CHAPTER XLV.. Of Demonology, and Other Relics of the

OF DEMONOLOGY, AND OTHER RELICS OF THE RELIGION OF THE GENTILES.

The impression made on the organs of sight by lucid bodies, either in one direct line, or in many lines, reflected from opaque, or refracted in the passage through diaphanous bodies, produceth in living creatures, in whom God hath placed such organs, an imagination of the object, from whence the impression proceedeth; which imagination is called sight; and seemeth not to be a mere imagination, but the body itself without us; in the same manner, as when a man violently presseth his eye, there appears to him a light without, and before him, which no man perceiveth but himself; because there is indeed no such thing without him, but only a motion in the interior organs, pressing by resistance outward, that makes him think so. And the motion made by this pressure, continuing after the object which caused it is removed, is that we call imagination and memory; and, in sleep, and sometimes in great distemper of the organs by sickness or violence, a dream; of which things I have already spoken briefly, in the second and third chapters.

This nature of sight having never been discovered by the ancient pretenders to natural knowledge; much less by those that consider not things so remote, as that knowledge is, from their present use; it was hard for men to conceive of those images in the fancy and in the sense, otherwise, than of things really without us: which some, because they vanish away, they know not whither nor how, will have to be absolutely incorporeal, that is to say immaterial, or forms without matter; colour and figure, without any coloured or figured body; and that they can put on airy bodies, as a garment, to make them visible when they will to our bodily eyes; and others say, are bodies and living creatures, but made of air, or other more subtle and ethereal matter, which is, then, when they will be seen, condensed. But both of them agree on one general appellation of them, DEMONS. As if the dead of whom they dreamed, were not inhabitants of their own brain, but of the air, or of heaven, or hell; not phantasms, but ghosts; with just as much reason as if one should say, he saw his own ghost in a looking-glass, or the ghosts of the stars in a river; or call the ordinary apparition of the sun, of the quantity of about a foot, the demon, or ghost of that great sun that enlighteneth the whole visible world: and by that means have feared them, as things of an unknown, that is, of an unlimited power to do them good or harm; and consequently, given occasion to the governors of the heathen commonwealths to regulate this their fear, by establishing that DEMONOLOGY, (in which the poets, as principal priests of the heathen religion, were specially employed or reverenced,) to the public peace, and to the obedience of subjects necessary thereunto; and to make some of them good demons, and others evil; the one as a spur to the observance, the other as reins to withhold them from violation of the laws.

What kind of things they were, to whom they attributed the name of demons, appeareth partly in the genealogy of their gods, written by Hesiod, one of the most ancient poets of the Grecians; and partly in other histories; of which I have observed some few before, in the twelfth chapter of this discourse.

The Grecians, by their colonies and conquests, communicated their language and writings into Asia, Egypt, and Italy; and therein, by necessary consequence their demonology, or, as St. Paul calls it, (1 Tim. iv. 1) their doctrines of devils. And by that means the contagion was derived also to the Jews, both of Judea and Alexandria, and other parts, whereinto they were dispersed. But the name of demon they did not, as the Grecians, attribute to spirits both good and evil; but to the evil only: and to the good demons they gave the name of the spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entered to be prophets. [Sidenote: How far received by the Jews.] In sum, all singularity, if good, they attributed to the spirit of God; and if evil, to some demon, but a κακοδάιμων, an evil demon, that is a devil. And therefore, they called demoniacs, that is possessed by the devil, such as we call madmen or lunatics; or such as had the falling sickness, or that spoke any thing which they, for want of understanding, thought absurd. As also of an unclean person in a notorious degree, they used to say he had an unclean spirit; of a dumb man, that he had a dumb devil; and of John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 18), for the singularity of his fasting, that he had a devil; and of our Saviour, because he said, he that keepeth his sayings should not see death in æternum, (John viii. 52), Now we know thou hast a devil; Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead: and again, because he said (John vii. 20), They went about to kill him, the people answered, Thou hast a devil; who goeth about to kill thee? Whereby it is manifest, that the Jews had the same opinions concerning phantasms, namely, that they were not phantasms, that is, idols of the brain, but things real, and independant on the fancy.

Which doctrine, if it be not true, why, may some say, did not our Saviour contradict it, and teach the contrary? Nay, why does he use on divers occasions such forms of speech as seem to confirm it? To this I answer, that first, where Christ saith, (Luke xxiv. 39) A spirit hath not flesh and bone, though he show that there be spirits, yet he denies not that they are bodies. And where St. Paul says, (1 Cor. xv. 44) we shall rise spiritual bodies, he acknowledgeth the nature of spirits, but that they are bodily spirits; which is not difficult to understand. For air and many other things are bodies, though not flesh and bone, or any other gross body to be discerned by the eye. But when our Saviour speaketh to the devil, and commandeth him to go out of a man, if by the devil, he meant a disease, as phrensy, or lunacy, or a corporeal spirit, is not the speech improper? Can diseases hear? Or can there be a corporeal spirit in a body of flesh and bone, full already of vital and animal spirits? Are there not, therefore spirits, that neither have bodies, nor are mere imaginations? To the first I answer, that the addressing of our Saviour’s command to the madness, or lunacy he cureth, is no more improper than was his rebuking of the fever, or of the wind and sea; for neither do these hear; or than was the command of God, to the light, to the firmament, to the sun, and stars, when he commanded them to be; for they could not hear before they had a being. But those speeches are not improper, because they signify the power of God’s word; no more therefore is it improper, to command madness, or lunacy, under the appellation of devils by which they were then commonly understood, to depart out of a man’s body. To the second, concerning their being incorporeal, I have not yet observed any place of Scripture, from whence it can be gathered, that any man was ever possessed with any other corporeal spirit, but that of his own, by which his body is naturally moved.

Our Saviour, immediately after the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove, is said by St. Matthew (chapter iv. 1), to have been led up by the Spirit into the wilderness; and the same is recited (Luke iv. 1) in these words, Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, was led in the Spirit into the wilderness; whereby it is evident that by spirit there, is meant the Holy Ghost. This cannot be interpreted for a possession; for Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are but one and the same substance; which is no possession of one substance, or body, by another. And whereas in the verses following he is said to have been taken up by the devil into the holy city, and set upon a pinnacle of the temple, shall we conclude thence that he was possessed of the devil, or carried thither by violence? And again, carried thence by the devil into an exceeding high mountain, who showed him thence all the kingdoms of the world: wherein we are not to believe he was either possessed, or forced by the devil; nor that any mountain is high enough, according to the literal sense, to show him one whole hemisphere. What then can be the meaning of this place, other than that he went of himself into the wilderness; and that this carrying of him up and down from the wilderness to the city, and from thence into a mountain, was a vision? Conformable whereunto, is also the phrase of St. Luke, that he was led into the wilderness, not by, but in, the Spirit; whereas, concerning his being taken up into the mountain, and unto the pinnacle of the temple, he speaketh as St. Matthew doth: which suiteth with the nature of a vision.

Again, where St. Luke (chap. xxii. 3, 4) says of Judas Iscariot, that Satan entered into him, and thereupon that he went and communed with the chief priests, and captains, how he might betray Christ unto them; it may be answered, that by the entering of Satan, that is the enemy, into him, is meant, the hostile and traitorous intention of selling his Lord and Master. For as by the Holy Ghost, is frequently in Scripture understood, the graces and good inclinations given by the Holy Ghost; so by the entering of Satan may be understood the wicked cogitations, and designs of the adversaries of Christ, and his disciples. For as it is hard to say, that the devil was entered into Judas, before he had any such hostile design; so it is impertinent to say, he was first Christ’s enemy in his heart, and that the devil entered into him afterwards. Therefore the entering of Satan, and his wicked purpose, was one and the same thing.

