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The First Part.Section III.
Section III.
XXIII. These are but the conclusions and fallible discourses of man upon
the Word of God, for such I do believe the Holy Scriptures: yet, were it of
man, I could not chuse but say, it was the singularest and superlative piece
that hath been extant since the Creation. Were I a Pagan, I should not refrain
the Lecture^52 of it; and cannot but commend the judgment of Ptolomy,^53 and
thought not his Library compleat without it. The Alcoran of the Turks (I speak
without prejudice,) is an ill composed Piece, containing in vain and
ridiculous Errors in Philosophy, impossibilities, fictions, and vanities
beyond laughter, maintained by evident and open Sophisms, the Policy of
Ignorance, deposition of Universities, and banishment of Learning, that hath
gotten Foot by Arms and violence: this without a blow hath disseminated it
self through the whole Earth. It is not unremarkable what Philo first
observed, that the Law of Moses continued two thousand years without the least
alteration; whereas, we see the Laws of other Common-weals do alter with
occasions; and even those that pretended their original from some Divinity, to
have vanished without trace or memory. I believe, besides Zoroaster, there
were divers that writ before Moses, who, notwithstanding, have suffered the
common fate of time. Mens Works have an age like themselves; and though they
out-live their Authors, yet have they a stint^54 and period to their duration:
this only is a work too hard for the teeth of time, and cannot perish but in
the general Flames, when all things shall confess their Ashes.
[Footnote 52: Reading.]
[Footnote 53: King of Egypt.]
[Footnote 54: Limit.]
[Footnote 55: Josephus says that the descendants of Seth erected two pillars
on which all human inventions so far made were engraved.]
XXIV. I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero;
others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the Library of
Alexandria: for my own part, I think there be too many in the World, and could
with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a few
others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon. I would not omit a copy of
Enoch`s Pillars,^55 had they many nearer Authors than Josephus, or did not
relish somewhat of the Fable. Some men have written more than others have
spoken; Pineda^56 quotes more Authors in one work, than are necessary in a
whole World. Of those three great inventions^57 in Germany, there are two
which are not without their incommodities, and `tis disputable whether they
exceed not their use and commodities. `Tis not a melancholy Utinam^58 of my
own, but the desires of better heads, that there were a general Synod; not to
unite the incompatible difference of Religion, but for the benefit of
learning, to reduce it as it lay at first, in a few and solid Authors; and to
condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of Rhapsodies, begotten only to
distract and abuse the weaker judgements of Scholars, and to maintain the
trade and mystery of Typographers.
[Footnote 56: Juan de Pineda published his "Monarchia Ecclesiastica" in
1588.]
[Footnote 57: One MS. explains these as guns, printing, and the mariner`s
compass.]
[Footnote 58: Latin, would that!]
[Footnote 59: Gentile.]
[Footnote 60: Pagans, Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians.]
