some Errors of the Press and one or two main ones of the Latine Translation whereby the Author is much injured it cannot be denyed but he hath pass'd over many hard places untoucht that might deserve a Note that he hath made Annotations on some where no need was in the explication of others hath gone besides the true sense And were we free from all these yet one great Fault there is he may be justly charg'd with that is that he cannot manum de Tabula even in matters the most obvious which is an affectation ill-becoming a Scholar witness the most learned Annotator Claud. Minos Divion in prefat commentar Alciat Emblemat praefix Praestat saith he brevius omnia persequi leviter attingere quae nemini esse ignota suspicari possint quam quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perque locos communes identidem expatiari I go not about by finding fault with his obliquely to commend my own I am as far from that as 't is possible others will be All I seek by this Preface next to acquainting the Reader with the various entertainment of the Book is that he would be advertized that these Notes were collected ten years since long before the German's were written so that I am no Plagiary as who peruseth his Notes and mine will easily perceive And in the second place that I made this Recuil meerly for mine own entertainment and not with any invention to evulge it Truth is my witness the publication proceeds meerly from the importunity of the Book-seller my special friend who being acquainted with what I had done and about to set out another Edition of the Book would not be denied these Notes to attex to it 't is he not I that divulgeth it and whatever the success be he alone is concern'd in it I only say for my self what my Annotations bear in the Frontispiece Nec satis est vulgasse fidem That is that it was not enough to all persons though pretenders to Learning that our Physitian had publish'd his Creed because it wanted an exposition I say further that the German's is not full and that Quicquid sum Ego quamvis Infra Lucilli censum ingeniumque my explications do in many things illustrate the text of my Author 24 Martii 1654. ANNOTATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI The Epistle to the Reader CErtainly that man were greedy of life who should desire to live when all the World were at an end This Mr. Merry weather hath rendred thus Cupidum esse vitae oportet qui universo jam expirante mundo vivere cuperet and well enough but it is not amiss to remember that we have this saying in Seneca the Tragoedian who gives it us thus Vitae est avidus quisquis non vult mundo secum pereunte mori There are many things delivered Rhetorically The Author herein imitates the ingenuity of St. Austin who in his Retract corrects himself for having delivered some things more like a young Rhetorician than a sound Divine but though St. Aug. doth deservedly acknowledge it a fault in himself in that he voluntarily published such things yet cannot it be so in this Author in that he intended no publication of it as he pofesseth in this Epistle and in that other to Sir Kenelm Digby The First PART Sect. 1 Pag. 1 THe general scandal of my Profession Physitians of the number whereof it appears by several passages in this Book the Author is one do commonly hear ill in this behalf It is a common speech but onely amongst the unlearned sort Vbi tres Medici duo Athei The reasons why those of that profession I declare my self that I am none but Causarum Actor mediocris to use Horace his phrase may be thought to deserve that censure the Author rendreth Sect. 19. The natural course of my studies The vulgar lay not the imputation of Atheism onely upon Physitians but upon Philosophers in general who for that they give themselves to understand the operations of Nature they calumniate them as though they rested in the second causes without any respect to the first Hereupon it was that in the tenth Age Pope Silvester the second pass'd for a Magician because he understood Geometry and natural Philosophy Baron Annal 990. And Apuleius long before him laboured of the same suspicion upon no better ground he was accus'd and made a learned Apology for himself and in that hath laid down what the ground is of such accusations in these words Haec fermè communi quodam errore imperitorum Philosophis objectantur ut partem eorum qui corporum causas meras simplices rimantur irreligiosas putant eoque aiunt Deos abnuere ut Anaxagoram Lucippum Democritum Epicurum caeterosque rerum naturae Patronos Apul. in Apolog. And it is possible that those that look upon the second causes scattered may rest in them and go no further as my Lord Bacon in one of his Essayes observeth but our Author tells us there is a true Philosophy from which no man becomes an Atheist Sect. 46. The indifference of my behaviour and Discourse in matters of Religion Bigot's are so oversway'd by a preposterous zeal that they hate all moderation in discourse of Religion they are the men forsooth qui solos credant habendo◠esse Deos quos ipsi colunt Erasmus upon this accompt makes a great complaint to Sir Tho. More in an Epistle of his touching one Dorpius a Divine of Lovain who because upon occasion of discourse betwixt them Erasmus would not promise him to write against Luther told Erasmus that he was a Lutheran and afterwards published him for such and yet as Erasmus was reputed no very good Catholick so for certain he was no Protestant Not that I meerly owe this Title to the Font as most do taking up their Religion according to the way of their Ancestors this is to be blamed amongst all Persons It was practised as well amongst Heathens as Christians Per caput hoc juro per quod Pater antè solebat saith Ascanius in Virgil and Apuleius notes it for an absurdity Vtrum Philosopho put as turpe scire ista an nescire negligere an curare nosse quanta sit etiam in istis providentiae ratio an de diis immortalibus Matri Patri cedere saith he in Apolog. and so doth Minutius Vnusquisque vestrum non cogitat prius se debere deum nosse quà m colere dum inconsultè gestiuntur patentibus obedire dum fieri malunt alieni erroris accessio quam sibi credere Minut. in Octav. But having in my riper years examined c. according to the Apostolical Precept Omnia probate quod bonum est tenete Sect. 2 Pag. 2 There being a Geography of Religions i. e. of Christian Religion which you may see described in Mr. Brerewood's Enquiries he means not of the Protestant Religion for though there be a difference in Discipline yet the Anglican Scotic Belgic Gallican and Helvetic Churches differ not