But if there be no immaterial spirit, or any possession of men’s bodies by any spirit corporeal, it may again be asked, why our Saviour and his apostles did not teach the people so; and in such clear words, as they might no more doubt thereof. But such questions as these, are more curious, than necessary for a Christian man’s salvation. Men may as well ask why Christ, that could have given to all men faith, piety, and all manner of moral virtues, gave it to some only, and not to all: and why he left the search of natural causes, and sciences, to the natural reason and industry of men, and did not reveal it to all, or any man supernaturally; and many other such questions. Of which nevertheless there may be alleged probable and pious reasons. For as God, when he brought the Israelites into the land of Promise, did not secure them therein, by subduing all the nations round about them; but left many of them, as thorns in their sides, to awaken from time to time their piety and industry: so our Saviour, in conducting us toward his heavenly kingdom, did not destroy all the difficulties of natural questions; but left them to exercise our industry, and reason; the scope of his preaching, being only to show us this plain and direct way to salvation, namely, the belief of this article, that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, sent into the world to sacrifice himself for our sins, and at his coming again, gloriously to reign over his elect, and to save them from their enemies eternally. To which, the opinion of possession by spirits, or phantasms, is no impediment in the way; though it be to some an occasion of going out of the way, and to follow their own inventions. If we require of the Scripture an account of all questions, which may be raised to trouble us in the performance of God’s commands, we may as well complain of Moses for not having set down the time of the creation of such spirits, as well as of the creation of the earth and sea, and of men and beasts. To conclude; I find in Scripture that there be angels, and spirits, good and evil; but not that they are incorporeal, as are the apparitions men see in the dark, or in a dream, or vision; which the Latins call spectra, and took for demons. And I find that there are spirits corporeal, though subtle and invisible; but not that any man’s body was possessed or inhabited by them; and that the bodies of the saints shall be such, namely, spiritual bodies, as St. Paul calls them.

Nevertheless, the contrary doctrine, namely, that there be incorporeal spirits, hath hitherto so prevailed in the Church, that the use of exorcism, that is to say, of ejection of devils by conjuration, is thereupon built; and, though rarely and faintly practised, is not yet totally given over. That there were many demoniacs in the primitive Church, and few madmen, and other such singular diseases; whereas in these times we hear of, and see many madmen, and few demoniacs, proceeds not from the change of nature, but of names. But how it comes to pass that whereas heretofore the apostles, and after them for a time, the pastors of the Church, did cure those singular diseases, which now they are not seen to do; as likewise, why it is not in the power of every true believer now, to do all that the faithful did then, that is to say, as we read (Mark xvi. 17, 18), in Christ’s name to cast out devils, to speak with new tongues, to take up serpents, to drink deadly poison without harm-taking, and to cure the sick by the laying on of their hands, and all this without other words, but in the name of Jesus, is another question. And it is probable that those extraordinary gifts were given to the Church, for no longer a time, than men trusted wholly to Christ, and looked for their felicity only in his kingdom to come; and consequently, that when they sought authority, and riches, and trusted to their own subtlety for a kingdom of this world, these supernatural gifts of God were again taken from them.

Another relic of Gentilism is, the worship of images, neither instituted by Moses in the Old, nor by Christ in the New Testament; nor yet brought in from the Gentiles; but left amongst them after they had given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached, it was the general religion of the Gentiles to worship for gods those apparences that remain in the brain from the impression of external bodies upon the organs of their senses, which are commonly called ideas, idols, phantasms, conceits, as being representations of those external bodies which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream. And this is the reason why St. Paul says, (1 Cor. viii. 4) we know that an idol is nothing; not that he thought that an image of metal, stone, or wood, was nothing; but that the thing which they honoured, or feared in the image, and held for a god, was a mere figment, without place, habitation, motion, or existence, but in the motions of the brain. And the worship of these with divine honour, is that which is in the Scripture called idolatry, and rebellion against God. For God being King of the Jews, and his lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the high-priest; if the people had been permitted to worship, and pray to images, which are representations of their own fancies, they had had no further dependance on the true God, of whom there can be no similitude; nor on his prime-ministers, Moses and the high-priests; but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the utter eversion of the commonwealth, and their own destruction for want of union. And therefore the first law of God was, they should not take for gods, ALIENOS DEOS, that is, the gods of other nations, but that only true God, who vouchsafed to commune with Moses, and by him to give them laws and directions, for their peace, and for their salvation from their enemies. And the second was, that they should not make to themselves any image to worship, of their own invention. For it is the same deposing of a king, to submit to another king, whether he be set up by a neighbour nation, or by ourselves.

The places of Scripture pretended to countenance the setting up of images, to worship them; or to set them up at all in the places where God is worshipped, are first, two examples; one of the cherubims over the ark of God; the other of the brazen serpent. Secondly, some texts whereby we are commanded to worship certain creatures for their relation to God; as to worship his footstool. And lastly, some other texts, by which is authorized a religious honouring of holy things. But before I examine the force of those places, to prove that which is pretended, I must first explain what is to be understood by worshipping, and what by images and idols.

I have already shown in the XXTH chapter of this discourse, that to honour, is to value highly the power of any person: and that such value is measured, by our comparing him with others. But because there is nothing to be compared with God in power; we honour him not, but dishonour him by any value less than infinite. And thus honour is properly of its own nature, secret, and internal in the heart. But the inward thoughts of men, which appear outwardly in their words and actions, are the signs of our honouring, and these go by the name of worship; in Latin, cultus. Therefore, to pray to, to swear by, to obey, to be diligent and officious in serving: in sum, all words and actions that betoken fear to offend, or desire to please, is worship, whether those words and actions be sincere, or feigned: and because they appear as signs of honouring, are ordinarily also called honour.

The worship we exhibit to those we esteem to be but men, as to kings, and men in authority, is civil worship: but the worship we exhibit to that which we think to be God, whatsoever the words, ceremonies, gestures or other actions be, is divine worship. To fall prostrate before a king, in him that thinks him but a man, is but civil worship: and he that putteth off his hat in the church, for this cause, that he thinketh it the house of God, worshippeth with divine worship. They that seek the distinction of divine and civil worship, not in the intention of the worshipper, but in the words δουλεία and λατρεία, deceive themselves. For whereas there be two sorts of servants: that sort, which is of those that are absolutely in the power of their masters, as slaves taken in war, and their issue, whose bodies are not in their own power, (their lives depending on the will of their masters, in such manner as to forfeit them upon the least disobedience), and that are bought and sold as beasts, were called δουλοι, that is, properly slaves, and their service δουλεία: the other, which is of those that serve (for hire, or in hope of benefit from their masters) voluntarily, are called θῆτες; that is, domestic servants, to whose service the masters have no further right, than is contained in the covenants made betwixt them. These two kinds of servants have thus much common to them both, that their labour is appointed them by another: and the word λάτρις, is the general name of both, signifying him that worketh for another, whether as a slave, or a voluntary servant. So that λατρεία signifieth generally all service; but δουλεία the service of bondmen only, and the condition of slavery: and both are used in Scripture, (to signify our service of God) promiscuously; δουλεία, because we are God’s slaves; λατρεία, because we serve him. And in all kinds of service is contained, not only obedience, but also worship; that is, such actions, gestures, and words, as signify honour.

An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: [Sidenote: Phantasms.] in which sense the phantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man, or other thing in the water, by reflection, or refraction; or of the sun, or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object; but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses, and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images, which are originally and most properly called ideas, and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word εἴδω signifieth to see. They also are called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is, that one of the faculties of man’s nature, is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest, that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.

It is also evident, that there can be, no image of a thing infinite: for all the images, and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible, are figured; but figure is a quantity every way determined. And therefore there can be no image of God; nor of the soul of man; nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible; that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.

And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw; making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures; as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras, and other monsters never seen: so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay, or metal. [Sidenote: Material images.] And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved, moulded, or moulten in matter, there is a similitude of the one to the other, for which the material body made by art, may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature.