XXV. I cannot but wonder with what exception the Samaritans could confine
their belief to the Pentateuch, or five Books of Moses. I am ashamed at the
Rabbinical Interpretation of the Jews upon the Old Testament, as much as their
defection from the New: and truly it is beyond wonder, how that contemptible
and degenerate issue of Jacob, once so devoted to Ethnick^59 Superstition, and
so easily seduced to the Idolatry of their Neighbours, should now in such an
obstinate and peremptory belief adhere unto their own Doctrine, expect
impossibilities, and, in the face and eye of the Church, persist without the
least hope of Conversion. This is a vice in them, that were a virtue in us;
for obstinacy in a bad Cause is but constancy in a good. And herein I must
accuse those of my own Religion, for there is not any of such a fugitive
Faith, such an unstable belief, as a Christian; none that do so oft transform
themselves, not unto several shapes of Christianity and of the same Species,
but unto more unnatural and contrary Forms of Jew and Mahometan; that, from
the name of Saviour, can condescend to the bare term of Prophet; and, from an
old belief that He is come, fall to a new expectation of His coming. It is the
promise of Christ to make us all one Flock; but how and when this Union shall
be, is as obscure to me as the last day. Of those four Members of Religion^60
we hold a slender proportion. There are, I confess, some new additions, yet
small to those which accrew to our Adversaries, and those only drawn from the
revolt of Pagans, men but of negative Impieties, and such as deny Christ, but
because they never heard of Him. But the Religion of the Jew is expressly
against the Christian, and the Mahometan against both. For the Turk, in the
bulk he now stands, he is beyond all hope of conversion; if he fall asunder,
there may be conceived hopes, but not without strong improbabilities. The Jew
is obstinate in all fortunes; the persecution of fifteen hundred years hath
but confirmed them in their Errour: they have already endured whatsoever may
be inflicted, and have suffered in a bad cause, even to the condemnation of
their enemies. Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion: it
hath been the unhappy method of angry Devotions,^61 not only to confirm honest
Religion, but wicked Heresies, and extravagant Opinions. It was the first
stone and Basis of our Faith; none can more justly boast of Persecutions, and
glory in the number and valour of Martyrs. For, to speak properly, those are
true and almost only examples of fortitude: those that are fetch`d from the
field, or drawn from the actions of the Camp, are not oft-times so truely
precedents of valour as audacity, and at the best attain but to some bastard
piece of fortitude. If we shall strictly examine the circumstances and
requisites which Aristotle requires to true and perfect valour, we shall find
the name only in his Master, Alexander, and as little in that Roman Worthy,
Julius Caesar; and if any in that easie and active way have done so nobly as
to deserve that name, yet in the passive and more terrible piece these have
surpassed, and in a more heroical way may claim the honour of that Title. `Tis
not in the power of every honest Faith to proceed thus far, or pass to Heaven
through the flames. Every one hath it not in that full measure, nor in so
audacious and resolute a temper, as to endure those terrible tests and trials;
who, notwithstanding, in a peaceable way, do truely adore their Saviour, and
have (no doubt,) a Faith acceptable in the eyes of God.
[Footnote 61: Devotees.]
XXVI. Now, as all that dye in the War are not termed Souldiers; so
neither can I properly term all those that suffer in matters of Religion,
Martyrs. The Council of Constance condemns John Huss for an Heretick; the
Stories of his own Party stile him a Martyr: he must needs offend the
Divinity of both, that says he was neither the one nor the other. There are
many (questionless), canonized on earth, that shall never be Saints in Heaven;
and have their names in Histories and Martyrologies, who in the eyes of God
are not so perfect Martyrs as was that wise Heathen, Socrates, that suffered
on a fundamental point of Religion, the unity of God. I have often pitied the
miserable Bishop^62 that suffered in the cause of Antipodes; yet cannot chuse
but accuse him of as much madness, for exposing his living on such a trifle,
as those of ignorance and folly, that condemned him. I think my conscience
will not give me the lye, if I say there are not many extant that in a noble
way fear the face of death less than myself; yet, from the moral duty I owe
to the Commandment of God, and the natural respects that I tender unto the
conservation of my essence and being, I would not perish upon a Ceremony,
Politick points, or indifferency: nor is my belief of that untractible temper,
as not to bow at their obstacles, or connive at matters wherein there are not
manifest impieties. The leaven, therefore, and ferment of all, not only civil
but Religious actions, is Wisdom; without which, to commit our selves to the
flames is Homicide, and (I fear,) but to pass through one fire into another.
[Footnote 62: Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg in the 8th century, was said to
have asserted the existence of the Antipodes.]
XXVII. That Miracles are ceased, I can neither prove, nor absolutely
deny, much less define the time and period of their cessation. That they
survived Christ, is manifest upon the Record of Scripture; that they
out-lived the Apostles also, and were revived at the Conversion of Nations
many years after, we cannot deny, if we shall not question those Writers whose
testimonies we do not controvert in points that make for our own opinions.
