A true and full coppy of that which was most imperfectly and Surreptitiously printed baefore under the name of Religio Medici the 8 Edition Printed at London 1682. RELIGIO MEDICI The Eighth Edition Corrected and Amended WITH ANNOTATIONS Never before Published Upon all the obscure passages therein ALSO OBSERVATIONS By Sir KENELM DIGBY Now newly added LONDON Printed for R. Scot T. Basset J. Wright R. Chiswell 1682. A Letter sent upon the Information of Animadversions to come forth upon the imperfect and surreptitious Copy of Religio Medici whilst this true one was going to Press Honoured Sir GIve your Servant who hath ever honour'd you leave to take notice of a Book at present in the Press intituled as I am informed Animadversions upon a Treatise lately printed under the name of Religio Medici hereof I am advertised you have descended to be the Author Worthy Sir permit your Servant to affirm there is contain'd therein nothing that can deserve the Reason of your Contradictions much less the Candor of your Animadversions and to certifie the truth thereof That Book whereof I do acknowledge my self the Author was penn'd many years past and what cannot escape your apprehension with no intention for the Press or the least desire to oblige the Faith of any man to its assertions But what hath more especially emboldened my Pen unto you at present is That the same Piece contrived in my private study and as an Exercise unto my self rather than an Exercitation for any other having past from my hand under a broken and imperfect Copy by frequent transcription it still run forward into corruption and after the addition of some things omission of others transposition of many without my assent or privacy the liberty of these times committed it unto the Press whence it issued so disguised the Author without distinction could not acknowledge it Having thus miscarried within a few weeks I shall God willing deliver unto the Press the true and intended Original whereof in the mean time your worthy Self may command a view otherwise when ever that Copy shall be extant it will most clearly appear how far the Text hath been mistaken and all Observations Glosses or Exercitations thereon will in a great part impugn the Printer or Transcriber rather than the Author If after that you shall esteem it worth your vacant hours to discourse thereon you shall but take that liberty which I assume my self that is freely to abound in your sense as I have done in my own However you shall determine you shall sufficiently honour me in the Vouchsafe of your Refute and I oblige the whole World in the occasion of your Pen. Norwich March 3. 1642. Your Servant T. B. Worthy Sir SPeedily upon the Receipt of your Letter of the third Current I sent to find out the Printer that Mr. Crook who delivered me yours told me was printing something under my name concerning your Treatise of Religio Medici and to forbid him any further proceeding therein but my Servant could not meet with him whereupon I have left with Mr. Crook a Note to that purpose entreating him to deliver it to the Printer I verily believe there is some mistake in the information given you and that what is printing must be from some other Pen than mine for such reflections as I made upon your learn'd and ingenious discourse are so far from meriting the Press as they can tempt no body to a serious reading of them they were Notes hastily set down as I suddenly ran over your excellent Piece which is of so weighty subject and so strongly penned as requireth much time and sharp attention but to comprehend it whereas what I writ was the imployment but of one sitting and there was not twenty four hours between my receiving my Lord of Dorset's Letter that occasioned what I said and the finishing my Answer to him and yet part of that time was taken up in procuring your Book which he desired me to read and give him an account of for till then I was so unhappy as never to have heard of that worthy discourse If that Letter ever come to your view you will see the high value I set upon your great parts and if it should be thought I have been something too bold in differing from your sense I hope I shall easily obtain pardon when it shall be considered That his Lordship assigned it me as an Exercitation to oppose in it for entertainment such passages as I might judge capable thereof wherein what liberty I took is to be attributed to the security of a private Letter and to my not knowing nor my Lord's the person whom it concerned But Sir now that I am so happy as to have that knowledge I dare assure you that nothing shall ever issue from me but savouring of all honour esteem and reverence both to your felf and that worthy production of yours If I had the vanity to give my self reputation by entring the Lists in publique with so eminent and learned a man as you are yet I know right well I am no ways able to do it it would be a very unequal progress I pretend not to learning those slender notions I have are but disjoynted pieces I have by chance gleaned up here and there To encounter such a sinewy Opposite or make Animadversions upon so smart a Piece as yours is requireth such a solid stock and excercise in School-learning My superficial besprinkling will serve onely for a private Letter or a familiar discourse with Lady-auditors With longing I expect the coming abroad of the true Copy of that Book whose false and stoln one hath already given me so much delight And so assuring you I shall deem it a great good fortune to deserve your favour and friendship I kiss your hand and rest Winchester House March 26. 1642. Your most humble Servant Kenelm Digby To the Reader CErtainly that man were greedy of Life who should desire to live when all the world were at an end and he must needs be very impatient who would repine at death in the society of all things that suffer under it Had not almost every man suffered by the Press or were not the tyranny thereof become universal I had not wanted reason for complaint but in times wherein I have lived to behold the highest perversion of that excellent invention the name of his Majesty defamed the Honour of Parliament depraved the Writings of both depravedly anticipatively counterfeitly imprinted complaints may seem ridiculous in private persons and men of my condition may be as incapable of affronts as hopeless of their reparations And truely had not the duty I owe unto the importunity of friends and the allegiance I must ever acknowledge unto truth prevailed with me the inactivity of my disposition might have made these sufferings continual and time that brings other things to light should have satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion But because things evidently false are not onely