But in a larger use of the word image, is contained also, any representation of one thing by another. So an earthly sovereign may be called the image of God: and an inferior magistrate, the image of an earthly sovereign. And many times in the idolatry of the Gentiles there was little regard to the similitude of their material idol to the idol in their fancy, and yet it was called the image of it. For a stone unhewn has been set up for Neptune, and divers other shapes far different from the shapes they conceived of their gods. And at this day we see many images of the Virgin Mary, and other saints, unlike one another, and without correspondence to any one man’s fancy; and yet serve well enough for the purpose they were erected for; which was no more but by the names only, to represent the persons mentioned in the history; to which every man applieth a mental image of his own making, or none at all. And thus an image in the largest sense, is either the resemblance, or the representation of some thing visible; or both together, as it happeneth for the most part.

But the name of idol is extended yet further in Scripture, to signify also the sun, or a star, or any other creature, visible or invisible, when they are worshipped for gods.

Having shown what is worship, and what an image; I will now put them together, and examine what that IDOLATRY is, which is forbidden in the second commandment, and other places of the Scripture.

To worship an image, is voluntarily to do those external acts, which are signs of honouring either the matter of the image, which is wood, stone, metal, or some other visible creature; or the phantasm of the brain, for the resemblance, or representation whereof, the matter was formed and figured; or both together, as one animate body, composed of the matter and the phantasm, as of a body and soul.

To be uncovered, before a man of power and authority, or before the throne of a prince, or in such other places as he ordaineth to that purpose in his absence, is to worship that man, or prince with civil worship; as being a sign, not of honouring the stool or place, but the person; and is not idolatry. But if he that doth it, should suppose the soul of the prince to be in the stool, or should present a petition to the stool, it were divine worship, and idolatry.

To pray to a king for such things, as he is able to do for us, though we prostrate ourselves before him, is but civil worship; because we acknowledge no other power in him, but human: but voluntarily to pray unto him for fair weather, or for any thing which God only can do for us, is divine worship, and idolatry. On the other side, if a king compel a man to it by the terror of death, or other great corporal punishment, it is not idolatry: for the worship which the sovereign commandeth to be done unto himself by the terror of his laws, is not a sign that he that obeyeth him, does inwardly honour him as a God, but that he is desirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable life; and that which is not a sign of internal honour, is no worship; and therefore no idolatry. Neither can it be said, that he that does it, scandalizeth, or layeth any stumbling block before his brother; because how wise, or learned soever he be that worshippeth in that manner, another man cannot from thence argue, that he approveth it; but that he doth it for fear; and that it is not his act, but the act of his sovereign.

To worship God, in some peculiar place, or turning a man’s face towards an image, or determinate place, is not to worship, or honour the place, or image; but to acknowledge it holy, that is to say, to acknowledge the image, or the place to be set apart from common use. For that is the meaning of the word holy; which implies no new quality in the place or image, but only a new relation by appropriation to God; and therefore is not idolatry; no more than it was idolatry to worship God before the brazen serpent; or for the Jews, when they were out of their own country, to turn their faces, when they prayed, towards the temple of Jerusalem; or for Moses to put off his shoes when he was before the flaming bush, the ground appertaining to Mount Sinai, which place God had chosen to appear in, and to give his laws to the people of Israel, and was therefore holy ground, not by inherent sanctity, but by separation to God’s use; or for Christians to worship in the churches, which are once solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose, by the authority of the king, or other true representant of the Church. But to worship God, as inanimating, or inhabiting such image, or place; that is to say, in infinite substance in a finite place, is idolatry: for such finite gods, are but idols of the brain, nothing real; and are commonly called in the Scripture by the names of vanity, and lies, and nothing. Also to worship God, not as inanimating, or present in the place, or image; but to the end to be put in mind of him, or of some works of his, in case the place, or image be dedicated, or set up by private authority, and not by the authority of them that are our sovereign pastors, is idolatry. For the commandment is, thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image. God commanded Moses to set up the brazen serpent; he did not make it to himself; it was not therefore against the commandment. But the making of the golden calf by Aaron, and the people, as being done without authority from God, was idolatry; not only because they held it for God, but also because they made it for a religious use, without warrant either from God their sovereign, or from Moses, that was his lieutenant.

The Gentiles worshipped for gods, Jupiter and others; that living, were men perhaps that had done great and glorious acts: and for the children of God, divers men and women, supposing them gotten between an immortal deity, and a mortal man. This was idolatry, because they made them so to themselves, having no authority from God, neither in his eternal law of reason, nor in his positive and revealed will. But though our Saviour was a man, whom we also believe to be God immortal, and the Son of God, yet this is no idolatry; because we build not that belief upon our own fancy, or judgment, but upon the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures. And for the adoration of the Eucharist, if the words of Christ, this is my body, signify, that he himself, and the seeming bread in his hand, and not only so, but that all the seeming morsels of bread that have ever since been, and any time hereafter shall be consecrated by priests, be so many Christ’s bodies, and yet all of them but one body; then is that no idolatry, because it is authorized by our Saviour: but if that text do not signify that, (for there is no other that can be alleged for it) then, because it is a worship of human institution, it is idolatry. For it is not enough to say, God can transubstantiate the bread into Christ’s body: for the Gentiles also held God to be omnipotent, and might upon that ground no less excuse their idolatry, by pretending, as well as others, a transubstantiation of their wood, and stone into God Almighty.

Whereas there be, that pretend divine inspiration to be the supernatural entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, and not an acquisition of God’s graces, by doctrine, and study; I think they are in a very dangerous dilemma. For if they worship not the man whom they believe to be so inspired, they fall into impiety; as not adoring God’s supernatural presence. And again, if they worship him, they commit idolatry; for the apostles would never permit themselves to be so worshipped. Therefore the safest way is to believe, that by the descending of the dove upon the apostles; and by Christ’s breathing on them, when he gave them the Holy Ghost; and by the giving of it by imposition of hands, are understood the signs which God has been pleased to use, or ordain to be used, of his promise to assist those persons in their study to preach his kingdom, and in their conversation, that it might not be scandalous, but edifying to others.

Besides the idolatrous worship of images, there is also a scandalous worship of them; which is also a sin, but not idolatry. For idolatry is to worship by signs of an internal, and real honour: but scandalous worship, is but seeming worship, and may sometimes be joined with an inward, and hearty detestation, both of the image, and of the phantastical demon, or idol, to which it is dedicated; and proceed only from the fear of death, or other grievous punishment; and is nevertheless a sin in them that so worship, in case they be men whose actions are looked at by others, as lights to guide them by; because following their ways, they cannot but stumble, and fall in the way of religion: whereas the example of those we regard not, works not on us at all, but leaves us to our own diligence and caution; and consequently are no causes of our falling.

If therefore a pastor lawfully called to teach and direct others, or any other, of whose knowledge there is a great opinion, do external honour to an idol for fear; unless he make his fear and unwillingness to it, as evident as the worship; he scandalizeth his brother, by seeming to approve idolatry. For his brother arguing from the action of his teacher, or of him whose knowledge he esteemeth great, concludes it to be lawful in itself. And this scandal is sin, and a scandal given. But if one being no pastor, nor of eminent reputation for knowledge in Christian doctrine, do the same, and another follow him; this is no scandal given; for he had no cause to follow such example: but is a pretence of scandal, which he taketh of himself for an excuse before men. For an unlearned man, that is in the power of an idolatrous king, or state, if commanded on pain of death to worship before an idol, he detesteth the idol in his heart, he doth well; though if he had the fortitude to suffer death, rather than worship it, he should do better. But if a pastor, who as Christ’s messenger, has undertaken to teach Christ’s doctrine to all nations, should do the same, it were not only a sinful scandal, in respect of other Christian men’s consciences, but a perfidious forsaking of his charge.