Therefore that may have some truth in it that is reported by the Jesuites of
their Miracles in the Indies; I could wish it were true, or had any other
testimony than their own Pens. They may easily believe those Miracles abroad,
who daily conceive a greater at home, the transmutation of those visible
elements into the Body and Blood of our Saviour. For the conversion of Water
into Wine, which He wrought in Cana, or, what the Devil would have had Him
done in the Wilderness, of Stones into Bread, compared to this, will scarce
deserve the name of a Miracle: though indeed, to speak properly, there is not
one Miracle greater than another, they being the extraordinary effects of the
Hand of God, to which all things are of an equal facility; and to create the
World, as easie as one single Creature. For this is also a Miracle, not onely
to produce effects against or above Nature, but before Nature; and to create
Nature, as great a Miracle as to contradict or transcend her. We do too
narrowly define the Power of God, restraining it to our capacities. I hold
that God can do all things; how He should work contradictions, I do not
understand, yet dare not therefore deny. I cannot see why the Angel of God
should question Esdras to recall the time past, if it were beyond His own
power; or that God should pose mortality in that which He was not able to
perform Himself. I will not say God cannot, but He will not, perform many
things, which we plainly affirm He cannot. This, I am sure, is the mannerliest
proposition, wherein, notwithstanding, I hold no Paradox; for, strictly, His
power is the same with His will, and they both, with all the rest, do make but
one God.
[Footnote 63: Pious frauds.]
XXVIII. Therefore that Miracles have been, I do believe; that they may
yet be wrought by the living, I do not deny; but have no confidence in those
which are fathered on the dead. And this hath ever made me suspect the
efficacy of reliques, to examine the bones, question the habits and
appurtenances of Saints, and even of Christ Himself. I cannot conceive why the
Cross that Helena found, and whereon Christ Himself dyed, should have power to
restore others unto life. I excuse not Constantine from a fall off his Horse,
or a mischief from his enemies, upon the wearing those nails on his bridle,
which our Saviour bore upon the Cross in His Hands. I compute among your Piae
fraudes,^63 nor many degrees before consecrated Swords and Roses, that which
Baldwyn, King of Jerusalem, returned the Genovese for their cost and pains in
his War, to wit, the ashes of John the Baptist. Those that hold the sanctity
of their Souls doth leave behind a tincture and sacred faculty on their
bodies, speak naturally of Miracles, and do not salve the doubt. Now one
reason I tender so little Devotion unto Reliques, is, I think, the slender and
doubtful respect I have always held unto Antiquities. For that indeed which I
admire, is far before Antiquity, that is, Eternity; and that is, God Himself;
Who, though He be styled the Ancient of Days, cannot receive the adjunct of
Antiquity; Who was before the World, and shall be after it, yet is not older
than it; for in His years there is no Climacter`^64 His duration is Eternity,
and far more venerable than Antiquity.
[Footnote 64: The point in a man`s life when his powers begin to decay.]
[Footnote 65: "In his oracle to Augustus." - T. B.]
XXIX. But above all things I wonder how the curiosity of wiser heads
could pass that great and indisputable Miracle, the cessation of Oracles;
and in what swoun their Reasons lay, to content themselves and sit down
with such a far-fetch`d and ridiculous reason as Plutarch alleadgeth for it.
The Jews, that can believe the supernatural Solstice of the Sun in the days
of Joshua, have yet the impudence to deny the Eclipse, which every Pagan
confessed, at His death: but for this, it is evident beyond all contradiction,
the Devil himself confessed it.^65 Certainly it is not a warrantable
curiosity, to examine the verity of Scripture by the concordance of humane
history, or to seek to confirm the Chronicle of Hester or Daniel, by the
authority of Megasthenes or Herodotus. I confess, I have had an unhappy
curiosity this way, till I laughed my self out of it with a piece of Justine,
where he delivers that the Children of Israel for being scabbed were banished
out of Egypt. And truely since I have understood the occurrences of the World,
and know in what counterfeit shapes and deceitful vizards times present
represent on the stage things past, I do believe them little more then things
to come. Some have been of my opinion, and endeavoured to write the History
of their own lives; wherein Moses hath outgone them all and left not onely
the story of his life, but (as some will have it,) of his death also.
