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The First Part.Section II.
Section II.
XIV. There is but one first cause, and four second causes of all things.
Some are without efficient, as God; others without matter, as Angels; some
without form, as the first matter: but every Essence, created or uncreated,
hath its final cause, and some positive end both of its Essence and Operation.
This is the cause I grope after in the works of Nature; on this hangs the
Providence of God. To raise so beauteous a structure as the World and the
Creatures thereof, was but His Art; but their sundry and divided operations,
with their predestinated ends, are from the Treasure of His Wisdom. In the
causes, nature, and affections^24 of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, there
is most excellent speculation; but to profound^22 farther, and to contemplate
a reason why His Providence hath so disposed and ordered their motions in that
vast circle as to conjoyn and obscure each other, is a sweeter piece of
Reason, and a diviner point of Philosophy. Therefore sometimes, and in some
things, there appears to me as much Divinity in Galen his books De Usu
Partium, as in Suarez Metaphysicks. Had Aristotle been as curious in the
enquiry of this cause as he was of the other, he had not left behind him an
imperfect piece of Philosophy, but an absolute tract of Divinity.
[Footnote 22: Plunge into.]
[Footnote 23: Render back.]
[Footnote 24: Influences.]
XV. Natura nihil agit frustra, [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only
indisputed Axiome in Philosophy. There are no Grotesques in Nature; not
anything framed to fill up empty Cantons,^25 and unnecessary spaces. In the
most imperfect Creatures, and such as were not preserved in the Ark, but,
having their Seeds and Principles in the womb of Nature, are every where,
where the power of the Sun is, in these is the Wisdom of His hand discovered.
Out of this rank Solomon chose the object of his admiration. Indeed what
Reason may not go to School to the Wisdom of Bees, Ants, and Spiders? what
wise hand teacheth them to do what Reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads stand
amazed at those prodigious pieces of Nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries
and Camels; these, I confess, are the Colossus and majestick pieces of her
hand: but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks; and the
civility of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth Wisdom of their
Maker. Who admires not Regio-Montanus^26 his Fly beyond his Eagle, or wonders
not more at the operation of two Souls^27 in those little Bodies, than but
one in the Trunk of a Cedar? I could never content my contemplations with
those general pieces of wonder, the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, the increase
of Nile, the conversion of the Needle to the North; and have studied to match
and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of Nature, which
without further travel I can do in the Cosmography of myself. We carry with us
the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her prodigies in us;
we are that bold and adventurous piece of Nature, which he that studies wisely
learns in a compendium what others labour at in a divided piece and endless
volume.
[Footnote 25: Corners.]
[Footnote 26: John Muller of Konigsberg (1636-75), who made an automatic
iron fly on a wooden eagle.]
[Footnote 27: The sensitive and the vegetative.]
XVI. Thus there are two Books from whence I collect my Divinity; besides
that written one of God, another of His servant Nature, that universal and
publick Manuscript, that lies expans`d unto the Eyes of all: those that never
saw Him in the one, have discovered Him in the other. This was the Scripture
and Theology of the Heathens: the natural motion of the Sun made them more
admire Him than its supernatural station did the Children of Israel; the
ordinary effects of Nature wrought more admiration in them than in the other
all His Miracles. Surely the Heathens knew better how to joyn and read these
mystical Letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless Eye on these
common Hieroglyphicks, and disdain to suck Divinity from the flowers of
Nature. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the name of Nature; which I define
not, with the Schools, to be the principle of motion and rest, but that
straight and regular line, that settled and constant course the Wisdom of God
hath ordained the actions of His creatures, according to their several kinds.