The sum of that which I have said hitherto, concerning the worship of images, is this, that he that worshippeth in an image, or any creature, either the matter thereof, or any fancy of his own, which he thinketh to dwell in it; or both together; or believeth that such things hear his prayers, or see his devotions, without ears or eyes, committeth idolatry: and he that counterfeiteth such worship for fear of punishment, if he be a man whose example hath power amongst his brethren, committeth a sin. But he that worshippeth the Creator of the world before such an image, or in such a place as he hath not made, or chosen of himself, but taken from the commandment of God’s word, as the Jews did in worshipping God before the cherubims, and before the brazen serpent for a time, and in, or towards the Temple of Jerusalem, which was also but for a time, committeth not idolatry.

Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things at this day practised in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed by the Word of God, nor brought into the Church of Rome, from the doctrine there taught; but partly left in it at the first conversion of the Gentiles; and afterwards countenanced, and confirmed, and augmented by the bishops of Rome.

As for the proofs alleged out of Scripture, namely, those examples of images appointed by God to be set up; they were not set up for the people, or any man to worship, but that they should worship God himself before them; as before the cherubims over the ark, and the brazen serpent. For we read not, that the priest, or any other did worship the cherubims; but contrarily we read (2 Kings xviii. 4) that Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen serpent which Moses had set up, because the people burnt incense to it. Besides, those examples are not put for our imitation, that we also should set up images, under pretence of worshipping God before them; because the words of the second commandment, thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c. distinguish between the images that God commanded to be set up, and those which we set up to ourselves. And therefore from the cherubims or brazen serpent, to the images of man’s devising; and from the worship commanded by God, to the will-worship of men, the argument is not good. This also is to be considered, that as Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen serpent, because the Jews did worship it, to the end they should do so no more; so also Christian sovereigns ought to break down the images which their subjects have been accustomed to worship, that there be no more occasion of such idolatry. For at this day, the ignorant people, where images are worshipped, do really believe there is a divine power in the images; and are told by their pastors, that some of them have spoken; and have bled; and that miracles have been done by them; which they apprehend as done by the saint, which they think either is the image itself, or in it. The Israelites, when they worshipped the calf, did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt; and yet it was idolatry, because they thought the calf either was that God, or had him in his belly. And though some man may think it impossible for people to be so stupid, as to think the image to be God, or a saint; or to worship it in that notion; yet it is manifest in Scripture to the contrary; where when the golden calf was made, the people said, (Exod. xxxii. 4) These are thy gods, O Israel; and where the images of Laban (Gen. xxxi. 30) are called his gods. And we see daily by experience in all sorts of people, that such men as study nothing but their food and ease, are content to believe any absurdity, rather than to trouble themselves to examine it; holding their faith as it were by entail unalienable, except by an express and new law.

But they infer from some other places, that it is lawful to paint angels, and also God himself: as from God’s walking in the garden; from Jacob’s seeing God at the top of the ladder; and from other visions, and dreams. But visions, and dreams, whether natural, or supernatural, are but phantasms: and he that painteth an image of any of them, maketh not an image of God, but of his own phantasm, which is making of an idol. I say not, that to draw a picture after a fancy, is a sin; but when it is drawn, to hold it for a representation of God, is against the second commandment; and can be of no use, but to worship. And the same may be said of the images of angels, and of men dead; unless as monuments of friends, or of men worthy remembrance. For such use of an image, is not worship of the image; but a civil honouring of the person, not that is, but that was. But when it is done to the image which we make of a saint, for no other reason, but that we think he heareth our prayers, and is pleased with the honour we do him, when dead, and without sense, we attribute to him more than human power; and therefore it is idolatry.

Seeing therefore there is no authority, neither in the law of Moses, nor in the Gospel, for the religious worship of images, or other representations of God, which men set up to themselves; or for the worship of the image of any creature in heaven or earth, or under the earth: and whereas Christian kings, who are living representants of God, are not to be worshipped by their subjects, by any act that signifieth a greater esteem of his power, than the nature of mortal man is capable of; it cannot be imagined, that the religious worship now in use, was brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture. It resteth therefore, that it was left in it, by not destroying the images themselves, in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them.

The cause whereof, was the immoderate esteem, and prices set upon the workmanship of them, which made the owners, though converted from worshipping them as they had done religiously for demons, to retain them still in their houses, upon pretence of doing it in the honour of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Apostles, and other the pastors of the primitive Church; as being easy, by giving them new names, to make that an image of the Virgin Mary, and of her son our Saviour, which before perhaps was called the image of Venus, and Cupid; and so of a Jupiter to make a Barnabas, and of Mercury a Paul, and the like. And as worldly ambition creeping by degrees into the pastors, drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new-made Christians; and also to a liking of this kind of honour, which they also might hope for after their decease, as well as those that had already gained it: so the worshipping of the images of Christ and his apostles, grew more and more idolatrous; save that somewhat after the time of Constantine, divers emperors, and bishops, and general councils, observed and opposed the unlawfulness thereof; but too late, or too weakly.

The canonizing of saints, is another relic of Gentilism: it is neither a misunderstanding of Scripture, nor a new invention of the Roman Church, but a custom as ancient as the commonwealth of Rome itself. The first that ever was canonized at Rome, was Romulus, and that upon the narration of Julius Proculus, that swore before the senate, he spake with him after his death, and was assured by him, he dwelt in heaven, and was there called Quirinus, and would be propitious to the state of their new city: and thereupon the senate gave public testimony of his sanctity. Julius Cæsar, and other emperors after him, had the like testimony; that is, were canonized for saints; for by such testimony is CANONIZATION now defined; and is the same with the ἀποθέωσις of the heathen.

It is also from the Roman Heathen, that the Popes have received the name, and power of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. This was the name of him that in the ancient commonwealth of Rome, had the supreme authority under the senate and people, of regulating all ceremonies and doctrines concerning their religion: and when Augustus Cæsar changed the state into a monarchy, he took to himself no more but this office, and that of tribune of the people, that is to say, the supreme power both in state, and religion; and the succeeding emperors enjoyed the same. But when the emperor Constantine lived, who was the first that professed and authorized Christian religion, it was consonant to his profession, to cause religion to be regulated, under his authority, by the Bishop of Rome: though it do not appear they had so soon the name of Pontifex; but rather, that the succeeding bishops took it of themselves, to countenance the power they exercised over the bishops of the Roman provinces. For it is not any privilege of St. Peter, but the privilege of the city of Rome, which the emperors were always willing to uphold, that gave them such authority over other bishops; as may be evidently seen by that, that the bishop of Constantinople, when the emperor made that city the seat of the empire, pretended to be equal to the bishop of Rome; though at last, not without contention, the Pope carried it, and became the Pontifex Maximus; but in right only of the emperor; and not without the bounds of the empire; nor any where, after the emperor had lost his power in Rome; though it were the Pope himself that took his power from him. From whence we may by the way observe, that there is no place for the superiority of the Pope over other bishops, except in the territories whereof he is himself the civil sovereign, and where the emperor having sovereign power civil, hath expressly chosen the Pope for the chief pastor under himself, of his Christian subjects.

The carrying about of images in procession, is another relic of the religion of the Greeks, and Romans. For they also carried their idols from place to place, in a kind of chariot, which was peculiarly dedicated to that use, which the Latins called thensa, and vehiculum Deorum; and the image was placed in a frame, or shrine, which they called ferculum: and that which they called pompa, is the same that now is named procession. According whereunto, amongst the divine honours which were given to Julius Cæsar by the senate, this was one, that in the pomp, or procession, at the Circæan games, he should have thensam et ferculum, a sacred chariot and a shrine; which was as much, as to be carried up and down as a god: just as at this day the Popes are carried by Switzers under a canopy.