XXX. It is a riddle to me, how this story of Oracles hath not worm`d
out of the World that doubtful conceit of Spirits and Witches; how so many
learned heads should so far forget their Metaphysicks, and destroy the
ladder and scale of creatures, as to question the existence of Spirits. For
my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are Witches: they
that doubt of these, do not onely deny them, but Spirits; and are obliquely
and upon consequence a sort not of Infidels, but Atheists. Those that to
confute their incredulity desire to see apparitions, shall questionless never
behold any, nor have the power to be so much as Witches; the Devil hath them
already in a heresie as capital as Witchcraft; and to appear to them, were but
to convert them. Of all the delusions wherewith he deceives morality, there is
not any that puzzleth me more than the Legerdemain of Changelings. I do not
credit those transformations of reasonable creatures into beasts, or that the
Devil hath a power to transpeciate^66 a man into a Horse, who tempted
Christ (as a trial of His Divinity,) to convert but stones into bread. I
could believe that Spirits use with man the act of carnality, and that in both
sexes; I conceive they may assume, steal, or contrive a body, wherein
there may be action enough to content decrepit lust, or passion to satisfie
more active veneries;^67 yet, in both, without a possibility of generation:
and therefore that opinion that Antichrist should be born of the Tribe of Dan
by conjunction with the Devil, is ridiculous, and a conceit fitter for a
Rabbin than a Christian. I hold that the Devil doth really possess some men,
the spirit of Melancholy others, the spirit of Delusion others; that, as the
Devil is concealed and denyed by some, so God and good Angels are pretended
by others, whereof the late defection^68 of the Maid of Germany hath left
a pregnant example.
[Footnote 66: Transform.]
[Footnote 67: Sexual desires.]
[Footnote 68: MS. copies read "detection." The allusion has not been
explained.]
XXXI. Again, I believe that all that use sorceries, incantations, and
spells, are not Witches, or, as we term them, Magicians. I conceive there is
a traditional Magick, not learned immediately from the Devil, but at second
hand from his Scholars, who, having once the secret betrayed, are able, and
do emperically practise without his advice, they both proceeding upon the
principles of Nature; where actives, aptly conjoyned to disposed passives,
will under any Master produce their effects. Thus I think at first a great
part of Philosophy was Witchcraft; which, being afterward derived to one
another, proved but Philosophy, and was indeed no more but the honest effects
of Nature: what, invented by us, is Philosophy, learned from him, is Magick.
We do surely owe the discovery of many secrets to the discovery of good and
bad Angels. I could never pass that sentence of Paracelsus without an asterisk
or annotation; Ascendens constellatum multa revelat quaerentibus magnalia
naturae, (i.e. opera Dei.)^69 [The ascending constellation reveals to
inquirers many of nature`s great things.] I do think that many mysteries
ascribed to our own inventions have been the courteous revelations of Spirits;
(for those noble essences in Heaven bear a friendly regard unto their fellow
Natures on Earth;) and therefore believe that those many prodigies and ominous
prognosticks, which forerun the ruines of States, Princes, and private
persons, are the charitable premonitions of good Angels, which more careless
enquiries term but the effects of chance and nature.
[Footnote 69: "Thereby is meant our good angel appointed us from our
nativity!" - T. B.]
XXXII. Now, besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be
(for ought I know,) an universal and common Spirit to the whole World.
It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the Hermetical Philosophers.
If there be a common nature that unites and types the scattered and divided
individuals into one species, why may there not be one that unites them all?
