xii. 9. xvii. common good is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery. The same piety, which maketh them that are in Authority desirous to please and resemble God by Justice, inflameth every way men of action with zeal to do good (as far as their place will permit) unto all: for that, they know, is most noble and divine.* Whereby if no natural or casual inability cross their desires, they, always delighting to inure themselves with actions most beneficial to others, cannot but gather great experience, and through experience the more wisdom; because conscience and the fear of swerving from that which is right, maketh them diligent observers of circumstances, the loose regard whereof is the nurse of vulgar folly, no less than Solomon's attention thereunto was of natural furtherances the most effectual to make him eminent above others. For he gave good heed, Eccles. and pierced every thing to the very ground, and by that mean became the author of many parables. Concerning Fortitude, sith evils great and unexpected (the true touchstone of constant minds) do cause oftentimes even them to think upon divine power with fearfullest suspicions, which Wist. have been otherwise the most secure despisers thereof; how 13. should we look for any constant resolution of mind in such cases, saving only where unfeigned affection to God-ward hath bred the most assured confidence to be assisted by his hand? For proof whereof, let but the acts of the ancient Jews be indifferently weighed, from whose magnanimity, in causes of most extreme hazard, those strange and unwonted resolutions have grown, which, for all circumstances, no people under the roof of Heaven did ever hitherto match. And that which did always animate them was their mere Religion. Without which, if so be it were possible that all other ornaments of mind might be had in their full perfection, nevertheless the mind that should possess them divorced from piety, could be but a spectacle of commiseration; even as that body is, which adorned with sundry other admirable beauties, wanteth eye-sight, the chiefest grace that Nature hath in that kind to bestow. They which commend so much the felicity of that innocent world, wherein it is said that men of their own accord did embrace fidelity and honesty, not for fear of the Magistrate, or because revenge was ̓Αγαπητὸν μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἑνὶ μόνῳ, κάλλιον δὲ καὶ θειότερον ἔθνει καὶ πόλεσιν. Arist. Ethic. lib. i. cap. 2. Psal. i. 3. before their eyes, if at any time they should do otherwise, but that which held the people in awe was the shame of ill-doing, the love of equity and right itself a bar against all oppressions which greatness of power causeth; they which describe unto us any such estate of happiness amongst men, though they speak not of Religion, do notwithstanding declare that which is in truth her only working. For, if Religion did possess sincerely and sufficiently the hearts of all men, there would need no other restraint from evil. This doth not only give life and perfection to all endeavours wherewith it concurreth; but what event soever ensue, it breedeth, if not joy and gladness always, yet always patience, satisfaction, and reasonable contentment of mind. Whereupon it hath been set down as an axiom of good experience, that all things religiously taken in hand are prosperously ended; because, whether men in the end have that which Religion did allow them to desire, or that which it teacheth them contentedly to suffer, they are in neither event unfortunate.* But lest any man should here conceive, that it greatly skilleth not of what sort our Religion be, inasmuch as Heathens, Turks, and Infidels, impute to Religion a great part of the same effects which ourselves ascribe thereunto, they having ours in the same detestation that we theirs; it shall be requisite to observe well, how far forth there may be agreement in the effects of different Religions. First, by the bitter strife which riseth oftentimes from small differences in this behalf, and is by so much always greater as the matter is of more importance; we see a general agreement in the secret opinion of men, that every man ought to embrace the Religion which is true, and to shun, as hurtful, whatsoever dissenteth from it, but that most, which doth farthest dissent. The generality of which persuasion argueth, that God hath imprinted it by Nature, to the end it might be a spur to our industry in searching and maintaining that Religion, from which as to swerve in the least points is error, so the capital enemies thereof God hateth as his deadly foes; aliens, and, without repentance, children of endless perdition. Such, therefore, touching man's immortal state after this life, are not likely to reap benefit by their * Τὸν γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἔμφρονα πᾶσας οἰόμεθα τὰς τύχας εὐσχημόνως φέρειν, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων ἀεὶ τὰ κάλλιστα πράττειν. Arist. Ethic. lib. i. cap. 10. Bell. lib. vi. Religion, but to look for the clean contrary, in regard of so important contrariety between it and the true Religion. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the errors of the most seduced this way have been mixed with some truths, we are not to marvel, that although the one did turn to their endless woe and confusion, yet the other had many notable effects as touching the affairs of this present life. There were in cas. de these quarters of the world, sixteen hundred years ago, Gall. certain speculative men whose authority disposed the whole Religion of those times. By their means it became a received opinion, that the souls of men departing this life do flit out of one body into some other. Which opinion, though false, yet entwined with a true, that the souls of men do never perish, abated the fear of death in them which were so resolved, and gave them courage unto all adventures. The Romans had a vain superstitious custom, in most of their enterprises, to conjecture beforehand of the event by certain tokens which they noted in birds, or in the entrails of beasts, or by other the like frivolous divinations. From whence notwithstanding, as oft as they could receive any sign which they took to be favourable, it gave them such hope, as if their gods had made them more than half a promise of prosperous success. Which