OF IMPOSTORS. "Whether we be transported in mind it is to Godward; Or whether we be sober it is to youward." THIS is the true image and true temper of a man, and of him that is God's faithful workman; his carriage and conversation towards God is full of passion, of zeal, and of tramisses; thence proceed groans unspeakable, and exultings likewise in comfort, ravishment of spirit and agonies; but contrariwise, his carriage and conversation towards men is full of mildness, sobriety, and appliable demeanour. Hence is that saying, "I am become all things to all men," and such like. Contrary it is with hypocrites and impostors, for they in the church, and before the people, set themselves on fire, and are carried as it were out of themselves, and becoming as men inspired with holy furies, they set heaven and earth together; but if a man did see their solitary and separate meditations and conversation whereunto God is only privy, he might, towards God, find them not only cold and without virtue, but also full of ill-nature and leaven; "Sober enough to God, and transported only towards men." of that belief; for seeing it makes not for him that there should be a God, he doth seek by all means accordingly to persuade and resolve himself, and studies to affirm, prove, and verify it to himself as some theme or position: all which labour, notwithstanding that sparkle of our creation light, whereby men acknowledge a Deity burneth still within; and in vain doth he strive utterly to alienate it or put it out, so that it is out of the corruption of his heart and will, and not out of the natural apprehension of his brain and conceit, that he doth set down his opinion, as the comical poet saith, "Then came my mind to be of mine opinion," as if himself and his mind had been two divers things; therefore the atheist hath rather said, and held it in his heart, than thought or believed in his heart that there is no God; secondly, it is to be observed, that he hath said in his heart, and not spoken it with his mouth. But again you shall note, that this smothering of this persuasion within the heart cometh to pass for fear of government and of speech amongst men; for, as he saith, "To deny God in a public argument were much, but in a familiar conference were current enough:" for if this bridle were re OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF IMPOS- moved, there is no heresy which would contend TURE. more to spread and multiply, and disseminate "Avoid profane strangeness of words, and oppositions of itself abroad, than atheism: neither shall you see knowledge falsely so called." "Avoid fond and idle fables." "Let no man deceive you by high speech." THERE are three forms of speaking, which are as it were the style and phrase of imposture: the first kind is of them, who as soon as they have gotten any subject or matter do straight cast it into an art, inventing new terms of art, reducing all into divisions and distinctions; thence drawing assertions or positions, and so framing oppositions by questions and answers. Hence issueth the cobwebs and clatterings of the schoolmen. The second kind is of them, who out of the vanity of their wit (as church poets) do make and devise all variety of tales, stories, and examples; whereby they may lead men's minds to a belief, from whence did grow the legends and infinite fabulous inventions and dreams of the ancient heretics. The third kind is of them who fill men's cares with mysteries, high parables, allegories, and illusions; which mystical and profound form many of the heretics also made choice of. By the first kind of these, the capacity and wit of man is fettered and entangled; by the second, it is trained on and inveigled; by the third, it is astonished and enchanted; but by every of them the while it is seduced and abused. OF ATHEISM. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." FIRST, it is to be noted, that the Scripture saith, "The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart;" that is to say, he doth not so fully think it in judgment, as he hath a good will to be those men which are drenched in this frenzy of mind to breathe almost any thing else, or to inculcate even without occasion any thing more than speech tending to atheism, as may appear in Lucrecius the epicure, who makes of his invectives against religion as it were a burden or verse of return to all his other discourses; the reason seems to be, for that the atheist not relying sufficiently upon himself, floating in mind and unsatisfied, and enduring within many faintings, and as it were fails of his opinion, desires by other men's opinions agreeing with his, to be recovered and brought again; for it is a true saying, "Whoso laboureth earnestly to prove an opinion to another, himself distrusts it:" thirdly, it is a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true; not only in respect that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine; but in respect of human and civil wisdom: for first of all, if you mark the wits and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most contrary to wisdom and moral gravity. Secondly, amongst statesmen and politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of Deity, as they which you shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence. Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to The second degree is of them to whom the matheir own cunning and practices, and to the imme-jesty of God seems too much wronged, in setting diate and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, up and erecting against him another adverse and "Have sacrificed to their own nets," have been opposite principle, namely such a principle as always but petty counterfeit statesman, and not capable of the greatest actions. THIS canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power; the will of God is more revealed by the Scriptures, and therefore the precept is, "Search the Scriptures;" the will of God is more revealed by the creatures, and therefore the precept is, "Behold and consider the creatures" so is the fulness of the power of God to be affirmed, as we make no imputation to his will; so is the goodness of the will of God to be affirmed, as we make no derogation from his power: therefore true religion seated in the mean betwixt superstition, with superstitious heresies on the one side, and atheism with profane heresies on the other; superstition, rejecting the light of the Scriptures, and giving itself over to ungrounded traditions, and writings doubtful and not canonical, or to new revelations, or to untrue interpretations of the Scriptures, themselves do forge and dream many things of the will of God, which are strange and far distant from the true sense of the Scriptures; but atheism and theomachy rebelleth and mutinieth against the power of God, giving no faith to his word which revealeth his will, upon a discredit and unbelief of his power to whom all things are possible. Now, those heresies which spring out of this fountain seem more heinous than the other; for even in civil governments it is held an offence in a higher degree to deny the power and authority of a prince than to touch his honour and fame. Of these heresies which derogate from the power of God, beside plain atheism, there are three degrees, and they all have one and the same mystery; for all antichristianity worketh in a mystery, that is, under the shadow of good, and it is this, to free and deliver the will of God from all imputation and aspersion of evil. The first degree is of those who make and suppose two principles contrary and fighting one against the other, the one of good, the other of evil. should be active and affirmative, that is to say, cause or fountain of any essence or being; therefore rejecting all such presumption, they do nevertheless bring in against God a principal negative and privative, that is a cause of not being and subsisting, for they will have it to be an inbred proper work, and nature of the matter and creature itself, of itself to turn again and resolve into confusion and nothing, not knowing that it is an effect of one and the same omnipotency to make nothing of somewhat as to make somewhat of nothing. The third degree is, of those who abridge and restrain the former opinion only to those human actions which partake of sin, which actions they will have to depend substantively and originally, and without any sequel or subordination of causes upon the will, and make and set down and appoint larger limits of the knowledge of God than of his power, or rather of that part of God's power, (for knowledge itself is a power whereby he knoweth,) than of that by which he moveth and worketh, making him foreknow some things idle, and as a looker on, which he doth not predestinate nor ordain: not unlike to that devise which Epicurus brought into Democritus' opinion, to take away destiny, and make way to fortune, to wit; the start and slip of Attemus, which always of the wiser sort was rejected as a frivolous shift: but whatsoever depends not of God, as author and principle by inferior links and degrees, that must needs be in place of God, and a new principle, and a certain usurping God; wherefore worthily is that opinion refused as an indignity and derogation to the majesty and power of God, and yet it is most truly affirmed, that God is not the author of evil, not because he is not author, but because not as of evil. OF THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIP TURES. "Thou shalt protect them in thy tabernacle from the tradition of tongues." THE Contradiction of tongues doth everywhere meet with us out of the tabernacle of God, therefore whithersoever thou shall turn thyself thou shalt find no end of controversies except thou withdraw thyself into that tabernacle. Thou wilt say it is true, and that it is to be understood of the unity of the church; but hear and note; there was in the tabernacle the ark, and in the ark the testimony or tables of the law: what dost thou tell me of the husk of the tabernacle without the kernel of the testimony: the tabernacle was ordained for the keeping and delivering over from hand to hand of the testimony. In like manner the custody and passing over of the Scriptures is committed unto the church, but the life of the tabernacle is the testimony. OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. A FRAGMENT. * A. D. 1597. TO THE LORD MOUNTJOYE. I SEND you the last part of the best book of Aristotle of Stagira, who, as your lordship knoweth, goeth for the best author. But saving the civil respect which is due to a received estimation, the man being a Grecian, and of a hasty wit, having hardly a discerning patience, much less a teaching patience, hath so delivered the matter, as I am glad to do the part of a good house-hen, which without any strangeness will sit upon pheasants' eggs. And yet perchance some that shall compare my lines with Aristotle's lines, will muse by what art, or rather by what revelation, I could draw these conceits out of that place. But I, that should know best, do freely acknowledge, that I had my light from him; for where he gave me not matter to perfect, at the least he gave me occasion to invent. Wherein as I do him right, being myself a man that am as free from envying the dead in contemplation, as from envying the living in action or fortune: so yet nevertheless still I say, and I speak it more largely than before, that in perusing the writings of this person so much celebrated, whether it were the impediment of his wit, or that he did it upon glory and affectation to be subtile, as one that if he had seen his own conceits clearly and perspicuously delivered, perhaps would have been out of love with them himself; or else upon policy, to keep himself close, as one that had been a challenger of all the world, and had raised infinite contradiction: to what cause soever it is to be ascribed, I do not find him to deliver and unwrap himself well of that he seemeth to conceive; nor to be a master of his own knowledge. Neither do I