To make a revolution every day is the Nature of the Sun, because of that
necessary course which God hath ordained it, from which it cannot swerve but
by a faculty from that voice which first did give it motion. Now this course
of Nature God seldom alters or perverts, but, like an excellent Artist, hath
so contrived His work, that with the self same instrument, without a new
creation, He may effect His obscurest designs. Thus He sweetneth the Water
with a Wood,^28 preserveth the Creatures in the Ark, which the blast of His
mouth might have as easily created; for God is like a skilful Geometrician,
who, when more easily and with one stroak of his Compass he might describe
or divide a right line, had yet rather do this in a circle or longer way,
according to the constituted and forelaid principles of his Art. Yet this
rule of His He doth sometimes pervert, to acquaint the World with His
Prerogative, lest the arrogancy of our reason should question His power, and
conclude He could not. And thus I call the effects of Nature the works of God,
Whose hand and instrument she only is; and therefore to ascribe His actions
unto her, is to devolve the honour of the principal agent upon the instrument;
which if with reason we may do, then let our hammers rise up and boast they
have built our houses, and our pens receive the honour of our writings. I
hold there is a general beauty in the works of God, and therefore no
deformity in any kind or species of creature whatsoever. I cannot tell by what
Logick we call a Toad, a Bear, or an Elephant ugly; they being created in
those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their
inward forms, and having past that general Visitation^29 of God, Who saw
that all that He had made was good, that is, conformable to His Will, which
abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty. There is no deformity
but in Monstrosity; wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind of Beauty;
Nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become sometimes
more remarkable than the principal Fabrick. To speak yet more narrowly, there
was never any thing ugly or mis-shapen, but the Chaos; wherein,
notwithstanding, (to speak strictly,) there was no deformity, because no
form; nor was it yet impregnant by the voice of God. Now Nature is not at
variance with Art, nor Art with Nature, they being both servants of His
Providence. Art is the perfection of Nature. Were the World now as it was the
sixth day, there were yet a Chaos. Nature hath made one World, and Art
another. In brief, all things are artificial; for Nature is the Art of God.
[Footnote 28: Exod. xv. 25.]
[Footnote 29: Inspection, Gen. i. 31]
XVII. This is the ordinary and open way of His Providence, which Art and
Industry have in a good part discovered; whose effects we may foretell without
an Oracle: to foreshew these, is not Prophesie, but Prognostication. There is
another way, full of Meanders and Labyrinths, whereof the Devil and Spirits
have no exact Ephemerides;^30 and that is a more particular and obscure method
of His Providence, directing the operations of individuals and single
Essences: this we call Fortune, that serpentine and crooked line, whereby He
draws those actions His Wisdom intends, in a more unknown and secret way. This
cryptick and involved method of His Providence have I ever admired; nor can I
relate the History of my life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes of
dangers, and hits of chance, with a Bezo las Manos^31 to Fortune, or a bare
Gramercy to my good Stars. Abraham might have thought the Ram in the thicket
came thither by accident; humane^32 reason would have said that meer chance
conveyed Moses in the Ark to the sight of Pharaoh`s Daughter: what a Labyrinth
is there in the story of Joseph, able to convert a Stoick! Surely there are in
every man`s Life certain rubs, doublings, and wrenches, which pass a while
under the effects of chance, but at the last, well examined, prove the meer
hand of God. `Twas not dumb chance, that, to discover the Fougade or
Powder-plot, contrived a miscarriage in the Letter.^33 I like the Victory of
`88 the better for that one occurrence, which our enemies imputed to our
dishonour and the partiality of Fortune, to wit, the tempests and contrariety
of Winds. King Philip did not detract from the Nation, when he said, he sent
his Armado to fight with men, and not to combate with the Winds. Where there
is a manifest disproportion between the powers and forces of two several
agents, upon a Maxime of reason we may promise the Victory to the Superiour;
but when unexpected accidents slip in, and unthought of occurrences intervene,
these must proceed from a power that owes no obedience to those Axioms; where,
as in the writing upon the wall, we may behold the hand, but see not the
spring that moves it. The success of that petty Province of Holland (of which
the Grand Seignour^34 proudly said, if they should trouble him as they did the
Spaniard, he would send his men with shovels and pick-axes, and throw it into
the Sea,) I cannot altogether ascribe to the ingenuity and industry of the
people, but the mercy of God, that hath disposed them to such a thriving
Genius; and to the will of His Providence, that disposeth her favour to each
Country in their pre-ordinate season. All cannot be happy at once; for,
because the glory of one State depends upon the ruine of another, there is a
revolution and vicissitude of their greatness, and must obey the swing of that
wheel, not moved by Intelligences, but by the hand of God, whereby all Estates
arise to their Zenith and Vertical points according to their predestinated
periods. For the lives, not only of men, but of Commonwealths, and the whole
World, run not upon an Helix,^35 that still enlargeth, but on a Circle, where,
arriving to their Meridian, they decline in obscurity, and fall under the
Horizon again.
[Footnote 30: Tables of the daily state of the heavens, used as bases for
prognostications.]
[Footnote 31: Spanish, "I kiss hands," and acknowledgment of favor received.]
[Footnote 32: Human.]
[Footnote 33: A miscarriage of the plot by means of the letter to Lord
Monteagle, by which the plot was discovered.]
