The Major Works (English Library) (8 page)

And this is almost all wherein an humble creature may endeavour to requite, and someway to retribute unto his Creator; for if not he that sayeth
Lord, Lord; but he that doth the will of the Father
shall be saved;
⁸²
certainely our wills must bee our performances, and our intents make out our actions; otherwise our pious labours shall finde anxiety in their graves, and our best endeavours not hope, but feare a resurrection.

14. There is but one first cause, and foure second causes of all things;
⁸³
some are without efficient, as God, others without matter, as Angels, some without forme, as the first matter,
⁸⁴
but every Essence, created or uncreated, hath its finall cause, and
some positive end both of its Essence and operation; This is the cause I grope after in the workes of nature, on this hangs the providence of God; to raise so beauteous a structure, as the world and the creatures thereof, was but his Art, but their sundry and divided operations with their predestinated ends, are from the treasury of his wisedome. In the causes, nature, and affections of the Eclipse of Sunne and Moone, there is most excellent speculation; but to profound farther, and to contemplate a reason why his providence hath so disposed and ordered their motions in that vast circle, as to conjoyne and obscure each other, is a sweeter piece of reason, and a diviner point of Philosophy; therefore sometimes, and in some things there appeares to mee as much divinity in
Galen
his Books
De usu partium
, as in
Suarez
Metaphysicks:
⁸⁵
Had
Aristotle
beene as curious in the enquiry of this cause as he was of the other, hee had not left behinde him an imperfect piece of Philosophy, but an absolute tract of Divinity.
⁸⁶

15.
Natura nihil agit frustra
,
⁸⁷
is the onely indisputable axiome in Philosophy; there are no
Grotesques
in nature; nor any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces; in the most imperfect creatures, and such as were not preserved in the Arke, but having their seeds and principles in the wombe of nature, are every-where where the power of the Sun is;
⁸⁸
in these is the wisedome of his hand discovered: Out of this ranke
Solomon
chose the object of his admiration,
⁸⁹
indeed what reason
may not goe to Schoole to the wisedome of Bees, Aunts, and Spiders? what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us? ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries, and Camels; these I confesse, are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens, more neatly set forth the wisedome of their Maker; Who admires not
Regio-Montanus
his Fly beyond his Eagle,
⁹⁰
or wonders not more at the operation of two soules in those little bodies, than but one in the trunck of a Cedar?
⁹¹
could never content my contemplation with those generall pieces of wonders, the flux and reflux of the sea, the encrease of Nile,
⁹²
the conversion of the Needle to the North, and have studied to match and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of Nature, which without further travell I can doe in the Cosmography of my selfe; wee carry with us the wonders, we seeke without us: There is all
Africa
, and her prodigies in us;
⁹³
we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learnes in a
compendium
, what others labour at in a divided piece and endlesse volume.
⁹⁴

16. Thus there are two bookes from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universall and publik Manuscript, that lies
expans’d unto the eyes of all;
⁹⁵
those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other: This was the Scripture and Theology of the Heathens; the naturall motion of the Sun made them more admire him, than its supernaturall station did the Children of Israel;
⁹⁶
the ordinary effect of nature wrought more admiration in them, than in the other all his miracles; surely the Heathens knew better how to joyne and reade these mysticall letters, than wee Christians, who cast a more carelesse eye on these common Hieroglyphicks,
⁹⁷
and disdain to suck Divinity from the flowers of nature.
⁹⁸
Nor do I so forget God, as to adore the name of Nature; which I define not with the Schooles, the principle of motion and rest,
⁹⁹
but, that streight and regular line, that setled and constant course the wisedome of God hath ordained the actions of his creatures, according to their severall kinds. To make a revolution every day is the nature of the Sun, because that necessary course which God hath ordained it, from which it cannot swerve, but by a faculty from that voyce which first did give it motion. Now this course of Nature God seldome alters or perverts, but like an excellent Artist hath so contrived his worke, that with the selfe same instrument, without a new creation hee may effect his obscurest
designes. Thus he sweetneth the water with a wood,
¹⁰⁰
pre-serveth the creatures in the Arke, which the blast of his mouth might have as easily created: for God is like a skilfull Geometrician,
¹⁰¹
who when more easily, and with one stroke of his Compasse, he might describe, or divide a right line, had yet rather doe this in a circle or longer way, according to the constituted and forelaid principles of his art: yet this rule of his hee doth sometimes pervert, to acquaint the world with his prerogative, lest the arrogancy of our reason should question his power, and conclude he could not; & thus I call the effects of nature the works of God, whose hand & instrument she only is; and therefore to ascribe his actions unto her, is to devolve the honor of the principall agent, upon the instrument; which if with reason we may doe, then let our hammers rise up and boast they have built our houses, and our pens receive the honour of our writings. I hold there is a generall beauty in the works of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind or species
of creature whatsoever: I cannot tell by what Logick we call a Toad, a Beare, or an Elephant, ugly, they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best expresse the actions of their inward formes. And having past
¹⁰²
that generall visitation of God, who saw that all that he had made was good, that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty; there is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein notwithstanding there is a kind of beauty, Nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become sometimes more remarkable than the principall Fabrick. To speake yet more narrowly, there was never any thing ugly, or
mis-shapen, but the Chaos; wherein notwithstanding to speake strictly, there was no deformity, because no forme, nor was it yet impregnate by the voyce of God: Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the servants of his providence: Art is the perfection of Nature: Were the world now as it was the sixt day, there were yet a Chaos: Nature hath made one world, and Art another. In briefe, all things are artificiall, for nature is the Art of God.
¹⁰³

