In framing up the superstitious sphear Subject alike to order or abuse Chain'd with immortal seeming hopes and fear Which shadow-like their beings yet bereave By trusting to be when their bodies leave 238. Whereif that outward work which pow'r pretends Were life indeed not frail Hypocrisie Monarchs should need no other Laws to friend Conscience being Base of their authority By whose want frailty flashing out mans error Makes Thrones enwall themselves with Laws of terror Of Laws SECT VII 239. HEnce when these ancient friending Gods foresaw Schism and division would creep into Nations By this subjecting subtilty of Law Which yet did yield their makers reputation They out of Grace sent down their progeny To keep men as they were created free 240. Were not to this end Ceres well fram'd Laws As proper for Mankind as was her Corn Unto which cleer-ey'd Nature gives applause By mutual Duties to which man is born And from which no soul can delivered be By time discretion or authority 241. Which Laws were not engrav'd in Stones or Brass Because these Mettals must corrupt with time Mans understanding that impression was Which did contain these Images Divine Where Conscience seal'd with horror plagueth those That against these born-duties doe oppose 242. But after Mankinds hard and thankless heart Had banisht mild Astraea from the Earth Then came this Sophistry of humane Arts Pictures not life of that Celestial birth Falling from Laws of Heav'n-like harmony To Mans Laws which but corrupt reason be 243. Of this kind Solon was in Athens one Lycurgus Cobwebs over Sparta spread The Locrians by Seleucus Nets were known By Zoroasters Bactria was misled Numa was he that first enthralled Rome And Natures freedom under legal doom 244. After which Change men have liv'd more divide By Laws then they at first by Language were For who before by reasons light were guided Since fondly worship to such Idols bear As those new masters stir up in mans heart Who seldom find truth in the weaker part 245. A Master-piece of pow'r which hath extinct That former light of nature men liv'd in Holding the world to crown opinions linke Who simply prize not good nor punish sin But whatsoever doth withstand their Will That bar as if by nature it were ill 246. Yet in Mans darkness since Church rites alone Cannot guard all the parts of Government Lest by disorder States he overthrown Pow'r must use Laws as her best instrument Laws being Maps and Councellors that do Shew forth diseases and redress them too 247. For though perhaps at first sight Laws appear Like prisons unto Tyrants Soveraign Might Yet are they secrets which pow'r should hold dear Since envyless they make her infinite And set so faira gloss upon her Will As under this veil pow'r cannot do ill 248. After Augustus had by civil sword Made that large Empire thrall to his ambition Men yet retain'd their priviledge in words And freely censur'd every mans condition Till by the Laws of wounded Majesty Nor words nor looks nor thoughts were left them free 249. For then was this reproof of publick vice And censure of their Emperours misdeeds Made Treason and maintain'd with prejudice Of men inforc't to nurse destroying weeds I mean that Vice which Tyranny protected And by example all the Earth infected 250. Hence was it not a Trespass Capital For men to say vain Nero sang not well In nature then what Latitude at all If o're Mans freedom Tyranny thus swell Whether by Law men root or ruine take Sure am I Scepters it doth Sacred make 251. Besides Laws fixe the bents of peoples minds From prying up while selfness doth intend Other mens faults and therein heedless binds That common freedom which they would extend Laying an impost upon every vice To spread the Crown by peoples prejudice 252. This was that Apple fatally cast down By Momus to set Goddesses at war Which erst too busie were with Joves high Crown And Cabinet where all dooms fixed are Judg'd by a shepheard for it was thought due That to inferiors they submit that sue 253. Old Rome again was never out of strise Between the People and the Magistrates Till Appius brought from Athens rules of life Which are call'd Laws in every other state Whetting their edges so against their own As none found leisure to restrain a Throne 254. Since then by Laws the best and worst affections Of Pride-born-Tyrants form'd and disform'd be To give for them some general directions As stays against confounding Liberty I think were fit as wel to shew the abuse In making as their good effect in use 255. Therefore if sometimes pow'r do Laws apply To humors or occasions time or place Yet those are found of most equality Which bear a careful universal face Whereas particular and present Laws Diseases oft in time succeeding cause 256. Again those Laws which universal be And thereby freely currant every where Doe with the grounds of nature best agree And so with Man most reputation bear As reason cast in frames to mould his passion Which kept in bounds keeps all his acts in fashion 257. But the true ground of all our humane Laws Ought to be that Law which is ever true His Light that is of every being cause Beyond whose providence what can be new Therefore as means betwixt these two extreams Laws should take light at least from those sweet beams 258. Yet by the violence of superiors passion And wandring visions of inferior spirits Pow'r to make up it self strives to disfashion Creating error new aswel as merits In hope to form