To these processions also belonged the bearing of burning torches, and candles, before the images of the gods, both amongst the Greeks, and Romans. For afterwards the emperors of Rome received the same honour; as we read of Caligula, that at his reception to the empire, he was carried from Misenum to Rome, in the midst of a throng of people, the ways beset with altars, and beasts for sacrifice, and burning torches: and of Caracalla, that was received into Alexandria with incense, and with casting of flowers, and δαδοῦχίαις, that is, with torches; for δαδοῦχοι were they that amongst the Greeks carried torches lighted in the processions of their gods. And in process of time, the devout, but ignorant people, did many times honour their bishops with the like pomp of wax candles, and the images of our Saviour, and the saints, constantly, in the church itself. And thus came in the use of wax candles; and was also established by some of the ancient Councils.

The heathens had also their aqua lustralis, that is to say, holy water. The Church of Rome imitates them also in their holy days. They had their bacchanalia; and we have our wakes, answering to them: they their saturnalia, and we our carnivals, and Shrove-Tuesday’s liberty of servants: they their procession of Priapus; we our fetching in, erection, and dancing about May-poles; and dancing is one kind of worship: they had their procession called Ambarvalia; and we our procession about the fields in the Rogation-week. Nor do I think that these are all the ceremonies that have been left in the Church, from the first conversion of the Gentiles; but they are all that I can for the present call to mind; and if a man would well observe that which is delivered in the histories, concerning the religious rites of the Greeks and Romans, I doubt not but he might find many more of these old empty bottles of Gentilism, which the doctors of the Roman Church, either by negligence or ambition, have filled up again with the new wine of Christianity, that will not fail in time to break them.

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CHAP. XLVI.

OF DARKNESS FROM VAIN PHILOSOPHY, AND FABULOUS TRADITIONS.

By PHILOSOPHY is understood the knowledge acquired by reasoning, from the manner of the generation of any thing, to the properties: or from the properties, to some possible way of generation of the same; to the end to be able to produce, as far as matter, and human force permit, such effects, as human life requireth. So the geometrician, from the construction of figures, findeth out many properties thereof; and from the properties, new ways of their construction, by reasoning; to the end to be able to measure land, and water; and for infinite other uses. So the astronomer, from the rising, setting, and moving of the sun, and stars, in divers parts of the heavens, findeth out the causes of day, and night, and of the different seasons of the year; whereby he keepeth an account of time; and the like of other sciences.

By which definition it is evident, that we are not to account as any part thereof, that original knowledge called experience, in which consisteth prudence; because it is not attained by reasoning, but found as well in brute beasts, as in man; and is but a memory of successions of events in times past, wherein the omission of every little circumstance altering the effect, frustrateth the expectation of the most prudent: whereas nothing is produced by reasoning aright, but general, eternal, and immutable truth.

Nor are we therefore to give that name to any false conclusions: for he that reasoneth aright in words he understandeth, can never conclude an error:

Nor to that which any man knows by supernatural revelation; because it is not acquired by reasoning:

Nor that which is gotten by reasoning from the authority of books; because it is not by reasoning from the cause to the effect, nor from the effect to the cause; and is not knowledge but faith.

The faculty of reasoning being consequent to the use of speech, it was not possible, but that there should have been some general truths found out by reasoning, as ancient almost as language itself. The savages of America, are not without some good moral sentences; also they have a little arithmetic, to add, and divide in numbers not too great: but they are not, therefore, philosophers. For as there were plants of corn and wine in small quantity dispersed in the fields and woods, before men knew their virtue, or made use of them for their nourishment, or planted them apart in fields and vineyards; in which time they fed on acorns, and drank water: so also there have been divers true, general, and profitable speculations from the beginning; as being the natural plants of human reason. But they were at first but few in number; men lived upon gross experience; there was no method; that is to say, no sowing, nor planting of knowledge by itself, apart from the weeds, and common plants of error and conjecture. And the cause of it being the want of leisure from procuring the necessities of life, and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great commonwealths, it should be otherwise. Leisure is the mother of philosophy; and Commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure. Where first were great and flourishing cities, there was first the study of philosophy. The Gymnosophists of India, the Magi of Persia, and the Priests of Chaldea and Egypt, are counted the most ancient philosophers; and those countries were the most ancient of kingdoms. Philosophy was not risen to the Grecians, and other people of the west, whose commonwealths, no greater perhaps than Lucca or Geneva, had never peace, but when their fears of one another were equal; nor the leisure to observe anything but one another. At length, when war had united many of these Grecian lesser cities, into fewer, and greater; then began seven men, of several parts of Greece, to get the reputation of being wise; some of them for moral and politic sentences; and others for the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, which was astronomy, and geometry. But we hear not yet of any schools of philosophy.

After the Athenians, by the overthrow of the Persian armies, had gotten the dominion of the sea; and thereby, of all the islands, and maritime cities of the Archipelago, as well of Asia as Europe; and were grown wealthy; they that had no employment, neither at home nor abroad, had little else to employ themselves in, but either (as St. Luke says, Acts xvii. 21), in telling and hearing news, or in discoursing of philosophy publicly to the youth of the city. Every master took some place for that purpose. Plato, in certain public walks called Academia, from one Academus: Aristotle in the walk of the temple of Pan, called Lyceum: others in the Stoa, or covered walk, wherein the merchants’ goods were brought to land: others in other places; where they spent the time of their leisure, in teaching or in disputing of their opinions: and some in any place, where they could get the youth of the city together to hear them talk. And this was it which Carneades also did at Rome, when he was ambassador: which caused Cato to advise the senate to dispatch him quickly, for fear of corrupting the manners of the young men, that delighted to hear him speak, as they thought, fine things.

From this it was, that the place where any of them taught, and disputed, was called schola, which in their tongue signifieth leisure; and their disputations, diatribæ, that is to say, passing of the time. Also the philosophers themselves had the name of their sects, some of them from these their Schools: for they that followed Plato’s doctrine, were called Academics; the followers of Aristotle Peripatetics, from the walk he taught in; and those that Zeno taught Stoics, from the Stoa; as if we should denominate men from Moor-fields, from Paul’s Church, and from the Exchange, because they meet there often, to prate and loiter.

Nevertheless, men were so much taken with this custom, that in time it spread itself over all Europe, and the best part of Afric; so as there were schools publicly erected and maintained, for lectures and disputations, almost in every commonwealth.

There were also schools, anciently, both before and after the time of our Saviour, amongst the Jews; but they were schools of their law. For though they were called synagogues, that is to say, congregations of the people; yet, inasmuch as the law was every sabbath-day read, expounded, and disputed in them, they differed not in nature, but in name only, from public schools; and were not only in Jerusalem, but in every city of the Gentiles, where the Jews inhabited. There was such a school at Damascus, whereinto Paul entered, to persecute. There were others at Antioch, Iconium, and Thessalonica, whereinto he entered to dispute: and such was the synagogue of the Libertines, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, Cilicians, and those of Asia; that is to say, the school of Libertines, and of Jews that were strangers in Jerusalem; and of this school they were that disputed (Acts vi. 9) with St. Stephen.

