the trunes of christian Religion saith We see in mans body a wonderfull mixture of the foure Elements the veines spreading foorth like riuers to the vttermost members as many instruments of sense as there be sensible natures in the worlde a great number of sinnewes flesh-strings and knitters a head by speciall priuiledge directed vp to heauen handes seruing to all maner of seruices whatsoeuer hee is that shall consider no more but onely this instrument without life without sence and without mouing cannot but thinke verily that it is made to very great purpose hee must needes crie out that man is a miracle which farre surmounteth not onely those lower Elements but also the very heauen and all the ornaments thereof But if he could out of himselfe beholde his owne body receiuing life and enter into the vse of al his motions hee woulde bee rauished with the consideration thereof But if hee enter into consideration of his immortall and reasonable soule it woulde drawe him from the earth to the heauenly creatures and aboue them to the presence of god from things subiect to mortallitie to the excellencie of all eternitie As there is a contrarietie of the Elementes among themselues directly one against the other yet these by equall mixture make a temperament so betwixt the soule and body the one beeing an immortall spirite the other corrupt and transitorie yet they put together make a perfect man Man by his reasonable soule and yet no man without the body So the reasonable man consisteth of bodie and soule for without the Spirite and soule it were but a lumpe of earth and without the materiall body it were onely an immortall spirite This is the miraculous woorke of God as it were to ioyne mortalitie and immortalitie together in marriage the immortall spirite as the head and husband and the mortall body as the spouse to obey These two in the first creation made perfect man and this perfect man which is properly vnderstoode by the inwarde man was indued with perfect right and true Reason Sect. IIII. The definition of Reason FEaring to exceede the boundes of Reason wherof I haue had care to consider because I finde the depth thereof to be without the comprehension of men I say for my selfe as Cyprianus Leonitius spake concerning his study of Astronomy though he could not attaine the fulnesse thereof yet Est aliquod prodire tenus si nō datur vltra there is a proceeding to some good purpose though all cannot be knowen And as Lactantius saide of the Labours of Hercules that they were Opera viri fortis viri tamen the works of a strong man yet of a man shewing there were imperfections in them so may it bee saide of the best Labours of menne that they come shorte of perfection In like I may say of this thing which I desire to explane by definition and am driuen to confesse as Beza saieth of these wordes 1. Cor. 11 10. Propter Angelos Quid hoc sit nondum mihi constat what this worde Reason meaneth I yet thorowly knowe not But submitting my vnderstanding vnto her worthinesse I make bolde to explane her in the most woorthy sorte I can attaine vnto The Latine woorde is Ratio It is Englished by diuerse Authours and called by diuerse Titles which allude towardes a definition It is sayde to be Reason Counsel Purpose Care Respect Consideration Regarde the Cause the Matter the State the Meanes the Way the Fashion the Forme the Proportion a Rule the Feate the Manner and sort a Mind a Counsell Aduise an Accompt or reckoning Businesse Valew Affaires And lastly the Quantitie wherein is to be obserued that out of the seuerall causes wherevnto the scope of the Authors tended theyr writings haue affoorded these seuerall names or titles describing in parte by them the nature and qualitie of Reason Others haue gone further saying Reason is the eie of the Soule whereby shee looketh into things past present and to come She is saide to be The Empresse of the Senses The Queene of Will An Apprehension of Heauenly and Diuine things The daughter of Vnderstanding Reason is by some termed A worde of diuine inspiration agreeing with that speach of Architus where hee saieth God breathed Reason into Man Reason is saide to be Aprudent guide of the Soule in her actions Shee is saide to be The Medicine of the Soule Hesiodus comming very neere the marke saith Reason is a diuine guide and wisedome inspired from aboue Ratio est quaedam tacita facultas insita mentibus hominum August apud Iurisc Reason is a certaine secret faculty ingrafted in the mindes of men Ratio est rerum humanarum diuinarum indagatrix According to the schoolemen quoad causas Reason is a searcher out of humane and diuine things in respect of the causes thereof Ratio est rerum omnium scrutinum moderamen quoad modos Reason is a finder out and gouernour of all thinges as concerning the manner thereof So haue these men with great indeuour expressed their mindes and vnderstandings which I reuerently accompt of But Reason being not defineable Vt illud quod consistit ex materia as material things are must needs be