age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men from other sciences; the perfection of jesty's learning, which as a phoenix may call whole vollies of wits to follow you; and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more and more to disclose truth-I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Græcian and Roman learning: only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness both; and take one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular estimation.

your ma-

As for my labours, if any man shall please himself or others in the reprehension of them, they shall make that ancient and patient request, "Verbera, sed audi;" let men reprehend them, so they observe and weigh them for the appeal is lawful, though it may be it shall not be needful, from the first cogitations of men to their second, and from the nearer times to the times farther off. Now let us come to that learning, which both the former times were not so blessed as to know, sacred and inspired Divinity, the sabbath and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.

THE prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the will of man; so that as we are to obey his law, though we find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe his word, though we find a reluctation in our reason. For if we believe only that which is agreeable to our sense, we give consent to the matter, and not to the author; which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and discredited witness but that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was an image of natural reason.

Howbeit, if we will truly consider it, more worthy it is to believe than to know as we now know. For

in knowledge man's mind suffereth from sense; but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one as it holdeth for more authorised than itself, and so suffereth from the worthier agent. Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified; for then faith shall cease, and we shall know as we are known.

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Wherefore we conclude that sacred theology, (which in our idiom we call divinity,) is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and not upon the light of nature: for it is written, "Cœli enarrant gloriam Dei" (the heavens declare the glory of God); but it is not written, " Cœli enarrant voluntatem Dei" (the heavens declare the will of God): but of that it is said, "Ad legem et testimonium si non fecerint secundum verbum istud, &c." (to the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, &c.) This holdeth not only in those points of faith which concern the great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which concern the law moral truly interpreted: Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: be like to your heavenly Father, that suffereth his rain to fall upon the just and unjust. To this it ought to be applauded, "Nec vox hominem sonat:" it is a voice beyond the light of So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a libertine passion, do still expostulate with

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laws and moralities, as if they were opposite and malignant to nature: "Et quod natura remittit, invida jura negant" (what nature grants, the laws invidiously refuse). So said Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander's messengers, "That he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of the wise men of Græcia, and that he held them for excellent men: but that they had a fault, which was, that they had in too great reverence and veneration a thing called law and manners." So it must be confessed, that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection, whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire: how then is it that man is said to have, by the light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice, justice and wrong, good and evil? Thus, because the light of nature is used in two several senses; the one, that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven and earth; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate in which latter sense only he is participant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of the moral law: but how? sufficient to check the vice, but not to inform the duty. So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration and revelation of God.

The use, notwithstanding, of reason in spiritual things, and the latitude thereof, is very great and general for it is not for nothing that the apostle calleth religion our reasonable service of God; insomuch as the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full of reason and signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and magic, that are full of non-significants and surd characters. But most especially the Christian Faith, as in all things, so in this deserveth to be highly magnified, holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this point between the law of the heathen and the law of Mahomet, which have embraced the two extremes. For the religion of the heathen had no constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of argument; and the religion of Mahomet, on the other side, interdicteth argument altogether: the one having the very face of error, and the other of imposture: whereas the faith doth both admit and reject disputation with difference.

The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts the former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction thereupon. The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and not by way of argument: the latter consisteth indeed of probation and argument. In the former,