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
printed but many things of truth most falsly set forth in this latter I could not but think my self engaged For though we have no power to redress the former yet in the other reparation being within our selves I have at present represented unto the world a full and intended Copy of that Piece which was most imperfectly and surreptitiously published before This I confess about seven years past with some others of affinity thereto for my private exercise and satisfaction I had at leisurable hours composed which being communicated unto one it became common unto many and was by Transcription successively corrupted untill it arrived in a most depraued Copy at the Press He that shall peruse that Work and shall take notice of sundry particulars and personal expressions therein will easily discern the intention was not publick and being a private Exercise directed to my self what is delivered therein was rather a memorial unto me than an Example or Rule unto any other and therefore if there be any singularity therein correspondent unto the private conceptions of any man it doth not advantage them or if dissentaneous thereunto it no way overthrows them It was penned in such a place and with such disadvantage that I protest from the first setting of pen unto paper I had not the assistance of any good Book whereby to promote my invention or relieve my memory and therefore there might be many real lapses therein which others might take notice of and more that I suspected my self It was set down many years past and was the sense of my conception at that time not an immutable Law unto my advancing judgement at all times and therefore there might be many things therein plausible unto my passed apprehension which are not agreeable unto my present self There are many things delivered Rhetorically many expressions therein meerly Tropical and as they best illustrate my intention and therefore also there are many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense and not to be called unto the rigid test of Reason Lastly all that is contained therein is in submission unto maturer discernments and as I have declared shall no further father them than the best and learned judgments shall authorize them under favour of which considerations I have made its secrecy publick and committed the truth there to every Ingenuous Reader Tho. Browne RELIGIO MEDICI Sect. 1 FOr my Religion though there be several Circumstances that might perswade the World I have none at all as the general scandal of my Profession the natural course of my Studies the indifferency of my Behaviour and Discourse in matters of Religion neither violently Defending one nor with that common ardour and contention Opposing another yet in despight hereof I dare without usurpation assume the honourable Stile of a Christian Not that I meerly owe this Title to the Font my Education or Clime wherein I was born as being bred up either to confirm those Principles my Parents instilled into my Understanding or by a general consent proceed in the Religion of my Country But having in my riper years and confirmed Judgment seen and examined all I find my self obliged by the Principles of Grace and the Law of mine own Reason to embrace no other Name but this Neither doth herein my zeal so far make me forget the general Charity I owe unto Humanity as rather to hate than pity Turks Infidels and what is worse Jews rather contenting my self to enjoy that happy Stile than maligning those who refuse so glorious a Title Sect. 2 But because the Name of a Christian is become too general to express our Faith there being a Geography of Religion as well as Lands and every Clime distinguished not only by their Laws and Limits but circumscribed by their Doctrines and Rules of Faith to be particular I am of that Reformed new-cast Religion wherein I dislike nothing but the Name of the same belief our Saviour taught the Apostles disseminated the Fathers authorized and the Martyrs confirmed but by the sinister ends of Princes the ambition and avarice of Prelates and the fatal corruption of times so decayed impaired and fallen from its native Beauty that it required the careful and charitable hands of these times to restore it to its primitive Integrity Now the accidental occasion whereupon the slender means whereby the low and abject condition of the Person by whom so good a work was set on foot which in our Adversaries beget contempt and scorn fills me with wonder and is the very same Objection the insolent Pagans first cast at Christ and his Disciples Sect. 3 Yet have I not so haken hands with those desperate Resolutions who had rather venture at large their decayed bottom than bring her in to be new trimm'd in the Dock who had rather promiscuously retain all than abridge any and obstinately be what they are than what they have been as to stand in Diameter and Swords point with them We have reformed from them not against them for omitting those Improperations and Terms of Scurrility