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A01615 A discourse vpon the meanes of vvel governing and maintaining in good peace, a kingdome, or other principalitie Divided into three parts, namely, the counsell, the religion, and the policie, vvhich a prince ought to hold and follow. Against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine. Translated into English by Simon Patericke.; Discours, sur les moyens de bien gouverner et maintenir en bonne paix un royaume ou autre principauté. English Gentillet, Innocent, ca. 1535-ca. 1595.; Patrick, Simon, d. 1613. 1602 (1602) STC 11743; ESTC S121098 481,653 391

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alwayes see that darkenesse vanisheth and disperseth away by the light the shaddow also flieth the Sunne and hideth it selfe alwayes behind some opposit Therefore have the auncient doctors of the Church said and held for a principle of Theologie That much better it were a scandale and offence should come than that Truth should be forsaken Which sentence even the Popes themselves have caused to be placed amongst their rules of Cannon right and would to God they had observed it But I see well it is to no purpose to alleadge reasons against this Atheist and his Reg. 1. de Reg. Iuris in VI. disciples which beleeve neither God nor Religion wherefore before I passe any further I must fight against their impietie and make it appeare to their eyes at the least if they have any not by assailing them with armes of the holy Scripture for they merit not to bee so assailed and I feare to pollute the holy Scriptures amongst people so prophane and defiled with impietie but by their proper armes and weapons whereby their ignorance and beastlinesse defendeth their renewed Atheisme They then tooke for a foundation humane reason and prophane and Paynim authors but in truth both the one and the other foundation are so much against them as even by them I will prove our Christian Religion For first if wee consider the least creature in the world and sound the causes of his essence and nature it will Every creature leadeth mā to God leade us by degrees to one God Take an ante or a flie and consider the causes which makes these little creatures moove you shall finde it is heat and moisture which are two qualities consisting in all living creatures nourishers of nature for assoone as heat moisture faile in any living thing it can no more live nor moove straight is the body occupied with contrarie qualities coldnesse and drought the enemies of nature Mount and ascend vp higher and consider what is the cause that in the little bodie of an ante or flie there are found the two qualities of heate and moisture you shall find that it is because all living creatures are composed of the foure elements of fire of aire of water and of earth in which the said foure qualities of heat moisture colde and drinesse do consist and whilest heate and moisture raigne in the bodie it liveth but when colde and drought doe dominiere therein than dieth it Consider further what is the cause of the heate and the moisture and the other qualities which we see in the foure elements and in the bodies made of them you shall finde that the Sunne is cause of the heate and the Moone cause of the moisture as sence and experience shew it Let us yet passe further and seeke the cause wherefore the Sunne is hoate and the Moone moiste and from whence come unto them these qualities of heate and moisture wee must necessarilie now come to a first and sovereigne cause which is one God for the Sunne or Moone which are corporall and finite things as we see with our eyes cannot be God who is of infinite essence Behold then how the least creature of the world is sufficient to vanquish by naturall reason the opinion of the Atheists how much more if wee come to consider other creatures and especiallie the composition of mans body for there shall you contemplate without going any further so well ordered a rule that of necessitie must be concluded That there is a most ingenious and excellent workeman other than the Sunne and Moone which hath disposed that architecture and building for within mans bodie you shall see appeare an harmonie verie like a well governed common-wealth you see the minde and understanding of man which is as the king that is set in the highest place as in his throne and from thence commandeth all the parts you see also the heart the seat of amitie clemencie bountie kindnesse magnanimitie and other vertues all which obey the understanding as their king but the heart as the great master hath them all under his charge it hath also under his charge envie hatred vengeance ambition and other vices which lodge in the heart but they are holden mewed and bridled by the understanding after you have the liver which is the superintendent of victuals which it distributeth unto all the parts of the bodie by the meanes of his subalterne and inferiour officers as the bellie veines and other pores and passages of the bodie brieflie a man may see within man an admirable and well ordeined disposition of all the parts and it brings us necessarilie and whether we will or no to acknowledge that there must needs be a God a sovereigne architect who hath made this excellent building and by these considerations of naturall things whereof I do but lightlie touch the points the auncient philosophers as the Platonists the Aristotelians Stoickes and others have beene brought to the knowledge of a God and of his providence and of all the sects of philosophers there was never any which agreed not hereunto unlesse it were the sect of the Epicures which were gluttons drunkards whoremongers which constituted their sovereigne felicitie in carnall pleasures wherein they wallowed like brute beasts Out of this schoole Machiavell and the Machiavelists come which are well inough knowne to be all very Epicureans in their lives caring for nothing but their pleasures which also have no knowledge of good letters contenting them selves with the Maximes of that wicked Atheist Touching the doctrine of the Trinitie which we hold it must bee confessed that the philosophers understood nothing thereof and that by humane reason wee can not well be lead to the knowledge thereof but this knowledge is manifested unto us by the witnesses of God himselfe which are so cleare and evident in the holy scripture as nothing can be more but I have no purpose here to recite them yet will I say That the doctrine which I hold in this place is not repugnant nor contrary unto The d●ct●in of the T●initie is not repugnant to human reason humane reason but consonant enough although the ancient philosophers have not penitrated so far For by their owne Maximes a very true thing it is That God who is an eternall and infinit spirit is not passible of any qualities or accidens so that that which is a qualitie in men as bountie love wisedome an essence in God This presupposed as a thing confessed of the philosophers themselves it followeth That that infinit admirable wisdome wherby God knoweth himselfe is an essence and not a qualitie in God yea it is one the same essence yet is it a distinct subsistence or hypostasis from him For the Wise and Wisedome cannot be without distinction This Wisdome then is the second person of the Trinitie which the scripture calleth the Word or the Sonne Neither also is it repugnant to humane reason to say That these two persons in one
