ejus usu sine taedio aut fatigatione These and some others that are in the Alcoran he reckons up Sed Physica quoque mirando saith he nam facit Solem Lunam in equis vehi illum autem in aquam calidam vespere mergi bene lotuâ—â— ascendere atque oriri Stellas in aere è catenis aureis pendere terram in bovini cornu cuspide stabilitum agitente se bove ac succutiente fieri terrae motum hominem autem exhirudine aut sanguisuga nasci c. Just Lisp Monit exempl Politic. cap. 3. I believe besides Zoroaster there were divers others that wrote before Moses Zoroaster was long before Moses and of great name he was the Father of Ninus Justin l. 1. Si quamlibet modicum emolumentum probaveritis ego ille sim Carinondas vet Damigeron vel is Moses vel Jannes vel Appollonius vel ipse Dardanus vel quicunque alius post Zoroasterm Hostanem inter Magos celebratus est Apuleius in Apol. Others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the Library of Alexandria This was that Library before spoken of set up by Ptolomeus Philadelphus in which 't is reproted by Ammianus Marcellinus there were 700000 volumes it was burnt by Caesar's means whose Navy being environed before Alexandria he had no means to keep off the Enemy but by flinging of fire which at length caught the Library and consumed it as Plutarch has it in Vita Caesaris but notwithstanding we have no reason to believe it was quite consumed because Sueton. in Claudius tells us that that Emperor added another to it and there must be somewhat before if it were an addition but true it is too many of the Books perished to repair which loss care was taken by Domitian the Emperour as the same Sueton. and Aurel. Victor do relate I would not omit a copy of Enoch 's Pillars had they many nearer Authors than Josephus c. For this the Story is that Enoch or his father Seth having been inform'd by Adam that the World was to perish once by water and a second time by fire did cause two Pillars to be erected the one of Stone against the water and another of Brick against the fire and that upon those Pillars was engraven all such learning as had been delivered to or invented by mankind and that thence it came that all knowledge and learning was not lost by means of the Floud by reason that one of the Pillars though the other perished did remain after the Floud and Josephus witnesseth till his time lib. 1. Antiq. Judaic cap. 3. Of those three great inventions of Germany there are two which are not without their incommodities those two he means are Printing and Gunpowder which are commonly taken to be German Inventions but Artillery was in China above 1500 years since and Printing long before it was in Germany if we may believe Juan Concales Mendosa in his Hist of China lib. 3. cap. 15 16. The incommodities of these two inventions are well described by Sam. Daniel l. 6. of the Civil Wars Fierce Nemesis mother of fate and change Sword-bearer of th' eternal providence Turns her stern look at last into the West As griev'd to see on Earth such happy rest And for Pandora calleth presently Pandora Jove's fair gift that first deceived Poor Epimetheus in his imbecility That though he had a wondrous boon received By means whereof curious mortality Was of all former quiet quite bereaved To whom being come deckt with all qualities The wrathful goddess breaks out in this wise Dost thou not see in what secure estate Those flourishing fair Western parts remain As if they had made covenant with fate To be exempted free from others pain At one with their desires friends with dabate In peace with Pride content with their own gain Their bounds contain their mindes their mindes applied To have their bonds with plenty beautified Devotion Mother of Obedience Bears such a hand on their credulity That it abates the spirit of eminence And busies them with humble piety For see what works what infinite expence What Monuments of zeal they edifie As if they would so that no stop were found Fill all with Temples make all holy ground But we must cool this all-believing zeal That hath ' enjoy'd so fair a turn so long c. Dislike of this first by degrees shall steal As upon souls of men perswaded wrong And that the sacred power which thin hath wrought Shall give her self the sword to cut her throat Go therefore thou with all thy stirring train Of swelling Sciences the gifts of grief Go loose the links of that soul-binding chain Inlarge this uninquisitive Belief Call up mens spirits that simpleness retain Enter their hearts and knowledge make the Thief To open all the doors to let in light That all may all things see but what is right Opinion arm against opinion grown Makenew-born contradictions still arise As if Thebes Founder Cadmus tongues had sown In stead of teeth for greater mutinies Bring new defended faith against faith known Weary the soul with contrarieties Till all Religion become Retrograde And that fair tye the mask of sin be