I have in a manner unawares half engaged my selfe in the second objection, to which I had purposed to frame an answer for Sebond. Some of his arguments are weake and simple to verifie what he would, and undertake to front him easily. Such fellowes must somewhat more roughly be handled, for they are more dangerous and more malicious than the first. Man doth willingly apply other mens sayings to the advantage of the opinions be hath fore-judged in himselfe. 'To an Atheist all writings make for Atheisme. He with his owne venome infecteth the innocent matter. These have some preoccupation of judgment that makes their taste wallowish and tastelesse, to conceive the reasons of Sebond. As for the rest, they thinke to have faire play offered them if they have free liberty to combat our religion with meere worldly weapons; which they durst not charge, did they behold her in her majesty, full of authority and commandement. The meanes I use to suppresse this frenzy, and which seemeth the fittest for my purpose, is to crush and trample this humane pride and fiercenesse under foot, to make them feele the emptinesse, vacuitie, and no worth of man: and violently to pull out of their hands the silly weapons of their reason; to make them stoope, and bite and snarle at the ground, under the authority and reverence of God's Majesty. Onely to her belongeth science and wisdome, it is she alone can judge of her selfe; and from her we steale whatsoever we repute, value, and count ourselves to be.
Of greater, better, wiser minde than he,
God can abide no mortall man should be. —
Let us suppress this overweening, the first foundation of the tyrannie of the wicked spirit:
Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dal gratiam.
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
Plato saith 'that intelligence is in all the Gods, but little or nothing at all in men. Meanewhile it is a great comfort unto a Christian man to see our mortall implements and fading tooles so fitly sorted to our holy and divine faith; that when they are employed to the mortal and fading subjects of their nature, they are never more forcible nor more joyntlie appropriated unto them. Let us then see whether man hath an other stronger reasons in his power then Sebondes, and whether it be in him, by argument or discourse, to come to any certainty. For, St. Augustine, pleading against these kind of men, because he would upbraid them with their injustice, in that they hold the parts of our beleefe to be false, and that our reason faileth in establishing them: and to shew that many things may be, and have beene, whereof our discourse can never ground the nature and the causes: he proposeth and setteth downe before them certaine knowen and undoubted experiments, wherein man confesseth to see nothing, which he doth as all things else, with a curious and ingenious search. More must be done, and they must be taught, that to convince the weaknesse of their reason we need not go far to cull out rare examples. And that it is so defective and blinde, as there is no facility so clear that is clear enough unto her: that easie and uneasie is all one to her; that all subjects equally, and Nature in generall disavoweth her jurisdiction and interposition.
What preacheth truth unto us, when it biddeth us flie and shun worldly philosophy; when it so often telleth us 'that all our wisdome is but folly before God; that of all vanities man is the greatest; that man, who presumeth of his knowledge, doth not yet know what knowledge is: and that man, who is nothing, if he but thinke to be something, seduceth and deceiveth bimselfe? These sentences of the Holy Ghost do so lively and manifestly expresse what I would maintaine, as I should neede no proofe against such as with all submission and obeysance would yeeld to his authority. But these will needs be whipt to their owne cost, and cannot abide their reason to be combatted, but by itselfe.
Let us now but consider man alone without other help, armed but with his own weapons, and unprovided of the grace and knowledge of God, which is all his honour, all his strength, and all the ground of his being. Let us see what hold-fast or free- bold he hath in this gorgeous and goodly equipage. Let him with the utmost power of his discourse make me understand upon what foundation he hath built those great advantages and ods he supposeth to have over other creatures. Who hath perswaded him that this admirable moving of heavens vaults, that the eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his head, that the horror-moving and continnall motion of this infinite vaste ocean were established, and continue so many ages for his commoditie and service? Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet dareth call himselfe Master and Emperour of this Universe? In whose power it is not to know the least part of it., much lesse to command the same. And the Privileges which he so fondly challengeth to be the onely absolute creature in this huge worlds frame, perfectly able to know the absolute beautie and several parts thereof, and that he is only of power to yeeld the great architect thereof due thanks for it, and to keepe account both of the receipts and layings out of the world. Who hath sealed him his patent? Let him shew us his letters of privilegefor so noble and so great a charge. Have they been granted onely in favour of the wise? Then concerne they but a few. Are the foolish and wicked worthy of so extraordinary a favour, who being the worst part of the world, should they be preferred before the rest? Shall we believe him:
Quorum igitur causa quis dixerit effectum esse mundum?