But what has been the utility of those schools? What science is there at this day acquired by their readings and disputings? That we have of geometry, which is the mother of all natural science, we are not indebted for it to the schools. Plato, that was the best philosopher of the Greeks, forbad entrance into his school to all that were not already in some measure geometricians. There were many that studied that science to the great advantage of mankind: but there is no mention of their schools; nor was there any sect of geometricians; nor did they then pass under the name of philosophers. The natural philosophy of those schools was rather a dream than science, and set forth in senseless and insignificant language; which cannot be avoided by those that will teach philosophy, without having first attained great knowledge in geometry. For nature worketh by motion; the ways and degrees whereof cannot be known, without the knowledge of the proportions and properties of lines and figures. Their moral philosophy is but a description of their own passions. For the rule of manners, without civil government, is the law of nature; and in it, the law civil, that determineth what is honest and dishonest, what is just and unjust, and generally what is good and evil. Whereas they make the rules of good and bad, by their own liking and disliking: by which means, in so great diversity of taste, there is nothing generally agreed on; but every one doth, as far as he dares, whatsoever seemeth good in his own eyes, to the subversion of commonwealth. Their logic, which should be the method of reasoning, is nothing else but captions of words, and inventions how to puzzle such as should go about to pose them. To conclude, there is nothing so absurd, that the old philosophers, as Cicero saith, (who was one of them,) have not some of them maintained. And I believe that scarce anything can be more absurdly said in natural philosophy, than that which now is called Aristotle’s Metaphysics; nor more repugnant to government, than much of that he hath said in his Politics; nor more ignorantly, than a great part of his Ethics.

The school of the Jews was originally a school of the law of Moses; who commanded (Deut. xxxi. 10) that at the end of every seventh year, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, it should be read to all the people, that they might hear and learn it. Therefore the reading of the law, which was in use after the captivity, every Sabbath day, ought to have had no other end, but the acquainting of the people with the Commandments which they were to obey, and to expound unto them the writings of the prophets. But it is manifest, by the many reprehensions of them by our Saviour, that they corrupted the text of the law with their false commentaries, and vain traditions; and so little understood the prophets, that they did neither acknowledge Christ, nor the works he did, of which the prophets prophesied. So that by their lectures and disputations in their synagogues, they turned the doctrine of their law into a fantastical kind of philosophy, concerning the incomprehensible nature of God, and of spirits; which they compounded of the vain philosophy and theology of the Grecians, mingled with their own fancies, drawn from the obscurer places of the Scripture, and which might most easily be wrested to their purpose; and from the fabulous traditions of their ancestors.

That which is now called an University, is a joining together, and an incorporation under one government, of many public schools, in one and the same town or city. In which, the principal schools were ordained for the three professions, that is to say, of the Roman religion, of the Roman law, and of the art of medicine. And for the study of philosophy, it hath no otherwise place, than as a hand-maid to the Roman religion: and since the authority of Aristotle is only current there, that study is not properly philosophy, (the nature whereof dependeth not on authors,) but Aristotelity. And for geometry, till of very late times it had no place at all; as being subservient to nothing but rigid truth. And if any man by the ingenuity of his own nature, had attained to any degree of perfection therein, he was commonly thought a magician, and his art diabolical.

Now to descend to the particular tenets of vain philosophy, derived to the Universities, and thence into the Church, partly from Aristotle, partly from blindness of understanding; I shall first consider their principles. There is a certain philosophia prima, on which all other philosophy ought to depend; and consisteth principally, in right limiting of the significations of such appellations, or names, as are of all others the most universal; which limitations serve to avoid ambiguity and equivocation in reasoning; and are commonly called definitions; such as are the definitions of body, time, place, matter, form, essence, subject, substance, accident, power, act, finite, infinite, quantity, quality, motion, action, passion, and divers others, necessary to the explaining of a man’s conceptions concerning the nature and generation of bodies. The explication, that is, the settling of the meaning, of which, and the like terms, is commonly in the Schools called metaphysics; as being a part of the philosophy of Aristotle, which hath that for title. But it is in another sense; for there it signifieth as much as books written or placed after his natural philosophy: but the schools take them for books of supernatural philosophy: for the word metaphysics will bear both these senses. And indeed that which is there written, is for the most part so far from the possibility of being understood, and so repugnant to natural reason, that whosoever thinketh there is any thing to be understood by it, must needs think it supernatural.

From these metaphysics, which are mingled with the Scripture to make school divinity, we are told, there be in the world certain essences separated from bodies, which they call abstract essences, and substantial forms. For the interpreting of which jargon, there is need of somewhat more than ordinary attention in this place. Also I ask pardon of those that are not used to this kind of discourse, for applying myself to those that are. The world, (I mean not the earth only, that denominates the lovers of it worldly men, but the universe, that is, the whole mass of all things that are), is corporeal, that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely, length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body, is likewise body, and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the universe, is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe: and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it, is nothing; and consequently no where. Nor does it follow from hence, that spirits are nothing: for they have dimensions, and are therefore really bodies; though that name in common speech be given to such bodies only, as are visible, or palpable; that is, that have some degree of opacity. But for spirits, they call them incorporeal; which is a name of more honour, and may therefore with more piety be attributed to God himself; in whom we consider not what attribute expresseth best his nature, which is incomprehensible; but what best expresseth our desire to honour Him.

To know now upon what grounds they say there be essences abstract, or substantial forms, we are to consider what those words do properly signify. The use of words, is to register to ourselves, and make manifest to others the thoughts and conceptions of our minds. Of which words, some are the names of the things conceived; as the names of all sorts of bodies, that work upon the senses, and leave an impression in the imagination. Others are the names of the imaginations themselves; that is to say, of those ideas, or mental images we have of all things we see, or remember. And others again are names of names; or of different sorts of speech: as universal, plural, singular, are the names of names; and definition, affirmation, negation, true, false, syllogism, interrogation, promise, covenant, are the names of certain forms of speech. Others serve to show the consequence, or repugnance of one name to another; as when one saith, a man is a body, he intendeth that the name of body is necessarily consequent to the name of man; as being but several names of the same thing, man; which consequence is signified by coupling them together with the word is. And as we use the verb is, so the Latins use their verb est, and the Greeks their Ἔστι through all its declinations. Whether all other nations of the world have in their several languages a word that answereth to it, or not, I cannot tell; but I am sure they have not need of it. For the placing of two names in order may serve to signify their consequence, if it were the custom, (for custom is it, that gives words their force,) as well as the words is, or be, or are, and the like.

And if it were so, that there were a language without any verb answerable to est, or is, or be; yet the men that used it would be not a jot the less capable of inferring, concluding, and of all kind of reasoning, than were the Greeks, and Latins. But what then would become of these terms, of entity, essence, essential, essentiality, that are derived from it, and of many more than depend on these, applied as most commonly they are? They are therefore no names of things; but signs, by which we make known, that we conceive the consequence of one name or attribute to another: as when we say, a man is a living body, we mean not that the man is one thing, the living body another, and the is, or being a third; but that the man, and the living body, is the same thing; because the consequence, if he be a man, he is a living body, is a true consequence, signified by that word is. Therefore, to be a body, to walk, to be speaking, to live, to see, and the like infinitives; also corporeity, walking, speaking, life, sight, and the like, that signify just the same, are the names of nothing; as I have elsewhere more amply expressed.

But to what purpose, may some man say, is such subtlety in a work of this nature, where I pretend to nothing but what is necessary to the doctrine of government and obedience? It is to this purpose, that men may no longer suffer themselves to be abused, by them, that by this doctrine of separated essences, built on the vain philosophy of Aristotle, would fright them from obeying the laws of their country, with empty names; as men fright birds from the corn with an empty doublet, a hat, and a crooked stick. For it is upon this ground, that when a man is dead and buried, they say his soul, that is his life, can walk separated from his body, and is seen by night amongst the graves. Upon the same ground they say, that the figure, and colour, and taste of a piece of bread, has a being, there, where they say there is no bread. And upon the same ground they say, that faith, and wisdom, and other virtues, are sometimes poured into a man, sometimes blown into him from Heaven, as if the virtuous and their virtues could be asunder; and a great many other things that serve to lessen the dependance of subjects on the sovereign power of their country. For who will endeavour to obey the laws, if he expect obedience to be poured or blown into him? Or who will not obey a priest, that can make God, rather than his sovereign, nay than God himself? Or who, that is in fear of ghosts, will not bear great respect to those that can make the holy water, that drives them from him? And this shall suffice for an example of the errors, which are brought into the Church, from the entities and essences of Aristotle: which it may be he knew to be false philosophy; but writ it as a thing consonant to, and corroborative of their religion; and fearing the fate of Socrates.

