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The First Part.Section I.
Section I.
For my Religion, though there be several Circumstances that might
perswade the World I have none at all, (as the general scandal of my
Profession,^2 the natural course of my Studies, the indifferency of my
Behaviour and Discourse in matters of Religion, neither violently Defending
one, nor with that common ardour and contention Opposing another;) yet, in
despight hereof, I dare without usurpation assume the honourable Stile of a
Christian. Not that I meerly owe this Title to the Font, my Education, or the
clime wherein I was born, (as being bred up either to confirm those Principles
my Parents instilled into my unwary Understanding, or by a general consent
proceed in the Religion of my Country;) but having in my riper years and
confirmed Judgment seen and examined all, I find my self obliged by the
Principles of Grace, and the Law of mine own Reason, to embrace no other
Name but this. Neither doth herein my zeal so far make me forget the general
Charity I owe unto Humanity, as rather to hate than pity Turks, Infidels, and
(what is worse,) Jews; rather contenting my self to enjoy that happy Stile,
than maligning those who refuse so glorious a Title.
[Footnote 2: Cf. the saying, "Among three physicians, two atheists."]
II. But, because the Name of a Christian is become too general to express
our Faith, (there being a Geography or Religions as well as Lands, and every
Clime distinguished not only by their Laws and Limits, but circumscribed by
their Doctrines and Rules of Faith;) to be particular, I am of that Reformed
new-cast Religion, wherein I dislike nothing but the Name; of the same belief
our Saviour taught, the Apostles disseminated, the Fathers authorized, and the
Martyrs confirmed; but by the sinister ends of Princes, the ambition and
avarice of Prelates, and the fatal corruption of times, so decayed, impaired,
and fallen from its native Beauty, that it required the careful and charitable
hands of these times to restore it to its primitive Integrity. Now the
accidental occasion whereupon, the slender means whereby, the low and abject
condition of the Person^3 by whom so good a work was set on foot, which in our
Adversaries beget contempt and scorn, fills me with wonder, and is the very
same Objection the insolent Pagans first cast at Christ and His Disciples.
[Footnote 3: Probably Luther is meant.]
[Footnote 4: Persons who have resolved.]
[Footnote 5: Direct opposition.]
[Footnote 6: Taunts.]
[Footnote 7: Manner of life.]
III. Yet have I not so shaken hands with those desperate Resolutions,^4
(who had rather venture at large their decayed bottom, than bring her in to
be new trimm`d in the Dock; who had rather promiscuously retain all, than
abridge any, and obstinately be what they are, than what they have been,) as
to stand in Diameter^5 and Swords point with them. We have reformed from them,
not against them; for (omitting those Improperations^6 and Terms of Scurrility
betwixt us, which only difference our Affections, and not our Cause,) there is
between us one common Name and Appellation, one Faith and necessary body of
Principles common to us both; and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse
and live with them, to enter their Churches in defect of ours, and either pray
with them, or for them. I could never perceive any rational Consequence from
those many Texts which prohibit the Children of Israel to pollute themselves
with the Temples of the Heathens; we being all Christians, and not divided
by such detested impieties as might prophane our Prayers, or the place wherein
we make them; or that a resolved Conscience may not adore her Creator any
where, especially in places devoted to His Service; where, if their Devotions
offend Him, mine may please Him; if theirs prophane it, mine may hallow it.