[Footnote 34: The Sultan of Turkey.]
[Footnote 35: Spiral.]
XVIII. These must not therefore be named the effects of Fortune, but in
a relative way, and as we term the works of Nature. It was the ignorance of
mans reason that begat this very name, and by a careless term miscalled the
Providence of God; for there is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose
and stragling way; nor any effect whatsoever, but hath its warrant from some
universal or superiour Cause. `Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer
before a game at Tables; for even in sortilegies^36 and matters of greatest
uncertainty there is a setled and preordered course of effects. It is we
that are blind, not Fortune: because our Eye is too dim to discover the
mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the
Providence of the Almighty. I cannot justify that contemptible Proverb, That
fools only are Fortunate, or that insolent Paradox, That a wise man is out of
the reach of Fortune; much less those opprobrious epithets of Poets, Whore,
Bawd, and Strumpet. `Tis, I confess, the common fate of men of singular gifts
of mind to be destitute of those of Fortune, which doth not any way deject
the Spirit of wiser judgements, who throughly understand the justice of this
proceeding; and being enriched with higher donatives,^37 cast a more
careless eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. It is a most unjust ambition
to desire to engross the mercies of the Almighty, not to be content with the
goods of mind, without a possession of those of body or Fortune; and it is
an error worse than heresie, to adore these complemental and circumstantial
pieces of felicity, and undervalue those perfections and essential points of
happiness wherein we resemble our Maker. To wiser desires it is satisfaction
enough to deserve, though not to enjoy, the favours of Fortune: let
Providence provide for Fools. `Tis not partiality, but equity in God, Who
deals with us but as our natural Parents: those that are able of Body and
Mind He leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker merits He imparts a
larger portion, and pieces out the defect of one by the excess of the other.
Thus have we no just quarrel with Nature for leaving us naked; or to envy
the Horns, Hoofs, Skins, and Furs of other Creatures, being provided with
Reason, that can supply them all. We need not labour with so many Arguments
to confute Judicial Astrology; for, if there be a truth therein, it doth not
injure Divinity. If to be born under Mercury disposeth us to be witty, under
Jupiter to be wealthy; I do not owe a Knee unto these, but unto that merciful
Hand that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain nativity unto such
benevolous Aspects. Those that hold that all things are governed by Fortune,
had not erred, had they not persisted^38 there. The Romans, that erected
a Temple to Fortune, acknowledged therein, though in a blinder way, somewhat
of Divinity; for, in a wise supputation,^39 all things begin and end in the
Almighty. There is a nearer way to Heaven than Homer`s Chain;^40 an easie
Logic may conjoyn Heaven and Earth in one Argument, and with less than a
Sorites,^41 resolve all things into God. For though we christen effects by
their most sensible^42 and nearest Causes, yet is God the true and infallible
Cause of all; whose concourse,^43 though it be general, yet doth it subdivide
it self into the particular Actions of every thing, and is that Spirit, by
which each singular Essence not only subsists, but performs its operation.
[Footnote 36: Drawing lots.]
[Footnote 37: Gifts.]
[Footnote 38: Stood still.]
XIX. The bad construction and perverse comment on these pair of second
Causes, or visible hands of God, have perverted the Devotion of many unto
Atheism; who, forgetting the honest Advisoes^44 of Faith, have listened unto
the conspiracy of Passion and Reason. I have therefore always endeavoured to
compose those Feuds and angry Dissentions between Affection, Faith, and
Reason; for there is in our Soul a kind of Triumvirate, or triple Government
of three Competitors, which distract the Peace of this our Commonwealth, not
less than did that other the State of Rome.
[Footnote 39: Calculation.]
[Footnote 40: Iliad viii. 19.]
[Footnote 41: A series of syllogisms.]
[Footnote 42: Perceptible to sense.]
[Footnote 43: Cooperation.]
[Footnote 44: Admonitions.]
[Footnote 45: A work by Paracelsus.]