Being once fallen into this error of separated essences, they are thereby necessarily involved in many other absurdities that follow it. For seeing they will have these forms to be real, they are obliged to assign them some place. But because they hold them incorporeal, without all dimension of quantity, and all men know that place is dimension, and not to be filled, but by that which is corporeal; they are driven to uphold their credit with a distinction, that they are not indeed anywhere circumscriptivè, but definitivè; which terms being mere words, and in this occasion insignificant, pass only in Latin, that the vanity of them may be concealed. For the circumscription of a thing, is nothing else but the determination, or defining of its place; and so both the terms of the distinction are the same. And in particular, of the essence of a man, which, they say, is his soul, they affirm it, to be all of it in his little finger, and all of it in every other part, how small soever, of his body; and yet no more soul in the whole body, than in any one of those parts. Can any man think that God is served with such absurdities? And yet all this is necessary to believe, to those that will believe the existence of an incorporeal soul, separated from the body.

And when they come to give account how an incorporeal substance can be capable of pain, and be tormented in the fire of hell or purgatory, they have nothing at all to answer, but that it cannot be known how fire can burn souls.

Again, whereas motion is change of place, and incorporeal substances are not capable of place, they are troubled to make it seem possible, how a soul can go hence, without the body, to heaven, hell, or purgatory; and how the ghosts of men, and I may add of their clothes which they appear in, can walk by night in churches, churchyards, and other places of sepulture. To which I know not what they can answer, unless they will say, they walk definitivè, not circumscriptivè, or spiritually, not temporally: for such egregious distinctions are equally applicable to any difficulty whatsoever.

For the meaning of eternity, they will not have it to be an endless succession of time; for then they should not be able to render a reason how God’s will, and preordaining of things to come, should not be before his prescience of the same, as the efficient cause before the effect, or agent before the action; nor of many other their bold opinions concerning the incomprehensible nature of God. But they will teach us, that eternity is the standing still of the present time, a nunc-stans, as the Schools call it; which neither they, nor any else understand, no more than they would a hic-stans for an infinite greatness of place.

And whereas men divide a body in their thought, by numbering parts of it, and, in numbering those parts, number also the parts of the place it filled; it cannot be, but in making many parts, we make also many places of those parts; whereby there cannot be conceived in the mind of any man, more, or fewer parts, than there are places for: yet they will have us believe, that by the Almighty power of God, one body may be at one and the same time in many places; and many bodies at one and the same time in one place: as if it were an acknowledgment of the Divine Power to say, that which is, is not; or that which has been, has not been. And these are but a small part of the incongruities they are forced to, from their disputing philosophically, instead of admiring, and adoring of the divine and incomprehensible nature; whose attributes cannot signify what he is, but ought to signify our desire to honour him, with the best appellations we can think on. But they that venture to reason of his nature, from these attributes of honour, losing their understanding in the very first attempt, fall from one inconvenience into another, without end, and without number; in the same manner, as when a man ignorant of the ceremonies of court, coming into the presence of a greater person than he is used to speak to, and stumbling at his entrance, to save himself from falling, lets slip his cloak; to recover his cloak, lets fall his hat; and with one disorder after another, discovers his astonishment and rusticity.

Then for physics, that is, the knowledge of the subordinate and secondary causes of natural events; they render none at all, but empty words. If you desire to know why some kind of bodies sink naturally downwards toward the earth, and others go naturally from it; the Schools will tell you out of Aristotle, that the bodies that sink downwards, are heavy; and that this heaviness is it that causes them to descend. But if you ask what they mean by heaviness, they will define it to be an endeavour to go to the centre of the earth. So that the cause why things sink downward, is an endeavour to be below: which is as much as to say, that bodies descend, or ascend, because they do. Or they will tell you the centre of the earth is the place of rest, and conservation for heavy things; and therefore they endeavour to be there: as if stones and metals had a desire, or could discern the place they would be at, as man does; or loved rest, as man does not; or that a piece of glass were less safe in the window, than falling into the street.

If we would know why the same body seems greater, without adding to it, one time, than another; they say, when it seems less, it is condensed; when greater, rarified. What is that condensed, and rarified? Condensed, is when there is in the very same matter, less quantity than before; and rarified, when more. As if there could be matter, that had not some determined quantity; when quantity is nothing else but the determination of matter; that is to say, of body, by which we say, one body is greater or lesser than another, by thus, or thus much. Or as if a body were made without any quantity at all, and that afterwards more or less were put into it, according as it is intended the body should be more or less dense.

For the cause of the soul of man, they say, creatur infundendo, and creando infunditur: that is, it is created by pouring it in, and poured in by creation.

For the cause of sense, an ubiquity of species; that is, of the shows or apparitions of objects; which when they be apparitions to the eye, is sight; when to the ear, hearing; to the palate, taste; to the nostril, smelling; and to the rest of the body, feeling.

For cause of the will, to do any particular action, which is called volitio, they assign the faculty, that is to say, the capacity in general, that men have, to will sometimes one thing, sometimes another, which is called voluntas; making the power the cause of the act. As if one should assign for cause of the good or evil acts of men, their ability to do them.

And in many occasions they put for cause of natural events, their own ignorance; but disguised in other words: as when they say, fortune is the cause of things contingent; that is, of things whereof they know no cause: and as when they attribute many effects to occult qualities; that is, qualities not known to them; and therefore also, as they think, to no man else. And to sympathy, antipathy, antiperistasis, specifical qualities, and other like terms, which signify neither the agent that produceth them, nor the operation by which they are produced.

If such metaphysics, and physics as this, be not vain philosophy, there was never any; nor needed St. Paul to give us warning to avoid it.

And for their moral, and civil philosophy, it hath the same, or greater absurdities. If a man do an action of injustice, that is to say, an action contrary to the law, God they say is the prime cause of the law, and also the prime cause of that, and all other actions; but no cause at all of the injustice; which is the inconformity of the action to the law. This is vain philosophy. A man might as well say, that one man maketh both a straight line, and a crooked, and another maketh their incongruity. And such is the philosophy of all men that resolve of their conclusions, before they know their premises; pretending to comprehend, that which is incomprehensible; and of attributes of honour to make attributes of nature; as this dictinction was made to maintain the doctrine of free-will, that is, of a will of man, not subject to the will of God.

Aristotle, and other heathen philosophers, define good and evil, by the appetite of men; and well enough, as long as we consider them governed every one by his own law; for in the condition of men that have no other law but their own appetites, there can be no general rule of good, and evil actions. But in a commonwealth this measure is false: not the appetite of private men, but the law, which is the will and appetite of the state, is the measure. And yet is this doctrine still practised; and men judge the goodness or wickedness of their own, and of other men’s actions, and of the actions of the commonwealth itself, by their own passions; and no man calleth good or evil, but that which is so in his own eyes, without any regard at all to the public laws; except only monks, and friars, that are bound by vow to that simple obedience to their superior, to which every subject ought to think himself bound by the law of nature to the civil sovereign. And this private measure of good, is a doctrine, not only vain, but also pernicious to the public state.

It is also vain and false philosophy, to say the work of marriage is repugnant to chastity, or continence, and by consequence to make them moral vices; as they do, that pretend chastity, and continence, for the ground of denying marriage to the clergy. For they confess it is no more, but a constitution of the Church, that requireth in those holy orders that continually attend the altar and administration of the eucharist, a continual abstinence from women, under the name of continual chastity, continence, and purity. Therefore they call the lawful use of wives, want of chastity and continence; and so make marriage a sin, or at least a thing so impure, and unclean, as to render a man unfit for the altar. If the law were made because the use of wives is incontinence, and contrary to chastity, then all marriage is vice: if because it is a thing too impure, and unclean, for a man consecrated to God; much more should other natural, necessary, and daily works which all men do, render men unworthy to be priests, because they are more unclean.