betwixt us which only difference our Affections and not our Cause there is between us one common Name and Appellation one Faith and necessary body of Principles common to us both and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and live with them to enter their Churches in defect of ours and either pray with them or for them I could never perceive any rational Consequence from those many Texts which prohibit the Children of Israel to pollute themselves with the Temples of the Heathens we being all Christians and not divided by such detested impieties as might prophane our Prayers or the place wherein we make them or that a resolved Conscience may not adore her Creator any where especially in places devoted to his Service where if their Devotions offend him mine may please him if theirs prophane it mine may hollow it Holy-water and Crucifix dangerous to the common people deceive not my judgment nor abuse my devotion at all I am I confess naturally inclined to that which misguided Zeal terms Superstition my common conversation I do acknowledge austere my behaviour full of rigour sometimes not without morosity yet at my Devotion I love to use the civility of my knee my hat and hand with all those outward and sensible motions which may express or promote my invisible Devotion I should violate my own arm rather than a Church nor willingly deface the name of Saint or Martyr At the fight of a Cross or Crucifix I can dispense with my hat but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour I cannot laugh at but rather pity the fruitless journeys of Pilgrims or contemn the miserable condition of Fryars for though misplaced in Circumstances there is something in it of Devotion I could never hear the Ave-Mary Bell without an elevation or think it a sufficient warrant because they erred in one circumstance for me to err in all that is in silence and dumb
contempt whilst therefore they direct their Devotions to Her I offered mine to God and rectifie the Errors of their Prayers by rightly ordering mine own At a solemn Procession I have wept abundantly while my consorts blind with opposition and prejudice have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter There are questionless both in Greek Roman and African Churches Solemnities and Ceremonies whereof the wiser Zeals do make a Christian use and stand condemned by us not as evil in themselves but as allurements and baits of superstition to those vulgar heads that look asquint on the face of Truth and those unstable Judgments that cannot resist in the narrow point and centre of Virtue without a reel or stagger to the Circumference Sect. 4 As there were many Reformers so likewise many Reformations every Country proceeding in a particular way and method according as their national Interest together with their Constitution and Clime inclined them some angrily and with extremity others calmly and with mediocrity not rending but easily dividing the community and leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation which though peaceable Spirits do desire and may conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect yet that judgment that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extreams their contrarieties in condition affection and opinion may with the same hopes expect an union in the Poles of Heaven Sect. 5 But to difference my self nearer and draw into a lesser Circle There is no Church whose every part so squares unto my Conscience whose Articles Constitutions and Customs seem so consonant unto reason and as it were framed to my particular Devotion as this whereof I hold my Belief the Church of England to whose Faith I am a sworn Subject and therefore in a double Obligation subscribe unto her Articles and endeavour to observe her Constitutions what soever is beyond as points indifferent I observe according to the rules of my private reason or the humour and fashion of my Devotion neither believing this because Luther affirmed it or disproving that because Calvin hath disavouched it I condemn not all things in the Council of Trent nor approve all in the Synod of Dort In brief where the Scripture is silent the Church is my Text where that speaks 't is but my Comment where there is a joynt silence of both I borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva but the dictates of my own reason It is an urjust scandal of our adversaries and a gross errour in our selves to compute the Narivity of our Religion from Henry the Eighth who though he rejected the Pope refus'd not the faith of Rome and effected no more than what his own Predecessors desired and assayed in Ages past and was conceived the State of Venice would have attempted in our days It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome to whom as temporal Prince we owe the duty of good language I confess there is a cause of passion between us by his sentence I stand excommunicated Heretick is the best language he affords me yet can no ear witness I ever returned him the name of Antichrist Man of sin or Whore of Babylon It is the method of Charity to suffer without reaction Those usual Satyrs and invectives of the Pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar whose ears are opener to Rhetorick than Logick yet do they in no wise confirm the faith of wiser Believers who know that a good cause needs not to be pardon'd by passion but can sustain it self upon a temperate dispute Sect. 6 I could never divide my self from any man upon the difference of an opinion or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that from which within a few days I should dissent my self I have no Genius to disputes in Religion and have often thought it wisdom to decline them especially upon a disadvantage or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage Where we