sweat and affected with this dream I rose and wrote the day and hour and all circumstances thereof in a Paper book which book with many other things I put into a Barrel and sent it from Prague to Stode thence to be conveyed into England And now being at Nurenburgh a Merchant of a noble Family well acquainted with me and my friends arrived there who told me my Father dyed some two months ago I list not to write any lyes but that which I write is as true as strange When I returned into England some four years after I would not open the Barrel I sent from Prague nor look into the Paper book in which I had written this dream till I had called my Sisters and some friends to be witnesses where my self and they were astonished to see my written dream answer the very day of my Father's death I may lawfully swear that which my Kinsman hath heard witnessed by my brother Henry whilst he lived that in my youth at Cambridge I had the like dream of my Mother's death where my brother Henry living with me early in the morning I dreamed that my Mother passed by with a sad countenance and told me that she could not come to my Commencement I being within five months to proceed Master of Arts and she having promised at that time to come to Cambridge And when I related this dream to my brother both of us awaking together in a sweat he protested to me that he had dreamed the very same and when we had not the least knowledge of our Mothers sickness neither in our youthful affections were any whit affected with the strangeness of this dream yet the next Carrier brought us word of our Mothers death Mr. Fiennes Morison in his Itinerary I am not over credulous of such relations but me thinks the circumstance of publishing it at such a time when there were those living that might have disprov'd it if it had been false is a great argument of the truth of it Sect. 12 Pag. 166 I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it Eor they had both power from Nero to chuse their deaths Sect. 13 Pag. 169 To conceive our selves Vrinals is not so ridiculous Reperti sunt Galeno Avicenna testibus qui se vasa fictilia crederent idcirco hominum attactum ne confringerentur solicite fugerent Pontan in Attic. bellar Hist 22. Which proceeds from extremity of melancholy Aristot is too severe that will not allow us to be truely liberal without wealth Aristot l. 1. Ethic. c. 8. Sect. 15 Pag. 174 Thy will be done though in mine own undoing This should be the wish of every man and is of the most wise and knowing Le Christien plus humble plus sage meux recognoissant que c'est que de lay se rapporte a son createur de choisir ordonner ce qu'el luy faqt Il ne le supplie dautre chose que sa volunte sort faite Montaign FINIS OBSERVATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI Occasionally Written By Sr. Kenelm Digby Knight The sixth Edition Corrected and Enlarged LONDON Printed for R. Scot T. Basset J. Wright R. Chiswel 1682. OBSERVATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI To the Right Honorable Edward Earl of Dorset Baron of Buckhurst c. My Lord I Received yesternight your Lordships of the nineteenth current wherein you are pleased to oblige me not onely by extream gallant Expressions of favour and kindness but likewise by taking so far into your care the expending of my time during the tediousness of my restraint as to recommend to my reading a Book that had received the honour and safeguard of your approbation for both which I most humbly thank your Lordship And since I cannot in the way of gratefulness express unto your Lordship as I would those hearty sentiments I have of your goodness to me I will at the last endeavour in the way of Duty and Observance to let you see how the little Needle of my Soul is throughly touched at the great Loadstone of yours and followeth suddenly and strongly which way soever you becken it In this occasion the Magnetick motion was impatient to have the Book in my hands that your Lordship gave so advantagious a Character of whereupon I sent presently as late as it was to Paul's Church-yard for this Favourite of yours Religio Medici which after a while found me in a condition fit to receive a Blessing by a visit from any of such Master-pieces as you look upon with gracious eyes for I was newly gotten into my bed This good-natured creature I could easily perswade to be my Bed-fellow and to wake with me as long as I had any edge to enterain my self with the delights I sucked from so noble a conversation And truely my Lord I closed not my eyes 'till I had enricht my self with or at least exactly surveyed all the treasures that are lapped up in the folds of those few sheets To return onely a general commendation of this curious Piece or at large to admire the Author's spirit and smartness were too perfunctory an accompt and too slight an one to fo discerning and stedy an eye as yours after so particular and encharged a Summons to read heedfully this Discourse I will therefore presume to blot a Sheet or two of Paper with my reflections upon sundry passages through the whole Context of it as they shall occurrr to my remembrance Which now your Lordship knoweth this Packet is not so happy as to carry with it any one expression of my obsequiousness to you It will be but reasonable you should even here give over your further trouble of reading what my respect ingageth me to the writing of Whos 's first step is ingenuity and a well-natur'd evenness of Judgement shall be sure of applause and fair hopes in all men for the rest of his Journey And indeed my Lord me thinketh this Gentleman setteth out excellently poised with that happy temper and sheweth a great deal of Judicious Piety in making a right use of the blind zeal that Bigots lose themselves in Yet I cannot satisfie my Doubts throughly how he maketh good his professing to follow the great Wheel of the Church in matters of Divinity which surely is the solid Basis of true Religion for to do so without jarring against the Conduct of the first Mover by Eccentrical and Irregular Motions obligeth one to yield a very dutiful obedience to the determinations of it without arrogating to ones self a controling Ability in liking or misliking the Eaith Doctrine and Constitutions of that Church which one looketh upon as their North-star Whereas if I mistake not this Author approveth the Church of England not absolutely but comparatively with other Reformed Churches My next Reflection is concerning what he hath sprinkled most wittily in several places concerning the Nature and Immortality of a humane Soul and the Condition and State it is in after the dissolution of the Body And here