made And better to effect a speedy end Let there be found two fatal Instruments The one to publish th' other to defend Impious contention and proud discontents Make that instamped characters may send Abroad to thousands thousand mens intents And in a moment may dispatch much more Than could a world of pens perform before Whereby all quarrels titles secrecies May unto all be presently made known Factions prepar'd parties allur'd to rise Seditions under fair pretences sown Whereby the vulgar may become so wise That with a self-presumption overgrown They may of deepest mysteries debate Controul their betters censure acts of State And then when this dispersed mischief shall Have brought confusion in each mystery Call'd up contempts of State in general And ripen'd the humour of impiety Then take the other engine wherewithal They may torment their self-wrought misery And scourge each other in so strange a wise As time or tyrants never could devise c. See Bellermontan in his Dissertat politic dissert 29. and 30. For the other Invention the Latine Annotator doubts whether the Author means Church-Organs or Clocks I suppose he means Clocks because I find that Invention reckon'd by a German with the other two as a remarkable one It is by Busbequius speaking of the Turks who hath these words Testes majores minoresque bombardae multaque alia quae ex nostris excogitata ipsi ad se avertunt ut libros tamen typis excuderunt horologia in publice haberent nondum adduci potuerunt Epist Legat. Turcic I suppose if he had known any Invention which next to the other two had been greater than this he would not have named this and this being the next considerable we have no cause to doubt but the Author meant it To maintain the Trade
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
wherein though there be many things singular and to the humour of my irregular self yet if they square not with maturer Judgements I disclaim them and do no further favour them than the learned and best judgements shall authorize them The Second Part. Sect. 1 NOw for that other Virtue of Charity without which Faith is a meer notion and of no existence I have ever endeavoured to nourish the merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my Parents and regulate it to the written and prescribed Laws of Charity and if I hold the true Anatomy of my self I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue For I am of a constitution so general that it comforts and sympathizeth with all things I have no antipathy or rather Idio-syncrasie in dyet humour air any thing * I wonder not at the French for their dishes of Frogs Snails and Toadstools not at the Jews for Locusts and Grass-hoppers but being amongst them make them my common Viands and I find they agree with my Stomach as well as theirs I could digest a Sallad gathered in a Church-yard as well as in a Garden I cannot start at the presence of a Serpent Scorpion Lizard or Salamander at the sight of a Toad or Viper I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them I feell not in my self those common Antipathies that I can discover in others Those National repugnances do not touch me nor do I behold with prejudice the French Italian Spaniard and Dutch but where I find their actions in ballance with my Country-men's I honour love and embrace them in some degree I was born in the eighth Climate but seem for to be framed and constellated unto all I am no Plant that will not prosper out of a Garden All places all airs make unto me one Countrey I am in England every where and under any Meridian I have been shipwrackt yet am not enemy with the Sea or Winds I can study play or sleep in a Tempest In brief I am averse from nothing my Conscience would give me the lye if I should absolutely detest or hate any essence but the Devil or so at least abhor any thing but that we might come to composition If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at it is that great enemy of Reason Virtue and Religion the Multitude that numerous piece of monstrosity which taken asunder seem men and the reasonable creatures of God but confused together make but one great beast and a monstrosity more prodigious then Hydra it is no breach of Charity to call these Fools it is the style all holy Writers have afforded them set down by Solomon in Canonical Scripture and a point of our Faith to believe so Neither in name of Multitude do I onely include the base and minor sort of people there is a rabble even amongst the Gentry a sort of Plebeian heads whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these men in the same Level with Mechanicks though their fortunes do somewhat guild their infirmities and their purses compound for their follies But as in casting account three or four men together come short in account of one man placed by himself below them So neither are a troop of these ignorant Doradoes of that true esteem