many times was the greatest cause that they did prevail, especially being men, of their own natural inclination, hopeful and strongly conceited, whatsoever they took in hand. But could their fond Superstition have furthered so great attempts without the mixture of a true persuasion concerning the unresistible force of divine power? Upon the wilful violation of oaths, execrable blasphemies, and like contempts, offered by deriders of Religion, even unto false gods, fearful tokens of divine revenge have been known to follow. Which occurents the devouter sort did take for manifest arguments, that the gods whom they worshipped were of power to reward such as sought unto them, and would plague those that feared them not. In this they erred. For (as the Wise man rightly noteth concerning Wisd. such) it was not the power of them by whom they sware, but the vengeance of them that sinned, which punished the offences of the ungodly. It was their hurt untruly to attribute so great power unto false gods. Yet the right conceit which they had, that to perjury vengeance is due, xiv. 31. was not without good effect as touching the course of their lives, who feared the wilful violation of oaths in that respect. And whereas we read so many of them so much commended, some for their mild and merciful disposition, some for their virtuous severity, some for integrity of life, all these were the fruits of true and infallible principles delivered unto us in the Word of God, as the axioms of our Religion, which being imprinted by the God of Nature in their hearts also, and taking better root in some than in most others, grew, though not from, yet with and amidst, the heaps of manifold repugnant errors; which errors of corrupt Religion had also their suitable effects in the lives of the self-same parties.* Without all controversy, the purer and perfecter our Religion is, the worthier effects it hath in them who stedfastly and sincerely embrace it, in others not. They that love the Religion which they profess, may have failed in choice, but yet they are sure to reap what benefit the same is able to afford; whereas the best and soundest professed by them that bear it not the like affection, yieldeth them retaining it in that sort no benefit. David was a "man after God's own heart," so termed because his affection was hearty towards God. Beholding the like disposition in them which lived under 1 Chr. him, it was his prayer to Almighty God, "O keep this for ever in the purpose and thoughts of the heart of this people." But when, after that David had ended his days in peace, they, who succeeded him in place, for the most part followed him not in quality; when their [those] Kings (some few excepted), to better their worldly estate (as they thought), left their own and their people's ghostly condition uncared for, by woful experience they both did learn, that to forsake the true God of Heaven, is to fall into all such evils upon the face of the earth, as men either destitute of grace divine may commit, or unprotected from above endure. Seeing therefore it doth thus appear that the safety of all estates dependeth upon Religion; that Religion xxix. 18. ["Though the system of Paganism is justly condemned by reason and Scripture, yet it assumed as true several principles of the first importance to the preservation of public manners; such as a persuasion of invisible power, of the folly of incurring the Divine vengeance for the attainment of any present advantage, and the divine approbation of virtue; so that strictly speaking, it was the mixture of truth in it which gave it all its utility, which is well stated by the great and judicious Hooker in treating on this subject."-Modern Infidelity, by ROBERT HALL, A. M. 1811. 8vo. Edit. 7. p. 66.] unfeignedly loved perfecteth men's abilities unto all kinds of virtuous services in the Commonwealth; that men's desire is in general to hold no Religion but the true; and that whatsoever good effects do grow out of their Religion, who embrace instead of the true a false, the root thereof are certain sparks of the light of truth intermingled with the darkness of error, because no Religion can wholly and only consist of untruths; we have reason to think, that all true virtues are to honour true Religion as their parent, and all well-ordered Commonweals to love her as their chiefest stay. most cx true Re affected 2. They of whom God is altogether unapprehended are The but few in number, and for grossness of wit such, that they treme hardly and scarcely seem to hold the place of human being. site to These we should judge to be of all others most miserable, ligion, is but that a wretcheder sort there are, on whom whereas Atheism. Nature hath bestowed riper capacity, their evil disposition seriously goeth about therewith to apprehend God as being not God. Whereby it cometh to pass, that of these two sorts of men, both godless, the one having utterly no knowledge of God, the other study how to persuade themselves that there is no such thing to be known. The fountain and well-spring of which impiety is, a resolved purpose of mind to reap in this world what sensual profit or pleasure soever the world yieldeth, and not to be barred from any whatsoever means available thereunto.* And that this is the very radical cause of their Atheism no man (I think) will doubt, which considereth what pains they take to destroy those principal spurs and motives unto all virtue, the Creation of the World, the Providence of God, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Joys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the endless Pains of the Wicked, yea, above all things, the Authority of Scripture, because on these points it evermore beateth; and the Soul's Immortality, which granted, draweth easily after it the rest as a voluntary train. Is it not wonderful, that base desires should so extinguish in men the sense of their own excellency, as to make them willing that their Souls should be like to the souls of beasts, mortal and corruptible with their bodies? Till some admirable or unusual accident happen (as it hath in some) to work the beginning of a better alteration in their minds, disputation about the Wisd. ii. 21. "Such things they imagine and go astray, because their own wickedness hath blinded them." "EσTI yap ʼn kakla plaρтikỳ ȧgxns. Arist. Eth. lib. vi. cap. 5. |