obvious effects of Nature there is no danger to profound these mysteries no sanctum sanctorum in Philosophy the World was made to be inhabited by Beasts but studied and contemplated by Man 't is 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 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 damn'd 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 so to soar aloft yet ever so When near the Sun to stoop again below Thus shall my humble Feathers safely hover And though neer Earth more than the Heavens discover And then at last when homeward l 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 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 Sect. 14 There is but our 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 of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon there is most excellent speculation but to profound 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 Sect. 15 Natura nihil aget frustra is the only indisputed Axiome in Philosophy there are no Grotesques in nature not any thing framed to fill up empty Cantons 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 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 the wisdom of their Maker Who admires not Regio Montanus his Fly beyond his Eagle or wonders not more at the operation of two Souls in those little Bodies than but one in the Trunk of a Cedar I could never content my contemplation 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 my self we carry with us the wonders we seek without us There is 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 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 discoveerd 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 Chiristians 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 streight 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 by a faculty from that voice which first did give it motion Now this course of Nature God seldome 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 Word 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
in any essential matter of the Doctrine as by the Harmony of Confessions appears 5 Epist Theod. Bezae Edmundo Grindallo Ep. Londinens Wherein I dislike nothing but the Name that is Lutheran Calvinist Zuinglian c. Now the accidental occasion wherein c. This is graphically described by Thuanus in his History but because his words are too large for this purpose I shall give it you somewhat more briefly according to the relation of the Author of the History of the Council of Trent The occasion was the necessity of Pope Leo Tenth who by his profusion had so exhausted the Treasure of the Church that he was constrained to have recourse to the publishing of Indulgences to raise monies some of which he had destined to his own Treasury and other part to his Allyes and particularly to his Sister he gave all the money that should be raised in Saxony and she that she might make the best profit of the donation commits it to one Aremboldus a Bishop to appoint Treasurers for these Indulgences Now the custome was that whensoever these Indulgences were sent into Saxony they were to be divulged by the Fryars Eremites of which Order Luther then was but Aremboldus his agents thinking with themselves that the Fryars Eremites were so well acquainted with the trade that if the business should be left to them they should neither be able to give so good an account of their Negotiation nor yet get so much themselves by it as they might do in case the business were committed to another Order they thereupon recommend it to and the business is undertaken by the Dominican Fryars who performed it so ill that the scandal arising both from thence and from the ill lives of those that set them on work stirred up Luther to write against the abuses of these Indulgences which was all he did at first but then not long after being provoked by some Sermons and small Discourses that had been published against what he had written he rips up the business from the beginning and publishes xcv Theses against it at Wittenberg Against these Tekel a Dominican writes then Luther adds an explication to his Eckius and Prierius Dominicans thereupon take the controversie against him and now Luther begins to be hot and because his adversaries could not found the matter of Indulgences upon other foundations then the Pope's power and infallibility that begets a disputation betwixt them concerning the Pope's power which Luther insists upon as inferiour to that of a general Council and so by degrees he came on to oppose the Popish Doctrine of Remission of Sins Penances and Purgatory and by reason of Cardinal Cajetans imprudent management of the conference he had with him it came to pass that he rejected the whole body of Popish Doctrine So that by this we may see what was the accidental occasion wherein the slender means whereby and the abject condition of the person by whom the work of Reformation of Religion was set on foot Sect. 3 Pag. 3 Yet I have not shaken hands with those desperate Resolutions Resolvers it should be without doubt who had rather venture at large their dedecayed 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 a diameter and at swords points with them we have reformed from them not against them c. These words by Mr. Merryweather are thus rendred sc Nee tamen in vecordem illum pertinacium hominum gregem memet adjungo qui labefactatum navigium malunt fortunaoe committere quà m in navale de integro resarciendum deducere qui malunt omnia promiscuè retinere quà m quicquam inde diminuere pertinacitèr esse qui sunt quà m qui olim fuerunt ita uti isdem ex diametro repugnent ab illis non contra illos reformationem instituimus c. And the Latine Annotator sits down very well satisfied with it and hath bestowed some Notes upon it but under the favour both of him and the Translator this Translation is so far different from the sense of the Author that it hath no sense in it or if there be any construction of sense in it it is quite besides the Author's meaning which will appear if we consider the context by that we shall find that the Author in giving an account of his Religion tells us first that he is a Christian and farther that he is of the reform'd Religion but yet he saith in this place he is not so rigid a Protestant nor at defiance with Papists so far but that in many things he can comply with them the particulars he afterwards mentions in this Section for saith he we have reform'd from them not against them that is as the Archbishop of Canterbury against the Jesuit discourseth well We have made no new Religion nor Schism from the old but in calling for the old and desiring that which was novel and crept in might be rejected and the Church of Rome refusing it we have reform'd from those upstart novel Doctrines but against none of the old and other sense the place cannot bear therefore how the Latine Annotator can apply it as though in this place the