However, I am sure there is a common Spirit that plays within us, yet makes
no part of us; and that is, the Spirit of God, the fire and scintillation
of that noble and mighty Essence, which is the life and radical heat of
Spirits, and those essences that know not the vertue of the Sun; a fire
quite contrary to the fire of Hell. This is that gentle heat that brooded
on the waters, and in six days hatched the World; this is that irradiation
that dispels the mists of Hell, the clouds of horrour, fear, sorrow,
despair; and preserves the region of the mind in serenity. Whosoever feels
not the warm gale and gentle ventilation of this Spirit, though I feel his
pulse, I dare not say he lives: for truely, without this, to me there is
no heat under the Tropick; nor any light, though I dwelt in the body of the
Sun.
As, when the labouring Sun hath wrought his track
Up to the top of lofty Cancers back,
The icey Ocean cracks, the frozen pole
Thaws with the heat of the Celestial coale;
So, when Thy absent beams begin t` impart
Again a Solstice on my frozen heart,
My winter`s ov`r, my dropping spirits sing,
And every part revives into a Spring.
But if Thy quickning beams a while decline,
And with their light bless not this Orb of mine,
A chilly frost surpriseth every member,
And in the midst of June I feel December.
O how this earthly temper doth debase
The noble Soul, in this her humble place;
Whose wingy nature ever doth aspire
To reach that place whence first it took its fire.
These flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell,
Are not Thy beams, but take their fire from Hell:
O quench them all, and let Thy Light divine
Be as the Sun to this poor Orb of mine;
And to Thy sacred Spirit convert those fires,
Whose earthly fumes choak my devout aspires.
XXXIII. Therefore for Spirits, I am so far from denying their existence,
that I could easily believe, that not onely whole Countries, but particular
persons, have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels. It is not a new opinion of
the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato; there is no
heresie in it; and if not manifestly defin`d in Scripture, yet is it an
opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a mans life,
and would serve as an Hypothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common
Philosophy affordeth no solution. Now, if you demand my opinion and
Metaphysics of their natures, I confess them very shallow; most of them in a
negative way, like that of God; or in a comparative, between ourselves and
fellow-creatures; for there is in this Universe a Stair, or manifest Scale of
creatures, rising not disorderly, or in confusion, but with a comely method
and proportion. Between creatures of meer existence, and things of life, there
is a large disproportion of nature; between plants, and animals or creatures
of sense, a wider difference; between them and Man, a far greater: and if the
proportion hold one, between Man and Angels there should be yet a greater. We
do not comprehend their natures, who retain the first definition of Porphyry,
and distinguish them from our selves by immortality; for before his Fall, `tis
thought, Man also was Immortal; yet must we needs affirm that he had a
different essence from the Angels. Having therefore no certain knowledge of
their Natures, `tis no bad method of the Schools, whatsoever perfection we
find obscurely in our selves, in a more compleat and absolute way to ascribe
unto them. I believe they have an extemporary knowledge, and upon the first
motion of their reason do what we cannot without study or deliberation; that
they know things by their forms, and define by specifical difference what we
describe by accidents and properties; and therefore probabilities to us may be
demonstrations unto them: that they have knowledge not onely of the
specifical, but numerical forms of individuals, and understand by what
reserved difference each single Hypostasis^70 (besides the relation to its
species,) becomes its numerical self: that, as the Soul hath a power to move
the body it informs, so there`s a faculty to move any, though inform none:
ours upon restraint of time, place, and distance; but that invisible hand that
conveyed Habakkuk to the Lyons Den,^71 or Philip to Azotus,^72 infringeth this
rule, and hath a secret conveyance, wherewith mortality is not acquainted. If
they have that intuitive knowledge, whereby as in reflexion they behold the
thoughts of one another, I cannot peremptorily deny but they know a great part
of ours. They that, to refute the Invocation of Saints, have denied that they
have any knowledge of our affairs below, have proceeded too far, and must
pardon my opinion, till I can thoroughly answer that piece of Scripture, At
the conversion of a sinner the Angels in Heaven rejoyce. I cannot, with those
in that great Father,^73 securely interpret the work of the first day, Fiat
lux, [Let there be light] to the creation of Angels; though I confess, there
is not any creature^74 that hath so neer a glympse of their nature as light in
the Sun and Elements. We stile it a bare accident; but, where it subsists
alone, `tis a spiritual Substance, and may be an Angel: in brief, conceive
light invisible, and that is a Spirit.