and value as many a forlorn person whose condition doth place them below their feet Let us speak like Politicians there is a Nobility without Heraldry a natural dignity whereby one man is ranked with another another filed before him according to the quality of his Desert and preheminence of his good parts Though the corruption of these times and the byas of present practice wheel another way Thus it was in the first and primitive Common-wealths and is yet in the integrity and Cradle of well-order'd Polities till corruption getteth ground ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn every one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches and they a license or faculty to do or purchase any thing Sect. 2 This general and indifferent temper of mine doth more neerly dispose me to this noble virtue It is a happiness to be born and framed unto virtue and to grow up from the seeds of nature rather than the inoculation and forced graffs of education yet if we are directed only by our particular Natures and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons we are but Moralists Divinity will still call us Heathens Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives ends and impulsions I give no alms only to satisfie the hunger of my Brother but to fulfil and accomplish the Will and Command of my God I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it but his that enjoyned it I relieve no man upon the Rhetorick of his miseries nor to content mine own commiserating disposition for this is still but moral charity and an act that oweth more to passion than reason He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels of pity doth not this so much for his sake as for his own for by compassion we make others misery our own and so by relieving them we relieve our selves also It is as erroneous a conceit to redress other Mens misfortunes upon the common considerations or merciful natures that it may be one day our own case for this is a sinister and politick kind of charity whereby we seem to bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions and truly I have observed that those professed Eleemosynaries though in a croud or multitude do yet direct and place their petitions on a few and selected persons there is surely a Physiognomy which those experienced and Master-Mendicants observe whereby they instantly discover a merciful aspect and will single out a face wherein they spy the signatures and marks of Mercy for there are mystically in our faces certain Characters which carry in them the motto of our Souls wherein he that can read A. B. C. may read our natures I hold moreover that there is a Phytognomy or Physiognomy not only of Men but of Plants and Vegetables and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs or bushes of their inward forms The Finger of God hath left an Inscription upon all his works not graphical or composed of Letters but of their several forms constitutions parts and operations which aptly joyned together do make one word that doth express their natures By these Letters God calls the Stars by their names and by this Alphabet Adam assigned to every creature a name peculiar to its Nature Now there are besides these Characters in our Faces certain mystical figures in our Hands which I dare not call meer dashes strokes a la volee or at random because delineated by a Pencil that never works in vain and hereof I take more particular notice because I carry that in mine own hand which I
and Mystery of Typographers Of this Cunaeus in his Satyre Sardi voenales Qui bis in anno nomen suum ad Germanorum nundinas non transmittit eruditionem suam in ordinem coactam credit itaque nunquam tot fungi una pluvia nascuntur quot nunc libri uno die Sect. 44 Pag. 94 The Turk in the bulk he now stands is beyond all hope of conversion That is in respect of his great strength against which it is not probable the Christians will prevail as it is observed by Monsieur de Silhon La Race des Ottomans saith he quae oste à Dieu la Religion qu'ila revelee aux hommes la liberte que le droit des Gens leur laisse à fait tant de progres depuis trois Cens quelques annees qu'il semble qu'elle n'ait plus rien a craindre de dehorse que son empire ne puisse perir que par la corruption de dedans par la dissolution de parties qui composent un corps si vaste Mr. de Silhon en son Minist d' Estat l. 1. c. None can more justly boast of persecutions and glory in the number and valour of martyrs Of the fortitude of the Christians in this particular Minutius Felix in the person of the Ethnique hath these words Permira stultitia incredibili audacia spernunt tormenta proaesentia dum incerta metuunt futura dum mori post mortem timent interim mori non timent And afterwards when he speaks in the person of the Christian he saith that Christian-women and children have in this surpassed Scaevola and Regulus Viros saith