and the same essence have an infinit and mutuall Intelligence together which Intelligence proceedeth equally from two persons the Father and the Sonne as they are of equall essence yet can not be confounded with them although the said Intelligence be the same essence for Intelligens understanding and Intelligentia the understanding ought to be distinguished This Intelligence is the third person of the Trinitie which the scripture calleth the holy Spirit Behold then how mans braine may something comprehend by naturall reason the doctrine which wee hold of the Trinitie by a rude and grosse description which is like to that which the Geographers take to pourtray all the earth namely in five or six grosse lines in a paper of an hand breadth For the knowledge that our sence can have of so high a thing is farre lesse in comparison of the full truth thereof than is such a portrature of the Geographers in comparison of all the earth and therefore will I well confesse that we neither need nor ought much to travaile to dispute by humane reason of so high a thing which of it selfe is infinit and incomprehensible to our sences and understanding and that they which doe least dispute with philosophicall reasons are most wise most modest and that we ought wholie to hold and resolve upon that which is written by in the holy Scripture But having to do with Atheists which receive not the witnesses of the word of God it hath made me shew in few words That even by humane reason it selfe they may be vanquished by the truth of that doctrine which we hold Let us now come to another point Naturall reason and common sence teacheth us That there is one God and that he is perfect in all perfection for otherwise he could not be God this is a point resolved Hereof necessarily followeth it That God is perfect just and perfect mercifull Being perfectly just by the rule of Iustice he must needs condemne and reject all mankinde for all men generallie are vicious and vice meriteth condemnation but if God should condemne and reject all mankind it should be repugnant to his mercie which also ought to be perfect with effect How then shall we say that God cannot be perfectlie just and mercifull together because it seemeth that his mercie repugneth his justice God forbid that such blasphemie should proceed out of our mouths But we say That thereby naturall reason leads us to a Mediator who being God and perfect hath satisfied the Divine justice which satisfaction God the creator accepteth of mankind because the mediator is man also and by the meanes of this great mediator God and man which the creator hath given us hee hath shewed himselfe perfectlie just in receiving of him a satisfaction condigne to his justice and perfectlie mercifull in pardoning us for his sake without which mediator we evidentlie see that God cannot shew himselfe perfectly just and mercifull together that is to say that he cannot shew himselfe to be God for the Father cannot be without the sonne It is then a true demonstration drawne from most certaine and evident principles There is one God therefore he is perfect If God be perfect as no doubt he is he is then perfectlie just and mercifull but he cannot be both without a mediator God and man Euclide nor Archimedes ever made more certainer demonstrations But this mediator which the creator hath given to men to make manifest his perfect justice perfect mercie is his eternall Sonne the wisdome of the father in favour of whom as well before he came into the world and had taken our nature as since men have enjoyed the mercie and clemencie of God in employing that mediator to satisfie the justice of God This mediator was promised and established to men from the beginning of the world and since that his promises have beene so often reiterated that not only they have beene notoriovs to the particular people of God which followed the true Religion but also to other people which follow false Religion The Historiographer Suetonius a Paynim who never read any part of holie Scripture speaking of Vespasian as though it were a vulgar and common thing saith thus Through all the East countries alwaies there hath beene a constant and auncient opinion as a thing certaine that it was so ordeined and foretolde of God That from Iudea should come the dominator and ruler of the world As much saith the Historian Tacitus a Paynim also that never saw holy letters when he said speaking of the same time of Vespasian Many have this persuasion that within the spirits and writings of the auncient priests was conteined that at that time the East should be in great power and that from Iudea should come the dominator of the world By which witnesses of these two Historigraphers is clearlie seene that the promise of Messias the dominator of the world was knowne to everie one but not onelie the Paynims but the Iewes also themselves understand this of a temporall domination and indeed these two former historiographers and Iosephus himselfe Joseph lib. 7. cap. 12. de bel Juda. who was a Iew interpreted this prophecie of Messias of Vespasian who was created emperour of the Romane empire being in Iewrie in warre against the Iewes But this foolish and rash interpretation is nothing excusable in Iosephus who vaunteth that he himselfe was cunning foretelling things to come and in the knowledge of the bookes of Moses and of the other Prophets for all the Prophets doe all clearlie say That Messias ought to be borne of the race of Abraham of Iuda and of Dauid yea especiallie and plainly the place it selfe where he should be borne that is to say in Bethlem a little towne of the tribe of Iuda But Iosephus knew well that Vespasian was neither of that race nor borne in the towne of Bethlem but wee must beleeve that Iosephus understood better than he writ and that falslie he attributed that prophecie of Messias to the emperour Vespasian upon a flattering humor because he had received so many great favours and benefits of him And as for that which Tacitus and Suetonius have attributed unto the emperour Miracles of Christ a●●●ibuted unto Princes Vespasian that prophecie rather then to Christ men must not mervaile thereat for they were great enemies of Christ as is seene by many other places of their historie With the same faith Tacitus saith That the emperour Vespasian being in Iewry healed a blinde man which saw nothing with his spittle and another which had a drie Tacit. annal ●ib 20. hand wherewith he could not helpe himselfe for these indeed were the miracles of Christ which these prophane historians would steale from him to attribute unto Dion in Vesp their emperours And the better to discover their theft by their owne writings we must first marke that Tacitus himselfe saith That the blind man comming to Vespasian and falling on his knees before him said