an immortall qualitie or facultie of the Soule if not essentiall which I haue reason to conceiue yet at the least vnseparable exercising many offices as instruments or intelligencers of Causes according to hir emploiment Out of which Considerations these sayings haue proceeded Domina Regina omnium est ratio quae connexa per se et progressa longiùs fit perfecta virtus haec vt imperet illi parti animi quae obedire debet Id videndum est viro quonam modo inquies velut seruo Dominus velut Imperator militi velut parens filio Reason is the Lady and Queene of all thinges which first vnited by it selfe and proceeding further is made a perfect virtue and how she ought to rule that parte of the minde which ought to obey euery man must consider But you wil aske in what maner she shoulde rule Surely euen as a maister ruleth his seruants an emperour his souldier and as a father his sonne Nihil est Cic. de legibus non dicam in homine sed in omni solo atque terra ratione diuinius quae cum adoleuit atque perfecta est nominatur ritè sapientia There is nothing I will not say in man but in all the world more diuine than Reason the which when it is growne ripe and come to perfection is truly called Wisedome Vt patrimonium homini ab homine Cic. de nat Deorum relinquitur sic ratio homini à Deo As a patrimony is bestowed from man to man so is Reason giuen as a portion from God to man 2. Tnsc Cùm praecipitur vt nobismet ipsis imperemus hoc praecipitur vt ratio coerciat temeritatem When this is commaunded that wee should rule our selues this is intended that Reason should bridle
either melting or taking it in sunder Plutarch in the life of Solon and Lycurgus If it be demaunded what caused Solon and Lycurgus to trauell into Egypt to learne rudiments and lawes to bring their people into a reasonable gouernment It will be answered that the inclination they had to draw rude and confused matters to some reasonable head and order moued them to take that paines The lawes of dominion and propertie of things both reall and personal of mixt and entire are drawne out of Reason and all their braunches ought to bee tied fast thereunto The law of seueritie and punishment are in the nature of keeping the guiltlesse from receiuing wrong and are as a protection for the well gouerned not drawne out of an vnreasonable desire of punishment without cause or tormenting the offender in respect of his person but to take off the offence In the orderly or fit doing of any thing the mind and Reason beginne their work at the latter end and at the effect as in building a house Reason hath laid the whole plot and the cause to what end it is built before any stone be laid In any iourny Reason either hath or should set downe the probabilitie of good to ensue therof What caused the men of auncient time to enter into consideration of eternitie and to search into the difference of things immortall and things transitorie subiect to corruption of the beginning ending of time and of the world and that time is not in respect of God and eternitie but of things that had beginnings and passe with time and whosoeuer shall looke into the workes of Homer Hesiodus Parminides Mercurius Sophocles Aeschylus Euripides and others shall finde that this Soules qualitie of Reason euen out of nature it selfe had searched farre into these deepe matters It is amongst the Philosophers agreed that there is in man a double speach the one in the mind before we vtter it and the other is called the speach of the voyce vttered with the mouth the one priuate the other serueth to publish that which the minde and vnderstanding haue conceiued and determined to manifest The learned translatours of the Greeke word Logos somtimes call it speach somtimes word and sometimes Reason and it alludeth to this Vox praefert animus ratiocinatur mentis verbum ipsa ratio est The voice vttereth the mind reasoneth and debateth so Reason is the very word or speach of the mind And as it is fitlie said that what proportion is between the voyce or speach of the mind the like is betweene the speach of the mind and the speach of vnderstanding the voyce hath neede of aire and is diuided into partes and requireth leasure the minde is indiuisible but yet hath neede to passe from one conclusion or Reason to another But vnderstanding accomplisheth his action or working in lesse then a moment with one only act filleth the Reason and minde that it is constrayned to make many acts of one so that there is such an indiuisible vniting and putting together of vnderstanding mind and reason in the Soule that they may not be parted nor be one without the other For which cause Reason is properly said to bee the daughter speach or word of our vnderstanding That nature and abilitie of working of the Soule which the Latines call Mens the French translators vnderstand to be the reasonable Soule And as there is described to bee in the reasonable Soule working vnderstanding and willing so are not these three liues nor three soules in vs but one life one soule And