As Reason is a Rebel unto Faith, so Passion unto Reason: as the
propositions of Faith seem absurd unto Reason, so the Theorems of Reason unto
Passion, and both unto Faith. Yet a moderate and peaceable discretion may so
state and order the matter, that they may be all Kings, and yet make but one
Monarchy, every one exercising his Soveraignty and Prerogative in a due time
and place, according to the restraint and limit of circumstance. There is, as
in Philosophy, so in Divinity, sturdy doubts and boisterous Objections,
wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us. More
of these no man hath known than myself, which I confess I conquered, not in
a martial posture, but on my Knees. For our endeavours are not only to combat
with doubts, but always to dispute with the Devil. The villany of that Spirit
takes a hint of Infidelity from our Studies, and, by demonstrating a
naturality in one way, makes us mistrust a miracle in another. Thus, having
perused the Archidoxis^45 and read the secret Sympathies of things, he would
disswade my belief from the miracle of the Brazen Serpent, make me conceit
that Image worked by Sympathy, and was but an Aegyptian trick to cure their
Diseases without a miracle. Again, having seen some experiments of Bitumen,
and having read far more of Naphtha, he whispered to my curiosity the fire
of the Altar might be natural; and bid me mistrust a miracle in Elias, when
he entrenched the Altar round with Water; for that inflamable substance
yields not easily unto Water, but flames in the Arms of its Antagonist. And
thus would he inveagle my belief to think the combustion of Sodom might be
natural, and that there was an Asphaltick and Bituminous nature in that
Lake before the fire of Gomorrah. I know that Manna is now plentifully
gathered in Calabria; and Josephus tells me, in his days it was as plentiful
in Arabia; the Devil therefore made the quaere, Where was then the miracle
in the days of Moses? the Israelites saw but that in his time, the Natives
of those Countries behold in ours. Thus the Devil played at Chess with me,
and yielding a Pawn, thought to gain a Queen of me, taking advantage of my
honest endeavours; and whilst I laboured to raise the structure of my Reason,
he strived to undermine the edifice of my Faith.
XX. Neither had these or any other ever such advantage of me, as to
incline me to any point of Infidelity or desperate positions of Atheism;
for I have been these many years of opinion there was never any. Those that
held Religion was the difference of Man from Beasts, have spoken probably,
and proceed upon a principle as inductive as the other. That doctrine of
Epicurus, that denied the Providence of God, was no Atheism, but a
magnificent and high strained conceit of His Majesty, which he deemed too
sublime to mind the trivial Actions of those inferior Creatures. That fatal
Necessity of the Stoicks is nothing but the immutable Law of His Will. Those
that heretofore denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, have been condemned
but as Hereticks; and those that now deny our Saviour, (though more than
Hereticks,) are not so much as Atheists; for, though they deny two persons
in the Trinity, they hold, as we do, there is but one God.
[Footnote 46: Name unknown.]
That Villain and Secretary of Hell,^46 that composed that miscreant piece
Of the Three Impostors, though divided from all Religions, and was neither
Jew, Turk, nor Christian, was not a positive Atheist. I confess every Country
hath its Machiavel, every age its Lucian, whereof common Heads must not hear,
nor more advanced Judgments too rashly venture on: it is the Rhetorick of
Satan, and may pervert a loose or prejudicate belief.
[Footnote 47: Human.]
[Footnote 48: Cooperation.]
[Footnote 49: Contradictions of natural law.]
XXI. I confess I have perused them all, and can discover nothing that may
startle a discreet belief; yet are there heads carried off with the Wind and
breath of such motives. I remember a Doctor in Physick, of Italy, who could
not perfectly believe the immortality of the Soul, because Galen seemed to
make a doubt thereof. With another I was familiarly acquainted in France, a
Divine, and a man of singular parts, that on the same point was so plunged
and gravelled with three lines of Seneca, that all our Antidotes, drawn from
both Scripture and Philosophy, could not expel the poyson of his errour. There
are a set of Heads, that can credit the relations of Mariners, yet question
the Testimonies of St. Paul; and peremptorily maintain the traditions of
Aelian or Pliny, yet in Histories of Scripture raise Queries and Objections,
believing no more than they can parallel in humane^47 Authors. I confess there
are in Scripture Stories that do exceed the Fables of Poets, and to a captious
Reader sound like Garagantua or Bevis. Search all the Legends of times past,
and the fabulous conceits of these present, and `twill be hard to find one
that deserves to carry the Buckler unto Sampson; yet is all this of an easie
possibility, if we conceive a Divine concourse,^48 or an influence but from
the little Finger of the Almighty. It is impossible that either in the
discourse of man, or in the infallible Voice of God, to the weakness of our
apprehensions, there should not appear irregularities, contradictions, and
antinomies:^49 my self could shew a Catalogue of doubts, never yet imagined
nor questioned, as I know, which are not resolved at the first hearing; not
fantastick Queries or Objections of Air; for I cannot hear of Atoms in
Divinity. I can read the History of the Pigeon that was sent out of the Ark,
and returned no more, yet not question how she found out her Mate that was
left behind: that Lazarus was raised from the dead, yet not demand where in
the interim his Soul awaited; or raise a Lawcase, whether his Heir might
lawfully detain his inheritance bequeathed unto him by his death, and he,
though restored to life, have no Plea or Title unto his former possessions.