Author intended to note the Anabaptists baptist I see not unless it were in respect of the expression Vecordem pertinacium hominum gregem which truly is a description well befitting them though not intended to them in this place howsoever I see not any ground from hence to conclude the Author to be any whit inclining to the Bulk of Popery but have great reason from many passages in this Book to believe the contrary as he that prefix'd a Preface to the Parisian Edition of this Book hath unwarrantably done But for the mistake of the Translator it is very obvious from whence that arose I doubt not but it was from the mistake of the sense of the English Phrase Shaken hands which he hath rendred by these words Memet adjungo wherein he hath too much play'd the Scholar and shew'd himself to be more skilful in forraign and ancient customs then in the vernacular practise and usage of the language of his own Country for although amongst the Latines protension of the Hand were a Symbole and sign of Peace and Concord as Alex. ab Alexandro Manum verò protendere pacem peti significabant saith he Gen. Dier lib. 4. cap. 〈◊〉 which also is confirmed by Cicero pro Dejotaro and Caesar l. 2. de Bello Gallico and was used in their first meetings as appears by the Phrase Jungere hospitio Dextras and by that of Virgil Oremus pacem Dextras tendamus inermes And many like passages that occur in the Poets to which I believe the Translator had respect vet in modern practise especially with us in England that ceremony is used as much in our Adieu's as in the first Congress and so the
sunt inter Haereticos deputandi Aug. cont Manich. 24. qu. 3. Sect. 9 Pag. 16 The deepest mysteries that ours contains have not only been illustrated but maintained by Syllogism and the Rule of Reason and since this Book was written by Mr. White in his Institutiones Sacrae And when they have seen the Red Sea doubt not of the Miracle Those that have seen it have been better informed than Sir Henry Blount was for he tells us That he desired to view the passage of Moses into the Red Sea not being above three days journey off but the Jews told him the precise place was not known within less than the space of a days journey along the shore wherefore saith he I left that as too uncertain for any Observation In his Voyage into the Levant Sect. 10 Pag. 19 I had as lieve you tell me that Anima est Angelus hominis est corpus Dei as Entelechia Lux est umbra Dei as actus perspoicui Great variety of opinion there hath been amongst the Ancient Philosophers touching the definition of the Soul Thales his was that it is a Nature without Repose Asclepiades that it is an Exercitation of Sense Hesiod that it is a thing composed of Earth and Water Parmenides holds of Earth and Fire Galen that it is Heat Hippocrates that it is a spirit diffused through the body Some others have held it to be Light Plato saith 't is a Substance moving it self and after him cometh Aristotle whom the Author here reproveth and goeth a degree farther and saith it is Entelechia that is that which naturally makes the body to move But this definition is as rigid as any of the other for this tells us not what the essence origine or nature of the soul is hut only marks an effect of it and therefore signifieth no more than if he had said as the Author's Phrase is that it is Angelus hominis or an Intelligence that moveth man as he supposed those other to do the Heavens Now to come to the definition of Light in which the Author is also unsatisfied with the School of Aristotle he saith It satisfieth him no more to tell him that Lux est actus perspicui than if you should tell him that it is umbra Dei The ground of this definition given by the Peripateticks is taken from a passage in Aristot de anima l. 2. cap. 7. where Aristtotle saith That the colour of the thing seen doth move that which is perspicuum actu i.e. illustratam naturam quae sit in aere aliove corpore transparente and that that in regard of its continuation to the eye moveth the eye and by its help the internal sensorium and that so vision is perform'd Now as it is true that the Sectators of Aristotle are too blame by fastening up on-him by occasion of this passage that he meant that those things that made this impress upon the Organs are meer accidents and have nothing of substance which is more than ever he meant and cannot be maintained without violence to Reason and his own Principles so for Aristotle himself no man is beholden to him for any Science acquir'd by this definition for what is any man the near for his telling him that Colour admitting it to be a body as indeed it is and in that place he doth not deny doth move actu perspicuum when as the perspicuity is in relation to the eye and he doth not say how it comes to be perspicuous which is the thing enquired after but gives it that denomination before the eye hath perform'd its office so that if he had said it had been umbra Dei it would have been as intelligible as what he hath said He that would be satisfied how Vision is perform'd let him see Mr. Hobbs in Tract de nat human cap. 2. For God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth St. Aug. de Genes ad literam cap. 5. 6. salves that expression from any inconvenience but the Author in Pseudodox Epidemic l. 7. cap. 1. shews that we have no reason to be confident that this fruit was an Apple 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 Yet the Author himself sheweth in Pseudodox Epidemic lib. 7 cap 1. that the form or kind of this Serpent is not agreed on yet Comestor affirm'd it was a Dragon Eugubinus a Basilisk Delrio a Viper and others a common Snake but of what kind soever it was he sheweth in the same Volume lib. 5. c. 4. that there was no inconvenience that the Temptation should be perform'd in his proper shape I find the tryal of the Pucelage and virginity of Women which God ordained the Jews is very fallible Locus extat Deut. c. 22. the same is affirm'd by Laurentius in his Anatom Whole Nations have escaped the curse of Child-birth which God seems to pronounce upon the whole sex This is attested by Mr. Montaign Les doleurs de l'enfantiment par les medicines pardein mosme estimles grandes quae nous pasons avec tant de Cetemonies ily a des notions entieres qui ne'n fuit mul conte l. 1. des Ess c. 14. Sect. 11 Pag. 21 Who can speak of Eternity without a Soloecism or think thereof without an Extasie Time we may comprehend c. Touching the difference betwixt Eternity and Time there have been great disputes amongst Philosophers some affirming it to be no more than duration perpetual consisting of parts and others to which opinion it appears by what follows in this Section the Author adheres affirmed to use the Author's phrase that it hath no distinction of Tenses