17. This is the ordinary and open way of his providence, which art and industry have in a good part discovered, whose effects wee may foretell without an Oracle; To foreshew these is not Prophesie, but Prognostication. There is another way full of Meanders and Labyrinths, whereof the Devill and Spirits have no exact Ephemerides,
¹⁰⁴
and that is a more particular and obscure method of his providence, directing the operations of individualls and single Essences; this we call Fortune, that serpentine and crooked line, whereby he drawes those actions his wisedome intends in a more unknowne and secret way; This cryptick and involved method of his providence have I ever admired, nor can I relate the history of my life, the occurrences of my dayes, the escapes of dangers, and hits of chance with a
Bezo las Manos
,
¹⁰⁵
to Fortune, or a bare Gramercy to my good starres:
Abraham
might have thought the Ram in the thicket came thither by accident; humane reason would have said that meere chance conveyed
Moses
in the Arke to the sight of
Pharaohs
daughter; what a Labyrinth is there in the story of
Joseph
, able to convert a Stoick?
¹⁰⁶
Surely there are in every mans
life certaine rubs, doublings and wrenches which passe a while under the effects of chance, but at the last, well examined, prove the meere hand of God: ’Twas not dumbe chance, that to discover the Fougade or Powder plot, contrived a miscarriage in the letter.
¹⁰⁷
I like the victory of 88. the better for that one occurrence which our enemies imputed to our dishonour, and the partiality of Fortune, to wit, the tempests and contrarietie of winds. King
Philip
did not detract from the Nation, when he said, he sent his Armado to fight with men, and not to combate with the winds. Where there is a manifest disproportion between the powers and forces of two several agents, upon a maxime of reason wee may promise the victory to the superiour; but when unexpected accidents slip in, and unthought of occurrences intervene, these must proceed from a power that owes no obedience to those axioms: where, as in the writing upon the wall,
¹⁰⁸
we behold the hand, but see not the spring that moves it. The successe of that pety Province of Holland (of which the Grand Seignieur proudly said, That if they should trouble him as they did the Spaniard, hee would send his men with shovels and pick-axes and throw it into the Sea) I cannot altogether
ascribe to the ingenuity and industry of the people,
¹⁰⁹
but to the mercy of God, that hath disposed them to such a thriving
Genius
; and to the will of his providence, that disposeth her favour to each Countrey in their preordinate
¹¹⁰
season. All cannot be happy at once, for because the glory of one State depends upon the ruine of another, there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatnesse, and must obey the swing of that wheele, not moved by intelligences,
¹¹¹
but by the hand of God, whereby all Estates arise to their Zenith and verticall points, according to their predestinated periods. For the lives not onely of men, but of Commonweales, and the whole world, run not
upon an Helix
¹¹²
that still enlargeth, but on a Circle, where arriving to their Meridian, they decline in obscurity, and fall under the Horizon againe.

18. These must not therefore bee named the effects of fortune, but in a relative way, and as we terme the workes of nature. It was the ignorance of mans reason that begat this very name, and by a carelesse terme miscalled the providence of God: for there is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and stragling way, nor any effect whatsoever, but hath its warrant from some universall or superiour cause. ’Tis not a ridiculous devotion, to say a Prayer before a game at Tables; for even in
sortilegies
¹¹³
and matters of greatest uncertainty, there is a setled and preordered course of effects; ’tis we that are blind, not fortune: because our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, & hoodwink the providence of the Almighty. I
cannot justifie that contemptible Proverb,
That fooles onely are fortunate
;
¹¹⁴
or that insolent Paradox,
That a wise man is out of the reach of fortune
; much lesse those opprobrious Epithets of Poets,
Whore, Baud
, and
Strumpet
: ’Tis I confesse the common fate of men of singular gifts of mind, to be destitute of those of fortune; which doth not any way deject the spirit of wiser judgements, who throughly understand the justice of this proceeding; and being enriched with higher donatives, cast a more carelesse eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. ’Tis a most unjust ambition, to desire to engrosse the mercies of the Almighty, nor to be content with the goods of mind, without a possession of those of body or fortune: and ’tis an errour worse than heresie, to adore these complementall & circumstantiall pieces of felicity, and undervalue those perfections and essentiall points of happinesse, wherin we resemble our Maker. To wiser desires ’tis satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to enjoy the favours of fortune; let providence provide for fooles: ’tis not partiality, but equity in God, who deales with us but as our naturall parents; those that are able of body and mind, he leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker merits hee imparts a larger
portion, and pieces out the defect of one by the excesse of the other. Thus have wee no just quarrell with Nature, for leaving us naked, or to envie the hornes, hoofs, skins, and furs of other creatures, being provided with reason, that can supply them all. Wee need not labour with so many arguments to confute judiciall Astrology; for if there be a truth therein, it doth not injure Divinity; if to be born under
Mercury
disposeth us to be witty, under
Iupiter
to be wealthy, I doe not owe a knee unto these, but unto that mercifull hand that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertaine nativity unto such benevolous aspects. Those that hold that all things were governed by fortune had not erred, had they not persisted there: The Romans that erected a Temple to Fortune, acknowledged therein, though in a blinder way, somewhat of Divinity; for in a wise supputation
¹¹⁵
all things begin and end in the Almighty. There is a neerer way to heaven than
Homers
chain;
¹¹⁶
an easie
¹¹⁷
Logick may conjoyne heaven and earth in one argument, and with lesse than a Sorites
¹¹⁸
resolve all things into God. For though wee Christen effects by their most sensible and nearest causes, yet is God the true and infallible cause of all, whose concourse though it be generall, yet doth it subdivide it selfe into the particular actions of every thing, and is that spirit, by which each singular essence not onely subsists, but performes its operation.