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There are, as in philosophy, so in divinity, sturdy doubts and boisterous objections, wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us. More of these no man hath known than myself, which I confess I conquered, not in a martial posture, but on my knees. For our endeavors are not only to combat with doubts, but always to dispute with the devil: the villainy of that spirit takes a hint of infidelity from our studies, and by demonstrating a naturality in one way, makes us mistrust a miracle in another. Thus having perused the archidoxes, and read the secret sympathies of things, he would dissuade my belief from the miracle of the brazen serpent, make me conceit that image worked by sympathy, and was but an Egyptian trick to cure their diseases without a miracle. Again, having seen some experiments of bitumen, and having read far more of naphtha, he whispered to my curiosity the fire of the altar might be natural, and bid me mistrust a miracle in Elias, when he intrenched the altar round with water; for that inflammable substance yields not easily unto water, but flames in the arms of its antagonist. And thus would he inveigle my belief to think the combustion. of Sodom might be natural, and that there was an asphaltic and bituminous nature in that lake before the fire of Gomorrah. I know that manna is now plentifully gathered in Calabria; and Josephus tells me, in his days it was as plentiful in Arabia. The devil, therefore, made the query: "Where was then the miracle in the days of Moses?" The Israelites saw but that in his time the natives of those countries behold in ours. Thus the devil played at chess with me, and, yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me, taking advantage of my honest endeavors; and whilst I labored to raise the structure of my reason, he strived to undermine the edifice of my faith.

Neither had these nor any other ever such advantage of me as to incline me to any point of infidelity or desperate positions of atheism; for I have been these many years of opinion there was never any. Those that held religion was the difference of man from beasts, have spoken probably, and proceed upon a principle as inductive as the other. That doctrine of Epicurus that denied the providence of God was no atheism, but a magnificent and high-strained conceit of his majesty, which he deemed too sublime to mind the trivial actions of those inferior creatures. That fatal necessity of the stoics is nothing but the immutable law of his will. Those that heretofore denied the divinity of the

Holy Ghost have been condemned, but as heretics; and those that now deny our Savior (though more than heretics) are not so much as atheists; for though they deny two persons in the Trinity, they hold, as we do, there is but one God.

That villain and secretary of hell, that composed that miscreant piece of the "Three Impostors," though divided from all religions, and was neither Jew, Turk, nor Christian, was not a positive atheist. I confess every country hath its Machiavel, every age its Lucian, whereof common heads must not hear, nor advanced judgments too rashly venture on; it is the rhetoric of Satan, and may pervert a loose or prejudicate belief.

I confess I have perused them all, and can discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief; yet are their heads carried off with the wind and breath of such motives. I remember a doctor in physic of Italy who could not perfectly believe the immortality of the soul, because Galen seemed to make a doubt thereof. With another I was familiarly acquainted in France, a divine, and a man of singular parts, that on the same point was so plunged and graveled with three lines of Seneca, that all our antidotes, drawn from both Scripture and philosophy, could not expel the poison of his error. There are a set of heads that can credit the relations of mariners, yet question the testimonies of Saint Paul; and peremptorily maintain the traditions of Ælian or Pliny, yet in histories of Scripture raise queries and objections, believing no more than they can parallel in human authors. I confess there are in Scripture stories that do exceed the fables of poets, and to a captious reader sound like Gargantua or Bevis. Search all the legends of times past, and the fabulous conceits of these present, and it will be hard to find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto Sampson; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we conceive a divine concourse, or an influence from the little finger of the Almighty. It is impossible that either in the discourse of man, or in the infallible voice of God, to the weakness of our apprehensions there should not appear irregularities, contradictions, and antinomies. Myself could show a catalogue of doubts, never yet imagined or questioned, as I know, which are not resolved at the first hearing; not fantastic queries or objections of air; for I cannot hear of atoms in divinity. I can read the history of the pigeon that was sent out of the ark, and returned no more, yet not question how she found out her mate that was left behind; that Lazarus was raised from the dead, yet

not demand wherein the interim his soul awaited, or raise a law case, whether his heir might lawfully detain his inheritance bequeathed unto him by his death, and he, though restored to life, have no plea or title unto his former possessions. Whether Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not; because I stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man, or whether there be any such distinction in nature. That she was edified out of the rib of Adam, I believe, yet raise no question who shall arise with that rib at the Resurrection. Whether Adam was an hermaphrodite, as the rabbins contend upon the letter of the text, because it is contrary to reason there should be an hermaphrodite before there was a woman; or a composition of two natures, before there was a second composed. Likewise, whether the world was created in autumn, summer, or the spring, because it was created in them all; for whatsoever sign the sun possesseth, those four seasons are actually existent: it is the nature of this luminary to distinguish the several seasons of the year, all which it makes at one time in the whole earth, and successively in any part thereof. There are a bundle of curiosities, not only in philosophy, but in divinity, proposed and discussed by men of most supposed abilities, which indeed are not worthy our vacant hours, much less our serious studies,- pieces only fit to be placed in Pantagruel's library, or bound up with Tartaretus's "De Modo Cacandi,"

These are niceties that become not those that peruse so serious a mystery; there are others more generally questioned and called to the bar, yet methinks of an easy and possible truth.