but is according to Boetius lib. 5. consol pros 6. his definition interminabilis vitae tota simul perfecta possessio For me Non nostrum est tantas componere lites I shall only observe what each of them hath to say against the other Say those of the first opinion against those that follow Boetius his definition That definition was taken by Boetius out of Plato's Timaeus and is otherwise applyed though hot by Boetius yet by those that follow him than ever Plato intended it for he did not take it in the Abstract but in the Concrete for an eternal thing a Divine substance by which he meant God or his Anima mundi and this he did to the intent to establish this truth That no mutation can befal the Divine Majesty as it doth to things subject to generation and corruption and that Plato there intended not to define or describe any species of duration and they say that it is impossible to understand any such species of duration that is according to the Author's expression but one permanent point Now that which those that follow Boetius urge against the other definition is they say it doth not at all difference Eternity from the nature of Time for they say if it be composed
those Oracles were de rebus singularibus or individuis it is evident that these predictions were not perform'd by Devils How then why those predictions which the ignorant Heathen took to come from Heaven and some Christians not less ignorant from the Devil was nothing but the jugling and impostures of the Priests who from within the Statua's gave the answers which Princes connived at that they might upon occasion serve their turns upon the ignorance of the people and the learned men for fear of their Princes durst not speak against it Lucian hath noted it and so a more authentic Author Minut. Felix in Octav. Authoritatem quasi praesentis numinis consequuntur dum inspirantur interim vatibus But in process of time the people grew less credulous of their Priests and so the Oracles became to be silent Cum jam saith he Apollo versus facere desiisset cujus tunc cautum illud ambiguum defecit oraculum Cum politiores homines minùs creduli esse coeperunt Sir H. Blount in his Levantine voyage saith he saw the Statua of Memnon so famous of old he saith it was hollow at top and that he was told by the Egyptians and Jews there with him that they had seen some enter there and come out at the Pyramid two Bows shoot off then saith he I soon believ'd the Oracle and believe all the rest to have been such which indeed is much easier to imagine than that it was perform'd by any of the three ways before mentioned St. Aug. hath composed a Book where he handleth this point at large and concludeth that the Devils can no more foretel things to come than they are able to discern the thoughts that are within us Aug. lib. de Scientia Daemon Till I laughed my self out of it with a piece of Justin where he delivers that the Children of Israel for being scabbed were banished out of Egypt These words of Justin are Sed cum scabiem Aegyptii pruriginem paterentur responso moniti eum sc Moysen cum aegris we pestis ad plures serperet terminis Aegypti pellunt l. 36. But he is not singular in this for Tacitus tells us Hist lib. 5. Plurimi authores consentiunt orta per Aegyptum tabe quae corpora foedaret Regem Ochirum he means Pharoah adito Hammonis oraculo remediam petentem purgare Regnum id genus hominum alias in terras avertere jussum Et paulo inferius Quod ipsos scabies quondam turpaverat Sect. 30 Pag. 65 I have ever believed and do now know that there are Witches What sort of Witches they were that the Author knew to be such I cannot tell for those which he mentions in the next Section which proceed upon the principles of Nature none have denyed that such there are against such it was that the Lex Julia de veneficiis was made that is those Qui noxio poculo ant impuris medicaminibus aliquem fuerint infectati Al. ab Alex. Gen. Dier l. 3. c. 1. But for the opinion that there are Witches which co-operate with the Devil there are Divines of great note and far from any suspition of being irreligious that do oppose it Certainly there is no ground to maintain their being from the story of Oracles as may be seen from what hath been said on the precedent Section Nor have they power to be so much as Witches Pliny saith so it fared with Nero who was so hot in pursuit of the Magick Arts that he did dedicate himself wholly to it and yet could never satisfie himself in that kind though he got all the cunning men he could from the East for that purpose Plin. l. 3. Nat. Hist c. 1. By conjunction with the Devil Though as the Author saith it be without a possibility of Generation yet there are great men that hold that such carnality is performed as August in Levit. Aquin. l 2. de qu. 73. art ad 2. and Justin Martyr Apol. 1. Sect. 33 Pag. 70 It is no new opinion of the Church of Rome but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato This appears by Apuleius a Platonist in his Book de Deo Socratis and elsewhere See Mede's Apostasie of the latter times where out of this and other Authors you shall see collected all the learning de Geniis I cannot with those in that great Father securely interpret the work of the first day Fiat lux to the creation of Angels This great Father is S. Chrysost Homil. in Genes but yet 't is his opinion as also of Athanasius and Theodoret that there is express mention of the creation of Angels so that they need not rest upon this place which they admit to be somewhat obscure The place which they take to be express is that of the 130 Psalm where David begins to speak of the Majesty of God in this manner Confessionem sive majestatem decorem induisti amictus lumine sicut vestimento Next he speaks of the Heavens saying Thou hast stretched them out over us like a Tent. Then he speaks of the Angels Qui facis Angelos tuos spiritus Now if it shall be objected that this expression is onely of the time present and without relation to the Creation Answer is given by Divines that the Hebrews have but three Tenses in their Verbs the Preterperfect Present and Future Tense and have not the use of the Preterimperfect and Preterpulperfect as the Greeks and Latines have whence it ariseth that the Present Tense with the Hebrews may as the sentence will bear it be translated by the Preterimperfect as also by the Preterperfect and Preterpluperfect Tense and this they say is practised in this very passage where the Phrase as it is in Hebrew may be rendred as well qui faciebas as qui facis Angelos c. Vid. Hieronym in Ep. ad Titum Thom. Aqu. 1. p. qu. 61. art 3. The Latine Annotator saith the Father meant by the Author is St. Aug. and quotes him l. 11. de Civ Dei cap. 9. which place I have perused and find the expression there used by St. Aug. is but hypothetical for these are his words Cum enim dixit Fiat lux facta est lux si rectè in hac luce creatio intelligitur Angelorum c. Where you see 't is but with a Si and therefore I conceive the Author intends not him but Chrysostom Where it subsists alone 't is a Spiritual Substance and may ne an Angel Epicurus was of this opinion and St. Aug. in Enchirid. ad Laurentium Moses decided that Question and all is salved with the new term of Creation That is it which Aristotle could not understand he had learned that ex nihilo nihil fit and therefore when he found those that disputed that the World had a beginning did maintain that it was generated and he could not understand any generation but out of matter prae-existent in infinitum therefore he took their opinion to be absurd and upon that