he cum Mutio vel cum Atilio Regulo comparo pueri mulierculae nostrae cruces Tormenta feras omnes suppliciorum terriculas inspirata patientia dolor is illudunt Minut in Octav. vide Aug. de Civ Dei l. 1. c. 23 24. If we shall strictly examine the circumstances and requisites which Aristotle requires to true and perfect valour we shall find the name onely in his Master Alexander that is no more than the name and as little in that Roman Worthy Julius Caesar Aristot 3. Ethic. cap. 6. amongst other requisites requires to valour that it keep a mediocrity betwixt audacity and fear that we thrust not our selves into danger when we need not that we spare not to shew our valour when occasion requires He requires for its proper object Death and to any death he prefers death in war because thereby a man profits his Country and Friends and that he calls mors honesta an honest or honourable death and therethereupon he defines a valiant man to be Is qui morte honesta proposita iisque omnibus quae cum sint repentina mortem adfuerunt metu vacat So that by the Author 's saying there was onely the name in Alexander he means onely that which is rendred in the two last words metu vacans and not the rest that goes to make up the definition of a valiant man which is very truely affirmed of Alexander who exposed himself to hazzard many times when there was no cause for it As you may read in Curtius he did in the Siege of Tyrus and many other ways Cettuy-cy semble recercher courir a force les dangiers comme un impeteux torrent qui choque attaque sans discretion sans chois tout ce qu'l rencontre saith Montaign speaking of Alexander l. 2. des Ess cap. 34. And for Caesar it cannot be denied but in his Wars he was many times though not so generally as Alexander more adventurous than reason military could warrant to him and therefore Lucan gives him no better character than Acer indomitus quo spes quoque ira vocasset Ferre manum c. Lucan lib. 1. To instance in some particulars with what an inconsiderable strength did he enterprize the Conquest of Egypt and afterwards went to attaque the Forces of Scipio and Juba which were ten times more than his own after the Battle of Pharsalia having sent his Army before into Asia and crossing the Hellespont with one single vessel he there meets Lucius Cassius with ten men of War he makes up to him summons him to render and he does it In the famous and furious siege of Alexia where he had 80000 men to make defence against him and an Army of one hundred and nine thousand horse and two hundred and forty thousand foot all marching towards him to raise his siege yet for all that he would not quit the siege but first fought with those without and obtain'd a great Victory over them and soon afterwards brought the besieged to his mercy Sect. 26 Pag. 58 The Council of Constance condemns John Husse for an Heretick the Stories of his own Party style him a Martyr John Husse did agree with the Papists against us in the point of Invocation of Saints Prayers and Sacrifice for the Dead free Will good Works confession of Sins seven Sacraments c. Gordon Hunt l. contr 3. de Sacr. Euch. cap. 17. Yet was he condemned for maintaining certain Articles said by that Council to be heretical and seditious and was burnt for Heresie Now as I will not take upon me to say he was an Heretick so can I not maintain that he was a Martyr if it be but for this one Article which in the 15 Sess of that Council was objected against him which he did acknowledge but would not recal i. e. Nullus est Dominus civilis dum est in peccato mortali If that Doctrine should be believed we shall have little obedience to Civil Magistrates and without that how miserable is humane condition That which begat compassion towards Husse in those of his own Party was that he had a safe conduct from the Emperour Sigismund and therefore it was say they a violation of publick faith in the Council and Emperour in putting him to death That wise Heathen Socrates that suffered on a fundamental point of Religion the Vnity of God That Socrates suffered on this point divers Christian Writers do object to the Ethniques as Justin Martyr Apol. 2. Euseb l. 5. de praeparat Evangelic c. 14. Tertul. in Apolog. cap. 14. and Lactant. de justitia cap. 15. whose words are these Plato quidem multa de uno Deo locutus est à quo ait constitutum esse mundum sed nihil de Religione somniaverat enim Deum non cognoverat Quod si justitiae defensionem vel ipse vel quilibet alius implere voluisset imprimis Deorum Religiones evertere debuit quia contrariae pietati Quod quidem Socrates quia facere tentavit in carcerem conjectus est ut jam tunc appareret quid esset futurum iis hominibus qui justitiam veram defendere Deoque singulari servire coepissent I have often pitied the miserable Bishop that suffered in the cause of Antipodes The suffering was that he lost his Bishoprick for denying the Antipodes Vid.
