unto atheism; who forgetting the honest advisoes of faith, have listened unto the conspiracy of passion and reason. I have therefore always endeavoured to compose those feuds and angry dissentions between affection, faith, and reason; for there is in our soul a kind of triumvirate, or triple government of three competitors, which distract the peace of this our commonwealth not less than did that other the state of Rome. As reason is a rebel unto faith, so passion unto reason; as the propositions of faith seem absurd unto reason, so the theorems of reason unto passion, and both [reason and passion] unto [faith;] yet a moderate and peaceable discretion may so state and order the matter, that they may be all kings and yet make but one monarchy, every one exercising his sovereignty and prerogative in a due time and place, according to the restraint and limit of circumstance. There is, 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. our endeavours are not only to combat with doubts, For but always to dispute with the devil; the villany 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 Archidoxis 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 asphaltick 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 endeavours; and whilst I laboured to raise the structure of my reason, he strived to undermine the edifice of my faith. XX. Neither had these or 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 inferiour creatures. That fatal necessity of the Stoicks, is nothing but the immutable law of his will. Those that heretofore denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost, have been condemned but as hereticks; and those that now deny our Saviour (though more than hereticks) 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 more advanced judgments too rashly venture on; it is the rhetorick of Satan, and may pervert a loose or prejudicate belief. XXI. I confess I have perused them all, and can discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief; yet are there heads carried off with the wind and breath of such motives. I remember a doctor of physick in 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 man of singular parts, that on the same point was so plunged and gravelled with three lines of Seneca,* that all our antidotes, drawn from both Scripture and philosophy, could not expel the * Mors individua est noxia corpori Nec parcens animæ. Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. Nostri. poison of his errour. There are a set of heads that can credit the relations of mariners, yet question the testimonies of St. 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 fable of poets, and to a captious reader found like Garagantua or Bevis; search all the legends of times past, and the fabulous conceits of these present, and 'twill be hard to find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto Samson; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we conceive a divine concourse or an influence but 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 shew a catalogue of doubts never yet imagined nor questioned, as I know, which are not resolved at the first hearing; not fantastick 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 |