[Footnote 70: Distinct substance.]
[Footnote 71: Bel and the Dragon, 36.]
[Footnote 72: Acts viii. 40.]
[Footnote 73: The idea is found in both St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine.]
[Footnote 74: Created thing.]
XXXIV. These are certainly the Magisterial and masterpieces of the
Creator, the Flower, or (as we may say,) the best part of nothing; actually
existing, what we are but in hopes and probability. We are onely that
amphibious piece between a corporal and spiritual Essence, that middle
form that links those two together, and makes good the Method of God and
Nature, that jumps not from extreams, but unites the incompatible distances
by some middle and participating natures. That we are the breath and
similitude of God, it is indisputable, and upon record of Holy Scripture;
but to call ourselves a Microcosm, or little World, I thought it only a
pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neer judgement and second thoughts
told me there was a real truth therein. For first we are a rude mass, and
in the rank of creatures which onely are, and have a dull kind of being,
not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we
live the life of Plants, the life of Animals, the life of Men, and at last
the life of Spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds
of existences, which comprehend the creatures not onely of the World, but of
the Universe. Thus is Man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is
disposed to live, not onely like other creatures in divers elements, but
in divided and distinguished worlds: for though there be but one to sense,
there are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible; whereof Moses
seems to have left description, and of the other so obscurely, that some
parts thereof are yet in controversie. And truely, for the first chapters
of Genesis, I must confess a great deal of obscurity; though Divines have
to the power of humane reason endeavoured to make all go in a literal meaning,
yet those allegorical interpretations are also probable, and perhaps the
mystical method of Moses bred up in the Hieroglyphical Schools of the
Egyptians.
[Footnote 75: Primum mobile, the tenth sphere of the old astronomy.]
XXXV. Now for that immaterial world, methinks we need not wander so far
as beyond the first moveable;^75 for even in this material Fabrick the
Spirits walk as freely exempt from the affection of time, place, and motion,
as beyond the extreamest circumference. Do but extract from the corpulency
of bodies, or resolve things beyond their first matter, and you discover
the habitation of Angels, which if I call the ubiquitary and omnipresent
Essence of God, I hope I shall not offend Divinity: for before the Creation
of the World God was really all things. For the Angels He created no new
World, or determinate mansion, and therefore they are everywhere where is His
Essence, and do live at a distance even in Himself. That God made all things
for Man, is in some sense true, yet not so far as to subordinate the Creation
of those purer Creatures unto ours, though as ministring Spirits they do, and
are willing to fulfill the will of God in these lower and sublunary affairs of
Man. God made all things for Himself, and it is impossible He should make them
for any other end than His own Glory; it is all He can receive, and all that
is without Himself. For, honour being an externat adjunct, and in the honourer
rather than in the person honoured, it was necessary to make a Creature, from
whom He might receive this homage; and that is, in the other world, Angels, in
this, Man; which when we neglect, we forget the very end of our Creation, and
may justly provoke God, not onely to repent that He hath made the World, but
that He hath sworn He would not destroy it. That there is but one World, is a
conclusion of Faith: Aristotle with all his Philosophy hath not been able to
prove it, and as weakly that the World was eternal. That dispute much troubled
the Pen of the ancient Philosophers, but Moses decided that question, and all
is salved with the new term of a Creation, that is, a production of something
out of nothing. And what is that? whatsoever is opposite to something; or more
exactly, that which is truely contrary unto God: for He onely is, all others
have an existence with dependency, and are something but by a distinction. And
herein is Divinity conformant unto Philosophy, and generation not onely
founded on contrarieties, but also creation; God, being all things, is
contrary unto nothing, out of which were made all things, and so nothing
became something, and Omneity informed Nullity into an Essence.
[Footnote 76: Qualities.]
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