for my part also, though I have brought in a new manner of handling this argument, to make it pleasant and lightsome, pretend so to have overcome the nature of the subject, but that the full understanding and use of it will be somewhat dark, and best pleasing the taste of such wits as are patient to stay the digesting and soluting unto themselves of that which is sharp and subtile. Which was the cause, joined with the love and honour which I bear to your lordship, as the person I know to have many virtues, and an excellent order of them, which moved me to dedicate this writing to your lordship after the ancient manner: choosing both a friend, and one to whom I conceived the argument was agreeable. OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. IN deliberatives the point is, what is good, and what is evil, and of good what is greater, and of evil what is less. So that the persuader's labour is to make things appear good or evil, and that in higher or lower degree, which as it may be performed by true and solid reasons, so it may be represented also by colours, popularities and circumstances, which are of such force, as they sway the ordinary judgment either of a weak man, or of a wise man not fully and considerately attending and pondering the matter. Besides their power to alter the nature of the subject in appearance, and so to lead to error, they are of no less use to quicken and strengthen the opinions and persuasions which are true: for reasons plainly delivered, and always after one manner, especially with fine and fastidious minds, enter but heavily and dully: whereas if they be varied and have more life and vigour put into them by these forms and insinuations, they cause a stronger apprehension, and many times suddenly win the mind to a resolution. Lastly, to make a true and safe judgment, nothing can be of greater use and defence to the mind, than the discovering and reprehension of these Colours, showing in what cases they hold, and in See the "Advancement of Learning," and the treatise "De Augmentis," under the title Rhetoric. what they deceive: which as it cannot be done, | May. A Table of the Colours or Appearances of Good and Evil, and their degrees, as places of persuasion and dissuasion, and their several fallacies and the elenches of them. I. "Cui cateræ partes vel sectæ secundas unanimiter deferunt, cum singulæ principatum sibi vindicent, melior reliquis videtur. Nam primas quæque ex zelo videtur sumere, secundas autem ex vero et merito tribuere."* Sometimes because the nature of some kinds is to be more equal, and more indifferent, and not to have very distant degrees, as hath been noted in the warmer climates, the people are generally more wise, but in the northern climates the wits of chief are greater. So in many armies, if the matter should be tried by duel between two champions, the victory should go on the one side, and yet if it be tried by the gross, it would go on the other side; for excellencies go as it were by chance, but kinds go by a more certain nature, as by discipline in war. Lastly many kinds have much refuse, which countervail that which they have excellent, and therefore generally metal is more precious than stone; and yet a diamond is more precious than gold. III. "Quod ad veritatem refertur majus est quam quod ad opini onem. Then ask Modus autem et probatio ejus quod ad opinionem pertinet hæc est, quod quis si clam putaret fore facturus non esset." So Cicero went about to prove the sect of Academics, which suspended all asseveration, for to be the best for, saith he, ask a Stoic which philosophy is true, he will prefer his own. him which approacheth next the truth, he will confess the Academics. So deal with the Epicure, that will scant endure the Stoic to be in sight of him, so soon as he hath placed himself, he will place the Academics next him. So if a prince took divers competitors to a place, and examined them severally, whom next themselves they would rarest commend, it were like the ablest man should have the most second voices. The fallax of this colour happeneth oft in respect of envy, for men are accustomed after themselves and their own faction, to incline unto them which are softest, and are least in their way, in despite and derogation of them, that hold them hardest to it. So that this colour of meliority and pre-eminence is a sign of enervation and weakness. II. "Cujus excellentia vel exsuperantia melior, id toto genere melius."+ us Let APPERTAINING to this are the forms: not wander in generalities: Let us compare particular with particular," &c. This appearance, though it seem of strength, and rather logical than rhetorical yet is very oft a fallax. very Sometime because some things are in kind casual, which if they escape, prove excellent, so that the kind is inferior, because it is so subject to peril, but that which is excellent being proved is superior, as the blossom of March and the blossom of May, whereof the French verse goeth: "Burgeon de Mars, enfans de Paris, Si un eschape, il en vaut dix." So that the blossom of May is generally better than the blossom of March, and yet the best blossom of March is better than the best blossom of "Since all parties or sects challenge the pre-eminence of the first place to themselves, that to which all the rest with one consent give the second place, seems to be better than the others: for every one seems to take the first place out of self-zeal but to give the second where it is really due." +"That kind is altogether best, whose excellence or preeminence is best." VOL. I.