ground principally concluded the World to be eternal whereas if he had understood that there may be such a thing as Creation he had not done it for that solves his processus in infinitum Take from Plato that the World had a beginning and from Aristot that it was not generated and you have the true Christian opinion Sect. 36 Pag. 80 In our study of Anatomy there is a mass of mysterious Philosophy and such as reduced the very Heathens to Divinity So it did Galen who considering the order use and disposition of the parts of the body brake forth into these words Compono hic profecto Canticum in creatoris nostri laudem quod ultra res suas ornare voluit meliùs quà m ulla arte possent Galen 3. de usu partium Sect. 37 Pag. 81 I cannot believe the wisdom of Pythagoras did ever positively and in a literal sense affirm his Metempsychosis In this the opinion of Grotius is contrary to the Author who saith this opinion was begotten by occasion of the opinion of other Philosophers who in their discourses of the life that is to be after this brought such arguments Quae non magis de homine quam de bestiis procedunt And therefore saith he mirandum non est si transitum animarum de hominibus in bestias de bestiis in homines alii commenti sunt Lib. 2. de ver Relig. Christ vide etiam Annotat. ejusd But yet there is a shrewd objection against the opinion of Pythagoras if he did mean it literally which is cast in by the Sectators of Democritus and Epicurus which Lucretius remembers in these Verses Praeterea si immortalis natura anima Constat in corpus nascentibus insinuatur Cur super ante actam at aetatem meminisse nequimus Nec vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus Nam si tantoper'st animi mutata a potestas Omnis ut actarum excideret retinentia rerum Non ut opinor ea ab laeto jam longitèr errat This Argument 't is true is pro falso contra falsum but yet holds ad hominem so far that it is not likely as the Author saith but Pythagoras would observe an absurdity in the consequence of his Metempsychosis and therefore did not mean it literally but desired only to express the Soul to be immortal which he and the other Philosophers that were of that opinion who had not heard of Creation could not conceive unless it must be taken for truth that the soul were before the body so saith Lactantius of them Non putaverunt aliter fieri posse ut supersint animae post corpora nisi videntur fuisse ante corpora De fals Sap. c. 18. Sect. 41 Pag. 89 I do not envy the temper of Crows or Daws As Theophrastus did who dying accused Nature for giving them to whom it could not be of any concernment so large a life and to man whom it much concern'd so short a one Cic. Tusc quaest l. 3. How long Daws live see in Not. ad Sect. 41. Sect. 42 Pag. 91 Not upon Cicero's ground because I have liv'd them well I suppose he alludes to an expression in an Epistle of Cicero written in his Exile to his wife and children where he hath these words to his wife Quod reliquum est te sustenta mea Terentia ut potes honestissime viximus floruimus Non vitium nostrum sed virtus nos afflixit peccatum est nullum nisi quod non unà animum cum ornamentis amisimus l. 24. Ep. 4. And stand in need of Eson 's Bath before threescore Eson was the Father of Jason and at his request was by Medea by the means of this Bath restored to his youth Ingredients that went into it and the description of Medea's performance Ovid gives you l. 7. Metam Interea calido positum medicamen aheno Fervet exultat spumisque tumentibus albet Illic Aemonia radices valle resectas Seminaque flores succos incoquit atros Adjicit extremo lapides Oriente petitos Et quas Oceani refluum mare lavit arenas Addidit exceptas lunae de nocte pruinas Et Strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas Inque virum soliti vultus mutare ferinos Ambigui prosecta lupi nec defuit illi Squamea Cinypheitenuis membrana Chelindri Vivacisque jecur cervi quibus insuper addit Ora caputque novem cornicis secula passae His mille aliis post quam sine nomine rebus Propositum instruxit mortali barbara munus Arenti ramo jampridem mitis olivae Omnia confudit summisque immiscuit ima Ecce vetus calido ver satus stipes aheno Fit viridis primo nec longo tempore frondes Induit subitò gravidis oneratur olivis At quacunque cavo spumas ejecit aheno Ignis in terram guttae cecidere calentes