these are three powers which the reasonable and immortall soule cannot want The like is said of the memorie of vnderstanding or of mindefull vnderstanding to be an aboundance of reason and as it were a hoorder vp of the continuall influences of the minde which minde Auerhos and Alexander tearme the workefull minde which is a power or force that can skill to extend reason from one thing to an other which they also conclude to be vncorruptible euerlasting and diuine and by this Minde is vnderstoode the immortall reasonable soule of man And as a great learned man writing of the corruption of mans nature sheweth that the worlde and all the creatures were made for the vse of man and commending the vnderstanding and reason of man Hee first speaking of the other creatures sayth To what purpose are all their virtues and excellent properties if themselues know them not The Sunne saith he excelleth among the Coelestiall bodies and the Rose among the flowers The beast is a degree aboue the trees But what skilles it what thou arte or what thou hast if thou know it not nor vnderstand it For what auaileth the light to the blinde meate to him that cannot taste sweete odours to him that smelleth not Or what auaileth the excellencie of thy Creation or thy reasonable and immortall Soule if thou discerne not the woorthinesse thereof By the meanes of Reason onely man of all the things in this inferior world can skill of these things and how to enioy them and so of force it may rightly and truely be concluded that they were made for none but for him That is to speake more properly God hath giuen vnto man al and whatsoeuer al other creatures either haue or be and hath not dealt with him barely as with a creature but rather as with his owne childe for whome he hath expresly created this world and giuen it him to possesse and besides gaue him an vnderstanding mind and reason which I so much labour to aduance to enioy gouerne and order the same Yet to drawe Reason a little higher this excellent qualitie in the soule of man by some is vnderstoode to be a religious regard and vnderstanding of God and to walke in his seruice and a continuall obseruation of good things that tend to immortalitie For as death separateth the body and soule for a time so doth the soule carry with it so much of his substāce power quality as it first brought that is spirite life reason and will which it shall bring to the bodie againe at the time of their second vniting Agayne if Reason bee the Daughter Vnderstanding which is a chiefe power of the soule be the Mother then are these co-relatiues and the one can not be without the other The soule cannot be without vnderstanding and vnderstanding cannot be without reason therefore as the soule is an immortall substāce so is vnderstanding an immortal power and reason an immortall quality of the soule The word Logos which the translators of the Greeke many times call Reason or word is said by the diuines to be incarnate by the holy ghost to make the sonne of God the second person in the Trinity whome we acknowledge and beleeue to bee subsisting of a reasonable Soule and humane flesh To whome the Philosophers giue the names of the Be-er or hee that is Wit or Vnderstanding the beautiful and sometimes speach word
in his booke of Maners of the soul after hee had most curiously searched into the nature of Elements as much as he could fathered the causes of all things vppon the Elements yet is inforced to confesse in his booke of the doctrine of Hippocrates and Plato that the Soule is a bodilesse substance whereof the body is onely the chariot making a difference betweene the corruptible and immortall part of man The Turkes Arabians In the Alcaron Azo 25 42. and Persians holde firmely that the Soule of man was breathed vnto him of God and so consequentiy incorruptible and immortall Besides many other strong resolutions amongst the Philosophers the very Caribies and Caniballes acknowledge the immortalitie of the Soule I omit to mention what is contained in the holy and sacred Booke of God and writers of diuinitie because I would haue the most absurd that liue repaire to learne of such as were altogether prophane if they scorne as many doe to peruse the Booke of God What mooued all these and many millions besides nay in a manner the whole world to acknowledge the excellent immortalitie of the Soule but this reasonable vnderstanding and apprehension of the Soule which being in it selfe immortall searcheth out the knowledge of thinges that are euerlasting and neyther can finish nor abide corruption in their substaunce and so much for the substance whereof Reason is the qualitie Sect. III. Reason aduaunced aboue things that are inferior to her IN comparing of things for their woorthinesse or excellencie it is alway to be vnderstood that there must be other and more things obiected ouer and besides that which is aduaunced and commended aboue the rest wherby the comparison or aduancement may be proued and discerned In this matter I haue vndertaken