Eorum scilicet animantium quo ratione utuntur.
Hi sunt di et homines, quibus profecto nihil est melius:
For whose cause then shall a man say that the world was made?
In sooth, for those creatures sake which have the use of reason;
Those are Gods and men, than whom assuredly nothing is better.
—Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1. ii.
We shall never sufficiently baffle the impudency of this conjoyning. But silly wretch, what hath he in him worthie such an advantage? To consider the incorruptible life of the celestiall bodies, their beauty, greatnesse, and agitation, continued with so just and regular a course.
Cum suspicimus magni celestia mundi
Templa super, stellisque micantibus Aethera fixum,
Et venit in mentem Lunae Solisque viarum.
When we of this great world the heavenly temples see
Above us, and the skies with shine-starres fixt to be,
And marks in our discourse,
Of Sunne and Moone the course.
—Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1. v. 1214.
To consider the power of domination these bodies have not onely upon our lives and condition of our fortune.
Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris.
For on the stars he doth suspend Of men, the deeds, the lives, and end.
—Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, 1. iii. 58.
But also over our dispositions and inclinations, our discourses and wils, which they rule, provoke, and move at the pleasure of their influences, as our reason finds and teacheth us.
Speculataque longe
Deprendit tacitis dominantia legibus astra.
Et totum alterna mundum ratione moveri,
Fatorumque vices certis discernere signis.
By speculation it from far discerns,
How stars by secret lawes do guide our sterns,
And this whole world is moov'd by entercourse
And by sure signes of fates to know the course.
—Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, 1. iii. 58.
Seeing that not a man alone, nor a king only, but monarchies and empires; yea, and all the world below is moved at the shaking of one of the least heavenly motions.
Quantaque quam parvi faciant discrimina motus:
Tantum est hoc regnum quod regibus imperat ipsis.
How little motions make, how different affection:
So great this Kingdoms is, that hath Kings in subjection.
—Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, 1. i. 57, iv. 93
If our vertue, vices, sufficiency and knowledge, and the same discourse we make of the power of the starres, and the comparison betweene them and us, commeth as our reason judgeth by their meane and through their favour;
furit alter amore, Et pontum tranare potest, et vertere Troiam, Alterius sors est scibendis legibus apta: Ecce patrem nati perimunt, natosque parentes, Mutuaque armati coeunt in vulnera fratres, Non nostrum hoc bellum est; coquntur tanta movere, Inque suas ferri ponas, lacerandaque membra: Hoc quoque fatale est sic ipsum expandere fatum:/2
One with love madded, his love to enjoy Can crosse the seas, and overturns all Troy Anothers lot is to set lawes severe. Loe sonnes ill fathers, fathers sonnes destroy, Brothers for mutuall wounds their armes doe beare, Such war is not our owne, forc't are we to it, Drawne to our owne paines, our owne limbs to teare Fates so t'observe t'is fatall, we must doe it.
—Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, 1. iv. 178.
If we hold that portion of reason, which we have from the distribution of heaven, how can she make us equall unto it? How can she submit his essence and conditions unto our knowledge? Whatsoever we behold in those high bodies doth affright us:
Quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quo machinae, qui ministri tanti operis fuerunt?What masons and carpenters were to so great a worke? Why doe we then deprive them of soule, of life, and of discourse? Have we discovered or knowen any unmoveable or insensible stupidity in them? We, who have no commerce but of obedience with them? Shall we say we have seene the use of a reasonable soule in no other creature but in man? What? Have we seene anything comparable to the sunne? Leaveth he to be, because we have seene nothing semblable unto it? And doth he leave his moving because his equall is nowhere to be found? If that which we have not seene is not, our knowledge is that wonderfull abridged.
Quae sunt tantae, animi angustia?
What narrownesse of my heart is such?
Seneca, De Irae, 1. ii. c. 9. 2.
Be they not dreames of humane vanity, to make a celestiall earth or world of the moone, as Anaxagoras did? And therein to plant habitations, and as Plato and Plutarch doe, erect their colonies for our use. And to make of our knowne earth a bright shining planet?
Inter caetera mortalitatis incommoda, et hoc est caligo mentium: nec tantum necessitas errandi, sed errorum amor.Corruptibile corpus aggravat animam, et deprimit terrena inhabitatio sensum multa cogitantem.
Among other discommodities of our mortality this is one, there is darknesse in our minds, and in us not onely necessity of erring, but a love of errors.