inaccessible Light cometh to us cloathed in the dark Weeds of Negations and therefore little can we hope to meet with any positive Examples to parallel it withal I doubt he also mistaketh and imposeth upon the several Schools when he intimateth that they gain-say this visible worlds being but a Picture or Shadow of the Invisible and Intellectual which manner of Philosophizing he attributeth to Hermes Trismegistus but is every where to be met with in Plato and is raised since to a greater height in the Christian Schools But I am sure he learned in no good School nor sucked from any good Philosophy to give an actual Subsistence and Being to first Matter without a Form He that will allow that a Real Existence in Nature is as superficially tincted in Metaphysicks as another would be in Mathematicks that should allow the like to a Point a Line or a Superficies in Figures These in their strict Notions are but Negations of further Extension or but exact Terminations of that Quantity which falleth under the Consideration of the Understanding in the present purpose no real Entities in themselves so likewise the Notions of Matter Form Act Power Existence and the like that are with Truth considered by the Understanding and have there each of them a distinct Entity are nevertheless no where by themselves in Nature They are terms which we must use in the Negotiations of our thoughts if we will discourse consequently and conclude knowingly But then again we must be very wary of attributing to things in their own Natures such Entities as we create in our Understandings when we make Pictures of them there for there every different consideration arising out of the different impression which the same thing maketh upon us hath a distinct Being by it self Whereas in the thing there is but one single Vnity that sheweth as it were in a Glass at several positions those various faces in our understanding In a word all these words are but artificial terms not real things And the not right understanding of them is the dangerousest Rock that Scholars suffer shipwrack against I go on with our Physician 's Contemplations Upon every occasion he sheweth strong parts and a vigorous brain His wishes and aims and what he pointeth at speak him owner of a noble and a generous heart He hath reason to wish that Aristotle had been as accurate in examining the Causes Nature and Affections of the great Universe he busied himself about as his Patriarch Galen hath been in the like considerations upon this little World Man's Body in that admirable Work of his De Vsu Partium But no great humane thing was ever born and perfected at once It may satisfie us if one in our age buildeth that magnificent Structure upon the others foundations and especially if where he findeth any of them unsound he eradicateth those and sixeth new unquestionable ones in their room But so as they still in gross keep a proportion and bear a Harmony with the other great Work This hath now even now our learned Countryman done The knowing Mr. White whose name I believe your Lordship hath met with al in his excellent Book De Mundo newly printed at Paris where he now resideth and is admired by the World of Letter'd men there as the Prodigie of these latter times Indeed his three Dialogues upon that Subject if I am able to judge any thing are full of the profoundest Learning I ever yet met withal And I believe who hath well read digested them will perswade himself there is no truth so abstruse nor hitherto conceived out of our reach but mans wit may raise Engines to scale and conquer I assure my self when our Author hath studied him throughly he will not lament so loud for Aristotle's mutilated and defective Philosophy as in Boccaline Caesar Caporali doth for the loss of Livies ship-wracked Decads That Logick which he quarrelleth at for calling a Toad or Serpent ugly will in the end agree with his for no body ever took them to be so in respect of the Vniverse in which regard he desendeth their Regularity and Symmetry but onely as they have relation to us But I cannot so easily agree with him where he affirmeth that Devils or other Spirits in the Intellectual World have no exact Ephemerides wherein they may read before-hand the Stories of fortuite Accidents For I believe that all Causes are so immediately chained to their Effects as if a perfect knowing Nature get hold but of one link it will drive the entire Series or Pedigree of the whole to its utmost end as I think I have proved in my fore-named Treatise so that in truth there is no Fortuitness or Contingency of things in respect of themselves but onely in respect of us that are ignorant of their certain and necessary Causes Now a little Series or Chain and Complex of all outward Circumstances whose highest link Poets say prettily is fasten'd to Jupiter's Chair and the lowest is riveted to every Individual on Earth steered and levelled by God Almighty at the first setting out of the first Mover I conceive to be that Divine Providence and Mercy which to use our Author 's own Example giveth a thriving Genius to the Hollanders and the like And not any secret invisible mystical Blessing that falleth not under the search or cognizance of a prudent indagation I must needs approve our Authors Aequanimity and I may as justly say his Magnanimity in being contented so cheerfully as he saith to shake hands with the fading Goods of Fortune and be deprived of the joys of her most precious blessings so that he may in recompence possess in ample measure the true ones of the mind like Epictetus that Master of moral Wisdom and Piety who taxeth them of high injustice that repine at Gods Distribution of his Blessings when he putteth not into their share of goods such things as they use no Industry or Means to purchase For why should that man who above all things esteemeth his own freedom and who to enjoy that sequestreth himself from commerce with the vulgar of mankind take it ill of his Stars if such Preferments Honours and Applauses meet not him as are painfully gained after long and tedious Services of Princes and brittle Dependances of humorous Favourites and supple Compliances with all sorts of Natures As for what he saith of Astrologie I do not conceive that wise men reject it so much for being repugnant to Divinity which he reconcileth well enough as for having no solid Rules or ground in Nature To rely too far upon that vain Art I judge to be rather folly than impiety unless in our censure we look to the first Origine of it which favoureth of the Idolatry of those Heathens that worshipping the Stars and heavenly Bodies for Deities did in a superstitious Devotion attribute unto them the Causality of all Effects beneath them And for ought I know the belief of solid Orbs in the Heavens