Holy-water and Crucifix (dangerous to common people,) deceive not my judgment,
nor abuse my devotion at all. I am, I confess, naturally inclined to that
which misguided Zeal terms Superstition. My common conversation^7 I do
acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigour, sometimes not without
morosity; yet at my Devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat,
and hand, with all those outward and sensible motions which may express or
promote my invisible Devotion. I should violate my own arm rather than a
Church; nor willingly deface the name of Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a
Cross or Crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or
memory of my Saviour. I cannot laugh at, but rather pity, the fruitless
journeys of Pilgrims, or contemn the miserable condition of Fryars; for,
though misplaced in Circumstances, there is something in it of Devotion. I
could never hear the Ave-Mary Bell without an elevation; or think it a
sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in
all, that is, in silence and dumb contempt. Whilst, therefore, they directed
their Devotions to Her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the Errors of
their Prayers by rightly ordering mine own. At a solemn Procession I have
wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind with opposition and prejudice, have
fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter. There are, questionless, both
in Greek, Roman, and African Churches, Solemnities and Ceremonies, whereof the
wiser Zeals do make a Christian use, and stand condemned by us, not as evil in
themselves, but as allurements and baits of superstition to those vulgar heads
that look asquint on the face of Truth, and those unstable Judgments that
cannot consist in the narrow point and centre of Virtue without a reel or
stagger to the Circumference.
IV. As there were many Reformers, so likewise many Reformations; every
Country proceeding in a particular way and method, according as their national
Interest, together with their Constitution and Clime, inclined them; some
angrily, and with extremity; others calmly, and with mediocrity; not
rending, but easily dividing the community, and leaving an honest possibility
of a reconciliation; which though peaceable Spirits do desire, and may
conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect, yet that
judgment that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extreams,
their contrarieties in condition, affection, and opinion, may with the same
hopes expect an union in the Poles of Heaven.
V. But (to difference my self nearer, and draw into a lesser Circle,)
there is no Church whose every part so squares unto my Conscience; whose
Articles, Constitutions, and Customs seem so consonant unto reason, and as
it were framed to my particular Devotion, as this whereof I hold my
Belief, the Church of England; to whose Faith I am a sworn Subject, and
therefore in a double Obligation subscribe unto her Articles,and endeavour
to observe her Constitutions. Whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent,
I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humor and
fashion of my Devotion; neither believing this, because Luther affirmed it,
or disproving that, because Calvin hath disavouched it. I condemn not all
things in the Council of Trent, nor approve all in the Synod of Dort. In
brief, where the Scripture is silent, the Church is my Text; where that
speaks, `tis but my Comment: where there is a joynt silence of both, I
borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates
of my own reason. It is an unjust scandal of our adversaries, and a gross
errour in our selves, to compute the Nativity of our Religion from Henry
the Eighth, who, though he rejected the Pope, refus`d not the faith of Rome,
and effected no more than what his own Predecessors desired and assayed
in Ages past, and was conceived the State of Venice would have attempted
in our days. It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular
scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome, to whom, as a
temporal Prince, we owe the duty of good language. I confess there is cause
of passion between us: by his sentence I stand excommunicated; Heretick is
the best language he affords me; yet can no ear witness I ever returned him
the name of Antichrist, Man of Sin, or Whore of Babylon. It is the method of
Charity to suffer without reaction: those usual Satyrs and invectives of the
Pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar, whose ears are
opener to Rhetorick than Logick; yet do they in no wise confirm the faith of
wiser Believers, who know that a good cause needs not to be patron`d by
passion, but can sustain itself upon a temperate dispute.
[Footnote 8: Astronomy, a smaller circle whose center describes a larger.]
