RELIGIO MEDICÍ nity, which is indivisible, and all together, the last trump is already sounded, the reprobates in the flame, and the blessed in Abraham's bosom. St. Peter speaks modestly, when he saith,* a thousand years to God are but as one day; for to speak like a philosopher, those continued instances of time which flow into a thousand years, make not to him one moment: what to us is to come, to his eternity is present, his whole duration being but one permanent point, without succession, parts, flux, or division. XII. There is no attribute that adds more of the Trinity. difficulty to the mystery of the Trinity, where, though in a relative way of Father and Son, we must deny a priority. I wonder how Aristotle could conceive the world eternal, or how he could make good two eternities: his similitude of a triangle, comprehended in a square, doth somewhat illustrate the trinity of our souls, and that the triple unity of God; for there is in us not three, but a trinity of souls, because there is in us, if not three distinct souls, yet differing faculties, that can and do subsist apart in different subjects, and yet in us are so united as to make but one soul and substance: if one soul were so perfect as to inform three distinct bodies, that were a petty trinity: conceive the distinct number of three, not divided nor separated *2 Pet. iii. 8. by the intellect, but actually comprehended in its unity, and that is a perfect trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers. "Beware of philosophy," is a precept not to be received in too large a sense for in this mass of nature there is a set of things that carry in their front, though not in capital letters, yet in stenography and short characters, something of divinity, which to wiser reasons serve as luminaries in the abyss of knowledge, and to judicious beliefs as scales and roundles to mount the pinnacles and highest pieces of divinity. The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the phiThe visible losophy of Hermes, that this visible world is world a but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a of the portrait things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some more real substance in that invisible fabric. picture invisible. The Wis dom of God. ๆๆ XIII. That other attribute wherewith I recreate my devotion, is his Wisdom, in which I am happy; and for the contemplation of this only, do not repent me that I was bred in the /way of study: the advantage. I have of the vulgar, with the content and happiness I conceive therein, is an ample recompense for all my endeavours, in what part of knowledge soever. Wisdom is his most beauteous attribute; no man can attain unto it, yet Solomon pleased God when he desired it. He is wise, because he knows all things; and he knoweth all things, because he made them all: but his greatest knowledge is in comprehending that he made not, that is, himself. And this is also the greatest knowledge in man: for this I do honour my own profession, and embrace the counsel _even of the devil himself: had he read such a lecture in Paradise as he did at Delphos,* we had better known ourselves, nor had we stood in fear to know him. I know He is wise in all, wonderful in what we conceive, but far more in what we comprehend not; for we behold him but asquint, upon reflex or shadow; our understanding is dimmer than Moses' eye; we are ignorant of the back parts or lower side of his divinity; therefore to pry into the maze of his counsels, is not only folly in man, but presumption even in angels: like us, they are his servants, not his senators; he holds no council, but that mystical one of the Trinity, wherein though there be three persons, there is but one mind that decrees without contradiction: nor needs he any; his actions are not begot with deliberation, his wisdom naturally knows what is best; his intellect stands ready fraught with the superlative and purest ideas of goodness; consultation and election, which are two motions in us, make *Тvôli σeavтóv, Nosce te ipsum. ing to trace God in his Works. but one in him; his actions springing from his power, at the first touch of his will. These are contemplations metaphysical: my humble speculations have another method, and are content to trace and discover those expressions he hath left in his creatures, and the obvious effects of No danger nature: there is no danger to profound these in attempt mysteries, no sanctum sanctorum in philosophy. the hand of The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated by man:* 't is the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beasts: without this, the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive or say there was a world. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works: those highly magnify him, whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration. Therefore, Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason go * In the MS. (in the British Museum) this clause stands thus: "The world was made not so much to be inhabited by men, as to be contemplated, studied, and known, by man." It is thy Maker's will, for unto none But unto reason can he e'er be known. The devils do know thee, but those damn'd meteors Teach my endeavours so thy works to read, That learning them in thee I may proceed. Give thou my reason that instructive flight, Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light. When near the sun, to stoop again below. Thus shall my humble feathers safely hover, And though near earth, more than the heavens discover.^ And then at last, when homeward I shall drive Rich with the spoils of nature to my hive, There will I sit like that industrious fly, Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory vii. 21. And this is almost all wherein an humble creature may endeavour to requite, and some way to retribute unto his Creator: for if not he that saith, "Lord, Lord, but he that doth the st. Matt. will of his Father," shall be saved; certainly our wills must be our performances, and our intents make out our actions; otherwise our pious labours shall find anxiety in our graves, and our best endeavours not hope, but fear a resurrection. ted essence hath its XIV. There is but one first cause, and four Every creasecond causes of all things: some are without efficient, as God; others without matter, as an- proper end. gels; some without form, as the first matter: but every essence created or uncreated hath its |