The Major Works (English Library) (10 page)

25. I cannot but wonder with what exceptions the
Samaritanes
could confine their beliefe to the
Pentateuch
, or five Books of
Moses
.
¹⁶¹
I am ashamed at the Rabbinicall Interpretation of the Jews, upon the Old Testament, as much as their defection from the New: and truely it is beyond wonder, how that contemptible and degenerate issue of
Jacob
, once so devoted to Ethnick
¹⁶²
Superstition, and so easily seduced to the Idolatry of their Neighbours, should now in such an obstinate and peremptory beliefe, adhere unto their owne 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 transforme themselves, not unto severall shapes of Christianity and of the same Species, but unto more unnaturall and contrary formes, of Jew and Mahometan, that from the name of Saviour can condescend to the bare terme of Prophet; and from an old beliefe that he is come, fall to a new expectation of his comming: 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 foure members of Religion
¹⁶³
wee hold a slender proportion; there are I confesse some new additions, yet small to those which accrew to our Adversaries, and those only drawne from the revolt of Pagans, men but of negative impieties, and such as deny Christ, but because they never heard of him: But the Religion of the Jew
is expressly against the Christian, and the Mahometan against both; for the Turke, in the bulke hee now stands, he is beyond all hope of conversion; if hee fall asunder there may be conceived hopes, but not without strong improbabilities. The Jew is obstinate in all fortunes; the persecution of fifteene hundred yeares 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 beene the unhappy method of angry devotions, not onely to confirme 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 speake properly, those are true and almost onely examples of fortitude: Those that are fetch’d from the field, or drawne from the actions of the Campe, are not oft-times so truely precedents of valour as audacity, and at the best attaine but to some bastard piece of fortitude. If wee
shall strictly examine the circumstances and requisites which
Aristotle
requires to true and perfect valour,
¹⁶⁴
we shall finde the name onely in his Master
Alexander
, and as little in that Romane Worthy,
Julius Cæsar
; 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
¹⁶⁵
have surpassed, and in a more heroicall way may claime the honour of that Title. ’Tis not in the power of every honest faith to proceed thus farre, or passe 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 trialls, who notwithstanding in a peaceable way doe truely adore their Saviour, and have (no doubt) a faith acceptable in the eyes of God.

26. Now as all that die in warre are not termed Souldiers, so neither can I properly terme all those that suffer in matters of Religion Martyrs. The Councell of
Constance
condemnes
John Husse
for an Heretick, the Stories of his owne party stile him a Martyr; He must needs offend the Divinity of both, that sayes
¹⁶⁶
hee was neither the one nor the other: There are many (questionlesse) 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 fundamentall point of Religion, the Unity of God. I have often pitied the miserable Bishop that suffered in the cause of
Antipodes
; yet cannot choose but accuse him of as much madnesse, for exposing his living on such a trifle, as those of ignorance and folly that condemned him.
¹⁶⁷
I think my conscience will not give me the lie; if I say, there are not many extant that in a noble way feare the face of death lesse than my selfe, yet from the morall duty I owe to the Commandement of God, and the naturall respects that I
tender unto the conservation of my essence and being, I would not perish upon a Ceremony, Politick points, or indifferency: nor is my beleefe of that untractable temper, as not to bow at their obstacles, or connive at matters wherein there are not manifest impieties: The leaven therefore and ferment of all, not onely Civill, but Religious actions, is wisedome; without which, to commit our selves to the flames is Homicide, and (I feare) but to passe through one fire into another.

27. That Miracles are ceased, I can neither prove, nor absolutely deny, much lesse define the time and period of their cessation; that they survived Christ, is manifest upon record of Scripture; that they out-lived the Apostles also, and were revived at the conversion of Nations, many yeares after, we cannot deny, if wee shall not question those Writers whose testimonies wee doe not controvert, in points that make for our owne opinions; therefore that may have some truth in it that is reported by the Jesuites of their Miracles in the Indies, I could wish it were true, or had any other testimony then their owne Pennes: they may easily beleeve those Miracles abroad, who daily conceive a greater at home; the transmutation of those visible elements into the body and blood of our Saviour:
¹⁶⁸
for the conversion of water into wine, which he wrought in
Cana
, or what the Devill would have had him done in the wildernesse, of stones into Bread,
¹⁶⁹
compared to this, will scarce deserve the name of a Miracle: Though indeed, to speake properly, there is not one Miracle greater than another, they being the extraordinary effect of the hand of God, to which all things are of an equall facility; and to create the world as easie as one single creature. For this is also a miracle, not onely to produce effects against, or above Nature, but before Nature; and to create Nature as great a miracle, as to contradict or transcend her. Wee doe too narrowly define the power of God, restraining it to our capacities. I hold that God can doe all things, how he should work contradictions I do not understand, yet dare not therefore deny. I cannot see why the Angel of God should question
Esdras
to recall the time past, if it
were beyond his owne power;
¹⁷⁰
or that God should pose
¹⁷¹
mortalitie in that, which hee was not able to performe himselfe. I will not say God cannot, but hee will not performe many things, which wee plainely affirme he cannot: this I am sure is the mannerliest proposition, wherein notwithstanding I hold no Paradox. For strictly his power is the same with his will, and they both with all the rest doe make but one God.
¹⁷²