Whether Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not; because I
stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man, or whether there be
any such distinction in Nature: that she was edified out of the Rib of Adam I
believe, yet raise no question who shall arise with that Rib at the
Resurrection. Whether Adam was an Hermaphrodite, as the Rabbins contend upon
the Letter of the Text, because it is contrary to reason, there should be an
Hermaphrodite before there was a Woman, or a composition of two Natures
before there was a second composed. Likewise, whether the World was created in
Autumn, Summer, or the Spring, because it was created in them all; for
whatsoever Sign the Sun possesseth, those four Seasons are actually existent.
It is the nature of this Luminary to distinguish the several Seasons of the
year, all which it makes at one time in the whole Earth, and successive in any
part thereof. There are a bundle of curiosities, not only in Philosophy, but
in Divinity, proposed and discussed by men of most supposed abilities, which
indeed are not worthy our vacant hours, much less our serious Studies: Pieces
only fit to be placed in Pantagruel`s Library, or bound up with Tartaretus De
modo Cacandi.^50
XXII. These are niceties that become not those that peruse so serious a
Mystery. There are others more generally questioned and called to the Bar, yet
methinks of an easie and possible truth.
[Footnote 50: The title of an imaginary book in the list given by Rabelais in
his "Pantagruel."]
[Footnote 51: St. Augustine.]
`Tis ridiculous to put off or drown the general Flood of Noah in that
particular inundation of Deucalion. That there was a Deluge once, seems not to
me so great a Miracle, as that there is not one always. How all the kinds of
Creatures, not only in their own bulks, but with a competency of food and
sustenance, might be preserved in one Ark, and within the extent of three
hundred Cubits, to a reason that rightly examines it will appear very
feasible. There is another secret, not contained in the Scripture, which is
more hard to comprehend, and put the honest Father^51 to the refuge of a
Miracle; and that is, not only how the distinct pieces of the World and
divided Islands, should be first planted by men, but inhabited by Tigers,
Panthers, and Bears. How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious
Animals, yet contained not in it that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very
strange. By what passage those, not only Birds, but dangerous and unwelcome
Beasts, came over; how there be Creatures there, which are not found in this
Triple Continent; (all which must needs be strange unto us, that hold but one
Ark, and that the Creatures began their progress from the Mountains of
Ararat:) they who, to salve this, would make the Deluge particular, proceed
upon a principle that I can no way grant; not only upon the negative of Holy
Scriptures, but of mine own Reason, whereby I can make it probable, that the
World was as well peopled in the time of Noah as in ours; and fifteen hundred
years to people the World, as full a time for them, as four thousand years
since have been to us.
There are other assertions and common Tenents drawn from Scripture, and
generally believed as Scripture, whereunto, notwithstanding, I would never
betray the liberty of my Reason. `Tis a Postulate to me, that Methusalem was
the longest liv`d of all the Children of Adam; and no man will be able to
prove it, when, from the process of the Text, I can manifest it may be
otherwise. That Judas perished by hanging himself, there is no certainty in
Scripture: though in one place it seems to affirm it, and by a doubtful word
hath given occasion to translate it; yet in another place, in a more punctual
description, it makes it improbable, and seems to overthrow it. That our
Fathers, after the Flood, erected the Tower of Babel to preserve themselves
against a second Deluge, is generally opinioned and believed; yet is there
another intention of theirs expressed in Scripture: besides, it is improbable
from the circumstances of the place, that is, a plain in the Land of Shinar.
These are no points of Faith, and therefore may admit a free dispute.
There are yet others, and those familiarly concluded from the text,
wherein (under favour,) I see no consequence. The Church of Rome confidently
proves the opinion of Tutelary Angels from that Answer, when Peter knockt at
the Door, `Tis not he, but his Angel; that is (might some say,) his Messenger,
or some body from him; for so the Original signifies, and is as likely to be
the doubtful Families meaning. This exposition I once suggested to a young
Divine, that answered upon this point; to which I remember the Franciscan
Opponent replyed no more, but That it was a new, and no authentick
interpretation.
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