VI. I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an
opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from
which perhaps within a few days I should dissent my self. I have no Genius to
disputes in Religion, and have often thought it wisdom to decline them,
especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause of Truth might suffer in
the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed, `tis good to
contest with men above our selves; but to confirm and establish our opinions,
`tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and
Victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed
Opinion of our own. Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth, nor fit to
take up the Gauntlet in the cause of Verity: many from the ignorance of these
Maximes, and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth, have too rashly charged the
Troops of Error, and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth. A man may
be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to
surrender; `tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace, than to hazzard
her on a battle. If, therefore, there rise any doubts in my way, I do forget
them, or at least defer them till my better setled judgement and more manly
reason be able to resolve them; for I perceive every man`s own reason is his
best Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and
tender judgements. In Philosophy, where Truth seems double-fac`d, there is no
man more Paradoxical than my self: but in Divinity I love to keep the Road;
and, though not in an implicite, yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel
of the Church, by which I move, not reserving any proper Poles or motion from
the Epicycle^8 of my own brain. By this means I leave no gap for Heresies,
Schismes, or Errors, of which at present I hope I shall not injure Truth to
say I have no taint or tincture. I must confess my greener studies have been
polluted with two or three; not any begotten in the latter Centuries, but old
and obsolete, such as could never have been revived, but by such extravagant
and irregular heads as mine: for indeed Heresies perish not with their
Authors, but, like the river Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one
place, they rise up again in another. One General Council is not able to
extirpate one single Heresie: it may be cancell`d for the present; but
revolution of time, and the like aspects from Heaven, will restore it, when it
will flourish till it be condemned again. For as though there were a
Metempsuchosis, and the soul of one man passed into another, Opinions do
find, after certain Revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat
them. To see our selves again, we need not look for Plato`s year:^9 every man
is not only himself; there hath been many Diogenes, and as many Timons, though
but few of that name: men are liv`d over again, the world is now as it was in
Ages past; there was none then, but there hath been some one since that
parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived self.
VII. Now the first of mine was that of the Arabians, That the Souls of
men perished with their Bodies, but should yet be raised again at the last
day. Not that I did absolutely conceive a mortality of the Soul; but if that
were, (which Faith, not Philosophy, hath yet throughly disproved,) and that
both entred the grave together, yet I held the same conceit thereof that we
all do of the body, that it should rise again. Surely it is but the merits of
our unworthy Natures, if we sleep in darkness until the last Alarum. A serious
reflex upon my own unworthiness did make me backward from challenging this
prerogative of my Soul: so that I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could
with patience be nothing almost unto Eternity.
The second was that of Origen, That God would not persist in His
vengeance for ever, but after a definite time of His wrath, He would release
the damned Souls from torture. Which error I fell into upon a serious
contemplation of the great Attribute of God, His Mercy; and did a little
cherish it in my self, because I found therein no malice, and a ready weight
to sway me from the other extream of despair, whereunto Melancholy and
Contemplative Natures are too easily disposed.
A third there is, which I did never positively maintain or practise, but
have often wished it had been consonant to Truth, and not offensive to my
Religion, and that is, the Prayer for the Dead; whereunto I was inclin`d from
some charitable inducements, whereby I could scarce contain my Prayers for a
friend at the ringing of a Bell, or behold his Corps without an Orison for his
Soul. `Twas a good way, methought, to be remembered by posterity, and far more
noble than an History.
[Footnote 9: A period of thousands of years, at the end of which all things
should return to their former state.]
These opinions I never maintained with pertinacy, or endeavoured to
enveagle any mans belief unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed or disputed
them with my dearest friends; by which means I neither propagated them in
others, nor confirmed them in my self; but suffering them to flame upon their
own substance, without addition of new fuel, they went out insensibly of
themselves. Therefore these Opinions, though condemned by lawful Councels,
were not Heresies in me, but bare Errors, and single Lapses of my
understanding, without a joynt depravity of my will. Those have not onely
depraved understandings, but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a
singularity without an Heresie, or be the Author of an Opinion without they be
of a Sect also. This was the villany of the first Schism of Lucifer, who was
not content to err alone, but drew into his Faction many Legions of Spirits;
and upon this experience he tempted only Eve, as well understanding the
Communicable nature of Sin, and that to deceive but one, was tacitely and upon
consequence to delude them both.