28. Therefore that Miracles have beene I doe beleeve, that they may yet bee wrought by the living I doe not deny: but have no confidence in those which are fathered on the dead; and this hath ever made me suspect the efficacy of reliques, to examine the bones, question the habits and appertinencies of Saints, and even of Christ himselfe: I cannot conceive why the Crosse that
Helena
found and whereon Christ himself died should have power to restore others unto life; I excuse not
Constantine
from a fall off his horse, or a mischiefe from his enemies, upon the wearing those nayles on his bridle which our Saviour bore upon the Crosse in his hands: I compute among your
Piæ fraudes
,
¹⁷³
nor many degrees before consecrated swords and roses, that which
Baldwin
King of Jersualem return’d the
Genovese
for their cost and paines in his warre, to wit the ashes of
John
the Baptist. Those that hold the sanctitie of their soules doth leave behind a tincture and sacred facultie on their bodies, speake naturally of Miracles, and doe not salve the doubt. Now one reason I tender so little devotion unto reliques is, I think, the slender and doubtfull respect I have alwayes held unto Antiquities: for that indeed which I admire is farre before antiquity, that is Eternity, and that is God himselfe; who though hee be stiled the Antient of dayes,
¹⁷⁴
cannot receive the adjunct of antiquity, who was before the world, and shall be after it, yet is not older then it: for in his yeares there is no
Climacter,
¹⁷⁵
his duration is eternity, and farre more venerable then antiquitie.

29. But above all things, I wonder how the curiositie of wiser heads could passe that great and indisputable miracle, the cessation of Oracles: and in what swoun their reasons lay, to content themselves and sit downe with such far-fetch’t and ridiculous reasons as
Plutarch
alleadgeth for it.
¹⁷⁶
The Jewes that can beleeve the supernaturall solstice of the Sunne in the dayes of
Joshua
,
¹⁷⁷
have yet the impudence to deny the Eclipse, which every Pagan confessed at his death:
¹⁷⁸
but for this, it is evident beyond all contradiction, the Devill himselfe confessed it.
¹⁷⁹
Certainly it is not a warrantable curiosity, to examine the verity of Scripture by the concordance of humane history, or seek to confirme the Chronicle of
Hester
or
Daniel
, by the authority of
Magasthenes
or
Herodotus
. I confesse I have had an unhappy curiosity this way, till I laughed my selfe out of it with a piece of
Justine
, where hee delivers that the children of
Israel
for being scabbed were banished out of Egypt.
¹⁸⁰
And truely since I have understood the occurrences of the world, and know in what counterfeit shapes & deceitfull vizzards times present represent on the stage things past; I doe beleeve them little more than things to come. Some have beene of my opinion, and endevoured to write the History of their own lives; wherein
Moses
hath outgone them all, and left not onely the story of his life, but as some will have it of his death also.
¹⁸¹

30. It is a riddle to me, how this story of Oracles hath not worm’d out of the world that doubtfull conceit, of Spirits and Witches; how so many learned heads should so farre forget their Metaphysicks, and destroy the Ladder and scale of
creatures,
¹⁸²
as to question the existence of Spirits: for my part, I have ever beleeved, and doe now know, that there are Witches; they that doubt of these, doe not onely deny them, but Spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sort, not of Infidels, but Atheists.
¹⁸³
Those that to confute their incredulity desire to see apparitions, shall questionlesse never behold any, nor have the power to be so much as Witches; the Devill hath them already in a heresie as capitall as Witchcraft, and to appeare to them, were but to convert them: Of all the delusions wherewith he deceives mortalitie, there is not any that puzleth mee more than the Legerdemain of
Changelings
; I doe not credit those transformations of reasonable creatures into beasts, or that the Devill hath a power to transpeciate a man into a horse, who tempted Christ (as a triall of his Divinitie) to convert but stones into bread. I could beleeve that Spirits use with man the act of carnality, and that in both sexes; I conceive they may assume, steale, or contrive a body, wherein there may be action enough to content decrepit lust, or passion to satisfie more active veneries,
¹⁸⁴
yet in both, without a possibility of generation: and therefore that opinion, that Antichrist should be borne of the Tribe of
Dan
by conjunction with the Devill, is ridiculous, and a conceit fitter for a Rabbin than a Christian. I hold that the Devill doth really possesse some men, the spirit of melancholy others, the spirit of delusion others; that as the Devill is concealed and denyed by some, so God and good Angels are pretended
¹⁸⁵
by others, whereof the late defection of the Maid of Germany hath left a pregnant example.
¹⁸⁶

31. Againe, I beleeve that all that use sorceries, incantations, and spells, are not Witches, or as we terme them, Magicians; I conceive there is a traditionall Magicke, not learned immediately from the Devill, but at second hand from his Schollers; who having once the secret betrayed, are able, and doe emperically practice without his advice, they both proceeding upon the principles of nature: where actives aptly conjoyned to disposed passives,
¹⁸⁷
will under any Master produce their effects. Thus I thinke at first a great part of Philosophy was Witchcraft, which being afterward derived to one another, proved but Philosophy, and was indeed no more but the honest effects of Nature: What invented by us is Philosophy, learned from him is Magicke. Wee doe surely owe the discovery of many secrets to the discovery of good and bad Angels. I could never passe that sentence of Paracelsus without an asterisk or annotation;
Ascendens constellatum multa revelat, quarentibus magnalia naturæ
, i.e.
opera Dei
.
¹⁸⁸
I doe thinke that many mysteries ascribed to our owne inventions, have beene the courteous revelations of Spirits; for those noble essences in heaven beare a friendly regard unto their fellow natures on earth; and therefore beleeve that those many prodigies and ominous prognostickes which fore-run the ruines of States, Princes, and private persons, are the charitable premonitions of good Angels, which more carelesse enquiries terme but the effects of chance and nature.