manner under an Armour of Proof that he is almost invulnerable he can scarce miscarry he hath not so much as an inclination to work contrarily the Alluring Baits of this World tempt him not he disliketh he hateth even his necessarry Commerce with them whilst he liveth On the other side the Hireling that steereth his course by his Reward and Punishment doth well I confess but he doth it with Reluctance he carrieth the Ark God's Image his Soul safely home it is true but he loweth pitifully after his Calves that he leaveth behind him among the Philistines In a word he is vertuous but if he might safely he would do vicious things And hence be the ground in Nature if so I might say of our Purgatory Methinks two such minds may not unfitly be compared to two Maids whereof one hath a little sprinkling of the Green sickness and hath more mind to Ashes Chalk or Leather than meats of solid and good nourishment but forbeareth them knowing the languishing condition of Health it will bring her to But the other having a ruddy vigorous and perfect Constitution and enjoying a compleat entire Encrasie delights in no food but of good nouriture and loaths the other Delights Her Health is discovered in her looks and she is secure from any danger of that Malady whereas the other for all her good Diet beareth in her Complexion some sickly Testimony of her depraved Appetite and if she be not very wary she is in danger of a relapse It falleth fit in this place to examine our Authors apprehension of the end of such honest Worthies and Philosophers as he calleth them that died before Christ his Incarnation Whether any of them could be saved or no Truly my Lord I make no doubt at all but if any followed in the whole Tenor of their lives the Dictamens of right Reason but that their journey was secure to Heaven Out of the former Discourse appeareth what temper of mind is necessary to get thither And that Reason would dictate such a temper to a perfectly judicious man though but in the state of Nature as the best and most rational for him I make no doubt at all But it is most true they are exceeding few if any in whom Reason worketh clearly and is not overswayed by Passion and terrene Affections they are few that can discern what is reasonable to be done in every Circumstance Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus Diis geniti potuere And fewer that knowing what is best can win of themselves to do accordingly Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor being most mens cases so that after all that can be expected at the hands of Nature and Reason in their best Habit since the lapse of them we may conclude it would have been a most difficult thing for any man and a most impossible one for mankind to attain unto Beatitude if Christ had not come to teach and by his example to shew us the way And this was the Reason of his Incarnation teaching Life and Death For being God we could not doubt his Veracity when he tolds us news of the other world having all things in his Power and yet enjoying none of the Delights of this Life no man should stick at foregoing them since his Example sheweth all men that such a course is best whereas few are capable of the Reason of it And for his last Act dying in such an afflicted manner he taught us how the securest way to step immediately into Perfect Happiness is to be crucified to all the desires Delights and Contentments of this World But to come back to our Physician Truly my Lord I must needs pay him as a due the acknowledging his pious Discourses to be Excellent and Pathetical ones containing worthy Motives to incite one to Vertue and to deter one from Vice thereby to gain Heaven and to avoid Hell Assuredly he is owner of a solid Head and of a strong generous Heart Where he employeth his thoughts upon such things as resort to no higher or more abstruse Principles than such as occur in ordinary Conversation with the World or in the common Tract of Study and Learning I know no man would say better But when he meeteth with such difficulties as his next concerning the Resurrection of the Body wherein after deep Meditation upon the most abstracted Principles and Speculations of the Metaphysicks one hath much ado to solve the appearing Contradictions in Nature There I do not at all wonder he should tread a little awry and go astray in the dark for I conceive his course of life hath not permitted him to allow much time unto the unwinding of such entangled and abstracted Subtleties But if it had I believe his Natural parts are such as he might have kept the Chair from most men I know For even where he roveth widest it is with so much wit and sharpness as putteth me in mind of a great mans Censure upon Scaliger's Cyclometrica a matter he was not well versed in That he had rather err so ingeniously as he did than hit upon Truth in that heavy manner as the Jesuit his Antagonist stuffeth his Books Most assuredly his wit and smartness in this Discourse is of the finest Standard and his insight into severer Learning will appear as piercing unto such as use not strictly the Touchstone and the Test to examine every piece of the glittering Coyn he payeth his Reader with But to come to the Resurrection Methinks it is but a gross Conception to think that every Atome of the present individual Matter of a Body every grain of Ashes of a burned Cadaver scattered by the Wind throughout the World and after numerous Variations changed peradventure into the Body of another man should at the sounding of the last Trumpet be raked together again from all the corners of the Earth and be made up anew into the same Body it was before of the first Man Yet if we will be Christians and rely upon God's Promises we must believe that we shall rise again with the same Body that walked about did eat drink and live here on Earth and that we shall see our Saviour and Redeemer with the same the very same eyes wherewith we now look upon the fading Glories of this comtemptible World How shall these seeming Contrarieties be reconciled If the latter be true why should not the former be admitted To explicate this Riddle the better give me leave to ask your Lordship if your Lordship if you now see the Cannons the Ensigns the Arms and other Martial Preparations at Oxford with the same Eyes wherewith many years agone you looked upon Porphyrie's and Aristotle's Leases there I doubt not but you will answer me Assuredly with the very same Is that Noble and Graceful Person of yours that begetteth both Delight and Reverence in every one that looketh upon it Is that Body of yours that now is grown to such comely and