VIII. That Heresies should arise, we have the Prophesie of Christ; but
that old ones should be abolished, we hold no prediction. That there must be
Heresies, is true, not only in our Church, but also in any other: even in
doctrines heretical, there will be super-heresies; and Arians not only divided
from their Church, but also among themselves. For heads that are disposed unto
Schism and complexionally propense^10 to innovation, are naturally indisposed
for a community, nor will be ever confined unto the order or oeconomy of one
body; and therefore, when they separate from others, they knit but loosely
among themselves; nor contented with a general breach or dichotomy with their
Church do subdivide and mince themselves almost into Atoms. `Tis true, that
men of singular parts and humours have not been free from singular opinions
and conceits in all Ages; retaining something, not only beside the opinion of
his own Church or any other, but also any particular Author; which,
notwithstanding, a sober Judgment may do without offence or heresie; for there
is yet, after all the Decrees of Councils and the niceties of the Schools,
many things untouch`d, unimagin`d, wherein the liberty of an honest reason may
play and expatiate with security, and far without the circle of an Heresie.
[Footnote 10: Inclined by temperament.]
IX. As for those wingy Mysteries in Divinity, and airy subtleties in
Religion, which have unhing`d the brains of better heads, they never stretched
the Pia Mater^11 of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in
Religion for an active faith; the deepest Mysteries ours contains have not
only been illustrated, but maintained, by Syllogism and the rule of Reason. I
love to lose my self in a mystery, to pursue my Reason to an O altitudo! `Tis
my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved Aenigmas
and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation, and Resurrection. I can answer
all the Objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution
I learned of Tertullian, Certum est, quia impossibile est. I desire to
exercise my faith in the difficultest point; for to credit ordinary and
visible objects is not faith, but perswasion. Some believe the better for
seeing Christ`s Sepulchre; and, when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not of
the Miracle. Now, contrarily, I bless my self and am thankful that I lived not
in the days of Miracles, that I never saw Christ nor His Disciples. I would
not have been one of those Israelites that pass`d the Red Sea, nor one of
Christ`s patients on whom He wrought His wonders; then had my faith been
thrust upon me, nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all
that believe and saw not. `Tis an easie and necessary belief, to credit what
our eye and sense hath examined. I believe He was dead, and buried, and rose
again; and desire to see Him in His glory, rather than to contemplate Him in
His Cenotaphe or Sepulchre. Nor is this much to believe; as we have reason, we
owe this faith unto History: they only had the advantage of a bold and noble
Faith, who lived before His coming, who upon obscure prophesies and mystical
Types could raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities.
[Footnote 11: A membrane surrounding the brain.]
X. `Tis true, there is an edge in all firm belief, and with an easie
Metaphor we may say, the Sword of Faith; but in these obscurities I rather use
it in the adjunct the Apostle gives it, a Buckler; under which I conceive a
wary combatant may lye invulnerable. Since I was of understanding to know we
knew nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of Faith; I am now
content to understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easier and
Platonick description. That allegorical description of Hermes^12 pleaseth me
beyond all the Metaphysical definitions of Divines. Where I cannot satisfy
my reason, I love to humour my fancy: I had as live you tell me that anima
est angelus hominis, est Corpus Dei, [the soul is man`s angel, God`s body]
as Entelechia;^13-Lux est umbra Dei, [Light is God`s shadow] as actus
perspicui.^14 Where there is an obscurity too deep for our Reason, `tis good
to sit down with a description, periphrasis, or adumbration; for by
acquainting our Reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious
effects of Nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtleties
of Faith; and thus I teach my haggard^15 and unreclaimed Reason to stoop unto
the lure of Faith. I believe there was already a tree whose fruit our unhappy
Parents tasted, though, in the same Chapter when God forbids it, `tis
positively said, the plants of the field were not yet grown, for God had not
caus`d it to rain upon the earth. I believe that the Serpent, (if we shall
literally understand it,) from his proper form and figure, made his motion
on his belly before the curse. I find the tryal of the Pucellage and virginity
of Women, which God ordained the Jews, is very fallible. Experience and
History informs me, that not onely many particular Women, but likewise whole
Nations, have escaped the curse of Childbirth, which God seems to pronounce
upon the whole Sex. Yet I do believe that all this is true, which indeed my
Reason would perswade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of
Faith, to believe a thing not only above but contrary to Reason, and against
the Arguments of our proper Senses.