Vernat humus floresque mollia pabula surgunt Quae sunulac vidi stricto Medea recludit Ense senis jugulum veteremque extare cruorem Passa replet succis quos postquam combibit Aeson Aut ore acceptas aut vulnere barba comaeque Lanitie posita nigrum rapuere colorem Pulsa fugit macies abeunt pallorque situsque Adjectoque cavae supplentur corpore rugae Membraque luxuriant Aeson miratur olim Ante quater denos hunc se reminiscitur annos Dissimilemque animum subiit aetate relicta Sect. 44 Pag. 94 Extol the Suicide of Cato As doth Seneca in several places but Lactantius saith he cast away his life to get the reputation of a Platonick Philosopher and not for fear of Caesar and 't is very probable he was in no great fear of death when he slept so securely the night before his death as the story reports of him Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihil curo Were I of Caesar 's Religion I doubt not but here is a fault of the Press and that instead of Caesar it should be Cicero I meet not with any such saying imputed to Caesar nor any thing like it but that he preferr'd a sudden death in which he had his option to any other but I meet with such a saying in Cicero quoted out of Epicharmus Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihili aestimo Where Cicero sustaineth the part of the Epicure that there is no hurt in being dead since there remaineth nothing after it Cic. 1. Thusc qu. non procul ab initio Sect. 45 Pag. 98 Or whence Lucan learn'd to say Communis mundo superest rogus c. Why Lucan was a Stoique and 't was an opinion among them almost generally that the World should perish by fire therefore without doubt from them he learned it Coelum quoque cum omnibus quae in coelo continentur ita ut coepisset desinere fontium dulci aqua marisve nutriri in vim ignis abiturum Stoicis constans opinio est quod consumpto humore mundus hic omnis ignescat Minutius in Octav. But Minutius should have excepted
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
Divine Charity He will have it to be a general way of doing good It is true he addeth then for God's sake but he allayeth that again with saying he will have that good done as by Obedience and to accomplish God's will and looketh at the Effects it worketh upon our Souls but in a narrow compass like one in the vulgar throng that considereth God as a Judge and as a Rewarder or a Punisher Whereas perfect Charity is that vehement Love of God for his own sake for his Goodness for his Beauty for his Excellency that carrieth all the motions of our Soul directly and violently to Him and maketh a man disdain or rather hate all obstacles that may retard his journey to Him And that Face of it that looketh toward Mankind with whom we live and warmeth us to do others good is but like the overflowing of the main Stream that swelling above its Banks runneth over in a multitude of little channels I am not satisfied that in the Likeness which he putteth between God and Man he maketh the difference between them to be but such as between two Creatures that resemble one another For between these there is some proportion but between the others none at all In the examining of which Discourse wherein the Author observeth that no two Faces are ever seen to be perfectly alike nay no two Pictures of the same Face were exactly made so I could take occasion to insert a subtil and delightful Demonstration of Mr. Whites wherein he sheweth how it is impossible that two Bodies for example two Bouls should ever be made exactly like one another nay not rigorously equal in any one Accident as namely in weight but that still there will be some little difference and inequality between them the Reason of which Observation our Author medled not with were it not that I have been so long already as Digressions were now very unseasonable Shall I commend or censure our Author for believing so well of his acquired knowledge as to be dejected at the thought of not being able to leave it a Legacy among his Friends Or shall I examine whether it be not a high injury to wise and gallant Princes who out of the generousness and nobleness of their Nature do patronize Arts and learned Men to impute their so doing to vanity of desiring Praise or to fear of Reproach But let these pass I will not engage any that may be-friend him in a quarrel against him But I may