It is ridiculous to put off, or drown, the general flood of Noah, in that particular inundation of Deucalion; that there was a deluge once seems not to me so great a miracle as that there is not one always. How all the kinds of creatures, not only in their own bulks, but with a competency of food and sustenance, might be preserved in one ark, and within the extent of three hundred cubits, to a reason that rightly examines it, will appear very feasible. There is another secret not contained in the Scripture, which is more hard to comprehend, and puts the honest. father to the refuge of a miracle: and that is, not only how the distinct pieces of the world and divided islands should be first planted by men, but inhabited by tigers, panthers, and bears. How America abounded with beasts of prey and noxious animals, yet contained not in it that necessary creature, a horse is very

strange. By what passage those, not only birds, but dangerous. and unwelcome beasts came over, how there be creatures there which are not found in this triple continent, all which must needs be strange unto us, that hold but one ark, and that the creatures began their progress from the mountains of Ararat. They who to solve this would make the deluge particular proceed upon a principle that I can no way grant; not only upon the negative of Holy Scriptures, but of my own reason, whereby I can make it probable that the world was as well peopled in the time of Noah as in ours; and fifteen hundred years to people the world as full a time for them as four thousand years since have been to us. There are other assertions and common tenets drawn from Scripture, and generally believed as Scripture, whereunto, notwithstanding, I would not betray the liberty of my reason. It is a paradox to me, that Methusalem was the longest lived of all the children of Adam, and no man will be able to prove it, when, from the process of the text, I can manifest it may be otherwise. That Judas perished by hanging himself there is no certainty in Scripture; though in one place it seems to affirm it, and by a doubtful word hath given occasion to translate it, yet in another place, in a more punctual description, it makes it improbable and seems to overthrow it. That our fathers, after the flood, erected the tower of Babel, to preserve themselves against a second deluge, is generally opinioned and believed, yet is there another intention of theirs expressed in Scripture. Besides, it is improbable, from the circumstance of the place, that is, a plain in the land of Shinar. These are no points of faith, and therefore may admit a free dispute. There are yet others, and those familiarly conclude from the text, wherein (under favor) I see no consequence; the Church of Rome confidently proves the opinion of tutelary angels, from that answer when Peter knocked at the door, "It is not he, but his angel"; that is, might some say, his messenger, or somebody from him,- for so the original signifies, and is as likely to be the doubtful phrase's meaning. This exposition I once suggested to a young divine, that answered upon this point; to which I remember the Franciscan opponent replied no more but that it was a new, and no authentic, interpretation.

These are but the conclusions and fallible discourses of man upon the word of God. Such I do believe the Holy Scriptures; yet were it of man, I could not choose but say it was the singu

larest and superlative piece that hath been extant since the creation; were I a pagan, I should not refrain the lecture of it, and cannot but commend the judgment of Ptolemy, that thought not his library complete without it. The Alcoran of the Turks (I speak without prejudice) is an ill-composed piece, containing in it vain and ridiculous errors in philosophy, impossibilities, fictions, and vanities beyond laughter, maintained by evident and open sophisms, the policy of ignorance, deposition of universities, and banishment of learning, that hath gotten foot by arms and violence; this, without a blow, hath disseminated itself through the whole earth. It is not unremarkable what Philo first observed, that the law of Moses continued two thousand years without the least alteration; whereas, we see the laws of other commonwealths do alter with occasions, and even those that pretend their original from some divinity, to have vanished without trace or memory. I believe, besides Zoroaster, there were divers that wrote before Moses, who, notwithstanding, have suffered the common fate of time. Men's works have an age like themselves, and though they outlive their authors, yet have they a stint and period to their duration. This only is a work too hard for the teeth of time, and cannot perish but in the general flames, when all things shall confess their ashes.

I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero; others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library of Alexandria. For my own part, I think there be too many in the world, and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon. I would not omit a copy of Enoch's "Pillars," had they many nearer authors than Josephus, or did not relish somewhat of the fable. Some men have written more than others have spoken. Pineda quotes more authors in one work than are necessary in a whole world. Of those three great inventions in Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities, and it is disputable whether they exceed not their use and commodities. It is not a melancholy utinam of my own, but the desires of better heads, that there were a general synod; not to unite the incompatible difference of religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors, and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgments of scholars and to maintain the trade and mystery of typographers.

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