desire to be informed 't is good to contest with men above our selves but to confirm and establish our opinions 't is best to argue with judgments below our own that the frequent spoils and Victories over their reasons may settle in our selves an esteem and confirmed Opinion of our own Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth nor fit to take up the Gauntlet in the cause of Verity Many from the ignorance of these Maximes and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth have too rashly charged the Troops of Error and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City and yet be forced to surrender 't is therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazzard her on a battle if therefore there rise any doubts in my way I do forget them or at least defer them till my better setled judgement and more manly reason be able to resolve them for I perceive every mans own reason is his best Oedipus and will upon a reasonable truce find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgements In Philosophy where Truth seems double fac'd there is no man more Paradoxical than my self but in Divinity I love to keep the Road and though not in an implicite yet an humble faith follow the great wheel of the Church by which I move not reserving any proper Poles or motion from the Epicycle of my own brain by this means I have no gap for Heresie Schismes or Errors of which at present I hope I shall not injure Truth to say I have no taint or tincture I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three not any begotten in the latter Centuries but old and obsolete such as could never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine for indeed Heresies perish not with their Authors but like the River Arethusa though they lose their currents in one place they rise up again in another One general Council is not able to extirpate one single Heresie it may be cancell'd for the present but revolution of time and the like aspects from Heaven will restore it when it will flourish till it be condemned again For as though there were Metempsuchosis and the soul of one man passed into another Opinions do find after certain Revolutions men and minds like those that first begat them To see our selves again we need not look for Plato's year every man is not only himself there hath been many Diogenes and as many Timons though but few of that name men are liv'd over again the world is now as it was in Ages past there was none then but there hath been some one since that Parallels him and as it were his revived self Now the first of mine was that of
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 't is 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 access 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 there The Romans that erected a Temple to Fortune acknowledged therein though in a blinder way somewhat of Divinity for in a wise supputation all things begin and end in the Almighty There is a nearer way to Heaven than Homer's Chain an easie Logick may conjoyn Heaven and Earth in one Argument and with less than a Sorites resolve all things into God Far though we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest Causes yet is God the true and infallible Cause of all whose concourse 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 Sect. 19 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 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 Common-wealth not less than did that other the State of Rome 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 Reason 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 my self 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 Archidoxes 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 Israelite 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 Sect. 20 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 inferiour 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 That Villain and Secretary of Hell 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 Lciuan 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 Sect. 22 I confess I have perused them all and can discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief yet are their heads carried off with the Wind and breath of such motives I remember a Doctor in Physick of Italy who could 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
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 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 Sect. 24 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 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 quotes more Authors in one work than are necessary in a whole World ‖ Of those three great inventions in Germany there are two which are not without their incommodities and 't is disputable whether they exceed not their use and commodities 'T is not a melancholy Utinam of my own but the desires of better beads 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 millions of Rhapsodies begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgements of Scholars and to maintain the trade and mystery of Typographers Sect. 25 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 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 vertue 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 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 expresly 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 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 'T is 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 Sect. 26 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 need 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 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 my self 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
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