But the secret foundation of this prohibition of marriage of priests, is not likely to have been laid so slightly, as upon such errors in moral philosophy; nor yet upon the preference of single life, to the estate of matrimony; which proceeded from the wisdom of St. Paul, who perceived how inconvenient a thing it was, for those that in those times of persecution were preachers of the gospel, and forced to fly from one country to another, to be clogged with the care of wife and children; but upon the design of the Popes, and priests of after times, to make themselves the clergy, that is to say, sole heirs of the kingdom of God in this world; to which it was necessary to take from them the use of marriage; because our Saviour saith, that at the coming of his kingdom the children of God shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven; that is to say, spiritual. Seeing then they had taken on them the name of spiritual, to have allowed themselves, when there was no need, the propriety of wives, had been an incongruity.

From Aristotle’s civil philosophy, they have learned, to call all manner of commonwealths but the popular, (such as was at that time the state of Athens), tyranny. All kings they called tyrants; and the aristocracy of the thirty governors set up there by the Lacedemonians that subdued them, the thirty tyrants. As also to call the condition of the people under the democracy, liberty. A tyrant originally signified no more simply, but a monarch. But when afterwards in most part of Greece that kind of government was abolished, the name began to signify, not only the thing it did before, but with it, the hatred which the popular states bare towards it. As also the name of king became odious after the deposing of the kings in Rome, as being a thing natural to all men, to conceive some great fault to be signified in any attribute, that is given in despite, and to a great enemy. And when the same men shall be displeased with those that have the administration of the democracy, or aristocracy, they are not to seek for disgraceful names to express their anger in; but call readily the one anarchy, and the other oligarchy, or the tyranny of a few. And that which offendeth the people, is no other thing, but that they are governed, not as every one of them would himself, but as the public representant, be it one man, or an assembly of men, thinks fit; that is, by an arbitrary government: for which they give evil names to their superiors; never knowing, till perhaps a little after a civil war, that without such arbitrary government, such war must be perpetual; and that it is men, and arms, not words and promises, that make the force and power of the laws.

And therefore this is another error of Aristotle’s politics, that in a well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the laws. What man, that has his natural senses, though he can neither write nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes can kill or hurt him when he obeyeth not? Or that believes the law can hurt him; that is, words and paper, without the hands and swords of men? And this is of the number of pernicious errors: for they induce men, as oft as they like not their governors, to adhere to those that call them tyrants, and to think it lawful to raise war against them: and yet they are many times cherished from the pulpit, by the clergy.

There is another error in their civil philosophy, which they never learned of Aristotle, nor Cicero, nor any other of the heathen, to extend the power of the law, which is the rule of actions only, to the very thoughts and consciences of men, by examination, and inquisition of what they hold, notwithstanding the conformity of their speech and actions. By which, men are either punished for answering the truth of their thoughts, or constrained to answer an untruth for fear of punishment. It is true, that the civil magistrate, intending to employ a minister in the charge of teaching, may enquire of him, if he be content to preach such and such doctrines; and in case of refusal, may deny him the employment. But to force him to accuse himself of opinions, when his actions are not by law forbidden, is against the law of nature; and especially in them, who teach, that a man shall be damned to eternal and extreme torments, if he die in a false opinion concerning an article of the Christian faith. For who is there, that knowing there is so great danger in an error, whom the natural care of himself, compelleth not to hazard his soul upon his own judgment, rather than that of any other man that is unconcerned in his damnation?

For a private man, without the authority of the commonwealth, that is to say, without permission from the representant thereof, to interpret the law by his own spirit, is another error in the politics: but not drawn from Aristotle, nor from any other of the heathen philosophers. For none of them deny, but that in the power of making laws, is comprehended also the power of explaining them when there is need. And are not the Scriptures, in all places where they are law, made law by the authority of the commonwealth, and consequently, a part of the civil law?

Of the same kind it is also, when any but the sovereign restraineth in any man that power which the commonwealth hath not restrained; as they do, that impropriate the preaching of the gospel to one certain order of men, where the laws have left it free. If the state give me leave to preach, or teach; that is, if it forbid me not, no man can forbid me. If I find myself amongst the idolaters of America, shall I that am a Christian, though not in orders, think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ, till I have received orders from Rome? Or when I have preached, shall not I answer their doubts, and expound the Scriptures to them; that is, shall I not teach? But for this may some say, as also for administering to them the sacraments, the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient mission; which is true: but this is true also, that for whatsoever, a dispensation is due for the necessity, for the same there needs no dispensation, when there is no law that forbids it. Therefore to deny these functions to those, to whom the civil sovereign hath not denied them, is a taking away of a lawful liberty, which is contrary to the doctrine of civil government.

More examples of vain philosophy, brought into religion by the doctors of School-divinity, might be produced; but other men may if they please observe them of themselves. I shall only add this, that the writings of School-divines, are nothing else for the most part, but insignificant trains of strange and barbarous words, or words otherwise used, than in the common use of the Latin tongue; such as would pose Cicero, and Varro, and all the grammarians of ancient Rome. Which if any man would see proved, let him, as I have said once before, see whether he can translate any School-divine into any of the modern tongues, as French, English, or any other copious language: for that which cannot in most of these be made intelligible, is not intelligible in the Latin. Which insignificancy of language, though I cannot note it for false philosophy; yet it hath a quality, not only to hide the truth, but also to make men think they have it, and desist from further search.

Lastly, for the errors brought in from false, or uncertain history, what is all the legend of fictitious miracles, in the lives of the saints; and all the histories of apparitions, and ghosts, alleged by the doctors of the Roman Church, to make good their doctrines of hell, and purgatory, the power of exorcism, and other doctrines which have no warrant, neither in reason, nor Scripture; as also all those traditions which they call the unwritten word of God: but old wives’ fables? Whereof, though they find dispersed somewhat in the writings of the ancient fathers; yet those fathers were men, that might too easily believe false reports; and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they believed, hath no other force with them that, according to the counsel of St. John (1 Epist. iv. 1), examine spirits, than in all things that concern the power of the Roman Church, (the abuse whereof either they suspected not, or had benefit by it), to discredit their testimony, in respect of too rash belief of reports; which the most sincere men, without great knowledge of natural causes, such as the fathers were, are commonly the most subject to. For naturally, the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes. Gregory the Pope, and St. Bernard have somewhat of apparitions of ghosts, that said they were in purgatory; and so has our Bede: but no where, I believe, but by report from others. But if they, or any other, relate any such stories of their own knowledge, they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports; but discover their own infirmity, or fraud.

With the introduction of false, we may join also the suppression of true philosophy, by such men, as neither by lawful authority, nor sufficient study, are competent judges of the truth. Our own navigations make manifest, and all men learned in human sciences, now acknowledge there are antipodes: and every day it appeareth more and more, that years and days are determined by motions of the earth. Nevertheless, men that have in their writings but supposed such doctrine, as an occasion to lay open the reasons for, and against it, have been punished for it by authority ecclesiastical. But what reason is there for it? Is it because such opinions are contrary to true religion? That cannot be, if they be true. Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent judges, or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary. Is it because they be contrary to the religion established? Let them be silenced by the laws of those, to whom the teachers of them are subject; that is, by the laws civil. For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them, that against the laws teach even true philosophy. Is it because they tend to disorder in government, as countenancing rebellion, or sedition? Then let them be silenced, and the teachers punished by virtue of his power to whom the care of the public quiet is committed; which is the authority civil. For whatsoever power ecclesiastics take upon themselves, (in any place where they are subject to the state), in their own right, though they call it God’s right, is but usurpation.

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