Period of true Religion this Gentleman's intended Theam as I conceive I have no occasion to speak any thing since my Author doth but transiently mention it and that too in such a phrase as ordinary Catechisms speak of to vulgar Capacities Thus my Lord having run through the Book God knows how sleightly upon so great a sudden which your Lordship commanded me to give you an account of there remaineth yet a weightier task upon me to perform which is to excuse my self of Presumption for daring to consider any Moles in that Face which you had marked for a Beauty But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these Remarks will free me from that Censure I offer not at Judging the Prudence and Wisdom of this Discourse These are fit Inquiries for your Lordships Court of highest Appeal In my inferiour one I meddle onely with little knotty pieces of particular Sciences Matinae apis instar operosa parvus carmina fingit In which it were peradventure a fault for your Lordship to be too well versed your Imployments are of a higher and nobler Strain and that concerns the welfare of millions of men Tu regere Imperio Populos Sackville memento Hae tibi erunt Artes pacisque imponere morem Such little Studies as these belong onely to those Persons that are low in the Rank they hold in the Common-wealth low in their Conceptions and low in a languishing and rusting Leisure such an one as Virgil calleth Ignobile otium and such an one as I am now dulled withal If Alexander or Caesar should have commended a tract of Land as fit to fight a Battel in for the Empire of the World or to build a City upon to be the Magazine and Staple of all the adjacent Countries no body could justly condemn that Husbandman who according to his own narrow Art and Rules should censure the Plains of Arbela or Pharsalia for being in some places sterile or the Meadows about Alexandria for being sometimes subject to be overflown or could tax ought he should say in that kind for a contradiction unto the others commendations of those places which are built upon higher and larger Principles So my Lord I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerliness for putting in a Demurrer unto a few little particularities in that noble Discourse which your Lordship gave a general Applause unto and by doing so I have given your Lordship the best Account I can of my self as well as of your Commands You hereby see what my entertainments are and how I play away my time Dorset dum magnus ad altum Fulminat Oxonium bello victorque volentes Per populos dat jura viamque affectat Olympo May your Counsels there be happy and successful ones to bring about that Peace which if we be not quickly blessed withal a general ruine threatneth the whole Kingdom From Winchester-House the 22 I think I may say the 23 for I am sure it is Morning and I think it is Day of December 1642. Your Lordships must humble and obedient Servant Kenelm Digby The Postscript My Lord LOoking over these loose Papers to point them I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eighth sheet to touch in a word concerning Grace I do not conceive it to be a Quality infused by God Almighty into a Soul Such kind of discoursing satisfieth me no more in Divinity than in Philosophy I take it to be the whole Complex of such real motives as a solid account may be given of them that incline a man to Virtue and Piety and are set on foot by God's particular Grace and Favour to bring that work to pass As for Example To a man plunged in Sensuality some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tenderness and inclineth him to much thoughtfulness In this temper he meeteth with a Book or Preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his own condition and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other Objects after he shall have taken leave of his former beloved Sins This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men and experienced Physitians in curing the Souls Maladies whereby he is at last perfectly converted and setled in a course of solid Vertue and Piety Now these accidents of his misfortune the gentleness and softness of his Nature his falling upon a good Book his encountring with a pathetick Preacher the impremeditated Chance that brought him to hear his Sermon his meeting with other worthy men and the whole Concatenation of all the intervening Accidents to work this good effect in him and that were ranged and disposed from all Eternity by Gods particular goodness and providence for his Salvation and without which he had inevitably beer damned This chain of Causes ordered by God to produce this effect I understand to be Grace FINIS * A Church Bell that tolls every day at six and twelve of the Clock at the hearing whereof every one in what place soever either of House or Street betakes himself to his prayer which is commonly directed to the Virgin b A revolution of certain thousand years when all things should return unto theirformer estate and he be teaching again in his School as when he delivered this Opinion b Sphaera cujus centrum ubique circumferentianullibi * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nosce teipsum * Post Mortem nihil est ipsaque Mors nihil Mors individua est noxia corpori nec patiens animae Toti morimur nullaque pars manet nostri In Rabbelais * Pineda in his Monarchica Ecclesiastica quotes one thousand and forty Authors * In his Oracle to Augustus * Thereby is meant our good Angel appointed us from our Nativity * Who willed his friend not to bury him but hang him up with a staff in his hand to fright away the Crows In those days there shall come lyars and false prophets †Urbem Romam in principio Reges habuere * Pro Archia Poeta †In qua me non inficior mediocriter esse * In his Medicus Medicateus * That he was a German appears by his Notes Pag. 35. where he hath these words Duleissima nostra Germania c. * In Praefat Annotat * Excepting two or three Particulars in which reference is made to some Books that came over since that time Printing Guns * Tho. Aquin in com in Boet de Consolat prope â—inam This Story I have but upon relation yet of a very good hand