-10 "Grata sub imo The fallax of this colour is somewhat subtile, the spur, and that it is no manner of impediment, nor burden, the horse is not to be accounted the "That which hath a relation to truth is greater than that which refers to opinion: but the measure and trial of that which belongs to opinion is this: It is that which a man would not do, if he thought it would not be known G less of, which will not do well without the spur, but rather the other is to be reckoned a delicacy, than a virtue: so glory and honour are the spurs to virtue and although virtue would languish without them, yet since they be always at hand to attend virtue, virtue is not to be said the less chosen for itself, because it needeth the spur of fame and reputation: and therefore that position, "nota ejus rei quod propter opinionem et non propter veritatem eligitur, hæc est; quod quis si, clam putaret fore, facturus non esset," is reprehended. IV. "Quod rem integram servat bonum, quod sine receptu est malum. Nam se recipere non posse impotentiæ genus est, potentia autem bonum."* HEREOF Æsop framed the fable of the two frogs that consulted together in the time of drought, when many plashes that they had repaired to were dry, what was to be done, and the one propounded to go down into a deep well, because it was like the water would not fail there; but the other answered, yea, but if it do fail, how shall we get up again. And the reason is, that human actions are so uncertain and subject to perils, as that power; eth the total greater, yet nevertheless, it often carries the mind away, yea, it deceiveth the sense; as it seemeth to the eye a shorter distance of way, if it be all dead, and continued, than if it have trees or buildings, or any other marks, whereby the eye may divide it. So when a great moneyed man hath divided his chests, and coins, and bags, he seemeth to himself richer than he was, and therefore a way to amplify any thing is, to break it and to make anatomy of it in several parts, and to examine it according to several circumstances. And this maketh the greater show if it be done without order, for confusion maketh things muster more; and besides, what is set down by order and division, doth demonstrate that nothing is left out or omitted, but all is there; whereas if it be without order, both the mind comprehendeth less that which is set down; and besides, it leaveth a suspicion, as if more might be said than is expressed. This colour deceiveth, if the mind of him that is to be persuaded, do of itself over-conceive, or prejudge of the greatness of any thing; for then the breaking of it will make it seem less, because seemeth the best course which hath most it maketh it to appear more according to the truth: passages and therefore if a man be in sickness or pain, the out of it. Appertaining to this persuasion, the forms are, you shall engage yourself, on the other time will seem longer without a clock or hourglass, than with it; for the mind doth value every moside, "tantum, quantum voles, sumes ex fortuna,' &c. you shall keep the matter in your own hand.ment, and then the hour doth rather sum up the The reprehension of it is, that proceeding and remoments than divide the day. So in a dead plain solving in all actions is necessary. For as he the way seemeth longer, because the eye hath saith well, not to resolve, is to resolve, and many frustrating of that maketh it seem longer than the preconceived it shorter than the truth, and the times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth as far in some other sort, as to resolve. So it is but truth. Therefore if any man have an over-great the covetous man's disease, translated into opinion of any thing, then if another think by for the covetous man will enjoy nothing, because breaking it into several considerations he shall he will have his full store and possibility to enjoy and therefore in such cases it is not safe to divide, make it seem greater to him, he will be deceived; the more; so by this reason, a man should execute nothing, because he should be still indifferent, but to extol the entire, still in general. Another and at liberty to execute any thing. Besides case wherein this colour deceiveth is, when the necessity and this same "jacta est alea," hath matter broken or divided is not comprehended by many times an advantage, because it awaketh the sense or mind at once, in respect of the disthe powers of the mind, and strengtheneth endea-tracting or scattering of it; and being entire and not vour, "cæteris paret necessitate certe superiores in heaps of five pounds will show more than in one divided, is comprehended; as an hundred pounds gross heap, so as the heaps be all upon one table to be seen at once, otherwise not; as flowers grow ing scattered in divers beds will show more than if they did grow in one bed, so as all those beds be within a plot, that they be objects to view at once, otherwise not: and therefore men, whose living lieth together in one shire, are commonly istis." V. "Quod ex pluribus constat et divisibilibus, est majus quam quod ex paucioribus et magis unum ; nam omnia per partes considerata majora videntur, quare et pluralitas partium magnitudinem præ se fert: fortius autem operatur pluralitas partium si ordo absit, nam inducit similitudinem infiniti, et impedit comprehensionem."+ THIS Colour seemeth palpable, for it is not plurality of parts, without majority of parts, that mak-counted greater landed than those whose livings "That which keeps a matter safe and entire is good; but what is destitute and unprovided of retreat is bad; for whereas all ability of acting is good, not to be able to with draw one's self is a kind of impotency." "That which consists of more parts and those divisible, is greater, and more one than what is made up of fewer; for all things when they are looked upon piecemeal seem greater; when also a plurality of parts make a show of bulk considerable, which a plurality of parts affects more strongly, if they be in no certain order; for it then resembles an in nity, and hinders the comprehending of them." are dispersed, though it be more, because of the notice and comprehension. A third case wherein this colour deceiveth, and it is not so properly a case of reprehension, as it is a counter colour, being in effect as large as the colour itself; and that is, "omnis compositio indigentiæ cujusdam videtur esse particeps," because if one thing would serve the turn, it were ever best, but the defect and im |