safely produce Epictetus to contradict him when he letteth his kindness engulf him in deep afflictions for a friend For he will not allow his wise man to have an inward relenting a troubled feeling or compassion of anothers misfortunes That disordereth the one without any good to the other Let him afford all the assistances and relievings in his power but without intermingling himself in others Woe As Angels that do us good but have no passion for us But this Gentleman's kindness goeth yet further he compareth his love of a Friend to his love of God the Union of Friends Souls by affection to the Union of the three Persons in the Trinity and to the Hypostatical Vnion of two Natures in one Christ by the Words Incarnation Most certainly he expresseth himself to be a right good-natur'd man But if St. Augustine retracted so severely his pathetical Expressions for the Death of his Friend saying They savoured more of the Rhetorical Declamations of a young Orator than of the grave Confession of a devout Christian or somewhat to that purpose What censure upon himself may we expect of our Physician if ever he make any Retraction of this Discourse concerning his Religion It is no small misfortune to him that after so much time spent and so many places visited in a curious Search by travelling after the Acquisition of so many Languages after the wading so deep in Sciences as appeareth by the ample Inventory and Particular he maketh of himself The result of all this should be to profess ingenuously he had studied enough onely to become a Sceptick and that having run through all sorts of Learning he could find rest and satisfaction in none This I confess is the unlucky fate of those that light upon wrong Principles But Mr. White teacheth us how the Theorems and Demonstrations of Physicks may be linked and chained together as strongly and as continuedly as they are in the Mathematicks if men would but apply themselves to a right Method of Study And I do not find that Solomon complained of Ignorance in the height of Knowledge as this Gentleman saith but onely that after he hath rather acknowledged himself ignorant of nothing but that he understood the Natures of all Plants from the Cedar to the Hyssop and was acquainted with all the ways and paths of Wisdom and Knowledge he exclaimeth that all this is but Toyl and vexation of spirit and therefore adviseth men to change Humane Studies into Divine Contemplations and Affections I cannot agree to his resolution of shutting his Books and giving over the search of Knowledge and resigning himself up to Ignorance upon the reason that moveth him as though it were extream Vanity to waste our days in the pursuit of that which by attending but a little longer till Death hath closed the eyes of our Body to open those of our Soul we shall gain with ease we shall enjoy by infusion and is an accessory of our Glorification It is true as soon as Death hath played the Midwife to our second Birth our Soul shall then see all Truths more freely than our Corporal Eyes at our first Birth see all Bodies and Colours by the natural power of it as I have touched already and not onely upon the grounds our Author giveth Yet far be it from us to think that time lost which in the mean season we shall laboriously imploy to warm our selves with blowing a few little Sparks of that glorious fire which we shall afterwards in one instant leap into the middle of without danger of Scorching And that for two important Reasons besides several others too long to mention here the one for the great advantage we have by Learning in this life the other for the huge Contentment that the Acquisition of it here which applyeth a strong Affection to it will be unto us in the next life The want of Knowledge in our first Mother which exposed her to be easily deceived by the Sepents cunning was the root of all our ensuing Misery and Woe It is as true which we are taught by irrefragable Authority That Omnis peccans ignorat And the well head of all the calamities and mischiefs in all the World consisteth of the troubled and bitter waters of Ignorance Folly and Rashness to cure which the onely Remedy and Antidote is the Salt of true Learning the bitter Wood of Study painful Meditation and orderly Consideration I do not mean such Study as armeth wrangling Champions for clamorous Schools