[Footnote 12: The description alluded to, "God is a sphere whose center is
everywhere and circumference nowhere," is said not to be found in the books
which pass under the name of the fabulous Hermes Trismegistus
[Footnote 13: Aristotle`s word for "actual being."]
[Foytnote 14: The active force of the clear.]
[Footnote 15: Intractable: used of a hawk.]
XI. In my solitary and retired imagination
(neque enim cum porticus aut me
Lectulus accepit, desum mihi,)
[for when porch or bed has received me, I do not lose myself]
I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget not to contemplate Him
and His Attributes Who is ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, His
Wisdom and Eternity. With the one I recreate, with the other I confound, my
understanding; for who can speak of Eternity without a soloecism, or think
thereof without an Extasie? Time we may comprehend; `tis but five days elder
then our selves, and hath the same Horoscope with the World; but to retire so
far back as to apprehend a beginning, to give such an infinite start forwards
as to conceive an end, in an essence that we affirm hath neither the one nor
the other, it puts my Reason to St. Paul`s Sanctuary.^16 My Philosophy dares
not say the Angels can do it. God hath not made a Creature that can comprehend
Him; `tis a privilege of His own nature. I am that I am, was His own
definition unto Moses; and `twas a short one, to confound mortality, that
durst question God, or ask Him what He was. Indeed, He onely is; all others
have and shall be. But in Eternity there is no distinction of Tenses; and
therefore that terrible term Predestination, which hath troubled so many weak
heads to conceive, and the wisest to explain, is in respect to God no
prescious^17 determination of our Estates to come, but a definitive blast of
His Will already fulfilled, and at the instant that He first decreed it; for
to His Eternity, which is indivisible and all together, the last Trump is
already sounded, the reprobates in the flame, and the blessed in Abraham`s
bosome. St. Peter speaks modestly,^18 when he saith, a thousand years to God
are but as one day; for, to speak like a Philosopher, those continued
instances of time which flow into a thousand years, make not to Him one
moment: what to us is to come, to His Eternity is present, His whole duration
being but one permanent point, without Sucession, Parts, Flux, or Division.
[Footnote 16: This has been taken as a reference to Rom, xi. 33, but the exact
meaning is uncertain.]
[Footnote 17: Foreknowing.]
[Footnote 18: Moderately.]
XII. There is no Attribute that adds more difficulty to the mystery of
the Trinity, where, though in a relative way of Father and Son, we must deny
a priority. I wonder how Aristotle could conceive the World eternal, or how
he could make good two Eternities. His similitude of a Triangle comprehended
in a square doth somewhat illustrate the Trinity of our Souls, and that the
Triple Unity of God; for there is in us not three, but a Trinity of Souls;
because there is in us, if not three distinct Souls, yet differing faculties,
that can and do subsist apart in different Subjects, and yet in us are so
united as to make but one Soul and substance.
If one Soul were so perfect as to inform three distinct Bodies, that
were a petty Trinity: conceive the distinct number of three, not divided nor
separated by the intellect, but actually comprehended in its Unity, and that
is a perfect Trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and
the secret Magick of numbers. Beware of Philosophy, is a precept not to be
received in too large a sense; for in this Mass of Nature there is a set of
things that carry in their Front (though not in Capital Letters, yet in
Stenography and short Characters,) something of Divinity, which to wiser
Reasons serve as Luminaries in the Abyss of Knowledge, and to judicious
beliefs as Scales^19 and Roundles^20 to mount the Pinacles and highest pieces
of Divinity. The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of
Hermes, that this visible World is but a Picture of the invisible wherein,
as in a Pourtraict, things are not truely, but in equivocal shapes, and as
they counterfeit some more real substance in that invisible fabrick.