to aduance and set vp Reason aboue other things The better therefore to discouer the trueth thereof I will manifest those things that are inferiour and ought to be subiect vnto Reason In the first Creation God made many creatures whereof the world doth consist in the whole which being truely considered doe yeelde foure degrees and each more excellent than other The first sorte haue onely being The second haue being and life The third haue being life and sence The fourth haue being life sence and reason It was fitly said by a great learned man that the earth the sea and the aire are of great largenesse they beare vp and sustaine all things that haue life all that haue sence and all things that haue reason and yet themselues haue no more but a bare being without life sence or reason as they are the first things that were made of nothing so are they neerest vnto nothing and of meaner consideration then the rest The plants and hearbes are the next which besides their being haue a kinde of life as it is to be seene by their growing sucking or drawing their nourishment from the earth and their refreshing from the aire The Beastes haue being life and sence and haue their nourishment and feeding from the elements and from the plants These things did God behold when he had made them and they were all good Then did he make man who had being life sence and reason this excellent qualitie which I wish euery man deepely to consider for God breathed into man the breath of life and made him a liuing soule he made him after his owne Image by bestowing this liuing reasonable and immortall soule Marke wel how by degrees God made these things the earth the water and the aire of nothing that it might bud and bring forth the trees and euery greene herbe Then the trees and grasse of the earth for the feeding of the beasts Then the beasts of the field and the foules and euery creeping thing And lastly he made man his materiall bodie of the dust of the earth but his reasonable soule by diuine inspiration who is properly vaid to enioy the Elements line of the plants and commaund the beasts to consider and discourse of all things and to be a little world in himselfe Superioritie was giuen to him as hauing the dominion and propertie of the rest of the creatures whom God brought to man to receiue their names for they had notvnderstanding to name one an other but the reason of man did distinguish betweene them and gaue them proper and seuerall additions which his memory endued with reason did continually retaine he gouerned them were they neuer so strong and employed them to what seruice it pleased him And to this day man hunts the wild beasts lawfully challengeth the propertie of them So much as the diuine and euerlasting things are more excellent then corruptible is the qualitie of right reason of the immortall soule aboue the rest of the creatures subiect to corruption An ancient Philosopher Iamblicius concerning Misteries ch 8.7 out of the very instinct of nature in the deep cōsideration of reason said that the first vse of reason is employed in conceiuing the Godhead not properly by knowing it but as it were by feeling By which feeling he meaneth not a palpable bodily or materiall feeling but a spirituall feeling according to the nature both of God and the Soule and the qualitie of reason which reacheth much further into causes then the bodily eye can discerne At the time of the creation of man God who in himselfe is all goodnesse and excellencie breathed into man a spirit which must be perfect pure and good because nothing proceedes from God but that which is good perfect and pure this spirit was his immortall soule which had no partaking of any earthly substance but absolutely of it selfe immateriall This Soule was endued with perfect pure and true reason knowledge and vnderstanding will and mind being qualities specially appropriate to the soule as it was immortall So that by the nature of the soule and not of the bodie man was first possessed of this Reason Man then consisteth of Body and Soule and in respect thereof is desscribed by the auntient Philosophers and Writers to containe in him their liues the liuing as plants the sensitiue as beasts and the last the reasonable life Aristotle putting the difference between man and beast saith The difference betvvixt man and beast Man and beast agree in this that both of them haue one sensitiue power and one selfe same imagination of things perceiued by the senses and that they differ onely in this that man hath yet further a reason and minde aboue the beast which the beast hath not In man is as it were an abridgement of God and the worlde of God in respect of spirite and of the worlde in composition of the body As if God in his diuine purpose out of his aboundant wisedome woulde set foorth a Mirrour of his woorkes by reducing into a little compasse both the infinitnesse of his owne nature and the hugenesse of the whole world together A great learned man endeuoring to expresse the same Dupleisis c. 14