[Footnote 19: Ladders.]
[Footnote 20: Steps of a ladder.]
[Footnote 21: "Know thyself." This, like other ancient oracles, Browne
ascribes to the l.]
XIII. That other Attribute wherewith I recreate my devotion, is His
Wisdom, in which I am happy; and for the contemplation of this only, do not
repent me that I was bred in the way of Study: the advantage I have of the
vulgar, with the content and happiness I conceive therein, is an ample
recompence for all my endeavours, in what part of knowledge soever. Wisdom
is His most beauteous Attribute; no man can attain unto it, yet Solomon
pleased God when he desired it. He is wise, because He knows all things; and
He knoweth all things, because He made them all; but His greatest knowledge
is in comprehending that He made not, that is, Himself. And this is also the
greatest knowledge in man. For this do I honour my own profession, and embrace
the Counsel even of the Devil himself: had he read such a Lecture in Paradise
as he did at Delphos,^21 we had better known our selves, nor had we stood in
fear to know him. I know He is wise in all, wonderful in what we conceive, but
far more in what we comprehend not; for we behold Him but asquint, upon reflex
or shadow; our understanding is dimmer than Moses Eye; we are ignorant of the
back-parts or lower side of His Divinity; therefore to prie into the maze of
His Counsels is not only folly in man, but presumption even in Angels. Like
us, they are His Servants, not His Senators; He holds no Counsel, but that
mystical one of the Trinity, wherein, though there be three Persons, there is
but one mind that decrees without contradiction. Nor needs He any: His actions
are not begot with deliberation, His Wisdom naturally knows what`s best; His
intellect stands ready fraught with the superlative and purest Ideas of
goodness; consultation and election, which are two motions in us, make but one
in Him, His actions springing from His power at the first touch of His will.
These are Contemplations metaphysical: my humble speculations have another
Method, and are content to trace and discover those expressions He hath left
in His Creatures, and the obvious effects of Nature. There is no danger to
profound^22 these mysteries, no sanctum sanctorum in Philosophy. The World
was made to be inhabited by Beasts, but studied and contemplated by Man: `tis
the Debt of our Reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being
Beasts. Without this, the World is still as though it had not been, or as it
was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a Creature that could
conceive or say there was a World. The Wisdom of God receives small honour
from those vulgar Heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity
admire His works: those highly magnifie Him, whose judicious inquiry into His
Acts, and deliberate research into His Creatures, return the duty of a devout
and learned admiration. Therefore,
[Footnote 22: Plunge into.]
Search while thou wilt, and let thy Reason go,
To ransome Truth, even to th` Abyss below;
Rally the scattered Causes; and that line,
Which Nature twists, be able to untwine.
It is thy Makers will, for unto none
But unto Reason can He e`re be known.
The Devils do know Thee, but those damned Meteors
Build not Thy Glory, but confound Thy Creatures.
Teach my indeavours so Thy works to read,
That learning them in Thee, I may proceed.
Give Thou my reason that instructive flight,
Whose weary wings may on Thy hands still light.
Teach me to soar aloft, yet ever so,
When neer the Sun, to stoop again below.
Thus shall my humble Feathers safely hover,
And, though near Earth, more than the Heavens discover.
And then at last, when homeward I shall drive,
Rich with the Spoils of Nature, to my Hive,
There will I sit like that industrious Flie,
Buzzing Thy praises, which shall never die,
Till Death abrupts them, and succeeding Glory
Bid me go on in a more lasting story.
And this is almost all wherein an humble Creature may endeavour to
requite and some way to retribute^23 unto his Creator: for if not he that
saith, "Lord, Lord," but he that doth the will of his Father, shall be saved;
certainly our wills must be our performances, and our intents make out our
Actions; otherwise our pious labours shall find anxiety in our Graves, and
our best endeavours not hope, but fear, a resurrection.
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